magicalkittycat
No bio...
User ID: 3762
rewriting history and Wikipedia to avoid "deadnames" in a very Stalinesque/Orwellian way
Wikipedia is a private organization and is allowed to set their policies as they please.
penalties ranging from loss of employment
Employers should have a right to free association and should be able to fire someone for any reason they please.
to jail
I am not aware of this ever happening in the US. There may be some other nations that have done so, but those nations also tend to be highly censorious in other areas too (like how the UK has effectively outlawed a lot of Palestine support) so it seems to be a general free speech issue with them.
being forced to loudly affirm that trans people and ideologies are the bestest ever, with penalties ranging from loss of employment to jail
Same thing with this. Employer right to free association is based, government compelling something is not.
destroying the categories of "male" and "female" in all discourse
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/
having no willingness to rein in (or even acknowledge) bad actors who are feigning transness as a way to invade women's spaces and sports
The only instance I know of people actually trying to feign transness to enter sports was for the Daily Wire's movie LadyBallers in which they failed to get a man actually willing to undergo the transition requirements in joining the women's competitions.
Moreover, Shapiro notes that the male actors involved were not willing to undergo the necessary procedures to be able to participate on women's teams
Makes sense, nobody cares about women's sports to begin with so people aren't giving themselves hormones and surgeries for multiple years just to win in them. Every trans participant in women's sports I've heard of (the vanishingly few already) seem to have been transitioning for real and persisted even after they stopped participating.
That's a similar issue of how much more controlling we have gotten about children as well. My parents are old enough that as children they would go out biking around the neighborhoods miles away without supervision, without cell phones, and without much worry from my grandparents. In fact it was expected that you would go out and play for the most of the day and come home for dinner. This was the norm.
I wasn't allowed very far, but I could bike around the neighborhood some, go to neighbors houses to hang with the kids there, go down to the local pool. Maybe get dropped off at the mall as a teen and hang out there or whatever.
Now, 11 year olds aren't trusted to go to a different aisle in the grocery store. A different aisle in the same store.
We have decided that modern kids are morons in ways that they weren't for the entire rest of history. And we've culturally decided that too, where parents who don't engage in hysteria get CPS called on them constantly and some parents have ended up arrested. Which means even I have to be cautious in the freedoms I give my own kids, not even the same ones I had growing up yet alone those of my parents. Not by choice, but because government enforcers decided my kids are apparently too stupid to walk down to a nearby store or something.
Modern society coddles our children and trains them to be immature and incapable in their teens. But not too long ago, a good bit of those teenagers would have been off from their families working jobs as squires or farmhands or "youngsters" midshipmen or something else speaking of ships, a cabin boy or an apprenticeship for the local blacksmith/tailor/etc or whatever else. The world wasn't rich enough to coddle older children and teens from serious work and serious decisions, so the teens were capable. They had to be.
Which is another important point. Coddling makes us weaker. When government treats us like morons, we slowly become morons even when we are capable of more. We are lobotomized by paternalist attitudes.
Obviously if you believe all trans people are delusional and object to transition and treating people as their stated gender regardless of the effect on their mental health, this does not apply to you.
I take the opposite stance, regardless of mental health outcomes banning people from transitioning is wrong. The discussion isn't just about trans people, but the underlying thought processes involving the role of government and restrictions to "save people from themselves". And those thought processes have real consequences.
The FDA is already really bad for this, the US government takes an approach that everything is basically banned until "proven" safe. Our default is that you are a moron who can't be trusted to take any risk. And this means small stuff like why you can't buy good sunscreen, to more serious issues like why it's difficult for terminally ill patients to try new risky procedures, or as this ACX post has gone over before, why your child might have died because they couldn't get European fish oil.
And it delays medical and scientific advances a lot! Look at this estimate putting the COVID vaccine by 2033. Thank god for operation warp speed allowing us to bypass tedious bullshit (or at least do them simultaneously) and get it out in less than a year. Imagine if other medicine could come out so quickly like the GLP1s! Imagine how many lives could be saved or improved if not for the nanny state "protecting" us.
The we must protect morons from themselves stance inevitably means treating you as a moron too. You must be kept safe from the sunscreen that is widely used in Asia and Europe. You must be kept safe from experimental treatments before you die. You must be kept safe from saving your kid. You must be kept safe from deciding that you're happier with cross sex hormones. You must be kept safe from scientific advancements. You are a moron, you do not get to make your own choices, the central bureaucrats simply know better.
We don't stop this by engaging in more banning. We have to throw away the entire concept in the trash, and accept that yes morons will sometimes make moronic decisions that hurt themselves but restrictive government just means treating everyone as a moron. I don't see myself as a moron. Does anyone here think differently of themselves?
This has been an overall issue with the Trump administration. The assumption that any decision made by the US is law, and that everyone else will follow regardless of whether they were present at negotiations or not.
Why would they? Trump is an egotistical fool who believes the flattery coming out of any dictators mouth but it doesn't change that nations like China and Russia are our enemies and have no actual reason to listen to him. Putin might have kept whispering in his ear during those late night gossip calls that "I never would have had to start the war under you Trump, this is Biden's war absolutely", but anyone with a brain knows that this isn't true. Putin started it because he wants Ukraine, the same reason he's not ending it now despite years of stalemate and a drain on his country's resources and population.
And Ukraine along with the rest of Europe doesn't want to be taken. You can get a lot out of allies as the top dog, but they're not going to the grave for you, allies doesn't mean chained up slaves.
Those make sense to fail, it's an egotistical idiot believing the lies of any adversarial tinpot who tells him nice things and wondering why his orders to our friends to jump off a cliff aren't being followed. Even the best and most powerful presidents would not succeed here, allies wouldn't kill themselves for a Reagan either.
But Israel is engaged in an offensive war in Lebanon! They're moving large populations out of their homes in mass genocide. And their constant attacks are directly screwing with the US plans to surrender and restore the world economy. If we can't even pressure the nation with no other allies but us, that directly relies on the US, into not engaging an offensive war to save the world economy then it seems the Trump admin has little influence anywhere when it matters.
Start threatening things like Magnitsky sanctions for all the war crimes and human rights abuses they do or cutting aid or whatever. Trump of course won't because he's a weak man who can't stand up to the Zionist lobby even if he wanted to. And Israel knows this, there is nothing Trump is willing to do to bring them to heel. The same thing Iran has learned. The same thing many of Trump's opponents targeted by political warfare have learned. The bark is louder than the bite, you push back against the bully and he eventually flees.
You can see this basically everywhere in politics. Biden and Trump both came in with positive approval ratings! Biden left with one of the most negative approval ratings in history, and Trump is on track to possibly do even worse.
The deepest haters are always going to hate you no matter how cool or winning you are, but most people are not your deepest haters. The numbers can differ a bit on topic but generally in our polarized society there's essentially 30% who will always hate you, 30% who will always love you, and 40% who can be persuaded in some form/don't really care that heavily to begin with. (Like swing voters/nonvoters).
The reason why leaders like Biden and Trump keep dropping in approval after isn't because citizens are being haters, it's because the leaders are failing the standards they hold. They all come in with positive expectations, and if you can't match that then you get judged appropriately. When Trump promises an end to war, less focus on culture war topics and a greater focus on consumer economics and lower prices and we get more war + endless culture war + higher prices, he failed and of course his approval goes down. They aren't just the haters, they're people who were really willing to give him a chance and he failed them.
Same thing here. Israel had a lot of support behind them! Yes there was that 30% of haters or such who wouldn't care no matter what, but the US population was largely sympathetic and behind them. But Israel took that as carte blanche to do whatever they wanted, and they starved the Gazan population and they expanded the settlements and they spoke openly of their genocidal plans. Of course people turned against Israel! They're not all the haters, they are earnestly reacting to Israel's actions.
Part of it is because they're all drinking their own Kool aid. They surround themselves with sycophants and yes men and the other 30% suckup cultists and don't realize that the support of the 40 really is conditional.
magicalkittycat
9d ago
The Iranian state succeeded in its central ideological mission of making Palestine the central, primary ideological cause (by far) of two billion people, 25% of the world’s population. No cunning, no chutzpah, no number of places on the Forbes billionaires list can stand up to that.
Iran does not force high level Israeli politicians like Ben-Gvir to constantly broadcast blatantly genocidal rhetoric, such as what he did earlier today.
Iran did not make the IDF shell a family leaving Gaza City and then lie about it
Iran did not make Israel immediately invade Syria during the Syrian power vacuum.
And Iran certainly are not behind the West Bank settlements where people are beaten and their are homes destroyed/stolen.
Perhaps if Israel did not do such things, they might find a bit more support.
Just because it's better here than in shithole countries right now doesn't mean it's better here than it was twenty, thirty, or forty years ago.
That's true, but presumably there should be mass desire for movement somewhere if we're fucking something up in a significant way and we just don't see it. Maybe the fuck up is universal, in which case we should question if it was ever solved to begin with and it's not just an ahistorical illusion glossing over the generic human experience. Or maybe it's the downside of a tradeoff where the upside is just too good, and the complaint is really just people wanting to have their cake and eat it too.
There's gotta be some explanation for why no one can get things right and also be a country that people want to be in.
You play to win the game, you don't play to just play. Or, in other words, winning is all that matters.
There are some incel losers who would benefit from state mandated girlfriends, because they simply will not have girlfriends otherwise. But for me, and many non losers like me, we would lose out. Relationships are not all equal quality. Sure I guess we still have girlfriends and wives, but the central bureaucracy would never care to grant me what I have now with my wife, someone who I get along with extremely well. I'll get some average fuck who I hate being around.
Because after all, the point of central bureaucracy in general is to parasite off the winners in pursuit of "fairness". They will inevitably fuck it up, the same way that central bureaucracy economies fuck up their harvests and their central heating and everything else. It's the entire point, the loser parasites must feast off something.
This whole conversation is just the result of the growing victimization crisis we have in society. Us men are in a better spot now than throughout all of history, and yet just like with everything else all anyone can do is be angry and cry that things don't match up with their ahistorical fantasies of the past.
The average man of history was not some rugged chad forging their way into the wild west nor were they the rich royal with their pick of the wenches. No, the average man lived crappy lives with only the crappy people around them in their hyperlocal area. Food was scarce, medicine was laughable, the only women you would get with were just the fellow peasants you happened to be around and most of your kids died before you even bothered to name them.
Now we live in a time of abundance. I met my wife through the Internet and we lived several states away at the same time. We hit it off in personality and interests and we have children. Before, I would have just been forced to pair with whatever local peasant was available and now I get someone who matches with me well instead. It's not to say it's perfect at every point, but any and all relationships between two different individuals will have areas where they differ and don't match perfectly. The soul mate is a lie and compromises must be made sometimes. She is not my perfect fantasy wife and I'm not her perfect fantasy husband, we're humans not dreams.
Perhaps the before system was better for the loser men who enjoy a win by default. A much lesser and lower quality win, but at least it's a win, something they can't get now. If there was a historical acknowledgement of the downsides there is an argument to be made that yes, for some people it was better. And yet what I see of these loser men today is that they want it all and won't settle. They want the abundant choice of having a top notch beauty who fulfills all their fantasies brought about by modernity, but they also hate that abundant choice means they have to match up as well. But they don't, won't, and can't because they're still the peasants like always. It's often accompanied of course with porn addled unrealistic standards of womanhood too, meaning even the weak concept they might have of settling and compromising has still been tilted towards the insane.
What does complete betrayal imply? It means Western young men should never die for their country. Don't ever join the military. If you get drafted, dodge it if legally possible. Young men should never contribute to their country. Insofar as legal, enter a parasitic profession like finance and drain your country dry. They deserve it because they allow it and they hate young men anyway. Young men should leave their country; move away from the west. Start a city-state in Latin America with a charter from Honduras where young men are served and not betrayed. Go help develop a 2nd world country where young men are served and not betrayed. Pay taxes in the new country. If your old country demands taxes abroad, renounce your citizenship, because your country is a traitor.
And yet many more men want to come to the US and other western nations (or Western like nations such as Japan) than those who want to leave. It's obvious why. Because as much as people want to complain and complain, they do truly understand that life is better here. Immigration levels are the ultimate rebuttal to anti west sentiments, the 2nd and 3rd worlders want to be here, we don't want to be there. Even when Americans do leave, it's almost always to other western nations. And even when they do move to non western nations, that is still mostly done by utilizing their immense wealth disparity to explicitly avoid the average life the natives there hold. They live in gated communities with security.
While I wish to be hopeful this could be the beginning of the end of Israeli control over domestic politics, I'm still quite wary. Trump is very unique. In a "only Nixon can go to China" sense, perhaps only the egotistical chaos beast with a base single mindedly devoted to him rather than a consistent idealogy can ignore Israel. The Israel idealogues are simply outgunned by the massive blob of Trump fandom. They tried their best to sway him but the chaos beast did what it does best, and betrayed them out of boredom and frustration. He could probably even threaten to invade Israel like he did with Canada and Greenland and his base would barely move, just like the latter.
But this is a Trump thing. He radically reshifted politics and turned up the entertainment dial from a 5 to an 11. Consistent clear and reliable policy is out, doing whatever you want whenever you feel like it is in. But can the next presidential hopefuls capture that magic? I doubt it. There's a 60% chance the 2028 pick is either Vance or Rubio. Rubio is an obvious "return to establishment and respectability" pick, and Vance is a slimy little worm hanging out of Trump's ass instead of really pulling in people much by himself. Vance seems to view anti Israel politics as the future, but will he stick with that when the winds blow back? Well, he hasn't stuck with much else so I'm doubtful.
But there is that ~40% chance it is someone else previously unseen. Maybe that someone else will be a Mega Trump who is even more entertaining and chaotic, in which case it depends on their own unique beastness in how much the Israeli interests can sway him. Or maybe it'll be a return to form politician who disavows the increasingly flailing Trump approval rating and doesn't need any swaying from the Israel side to begin with. Who knows.
And that's of course assuming the Republicans win again in 2028, which is the less likely result. The Democrats are waking up far more to Israeli abuse of politics (even if the older holdouts cling on to their cries of antisemitism) to the point that supporting Palestinians has become a culturally embedded sign of moral goodness as Armand Doma points out. I can't imagine they're going to be too friendly to Israel. But again you never know.
While someone like Putin is definitely more directly evil than Netanyahu, the amount of control that the Israeli lobby has over western governments is far more superior.
Russia might have Trump and Vance in their corner, but they don't have much else in the west including many of the other high ranking republicans. Russia can get a lot of US help effectively cut to Ukraine, they can get delays in weapons sales to the EU for donations, whatever, but even our cowardly house is willing to have many break with Trump here. They can't even get Musk to let them stay on Starlink.
You can get up there and call the Russians a bunch of evil orcs and no one will cancel you. You can say that Putin deserves a drone strike (after all he does) and everyone sees it as normal discourse. Hell some of the more idiotic Americans have even ended up hurting or boycotting the anti war Russians or Ukrainian interests and other groups because of their stupid bigotry that can't tell anyone apart properly and barely anyone cares to acknowledge that. Like it's not even boycotting Russia the state, it's boycotting random businesses they thought were run by Russian immigrants.
Meanwhile you're basically not allowed to boycott Israel the state in quite a few states. The idea of cutting aid to Israel is laughably out of reach. Like we literally give a country with very cheap university and universal healthcare a bunch of money and only recently has there even been a slight threat to that. DOGE got up there claiming to be concerned about waste and cut PEPFAR, a program for sick poor people in impoverished countries and had nothing to say about giving our billions to one of the richest countries in the middle east?
And unlike with Russia, you can't say anything about the Israelis or Jews without the threat of bipartisan destruction headed your way. While we're accepting of the idiotic anti Russia bigots who can't grasp the concept that many Russian Americans are actually against the Putin regime, we're so unaccepting of anti Israel commentary that even the most reasonable and facts based criticism is shut down. And you have absolutely no chance to get away with that same exact idiotic bigotry when applied to Jewish Americans, despite the higher rate of support for the respective countries.
Trump controls the party, not the other way round, but Thune at least completely resents Trump and refuses to be controlled by him.
So he doesn't control the party?
Neither of them, nor the party itself, has any means of applying leverage to Roberts, who sits on his hands doing bupkis and denying the only legitimate use of his court (disputes between states).
Do you think that if the Republican controlled Congress passed a bill with clear and explicit rules around AI national security regulation and Trump signed them into law, that Roberts would strike them down? If you don't think that then he has no relevance to this question and we're back to "republicans could do it if they wanted to".
And at the very least they could try. Trump has already shown he doesn't care about trying unconstitutional things with his tariff policy, so why does he not apply the same process in implementing a clear and consistent AI policy? The easy answer is "he doesn't want to."
He wants tariffs so they'll be pushed through time and time again with different obviously flimsy excuses each time one gets struck down. He doesn't want clear and consistent AI regulation, so they don't bother.
magicalkittycat
12d ago
At least the Trump admin was arguably elected on a clear mandate to prosecute the culture war, which means that in some sense they would be doing their job (if they penalise an organisation for employing her).
Consistently over and over again polling suggests Trump won on economic grounds. Voters are constantly saying it's about the economy, the most common signs against Harris were about the economy (Harris high prices, Trump low prices), and the most effective ad buy was explicitly portraying Harris as a culture war obessive while Trump cared about "real problems". That last part where it says "Trump is for you" isn't about doing the right wing culture war, it's about tax cuts for middle class families.
Even the most explicitly culture war related ad was successful because it went with we don't do culture war, we do economics as the underlying theme. The idea that Trump won off the backs of doing culture war prosecution is completely false. Voters were upset about the economy.
magicalkittycat
12d ago
Would you feel comfortable if someone said the same thing about you? "I believe KMC seems he would touch my child inappropriately, and I have no requirement to wait for him to actually do anything to a child before I judge him as a child predator".
Do you think their personal vibes alone is enough that they can justifiably say KMC is likely a child predator? Heck "He supports the Epstein regime so he's a threat to children" is arguably more solid than "she has blue hair so she wants to destroy the US" cause at least the Epstein coverup is directly about child abusers.
magicalkittycat
13d ago
She seems a security risk in that she likely does not think the United States should exist as an independent sovereign entity,
Has she said that? Your "likely" is carrying a lot right now.
probably believes in nonsense like open borders, socialism, feminism,
At least the first one was meaningful as a security risk if true (emphasis on if). This is just considering anyone with ideas you don't like as a threat to the nation.
magicalkittycat
13d ago
This is standard ITAR and EAR rules. And yes, other countries could recruit people to build it there. Still illegal for me to in any manner transfer ITAR or EAR restricted designs to China or South Sudan. I can transfer it to any US person; by which they mean citizen, green card holder or asylumee.
There is an easy and obvious workaround especially given that it is on the internet, so these specific rules would not be meaningfully effective. So why were they chosen and not something far more extreme that would directly achieve the intended effect?
Luckily if there was a national security issue, Anthropic willingly took down Fable for everyone instead of complying with ineffective halfway measures.
In a better world there'd be some "clear, consistent, and logical rationale" standard bureaucracies are held to.
Republicans control all three branches right now, they don't have to sigh and say "ugh if only we had that better world". They can make it, right now! Now you and me, we can sigh and say that. Cause we know that this administration doesn't care to make it any better either. And most likely the next one won't, and the next one after that, and so on.
But the only way for the better world to come is to have people in power who actually want that better world. We haven't had that in a long time, and we probably won't for a while.
magicalkittycat
13d ago
In principle, Anthropic agrees the government should control when releases are made and models are recalled. Obviously it'd be better if this were done by some objective standard than fits of pique and grudge, but there's the world we want vs the world we have.
That doesn't answer why only Anthropic is considered dangerous and no other model is considering that as Yudkowsky has pointed out, anti jailbreak security that would stop dedicated foreign governments just does not exist for any of them https://x.com/allTheYud/status/2065889346302226530
Does the government just think Fable is that far ahead of the rest?
I mean... They should
Now I do think it would most likely work if they have enough but I can also understand why they would be hesitant regardless. Giving the bully your lunch money could be a good way to incentivize him coming back for more. Still given the likely short timeline (especially if we consider in the midterms that the house will probably be lost and the Senate has a high chance too), it's likely worth it.
magicalkittycat
13d ago
Expert or not, she is clearly a compulsive culture warrior with alignment opposite to the current US administration.
Well you're probably right that the Trump admin cares about more the culture war than meritocracy and coherent national security policy regarding our most important industry. Real shame though.
magicalkittycat
13d ago
Some of her proven credentials are right there in the first paragraph
Previously a member of @stake, she created the bug bounty program at Microsoft[1] and was directly involved in creating the U.S. Department of Defense's first bug bounty program for hackers.[2][3] She previously served as Chief Policy Officer at HackerOne, a vulnerability disclosure company based in San Francisco, California,
And there's more details below. A pretty long and successful tenure at Microsoft
From September 2010 until May 2014, Moussouris was the Senior Security Strategist Lead at Microsoft,
Then as said, chief policy officer at HackerOne
And then worked with the DOD helping the Pentagon and Air Force under her new company Luta Security
Moussouris followed up the Pentagon program with "Hack the Air Force". HackerOne and Luta Security are partnering to deliver up to 20 bug bounty challenges over three years to the Defense Department.
The government even used her as a technical expert before!
She was invited as a technical expert to directly assist in the US Wassenaar Arrangement negotiations, and helped rewrite the amendment to adopt end-use decontrol exemptions based on the intent of the user.
magicalkittycat
13d ago
Dean Ball had a really interesting take on it https://x.com/deanwball/status/2066499769833341419
AI is licensed now, but the requirements change constantly and are always a secret, even to the administration itself, which will discover the rules spontaneously in real time as it reacts to events. This means also that the rules are in practice stricter and more roughly enforced for organizations the administration does not like.
And a more interesting way to read it is, well what if that's the point? Coming out and saying "here are the rules and regulations" means the Trump admin has to play by them as well. Meanwhile some vague there is no regulation except when we say there is which we may or may not do policy gives them a lot of power to boss around the companies/owners they don't like and favor companies they do.
If you are working on sufficiently powerful technology with dual-use applications, then you work for the War Department. There is no option for you to continue your preferred work while licensing only peaceful civilian applications of your product.
Then why is only Anthropic targeted and why only foreign nationals? If it's a truly such a terrible danger, it would be trivial for a Chinese or Russian operation to either recruit some American or just bypass identity restrictions. Not to mention of course that some Americans might also want to use it for bad stuff on their own.
If you piss off the wrong person, you're screwed. Some people will see defeating you as a stepping stone to greater power and influence. Some people will work to destroy you simply out of spite.
True. Not how it is supposed to work in the US, but true. Becoming increasingly blatant as well.
Anthropic has scientific geniuses, Anthropic has an Oppenheimer, but does Anthropic have a General Groves? How far do you think Oppenheimer would have gotten without General Groves?
They probably do have lots of government contacts. We're still supposed to be a rules based society with a free market and government should be able to give a strong (and consistent!) argument when it meddles.
If you are trying to convince the government that you are not a security risk, do not hire people like this and present them as neutral experts. (No seriously, what the actual fuck were they thinking?)
What's the problem with her? Moussouris is a proven expert on information security with major relevant achievements in the field (including pioneering the DOD's own bug bounty program).
You don't get to decide what counts as a security risk and what doesn't. That is the job of the government and the political process.
Of course Anthropic doesn't get to make the decision there, but the executive branch does not have the unilateral authority to simply declare anything and everything a security risk as it pleases either. There should be a clear, consistent, and logical rationale when the government takes a drastic emergency measure like that.
Have we seen a clear, consistent, and logical rationale?
The president does not care about your ethical concerns. You think you know how much he doesn't care, but he actually cares much less than that.
Yes, everyone, even the general Trump defender, is well aware that he has a very limited sense of ethics and morality. I'm sure Anthropic could make this all go away if they slipped him some 24 karet gold statues and a few million dollar dinners hosted at Mar a Lago.
But is that how we really want the main industry holding up the American economy right now to be treated? The stakes are so much higher here than his traditional shenanigans.
magicalkittycat
13d ago
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 40+ times, clearly I need to be in a guardianship. As another comment pointed out, even by the end of the month (not just Friday) the strait being opened isn't even at a third chance. It might happen sure, but that people aren't willing to bet much for it (without accounting for the inevitable last second insider betting that will occur when there's an actual real agreement for once) shows how little trust anyone has in this new claim.
As Anthropic pointed out in their own release, the logic here by the Trump admin if consistent would basically apply these limitations to most if not all other models.
Is there another motive at play then? Well, it'd ordinarily be hard to say. But well, let's just go see what current leadership is saying about anthropic.
Now this isn't a straight up admittance this is for retaliation reasons, but they aren't doing themselves any favors here either. Why bring that up? It's obviously drawing a connection that you absolutely should not want drawn if there wasn't an ulterior motive you want to subtly hint at. At best it's an incredibly stupid thing for Hegseth to be saying right now.
Some former officials are even more explicit that the treatment seems to be from something else. Again, something you would hope your former officials would not be stupid enough to post, obviously drawing connections that you should not want drawn unless the entire point was to make it blatant without going past complete deniability.
magicalkittycat
19d ago
I think the best option is to simply raise the retirement age. There wasn't some big reason for it to be at 65, that was just the age of the federal railroad pensions. And they already raised it before, the full retirement age now is 67.
If there's any age it should be set at, it should be one where a substantial number of people are no longer able to be meaningfully employed. That way it is truly an insurance for old age, as the name implies. That more and more people are continuing to work while collecting benefits is proof that the age is not set properly for insurance purposes.
People who are crippled early can collect disability benefits as a form of early retirement, something we already did unintentionally back during the great recession.
magicalkittycat
19d ago
It's not that it's not literally the same coins, it's that people get out more than they put in.
I also get more out of many investments than I put in, I'm still entitled to it.
Ultimately the scheme was designed in such a way as to rip off the taxpayers of the future to promise gibs now. Those future taxpayers are all grown up and recognise that they are being ripped off and that the economics are going to leave them holding the bag.
Absolutely. I agree with you that it was a terrible idea and should never have been done this way. It also was done this way, and government should not renege on promises if it can be helped.
Even the most principled small government activists came asking for their share like Ayn Rand. Some leftists tend to say that she was a hypocrite for this, but I disagree. You can believe that taxing your money is a bad idea and also accept that ultimately they did tax your money and want them to fulfill the promises they made.
Anti discrimination laws are largely bullshit and unnecessary (as any society that passes and maintains an anti discrimination law is one already broadly against discrimination) so they shouldn't really exist.
But in so much as they do exist, Bostock was a logical decision that discrimination against gay or trans employees is defacto discrimination against them for their sex, under the logic that allowing X from male employees (like certain names or clothes or medical treatments or spouses) but not female employees or vice versa requires sex discrimination.
They're not good, but it's not the court's job to decide what is and isn't good. It's to decide constitutionality and interpretation.
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