faceh
6mo ago
It has been darkly amusing to watch the "NAZIS ARE EVERYWHERE, WE MUST FIGHT BACK" crowd going to bat for the honest-to-goodness "Round up the Jews and exterminate them" authoritarian brigade.
I'll just draw a brief comparison to my "Skin in the Game" rant from a couple days ago.
We have here a massive contrast to the problem I pointed out with most elite institutions.
In this case, the particular man responsible for the failures put his own life on the line as part of the process.
So, regardless of what else you think of the guy, he didn't slough the consequences of his decisions off on someone else. If they got stuck and had to suffer for days of slowly dwindling oxygen supply, he was down there suffering with them (unless they killed him or he killed himself first).
Compare that to this little bit from the aforementioned rant:
The overarching issue is that no matter how much damage an elite causes through their decisions, no matter how foreseeable that damage was, no matter how incompetent and unsuited for their position they are, the system as it currently operates does not allow them to actually suffer in any way that matters. There's no 'feedback loop' or filter that catches bad elites early on and keeps them from advancing to positions of greater power or enacts harsh consequences when needed to dissuade others from misbehavior.
In this case, the CEO willingly put himself into a position where his own survival and comfort would be compromised if the comfort or survival of his customers, riding in his vehicle, depending on his decisions, was compromised. His incompetence, to the extent it impacted the outcome, would impact him as well.
The feedback loop and consequences in this case were pretty much instantaneous. We don't even have to go through a lengthy investigation and trial, nor wait for a vengeful family member to attack him. If the submersible imploded, he died. If they survived for days in agony, he suffered... then died.
And now he has filtered himself out of the system, so whatever bad decisions and processes he may have been following are shown to be defective, and the person pushing those decisions and processes has no more influence.
And, in theory, this should make future incidents of this particular type substantially less likely, so the system as a whole is stronger for his absence, although we can certainly mourn for the people he took with him.
People have seemingly shortish memories as to what Twitter was before.
Users would request seemingly simple features for months or years, and eventually get the literal opposite of what they were asking for.
It would go down on a regular basis, and seemed to have NO CLUE how to monetize the userbase.
There was that massive breach where huge accounts got exploited for a crypto scam.
Like, how can one pretend that the site before was a paragon of stability, usability, or security compared to now?
Nothing of that magnitude has occurred since the takeover.
The site clearly, CLEARLY never needed staffing at the level it had. So long as Musk doesn't break the core feature of short-form messages in easy-to-follow threads it isn't going anywhere in the near term.
And let me be clear, I say this as someone who would much prefer Twitter (and insta, and reddit, and quite a few other sites) died a quick death and have for a long time.
The Steelman is that it's the only vote that 'matters' if you're someone outside of the elite power structure.
Putting Trump at the controls as the result of an election win (as opposed to something like an insurrection) is the strongest possible message that "We do not like how the political class has managed the government, we want them out of power, and to remind them who is 'actually' in charge of the government."
He is the approximate equivalent of a "none of the above" option when it comes to selecting from the various candidates that the Mainstream parties are trying to shove down our throats. Well, not equivalent because he is not a void, he's an actual candidate with a platform, but there's just nobody else who is outside the standard power structure who can provide that option.
This partially explains why he maintains or grows in popularity the harder they bring the hammer down on him. The more the elites/political class express their spite for the man, the stronger the signal that electing him will send. Of course, sending a signal doesn't mean anything actually changes.
Pulling the lever for Haley is a tacit 'approval' of the status quo. You're not registering your voice in the system so much as clicking "Accept" on the Terms and Conditions of the current edifice and its activities. It doesn't 'count' in any real way, as she's fully ingrained in the current power structure and will not modify it's trajectory one bit.
Trump has remained the major Schelling point for everyone who is very much against the status quo and wants to voice that displeasure rather than merely withdraw.
Edit: I would also mention that Bernie Sanders represents a similar sentiment from the left, but in my opinion he folds to the main party too quickly for this purpose.
Yeah...
I am old enough to remember, even though it's now been about 4 years, Nancy Pelosi telling people to go out and Celebrate Lunar New Year (as in telling people to go out in public around large groups) when fear of Coronavirus was right-coded. Its right there in an official communication.
This position was, later, switched towards banning any sort of large gatherings altogether.
Which THEN switched to allow people to gather as long as it was a BLM protest.
I saw this with my own eyes in real time, while all the while I'm becoming increasingly afraid of the implications of the virus itself and the politicization crippling our ability to respond to it.
I could pull my old posts from the motte subreddit at the time to back this up.
The left initiated almost every major action that drove the politicization of Covid.
Some days it seems like having memory better than a goldfish is a superpower.
How about "Firearm ownership is literally written into the founding document of this country as a fundamental right and thus we are literally entitled to ignore your pleas for gun control unless and until you can garner sufficient political support to amend said document."
Since "we're trying to overturn a civil right that the very founders of the country thought important enough to specifically enshrine AND ignore the actual procedure for making changes to the founding document in the effort" isn't exactly inspiring either, and it's certainly accurate to describe the gun-control movement's approach to the issue.
Or in short, the deal is that we follow the rules set forth when the nation was created, and those rules happen to include this particular provision for gun rights, so amend it or, literally, GTFO to a country that is more politically suitable to your own beliefs.
So...what gives? Are modern women just that impulsive when feeling unhappy in a marriage? Or misled? Do they have illusions about singlehood?
Probably similar to the reason a gambler would keep playing even when they're way up and the odds are not in their favor going forward. They could walk away from the table, stick the money in an index fund and enjoy the benefits of it for years to come, or they could go another round and maybe double or quintuple their money!!!
More directly, people in general are bad at considering the long term costs of an action when they perceive a short term benefit that would remove what they perceive as a source of discomfort.
I also think that women, in particular, when they've grown up being showered with male attention, and the had their pick of suitors, they expect that they'll still be a hot commodity once they're out of their marriage. They have been out of the game so long that they don't realize that a 30+ woman, possibly with kids, is simply not going to command the same sort of attention, especially with newer models on the showroom floor.
I don't know how to get across to a woman whose recollection of the dating world is "I went on fun dates with hot guys who paid for everything" that if she tries that now she'll find herself rejected more often and her pickings will be much slimmer.
(This doesn't explain why college educated women are more likely to initiate divorce, I suspect that has more to do with sheer social status)
IMPORTANT EDIT: college educated women are not 'more likely' to initiate divorce than other groups, only that college educated women who get a divorce are the ones initiating it 90% of the time, and husbands 10%. College educated women are less likely to be involved in a divorce either way.
This is not to say that no women end up happy after initiating divorce. My own mother seems to have ended up being quite happy after divorcing and remarrying (my dad is doing alright too). Just that you would have to take claims that they're happy with a grain of salt because they will be VERY vested in projecting the appearance of happiness and retroactively justifying their decision even if from the financial side of it they are OBJECTIVELY worse off.
Like seriously, how many people would you expect to pull the divorce rip cord, find themselves alone and relatively poor (compared to their previous status) and just as unhappy as before, and would then openly proclaim "I made a big mistake, it was all my own doing, and I have irretrievably worsened my quality of life!"
Does the ego even permit that sort of open admission?
Excellent post, I'll just add my 2 cents (earned from my legal career) on this question:
But if you can swap in virtually any attorney into the slot without affecting the outcome, how would any individual attorney stand out from the rest?
I have been on both sides of the equation at this point. Both a public defender and handling private crim defense for, among others, DUI cases. My experience may not be particularly applicable outside of my state or even county, but I think there's a lot of basic ideas that are near-universal.
The one factor that can actually allow you to 'stand out' is earning the reputation as the guy who absolutely can and will go to trial and give the prosecutor a run for their money regardless of the true merits of the underlying case. Who is never afraid of the hard work and showmanship required in jury trials.
Because when so much of the job of criminal defense is just keeping the client calm (and out of custody) and negotiating a plea deal, the attorneys can reliably coast for years without ever being forced to pick a jury and try a case. They get in a mode in which trials are a serious inconvenience and this effects how they handle clients, indeed they may even try to persuade them to take plea deals to AVOID trial risks, even on very winnable cases!
And those who haven't flexed that muscle in a while are generally KNOWN to be less likely to push a case all the way through to trial. Maybe it's even rumored that they're scared of actual trials, where the consequences can be unpredictable.
And I genuinely think that's the factor that makes any meaningful difference. All attorneys have access to the same legal databases, they attend the same CLE classes and seminars, and generally speaking every new development in the law is easy to locate and digest. Some attorneys may be more... creative about how they apply a new development (think Saul Goodman-esque arguments, but dialed back a bit to pass the sniff test) or be able to present their arguments in a more majestic style. Some may excel at motion practice and have top notch paralegals prepping their filings.
But end of the day, the one thing that the prosecutor doesn't want to do is work. And trials mean LOTS and LOTS of work.
And it means the possibility of a hung jury (MORE WORK) or a not guilty. So this means rather than take the first plea offer that comes along, a lawyer with established trial rep can play the game of chicken with the prosecutor as the trial date looms nearer and nearer and suddenly some truly generous offers come on the table, which might not be easily obtainable if there wasn't a credible threat of forcing a trial.
Incidentally, as a Public Defender I once took three separate cases to trial over the course of three consecutive days, mostly just to show the prosecutor that I would. I called it my 'trialathalon.' Unfortunately that reputation doesn't persist much outside of the county in which the cases occurred.
Yeah, there's a particularly nasty tendency recently for these videos that kick off rage mobs to involve people who are literally just trying to live their lives and suddenly they find themselves in a forced dilemma with a camera shoved in their face with no warning or prep.
For instance, some guy on the NY subway who is just trying to get to a destination unscathed.
At least in the situations with, e.g. Kyle Rittenhouse or George Zimmerman (remember him? over ten years ago!) they were arguably inserting themselves into situations where a conflict and confrontation were likely, so there's a certain amount of risk assumption there.
But this trend of depicting ordinary people, probably dealing with various other stressors, just trying to go about their normal days and not intentionally interfering with others, forced into a standoff where they either back down and allow themselves to be trod upon, or they stand their ground and get mobbed by an uncaring internet posse for their 'racism'... it is antisocial in the extreme, if you ask me.
And there's no obvious way to restrict it other than, perhaps make it broadly illegal to publish videos taken of other people in public places, which is surely going to be impossible to enforce at the end of the day.
It definitely annoys me that "access to the financial system writ large" has become so utterly critical to doing anything useful that it immediately has a totalizing effect on what anybody can do, anywhere in the world, even on the internet.
Maybe there's one bank/payment processor that holds out and willingly acts to handle the 'controversial' transactions, but that just removes things one layer back, as other banks and processors will eventually blacklist that bank. And thus rendering that bank mostly useless for any other purpose. If it doesn't shut down it'll struggle to remain solvent.
Lets say that some pornography company was wealthy enough it could 'become its own bank' and processes payments on behalf of users and extends credit and otherwise runs all its own transactions and only has to interface with the financial system to purchase the services it needs to operate. Once it is known as the 'porn bank' it'll probably be impossible to find any other financial services willing to interface with them unless they comply with all the sames restrictions the other banks are working under... which defeats the purpose of 'self banking' to begin with.
It comes down to the fact that the financial system is a tightly connected web, and the main value any bank or payment process can provide is access to the network, so maintaining that access is their primary concern.
From the moral standpoint, it bugs me when there's very little evidence(indeed, I've seen none) that digital artwork depicting heinous, illegal, or otherwise disgusting acts is actually causing harm to nonconsenting parties. The reasons we find CSAM objectionable and worthy of legally crushing are generally not present when it comes to digital art. One party or group wants some art, the artist produces it and gets paid, nobody else even need be aware of what it contains!
It'd be nice to think of our financial system as mostly as set of dumb tubes that transmit the data representing our money around without caring much about the start and endpoint... with a lot of protections in place to mitigate fraud, theft, and user error. But ultimately a financial company is operated by humans who are subject to legal jurisdiction of some country or other, and have to maintain access to the global finance system if they want to take that money to any other jurisdiction, so in reality the 'rules' are set based on what all participants are willing to tolerate.
Anyhow, this is ultimately the impetus for the protagonists in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon to create a private, heavily anonymized bank/data haven in a location outside of the U.S.' sphere of influence. And in order for them to pull it off it required a chain of events that seems even more fantastical now than it did then, such as finding an island nation that is independently wealthy yet also politically stable enough to act as a headquarters for such an endeavor.
Amazing how consistent the pattern is these days.
Iowahawkblog said it best in 2015
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Identify a respected institution.
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kill it.
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gut it.
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wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.
Some small news/analysis outlet will find some audience and gain traction for producing quality, mostly unbiased, and interesting/unique content, which forms the reputation on which its' appeal rests.
The outlet hits a critical mass of audience/attention, then some known lefty/prog investors buy out the brand, and in short order remake it into left-leaning opinion mouthpiece #418210, BUT they try to demand everyone treat it as just as reliable and quality as before, and maybe they even make a vague attempt to retain what made it unique in the first place.
In many cases, it dies not long thereafter.
Happened to Axios most recently, also happened to Vice. Also the Onion but I can't count them as a 'reliable' media brand.
FiveThirtyEight ALWAYS had a detectable liberal bias and yet the analysis they did, the actual numbers, at least seemed to reflect underlying reality and they weren't afraid to report conclusions that were disfavorable for Dems. My 'problem' with them was usually their intentional selection of issues to analyze that were pretty much only relevant to left-leaning readers, and the framing of everything as "we all know that [progressive opinion] is the best one, but the polls show that support for it is weaker than we'd like..."
Unless I'm misremembering, Rasmussen was one of the most accurate predictors of the 2020 election results (as reported by The Washington Post no less):
Almost all of the remaining polls — except the Rasmussen poll released Nov. 1 — overestimated support for Biden. Taken as a group, the average bias in the 2020 polls overall is -0.085, which is not statistically significant. However, these five polls’ pro-Democratic bias is statistically significant: Economist/YouGov, CNBC/Change Research, NBC News/Wall Street Journal, USC Dornslife, and Quinnipiac.
Even FiveThirtyEight itself finds them overall rather accurate. Indeed, seems like their tilt towards the GOP often counteracts whatever factor seems to make certain conservative opinions appear underrepresented.
So it seems absurd to select THAT ONE of all the options to question their reliability and literally threaten with expulsion if they don't explain themselves.
The only thing that could make this situation more farcical as a culture war issue is if the whole point of this move was to drive the value of the Rasmussen brand down so that it can be purchased by lefty/prog investors and they can pull the exact same game by converting Rasmussen itself into a prog mouthpiece.
I actually 100% believe that is at least part of the intent, if they thought they could acquire it and use it to their ends, they already would have.
Anyhow, Conquest's Second Law remains an excellent heuristic.
As others have indicated it's something of a floating signifier which, in the same vein as 'Black Lives Matter' is very useful for shutting down opposition without having to lay out a fully articulated position of your own.
If you raise any sort of critique or resistance you're clearly okay with trans children being harmed! Shame on you! Or we could say "protect all kids" which will probably be received about as well as "all lives matter." I kinda favor the term "protect kids" myself, but in that context the rhetoric loses most force because it's a completely unremarkable sentiment.
I do have my questions about how 'trans kids' are defined, since the whole debate these days seems to center around whether one's gender identity can be reliably ascertained at an early age. The use of the term 'kids' definitely implies that prepubescents are included in this group.
And of course what are they being protected from? Abuse? And if it's abuse, does that include from parents who are skeptical that their kids are actually gender dysphoric? Or maybe it's more a generalized 'protect their right to express their preferred identity (i.e. their right to transition).'
At which point, the statement 'protect trans kids' roughly translates to "ensure that children of all ages are permitted to have gender reassignment surgery on demand and without apology." And "over the objections of their parents, if necessary" is implied in there too.
Which I think is pretty damned controversial in mainstream discourse, so it remains more palatable to collapse it to "Protect Trans Kids" and let the onlookers guess at what you actually mean.
I ultimately think the goal is to have this particular rhetoric stretch to it's logical conclusion where children can be removed from their parents' care and undergo gender reassignment surgery without parental consent or even knowledge if some 'expert' is able to ascertain that the child is gender dysphoric, as this is the only true way to 'protect' trans children to the fullest extent possible. You have to be able to identify them all as early as possible and enable them to medically transition at the earliest opportunity and thus remove any social or legal barriers that might prevent these kids from transitioning.
The actual implications of how that might all work in practice I will leave unexamined for the moment.
faceh
11mo ago
If you left race entirely out of it, there is zero doubt that it is MORE plausible for a gang of teens to randomly confront a female nurse to pressure her into giving up a rental bike (which I gather don't cost much to rent) than the reverse.
Because the story that some random pregnant nurse decided to intentionally confront a gang of teenagers to steal one of their bikes is utterly absurd on it's face. Not impossible, but in the world we live in, 99/100 times you bet the other way.
Bringing race into it doesn't update one's priors that much, but it definitely updates them in the same direction.
faceh
3mo ago
I can say that at the state level, there is a tactic law enforcement uses with regards to confidential informants/insiders/undercover officers to avoid blowing their cover is to put them through a prosecution that inevitably results in probation, on paper, which means as long as they don't get arrested again they'll never be in a jail but at least it looks like they got punished along with the rest.
To be a proper Bayesian I'd need to hear the base rate for how many J6 Defendants got probation sentences, but this does nudge up my belief that Ray Epps was, in some sense or another, involved with the Feds.
I don't hesitate to say that the Bruen decision was a masterstroke, especially in the context of advancing an Originalist interpretation of the Constitution.
It 'sneaks' in the idea that the rules mean what they people who wrote them intended them to mean, since presumably the people who wrote the Constitution did so with the intention of making it comply with those other rules and regulations that existed around the time all of this was written, and further if they tolerated a particular rule after the Constitution was ratified, you can certainly argue they didn't intend for the Constitution to contradict those rules, regardless of any ambiguities that may exist.
I'm more of a pure textualist myself, but I do agree with the idea that the rules were written with a particular meaning in mind, and that the proper way to 'change' the rules is... to follow the procedure for changing them. So taking the approach that the rules can just be reinterpreted over and over again, especially in ways that generate greater ambiguity is, in my view, completely antithetical to the idea of having written rules in the first place.
And just about the only way to reduce ambiguity is to ground your interpretive standard on something firm enough to form a valid premise for further legal reasoning. Yes you will never be able to reach the perfect a priori premises from which all else will flow, but anything that doesn't at least directly build off of the original text is way too ad hoc to provide a predictable/reliable jurisprudence, especially as your system of interlocking precedents gets more complex. In my genuine opinion, anyway. This is why I agree with Dobbs overturning Roe irrespective of my beliefs about abortion.
So in short, Bruen's requirement that government has to demonstrate that their restrictions on firearms rights are in keeping with traditional, long-accepted regulations going back to (ideally) the original founding of the country puts the burden of proof in the right place. The State doesn't have a heavy burden, it's just a very restrictive framework to work within... which to me is the point of having those restrictions.
And if we (i.e. the people of the country) can't agree that looking at the rules in place when our Nation was formally founded is at least a guideline for figuring out what the actual words in the document meant, then we're fundamentally questioning the validity of the document itself. Which is fine with me, but for some reason people want to maintain the validity of the document whilst changing the rules it contains to suit their purposes.
If Bruen is carried through to its logical conclusion, we should probably expect that we'll be getting legal machine guns (new ones, not grandfathered) in the not-too-distant future.
If the logic behind Bruen is applied to other aspects of the Constitution, a lot of precedents that are nearly a century old are potentially on the chopping block. And oh boy Justice Thomas seems positively GIDDY to start swinging that axe.
And being clear, I think this creates an interesting double-bind if you want to keep some of those precedents in place. "You can't touch these cases, they've been around for decades!" is easily rebutted by "the standard we're now using to examine those cases goes back a whole century or so before those cases were decided, so if age is the question, this standard wins." You'd have a hard time arguing "the older a judicial precedent is the more deference the Court should grant it!" AND say "but times change and the law has to change with it."
Hence the progressive Justices tend to appeal to more nebulous concepts when reaching a decision, allowing for reconsideration later.
I think to me, the 'problem' is the increasing dissonance between the signal that young women seem to be intentionally sending, and the actual reaction they have to anyone whom responds to that signal at 'face value.'
Throughout most of history, okay, being precise I'll limit it to the last century, wearing clothing that showed more skin than the average person in that area was almost universally a sign of sexual availability. It was considered, largely, an invitation to approach (politely) and engage in a repartee that had a nontrivial chance of ending in sexual contact, or at least a peek at the goods and a pleasant mental image to store in the spank bank.
So in other words, wearing a skimpy bikini in contexts where a bikini is not standard attire (so contexts other than the beach, pool, strip club) is basically saying "please pay attention to me, and if you find me sexually appealing I am open to being approached."
You can of course have guys that read that message into almost ANY clothing a female wears, I'm not trying to pretend that the messaging mismatch is the sole fault of the sender.
There are other messages that could be mixed in there but I daresay they're completely dominated by THAT one in terms of how men will interpret it.
Except that if you were to take that message at face value and approach, you're not just more likely than not to experience rejection, you're probably going to get ridiculed if you don't match some arbitrary criteria, and in the absolute worst case you'll get dragged on social media.
Dave Chapelle said it best: "You are wearing a whore's uniform." Actual prostitutes wear these outfits specifically to attract clients, and they aren't engaging in false advertising, you CAN get sexual contact with them if you approach. And have money.
But increasingly, especially with the way dating apps currently work and the seeming prevalence of Onlyfans, women are sending out messages that are, I'd guess, intended for reception by a very small subset of the actual male population, and while they're willing to accept attention from the remaining contingent, it'd be better if they had fullish control over who they were required to interact with, and can accept material support from ones they aren't interested in and pursue the ones they are.
And in a world where women are empowered to wear whatever they want and control who they can respond to at will, then there's literally no reason for them not to send out the LOUDEST, MOST BLARING signal they can even if it is to the detriment of the vast majority of onlookers.
The one big problem with looking at prices by themselves is that they're a function of demand AND supply.
And so when you see a plunge in price, it's worth trying to notice if it is due to an increasing abundance of something, or a sudden drop in the demand for the thing. And why the demand might decrease.
And the big thing I notice is that European Manufacturing is decreasing in relative and absolute terms.
So it seems like a completely plausible interpretation for an overall decrease in energy prices is that manufacturers are shutting down and less stuff is being produced and thus there's less demand for energy inputs... even if the amount of available energy remains relatively constant.
Pretty similar to how gas prices fell hard in 2020 BECAUSE FEWER PEOPLE WERE DRIVING CARS.
So if you completely ignored anything else that happened that year, and just tracked the gas prices, you'd say "hah, anyone thinking we were in an energy crisis are stupid!"
But anyone actually living through 2020 would note that they couldn't really enjoy the low gas prices because they were literally unable to work or vacation or do various things they would normally buy gas for.
Economic activity being reduced is generally a bad thing even if it means we see energy surpluses.
I strongly suspect we're seeing a similar impact here, which will shake out over the next year or so.
Also, you might notice that the price of Bud Light is at all-time lows too but it sure ain't because we've made breakthroughs in light beer productivity.
4chan was massively toxic but the anonymity and completely ephemeral nature of the threads meant you could just... walk away and nothing would follow you.
No long-term social consequences. No need to worry that someone would e-mail your boss (well, minimal, if they captured your personal info it could be merciless). You could get trolled into an incandescent rage and then the thread would fall off the board and that was that.
The current version of social media is putting your personal identity next to every opinion you ever uttered and storing it for years on end, often making it trivial to search it up later.
Which lends itself to people policing themselves and each other more heavily, and empowers targeted, relentless bullying.
faceh
5mo ago
I don’t really see how a DeSantis or a Ramaswamy presidency would amount to anything either.
Desantis would be bringing over a seasoned and loyal team from his Tenure as Florida governor, and a knowledge of how to use the powers of an executive office in a precise manner intended to bring about specific results in short order.
A huge part of Trump's issue was finding people both willing to serve on his staff and would be loyal enough to carry out his wishes in a competent manner. I expect this would hurt him in a second term.
Part of Desantis mythos is based on the fact that prior to taking office he did a long read into the entire 'rulebook' of what authority he actually possesses as Florida Governor and then, day one, flexing certain powers that had been long unused by the Governor to immediately establish himself as the new boss, and get doubters in line. Then he proceeded to strategically use those same powers in a judicious manner whenever it was needed.
Presumably he'd bring the same tactics to the Presidency.
Now, in Florida he had the benefit of full GOP control of the legislative branch to back up any decision he made. So unless that also applies to the 2024 election then those same assumptions might not carry over. And of course the Federal Congress is a different animal altogether.
Suffice it to say, Desantis at least recognizes the nature of the threat and the size of the task and is capable of both creating and carrying out a plan to deal with it with the assistance of other competent staff who aren't going to turn on him the very instant they leave the administration.
I'm not sure going from being the Mayor to the third largest city or a District Attorney to teaching at a college is failing up.
Let us be clear: he's a "founding executive director" for a program at a Law School Ranked NUMBER 10 IN THE COUNTRY, and probably making around $300,000/year if he's paid similar to their professors. He was making About $140,000 at his previous job.
EDIT: He was making $210,000 in 2023
Calling it "teaching at a college" is GROSS understatement.
Failing.
Upward.
Teaching his tactics and ideas that have already failed in practice (although perhaps not by his definition), no less! The message here is "we don't care that your ideas got roundly rejected when actually implemented, we want to teach a whole new generation to do the exact same thing everywhere!" Literally ENDORSING the ideas that the people who actually had to endure them decided to reject.
And in all likelihood, this is just a temporary position and he'll be called up to some other high position of authority in a few years. It is completely possible that a future Democratic president appoints him as head of the DOJ, because why not?
I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect one term politicians to sink into ignominy.
I think it is unreasonable for politicians whose track record demonstrates they're incapable of leading well to be given a position teaching leadership. But of course her entire claim to fame is being the first LGBT and Black Female Mayor of Chi town, so it's easy to explain this all as simply keeping her around as a useful example of how well they treat their people so long as they check the right boxes.
It really wouldn't do to throw her under the bus if they're trying to claim they're committed to diversity and inclusion even at the expense of maintaining functional institutions.
It is GENUINELY FARCICAL at this point, when the voters express their intense displeasure and yet the elites decide that such outcomes don't matter and simply shuffle a failed politician off to a position where they don't need voter approval to keep their job, making them EVEN MORE INSULATED than before.
I'm not asking for them to 'fade into ignominy,' just... go away? Like, you had your shot, you blew it. Go try something else. Maybe come back after you've had some time to contemplate and come up with better ideas, beg forgiveness, see if they'll let you make another go of it.
Being a high ranking politician is low paid compared to the other options available to those with the skills and connections to get elected, and attracts considerably more unpleasant scrutiny and stress.
What other options do they have? Be explicit. If you lack any technical skills or knowledge, if your background is in law or activism, and if you've spent most of your career in the public sector, how can you expect to thrive in a private sector job without a truckload of nepotism?
What high-paying role would you slide into that ISN'T directly related to your connections in government?
I think you're missing the part of the equation where political positions bring significant status and often power over some particular area of interest, which can usually be converted into renumeration, and can definitely be used to push forward you own ideological goals even if you don't personally benefit. Especially if you lack any real talents that might get you such status outside of the halls of government.
The overarching issue is that no matter how much damage an elite causes through their decisions, no matter how foreseeable that damage was, no matter how incompetent and unsuited for their position they are, the system as it currently operates does not allow them to actually suffer in any way that matters. There's no 'feedback loop' or filter that catches bad elites early on and keeps them from advancing to positions of greater power or enacts harsh consequences when needed to dissuade others from misbehavior.
This is exactly what Nassim Taleb was getting at in his book. We don't just want properly aligned incentives, we want sufficient negative incentives that bad actors are deterred from entering critical positions, and bad actors that slip through are filtered out rather than sticking around indefinitely, causing increasing damage by their mere presence.
Elites are basically acting with impunity because they've got a safety net for their wealth, and status below which they cannot fall. If you crack into the ranks of the elite, there is literally all upside available to you and no downside, so your decisions need not consider the needs of anyone outside your bubble.
If the worst possible outcome for screwing up an entire fucking city is you get to teach at one of the pre-eminent educational institutions in the country making a comfy six figure salary, what possible motivation is there to take actions that will make things better for others when you could instead focus on enriching yourself and boosting your cronies' careers to create a self-perpetuating wealth siphoning machine that allows you to live the good life regardless of what happens to everyone?
This is what happens virtually EVERYWHERE ELSE in history when the incentives become so asymetric. We're just at the point where it is impossible to hide and ignore, and they're quite openly favoring themselves to the point that they consider voter sentiment irrelevant to the operation of government.
The situation with Trump's latest indictment is also indicative of the issue. If mishandling classified docs is indeed a criminal offense to be punished, regardless of whether there was any harm resulting, then we KNOW both Hillary Clinton and, eventually, Joe Biden should face the exact same consequences.
But they won't.
They know they won't.
We know they won't.
We and they know there's no mechanism available to us through which we can impose consequences within the system they control.
Everyone who sees this happen is going to make certain calculations based on this knowledge. I expect the elites will realize that as long as they don't upset the gravy train as Trump tried to, they are protected. The proles, however...
faceh
2mo ago
you can go to whichever one you want
Hahaha right except there's also admissions processes that very much filter for the exact types of people they want to attend. Let us ignore affirmative action putting its thumb on the scale.
And many colleges have removed the one requirement that at least tried to be objective.
And you can get your admission rescinded if they find your behavior as a youth undesirable
So yes, its always possible to take your student loans elsewhere, but let us not pretend that there is equal bargaining power on any level, where the market is relatively frictionless.
And that leaves aside that whatever remaining value there is in the universities mostly comes from the prestige attached to the credential or, perhaps, the social connections it allows you to make, so WHICH university you go to absolutely matters.
So really, you're hiding behind the fact that the decision to attend university is 'voluntary,' while ignoring that getting into a university is influenced by factors beyond individual students' control, that their funding is usually coming out of public coffers, and they don't need your consent to revoke your admissions, scholarships, or suspend you for behavior that is neither violent nor illegal.
So perhaps the issue isn't quite what you're suggesting it is.
I've given a lot of thought to the issue of how you can set up a foundation with your name on it and expect it to stay aligned with your intentions over the course of decades. It's hard, way too many failure modes and attack surfaces you'd have to anticipate and design countermeasures for.
Even in the best case scenario, all it really takes is the last person who knew you when you were alive to die or retire and get replaced by someone who has no connection to you and no respect for your ideals, and then there's no mechanism for forcing adherence to your goals. They turn the ship in a different direction and sail on unabated.
No matter how rigorously you define your terms and how stringent you make your instructions, over time your org will be Ship-of-Theseused into something with the same name and generally the same stated purpose but controlled by actors who may be actively hostile to your desired legacy.
You can hand-pick your successors, but once you're gone there's little guarantee those successors can manage to handpick good successors without serious entropy setting in.
The example that strikes me the most is the Ford Foundation which controls a $16,000,000,000 endowment, and has the stated purpose:
To reduce poverty and injustice, strengthen democratic values, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement.
But when you look at where they actually spend the money, it is pretty indistinguishable from any other standard lefty activist organization.
Underscored by this excerpt from the Wiki:
This divestiture allowed Ford Motor to become a public company. Finally, Henry Ford II resigned from his trustee's role in a surprise move in December 1976. In his resignation letter, he cited his dissatisfaction with the foundation holding on to their old programs, large staff and what he saw as anti-capitalist undertones in the foundation's work.
So yeah, the direct descendant of the guys who set up and funded the Foundation quit because it was falling afar from it's original mission and was becoming anti-capitalist using funds provided by some of the most famous Capitalists of all time.
Took less than 50 years. I can barely imagine how one could ensure your legacy lasts 200 years without losing focus... short of founding a religion with fanatical adherents. I suppose you could pay to train an LLM that will spout your values and is given an endowment of its own to ensure it has server time secured for itself in perpetuity.
The whole problem is that if your foundation controls significant wealth, that will attract all kinds of parasites and scavengers to the 'free calories' and nature will then take its course once there are none remaining to defend the bounty.
faceh
11mo ago
If you're working off the assumption that there won't be equal amounts of escalation as there will be compliance in response to heavy-handed tactics by government agents...
Well, cowabunga it is.
Or perhaps more recently and less spectacularly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff
It's weird to hold the idea that some portion of legal gun owners are ticking time bombs willing to throw their lives away to kill random people if pushed to far, but that there WON'T be some amount of violence and deadly attrition if the government sustains a campaign of door-to-door confiscations.
And of course can't get around the fact that the violence is being INITIATED by the government in these instances.
As someone who has not read the books but certainly enjoyed the first film (never seen Lynch's take either, though the memes from that have percolated into my brain), and also enjoy Villineuve's brand of filmmaking (Blade Runner 2049 was a triumph, I don't think Scott himself could have made such a sequel) it hit all the buttons I'd want but also left me somewhat dissatisfied.
Mainly:
A) Minimal additional worldbuilding. The tiny bits and hints of 'how things work', some of which were directly stated and some which were merely hinted made the first film engaging and rewards a second watch. Second one seemed to throw certain concepts at us without giving out the information needed to understand what it means. Lack of mentats and guild navigators has me wondering WHY a shortage of spice was such a critical issue for anyone but the Harkonnens who had to make a lot of money fast.
B) Christopher Walken can monologue with the best of them and always delivers. Even when the movie is shit. Feels like a huge waste to not give him his minute or so to shine, EVEN IF the minute was used to purposefully show the emperor's desperation and decline.
C) Similarly, the motivation and stakes of the emperor arriving on Arrakis seemed unclear. Might have been helpful to know just how much his attempted show of power on Arrakis 'cost' him to pull off, given how we're informed that the earlier anti-Atreides battalions mostly bankrupt the Harkonnens, bringing the full army to bear must have been prohibitive. How much did it deplete the emperor's wealth to show up? Was there anything particularly special about his ship?
D) This is going to sound 'heretical' (heh) but SO MUCH of the movie was set in the desert environment that it made the universe really feel smallish. Yes, I get that Arrakis is literally the most important planet there is, and the entire universe hinges on who controls it. It's the damn title of the series. But it's worth noting that the scenes on Gaedi-Prime this time around were the most memorable overall for me, so I kind of wanted to see the 'diversity' of environments present in the imperium. Being honest, though, this was probably compensated for by peeling back the layers on Fremen culture (which also counts as worldbuilding, so partially obviating my first complaint up there).
That said, hard to be truly critical of such a well-crafted experience. Feyd-Rautha. I have no notes, honestly. The brilliant move of having him sound like Baron Harkonnen immediately makes you disdain him by association, while explaining said Baron's affection for the guy and why he's the preferred heir. He's established as clear danger/threat but also very much NOT invincible, which is to say actually tactical and intelligent and not just handed everything he needs to threaten the protagonist by plot fiat.
All-in-all, the one who honestly carried the films for me was Lady Jessica. As an effective personification of the Bene Gesserit's influence, virtually every scene she's in you can see her nudging outcomes but you're never certain where. There was no point when she seemed irrelevant and even the slightly more ridiculous concept of her chatting it up with her unborn child was done with gravitas. Hats off.
You comment on the lack of reference to the Butleran Jihad, but I think part of the brilliance of the two films is managing to DEFY straitforward analogy to 'present day' political, economic, or cultural issues. The movie manages to be meaty and yet escapist at the same time, I was more than happy to immerse myself in the world (despite craving more detail) that they had crafted and forget real world issues for 3 hours. Reminded me of when movies were consistently able to present epic, mindblowing entertainment that carried you out of your own world for the duration.
I have chosen to make this the drum I'm beating every time I see institutional failure raise it's head. Which is near-daily.
The people who have been appointed to make the decisions are insulated from any negative consequences for policy failure (here defining failure as "not achieving purported objectives") but are allowed to reap benefits of their decisions. Hell they often get to reap benefits even if there's a failure. Lori Lightfoot leaves Chicago worse off than when she found it (quite a feat!) and immediately gets a cushy job at Harvard teaching leadership. It's like they're intentionally mocking the idea that rewards go to those with merit and that outcomes matter when judging a person's competence.
Chesa Boudin allows crime to run rampant in San Fran to the point it becomes a national embarrassment. He gets FUCKING RECALLED BY VOTERS because it was too much for even SF libs to stomach... and he lands a teaching job at Berkeley "Failing upward" doesn't even begin to describe it.
And the Biden family, especially Hunter. ye Gods.
When the rewards the elites reap are completely uncorrelated with the impact their decisions have on the rest of us proles then you simply can't expect them to make good decisions, to implement functional policies, or to listen to feedback from constituents. Quite the opposite, you'd expect them to exploit the system for personal benefit at every chance, given that they know that the institutions that are supposed to be holding them accountable are just as compromised and ineffectual.
They've gotten so far entrenched that it is impossible to even discuss consequences for them. Post-Covid it's becoming clear just how many ways various institutions failed, and not just missing goals, but straight up making the situation worse through their action or inaction. And not a single person who had decision-making authority will be taken to task or suffer any lick of punishment.
EDIT: I revise the previous statement to point out that Andrew Cuomo did in fact get punished. But this ends up being the exception that proves the rule because his removal from office had NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS BUNGLING OF COVID and of course he was still hailed as a shining beacon of competence for his handling of Covid.
Just farcical.
Eventually the proles will start to conclude that the system is in fact SET UP so as to ensure elites are guaranteed to thrive regardless of the state of the country and that perhaps the only way skin gets re-inserted to the game is if the proles taken action themselves.
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