The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
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User ID: 174
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
(from Scott's piece -- thanks for referencing it, it's nice to see he's still sometimes not completely pozzed -- by which I mean fully accepting of one particular form of slave morality)
Some right-wingers have responded to the piece, but their responses are mostly “but I like being bad and cruel” - which seems to prove Bulldog’s point.
I think we can do better - that it’s possible to make a case against “slave morality” that doesn’t rely on being pro-badness and cruelty.
You can't, though. Not with the slave morality definitions of badness and cruelty, which e.g. require that I bankrupt myself saving all of Pete Singer's drowning kids -- it's cruel for me to allow them to drown and bad for me to restrict them so they can't keep jumping in the lake. You either have to argue over the definitions of badness and cruelty, or yeschad.jpg. Guess which is master morality?
But also, don’t we like altruism? When we’re bestriding the Earth like colossi, working on our glorious rocket ships to colonize the universe, isn’t part of what we’re thinking “this is going to revolutionize humankind and make everybody better off?”
It becomes a lot less altruistic if you add in "...and I will be the one who did it", as the people who do that rather typically do. People with master morality will sometimes make everyone better off for their own glory. Elon Musk, yes, but also Andrew Carnegie and many others.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
Unfortunately the household spending report doesn't come out until almost a year later, so most of these are not testable.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
I'm pretty sure most people don't care that much about GDP. The directly important figures for the man on the street (Main Street, anyway) are the components of the old misery index -- inflation and unemployment. With job creation numbers basically at zero, unemployment seems likely to increase. Inflation is not great either. It's a jobless expansion.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
As far as I can tell, some sectors, mainly tech (AI) and finserv, are carrying the rest, and recent economic gains haven't been felt by most consumers.
In terms of GDP, consumer spending has increased in both Q2 and Q3. In Q2 it was finance and tech at the top, but nondurable goods increased by quite a bit as did professional and technical services and durable goods. In Q3 the top was health care services and recreational goods and vehicles, mostly "information processing equipment", but the detailed info won't be out until mid-January.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
No, you just wildly misunderstood[1] my point and think I (or rather my company) am too lazy to understand basic metrics.
What I think, not to put too fine a point on it, is that you are claiming some sort of special expertise and knowledge you don't actually have in order to win an internet argument. It's one thing to not believe in the validity of the CPI or PCE or some other indicator. It's quite another to act as if there is some class of important people who are in the know about them being nonsense, and you are one of them. Particularly when you back that up with a rather confused notion of what's wrong with them.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
Unfortunately your previous post is nonsense.
Quality adjustments and awkward exclusions make CPI almost irrelevant - not counting housing/rent at all (while it's imputed to 10% of GDP).
Rent is included and 7.5% of the index. Owner occupied housing -- represented as owners equivalent rent -- is 25% of the index.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
7d ago
Right. "We can add female-friendly elements without scaring the dudes" isn't a pants-on-head stupid plan. It might be hard and it might not work, but the idea isn't categorically dumb. "We can completely aim for a female audience and the dudes will have no choice but to stay and we'll get the women too" IS pants-on-head stupid.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
7d ago
· Edited 7d ago
They don't have to be the "big swinging dicks" to be covered under the charge. 18 USC 1071 states
Whoever harbors or conceals any person for whose arrest a warrant or process has been issued under the provisions of any law of the United States, so as to prevent his discovery and arrest, after notice or knowledge of the fact that a warrant or process has been issued for the apprehension of such person, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; except that if the warrant or process issued on a charge of felony, or after conviction of such person of any offense, the punishment shall be a fine under this title, or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.
The Justice Department helpfully lays out the elements:
Under 18 U.S.C. § 1071, the government must establish the following four essential elements: (1) a federal warrant has been issued for the fugitive's arrest; (2) the defendant had knowledge that a warrant had been issued for the fugitive's arrest; (3) the defendant actually harbored or concealed the fugitive; and (4) the defendant intended to prevent the fugitive's discovery or arrest. United States v. Silva, 745 F.2d 840, 848 (4th Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1031 (1985). Accord, United States v. Udey, 748 F.2d 1231, 1235-36 (8th Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1017 (1985); United States v. Bissonette, 586 F.2d 73, 77 (8th Cir. 1978).
But I think she was convicted on the other charge, 18 USC 1505, which fits rather less well. It fits about as well as the obstruction charges from Sarbanes-Oxley fit the J6 cases; it has one section specifically concerned with obstructing the Antitrust Civil Process Act, and the second is
Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress—
Seems to me under the J6 precedent, this should be thrown out. This is not the kind of obstruction 18 USC 1505 was meant for.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
7d ago
Eh, Picard was just older. We saw in "Tapestry" that young Picard was the kind of guy who would have totally decked Q.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
7d ago
There's been a concerted effort to create a female fandom for all the male oriented IPs to expand their TAM, especially in gaming where the average budgets keep ballooning every year. The rationale is that male gamers (existing fandom) will remain loyal to the IP and get incalculated into feminism. But females need to be interested. So do away with the fratboy culture! Let HR screen the environment, kick out the milquetoast Gen X techbros and onboard woke millennial women. Accommodate all of their favourite social justice causes (BLM, LGBTQ). Fight the male gaze!
This is not a rationale; this is a rationalization for what they wanted to do anyway. The idea of "let's alienate our existing customers because they'll buy anyway, so we can just cater to the new customers we want at no cost" is pants-on-head stupid to begin with. It'd be like cigarette companies trying to cater to the health-nut demographic... by removing the nicotine. When they do it and it DOESN'T WORK and they keep doing it, the already transparent rationalization just falls apart.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
7d ago
Huh, the Pakistani immigrants must have had the day off. They would have successfully stopped you.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
8d ago
You can't even pump gas in New Jersey without being acosted by locals.
Those are immigrants.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
9d ago
One thing Marx had right is that religion is the opiate of the masses. Spirituality doesn't wake you up; it simply diverts your attention and efforts from the real to the unreal.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
9d ago
As the saying goes, men chase and women choose. Women have, increasingly, been choosing "none of the above". Societally, it is anathema to even consider that women's choices may be the problem, so we get this shifting of the responsibility back to men... but this is a problem men can't solve short of going Full Roman, which isn't going to happen.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
9d ago
And at the same time increased the initial, maintenance, and regulatory cost of a car to that of a new 18-wheeler. You might want to start looking at those issues before trying to move enough money around to increase the number of Freightliners people are willing to buy.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
9d ago
Yeah though on a societal level is it better if people are overcautious about their infants or undercautious?
What are you optimizing for? If you're optimizing for percentage of infants who survive infancy, more caution looks good. If you're optimizing for total number of infants who survive infancy, it might look a lot less good.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
9d ago
If your entire post can be flipped to support the other side by just swapping a few key words, are you actually saying anything?
You can flip anything that way, but its correspondence to reality may change. "I know you are but what am I" is an argument that should stay in the kindergartens.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
9d ago
Or, they want the guests to have the fantasy that they're actually picking these girls up and not using prostitutes.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
10d ago
Forget it, she's marrying Chad Stolzfus, the son of the owner of the pretzel stand.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
10d ago
Anyone older then a Millennial is a "boomer". That includes Gen-X, Silents, WWII, Lost Generation, and even the unnamed generations prior. Years from now the Zeds, Alphas and Betas will be calling the Millennials "boomers", much to their irritation.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
10d ago
Are you sure those "fertility bumps" in oil towns and military bases don't go away when age-adjusted?
Yeah, people in poor countries have lots of children. They don't have to put them in the best daycares or supervise them 24/7 until they're in school, or any of the other things Westerners do.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
10d ago
The zero-sum status competition isn't enforced by capitalism. It's part of human nature, way down in the lizard brain; some direct descendants of dinosaurs are famous for it.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
10d ago
That's false. According to surveys, women still want to have children.
Surveys don't mean much. If women aren't having children, it's because they don't want them, they biologically can't have them, or because they can't find a man to impregnate them. Infertility happens but there's no evidence it's increased anywhere near enough to explain the drop in TFR. The last is not credible.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
10d ago
So, no, don't try to copy the Haredi. Instead, live in the world but not of the world. Pay your taxes, but don't bilk welfare. Use computers to do your job better and to find high quality information, but not to ingest slop and ragebait. Get a job, get married, have lots of babies to solve your own TFR rate but don't worry too much about everyone else's TFR.
And watch the fruits of your labor be taken from you (and your children) to pay for everyone else (including the Haredi) to have the lifestyle of their choice while you're busting your balls to make ends meet, dodging Child Protective Services because you don't have the requisite number of car seats, etc.
Use value of cars is sometimes imputed (for tax purposes), but not for GDP, probably because it wouldn't be enough to matter. They do impute the fees you don't pay on "free" checking and savings accounts, and it's a fairly large amount -- the difference between the interest rate you get (usually 0) and the interest rate on government securities (now around 3.5% I believe). Note that mortgage interest is deducted from imputed rent (or it would be double-counted), so "imputed car lease payments" would also deduct (actual) car financing costs, which reduces the significance.
It's definitely weird. It's weird that GDP goes up when property values go up despite no transaction happening. But it would be weirder if GDP went up when rented property increased in cost but not owned property. There's no perfect way to do it.
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