flitter
22d ago
It’s just looks like a constant gotcha with no desire to understand what is going on.
Yeah.
The real estate deal had nothing to do with Georgism.
If the leases have actual value as in the real estate went up in value and someone would rent it for a higher price you occasionally see the leases resold for profit to (Red Lobster in this case) a new business (in this case an expanding restaurant chain) but most of the time the landlord takes a big L and has a pain point of figuring out what to do with the property.
I see a similarity between them:
Georgism incentivizes maximizing profit over real-estate by increasing the rent. Low income usages can't pay the rents. Some implementations (??) make the land owner set the price they're taxed on and they'd be forced to sell to any purchaser at that price.
But here someone bet the land was under-utilized, bought the company with the goal of selling hte land to someone who can make more money with it. I'm not sure about the implementation of whether the previous owners of Red Lobster knew this was the plan and were okay with it.
Overstated it seems. Hyperion commented on this take, do you have a similar view to them?
I think people haven't fully grappled with the implications of Evolution. And maybe don't understand how capitalism works. I barely do either.
Here are some talking points I see:
Why shouldn't an owner be able to buy a failing restaurant, sell the real estate, and then let the restaurant fail?
There's the inconvenience of being reorganized. All the employees on the healthcare plan, who've moved across the country for this job for their family, who've put effort and sweat every day to make the company better (and other such sympathetic narratives), are suddenly shuffled into the labour market without their consent.
Particularly when the company is on net-profitable. A narrative that this perfectly fine business that's meeting people's needs is deemed "unvaluable" by corporate spreadsheets and then gutted to make room for some high-end fancy business. Rich people are willing to pay more than poor people, and now this veers into gentrification arguments.
if I buy something I should be able to do what I want with it
There's also aesthetic quality to this.
Buying a rare painting from a private collector and then burning it is legal and unimpeachable, and yet I still feel there is something lost, an aesthetic duty to the commons. Memories, sentimental memories lost to the wind. Perhaps less so with a property like Red Lobster.
flitter
22d ago
Ah, I have a very shallow model of Georgism.
Specifically I got it confused with the argument that it pushes low-value companies out of high-value land (as a pro).
The recent discussion about Red Lobster (link) focused on analyzing how the $20 all you can eat shrimp bankrupted the company because it was too good of a deal and analyzing the declining social trust to keep it afloat.
Everyone in the comments has fun linking this to their favorite hobbyhorses. Here's mine talking about a cool idea for a legal system I was thinking about.
Great story everyone. But one question, is this actually true?
Some Xsocial users are linking the company's demise to private equity:
Quote https://x.com/windcomecalling/status/1790889866844422528
while this is a very funny idea, the reality is much more depressing: they made like $2 billion in revenue that year. the loss from endless shrimp was basically a rounding error—the thing that actually bankrupted them was private equity
Hmm.
Quote https://x.com/edzitron/status/1790493687572754654
Their ceo is a lawyer-MBA and they were bought by a Thailand-based private equity group that makes most of its money selling canned seafood, and they've been downsizing the company consistently since Thai Union Group took control in 2020
They also launched an insane permanent all you can eat shrimp deal that killed revenue. Thai Union basically ran the company into the ground.
Seems like the private equity group is deliberately running the company into the ground, and using the unlimited deal as a cover story. Another case of corporate greed destroying a profitable company and generally being evil.
Great story. But one question, is this actually true?
This analysis is another interesting angle on it, quote https://x.com/cunha_tristan/status/1791807133886861317
Golden Gate bought Red Lobster for 2.1 billion, and then sold off a bunch of real estate for almost that much. Although at one point they actually bought back a little bit of it, which is weird.
But then after selling the real estate, they sold the restaurant business to new investors. They sold the initial 25% of it for over $500 million.
Which seems to show that the real estate and the restaurant businesses were more valuable split up than together. It seems like the restaurants owning their real estate was dragging down the value of the real estate, it was worth much more split off. Which would make sense if the restaurants were poorly run, that business was being subsidized by the real estate portfolio.
The land was more valuable than the company. Private equity bought the company to sell the land to someone who could make more money with it.
This is.... Georgism???
Great story. But one question, is this actually true?
I honestly don't know.
Here's a 2015 article showing Golden Gate Capital made the transaction the last tweet is talking about:
Golden Gate Capital, which bought Red Lobster from Darden Restaurants Inc. for $2.1 billion, and then sold that real estate to VEREIT for $1.5 billion, has now agreed to acquire $204 million of Red Lobster real estate back from the firm.
The narrative seems plausible and would be an interesting twist. But perhaps it's too good of a story.
Does anyone have more source/knowledge of this kind of corporate dealing? Is private equity delivering the Georgist promise?
flitter
23d ago
Hmm good point.
If this is a serious problem maybe the company would require legal identification and/or a bank account demonstrating sufficient funds before they engage with customers. Which would be inconvenient for everyone if the policy was applied equitably.
Or maybe Red Lobster could cooperate with one of those governments that have a facial recognition based social credit score to identify non-cooperative persons.
This takes the time of the manager, plus whatever employee who has to testify
It's okay to take time and expense to punish wrongdoing. The whole basis of revenge is that it's kinda non-rational after the crime is already committed. But the ability to pre-commit to revenge means that rational agents won't mess with you to find out.
The higher levels should get far less usage because the threat of higher-level punishment prevents rational agents from non-compliance. I concede that this doesn't seem to be how current legal systems are setup. Also I'm not a lawyer and I'm just spitballing fantasy systems on an internet forum.
flitter
24d ago
No, Red Lobster won't call the police immediately when they see 10 people eating 1 buffet option.
In a civilized society it's a series of escalations:
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Fine print in the menu will say the buffet deal is only available for 1 person, and the restaurant reserves the right to cutoff any customer at anytime without a given reason.
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Now when Red Lobster sees 10 people eating from one buffet option, they have a contract justification to have an employee go over there and gently say, please don't do this.
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When that doesn't change behavior, Red Lobster has justification to charge the table for 10 buffet meals with the cheque at the end.
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When the table refuses to pay, then Red Lobster has justification to take the table to the small claims court.
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When the table refuses to pay in court, NOW finally the cops get involved over criminal behavior
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Now jail becomes an option because of breaking big laws
This process can break down at any point due to the enforcers lacking will or ability to straightforwardly enforce the law.
However when the system works, it can enforce numerous arbitrarily small contracts (Red Lobster buffet fine print) with the threat of overwhelming force.
flitter
1mo ago
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/10/26/alcoholics-anonymous-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/
I finally got so exasperated that I put on my Research Cap and started looking through the evidence base.
My conclusion, after several hours of study, is that now I understand why most people don’t do this.
The entire situation is complicated by a bigger question. We will soon find that AA usually does not work better or worse than various other substance abuse interventions. That leaves the sort of question that all those fancy-shmancy people with control groups in their studies don’t have to worry about – does anything work at all?
flitter
3mo ago
Freedom depends on uncertainty
This post is an abstract framing that the trade off between freedom and authoritarianism is a proxy for how uncertain we are.
I. Game Theory
Simple game theory problems are a domain where the goal is well defined and we can mathematically model optimal policies. In this extreme case "freedom" is meaningless.
The prisoners dilemma and the fish-farm coordination problem are examples where agents might behave in different ways (have some freedom), but the optimal global strategy is to eliminate those freedoms.
These coordination problems happen because of freedom to choose the 'wrong' option. The libertarian solution is to allow contracts (enforced by other contracts I guess) that reduce the agents' freedom. The authoritarian solution is to have some Leviathan enforce the optimal policy (for some self interested reason).
II. Creating Laws
If there's uncertainty about what policy leads to the best outcomes then solutions include some freedom.
Agents explore different policies and learn more about the situation. They can teach younger agents about which policies lead to better outcomes (mentoring).
Society can start with very simple rules like "don't eat those berries". Over time society has built up metis for understanding a lot about what kind of rules work.
Nowadays our laws are complicated, and we use police to enforce them. Rules are everywhere. Parents and teachers give lots of them to children, but there are also rules about what rules can be given.
These rules are enforced because authorities have better policies than the subjects. I think this is a good basis for why force is used in society at all. Like why we allow parents to have control over children.
However these situations also have a degree of freedom. Authorities can't make all the decisions for multiple practical reasons like aging. But also because they don't know what the best policy is. They know a lot about failure modes to avoid, but don't have all the answers. Leads to a hands off parent that stops their kid from seriously injuring anyone, but otherwise lets them roam.
III. Compromise the Laws
In the real world people also disagree about what the "the best outcome" looks like (if it even exists at all).
Sometimes they resolve this using violence. If a kid is following a bad policy they would be overruled. Criminals might be punished proportionally. Rival tribes conquered.
However this is limited because violence sucks, and hurts all combatants. So sometimes they compromise and create rules that acknowledge some uncertainty in end-goals. We get radical laws like the first amendment, and religious compromise.
This is speculation about history on my part: that historically this compromise was always reluctantly made. All the initial individuals were convinced that their way was the best way, but agree to be ruled by a blind system because it reduces violence. And then later the concept of freedom is concertized so that there are actually people born who earnestly believe in the uncertainty of end-outcomes.
IV. Increasing Agency
Then when there's uncertainty even about what the nature of "the best outcome" is (if it exists at all), authoritarianism starts to become incoherent.
You can no longer justify arbitrarily overruling others. The best rule we can use here is Kant's standard to "Act in such a way as to treat everyone always as an end and never merely as a means".
With actual uncertainty (instead of the reluctant compromise above), we get the things like The Spirit of the First Amendment. And radicals saying "I disagree with everything you stand for, but I will die for your right to say it".
The most authoritarian frame is paternalism about enabling the development of freedom in the student. Instead of directly enforcing policy, the teacher guides the student to avoid self defeating loops like drug/rage/greed/power/addiction. In this view a parent shouldn't dictate what end goal their child will pursue, but help them develop into themselves while avoiding traps and tricks.
It's about increasing agency to deal with uncertainty. The opposite of the game theory section were we spent all our efforts reducing agency.
V. True Neutral
Finally with total uncertainty about what "the best outcome looks like" we get a sort of nihilism. I don't know enough to contrast this nihilism with other philosopher's understanding of the term. In this case it's a complete rejection of authoritarianism in the abstract.
I see it as a True Neutral saying "whatever happens, happens".
We can't even justify limited paternalism. Suppose I am powerful and notice some small entity is acting in self destructive ways. Something like small weak creatures are being authoritarian to each-other. I could easily interfere to increase freedom of their system, but what makes me sure that increasing freedom is even a valuable? Only physics will determine what happens to those creatures.
VI. Summary
In low uncertainty environments authoritarianism is natural and optimal. As uncertainty increases authoritarianism becomes worse and worse, until becoming incoherent as a concept.
I think this dynamic is fundamental to how these concepts interact. And provides a useful framework for talking about freedom in various settings.
flitter
4mo ago
It's made for a blackpilled audience. Where the world is big and doomed and screwed over by powerful forcers beyond your power. The image is for a frog that decides to confront the almost inevitable failure and fight for a cause anyway. It's worth an attempt.
https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/eabgr3/even_space_marines_need_artillery_support_why_i/
This essay brushes on similar themes, especially the part about Bastion near the middle.
flitter
4mo ago
Yeah there's some quotes of the Baron's thoughts:
Towards Paul:
"I'll be in my sleeping chambers," the Baron said. "Bring me that young fellow we bought on Gamont, the one with the lovely eyes. Drug him well. I don't feel like wrestling."
"Yes, m'Lord."
The Baron turned away, began moving with his bouncing, suspensor-buoyed pace toward his chambers. Yes, he thought. The one with the lovely eyes, the one who looks so much like the young Paul Atreides.
Towards his Nephew Feyd:
A tank-brain, the Baron thought. Muscle-minded tank-brain. They will be bloody pulp here when he’s through with them. Then, when I send in Feyd-Rautha to take the load off them, they’ll cheer their rescuer. Beloved Feyd-Rautha. Benign Feyd-Rautha, the compassionate one who saves them from a beast. Feyd-Rautha, a man to follow and die for. The boy will know by that time how to oppress with impunity. I’m sure he’s the one we need. He’ll learn. And such a lovely body. Really a lovely boy.
flitter
7mo ago
Alexis, a senior in high school, briefly worked with Charles at a restaurant. She was a hostess and he was a waiter. They liked each other and texted a lot. They slowly started dating
A few years later, Kristen Roupenian has an "encounter" with this Charles, after which she finds out that he dated someone much younger than him. She decides to write a story that includes personal details about him and the girl
Alexis and Charles would be the couple, and Kristen would be the person they "forget to ask" about whether they could date.
flitter
7mo ago
Here's three mentions I found in TheMotte:
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https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/njr5h0/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_may_24_2021/gzcjcw7/ big discussion pile!
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https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/njr5h0/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_may_24_2021/gzb7qp6/ deleted, but children quote parts show it's cat-person posting
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https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/oe16bz/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_july_05_2021/h4ij0lq/ small bare-links discussion of the later slate article
flitter
8mo ago
Url should point to https://i.redd.it/1cx57tluj5ob1.png
Traditional tai-chi masters are indeed in shambles from MMA.
On the other hand, Muay Thai has been proven to be effective fighting style (excuse the dramatic narrator).
This video is of showbox in 1988 between the top American Kickboxer and a Muay Thai fighter using limited rules preventing elbowing, throwing, grabs, and limiting below-waist hits to a low kick. The kickboxer gets kicked in the leg so many times he starts dodging and running around at 5:50, and ends up carried away in a stretcher.
MMA rules allow lowkicks and elbows in some positions. Fighters study techniques derived from Muay Thai, along with other lineages like Greco-roman wrestling and Juijitsu. And "MMA style" is just whatever works in the ring's rules.
Quoting https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/07/25/how-the-west-was-won/
An analogy: naturopaths like to use the term “western medicine” to refer to the evidence-based medicine of drugs and surgeries you would get at your local hospital. They contrast this with traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, which it has somewhat replaced, apparently a symptom of the “westernization” of Chinese and Indian societies.
But “western medicine” is just medicine that works. It happens to be western because the West had a technological head start, and so discovered most of the medicine that works first. But there’s nothing culturally western about it; there’s nothing Christian or Greco-Roman about using penicillin to deal with a bacterial infection. Indeed, “western medicine” replaced the traditional medicine of Europe – Hippocrates’ four humors – before it started threatening the traditional medicines of China or India. So-called “western medicine” is an inhuman perfect construct from beyond the void, summoned by Westerners, which ate traditional Western medicine first and is now proceeding to eat the rest of the world.
flitter
11mo ago
To clarify, is the confounder sex differences in reflexes and grip strength?
EG: the best esports players are almost all AMAB.
flitter
11mo ago
Those miserable genres of media are known as Misery Porn. The reader wants to experience something about those cases (the desirability of the victim?) and can experience those thrills second hand, through the victim getting fucked by the world, much like a cuck watching someone experience what he is too insecure to experience himself. Hmm it's a stretch.
The boundary between art and porn is going to be complicated because neither concept is well defined. My view is that a few things are true:
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there is porn (explicit video) that has artistic aesthetic value alongside the titillation. (eg through camerawork)
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there is an art of making porn: where various representations of titillation are practiced.
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there is a porn-like nature to all art: where it is trying to invoke a feeling in you without involving you in reality.
flitter
11mo ago
I like the theorizing about aspects of normal male heterosexuality wanting to degrade and female heterosexuality wanting to oblige. Opportunity to study those mechanics of how sexual desire is actually related to by the person.
Those categories seem like a good start, with more underlying variation and complexity that could be analyzed more. Maybe Queer theorists have also looked at this?
flitter
11mo ago
Haha perhaps I am psychotic due to reading Baudrillard too young and getting to read such things.
I agree some people get way too deep into cuck stuff, especially in right-wing internet circles. However I think the root cause is from unaddressed insecurity complexes, which present themselves as feeling unworthy of their desires and finding excuses including imagining superior competition in great detail.
flitter
11mo ago
Watching porn of oneself. Hm not sure how to categorize that. Perhaps metaphorically masturbatory? Because one is finding themselves hot? I dunno
flitter
11mo ago
Reading fiction is a metaphorical cuckholding when the reader is watching the characters experience the narrative and discovery that they themselves want to experience.
This is not a bad thing about fiction, and it is not-not a bad thing. I think there's an important pattern to be noticed around 'cucking' and how we experience desire. I don't want to be making the worst argument in the world by tying this pattern to the negative connotations of 'cucking'.
If you read Harry Potter and enjoy it, there may be many reasons why you enjoy it. Learning character archetypes, learning more about oneself through reading, trying to predict what happens next, etc. But if you told me that you expressly enjoyed reading Harry Potter because you would love to go on a wizarding adventure and therefore enjoyed reading about someone else who could... well. Especially if you told me you'd rather read Harry Potter than go on your own adventure somehow.
Harry Potter's adventures are more interesting than my adventures in the day, because they're more exciting and I don't have to do any work to make them happen.
flitter
11mo ago
The discussion of sexual behavior has generated some rich concepts to discuss how human desire works. Here I want to discuss three terms that have interesting meaning.
(1) virgin
A simple denotation: hasn't had sex. The connotations are varied, and change with context. It could mean:
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Something is pure and innocence, untouched by corruption (virgin landscape).
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The first time (the virgin voyage of a boat)
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Someone hasn't had a life-changing experience (skydiving virginity)
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That something is safe (virgin drinks without alcohol).
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Insulting someone unable to earn their desire (virgin vs chad)
(2) pornography
Pornography is famously difficult to define outside of "I know it when I see it". Coming from the greek pornographos (writing about prostitutes), it most commonly refers to sexual images and videos that stimulate erotic desire in the viewer.
When used as a metaphor, the scope of "porn" expands to something like the passive observation of the desired object without without the work to actually access it. To fully enjoy it, the viewer must suspend disbelief, and imagine they are a part of the porn in order to pretend the simulation satisfies one's desire for the real thing. However someone who has only viewed porn is often still considered a virgin (but not innocent!), because they haven't actually experienced the desire fulfilled yet.
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The SFW porn network (earthporn for nature, quoteporn for inspiro) is pornographic.
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Most of reddit has a pornographic nature to it. (eg: relationship drama)
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Streamers and podcasts are friendship porn.
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Cooking shows are food porn and online cooking videos are pornified
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Instragram is status porn (and sometimes regular porn).
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Sports competitions are both porn of the game being played, and porn of victory feelings.
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Careless blogposts can end up as insight porn consumed for pleasure.
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Cards-against-humanity game is transgressive joke porn
(3) cucked
A cuckooo bird will lay it's egg in the nest of another bird, tricking them into raising the cuckoo's hatching. This naturally evolves to refer to situations where a parent (usually the dad for obvious reasons) is raising kids he thinks are his, but are in fact from another man. Which then simplifies to the actual act of watching someone else have sex with someone you want. Nowadays known as a cuckhold fetish.
The concept of cucking has become so broad and complicated that a psychiatrist could write a whole book about it. A sample story might have a husband watching someone else fuck his wife. Which raises the question at the core of the cuck fetish: why doesn't she fuck the husband? A full understanding of cuckholding requires explaining all three motivations. The cuckhold is usually motivated by (suppressed?) feelings of insecurity. He his not capable or worthy of having sex with her. The bull is motivated by either lust or rubbing superiority of dominance hierarchy in the cuckolds face. The cuck-er similarly may be lustful, or could also be sadistically belittling the cuckold.
Racial dynamics add to this swirl. The common case is a white man watching a white woman fuck a black man (with a large penis). This fantasy props up so much there are entire porn sites based on this concept, and plenty of alt-right fanfiction about it. Racial insecurity. There's a secondary market for asian men watching an asian woman fuck a white man (with a large penis), which is related to WhiteMale-AsianFemale couples, and asian masculinity in general.
Some use of "cuck" in practice simply mean coward. Someone with "cucked beliefs". Or a cuck-servitave (cringe conservative). This dilutes the richer meaning of cuckholding. A more proper usage is the bike-cuck meme, in which a man copes with the loss of a bike by imagining someone else enjoys riding it more than him. Perhaps he'd like to watch too. An additional meme is the copypasta that raising a daughter is cucked because the dad is spending his time and effort helper her grow as a person for another man to enjoy. Which is an interesting broken perspective.
....
All porn is cuckhold porn. The object of desire (the sex) is happening on a screen and is inaccessible. The viewer must either accept the cuckholding, or delude themselves into thinking they are a playing a part. This process spirals into insecurity, first from feeling inferior to the object of desire, which leads to a cuckhold fetish to the porn itself, a feeling that one doesn't deserve to fuck reality and should be constrained to the porn. Giving up and accepting that fucking reality is too much wok.
Christ is a prophet in Islamic theology
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