sliders1234
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User ID: 685
sliders1234
1mo ago
I had to look up Ray Kroc because there was something I was guessing that has a good culture war angle not discussed. Foundations and donations over the long term seem to always end up in the left camp.
Ray Kroc my intuition was telling me he would not be a leftist. To no one’s surprise a small business owners political philosophy is described in Wikipedia as
“A lifelong Republican, Kroc believed firmly in self-reliance and staunchly opposed government welfare and the New Deal. Kroc donated $255,000 to Richard Nixon's reelection campaign in 1972”
I guess it was actually his widowed wife’s estate that donated $200 million to NPR, but still seems there is a conservative can create a foundation and 30 years after their death the money ends up supporting everything they were opposed to.
sliders1234
1mo ago
I don’t see any shitty parenting unless there is a lot more going on. A few text messages that look bad. If a prosecutor went thru my phone they will find plenty of shitty stuff I’ve done and a lot of stuff out of context.
I had some rough times in school sometime. Kids get depressed. Bullying happens. Most just grow up. Kids need to work thru there issues and grow up. I’m fairly certain Elon Musks had shittier parents than this. Very few kids grow up a member of the Brady Bunch and my guess is the vast majority of kids have some family dysfunction.
This actually scares me this definition of “shitty parents” because it sounds a lot like helicopter parenting instead of what I think is much better of just letting kids do what they want to do. I think the latter leads to children being much better adults and key to them developing their own self-esteem. I don’t want a legal standard where a parent needs to micromanage every bad thought their kids have.
I agree with guns should be locked up and secure. Though I feel like there is a ton of hypocrisy here as I’ve never seen a black father convicted of this.
This will probably get some play and is a bit of a different topic. Former CEO of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicicki son died of a drug freshman year of college at Cal.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-youtube-ceos-son-found-dead-uc-berkeley-rcna139355
The obvious implications is he took something laced with fentanyl. Culture war wise concerns about fentanyl are red coded though issues with fentanyl seem apparent in both red and blue states and people.
Overall I feel like this issue has lost its place in the news cycle. A quick google overdose deaths topped 112k in 2023 an all-time record. I am seeing a current U.S. population of 334 million. So to put this in perspective 112k multiplied by an average lifespan of 80 years is like 9 million deaths. Or close to 3% of US population at current rates will die by a drug overdose. I think I can fairly say it’s a huge issue even if you disagree with how I’m calculating the average persons risks of OD at around 3% in their lifetime.
Quick analysis of the kid he looks in shape for a 19 year old and was majoring in math so he’s the dream of any parent. Odd thing is he was found unresponsive at 4:23 pm on a Tuesday. That is going to be weird and details will come out as that time frame is more of an addict death. Versus I expected a weekend OD and he did some fentanyl laced coke/Molly during the weekend.
From people I’ve talked to opioids are amazing. I do not know if I’ve ever done them. They have to be if people do them. I’ve done molly/coke/mushrooms in the past. The big thing to me is I’m paranoid I’m doing something laced now and have largely cut out doing anything now.
The midtwit take is that dealers either sell both and cross contaminate or lace other drugs to get people addicted. Personally opinion and perhaps a difference without a difference is it’s probably lacing just so people say it’s the good shit.
Sorry for their loss.
Culture war issues
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Plays into the immigration debate of not controlling the border
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Blue states seem to be adopting a let it happen and treat but it doesn’t seem to be working
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War on drug topics. I don’t think the old war on drugs ever dealt with the death rate we have now but war on drugs doesn’t seem stupid when it’s a 3% population level lifetime death rate which is far higher than COVID and killing people with high life expectancy
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Other policy considerations. Some would say things like legalize drugs to kill fentanyl and people get “safe” drugs. Some conservative arguments that something’s should just be illegal. Opioids probably are fantastic but the death rate for someone who tries opioids seems extremely high.
My numeracy tells me this is a big problem and I believe an order of magnitude bigger problem than COVID. I don’t think it’s quite as hard coded in culture wars.
1460 SAT and rejected at Cornell has been trending on Twitter the last few days.
https://twitter.com/maiab/status/1736766407348814091?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
A lot of the takes were about him being rejected because he is white. The thing I find interesting is the condensing of the top 1-5% of scores into a smaller score range over time. My guess since the score differences look smaller it lets schools select more for other characteristics rather than pure mental horsepower. Getting a perfect score today or something that looks similar 1550 plus will not differentiate people as much.
Elon Musks apparently had a 1400 SAT. Bill Gates a 1590. Obviously they are both smart but I feel fairly confident Bill Gates is significantly higher pure IQ. With the way normal distributions operate I feel confident saying there is a big intelligence difference between the two but on the current system Musks would probably get 1580 and Gates 1600.
Digging thru SAT history there have been a few key years where the test had significant changes.
1993/1995 - some test changes but the big thing was a recentering to get scores back to about 1000 from 900. Before this update a median score at HYPS would have been 1370-1400 area. Bill Gates 1590 would have really stood out and guaranteed alone admittance to Harvard.
2005 - attempts to move the test closer to high school curriculum and eliminated analogies and quant comparisons. My guess is this made the test less of a pure intelligence test and closed gaps between highest performers and mid range.
2016 - more I guess dumbing down and trying to make the test more like what they did in high school. Multiple choice questions went from 5 options to 4 options and wrong answers no longer carried a penalty. This would make educated guessing far better.
Here is the current percentile for different scores.
https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-percentiles-and-score-rankings
1500 is now solidly top 2%. 1450 is top 4%.
Here is the data from 2003
https://blog.prepscholar.com/sat-historical-percentiles-for-2005-2004-2003
1490-1600 was solidly differentiating between the top 1%.
I believe the new scoring significantly hurts the outliers at standing out from the test. And likely hurts the highest performing white, Asian, and Jewish males at getting into the most selective schools since the difference between a 1530 and 1600 SAT score just doesn’t seem that big statistically. It feels to me that studying for the new exam and learning test taking skills are more important today. Perhaps, you think this isn’t a big deal that the raw mental abilities of the top 1.2% and .3% of the population isn’t important and allowing schools to select more on other criteria is more important. My opinion for the very top programs finding the Bill Gates level intelligence matters. Men also have different intelligence bell curves (more people on the extremes) therefore on net I believe it hurts males.
I am also curious how someone who is really good at math could stand out in today’s environment. The SAT and a few good AP math scores wouldn’t seem to be enough. Do you need to have the opportunity to compete in high-end math tournaments?
Personally, the new testing I believe would have significantly effected my life. Coming from a lower class white family being able to crush the SAT gave me a way to stand out for a relatively cheap costs.
I am seeing a median SAT score of 1520 at Harvard and a median of 1440 at UMICH. My guess is back in the day that gap was much higher.
sliders1234
3mo ago
This test feels like it is cartoonish. To the point where it was either the KKK who were assigned to boost AA and decided let’s make black people say they suck at science and then go collect our bonus for boosting AA or some senior dude just got pissed he had guys not on merit and created a test so dumb it wins a lawsuit easily. Basically got pissed at the politicians.
There has to be less obvious ways to cheat on an exam than this.
sliders1234
6mo ago
White Supremacy strikes again. Anything ever associated with a white person makes others feel bad.
The shocking thing is we are always looking for cases of white supremacy but we have actual anti-semitism all over the place the only people who notice are Jews feeling pain and right wingers like me. The Ivies are literally justifying their students physically assaulting Jews.
https://twitter.com/billackman/status/1719878415325528357?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1719819193145573619?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
And of course there are deans writing letters in support of this behavior (can’t find it now but Columbia’s dean put out a letter in support of the students being mean to Jews).
I had asked here before where do Jews sit on the grievance social heriarchy. It’s apparently a bit of both sides. For official government stuff very highly. For the next generation of elite wokes they might be beneath rural whites.
sliders1234
9mo ago
Did he commit a crime isn’t convincing. He probably did but that doesn’t escape a lawfare question. Are the laws being applied equally or do they only apply to Trump?
If I get called to Trump jury I’ve already decided on jury nullification. And I’ve never voted for him. A nation of laws must have some concept of laws apply to all in the same way.
sliders1234
1mo ago
Problem with our COVID response is it was dumb and weaponized for politics and self-satisfaction. I would say it was just politics but I also think a lot of people thought they were the “good” people for being safe. It wasn’t just a rural/urban divide.
Things like 6 boosters for 20 something’s was dumb regardless of side. And over 50 being completely anti-vaxx regardless of side was dumb. Or students masking at Stanford while riding a bike was just dumb.
There were probably some policies that made more sense in urban areas like less in-person during waves to protect hospitals but the vast majority of the issues seem to me like one side was just being dumb regardless of density of their community.
Historically this is invasion. The Romans never would have let millions of migrants enter their territory and use their resources. They would have slaughtered them.
If I open a dictionary this fits many of the definitions you will find. I’m sure in about a week all those definitions will be modified to make sure invasion only means with guns.
We also frequently use the word “invasive species”. Those aren’t species using force to enter a new environments. Often their species that lack predators and therefore grow uncontrollably.
So often a debate does come down to the definition of a word.
I would note you I believe think Trump committed insurrection on Jan 6. In many ways this is very similar but I do believe the gap between: Trump gives speech causing riot is the meaning used by 14th amendment rioters as an insurrection is much larger than the gap between the definition of invasion constitutional writers used and what is occurring at our southern border.
This just comes down to how stretchy are the words invasions and insurrection.
sliders1234
6mo ago
The guy who hit him should get 2 years. It was improbable his actions would lead to death but he did commit assault and it resulted in death.
Looks like a simple case here.
It does in many ways remind me of Floyd who at most Chauvin should have gotten 2 years for doing his legally authorized job with bad technique resulting in a death.
sliders1234
7mo ago
One big issue is the privatization benefits - higher returns - is likely false for a large economy like the US. The problem is changing a massive amount of money from government bonds to equity risks would change all market pricing. The equity risks premium is maybe 3% a year now.
The government would need to sell trillions in debt to transition and then you would have trillions in cash flowing into investments. Equity premium would shrink. Government would face some significant negatives of higher financing costs. I don’t think this program would scale well.
A small country like say Norway can do things like a sovereign wealth fund and capture equity risks premium as $1.1 trillion isn’t enough to vastly change market pricing. The US would change every price in the markets. China is likely at that size too.
The Proud Boy sentences being quite severe is on my mind today. 22 years for Tarrio who was not there on Jan 6. He does have text saying it was them who did it. A few others got in the high teens sentences who were there.
I will admit I respect the Proud Boys and agree with a lot of their statements. I do believe the 2020 election was stolen. The lack of a secret ballot thru mass mail-in voting violates every principle of Democracy. Without violating the secret ballot Trump would have easily won in my opinion. The Proud Boys official position from memory was a desire for a new election following Democratic principles. Seems fair to me. So I feel they are directionally correct even if they took things too far.
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The right won’t get equal treatment in the court. It seems like the key courts are in cities that are going to have unsympathetic juries and judges. If you flip these courts to rural areas then my guess antifa types are getting 20 years and Proud Boys 2 years. In rural areas they would have judges very sympathetic that the election wasn’t proper and their anger was justified in the same way BLM protestors get courts sympathetic that America is a racists nation.
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I think the left is making a mistake with these massive sentences. If they gave them a couple years I would feel it was fair as they went too far. But now I want them pardoned. If Trump pardons them as he should then it’s a slap in the face of the court decision. Delegitimizes the court to have the court decide these are really bad people deserving long sentences for overturning Democracy but then have the next guy release them. It feels very third worldish to me. With other lawfare attempts it seems as though any future POTUS should do mass pardons. I’m not sure how balance of powers can survive this.
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The punishment for Proud Boys seems to have some connection to the debates and Biden declaring them “white supremacists” and Trump telling them to “stand by and stand down” (which felt coded). It made it important these guys got long sentences to confirm that they are the bad guys because then a court confirmed what they told you. Same thing with Floyd officers and long sentences which confirmed that they were bad murderous cops. A jury convicted therefore we know it’s true.
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It’s another example of punishment for exercising your right to a jury trial.
I agree with Garrett Jones books “10% Less Democracy” and America would be better with less activision and less voting. But America looks more and more like a third word spoils system. Win you get the spoils, lose you go to jail. Which makes elections far more important.
Links aren’t important just sometimes people asks for articles.
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1172530436/proud-boys-jan-6-sedition-trial-verdict
https://www.amazon.com/10-Less-Democracy-Should-Elites/dp/1503603571
Edit: Focus on the punishments and any results from the severity. I used a certain frame to put it in their view. We don’t need to discuss election legitimacy again.
This just explains why I’ve radicalized. The conversation is over. It’s why I love Desantis attacking Disney though I think Disney falls within the spirit of free speech. The point of the game now is finding wedges of power and taking them when you got them. Use your power, use lawfare, break all norms. When you can take a win take a win. Any courtesies won’t be extended to you from the other side.
And by breaking thing I associate with civil society that’s where I think the right is winning. Texas lawsuit oriented abortion law pre-roe overturned was working. Lawfare works. Desantis Disney assault is working. Bud lights boycott led to the target change of corporate behavior. Busing migrants to blue cities worked. All of these are combinations of activision, lawfare, using government authority outside of the spirit of the constitution. Things the right wouldn’t do before. They need to keep doing these things and probably 10-50x the amount of them. And it’s why I’m a big Desantis backer because I think he’s the best the right has for working outside their comfort zone.
Agreed if 3 white guys were sitting on a bike and told a pregnant black female to get away. Well they would be looking at 10 years.
He’s not presenting a neutral version. But assuming black people have preferential treatment.
And there is a bit of - sorry I got in the news. I’m the one who posted the video.
I’ve been poor before. Sometimes the rich (this case middle class) get to go first. Wait till the next bike shows up. That’s what you have to do when your poor.
And one of the poors greatest advantages is you have the hustle they don’t.
sliders1234
8mo ago
The only evidence missing is Hunter flipping on dad - which won’t happen since his dad has pardon power or a taped phone call between Hunter/Joe which won’t happen because Hunter isn’t going to record calls with his dad.
Everything else is there. Laptop with Hunter saying dad got paid. Joe meeting many business partners. Insiders saying Joe was involved. Money changing hands.
None of it matters that it’s a strong case you will never convince partisans to turn on their only electable candidate.
sliders1234
20d ago
The evidence synthesized infant formula is bad is entirely from confounded studies showing mothers who breast feed lead to better results. But mothers who breast feed have a lot of other advantages for kids.
sliders1234
9mo ago
The issue with this is the GOP is succeeding at wiping out institutional DEI. The Supreme Court ruling has made a difference. Desantis has done a lot on that front.
Trumps best ability though is to expose their contradictions. I just feel the right has some policy moment and a guy whose good at doing policy.
sliders1234
1mo ago
I hate the political angle on this. It feels leftist to me that “if we just had more schools/spent more money” we would not have “maga/disinformation problem” instead of most of things being fundamental disagreements.
That being said America is a vast country and a lot of Americans would benefit from getting to see more of it.
One of my own personal favorite trips was touring the gulf which has many unique places around it. It helped I had friends to see. But you get going thru their everything from old south (Pensacola for me), New Orleans it’s own animal, and Houston/small Texas towns to see a whole lot of culture and many different foods.
There are no doubt similar tours to be done that can take a couple weeks and involve 18 hrs or so of driving.
sliders1234
2mo ago
Something about reading school vouchers as far-right just rubs me the wrong way. Though I agree it comes from people generally associated with the right the actual policy feels very liberal to me. Politics have strange coalitions I guess where certain policies become coded to a tribe.
On one hand you have “Individuals get to choose what and how their children are taught in school while selecting an environment that best fits them as an individual” versus a “top down the government decides what and how children are taught”.
The origional purpose of public schools was a bit of let’s teach kids to read and do arithmetic plus a lot of we are a new nation state and public schools will uniform our language, memes, national Origen mythology and become good citizens within the territory we have won thru war and declared a unified political authority. The building of a nation-state or the process most formed thru feels very right-wing.
Perhaps, initial America founding was a little left wing but public schools also served a purpose in American history of taking Irish/Italian/Polish/Hispanic immigrants and turning them into nice little Protestant value Americans or as close as they could.
sliders1234
3mo ago
Not sure why it’s not working for me.
Anyway I had to look up Yishan Wong on Wikipedia and this paragraph I find hilarious
“In 2012, when asked about various controversial Reddit communities, Wong said that the site should offer a platform for objectionable content: "We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it."[10] In 2013, he hired Ellen Pao as the Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships and later recommended her as CEO.[11]”
Maybe Ellen Pao wasn’t quit the censorship type back then but the paragraph reads to me “We strongly support our Jewish community in X,Y,Z country we have therefore appointed our Secretary of State to be Adolf Hitler.” Either he truly believed what he said and just made an awful hirer or cultures of all involved in Reddit changed over time.
sliders1234
5mo ago
I think you end up with a situation where every GOP politician gets prosecuted on Novel Legal Theories until the GOP as a party quits nominating candidates
sliders1234
5mo ago
Probably the Hanania argument. Which I think I’ve put out there too but he put it together better.
Jews are 17% of US billionaires, 33% of Nobels, 15/20 of the largest donors in the 2020 election, 7.5% of Senate/House, current POTUS (joking about Blinken), the vice first-man, 2/7 of the Supreme Court.
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/the-great-jewish-realignment-of-2023
Quoting GOT is a bit midtwit but “Power is Power”. Jews got it. Bunch of Ivy League kids not necessarily power - maybe some day.
Personal opinion is I think you are wrong on this. It’s not just frat boys and looking down on your consumers.
It’s promoting something I view as a known evil. I don’t see much of a difference between promoting Mulvaney and well being literally Hitler. I mean Hitler at a minimum wanted more land for Germans to grow their civilization. The Mulvaney message is cut off your dick and commit suicide of your people.
Would a WW2 vet in 1953 look at the Mulvaney message and see one as worse than the other? Convincing your kids to permenently castrate themselves? If you told them a lot of the major corporations were mass marketing castration to society? I don’t think my Catholic faith would see much of a difference.
But I’ve been canceling brands long before Bud.
The way out for Bud is to fire the entire executive staff. Promote that hard in the media . Then run national tv ads denouncing LGBT.
Of course my plan would also get Bud banned from every sporting event because a lot of their tv contracts have people who buy into this stuff.
sliders1234
8mo ago
It reminds me a lot of the Hunter Biden plea deal which had terms that could have included any bribery or foreign agent type charges.
Or Clapper and Brennan getting new fancy government titles after leading the laptop misinformation campaign. Who if they were not part of the regime probably lied to congress in the past and if they were a Trumper would have been charged.
At this point I wouldn’t be surprised of anything. Perhaps Jan 6 was just the CIA organizing a false color Revolution with some useful idiots.
At some point it just feels like they are rubbing things in our faces with their corruption.
Blocking $26 billion in aid to an extremely wealthy country that also has the wealthiest per capita diaspora community is now anti-semitism? When the country sending the money has a $1.5 trillion budget deficit?
I’m pro sending money to Ukraine because they are a poor country fighting out geopolitical enemies but I don’t understand sending money to a wealthy nation like Israel especially not when we are essentially funding both sides.
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