nopie
10mo ago
Ukraine is different. It is a European country that is being fast-tracked into the EU. Those who try to attack my friends, will get harshly punished.
The rules are clear. Just because someone somewhere broke them and didn't get punished is not an excuse.
Why do you care about those people on internet?
Any reasonable person understands that it is morally wrong for one country to attack another that has never threatened you.
Then one can say – forget about morals, the power decides the outcome. Turns out Russia is not as powerful as we thought and they got stuck in Ukraine and are losing positions every day, thanks for western support.
A lot of people just suffer from denialism. The fog of war doesn't allow us to see clearly what is going on in every detail but in a nutshell the reality is clear. Russians might or might not manage to keep Donbas and/or the Crimea but the rest of Ukraine has remained an independent country and that is not going to change.
People in the western countries have free access to all the information and most of us see it clearly.
For a lot of Russians it is harder to see in this way because they suffer from collective delusions that Ukraine is a bad country (nazis or not) that does not deserve to remain independent and Russia is going to take over Ukraine and make it a glorious part of Russia.
The rule that you are not allowed to occupy other countries without a good reason.
The rule is enforced by most powerful countries on this planet, namely, NATO countries who supply Ukraine sufficient weapons so that they can fight against Russian occupying forces.
-
What does it mean “the Big Guy”?
-
The data is already quite strong about this. It has already been a warning in vaccine information for more than a year. What we don't know, how much of a risk it is. Probably not that great in absolute numbers. However, the benefit from vaccine in young people is also not that great. We don't know if the benefits overweigh the risks.
-
Very likely indeed.
-
Who is Ray Epps?
-
I don't think that China lying about covid matters. Nothing about covid really matters anymore. Most stats are only meant to scare people without true understanding how risks are/were age stratified. It took 3 years for European Medicines agency to finally say that covid risk increases exponentially by age even though we learned it within the first 2 weeks of pandemic.
nopie
1yr ago
I think that the leaders perform more like PR function and due to their power we cannot really think of terms we use for common men. Zelensky definitely played a role of inspiring leader and helped a lot in this war. But I suspect that Ukrainians would have fought bravely regardless and they are real heroes.
When people resist occupation risking their lives like in Bucha or the conductor was shot for refusing to play at the occupiers' concert, they are real heroes. If a robber comes to your house and at the gunpoint demands you to give all valuables, it would be insanity to refuse because your life is more valuable. However, during the war you are defending your country and if you are a civilian who decides to resist despite torture and risk of death then you are a hero. Many many Ukrainians turned out to be heroes.
Thanks for the explanation.
I don't think it is Joe Biden though. My priors are that sons don't really want to be controlled by their fathers. But in case he had such a relationship with his father, he would had called him less formally, like “Dad” or similar.
Ray Epps is more interesting. I think the worry about January 6 being a potential coup is overblown. Recently Germany had arrested a bunch of people for plotting a coup and restoring monarchy. The media described them as a group of senile men who had got hold of weapons, i.e., nothing serious and all immediately forgot about it. The same is probably true about January 6 except they were not seniors but younger fantasists and some of them had guns (but everybody has a gun in the US). It should not be paid such an attention. Sadly some people died in the crowds but fatal traffic accidents also happen and it is time to forget about this.
The only difference I can see is that Trump was tweeting something and the irrational hate of Trump has been a feature of the US politics. I am not saying that Trump is a good man but he certainly is not guilty of all the outrageous things he is accused of. Whatever Ray Epps' role was, it doesn't change the fact that it was just a spontaneous crowd gathered in naive beliefs, probably instigated by social media viral messaging.
nopie
1yr ago
When I learned that US embassy workers were having unexplained brain damage, many people ascribed that to “sonic weapons” from unknown attackers. The most likely explanation however was that it is probably coincidence and more likely it was mass psychogenic illness. This Havana syndrome is still unresolved but if there was a way to bet on this, the correct way would be to bet against sonic weapons.
Now, if the governments in many countries would wrongly become convinced that it was sonic weapon, it would seem that you lose the bet. But eventually the truth comes out and the bet against sonic weapons has much higher chance to be right.
Covid was something similar to this. When due to human nature collectively we have markets going into wrong direction, you may or may not be able to profit from it but in any case you need to take stance and try to correct the delusion that is harming all of us. If you can it directly by placing winning bets, that's preferrable because it might help other people to realize sooner that their thinking is faulty. Granted such cases are rare, or non-existent for most people.
nopie
1yr ago
Dictators always follow the same pattern – start with breaking the two-term rule and then break the country.
nopie
1yr ago
The article itself (with which you still have yet to engage) provides plenty of context on this, e.g. re: "negotiations as 20" vs. "negotiations as 19+1." Russia even wanted to join NATO at one point, so the idea that Russian security concerns are purely a cover for stopping neighbors from joining alliances is ridiculous.
No, it is not. If not for NATO, Russia by now would have started war with the Baltic countries, probably even gained quick victory because they are smaller than Russia.
As for the fault of the west, some are saying that Hitler got to the power because of hyperinflation. Other economists are quick to argue that it was actually due to austerity policy that followed it. In any case, we can analyse what could have other countries done to prevent fascist Germany. But the arguments that we only had to convince the Jews in Germany to stop predatory banking practices and the WWII would be averted are wrong on too many levels.
The same is about Russia. What the west could have done is to support post-Soviet countries more to avoid crash of their economy. I don't know how feasible it was but at least it is open for debate.
nopie
1yr ago
Well, I had read Krugman's “End This Depression Now” explaining why stimulus in certain conditions is needed. I read the book because I was going through personally depressive period in my life but the book had some insights anyway. Krugman was proven right with sufficient evidence that I was surprised that so many experts still disagreed with him and demanded austerity policies instead. Nevertheless, even the staunchest critics have to admit that stimulus worked better during economic contraction, so it was no-brainer that the governments faced with economic contraction during covid pandemic would try to use stimulus too. I didn't believe that it will be very effective because unlike normal conditions people were prevented from spending money. The government had little choice though because they had to make sure that people who were forced out of work by their policies can still pay rent, buy food etc.
Incidentally, the lack of spending opportunities also gave me chance to invest some money. I expected that other people would do the same and it seems that eventually they did. But when I saw stock market taking a dive, it made no sense. I didn't expect to make a quick profit, I thought that recovery would take longer time. I believed that eventually everybody would get covid and then all the restrictions will be shown useless. Even the most totalitarian governments would have to admit that their policies are futile. Once restrictions are gone, people would quickly restart economic activities and stock market would rise.
Scott wrote that the stock market dive actually happened due to automatic selling. Many funds set automatic scripts to sell when the price reaches certain low threshold to prevent from further losses. Selling moved the price even lower with more and more funds initiating automatic selling.
Immunity debt is a possibility but needs more studies.
We don't need to prove that public health interventions caused harm. Those who decided to implement them had to prove that they are safe and effective, just like we do with medicines.
A lot of inflation in Europe is not related to Ukraine. Maybe prices for energy could be explained by war in Ukraine but food is very questionable. Even if the price of grains is determined by global market prices, their impact on total food should not be that much.
nopie
1yr ago
Zelensky is the only one standing against Putin. He might not be an ideal but then what about other leaders who only supported Putin? They must be even worse than Zelensky.
nopie
25d ago
It is hard to believe that US intelligence is becoming worse. The recent events (Ruso-Ukrainian war, Crocus City Hall shooting) show that is has become better.
It appears that CIA has wide access to online communication worldwide and combined with modern AI technologies that allows to sieve vast amounts of information and find a needle in the haystack. A translator I had known got hired by a US agency couple of years ago. She has never spoken what she does but I suspect that she works on automated translation models for US intelligence. Currently we should assume that communication in any language is equally monitored and analysed.
Also, it hard to believe that if Russians really possessed such technology that many describe as improbable it wouldn't have leaked by now. Even best agents eventually make mistakes.
Russians have been involved in assassination in other countries, like in the UK. But we know that because eventually we found some evidence. It is likely that it could have happened in this case too, especially after repeated attacks in several countries. Unless, of course, CIA knows more about these cases but keep silent.
And third, why would Russians use this technology against targets of low importance instead of someone who really matters?
nopie
1yr ago
The USSR send military force to the Baltic countries to prevent them from declaring independence. The coup against Gorbachev was attempted.
Argument that because Putin didn't do it in 1999, therefore he would never do it given the chance, is very weird. Sorry for saying that because the rules probably do not allow me to talk like that.
nopie
1yr ago
As for naivety in general, I would say that we all can make wrong judgements when we step outside of our sphere of expertise. We can be wrong even in our own areas (for example, was FDA right to approve aducanumab or not) but it tends to be corrected over time. But if I tried to make judgements when it is appropriate to increase or lower taxes depending on current state of economy, I would be wrong most of the time, even if I have some superficial understanding of macroenocomics.
Or even more science-based example – someone complained that the main bridge in our city is unsafe and should be closed immediately while some city official publicly announced that it is only a rumour and the bridge is safe. Whom to believe? I wouldn't know unless I had spent really long time studying dynamics of bridge safety. It was a true case that happened 5 years ago in Latvia but the bridge is still standing and in use.
nopie
11mo ago
You are missing the main reason why the stimulus was too much this time. It was simply because the government acted in contradictory ways and prevented people spending money. The fact that different restrictions continued after most elderly had received vaccine was the biggest unforced error.
nopie
1yr ago
Some people are waiting for Twitter to fail just like some were waiting for Russians to take Kyiv :)
Musk makes mistakes but overall I think Twitter will neither be a great success nor failure.
nopie
1yr ago
I don't even think that he hates Putin. He only fights against his aggression while many western leaders supported him economically.
nopie
1yr ago
That doesn't always work because you have to make decisions sometimes. For example, to get covid vaccine or not. You may not trust doctors but without vaccine you could be fired from your job. That would make you even less to trust doctors even if you don't trust antivax particularly. Not an easy decision to make.
nopie
1yr ago
It is a really weird logic. Russia didn't attack Ukraine until 2008. Does it mean that Russia would never attack Ukraine?
Hitler didn't attack the USSR until 1940. Does it mean Hitler would never attack the USSR?
Obviously if a thing hasn't happened in a certain year, it cannot be the evidence that it would never happen.
nopie
11mo ago
I am not sure I believe that. The reason of the crash and everything that followed was solely due to the government's mistaken actions. I don't know specifically about the US, but the life in 2021 was far from normal and it was also solely due to the government's mistaken actions. It would be strange if it had no deleterious effect on the economy.
The government was trying to whitewash the negative effects on people.
nopie
1yr ago
If it was found in RCT trials that the drug does not treat the illness in the treatment group (whatever the reason), it would not get approved.
nopie
1yr ago
I agree. You could say that Chornobyl was just a Russian (actually Ukrainian but during Soviet Union times the difference was not important) negligence and it shouldn't have impact on our nuclear energy policy. After all, coal burning causes even more radioactive pollution and people die in industrial accidents all around the world. Chornobyl was clearly an outlier that shouldn't prevent us from continuous development of nuclear power.
But that's not what happened. Some countries decided to completely stop using nuclear energy despite serious problems with reaching sustainability goals.
On the other hand, crypto is not a nuclear power. It has very little usefulness and most of it is hype and speculations. Maybe that's why people will not reject it even when it becomes clear that most of it has no benefit for the society.
Many rationalists support crypto because they consider that it will help to avoid government control to buy nootropics, participate in prediction markets etc. My advice is that instead of supporting crypto it is better to lobby politicians to allow to do these things legally and openly. That may take longer time and be harder to achieve but it will be much better because negative externalities from crypto are too severe and damaging that they cancel all the benefits that crypto could give us.
Many of these things are legal in other countries and they are not as great as many rationalists think. I am in Latvia now; piracetam and phenibut are manufactured by a local pharmaceutical company here, they are not only legal but doctors routinely prescribe them. What I think about them is that their effectiveness is very low. Healthcare professionals consider them as low class antidepresants/anxiolytics. They have very few adverse effects but basically they do very little.
If 50% of antidepressant effect is due to placebo effect, then prescribing something to people with moderate depression/anxiety will have 50% improvement rate. Doctors initially select medicines with less side-effects and switch to more serious antidepresants when they are not effective. It would be good if other countries used them as well but in the big scheme, they matter very little that it is not worth to use crypto to illegally buy them.
More options
Context Copy link