jeroboam
15d ago
Iran doesn’t have the logistics to mobilize large groups of soldiers to the front or to arm, equip, or feed them. It’s a mythical man month problem. Mobilizing more soldiers would actually lead to worse outcomes.
jeroboam
16d ago
It was already known by people who closely follow modern war that Iran's missiles and drones have very limited ability to impact Israel's war-fighting capability. I'm not even that much of a war nerd, but I knew it. What happened today is not news in that sense.
Yes, I agree with most of this. Iran's actions demonstrate great military weakness and lack of desire to expand the conflict. But I'm not sure everyone knows this. I just responded to a comment that argued the opposite in fact. I'd argue the consensus is Iran is a true regional power.
Iran's missiles and drones do, however, have the power to close the Persian Gulf down for a long time if Iran wanted to.
Probably, but as this isn't 1990 it matters a lot less. They'll just be hurting themselves. The U.S. is the world's largest oil producer and there are large reserves in South America waiting to be developed. Oil trades at $85/barrel, down 60% from 2008 levels in inflation-adjusted terms. Lots of wiggle-room there.
These recent back-and-forth airstrikes are a side show anyway. The key thing for the Iranians is, or at least should be, to build a nuclear deterrent as soon as possible.
Yes. That's the meat. Will Israel attack Iran's nuclear capability? It will be good for the world if they do. Terrorists should not have nukes.
I agree that Iran intends this as a face saving measure and not as a real attack. But they fucked up... badly.
It appears that almost all of the attacks are being shot down and (it's early so grain of salt) Jordan and Saudi Arabia are even helping Israel shoot them down. This confirms that Iran is much weaker and more impotent than thought. They aren't actually capable of hurting Israel in a direct way.
So the question becomes what does Israel do now. Bill Ackman is tweeting a source called Israeli Radar which says :
"Senior source: Israeli response vs. Iran will be unprecedented; don't go to sleep tonight."
Well, we all know how reliable "senior sources" are so I wouldn't expect an Israeli attack. But I wouldn't rule it out either. Israel probably has 48-72 hours to attack Iran's nuclear program before their hall pass expires.
Edit: Looks like Biden is telling Israel they don't have a hall pass.
You can't just look at the marginal cost, you have to consider the fixed costs that go into making the first dose. Drug development has a lot of candidate drugs that don't pan out and so they need big hits to pay for failed drugs.
Yes. Bernie Sanders is quite dumb and honeymooned in the USSR. His understanding of economics is at the /r/antiwork tier.
For the past two years there have been and continue to be pretty severe GLP-1 supply shortages in the US,
Cool. Why don't they just cut off all supplies to Europe and sell exclusively to the US at 20x the price.
C: To a large extent, the 'system' is working. US citizens are getting earlier access to these drugs
Where can I sign up to wait in line 12 months like a German and get drugs for 95% off?
$12,000/year is immense. Americans are being uniquely screwed here.
Edit: Apologies for unnecessary antagonism. No hard feelings I really just want more posts on this frickin' forum already!
jeroboam
4mo ago
What makes you think Putin would accept a ceasefire proposal along the current line of control? All I have seen indicates to me that he is fully prepared to fight a years-long war of attrition until Ukraine runs out of either artillery shells or people, because he thinks at that point they will collapse like the Germans in 1918 and he can have the glorious march to Kiev he was denied at the start of the war
Isn't this just a general purpose argument for extending the war forever? Obviously the opponent would only compromise if he was weak. And if he's weak we can win!
Algorithm for perpetual war
-
Opponent is losing: Don't stop now, he's toast. March on to victory.
-
Opponent is winning: Don't negotiate from a state of weakness.
Honestly, I don't know. Maybe Putin wouldn't accept peace even at the current borders. Maybe he would. Maybe he'd give it all back in exchange for international recognition of Crimea. Why are we afraid to try offering an olive branch?
This kind of reminds me of those free range eggs where the chickens have a 2x2 patch of grass that they could theoretically use but almost exclusively don't.
It's a way for people to completely negate the moral worth of another person. Why didn't the Confederate soldiers desert? Why didn't the Nazi? If they didn't surrender, fuck it, they deserve to die. After all, 1% did the "right thing".
Notice, however, that this assumes there even is a "right thing". Had the Germans won, perhaps they'd be arguing the same from the opposite perspective.
Or perhaps in 50 years, any non-vegan will be similar perceived as a moral monster. After all, there are some people today who are vegans. I don't know. I just err on the side of not killing hundreds of thousands of humans unless there is a clear and obvious reason why it's necessary.
In any case, I think we're getting sidetracked. We should end this war for the sake of the Ukrainians even if Russian lives have zero value to you.
jeroboam
4mo ago
It’s likely cheaper for the west to fund Ukraine.
If we value the lives and prosperity of Ukraine (and Russia) at zero than perhaps this is true.
Every Russian leader for centuries has expanded Russian borders thru military conflict since the founding of Moscow.
This way of thinking is, in my mind, the "grand strategy" of which I am extremely skeptical. We should be on guard against simple narratives that paper over real life complexity. IMO, the actions of Catherine the Great have zero predictive value for what Russia will do today.
Just-so stories got us into Vietnam and Iraq. Let's not repeat the mistake against a nuclear power this time.
I'm not pro-Russia (who here is?) but yes Ukraine should seek peace and concede territory if necessary. I have little doubt that this would minimize human suffering.
The counterargument seems to be something along the lines of "We need teach Russia a lesson so they won't do it again. Remember Munich!"
Which is silly. Russia lacks the capacity to do it again.
I find the arguments of the warmongers very unconvincing. The use of the pejorative "pro-Russia" to describe those who would have peace feels like manufacturing consensus.
jeroboam
7mo ago
You are an outlier. Congrats!
The probability of an obese person attaining normal body weight is very small.
I do think there is model where anyone can go from obese to slim within an extreme amount of exercise. If you're training for long-distance ski races or endurance swimming, you will burn so many calories that no amount of eating can overpower it.
jeroboam
7mo ago
Funny enough, I stated earlier on this week's thread that I only participate in hyperstitious slur cascades once 90% of people have joined. (versus Scott's 70%).
I stand by that here, and believe that lurch is used negatively nearly 100% of the time. We'll have to agree to disagree.
jeroboam
8mo ago
This seems true. Because I didn't recognize the term, here's how GPT-4 defines public choice theory.
"Public choice theory studies how government decisions are made and how they can be influenced by individual or group self-interest. It applies economics to political science to analyze government efficiency and policy outcomes."
In the context of your comment, I think it means that government bureaucrats make decisions based on their own ideology and self-interest, not that of the populace. This seems self-evidently true to me.
The problem, of course, is that the people who are attracted to the bureaucracy tend to exhibit traits that make them far more liberal than the general population. In any large bureaucracy, the deep state would always exist. But rarely before (in the United States) has it been so ideologically divergent from the average person.
jeroboam
10mo ago
Here's a counterargument. China does despise white people, they are just better at hiding it due to East Asian cultural norms.
Meanwhile in the West, while its true that white males face serious dejure discrimination, we are still on the top of the social hierarchy in some ways. For example, white men have an easier time finding dates with women. This "revealed preference" of women shows their true beliefs. Even if they might claim to view all races equally, they prefer white men.
So I think you are overestimating hate for white men in the West and underestimating it in China.
I was riffing off the parent's comment that routine interactions were sandwiched between salutes to Mao. Also, this is small-question Sunday. Hard to figure out where it's allowed to be funny here (or attempt to be at least).
jeroboam
1yr ago
Dieting works in the short term. It almost never works in the long term. There are numerous studies which demonstrate this.
To steelman the status quo, there wasn't (until semaglutide) anything that reliably worked. Diet and exercise aren't bad things, and even short term weight loss might have positive benefits. Similarly it's very rare for alcoholics to quit over long periods of time. It doesn't mean that they shouldn't at least try.
jeroboam
1yr ago
Your comment makes it seem like you have an expectation that you ought to be able to put money in a bank account and thereby be able to exchange it for certain particular goods at particular rates at some future time that are similar to the rates when you put it in.
And that's just what I was able to do for much of the 20th century in the United States. Sometimes, I would even came out ahead.
I am confused by your objection. Perhaps you don't realize the role of the Federal Reserve in controlling interest rates. For example, in the Post-WWII period, the fed used Yield Curve Control to maintain low rates in the face of high inflation. This allowed the government to deflate the substantial debt it had accrued during the war. The patriots who bought war bonds lost out big time.
While the Fed is not explicitly using yield curve control now, the unprecedented government stimulus during Covid drove real interest rates to extremely low levels, reaching something like negative 8% at one point. Europe, of course, is much worse, and countries like Argentina, Venezuela, and Turkey have destroyed their currencies through political interference in central bank policy. That is starting to become a possibility in the United States as well with both Trump and several prominent Democrats calling on the Fed to lower interest rates to give a short-term boost to the economy at the expense of savers.
jeroboam
13d ago
If a plantation has 60% free workers and 40% slaves, that hardly excuses the plantation owner does it?
jeroboam
30d ago
I don't know. This decision seems badly out of touch. Elite values are not the values of the average voter.
And while I'm sure white Boomers will be kept onside by NBC news fact checks that say "actually, Biden didn't make Easter into Trans Awareness Day", this group of mainstream news watchers is increasingly irrelevant.
Republicans can and should plaster this everywhere. How will this play in the black community? How will this play in the Hispanic community? This badly hurts the Democratic Party coalition and speeds along the party realignment.
Democrats might never win the Hispanic vote in a Presidential election again.
jeroboam
1mo ago
here are emerging small / micro PE firms that will blow you out of the water because they don't need to finance the way a solo-preneur does.
Color me skeptical. While PE is rolling up certain kinds of businesses, they are not buying landscaping and tire repair shops at the $1 million level. They aren't going to buy anything that depends on the sweat equity of the owner.
Financing as a solo-preneur is not prohibitive. There are SBA loans. There is seller financing. You can do it for 10-20% down, maybe less.
it's EZ to buy a business" nonsense.
It's not "EZ" nor did I claim it was. That's why people don't do it. Most people would rather earn W2 income where someone else has all the responsibility and they just show up and drone.
jeroboam
1mo ago
Of course, see above. The difference is you actually have to take some risk and responsibility and not just collect a check.
jeroboam
3mo ago
Somewhat related, but recently one poll showed Trump with a yuuuge lead (20%!) among voters under 35. The poll is such a outlier that I would take it with a grain of salt, but it certainly updates me in the direction of young people actually preferring Trump to Biden.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-poll-joe-biden-washington-post-1829608
jeroboam
4mo ago
A... pink slate?
Lol. My bad.
To the extent your argument works for progressive antiracism being fake, it seems that it would do likewise for religions - but then that fakeness is surely moot, since smart people have lived, killed and died for it in droves.
Great analogy. Wokism is similar to a religion in many ways. The beliefs of wokists are fake. Similarly, the religious disputes between Protestants and especially Catholics during the Wars of Religion was fake as well. Do you think the average person cared about doctrinal disputes? Of course not. They might have pretended to care. But not enough to actually learn enough about religion to adequately explain the differences. These were, after all, mostly illiterate people.
So why were they fighting? Tribalism.
jeroboam
4mo ago
Hey I'm getting a taste of what it's like to be a liberal on this forum! Lot's of pushback and it's getting tiring. But I'll soldier on.
But that land first needs to be returned to Ukraine, and then we can go on.
It's just so far out of the realm of possibility that Ukraine captures Crimea, let alone the other lands that were taken. It would cause hundreds of thousands of military deaths on both sides. And hundreds of billions of dollars. Minimum.
What theory are you even referring to?
The theory that if we don't stop Putin here he'll take over Poland, then the Baltics, then the world! It's Hitler at Munich all over again unless we DO SOMETHING!
It may take years, but I do think that Russia can be defeated. At horrendous cost, yes, but the tree of liberty requires the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Yes, if we spend a couple trillion dollars and send in troops we can push Russia back to the 1991 borders. Maybe there won't even be a nuclear exchange. How much of the cost are you personally willing to bear? Would you spend $10k of your own money, $100k, volunteer in Ukraine, fight in Ukraine?
jeroboam
5mo ago
It does seem like the root issue is not a business failing, but the feeling of inadequacy. A person with a strong frame doesn't update his own self worth downward for something so minor as a business failing.
That said, does "lefty therapy" ever fix these issues?
Maybe they get half way there. A therapist might help a person to realize that it is his own feelings of unworthiness, not a business failing, which is the true source of his suffering.
But then a modal therapist would seem to encourage this same patient to wallow in that sense of unworthiness every week, rather than take the steps to overcome it and, therefore, no longer have need of therapy.
Yeah, it's weird. To me there doesn't seem to be that much difference between Ukraine and Russia. They're both poor, corrupt, Slavic-speaking countries that share a lot of culture. Sure, a European-leaning Ukraine is probably better than a Russia-leaning one, but it's not a huge difference.
But nationalism fucks with people's brains. No one wants to be ruled by a foreign race, even if that foreign race is only superficially different.
I'm reminded of how Bosnians, Serbians, and Croats all speak the exact same language but insist that they speak different languages. I've heard of courtroom trials where the defendant insists on getting a translator because, as a Bosnian, he can't understand Serbian. And then the translator just recites the exact same sentence back.
The differences between Ukraine and Russia are much smaller than the differences between Ukraine and Germany. And that's perhaps why nubile Ukrainian women vastly prefer to stay in Germany.
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