wlxd
1yr ago
Okay, so I set the price at $1B, and everyone else does that too. Why not? Oh yes, because this will bump the property tax beyond what I can afford. On the other hand, if I bring it down to what I can afford, bots will no longer leave me alone. Point is, you’re trying to pull a fast one here.
wlxd
1yr ago
I am working in tech industry, and don't have much personal experience in US academia, so this will be mostly based on experiences of my friends and family, and my knowledge of intricacies of US immigration system (the legal one, that is).
The typical wage of US postdoc researcher (and these are the ones who do most of the actual work) is something like $50-60k. Entry level positions are often in low-to-mid $40k, and salaries below that are not unheard of. These are all people with PhDs, not necessarily extremely smart (like my friends I mention above), but nevertheless significantly more intelligent than an average person earning six figures, and at least as driven and conscientious. How is that possible?
The answer is quite simple: these position are filled with mostly foreign researchers. They come here on J1 or H1B visas (occasionally on O1, but that's less common among junior researchers), and are tied to their PI and their lab to a very high degree. On J1, they literally cannot change they job, and on H1B, they can only switch to another research job, they cannot leave and go writing ad targeting code for FAANG. Even if they want to switch lab, that's usually not very easy. The job market is much smaller, based on recommendations, so their PI can completely torpedo their career if they so choose, making them beholden to their whims. And I haven't even mentioned the two body problem, affecting the scientists very acutely.
This means that the foreign researchers are, to a large degree, indentured servants of the labs they work for. This is not to say that they are exploited: no, they are typically rather fine with the arrangement, given that they can always go back to their home country, but nevertheless chose it, being mostly aware of its realities, and stay here. This is rather similar to the original indentured servants back in the day. The point is that the realities of what awaits them back home, along with the incentives that the immigration temporary work authorization system (H1B and most other employment visas were not meant result in immigration, indeed, before the invention of the legal fiction of "dual intent" policy, applying for a green card while on H1B resulted in not being to return to US if you leave it before you obtain the GC) highly reduce the pool of options available to them once they're here, and make foreign researchers being highly attractive, captive workforce for the research organizations.
wlxd
1yr ago
Sure, some indeed actually dedicate their lives to these kind of competitions, but this is not big fraction of the people partaking, and even their career is not that long. They usually move on from there to more typical places of status. I also think it's not instructive to focus on the actual winners, instead consider people in top 10, or even top 50.
wlxd
1yr ago
Why would you think that “Parler staff will still be working on the app” has any bearing on the size of the stake?
wlxd
1yr ago
They don’t get to just stop funding everything. Assume that pursuing the war is in US/NATO interest. Suppose they make a decision, and Zelensky (or whoever is also taking part on Ukrainian side) disagrees. They cannot just withdraw their funds and their support: this would damage Ukrainian’s strategic position, and reduce the chances of successful military outcomes. It would be cutting their noses to spite their faces.
This does not mean that they have no say in what Ukraine does. They do, but so do the Ukrainian rulers.
wlxd
1yr ago
That’s what I am conflicted about. Sure, there is no fundamental reasons why the west/US couldn’t mine and extract its own lithium, so that it’s not dependent on China. But, would it actually be able to do it in practice? Would the overcome the political, NIMBY, environmental, ecological etc opposition? Can they actually get necessary know how and workforce to build what is needed?
Consider the current energy crisis in Europe. Seems like the obvious answer would be to just go all in on nuclear fission. Is this what is happening? No, European countries seem like to be more into trying to survive winter, expanding LNG terminals, and hoping that there is enough LNG capacity in future. Will there be? Can they depend on their US ally providing all of it? No, US is still not pushing hard into expanding fossils, instead we still go all in on ESG.
Seems to me that even if it is clear what needs to be done, the ability to actually pull it off is no longer there, there is no leader to pull the Realpolitik off and align everyone towards the goal. Instead, we get the standard multitude of interest groups that just makes everything impossible to build, as usual.
wlxd
1yr ago
Germany is not even able to keep their existing power plants open during energy crisis in the face of opposition from the greens. I don’t think reopening a mine closed for more than a decade is going to be any easier.
wlxd
1yr ago
Well, yes, indeed I believe that upstanding citizens shouldn’t suffer the same condition as criminals, who should experience bad conditions in order to deter them from doing crime. Not sure what your point is, that I should lobby for improved conditions in jails so that political prisoners of my side have better time there? No, I’d rather the other side stop taking political prisoners.
That if you think they don't deserve the treatment they're receiving, your problem is with how we deal with criminal suspects in general.
I find your suggestion that they get the same treatment as common criminals to be rather ludicrous, and I do not believe that you are making it in a good faith.
The criminal justice system did not treat the George Floyd rioters in the same manner, that is, by attempting to catch every single last one of them and keeping them in pretrial detention for months or years. Instead, George Floyd rioters were allowed to run mostly scot-free, and only a handful of the absolute worst ones faced any consequences at all. In the "100 days of Portland", for example, the handful of rioters that did end up getting arrested, was immediately released and often rearrested next night, rinse and repeat.
In fact, I wouldn't have minded much how the Jan 6th rioters are treated if BLM rioters were treated the same (in fact I suggested that we do exactly that at the time, the Jan 6th treatment is another good example along the Waco one I brought up that stopping riots is definitely doable when proper methods are used). The problem here is that you are asking me to play along the rules of the game, while your side of the "criminal justice reform" argument is rigging the game to punish my side and benefit theirs. I reject that.
wlxd
1yr ago
Sure, Google won’t hire total idiots. At the same time, they do not have very high bar these days: otherwise they wouldn’t be able to hire quarter million of people over past 15 years.
(I worked there myself for ~5 years, and saw many changes over time first hand)
wlxd
1yr ago
Basically none of the moderators are actual Twitter employees. These companies also employ an army of contractors. When you hear that Google employs 150 000 people, you need to understand that this figure only include full time employees that are directly employed by Google. When you add in temps, vendors and contractors, the figure probably exceeds 500 000.
wlxd
1yr ago
Zero chance I ever particpate in this forum again while Naraburns is a moderator.
wtf I love naraburns now
(just kidding, just kidding, I always liked naraburns)
wlxd
1yr ago
Your understanding of Margaret Hamilton’s role in Apollo program is still closer to what activists want you to believe instead of actual truth.
She was a lead of a team that wrote the Apollo lander program, this much is true. What is less commonly known is that she joined that team as the most junior member, and only became a lead after the code had already been written, and the actual leads (whose names, ironically, basically nobody knows today) have moved on to more important projects.
wlxd
1yr ago
While I agree that there is some strangeness about the entire story, I think the “gay escort” theory is highly unlikely, for the very simple reason: people like Pelosis can afford and procure services of higher quality providers than crazy hobos.
wlxd
1yr ago
You might not know to pay less taxes now, but if you actually cared to learn, you’d start out with some obvious steps, like, for example, asking people who you think might have better idea than you do. Rich people typically are good at figuring out how to get things done, as this is typically how they got rich in the first place. Your last line about “the level of fantasy” is bad, and you should be able to do better than that.
This "fetish for hobos" theory does not sound entirely absurd and incoherent, especially considering the examples you give, but...
The basis of the escort theory is, essentially: How did he get into the house? How does a house owned by one of the richest couples in America in one the most crime-ridden cities in America, not have a security system that can defend against a lone crazy person making a semi-spontaneous attack?
I mean, does "Paul Pelosi has a fetish for gay hobos" is really the first thing that comes to your mind given this evidence? Is this really simplest theory filling available facts?
Look, I'll propose something much simpler: DePape ringed the bell, someone (maybe even mister Pelosi) answered the door, and DePape said something that was misinterpreted, resulting in the person letting him in, thinking that he was expected. It could have even been something as simple as him saying "hey, I have something for Nancy". Does that really sound less plausible than "Paul Pelosi has a secret fetish for gay hobos"? Or, check this out: DePape rings the bell, Pelosi answers the door, and DePape just shoves the octogenarian and barges in? I'm not saying that either of those is what actually happened, but that these are simply way more a priori plausible than the "fetish for gay hobos" theory, they depend on fewer assumptions and inferential steps.
wlxd
1yr ago
If Musk unbans Trump, but Trumps ignores Twitter, that will reduce Musk's and Twitter's status.
wlxd
1yr ago
The US had this fight over prayer in schools, etc. It was thoroughly resolved in favor of separating church and state.
This is, by the way, one of those decisions that would seem completely absurd to the founders of the country. They very much did not believe that US constitution demanded separation of church and state (even if they personally believed it would be desirable). For example, when the US Constitution was passed, Massachusetts literally had state religion. From Massachusetts constitution of 1780:
Art. III. As the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality, and as these cannot be generally diffcused through a community but by the institution of the public worship of God and of the public instructions in piety, religion, and morality: Therefore, To promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies-politic or religious societies to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.
Not only requiring prayer in school was allowed in Massachusetts, in fact in 1791 Massachusetts passed a law that literally required Sunday church attendance (to be fair, this was never enforced). There was really no question about the constitutionality of this: at the time, the bill of rights was understood to apply mostly to federal, not state governments. The current jurisprudence is very much dependent on 14th amendment, and the incorporation doctrine.
wlxd
1yr ago
Does this course of action sound like something that happened in the real world?
I recommend watching some videos from this channel, which contain mostly body or dashcam videos of police officers interacting with criminals. You'll find that the criminals often behave completely bizarrely, making completely absurd decisions and incoherent actions, and cops just chilling, seconds before events turn violent.
For example, in this video, you get to observe an actual hammer attack. You see some people chatting with the driver, then they come up to the arriving officer, telling him that they guy is likely drunk. The cop engages the driver, cheerily asking him for papers, when the guy bizarrely, for no reason at all, pulls out a hammer and brings it to a gunfight.
I recommend watching more videos from this channel. Behaviors of the criminal underclass are often completely bizarre and strategically idiotic. You are assuming much more rationality than the drunks, crazies and morons actually can scrape together in the moment. The argument that "it doesn't make sense to do it" simply does not carry much weight.
wlxd
1yr ago
Yes, I did not mean to imply that the current doctrine is incoherent or is standing on the shaky basis (as did, for example, Roe v Wade decision, or still does most of the federal regulatory apparatus based on the unintended interpretation of interstate commerce clause). My point was simply that separation of church and state, contrary to what many people seem to believe, has not been one of the founding principle of this country, and in many states, quite the contrary.
Why is it then that the social ties among residents of SFH neighborhoods are almost universally stronger than among apartment dwellers? I don’t think that a typical renter even knows the names of people living in the neighboring apartments, or, for that matter, anyone else in the building.
If you are not living in a huge metro, most of the people you can conceivably meet on a regular basis will be within 10-20 minutes drive, because driving in non-dense places outside of big metros is very fast. This is not the case in big metros, to be sure, but in big metros, you cannot cram everyone into walking distance from everyone else anyway (see: NYC). The choice is not between driving 20 minutes to see your friends in suburbia vs waking one block over to your friends, it is between driving 20 minutes vs taking 20 minute subway trip. If your friends are free to move so close to you, why cannot we assume that they also cannot buy a house in the walking distance in the same SFH neighborhood? If you are instead assume that you make friends with people who already live close by, why not assume the same when you’re living in SFH?
Frankly, I am reading often about how suburbia is alienating compared to dense city living, and I am frankly bewildered. My experience have been completely opposite of that. I think people are comparing suburbia today vs communal living in cities 70 years ago, where yeah, you could make the case that the social ties in cities 70 years ago were stronger than are in today’s suburbs — but this is the whole Bowling Alone thing, not dense city vs suburbs issue.
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