guajalote
9d ago
The sketch was in reference to Bush, and what made the joke funny was the fact that everyone could tell Moore was not actually joking.
guajalote
9d ago
It's free speech even if he's not joking. The whole point of free speech is to protect reprehensible speech. Inoffensive speech needs no protections.
guajalote
11d ago
I would pick Fooled By Randomness over the Black Swan, but either way Taleb deserves a spot for sure.
guajalote
25d ago
We already have a system where people pay money to receive housing, it's called the housing market. The market will provide plenty of housing if it's simply allowed to do so. We need to get the bureaucratic middlemen out of the way, not incentivize them to get even more involved.
guajalote
1mo ago
Imagine we have as a defendant a man named Charles. He is charged with intentionally killing his wife. The prosecution offers expert witness testimony to the effect of "When men named Charles kill their spouse it tends to be intentionally, rather than accidentally or negligently." That testimony would be fine under this rule, right? The testimony isn't about this Charles who is accused of killing his wife, it's about the abstract category of men named Charles who kill their spouse! Totally different!
It would be fine under the rule, but not fine under Daubert more generally because nobody is a qualified expert in "what people named Charles are thinking." The expert's opinion still has to be backed up by experience, facts, or data and you can move to strike it if it's not.
guajalote
1mo ago
I'm not a criminal lawyer, but I suspect they had to put on the expert because they bore the burden of proof on intent. If they didn't present any evidence of intent, they would presumably lose the criminal equivalent of a post-trial JMOL motion based on lack of evidence.
guajalote
1mo ago
I said "no male friend or relative has ever told me (or acted like) they prefer dumb women," i.e. neither their stated nor revealed preferences seem to indicate an aversion to smart women. In my experience there's no trend of men seeking out dumber women.
what you're really dealing with are blowhards that are socialized around other blowhard men
I don't see what this has to do with intelligence. I know smart men who I'd call "blowhards" and I know dumb men who I'd call "blowhards." And I've never observed a trend of such men preferring dumber women.
I scored in the top fraction of 1% on the SATs, so I don't think I've ever met a woman who "scored a noticeable margin better" than me, but I have dated several women I consider my intellectual equals, and I am currently married to one of them (a successful lawyer who went to one of the best law schools in the US). I have broken up with women who I felt weren't able to keep up with me intellectually because I found them boring.
But you raise an interesting alternative hypothesis, which is that maybe women are the ones selecting "intellectually superior" men to date, and that's why they perceive all the men they date as "needing to feel intellectually superior," because they actually are.
"Men need to feel intellectually superior to women and I got sick of playing dumb a long time ago."
A bit off topic, but I've heard this sentiment from a number of women, yet I've never seen it in real life. I strongly prefer smart women, and no male friend or relative has ever told me (or acted like) they prefer dumb women. Where do women get this idea? It must be rooted in real experiences to some extent, but it's completely alien to me.
My candidate hypotheses:
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Most men like to discuss niche topics of particular interest to them, and women interpret this as a need to feel intellectually superior.
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Most men dislike argumentative or combative women, and such women interpret this as men disliking their intellect rather than their attitude.
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Most men would choose a hot, dumb woman over a smart, ugly woman, and women interpret this as men needing to feel intellectually superior.
I agree with you completely, and I take it a step further by not voting at all. Whatever marginal benefit my blank ballot would have on voter turnout statistics is negligible compared to the inconvenience of voting.
guajalote
1mo ago
Yeah, even if it were indisputably true that the US economy is in decline, it's declining from the highest heights in human history. Even if Gen Z ends up being a bit worse off than Millennials, they're still better off than the vast majority of people who have ever lived.
guajalote
1mo ago
Is this actually true, though? Millennials felt the same way 15 years ago, that's what all the Occupy and "I am the 99%" stuff was about. People understandably feel poor when they're starting their careers. They often have a bunch of debt and relatively little income. But that situation generally corrects itself over the course of a person's working life. Life is a struggle but this stuff is not insurmountable.
Things are, simply, not that bad in the US. Unemployment is close to the lowest it's ever been. Real (i.e. inflation adjusted) wages are close to the highest they've ever been. Cost disease has hit certain sectors like housing and healthcare, but there are still plenty of places where housing is affordable, and young people generally don't need a ton of healthcare. I'm not claiming everything is perfect or couldn't be improved, but I can't see how economic doomerism is warranted under the circumstances.
guajalote
1mo ago
My anecdotal experience as a trial attorney is that it's around 50/50 on average.
guajalote
1mo ago
I think you are incorrectly framing this as though the ability to make inconsistent arguments is a unique power held by prosecutors. Any party in any kind of litigation is always free to make inconsistent or alternative arguments. The catch is that typically the jury gets to hear about your inconsistencies, and can choose to hold this against your credibility if it wants to. I didn't read your links, but from your description of the case it sounds like the jury was told about the inconsistent arguments and ultimately still believed the defendant was guilty.
guajalote
1mo ago
Yes, freer movement of people and goods is highly correlated with greater economic prosperity. Probably the closest thing to an absolute "law of nature" in the field of economics.
guajalote
1mo ago
How is that a "legitimate security interest?" I understand "legitimate security interest" in the above post to mean something like "clear threat to the safety of Russia's citizens." I don't doubt that Russia would like to have a warm water port but I don't see how not having one poses a clear threat to Russia or its citizens.
guajalote
2mo ago
Healthier people tend to receive more medical care throughout their lives because they live into old age, when things start to slowly fail. Fat people, alcoholics, etc., tend to drop dead quickly and receive less medical care during their lifetimes.
guajalote
2mo ago
There is plenty of undeveloped land on the edges of SF and LA. Between SF and Petaluma, for example, there's a ton of empty land. But more importantly "open land" is not a prerequisite for building housing, since you can build vertically. SF would have way more housing if it wasn't preventing people from tearing down "historic laundromats." Housing is affordable even in the densest parts of downtown Houston where there is no "open land" to develop. Conversely, the area of rural Northern California where I grew up has tons of open land, yet housing costs are much higher per square foot than downtown Houston.
guajalote
2mo ago
Houston, TX is about 25% foreign born and has way cheaper housing than any major city in CA. There's plenty of space in CA to house everyone even if the population doubled or tripled. The problem is regulations that restrict supply.
guajalote
2mo ago
Robert Wright is not exactly in the ratsphere and isn't exactly "anti-Israel" per se, but he's the closest one that comes to mind.
guajalote
2mo ago
Lawyers are used in arbitration as well, and unlike a judge you have to pay the arbitrator. I'm not sure why you think that's a cheaper option that litigation.
Courts are mainly avenues of Justice. As in you want the person who screwed you over monetarily not just to pay you back but to suffer.
Where are you getting this idea? Usually courts are limited to awarding actual damages; punitive damages are the exception.
guajalote
2mo ago
In cases of money or social interaction its a bad idea to have courts involved.
How would you have contract disputes resolved? Inheritance disputes?
Liability also doesn't come into play until the suit is underway. It's trivially true that anyone can file suit for anything, but the plaintiff isn't going to recover any money unless they have evidence of causation and damages.
Also, my thought experiment notwithstanding, it's already totally possible to sue self-driving car manufacturers for causing accidents, yet these companies are not only in business but doing better than ever.
Personally I think fresh, high-quality raw fish always tastes better (and has better texture) than cooked fish. Why, in your opinion, would it have been better cooked?
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