pigeonburger
1d ago
With hindsight it looks easy, but to people who survived a highly repressive era, a sudden repudiation of that era would have looked like a trap to catch more dissidents.
I had the discussion with friends recently about what being an adult is, and my position was kind of close to yours, it's that an adult has agency and initiative. If an adult sees that something has to be done, he will take into consideration that he can be the one to do it. He doesn't have to always do it, but he is confident he could and sometimes will. A child will only do things when asked or encouraged to do it, or by following others. An adult will plan a vacation trip unprompted, a child will wait for friends or family to invite them. If someone doesn't do it for them, then they will complain that their life is boring, even though they will not do anything to improve it themselves.
There are many old children. Some even elderly. And there are some very young adults.
pigeonburger
2d ago
The biggest argument in favor of EDKH, and the reason I endorse a (mild) version of it, is that it was predictive, and already existed prior to its occurring, giving the authorities every opportunity to prevent it. Almost all conspiracies are post-hoc rationalizations that look at the facts and then concoct a theory to retroactively explain the events. But EDKH predicted it ahead of time.
That is a very good point. Think of Seth Rich's death. No one knew the guy until he died, and then retroactively a compelling narrative was made to explain how his death might have been convenient for, and arranged by, powerful people. But for Epstein, the same people who questioned the official narrative, were pointing out how he was going to get whacked to stop him from talking.
An average joe hitting a homerun in baseball or playing a hole in one in golf is unusual but it's going to happen once in a while. But if they call it right before they do it, there's likely more to this story. Is anyone really seriously thinking Prigozhin's death was accidental?
The main question though is whether they have been calling it (wrong) every time before.
pigeonburger
4d ago
I wouldn't even say that the people in government are specifically dumb, just that we aren't selecting them for what we say we want (competent administration) but instead for what our revealed preference is (we select them for their ability to comfort our tribal biases). And for that, they are actually very good, some of the best we have.
pigeonburger
4d ago
It's a huge huge difference though. Canada to the US is almost a 6x difference. Do the inherent population and cultural differences between Canada and the US really justify that? And even if they did, is more prison the best way to close the gap?
Population has some effect. Cultural though I think does much of the lift here. America has an ambitious culture, which I believe pushes people to more extreme behaviors. Canada, as far as it has a national identity, is defined by not rocking the boat and getting along. This dates back to the foundations of both countries as independant entities, the US being created in a bold armed revolution, Canada by convincing daddy Great Britain that its peoples are getting along now.
It's not just Canada, much of Europe is the same in this, ambition is looked at with suspicion. This leads to calm, sedate peoples. Americans are more ambitious, which leads to a more aggressive people; more Americans resent and resist the idea that they have to be content with their lot in life, which leads many to act erratically.
When you say "Remove them first" I think you need to specify more precisely what that involves.
Of course I have preferences as to what I think it involves, but what I mean by it and what I assume OP meant is that all solutions that removes these people from the street are superior to those that let them there, including some that cross moral lines (for instance, some mild forms of supervised forced labor), and excepting only, for me at least, the most extreme ones (such as killing them).
I do broadly agree with your plan but I'm afraid that without a lot of "drawing the rest of the owl" it wouldn't necessarily resolve the issue, as some countries have actually managed to provide cheap housing to push its undesirables into, and the result is unpoliceable ghettos (see: French suburbs) that erupt into large-scale violence regularly. And as disfunctional as French immigration can be at times, the people that end up in the banlieues are still likely an order of magnitude more functional than raving park yellers.
pigeonburger
4d ago
Maybe, that's possible.
I'm not OP but I think I understand his take. It's a question of priority; it's not that I really don't care what happens to these people, but I think what happens to these people is less important than them being removed from public spaces.
Remove them first, then we'll discuss what compassionate solution we can find to make their lives better. As opposed to the standard western liberal answer that if we improve their lives first the problem will itself disappear from the public square, which has time and time again failed to bear out as the affected people actively resist and sabotage efforts to improve their lives.
If you want to think less of me because I prioritize my comfort and peace in public spaces over these strangers' wellbeing, then go right ahead, but I do also believe that there's complex feedback loops where tolerance of public disfunction leads to more disfunction, so I do still want what's best for my fellow human beings.
pigeonburger
4d ago
- 11km
- 2km (I live next to an italian neighborhood)
- 5km (it's a large rooftop greenhouse farm), greens, microgreens
- Going with Via Rail as it's our equivalent, 6km
- 1km
- 25km
pigeonburger
7d ago
To what extent is the current competency crisis in government, academia, etc. caused by an inability to spend time by oneself and actually put in the work?
Almost none of it, because IMO the competency crisis is caused by misaligned incentives. In government, the incentives are aligned with playing up tribal politics, not with competent management. In academia, it's in appealing to grant givers, making sensational claims that get published and cited, not producing solid science or advancing human knowledge. In business and especially for public companies, it's maximising current shareholder value rather than building a sustainable business. And so on...
That said, learning and putting in the work is a skill that I believe we in the West have regressed in. Some people expect to be good at something from the start or else they believe they'll never be good at it. Kids need to gain the specific insight of learning how to learn trained into them to grow into capable adults, and I think we might be currently failing at that.
pigeonburger
7d ago
"Becoming the mask" can happen to grifters, but I cannot believe she started from a position of sincerity. Maybe she deluded or reasoned herself into it.
pigeonburger
8d ago
This is also part of it. I can't understand how Owens transitioned (heh!) from "well-regarded conservative commentator" to whatever the heck she's doing now.
Any one paying attention would have noticed that there was no reason to regard her well as a commentator right from the get go. Her "debut" was during Gamergate, she was trying to get in on a left wing, anti-gamergate grift, got aggressive pushback as she was encroaching on another grifter's turf, then in a week she reappered, rebranded as right wing, likely after noticing that there was tremendous alpha in being a black woman right winger.
Of course, that only works for so long. If you don't really have any worthwhile insight as a commentator to pivot from into doing serious work, the only way to keep the grift going is to go for ever crazier, more radical positions in order to try and keep the spotlight on you.
pigeonburger
11d ago
In the show's defense, sometimes it's not a zebra, it's horse with stripes painted on it so that they waste the whole episode assuming it's a zebra.
pigeonburger
11d ago
but the medical one goes by "if you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras".
This one makes me laugh because I heard it first on an early episode of House MD (maybe even the first episode?), and then the show is the biggest zebra parade you ever saw.
This possibility (#2) is interesting because it makes me realize that I don't actually know what the stated purpose of agency officials is. Is their highest goal to serve the purpose of the agency, or the will of the electorate? Even if they claim one or the other, what processes do we have to ensure that's true?
I think the answer to that one is that the electorate, at some point, willed the agency into existence with a mission statement, and thus their job is to follow this mission statement, period, until the electorate amends the mission statement or closes the agency. In theory, of course, it shouldn't be up to government employees to do political analysis to try and figure out the electorate's wishes. Still, I think this arrangement gives them a lot of leeway, especially with a disfunctional legislative body that is unable to direct these agencies, at that point everyone kinda hopes for and turns a blind eye to agencies stretching their mission statement.
pigeonburger
12d ago
So, he wants to run a hanania republic.
pigeonburger
13d ago
Honestly, Japan, India and Australia are pretty much the only ones whose answer matters, having a navy in the general area.
Transfer of learning doesn't exist, so all those quotes about how chess teaches foresight and vigilance are full of shit; learning chess teaches you to play chess, period. And we are not in an age or place where it is a common pastime, so it is not particularly useful as a social skill, either.
I would not be categorical about it, I think there are a lot of lessons that a child would learn from chess. Mostly character lessons, not intellectual lessons, and not because it's chess specifically, but because it's a competitive game. It would teach a child humility; even if the kid is good, she will meet people who can effortlessly curbstomp her at it, so she will have to learn to deal with that. She will also learn that if she studies and practices hard, she can improve at something; a valuable insight that eludes a surprising amount of adults.
There's a few pitfalls too though, it's important that she understands that just because she can beat some people at chess, especially adults, it does not make her better, superior or even really more intelligent than them. And vice-versa. But I can easily imagine a kid losing respect for adult autority because she thinks she's more intelligent than them.
but you could never imagine him saying "libs are right"
He would not say it because of all the things libs are definitely wrong about, this is the one that they are the most wrong about.
There is enormous danger of misinformation and disinformation, and of modern lysenkoism, in enshrining the opinions of any class of people, even your beloved Elite Human Capital's. Letting ideas compete is the long term solution, not the problem, even if it can be sometimes subobtimal in the short term.
pigeonburger
13d ago
But not quite up there with that misunderstood Karl Popper quote!
pigeonburger
14d ago
The WSJ is not too partisan usually, but I would not be surprised if they felt that the Democrats would be less willing to throw in with socialists if they had better chances in the midterms.
pigeonburger
14d ago
Somehow I doubt it, not for a long time. Those who have been left behind by the media are not going to be easy to convince that modern TV shows are now worth watching. And there's tremendous demand from disappointed blues for copium media where they can comfort themselves that their beliefs are self-evidently true and their values virtuous.
pigeonburger
14d ago
I'm not sure they the WSJ cares about the truth of it, presuming they want to help the Democrats right now, anything that keeps Epstein in the news cycle, including a lawsuit from Trump, is productive. That might be very well the trap here; they know Trump's ego wouldn't allow letting this be heard unchallenged, but challenging it is guaranteeing it stays in the news cycle for months.
pigeonburger
14d ago
No one is arguing that the work is nobler and that everyone should be doing it, they're arguing that it is noble that if it is to be done, and that machines are not the most efficient way to do it, then it should be done by legal citizens at whatever rate is necessary to be paid to incentivize it, and not by imported slaves.
Very rarely do I have to take a pause from reading something because it elicited a visceral reaction. As soon as I realized where you were going with this, I had to take a little break because my brain was just filled with "Oh no, oh hell no. Don't do it bro!"
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