iprayiam3
7d ago
Actually, no I know what my father did in the 90s and how much he made. He was working at IBM through a period of massive layoffs. But again. All these comments quibbling the complaint are just making my point and the point of the folks responding to the responses.
Yes, you can't be wrong, regardless of what people reply it just proves that you're more right. Disagreeing with you is pointless, only productive conversation can be had if we first agree with your premise.
What is your point? You speculated that perhaps my father was making a lot of money as software engineering was in high demand, and I responded by giving a little more detail to explain no that's not the difference. yes it is possible that based on what I first said my father was actually relatively higher earner than me, and you speculated such. I explained that unfortunately no. This isn't about "i can't be wrong". I actually do know more about my own life than you, and didn't cite every possible hypothetical explainer for the sake of brevity and anonymity.
What are you trying to say?
iprayiam3
7d ago
Your kids are 4 to a bedroom, but you admit that is because you are simply prioritizing your spending differently.
Where did I admit that?
You are objectively choosing to spend money to get more and better stuff in other areas of your life for yourself and your children, and in exchange you are settling for slightly worse housing.
No this isn't what is happening. I can compare exactly my father's new constuction price to his income in the early 90s and the price of a house of similar sqft today in the same zipcode against my income and the ratios are very different.
Again. telling people that there aren't actually affordability issues because you know better than them about how they're just wasteful with money is a braindead strategy, but sure keep trying to make it.
iprayiam3
7d ago
Yes, I did a poor job framing. My frame was intended to be - 'no need to debate whether burritos are actually $20.' There are real domestic policy grievances, and for example, I can look at an objective disparity in housing affordability in my own life, which is a particularly important issue for me personally. My personal anecdote was as I said, 'my burrito'. yeah yeah yeah, statistics away the actual cost of burritos. Nobody can statistics away my ability to compare housing affordability with my father's who makes an especially good control of the change and how it affects me personall.
Everyone can point to specific issues that their feel are not being addressed by the current domestic policy, and dismissing them as fake or not important is bad coalition building.
iprayiam3
7d ago
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My life is great. I suffer affordability gap between being able to achieve certain goals, which I benchmark as attainable in the previous generation. My father's life is a good personal benchmark of change because I live a very similar one.
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This isn't a factually disputable point. What's disputable is how much it generalizes to the American population. The messaging strategy bit is a reconizable pattern of dismissiveness from within a single party coalition to it's base.
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#3 is just you pretending not to understand basical political parties and acting confused. The point is not about 'entitlement'. It's about people voting for things they want. There is a current debate within the republican party about whether we've lost focus on key domestic issues, especially in reference to the war in Iran. That's the frame for this entire burrito conversation.
"It's amazing how much leftist neocon discourse is just them pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible."
iprayiam3
7d ago
It is exactly the same position biden was in 4 years ago. I remember multiple debates here with an 'inflation isn't real' stan, who just trolled cherry picked statistics to explain why everyone was wrong. Then Trump won the popular vote. Now the right is stepping on the same pitchfork, and the DSA is winning.
iprayiam3
7d ago
I'd prefer people engage with facts rather than demanding their anger and resentment be given a populist head-pat.
If you're paying attention to the twitter kerfuffle, this isn't an ask for a populist head pat. There are specific asks.
Stop it with Iran. Deport more people. Stop it with H1Bs. Stop having high level official GOP politicians make sneaky amnesty pitches. Pass the save act.
You can disagree with whether those solutions will actually help. But it's being evaded by the um, ackshully burritos are only 14.59 in my area, and how dare you poors eat them anyway. IRAN CAN'T HAVE NUKES!
The burrito debate is also the propositional nation debate is also the Iran debate is also whether MAGA is America First or controlled opposition + foreign adventures.
no see my addendum post. my point is the messaging strategy, not the object debate.
Saying "I want the same life my father had".... Well, too bad? The world is different.
This is not a good party line to justify a shifted focus from domestic policy to Iran. sorry. that's my point.
"too bad" is a retarded way to talk to your base.
If a party rose up and promised to put boomers in the golag and give their houses to families raising children, and I voted for them, and you ask me why, the answer is, when I told you I couldnt afford a house to fit my family on a director level salary, you told me 'too bad'.
iprayiam3
7d ago
Addendum. The point I wanted to make with my post was in my final few paragraphs, which were specifically about the conversation happening at 2 levels. 1. empirical, and lifestyle morality rebuttals; and 2. the political messaging that has shamelessly about-faced, and is using 1 to avoid accountability on policy conversations.
I included my 'natural experiment' anecdote, clearly distractingly, to simply stake out that, I personally care about affordability and policy goals that preserve and improve it. I had hoped to start a level 3 conversation about level 2.
But basically all the responses here have been addressing the same conversational talking points at level 1. Again my thesis is:
Burritos aren't actually that unaffordable, the rate of increase in unaffordability has come down, also you can make them at home for cheaper, also you aren't entitled to eating out.
This is all arguably true. But yet, is a losing message. Especially when your side won on addressing the real and percieved reasons we can't get affordable burritos, and super especially when the other side's solution is 'free burritos for our friends, mass immigration for our enemies'
I'm not arguing against the italicized as false, so insisting it's actually true isn't really a response to my post.
I'll recenter my point with this tweet and subtweet:
Dan Crenshaw:
Just hearing about this dumb $20 burrito debate so just thought I’d make the losers on social media angry before going to bed.
Stop whining, get a job, eat Ramen like the rest of us did in college, on a budget with 4 roommates.
The market doesn’t care what you think something “should” cost. Only communists care (they set prices remember? Then everyone starves, remember?) Are you a communist? Or are you an American adult male capable of handling his own shit?
To which a rando responds, " this you?" and quotetweets an older Dan Crenshaw post:
America: our foodprices are too high what are you doing about inflation?
Biden admin: just be vegan and stop complaining you bunch of rubes.
This is gold. I would like to discuss this as the neocon messaging strategy. Not whether any burritos actually cost $20 or reminders that home cooking exist.
iprayiam3
7d ago
my kids go to the same Catholic school I went to
This, specifically, is much more expensive because bishops in the US have generally embarked on a policy of reducing subsidies towards catholic schools and have entirely failed to realize that this means dramatic price rises and fewer people going to them. Catholic school in the eighties often charged only a nominal tuition to tithing parishioners because the diocese ate most of the bill.
Almost everything in the chaos in institutional Catholicism is due to that single policy trend.
Certainly so. But this is a good example of the broken discourse. That is a real response to the problem of Catholic schooling. "but think about how many more computers your unaffordable Catholic School has!" or "just homeschool your kids" are not. Extend this analogy to political solutions to the broader affordability converstaion.
holy shit. my post was about how it's not about the burrito, and the complete obtuseness of the responses that focus on it, and all i get is obtuse responses that focus on it.
EDIT: Matt Walsh, making the same point:
I've seen a lot of incredibly stupid straw men on this site over the years, but neocons actually pretending that the whole affordability conversation is literally just about burritos is maybe the stupidest one of all time
iprayiam3
7d ago
No, I'm not. I know the numbers, Im just not going to write an autobiography here. Again, I am very close to a natural experiment. I know what cost what then and now. No I'm not going to deanonymize myself to show my reciepts.
As for burritos, a steak burrito in Midtown Manhattan is $13.50. Not $20.
Holy fuck. way to just do the meme.
'Tsk.Tsk. Afforability is fine.' - is going to bring us DSA rule, and fuck it, we deserve it because of this shit.
iprayiam3
7d ago
In the 90s software dev was probably a more rarefied and in-demand skillset than in 2026 where we pump out over 100,000 CS degrees a year.
Actually, no I know what my father did in the 90s and how much he made. He was working at IBM through a period of massive layoffs. But again. All these comments quibbling the complaint are just making my point and the point of the folks responding to the responses.
Every response that tries to justify the current state as not real, is avoiding the actual discussion of political policy goals or visions of the good. Kamala LOST in part because 'inflation isn't real ackshully' was a losing message.
There is a populist movement that wants specific political goals, and one party is saying "yes! socialism", and the other is saying "no you suck! you're not allowed to have that. You can have high gas prices instead."
iprayiam3
7d ago
I am sure someone could sit down and make the math math. I am sure Caleb Hammer could compare the monthly finances and find things to yell at me about.
...
I don't disagree with any of the above points, or probably other reasonable ones, but they all miss the point: I want to live the life I grew up in, I am willing to work hard for it, I held up my part of the implied social contract, I think that the failure of the implied social contract is a BAD thing, something to be seen as regrettable, and I want my politicians to focus on fixing it.
Again this kind of commentary is missing the point.
But moreover, no. "You're just eating out the otherwise advantage you would have over your father" is trivially not true. That's why I brought up my life as natural experience. I live basically the same life that was grown up in. It shouldn't need fine tuning to be able squeeze into. Especially when I am so much further in my career.
My father was a mid level engineer in the 90s, even by generous standards, I make twice what he was making in inflation adjusted dollars. My house and family are half the size.
iprayiam3
7d ago
So first of all... yes.
Second, this goes to the point about missing the point of the meta commentary. "Ackshully, you are doing great!" and "Ackshully, you got this other thing instead", and "Asckhully, you just aren't working hard enough" aren't acceptable answers to people asking for political focus on addressing specific things.
Burrito availability isn't fungable with housing affordability. My kids are 4 in a single bedroom, but we have more expensive burritos per square mile than when I was a kid isn't a useful point.
These are all fine empirical discussions to have in the abstract. They aren't a response to a class of people who are explaining that their political party isn't focused on the right things.
The point is that "the burrito" test is intentionally obtuse.
There is a class of voters saying, "address affordability", and the response is, "no, you're good."
The online discourse, I've been watching this week is the $20 Burrito. As a super TLDR; this is an intra-right argument that got started by one conservative saying young conservatives are upset about food affordability, and gave an offhand example about '$20 burritos'. The response was a combination of:
Burritos aren't actually that unaffordable, the rate of increase in unaffordability has come down, also you can make them at home for cheaper, also you aren't entitled to eating out.
The response to the response is that this is a losing message to one's own side, avoids accountability for losing focus on why 2024 went Trump, and suspiciously aligned to Iran war support.
Before I address that specifically, a little about my personal burrito.
I am as close to a controlled middleclass experiment as possible.
I live in the same zipcode I grew up in; my kids go to the same Catholic school I went to. I work in the same industry as my father. I aspire to give my family the same life I grew up with. I can't live the life my parents lived.
In the 90s my parents moved us into a new construction. Today, I live in smaller a house, on a smaller lot built in the mid-70s. In realtive terms, I live in a house that is not only smaller, but nearly 50 years older than the one my father did.
My parents had >8 kids. I have 5.
Here's the kicker: My father was an individual contributor, software developer. I am a Director-level at a mid-market software company; This isn't title inflation, I manage an org of about 25, including multiple layers of leadership.
While being considerably more successful than my father in my career, I financially struggle to same life he lived.
- I am sure someone could sit down and make the math math. I am sure Caleb Hammer could compare the monthly finances and find things to yell at me about.
- I am sure you can make arguments about why this city is more expensive, and how I could make out better if I moved. But I didn't ask for that. I don't reap the benefits of my home becoming less affordable.
- Arguments about lifestyle creep fall deaf when food, housing, and healthcare the big 3 cost considerably more. OK my TV is bigger. I have a phone. fuck that.
- Finally we can make the argument that I don't have any fundamental 'right' to that life, and this is where the burrito debate comes in.
I don't disagree with any of the above points, or probably other reasonable ones, but they all miss the point: I want to live the life I grew up in, I am willing to work hard for it, I held up my part of the implied social contract, I think that the failure of the implied social contract is a BAD thing, something to be seen as regrettable, and I want my politicians to focus on fixing it.
Burritos aren't actually that unaffordable, the rate of increase in unaffordability has come down, also you can make them at home for cheaper, also you aren't entitled to eating out.
This is all arguably true. But yet, is a losing message. Especially when your side won on addressing the real and percieved reasons we can't get affordable burritos, and super especially when the other side's solution is 'free burritos for our friends, mass immigration for our enemies'
The US middle class opportunity has changed in negatives ways for reasons that don't benefit me, and I didn't ask for, and instead of my political side agreeing to help address these issues, they are telling me to support a foreign war
iprayiam3
9d ago
With three hangry kids running around it changes things.
I wouldn't know. I have 5 kids running around.
iprayiam3
9d ago
Ultimately cooking is, most days for most people, not motivating.
This is so foreign to me. I love to cook, if I’m busy and stressed cooking is a nice relaxer
iprayiam3
28d ago
For proficient AI users, the outcome of both ideologies is surprisingly similar: in times where AI saves little time, it's a wash, and in times where AI saves a lot of time, both types of people will use it. And proficient users will be able to produce output that is comparable or even better in quality than they would have been able to before the signularity. There is a potential intangible benefit to the manual approach though: doing trivial tasks by hand will let you see a little bit of the innards with your own lying eyes directly, giving a slim though present chance of spotting misalignment.
This isn't the only intangible benefit - there's also the iterative benefit of practice, and personal improvement, which has downstream effects on which bucket future tasks fall into.
Math is a good analog. As you outsource basic math, your ability to do mental math degrades, and the cost/benefit snowballs in a bad direction
iprayiam3
1mo ago
I agree it’s a bad post for the reason you think it’s a bad post, but it’s not a gish gallop. Beyond that, even though the Gish Gallop proper is pointing at a real bad argument tactic , I hate it for the reasons demonstrated here. Incorrect accusations of Gish gallops are too common, and becomes its own bad argument itself.
Anyway, the problem with the bad post is that it is, as you point out a long post with multiple topics but no thesis or theme. Personally, post length is much less interesting as a heuristic of quality than having a strong thesis with some supporting material.
A pithy post with a strong thesis delivered in a few sentences or less is much better than some of the meandering mess of stream of consciousness. Unfortunately too many folks fancy themselves lil’ Scott Alexanders (who himself, while a great writer is overly long to his own detriment).
So you get people (1-2 who really over do it) writing cute little anecdotes and tedious stories with many words and little point beyond a vibe, and that’s treated wrongly as the gold standard.
iprayiam3
1mo ago
I mean that’s a triviality compared to the Starks ruling Winterfell unbroken for 8,000 years!!
Timescales don’t make any sense in Westeros. The only helpful explanation is that the multiyear winter cycles basically frustrate change momentum and society is stuck in a particular local minimum of social technology it can’t escape. Basically can’t risk major upheavals without risking the entire continent plunging into famine on a hair trigger. Armies become thus much less willing to mobilize, lords don’t go along with destabilizing plots etc.
In this scenario, aegons Conquest, the Dance, Robert’s rebellion, and the Wo5K are extreme aberrations against otherwise bias toward extremely careful stability
Unfortunately, this isn’t actually played out at all in the books or shows, and the actual limitations of preparing for and surviving long winters is just ignored. Winter doesn’t even seem to exist on House of the Dragon.
iprayiam3
2mo ago
I’m not saying that I have faith in the government here, but it is shocking that anyone might find “self regulating” private SF company of weird tech elitists to be a superior path.
I recall once Rush on a monologue saying that global warming can’t possibly be real the way the left says because if it was true, it would require government intervention in a way that undermined capitalism and he couldn’t accept that.
I remember being just shocked at the backwards reasoning. Obviously there’s a true point about backwards incentives reducing trust in the claim. But Rush himself was just openly engaging in the reverse mindset.
Here we have the same people saying that this threat exists also not wanting to have to overturn their grip on power over it.
iprayiam3
2mo ago
I can’t say it means anything or not, but I can tell you many companies I sell to have already burned through all their AI budget for the year.
iprayiam3
2mo ago
My point had nothing to do with whether the election was actually stolen. I was responding to the claim that democracy can’t work if the losing side doesn’t accept the legitimacy.
Many didn’t in 2020, yet hour democracy continues.
What do I think? I think gwern is looking for a payday.
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