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.
15hr ago
Yeah, the biggest problem they'd get into for that isn't the SEC regulation violations.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
22hr ago
Dan Ariely, noted co-author and co-fraud, got a television show, and his sketchy academic behavior is only slightly less obvious.
Ariely threw Gino under the bus, did he not? Astute, if immoral.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
22hr ago
· Edited 14hr ago
The "meritocracy" side makes this point often and is shouted down by claiming the affirmative action hires are "qualified".
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
22hr ago
On #2, you're overthinking it. It's still fanservice just with a feminist veneer. @HereAndGone2 suggests naive female pop stars are being manipulated into this by evil male managers, but I suggest that's crap -- they know what they're doing too.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
It is interesting how despite being the capital city of the US, DC and its surrounding areas are fairly devoid of private sector white-collar jobs, especially in Tech, Finance, or even generic corporate jobs.
Plenty of (nominally private-sector) defense-related white collar jobs though. There's a whole mostly-separate tech sector there, for instance. Aside from that, I guess there's Marriott. There's probably still some truly private telecom stuff.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Well, you could let your friend take care of your baby while you take care of your hers and each make $3000... like a chump. Or 12 people could register 12 daycares and each "take care of" all 12 babies for $33000 each.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Every HOA will have at least one HOA Karen. Big HOAs (and the US has some with over 100,000 residents) will have a certain density of them, sufficient to file complaints if you don't cut your grass or paint your mailbox the wrong color or whatever.
Not sure about the CPS people.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
That's how modern political machines work - we have advanced beyond the need for brown envelopes.
New Jersey begs to differ!
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
- the cartels seem to have more state capacity than Haitian gangs (bar is so low it's in the earth's core).
I think you've just explained Earth's magnetic field -- the bar for Haitian state capacity is a literal magnet.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
So as long as America has Maduro in hand, Venezuela cannot appoint his replacement without great internal effort. There'd have to be an election.
Even if Epstein's guard shows up and Maduro accidentally suicides, Venezuela by its own Constitution has to hold an election. Apparently the VP has gotten the nod from the Supreme Court to rule for 90 days, which is probably acceptable to all parties who matter (i.e. the US), but after that they're going to have to do something. Probably they're working hard on how to rig an election more subtly than Maduro.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
and the government there seems to have managed the trick of taking an abundant resource, running it into the ground, making the economy and all the social programmes dependent on revenue from it, and blowing up that revenue by making the oil too difficult to extract and process.
Yeah, that's Communism for you. The joke used to be that if the Communists took over Saudi Arabia, nothing would happen at first but there'd be an oil shortage in 5 years. Venezuela managed to make that not a joke.
(The original version is that if the Federal Government took over the Sahara, there'd be a sand shortage in 5 years. Fortunately the Feds aren't that ambitious)
It really might be better for Venezuela for the greedy US corporations to come back and run the oil business, even if they do cream off most of the profits. An idea I never thought I would voice!
I expect this is the plan. The US companies may take more than is "fair" in some ideal sense, and certainly more than various international watchdog groups will say is fair, but what remains to the Venezuelans will be more than it is now. Assuming things follow the good path... there's still plenty of room for total screwups.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Wrong soveriegn. SDNY is a Federal court, the 39 felonies were in a New York State court.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
I grew up being taught the ideals of a rules-based world.
Yeah, but what were the rules? The inviolacy of embassies, as practiced by the Iranian Revolutionaries or the US in Belgrade? Respecting of sovereignty, as the USSR practiced in the Baltics, Hungary, Czechoslovokia, and indeed Afghanistan, and the US in Panama (more than once) and Grenada? The right to free and fair elections, as practiced by Maduro or the Chicago Democratic machine?
No, the objections were not about sovereignty, and I find it unlikely anyone had that much "charity".
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
In spite of Trump's pigheadedness, electric cars and renewables are still going to win.
Maybe. But if they were the clear win you're making them out to be, there'd be no need for the subsidies and bans.
Humanity is undergoing an energy transition from turning heat into electricity or movement (fossil fuel electricity generation and petrol cars) to one where we generate and use the energy directly.
That doesn't even make sense. Using energy directly would be something like sailing; we're certainly not doing that with cars. With electric cars and renewables we're capturing solar energy, turning it to electricity, turning it into chemical energy, then back to electricity, and then to movement. Or we're doing the same thing only turning wind to movement, then movement to electricity, then the rest.
Solar power is already the cheapest form of energy globally, followed by wind
As long as you ignore the costs of intermittency.
easier to fill up (you do it at home overnight)
So I have to upgrade my electric service (and the power company upgrade their grid) to provide myself with sufficient charging capacity for 2 cars... and even then it takes hours? I can fill up a gasoline car in minutes. Gas still wins this one. Charging at home is convenient, but the slowness of fill will cause scaling problems. Further, if most people charge at home, charging stations away from home will have less reason to exist, making them far less available than gas stations are today, thus making long-distance travel less practical.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
If the US is fine with Rodriguez why would anyone expect new elections to be free or fair? If she’s amenable to Trump’s demands then he has no interest in making a big deal of another questionable election result.
Because obviously fraudulent elections would make Trump look bad. She may cheat (and probably will) but she'll have to be better at hiding it than Maduro.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Chile, Argentina (even before Milei; the problem isn't lack of democracy, the problem is Latin Americans tend to like commies), Panama (thanks GHWB), Uruguay, Colombia (hasn't been a narco-state for a long time), Ecuador, Costa Rica, Belize.
These countries aren't particularly wealthy, of course.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
The Venezuelan constitution requires new elections within 30 days of the removal of the President, if the National Assembly does indeed remove him (presumably for abandonment even if involuntary). I suppose they could leave Maduro as titular head of state and let Rodriguez run things until her term runs out (in 5 years).
My guess is Rodriguez and the assembly play ball and they get elections at some point in 2026.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
I would suggest that people who support this are not anti-war at all. They are anti-losing, anti-spending-lots-of-money-on-prolonged-conflicts, pro-US-can-do-whatever-it-wants, and they clearly do not care about the sovereignty of other countries.
OK, but why would you have thought differently about them? The objection to Afghanistan from those quarters was never that the Taliban had the sovereign right to rule.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
The US did invade Cuba, it was just half-assed and the invaders lost.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
No one answers it because it's a loaded question. Ukraine was not attempting to join NATO or have US or NATO military bases and missile installations when Russia invaded.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Oil is useful for cars, but electric car sales are going exponential.
In the US, not anymore. Without subsidies (and it seems clear that China is also subsidizing) and without bans (hello Europe), electric cars just aren't so much better than gas cars (if at all) to take over the category.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
In the off change Venezuela goes even more to shit, there will be a "you break it you bought it" situation of bad publicity
Good news here is Venezuela doesn't have all that far to fall. It would be worse if fractured into civil war, but it doesn't look like the preconditions were there.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
USA being a massive rich country that refused to crack down on its own people that partook of narcotics freely flowing across the border is what crippled South America (ok fine one of many things). If US could just LOOK decisive occasionally it changes the calculus for any actors that wish to exploit.
The US is no more responsible for South American drug activity than they are for North American drug users.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
“A guy like that is vanishingly rare” Outside of white societies and some East Asians how many successful Democracies are there?
Most of Latin America is successful democracies now.
Eh, the stock market went up, but it's not necessarily a result. Why would deposing Maduro help the US equity markets that much?
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