rockbier1218
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User ID: 1794
rockbier1218
1mo ago
Chinese demographics are much worse than the US, I’m pretty sure they are sub-1 fertility rate and have been for years at this point. Sure the population is large but if half of their population is 50+ they are long-term not going to turn into some superpower
rockbier1218
1mo ago
True, but I think the tradeoff is worth it at this point. Notwithstanding the negative externalities on societal cohesion as a whole, the culture that sprung up around the Indian H1B scam factory is so fucking toxic for the tech industry. America is not only the innovation factory because we draw the best and the brightest, but because of the unique entrepreneurial culture that prizes outside the box thinking.
The Indians bring their rote memorization culture with them. Of course there are the entrepreneurs among them as well who come here and push that culture along, but let’s be honest 90+% are just people-pleasing corporate ass-coverers who also happen to have a millennia-long tradition of built-in discrimination deep in their bones. Enough already, the industry is hardly recognizable as American anymore.
rockbier1218
2mo ago
Thanks for the write-up, great read.
What was your playlist?
rockbier1218
2mo ago
I also like Past Lives and was excited for the movie but felt it was a snooze fest.
I think the main problem is simply that Dakota Johnson is not charismatic enough or good enough of an actor to be a leading lady in this kind of rom-com/drama. I also agree on Chris Evans being miscast, although he’s a much better actor than Johnson.
It’s maybe a bit of an unfair comparison but imagine this same film with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, the rom-com duo par excellence; you may actually have a fantastic movie.
Recently I’ve been on a rom-com kick and watching many of the old and new classics. Notting Hill, a movie with the aforementioned pairing, is completely ludicrous and when examined in depth the script is somewhat lackluster and the cinematography is nothing special. But when you have the equivalent of Ali vs. Tyson as the main event then nothing else matters.
For romantic movies the chemistry of the duo or love triangle is essential. Without it even the script of, say, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, or When Harry Met Sally won’t be enough to make the movie good.
rockbier1218
5mo ago
The Count of Monte Cristo
rockbier1218
6mo ago
If these two powers enter into a non-meme war I have to imagine the west will get completely drowned by a tidal wave of immigration. RIP my chill software engineer job
rockbier1218
6mo ago
There’s certainly a never-say-die subset of true believers but I doubt that’s even the majority of the coalition that elected him in November. I think most people were voting against democrat incompetence on inflation and illegal immigration in that order.
If trumpflation ends up being even worse than Biden’s and comes with stagflation and layoffs to boot, I can easily see a new GOP coalition that unites around “Trump but minus tariffs”. And there’s a very clear and straightforward process to make that happen, just need the veto-proof majority in congress to take away tariff powers and let Trump do whatever else he wants
rockbier1218
6mo ago
one other interesting twist on all of this is that Trump is extremely old. This is not a charismatic 40-year old who has the potential to cement his rule for a decade+. Trump is inherently a short-term politician, and if he starts being a short-term loser then it’s a lot easier for people to jump ship. There is little chance he stages some kind of comeback in the future after this which would cause people to doubt if defecting now will come back to bite them later.
rockbier1218
6mo ago
Certainly possible. My prediction rests on the assumption that we are about to see economic catastrophe worse than 2008. That’s my take at least.
If that doesn’t end up happening and we instead just have something like Covid or an average recession then absolutely he will ride out the term.
But I simply don’t see how if we have financial oblivion Trump survives. There are too many powerful elites that will also be impacted and even the average GOP voter will revolt and turn on Trump if the bread and circuses are gone
rockbier1218
6mo ago
Up till now MAGA has been neutral to positive for the average American. Trump didn’t really do anything that’s impacted Joe Six-pack and if anything has delivered some wins on woke and DEI. And his tax cuts broadly benefited Joe Six-pack in the short-term as well.
So the only real reasons to oppose Trump have been “he’s vulgar” or political games like Jan 6 that democrats also played. Or you’re a woke lib who hates him on principle.
But now all of a sudden people are staring at GFC part 2 with the potential for much much worse. Joe Six-pack will get annihilated with inflation and might get laid off too. And whose fault is it? It’s 100% on Trump and everybody knows it.
All of a sudden even conservatives are like “wait a minute wtf” and that will lead to political pressure on Trump from essentially all of America except the most diehard of his base (and how many of them are diehard enough when they are about to lose their homes and a t-shirt is $50?)
There’s all kinds of fun options depending on how bad it gets.
There’s already 7 GOP senators trying to take his tariff power away and nothing tangible outside the market has even happened yet. Elon is calling other members of the inner circle retards for their trade policy (proxy shot at Trump).
Most realistic scenario is that congress just votes to take tariffs away and overrides the veto. If there is blood in the streets even a GOP congressman will be loyal to his constituents who are mailing him death threats and threatening his political career forever. And it’s much easier to swallow just taking back tariff power over an actual impeachment or something.
If it gets really bad, like Great Depression bad, I would bet my life savings he gets JFKed or has a mysterious heart attack/plane crash/take your pick.
You simply cannot survive as a politician in America if you fuck with the economy to this extent. We already see the campaign ramping up, Jamie Dimon and other financial bigwigs are pressuring Trump (first option in the toolbox) but if he continues to go full retard they will take the other tools out too.
rockbier1218
6mo ago
It’s coming. You can’t just nuke the market in America and expect to survive politically. It will take time but nothing Trump has done up till now has really been bad economically, so it’s easy for GOP to hang on because he kept the money flowing and people remember Trump 1 as a great time for the economy. But if all of a sudden we have GFC Part 2 and it’s 100% attributable to his actions he will be toast.
Not sure how trustworthy this is as a proxy but the comments section on Wall Street Journal articles was a MAGA shithole up till a few weeks ago. Now it’s full of people with regret and complaining about their investments and how Trump is a buffoon, etc. Once the mass layoffs and 10-20%+ inflation hit it will be over
rockbier1218
6mo ago
I’m actually bullish on this happening. People are already shitting themselves and we haven’t even begun to feel the inflation, layoffs, pullback in consumer spending etc.
Even Trump cannot survive 10-20% inflation, layoffs, market meltdown, etc. when all it takes to rebound it is either get rid of him or take his tariff power away
Is Trump actually just cooked now? There is absolutely no way his tariffs don't cause major pain through huge inflation (the thing people voted for him to fix!), layoffs, and the return of stagflation. I mean these tariff numbers are absolutely eye-popping.
2 arguments I can steelman for the tariffs:
- Give it time, the incentives will slowly lead to a resurgent manufacturing sector.
- These tariffs can be re-negotiated and Trump is using door-in-the-face technique to extract favorable terms.
For 1, maybe true but almost certainly would take years if not decades. Meanwhile stock market is 50% of peak, boomers' retirement and everyone's 401k has evaporated in a puff of smoke, layoffs that ripple through almost every industry as consumers pull back on spending and the engine of America's economy (aforementioned consumer spending) grinds to a halt. In other words Trump is toast because nobody is willing to suffer through that for 4 years, let alone 4 months. Republicans get annihilated in midterms unless Congress takes back tariff powers from the executive. The one thing you can't do in America is fuck with the economy, it's the raison d'etre of the entire thing. And this can't be blamed on vague macro factors or credit default swaps, it's entirely traceable to Trump and his tariffs and everybody and their mother knows it. Even a child can understand what a tariff is conceptually.
For 2, also maybe true. But the uncertainty will lead to R&D pullbacks, depressed investment, and FUD all over the place as long as Trump is in power. This argument and scenario is the optimistic case. But even here you're again fucking with the American raison d'etre. Stability, certainty, relative lack of political shenanigans with the economy are a large part of the reason everybody and their mother wants to invest in America. If you take that away all of a sudden America doesn't seem so attractive anymore. Economy probably chugs along but either way it's nothing like Trump's first term and voters again have a very obvious catalyst for their economic malaise.
Honestly I don't see how Trump or Trumpism survive as a political force. DOGE was a farcical disaster which didn't even touch SS, medicare, or the military and consumed massive amounts of political capital, and now Trump is basically going full retard and strapping on his suicide vest as he wages jihad on the American economy. Trumpism's political capital is deep in the red now, and we haven't even begun to feel the tariff pain. If he actually keeps the tariffs and Congress doesn't wake up and take that power back, I'm not even sure the guy makes it to 2026.
rockbier1218
7mo ago
I didn’t vote but probably leaned his direction. Mainly for immigration control, tax relief, and what I thought were some interesting foreign policy plays (Greenland, Panama Canal).
He definitely is doing worse than I had anticipated. The cuts to medical research in particular are absolutely galling. Who gives a shit if there is some administrative bloat in world-leading cancer research that has undeniable economic benefits? It’s all a drop in the bucket compared to entitlement programs, which he is not touching at all.
In general he is continuing to perpetrate this unbearable gerontocracy where old people hoard the wealth and kneecap younger generations through incredible housing prices, NIMBY, and parasitism from social security and Medicare.
rockbier1218
9mo ago
So this is the opposite of a small-scale question, but similar to what I posted below, I’ve been going through somewhat of an existential crisis about mortality and the purpose of human life.
I want to hear all of your beliefs about the big mysterious questions. For my entire life until now I have been the hardest of hard materialist/physicalist atheists. Surprise surprise that at 32 that doesn’t fill the god-shaped hole in my heart anymore.
I’m currently just thinking about how weird all of this is. Is the universe an eternal thing? Is it a simulation? How do you actually handle the hard problem of consciousness? The Fermi paradox?
Something that has been tempting me is Michael Huemer’s argument about infinite reincarnation, very similar to nietzsche’s eternal recurrence. Essentially the bastardized argument is that if the universe is infinite in both temporal directions and you already were plucked from nothingness and given consciousness once, it will happen again even if the probability is infinitesimally small (because if time is infinite it’s bound to happen).
So what do you all think? What gives you comfort when pondering mortality?
rockbier1218
9mo ago
What do people think about the idea of longevity escape velocity happening in our lifetimes? (I’m 32)
I confess thoughts of my mortality have hit me pretty hard recently and this idea has given me some hope. It seems like it could be cope but there’s also huge amounts of money in this space (like Altos Labs) and it seems to have come a long way in terms of legitimacy and talent recruitment from a decade ago.
Combining that with AI improvements it doesn’t seem so unreasonable to me that we could conceivably see some wild advances in the next 2-3 decades.
I mean even 15 years ago immunotherapy for cancer was not noteworthy enough to be included in a popular overview book “The Emperor of All Maladies” and now it’s a treatment that’s used all over the place, albeit with varying success rates.
I think the modal American at this point has just had enough of the velocity of the demographic changes. And the short-term lockout effect where we seem to be importing the upper middle class rather than growing our own natives into it. Long-term it’s probably true that this kind of immigration is good for the economy and makes the pie larger for everybody, but it’s just too much too fast. Every professional job given to an immigrant is a loss for an American that could have grown into it, and god forbid the company actually trains people into it.
So I don’t really care about these immigrants, many of them my coworkers, who I agree are clean and relatively polite, orderly, etc. I want America to feel American, these people do not feel American, they are civil but distinctly not American.
My 22-year old cousin joined the wave of CS grads and had an absolutely brutal time finding a job. He’s probably not FAANG-level but he can absolutely do any of the bullshit WITCH jobs or be a database maintainer for some bank or insurance company. He was ready to go be a car mechanic like his father until he was lucky enough to get a bank to hire him on a temp basis about one year after he graduated. In real-time, this is the cost of the H1B program and the disgusting fraud associated with it. A young man, born in America, trying to better himself through education so he can be better than his car mechanic father, and he had to scratch and claw to find a temporary CS job in the 21st century in America despite being 100% capable because we somehow decided actually millions of dudes from India were necessary instead. Now play this out on a widespread scale in the aggregate and we see how damaging this shit actually is.
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