domain:alexepstein.substack.com
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1m ago
I'm always interested in learning more about the domestic politics of other countries. What are some things you think are important to understand that media outlets like the NYT don't tell people?
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
6m ago
I'm not saying that res ipsa is sufficient on its own
That's literally what res ipsa loquitur means.
AI expectations could play a role. China might think, "We are behind in AI meaning in a few years we won't be able to beat the US so better strike now.", or "AI is going to change everything within 10 years so why bother risking a very bad outcome.", or "He who controls the spice [chip factories in Taiwan] controls the universe"
zeke5123a
11m ago
See this is where the prosecution’s own case falls apart. There could always been a million crimes false business records could support. The prosecution was throwing out things like other business records, tax law, or FECA. And it is in theory all plausible.
But all that means is you collapsed the misdemeanor and felony since practically there is always a plausible other crime. That means in my mind you need a closer connection compared to your liquor store example.
Further, when talking about campaign finance law, it ie important to point out that it is incredible opaque. When it is far from obvious that it is a crime even if the defendant did everything exactly as the prosecution alleged, then it is very hard to infer that the defendant was worried about the law. The prosecution has the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The idea here in this case that was met with respect to intent is farcical.
non_radical_centrist
12m ago
It lines up with what I've read about the Israeli far right too. MAGA supporters aren't literally like, settling parts of black communities or Mexico to create their own little villages and occassionally killing black people or Mexicans in the process. That's what the Israeli settlement movement is. Ben Gvir, one of the actual most important politicians in Israel and not just a fringe lunatic, is a settler himself. He has faced criminal charges from Israel over hate speech. He was convicted of supporting Kach, which Israel itself classifies a terrorist group. It's not just Gvir, there are other far right politicians like Smotrich too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar_Ben-Gvir
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezalel_Smotrich
Claiming that all Israelis support them, or that 50% of Israelis support them, would be wrong I think. Claiming 10% of Israelis support them, I think is accurate.
Maybe you think the Palestinians are all barbarous demons and that the Israeli far right is justified. But the descriptive parts of the NYT article would still be accurate about describing the far right's actions.
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
15m ago
I am terrible at foreign policy, but I would've started by seizing ("reestablishing control over") minor RoC islands close to the mainland. They have practically zero value, so starting a major armed conflict over them would be seen as irrational, but this would establish a precedent that it's still the Chinese civil war and thus China's internal matter.
non_radical_centrist
22m ago
https://manifold.markets/news/chinataiwan
More markets where people put their (play) money where their mouth is with regards to their predictions, and I encourage everyone with strong opinions to do the same.
Personally I think the only factor that really matters is the mind of Xi Jinping. China will not invade Taiwan without his approval, and they'd likely immediately invade if he decided he did want to. Any weighing of the costs and benefits for China only matter to the extent that Xi Jinping actually cares about China instead of just his own personal benefit.
I expect Xi has many sycophants around him telling him that China is increasingly ascendant and that the US is on a downward spiral and that the Taiwanese masses actually want to be unified under a glorious greater China. That's a standard situation for a great many dictators.
On the other hand, Xi probably isn't totally isolated from reality. There are some major issues even the biggest information bubble I doubt could hide from him. He can see that the Ukraine war, while it's debatable just how well Russia is doing, definitely wasn't the 1 month stomp campaign many expected. He can see that the Chinese economy has had some major setbacks with their housing market having a crisis and Evergrande collapsing.
The benefits to invading Taiwan are basically two: To appeal to the nationalistic ego of the masses, and to inflate his own personal ego, with military conquest. My understanding is that the Chinese masses do have nationalist egos and like being the big scary country on the block, as do most masses(until they get into a brutal war for no real benefit like WW1, WW2, Vietnam, Iraq 2, and get reminded painfully of the downsides. But I don't think they're extremely jingoistic, they're not Germans in 1938 or Americans in 2002.
As for Xi's internal psyche and how eager he personally is for war, it's very hard to know. China generally hasn't been that militant in recent years. Their last major conflict was the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, long before Xi. They're had some grandstanding around the South China Sea, and some skirmishes with India. Maybe he is more on the pacifist side and doesn't want conflict with no tangible benefit. Maybe he's just biding his time until he has the largest possible advantage over the USA to strike. Maybe he personally isn't that into war, but wouldn't back down or disavow an overeager admiral who escalates tensions during a patrol around Taiwan and that leads into war.
In conclusion, I really don't know. I just feel like focusing on what benefits China is a mistake, the focus should be on what Xi is thinking.
gattsuru
26m ago
I'm not sure I understand the question? Why would they be impacted by campaign finance laws at all?
While FECA is best-known for its direct contribution limits on candidate-specific communications, much of the point of McCain-Feingold in 2002 was to expand the law's definition of 'electioneering communications' to cover matters that did not target or support a specific politician directly, but also matters like 'issue ads', which focused on topic areas, if usually to highlight a candidate on those matters. In addition to restrictions on when they could run them and how they could fund them, candidates running issues ads (or coordinating with those running issue ads) were required to disclose their participation, known as the "Stand By Your Ad" provision.
This was mostly used where the third-party issue ads explicitly named politicians (such as Citizens United involving a movie about Clinton's history), but the law held a candidate was clearly identified a "specific candidate" where a communication asked to call their representative, even if this resulted in many different 'specific' candidates being involved. And while the Federalist Papers genuinely were more focused on the theoretical foundations, their calls to action and some of the more subtle components would pass this requirement.
The larger length of time between the issuance of the Federalist Papers and the local elections for the convention might have put it outside of the FECA safe harbor timeline, but I'm honestly not sure, and the Stand By Your Ad requirement probably would have applied by its strict text. (In practice, the FEC tends to avoid cases with that clear a First Amendment component, lest they get slapped by SCOTUS again.) And most FECA provisions have a 50k audience requirement and only covered audio and video, which obviously would have been hard to hit in the Founding era.
And, of course, New York law can be much more aggressive than federal law : a New York organization opposing or supporting even specific ballot issues, separate from any specific candidate, must register with the state, report to the state any donations above a certain (low) threshold, and refuse any anonymous contributions. The Federalist Papers would clearly hit that requirement by strict read of the text, though there's both official and unofficial exceptions for organizations whose free speech the ACLU cares about. I think the Federalist Papers could also hit the PAC requirements by a strict read of the text, but I'd have to look through that in more detail to say for sure.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
28m ago
It's a part of it, but it's not the whole story. You need commonality of opinion/values in order to "coordinate meanness".
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
29m ago
lands stolen by genociding the natives and importing slaves
It’s generally acknowledged that humans have moved past 19th century norms. We treat natives as fully human now, and most of the globe also considers Palestinians human now too. So the moral questions are significant. And in the article the oppression of Palestinians is considered both factual and significant by none other than —
-
Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, once head of Israel’s Central Command
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Ami Ayalon, head of Shin Bet from 1996 to 2000
-
Mark Schwartz, American three-star general, once the top military official working at the United States Embassy in Jerusalem from 2019 to 2021
-
Judith Karp, then Israel’s deputy attorney general for special duties
These are not exactly renowned antisemites we are talking about. I don’t know anyone more important whose testimony should be heard short of Yahweh appearing on Mt Sinai again with a PowerPoint on his tablet.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
32m ago
If you don't want to engage someone, then stop engaging. That means stop before you take your parting shot calling them bad faith or ignorant.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
33m ago
The main reasons arguing against it are
-
Risk of triggering WWIII if the Taiwan and US do not back down.
-
The US Navy. It has its problems, but it's still more than a match for the People's Navy. And as far as invasion goes, has the easier task -- denying the Straits to China. A blockade would be another matter since maintaining the blockade would be the easier task, but would take a long time to have an effect. And once you've got the US's attention, the US can act, as Yamamoto found out.
SlowBoy
34m ago
Trump has been doing business in New York for 40 years and the only crime they can charge him on is something nobody has ever been charged for before -- "falsifying records" is one thing, this is falsifying records used totally for internal purposes, as though he committed fraud upon himself (this has been discussed to death in other comments in this thread by now).
There is no one who has ever been charged with anything similar to this. You want to make it sound as though Trump is contemptuous of law because he described money paid to his lawyer as legal expenses, for arranging an NDA, which is legal, with a porn star, which is legal. If Trump was as contemptuous of law as you suggest, maybe there would be other bookkeeping crimes to charge him with that don't involve felony upcharges on underlying crimes that are not specified.
f3zinker
Its A/B testing all the way down
35m ago
Looks like a decent itinerary. Keep in mind that Dec 29-Jan 3 is around Shogatsu so a lot of stuff will be closed/limited during those days. Double check that the stuff you want to do is accessible/open.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to call up a bunch of places and see if they are going to be open. Im assuming restaurants and bars are at least open, in the worst case?
Also, don't do the Shibuya go carts, you'll just look like a tool and piss off everyone around you. If you want to do something quirky there are a million more interesting things to do even just right there in Shibuya. There are a billion cool an unique bars, live music venues, edgy boutique stores, and more. TBH you could probably just wander around Dogenzaka for an hour or two and have a great time.
Nope, go karting through the city sounds like a grand fucking idea and I will do it. We like the act of driving and want various driving-based activities.
Nevertheless, what other quirky things would you recommend? A bit more specific.
Mt Fuji is impressive and worth seeing. Good choice. Instead of driving, you might consider taking a fancy train with a beautiful view so you can chill and eat snacks and enjoy the ride. Driving in Japan is IME pretty dreary, slow, and tedious. Around Tokyo, lots of of highways routed through ugly/inconvenient areas with no view and often with large sound barriers so you can't see much. Don't know about the route to Narusawa specifically.
I plant to redo this drive: https://youtube.com/watch?v=TUgfiNg06GQ
And rent a car from here: https://fun2drive-japan.com/
Never been to Sapporo but I've heard great things about it and Hokkaido in general.
I hope so. I want to sneak in some winter activities and Sapporo should be the place to be.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
37m ago
no more love for the conservative religious right in Israel
But the article is saying there is a systemic issue in Israel generally, not just regarding the right in Israel. They are also jeopardizing their Democrat interests by publishing things which may lead Zionists shifting to the Republican Party. It’s not as simple as “they are liberal therefore criticize Israel”.
MartianNight
38m ago
In the near future, the ethnic Dutch will be a minority in the capital.
They already are. Amsterdam put the overall population at 44% Dutch alone, 19% of Western descent, and 36% of non-Western descent (PDF source), and that was in 2020.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
39m ago
Maybe he does? I hate this idea that only Jews living in Israel have the esoteric moral knowledge regarding Israel. Sorry but you have been a controversial nation for decades, lots of people know how Israeli politics work.
Really? Can you explain in detail the Israeli parliamentary system, the various factions that are currently part of the government coalition, how Haradim are currently seen by the right and the left, exactly when the Israeli left and support for a two-state solution collapsed (hint: long before October 7), and numerous other surface-level details about Israeli politics? Not even getting into esoteric or political wonk territory? Do you know how the feelings of Israelis in Tel Aviv and in the settlements differ? Do you know why Netanyahu was on the verge of being turned out just before October 7? Can you explain the controversy that was the top Israeli political issue the day before October 7?
I don't think you can (you, specifically, because your analysis of Israel always begins and ends with "Jews"), and I think very few people can, especially outside of Israel, in the same way that most people in the world have a general understand of American politics (they know we're essentially a two-party system with Republicans=conservative and Democratics=liberal), but how many of them understand the electoral college and why there is so much emphasis on "swing states," the implications of mid-term elections, the factions within the Republican and Democratic parties, and other more complicated details that only someone who is actually knowledgeable about the political system can describe?
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
40m ago
I think the odds are very low. The US has made meaningful steps towards developing their own semiconducter production capacity, but they aren't there yet, so that means they still need TMSC. Biden has also made explicit statements asserting that a move on Taiwan would be met with military intervention. Moving now risks American retaliation.
Wait some number of years and the situation is different. Biden will be gone, possibly replaced by a new president more willing to let Taiwan fend for themselves. TMSC chips won't be so irreplaceable. If Xi wants to take Taiwan but does not want to start WW3, his best play is to stay patient.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
43m ago
Eh. I grew up drinking raw milk (as did the rest of my family) and not one of us ever had an issue. I think the need for pasteurization to stay safe is vastly overstated.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
44m ago
That potato recipe sounds like some fat fuck shit
That's a good thing. Fat people don't get fat by eating food that tastes bad.
TracingWoodgrains
48m ago
Beautiful essay. I don’t quite agree, nor do I quite disagree, but it makes me think.
My own perspective on body modification is that the body is worth handling with deep seriousness and forethought. Our culture lacks much of the framework to make modification like tattoos meaningful, but more dramatic changes are inherently more meaningful (for better or worse) — people should approach them with seriousness and we should build proper frameworks around them if they intend to pursue them. Such frameworks are buildable but effortful, and are mostly not individual efforts. They can’t be divorced from societal context. A meaningless tattoo is no more or less a tragedy than the rest of a meaningless life.
Is the context you outline sufficient justification? That’s not really up to me, and it certainly isn’t my style, but it seems like people are having a good time. You make a compelling defense.
MartianNight
51m ago
There is some source data here: https://ggdgezondheidinbeeld.nl/ (in Dutch)
For the survey mentioned in the linked article, they surveyed 5351 high school students in grades 2 and 4 (ages between 13 and 16). The survey is primarily about life style and (mental) health; the question about acceptance of homosexuality was phrased like this:
What's your opinion on two girls/women or boys/men being in love with each other?
❑ Normal
❑ A little weird
❑ Very weird
❑ Wrong
Apparently 46% answered normal (down from 71% in 2019) and 25% answered wrong (up from 13%).
Rov_Scam
55m ago
It's not a crime to try to conceal personal information, obviously. But whether or not that was Trump's intent in falsifying the records is a question for the jury. My point was simply that that the statute he was charged with violating has a lower standard of proof than the underlying act itself, and that the evidence was sufficient for the government to make a prima facia case; doing so doesn't require them to prove the underlying act, or even an attempt to commit the underlying act.
None of this implies we can let up in our fight against it. Wokeness is like kudzu, if you leave even a single vine intact it'll come back, and faster than you think.
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