ThenElection
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User ID: 622
ThenElection
16hr ago
The typical economically right wing explanation for the rising cost of living would be that the government is spending beyond its means
Regulatory costs also are another significant right wing explanation, at least among the more academic focused. And it's more plausibly true: deficit spending doesn't help costs, but that's a bipartisan issue. And the costs of health care and housing (probably the biggest actual costs, both absolutely and relative to the past; unlike food, which is cheaper than ever) are driven by regulation.
ThenElection
17hr ago
My favorite spot is a particular truck (Las Pencas) in Daly City, can get a solid veggie burrito for $12 (no promises about whether the refried beans have some pork products in them, though, depending on how strict you are).
ThenElection
1d ago
No, not typically. But it's one of "the handful of niche fields" where AI has proven very powerful and successful.
ThenElection
2d ago
If software is a niche field, then the US is a niche economy. And, although the public might think math and software is pointless stuff for nerds, they do care about cratering the economy.
ThenElection
2d ago
People would be just as happy to continue doing the same thing they always have. Only a minority of workers are interested in improving productivity numbers, and they're significantly outnumbered by those worried about the change and displacements improved productivity will bring.
What thinks AI is worth massive sacrifice and investment is Capital itself. Capitalism is an invasion from the future by an artificial intelligence etc. Whatever complaints humans might have, they're just the collective substrate that a higher agency is built on, and that has its own desires for reproduction and extension and data centers.
ThenElection
2d ago
but it would be very very helpful, the piece has made me realize, if tech firms built a data centre or two around SF.
No, it wouldn't. Case in point: San Francisco has several data centers already (e.g. Digital Realty's SFO10, SFO12), and people keep on repeating the meme that San Francisco doesn't have any data centers.
ThenElection
2d ago
Maybe someone should just create a program where the government qualifies low income participants and then subsidizes their purchases of food from grocers. Some kind of supplemental nutrition assistance program. Seems simpler and more efficient with less opportunity for corruption.
ThenElection
2d ago
My prediction is that one of two things will happen by August 4, 2029:
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It will have been cancelled without implementation because of all the obvious issues with it. Key point here is the cancellation: this prediction encompasses it being cancelled because of all the wreckers/Trump/whatever.
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It will go ahead as planned, run into all the issues, and it will be widely perceived as a failure, after a long stream of articles by the Post etc. The national mainstream media will mostly memory hole it, but no one will bring it up as a Mamdani success. There will be no other major cities that will create Mamdani-style groceries.
I think it's great. As policy it's terrible, but it's the kind of local experimentation we should encourage. Then, if and when it's a disaster, it's a useful data point for people to point to.
Food deserts are kind of a meme, but I can agree that it's on the whole good to make sure every place has a nearby convenient grocery store to do conventional shopping and create low skill jobs, even if uneconomic. The fix for that is targeted tax exemptions that will be credibly maintained for a long time and a greater level of police presence. This isn't too different from Mamdani's proposal, except it's more open to any entrant and is still subject to a lightened market discipline.
Is the sped-up inheritance enough to get or substantially pay for a single family home? At least in my city, they outperform condos substantially. And as someone who has done both urban SFHs and condos, I simply cannot imagine raising a child in the condo. I know people manage it, but it seems miserable.
I would only go with the condo if it were a genuine good deal (say, looking at comparables 10% off the market rate).
I would also do a lot of research into the HOA. Condo HOAs can have a lot of landmines, and you've probably been fairly insulated from it as a renter.
Also curious about the expected etiquette for negotiation.
Be polite, of course, but you must negotiate for your and your future family's wellbeing. If your preexisting relationship with the landlord means you're uncomfortable playing hardball, that's another reason to avoid the condo. What price you settle on is very likely the difference between a good and a bad investment.
tightening the OODA loop, getting faster and leaner, and doing more with fewer people
Interesting to think about.
In some ways, the Left is very fast to react. There's a new cause or outrage of the day, and by the evening everyone knows it's the issue of the day; new ones can replace it whenever it's decided.
But there isn't really a central committee actually deciding what to do, and it's not some highly sophisticated ecosystem of policy or issue entrepreneurs performing decentralized decision making. Instead, it's a strongly centralized coordination mechanism, driven not by people but instead some messy combination of what ideological faction is ascendent and what plays best on social media. People on the ground level might come up with interesting ideas, but they've got to go through a host of different groups' veto points to even have a chance of taking off. E.g. this is why the Left has pretty much given up on having a meaningful platform on any AI policy besides AI bad performativity: a platform requires meaningfully engaging with it and its implications, and, since it will gore all oxes, engagement with it will run into endless vetos. So, most you get are shallow responses of boo AI because of water usage or shredding books or whatever.
The Right, on the other hand, is a madhouse of maniacs of different stripes: there is no central coordinating mechanism, and the only thing most people on it have in common with each other is a hatred of the Left. That means there's no real shared policy plan coming from on high, but it also makes for a much more open space for people to contribute ideas. A smart person on a Left worries about alienating X, Y, and Z before they even start thinking how to approach a social or economic issue; but, on the Right, there is no prescribed golden path, and so individuals can be genuine policy entrepreneurs.
(Musing here on a weakly held idea, but maybe there's something there.)
ThenElection
6d ago
Isn't a simpler theory that Spain's left wing government has pissed off lots of people; Morocco saw an opportunity; took it; and then the pissed off people are gloating?
What did the Jews even do to make this happen? I don't think lots of money is necessary for this: it's a cheap invasionary force, as far as these things go, and already funded anyway by Morocco and, uh, the EU.
Hah, as another vegetarian, I prefer replacement of meat with lettuce over tofu or some meat substitute.
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