non_radical_centrist
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User ID: 1327
non_radical_centrist
5d ago
It's annoying how expensive substacks are. I wish there are some sort of bulk deal where I could buy all the ones I'm interested in at a significant discount, because as much as I love the writing of the writers I follow, I can't drop a hundred bucks a year on each of them.
non_radical_centrist
4d ago
I much prefer it that way than the other way around.
non_radical_centrist
8d ago
I don't read much of Kulak's stuff, I find most of his writing to be wrong in some way. I would call this piece he had pretty racist too, since it implicitly dismisses any possible environmental cause for India's woes. The amount of extreme government disfunction, poor nutrition and poor healthcare many, many Indians receive I think are very plausible candidates for low human capital there, which he doesn't address at all.
non_radical_centrist
10d ago
I believe Turks are known for being unusually secular Muslims
non_radical_centrist
8d ago
My overall opinion on third world development remains that the 1st world countries need to collectively agree to legalize conquest between third world nations, abolish any international recognition of existing borders, and give it 30 years to sort itself out.
I'd agree something needs to be worked out regarding the 3rd world that probably wouldn't be politically correct, but I doubt that would work pretty well. Even if you're willing to callously sacrifice potentially billions of lives over those 30 years in order to get a better future over the up coming centuries, and you don't think there's any risk of those wars spilling over into the first world or using nukes, I don't think it'd actually result in disfunction ending. I think you'd get a lot of the dominant conquering countries not completely wiping out the populations of their conquered territories, whether out of pity, apathy, or to use the populations as poorly compensated labour. And those sorts of minority populations would just be another perpetual source of human misery.
I don't really know what would be the best solution to 3rd world disfunction, but fortunately I think genetic editing + AI will solve most problems in the long term.
non_radical_centrist
8d ago
I think a major advantage some early communists had was revolutionary zeal. When you honestly believe you're in the founding generation of a political experiment that will usher in a bright future, you're more willing to work long hours for low pay and not try to take advantage of others to your own benefit. Once you realize that your political experiment is going to only be on par with capitalism at best, that motivation goes away. And without that motivation, your experiment starts functioning far worse than capitalism.
non_radical_centrist
17d ago
People have been protesting Israel and calling them genocidal basically every year since 1947, with only small breaks during the periods of hours to days when the Arabs start a military offense and briefly look like they have the upper hand before getting their asses handed to them.
non_radical_centrist
13d ago
If you want an audience regardless of the quality of your writing, write fanfiction. You'll get a few readers who desperately want more fandom content as long as your writing isn't totally unreadable
non_radical_centrist
8d ago
I just read a good chunk of The Mystery of the Kibbutz. I'm not reading more because it got to be an awfully repetitive book, but the first few chapters were pretty interesting about how Jewish communes were relatively successful despite how one might expect a society without free markets to fail.
non_radical_centrist
8d ago
I don't think Cuba is doing that well, even if they're doing better than some of the Caribbean nations. Maybe they're evidence that authoritarianism can be better than democracy, when the voters inevitably elect populists who just turn the country into authoritarianism with a veneer of democracy anyway. I don't think Cuba is evidence that centrally planned economies are better than free markets.
https://www.discoursemagazine.com/p/in-cuba-the-terminal-stage-of-communism
non_radical_centrist
19d ago
We try to avoid making two-flavor combos where the dessert could be done as a single flavor in one of the two flavors
I'm having a hard time understanding what that's supposed to mean
non_radical_centrist
12d ago
He might be able to be sexually attracted to and have physically pleasurable sex with a strange woman, but would feel mentally very uncomfortable doing something so intimate with a stranger and would not actually enjoy the experience.
non_radical_centrist
16d ago
But when Darwin says that traits that favor the preservation of the species are preserved, no new information is gained.
To someone who thinks that traits are not passed down, it is. Someone might think that the distribution of traits in cats today are the exact same as the distribution of traits in cats 5000 years ago.
Also, there are interactions between traits. Say someone has a mutation that removes their thumbs, but has another mutation that makes them a super genius. Are they more or less likely to pass down their traits than an average person with no unusual mutations? Understanding Darwin's theory is the first step to understanding the exceptions, to understanding why detrimental traits are passed down sometimes.
non_radical_centrist
17d ago
To what degree should the politicians do what the general population wants, when what the general population wants is stupid? The most clear cut case of the general population wanting stupid stuff I think is price controls- the idea of keeping rent or gasoline below a certain hard cap is very popular with a lot of ordinary people. But it of course would be counter-productive- it'll only result in a lower supply of something people desperately want, and force them to start paying with their time in long lines instead of paying just with their wallets. So if 90% of the population say they want a cap on prices of something, does their elected representative have a responsibility to say "No you guys are stupid, I know what you really want" and not implement price controls?
Another example would be nationalism. A lot of times, people will be chauvinistic about their culture, and want to oppress minority cultures. Not really so much in the US recently despite all the fuss about race relations, but there are many extreme cases internationally. The majority will try to inflict on the minority restrictions on using their minority language in schools, prevent access to elected and civil service jobs, take children away from families, forcibly expel people, even execute the minorities with roving firing squads or death camps, in a brief list from least bad to worst actions chauvinism often leads to. Does a politician have any obligation to say, "No, I will not implement this policy. Not only is it immoral, it won't actually make life better for you" to the people who elected him if the 90% majority population wants to inflict those degradations on the 10% minority?
The obvious slippery slope is a politician thinking he knows better in a case where he doesn't actually know better, or deciding laws based on his own personal values instead of the general population's in a case where there is no option that's better on all metrics. E.g, abortion laws always have a trade off between the preferences and health of the mother against the fetus, and where you want abortion laws to be at depends on the ratio of which you value mother:fetus.
non_radical_centrist
8d ago
I still find it somewhat useful as a quick link to the people whose profiles I can check for new comments.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
I'd be more worried about the conflict dragging in Pakistan/India/China who are borderline undeveloped themselves and already have nukes
non_radical_centrist
16d ago
5000 years ago people knew that short haired cats had short haired offspring.
Yet no one put together the theory of natural selection. People also knew objects fell when you dropped them, but it took millennia for people to really start formalizing it.
If something exists then it is 1. Benefitial, 2. Bening, or 3. Extinted/In process of disappearing
Or 4., linked to another trait that is beneficial, such that the two traits are passed down together.
Darwin's theory let him make predictions about nature. Before him, people weren't making predictions about nature, about how different environments would lead to different traits being more prevalent.
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
I have a formative childhood memory of exactly that sort of thing happening. I was roughhousing with a friend of mine, in the type of way that it was very unlikely either of us would get seriously hurt, but was still very much against the school rules. I remember then a parent volunteer caught us in a way that she didn't didn't directly witness it but it was very obvious to everyone what happened- I don't remember exactly how, but it was probably something like hearing a yelp and then turning the corner to see my friend with a bruise. When she interrogated us, I stayed quiet and my friend insisted he just walked into a pole- despite no poles being nearby. We both got off scott free.
non_radical_centrist
26d ago
What do you think of Internet outrage of companies raising their prices, chiefly companies like Netflix and fast food restaurants? I think morally, it seems pretty iffy- it's a free market, and if they raise their prices, you can just stop buying what they offer. If the government got involved to set any sort of price ceiling, I think that'd definitely be a bad idea that'd lead to a shortage of some sort.
But if the outrage lets customers act as a pseudo-monopsony which gives them more power, I also don't really mind if they're able to use it to demand cheaper prices, even if I think the accusations of corporations being evil are vastly overblown. Especially when it comes to keeping the price of something like Netflix low, where much of their value comes from having exclusive rights to stream old shows and movies instead of all revenue to them going towards making new stuff or improving technology. If consumer outrage keeps the Netflix price $5 cheaper than it otherwise would be, is anything hurt besides shareholder bank accounts?
non_radical_centrist
1mo ago
I think you underestimate the amount of support Hamas has among the regular Gazans. And the groups that are more popular than Hamas are usually other Islamic terrorist groups. And underestimate how much those regular Gazans hate Israel and would be uncooperative in the concentration camps, they wouldn't just be passively grateful for food and shelter, they'd be getting into fights. And those fights would be terrible PR- "Israeli soldiers beat civilian in concentration camp!", regardless about any context of if the guy needed to be beat down.
non_radical_centrist
16d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternatives_to_Darwinian_evolution
Other thinkers had some good ideas, but they didn't come up with Darwin's.
non_radical_centrist
13d ago
Personally, I've had 0 success on Bumble, and some moderate success on both Tinder and Hinge. Which app works best for an individual isn't very easily predictable.
non_radical_centrist
26d ago
I agree with /u/freemcflurry that there's still lots of competition- Netflix has not led to much infrastructure degradation, and people can switch back to the old model or a modern competitor without much difficulty. Plus there are still lots of alternatives to television- people can still see movies in theatres, buy blu-rays, read books, watch youtube and tiktok, hell even pirate shows and movies.
Netflix has not meaningfully "cornered" the market. No more than Blockbuster did anyway, and we all know how rapidly they fell.
non_radical_centrist
26d ago
Are Fast Food Restaurants raising their prices or is it delivery services/delivery prices? I feel like after price increases last year FF seems like it's stabilized, but keep seeing some insane recipts.
I don't know if they still are, but I did notice some items I buy regularly increased in response to inflation. And there was a huge spat recently about Wendy's trying to implement surge prices, even despite Wendy's best efforts to frame it as discounts during off hours instead of higher general prices. My question was just about general price increases anyways- if costumers act together as a pseudo-monopsony in response to a fast food place raising prices, what would the consequences be? Just that fewer restaurants would be opening in the area since there's less profit? Might be a good thing tbh to have 5 restaurants in a food court that are all cheaper than having 10 that are more expensive.
The big thing cheaper netflix probably impacts is the amount of media licensed or produced for the viewers of Netflix.
Do you think the amount of media licensed/produced being lower is probably worth or not worth the lower cost?
Neoliberals embraced deregulation and austerity because Keynesian economics and large amounts of the economy being state owned or heavily regulated lead to the stagflation of the 70s.
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