DirtyWaterHotDog
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User ID: 625
DirtyWaterHotDog
3mo ago
What's your current take on the ongoing Ukraine diplomatic drama? Are the Trump Talks likely to lead to the Trump Treaty? Or are they just ongoing comedy and flailing? What does a durable peace treaty look like these days?
Trump squandered hard won leverage for nothing in return.
Ceasefire is a good idea. But the terms hugely favor Russia. By freezing current boundaries, they give Russia full control over the Dniper river. For all intents and purposes, this will doom Ukraine to Russian control. Trump held all the cards, gave Russia everything they wanted, and asked for nothing in return. I don't get it.
The standard argument is that American resources can't be stuck in Europe. The next war will be in the Indo pacific, and resources need to be focused there. I agree on all points. But then, why not force Russia to economically decouple from China ? Post-Ukraine-war, Russia has become economically dependent on China, ending up as the clear junior partner in a fast developing 2nd front. Before the war, Russia was economically coupled to the EU. From an objective perspective and from the perspective of political maneuvering, this sudden ceasefire doesn't help him or his allies. The US might be able to refocus on China militarily, but I don't see them gaining economic leverage on China.
Everything from now is speculation and likely won't happen, but Trump's actions increase the possibility of the following events if nothing changes. Here goes: Ukraine is too dug in. Lot more Ukrainians will die before they formally concede. Now that Ukraine is caught with their pants down, Russia is free to mount a fresh offensive come spring. EU will have to choose between focusing their large capital expenditures on reindustrializing vs rearming. With the (arguably misplaced) paranoia of a hot-war with Russia, they will be forced to pick the latter. Therefore, they'll losing vital ground to China as it eats more of Europe's high-skill industry lunch. Ukraine's reliance on EU will make it bad optics for Europe to repair ties with Russia. As a result, Russia will build deeper ties with China formalizing the 2nd front for good. By creating strong incentives for an economically strengthened China, a concrete China-Russia block & a weakened EU, I fear that Trump might have kick started the end of the empire.
I don't believe that Trump is a Russian asset. But the man is following every step of the 'is a Russian asset' playbook.
P.S: My fanfic assumes that the publicly shared details of the deal are what the deal is.
SF is nicer, but yes, I only attempt this in places where I'm surrounded by softer liberals. Well, I wouldn't live in places with aggressive bastards in the first place......so I self-select.
DirtyWaterHotDog
10mo ago
since you can't totally segregate car and bike traffic
Is that true ? If a large number of people start cycling, fewer people will use cars. So you can add traffic calming measures to make cars go slowly.
Grade separated bike lanes keep cars and humans separate everywhere except intersections. At intersections, they're no different than pedestrians.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1yr ago
I'm guessing this is South Bay or thereabouts. The Dumbarton bridge marks the beginning of Asian (south and east) tech town. Indians and Chinese tech workers are eating up the area from Palo Alto to San Jose back up tp Fremont. But that is silicon valley proper, so it's hardly surprising.
The rest of California and the Bay Area is not infested with Indian and Chinese tech workers taking over.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
There really is no winning with Trump.
Both Democrats and Republicans seem to be their own worst enemies this time around. Democrats can't figure out 1 decent candidate because of the infighting and senile old man. Trump out here making it impossible for a Republican politician to move on from MAGA while at the same time being unelectable.
DirtyWaterHotDog
10mo ago
The residential side streets in my area are wider and in fact have higher speed limits than that.
Yes, and yes. For instance recently I made it from Northern New Jersey to the Ithaca, NY area, a distance of over 220 miles, in less than 4 hours, in air conditioned comfort.
I don't think anyone here is against cars for long distance travel.
I am not against car ownership. Mostly just use of cars for urban transport. I have done that drive too; Niagara falls to NYC.
I think they're going to need several more lanes
yeah............sigh. You know that's what they thought when they had 20 lanes right ?
DirtyWaterHotDog
1yr ago
There are surprising synergies (I promise the word works in this context) in scenarios like these. You have to start with understanding what metric the consumer optimizes when there are no limitations.
Health and Palatability have always been counter to one another. When given a choice, people have chosen Palatability. So the consumer maximizes palatability until they reach a point where their health falls off a cliff (and sometimes they keep going even after that).
So far, the food industry has worked with this limitation. Create the most delicious food, but stay under a certain calorie limit. If you think that 2000 calorie Cheese-cake-factory pasta was the limit.....hoo boy are you in for a ride. If the new drugs allow us to move the needle on the point where health falls off the cliff, then we are not going to necessarily see healthier people. We might just see unhealthier (and even more palatable) foods while people more or less stay in the same weight bracket. Portion sizes might go down, but calorie counts might stay the same. People might start having Bubble tea / liquid calories with every meal.
When fundamental limitations of industries go away, we often see the culture change dramatically. Once that happens, older intuitions on what industries worked well together and which were in conflict do not work anymore.
What I AM worried about, is drug dependence. If your eating habits only work in a world where you regularly consume these drugs, then you'll never be able to cope without them. Even worse, if the world is built with the assumption that everyone consumes them, then it will be especially hard for a drug-avoider to sustain themselves in that culture.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
No candidate has greater potential to derail DeSantis than Trump. He clings onto the hardcore vote and takes them with him, sets fire to his opponents in the primaries, and renders them worse general candidates.
I hope Trump actually gets convicted, irrespective of the validity of his crimes, just to render him ineligible. Even if De Santis loses in the generals, seeing him as the opponent will force democrats to prefer a moderate candidate.
Yes, 1 borough of 1 city containing 1.6 million people. All this outrage over 0.5% of the nation's population ?
60% of commuters use public transport in NYC. 3 types of people drive into NYC : Rich people, Blue collar workers and suburbanites who would who have been forced back by RTO policies. Rich people can pay the toll. RTO suburbanites would be compensated by their companies. Hourly blue collar people would rather save time and make a few more dollars.
I don't know if you've driven into Manhattan before, but it is a total shit show. Tolls or not, I can't imagine anyone wanting to drive into the city by choice. Congestion pricing takes what is a universally miserable experience, and makes it tolerable for some while incentivizing the rest to take the less-painful path (transit). It is a as close to a universally good thing as you can get.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
It's popular in New York City, because many in New York City don't drive so it's a tax on other people. Not so popular outside NYC.
Exactly ! Why national outrage over a single bridge in a location where it makes sense ?
DirtyWaterHotDog
2mo ago
imposition of tolls under the CBDTP pilot project appears to be driven primarily by the need to raise revenue for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) System as opposed to the need to reduce congestion
For context. All revenues collected under this program are earmarked for MTA projects.
If it is the primary goal of the program is up to interpretation. And as you said, the state could always throw it into a pile and use it for MTA projects anyways. Earmarked or not.
I'm with you on everything else. For once, I'm a shameless partisan on the issue. I like to think I can empathize with the stance of my ideological opposite. But car brained Americans have to be operating under advanced stupidy or extreme malice. I see no sympathetic position for them.
Even the smallest inconvenience to cars thousands of miles away makes them go into a frenzy. No one is coming for cars in rural America or the suburbs or even godforsaken cities like Atlanta. We're talkimg about vanilla-ass transportation policy in world cities like LA, NYC, SF, Boston, Philly, Miami and DC.
Not even a red vs blue thing. Californian opposition is so comically evil in their demands for an acceptable subway line that I cant help but think there is something I'm missing.
DirtyWaterHotDog
10mo ago
I'll keep the conversation to urban areas, with dense urban cores. So.....Tokyo. I don't care much about towns or rural places.
Among developed cities, Tokyo has the lowest car use in the world. About 12% of trips are completed with a car,
In Tokyo, the majority does not drive cars.
DirtyWaterHotDog
10mo ago
“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation,”
Japan & Western Europe would be the obvious answers.
From the cities I've visited, it applies to - Paris, Geneva, Barcelona, Madrid & Zurich.
Manhattan, Brooklyn & Boston (before MBTA crumbled) do pretty well too.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1yr ago
Does a bear wanna kill me ?
Afaik, only 3 kinds of bears attack humans
- Polar bears for food
- Mother bears to save subs (a solo bear has no subs, so not a factor here)
- Other bears when they scared
- Sloth bears cuz they crazy
A Polar bear will need to be starved for weeks before it starts hunting the one other human in the forest. And they don't climb trees, so I can reliably protect myself in the short term. Most other bears can be avoided strategically.
The reason humans are scary is that a serial killer will want to start planning their kill from minute 1. You have to fight the human on even ground. On the other hand, the bear will take ages before it decides to engage with you. You can plan your engagement with it perfectly.
That's why a sloth bear is the scrariest. They can climb trees, eat more often, actively engage with humans and react with incredible aggression. Nothing I can do. Dead before sunrise.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1yr ago
The oldest gen-Z is 26 years old. Their home acquisition numbers are reflective of inheritance and a minority with social media success. Addtionally, home ownership is a useless metric if you don't know their monthly premium. Home ownership is only 'liberating' if is is somewhat affordable.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1yr ago
There is something a pretty about a defaced statue. I much prefer that than having it be taken down. I can imagine many artistic ways of 'tastefully defacing' a statue than crudely spraying red paint on.
A statue that's taken down erases history. A defaced statue keeps all the layers of social change intact. If that's too much to ask, then I'd be all for relocating these statues to a civil war museum that accurately portrays these complex figures for who they were, without glorifying them. And please, do not replace it with George Floyd. Black people deserve better immortalized figures.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
I would expect their contribution to be high, because jews are wealthy, disproportionately represented in the media industry and live in places where voices are heard (LA, NYC).
Antler estimates that two-thirds to three-quarters of the women in these collectives were Jewish.
It could be as high as 40% (while being 7% of the population) and I wouldn't bat an eye. But, at 66% there certainly was something about being Jewish that led to the numbers being so high.
If Jewish conspiracy theorists would quiet down for a bit, it would be really interesting to do good faith studies into why urban WASPs and secular Jews behave so differently. But I don't think there is any world in which such a modest proposal gets interpreted as anything but anti-semitic.
DirtyWaterHotDog
2yr ago
These laws are clearly counter-productive and a case of "missing the forest for the trees". The easiest way to reduce demand for petroleum cars, is not to target the petroleum, but to target the cars.
The discussion has to begin with overturning obvious loopholes. The zero cost changes include:
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Remove the "light truck" exception. All cars smaller than a semi/ RV must meet the same emissions requirements.
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Allow 'electric subsidies' to be used for all electric vehicles. Including e-bikes & e-scooters.
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Allow all hybrids of a certain range to be eligible for electric subsidies. (It can be as simple as extra tariffs not applying, or using median-emission numbers to apply tariffs)
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Universal removal of zoning regulations within walking distance of transit centers
When it comes to things that cost $$, Infrastructure investments are simply more effective than 1 time car subsidies. The electric car subsidies would soon reach the 100s of billions if we keep seeing electric car adoption.
- Use the billions to build BRT bus lanes instead. Cheap, effective and much much lower energy consumption. It pairs excellently with the universal removal of zoning regulations suggestion above.
Indirect dis-incentivization can also be done through long overdue good-faith mechanisms.
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Road safety regulations must include safety outcomes for all people involved in a collision. Including pedestrians and the secondary vehicle.
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Liability coverage should be mandatory nationally, and cover all costs medical or otherwise for those in the car crash.
There is so much that can be done, before draconian 'petrol cars are illegal' laws ever have to be passed.
consumers get stuck with an inferior substitute and the alleged crisis never seems to actually get solved. It's always just a prelude for the next demand
Yes ! It is hard to tell what the true cause of this is. (lobbyists ?) But it is seems to pervade all American society.
DirtyWaterHotDog
7mo ago
Will the baby latch, will the latch hold, how to avoid painful latching, how to deal with chafing,
Doesn't pumping solve all 4 problems ?
DirtyWaterHotDog
8mo ago
The American people and American institutions are distinct. I agree that the world's institutions trust American institutions. The modern world order has been sculpted by post-WW2 America. It is less so trust, than the world being a vassal state to America.
To be clear, I don't say this with resentment. I consider US to be history's most benevolent global superpower. I'll take Pax Americana 100 times over the superpowers it replaced.
For my previous comment, I meant interpersonal trust and citizen-domestic institution trust.
DirtyWaterHotDog
9mo ago
Can you link me to literature on individual vs group contributions to cognitive ability ?
I've heard about regressing to the mean, where top percentile parents will the child's cognitive ability move towards their combined group means, rather than the parental mean.
IE, if:
inherited_iq = a*(mom + dad IQ) + b*(maternal group IQ + paternal group IQ).
Then what would a & b look like ?
Put simply,
-
If 2 geniuses from a low group IQ community have a child, then is the child less likely to be genius than children of other geniuses ?
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If 2 normies from a group with high group IQ have a child. Is the child more likely to be genius than children of other normies ?
DirtyWaterHotDog
10mo ago
Unfortunate, but fair. The west city crime/homelessness problem is the biggest self-own. LA, SF, Portland and Seattle stand out. But there is no crime problem on the east coast. Urban areas of DC, Boston and NYC are very safe. Safer than most nice suburbs in the US. Not much homelessness either.
I haven't been to non-coastal American cities....so won't offer my opinion there.
DirtyWaterHotDog
10mo ago
Have you never met a politician. Overplaying their story & creating myths is in the job description. People in the wild are humble because they don't have to sell themselves to a full country.
I work at a tech company. The humble engineer is never picked to do public demos, because public demos are the place to be shamelessly self promoting.
Politics is this phenomenon at its peak.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1yr ago
downstream of the cultural issues
You are techincally correct. The last couple of generations grew up in the suburbs and hated it. Now they don't want to go back.
With the demise of organic in-person culture, suburbs and small cities can feel isolating. Other than a few places like NYC, you'll quickly find yourself isolated because you never meet anyone. NYC forces you to collide with people like almost nowhere else in the US. The other big cities also achieve this to a small degree. But past that, every other place in the US makes a newcomer feel like they're trapped in their own head. Now newcomers suffering didn't used to matter as much, but pretty much every young professional is being forced to move into some other city as a transplant. They all get shuffled around, each getting more and more isolated.
So yeah, people want housing and they want it in a place where they won't be miserable.
From the document, this came across as an argument rather than a statement of fact (Sec Transp argues that the 1991 exception for congestion pricing was vague so he he's going to interpret it as he sees fit )
Reading between the lines, it's pretty much a 'Biden let you do it. I wont. Fuck you' letter. It even acknowledges the positive reception among the public.
It comes across as another example of Trump pushing the power of the executive to its furthest limits (every executive outdoes their former on this, but Trump 2 is a whole another level)
Congestion pricing is popular. Its in a deep blue state and doesnt have a partisan bent. (Republicans take the subway too). Im not sure why Trump is so appaled by it other than simplistic 'highway good, transit bad' memes.
Executive overreach vs executive overreach. About damn time Democrats started playing politics rather than fumbling around like baboons.
What is the precedent around retroactive change to previous approvals, esp. when the capital expenditure is already done ?
Man, is it hard to get anything done in the US. No wonder the infrastructure is crumbling.
How did stuff ever get built in the US ? The system offers infinite tools for opposition to block every project. How did the interstate system get built ? Was there a clear before-after for when this kind of systemic obstruction became commonplace ?
I'm surprised that Trump fans didnt see the civic disobedience coming. Politics and the balance between the various pillars is a massive grey area, always has been. The boundaries around this area are primarily upheld by expectations of civility and perceptions of what gets you voted out of office. "X is illegal" is never that straightforward.
Trump won by throwing civility out the window, slaughtering every sacred cow and still got the popular vote. Dems are learning the obvious lessions. Trump is about to find out why certain pandoras boxes stay closed. (Assuming the dems are somewhat competent )
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