This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Kamala wanted to run the country. In the end, she couldn't even run her own campaign.
Apparently, the Harris campaign is $20 million in debt despite spending at least $1 billion over the last 3 months. On the other hand, the Trump campaign was frugal - spending only about 1/3 or 1/2 as much as Kamala (quibble about the exact numbers all you want). Staffing in particular seems to have been a major difference with Harris spending perhaps an order of magnitude more than Trump. Harris hired high paid consultants while Trump relied on free labor from passionate supporters.
It gets worse.
The Harris campaign has been accused of paying celebrities for exposure. Surely, already rich celebrities like Beyoncé and Oprah would be happy to support their favored candidate for free. Right? Apparently not. Fox News has reported that the Harris campaign paid Oprah a million dollars to interview her. Lizzo and Cardi B have also been singled out as receiving payments.
Is it any wonder that these celebrity endorsements don't work when they are so fake?
Contra Scott's too much money in dark almonds piece, I think the reason that political campaign donations are relatively low is that it's really hard to buy an election. Bloomberg tried to back in 2020 and his campaign went nowhere. Money does matter, but the candidate matters a lot more. $1 to Trump makes a bigger difference than $3 to Harris. And Trump appearing on Rogan might have been worth $100 million, but he didn't have to pay a cent.
yeah. Hype is overrated, as is money in politics. Look at all the hype over bitcoin over the past 3-4 years yet the price has hardly done anything; meanwhile unsexy SPY/voo crushed it. VC/crypto bros showered $ on Trump for his support; if i had to wager, they will see big fat zero for their efforts. It's hard enough to pull the levers of power by the very people who are are in power...good luck doing it indirectly. Politics in the US is influenced by seniority and connections, which is how such underwhelming choice as Harris got so far anyway. She had paid her dues.
Bitcoin is at $81,000 right now...
Over 3 years (from the last ATH in November '21) it's roughly even with SPY, maybe a little behind. Over 2 years it crushes SPY. Over 4 years (and any further) it crushes SPY.
Comparing it to spy actually handicaps it in favor of bitcoin. A more appropriate comparison controlling for volatility would be something like 2-3x SPY, like UPRO, which beats Bitcoin by a bigger margin. Controlling for volatility, Bitcoin has , as of Today, slightly greater returns and vastly more volatility which makes it worse .
But so far, yes, you're right that Bitcoin as of now is the better performing asset nominally speaking.
UPRO doesn't seem to have performed that well.
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/upro
On 1/1/2020, it was at $36, now it's at $95. Tesla went from $36 to $335. Bitcoin did even better, going from about $7,000 to $88,000 today. Even Apple went from $74 to $224, it did better than UPRO (and pays dividends). Microsoft did similarly well.
It's not like Microsoft or Apple were unheard of back in early 2020, they're basically blue-chips.
ETFs are generally mediocre investments and have management fees, better to just pick out stocks or crypto specifically. If we look at just the 1 year, Bitcoin is up 140%, UPRO is up a measly 100%. UPRO might be a decent investment but it's not a great one.
A decent amount of volatility is good. You want to get in before the institutional investors, not after they've pumped the market up to high heaven. They're already all over ETFs.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It has done well but it hasn't exactly been 'belly button lint in exchange for untold riches' if you've jumped on board any time since like 2016.
If you jumped onboard 14 hours ago, you'd already have made 7-8% profit, which is what SPY might make in a year. It's at 87K now, rising to 88 as I write this post.
Untold riches for nothing is a very high standard that we've only ever seen with bitcoin and ETH (which was originally distributed to BTC addresses). There used to be BTC faucets where people gave them away, evangelizing to new users.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link