veqq
2d ago
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yig8pTFBULI?si=11Qu7wUkT9184Ds5&t=1800
Some fund managers talk about capitalism without bankruptcy akin to Christianity without hell, meaning a loss of accountability, leading to nihilism etc. This is something we often discuss here "Elites have no skin in the game" etc. which I've been mulling over for a long time. It's interesting to see them arrive at it from a distinct intellectual framework.
veqq
3d ago
Described here: https://x.com/pope_predictor/status/1892995523340058889
veqq
4d ago
Hinduism is the equivalent of "Mediterranean religions" (including e.g. Mithraism and Greek mystery cults... and Renaissance Catholics writing about Greek mythology, besides the Greek and Roman pagans...). There are mono- and polytheistic Hindus! Yea, there are Buddhists!
Christianity is a single specific branch, equivalent in nesting to e.g. Shaktism. The Catholic Church would then be equivalent to an organization of temples adhering to Shaktism. In Hinduism, there is e.g. Mundeshwari Devi which is like a single small building, but "in operation" for about 1300 years.
veqq
7d ago
It depends on so much... How much do you know about the market, valuation etc.? What's your investment horizon? What's your ratio between net worth : monthly savings amount : monthly spending amount? What type of accounts are these held in (e.g. how much of a tax hit will you take selling?) Do you plan to stay in the US indefinitely? What would you do with the money instead? (Bonds are trash, although e.g. dollar denominated Turkish corporate debt is quite interesting right now. USD will be inflated away, which hard assets protect against - but US equities are not generally such hard assets, primarily valued for good will and imputed future growth. Vice stocks (BTI) and certain small industrial companies (PPSX, HNRG) are nice. I'm a long term commodities bull, but the macro's complex and Trump's policies might as well be designed to destroy the energy industry so I can't recommend favorites like (VALE, PBR.A).
I've personally been almost 100% in the other widow maker (junior gold miners) for about a year and a half, since the regional banks rerated. There's still a long room to go (with many companies' earnings equal to their market caps) as gold's doubled while most are much cheaper than in 2021 - but the margin of safety's declined. More importantly, you can't hold a commodity producer for a long time, requiring future selling - which would require you to understand them well enough to correctly exit. That adds tax complexities, depending on account type etc.
You should probably not do anything. Funnily, APL is the one I would most strongly suggest you exit.
veqq
10d ago
Everyone wants
Obama-era regulation makes small cars almost important to sell on the market (due to sky-high efficiency requirements, relaxed for larger vehicles). The manufacturers are only offering hatchbacks etc.
veqq
10d ago
"Weird fact, things actually stop being true once many dumb people believe them"
veqq
11d ago
Reagan
David Stockman's Triumph of Politics describes the Reagan revolution's failure/betrayal. Stockman left congress to direct Reagan's budget, but was prevented from cutting the welfare-warfare state. They never balanced the budget during Reagan's terms, rather tripling the budget instead.
veqq
13d ago
That's actually perfect. I first thought of Texas (since it was acquired after the main project was underway, developed its own self-identity by interaction with the main project etc. But the US civil war being fought over how manifest destiny would play out (slavery, filibustering Central America) rhymes perfectly with fighting over how the Rus/East Slavs' future should play out.
Along these lines:
(Old) English is rather special, being the 2nd non-classical European written language (after old Irish). Literacy (around 880 King Alfred tried to impose universal (male) literacy!) and our native tongue's long played a role, competing with Latin since the beginning. But most European standard languages were intentionally created in the last few hundred years (deciding which grammar to use and coining tens of thousands of words) by greats like Joachim Campe and Philipp von Zesen who coined modern German words for ancient, author, university, project, address, spelling etc. Vuk Karadžić, Ljudevit Gaj etc.did similar for Serbo-Croatian (oddly, a Slovak Bogoslav Šulek played a huge role in Croatian!) In Finnland, Mikael Agricola was quite early, Antero Warelius and August Ahlqvist made many words. In Hungary, Ferenc Kazinczy and Dávid Baróti Szabó tirelessly created thousands of words! For the Czechs Josef Jungmann and Josef Dobrovský etc. etc. It was only a short leap from here to creating a brand new language like Volapuk or Esperanto or bringing Hebrew back to life. (Indeed, Hungarian had almost disappeared in the late 18th century! The great Hungarian project turned everyone it could into a Hungarian through public schooling - Trianon hurt so badly, because within a few generations those lost Romanians etc. would have been Hungarians too!)
veqq
13d ago
That's the wrong framing. "Realist" defense concerns play little role in Russia, otherwise it wouldn't have emptied its borders with NATO to feed the grinder in Ukraine. There've been a gish-gallop of contradictory reasons how x or y impact and threaten Russia's security posture, but they are trivially rejected when looking at Russia's actions and the arguments in totality. Rather, for both Russia, this is a question of self identity:
The standard Russian self-image includes Ukraine, where the reformers (1654) and leaders of the church for most recent history, where the first educators, language reformers, where your ancestors (1000 years ago and 80 years ago) came from, where the very fairy tales happened! At the same time, most of Ukraine was not Slavic until the Russians came and took the South, letting the central planes populate, now safe from Turkic slavers. Over time, Russia developed into a great, welcoming multiethnic empire, a true melting pot for its peoples with the sternest nationalist smiling on his Muslim Tatar friends and the president kissing the Quran, brought man into space and brought the arts and mathematics to great heights (otherwise abandoned in most of the West, today). Yes, this great project has had many struggles, but... How can you believe your brothers spit on this, abandon your shared history, authors, everything and move out? (Think of your wife showing you divorce papers...) Love turns to hate, spite, evil, post facto justifying the split.
Translated to American sensibilities, imagine Philadelphia succeeding, the great colonial cities, home of the liberty bell, the continental congress etc. and insisting you have nothing in common, you New Yorkers and Georgians just oppressed them and they don't even want to speak English anymore, but create some new literary tradition etc. etc.
The same process happened in Yugoslavia (which one common Russian narrative holds, broke hope of Russia-West integration.) China is not identical (Taiwan being far smaller and weaker, today and lacking historic relevance), with explicit reunification rather being an important political point. But most importantly, China has already won, as it races past the West in wealth, cultural power and future shaping vibrancy, the growing support for reunification will see Taiwan (even if only by creative interpretation) in the PRC's sphere.
The worst part about Russia in this is that, had they just gone in in 2014 or integrated the Donbas, instead of turning it into a mafia run hell hole, Ukraine wouldn't really have resisted now - indeed, had Putin not invaded, but worked with Zelensky who won on a pro-Russia platform, none of this would have happened. This is a self-own the US is now copying. (For lack of time, I will not go into polyphonic government, where seeing your neighbors thrive might inspire you that there's a better way. Squashing this threat by incorporating or forcing Ukrainians out helped regime stability.)
I'd like to dunk on Mearsheimer as a broken clock which looks right twice a day, but actually that's a stain and it's missing hands entirely. For one thing, he repeatedly stated that Russia would not invade Ukraine (as I too believed) and after it started began “There is no evidence that Putin wanted to take over the whole of Ukraine” yet somehow people claim he predicted everything? Baffling! He constantly praises Russia on the field, claims victory's just on the horizon, that Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk and and and will soon fall, while the lines haven't shifted a day's walk since the end of 2022.
veqq
14d ago
overwhelmingly middle class and below, and a lot of them are the kind of people who couldn't go to college
All the ones I know are educated, e.g. school teachers at districts requiring MAs and midlevel financial analysts e.g. writing mining reports for a Tier II bank.
veqq
19d ago
I wonder if "decolonization" in practice is somewhat genocidal.
Inherently, yes. The entire colonization rhetoric is incoherent in honest historical context, unless e.g. viewed as moral justification for immediate power shifts and ethnic cleansing.
veqq
19d ago
Tangential, but SWIFT's barely relevant anymore. There's no compelling or procompetitive reason to pay 5% fees and wait days when CIPS is instant and essentially free (cents to transfer millions of dollars, or small sums). The future of settlement's here: DPI. Brazil's Pix showed the way, China's CIPS now has integrations with some 20 countries and they're fusing their own systems together. Brazil used to have an ecosystem of Visa equivalents and banks charging high fees, now it's all free and instant through Pix, because of legitimately better technology. The US' protectionism for rampant rent seeking practices of its banks is a barrier to grow only rivaled by suburbia. Imagine if the US were able to leverage efficiency factors like this, if you could just freely scan people's phones for payment etc.? (Actually, I'm pro cash, security and tax issues but payment processing in the US is hellish.)
I typed up fluff I wanted to edit into a coherent comment, but something just came up. I'll edit it later.
veqq
19d ago
Ukrainians pursuing a similar policy of forcible assimilation
That started because of the 2022 war, when people chose to stop speaking Russian because the Russian army was shelling them and then the government started e.g. removing Pushkin statues.
Ethnic data's difficult because terms like native language actually mean ancestral language, so people will e.g. claim to be natives of a language they don't speak. Of course, you also get wild 20% swings in different censuses as identities are relatively meaningless. A rather small amount of Easterners claimed to be ethnically Russian, but used Russian in all situations. N.b. I was a staunch "Ukrainian isn't a "real" identity" type (but very supportive of its independence, because many Ruses would lead to many courts and renaissance, like in Italy and Germany's golden ages. The languages are very close, effectively a few hundred unique roots and different 1:1 changes in the realization of others. Anyway, I never felt a need to use Ukrainian and never encountered it in day to day life.
veqq
20d ago
If I were more optimistic about long term dynamics, I'd quite like this. I've built some large aquariums for fun, with some fish bridges etc. Definitely fun work with potential! May God deliver me from the temptation of becoming a Mormon glazier.
Why didn't you get into this line? Does your dad work with/train others?
veqq
20d ago
lack of exposure to non-negotiable danger with permanent consequences.
https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-the-education-of-cyrus-by
veqq
20d ago
is fanaticism a necessary component of grit?
Recently, a few people described rationalism as not making people... happy/productive, because they just analyze instead of doing things. Indeed, if something suddenly occurs to block you you might reassess the whole project (pausing or giving up entirely) instead of creatively finding a way to overcome it. Trying to over optimize your value capture from a 100% thing can lead to you losing out as you e.g. get stopped out.
veqq
20d ago
Selling isn't building. Even making cigarettes isn't building. But building machines to build better cigarettes? Now we have a philosophical discussion about socially beneficial economic activity!
I'd say yes, it's good to design and even make better cigarette making machines. And evil to operate them. Just build them as a fun project, then retool for something good.
Trivial to find: https://odysee.com/@LightElf:0/Kanye-West-Heil-Hitler:9
Not worth listening to, rather terrible, but such is our fallen society that some like rap.
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