birb_cromble
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User ID: 3236
birb_cromble
4hr ago
Steve Yegge is a stark example of that.
birb_cromble
5hr ago
I will wait for the S-1 to make any decisions, but my gut prediction is that I won't be touching it with a ten foot pole. All of the leaked data suggests shaky financials with fickle customers and costs that aren't entirely under their control. That sounds less like a high margin software customer and more like an airline.
birb_cromble
1d ago
Any advice on further diversification of my portfolio?
Answering your questions more directly, I might consider some global exposure, and maybe some assets that aren't directly correlated to equities. For the former, adding a fraction of VXUS might be a good call. For the latter, you probably want to talk to somebody smarter than me. People make strong arguments for gold, bonds, commodities, and cryptocurrency.
birb_cromble
1d ago
Hot damn man. I'm glad you're getting some traction.
The best time to plant a tree might be twenty years ago, but the second best time is today.
birb_cromble
1d ago
But where will they go? You basically have to live in a state like Texas for access to the best jobs. schools, dating, etc.
I live in the middle of nowhere, and I've lived in dozens of deeply rural towns. It's not bad. Sure, I might not have access to the "best" jobs, but I have a good job in an area with a low cost of living. I went to "shitty" schools, but I got a degree and managed to learn things that have served me well for the rest of my life. Dating might be harder, but I still met a woman who I love with a burning intensity that has never faded as the years have gone by.
Maybe I've been wasting my life, but it still seems pretty nice out here. Maybe you should give it a try.
birb_cromble
1d ago
Now reading some silly vampire books. First was Coffin Moon by Rosson, which sold me with its badass cover. Solidly B grade but that's all I expected.
If you're into that kind of thing, I'd really like to suggest the V-Wars anthologies, mostly fronted by Jon Maberry. It features multiple authors, each writing in a shared universe where "vampires" return to the modern world as a side effect of a global pandemic. The premise is a little handwavy, but all the authors do a good job of playing it straight, and they present a visceral, immediate window into how the world would fall apart.
birb_cromble
1d ago
Nothing organized.
Religion is a difficult thing for me. I've never been able to square Christianity's Message with its Commandments.
birb_cromble
1d ago
But then why the Christian God? I can get to A, but I can't go from A to B.
Might as well pick something. Christianity isn't what I picked, but I get it.
birb_cromble
2d ago
- My understanding of rapture theology is that it hangs its stance entirely on a single passage of Thessalonians. If Christianity is a real thing, it seems peculiar that nobody would have noticed that important detail before the 1800s.
- In spiritual matters, I advise against teaching something that you do not believe. It doesn't matter how eloquent you are, or how well you argue. These are matters that cut to the human soul. If you can't speak from your own soul, your congregation will know the lie of it in their own.
birb_cromble
2d ago
Sorry - I was wrong on my title. I was working from memory while on mobile. I'm back at my desk now.
The actual paper is "When should an effective altruist donate", from 2019, by William MacAskill, published by the global priorities institute. He establishes a proposed mathematical framework that determines whether to donate now or later (page 14 of the PDF). Reading through his own definitions above, he sets it up so that it's almost always beneficial to give later. Take the "Values" section. He explicitly state that values are unlikely to change over time. I find that just as unlikely as he finds it likely.
On a deeper note, this goes back to a problem I have with utilitarianism in general and effective Altruism in particular. I used to hang out with some effective Altruists. I also volunteer at an animal shelter, doing unglamorous work that most volunteers don't particularly want to do. My EA acquaintances mocked me for that choice, and earnestly argued that I would be better off quitting my job, moving to a HCoL area, getting paid "what I (was) really worth", then donating back to the animal shelter in question to hire somebody else to "do that kind of work".
I don't talk to them much anymore. I'm still disinfecting ringworm and mending fences at the animal shelter, and they're donating to groups like METR, because that will allegedly do more good than anything I'm doing.
birb_cromble
2d ago
My brother in Christ, we are in a thread about Sam Bankman Fried, Caroline Ellison, and the fallout of FTX and you are asking for a source?
How about William McAskill, in his paper Investing to Give?
There's also Sam Harris and Sam Bankman Fried in Sam Harris' podcast.
Ellison herself brought it up during her trial.
Even Scott's arguments against it are lukewarm at best, and he accepts it as a valid practice. The giving pledge is Earning to Give in drag. It's the same mechanics - defer giving for an extended period of time under the nebulous promise that it will do more good in the long run. The giving pledge it simply says that your kids don't get to keep up the grift forever. That doesn't matter much. In the long run, we're all dead.
You can argue that I may have been imprecision in my terminology, but "perpetuity" vs an "entire human lifespan" feels like a distinction without a difference.
birb_cromble
2d ago
Decoupling is not a concept with infinite elasticity.
birb_cromble
3d ago
That's qhat I get for posting while doing guerilla carpentry. I qill respect your qishes.
birb_cromble
3d ago
Over the course of this Qeek, I've been learning about the concept of fiscal dominance.
Fiscal dominance is a macroeconomic condition in which government fiscal pressures (high public debt and deficits) effectively dictate or constrain a country’s monetary policy. In a fiscally dominant regime, the central bank’s usual objective of controlling inflation becomes secondary to the Treasury’s budget financing needs, often leading the central bank to accommodate government borrowing by keeping interest rates low or buying government debt. This situation tends to create inflationary pressure
Do you think that we are starting to see that phenomenon in the United States? It seems like the symptoms of said event line up with what we're seeing: stubborn inflation, ripping equities, increasingly schizophrenic Treasury behavior. On the other hand, I'm always suspicious of something that fits a little too well.
If it is happening, what should private American citizens expect, other than high inflation? How would an Argentinian prepare for their fiscal dominance scenario if a time traveler warned them ahead of time?
birb_cromble
3d ago
I hadn't considered that comparison before. It's funnier than it should be.
birb_cromble
3d ago
An awful lot of ea people argue that not giving money now is better if they can leverage it into obscene wealth and donate more in the future. The thing is, you can continue justifying not giving using that equation unto perpetuity.
It's a cool trick.
birb_cromble
3d ago
Anyway, the optics are bad but if you ignore them Ellison is probably a decent employee.
But other than that, Ms. Lincoln, how was the play?
birb_cromble
3d ago
Heaven's gAIte?
birb_cromble
4d ago
Kiss is unironically one of the best disco bands in history.
birb_cromble
4d ago
I'm actually being earnest in the post. The evolution of music composition is something I find fascinating.
I'm also never going to pass up a tasteless joke, though.
birb_cromble
4d ago
Interestingly it hasn’t happened yet, although you never know.
What is your take on the (conspiracy) theory that Aum Shinrikyo tested a nuke in the Australian outback?
An acquaintance is temporarily losing his band's bassist and has asked me to fill for several shows over the next two months. I said yes as a personal favor to him, and now I'm ass-deep in an entirely new repertoire which mostly consists of 1970s - 1980s rock and pop.
It's really interesting to see how musical composition has developed over the last 50 years.
Take Warren Zevon's "Splendid Isolation": it has a lot going on. The track contains harmonica, multi-voice vocals, guitar, bass, piano all in the same piece. Despite that, it feels noticeably more "open" than a lot of modern music. Rather than anchoring the song on guitar riffs, Zevon anchors it on a simple backbeat and a repetitive bass riff on the bottom end. Once he establishes the groove, he uses the harmonica and piano sparingly on the high end, but leaves a space in the sonic environment for vocals that's big enough to drive a truck through.
It's not a style you really see anymore. Like a a few other things, Phil Spector killed it.
birb_cromble
4d ago
I hired a human artist for a similar project once. It might be worth looking into, depending on the art style that you want and the size of the project. For simple projects, it can be cheaper, faster, and easier than you might think.
birb_cromble
6d ago
Reading that, it makes sense. He puts as much effort into running as I do into lifting.
The only reason I didn't suggest VT is that a lot of people think it has too much ex-US exposure. VXUS would give him the opportunity to decide his own tolerance levels
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