JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
2hr ago
I'd also like to present you with this quote:
The darkest days in my life after the war, after the war, was when I discovered that the … most of the members and commanders of the Einsatz group that were doing the killings, not even in gas chambers, but killing with machine guns, had college degrees from German universities and PhD’s and MD’s. Couldn’t believe it. What do you mean? I thought that culture and education are the shield. An educated person cannot do certain things and, and be educated, you cannot, and there they were, killing children day after day and what happened to them?
Interview with Elie Wiesel, December 10, 2004. Interviewer is Professor Georg Klein.
I think if these high-IQ people could fail the test of "don't participate in the actual Holocaust", some other high-IQ people failing the test of "don't post dump shit online" would be much less surprising.
That's an example of one of the most common fallacies in my experience. Not skillful - compared to whom? An ideal spherical genius in vacuum? Sure, you can imagine any genius you like, no real person can compare to that. Compared to other real people, yes, you have a lot of dumb opinions among billionaires. And also quite a lot of dumb opinions in academia (oh, so many!), Nobel prize laureates, celebrities (almost 100% coverage there), politicians (don't get me started), celebrated book authors, religious leaders, ..., anybody really. Having dumb opinions seems to be a baseline human condition, not a special disqualifying mark of a billionaire. Maybe, just maybe, they are skillful in something else than "never having a dumb opinion" and actually "never having a dumb opinion" has nothing to do with being successful in anything and is not required for anything?
they must, indeed, be generally dumb
I don't know about all millionaires but I have head from enough people working with persons like Musk or Zuckerberg to be pretty sure "generally dumb" is not something applicable to them. I mean if it makes you feel better, sure, find solace in that, but realistically it's not true. They are probably not only smart, but somewhere in the top of the distributions, and likely also have other skills. And luck too, because there are much more smart people than billionaires. But not only luck.
JarJarJedi
13hr ago
hasn't really had nearly as much success implanting an idea or meme of similar popularity.
I mean, DOGE? That's pretty popular (not the crypto thing), at least among the right crowd, but even the wrong crowd knows what it is (and they loathed and feared it). That's not nothing.
JarJarJedi
15hr ago
the smartest people are less susceptible to bad opinions
I'm not sure that's actually true. I mean, there are a lot of very smart people that hold outrageously bad opinions. Chomsky would probably be a towering example, but taking a wider look at the academia, you probably can toss a stone in a random direction on any academic campus and hit a high-IQ individual with a completely bonkers opinion. In fact, if you stick to campuses, you probably would have tough chance of finding a high-IQ individual who doesn't hold some bonkers opinions, and that rare individual is probably commonly known by his peers as a "square".
JarJarJedi
1d ago
A lot of people have bad opinions online. It's just I never hear about most of them, and never want to. If Sam Wilkinson from Sticks, Iowa says something dumb online, I'd never know about it. If a famous billionaire says something dumb online, I'll likely hear about it because a millions people will repeat it. Even the smartest people are prone to occasionally saying (or doing) dumb things. The most wise don't do it online, so nobody but a very narrow circle of their friends and relatives know it. But that number is becoming smaller every day.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
I won't be profitable (in interest and fees) for them
I have never paid interest or fees in my life (except for annual fees of course) and I have a couple of dozens of cards, and never been rejected or heard about anybody rejected for this reason. Of course, you can never know, but I think there's another reason. Recently having and cancelling similar card from the same provider, or having too many new cards recently could be it. I am sure credit card vendors are well aware of churning and they are largely ok with it, of course they'd prefer to make more money but I haven't ever heard of a policy to reject well-qualified applicants because they're not going to pay interest.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
I feel like playing with stoplosses and other advanced tools requires a lot of understanding, otherwise you'll implement the "buy high, sell low" strategy. For a person that doesn't know much about how it works, probably wide index hold would work better long term. If you get nervous and sell while down, and then when it goes up you're unsure it's really up until it's clearly very much up and then you get FOMO and buy - then you get sub-market returns.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
Invest - yes. Simplest investment is a savings account (not sure how they are called in Europe?) - you give your money to the bank, the bank pays you money for that. If you're not going to touch the money for a while, it's a no-brainer. But, of course, the profit you can gain this way is not large - in the US, for a short-term account (where you can take the money out anytime) it's about 3.5% per year, for longer terms may be more but not much. E.g. US Treasure I bonds now pay 4.26% but you have to keep the money there for a while (minimum 2 years). Certificates of deposit are offered by most banks and have varied terms and interests, but the idea is the same. If you limit yourself to respectable large banks, the risk is pretty much zero here.
The next step is stocks - here you can make more, on average 8% per year, and the simplest way would be to invest in a market-wide index fund. You should look for low-expense funds. With 8%, you'll more than double your money in 10 years. Of course, the risk is that stock market is volatile, so while on average it goes up, there could be long period - even years - when it's down. And unlike bank deposits, nobody guarantees you safe investment.
So, overall, yes, there is a point to invest money you're not using. How depends on your risk tolerance and time horizon. I'd avoid complex strategies until you understand them well, but even if you don't want to go into the weeds, it makes sense to invest at least in simplest ways. You would not make the maximum profit, but you would make some profit, which is better than just leaving the money to collect dust and earn nothing.
That kidnapping thing is not a good example - I am about 95% certain it was done by the law enforcement with the explicit goal of destroying the right-wing groups, in which they had a lot of success, by the way - groups like Proud Boys or Oath Keepers were mercilessly squashed, and the only serious protest from the right (you know which one) led to everybody even in the vicinity of it ground into dust with an overwhelming force. I don't see it as "the Right threatened to kidnap a governor and the Machine run away in fear", I see it as "the Machine absolutely crushed anybody on the Right that could pose any threat of resistance, before they were able to pose even minuscule threat, and successfully used fake plots like kidnapping a governor to give it legitimacy in the eyes of the normies".
JarJarJedi
1d ago
There were curfews in London during WW2 to protect civilians from bombings, do you view those as tyranny as well?
Yes. But certain limitations of freedoms is expected in the middle of a war, with the understanding that as soon as the war ends, those will be gone, and everybody tries to make it shorter. Something that is clearly driven by enemy action - if there are bombings, there is curfew, if there's no bombing, no curfew anymore. And yes, the war can very much be a roadway for tyranny - just look at Russia, for example. With the war though, sometimes you have no choice - if a person is outside and a bomb falls, that person has a very high chance to die, and it's not a very controversial statement. But if the government says we must jail everybody who says anything critical about the Generalissimo because there are bombings - that's clearly tyrannical.
are all standard, reasonable responses to a pandemic and aren’t some new form of tyranny
Oh, it's definitely not new - there's little tyranny-wise that can be really new, people tried to take power over other people for millennia, there's not a lot of new you can invent there. Well, maybe making people wear aquariums on their heads wasn't tried much before, but otherwise a lot of stuff is not new at all. "Reasonable" though is quite different beast - is it reasonable to arrest people for walking alone on the beach, while encouraging mass riots? Is it reasonable to impose night curfew to fight a viral infection? Is it reasonable to impose random restrictions not based on any empirical data because they look like the government is doing something? Is it reasonable to lie in order to get the citizens to behave in the way the government thinks they need to behave? Is it reasonable to suppress criticism of government policies because the government thinks allowing criticism will lead to less compliance? Ultimately, that's the essence of the problem - the freedom encroachments become bigger and bigger, and it's very standard and natural - if the government wants to do something, it's clearly easier if nobody would disagree and everybody would shut up and do exactly what they are told to do, but we also know where this road is leading, and it's not a good place. There must be a stop somewhere, and the recent events showed that we can go quite far on this road, much farther than we thought before, with little resistance on the way. That makes one question - is there a stop at all? How far is it?
JarJarJedi
2d ago
Yes, gun rights. Of course. I mean, I'm all for it. I have guns myself. One of the (many, many) reasons I moved out of California was how inconvenient California tried to make having guns and regularly practicing with them (no comparison to Europe, of course, but I never considered moving to Europe). But: when do gun rights come into play? I mean, I hope to never find out, really, but I also think, if they could lock up the whole country for months (while cruelly mocking it by allowing mass riots to roll unconstrained, just to make it clear how much of a power play it is), destroy the livelihoods of thousands of people, permanently hamper the education for millions, to say nothing of the long list of lesser indignities and humiliations, and the gun rights didn't come into play, I can not help but wonder how much farther they can go yet. Again, I don't want to actually find it out empirically, but the skeptic in me also asks - what if the premise that the gun rights are a barrier to tyranny is just a myth and we're actually soft and lazy enough to be salami-ed into anything?
JarJarJedi
2d ago
I've just started to read an historical book, which was written in 2014 and updated in 2021. And the book, understandably, starts with a preface by the author. In which the author chose to give an insufferable sermon about how much we should worry about the climate change (of course, nobody is going to print a book without a quote from Lenin sermon on climate change) and, since it was 2021, about profound and civilization-changing consequences of COVID (the topic of the book itself has absolutely nothing to with either, btw).
Now it is 2026, so I find myself compelled to ask - were there any civilization-changing consequences to COVID? If so, which ones? To kick it off, I can give a list of what it changed for me personally:
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I have lost significant dose of respect and hope for institutional knowledge. It's not that I doubt The Science (C) (TM) (R) knows a lot of things - I do not doubt that. What I doubt is a) that all those things are true, and b) that the institution as such really cares about as many of them being true as possible. I am now certain that institutionally there are no mechanisms that would preclude institutionally inconvenient truth from being hidden and institutionally inconvenient falsity from being accepted (and enforced) as true - at least on the timeframes comparable with my lifetime. I also am convinced the role of the press in the equation is significantly negative.
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I no longer think that the US - as a society, as a culture and as people - have immunity to tyranny of any sort. It has somewhat better resistance than some other cultures, maybe, but the barrier after which all the lofty ideals of freedom are going to be gleefully trashed is awfully low and very easy to overcome, and can be overcome on literally days' notice by the government, with no significant resistance. We are all walking on a very thin ice, freedom-wise.
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Personally, COVID events also gave me the necessary kick in the butt to finally get out of California. While it felt uncomfortable for a while before COVID, I could be succumbing to inertia for a long time yet, but COVID overthrew all my routines anyway, so the change came much easier.
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On the personal level, I also realized I may not have as much time as I thought I have, with regard not only to my personal health and well-being, but also for all the framework that I enjoy as a member of Western civilization. Any part of it could disappear for reasons I can't predict, so if I want to do things, I better start doing things I want and not delay them to some vague future when I have more time and energy.
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Job market drastically opened to remote work (in my area, of course) - what used to be a weird ask, became a standard offering. While there's RTO pushback now, remote work is a standard option and asking for it is no longer a niche request but a solid, respectable preference, that has its own ample market to work with. If anything, in-office work now begins to be seen as an add-on instead of the default.
None of that is civilization-changing though. Maybe the last one is a little economy-changing but it existed very much pre-COVID too. Any civilization-changing consequences I did miss?
JarJarJedi
2d ago
Amex is great in that regard that they'd tell you upfront whether they'd play and how much it will be, but all these offers are highly variable, it's not unheard of to have targeted or temporary offer for double the usual and then go back to the normal figure in a month.
JarJarJedi
3d ago
Yes, this can be quite lucrative. BTW Chase Sapphire Reserve is running a pretty large promotion now, which can get you about $3k value in bonuses if you play it right (and if they accept you) at the price of $795 annual fee. So, over $2k pure profit (I don't even think it's taxed? Not sure). Plus you get all the goodies they provide for a year, and then you can cancel. These things are absolutely worth it, if you play them right. The catch is: you need to have the excellent credit, Chase would not allow you to do it too often (look up 5/24 rule) and only once per card usually (though some forget about it in 3 years or so) and of course you need to make the minimal spending ($6k for CSR, higher for more lucrative cards like Amex Gold and Platinum), and of course you need to have the discipline to pay it off in time, never overspend and cancel in time when it stops working to your advantage.
Depending on how big the purchase it and how good you credit report is, there might be even more profitable offers around. Absolutely worth it and can get you thousands of dollars in direct or indirect (e.g. miles or points) bonuses. Of course, you need also to be able to use it - e.g. Chase points are great when used for travel, but you need to actually travel for that, if you never travel, you don't get the benefit. I travel almost every month, so for me there's a lot of use in such offers.
JarJarJedi
3d ago
There's no such thing as investing lazily while achieving absolutely optimal result. If there was, everybody would be investing in exactly the same thing and it would be the only option recommended by anyone who is not a crook. However, the reality is if you take more risk, you can earn more reward. Or not. That's why it's called risk.
If you just want to park the money somewhere and forget about it while it is gaining value in lockstep with the market, a wide market index fund is the way to go. Compare which one charges least expense and follows the index most faithfully and just park there. Vanguard has pretty good offerings in that area, with very decent expense ratios.
However, as it will raise with the market, it will fall with the market. Broader portfolios, incorporating more asset classes (bonds, gold, resources, even cryptos if you're into that), may provide better long-term returns due to being more robust against volatile markets. On the other hand, you may use more risky but potentially more rewarding narrower strategies - like, investing everything in AI companies only - if it works out, you can make enormous profits, but it also can go bust very easily. I don't think a thing where you can get more reward with the same risk profile can exist long term in the market - if it pops up, people will start buying it, and drive the price up, thus diminishing the potential reward, until it will be roughly the same as other things with the same risk profile. Of course, people can be mistaken in determining the risk profile - but so could be you.
I'd say if you don't want to get too deep into it, and if you are not going to need this money anytime soon, and you plan to HODL regardless of what the market does today, then index fund is not a bad option. Another option may be a target date fund, if you know when you'd need the money, which provides more balanced portfolio so you won't find yourself forced to sell in the market dip because you need liquidity now. Do not be tempted to "keep up with the Joneses" and seek seemingly more profitable investment, unless you understand why it is more profitable and what risks you are taking there. Yes, you may leave some money on the table this way. Better than leave all the money on the table if something goes wrong.
JarJarJedi
3d ago
Hard, but not impossible. I don't think Iranians are going to set them on fire though, and neither US nor Israel want to either - if they did, they could have done it already.
JarJarJedi
4d ago
Well, yes, it sucks to be ruled by insane maniacs. US is not ready to commit the resources necessary to overthrow those maniacs. Nobody else is even remotely capable of doing that. So it will continue to suck for those people, and will probably get worse. At least the US can prevent the insane maniacs from impacting too many people that aren't currently under their rule.
JarJarJedi
4d ago
Nothing is "permanent" - if they were able to get the oil out of the ground the first time, they obviously can do it again, and with existing infrastructure it probably will be easier this time. The question is how much would it cost and who will pay for it. Iranian economy was not in spectacular shape when it started (remember the whole story begun with riots caused by economic hardships) and probably is much worse now. Would it be enough to break the IRGC? Unknown, and maybe not - hardcore organized groups survived in much worse conditions. But it certainly makes it weaker, less capable of projecting its force outside (Iran's favorite mode of operation) and more open to negotiated settlement. "Have to fold" is a very hard condition to satisfy - in WW2, Japan had to get two nukes dropped on them to be ready to fold, and Germany had to be completely occupied. Occupying Iran is not a proposition that is seriously considered, neither is nuking them. That makes "have to fold" hard to achieve - however, "more open to settlement" can still be done. Or at least "beaten up enough they wouldn't ask for seconds for a while" if anything else fails.
JarJarJedi
4d ago
Here you go: https://x.com/Polymarket/status/2052394475582803988
I hope that's the only use they'll find for it and it won't develop into anything worse.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
I didn't taste raw chicken, but I tasted undercooked one (I did it to myself, have to admit) and it was rubbery and unpleasant. Generally it's not good idea at all to eat something like that, of course, but nothing bad happened to me, even though I started to check it more thoroughly on rare occasions I cook chicken (usually my wife does it and she knows how to do it right).
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Can you eat raw chicken without noticing it? My experience with my own culinary experiments shows undercooked chicken has completely different taste and texture than a properly cooked one. Not sure about the pathogen risks but if you didn't notice I suspect it was not raw.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
How much does it matter? I mean, obviously it matters for passing the exam, but how much a practicing psychiatrist encounters a situation where they need to know statistics on this level and properly set up variables, unless they do academic research? Or, putting it in another way, if I learned psychiatrists are being taught and examined on wrong statistics, how scared should I be?
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Maybe they are not insane enough for that?
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Nobody forced Iran to declare US a "Great Satan", build a vast collection of proxy armies, commit terrorist acts and pursue nuclear weapons, while openly declaring they are going to use them to perpetrate genocide. They chose to live this life. Now they are living the life they have chosen. Their choices led them to the situation where the only choices for their opponents would be either live under a permanent threat of nuclear attack or take measures to preclude this threat before it realized. Iranians had multiple opportunities to get off this train, instead they doubled and tripled down - because their apocalyptic ideology and their belief the West is weak and decadent and can be bullied if one is determined enough - mandated this strategy. Of course, the West did a lot to support that assumption, but this is not an excuse.
is the obvious and natural response.
As much obvious and natural response as shooting you is an obvious and natural response of a robber who is caught by you unexpectedly returning home in mid-robbery. Yes, it is obvious, and yes, it is natural for a violent criminal to resort to violence. I am not sure how you get from "obvious and natural" to "commendable and desirable". It is natural for a criminal to do crime. It is natural for a bunch of crazy apocalyptic cultists to behave like crazy apocalyptic cultists. How that "natural" is any good?
Some Americans seem to have got so fed up with being criticised unreasonably that they have lost the capacity to see when they are being criticised reasonably.
That's empty rhetoric. Of course everybody believe their criticism it the most reasonable one. It does not make it so. You have to actually prove it, you can't just state it and then stand and expect everybody to go "oh, how couldn't we see it before, the is the reasonable one, it's all different now!" Just because you call yourself "reasonable", does not score you any points in the actual reasonableness. On the contrary, when you engage in rule lawyering and defend your criticism with arguments like "oh, you just lost the ability to be criticized and that's why you are not agreeing with me" one is tempted to conclude you do not expect your argument to be strong enough to stand on its merits, without supporting it with attacks on the opponent's mental capacity, instead of addressing their arguments.
I'm not sure how "I am going to post this vile thing and I know people are going to be repulsed and hate me for it, but fuck them" is any better than "I am going to post this thing and hopefully everybody would agree with me".
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