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The_Nybbler

If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.

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joined 2022 September 04 21:42:16 UTC

				

User ID: 174

The_Nybbler

If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.

8 followers   follows 0 users   joined 2022 September 04 21:42:16 UTC

					

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User ID: 174

This would still leave him with having to pay back some 200 billion dollars, I think.

No, since SCOTUS didn't say the money had to be refunded, that'll be ANOTHER court case. And he'll probably claim the new tariffs are retroactive, which will be yet another case.

And nobody would assume that SCOTUS would let get Trump away with his next harebrained tariff scheme

All commentators seem to agree the Section 122 tariffs are on solid ground for at least 150 days. After that, Congress has to approve to renew... but Trump could just declare another emergency if they're not, and if anyone objects... well, it's ANOTHER court case.

The across the board tariffs are back already, under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. And the per-country tariffs are on their way back. Trump really has learned from his opposition. Just drag out unfavorable decisions, then make a small change and start the process all over again.

Hegseth is a weak man. In the other sense of the term. But the weapons designers mostly aren't in the military; they're civilians at defense contractors.

Yeah, a "mission specialist" is an astronaut. I didn't work with any astronauts. He was one of the guys you see sitting behind desks in the old NASA launch videos.

Everyone who has thought about the policy design says that you should just give people money.

Sure. That way when they give people money and the recipients spend it on booze and drugs and are still "needy", the proponents can use that to push for an increase in the amount of money given.

The people you are describing are mostly tools, or footsoldiers if you like. They apply the power but they don't make the decisions.

The elite that modern right-populists are attacking pretty explicitly includes anyone with a degree from a selective university

Certainly not. People from some of the most selective universities, but not nearly all from a selective university.

Lockheed is juicing their numbers when they say that 20% of their workforce "has a direct connection to the military" but you should assume that former DoD personnel are overrepresented there.

Definitely. It's been a long time but when I was in the industry we had quite a few retired military. Some were doing a second career in nerding and nerd-wrangling, others had always been nerds (e.g. one had also been a NASA mission control specialist) and were now on the civilian side. I've run into far fewer since I got out of defense.

The 1% don't get power; maybe the 0.01%.

If it's truly post-scarcity, you just make a tiered society. The only difference between them is access to other humans. The violent addicts get all the drugs, food, and medical care (provided by robots and/or masochists, presumably) they desire, and the normal people don't ever have to see them or their effects. The beautiful people live in their own mirror-covered world away from the depredations of the glance of uggles, etc.

Of course, we'll never actually GET post-scarcity, but if we did the problem would be solved.

The "weak men" aren't skinny nerds designing weapons. Skinny nerds designing Juiceros maybe; skinny nerd NEETs playing videogames definitely.

Are you getting some government benefits that could be gatekept in this way?

It doesn't matter; they'll make something up that might rhyme if you stretch it, and insist that it's the same but worse. Much as when trying to discuss robbery and burglarly someone will chime in and say that no really "wage theft" is the real problem, or as in this discussion this

Typical things used might be the mortgage-interest tax deduction, or policing (a "subsidy" to the wealthy and safe areas -- no, this doesn't make sense on a number of levels), or schools (also doesn't make sense on a number of levels, but doesn't matter), etc.

No, what the environmentalists want is for none of this to happen. Whatever means you come up with, they will find a reason to object.

It doesn't matter, because the reason you can't build reservoirs is the same reason you can't build desalination plants: environmentalists.

If you've got fallen comrades in software development

  1. Probably you need better electricians or

  2. Maybe you actually ARE warriors.

If you're not going to be following Leviticus, there's no point in worrying about Ezekiel.

Once you've accepted that political and social realities require adopting a progressive taxation system and social safety net, the existence of some form of absurdity like this is assured.

Modus ponens, modus tollens.

I see you throwing up a big wall of text

Yeah, there's a reason for that, and it involves matrix multiplication.

Interesting military history question - who were the last warriors not to get their arses kicked by soldiers?

The Taliban.

Did they object because the person was a trans woman or because they were arguing for proto-SJW/woke ideas?

It's an Italian surname, but it's common in Argentina and Brazil also. Of course whether a guy named "Dorgan" is appropriating an Italian-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, or Spanish (well, Rioplatenese) speaking "Esposito" is hard to determine.

I'm taking decadence as being 'population are relatively wealthy with few material concerns'.

That's "good times". Decadence, in the meme, follows that.

That's okay, those points don't appear on the curve.

Yes, they do, that's why there's that silly loop.

Nah. You pick a better-behaved function, and it won't be an issue.

Spherical geometry is what it is.

The same distortion that causes you to measure a 300 mile distance as a 302 mile arc causes you to measure a 250 mile distance as an 850 mile spiral.

These are different effects. One is the distortion caused by curvature, and the other is the fact that the surface is finite. You get silly answers if you ask for great circle distances longer than the circumference, too.

Sure you can patiently explain to boomercons/MAGAs that, really, it’s an understandable if cynical business decision. But that is not the root of the tension. They will still be mad and you’ll still assume they’re simply not understanding business incentives.

They will not believe it's an understandable if cynical business decision. And they will be right.

86 degrees north is only 277 miles from the pole; going 850 miles in a wide range of northerly directions isn't well-defined there. That is, if I asked you from that point, "Where is a point 850 miles North?", there simply is no good answer, since there is by definition no point north of the pole.

Pick a better-behaved set of numbers and the "rhumb ring" (which doesn't seem to be a standard term) will touch the great circle ring in both the North and South directions. Every point on the "rhumb ring" will be the same distance from the origin in one particular compass direction.

At least in private, I don't think even the most based Trump supporters will claim that the rank and file ICE are some fit and well-trained force with high tactical acumen.

With the exception of the Pretti shooting, all the atrocity videos I've seen with them have been very much less atrocious than the kind of normal police arrest videos you can find all over the Internet. Which is probably why some of the ICE atrocity videos are actually other police forces doing some actual beatings that are then attributed to ICE.