domain:drmanhattan16.substack.com
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
23hr ago
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Speed limit is too low → mayor continues to enforce speed limit → convicted speeders get angry and complain to their municipal councilors → municipal councilors change speed limit
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Speed limit is too low → mayor stops enforcing speed limit → there are no convicted speeders to get angry → no municipal councilors have any reason to care about the speed limit
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
23hr ago
This is a shooting based on anti police sentiment. There’s no strong connection between that and the debate here, which is about anonymity.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
23hr ago
But not, notably, targeted ambushes. A 2014 report claimed somewhat lazily that about a quarter of all ambushes had an assailant that had a prior relationship (broadly and vaguely defined) with the officer. Two thirds were spontaneous. Reading between the lines, the reasonable assumption is that it’s probably more like 1 in 8 ambushes that loosely fits your profile (ambushes themselves seem to be maybe a quarter of all “officers get shot at”). And I suspect ambushes where a very specific officer is the actual and only target is small, even there I’m not convinced their name being public is moving the margins much.
Dont get me wrong policing in general is “fucked”. I wouldn’t want to be one. In the general sense though, we do trade cop deaths for other benefits, much like we trade other deaths for other benefits all the time. It’s normal in a society. Cold as it may sound, it seems the marginal drawbacks to no-mask policy are worth the non-marginal gains in trust. And for that matter, at least naively my first assumption is that ICE agents are more, not less, safe from targeted retribution (presumably mostly gangs and cartels) because they know escalation doesn’t benefit them (stateside).
benmmurphy
23hr ago
Somehow this reminds of one of Kulak's posts on his blog about how different cultures treat animals differently. This is much more frowned upon in Western culture but maybe in other cultures this is not such a big deal.
AI (and more specifically multimodal LLMs) will radically transform the life of every man, woman and child on earth in the next decade.
But that doesn’t mean there won’t be a huge valuation bubble burst along the way.
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There’s extreme cross-ownership / circular dealing in the market where Nvidia is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI companies and data centers who buy its chips, pushing up their valuations, meaning they can borrow and issue more capital to make more orders for more GPUs, meaning NVIDIA can pour more money into… etc. This is and has been widely noted as a feature of all major sector-driven bubbles in the history of capitalism.
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Even if AI ends up being huge (and it will), that doesn’t mean most people are going to make money on it. The railroad bubble is the most famous example of this; between the 1840s and 1890s every major capital market on earth had multiple successive railroad bubbles (which were the ultimate cause of almost every financial crisis in this era because speculative railroad investments failing triggered bank crises / runs and subsequent failures which triggered credit crises that spiralled out in weeks to the wider market). Railroads really did change the world and drive huge improvements in commerce and communication, and therefore economic growth and productivity specifically. But most people who invested in the railroad business lost the majority of what they put in, even in cases in which construction was completed. Today, commercial railroads are relatively profitable after 130+ years of consolidation and modest valuations, and passenger railroads all lose money outside of Japan.
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Big AI companies have no moats. Competitive models are at least semi-open-sourced. Brand means nothing when most corporate and consumer platforms can be easily switched over to another foundation model in seconds, if OpenAI ekes out more margin then you switch to Anthropic or XAI or vice versa, and price-per-token gains are quickly made by all the big players; engineers jump between them far too often to maintain a real competitive edge for long. Plus, whether you’re 3% better at an arbitrary benchmark means very little to most corporates, so within broad quality categories price will be the main factor. AI datacenters have the same GPUs and so compete solely on price for compute; they have tiny labor / upkeep costs, so this is essentially just electricity and GPU depreciation (the latter of which will be an industry standard before long if it isn’t already) plus a tiny margin that your competitors will constantly be chipping away for everyone. Everyone in AI except Nvidia is selling a commodity with little pricing power, and even with Nvidia a bubble burst will depress demand and AMD and the Chinese may well eventually catch up.
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Many industries that will be initially disrupted by AI will collapse almost entirely rather than shifting to being primarily AI customers. If half the big SaaS or advertising or media companies signing megabillion AI contracts implode because AI code tools allow their valuable corporate clients or end users (in the case of TV, movies, games) to replicate their products and services in house…that actually means lower revenue for the big AI providers, not higher revenue. The same goes for big spenders on white collar software tools like law firms, financial services companies, accountants, consultants, insurers, tech outsourcers and so on. If white collar workers are fired en masse, demand for Microsoft’s central Office 365 product collapses, because it’s billed on a per-user basis. If the ad industry suffers because consumers spend less because they’ve been fired, there goes the source of 80-90% of Google and Meta’s revenue, which means much less to spend on GPUs.
Thus AI’s success and failure are both bearish for these stocks.
It's not the messaging that spooks me out, it's the sheer size of the marketing and education infrastructure that was deployed in order to drive adoption, the speed with which it was ready to go, and who it was targeted at. Public and public-adjacent institutions aren't usually pushing people towards the latest fads, but this is exactly what's happening right now.
The best mundane explanation I can think of is that it's some galaxy-brained eurocrat scheme to Lead The World In Innovation or something, except that doing a free marketing campaign for American tech companies (which they usually low-key hate) is a bit of a weird way of doing that, and even if we go with that explanation that still kinda is a conspiracy.
hydroacetylene
23hr ago
My view of immigration is that there is no market clearing price for first world citizens doing a variety of shitty jobs- you can reallocate the limited supply by offering more money, but you cannot get them fully staffed.
Ideally we would let Hondurans come, make lots of money(for them) and then go home and enjoy the purchasing power advantage. But at a certain point it’s on us for being lazy and incompetent.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
23hr ago
That's been tried before: in 1992 (admittedly under the elder Bush administration) Randy Weaver (not the best of characters, mind you) had an undercover informant request illegal shotgun modifications, then ATF agents shot his dog, shot his son in the back, and shot his unarmed wife who was holding a 10 month old baby.
This was actually a joint Federal operation. ATF entrapped him, a US Marshall killed his dog and his son, and an FBI sniper killed his wife.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
23hr ago
This past Sunday, I received baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
As some of you may be aware, I have been passively orbiting this church with various degrees of interest over the course of my entire life, as a result of family connections and several very close friends. Like most non-Mormons, I found various reasons not to pursue any active interest in the church: the total lack of anthropological/scientific evidence for historicity of its central religious text; the concerning signs of Joseph Smith’s charlatanry and general strategy of “making it up as he went”; the onerous lifestyle restrictions; the financial burden which tithing imposes, etc.
Furthermore, I’m occasionally cited here as an able critic of Christian ideas about theodicy, the efficacy of prayer, and the apparent contradictions between the idea of a loving and omnipotent God on the one hand, and the sheer amount of random and wanton suffering present in our world on the other. People have linked to my somewhat recent discussion with @FCfromSSC regarding this matter as an example.) Thus, it may strike many users here (and does seem to have struck at least some people in my IRL life) as surprising to see me commit myself to this church.
However, about eight weeks ago I was approached by a pair of pleasant-looking young sister missionaries at the mall while leaving the gym. Although I was sore and tired and just wanted to go home, I couldn’t resist stopping to speak with them. We had a conversation about what I believed about the Book of Mormon, and about my research into, and interest in, the church. They invited me to attend services with the local Young Single Adults ward that upcoming Sunday, and I accepted. I decided that this would probably be my last opportunity to sincerely immerse myself into the church, at least on a provisional basis, and see what my experience would be. I also, for reasons I’ll keep personal, saw this as at least possibly an answer to prayers I’d offered not too long ago. Since that day, I have consistently attended Sunday church services (both the sacrament meeting and the subsequent scripture discussion sessions, where I’ve been an active participant even since my first week of attendance as an “investigator” of the faith) and plan to continue doing so. I have successfully given up coffee (not caffeine entirely, although I’m actively working to reduce my daily caffeine consumption and dependence) and pornography. (I had already drastically decreased my alcohol consumption, so reducing it even further to zero has been trivially easy.) I’ve attended various social events organized by the ward, which has allowed me to ensconce myself into a community of bright, wholesome, surprisingly-mature and well-grounded young people. I finally decided that baptism is the next important step — a costly signal of my escalating commitment.
It is difficult for me to articulate the reasons for my decision in a way that would meet the intellectual standards of this forum. I still have many of the same doubts I did before accepting baptism; I still don’t believe that the Book of Mormon is a historically-accurate description of real events that took place in the pre-Columbian Americas. (Rather, I currently believe that it is an allegorical text, intended by God to usher in a new dispensation by providing a scriptural text which would be narratively and intellectually compelling to the specific audience to which He intended it to be presented, given their particular interests, level of historical understanding, and literary/religious frame of reference.) I still have a lot of questions about Joseph Smith’s character, intentions, and leadership qualities. I’m still working on wrapping my mind around what it actually means to aspire to live a Christ-like existence; toward what political/philosophical positions and actions does this obligate me? There are, however, many elements of Mormon theology and the Mormon lifestyle which appeal very strongly to me. (Ideas about the Plan of Salvation and the nature of the afterlife being chief among the theological appeals, and the sexual conservatism being the primary secular/lifestyle appeal.) I was strongly influenced and encouraged by a post a few months ago by @2rafa — arguably my favorite poster here, and the one with whom I probably feel the greatest degree of intellectual and personality kinship — in which she implored people here to embrace the benefits of a loving and welcoming religious community and to try hard not to ruin the experience by thinking too deeply and skeptically about the inner workings of the theology. I decided that if she could do it, I should probably try to see if I could as well. So far it has been more enriching than I could have imagined.
Over the coming weeks I will undergo the rites of the lay priesthood common to all male members of the church, set myself up to begin automatically tithing, and begin working towards obtaining a “temple recommend” allowing me to enter LDS temple buildings. I am actively working on finding a spouse with whom I can raise a family; I’ve already been on a lovely date with an intelligent and creative woman (one of the few female members of the ward somewhat close to my age, as most are closer to 18-20) and have another one already arranged. I expect at least a few of these people to become long-term friends. I don’t know what else to expect in terms of how this will affect my life trajectory, what will be asked of me, etc. All I know is that right now I am finally beginning to taste what it might be like to truly believe that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me, that my Redeemer lives, and that he has provided me with a way to dwell with Him eternally along with my loved ones.
roystgnr
23hr ago
Are we not arresting people? There have been a few stories lately (the first to come to mind: Decarlos Brown Jr.'s 14 prior arrests) that suggest that the problem is later in the pipeline.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
23hr ago
Under a month from my upcoming trail race, and then a month after that to the possible second one. I am ready for all this training to be over. Trying to get in a 10-mile run on a weekday morning is tough, to say nothing of the weekend runs.
Also, it's funny how thin 195 lbs. feels after years in the 210-215 range. I'm still 20 pounds heavier than my endurance race weight when I was in my late 20s, but that was years ago and doesn't count in my mind the same way.
07mk
23hr ago
Occam's razor suggests Americans opinion of this is probably being shaped by the things ICE is deliberately doing to shape their image.
I'm not sure how Occam's razor would suggest such a thing. There's nothing more parsimonious about that than Americans' opinions being shaped just as much by the organizations that have shaped Americans' opinions in the past and continue to do so through today. It's clearly being shaped by both, and it's very difficult to parse out which has more influence, and parsimony doesn't really offer us any answers.
ChestertonsMeme
blocking the federal fist
23hr ago
I would appreciate an in-depth defense of this claim. I'm a big proponent of following the law as it is, but working to change bad laws. If changing the law requires violating it then I would have to rethink my stance.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1d ago
Words are words, and actions are actions. If ICE agents actually come to major and life threatening harm as a direct result of city-mandated inaction, that’s one thing. If the Chicago mayor says inflammatory things that’s another. Trump floated using the Insurrection act, but it’s a major stretch from the actions POV (which is what matters way, way more in legal matters) to jump straight to claiming actual insurrection and rebellion. Trump has gotta sit and wait for evidence. Much like I disapprove of “declaring” emergencies (IMO you need to have, you know, an actual emergency and not just a political agitation) I strongly disapprove of that kind of crackdown based on what “might” happen. I know it kind of sucks if you’re convinced overreach is inevitable (on either side!) but the simple sucky fact is that usually you need to wait for things to actually happen (or not happen) before you can take the next step. Perception of inevitability is time-proven to be not at all equal to actual inevitability.
And on the facts the local government will always be reasonable for preventing the feds from setting up in school district parking lots (the practical and contextual issue at hand, less so some kind of Seattle lawless zone 2.0). It’s reasonable for the city to object to these actions hindering the normal and peaceful operation of their city. Even if you’re a “make immigrants uncomfortable on purpose” type, there’s a compelling public interest in making schools off-limits.
07mk
1d ago
I'm reminded of an ironic line someone posted in a comment back on slatestarcodex or perhaps the subreddit, well before TheMotte was a thing:
I'm principled! My principles are, everything for my team, nothing for yours, and win at any cost.
I'm also reminded of a discussion I had on the SlateStarCodex subreddit with someone probably around 2020, when they were arguing that Twitter was being perfectly principled in selectively censoring Trump, since they were following the principle of "I don't want Trump to speak" (it might have been some different public figure on some different platform - my memory is fuzzy).
If you make principles sufficiently absolute or sufficiently bespoke, then you can make any behavior principled. Which, sort of like "everything is political," is really just word games, since the entire point of words having meaning is to discriminate between things that match that word and things that don't, and this destroys this ability to discriminate between "principled" and "unprincipled."
Either that, or perhaps it forces people to explicitly declare which principles are involved, forcing people to recognize different principles that each other have that were only implicit until then.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1d ago
I mean sure. All we know is Americans don't like something about what's happening. Occam's razor suggests Americans opinion of this is probably being shaped by the things ICE is deliberately doing to shape their image.
What if the Democrats spin up the "super ATF" who start kidnapping people who fuck up their gun paperwork into unmarked vans to be sent to Romania?
That's been tried before: in 1992 (admittedly under the elder Bush administration) Randy Weaver (not the best of characters, mind you) had an undercover informant request illegal shotgun modifications, then ATF agents shot his dog, shot his son in the back, and shot his unarmed wife who was holding a 10 month old baby.
And they followed this up a year later by, on a rather flimsy set of weapons allegations, (allegedly) lighting on fire and demolishing the Branch Davidian (David Koresh again not the best of characters) compound near Waco, killing 76, including 25 children.
The resulting backlash was complicated [1] (and also pretty terrible, but Weaver did win a civil suit and there were some later investigations of the Waco incident that weren't entirely supportive of the government side), but seemed to usher in a ceasefire in practice, with the gun folks (mostly) filling out all their paperwork and ATF not shooting up (too many) places (see the two Bundy standoffs in which they didn't go scorched earth). Although the two sides, as far as I can tell, don't really have tremendous fondness for each other still.
faul_sname
Fuck around once, find out once. Do it again, now it's science.
1d ago
Looking at foreign-born fraction, I see
- Birmingham AL: 4.36% foreign-born
- St Louis MO: 6.47% foreign-born
- Memphis TN: 7.38% foreign-born
- Baltimore MD: 8.67% foreign-born
- Detroit MI: 5.87% foreign-born
For reference 13.8% of all US residents are foreign-born by the same metric. If you're going to Notice things about the populations of those cities, the things you notice are not going to be immigration-related.
Unless you're saying the hispanic people have a sense of racial solidarity with other minorities, to which I have to ask whether you've ever talked to a mexican person because they are usually second only to indians in expressed racism.
I don't think you need to conclude there's a 'conspiracy' to notice that the messaging around AI is a bit schizo right now.
You've got anyone who is deeply invested in the industry constantly vaguely implying that the next big improvement is going to be "THE ONE" that makes it able to replace almost any knowledge work, and that this is inevitable and good.
BUT those same people will try to downplay the actual power/risks of their product. "Sure we're trying to build GOD here, but c'mon don't impose oversight, that would be lame!"
And the AI Doomers who are kinda helping the hype by suggesting that the AI is going to go FOOM sooner than expected and completely upend human society (in the best case) and end us all in the worst.
But they're not very good at arguing for more oversight for various reasons, since their case demands a complete pause or shutdown, rather than merely regulating and monitoring it.
And then the part where the rubber meets the road is in a very odd state. Some people saying that "vibe coding" apparently works but the products coming out there are pretty subpar as far as I've seen. And some industries seem to be integrating AI pretty readily whereas others (like yours) are finding it to be a hassle that might justify the costs but isn't impressive on its own merits.
Consumers can use it for a lot of things that aren't directly productive and capabilities are increasing there but not necessarily towards "able to do all jobs everywhere." Fun distractions on offer, though.
And obviously there's massive capital outlays going into datacenters and power to run them. And you would expect that the smart people spending this money wouldn't do so unless there was some expectation it would return on their investment.
But right now it looks like they're bleeding money that has to constantly be replaced by infusions of VC cash.
Which hey, that's fine if its an actual growth industry. But the capabilities have to grow pretty rapidly if they'll live up to the hype. And then you've got the Oroborous of companies producing the chips investing in the companies selling the compute investing in the companies buying the compute. Either everyone has a lot of faith in where this is going, or they're desperate to keep the train rolling as long as possible and maybe something surprising happens or they can line their pockets and hop off before disaster.
So its really starting look like the goal is "Functional AGI or bust," with 'bust' being the literal implosion of the industry, even if the tech continues to improve.
Totalitarianit
1d ago
they don't do this to cops, even during the 2020 summer of love
Here's a study out of Canada about doxxing officers.
just arrest people who do this
You could arrest someone who is doing something illegal sure. How many things could you think of right now that are technically legal but that would really stress someone out after they know they're identity as ICE agent has been revealed? I know I can think of probably a handful.
if ICE was in any way sympathetic to the median American, doxxing them would make the Dems look terrible, and prosecuting them would make Republicans look great. If half the country is fine with them getting doxxed, you have fucked up massively, and only have yourself to blame.
The perception from the left is that they are not sympathetic, so this point is moot before you even begin to explain the rest of it.
07mk
1d ago
That's not how statistics work. It's quite possible that this action by ICE is making Americans like it more, it's just countered by the other stuff around optics that's also happened in that time lowering it. In whole, we can say that Americans like it less now than they did in January - we cannot say that one individual act that happened in that time caused the net negative effect, i.e. which is why I said "I'd wager that," not "it is the case that" or even "it is evident that."
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
Back then the police was the target of a mass freakout the same way ICE is now, when the Blues stop using their media apparatus to drive a moral panic about ICE the shootings will also stop. It has nothing to do with organic unpopularity.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1d ago
You actually see a lot of cop ambushes. Because you don't need to murder them in their sleep when you can literally call them out to you.
Police officers across U.S. face crisis as ambush shootings rise: "It just happened out of nowhere"
Fact of the matter is, policing in Democrat controlled areas is fucked. When they aren't being ambushed and murdered, politicians are throwing them under the bus, or to the wolves, and recruitment has completely collapsed. Nobody wants to police Democrat controlled areas with politicians literally putting targets on their back. I wouldn't pretend everything is all hunky dory in the land of policing.
Primaprimaprima
Aliquid stat pro aliquo
1d ago
Somebody has to pick the crops and slaughter the chickens and thats a very reasonable principled exception.
???????
That’s not principled at all.
If your “principle” is “no illegals, except for these specific jobs that natives shouldn’t sully themselves with” then that’s just a comedic farce and the left would absolutely have every right to spit in ICE’s face in that case.
It is? I have literally never encountered anyone in real life that uses one or even talked of using one outside of joking about doing something cartoonishly evil.
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