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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36602 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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There's a simpler problem here: who cares what a himbo like Dan Bilzerian thinks? He got big playing Hugh Hefner without the articles. This is the guy we're going to for geopolitics or a discussion of the mechanics of cremating millions of people?

I tried to listen to it and realized that I was just tired. Israel-Palestine is tiring enough when it's someone whose opinion we're supposed to take seriously. How many people that were previously reachable by Dan Bilzerian care now that he's flirting with Islam and Holocaust denial (I think the Muslim fanbase is an underrated explanation for the derangement of certain figures)?

There's a sort of weird overlap between "manosphere" figures and antisemites like Fuentes but I don't see how anything will come of it given they don't have that much in common, any sort of stable ideological core and inevitably fly too close to the sun with some bullshit and end up getting burned a la Fresh and Fit.

There's a sort of weird overlap between "manosphere" figures and antisemites like Fuentes

I don't think there's anything weird about it. The ideas in the manosphere (men and women are different and those differences reach the level of psychology and not just anatomy) are in the same category of unmentionable/cancellable beliefs that holocaust denial and regular old racism are in. If you're someone in the manosphere who wants to talk about those ideas seriously, the only places you'll be able to actually have that conversation is in the same places that let other unmentionable beliefs be discussed. I personally think that this is actually one of the reasons behind the rise in antisemitism and racism - if a young guy wants to learn how to actually have sex with women, he's getting a full course of banned and disreputable ideas.

It's weird because a lot of the manosphere is black. Especially in the post-Kevin Samuels era.

They have zero interest in HBD on race (though they are quite fine with male-female differences and questions that could be considered racist if asked of them like "name 10 female inventors").

In some cases these black redpillers have larger platforms than people like Fuentes they're platforming. Fresh and Fit was making a ludicrous amount of money bashing Miami women and lost it to platform antisemites whose beef with the Jews is that they let in black migrants as "biological weapons" as they put it.

It's weird because a lot of the manosphere is black. Especially in the post-Kevin Samuels era.

This is actually a surprise to me - I haven't been spending much time in the manosphere since Heartiste went down, so my knowledge might be a bit out of date. I recall even the black people in the manosphere generally accepted the premises of HBD back then, given that if what you're caring about is being able to have sex with lots of women being black doesn't really handicap you there.

The relationship between optics and efficacy isn’t clear for the “alt right”. Nick Fuentes’ extremist rant led him to collaborate with Adin Ross and debate Destiny; Adin Ross was mentioned by name during Trump’s victory speech, and Trump was interviewed by Ross under the influence of Barron. Andrew Tate gained influence solely due to his outrageous takes. Trump’s early outrageous remarks are what led 4chan to back him deadly in his first election.

The alt right is increasingly influential and popular; if optics are so important then how did that happen? Maybe it comes down to a “great man theory” of political persuasion, with Elon and Tucker responsible for the big cultural change, I don’t know.

Edit: Ya'll a bunch of fucking cowards downvoting while not defending your beliefs.

In 2020, Biden got 2,473,633 votes in Georgia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United _States_presidential_election_in_Georgia

In 2024, Harris got 2,548,014 votes in Georgia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_Georgia

I hear that Republicans stopped the democrats from stealing the election again with their superior election observation efforts this year.

But how come we haven't seen any evidence of the fraud Harris had to perpetuate to maintain and improve on Biden's 2020 numbers in Georgia?

I assume the question here has an intended answer (there wasn't much fraud).

Anyway, asking anyone who does think the 2020 election was stolen, do you have any examples of things that seem like obvious problems or evidence of substantial fraud? I'm currently inclined to think that there wasn't anything of that sort, but a lot of people seem really firmly convinced, so I'd be interested in seeing the evidence.

Yes, that's the answer I understand.

But I also understand people here to still believe there was fraud in 2020. And that doesn't seem easily reconcilable woth what happened in 2024 and Trump's people being "on guard".

It’s not reconcilable with what happened in 2020. And that is because there was no election fraud. Those who believe there was have been duped.

Ballot counting stopped in Fulton County on election night 2020 because of claims of a burst pipe that later turned out to be false. But after poll watchers went home ballot counting continued and the next morning the largest pro-Biden ballot drop of the entire election was delivered.

Fake news as usual, unless you believe the AP or those they interviewed are in on it.

The report went out that a water pipe burst. This caused people to change their behavior. The fact that it wasn't real is even more suspicious. How did this story get out there? Poll watcher went home!

I haven’t done a deep dive, but there exists this website to compile evidence:

https://hereistheevidence.com/

That lists the 2020 election as an "open case" but not 2024.

I suppose it will be updated, it was sections for Jan 6 and Covid. 2024 tomfoolery as seen by the right focused on down ballot.

Page was created from scratch on Nov 16 2020. I wouldn't bet on a 2024 update.

My personal belief is that the election was "stolen" but I take a very limited perspective that I don't think really provides the information you're looking for - I think that the amount of actual electoral fraud wasn't that much greater or smaller than what is normal for American elections, but the "steal" largely happened when the intelligence community knowingly lied to the public about the provenance of the Hunter Biden laptop. There have been studies done which plausibly make the case that this actually tipped the election towards Biden, and it isn't really something that anyone on either side of politics tries to disagree with.

If we're going down that road of calling things stolen you can call any election stolen if you were so inclined. 2016 was stolen by Comey reopening the emails investigation, 2004 was stolen by the swiftboat lies (ok that one probably didn't tip the balance but probably neither did the Hunter Biden laptop), 1856 was stolen by Democrats claiming Fremont was a Catholic and would a lead a slave rebellion, etc. etc. 'Stolen' is a pretty extreme word that I think in common parlance would only apply if you thought there was something nefarious about the election/voting process itself.

Sure, I definitely think that people were manipulating the public in this way, and that there's a decently high chance that that could have been the difference.

Ballot counting stopped in Fulton County on election night 2020 because of claims of a burst pipe that later turned out to be false. But after poll watchers went home ballot counting continued and the next morning the largest pro-Biden ballot drop of the entire election was delivered.

And if you believe that this event was used to squeeze a substantial sum of ballots into the count, how did Harris similarily squeeze a substantial sum of ballots into the count in 2024 without anyone noticing? She did better than Biden by 75k votes.

Your question is a non-sequitur: why do I have to prove anything more? There is clear irregularity in 2020, either give an innocuous explanation for the counting stopped over a water pipe, or concede.

There could be all sorts of trivial reasons why Harris would grow from Biden:

  • They learned how to cheat better
  • Population Growth
  • Demographic Change
  • Georgia flipping blue in 2020 excited more blue voters to vote in 2024

Comparing two different numbers from two different moments in time without any context is, pardon, complete apples to oranges.

Georgia flipping blue in 2020 excited more blue voters to vote in 2024

Why don't you put forth a hypothesis that you personally take seriously.

They learned to cheat better than in 2020, but not good enough to win.

They didn't cheat THIS time, but Harris excited GA voters s o mich that she made up all the 2020 cheating and then 75k more.

These hypotheses are laughable. I don't see any that make sense, but I don't believe in 2020 Fraud.

If you believe in 2020 Fraud, you should be able to offer a coherent explanation.

I offered one: vote counting stopped simultaneously across several swing states, poll watchers were sent home, then huge pro-Biden ballot drops were delivered. If you can't respond to that, this is not an argument, this is just two people posting text.

Again: comparing two numbers from two different events without any context is apples-to-oranges. Harris got more votes in Fulton County than Biden did: ok, what does that mean? How do we sort out confounding variables? I weighed 100 pounds four years and 150 pounds today, I must be getting fat! (I was 8 then and 12 now, I've put on one and a half feet and I'm junior varsity swim.)

I offered one: vote counting stopped simultaneously across several swing states, poll watchers were sent home, then huge pro-Biden ballot drops were delivered. If you can't respond to that, this is not an argument, this is just two people posting text.

That's not an explanation for how Kamala managed to get more votes without being caught in similar fraud.

I'm honestly not sure what you even want me to respond to. I am not saying that nothing sketchy happened in 2020. I'm saying how is fraud in 2020 and fraud in 2024 consistent. Your response of "but 2020!" is a literal non-sequitor.

Again: comparing two numbers from two different events without any context is apples-to-oranges. Harris got more votes in Fulton County than Biden did: ok, what does that mean? How do we sort out confounding variables? I weighed 100 pounds four years and 150 pounds today, I must be getting fat! (I was 8 then and 12 now, I've put on one and a half feet and I'm junior varsity swim.)

This looks like sophism because you don't have a coherent narrative. You know people will laugh at the idea that Georgians were earnestly more excited about Harris than Biden. You know that "they got better at fraud" makes no sense with them 1) losing and 2) Trump's people being on guard for fraud. You decline to provide an explanation because you have none that are credible, and hence: "like, apples and oranges, man...".

Same state. 4 years apart. Same office. One candidate the same, the other previously on the ticket.

It's Gala vs Red Delcious. And if that distinction is relevant, you ought to be able to explain why, rather than vaguely complain about the difference.

The post I replied to originally said there was no proof of fraud in 2020. I provided some. I can't make you argue that, but I don't see why you would want to join this thread if not to respond to that specific point.

You know people will laugh at the idea that Georgians were earnestly more excited about Harris than Biden.

This isn't even an argument, this is just shaming a plausible idea as a priori ridiculous so you can assume me of some sort of bad faith or sophism. If you think 2020 and 2024 were both legitimate, isn't Georgians being more excited about Harris imminently plausible? Ok, yeah, I guess you can keep claiming to have never seen a good argument when you reject mine out of hand.

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Your question is a non-sequitur: why do I have to prove anything more? There is clear irregularity in 2020, either give an innocuous explanation for the counting stopped over a water pipe, or concede.

I don't see why a claim of a burst pipe that turned out to be false is proof of fraud? Why should AppleyOrange need to concede anything? There might be many explanations for concerns about a burst water pipe other than deliberate malfeasance. A single bad actor might submit a false report about a burst pipe. A good faith error might have occurred. There might have been a real but small leak that was exaggerated. There are too many possibilities to reasonably jump from a report of a burst pipe to fraud.

But suppose we grant that there was a suspicious irregularity in 2020 worthy of investigation. It's not proof of fraud, but maybe it's something people should look into. Sure.

I think the point about 2024 holds up?

Let's grant hypothetically that large voter fraud in Georgia in 2020 delivered the state to Biden. Let's also grant that Harris outperformed Biden in 2024. There are two possibilities here - either Harris also committed fraud, or she didn't.

If Harris also committed voter fraud, then we should reasonably expect to find evidence of that fraud. Maybe they did it better, sure, but a large-scale operation like state-wide voter fraud ought to leave some evidence. We might also be inclined to ask why, if Harris' campaign is capable of successfully rigging an election in Georgia so professionally, Trump still won Georgia by a decent margin, and why they apparently failed to rig elections in other states, including much more significant swing states.

If Harris didn't commit any kind of fraud, then we'd seem to have to conclude that her performance in the state in 2024 is not prima facie suspicious. If so, then we have a strange question to ask ourselves - why, after rigging it in 2020, would they not bother to rig it in 2024? Moreover, if the Democrats performed better when they weren't rigging it to when they were... that seems strange? That seems like Dick Dastardly stopping to cheat? If Harris didn't cheat in '24, it seems like it just makes more sense if Biden didn't cheat in '20.

Let's consider the four possibilities here: 1) Biden cheats in 2020, Harris cheats in 2024, 2) Biden cheats in 2020, Harris doesn't cheat in 2024, 3) Biden doesn't cheat in 2020, Harris cheats in 2024, 4) Biden doesn't cheat in 2020, Harris doesn't cheat in 2024. It seems like option four just... makes the most sense of the observed data.

Jesus, you made my point far better than I could. Thank you.

There are too many possibilities to reasonably jump from a report of a burst pipe to fraud.

I was talking with a local friend who works elections in [red state] and apparently at the end of the night they loaded the local machine-counted sums for the precinct into the back of a personal vehicle (in tamper-sealed boxes) and drove them to the county central counting facility to hand them off. Apparently last time it was just the driver, and this year they were instructed to at least drive together in pairs, potentially followed by the poll watchers.

My thoughts were roughly (1) I think I mostly trust these folks to do the right thing, but (2) it'd be really easy for anything dramatic here to make national headlines, and I'm kind of surprised it hasn't. I guess you have burst pipes as an example, but "DC ballots stolen when election worker gets carjacked on the way to deliver results" seems quite plausible as a random happenstance but also looks a lot like deliberate election fraud. We're IMO lucky that doesn't seem to have happened.

Also that securing a distributed secret ballot is a fundamentally harder problem than most would give credit for.

The burst pipe was media confusion, not lies by the county. There had been a burst pipe in the morning in a different part of the building which delayed the opening of postal votes. The delay in the counting was an administrative screw-up. [As far as I can see, staff opening postal votes who had been working since the morning were allowed to go home at 1030pm. Some staff counting who were supposed to work overnight if necessary also left, and the party poll-watchers left with them, but the SecState office ordered them back to work after a short delay.]

I think the suspect counties still generated about the same number they always do. Slightly less probably than 2020 because that was the easiest its ever been, but sometimes 100k doesn't cut it. See, e.g. the 1980 and 1984 IL presidential elections.

So you're saying the same amount of fraud happened as in 2020, but there's no evidence this time despite Trump's people watching diligently?

Nothing changed.

So why didn't Trump find evidence of it in 2024?

Nothing changed.

So you believe there was fraud in 2020 and 2024, but no evidence of fraud in either years?

There is plenty of evidence. Just not evidence that fits into the special box that people ask for which is "cannot be explained innocently for other reasons". Look at the PA senate race now. The steal is being attempted, it may or may not prevail.

The only way to find definitive proof of fraud, given our current system, is sting operations. A thing the current DOJ refuses to implement, and which they would also put you in prison for life if you attempted.

Georgia. 2024.

Give me a link.

I'm not expecting anything conclusive. But Trump's poll watchers and attorneys don't seem to be claiming there was any fraud in Georgia, and the various fraud proponent parasites don't seem to be interested.

So I'm not asking for evidence.

Where's the rank speculation of vote fraud in 2024 Georgia?

Because I don’t honestly think she was cheating. There just aren’t any statistical red flags of cheating that I’m aware of in any direction. There are no wild swings that don’t match the polling data, there aren’t any places with oddly high turnout. Even in the other direction, the places she lost match perfectly with the places with high Pro-Palestinian sentiment who might well have chosen not to vote for her out of anger over her tepid support of Israel. Those numbers are pretty consistent with ordinary population growth.

The strange thing is, there are zero articles, videos, discussions, HN comments or even tweets about this.

I think the real question you need to be asking yourself is why do you find this "strange".

Or more pointedly what specific facet of your current worldview/model is it that this particular fact seems to invalidate or contradict?

there is zero corruption here, no scope for dishonest people to survive, those at the very edge are people who are not only competent but just better people

This is the most shocking thing I've read in months. No wonder I didn't understand what the conspiracy was. Surely you did school projects and saw people do little getting a lot of credit, surely you've heard of Enron, Theranos and thousands of other companies...? How could you suspend such a thought for so long? How did this Bolt guy of all things break the glass?

In the case of Elizabeth Holmes, I think people were desperate for a female Steve Jobs. Don’t forget she never got significant amounts of VC money; she got the funds from blinding politicians and supermarket CEOs with science.

Oh, I’m sure the backstage can be pretty grim, I’ve heard bad things about VCs.

Regardless, it's strange to raise 100s of millions without a working prototype for a single valuable feature for a firm that existed for close to a decade.

They had a prototype that seemed to work (with faked results) and legitimately did work for a few tests. Holmes’ genius was getting stuffy septuagenarians into such a bidding war that they overruled their own analysts who said the prototypes were insufficient and urged caution.

Were there shenanigans behind that? I don’t know. Possibly. But I think it would have come up in the investigation along with all the other criminal stuff that was going on. Did you read Bad Blood? It’s a fantastic book.

I think it's worth pointing out that the companies you named aren't exactly comparable. Taking them one by one:

  • Theranos was a fraudulent company that made an ineffective product, lied about its effectiveness, faked demonstrations and test results, and not only parlayed that into a ton of VC funding. The weird thing about it is that they nonetheless plowed forward by entering into contracts with large retailers that they couldn't possibly deliver on, and the whole operation was soon revealed as a sham.

  • FTX was a legitimate investment firm that fraudulently mishandled client funds. Years ago, my grandparents were victims of a similar fraud when their investment manager was telling them he was investing their money in the market but was really using it to make loans to his son's woodworking business. When the woodworking business couldn't cover the loans, he didn't have the money for investors withdrawing funds, eventually someone called the DA's office, and the guy was convicted and died in prison. This guy was a legitimate locally trusted investment manager that normal people used, not some obvious fraudster. When rumors started circulating that he was crooked, a lot of people, including my parents, pulled their money out, but my grandparents had been investing with him for years and said they trusted the guy.

  • WeWork was a legitimate company that was able to hype itself into a valuation so high it defied common sense. It was effectively a commercial real estate company that marketed itself as a tech company. The estimated valuation was so high leading up to the IPO that investors realized there was no real room for growth, not to mention that they were losing more money than could be reasonably explained. There were some questionable valuation processes (e.g. counting every desk job in a city where they were operating as a potential customer rather than a more reasoned analysis of the market for ad hoc office space), but none of this was exactly secret.

  • Broadcast.com was a successful company that Yahoo ran into the ground after acquiring it for a lot of money. I don't even know why it's included here because it was well past the VC stage at the time of purchase and it's just another failed acquisition.

So of the four companies, Theranos was the only one that engaged in fraud to attract VC money. FTX engaged in fraud to prop up another business. WeWork used non-fruadulent puffery to attract investment, and Broadcast was badly managed by a corporate giant.

Tbh that does sound incredibly naive. The start-up scene, or more generally capitalism, isn't good bc everyone involved is a perfect angel. It's because the competitiveness forces you to develop a good product that people actually want to buy, and to cut the slack and produce it reasonably cheaply. That's it. Worse yet, there are many tricks how people try to get around the competition with backhanded, negative-sum strategies, and you have to account for them & stop it. The problem with everything else, such as bureaucratic institutions, is that they often don't even attempt to account for these strategies so they run even wilder. Or worse yet they naturally incorporate the opposite.

It's douchebag who needs to please you vs douchebag you need to please. Nothing more, nothing less.

My impression is Johnson's brain got eaten by the sorta connection-stitching that normally gets thrown up on Pepe Silvia walls. Might not make everything false, but you might as well read chicken entrails if you want something specific enough to actually say.

Austen Allred of Sigma Bloom formerly known as Lambda School lied about everything until his firm blew up and PG still defends him.

There's probably a steelman of that Allred piece -- heaven knows Lambda's collapse has a lot to be embarrassed about -- but it has such a scattered grab-bag of every disagreement possible that it's a little hard to take at face value. The clear illegality of operating as an unregistered school is damning, and then it's undercut by the 'oh and the legislature had to update the law later to make clear it was really-illegal not just I-want-it-to-be illegal'. Allred's homelessness was a lie, because he could have gone back to his parent's spare bedroom, as evidenced by this example of a guy who... was homeless until he made calls and went to a friend's spare bedroom. He did that incredibly dumb Sample Size of One Gimmick, but he also considers a court holding an arbitration clause intact as winning (spoiler: yes) and ran a pretty stupid 500 USD hustle to try to promote a YouTube channel (congrats, you've found an influencer). He's made three references to Elon Musk, which is tots a sign of delusion, and not just having different political aspirations, which is near-certainly what really set Sandusky off. There's some serious criticisms of Lamda excluding 'no-longer-searching' students that weren't searching because Lambda left them with no change or dropouts that Lamda went after for pennies, and also here's a claim of 27% job placement that's behind a paywall, which, once you roll the rock aside depends on interpretations of a leaked slide deck that, afaict, isn't anywhere online and allegedly is disputed by third-party auditors.

Which is probably is big difference. Graham's definitely got some serious faults here, and that he's not more critical where Lamda has fucked up says a lot about whether he's on the outside pissing in or the inside pissing out. But his sort of people have an answer about an indefensible fellow insider: they never mention them again. That's what you're seeing with Breslow -- Bolt faltered like most companies trying to upscale too fast in a highly competitive field (albeit with some hilarity when the pivot to profit collapsed, which isn't especially interesting, but that he dissed them and no one cares enough to accuse Breslow of eating faces means you couldn't get Graham et all to mention his name without a set of pliers.

Graham doesn't damnae memoria Allred not because of some complex conspiracy, but because he thinks there's some defensible variant of Lamda's goal that the school simply missed (and to be fair, I could be persuaded!), and at a more importantly, because so many criticisms of Allred were and are somewhere between exaggerated and junk.

My impression is Johnson's brain got eaten by the sorta connection-stitching that normally gets thrown up on Pepe Silvia walls.

I think my grandparent's called that paranoid schizophrenia. Everything is connected, if you are mentally ill enough.

This is not a coincidence, because nothing is ever a coincidence :)

Quite possibly! It’s actually a quote from Scott’s web novel ‘Unsong’, which I recommend if you haven’t read it. It’s a bit clever-clever in places but pretty good and genuinely intelligent for the most part.

The VC scene has been shady and two-faced forever. Graham is bad, so are the rest of them. Johnson has an extreme axe to grind and is a fabulist of hilarious proportions, but like you say he’s never entirely wrong. He’s basically an extremely autistic compulsive liar with a huge axe to grind.

The impression people have of Indian politics is that BJP is some hyper-casteist political party that wants to impose Hindu and caste supremacy on the world

I think it’s more that there’s a clear delineation between caste supremacy and Hindu nationalism. The latter can’t be too casteist because most Hindus are of either middling caste or casteless. For the same reason a British nativist might be hard-pressed making the argument that the aristocracy should be put back in charge of everything after the revolution.

I used to see Peter Thiel as someone who embodied values I admire but the information about him from Charles completely breaks that for me.

The boyfriend died shortly after he showed up unannounced at Thiel and his husband’s Christmas party and apparently made a big scene. (Classic case of a mistress with unwarranted confidence). Was he killed? Hard to say, but probably not. Thiel stayed out of this election to hedge his bet, he still needed all those contracts for Palantir etc if Harris won, and Vance is his guy so he doesn’t need to suck up to the Trump campaign.

What do you make of the old anthropologist’s argument that the varnas are sublimated remnants of an ancient, long forgotten cow/bull sacrificial cult, with the Brahmins and accordant ritual purity taking the role of the bovine? (Sam Kriss is awful, but he has a brief summary here)

Ancient germanics had a distinction between Noblemen and commoners, with nobles having priestly privileges, just like Ancient Rome. There’s no evidence for some kind of hardcoded up and down social hierarchy like the Indian caste system.

Indus Valley civilisation had a concept of caste despite not being aryan and the Aryans who came from the Eurasian steppes had Varnas, two are different but nearly identical in most cases now.

Eh? I'm not aware of any reason to think the IVC had a caste system, and I couldn't find a reputable source that says so. We know fuck all about them really, their language is undeciphered, and their cities show only the same kind of social stratification that most civilizations do, in other words the elite living in the nicer places.

There is no caste supremacy, arranged marriages exist a relic, and people who are living in urban centres and not poor don't really care as much about who they marry.

I don't know about you, but arranged marriages are very much a thing and far from deprecated. The BBC says that in 2018, 93% of all marriages in the country were arranged. That hasn't changed noticeably in the last 6 years.

The BBC says that in 2018, 93% of all marriages in the country were arranged.

Wow. I knew arranged marriages were a thing, but I didn't know they were that ubiquitous. With that many marriages being arranged, are the handful of people who don't go that route looked down upon as weirdos or anything?

Not really. For the middle class and above, nobody would really bat an eye unless the proposed spouse was otherwise socially undesirable.

If we're talking the lower class, it's still largely acceptance, albeit the picture becomes more murky when you consider the variation inevitable in such a large country.

The biggest issue is avoiding falling in love with the wrong person, defined as probably being poorer, in a bad job, wrong caste (which matters far less than it used to) and so on.

Even then, arranged marriages are nowhere near the popular misconception where the bride and groom only get to see each other before marriage (in most of the country). It's far closer to family-mediated speed dating, as opposed to having friends introduce prospective singles as is more common in the West (until dating apps steamrolled everything else).

Ever since you reach a Certain Age, your family, including bored aunts-twice-removed, begin putting out feelers or become more receptive to the same. Or they make a profile on a matrimonial site I guess. Then comes the carousel of cups of tea in living rooms, families and prospects vetting each other. Assuming both sides like what they see, the couple is encouraged to become familiar with each other, often unsupervised (or at least nobody in the living room) and them genuinely falling for each other, while not strictly necessary, is a welcome outcome. I'd be so bold as to claim the would be partners have veto rights throughout the process.

When everyone is happy and no skeletons or jilted lovers have turned up, then it's time for a big fat Indian wedding.

This isn't particularly different from a modal love marriage either! You take your partner home one day, introduce them, and then both families nigh inevitably begin giving each other a closer look. Objections may or may not be raised, but there's still a lot of reconciliation to do. You marry not just a person but their family, after all.

It's a pretty reasonable system, and God knows that there would be fewer NEETs and incels if more families in the West took hints from Indian mothers exasperated that their kids took their advice to ignore relationships and study for the NEET a little too seriously and need coaxing to produce grandkids eventually.

Uh, westerners trying to do the rough equivalent has mostly not worked very well, although the neuroses of fundamentalist Christianity may be a major explanatory factor there.

It's a civilizational issue. Westerners have this combination of individualism and guilt based moralism that prevents this sort of rigged-for-your-own-good type of institution from lasting in the face of principle.

If you want to make this idiotic romanticism manifest, try to argue openly that Romeo and Juliet are evil for engaging in a wholly destructive act of lust that shirks all their duties, and see people jump to defend vehemently characters whose ostensible fate is death.

This particular mode of being is not without its virtues, but we can plainly see the limitations of it now that it's been pushed to its logical conclusion.

try to argue openly that Romeo and Juliet are evil for engaging in a wholly destructive act of lust that shirks all their duties, and see people jump to defend vehemently characters whose ostensible fate is death.

You've baited me here. Romeo and Juliet have, even in death, done a great deal towards mending a wholly destructive blood feud between their families; if Shakespeare wasn't writing a tragedy of errors they would have been successful. What good would their duties have done?

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The boyfriend died shortly after he showed up unannounced at Thiel and his husband’s Christmas party and apparently made a big scene. (Classic case of a mistress with unwarranted confidence).

Do you know anything about the personality this guy had? Stories like this almost always pattern match to certain kinds of mental illness (in this case maybe Borderline Personality Disorder).

Unstable relationships, attractive and likely to get in a superficial relationship, aggressive and maybe suicidal when spurned, possibly paranoid...

Likely someone who knows the people involved would be like "oh yeah that checks out he was crazy."

But outside looking in it isn't as obvious and these other explanations pop up.

most of what we see, believe and hear about is in fact mostly fabricated

Yes, but I'm not sure what the conspiracy theory is. It seems like a paragraph or two was lost before the edit.

I do not believe fully that all the super mega corps that are being run are completely clean entities that represent everything good about the world

? that is widely shared knowledge...

Someone believing that they are unfairly persecuted would be a conspiracy theory.

Are you serious with this and https://www.themotte.org/post/1252/wellness-wednesday-for-november-13-2024/268562?context=8#context comment? Because both takes are just weirdly bad.

Your conspiracy theory is… big business probably has some skeletons in its closet?

Hell, Wells Fargo Bank got caught knowingly laundering money for the cartel, and they only got a slap on the wrist. I would not be surprised if all manner of shady business is occurring in lots of other industries and companies.

WASHINGTON - President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as the next U.S. Attorney General.

Trump announced his latest cabinet appointment Wednesday afternoon. Gaetz has been a long-time Trump supporter and is a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus in the House.

"Matt is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney, trained at the William & Mary College of Law, who has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice. Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department," Trump said in a statement.

Gaetz represents Florida's District 1.

Trump has announced a flurry of nominations in the week since his election. Earlier on Wednesday, he selected Sen. Marco Rubio to serve as his Secretary of State.

He should be just trolling I think ...

Tulsi Gabbard got Director of National Intelligence. Rubio is still twisting in the wind waiting for his position to become official. I wonder if Trump is just doing his ritual humiliation ceremony, same as he did with Chris Christy.

Gaetz immediately resigned from his house seat...maybe this is a bureaucratic poisoned chalice for the senate, which has the choice of either confirming Gaetz as AG or facing a potential appointment of Gaetz to Rubio's vacant seat?

I do think that we need some bulls in china shop in washington if the western civilization is to be ok in the next century. So Tulsi is a good pick. But gaetz is not qualified I think and probably couldn't pick up to speed fast enough.

Gaetz is funny enough to be trolling, but more likely Trump just wants someone willing to be enough of a hatchetman. Be interesting to see how much of the confirmation fight circles around his actual philosophy, rather than around how oily he is (spoiler: yes) or the reputed and increasingly dubious allegations of the most sexual impropriety.

More effort than this, please.

We are a discussion site, not a link aggregator. Or, uh, a quote aggregator.

Can someone explain to me why is everyone freaking out about this guy? I pick up a fair amount of American politics by osmosis in places like this, and the name does sound familiar, but I have no idea why everybody is losing their damn mind.

He's an idealogue who tracks further to the right of most conservatives, essentialy a slightly more credible version of Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor-Greene. He's known for making intentionally provocative statements that his colleagues don't even try to defend, as well as engaging in stupid publicity stunts. After the GOP took the House in 2022, he insinuated that they should put policy-making on hold and focus on investigating and impeaching Democrats they didn't like. He was the ringleader of Kevin McCarthy's ouster as speaker, earning him a lot of enemies in his own party. He's also a sleazeball, having been accused of sexual misconduct, illegal drug use, showing other members of congress nude photos of women he'd slept with, misappropriating campaign funds for personal use, and accepting impermissible gifts. The centerpiece of all of this is a sex trafficking investigation he got roped into. A close associate of his pleaded guilty and while the evidence didn't support an indictment for any of the crimes that were being investigated, it's pretty clear that Gaetz was partying with this guy and paying him for prostitutes. It didn't help that Gaetz was the only member of congress to vote against a sex trafficking bill. He topped it all off by asking Trump for a blanket pardon for any crimes he may have committed.

While he is a barred attorney, his legal career isn't one typically befitting of an Attorney General. The sum total of his legal experience is a few years as a junior associate at a small law firm, where he handles pennyante matters like debt collection, a dispute over a volleyball net, and a stolen boat. He owes his entire political career to his father, a successful Florida politician who bankrolled his first run for office. the only conceivable reason Trump would nominate him for AG are his personal loyalty (he supported Trump from the beginning and hasn't wavered) and his zeal for going after political enemies. Gaetz resigned from the House after being named as AG; the mainstream view is that he was under investigation for numerous ethics violations and used the nomination as cover to avoid the issuance of the report, now that the House Ethics Committee no longer has jurisdiction. It seems unlikely, however, that Gaetz will ever actually be AG. No Democrat will vote for his confirmation, and only 4 Republicans would need to oppose him to block his nomination. Susan Collins of Maine has already suggested that he's unacceptable, and the guy has enough enemies within his own party that it shouldn't be too hard to find three more (Lisa Murkowski and Mitch McConnell are almost certain nos, and one more wouldn't be hard to find). Any confirmation hearing would air all this dirty laundry publicly in a way that hasn't been done yet. To this point, news of his improprieties has been of the continuing story nature where information comes out in dribs and drabs over the course of years. The only people who can tell you all the ins and outs are the kinds of political junkies who follow scandals involving minor figures. Given the increased scrutiny that's already being given, I'd be surprised if this nomination isn't withdrawn before we even get to the confirmation stage.

So he's scandalous and unqualified? Again, why is everyone losing their shit?

https://thefederalist.com/2022/09/26/the-fbis-matt-gaetz-operation-sidelined-an-effective-republican-voice-at-a-crucial-time-that-was-the-point/

He was one of the more effective pro Trump voices in congress after 2021, and it looks like the DOJ took a run at him.

What they had on him was a crypto guy invited Gaetz on his yacht, afterwards Gaetz venmo'd him $900 and the crypto guy venmo'd two women who were there the $900 split between them. The problem was they couldn't turn that into a federal crime. Even as a state crime they couldn't prove the women were prostitutes or that Gaetz knew the money was for them.

Sending a friend money to cover party expenses isn't a crime. Sending money to a girl you just had sex with to buy herself a present isn't even a crime. It's a bit sleazy but pretty common among the party yacht crowd in Florida. The crypto bro was being threatened with charges and would have been useless as a witness.

So the DOJ leaks facts about the case to the press along with rumours that the girls were underage. They were published March 30, 2021.

Shortly after Gaetz is approached by an ex-military type who claims he can make the charges go away with a donation to a "veterans group". The guy was probably a fed and paying him off would have created federal charges that the DOJ could prosecute. However Gaetz reported it to someone he knew at the FBI instead so that went nowhere.

Basically the DOJ was leaking rumours for 18 months until they admitted there would be no charges. The press is still running with innuendo about it.

But we're approaching 4 years and it seems like the put up or shut up point has passed.

DOJ staff are typically institutionalists and will always circle the wagons to protect the DOJ.

But Gaetz would come in with a personal interest in investigating bad behaviour by the DOJ. They wouldn't be able to try to shame him into hiding things to protect the institution.

For Trumpists that's his big selling point. He's not likely to be highly effective in getting things done at the DOJ but he'll be eager to fire problem people even if it nets him bad headlines from the NYT.

For anti-Trumpists who support the shadier things the DOJ has been doing he's a nightmare.

For people who don't believe the DOJ does anything shady, he just looks like a poor candidate and they want someone more dignified.

Gaetz rubs a lot of people the wrong way because he looks like the rich kid villain from an 80s movie. That's probably not too far off the mark, only as an adult he went to DC and found out people there love to shit on his hometown. So he basically had a heel-face turn where he wants to defend the people of his city against DC.

He's a Republican, he has troll energy, and he has Matt Gaetz's face.

That last one is a little jokey, but I do think that's what tilts it into a furor relative to any average Republican the left hates. He has a supremely punchable face that screams "douchebag", even to me. And I think he even knows it.

Surely these picks are a smokescreen. I bet JD Vance is huddling with Yarvin, Musk, and Thiel in a smoke-filled room right now discussing which anon Twitter accounts and Mottizens will get the call to serve in the shadow cabinet. They must be cross-referencing the Gray Mirror Substack subscriber list to make sure they don’t accidentally double-count any alts.

No, they’re not, there are upper and upper mid level officials in the Texas and Florida governments who will get drafted instead.

You laugh, but Yarvin himself has been very strongly opining that Nothing Ever Happens and any Trumpian hopes were likely to crash on the shores of redtape.

I'm willing to bet that Musk and Thiel will get what they wanted out of the admin (i.e.: the feds stop putting roadblocks in front of them), but twitter anon dreams of power because they are mutuals with Vance were delusional.

feds stop putting roadblocks in front of them

If/When the Dems regain power, especially if MAGA dies fully with Trump, what do you think is going to happen to them long term? My guess is imprisonment or just thrown off a building depending on the fallout of a Trump administration.

I'm quite certain this is why they've been angling to purge all the people who won't leave them alone.

There are large parts of the deep state that understand that their work is needed for America to keep its military edge. It's not clear to me that the people who want to fuck with that are the most senior or the most powerful.

They'll do what filthy rich billionaires did before them : Donate = Bribe = Lobby.

Now that Elon & Thiel are Texans, the state should offer them plenty of protection even after Trump goes away.

Musk joked that either Trump would win or Musk would be imprisoned. It's a joke. But novel legal theories worked once to secure dozens of felony convictions. Why not a second pass?

That was in no way a joke. He was already facing down a prosecution for not employing enough illegal immigrants for a job that has requirements which can only be met by legitimate citizens, his compensation payout being declared too high, etc. The lawfare was already happening, and I think there's a very good chance he would have been extradited abroad and prosecuted for misinformation/hate speech if Trump didn't win.

I wouldn't recommend throwing Musk off a building; he'd probably shoot flames out of his ass and land safely.

I would imagine they think by the time the Dems regain power, the impossible-to-work-with faction will have been soundly defeated and whoever takes over will only be a drag on their businesses, not anything worse. I don't believe that, but Musk, at least, is an optimist.

Vivek Ramaswamy gave an interesting talk at Yale's Buckley institute a few days after the election. What I specifically want to focus on is the part starting at 34:35, where he describes what he thinks is a divide in the Republican party between two different notions of American national identity. The first is that being American is about following a common set of values---meritocracy, free speech, self-governance, etc. The second (starting 39:12) is that being American is about having deep, ancestral ties to a particular piece of land---"blood and soil". He sees the coming years as an almost factional fight within the Republican party between these two notions of identity.

This topic is very close to my heart---I think the majority of my interaction with this forum has been very unsuccessfully arguing in favor of the ideals-based notion of identity. Ramaswamy fervently supports the same and I hope hearing his much better-argued case (from a much more authoritative source) is far more compelling than anything I've tried to say.

However, what I'm actually interested in is what people here think the outcome of the factional fight is going to be. What do you see in Trump's choices of appointees? Is Ramaswamy going to be pushed out or is he going to be an influential figure moving forward? Which side do you think various major figures in the Republican party land on?

Just to put my cards on the table, I personally think Ramaswamy is delusional that it's even a fight and that the Republican party is fully dominated by the blood-and-soil side. This is in fact the main reason I vote Democrat and if I believed the ideals side was going to win, I would immediately become a die-hard Trump supporter. I believe that if you actually hold the ideals-based notion of identity, then the Matt Yglesias/Noah Smith-wing of the Democratic party is the right political home for you. As for why I believe this, I always thought that support for legal, skilled immigration was the best litmus test for this divide---if you are on the ideals side, then it is a no-brainer win-win and if you're on the blood-and-soil side, then it is very dangerous. Both what happened in the last Trump administration and experience talking to right-wingers here seemed to very strongly demonstrate that US Republicans are very against skilled immigration.

At the end of the day, the number of Americans with deep (white) nationalist convictions is much smaller than the number that will gravitate towards arguments couched in blood and soil because they are angry about something else, usually crime, and can be placated by increased policing and a reduction in public disorder, regardless of the actual demographics of their community. Even if Trump succeeds at deporting 15 million illegal immigrants and ending birthright citizenship, which is unlikely to say the least, that still leaves tens of millions of legal immigrants, many of whom have just started voting for Republican candidates because of the Democrats' mishandling of identity politics and will be key to winning future elections.

I think there's also the question of which set of ideals were talking about. Are they the ideals of the Founding Fathers, which presupposed a European/Christian worldview and a virtuous populace? Or are they the ideals of the Civil Rights Neoconstitution that is IMO essentially a pro-globalist anti-identity? If it's the former, I might be okay with supporting the civnats, but it's the latter, I'm going to reluctantly support the blood-and-soil people.

If you are in favor of ideals then Republican immigration policy sounds like it would be a better fit for you. In order for American Ideals to continue to be American Ideals we need to assimilate immigrants into them, and that means taking in a manageable flow, and preferably from all sorts of places. Too large a flow and the existing culture and ideals get diluted too quickly. Too much from a single source means they form enclaves which makes assimilation harder (I am especially thinking of the majority muslim areas of Michigan here). Republican policy preferences are the ones that will meet this goal the best.

The thing is, you assume that 'ideals-based identity' and 'ancestral identity' are separate and orthogonal to one another. But even if we put aside tribal allegiance, it's pretty clear that emotional predispositions (openness, authoritarianism, neuroticism, etc.) are at least partially genetic. And this is going to correlate somewhat with race, because most places have had fairly stable demographics for hundreds or thousands of years.

The ideal of "free speech" is going to look very different in a country of high-openness, high-extroversion people vs high-neuroticism, low-openness. Likewise "self-governance". Moved from one country that considers itself meritocratic, self-governing and devoted to free speech to a very ethnically-different country with the same ideals really drove that home for me.

American notions of what their founding ideals mean has already shifted pretty clearly since the country was founded, and I doubt that's independent of the demographic changes that America has been through since the founding. Anyone who wants to preserve modern American values has to consider the demographics of the population upholding those values and passing them down to their children.

(Look at how much work it took for Roosevelt et al to get federal jobs allocated by exam scores not patronage. Both factions considered themselves thoroughly American, but one defined 'merit' as 'decades of loyal service' and the other as 'intelligence and diligence").

it's pretty clear that emotional predispositions (openness, authoritarianism, neuroticism, etc.) are at least partially genetic

There's a standard counterargument here: even accepting this, ancestry is at most weak proxy for values---the distributions always have significant overlap. Using the weak proxy instead of more direct measures of values is silly. I bet even English proficiency and being able to pass a civics test gives more information on acceptance of the current American values than ancestry. I'm not going to complain if this picks out different proportions of different ancestry groups---just don't prejudge anyone based on very weak correlates when there's a better way!

Sounds nice but in practice it doesn’t produce good results:

  1. Reversion to the mean - just as geniuses tend not to produce genius children, the disposition of your cohort is a better predictor of your lineage’s behaviour than your personal values. Especially when that cohort forms ethnic enclaves on arrival.
  2. Passing a civics test != sharing your values. Trying to prevent an ethical project from being infiltrated by people who make the right mouth noises is an ancient problem faced by religions, charities, and NGOs, and it’s almost unsolvable. The two most reliable ways are requiring personal recommendations for membership, or limiting it to a specific ancestral group like the Hasidics or the Amish. I assume that neither appeal to you.

Seriously, I’m not trying to gotcha you with clever arguments. One of the reasons I moved towards an ancestral-based understanding of Britishness was watching all the immigrants who’d taken the mandatory civics test on ‘British values’ turn around and condemn those values the moment they got their visa. We wanted skilled immigrants who would uphold our values too, who doesn’t? But in general that’s not what we got, and the children are worse.

if I believed the ideals side was going to win, I would immediately become a die-hard Trump supporter.

That's interesting. So what are the things you love about Trump so much that would make you a die-hard supporter, if his (or the Republicans') stance on immigration wasn't an issue?

I believe that if you actually hold the ideals-based notion of identity, then the Matt Yglesias/Noah Smith-wing of the Democratic party is the right political home for you.

A single tweet / substack in the wake of a lost election doesn't make for a good argument that an ideals-based identity person belongs in that wing. Particularly when one of these is written by mr. "I want wrong right-wing ideas to be discredited, while wrong left-wing ideas gain power".

I also don't understand why Trump(ist)'s stance on immigration is enough to turn you off from otherwise die-hard support, but you are apparently able to tolerate the Democrat's constant abuse of the very notion of meritocracy.

I always thought that support for legal, skilled immigration was the best litmus test for this divide---if you are on the ideals side, then it is a no-brainer win-win and if you're on the blood-and-soil side, then it is very dangerous.

I don't think it's dangerous (let alone very), I even agree it's a clear win, given the benefits and the small schale of that particular form of immigration, but if you can't think of literally any risk or downside, I'd say you lack imagination.

That aside, I'd say most people are skeptical of skilled immigration, because they see it as a foot-in-the door for mass immigration (no one said how high the skills have to be to count as "skilled").

So what are the things you love about Trump so much that would make you a die-hard supporter, if his (or the Republicans') stance on immigration wasn't an issue?

It's more that I agree with you that the Democrat's stance on American identity isn't ideal. I would become a die hard supporter despite everything else I don't like because then the Republican party and Trump would be the best instruments to make the stance on identity I like dominant---I'm basically a single-issue voter on this issue of identity.

Democrat's constant abuse of the very notion of meritocracy.

Despite also being bad on this issue, the Democrats at least have a wing that supports meritocracy. This wing can actually win primaries/elections in very left-leaning areas; for example, they are going to be running San Francisco as of the recent election. On the other hand, the anti-hereditarian meritocrats on the Republican party, like Ramaswamy, seem to get slaughtered in primaries. Whatever Trump actually believes, meritocracy is something he's very willing to sacrifice when it comes to actual policy decisions. Stephen Miller is still going to be the most influential immigration policy advisor!

no one said how high the skills have to be to count as "skilled"

I'll give a line: better for the country than the median citizen in some measure combining ability to assimilate and ability to contribute. Given how dominant US culture and values are globally, it shouldn't be very hard to find a huge number of people making this cut.

I'm basically a single-issue voter on this issue of identity.

Fair enough, there are issues that move me this way too. But I think it's important to recognize there are valid reasons why either side won't drop everything to get your support. It's a very limited set of circumstances where a one-issue voter gets to exercise influence.

This wing can actually win primaries/elections in very left-leaning areas; for example, they are going to be running San Francisco as of the recent election

I don't think I heard of this. Who won, and what are they planning to do for meritocracy?

On the other hand, the anti-hereditarian meritocrats on the Republican party, like Ramaswamy, seem to get slaughtered in primaries.

And then they get appointed to high positions by people who win them... what's the problem?

I'll give a line: better for the country than the median citizen in some measure combining ability to assimilate and ability to contribute.

I don't think it's the ability to assimilate that's the problem, because that's actually pretty high for most people. The problem is that there is next to no pressure to assimilate anymore, the very idea of putting such pressure is seen as deplorable, and higher immigration will necessarily lower that pressure even more.

Given how dominant US culture and values are globally, it shouldn't be very hard to find a huge number of people making this cut.

It would still imply mass deportations, wouldn't it?

Demographics is destiny to a degree so it's been over for the racists for a long time. They can join the tent and extract some concessions, but not at the expense of the rest of the coalition.

I always thought that support for legal, skilled immigration was the best litmus test for this divide

Why? Importing high gdp people will make number go up, but it won't provide any support for your values of "meritocracy, free speech, self-governance, etc." If you import a million high iq gay race communists, that will actually destroy your American values faster than importing a million freeloaders will.

The problem with the values side is the values aren't really verifiable. The homeland of a people side feels under threat in large part because many of the people coming in aren't expected to believe in meritocracy, free speech, or any of that.

Take the example of Judge Chutkan. Her parents left Jamaica and brought her to the US because they were too hardline communist for the communists of Jamaica.

The Dems appointed her to be a DC judge precisely because she has weak cultural ties to the US and can't be shamed into following traditional American legal norms. Appeals to democratic traditions and rights just fall flat on her, she just hates her political enemies.

Republican voters see her in charge of the DC Trump trial and loose all faith in values based immigration.

Oh and it's a big lie that H1-Bs go to "highly educated foreign professionals". Sure decent chunk do. But they are randomly selected from the pool of applicants that have the correct paperwork, so there are significant abuses.

For instance here are H1Bs granted to a hog farming company: https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=murphy-brown+llc&job=&city=&year= Median Salary is $40768.

For H1Bs you need to match the prevailing local wage, so a lot of shops set up in a poor city, and pay their employees well below the normal national wages.

https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=wipro+limited&job=&city=&year=all+years

Sort by salary low to high.

As a fix for H1Bs I've long argued that they should award them based on base salary instead of the current random. It'd fix problems.

The problem with the values side is the values aren't really verifiable.

This, but there's also another problem: changes in values can go either way. If anyone can become American by adopting "American values"… what if they change their mind about said values? What about natural-born citizens who stop believing in those American values? Do they lose their citizenship?

Of course not, for several reasons, one of which is the difficulty of verification you note. But notice that this creates a ratchet — there are multiple ways to become an American, but far narrower paths to cease being one. (AIUI, renouncing American citizenship is actually very difficult.)

(One might draw a comparison here to how an atheist (ethnic) Jew and a gentile convert to Judaism are still both Jewish.)

meritocracy

Oh god, please don't bring up this word with OP, we're about to get a lecture about how meritocracy necessarily means open borders to high-talent immigrants, even if it means economic ruin for existing residents...

For what it's worth, I was raised by Republican parents who listened to Conservative Talk Radio and watched Fox News. Growing up I listened to Michael Medved, Glen Beck, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Rush Limbaugh, and Micheal Savage in the car. I still follow some of these personalities on X. I feel like I am tuned into normie conservative sentiment. And the Normie Conservative Sentiment is that America is a values-based society. Immigration is great if someone is willing to work hard, not take handouts, assimilate, and parent their kids to do the same.

I only see the "Blood and Soil" types in fringe online groups. The vast majority of American conservatives are not like that, and if you think that the "Values-Based" Americanism is losing I don't know what to say. I don't even know where the fight is taking place - YouTube comment sections?

I say this as someone who thinks it will be very sad if France is not majority French people, Italy not majority Italians, etc. In my heart I almost see Europe as a museum and I will be sad to see that go away. But America is multi-racial and I see that as a good thing.

That being said, seeing America as a Values-Based Society requires limited immigration. To explain, let's say that we brought in 300 million immigrants next year from all over the globe. 50% of Americans would be immigrants, 50% would be born in the USA. Let's ignore the economic pressure that would create, housing and job crises, and just focus on culture. If the population of foreign-born Americans was 50%, would we be able to pass along American values and culture?

I asked my siblings this question once and they said, "Of course, why not?" I think they were pretty stupid for thinking so. If American norms and values were so easily acquired and distributed throughout the globe, why would people need to move to America? They could just turn their existing countries into America themselves.

Instead, we find in immigration-heavy states like California that new structures that resemble the bribery, nepotism, and corruption of immigrant's home countries.

Obviously 50% of foreign-born people residing in the United States would be too big a shift for us to properly integrate them into our culture. But what is the correct percentage? Immigrants today account for 14.3% of the U.S. population. I think this is an under-count, because they list only 11 million "unauthorized" immigrants, when other independent studies have found closer to 20 million..

Is 14.3% of foriegn-born people the sweet spot? I don't think so. At times of greatest stability in America, that number was between 5-10%.

If america were to raid India or China or Israel, will people of the respective ethnicities not have a very high chance of siding with nations they come from?

This has been a concern throughout American history and there have been some level of sabatuar and unrest during wars from time to time. But most Americans, especially immigrants who choose to assimilate, side with America. People who drop everything with the dream of Being American, a sovereign in themselves, with unalienable rights and infinite opportunity, don't defect so easily. At least not when selected carefully.

What benefits does the average heritage amerikaner get from having Indians or Chinese becoming a permanent resident?

In our current environment with a low TFR, we get people. We avoid a steep population crunch, if only for a little while longer until we can sort it out.

Most people migrating or getting refugee status are completely incapable of being productive money wise.

You seem to misunderstand me here. I don't want "Most people." I would prefer for our foreign born population to decrease by 2/3rds. I think a reasonable amount of newcomers is good, as long as they come in at a rate where they can intermarry and assimilate. I don't want enough of any given foreign population to create an enclave.

This is largely the sentiment I see from normie cons, with the caveat that many believe some groups- they’re always cautious about which ones but if pressed would probably name heavily Muslim groups to start with- are essentially unassimilable, and that only their children, or more probably mixed race grandchildren, can be expected to buy into American values enough to be ‘real Americans’.

Thanks to everyone who answered my hypothetical about the startup.

General opinion seems to come down to ‘you don’t owe them anything but a decent sum of money would be a gentlemanly / ladylike show of gratitude. Which seems about right to me.

One of the reasons I’m interested in the question is that much social conflict comes from the discrepancy between the market value of labour (determined primarily by the number and type of people able to do the work) and what you might call the utility value (determined by how important it is that the work gets done. For example, @PutAHelmetOn’s code saves hundreds of thousands in processing costs, farmers stop everyone dying of famine, longshoremen make it possible to have international trade (modulo automation).

I would say the primary economic conflict of the last two hundred years is that the employees think in terms of the utility of their work while customers and employers think in terms of the market value.

Trade unions and guilds have historically been used as a method of arbitrage between these two values, limiting competition to drive market value closer to utility value. And the communist states show pretty clearly to my that trying to base your society on something other than the market value causes problems. I suppose the welfare state is basically ‘we don’t owe you this money but we’re going to give some of it to you anyway’.

Would like to write an effort post but this is what I have for now.

(Meta: is it obnoxious to do multi-top-posts like this? I didn’t want to talk about these ideas right away because I felt it would bias the replies, but at the same time it seems like a waste to write this as a second level reply in an old thread just before the new CW thread opens up).

Meta: is it obnoxious to do multi-top-posts like this? I didn’t want to talk about these ideas right away because I felt it would bias the replies, but at the same time it seems like a waste to write this as a second level reply in an old thread just before the new CW thread opens up

My two cents, but you're fine. It adds to the impression that we have a rolling conversation going around here. Personally I'm unlikely to go digging through prior topics to see what conclusion you came to if any, not least because it wouldn't be clear where to look.

People who aren't interested can minimize the post and its children. I minimize about half the posts here within a few seconds of skimming. It's a great system. Also, this isn't 4chan; no topics died to make room for yours.

Finally, as you say, it's Sunday. So long as things are kept in good taste, there's always been an unspoken understanding that Sunday-poasting doesn't have to adhere as tightly to the straight and narrow. It's like Hawaiian shirt Friday at the office.

Do you think most C-suite executives are over, under, or appropriately paid relative to the market value of their labor?

That seems a broad question. There are CEOs who are merely occupying a chair and collecting the salary. It happens in just about any position. There are also people who work their butts off innovating and improving life for the whole country who are taking risks to do so. I wouldn’t begrudge the second set a thing, and furthermore I think being keen to confiscate wealth on the theory that the first type is more common than the second ends up doing great harm as it prevents the second group from working effectively.

Even the ones just occupying the chair are producing a huge amount of value as compared to the replacement CEO that is actively tanking the company.

Paying an extra ten million for a lower risk of "destroys tens of billions" is not always the wrong move.

IOW, at that level it's not just about upside or actual job function/accomplishment.

Obviously overpaid. Marissa Mayer ruined Yahoo for 239 million dollars, I would have gladly ruined it for 150 million. And there are people that would run it into the ground for a million and some for free.

So CEO decisions are so consequential that they can ruin a company worth tens of billions of dollars. That makes it seem very sensible to pay a couple hundred million if it increases the chances those decisions are good. Sometimes CEOs are paid those hundreds of millions and make bad decisions anyway, but generally people believe that being willing to pay more improves those odds, that's why they do it.

I can't understand why shareholders don't insist on tying CEO pay to company performance, Musk-style. Does it reveal too much about the board's expectations for growth/decline?

This is outcome based thinking and basically one of the best ways to never truly understand why the world works the way it does. If you buy a game for $1 where a coin is flipped and you get $10 if it's a head then you did the right thing even if the coin flip turns up tails. The real life outcome is not important, what really matters is the expectation.

If you look at the very top Contract Bridge or Magic The Gathering players for example they evaluate their play based on expected values of the boardstate rather than whether that specific time what they did worked out well for them or not. The right play that led you to lose the round is not an issue at all while the wrong play that led you to win that specific time is something you need to fix ASAP.

Sure you can run Yahoo for $150M but for the board it makes more sense to pay Mayer $249M if there's say a 30% probability she ruins the company and a 70% probability she makes it good again vs paying you $150M for a 100% probability of the company being ruined, irrespective of what the final outcome of Mayer's tenure turns out to be.

I don't have a specific opinion about Marissa Mayer as Yahoo CEO at the moment, other than that she's another amusing example of the female desire to be sex objects.

If you buy a game for $1 where a coin is flipped and you get $10 if it's a head then you did the right thing even if the coin flip turns up tails. The real life outcome is not important, what really matters is the expectation.

Indeed, a good outcome does not necessarily mean a good decision (and conversely with regard to a bad outcome and bad decision). Even as a kid, when watching professional sports, it annoyed me how coaches/managers would be razed or praised based on the outcome rather than the decision(s) using the information available at the time.

I think you can even switch those odds, it can be a hail marry, a 30% chance she turns it around. If you're a high end exec you're going to want to be heavily compensated for the risk that you're going to get fired and that possibly ending your career. "I'll try to patch up the Titanic but you're going to pay me enough that when it goes down I'm sitting on the life boat with a smile on my face."

Some of the things she did were just ridiculous:

In November 2013, Mayer instituted a performance review system based on a bell curve ranking of employees, suggesting that managers rank their employees on a bell curve, with those at the low end being fired.[59][60] Employees complained that some managers were viewing the process as mandatory.[60] In February 2016, a former Yahoo! employee filed a lawsuit against the company claiming that Yahoo's firing practices have violated both California and federal labor laws.[61]

It's not as though she made ambitious ploys that might've worked but failed due to bad luck, she had a scattergun approach of random nonsense. "We need to do something" -> "this is something" -> "therefore we must do this" x50. Mayer had a hard task but bungled massively.

I am not sure that the utility value concept is coherent.

So all the farmers quit one day and the rest of the economy stays the same, magically. People will likely decide that they want food more than they want shelter, move out of their rented buildings and spend their rent on what food there is to be had, establishing a utility value of food.

Except now the people running the waterworks also go on strike, and there is a water shortage. Very quickly, people decide that they would rather drink than eat. Nobody would waste precious water to irrigate crops.

And then some acute threat of violence looms, and people will trade their precious water so that they are not ripped apart by velociraptors in the next minute.

Depending on what their most urgent need is, that piece of bread is worth 1$, or a kings ransom, or nothing. So what should its utility value be?

(Meta: is it obnoxious to do multi-top-posts like this? I didn’t want to talk about these ideas right away because I felt it would bias the replies, but at the same time it seems like a waste to write this as a second level reply in an old thread just before the new CW thread opens up).

Within reason it's okay. We only get annoyed if someone keeps starting multiple threads about the same topic.

Got it, thank you.

the discrepancy between the market value of labour and what you might call the utility value

The utility theory of pricing suggests that potable water (critical for life) should cost more than diamond necklaces (not important). That alone suggests it needs at least some nuance if it wants to make contact with reality.

I think if you want to be more coherent about theories of value, you should probably think a bit more about the margin and factor in include both substitutability & elasticity. Food as an entire category is essential, but on the margin the farmer's product can be substituted for the fisherman's or the shepherd's. Truckers as a category are essential, but on the margin if prices go way up people will ship less stuff. PUHO's super-performant code could be substituted instead for buying a bunch more hours on AWS.

I suppose the welfare state is basically ‘we don’t owe you this money but we’re going to give some of it to you anyway’.

I think there is a key question of filling in the reason why it's given anyway.

Some will say:

  • ... because we want you to get on your feet and go back to being a productive member of society

Others will say

  • ... because we care for you as an irreducible being worthy of grace

Yet others will say

  • ... because otherwise the poor will degrade the quality of life for everyone

And so forth.

In Aristotle's Politics, he observes that families hold property "in common" while cities hold property privately (but for public benefit). He thinks this is natural, because if cities treated property as communal, no one would have stewardship and freeloaders would be a problem--but with our true intimates, it's actually normal and natural to live communally.

What you are saying sounds to me like kind of a modern take on the same phenomena, or maybe even just a more granular take. The reason we have the law of contract is to facilitate agreement between non-intimates. But the line between family and stranger can be more of a spectrum, and in many circumstances we find ourselves treating strangers as near kin, at least temporarily.

I don't think I have anything substantive to add, really, I just think it's always interesting to observe that these questions have been the subject of philosophical inquiry for all of recorded history.

Right. On the one hand, big cities / corporations / societies can only work on market forces, which treat you like a pawn and are constantly trying to drive the value of your important work down, and a lot of the time people wished they lived in a more personable system.

On the other hand, working within the family is often unpaid (eg waiting tables in the family restaurant or on the family farm, or changing nappies). One of the old feminist demands was that mothers should be paid for taking care of children. Though I doubt they were looking to receive only the salary of an au pair….

You might be interested in https://www.amazon.com/Order-without-Law-Neighbors-Disputes/dp/0674641698

It is a similar point in that law is useful when the game is functionally not iterative (either because of the size of the market or the size of the transaction) but when iterative law is basically irrelevant.

The idea that utility value and market value are different is a fundamental economic misconception.

Market prices reflect real resource shortages and tradeoffs. "Important" jobs are often paid low because many people can do it.

In a perfectly efficient market, this would be the case. But it's easily disproven in practice by the fact that market prices can change by effects which have absolutely no impact on the utility value.

Ie, suppose we have a city with a bunch of plumbers, all of equal plumbing skill/ability, and a company that hires them and manages their distribution to clients, and pays between $80k and $120k depending on how skilled and aggressive the plumber is at negotiating (aggressive meaning they demonstrate an ability/willingness to quit and do a different job instead if they don't get the salary they want). We've assumed by axiom that they provide the same value, and yet get paid different amounts, let's assume the frequency is evenly distributed across this range, such that the average plumber is paid $100k. I suppose you could say that the "utility value" is the highest the company is willing to pay, $120k, and anyone being paid less is simply a bad negotiator, but I'm not sure if you'd say the "market value" is $120k given that most of the plumbers aren't earning that, and a new plumber entering the field is unlikely to get an offer that high.

Suppose then that the plumbers unionize and negotiate that all of them will receive the same pay of $110k. That's now the market value, unambiguously, that's what the market, as created by this single local monopolistic company (which is the only company offering reliable and consistent pay for plumbers in this city) and this one union (which all employees of the company must join) will pay. And yet the utility value of plumbing has not changed, because the union doesn't impact plumbing skill/ability in any way.

Suppose that the company actually takes in revenue of $140k for each plumbing employee it has, and keeps the difference as overhead/profit. There's a sense in which the utility value of a plumber is actually $140k since that's what clients are willing to pay, although if the overhead is necessary then I suppose the utility of the plumber themself is lessened by that. However if a plumbing emergency happens and the company gets a lot more business, earning $150k per employee one year, but takes the extra as profit and changes no salaries, then the utility value of plumbers goes up that year, the market price (from the client and owner's side) goes up, but the market price (from the employees side) remains unchanged.

And suppose that the employer uses local regulations, an army of lawyers, and relationships with local politicians to crush any new plumbers that try to form their own company or go independent in this area. It is not a free market, it is effectively a local monopoly. If you want to be a plumber, you negotiate here, or you leave the city and pay whatever transition costs it takes to uproot your life and your family and be a plumber somewhere else. The fact that this changes market prices but doesn't change the utility value of plumbers should clearly demonstrate that market prices are distinct from utility prices, even if an ideal perfectly efficient and free market would cause them to be equal. In practice, no market is perfectly free, therefore we should expect deviations in precisely the areas where these imperfections drive them apart.

There is an economic concept called "perfect competition" I want to be clear that this economic concept is not required for efficient prices.

And I am talking about efficient prices, not "perfect prices". Prices are a process and a search function for an optimal set of tradeoffs. One of the tradeoffs is information. To perfectly know all the inputs of a product, and to perfectly know the desire for that product would be a very costly search process. There is going to be some fudging of prices and that fudging should be expected given that information itself is not free or costless.

[Plumbers]

You've created a very long example that kind of assumes away many of the standard market fixes. I do generally like to use theoretical examples for most economic concepts, but I find that they tend to lead people astray when it comes to the nature of prices.

To me your example sounds a bit like this:

"Geologists say that older mountain ranges tend to be shorter and rounder than newer mountain ranges, because wind and erosion will gradually wear mountains down. But that's not always true, imagine there are two mountains. One mountain is 20k feet and in an old mountain ranges. And the other mountain is 10k feet in a newer mountain range. They are both subject to similar levels of erosion, and neither is a volcano. So older mountains can be taller."

You've assumed your position to be true in your example.

And yes the government is fully capable of distorting prices, or assisting companies in distorting prices. I usually bring this up as a reason why government should not have this power, or should at least have many restrictions on the use of this power. But this is also not evidence that prices don't reflect the real world, instead it is more evidence. After all if a government makes it hard to be in the plumber business we should expect the price paid for plumbing services to go up, because the supply of plumbers has been restricted. It would be strange if the government could intervene and not change prices.

Sure, but my example is basically a disproof by counterexample. In this example, prices don't match utility, therefore, the statement "prices always match utility" is logically false. It's really easy to disprove an "always" statement with a single example, even a hypothetical one, because an "always" statement is such a strong claim that it's almost never true. Utility value and market value are different things: sometimes they will be equal, sometimes they will not. I'm not saying they're never equal, I'm not saying they won't usually be close, especially in an efficient market. My point is that markets in the real world are not always efficient, therefore the two values are not always equal in the real world. This should not be controversial.

The only time I say "always" is in quoting a fake person that is doing a bad takedown on the concept of erosion with a bad hypothetical example.

I even mentioned fudging of prices. Which I would have thought helped clarify that prices are not some exact mathematical thing.

I'll say what I said again: Prices reflect reality.

Saying that they don't perfectly reflect reality is not a disproof of what I said. Just like finding one mountain that is coincidentally less eroded does not mean erosion is not true. Utility is part of reality and thus prices will tend to capture information about utility and reflect that information.

Marx's work doesn't say there is a slight mismatch sometimes between market prices and utility. It says there is almost always a mismatch, because employers exploit employees for their excess labor to make profits. That is the fundamental economic misconception.

If a price is wrong, then there is often a method to profit off of that incorrectness. If some segment of workers is underpaid then their is a profit opportunity to open a competing business and pay them more than they get now and less than the full value of their wage. The greater the discrepancy, the greater the opportunity.

Fine. It sounds like we don't disagree about any object level issues, just the meaning of certain words and phrases. I don't think what you said originally properly conveys the nuance of what you're saying now, but I understand you now and I don't disagree.

I’m specifically differentiating the two concepts. My point is that the economically effective way of allocating value does not match fundamental moral intuitions many have about how to allocate value.

The Marxists put their fingers in their ears and say ‘akshually economic value is derived from labour’ and they’re wrong and it doesn’t work. But the concept is perennially popular because it’s fundamentally intuitive, and I suspect that until we find a way to make the two match a little better we will have permanent ongoing strife. The welfare system was an attempt to do this, but has the now-clear disadvantage that it’s a pyramid scheme that encourages dependency and bankrupts you. I’m interested in exploring the space of possible alternatives.

A pure market system with high liquidity and competition generally produces good results and humans hate, hate, hate being subject to it. Like evolution, market forces are an eldritch optimising machine. There are some people who seem to feel that market forces are morally good and I think this is a category error.

I think it works as an appeal to victimization and greed. The belief that you’re being exploited is something that comes up anytime you end up with any sort of hierarchy. It’s something that humans are just unwilling to accept unless it’s them at or near the top of the dominance hierarchy. So rather than accept that there’s a reason that they’re not at the top of that hierarchy. Incels certainly have theories about what kinds of external factors make them unfuckable. The kid cut from the football team will likely believe in some sort of favoritism hold him back. In the workplace we have a hard time accepting that we actually don’t deserve to be the boss.

The other appeal is greed. If those at the top are unfairly exploiting them, it’s “only fair” to ask that some of those ill-gotten gains go to them. So they stand to gain if they can leverage the power of the state to basically steal from their betters.

I mean, I agree directionally.

That said, there is such a thing as exploitation. The concept has been overused by the left but their dishonesty about it doesn't actually erase the subset of actual such cases.

The problem being trying to find out if you’re a real victim of exploitation or if you’re just unsatisfied with where you ended up. Most people will absolutely believe that they deserve more.

Absolutely. I did not mean at all to suggest that we can allow people to self-id as exploited.

That doesn't mean there are no such cases or the concept is completely devoid of realization.

I see it as a sort of tragedy of the commons. You can have a better view and a better time at a baseball stadium by sitting down, but this is conditional on everyone else sitting down as well.

The politicization of economic value is super super tempting. I think it is inevitable to some degree and I'm fine with it happening. I think it would be best if it happens within Dunbar number limited groups of people of about 150. Let a small company or group of people determine among themselves how to politically split up economic value. But make them compete in a more global system where value is determined by the erldritch invisible hand.

There is a sweet spot of not being subject to the eldritch forces, but also it's a benevolent eldritch force that will ruthlessly optimize for the things we are willing to trade for. So I guess I agree with your assessment, I just dislike the people that band together to deny reality, aka Marxists.

I agree with pretty much everything here. I don’t think you can avoid politicising “how much is your work worth”, especially because liquid market conditions are something that has to be actively created and maintained through legal systems, economic systems, transport systems etc.

Market prices reflect real resource shortages and tradeoffs. "Important" jobs are often paid low because many people can do it.

Or as Dr. Kersten points out, there are many positions which are necessary but not important, like a gear in a watch -- vital yet easily replacable.

I think what Corvos is calling "utility value" is price at which consumer surplus reaches zero. That's definitely different than (and much higher than) "market value".

Yes, and it has to be this way because anyone providing me a necessary service must be paid less per person that I am paid. Otherwise I can’t afford those necessary services.

For example, I am dependent on food (farmers, truckers, shelf stackers etc.) to live. If those people are too well paid, I can’t afford to eat. So it seems that, most of the time, it’s a prerequisite for civilisation that people doing necessary jobs are paid less than people doing unnecessary jobs. Which is very awkward for society.

Yes, and it has to be this way because anyone providing me a necessary service must be paid less per person that I am paid. Otherwise I can’t afford those necessary services.

Err, no. This would only be true if those people were providing you AND ONLY YOU the necessary service. In actual fact, farmers, truckers, and shelf stackers provide services to many people.

Sorry, I’m thinking out load and so not always clearly. What I mean is that I physically can’t spend more than my total salary on basic necessities. Society requires that basic necessities be cheaper than skilled/intellectual work - if they aren’t cheap, society doesn’t function and everyone has to be a subsistence farmer.

The more fundamental the work, the more we have to drive the price down for our civilisation to remain functional. More physical work is resistant to automation is various ways (robots can’t interact with complex objects / human environments so no robot nurses, truckers, shelf stackers etc.) and the end result is that you have many low-paid physical labourers who notice that they are being paid badly for doing very necessary jobs while others are being paid better for sending emails. Before, of course, these jobs were done by peasants and slaves, so you had the same problem.

I can’t see a better solution but it always causes problems for social cohesion imo.

Society requires that basic necessities be cheaper than skilled/intellectual work - if they aren’t cheap, society doesn’t function and everyone has to be a subsistence farmer.

The requirement is that the cost of the basic necessities for a person is less than their pay. This says little, however, about the pay of those providing the basic necessities. And it is certainly not true that that work is particularly resistant to automation -- the work that remains perhaps is, but that's purely survivorship bias. We provide a lot more necessities with a lot fewer people (farmers especially) than we did in the past.

So everyone wishes they were a monopolist with respect to their own jobs. No surprise, but we need to treat these requests as the selfish self interested lobbying that they are, rather than some generous societal oriented philosophy.

Can someone steelman requiring prescriptions to buy medicine? Why not just allow people to buy whatever medications they want over the counter? Obviously many people would seriously hurt themselves as a result, but I don't think that's a good argument in favor of prescriptions. People hurt themselves with cars, knives, and guns all the time but we allow people to buy those in part because cars, knives, and guns are useful. Why is medicine any different? If we stopped requiring prescriptions to buy medicines, then people who wanted to consult doctors about which medications to buy could still go ahead and do it. As for people who preferred to do their own research or consult alternative sources instead of doctors, in the vast majority of cases they would just be hurting themselves when they made mistakes, they would not be hurting others, at least not in any direct way.

People hurt themselves with cars, knives, and guns all the time but we allow people to buy those in part because cars, knives, and guns are useful

Exactly, this is a bad idea.

Knives are safe enough, but guns and cars can lead to unintentional harm for both the user and onlookers. They should be regulated.

There can be 3 tiers: over-the-counter (free for all), needs based and testing based.

Pepper ball guns, tazers, and lowest caliber pistols can be over-the-counter. Wilderness communities can get needs-based allocation for larger guns. And hobbyists would have to take demanding tests to qualify for the wider selection.

Cars would come with speed limiters (80mph), limited acceleration (0-60mph 5 secs) and sales be limited to low-ground clearance vehicles of limited size. Tall vehicles like pickup trucks would be approved for those who need them. And those that want to go faster, must qualify for harder driving tests.

It seems excessive, but if you look at road & gun deaths in the US and it makes sense.

Pepper ball guns, tazers, and lowest caliber pistols can be over-the-counter. Wilderness communities can get needs-based allocation for larger guns. And hobbyists would have to take demanding tests to qualify for the wider selection.

You know that the vast majority of gun crime is done with small-calibre pistols, right? I mean, maybe not lowest, IIRC most of it's 9mm Parabellum instead of .22LR, but generally criminals aren't looking for stopping power and range - they're looking for low noise, low cost, low recoil, and especially small size, because the use-case of career criminals is "I need this unarmoured guy 10 metres away to go away on zero notice, ideally without attracting attention" and that usually means hipfire from something that can be worn on the belt and wielded one-handed (and ideally hidden).

If you want to stay on the Pareto frontier, small-calibre pistols are the first thing to ban over-the-counter.

(Also, pistols are really convenient for suicides; longarms are less so, although not much less.)

Prescription medications can seriously harm you if you take them in the wrong doses, or take specific different medications at the same time. And just as importantly, if you don't use them correctly they won't treat your underlying disease. The average person will not effectively treat their diseases if they manage treatment themselves, and you'd get something that looks a lot more like the supplement industry, except instead of the pills doing nothing they'll be able to seriously hurt you.

Now what part of that changes by forcing a doctor into the process? Does the doctor come to your house and give you your pill, so you don't take the wrong dose? Does he monitor you 24/7 so that you don't take specific different medications at the same time? That might seem wild, but does he at least come twice a day to make sure you are taking it correctly so that it will treat your underlying disease?

EDIT: Wasn't looking for it, but Zvi's most recent had this and this. Interesting, to say the least.

Now what part of that changes by forcing a doctor into the process

Having someone who's more intelligent than you, knows a lot more about medicine than you, and has had a lot of practice managing patients instructing you on what to do helps a lot. It makes it a lot more likely that someone will benefit from treatment. Most people aren't actively attempting to ignore the doctor's advice, they're just kinda dumb, not really actively pursuing any particular goal, so having someone competent leading the process helps a lot, and the doctor can shut down obviously stupid ideas like 'take a huge dose of estrogen every six months as a Hormone Cleanse' that'd absolutely evolve if allowed to.

Does he monitor you 24/7 so that you don't take specific different medications at the same time

You phrased this very weirdly, but ... yes? The doctor has a list of all the medications you are taking, and when they prescribe a new one they check the list to make sure there aren't any bad interactions. This is an important thing that they do. It doesn't require visiting your house.

Having someone who's more intelligent than you, knows a lot more about medicine than you, and has had a lot of practice managing patients instructing you on what to do helps a lot.

No one is talking about banning doctors. There are options other than "mandatory" and "banned". You can still have literally every word of that.

The doctor has a list of all the medications you are taking

ROFL. Only if you tell him. Or he works for the same conglomerate as your other doctors with the same records system. And again, no one is preventing you from doing these things. And again again, they're generally just a second set of eyes, and a pharmacist does this. There are so many ways that you can have some eyes on what you're taking and look for interactions without blanket bans on prescription meds. But if the point is to make sure you don't take specific different medications at the same time, they're gonna need to be in your house 24/7.

the thing that makes it difficult for you to not take medications that conflict with each other is that the doctor won't give you both of them at the same time, and this covers >90% of the potential problem cases

the doctor

Makes it sound like there's only one. People often have many different doctors for many different things. It's more likely that they only have one pharmacist, or, rather, one pharmacy that may employ multiple pharmacists, but at least they're usually on the same computer system. That's the more natural bottleneck to have a pair of expert eyes on the medications you're taking.

Our role is to identify the correct medication, tell you what you need to know about it (which is later reinforced by the pharmacist), check in with you to make sure you are still doing as instructed, and so on.

Many medications are very dangerous if taken incautiously - TB drugs require a lot of instructions and very careful compliance for instance. Low dose Lithium is extremely safe but can easily interact with other medications, cause significant side effects, or cause problems in response to athletic activity and dehydration.

Some medications have side effects that will very rapidly kill you that are rare enough patients wouldn't think of them....the list goes on.

I'm sure all of that is very helpful to many people, but we're not talking about banning doctors. Remember, we are not stuck with just two possibilities of "banned" and "mandatory". For many, could you not just have massive warning labels that say, "This product is meant to treat specific conditions in specific ways; please consult a medical expert before use," in case someone has difficulty identifying the correct medication? They could still be sold by pharmacists, who can inform you of what you need to know about it (as they already do). If you show any uncertainty, they can say, "If you don't know, you should contact a doctor." The checking in sounds mostly paternalistic, basically just a verbal reminder; what's the real point here if you're not physically making sure they're doing as instructed?

Because remember, you're not actually making sure that they're not taking the medication incautiously. You're not actually going into their home and dispensing a precise dose at a precise time. You're an occasional verbal reminder that they need to comply with the instructions on the package of the TB drugs, another set of eyes to check if there are other medications that might interact. You're not actually stopping them from doing something dangerous.

Some medications have side effects that will very rapidly kill you that are rare enough patients wouldn't think of them

What do you actually do about that?

EDIT: The warning label can even say, "This product is dangerous if not used correctly," or even, "This product is dangerous even if used correctly," with another recommendation to consult a medical professional.

It's important to understand that medical stuff is more complicated than a layman is likely to understand, you see a lot of minimizing and belittling of the knowledge base of doctors these days and it leads to people not respecting the depth of complexity here. We do ourselves no favors in the process.

Consider a Statin. The benefits are pretty big...sometimes. But there isn't a lot of consensus as to who to give it and when. you have complex questions like "what number of rare debilitating side effects are appropriate for a moderate decrease in population risk. If you prevent 10 MIs is that worth one 30 year old getting an autoimmune issue and being unable to walk? What about 20? What about 50? What about 100? What do you do if the Family Med and Cardiology organizations disagree over what to do?

Medicine is both an art and a science and often lacks consensus. Standard of care is fuzzy and constantly being revised. We have to do ongoing education throughout our entire careers because a recommendation that was present from day one of my medical school is suddenly known to be wrong. Or maybe not, I have to read the paper and check.

Patients are not equipped to handle these considerations and don't realize how REAL they can be. We know patients will injure themselves or get themselves killed with poor decisions if left to their own devices so it's our job not to. Sketchy hormone replacement (testosterone), overprescription of stimulants and benzos, poor antibiotic stewardship...patients will do their best to do what feel is right with zero information and this can be extremely harmful to others or society (in the form of unnecessary medical costs and care).

You see a lack of consensus and a range of suggestions and think that this means that you must have an individual artisan. I see that and think, "Seems like there's kind of a range where most of the time, people will probably be okay-ish, so long as they're doing something plausibly in that range." At least until we have a more clear consensus. They can still go get advice, and if so, they'll get whatever doctor they trust, who thinks they should be in whatever part of that range. That's not killing them (at least not enough to form a clear consensus yet).

The rest of this is pretty much just paternalism. Like, I get it, many car owners are not equipped to handle the various minute considerations and the art of motorcycle car maintenance. We know car owners will injure themselves or get killed with poor decisions if left to their own devices (the number of bozos who get underneath a car that's just on a hydraulic floor jack, SMH; or maybe they'll screw up a brake bleed procedure and have a massive braking failure on the highway, etc.). But we don't ban it. Millions and millions of people still go to car repair experts, because they know they have zero knowledge. We don't ban auto repair experts, either! Sure, some people spend too much money on silly aftermarket turbos or whatever, and some of them even screw it up and blow up an engine, possibly causing death. But imagine if we took that and decided to ban people from buying their own car parts; do you think that "unnecessary car repair costs" (including the new cost of being required to go to a professional for literally every little thing) would decrease?!? I honestly do not have any idea what possible model of economics you could be using to get to this result.

I think the rate of self-injury from maintaining a car yourself would be quite a bit lower than the rate of self-injury from deciding on one's own medical treatment, and that's the reason for the different kinds of regulation.

Would it? Most of the time, when industry advocates are here arguing this sort of point, they're implicitly assuming that the use of medical professionals will drop to zero (or be banned). Thus, they're imagining the least knowledgeable person deciding on their own medical treatment. But when we look at the car maintenance world, we see the vast vast majority of low-knowledge folks still using automotive professionals. The rate of self-injury is, indeed, low, but someone needs a bit more than arguments from bad imagination if they're going to rest on a claim that the rate of self-injury would surely be "quite a bit" higher.

You hear this same shit from the realtor cartel, and frankly, any cartel that wants to maintain its market power. "Oh real estate transactions are so complicated; can you imagine how the sky would fall if we didn't get our 3% cut of every transaction?! PEOPLE WOULD BE HARMED!" You know what really would happen if you lost some of the sketchier tools to maintain your market control? First, you'd probably have to clean up your act, but second, lots and lots of people would still use you, but for your actual expertise, rather than because they think they're basically forced into it. Sure, will there be some harm that didn't occur before? Probably. But there's some harm now that wouldn't occur then, too. You need an actual argument about magnitudes rather than just imagination.

EDIT: Remember when it was every state, rather than just two states, who banned you from pumping your own gas into your car? Surely there were folks saying how risky and dangerous it would be (gasoline is flammable, don'cha'kno?) to let ignoramus individuals do it. How's that argument looking for those two states that have held on to it?

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We require people to get car insurance because we know they will make the wrong decision (not getting insurance) if left to their own devices. Some people try this anyway.

We know that people will make the wrong decision with medicine also. Some of this is objective - people would prescribe themselves substances that are controlled (for a reason, for instance opiates), people will ask for treatments where the benefits are clearly outweighed by the risks. Consider all the people who use marijuana when they clearly are not supposed to,* or try and get Addy as a performance enhancing drug, or use illegal substances. What do you think would happen if you could just Dilaudid at the pharmacy? It would be a catastrophe.

The classic non drugs of abuse example is antibiotics. People will ask for antibiotics every time they get sick. Even when it's clearly viral and therefore the abx won't help. They will demand abx, they will write reviews complaining about it and bully the prescriber into giving them abx - even though they won't do anything helpful. Zero benefit.

And the costs can be high to the individual (side effects can be very bad), and to society (antibiotic resistance is increasing greatly). If someone becomes disabled because they took an abx of their own recognize society will pay the cost. This is not theoretical, people kill their kidneys with NSAIDs for example (that's OTC).

If left to their own devices patients will make objectively shitty decisions. The regulatory state exists to prevent this, you don't want people on the road without insurance.

When it comes to the more subjective stuff it does get a bit fuzzier but the fundamental problem remains, no layman has the knowledge and experience to make these judgements, just googling a pubmed article is not enough, smart and educated people think they can figure it out but this requires training and experience. The average person has no chance and society needs to be organized around protecting average and below average people.

The regulatory state has its problems but we require building codes because people will elect to live in a poorly built slum if given the choice because it's cheap. We have to protect people from themselves.

People will take a gamble on "it's fine I have a 1% change of a bad side effect from this antibiotic but society will pay the cost and even though this infection is viral maybe its not."

This is stupid.

People do not like being told what they can do and put in their bodies, but little in the world is as important to get correct as human lives. I remember what it was like before I was a doctor, I thought I knew what I was doing I did not.

*I'm not saying nobody is allowed marijuana, it's complicated.

We require people to get car insurance because we know they will make the wrong decision (not getting insurance)

Specifically, though, people are forced to get third party liability insurance, because there the costs of their wrong decisions is very much borne by others (the argument could be made that ultimately wrong medical decisions could end up like that, but it's a greyer matter).

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We require people to get car insurance because we know they will make the wrong decision (not getting insurance) if left to their own devices.

What type of car insurance do we require people buy? Hint: it's not the type that compensates them if they screw up their own car. It's for a different purpose. What do you think that is?

Most of the rest of your comment appears to be just additional restatements of the things I've already responded to. Yes, car owners lack knowledge, and they'll make mistakes sometimes when they don't use the services of a professional. I don't see where you've made any further advancement on the argument.

When it comes to the more subjective stuff it does get a bit fuzzier but the fundamental problem remains, no layman has the knowledge and experience to make these judgements, just googling a pubmed article is not enough, smart and educated people think they can figure it out but this requires training and experience. The average person has no chance and society needs to be organized around protecting average and below average people.

I do think that this part is a slight refinement. At least one that I only obliquely addressed, not directly. When it comes to the subjective parts of auto repair, it gets fuzzier, but the fundamental problem remains. Laymen aren't going to have the knowledge and expertise to make those judgments, and the Chilton guide isn't enough, either. They need training and experience. Average person has no chance... of that last few percent that is still probably within the realm of the basic guidance where there might not even be a consensus, anyway.

The regulatory state has its problems but we require building codes because people will elect to live in a poorly built slum if given the choice because it's cheap. We have to protect people from themselves.

This is just tripling down on paternalism, and it's one that is soundly rejected in most rationalist spaces. YIMBY is currently reigning supreme, haven't you heard?

People don't like being told what they can/can't put in their cars, but nothing is more important than thousands of pounds of steel hurling down the road at high speed, where lives are at stake. We can't possibly let people work on their own cars. ...or at least, that's the conclusion of your logic.

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You need a drivers test as proof that you know how to drive a car. The test for understanding medications is being a physician.

Patients are also tested by physicians before some medications are prescribed, both physically and mentally.

they would not be hurting others, at least not in any direct way.

Unless they're buying them for children.

There are practical factors, like maybe some medications are supply-restricted so it's necessary for doctors to prescribe them only to people who actually need them. But it's for similar reasons that there's no country where all drugs are legal - most societies have decided to operate with a degree of paternalism regarding what other people can and can't do to themselves.

There's a very-clear argument in favour of requiring prescriptions for government-subsidised medicine, because the state has much more of an interest in people consuming appropriate medications than inappropriate ones. As it happens, I just got some drugs here in Oz that are over-the-counter legal but which are far-cheaper with a prescription.

There are some drugs that you probably don't want in the hands of the general population due to third-parties being harmed (methamphetamine because murders, plus all the various drugs to pacify people that can be abused for rape or slavery); requiring prescriptions for those appears pretty logical as well (obviously, if you buy into recreational-drug prohibition as a whole, requiring a prescription for medical use is necessary to enforce that).

There are some drugs that you probably don't want in the hands of the general population due to third-parties being harmed

There's also the point to be made that people in countries without a culture of medicine prescriptions just love taking antibiotics for anything that ails them, and those people not finishing an antibiotics regimen once they have started one.

This directly leads to things like India being a global hotspot of antimicrobial resistance, which kills at least 300k (likely a multiple of that) people a year.

People hurt themselves with cars, knives, and guns all the time but we allow people to buy those in part because cars, knives, and guns are useful.

Virtually all jurisdictions require a license to operate a car. Many jurisdictions either require a license to own a firearm, or forbid it entirely. Many jurisdictions place strict limitations on who may purchase knives (e.g. minors).

Medications and management of medical issues is more complicated than most realize. Medical education emphasizes teaching doctors about our knowledge deficiencies for a reason, and it's very common for people in the field to grossly overestimate their understanding and knowledge. We complain about nurses, midlevels, and even other doctors having no fucking clue what they are doing at times.

It is extremely challenging for a layman, even one who is intelligent and informed, to bridge the training gap.

"Ok but who cares" is a reasonable question, but it is important to understand that errors don't just hurt you. A big example right now is antibiotics. Left to their own devices people will ask for and use antibiotics even when it's dangerous or simply not even a bacterial infection. This has a downstream effect on others, like an increase in antibiotic resistance.

It's also easy to hurt yourself and we find it unacceptable to allow society to not pick up the bill.

Let's say you have some mild chronic pain like arthritis, you read and are smart enough to know that ibuprofen can be good for this. But then you don't know the right dose, or the right frequency and then don't realize it is not a good idea with your diabetes. After a reasonable amount of time your kidneys are dead and you end up on dialysis - and society is paying for that. Even if you have good insurance or a lot of wealth that's a spot that could be given to someone else.

And that's a medication you can already buy over the counter.

People generally don’t understand drugs or how dangerous or addictive they can be. Allowing the public to take addictive forms of morphine or opioids for every ache and pain without supervision just makes a population of addicts who cannot hold down jobs and are thus dependent on the state. Other drugs are easy to overdose on and do pretty serious damage to the body.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains are a good reason.


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