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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   4721 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 24, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I tried some "rejection therapy".

Spoke to some girls on my walk home. 2 average conversations. 1 great conversation. 1 really bad conversation.

0 numbers.

Im not going to lie, the great conversation was a really cute pharmacist I would have loved to get to know more. "Im seeing a guy" felt like a small death. Part of me wishes it wasnt a just a white lie which it most likely is. On net it was a good experience, the rejections gave me more energy not less.

I can see this working out. Not in that anything will come of it directly, but even after 4 attempts social interacrions that felt daunting in the past feel like small fry now. It can be a valuable skill when I will really need it.

I plan to become numb to rejection within a few months. Im gonna do the whole a rejection a day thing.

"Im seeing a guy" felt like a small death.

Back when I was doing this sort of thing, I was genuinely happy to get this sort of response from a girl. Particularly when it was after a great conversation and connection that was pretty unfalsifiable in terms of being genuine. I felt that I had been acknowledged as a man and as being attractive. Her being unavailable was irrelevant. Really encouraging.

I had the same feeling when I was involved in a long term relationship and had a similar conversation with a single bridesmaid at a wedding. I was in a different country at the time. Same great conversation and acknowledgment of each other as attractive and I was upfront about being in a relationship. No hard feelings at all on either side.

Don't let this sort of response get you down at all. It's not the same sort of 'rejection'.

I felt that I had been acknowledged as a man and as being attractive.

I don't think it implies an acknowledgement of attractiveness (only lack thereof).

I'm under the assumption some girls will entertain the conversation just because and the signal for attractiveness is actually giving the digits.

There is a fraction of girls that will sustain an engaged conversation with indications of interest with a man they do not find attractive purely for attention/out of boredom/maintaining social harmony, but I think that percentage would be relatively small. In my examples above, I have experience enough to know that this was (almost certainly) not the case.

Conversely there are girls that will have conversations with men they find attractive, show genuine interest and who will still not give out their number (for whatever reason). Actually having a boyfriend/husband, but being flattered by attention is a really mundane and common scenario that I would be surprised that most men haven't come across.

Getting a kiss/phone number/sex as the only determinants of attraction (while the metric of choice among Lotharios) is a pretty poor thing to base your self esteem around.

Edit: After thinking about it, the time's where I did feel bad after finding out she had a boyfriend is usually when the girl was hiding that fact in the conversation for one reason or another. Then I'd realise she either didn't know how to tell me, or kept the conversation going without telling me for attention. Feeling lousy after the conversation is probably a good way to tell the girl wasn't attracted.

I'm seconding @CertainlyWorse here, getting to "I have a boyfriend" after a long conversation is probably best thought of as an intermediate stage between being shot down completely and getting the number. She needed to reach for a better excuse. If you were just creepy or unattractive, she wouldn't need that reason.

So what's the optimal move when "IHABF" follows a good conversation? Carry on talking and then proposition again?

In my experience, in a different place at a different time with different people, put it on the backburner, friendzone her if that's something you don't mind doing.

I've continued hot pursuit and propositioned again later. This had a high chance of her going on a date with you, only to swerve you when you try to kiss her after the baseball game leaving you sunburned and sniffling. Or at least that was me at seventeen, I've never forgiven the Atlanta Braves.

When I've put it on keep warm, chatting on occasion but keeping it light, there's a decent chance the bf disappears later. Either because they break up on their own, or because she realizes how awesome you are. Either way don't be too invested, follow George's advice.

Always, however, make sure they are really thoroughly broken up, or at least that she very much realizes what she's doing, before she hooks up with you. Post hook up guilt trips have gotten me into the kind of trouble I'm not going to talk about outside DMs; a girl who recently had a bf should be approached with caution, make sure she affirmatively wants to do everything, don't take the glide path.

In my experience it's a segue to sn end to the conversation, but not always. As with everything, it depends. I've had girls drop this but seemingly want to not only keep talking but meet again. The Rule Above All Rules is to roll with it, to show no hurt or disappointment. No need to be funny unless you're naturally so, as that can seem try hard. End of the day, nothing wrong with enjoying a platonic conversation with an attractive woman.

Not only that...it's a very nice way to do things. At no point does he recount being seen as transgressive or anything for his actions; nobody called the cops on him or tried to beat him up or anything like that. He's pretty lucky and should run with it.

I feel as if you must have either immersed yourself in some really angry, fairly unrealistic online discourse regarding the dating scene, or that you yourself have had some fairly horrible experiences in your romantic interactions with women. I am not suggesting that terrible outcomes are not possible, but the likelihood of being beat up or having the cops called on anyone for approaching a woman seems exceedingly low, unless of course you are doing something very, very wrong (I mean like wearing a shirt covered in blood level wrong).

I once had a woman approach me at a New years party at a geek bar, talk about how she couldn't find her friend, ask me if I'd like a drink. Tiny, dark hair, amazingly defined upper back.

Then while she was in the bathroom, an unaffiliated fat redhead got in my face and demanded to know who I was and if I knew her. I said "Her name is *****, we're looking for her friend or something, I'm waiting here while she's in the bathroom, oh look, there's *****. Bye."

10 minutes later we're dancing. 12 minutes later, security has separated the two of us and is interrogating me while a fat redhead screams in my face as the new year gets rung in. No idea where ***** was taken.

That seems extremely atypical and I wouldn’t base much about that - did you get kicked out of the bar?

I left of my own accord because security kept talking me in circles, asking who I was with (no one, I had just moved to Milwaukee and was there to meet new friends) and not letting me go find wherever ***** had been taken.

Not terrible - simply "it could be worse, and occasionally is for some rather unlucky individuals". If you're a middle-class grown adult in a middle-class area and there's no bullshit going on that makes you a harassment magnet for local cops, it's pretty damn unlikely. They don't go to school or worse yet, work with him; the worst they could do is blow up his social circles and make it so he has to find new friends, and there would need to be a fair amount of motivation to do that. He'd have to transgress somehow - which he has clearly not done.

In my experience, you shouldn't ask for a number but just give yours (or social media tag). Whether the content of the rejection is true or not, it opens up the possibility she saves the contact info and contacts you if things change. Or maybe she is close but needs a little more social proofing to see that you're valued. Even after rejection, you could say you come here often for [insert fun thing here] so hopefully you'll run into each other again. All of the above have worked for me in various contexts.

I plan to become numb to rejection within a few months.

Not being afraid of rejection and not allowing it to fuck with your emotionally state is a hugely advantageous skill which more people should develop. If you're not being rejected in most aspects of life, you're not trying. Good on you!

In my experience, you shouldn't ask for a number but just give yours (or social media tag).

I'm not so sure about this, I've participated in a couple of conversations where the girl hit it off with a guy but then he gave her his number instead of asking for hers. In both cases the girl resolved not to reach out.

They were Hispanic women though so maybe the gender politics were a little more traditional.

Yeah, that's a good point. My experience is mostly in big US cities with white girls.

I thought about it some more and I think it's more of a backup option in case you aren't sure she's really into you or gives you a changeable reason for rejection, e.g., she has a boyfriend. If you guys are hitting it off, it's probably better to just ask for a number or ig tag. If she says she has a boyfriend, you can give her your number or social media.

This seems logical to me. She can actually google you, maybe look you up on LinkedIn before giving her own info.

Which country are you in? I think this is pretty culturally mediated. I don’t mind speaking to polite strangers, but it’s rare in Britain and mostly only happens when people are trying to sell you something (donations for charity, begging, and religious proselytism from large mostly-African or Filipino evangelical megachurches in my experience). In the US speaking to strangers is extremely normalized and seems to happen all the time, even in NYC which has a reputation for being cold or unfriendly by the standards of American cities.

The best thing for social skills is to work in sales for a while. If possible I’ll definitely pressure my kids into taking a summer job in some kind of retail/sales environment as teenagers because all the people I know who did built the confidence there to deal with a lot of different shit in adult life. Smile, look people in the eyes, approach strangers, try to earn a commission, be polite, recognize social cues, it’s all stuff you learn selling shoes or whatever.

The best thing for social skills is to work in sales for a while. If possible I’ll definitely pressure my kids into taking a summer job in some kind of retail/sales environment as teenagers because all the people I know who did built the confidence there to deal with a lot of different shit in adult life. Smile, look people in the eyes, approach strangers, try to earn a commission, be polite, recognize social cues, it’s all stuff you learn selling shoes or whatever.

Yeah sales jobs are practically getting rejected for a living. Even though I think asking for numbers is turning that up to 11 because that has to the potential to hurt on a personal level as opposed to "maybe my employers product just sucks".

But for those who don't want to dive into the deep end, it's a good enough compromise, money notwithstanding.

Which country are you in? I think this is pretty culturally mediated. I don’t mind speaking to polite strangers, but it’s rare in Britain and mostly only happens when people are trying to sell you something (donations for charity, begging, and religious proselytism from large mostly-African or Filipino evangelical megachurches in my experience). In the US speaking to strangers is extremely normalized and seems to happen all the time, even in NYC which has a reputation for being cold or unfriendly by the standards of American cities.

In just about one of the worst places in The World for this. Dubai.

Too many different language barriers and cultures to navigate.

But yeah the US is pretty nice in the regard. I was striking up conversations with Americans in the gas station, game store, street when I was visiting, including in NYC.

Emirates flight attendants are the conversationalists you seek.

They are too high end

Aren’t they all hookers?

Aren't we all...? /strokes beard

(Coughs) Well. No. Whatever gave you that idea? I only speak with some degree of knowledge in that I've known at least four of said CAs, one of whom I consider a dear friend, though she quit last year.

But seriously what makes you have that impression?

Yeah, I like that as an idea. Also aristocratic tutoring in networking and social skill by the most graceful political motherfucker you can find. And life and death struggle, especially for the boys.

Why don't you recommend he try the Hock?

@f3zinker has seen the Hock and is undoubtedly aware of it. The Hock is best when it is freely chosen to freeze weakness off of one's character or soul and allow a person to become Hock hardened. Every man should consider whether or not to Hock and if so, what his Hock looks like. Not everyone's Hock takes place in the Alaskan wilderness. There may be many Hocks, but the Alaskan Hock is mine.

Where did the work Hock come from btw? Is there some real etymology or do you just like the sound of it?

I heard "hock" used by my father as a slang word meaning "to throw": he once told me "Son, you can't just hock that wet log onto the fire like that..."

Of course, I also like the sound.

Then there's the idea that learning sales frames the world as a sea of marks or buyers to be maneuvered and manipulated. Maybe I'm biased against sales as I saw my dad do it for years and it eventually left a bitter taste. To be a good salesperson requires social savvy, sure, but when you dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change, the devil changes you.

Peripherally relevant but one of my old favorites.

Sales is the worst. Once you really get into the methodology, it changes the way you approach every conversation/interaction.

It's a bit dramatic, but I do believe that learning sales/manipulation/pua techniques is a modern equivalent of selling your soul for worldly gains.

I have no evidence but I have a very strong hunch that the practical aspects of PUA were almost directly ported over from sales.

Actually I do have a piece of evidence: the way early PUA schemes were marketed showed a marked influence from the web 1.0 sales landing pages (single page, very long, repetitive endorsements from customers, repeated prompts to enter an email for the free book, etc). Also the use of sales terminology like "opening" and "closing".

I suppose it makes sense. You have young men doing sales, making decent money by using a few choice manipulation mechanisms. They decide first to switch to selling their selves to women, and then when it's shown that it works proceeding to selling their techniques back into the market. I think the innovative part of PUA was incorporating evo-psych to explain and contextualise why and how it works.

I think that's what makes FDS such an embarrassment; they show zero curiosity for figuring out what works, why it works, or even whether it works. They're stuck in a blend of basic "diet + cosmetics" magazine tier advice mixed with an internet flavoured radical feminism of pathologising, well, not even masculinity but more the failures of masculinity (porn brain, erectile dysfunction, general "scrote"-ness etc). For people who spend so long in front of the mirror they show a distinct lack of self-reflection. PUA tells men to stop doing what they're doing and do the difficult things they've been avoiding. FDS tells women to keep doing the same thing only more so.

Half the value of PUA is in simply learning what to avoid doing. You don't necessarily have to sell your soul, you can make a big improvement by ceasing to sabotage yourself with rose-tinted romanticism.

What the hell would an effective or valuable version of FDS look like other than simple-but-nontrivial stuff like "be thin, don't be addicted to drugs or alcohol, don't be batshit crazy, have self respect, have a job"?

I have no idea, that's the question isn't it. But if you can entertain the idea that there are women who aren't doing as well as they could because some women are social fuck ups too then it stands to reason there should be practical measures they can take to improve their outcomes. It could range from acknowledging the fertility window, to the poor dating prospects for single mothers, to making an effort to understand what most men want and don't want, through to basic stuff like how to flirt (put the damn phone down!), how to write more than three words on a dating site, and, like I said about PUA, what not to do.

Somewhere out there are women who think that collecting rescue animals, wearing dungarees, spending all day on tumblr and exclusively using photos of themselves in a group of 8 isn't hurting their chances. Moaning about the fact that men like looking at naked women on the internet isn't helping them. Neither is holding on to the idea that there's an athletic, high achieving career focused man who is yearning to take a single mother and her children on an all expenses paid round the world adventure, if only he'd hurry up and find her. "Men are even worse than you thought" is not what they need to hear. Otherwise they'll fall into the MGTOW cope trap where they spend 24/7 thinking about how awful the opposite sex while claiming they've forsworn any interest in them.

Great. A Faustian bargain where - as is customary - the Devil actually holds up his end of the deal. If pressed, I would suspect that the very popular and the very social have just as cynical views about humanity as the isolated neckbeards, if more measured and refined. However, that is basically just pulled from my ass as well as conversations with friends that knew politician types.

I don't think this is accurate. Unless you're a total sociopath, cynical manipulation can only get you so far. For the most part popular and social folks are just happy. When other people are truly happy you really are drawn to them!

A big part of sales and pua tactics is 'abundance mindset' or basically faking being happy when you aren't.

I couldn't agree more! I did my time as part of a crew which went around during the summer and painted houses. If you pitched the sale, you got 10% of the contract. I have to admit it was a rough start, but I ended up paying for all my living expenses for college doing it.

Im not going to lie, the great conversation was a really cute pharmacist I would have loved to get to know more. "Im seeing a guy" felt like a small death.

Hah, I think I know that feeling. In my case it usually manifests as a small surge of jealousy/envy because (if we assume it is true) some other guy managed to snag her attention and keep her around and my general sense of honor demands that I back off, which is to say I have to garner up a huge amount of confidence/motivation to take the risk, and now I have to shut all that down and suppress the urge to just go full caveman, which is a tricky thing to navigate, emotionally speaking.

Also it prickles the pride (for me, anyway) because now I'm automatically comparing myself to this guy I've never met, and wondering if he's better than me? Because if he isn't then she's clearly making a mistake! She needs to dump that loser and get with a REAL man!

But if he is better, does that mean I'm just not up to snuff in the dating market? What has he got that I don't got?

One of the more difficult paradoxes to resolve is having the pure unadulterated self-confidence to believe that you're a great catch, worthy of getting a high quality woman, and really believing it, and yet also being 'happy' for another guy who ends up with a high quality woman you were eyeing.

Because yeah, if he's better than you, then he deserves it. But if he's better than you, how does your ego deal with that hit? How do you avoid immediately viewing him as a rival?

I've had a fair number of women I've been into and the very second I step into the realm of suggesting a romantic connection they drop the "I have a boyfriend" bomb, and I admit it usually stirs a very basic territorial instinct. "Well have him come over here and we'll duke it out and you can pick the strongest of us as nature intended!"

Most of them, as far as I can tell, are married and often with kids now. Which is to say, they picked well.

One of the more difficult paradoxes to resolve is having the pure unadulterated self-confidence to believe that you're a great catch, worthy of getting a high quality woman, and really believing it, and yet also being 'happy' for another guy who ends up with a high quality woman you were eyeing.

A possible resolution: you are fundamentally disgusting but also an exceptional individual, very conscientious and determined and also caring. As such, your exceptional personal qualities mean that you are in theory worthy of a good relationship with a good woman. However, you also understand that ordinary Joes, lacking both disgust and exceptional characteristics, are also worthy and admirable. Also, you feel that your existence and whatever disgust your kids will inherit is partially a burden on the commons, which you repay through hard work and altruism; it is admirable if Joe gets the girl (meaning that she doesn't have to endure disgust) and if you do (because you have managed to through sheer strength of character to inspire someone to endure disgust to make you happy, and because she is willing to endure as you are for the greater good).

To me it is a little easier to recognize that people have different strengths and weaknesses and that it is impossible to reduce them to a single metric that encompasses everything that might make them attractive.

Guys tend to get overly focused on certain metrics like "how much money he makes" or "how much weight he lifts" or the obvious "how tall is he."

When really, a guy could be strong in some areas and deficient in others, and this doesn't make him 'better' than you, but it might make him a better fit for a particular woman, or it might mean that you would defeat him in most arenas but he's so good at a particular skill set that he would beat 99% of other contenders there, and that counts for a lot but doesn't discount your own strengths.

Like, just because Lance Armstrong could crush me in a cycling race (even sans PEDs) I don't have to consider myself 'lesser' than him. I could probably beat him in a boxing match.

That said, it is still a blow to the ego, since you wonder if you've been maximizing the wrong traits. Also, of course, having a high income/net worth mitigates a LOT of negative traits since, unlike height or strength, it has no strict upper limit.

How are you initiating the conversations?

Find someone who looks free and is standing around doing nothing.

Ask a random innocous question like point at a shop near by and ask about that, followed by a personal question like do you work around here. She will probably ask the same back, if not leave.

Theres a lot of work to be done in that department I agree.

I've been attempting things like this. I'm from the US and living in France for the next few months. So far something I've had some success with is: go to a tourist site of some kind, approach a pretty girl who's by herself, say hi ask her to take a picture of me (in French), offer to do the same, apologize for my accent, and then see if she's interested in chatting. At that point, she can obviously ask me about where I'm from, what I'm doing in France, etc. and I can ask similar questions.

I've tried this a few times and twice it led to us getting coffee or food together after (but nothing beyond that).

I'd like to learn other ways of going about it though.

Not just that. Nobody called the cops on you. Nobody tried to get you maimed or killed - or even beat up. Nobody tried to get you fired. In fact...I'd guess that the "really bad conversation" wasn't terrible - they didn't call you a rapist or something or make a scene. You're not unattractive, bro...keep up the good work.

I meant to say basically:

"Congratulations! You aren't exceptionally unattractive or otherwise vulnerable[1]! Keep up the good work - and if you're afraid, have some perspective. It can be far worse for some people - but even then, risking that in order to be in a relationship may well be worth it."

I think that it may well be a feature, not a bug, if these things happen from time to time to awkward or disabled or very unattractive men - and it's valuable that they risk these things in hopes of having relationships, too.

[1] Vulnerable: could be disabled, deformed, something like a minority in a racist area hitting on girls that aren't his race/ethnicity/religious background.

For what it is worth: I know a couple of autistic guys that had their partners try to stab them. One was able to block the knife; another almost died to blood loss. The autistic women I knew...several have told me about at least attempted rape, physical abuse, crap like that. They're all in seemingly-healthy relationships, so it was worth it...but these people went through Hell; at least the guys can be said to have gone somewhat willingly. That he isn't experiencing this crap is valuable.

And yes - I'd think it would be reasonable to congratulate an autistic or perhaps simply very unattractive woman on "successfully completing a date without getting treated like a prostitute, roofied and raped, or murdered and dismembered".

"Congratulations! You aren't exceptionally unattractive or otherwise vulnerable[1]!

Not sure if I'm operating at that low of a level lol.

Not just that. Nobody called the cops on you. Nobody tried to get you maimed or killed - or even beat up. Nobody tried to get you fired. In fact...I'd guess that the "really bad conversation" wasn't terrible - they didn't call you a rapist or something or make a scene. You're not unattractive, bro...keep up the good work.

Had any of these things happened to you?

No. Did get ostracized in college for a couple years until I said I was dedicating my life to science and the practice of medicine though.

As one black pilled man to another, you are not blackpilled enough if you think those things are failure modes. For me lack of a number in and of itself is.

Nevertheless, It's a failure to get numbers, but a success in getting a rejection, which is my entire intention. I'm training myself to act fast when there is a short window of opportunity and brush of the most likely rejection. My goal is that the no fucks given attitude I practice in the streets will be useful in places where I am more likely to actually get any better responses such as within my network.

There is failure (small, expected,cost of doing business) and then there is catastrophic and unexpected failure. It's the difference between a WallStreetBets ape losing a few hundred bucks on the stock market and that same ape being kidnapped, tortured, and ransomed for the contents of his bank account.

That doesn’t even happen to schizophrenic bums who threaten people- the chance is pretty much 0%.

Is it just me, or is the market for computer books dying?

I usually check libgen when I need to research a new topic, and it looks like the usual suspects like O'Reilly, Manning, Wiley and Apress just don't bother publishing anything anymore. A lot of the books haven't been updated since 2017 or so, even though the latest major version of the software in question was released in 2020.

Have piracy and Packt killed the market for good computer books for good? Will I have to read random Medium articles for the rest of my career to stay up-to-date?

Video content is easier to monetize. Also software tends to be more of an evergreen model these days with constant changes. It's hard to keep a large book up to date, and hard to convince customers to buy something that will soon be out of date.

These days I mostly dive straight into the technical documentation or the source code of whatever I am reading up on.

In the past these would have been reference books. But freely published technical documentation is better since they can be easily updated.

I do feel this state of things is sad since it removes a straight forward source of monetization for good technical writers, despite being objectively better.

In the absence of good docs or easily readable source code I start looking up blogs. Now, depending on the domain you may end up with a lot of blogspam, but as long as you search via HN, lobste.rs or a relevant subreddit you can do fine.

Textbooks/Research papers still have their place for more theoretical topics that do not become outdated as fast, but it is less than it was in the past.

Are you talking about hardware or software books ?

Software books are.. meh?

It's like you don't need a whole ass book for 1 package unless you plan on becoming a maintainer for that package or something. Documentation is usually enough to get using it within a day or two.

I'm not talking about packages, but larger software like Kafka or a similar-sized Apache project.

SBF was right about books. Sorry bookworms, but they’re obsolete. Every good book should have been either a blogpost or a video lecture.

  • -11

"I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post."

It's actually amazing how much seethe he generated with such a simple set of words.

It's an A tier bait. Second only to S tiers like "Its okay to be white" and "Islam was right about women"

Sorry articleworm, but you're wrong. You can't truly develop a good knowledge base without books.

See, aren't low-effort dunks fun?

Its IQ all the way down

Hmm so if you have a 130 IQ person raised by wolves, and a 120 IQ person who reads books throughout their childhood, I wonder who would be more intelligent?

IQ is important, but it's not literally everything.

By definition the 130 IQ person.

So are you saying that IQ literally equals intelligence in a 1:1 parallel? I'm trying to get across that while IQ is an important and useful concept, it is not g.

Even in the boring homogeneous environments we study, IQ changes as you age, with only something like r=.66 between adult and child IQs IIRC. So it wouldn't be completely surprising if the "130 IQ person" (scored 130 on a children's test before being handed over to the wolves for some reason) turned out to be a 119 IQ person after growing up, even assuming the wolves had no effect!

OP's wording implies they were tested as adults.

OP's wording seems to imply that "130 IQ person" and "120 IQ person" are referring to time-invariant concepts. Hence "reads books throughout" (ongoing) instead of "read books" (past tense, appropriate for someone tested as an adult) or "then reads" (future, for someone tested as a child). @TheDag can correct me, but in context it seemed that the intent of the question was "I wonder how much extreme environments could change the intelligence of someone who would have been 130 IQ in a typical environment", not "I wonder whether the higher scorer on an intelligence test would score higher on an intelligence test". Basic Gricean Maxims, isn't that? If you find a statement seemly implying something trivial or nonsensical, look for alternative possible interpretations.

Hardest of disagrees. Books and physical media are more necessary than ever. Digital content can be patched to be censored, edited or even removed, and there's not much you the end user can do about it. Digital book burnings are much easier than physical ones. If the powers that be want to, for instance, hide any evidence that they ever advocated treatment X for condition Y now that it's been found to cause horrible side effects, they can just do it.

and there's not much you the end user can do about it.

Yeah other than downloading it -____-

If you're allowed. And if your app won't auto-update it anyway next time it connects to the internet somehow...

There are 3 kinds of books:

  • Fiction novels
  • Textbooks
  • The rest

Fiction Novels entertain & enlighten. Textbooks educate. If your textbook can be condensed into a blog it isn't a good text book. If your Novel can be enjoyed just as easily in a video, then it isn't a good Novel. A book should be borne out of necessity, not narcissism. Sometimes you are desperate to express an idea or tell and story, and every medium falls short. Books are the last resort. But they work.

Growing up, I thought I was immature not not being able to enjoy non-fiction. But, I've since realized that non-fiction books are prime candidates for blog-i-zation. If the cliff notes for a book is no better than reading the book itself, then that's a gross failure.

The best non-fiction is either sufficiently fictionalized to be fiction novel, or sufficiently dense to be a textbook. There are no other types of books.

There's a contingent of people out there (including, I suspect, sbf) who see fiction as low status and generally not worth your time, ignoring the deep connections between human thought and fictional stories.

I’d say among very smart people, non-fiction in general is lower status than fiction. The archetypal midwit reads very little fiction but has a bookshelf full of Pinker, Dawkins, Harari, various biographies of businessmen and presidents and so on.

Most very smart people I've met limit their reading to technical literature.

Unless they’re extremely autistic I find it hard to believe someone only reads textbooks and journal articles.

Lots of people like this in STEM.

Hey, what fiction have you read that wouldn't have been better as a six-paragraph blog post?

Six paragraphs?! @FiveHourMarathon got War and Peace down to three words and I now demand all fiction in that format.

Well, there was that meta-porno in the other thread…

That one would have been better compressed to zero paragraphs.

I think that there's an understated risk to reading a lot of fiction. Because it's all made up it can teach false lessons and prop up self serving narratives.

Non fiction has the advantage that you can learn true things from true events, even if the author is completely out to lunch.

With fiction, you know the author is making it up.

With nonfiction, nobody will believe you that the author is making it up unless they don't like the conclusions. There's no compulsion to report "true events" in nonfiction - compare Zinn's A People's History with A Patriot's History. Both chock full of "true events" narrowly defined, but which true things can you learn? Better never to begin.

Maybe. On the other hand, books offer convenient access to information with zero continued effort or resource expenditure on the part of the author/publisher. What do I mean by this? Consider the phenomenon of linkrot. There are a few causes of linkrot - an org may revamp their website, someone may lose interest in the subject and stop maintaining the site, someone might die and not have made arrangements for the continuation of a site, among others.

With a book, none of these are a problem. Yes, it comes with other issues of course.

Maybe this is simply a weird perspective from someone focused on a niche-ish hobby, but I would almost rather have the reference material in book form than online, simply because I don't think it'll stay online eternally. Whereas no one is going to take my copy of FN Browning Pistols offline.

Hydroxychloroquine is used to treat malaria. It is also used to prevent malaria infection in areas or regions where it is known that other medicines (eg, chloroquine) may not work. Hydroxychloroquine may also be used to treat coronavirus (COVID-19) in certain hospitalized patients.

Using this medicine alone or with other medicines (eg, azithromycin) may increase your risk of heart rhythm problems (eg, QT prolongation, ventricular fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia). Hydroxychloroquine should only be used for COVID-19 in a hospital or during clinical trials. Do not take any medicine that contains hydroxychloroquine unless prescribed by your doctor.

What's going on here? A hat tip to the crazies who really want to use it despite lack of evidence, or has The Science changed, and I should pray they do not alter it any further?

Based on the page history at archive.org the "certain hospitalized patients" line was added in May 2020, with the "should only be used in a hospital or during clinical trials" part being added around a month later. At the time it seemed plausible that it would work.

Thanks! Didn't think of checking the history of the page.

I’m still not seeing evidence that it works, much less that it’s a “silver bullet.”

2021: literature review as of the Delta variant finds null effect, albeit with “low confidence”. Taiwanese authors.

2021: meta-analysis finds no clinical benefits with “moderate” confidence. Brazilian authors.

2022: Another Brazilian study and meta-analysis. No significant effect on outpatients.

2023: No significant effect. Most recent meta-analysis that I’ve found. American lead authors.

2023: Indian RCT (n = 594) finds insignificant effect. This was the most recent individual research I found with a casual search.

I don’t think anything has upturned the consensus. Sites are still reporting that HCQ doesn’t work and may also make you poop yourself. Not sure why Mayo has a different line; perhaps they’re just hedging?

HCQ, when taken with zinc, has always been the silver bullet. It worked wherever it was tried. People were sneaking it into the hospitals to give to their relatives. I guess the Mayo Clinic finally had to bow to actual science.

Anecdote:

Since I couldn’t get any HCQ, I took tonic water (quinine water) with lots of zinc, plus horse paste (ivermectin), vitamin D, and vitamin C during my first bout (probably Delta, Nov. 2021). I remember the final night of the fight, when I felt the characteristic flu-like aches, and took aspirin. The next morning, I felt far better than the previous week, and I was on the mend; I lost my sense of smell for a year, but didn’t have brain fog or long COVID. My dad and mom, squarely in the risk zone of their 70’s, took a similar medicine regimen and also both survived without long COVID.

On my second bout (summer 2022, Omicron), I got a week’s groceries and prepared for another long haul. Vitamin D and zinc, plus tonic water and walking outdoors in direct sunlight, but to my surprise it was over in three days. Not only that, I felt great afterward! I felt better than I had before the illness, oddly.

I'm not convinced brain fog or long covid are real anyways. Incidence of each in Covid survivors seems to basically match base rates.

(Unrelatedly, I somewhat dislike referring to abuse survivors, rape survivors, suicide survivors, etc. by that name while 'survivor' otherwise has such a powerful connotation, so a fun way to play with those terms is to use 'survivor' where it is slightly, but only slightly, more obvious that it's inappropriate)

This seems very insensitive to me, a person, who like billions of others, is a survivor of the common cold.

What else do you not believe in the existence of?

To some degree some long COVID is psychosomatic. It correlates strongly with political ideology and a minority of people reporting long COVID have no COVID antibodies.

Being sick weakens you. So to some degree some portion of people have long COVID. But also I think many (most?) people suffering from long COVID are imagining it. They truthfully feel down or slow. And they blame it on COVID. But COVID is an unusually mild cold to most people and given that some of these long COVIDers never even had COVID, I think there is much hyperbolic doomerism about it decoupled from the facts.

At this point I doubt long COVID exists in any significant portion of the population, outside of some trivial sense that getting sick makes you feel worse for a while.

Plenty of things, what are you looking for?

Can you provide any clinical data to support this “silver bullet”?

This pre-print, as reported by Yahoo News in 2021.

This study in Nature is about HCQ alone, and suggests it would have been even better during Omicron than previous waves due to the different pathways Omicron takes.

This study in Clinical Infectious Diseases of a "prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter trial" on zinc alone, with positive results.

This extensive examination of Zinc's use with HCQ for COVID by Alberto Boretti in Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology Volume 71, May 2022.

This ScienceDirect study on the so-called "Zelenko Protocol" of zinc, HCQ, and azithromycin (AZM), with astounding results.

Disclaimer: I used dogpile.com to find this clinical data, which doesn't have the restrictions on misinformation (and "misinformation") of Google. I don't have a list of citations at hand, so I did this search in approx. 1 hr.

Disclaimer: I used dogpile.com to find this clinical data, which doesn't have the restrictions on misinformation (and "misinformation") of Google. I don't have a list of citations at hand, so I did this search in approx. 1 hr.

Thanks for the recommendation!

So, what are you reading?

I'm still on Paradise Lost. So far God isn't coming off well and Jesus sounds harebrained. On the other hand, Satan seems to have unfortunate ideas about what to do with humanity, which feels personal.

Paper I'm reading: Magnus' Science and Rationality for One and All.

Finished Conan The Barbarian in The Phoenix On The Sword. Only 24 pages! Phew. Short stories rock.

Over to the other side of the spectrum for Brothers Karamazov at ~900 pages, and Dostoesvky doing his reverse Columbo act of "Chapter 3: I beg the reader's patience, for before I begin the introduction to the beginning, I must first include a preface to the beginning of the introduction".

What is it with old books and these interminable beginnings? It doesn't take that long to set the scene.

Is Brothers K really 900 pages? Damn, I'm 95% through on kindle and it flew by (admittedly on commutes and flights). What a book.

Yes it goes faster than anything else by him, but I think that’s because it really is one of the funniest things ever written.

What is it with old books and these interminable beginnings? It doesn't take that long to set the scene.

Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger from January 1879 to November 1880.

I do not believe that these are unrelated.

I did it! I finally finished Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. It had been on the back burner for...gosh. Months, now. The final stretch was so atmospheric and surreal that it pulled me back in. I absolutely loved how Strange and Norrell persistently refused to resolve their differences on other peoples' terms, only to come together in pursuit of new magic. The chapter where they first parted ways was one of the best in the book for similar reasons. It's hard for me to recommend the book without caveats; even as a notorious fan of door-stoppers, I found it slow at points, and I was afraid it wouldn't deliver. With the exception of a couple plot threads, I can conclude that it did.

Next up, I'm going to start Banks's Use of Weapons. It's the Culture book I've most wanted to read for a while, and I found a used copy recently.

Though...perhaps something a little lighter? Last night, after discussing stylized prose and pacing in JS&MN, we were flipping through Patriot Games. I wanted to find a Clancyism. And wow, he did not disappoint.

Sergeant Major Noah Breckinridge was the image of the Marine non-commissioned officer. Six-three, the only fat on his two-hundred-pound frame was the hot dogs he'd had for lunch in the adjacent Dahlgren Hall.

God, it's perfect. The peak of the genre. Simultaneously a vivid image and a complete blank slate. It imports a stable of tropes while screening itself with the extra details. They don't matter; they're only there to keep the reader from noticing that he or she has conjured a phantom, fully formed, from the collective (American) unconscious. In isolation, Clancyisms are ridiculous. In context, when the reader stays under keeps suspending disbelief, they make for a vibrant, breakneck read.

If you liked Jonathan Strange I can recommend Piranesi by the same author - also good but much shorter and tighter (though on the downside, from my point of view, the homoeroticism moves from subtext to text).

I just finished Freddie DeBoer's How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement which was just...utterly disappointing. It falls into the same normie-splainer genre as Louise Perry's The Case Against the Sexual Revolution which means it's worthless to anyone that is vaguely familiar with stupidpol rhetoric and arguments.

At least his book on education had an idea worth looking at. This one? There's nothing new there. It doesn't help that Freddie is even less willing to challenge his audience on their assumptions (e.g. the injustices of policing, where he basically accepts the progressive frame of "police hunting African-Americans" but with "but #Defund mainly hurts blacks though! Maybe one day but not now, not this way!").

And, add insult to injury, Amazon is wise to my tactics so I couldn't even exchange it. I'll have to wait for another credit to read Hanania and Rufo's takes on the "why 'wokeness'?" genre. They can't be worse than this.

I just started Chip War. Not much farther than the first chapters but it's not actively patronizing me so we're off to a better start. But I am debating just how much of the historical set up I care about compared to the exploration of the post-COVID situation.

The audience for these books are like 64 year old boomer centrists who think Trump is vulgar but “the left seems to be going crazy” (literally my mother). Expecting to get much out of them if you’re very online is fruitless, in many ways they’re written explicitly for people who aren’t.

Yeah, at this point it's my fault for buying books based on liking someone's (less dense) online output and just expecting them to say something different without checking. I got Freddie's cause I liked his first and figured it'd be more of the same.

But this is arguably bad even for the John McWhorter "I'm a fellow tribe member, it's okay. You're not crazy or racist if you ignore these wokes" genre

Of course, in hindsight, part of it may just be that I am (was, I dunno) way more of a normie-leftist on education than crime. IIRC Others here without that problem also complained about some of the same behavior I'm noting here in The Cult of Smart too.

Slowly working my way through McGilchrist's The Master and his Emissary. It's about the brain hemispheres, and how current Western society is very imbalanced. We use the left hemisphere too much, which inhibits the right hemisphere.

It's a pretty long/dense book. Enlightening though.

Literally or metaphorically?

I was under the impression brain-hemisphere research wasn't in a great state. Per Scott:

I am not an expert in functional neuroanatomy, but my impression is that recent research has not been kind to any theories too reliant on hemispheric lateralization. While there are a few well-studied examples (language is almost always on the left) and a few vague tendencies (the right brain sort of seems to be more holistic, sometimes), basically all tasks require some input from both sides, there’s little sign that anybody is neurologically more “right-brained” or “left-brained” than anyone else, and most neuroscientific theories don’t care that much about the right-brain left-brain distinction. Also, Michael Gazzaniga’s groundbreaking work on split-brain patients which got everyone excited about hemispheres and is one of the cornerstones of Jaynes’ theory doesn’t replicate.

Scott should read the book. It seems to make a solid case, although I'm still in the first 20% of it, so I'm not going to start explaining how, at this point. But it already seems clear that there are more than "vague tendencies". Both hemispheres do all sorts of tasks, but how they do it and how they relate to the world is different.

No, I'm not familiar with Jaynes or with the Debt book. Intriguing thought though.

There might also be a relation to the broad society swings of culture in terms of art, thinking and literature? From the enlightenment to romanticism, etc. New technologies might promote more analytical or rationalistic thinking (the printing press, the internet). I haven't looked into this at all, it just popped up in my head now.

Fellow Tetrapod by Dan Bensen, an absolutely delightful speculative-biology scifi novel. The premise: there are countless parallel versions of Earth, and in many of these sapient species have arisen, each from a different branch of life. There are sapient net-casting spiders that communicate by weaving puppets of their interlocutor, sapient hagfish that move about by extruding stilt-like rods of mucus, sapient crows that ride on the shoulders of domesticated hominids, sapient squirrels whose brain is mostly animated by strains of toxoplasma, and so on.

Two of these species (rotifers that form clonal colonies ruthlessly at war with each other and intelligent robots created by a long-extinct dinosaur race), have discovered how to cross between universes, and created a UN-like organization dedicated to building peaceful trade relations between sapient species. The protagonists are the representatives of humanity in this organization, about half a dozen of people rather neglected by their bosses on our Earth and looked down on by the members of senior, more affirmed species, trying to optimize humankind's position in the multiverse. The author has really done his readings on evolutionary biology, physiology, psychology, and so on; the novel comes with a proper bibliography.

For those who care, about whether or not we're living in a simulation, why do you care? From your perspective, what does this change about your relationship to existence and creation?

I think what a person cherishes and how they act are consequences of internalized metaphors. Metaphors are like the building blocks of cognition. “Living in a simulation” is a bad metaphor because it automatically connotes insignificance, whim, chance, and technology culture. Imagine the difference in feeling between “I live in a simulation” and “I am the beloved creation of an infinitely great benevolent monarch.” Which one a person believes will have huge ramifications for how they treat life.

I mean clearly, ignoring metaphysical/moral implications (such as that simulated beings are definitely conscious), that has a lot of practical implications on life as we know it. Reality becomes much more tenuous. It could end at any moment, the rules could change dramatically, it could have started last Tuesday.

There would still be normal physics, and then there would be metaphysics where we try and appeal to the simulator to get things changed. Clearly earning the favor of the all-powerful creator will be more productive than inventing a 10% more efficient nuclear reactor (unless the latter is how we earn favor).

If we lived in a top-level, non-simulated universe, there would be no chance of an afterlife, no chance of being a constituent part of a greater self. Reality would be 'as-is'. There'd be no chance of a score at the end of one's life where you get to see how well you did in comparison with your peers. There'd be no point in being justified after one's death.

Why does living in a simulation imply any of that is true, though? Each of the soldiers in your Total War army don’t get a personality score and rating at the end of each game.

Why does living in a simulation imply any of that is true, though

It doesn't, only that it's not impossible. Thus I repeat 'no chance' three times. It's like being a passenger on a train that's heading off a cliff, it's reassuring to know that rescue might come.

Ah, so ‘simulation’ includes eg. all Abrahamic or similar religion in this definition (because God created it)? ‘Top level non-simulation’ is essentially just atheism?

Yes, plus simulation theory has some quantitative reasoning as to the mechanics of otherwise unknowable divine powers. Big computer go brrrr. Thus the three postulates in Bostrom's paper.

If we're in a simulation, then perhaps we should be purposefully trying to serve/help whoever made the simulation. Or try to negotiate with them so they will give us stuff. I couldn't say really what we should do about it, but I figure it'd be at least worth putting together a big think tank to come up with ideas.

I have heard, but don't have the know-how to confirm, that the following tax loophole exists:

  1. Commission a famous artist to create an art piece, for $50,000

  2. Get it appraised to be worth $5 million

  3. Donate it, getting a full $5 million tax writeoff

  4. Profit income_tax_rate * valuation - commission_cost

Is this more or less correct? If so, I have the following harebrained idea to take advantage of it / force the IRS to address it:

  1. Create an accredited 501c "NFT art museum"

  2. NFTs are already naturally WAY overvalued relative to their cost-to-produce, but just to encourage things to remain that way, create a custom NFT collection with a few accredited artists who are the only ones allowed to add to that collection. Make the transfer fee super high so that these NFTs are disincentivized from remaining in the market.

  3. Design this whole thing to be totally sincere. Call it the "Artist and Artist Appreciation DAO" or something. Nominally, the point is to fund the creation of new artwork. New NFTs are regularly commissioned and donated to the art museum, and whoever paid for the commission eats the tax benefits.

  4. Possibly tokenize the whole process so that it's easy to buy a $1 tax deduction for only $0.10. Honestly doubt this would work with the current tax code though even if the rest of the process does work. I think there would need to be some kind of organization filing copyrights on all created pieces of artwork, then legally filing somewhere that the ERC20 represents legal ownership of the artwork. Even then, it probably wouldn't work.

  5. Profit? Either infinite tax write-offs, or the IRS closes a loophole that should never have existed anyways.

Anyways, can anyone tell me why this definitely wouldn't work?

The short version is the IRS knows about this trick and has a very successful record of prosecuting people who try to use it.

And you need to put at least three people's heads on the block to make this scheme work - your own, someone to sign receipts on behalf of the charity (you only get to deduct the appraised value if the charity uses the donated object as part of its charitable activities, so someone needs to confirm this), and the appraiser.

501(c)s also have to have a non-profit board, with a minimum of three people. The exact rules for how many must be 'independent' and what that means are complicated as hell, but it adds to the issue.

Well the charity would be a real charity, there already exist online "NFT museums." The appraiser would also be real. NFTs already get utterly absurd valuations, and have gotten multi-million dollar legit appraisals. Generally I'm not planning on actually running a scam, just genuinely taking advantage of a loophole in a way somewhat more blatant than is the norm.

No, the standard is not a "legit appraisal." An appraisal can help establish what you believed to be the fair value the contribution to charity is, but in most cases you would need to show that the item could have been sold by the charity in an open market transaction for the amount deducted. The fact that there would be a recent transaction where an artist was willing to produce the piece for $50,000 would set the baseline case not the $5MM appraisal. The burden of proof would be on you and the appraisers to show otherwise. You would have to make an affirmative case the valuation is justified, the fact that the market is illiquid, so like no one knows the real price man, is not a defense. This is not a new idea, and appraisers and tax filers lose cases regularly where an inaccurate appraisal is used to claim an unjustified deduction.

I'm on the same page as you about all of that except the part about the market being illiquid. I think it would be doable to have a liquid enough market, where 90% of a given NFT collection is owned by the museum, but the remaining pieces are swapped around with some frequency. This is already how normal NFTs work much of the time--their "market cap" is sky high but this is because most of the supply is not circulating.

Yes, I understand none of this is necessarily an ironclad defense of the NFT's value, but aside from the internal IRS appraisers, I'm not sure how much more ironclad you can get than fair market value. I'm quite confident that, given NFT's properties (especially the ability to set extremely high transfer fees) you could set a "fair market value" extremely high without necessarily leading to a situation where people sell their NFTs without donating to them. That said, the IRS does include the stipulation that the market must not be artificially inflated, which sounds like a pretty central description of this whole scheme. Maybe.

In the end, I agree there's still a piece missing, but if it's possible for standard art then it's probably possible for NFTs too.

To me, the part that doesn't work is the idea you can "set" the fair market value. The fair market value is the price a knowledgeable buyer would actually pay for the entire quantity donated. The appraisal value must be for the entire collection donated. If you can today produce NFT's people will actually pay $5MM for a cost to you of $50k. You should, and will make a profit of $4.95M and have to pay taxes on the gains. This is always strictly better than just collecting the tax savings. If the NFT market is not actually deep enough to clear $5MM from selling all the NFT's in an open market the fair market value is not $5MM.

If all you have done is manipulate the market cap up by adding transaction costs, limiting the free float, or trading with yourself or co-conspirators you have not set the fair market value higher. You have just committed more crimes by manipulating the price of unregistered securities.

You have to make an affirmative case for your valuation if the IRS challenges it, which is going to be pretty hard when 79% of all NFT collections ... remained unsold.

Edit: Always strictly better under the current system, Andrew Granato and Tyler Cowen pointed out this would not be the case under the proposed 40% capital gains rate back in 2021.

If you can today produce NFT's people will actually pay $5MM for a cost to you of $50k. You should, and will make a profit of $4.95M and have to pay taxes on the gains. This is always strictly better than just collecting the tax savings.

Just like with regular art, I think the process of donating it to charity actually increases its fair market value. Also, the fact that it was commissioned (rather than being sold directly by the artist) increases its fair market value. Yes, that isn't how these things should work, but art is mostly signaling anyways so in this case you literally get what you pay for; the more you pay the more valuable it is.

So, I think it is evident that there exist situations where I could create, then donate, an art piece worth $5MM, without being able to create and sell the piece for anywhere near as much.

To me, the part that doesn't work is the idea you can "set" the fair market value. The fair market value is the price a knowledgeable buyer would actually pay for the entire quantity donated. The appraisal value must be for the entire collection donated.

Well, what I have in mind is that these pieces are created and donated a few at a time. I once again agree that it should work this way, but in practice this just isn't how art, or really anything, is valued. Is oil's fair market value determined by what someone would pay for all the oil in the world? Generally, no matter the asset, selling the entire supply at once would mean selling at a steep discount. The market doesn't need to be deep enough to absorb the entire supply at once for that to be the fair market value.

If all you have done is manipulate the market cap up by adding transaction costs, limiting the free float, or trading with yourself or co-conspirators you have not set the fair market value higher. You have just committed more crimes by manipulating the price of unregistered securities.

They're certainly not securities, no matter how much the SEC wants them to be. However the rest is valid. Like I said, I do think there's a piece missing before this scheme makes sense at all, but right now it's looking like the piece might exist.

You have to make an affirmative case for your valuation if the IRS challenges it, which is going to be pretty hard when 79% of all NFT collections ... remained unsold.

Meh, they analyzed 73,000 collections. I can programmatically create that many for like $1 and now 90% of collections remain unsold. The "blue chip" NFTs, let's say the top 10, are like 80% of the total NFT market cap.

I'm not trying to 100% disagree with you, I think your objections are reasonable and generally it's the exact sort of thing the IRS would come down on hard, but I do disagree with some of the specifics and think that through that process of debate we can arrive somewhere closer to the truth.

So, I think it is evident that there exist situations where I could create, then donate, an art piece worth $5MM, without being able to create and sell the piece for anywhere near as much.

If it is ever challenged by the IRS, you will need to make an affirmative case that the value has been increased, not only that there exist situations where it is possible. The price you would be able to sell for is literally the definition of fair value the IRS uses.

Is oil's fair market value determined by what someone would pay for all the oil in the world?

The value if you donate $5MM, marked to last trade or mid, worth of oil futures is very close to $5MM, close enough that you can probably claim the full $5MM. The true market value is close to but less than $5MM. This is because the oil futures are fungible and the market is very liquid, with literally trillions of dollars of notional value changing hands regularly. If you think you can regularly move $5MM of oil futures with literally zero transaction cost to arrival you should go become the worlds best market maker, you have discovered an infinite money glitch. What you are proposing is moving millions of dollars of notional value in market with a few tens of millions of dollars average daily notional volume where each product is non-fungible. Your price impact will be greater.

They're certainly not securities, no matter how much the SEC wants them to be.

Surprisingly the SEC hasn't taken a strong stance on if NFT's are securities, but certainly is way to strong of a statment though since the existing case law contradicts you. It also doesn't change the criminality because of the fact that any artifice to manipulate a price done by computer is still wire fraud even if it is not securities fraud.

The "blue chip" NFTs, let's say the top 10, are like 80% of the total NFT market cap.

There is literally a section titled "The Current State of the Top NFT Assets." If you have the ability to consistently create some of the top valued NFTs you have a very valuable skill, running a tax scheme is arguably a very high risk way of monetizing that skill, but it shouldn't be surprising that there is some way to extract value from that ability.

That looks very different to me since the appraisal was faked.

It seems like it would be hard to pull off this trick without faking the appraisal; if the artist's paintings are for-real worth $5,000,000, then he could just paint them and sell them for that price rather than accepting literally 0.01x that payment from you.

Elsewhere I said:

Just like with regular art, I think the process of donating it to charity actually increases its fair market value. Also, the fact that it was commissioned (rather than being sold directly by the artist) increases its fair market value. Yes, that isn't how these things should work, but art is mostly signaling anyways so in this case you literally get what you pay for; the more you pay the more valuable it is.

So, I think it is evident that there exist situations where I could create, then donate, an art piece worth $5MM, without being able to create and sell the piece for anywhere near as much.

The authority of the IRS is so absolute, and the tax code so complex and yet also vague, that they can and will fuck you for anything they decide they don’t like. That essentially translates to “the spirit of the rules”.

I think this only works because those involved have enough prestige to make it look legit. They can find somebody with letters after their name to back up their claims to artistic integrity. They have friends at museums with respectable names. They have money and by implication lawyers standing behind them.

IRS auditors are required to refer all gifts of art valued at $20,000 or more to the IRS Art Advisory Panel. The panel’s findings are the IRS’s official position on the art’s value, so it’s critical to provide a solid appraisal to support your valuation.

Can you bamboozle the government artist auditors? That's the real test.

IRS auditors are required to refer all gifts of art valued at $20,000 or more to the IRS Art Advisory Panel. The panel’s findings are the IRS’s official position on the art’s value, so it’s critical to provide a solid appraisal to support your valuation.

Interesting, I wonder what the guidelines are for art valued below $20,000. It's really easy for crypto to find loopholes and bust them open; it would be child's play to just create 100 pieces valued at $15,000 or something rather than one piece valued at $1.5M. The whole point is to put this loophole into the Common Man's hands anyways, so a $15,000 tax writeoff is reasonably close to the sweet spot.

I think this only works because those involved have enough prestige to make it look legit. They can find somebody with letters after their name to back up their claims to artistic integrity. They have friends at museums with respectable names. They have money and by implication lawyers standing behind them.

I absolutely agree, but that at least sounds like a somewhat tractable problem. There are some legit museums displaying NFTs, and some other legit museums minting NFTs from their artwork. If legit museums can display NFTs then presumably there is at least a little wiggle room there.

I am rooting for you...but suspect that Uncle Sam is going to be very much not amused and that this stunt could potentially land you in prison. Good luck. Consult a tax lawyer first - the very best you can find.

There's a limit of 30% of your AGI and it can't be things you created (those are ordinary income properties with a different treatment).

Knowing very little about tax code, I think this shouldn't work because the jump from $50k -> $5million would be counted as profit in some sense, similar to if you buy $50k of stock and then sell it for $5 million. I think it's called an "asset appreciation tax"? So your taxable income would go up by 4.95 million from having an asset you paid $50k for go up in valuation, and then down by $5 million for the donation, giving you a net -$50k (because you spent $50k that you then donated). But I'm not certain this is how it actually works.

You can donate appreciated stock at it's stepped up value and avoid capital gains taxes. It's a very good way to make charitable donations. It is however limited to 30% of your AGI though.

From IRS Pub 526

However, the reduced deduction doesn't apply to contributions of qualified appreciated stock. Qualified appreciated stock is any stock in a corporation that is capital gain property and for which market quotations are readily available on an established securities market on the day of the contribution.

That's definitely how it should work, but I believe is not how it actually works if you donate it. I'm in the same boat as you though and am not exactly an authority on this.

First off: There's no way this would work. I mean, it might work in the sense that you can write whatever numbers you want on a document and hope the IRS doesn't look into it, but there's no way it would hold up in tax court.

Second off: Jesus Christ the tax code is impenetrable. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm usually pretty good at finding relevant citations whenever I need them. I've never seen anything like Title 26. It's obscene.

The special sauce is the inflated appraisal value. this is done with real estate too or insurance fraud.

How do people with long nails wipe their butts?

Serious answer: they wrap huge volumes of toilet paper around their hands, keeping the nails and hand straight (like you're going in for a handshake, except with the palm facing upward) and use a folded-in thumb to hold down the wad of paper / stop it unravelling, then they 'swipe' motion to wipe.

You always deliver quality content, 2rafa, even it's literal shitposting.

That’s the neat part, they don’t.

They can just scrape off the lingering material with their long nails. It’s like having seashells on you at all times.

I used to date a goth girl with long black nails. A friend with a crass sense of humor asked her that very question directly, but she laughed it off, so I never learned the secret.

She laughed it off because she didn’t want to divulge the secret that cute girls don’t poop.

Wadding toilet paper.

They use a bidet.

Most nail salons include a complementary colostomy bag on the way out the door.

I've been playing an online game where you just try to name as many US cities as you can. Here's my map. My goal was to name all the cities over 500,000 people. I am stubbornly short one such city. I haven't looked up the correct answer yet.

Can you guess which one American city over 500,000 people I'm missing?

I've been canoodling around with it for a week or so, and I've been listing generic city names and getting a surprising number of correct answers that way, including some big cities.

You named 2,826 cities, with a total population of 120,814,720 (46.35% of the national urban population in 2020).

I also got 234 of 339 cities over 100,000 people (69.0%).

Edit: I checked, here's the city I missed: Mesa, Arizona

The ones I always forget are the ones which have not been that big for very long. Fresno, Phoenix, the various ones in Texas. It's hard to tell from your map which ones you've already got, unfortunately.

Can you share the game with us? I'd like to have a go myself.

Sure, it's Cityquiz.io They have other places besides the US too.

Yeah, it's hard to see from the map. Most of the major cities are surrounded by smaller ones with generic names that were easy to guess, like Glendale, etc. So they get crowded.

Texas has a bunch of big cities with very generic, forgettable names (like Garland). Also, every single place mentioned in King of the Hill is apparently fictional.

The Dakotas are sparsely populated but full of easily guessed names, towns with like 6 people in them. Lotta towns named after people's names -- Pierre, for example.

Most landforms and terrains that are famous have a city named after them, eg Everglades. The exception is Hawaii, where there is no Maui, Oahu, Mauna Loa, Waikiki Beach, etc. Luckily you can guess a couple towns just by combining the relatively few letters in the Hawaiian language. I got a couple I've never heard of that way.

Spanish-language placenames seem harder to guess. English-origin names like Michael usually have a town named after them. There's no town named Miguel though. Of course any saint most likely has a San Whatever or Santa Whatever town, but other than that, Spanish names are hard to guess. Also, if a county has an English-origin name, there's likely a town of that name too. If a county has a Spanish-origin name, it probably does not have a town of that name.

I'm guessing it's one of those overgrown suburbs in Texas, Florida, or California that no one has ever heard of yet it's quietly getting huge.

I gave up and got the answer. It's not one of those states, but I think it is a suburb. I had heard of it though. Mesa, Arizona

I should have gotten that one, as I tried all the other generic landforms I could think of -- Volcano, Plateau, Forest, etc. Missed that one.

Who the hell would name a city Volcano? A Bond villain?

About 2000 Hawaiians. But I can't rule out the possibility that they are a supervillain and his lackeys. Still counts.

Probably, but there’s also a surprising number of smaller cities in Texas with technically more than 50k people but everyone thinks it’s a small town for whatever reason(eg Tyler, Lubbock, San Angelo)- probably because it’s within driving distance of something huge and much, much bluer.

From my experience there, I'd be sure to simply guess all the Texan cities I could think of connected to the energy industry. Lubbock, for instance, isn't in reasonable driving distance from anything except oil, but that's enough to get a lot of people there.

What is the best way to get freelance web dev gigs? I am an experienced dev and recently quit, moved to a smaller city and want to have smaller projects. I might for example build a website with a backend for a business for 30k dollars that would easily have cost 40k+ at the agency I used to work for. The plan is to not use agencies, as I don't want to become a de facto employee.

The arguments in favour of free trade are convincing, but I've always wondered why we don't see unilateral free trade. After all, if you take at face value the arguments that tariffs on foreign imports hurt domestic consumers more than they benefit domestic producers, it would make sense to completely remove foreign tariffs without waiting for trading partners to do the same.

There are two explanations I can think of:

  1. Unilateral free trade is good, but multilateral free trade is better. Having tariffs gives governments the option of removing them in exchange for foreign countries doing the same. Without tariffs, governments have no leverage.

  2. Politics. Domestic consumers are better at lobbying governments than consumers, since the benefits of lower tariffs are diffuse, whereas the cost of removing them are concentrated on a small number of producers.

Am I missing anything?

Comparative advantage locks you in place at the technology level you're on. In 1955 South Korea might've gone 'oh we should only export rice since the US does all industrial things way better than us'. Indeed, in 1955 that was the case. But they used protectionism to develop their industries so they could eventually compete on world markets in cars, televisions and microchips. There are ways to protect markets without making them lazy, by requiring a quota of vehicles to be exported for example. If someone in a free market wants to buy your cars than they're not totally horrendous.

Furthermore, countries need food security, energy security, domestic weapons production. Better economic efficiency than getting starved or annexed.

Then there's anti-dumping stuff. For instance Saudi Arabia can open up the taps and flood the world with oil to suppress competition. China can do the same with steel.

In 1955 South Korea might've gone 'oh we should only export rice since the US does all industrial things way better than us'.

The problem is that what worked in South Korea doesn't work anywhere else. See Brazil's extreme import restrictions / protectionism which, with the sole exception of Embraer, hasn't created any South Korea level champions despite a 200m+ population. It's entirely possible that with a homogenous, hardworking IQ 105 population situated right between two huge markets in Japan and China, South Korea could have reached first-world status even without protectionism.

True. If there's a group project, no matter how they're organized the smart kids are going to beat the stupid kids.

But government support can help. I'd argue that a high-IQ, hardworking, sophisticated country can do government support better than a stupider and corrupt country, just as they do other administrative/economic tasks better.

If communism can put a country behind, logically good governance should put it ahead. Fostering R&D spending for strategic industries would certainly be helpful. Guaranteeing their domestic markets temporarily in exchange for requiring them to export competitively. I read snippets of Lee Quan Yew's biography where he basically acts like a salesman, going around asking for investment from British and American companies, showing up to conventions... he was really actively supportive of industry in a way few govts are. In the case of China, they have institutionalized IP theft using state cyberespionage, that puts them ahead.

Comparative advantage locks you in place at the technology level you're on. In 1955 South Korea might've gone 'oh we should only export rice since the US does all industrial things way better than us'. Indeed, in 1955 that was the case. But they used protectionism to develop their industries so they could eventually compete on world markets in cars, televisions and microchips. There are ways to protect markets without making them lazy, by requiring a quota of vehicles to be exported for example. If someone in a free market wants to buy your cars than they're not totally horrendous.

And what's the argument for this not developing naturally in the absence of government intervention?

Well if South Korea had free trade only, how were they going to develop the capital necessary to compete with established car manufacturers? All the machinery they need, all the training they need to do... that needs a lot of money! Who is going to acquire that investment money if not the govt directly or via protectionism?

Look at microchips in the US - a huge strategic weakness exposed because the US allowed free trade in a market it dominated, letting others surpass them by subsidizing and actively sponsoring their own microchip industries. So now the US is scrambling to subsidize in order to catch up.

If you want to read more on the economics of reason 2, the technical term is "concentrated benefits and diffuse or dispersed costs".

Voters don't understand why free trade is good. They think in mercantilist terms where being able to sell things to foreigners is good but buying things from them is bad. They think of free trade as a trade-off, where you make the sacrifice of buying things from foreigners in order to gain the right to sell to them.

What Car Should I Buy?

I'm beginning the process of shopping for a new car. I will beat this decision to death, I expect it will be several months until I actually make a purchase, including many test drives of different models and digging deep into Consumer Reports and Car and Driver's archives. Figured I'd throw the question out to theMotte and see if there are any models I'm not thinking of or should give more consideration to. As I write so much word vomit, I realize this is also an exercise for me in writing out what I'm looking for.

Strictly speaking, I don't need to buy a car and if I don't end up finding one I like, I won't buy one. I'm in kind of a unique situation for a variety of reasons, I have a work vehicle (crew cab 4wd pickup) that is low mileage and that I will continue to use to regardless of any other purchase; I also maintain my dad's car collection with him, so I have no desire for a crazy sports car because if I want to drive a convertible that gets to 60 in 4 seconds I can just head over to his house and borrow it. But I set this date on my calendar a couple years back, and I'm seeing evidence of it all around me, it seems like now might be the time to pull the trigger on a new car. As I stated in a previous post, my early teen years the industry was just emerging from a nadir for the American car market, things have gotten better pretty much every year since. But lately the tech in cars is becomingly increasingly baroque, and the features are becoming harder to avoid or turn off, I'm worried that if I wait another year or two until I need a car I might be forced to endure features I don't want and unable to find a car that has what I do want. Increasing government targets on fuel economy etc are also a threat. My theory being that I'd rather buy a new or low mileage car now and not have to worry about this again until I'm 40 or so (pending accidents or whatnot).

For starters, located in the USA, so sadly no GR Yaris' or Renault Meganes around. Northeast, so AWD has always been a preference of mine, but FWD will work, RWD is probably a no go but I could be persuaded for the right car since I still have the 4x4 or my wife's car for bad storms. Looking for a four door, but it doesn't need an adult sized big back seat. My wife has and will continue to have a bigger car for comfortably transporting multiple adults, so this one just needs to be theoretically capable of doing so more than actually needing to regularly. But with carseats, I probably don't want to bother trying a 2+2. Cargo space isn't a huge concern, but I do like hatchbacks. I want to avoid SUVs, I just don't like driving them as much, really looking for a sedan or small hatchback (though I am kinda pondering the Kona N as factually more hot hatch than SUV). I want something reasonably quick with good driving dynamics, but I don't need a ton of horsepower (I'm basically looking at stuff between 200-300) and I'm unlikely to take it to a track day beyond fooling around at a local autocross on street tires. I could talk myself into a manual, but I'm fine with a conventional auto, CVT I'm iffy on. I'm probably leaning gas engine, but I feel like I should cross-shop a few EVs because they are the new hot thing.

I'm looking mainly at the Asian carmakers. Toyota, Honda, and Subaru all seem to make vehicles that simply run better longer and are much easier/cheaper to fix than the German carmakers; I'd be open to an American car but there aren't many out there that really appeal to me right now. I've had BMWs, Audis, and MBs for years now; it's not so much that they break down all the time, though I am under the impression that they do, it's that when they break down I need to special order the fan belt from the single nunnery in the Alps that makes them for thousands, while when Japanese or American cars break down I can choose between $50 in stock at the dealer or $35 at the local Autozone. I'm tired of it, I'll probably look at a few Audis and BMWs just to cross shop but idk that I'd pull the trigger on one. I'm open to buying a used car, hell I buy used shoes, but I like the idea of having something under warranty for at least a few years. Also the used car market for most of the cars I'm looking at is so out of whack, I see two year old and 30k miles on Subarus that are less than $2k off what I could buy a brand new one for at the dealer. I'm not in a hurry, so needing to order one from the factory and wait a couple months is nbd to me. Budget is realistically somewhere between $30-50k; I could afford more but I don't see a lot of cars that make me want to reach out of that range, and I want a car cheap enough that I don't worry about it when I use it, which I don't think I could do with a $60k+ car.

Prior cars I've daily'd: 1991 Ford Bronco, 1996 Ford Explorer XLT V8, 2000 Subaru Outback Wagon XT Manual, 2000 BMW 323ci Manual, 2004 Audi A6 Quattro 2.7t, 2003 Mercedes-Benz C230 Wagon, 2005 Audi A4 3.0t Quattro Cabrio, 2005 Toyota Camry. I currently drive a 2008 Chevrolet Avalanche LTZ most days, it just crossed 60k miles so I expect to have it for the foreseeable future and honestly I expect to have it until it is illegal to drive it in the city. My wife drives a Lexus RX, which we will trade in the near future on a new Subaru Outback.

Current Contenders:

Acura Integra. Pros: Small, hatchback, Honda guts, great MPG, luxury badge, drives well, strong CPO warranty and availability near me. Cons: CVT unless you go with an up-charge package, weakest engine of the cars I'm looking at, expensive for what is ultimately a civic in a sport coat, FWD.

Subaru WRX. Pros: Fun to drive, manual, great AWD, resale price, Subaru around me is kind of the perfect stealth luxury brand among PMC types, I got into a horrible accident in my prior subaru and survived so I have good vibes towards it. Cons: Not designed for comfort, boy racer looks are a little heavy handed, need to get the manual because the CVT is right out for this car I'd think.

Hyundai Elantra N. Pros: Performance monster for the price, hilariously long powertrain warranty, customizable settings galore, polarizing looks but honestly I love them when I see them. Cons: Hyundai badge carries no weight, reliability may not be there so even with the warranty I don't actually get to drive it, FWD.

Mazda3 Turbo Hatch AWD. Pros: Hatchback, AWD, good speed, gorgeous design, actual automatic gearbox offered. Cons: Small.

I'm kicking around other ideas from trying to find a GR Corolla to a Toyota Crown to going Tesla 3 or Ford Mach E, and like I said I'll cross shop things like BMW or Audi but may not go for that. Leaving aside budget, I'd probably get something like a Tesla S or high end 3, higher end Mach E, or a Rivian or GMC Hummer EV, just because I think they're the coolest fucking things on the road right now.

What are your thoughts? Anything I'm missing that I should consider? Any experiences that you'd like to share with some of the cars I've listed?

Personally I've just been enjoying all the cars I couldn't afford in the oughties at sub $10k pricing -- this was peak car IMO; the computerized EMS problem was solved, manual transmissions still widely available, 2-300 hp easily available and plenty of creature comforts with no widescreen TVs on the dash.

But I take your point that this may be the last time you can buy something new that isn't too cucked -- indeed you may almost be too late. I think Mazda is the only manufacturer with a (stubborn) corporate policy around physical controls. (as opposed to touchscreen, or that awful BMW dial that controls the thing that should be a touchscreen but isn't)

I guess "Mazda3 only bigger" is a Mazda6, but then you don't get the hatchiness; interior seems... OK? At least there are real gauges: https://imgcdn.zigwheels.ae/large/gallery/interior/25/250/mazda-6-sedan-dashboard-view-246339.jpg Discontinued because of course it is, but you could pick up a like-new GT one (250hp) pretty easily I'd think.

Honestly the WRX might be your only choice -- unlikely that you will be able to get a manual transmission for love or money within a few years, so why not?

I agreed with you on the former for the last ten years, but I'm at a point in my life where I am A) Tired of stuff developing mysterious problems that take too long to figure out and B) Lack the combination of time and skill to do it myself, plus C) if I want to borrow my dad's C5 vette I can just go do that, I don't need to own that car. I'm looking for a reliable pleasant daily driver, easy to park, that gives me just enough engagement to enjoy taking the scenic route every now and again.

I put this date on my calendar two years ago when I realized I had the money to buy a new car but didn't need to, largely on the theory that it was going to get harder and harder to fix a car from 2005-2008, but if I buy a car today from a reliable brand I can hope to drive it until 2030 at least, at which point we'll likely be in a very different place in terms of car culture.

Yeah, I feel you -- my wife is the same way, and we've been shopping for/driving newish things lately. It's just hard to be impressed with anything in the last ~5 years, I feel like we are in a transitional period between car-cars and techmobiles -- and the techmobiles aren't quite there yet, while the attempts to move in that direction have ruined the carness of current models. Also the standards of interiors in high-end shit seem to have gone downhill somehow? Recent model BMWs just don't feel that nice inside, for instance -- even though the driving experience continues to advance.

I don't know what to suggest other than the WRX TBH -- my wife is more in the 'large crossover that won't absolutely destroy you on gas' zone, so we will probably get some sort of plug-in -- but 'mid-size sedan' is just dying.

How about a Caddy?

The ougties versions of these (in AWD) are something that I haven't touched on yet in my odd-yssey, but am actively monitoring -- a new one should be pretty nice if you can afford it. (and handle the grandpa jokes)

You exactly hit on the transition period.

Also the standards of interiors in high-end shit seem to have gone downhill somehow?

The older ones feel more special. The difference and care was obvious in my e46 or even the old C class wagon. The control felt nice in your hand. When I've sat in modern luxury cars they feel plasticky, with a big-ass screen to make up for it. One of the reasons I'm not that interested in any of the luxury brands, just don't want to pay for something that isn't special.

Good call, I should probably give the Caddy a shot. I get all the old man jokes anyway.

A new car? Why?

If, in two years, you're worried about Google listening to your radio stations, buy a 2023 car. Or a 2015, or...I won't suggest going back as far as 1999, but the point is that the well-designed ones won't disappear. They'll just have more mileage plus a corresponding discount.

Disclaimer: I drive an '07 Corolla. Decidedly not GR. So perhaps I have different tastes a higher tolerance for looking poor.

There is very little value in buying a late model used Subaru or Toyota near me. Buying a WRX with 30k miles barely drops $2k off the MSRP around here. At that point, it does make sense to buy one fresh off the lot with warranties, that you know hasn't been abused, etc.

So perhaps I have different tastes [or] a higher tolerance for looking poor.

Probably, yeah. I'm at a point in my career where it isn't cute to be hassled by "my car is in the shop;" and I'm in that in-between point where I can't put a client/partner in an '05 Beige Camry with cloth seats. Five years ago I was young and poor enough that it would come across earnest, insh'Allah ten years from now I'll be rich enough that it will merely be eccentric; today I need to meet social standards and seem like I have my shit together enough to make a regular car payment. Not quite to the degree where I'm going to get a realtor car (leased Range Rover or BMW SUV being the classics, ewww), but it would help to show up in something late model and reasonably comfortable sometimes.

I recently bought a Mazda3 hatchback. I like it, but the safety features are annoying and I am going to see if I can turn them off. The seatbelt chime will immediately go off if you don't have your seatbelt on before you turn anything on, even just the electronics so you can open the windows or turn on the A/C and even if the car is in park. The lane assist and automatic braking occasionally activate when they shouldn't, which is dangerous. Also, the visibility isn't great. Pedestrians are sometimes hidden behind the A pillar. Otherwise, it's a good car. It's a smooth ride and I don't find it too small despite being very tall. I also like the design of the electronic controls.

The Ford Maverick also sounds like what you're looking for, albeit as a hybrid pickup truck.

100% what I would buy if the Avalanche died, they're such a great vehicle and as someone pointed out to me the other day, Ford hasn't even advertised the damn thing, they just sell out all on their own! I'm no expert on car logistics, but it's amazing to me that Ford can't manage to churn out more of those. Although I'm feeling like I should have bolded and underlined "really looking for a sedan or small hatchback" and "good driving dynamics."

I don't own a ford maverick(although it will definitely be my next truck- I drive a used compact truck from a Japanese brand), but my dad does, and it drives like a hatchback. This is also the report of everyone I know who owns one.

It's not a hatchback, but I suspect a hatchback version of a maverick is coming in the next few years.

Isn't the hatchback Maverick just the Escape? Or is there a significant stance difference? Personally I'm curious to see if they bring out a high hp street-truck Maverick ST

Personally I'm curious to see if they bring out a high hp street-truck Maverick ST

I doubt it, partly because it's technically difficult but also because the problem the maverick exists to solve(fuel efficiency standards making it hard to create a pickup of a size with significant unmet demand) doesn't apply to high horsepower trucks.

Since you're looking at Acura, you should check out the Lexus IS 300 AWD or the IS 350 AWD. I drove the IS 350 AWD a couple months ago and it was fun to drive, the modern safety features weren't overly annoying and the guy told me you can turn many of them off. My memory is it gets ~25mpg. The IS has either the 8 speed automatic or the six speed automatic Toyota has used for a while. It has a decent amount of space without being a large sedan and I think it meets all of your requirements. If I was buying a sedan, it would probably be this one. I've owned BMWs in the past and they're reliable but if anything goes wrong it's going to be $1000+.

Also, since you're already looking at the Hyundai, you should check out the Genesis G70. A friend has either that one or the G60 and he's quite the fan.

Both on my cross shopping list, along with the ES and the LS (unlikely, but just for funsies)! Thanks for the cosign on the IS. Honestly, I've had such good experiences with Lexus products that friends and family have owned, that the IS and ES would be the top on my list if I didn't hate the cowcatcher grill they have on the new ones so much. Even if they were merely boring, I'd stomach it, but the weird hourglass things looks like the car the Riddler would drive in an old Batman comic.

I bought a used V8 GX 460 about five years ago and I still own it and still love it. I will probably drive it until it dies which can easily be over 300,000 miles. Whenever I need to tow something, it performs wonderfully and is a great road-trip vehicle. A friend of mine owns a V8 LX480 which is still going strong with 340,000 miles on it. I love Toyotas despite their ~decade long obsession with ugly noses, the aardvark noses and the hourglass noses; besides, I think the hourglass grill styling looks better on the sedans than the SUVs.

I say get a bright green one and own the Riddler theme!

I bought a used V8 GX 460 about five years ago and I still own it and still love it. I will probably drive it until it dies which can easily be over 300,000 miles.

That's a sweet ride. Land Cruisers and LX's are the most common scam cars on craigslist around here these days, because everyone (including me) wants one.

1999 Suzuki Grand Vitara

I drive a Buick and I really like it. Every time I see the last-gen Buick Regals I drool a little bit. There's a station wagon version that looks simply awesome to me.

If you value reliability over performance then you should probably get a Honda or Toyota. If you care about having an electric vehicle they make plug in versions of many of their cars which I think gives you the best of both worlds in that you can have an ev for most regular driving but can still take road trips easily.

I currently drive an older rav4 hybrid, if I were getting a new vehicle I would likely buy the plug in version of the current year model.

If cost were a bigger concern I would just get a plug in Prius (or non plug in Prius). I had a 2004 prius for years while in grad school with over 300k miles on it (I don’t know how many miles were actually on it because the odometer quit working at 299,999). Minimal maintenance, and only real downside is if you get a bad battery pack.

Also you should do some research on hybrid vehicles post lithium switch over. Older nicad Toyota hybrid battery packs could be reconditioned fairly easily (and cheaply). I doubt this is true on newer hybrids/plug in hybrids with lithium battery packs, which might impact the calculus a bit.

Toyota, in my experience, is the king of reliability. The Long-Term Quality Index agrees with me. Honda is second; still very reliable WRT engine and powertrain but some of the craftsmanship on some of the components is not exactly bulletproof. Things like the AC system and door locks are only average in reliability. Door locks outright suck on like late 2000s Hondas.

Every time I see a car-related discussion I am reminded how different the US market is from the Euro one. Anyway, I was going to recommend something in the Impreza-Outback-Forester range, but it looks like your wife is already getting one.

I wouldn't wright off the Legacy either if sedans are in the mix. Its a shame they don't offer the MT anymore, but you can still spec one with a turbo, and it'll be more refined than an Impreza. I personal liked the old poorly placed inter-cooler with the functioning hood scoop, but the newer ones have less of a boy racer aesthetic. OP, let us know if you test drive one, I'm interested to know how responsive the newer CVTs are. As far as CVT reliability goes, I would change the transmission oil wayyy more frequently than called for in the US maintenance manual. Like every 25k miles or so.

That was my own dislike of sedans showing through. Kia K5 and Stinger are probably the only modern ones that I like. The rest look like they are chosen by people that use a spreadsheet to compare the total cost of ownership for 20 years when buying their next car.

OP, let us know if you test drive one, I'm interested to know how responsive the newer CVTs are.

Will do. Probably get in to test drive the Acura and WRX CVTs in the near future, those dealerships are real close and they have those in stock.

I don't need a ton of horsepower (I'm basically looking at stuff between 200-300)

That sounds like a contradiction.

I could talk myself into a manual, but I'm fine with a conventional auto, CVT I'm iffy on.

I've seen people on 4chan's /o/ board say several times that, though CVTs often have reliability problems when they're attached to too-powerful engines (such as in Nissan cars), this is not a problem with the 76-horsepower Mitsubishi Mirage.

Worth noting for those who don't know that CVT and ECVT are totally different things. A CVT on a non hybrid car is a mechanical variable ratio pulley system, and these have had reliability issues of the type you mentioned. Hybrid vehicles instead use a system of dual electric motor generators, which, by varying the power or load, can operate as a planetary gear with variable ratio.

It's quite a clever technology, actually - having a single planetary gear with the motor generators allows you to delete multiple other planetary gears, the reverse gear, the starter, the alternator, and the torque converter.

Not so much concerned with CVT reliability as driving dynamics. I think it's theoretically possible to have a CVT that produces a strong driving experience, but all the ones I've actually driven have been sludgy, kinda boring, slow to react. I'd probably prefer a well executed dual clutch automatic to a manual.


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