fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
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User ID: 3415
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
3hr ago
Saying "evidence" and then linking the New York Post is maybe not the most credible way of doing that.
That article did link to better articles, although both of them didn't link or substantiate their underlying data
In a year or two we'll know who's telling the truth on this
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
4hr ago
Main query: Are the blackbagging tactics of ICE a necessary evil, a dangerous overstep, or some nuanced in-between?
It's stupid theatrics. A lazy google shows they've deported approx. 200,000 people in six months, at approx. $17,000ish a pop.
If we assume 12 million illegal immigrants (range I saw was 11-13), that's a cool 30 years at the current rate with a cost of $200.6 billion (not including 30 years of inflation). You could obviously hire more people to speed it up, and maybe that would result in the same (or lower) per deportation cost from economies of scale, etc. Although as you picked the low hanging fruit immigrants, the remaining ones would probably get savvier so unlikely but whatever.
Instead, you could crack down massively on American business owners who I'd like to remind the crowd, GIVE THE IMMIGRANTS MONEY EVERY WEEK IN EXCHANGE FOR LABOR, ALLOWING THEM TO STAY IN YOUR COUNTRY. I truly don't understand how everyone hates immigrants and not also the traitorous Americans who enable them??
Just implement e-verify, it's that easy. Crack down HARD on a few businesses who you catch skirting this (you can even do it in California to whip up the base) and the illegal immigrants will deport themselves once they run out of money and can't get a new job. You could even set up free busses back to Mexico or something.
Once you show businesses you're not fucking around they'll wise up quick. Or even better, their debt and equity financiers will do it for you. Every bank credit risk department is going to start looking really closely at your hiring practices if you want a loan for your farm, because they don't want to risk you going bankrupt when Uncle Sam eviscerates your business for hiring illegal immigrants. There's also way less businesses than illegals, and they're all registered with multiple government bodies, so this is less legwork too.
The fact they're cracking down on a relative handful of illegal immigrants instead of the much higher leverage option of the people who give them money should tell you what the priorities are here. Illegal immigrants are responding to their incentives, which are "come to America, get a job, make way more than you did at home". So take away the job...
If they were serious about this, they'd make everyone use the solution they already invented, e-verify.
I'm not saying you don't need ICE, there will be people who won't leave. But if you don't fix the system of incentives that makes them come here you're not actually serious.
See also, Trump literally said they weren't going to enforce it for farm and hotel labour. "We're super serious about illegal immigration guys but shucks the hotel lobbyists made some great points..." Farms at least feed people, but hotels? Lmao, they're just not serious people.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
5hr ago
And if you do immigration policy based on what aesthetically looks good to right-wing voters, you get ICE!
Spending maximum money for minimum results, but the clips on TV go hard
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
9hr ago
Yeah Isreal is doing an amazing job shitting all over their military and nuclear programs.
It's just very unlikely to cause a regime change or cause Iran significant long term harm. They'll be neutered for the next few years for sure though.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
10hr ago
Thanks for sending me your thoughts!
I have no doubt we could raise a kid here, for a bit. It would be a huge pain, but you are right it's likely the timing would work alright between career progression and the space needs of the family. I mentioned this before, but there is something shitty about having to "downgrade" versus your childhood. Scary thought if there's some job losses and we get stuck here, the den doesn't even have a door.
Honestly, the timing thing you mentioned is a compelling point. I think that's been percolating in my head for a while, and one of the reasons I latched onto this topic. The narrative of "we can't do it yet" is starting to have some cracks in the foundation (is this what brain development feels like?).
This is kind of in the weeds, but the existence of tents in Toronto parks doesn't mean all of Toronto is worse off. The city is bigger and more full of interesting places all over. It just sucks not having a backyard, OR living in a fancier neighborhood. I have never seen tents in Ramsden park (in Forest Hill) for example, but downtown residents don't lean on their city councilors very much (or have the wealth/clout to make their lives suck).
To be honest I find the existence of Burlington and Oakville both mildly offensive to my sense of what makes for a good city (terrible for the environment, unsustainable financially, and deeply opposed to anything changing ever). I don't want my kid to be shackled to me until they're 16, and despite being an avid cyclist in Toronto, I would be very uncomfortable with my kid biking around the streets of Oakville with their friends (not because of crime/stranger danger, because of oblivious drivers and a complete lack of bike infrastructure or respect for cyclists). And they can't walk anywhere because everything is at car distance.
My friends and I were taking the streetcar to and from school in packs at age 11/12, it was great. We could bike (or walk) to each other's houses without riding on or near mega-roads with average speeds north of 60km/h.
Also living in Hamilton means I can at least live and work in downtown Hamilton and have a quick commute. In Oakville or Burlington I'm either taking the GO train into Toronto (awful, especially now that electrification got fucked) or I am driving to some random business park in perpetually worsening YoY traffic (proven to be shitty to your life satisfaction).
This has turned into a shameless downtown elitist rant. Thank you for your perspective. I think you are right, I have not been considering the play you get with timing in the first few year's of your child's life. They don't get born with a need for a full on room to themselves, that takes time.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
12hr ago
Agree with everything you've said.
I'm slightly more optimistic on the USA. China might be as well drilled, which negates this, but the USA is so dialled. Their institutional culture in the military works damn well. It's full of infinite flaws I'm sure you can name, but they make everything they do look so easy, and then you see any other nation on earth (Israeli airforce is the rare exception) struggle to do what the US does on a regular Tuesday.
You are right though, even that is showing signs of rot.
Total war is "a factory fight" and I think it's going more that way thanks to the increasing sophistication of drones/missiles/interceptors. Also scary when we think about who has the most and the best factories. Yikes!
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
13hr ago
Are we now entering a new stage of warfare where soldiers are barely even involved, and we just shoot missiles at each others population centers, trying to decapitate the enemy leadership?
No, strategic bombing has a mediocre track record and in most of those cases it was accompanied by full scale land invasions. Strategic bombing alone just makes the bombee really really mad at you. Israel is knocking the Iranians a few years back along the nuclear "tech tree". Regime change is a stupid goal if that's their goal, but who knows (they'd need a strong rebel group to arm at the very least).
Much better than the horrid conditions of trench warfare during the World Wars
I actually wonder if I'd rather be in a WW1 trench or Ukranian one. It's insane it's even a question. I think you have to pick Ukranian ultimately because of the advances in medical technology. But the technology isn't worth shit if you get droned while evac-ing, which is all too common...
Fiber optic FPVs have high quality and don't have LOS signal issues which means skilled operators can fly them into buildings and around inside them. This means they can even navigate them around say, the tarp you hung up on the front of the dugout, which used to do a pretty good job of stopping FPVs.
Getting hunted by robots is a nightmare, and they're only getting better and more capable.
What are your best predictions for how future warfare will develop?
Each war is different. USA v China would be all air and sea assets. We will probably see almost no footage aside from explosions in or around cities very occasionally.
Iran/Israel can't invade each other so all they can do is lob things back and forth. Note that Israel has a ton of air assets all over Iran though, it's not just missile bases firing at each other. USA/China also cant invade each other, so it would be a similar situation of plinking at each other. Although unlike Iran/Israel, there is actually ownership of Pacific islands (incl but not limited to Taiwan) who would change ownership depending on outcome.
Ukraine/Russia is what not winning the air looks like for sure. Although caveat that with the fact they're post-soviet armies with absolutely awful generals (and politicians making bad military choices) at the strategic levels so this was is significantly more sloppy and gruesome than if France and Germany suddenly decided to run it back for old times' sake.
Land: Defence is so strong right now with drone-spam. The effectiveness/cost of Class 1/2 drones vs their countermeasures is really hard to predict (lasers, AI targeting, cost of everything, reusable interceptors) and shapes land battles heavily so hard to say.
Right now class 1 and 2 drones are cheaper to make than to stop, so defence is really strong at the moment. The longer your attack takes and the further into my lines you get, the more drones I can vector onto your attacking troops. And it's hard to suppress my drones (unless you have air superiority).
Sea: I assume drone boats are the future. Carriers always/forever useful, but their fragility depends on the missile vs countermeasure balance, which we can't predict.
I think the meta stays the same, survivability onion doesn't change. Find the enemy and blow them up from far away.
AI allows you to spread out more and extend the reach of your eyes and weapons. So more smaller drone ships. Stealth and Zumwalt shaped, maybe semi submersible. Don't know enough about submarines but presumably similar.
Air: similar to sea. 6th gen fighters are shaping up to be bigger, for longer range and bigger/more ordinance. Also bigger engine = more electricity = more compute, if your 6th gen isn't also a drone C&C it's already obsolete. It'll be handfuls of 6th gen fighters commanding swarms of class 2 and 3 drones (which in turn, may deploy class 1 drones? Yikes). They'll have radar, missiles so the 6th gen doesn't need to give itself away doing these things.
Closing thoughts on USA vs China: it's the USA's game to lose. They're still ahead but the trend lines SUCK, and nothing about the current state of US governance indicates that's going to change dramatically. They shouldn't bail on the first island chain yet, but as someone who enjoys Pax Americana, I'm not feeling optimistic for my team's odds in 10 years. China can project force in its backyard even if it's never the #1 big dog.
It's so much worse than that.
I was just reading an interview with a Ukrainian medic and they air drop anti-personnel mines with drones. Not only do you need to watch the sky, you need to watch your step because there might be a butterfly mine there today that wasn't there yesterday.
It goes on and on
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
15hr ago
Yeah I guess my thinking was if below average men in the looks/earnings/status department can get laid regularly, anyone can
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
15hr ago
That's a fair point
I guess my thinking was if they can do it, anyone can. But thinking about it more today, one dude is extremely forward and the other is nominally shy/introverted but he does play the numbers game.
I guess for the "shy" one, I'm still suprised he pulls as much as he does (given internet discourse) as he uses tinder, etc and isn't that hot. So the narrative "tinder only works for the hottest men" falls apart a bit.
Also both of them are more than happy to date women that aren't perfect (one literally dated a stripper). So they're also realistic about standards.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
16hr ago
No offense taken! I post here because I find the people (generally) smart and insightful. Exposing my ideas/thoughts/beliefs to the gang means I get challenged, and I learn something about their beliefs, or mine. It would be silly to expose them to public scrutiny and then get mad!
I do feel slightly misunderstood, although maybe I instead misunderstand you.
I am not putting off having kids because I love slamming craft beers with the boys. I am putting off having kids because housing is expensive (and other reasons, elaborated earlier).
You're right, capital cities are expensive. It honestly feels kind of like a lose/lose trap. If I live and work in the periphery, I risk not earning enough money to escape renting, especially with the rate of growth of housing costs (I have 0 faith this issue will be satisfactorily resolved in my lifetime, the political situation around it is too broken).
If I live in the city, I make more, but everything is more expensive. If I live in the periphery and work in the city, I can have cheaper CoL with higher salary, but an absurd amount of my waking hours are now spent driving or on a train.
I also do have a preference (hah) for growing up in the city. I really liked being raised in Toronto. I would love to give this experience to my kid. Maybe this is an unreasonable or unrealistic want.
Thankfully, I'm also getting far enough in my career that I could sometime in the nearish future make a lateral move to a smaller city and be some flavor of finance manager and make "can afford a house" money. But for entry level jobs, you're looking at a ~20k haircut on your starting salary if you're not in the big city.
Grinding finance in Toronto has always felt like the best option in a sea of shitty options. Plus from a personal level I derive a lot of enjoyment from living here (not just the craft beers, but also the vast majority of the people I know and love live here).
Tbh, I'd say that you're stuck in a local maximum that is pleasant and fun right now but will lead to you being dissatisfied in the long-term, and you even recognise that fact
This is very true
but you don't leave bc you aren't willing to suffer a little in the valley on the way towards a better maximum.
This I'm less convinced by, most alternatives right now don't feel like there's a better maximum at the end of them. Although I'm obviously not omnipotent.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
21hr ago
But what I'm saying is that my friends really aren't too 5% Giga-chads and those last two example friends are extremely not that.
So if I know lots of non-alphas who are fucking, what's up?
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
He absolutely could. They could also just actually make people use e-verify, which already works and exists
I don't like POSIWID but in this case... They could solve it and they don't, it's because they don't want to
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
I’ve never seen an “average” man have issues with dating
This has always been amusing to me. Online discourse is profoundly rife with "alpha fux, beta bucks" and "no man can get dates finder is a hellhole" but all my male friends seem to have as much sex and dates as they want.
Admittedly, my social sphere leans towards white collar yuppies downtown, so there's lots of fish and no one is answering "flip burgers" to the "what do you do" question.
But even my childhood friends, who are not yuppies, still pull?
One guy works like 2 days a week (smokes weed the other 5) and lives in a shitty apartment but always has a new girl, and they're bartenders/bottle girls/etc (one time a stripper lmao) so they're attractive, if messy.
Another is decidedly not conventionally attractive, works a non status job, and churns first dates enough he had to stop posting Instagram stories of sunsets because he was getting worried someone would notice (it's his first date move).
Im not sure how to reconcile these two realities.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
I do actually hope to double my salary in the next ~5 years. I'm currently in PE-adjacent consulting and plan to move into actual PE once I get bored where I am.
Even without a doubling, I'm pretty confident we'll be able to buy in Toronto in the next 5-8 years, I mean hell, prices are so good right now we've been debating going all-in and being house-poor. It seems quite miserable though, I have worked extremely hard to not be paycheck to paycheck, so going back to that level of penny-pinching... Ugh
You make a fair point, I'm sure the O&G gang need people to do modelling, etc. I was interviewing at a mining company way back when and they were just so boring and dry. Maybe O&G attracts more charismatic people.
I know I know, Toronto governance is absurdly bad. I think what differentiates it is that Toronto is run poorly because no one does anything, Danielle Smith and her merry gang seem to be actively trying to break everything. Which feels worse I guess?
It's not so much "city fun kid boring", I fucking loved growing up in Toronto. I want my kid to experience that. And Toronto is so much better now than when I was a kid.
The Toronto escape plan is probably Hamilton, which I actually think is super under-rated. Although with Metrolinx shitting the bed on electrification that plan just got less attractive.
Sorry I was being snarky, I actually quite like what you wrote and I agree with it.
I just keep seeing the same "democracy doesn't work because voters are dumb and unbridled capitalism has hollowed out the country. Therefore we need a strong and decisive government to use industrial policy to bring the heavy industry back!" train of thought and it's pretty adjacent to many of the thoughts you expressed there
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
I viscerally hate "/s" but it does lead to these situations
That's a great question, I kind of assumed "no" but truthfully, I've never asked.
I'm sure it has been studied already, but there is an interesting young adult arrested development phenomenon going on for white collar yuppies. We're all pushing 30, but our lifestyles would be 100% recognizable to our 24 year old (or functionally, our 20 year old) selves.
I've even been hanging out with a social group in their early 30s through sports, and aside from slightly higher rates of marriage and condo ownership, basically everyone does the "white collar job, black out fri/sat, Pilates and brunch on Sunday".
So it doesn't feel like anyone would want a kid near them, but I can't say I've ever asked.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
very easy to do if you've conquered them and can walk right up
Taking a stroll on the moon is quite easy, if you've successfully travelled there by rocket. You just skipped the hard part.
Successfully invading Iran would be an insane clusterfuck, and would be the biggest Chinese strategic victory this side of the 1940s (followed shortly by a bigger one, conquering Taiwan).
I actually would have said it would be impossible to invade Iran period a week ago. but they've folded so hard I'll downgrade to "unbelievably expensive and profoundly wasteful".
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
I'm not a fan of rent control, and I fully understand and agree how shitty of a policy it is.
I vote for the most economically literate politicians in every election (which is about as effective as spoiling my ballot, which I have also done). So I've done my part.
However, the clusterfuck that is housing policy carries on with or without me, so you fucking bet I am going to work what I can to my advantage.
Also, I find anti-rent control people (read: the entirety of /r/neoliberal) somewhat obnoxious in their "just get rid of rent control bro it's that easy it'll fix the market" prescription. They are right, in a vacuum. However, when NIMBYs get to block everything forever for any reason, getting rid of rent control is marginal at best.
4plex houses are being denied in Toronto neighborhoods because they "change neighborhood character" despite them being literally the most gentle form of density possible. They're also legal "as of right" but it turns out that was a total bait and switch because other zoning laws prevent them despite being "as right". Less than 400 4plex homes have been approved in 2 years, so it's safe to say this was an absolute fucking scam of a policy "win".
If any politician ran on a platform of "I'll get rid of rent control, making zoning identical to Japan, and cut development charges dramatically" I'd be out there knocking on doors for them every day, and I'd probably suck their dick too.
Unfortunately, the median voter is fucking retarded and this is an "instant lose" platform. So I'll keep abusing rent control until a better option presents itself.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
The problem is that this would actually fix the problem, which no one in power actually wants to do
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Democracy simply does not work.
Rightward leaning folks essentially re-inventing the Chinese government is potentially one of my favorite things about the mid 2020s.
I just listened to an interview with Oren Cass and you change about 10 words and this dude would have made Daddy Xi proud.
Can't wait for "the shining city on the hill with Chinese characteristics"
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
So far we've been beating CoL inflation, so the trend lines look good (even modelling the inevitable slowdown in wage growth with age). It just takes time, which biology doesn't seem to have gotten the memo about.
I haven't done the math, but I also wonder how well this actually plays on net. The best and highest paying jobs are in Toronto. If I move to Calgary and my wages and CoL both decrease (or stagnate), am I ahead? Especially because I can always sell a Toronto home and move to Calgary later, but the reverse doesn't work (assuming Toronto house price growth continues to outpace Calgary).
Also, thanks to my parents I am an east-coast latte-sipping downtown elitist lib-pilled yuppie (see my flair). So moving to Calgary (and Alberta generally, although I liked Austin so if Calgary was cool I'd deal with the awful governance) is not a very appealing option. Soy-jacking aside, I love the vibe of big cities, and the absurd fun and convenience they provide.
Finally, all my friends and family are in Southern Ontario. Most of my friends live a 15 minute walk/5 minute bike from my apartment. If we moved 3000km to have a kid, we'd be completely isolated from everyone we know (which isn't a permanent issue, as you make new friends, but damn...).
snip snap snip snap
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