domain:infonomena.substack.com
pigeonburger
4hr ago
Yeah, I imagine that's the bulk of what they do. And all the time spent shadowing the Chinese subs, US sonarmen get better at identifying them, and more sound from the particular screw on these boats' propeller gets recorded and then processed to help algorithms pick it up from noise.
Zephyr
4hr ago
You misunderstand - I’m not claiming that jobs are a fixed number, but I am claiming that they do not track 1-to1 with population change.
To take an absolutely toy example - say 1 farmer can serve a population of up to 50. If you have an initial population of 20, you will have 1 farmer. If you add an additional 25 people to the population, you will still only need a singular farmer. If 5 of the people added are only qualified to do farming, you will have fierce competition for the farming job, as the population can’t support 5 farmers.
What I am saying is happening here is that there is a percentage of the population that is currently employable as manual labour. The manual labour jobs are kept cheap by having this population supplemented by immigrant labour. Removing the immigrant population that is currently taking these roles reduces the number of total jobs, but by less than the number of immigrants removed.
Even were the number of jobs 100% tied to the population (which I dispute, based on the percentage of the population that is NEET), you’d still see a temporary advantage for the workers - jobs are sticky. Picture it like pulling a bucket of pudding out of a bathtub - the area where you pulled out the bucket will temporarily have a void, which slowly gets replenished by the area around it, until the entire tub is back and level. This would give employees in that market tremendous leverage, as they can name their price while the employers are recovering from the shock.
MathWizard
Good things are good
4hr ago
I see where you're coming from. On a gut level I immediately want to retort that punishment and forgiveness should be equally affected by your smallness and anonymity. If you're just one of many people such that your forgiveness barely matters, then your punishment barely matters too, especially since the external outcome of your forgiveness would be the cessation of your punishment/shaming.
But since it's also the case that
A: Punishments are applied in a decentralized way, with each person using their own individual criteria for what should receive shame
B: The impact of punishment via shame is nonlinear. Getting 20 death threats doesn't actually feel twice as bad as getting 10 death threats, so reducing the number of shamers by 50% doesn't actually help all that much.
Your point probably stands. Aella could repent and change her ways, and maybe 50% of people would forgive her and the shame would go down, but the other 50% would continue And also probably a bunch of sex-positive people would start shaming her and it might even end up worse. So then she's paid the massive social and lifestyle costs of repenting without actually solving the shame. Without a near-universally recognized authority who can forgive her and enforce other people's forgiveness (in deed, even if not in belief), she has no incentive to repent (beyond a genuine realization of being wrong and a self-sacrificing desire to do the right thing despite the costs).
Which in turn massively decreases the pro-social utility of shame. The point of punishments is to disincentivize the punished behavior, both on the part of the person being punished, and other people who witness them. But we've essentially lost half of that. If we make her miserable enough maybe we'll scare others away from following her example, but sometimes young people are stupid and do stuff before they realize the consequences. And anyone who does and then changes their mind is just stuck in a world where they can't be forgiven. Or more likely, doubles down on the side they're already on because they know they can't go back.
I don't know that we can do anything about that. But it still kind of sucks.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4hr ago
Yes to turn signals otherwise they don’t become habitual,
No to stop signs because a rolling stop doesn’t necessarily increase safety (I find full-stop people often actually delay braking more),
No to strict speed because not even civil engineers intend them to be literal law, and anyways you sometimes need to speed to pass,
No, many roads aren’t wide enough for half the lane to be purely a passing lane and close trailing is dangerous,
Yes, but mostly because I lived in Miami for a while where all drivers are aggressive,
No; all these norms should be universal,
Until I die I will insist that full (non LED-obscene level) brightness lights should be required on all cars, all times of day, all lighting conditions.
Felagund
4hr ago
Why bother? Because forcing yourself and the other person to dig, think through unexpected things, etc. makes both of you come to more nuanced, defensible, in-touch-with-reality versions of your positions.
And secondly, for the sake of those watching, who may not yet have committed to positions.
I'm agreed with you that we're on a terrible trajectory. E.g. the judiciary and presidency are on a crash course almost no matter what happens, given that, right now, all the district judges are making ridiculous TROs far overstepping their power (so that ignoring the courts is a growing sentiment on the online right), and on the other hand, the democrats want to pack the court. The chances we have a judiciary functioning properly in 30 years feel much lower than I would like. That's just an example, across the board, from both sides we're seeing escalations, radicalization, degradation of norms, which invites more of the same.
Felagund
5hr ago
Could you elaborate on what you meant by this? I'm not tracking perfectly:
Because there's still quite a lot of us on the left who fundamentally dispute the framing of
COVID gamesmanship about religious services or with visas
I very much do not grant this!
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
5hr ago
Where do you live where they have letters in the speed limits?
That's what road grades are.
fmac
5hr ago
I don't really see the issue with having a short list of "countries worth defending"
My list is incredibly short, and it's getting shorter as western nations/political elites signal clearly that their values and mine are becoming more and more at odds
Basically every historical country isn't worth defending as of 2025, because human society and norms have changed since then, and now they'd be outdated.
If I lived in the 1800s, I'd like the countries around then, and shit on the countries from 1600 for being backwards idiots. But I don't live in the 1800s so instead I look down on them for being backwards idiots. I imagine the people of 2200 will feel that way about us.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5hr ago
Fake history. The Six-Day War was started by Israel and they were the aggressor in Suez.
This is, at the very least, debatable. Egypt massed troops on the border and was making threats (and closed the Straits of Tiran after Israel said they would consider this an act of war). Whether Nasser was just saber-rattling for appearances, or really meant to attack Israel we may never know, but if you mass troops on the border of a hostile neighbor and talk about how you're going to finish the job you failed to do last war, you should not be surprised if your neighbor decides to take you seriously.
The guerilla tactics used in Israel's early days were not nice. Nor is the ongoing occupation. Israelis and Arabs are certainly both guilty of war crimes. That said, you seem like most dedicated Israel-haters to take every Hamas PR release at face value while playing down Palestinian atrocities. Israel might not have a lot of charity left for Palestinians, but they'd still take even a disadvantageous deal if they actually believed it would lead to peace. (Obviously, the likelihood of this now is very close to zero.)
Israel isn't pure good facing pure evil. Israel has as much blood on their hands as every other country, and more than most, but they're facing people who are even worse. Sorry, that's the truth, and I have sympathy for Palestinians, but both their government (what there is of it) and, frankly, their culture, is terrible. Even other Arabs hate Palestinians and couldn't care less about dead Palestinian children except as props to make Israel look bad.
Maybe we should just abandon Israel and let them sink or swim on their own. I'd actually be okay with that, as long as there are no crocodile tears when Israel says "Fine, we'll show you what a genocide actually looks like."
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
5hr ago
2: Stop signs are periods, not commas.
3: Where do you live where they have letters in the speed limits? All the ones I've seen are made out of numbers!
phailyoor
5hr ago
I post on here because it's fun. And I hope I am smart enough to stop if it ever stops being so.
We may be having some of the highest quality political discourse on the internet right here, but in the grand scheme of things we're relatively inconsequential. Winning the discussion here won't stop knuckleheads from spouting idiotic lies elsewhere, and certainly won't result in political change.
Nothing ever happens.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
5hr ago
I've always wanted to watch a drunk driving track race. Every pit stop involves pounding a couple shots.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5hr ago
He made it personal first?
Are you a nation? Or are you unable to parse grammatical structures such as the general "you"?
Maybe you should stop making it personal. Have a vendetta since I think your forum's rules are garbage and are strangling this place into irrelevancy.
People have been saying this since years before we left reddit.
Never liked you on the old forum either before you made mod since all the regulars quit.
Stop, you'll hurt my feelings.
You've been told many times to stop doubling down and stop trying to antagonize us because you don't like the modding. You don't have to like the modding, or me. I don't care because you're a very low-value poster. But keep coming at me and other posters like this and you will start getting longer bans.
fmac
5hr ago
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yes, more for the habit, also 0 cost
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yes, risk/reward is so bad here (risk: permanently ruin someone's life, reward: save a miniscule fraction of your time)
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yes but only if we make speed limits actually reflect the limit (so like 125-130km/h) and then vigorously enforce above that with automated methods. I have always found it deeply ridiculous speed limits are actually speed limit + ~10-20% because now I have to think about what speed above the speed limit is below cop's threshold to do something about it. So stupid.
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yes, unless there's tons of traffic. If you are in the left lane slowing people behind you (and there's room in other lanes) you are consenting to being bullied. I just pass these idiots on the right though, not worth the negative vibes of tailgating and high-beaming people.
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now that I own a car in Toronto I have become ruthless. I let others in, and if you don't let me in and I need to get in, I am going. I don't aggro cut people off because I'm not risking my car getting smoked, but in busy cites you need to make your space.
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I try not to because it's good to have good habits and driving like an asshole is toxic to your vibes. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't.
fmac
5hr ago
You gotta give more details on how using your turn signals is harmful for you
Also what kind of BMW do you drive? My buddy just got an M3 with I think one of the last naturally aspirated (?) engines and it's such a monster.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
5hr ago
Despite every war being started by the Arabs
Fake history. The Six-Day War was started by Israel and they were the aggressor in Suez.
More recently, (Sharon) acted with generosity by withdrawing from Gaza in 05.
He did that because he concluded it wasn't demographically practical to settle, demolish Palestinian houses and do the standard divide-and-conquer tactics in Gaza. Sharon was not a generous man in any reasonable sense. His military career included war crimes, he founded Unit 101 and is responsible for the Qibya Massacre amongst other things.
Ariel Sharon wrote in his diary that "Qibya was to be an example for everyone," and that he ordered "maximal killing and damage to property". Post-operational reports speak of breaking into houses and clearing them with grenades and shooting.
JCPoA (Iran Nuclear deal) was signed
The US reneged on this when Trump got into office, Trump being heavily backed by Israeli lobbyists who got what they were paying for.
Imagine if your daughter got raped and murdered. Then your friend says "she had it coming".
It really isn't this simple. The Israelis have a habit of shooting Palestinian children in the back, along with unarmed protestors. There's a lot of bad blood on both sides. The Arabs are not nice people either. Wars are unpleasant, borders are formed by bloodshed. However, it is inappropriate and ahistorical to valorize Israel as though they're pure good facing pure evil.
Where is the outrage over all the Palestinians who get sodomized or tortured in Israeli prisons? Israeli parliamentarians have said, on camera, 'oh they had it coming, they're Hamas, we can do anything we like!' The Muslim world are the ones who get upset about this, along with people who read various UN or Human rights reports on the subject. The 'free palestine' leftists are doing the same thing as you, seeing both real and imagined evils of one party, siding with the other and then ignoring their own flaws. This kind of skewed perspective eventually creates support for unsound policies, rousing excessive passions about other people's wars.
If Iran's nuclearization is inevitable
They've been six months away from nukes for 30 years now, according to Israeli intelligence. How is this line of argument evergreen?
fmac
5hr ago
That bike lane discussion you linked to was so much fun.
Very illuminating however, your point about living in entirely different worlds really resonated with me. I haven't interacted with someone with such orthogonal views to mine in a long time. I can usually understand where people come from and why they think they way they do, but it was very hard here. The level of anger and reality denial was quite something.
Also very funny to see any pretense of "rationalism" or truth-seeking completely fly out the window to be replaced by personal anecdotes and confirmation bias.
Great time, would do again. I think my answer to "why bother" is because it's fun feeling self righteous anger and arguing circles around people. I'm happy I discovered this website.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
5hr ago
A drunk driving test should be part of the licensing process, wherein your BAC is monitored while you execute various driving tasks and are force fed alcohol and you should be personally assigned a legal BAC just like you are issued a personal prescription from your eye doctor for your glasses.
Unreasonably fun with incredible bragging rights. Let's go!
sarker
It isn't happening, and if it is, it's a bad thing
5hr ago
Then there was the child tax credits, the stimulus checks, etc. Money went to everyone across the class spectrum.
Of course, but we all know that poor people have more kids and that poor people are more likely to spend the marginal dollar rather than save it.
Reading your article, it looks like the increase in wages was caused primarily by Minimum Wage laws increasing wages by fiat.
I didn't read the article's causal analysis and don't stand by it. I knew from prior reading that wages increased most for those at the bottom of the distribution and grabbed the first article that Google found.
I am skeptical that minimum wage laws make a big difference here given that few positions pay near minimum wage, but I admit I haven't looked closely into this.
If you are correct, then should not it be obvious to an economically savvy publication to be terrified of the resulting inflation?
Or is inflation a little more complicated than that?
People don't like to think about demand-pull inflation or the wage-price spiral for these very reasons, but unfortunately facts apparently don't care about my feelings.
Inflation occurs when aggregate demand outstrips aggregate supply. Covid torpedoed a bunch of supply chains, reducing supply and everyone got helicopter money (and don't forget eviction moratoria and a million other things) that juiced demand. The result is as you see it.
remzem
5hr ago
Only if you maintain your insubordinate and anti-American behaviors
He made it personal first?
Maybe you should stop making it personal. Have a vendetta since I think your forum's rules are garbage and are strangling this place into irrelevancy. Never liked you on the old forum either before you made mod since all the regulars quit.
anti_dan
5hr ago
Yes - cyclists breaking laws is much more tolerable than motorists doing so and people that want to hold them to the same standard are being ridiculous. Cyclists rolling stop signs is completely fine, for example.
No thank you. The risk to both parties is similar. There is a great chance of both lives being ruined.
phailyoor
5hr ago
Bikers should have the right to use the full lane, but also the obligation to let traffic pass whenever practicable
anti_dan
6hr ago
- No. Totally useless and actively harmful like most traffic laws when strictly enforced.
- No. Totally useless and actively harmful like most traffic laws when strictly enforced.
- No. Totally useless and actively harmful like most traffic laws when strictly enforced.
- No(ish). The left lane is a lane. We should utilize all lanes. When traffic is slow it is better to use them all and it would be stupid chaos if people were passing, merging, then being passed in the left lane. But, if you are slow in the left lane while there is open road, you should be tailgated, and all liability for any collisions should attach to you, the slow loser.
- This situation does not exist. People don't have time for this shit. Just drive everyone.
- I find these rules largely evil and written for the purposes of giving out arbitrary traffic tickets, not improving driving conditions on the road. So lots of people should be allowed to ignore them. HOWEVER, many people who have drivers licenses should not have such driving privileges. The test should obviously be much more vigorous and then we could make traffic laws that are actually reasonable.
- A drunk driving test should be part of the licensing process, wherein your BAC is monitored while you execute various driving tasks and are force fed alcohol and you should be personally assigned a legal BAC just like you are issued a personal prescription from your eye doctor for your glasses.
Its a good question, although it appears I've come about to it from the opposite direction you have.
The factor that has gotten me to just about throw in the towel on the entire concept of political discourse is watching for four years while one side kept pointing out that Joe Biden was very probably demented in the most medically literal sense of the term, and the other side, the full weight of every mainstream/respectable media and academic outlet claimed this was a nutty conspiracy.
Then the presidential debate happened.
And now, having the exact same parties who maintained that he was just fine and dandy are doing the rounds on book tours and media interviews claiming "SOME (completely unidentifiable) PARTICULAR PERSONS IN THE WHITE HOUSE MISLED EVERYBODY ABOUT BIDEN'S MENTAL ACUITY." No way, really? Somehow they seemed quite eager to be misled in this way.
And now that we've admitted to being misled, are we casting blame anywhere? Why... no. Its all just a completely amorphous conspiracy comprised of nobody in particular. Oh well. What a weird chapter in history that we can now close while suffering no consequences whatsoever.
Just a perfect encapsulation of the problem: an enforced narrative that nobody is permitted to question, a breaking point where the narrative CANNOT be maintained in the face of unavoidable reality. A brief period of panicked denial... then distraction... and finally a very carefully constructed withdrawal that absolves anyone of blame and pretends the whole issue was just an honest mistake with little or no malicious motivation whatsoever.
How does one fight such a keenly evolved, utterly remorseless memetic entity, where its self-preservation is dependent solely on how many skulls it can lodge itself in as deeply as possible.
I admire its purity. Such a perfectly enclosed epistemic environment, policed by the most advanced egregore wranglers that history has ever produced.
Regardless of how logically sound and carefully researched my arguments are (and I really DO spend a lot of time researching my arguments) it cannot compete with an endless stream of repeated thought terminating cliches and carefully curated facts and stats that grant the pretense of knowledge but deny someone any real understanding of cause and effect.
And now we can add sycophantic LLMs to the mix, which can be curated to at least try to maintain a given narrative and write pleasingly-worded missives that either dodge the real question of what is 'true' or can lead you just far enough along the path towards truth to make you feel informed... then pull you off in a different direction, forgetting to take the last few steps and actually change your mind.
As the kids say, "We're fuckin' cooked."
Of course, I'm so rabidly averse to violent conflict as a first, or second, or even third resort that I am (perhaps irrationally so) very willing to seek peaceful, cooperative resolution options right up until the very moment somebody flicks a fist in my direction.
And my current solution has been to insulate myself from the attack vectors of that memetic entity. Adblock on. No cable tv. No influencers. Don't read the articles, don't listen to the podcaster, don't watch the movie written by the hollywood leftist. Maybe read the books but definitely don't try to discuss the book on reddit. Do not give the hostile egregore full write access to your brain.
I live in one of the reddest areas of a red (formerly purple) state, and have manipulated enough about my immediate environment that the chances of the culture war frontlines ever reaching me are virtually nil. This comes at some level of personal cost, but I've placed such a high value on maintaining my sanity that I GLADLY pay it.
And so I sit here wondering WHY I still pop onto themotte to do a little bit of sparring, keeping my debate skills honed, when even around here the odds of any given argument or set of arguments moving the needle on someone's personal beliefs seem slim.
One of the arguments in favor of democratic modes of government is that it allows peaceful transition of power because elections are viable proxies for battles/military force.
Quoth Federalist No. 10:
That is, the side that manages to pull 51% or more of the population that is engaged enough to vote can reasonably claim "if there was to be a physical war our side, being more numerous, is more likely to win it. In lieu of fighting that would be ruinous to both sides, you will accept our rule for a few years, we will rule with a certain amount of respect/deference, and then we can run another simulation to see if anythings changed."
Of course, it seems like the Dems/lefties haven't managed to process how they got trounced in the last election, even with some thumbs on the scale, and what this implies about their popularity in the country. So they "convulse the society" and "clog the administration" (how many national injunctions are we at?), but are 'unable to execute and mask its violence under... the Constitution.'
And yet we know that democratic elections don't completely avert violence, or else Mexico's most recent election wouldn't have been so damn bloody. Turns out that violence is also a way to influence outcomes in a democracy, when you don't expect the votes to go your way 'organically.' So there's a bit of a feedback loop.
So in a sense, the current upwelling of conflict doesn't read to me as a real instigation to war, but more just a disadvantaged minority faction pressing the 'foment chaos' button as a means of gumming up the works for the majority and maybe influencing outcomes, at least locally, towards their favor.
No, I'm not drawing a moral equivalence between drug cartels and ICE protestors, or even rioters. Just pointing out how these actions are closer to the "open violent conflict" end of the spectrum than the "free discourse and exchange of ideas as means of persuasion" that was idealized by, e.g., the Federalist Papers and that we try to maintain on this forum.
So what are we doing here? What's the point? Why bother?
I'd posit that everyone is in the continual stage of trying to size up the field and gauge the relative power of each tribe so as to determine if it is possible to make any decisive attacks or maneuvers that will lead to one group's victory and ascension to unquestioned rule over the cultural landscape. And the literal landscape, too.
Which faction has the best tacticians? The most guns? The most tightly organized units? The most efficient logistics? The most loyal/zealous footsoldiers? Which is favored by God? (love that scene, perfect illustration of this point about sizing up the force your opponent can bring to bear), which side has their Oppenheimer, their Feynman, their Von Neumann who can build superweapons, memetic or otherwise?
And as long as we're mostly convinced that the aggregate combat strength of each side is approximately at enough parity that the conflict would lead to uncapped casualties, including complete obliteration (which, in the age of nuclear MAD is a real possibility!), then even a conflict that you win is just not worth entering in the first place.
I'd argue that the more kinetic version of this is what led to the openly aggressive conflict with Israel and Palestine... and Israel and Iran, more recently. Israel knows it can pound Palestine into a fine powder if left to do it... but they can't ignore the various potential interlopers who might enter the fray. And so occasionally swatting Iran across the nose is a nice reminder to the rest to keep the claws sheathed.
Its why the Pakistan India thing didn't truly spiral out of control, neither side had a path to victory that wouldn't OBVIOUSLY leave both sides in ruins.
This little site is just one facet of a glittering jewel that is human social network, whose topology is beyond the comprehension of any individual human, but maybe if enough of us enlightened apes discuss our various perspectives and unique insights (we have those, right?) then the collective hivemind can manage to ascertain enough of the rough shape to determine if any particular faction has an egregious edge in power.
Because let me admit, about two years or so ago I would have told you that the Blue Tribe was close to locking insurmountable advantages which it could leverage to maintain complete control, and I was mentally gearing up to have to shoot at [redacted] agents in a last ditch effort to not be assimilated.
And now, though, now it looks like the ballgame is way closer than I anticipated, and I am now more uncertain than before about the current trajectory of U.S. political power. I guess Red Tribe is currently at bat, and they're trying to load up the bases, but really, really counting on some kind of grand slam to put them far ahead before, presumably, blue tribe grabs the levers of power again.
So I keep coming back here, hoping someone will hit on the observation or connect some dots that will help me foresee the unforeseeable and align myself with the right people (or, failing that, align myself AGAINST the right people) to ensure my longer term success and survival.
Some might actually be intending to get froggy if the tide is shown to turn in their favor, and are quietly trying to sense who might fight back, who might ally with them, who might look the other way. Maybe they want moral justification for doing some really nasty thing to the hated opposition. I don't know. But I think we're all at least idly, casually interested in figuring out the shape of the conflict and the ebb and flow of the battle and then making whatever use of that information we can.
And where else can we go for an actual clearheaded view of things?
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