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.
8hr ago
You need a special ed teacher for the special ed kids.
Schools already have special ed teachers, even when the kids are put in mainstream classes, but the win I'd expect is the drop in the number of special ed kids -- once you start segregating them and not trying to teach them the regular stuff, you end the phenomenon of parents of ordinary kids getting a leg up by claiming their kid is special ed. In fact, they'll be incentivized to keep their kids OUT of the special ed system.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
8hr ago
I imagine "kicking out the kids" would in practice mean "moving them to special ed" or something similar where they can stay for the day (so the parents have time to work) and hopefully learn the skills they need to function in a classroom (or at least not make the day a nightmare for the other kids). In that case money would not be saved, merely moved around.
I would expect it to be cheaper to move the unteachable kids to a separate classroom and not bother try to teach them what the normal kids are learning than to keep them in the regular classroom, attempting to teach them, and allowing parents to exploit the system by pretending their ordinarily dull kids are special ed, driving costs up for all.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
10hr ago
Or, framed slightly differently, SCOTUS interprets the second amendment as permitting states to broadly regulate citizen ownership and use of firearms as they see fit, much like they now do with, say, abortion.
A Texas resident can go to New Jersey and lawfully purchase an abortion. A New Jersey resident cannot go to Texas and lawfully purchase a gun. Not even if they don't take it back to New Jersey.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
10hr ago
couldn't you argue there's a difference between the right to own firearms and the right to carry firearms?
You could, but the Second Amendment says "keep and bear arms". Almost like they anticipated this sort of thing. Anyway, in New Jersey I am allowed neither, and SCOTUS is OK with that, as they have been with Glock and AR-15 and magazine bans.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
10hr ago
I don't know if you've noticed, but the blue states are getting worse. Even the already-awful New Jersey. And Virginia shows that as soon as a state turns blue, you get ALL the gun control.
Crime isn't really relevant. The issues aren't even connected for the anti-gun side; they never really have been, crime was always an excuse to ban guns for them. But now they barely pretend.
The problem for the pro-gun side is there isn't much of a pro-gun constituency. You've got the 40% hard-core anti-gunners. And then you've got the squishy reasonable-gun-control conservatives, who will never find a bit of gun control they find unreasonable. The Second Amendment people are loud but a distinct minority.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
21hr ago
I think you're missing my go-to explanation. The conservatives on the Supreme Court want there to be a right to keep and bear arms for legal debating society reasons; it fits their judicial philosophy. However, except Thomas, none of the justices actually want people to be able to own and carry weapons. They are perfectly happy to let anti-gun circuit courts do the dirty work of reinterpreting Bruen into nothingness, and to not correct them (though they do correct the Fifth Circuit when it takes gun rights seriously)
In fact, the law of the land now is not Bruen but Rahimi, specifically the part of Rahimi which noted that there was historical precedent for laws against going armed to the terror of the public. And what "going armed to the terror of the public" is, is entirely up to the several states. Combine that with the 3D printing cases, and what the 2nd Amendment effectively says is "Notwithstanding any other part of this Constitution, the power of Congress and the several States to regulate anything to do with arms shall not be questioned." And this is as pro-gun a court as we're likely to ever get ever get. The Second Amendment is done; that's all folks.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
23hr ago
We're already banging up against speed of light limitations, which is one reason we try to make chips smaller. Light moves at 0.3 microns per femtosecond.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
It's also Andes virus, a strain known for human-to-human transmission, rather than the North American Sin Nombre virus, which is not. (It's called Sin Nombre because two proposed names based on where it was first found didn't pass political muster)
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
The corporate types love to split the difference with new tech. First they'll ban it as a security risk or whatever. Then they'll allow (or mandate) some gimped version which may or may not still have the security/compliance flaws, but definitely lacks the advantages of the forbidden unrestricted version.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Most bullshit jobs exist because other bullshit jobs exist. You can see this in healthcare; you've got armies of healthcare admins whose job it is basically to make sure they get paid, and other armies of insurance people whose job it is to try not to pay. Or "compliance", where you've got people whose job it is to make sure all the paperwork is done right, and other people's job it is to punish the first set if they don't do it correctly.
A good project manager may be useful, but most of them IME were basically making sure the paperwork got done and the charts filled out, and were a net negative for actually getting the stuff done. The usual argument is they're needed for management to do their job, but I'm doubtful.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
All the LKW stans I've known have either been right-wing or (very confused) libertarians.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
You seem to think an AI economy would somehow eliminate the busywork. I think it more likely that we'll pay AI companies to write bullshit emails to each other while still generating enough bullshit work for humans to keep us employed. If ever we figure out how to eliminate the busywork, it'll be because we really did have a FOOM situation and the AI will have no further need for us.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Or a virus that's slightly harmful to humans could mutate to become more deadly. As has happened. If you worry about all of the possibilities, you'll never stop worrying.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
This isn't even a novel hantavirus. It's Andes strain.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Right; caning is merely draconian, not totalitarian. Totalitarianism is about scope of control, not so much the penalties for violating controls. Banning chewing gum is a more totalitarian than caning for vandalism.
Social conservatism can certainly be totalitarian; think of a stifling system where everyone's life is basically plotted out for them by others, everyone has a place and every place a person. Could be religious, could be patriarchical, could be feudal.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
The alternative to all-in on identity politics is all-in on socialism, communism, redistribution -- the DSA, basically. Mandami won NYC handily, Katie Wilson has Seattle, Washington State has its new millionaire tax and California its proposed wealth tax which has already driven several billionaires out. At the national level this is mostly represented by fossils like Warren and Sanders, but AOC could make a return to relevance. They've got allies here with some of the anti-boomer right, which would like nothing more than to redistribute the spoils of dispossessing old people of their homes.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Note that gas is still lower than it was under Biden.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
Iran is a sovereign nation and can spend money on whatever it believes is in its strategic interest, as long as it abides by its international commitments.
From Iran's perspective, they are next door to a hostile nuclear power with illegal nuclear weapons.
Israel is also a sovereign nation, and NOT a member (unlike Iran) of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
Anything done by the allies was because the Americans enabled them.
And anything done by enemies was because the Americans provoked them.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
If 1-2SD changes in intelligence don't require a "large" evolutionary change, then HBD can be true without requiring "large" evolutionary changes, and @magic9mushroom's skepticism of those is irrelevant.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
Those protestors were not armed by the US, Israel, or anyone else.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
Paying for the sick and elderly is similarly generally seen as the state's responsibility only when other options are unavailable.
Err, given Medicare, SSDI, and ordinary old age social security, this seems obviously false in the US. I believe it is even more false in Europe.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
I don't think anyone even moderately interested in HBD would use "Arabs" as a shorthand which included Persians and Copts.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
5d ago
Right. You need Jensen Huang, plus all the various competent people he hires and who make up his customers. Plus you need a paucity of competent ultraparasites who make Bernie Sanders look like an Ayn Rand fan -- that's a thing lacking almost everywhere. Note that California, at least, is crossing a line on that latter point.
Quite often the rules are set up to make those mutually exclusive.
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