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1mo ago
The reason we end up tolerating the youtuber's behavior in the Lego situation, is he TARGETED IT towards an arguably deserving party. Rather than create a generalized nuisance, he became a nuisance to someone who was already inflicting pain on others. Rewarding THAT behavior is generally, on net, pro-social.
Team America philosophy of life lives on:
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1mo ago
I started from 0, and no matter how many kids I have, they definitely won't have to start from 0. But yeah, lots of massive assumptions about how my progeny spend their inheritance.
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1mo ago
Yeap, pretty much, I was thinking about this recently and at my current rate of accumulation and throwing money into the stock market, assuming things about passive investing holds true AND my child and grandchild also accumulates the same way I do then maybe my great grandchild will be a billionaire (plus and minus a generation). We would all have gotten our wealth ethically, though I suppose because the immoral capitalist ways of seeking profit (whatever they maybe) has been laundered through broad passive investment in the market. Oh right, that would be a billion not counting inflation so the value is totally different.
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1mo ago
Don't get me wrong, I think there is definitely an electoral impact when members of Congress make a point of being highly present in their district - like how AOC hosts a local town hall every single month without fail since her election. I just really don't think enough people are keeping constant track of the weekend returns of their Congressperson, nor do I think it matters enough overall to make or break a political career without other factors at play.
The voters that are likely to keep track are exactly the kind of plugged in electorate that shows up for primaries or become volunteers or donate more, etc. It might not be decisive, but it's an effective line of attack that all members of congress has to defend against.
As for the comparison to France, well, it is derogatory isn't it (looks like the US term is carpetbagger)? From what I understand, usually there is a residency requirement for the various political offices in the US, which goes to show how important it is to the local/state residents that they enshrined it into law.
Also, France is smaller than Texas, distance from Paris to the South of France (Google Gemini: "The furthest continental (mainland European) political district from Paris is the commune of Lamanère in the Pyrénées-Orientales department. Located in the Occitanie region along the Spanish border, it sits 721 kilometers (448 miles) south of Paris") is shorter than a flight from DC to Tennessee. We don't compare French politics to Singapore politics for the same reason.
I do agree that the increased nationalization and polarization of politics means residency in your own district doesn't matter as much, but I wouldn't count it out to particular races or elections, even things "on the margin" can be the thing that push it over the line for some.
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1mo ago
As an aside, I do appreciate that you bring a different viewpoint into TheMotte. Anyway, this slush fund is corruption, just because the other side does it doesn't mean it's ok that your side does it too. I do recognize that for a lot of people here it's a feeling of "look what you made me do" or "you made me do this", or maybe a bit of accelerationist, who knows, but the whole point is the ability to curb the extremes and either appeal or force each other to be better without violence and resentment. Anyway, I still feel the slush fund is small, I am more outraged about all the stock trading Trump does.
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1mo ago
sounds to me like we need different states to experiment with different term durations. Federal politics would change significantly if house terms are 3 years, senate 9 years, and president 6 years.
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1mo ago
A 1.6% difference is minuscule and essentially a rounding error.
I read up on the paper a bit and the authors did anticipate this argument . They wrote that they found the average rate of seeking re-election is 89.8%, so I suppose we can think retirement as 10% chance. A 1.6% increase in retirement rate can be thought of as a 16% increase from baseline. In contrast, having a scandal for example is a 12.66% increase in retirement rate (a 126.6% increase from baseline). (apologies to scientists if I am not using the correct words to describe statistical significance). I didn't do my due diligence regarding math and P-values but it looks to be very small as I skim it (p < 0.001).
Do you think AOC or Ilhan Omar would loose their seats if it came out that the spent every other weekend in DC instead of always returning to NYC or Minnesota? I doubt anyone cares.
Uhhhh, well, as other posters have pointed out, it really does help in a primary. I would like to quote this exhibit on the primary race where AOC had an upset against Democratic mainstay and longstanding leader Joe Crowley:
To that end, Ocasio-Cortez has levied a steady attack against Crowley, pointing out that he lives in a house just outside of Washington D.C. where he’s been raising his family and kids for the last several years.
Crowley did not directly answer a question about why his family does not live in the district, but said his presence in Queens remains a constant — a point the Ocasio-Cortez campaign disputes.
“If a person loves their community they would choose to raise their family here, they would choose to send their kids to our schools, they would chose to drink our water and breathe our air,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I think that it takes away a fundamental interest and understanding of our communities when we raise our families somewhere else.”
Anyway, back to your other point.
They have EVERY incentive to bitch and whine about their job and portray themselves as more martyred by it than they actually are.
Point taken, and I agree, yet we are having a pretty dysfunctional congress, so I would like to not dismiss these points out of hand.
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1mo ago
I think the essence of this is a collective action problem, as hinted about in reason 3 and as pointed out by @MaiqTheTrue and @hydroacetylene, and in my view also a feedback loop problem based on how elections work. Let's assume a person as you said who is a member of congress who don't want to do too much traveling, who doesn't want to spend money on advertising, and want to focus their time and resources on lawmaking. Well, they are surrounded by people who are focused on getting re-elected (the stage), not on good lawmaking (the workplace). Their primary opponents are going to hammer them. The party won't put as much resources into them or just kinda ignore them (how many Rand Paul or Bernie Sanders can a political party really accommodate?). The opposing party can attack them on "being out of touch with the people in the district", "a dinosaur who dines on the public dime".
As @Shakes point out though, the incentives are still there for people to run for Congress. But my question after watching Fong's video would be: Are the crop of people currently running for Congress the kind we want to attract and retain in Congress?
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1mo ago
I don't think turnover is a problem unless it reaches extremely dysfunctional levels (too much or too little).
I do understand that for almost all jobs and careers and positions, non-regrettable attrition is a thing. But as pointed out in the background context of the video, the point is that for Fong: he believes the loss of Sam Graves and Gary Peters is regrettable attrition. I suppose the bigger underlying questions are:
- How can we attract the kinds of people who would be statesmen and leaders of men, who would reach across partisan differences to find common ground, strike deals and agreements and achieve lawmaking that has broad appeal and long term thinking, and couched in American constitutional values?
- How can we keep the people there to continue to do a good job? (I count getting voted out as non-regrettable attrition).
Anyway, I do completely with what you say about how being a member of congress is definitely a huge step up in status.
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1mo ago
I sort of wonder if this was a simple case of pure cynicism or an inability to picture the long-term adverse consequences of this decision, which should not characterize a self-proclaimed conservative. Chesterton's fence and all that.
As @Thoroughlygruntled already pointed out, there is an ideological belief that drives these decisions. In a sense, it is good that elected officials are more connected to their constituents instead of being charmed or adapted into the elites. But yes lots are lost too. I can't help but be reminded of this question on /r/AskHistorians about "I'm a Victorian-era housewife whose husband is, say, a doctor. What's my usual day like?" and here is an answer, bolded mine:
After lunch, it was time for "morning calls", by or to friends for pleasure and acquaintances for courtesy, after having dined at their house or something like that. While taking calls, a woman was not supposed to be really engaged in reading, drawing, or playing music, but she could quietly continue doing some embroidery. Morning calls would go on until dinner, and evening calls could take place afterward (although Mrs Beeton also recommends evenings at home, spent with needlework, chess/backgammon, or reading aloud). It's difficult to classify calls as leisure or work - they were a necessary part of cultivating and maintaining acquaintances. Being a moral example to the servants and children was also seen as a kind of constant occupation, and is one of the societal pressures you'd face.
It hasn't been mentioned elsewhere but I'm sure the loss of this parallel network of spouses and acquaintances also reduces the random chances of lawmakers becoming acquainted and find common grounds in which they can then trade favors or collaborate on.
Before continuing with my reply, I would like to apologize for not responding earlier. I thought this comment deserved a reply in which I sat down and devote my concentration towards it.
First, thank you for this, I know it's expected of Mottizens but it's always a treat to see someone go into depth and articulate their viewpoint, no matter the topic. I can see that you have strong positions regarding civil liberties and how they should be enforced in the US, and your concerns about government and police overreach is something we have in common as it is legitimate and well thought out. We can probably have an even longer conversation to hash out more details and nuances to your view as I certainly have questions about certain aspects of your beliefs ("how to determine what is a non-commercial byte transmission?" or "if videos and photographs don't constitute speech, and therefore shouldn't be protected as a freedom, how come this wasn't brought up by other scholars or legal minds of the last 200 years? Howabout no-text-political-cartoons?" etc.), but I respect that you have a principled position and don't want to get too deep into it at the moment.
Second, I would like to remind both of us of how far we've come in this conversation. We started off with apparently a J6er being framed with child porn material planted, and now we are worried about cases where there are no Romeo-Juliet laws (thanks Transformers for this knowledge). Though your underlying legalistic concerns (government overreach) are the same, and I agree they are legitimate, I do not think the two cases are remotely the same where in one (Tocci) we are worried about government agents engaging in conspiracy, framing the innocent, for political revenge vs (19-year-old with his girlfriend's nude) bad lawmaking, prosecutorial zealousness, etc.
Third, I would really appreciate you giving sources and citations for what you claim. Because though I am worried about government overreach, I am also worried about actually understanding the truth of circumstances to judge for myself. Your narrative of "19 year old in federal prison for 15 years because his girlfriend sent him a nude photo on Snapchat" is so perfectly tailored for your argument, it caught me by surprise because I thought it did happen and well you would have certainly proved your point. So I had to dig up for myself:
Snapchat conducts essentially governmental surveillance which is illegal currently in Europe and automatically detects the nude, sent privately between two people, and immediately sends the evidence to the federal government.
Though it is true that Snapchat complies with reporting of"child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA)" to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children NMEC in that they would report "apparent violations" as required by federal law "18 U.S. Code § 2258A - Reporting requirements of providers", I have found nothing that Snapchat would automatically scan private chat information between users of its platform unless it's reported to them. As Snapchat writes: "We do not monitor or use any private content or communications you send to your friends to personalize your experience, make recommendations, or show you ads, and will only review them in the limited circumstance that it's flagged for violating our Community Guidelines, or if you otherwise ask us to.".
Now both you and I don't know whether Snapchat scans private chat, they might, they might not, they might let others do it, but at the very least, I don't think that Snapchat "automatically detects the nudes on private chat and sends evidence directly to the federal government" is an open and shut conclusion we can get to. Anyway, there is such scant information here, it's important that I went looking for what you're referring to.
a 19 year old in federal prison for 15 years because his girlfriend sent him a nude photo on Snapchat
Well, google search serves me well I think because I found "Greene County man faces charges after allegedly receiving explicit images from a minor over Snapchat. Investigators said 19-year-old Braeden Turner received those images from a minor back in October. He is now charged with sexual exploitation of a minor.". Details are bare, another article says: "According to Greene County District Court records, 18-year-old Braeden Michael Turner was arrested on March 26 after an arrest warrant was issued when a report was filed that Turner allegedly received pictures of the minor female without clothes between Oct. 8 and Oct. 9, 2025 over Snapchat. Turner posted bond and has been released from custody with a preliminary hearing scheduled for April 1 at the Greene County Courthouse. Turner is facing six charges of sexual exploitation of a minor- cause to engage in act, all class B felonies, and possession of a depiction of minor in sex act, first offense, a class D felony. Across all charges, a maximum sentence of 160 years in prison and $10,245 in fines may be imposed.".
But wait, what is this "Greene County District Court"? this doesn't scream federal to me, because.....it isn't, it's a state court, specifically of Iowa 2nd Judicial District, which as you pointed out "states can and should constitutionally regulate the non-commercial transmission of CSAM".
But anyway, your concerns about prosecution zealousness and coercion stands. Maybe Braeden Turner was coerced into a plea deal so he won't have to do the maximum 160 years in prison (much higher than your 15 years). But wait, no, he only recently pleaded not guilty: "Persons pleaded not guilty to charges as follows: Tanya Marie Helmrichs, 46, of Guthrie Center, burglary- third degree, attempted burglary- third degree, theft- second degree (two counts), and criminal mischief- second degree (two counts); and Braeden Michael Turner, 18, of Jefferson, sexual exploitation of minor- cause to engage in act- six counts, and purchase/possess depiction of minor in sex act. Trial dates were set for June 16 in both cases.". So not only is Braeden Turner case not even pronounced yet, he pleaded non-guilty, the way a person who believes they are in the right and have justice on their side would plea! Which if I can remind everyone that the person with 100k CSAM material pleaded guilty.
While the case I described will breed controversy when it happens, a lot of people will say he deserves the wood chipper or something like it, because 17 and 19 is a disgusting age gap.
In most European countries, this type of privacy invasion is illegal.
as Americans cheer on because of safety
Justice will be served, United States style.
All this anger, about how Americans are so puritans compared to Europeans. Hello? Americans didn't make "Romeo and Juliet" laws or something? Americans realize there are nuances to human relationships and different parts of the countries have different reactions and encoded their values into laws differently.
Europeans might not allow corporate privacy invasion, but they sure as hell let their governments get away with it:
- "Europe’s top court rules UK mass surveillance regime violated human rights"
- "France: New surveillance law a major blow to human rights"
- Pegasus spyware used by various different European governments to spy on their own people like Hungary, Spain, Poland
So let me sum up what I have so far:
- I don't see Snapchat doing what you claim they are doing, or at the very least Snapchat has to be lying about what it's doing.
- I couldn't find a case like you refer to
- Of the case that seems to be what you refer to, (a) it's not federal but state, (b) it's not done and ruled guilty yet, (c) the defendant pleaded non-guilty
- People all over are hypocritical about their values whether they're American and European
Look, I completely agree with you that if Americans don't live up to their ideals then they will be like the regimes they profess to fight against (Russia, China, Iran, etc.). But this is no where or even close to what's happening. So please don't go all outraged on something that is not true and not actually happening. I can understand your deep distrust, but then it's just as bad to then veer so far into non-truths as well.
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1mo ago
Power Politics has a video on that too: "Should Congress Have Term Limits? The Case of Ted Kennedy" where he presents both sides of the issue (because Ted Kennedy is apparently a great example of both against-term-limits and for-term-limits) and kinda left the question open to the viewer. I will just pick a choice quote on the against-term-limits arguments (bolded mine):
Every single bill that I told you about, and every single bill that has scrolled through the screen while I was talking, was passed after Kennedy had already served 20 years in the Senate. If we had term limits, none of these things would have happened.
The major bills that Ted Kennedy helped passed that Fong refers to are:
- Ryan White CARE Act: Wikipedia says "By one estimate, the Ryan White CARE Act saved the lives of 57,000 people through 2018. The cost of each avoided HIV/AIDS death was $334,000".
- ADA of 1990.
- CHIP: reduced children health insurance for eligible families, which "covered 7.7 million children during federal fiscal year 2010".
Fong also went more into depth about why Ted Kennedy was a great legislator and it kinda boils down to building connections and knowledge over a long time.
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1mo ago
it's a good point, the average age of members of congress also went up so the change in life expectancy won't totally explain the rise in retirements but it's a good point. I would have preferred Fong cites some kind of study that has more controls. but anyway, AI did point out 2 more possible explanations that Fong didn't mention:
- Post-congress life has changed: There is a more livable congressional pension since the 80s and the rise of post-congress lobbying/university/board seats/think tanks/etc. positions
- Better polling: Members of congress who don't poll well would now retire rather than fight it out.
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1mo ago
Where's point #3?
Ooops, bad late night formatting. Fixed
Re point #1, what does all this campaign spending even do? I thought the US was full of safe constituencies.
Aside from the other points people made, it is definitely still politics. Nancy Pelosi got to call the shots, I'm sure, is anchored by how she's one of the Democrat's rockstar fundraiser.
And re point #2, why do congressmen still commute every weekend? The witch is dead The newt has been out of the House for 27 years, why should anyone follow his rules? Why should Democrats follow his rules at all?
Because it's a really effective argument: "[incumbent] is an out of touch elite, last time he had a town hall was 6 months ago". It probably lands even better on Democrats because it's already primed that Dems are "coastal elites". It's pretty hard for normal people to gauge the effectiveness of their own legislator. The public is already under the impression that congress doesn't do anything already so any push to "making things easier for members of congress" will get used by the other side as "they're just cashing in instead of helping you".
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1mo ago
Is this cycle a matter of fact/reality/unavoidable fate (AI tells me it's from an Ancient Greek named Polybius)? There has been moments before in American history where some would think the US is on the path of becoming a monarchy (I'm assuming FDR got a lot of this criticism).
So YouTube recommended me this video "Why You Don't Want to Be in Congress" by Power Politics which I thought actually opened my mind a little about congress and the people elected to it. That's why I decided to re-state the arguments here to see what Mottizens think about it.
Background
I briefly searched up Power Politics, looks like it's a newish channel by Christian Fong, currently a professor at University of Michigan, and his bio states the usual litany of bachelors and PhDs from prestigious institutions, of note is that he did serve as an advisor to Mike Lee, Senator of Utah for a while. He also works with the Center for Effective Lawmaking which he draws many of his stats from. In other videos, he states that he wants to provide a non-partisan view into congress and how it works.
Intro
Fong first points out that the most effective legislators currently: Sam Graves (R-House) and Gary Peters (D-Senate) are both quitting. This is striking because 1) they have powerful positions which is supposed to incentivize their continual stay, 2) they're not that old relatively (62 and 67 respectively), and 3) they are likely to be re-elected. It's concerning to Fong because they are not the only ones quitting, and he's concerned the people who leaves are exactly the kind of legislators you would want to stay (experienced, connected, in their prime).
So what's going on? Fong's thesis: "Being a member of congress is not good of a job as most people think and certainly not as good as it was 60 years ago." Stats-wise, Fong points out that back between 1954 and 1964, for every 3 congressmen who retires, 1 dies. Now it's 21 retires before 1 dies. Members of congress used to want to stay in congress for as long as they could, so something must have changed.
Here are the 4 changes proposed by Fong:
1. Congressional elections are more expensive and contributions does not scale
Between 1952 and 2024, congressional spending on elections increased 41300% ($23M in 1952 vs $9.5B in 2024). Now, because of campaigning financing laws which cap individual contributions to $7000 per cycle, members of congress has to essentially have a second job being a telemarketer at night to go beg for money from rich people (cause how many people would donate $7000 to political campaigns?). Time spent on the phone is time not doing policy making, time not negotiating or making connections with fellow lawmakers, time not spent with family and friends to recharge, time not spent connecting with voters, etc.
Now I don't think this is accounted for inflation, and I do think the numbers are not direct comparisons from a quick glance (reported vs total). But, I do think this is a fair point. Much has been said about Singapore's model for high paying public officials. And though badly argued, but this is essentially the same point Mike Johnson makes when he defends members of congress trading stocks. There is also something to be said where we want people we elect to make laws to, well, focus on law-making and all the things that makes law-making easier and more successful.
On the other hand, congress can solve this. Just as much as congress kept complaining about "call time", seems to me like they stopped doing anything about campaign finance reform since 2002.
2. Congress travel requirements are grueling
It used to be that members of congress lived in Washington full time, now they are expected to fly home every weekend. But not all members of congress live in cities like NYC or LA with their multiple airports.
So if you're Sam Graves, you've got to fly three hours from DC to Kansas City. And then drive an hour and a half from Kansas City to your house in Tarkio, Missouri. And it's not like your constituents live in your backyard. So if he wants to do a town hall in Kirksville, the second largest city in his district, he's got to drive 3 hours from Tarkio.
Fong cited this paper which "find that gaining an airport that provides a round-trip direct flight to Washington, DC, is associated with an approximately 1.6 percentage point increase in the probability that a member runs for reelection." Or in other words if you need to have a layover, you'll less likely to run for re-election. Travel for work sucks in general, and Fong also re-emphasize how this is likely to have a negative effect on family, spouses and children.
My thoughts about this is that it sucks, and I'm not sure how to solve this. Are members of congress from rural areas are just going to have the bad luck of having a higher chance of being burnt out? Can the relationship between the public and their representatives be changed so that a better balance can be found? I'm not sure.
3. Congress increasingly becomes more of a stage than a workplace
It used to be that campaigning and governing were two different seasons in a year, and governing was the longer season, now, it is a permanent campaign. Fong has a separate video about "A Congress of Kardashians", and how the system incentivizes disruptive behaviors that is annoying and completely unconducive to law-making. And well, it's encouraged by leadership of both parties. Just as leftists abhor the shenanigans of Majorie Taylor Greene, rightists decry the outbursts of Jasmine Crockett, but guess what, that's what goes viral, and that's what gets funding.
I don't have much thoughts about this at the moment
4. Members of congress are increasingly not making an impact to worth the sacrifices
Fong argues that the parliamentary processes are controlled so hard by party leaders that members of congress can't even get an amendment in. And if they're just there to put a thumbs up and thumbs down on bills agreed to be put to the floor by leadership, it's just not worth it to slog through point 1, 2, and 3.
My Conclusion
In some ways, I find renewed appreciation of US members of congress. It's certainly true that a great number of them are pretty dumb by my count. But quite possibly that for all of them there is a kernel of trying to do public good, or just pure narcissism, or pure naivety, or the promise of insider trading, to make life of a member of congress worth it. But then again, right now, narcissism, or pure naivety, or the promise of insider trading and the public good are not mutually exclusive. The question is still: what can be done about these pathologies of the job of a member of congress so that we get better lawmakers and better lawmaking?
PS: this ranking is pretty good: https://thelawmakers.org/find-representatives
Edit1: Mis-numbered the changes, added slight edit to sentence in intro explaining why Fong wants legislators like Sam Graves and Gary Peters to seek re-election
Edit2: emphasized and bolded Fong's thesis
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1mo ago
I believe in evolution and genetics. Human populations evolved in certain environments and selected for population groups best fitted to their environment. This even occurs over small time frames. There are literally American genes now. https://x.com/levelsio/status/2058242736436781113?s=46 DRD7-4R gene “wanderlust gene” is higher in Americans than their source populations. Overall genetics control for a lot of IQ, Athletic, and personality traits.
I currently have not yet made up my mind with regards to HDB. I am still open to listening to various sides about this. Just seems to me like there are plenty of other more complex variables that lead to different outcomes than just genetics.
It probably would be fair to say modern immigrants to America have higher “wanderlust gene” too though immigration is easier today. But overall there are genetic profiles that better fit with American culture. We should only bring these people in.
Uhhhhhhh, easier? maybe less racists (looking at the Chinese Exclusion Act) but I think most would say the immigration process has gotten more complex and difficult and regulated over time. Mamdani came over to the US pretty early, looks like 1998 when he was seven, when would be the cutoff for you?
So are genetics just a way for you to filter for the values/creeds that you think is "American"? Like a hard filter unlike the citizenship test?
But overall even if people are a genetic fit they also need to want to culturally assimilate with the American culture. For this I would criticize Vivek because he still doesn’t get American culture. Though he does seem to try so I probably wouldn’t exclude him from emigrate but I don’t like him as a politician.
Sounds good, seems like the citizen test needs an update. Don't worry, every test will be gamed to hell and back and for sure the ones who pass would give the correct answer. Also this is starting to sound like a violation of the first amendment ("If you don't like hotdogs you are not an American").
I wouldn’t be opposed to Indian immigration but we have probably done too many too fast and allowed ethnic enclaves and favoritism to develop and need to pause it for a while. Italians definitely took a long time to assimilate. And thus we paused Italian immigration for decades.
Sure, nationality can be a proxy for "genetics" which can be a proxy to "culture".
South Africans like Musks are probably very high quality immigrants. Genetically very similar which would include a similar selection effect for the wanderlusts gene.
In the translation hobby group, it is an accepted theory that translators translate only the good stuff and the bad stuff don't get translated. To me, seems like all the smart and brilliant people already left early (Musk, Sacks) and it's not like there was a backlog of brilliant South Africans awaiting immigration before.
This isn’t just a race thing. Orthodox Jews fit with America in a lot of ways, but some of them do build enclaves and use a lot of government services which is bad. There are a few examples where they take over entire towns, have low median income (use welfare), but also have good things like non-existent social disorder/crime. Like an urban version of Amish. So wanting to be one culture I think is very important in immigrant groups.
I believe Indians also have low social disorder/crime and they don't use a lot of government services, they do do enclaves though, where are they ranked compared to Orthodox Jews for you? And briefly searched it up but seems like most Orthodox Jews are at least 3rd generation.
Many would fine these to be repugnant conclusions but it does seem like genetics have a huge effect on a countries gdp and culture. You can’t just be a creedal nation. The people in a country matter a lot.
Like I said before, seems like genetics is your chosen proxy for the creeds and values you like.
And we should probably favor immigrants that benefit the native population. Citadel head of hft is a Chinese math Olympiad guy who’s very smart. But that’s a zero sum game and doesn’t have spillover effects for the rest of the economy. He really just took a seat that would have went to another American but his algorithms are slightly faster but creates no real excess value. I’d favor visas for people that do things that expand real economic output. I’d still let him in but would only approve visas for like doing battery tech research at Tesla.
There are plenty of arguments on how HFT is not a zero-sum game and does provide economic benefit to America. At the very least, one can argue that the gigantic profit these HFT firms have in other countries inject lots of liquidity into American financial markets, which proxies for liquid into the "real economic output" making parts of the economy.
And also, does that mean "economically beneficial" also affect the original standard of "genetics and cultural assimilation"? Maybe not at the same level but it's certainly a condition.
Anyway, I'm still not quite sure what is your "desired state" vs "minimally acceptable".
For the "desired" state, are you expecting that:
- all aspiring citizens to submit their DNA for analysis
- an even stricter and more complex civics test
- that somehow would dictate/solve for what it means to be "an American"
- and a trusted authority to handle both of the above
What about the "minimally accepted"? what is the next small step in our reality that you would like to happen?
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1mo ago
No because he's in prison and was not allowed a fair trial.
As I mentioned, I don't believe you've proven that it was an unfair trial.
It's also illegal to publicize the evidence of the case, which I think is a property unique to obscene photographs cases. Doesn't that violate public trial provision of the US constitution? How can a trial be public if it is illegal to display the evidence in public or to even view the evidence in private?
There are plenty of other non-child-pornography examples where evidence is only described and not shown: espionage, trade secrets, etc. The right to a public trial has been broadly interpreted to mean the proceedings are available to the public. Journalists and the public certainly can go and attend the court hearings. I'm sure if we want to dig enough there is plenty of public information you can get about the trial. As for child pornography in particular, you might disagree with this but it's considered that continued existence of such materials constitutes ongoing harm (New York v Ferber and Osborne v Ohio are the relevant cases and you will probably be interested in the dissent of Osborne). And again, there is no need for public access of evidence as the prosecution, the judge, the jury, and the defense would have had plenty of time and opportunity to assess and review the evidence that would be brought prior to trial proceeding.
While it would look more like framing if there were less images, it's still possible if someone who had access to his stuff for a couple of hours did it.
That I am totally in agreement with you, wouldn't take more than 15 minutes with a competent computer person. The interesting question for me has always been why would those guys not cry foul and say they were framed.
But why do you trust your government so much?
Just because I have to fight my company to get a better wage does not mean that I don't trust in my company's processes. Just because I think the processes are dumb and wasteful does not mean they don't produce correct and beneficial results for the greater whole. I trust and am cautious of the same individuals all the time, why can't I do the same thing with the government? At worse, thankfully, they can just be voted out.
Isn't it weird that they call themselves Justice, extremely narcissistic to do
Just because it's narcissistic doesn't mean that they are wrong. Also this case never got to the supreme court.
while slandering this man and violating almost his entire bill of rights?
As I mention, I am not convinced of any arguments for slander or that Daniel Tocci's constitutional rights were violated. Just like the sexual abuse victims around the world, it would require Tocci to have great courage to make public the abuse and levy those charges in court of law, but it can happen, and it must start from that.
They violated his right to privacy by searching him
I'm sure they got a warrant, unless you're against that in general (are you?).
the violated his freedom of assembly by searching him as a result of going to a political rally
There is a sizable portion of this country that consider the "political rally" an "insurrection".
they violated his 8th amendment rights by demanding 70 months in lockup for having disgusting photographs
6 years for the participation in an illegal industry, the 6 years presumably was given by the book in that there was a minimum and maximum sentence for what he plead guilty for. "having disgusting photographs" is a reductive description of what actually happened. I have photos the disgusting litter box my cats make after they eat food their stomachs don't like, there aren't any laws about that I can assure you.
they violated his right to public trial through the nature of the law they prosecute him on and by intimidating him into pleading guilty
I've discussed the part about public trial above so I won't address it here. As for the "intimidation", so far you have not provided any evidence of intimidation.
and they violated his 10th amendment right by prosecuting him for something that is unrelated to interstate commerce.
Can you confidently say that all of the CSAM in Daniel Tocci's possession is Massachusetts-homegrown? I'm going to bet he didn't produce them himself and guess that Tocci got them over the internet.
Then they call themselves Justice? Yes, I don't trust those people, I don't care how nasty some of the people they lock up are, two wrongs does not make a right and there is something rotten going on there.
At this point I'm not sure who you're outraged at. You're outraged at the judicial system? You're outraged at the Supreme Court Justices specifically? You're outraged at case details that you haven't provided evidence for (planting evidence, framing charges, intimidation)? You certainly can believe whatever you want to believe, and I came in to this discussion hoping to know or learn something I didn't know before but I am coming out of it finding your claims unexamined and unconvincing.
lollol
2mo ago
Let me give an example of what I mean. Let's assume a version of a liberal/leftist with terms of "world where people don't go hungry", where their "true desire" is probably some form of "utopian communism" but they recognize the reality for what it is (that not all men are angel/that we don't have a post-scarcity world/etc.), and they settle. They don't settle all to the same position, but most settle with at least some form of what can be called "progressive tax system".
That's what I want to know about your stance. Your stance is "cultural and genetical assimilation as barrier to American-hood". I would like to know what is your "true desire", the one you wish the world would be to fully satiate your stance. But because of hard/impossible to solve constraints, you have to settle, and I want to know what is the least/minimal would you settle for.
lollol
2mo ago
Ooops, sorry, I was in a rush. I read the whole thread again and looks like I misunderstood your position. I think we have the same initial position that there has been a correction from the exuberance and so the vibes are bad even though stats wise it's not worse than average, and in fact underemployment is actually better than average for new grads in CS. The slight difference in between us is that I do believe there is a kind of protracted downturn (3+ years) in total CS employment count that has not been fully attributed yet AND that this slow erosion of total CS jobs also mean lowered wages, which changes the calculus of CS jobs attractiveness.
lollol
2mo ago
So what would you agree to in terms of being an American? I really would like to know your true desire vs the minimal you would accept.
lollol
2mo ago
I still believe it has not been proven that he wasn't framed, and therefore he isn't guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Just as you think "it has not been proven that he wasn't framed", you also haven't provided evidence strongly against "it has not been proven that he was framed". And I do think Daniel Tocci has a lot of avenues to pursue justice if he so desires. At the very least, he probably can get someone whom he trusts to lay out the evidence that he was framed.
My priors on him already possessing it are low because I'm skeptical anybody actually enjoys obscene photographs, I'm skeptical such a person would go to J6, see the news about investigations, and choose not to throw it away or at least encrypt it, and I am generally skeptical that the few people who do enjoy such material actually let it sit around in a giant downloaded collection unencrypted.
Uhhhhhhhh, I mean out of 1.5k+ people, only one or two did so, is it really that surprising? My priors is that people who would follow a liar are not that intelligent, they are depressed about the loss of their political idol, stressed about news of investigations, or just stupidly overconfident, and let things slip. I don't know anyone who like obscenity but there's a reason why anime is looked down upon because of the weeb's penchants for lolis, and that's the public ones, who knows what they do in private.
I'm thinking it's more likely a rogue agent or technician, motivated by hatred for MAGA, planted it, knowing that Trump would likely pardon him for the J6 behaviors.
So this person, a rogue agent, or this group of people, a rouge group, was able to plant:
- More than 100,000 CSAM files spread across five thumb drives.
- More than 10,000 CSAM files found on Tocci’s laptop.
- Extremely disturbing images of violent acts, such as a cat being killed by being put in a blender; a male shooting a female in the head; a dog being beaten to death; severed limbs; as well as images and videos of bestiality on said laptop.
- Google searches related to child sexual abuse, such as “countries with legal prostitution under 18.”
This rogue agent, or this group of rogues, was able to pull the wool over the judge (who could be part of the group), all the people that handled chain of evidence (who could also be part of the group), and the defense attorney (who could also be part of the group), and the interrogators (who could also be part of the group) would put pressure on Daniel Tocci so that even though he's innocent would then plead guilty. And they must have done it with future sight because their search (and therefore planting of the evidence) was done November 2023, a full year before the 2024 November election. And of all the J6ers, they just decided to plant evidence on this random Daniel Tocci guy.
Look, I am always ready for stories of systematic abuse of power and coverups. No need to look further than the Catholic Church and Boston to know that decades of widespread wrongdoing and injustice can escape the public eye. But that proves the point: there was a system that worked its weight to let the crime happen and then coverup the crime. Like I said, if framing Daniel Tocci was so easy, I would have expected an order of magnitude more at the very least (so 20+ instead of 2) also had that done to them.
lollol
2mo ago
hmmmmm, by your standards, if all wannabe naturalized citizens are subject to a jury who must unanimously affirm whether that person is American or or not, and if the jury does so, that person is an American?
For what it's worth, I think this is an evolution of journalism, paparazzi's and stringers are a thing after all. Media platforms like YouTube just allows such people to reach a mass audience without an editorial veil.
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