domain:parrhesia.substack.com
OliveTapenade
3d ago
It is true that the US is a strong ally of Israel and spends money on Israel, and it is also true that the US government strongly opposes anti-semitism, including giving grants to some groups dedicated to fighting it.
It's not clear that 1) being critical of either of those things is anti-semitic, 2) that a university punishing a student who harassed a Jewish student is evidence of either of those things or is convincing other people that they are true, or 3) that this is convincing people to be anti-semitic in some further or additional sense.
That is, to the first, it is wholly possible to believe that the US alliance with Israel is wrong and that the US shouldn't spend money on minority issues without being anti-semitic. So even if this incident influences people to believe those things, it's not clear that increases anti-semitism, or reveals the criticisms made by anti-semites to be true.
Presumably anti-semites oppose money being spent on combating anti-semitism, even though it's possible to believe that money shouldn't be spent on combating anti-semitism for non-anti-semitic reasons. But you should not jump from that coincidental agreement to the conclusion that more people are supporting anti-semitism itself.
Here it might be worth the sober reminder that American rejection of anti-semitism appears to be rising, not falling. Per page 5, in 2021 60% of US adults say that anti-semitism was either a somewhat serious or very serious problem, which then rose to 68% in 2022, 74% in 2023, and then fell slightly to 72% in 2024. Noticeably this is not a significantly partisan issue - Democrats are somewhat more likely to say that anti-semitism is a serious issue, but it has equalised recently, and in 2024 70% of Republicans and 74% of Democrats say that it's a problem. Most also believe that anti-semitism has increased in recent years. This makes it at least superficially plausible, to me, that US institutions are coming down harder against anti-semitism because that reflects the genuine popular will of the country.
So the thesis that institutional crackdowns on anti-semitic actions is causing people to become more sympathetic to anti-semitism just seems contrary to the available data. It looks like the American people are becoming more concerned about and more opposed to anti-semitism.
How can the American people be getting more opposed to anti-semitism even while, at the same time, they believe that anti-semitism is becoming a bigger problem? Probably there is a range of understandings of the term (e.g. a Republican might say that anti-semitism is a big problem while thinking of pro-Palestinian protests; Zohran Mamdani says that anti-semitism is a "crisis" that "we have to tackle" but presumably does not have those protests in mind). But it's also possible - in fact, I think likely - that the very small number of militant anti-semites in America has become bolder and more assertive lately, and taken more actions. Thus it can simultaneously be true that anti-semitism, at least as measured in anti-semitic incidents, is increasing even as opposition to anti-semitism increases even more rapidly.
anon_
3d ago
It’s the interiors and user experience that has always bothered me about Teslas. Fragile paneling, that big ugly screen
Must just be a different perspective. I have a fairly new Tesla (2022) and the interior is, in my mind, perfection. None of the stupid buttons everywhere. Just a clean invocation of what you need to drive. There isn't even an "ON" button because you don't need one. Get in the car, hold the brake, get in drive. No off button either, just leave, and it turns off and locks behind you.
By comparison, I got in my buddy's luxury car, and the saturation of useless controls is mind boggling. There is a dial for turning up and down the intensity of the fog lights. How in the world is this an affordance that needs to be in front of a driver? Why should that take up space?
It's not that I'm even against twiddling. But the beauty of software interfaces is that you can put all that stuff in a searchable place.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3d ago
I don't know of any outcry of anyone "upset" as such, because many of the yokozuna of the past have been not-fully-Japanese, but I think after such a spell of Mongolian powerhouses (Asashoryu, Hakuho, Harumafuji, Kakuryu, Terunofuji, etc.) having a Japanese yokozuna brings in fans who like to root for a wrestler who is fully Japanese (though he sucked this last basho as I'm sure you are aware).
FtSoA
3d ago
PEPFAR is bad. It keeps people alive for the sole purpose of spending money to keep them alive.
I suppose if you place zero or negative value on the lives saved by PEPFAR, then yeah, obviously. End it yesterday.
Not sure I'd agree with that proposition, however. I'm not much of a Christian, but I do think George W. Bush had his heart in a charitable place when he got the program going.
The program is obviously unconstitutional.
Congress allocating funds? Is all foreign aid unconstitutional by definition? Generally, the constitution is far more free-wheeling on doing things for foreign policy than it is for domestic policy.
This is a worthwhile comparison in that obviously subsidizing sexual deviancy is bad.
And being able to build houses would also be bad? Like what on earth do you think you're arguing by comparison here?
Those are very different things, to me, personally. Like, sure, most sexual deviancy probably happens in houses, which someone had to build, but that's true of a broad range of human activities. Am I to understand that building more houses would lead to more sexual deviancy?
Like houses are not inherently bad, right? And training locals to build their own housing gets around the classic problem of just providing a good such that the local market demand is satisfied and domestic production gets hurt. Now such training may or may not be a worthwhile charitable intervention, but it's not obviously terrible by default.
You can argue that PEPFAR is not just ineffective, but bad for reasons of sexual deviancy or whatever else without talking about African housebuilding, I think.
GBRK
3d ago
but to an entire population of superhuman Han Chinese
Expecting this to be applied uniformly over an entire population is just entirely wrong. We already have a problem with the overproduction of elites now. There are societal benefits for having widespread high IQ, but the personal benefits are mainly from having a relative advantage. If the current elite class doesn't heavily restrict how proles can use this technology, then a out of the upcoming genetically enhanced generation, ambitious lower-class climbers will seize control of the governing apparatus and then shut the latter behind them. In the "best case" scenario (scare quotes because IVF involves abortion and abortion bad), this technology will be restricted to removing disease-causing variants from the population. (With "diseases" expanded to cover genes that cause aggression and ambition. "Testosterene-linked Psychopathy" or somesuch will be the new "Schizophrenia.") In the "worst" case, this technology will be illegal in a way that remains accessible for only the elites.
FtSoA
3d ago
I could have made it worse and use the ol' LMGTFY.
There are some people in this conversation on various topics, like air conditioning units in Europe, that seemingly want to endlessly debate a relatively minor point that could be resolved with a quick google search and it baffles me.
Lewis2
3d ago
Not the greatest comment for two reasons. First, it’s too snarky by half. Second, my word, that’s a lot of unnecessary tracking info. In case you don’t know, you could have deleted everything after the first “&” and been fine.
anti_dan
3d ago
The abrupt end with little chance for handover to a different org/funding source.
How does this change the problem of the program being bad? PEPFAR is bad. It keeps people alive for the sole purpose of spending money to keep them alive.
How something is ended can matter quite a lot. This was not done gracefully. Or constitutionally, but that's a procedural issue.
Its end was at least as legitimate as its illegitimate beginning. The program is obviously unconstitutional.
I don't think PEPFAR and home construction training programs are a worthwhile comparison.
Why not? These are both hypothetical subsidies to Africans. In one scenario you subsidize sexual deviancy, in the other you subsidize housing. This is a worthwhile comparison in that obviously subsidizing sexual deviancy is bad.
TournamentFishing
3d ago
Well, the names of Harry's mentors are references to esoteric alchemical processes, so it's not the craziest fan theory I've ever heard.
TournamentFishing
3d ago
Take the case of Gerd R, one of the victims mentioned by Pink News. Gerd was a married, heterosexual man who had a history of crossdressing. He was arrested multiple times for public indecency after his neighbours grew tired of finding him hiding naked in their communal bins. He was later rescued from a concentration camp by the intervention of his doctor, who pointed out that he was heterosexual.
I think this segment is worth highlighting. It illustrates Rowling's point (Nazis were targetting LGB, not T) in a very darkly comedic way.
JarJarJedi
3d ago
That said many top wrestlers end up marrying announcers, actresses, or models and retire to a life of television guest spots, reasonable dieting, and possibly a position as a stable oyakata.
Not much different from what is happening in Western sports, as I understand.
FtSoA
3d ago
The crazy thing about markets is that they work so well, even under adverse conditions. The Chinese made some necessary compromises and it worked out pretty well for them.
You do point out a very real challenge I am painfully aware of and what is the underlying motivation of why I would write such an essay. The erosion of (classic) liberalism by progressivism has happened; can we stop it? Or are we in the U.S. doomed to the same eventual fate as the UK?
I have made exactly the same argument you do against Christians saying we need to return to Christianity--if that led us here what good would it do to redo things, even if that were possible? (I'd argue the key difference between classic liberalism, at least the free market economics of it, and Christianity is that the latter is not based on a factual understanding of reality.)
In the U.S., classic liberalism got hammered pretty hard starting during the Great Depression for about 50 years on economics, then we had a few decades of half-decent neoliberalism in both parties, and now both parties are largely past neoliberalism for the indefinite future. MAGAfication on the right may actually negatively polarize the left into becoming more neoliberal again, if we're lucky. #silverlinings
And, though my essay is aimed at progressive failures, I figure my best shot of convincing MAGA types that perhaps they should care about market economics, as the GOP once did, is by trashing progressive failures, not Trump and present antimarket policies.
JarJarJedi
3d ago
There are a few of non-Japanese guys in the top league now - Mongolians of course, but also one Kazakh, one Russian (actually Buryat but he says he identifies as Russian so...) and two Ukrainians. One of them is going down to lower league soon (maybe he will be back) but another has a decent chance of becoming an Ozeki if he keeps fighting like he does. So if somebody is upset by non-Japanese getting in (I have no idea but I assume some people would) their battle is pretty much lost by now.
As for scandals, I'm sure Japanese are human so they may have their own share. There were Yokozunas retired because of bad behavior. And maybe somebody fixes matches too - but even in my short period of watching I've seen a lot of unexpected wins and upsets (including the last basho, where I haven't seen a single person who could predict the result even mid-way) so even if someone would play dirty, it'd likely be hard to notice because of how it's inherently unpredictable anyway. Statistics can only get you so far.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
3d ago
The formula used by the NHS explicitly has a rural weighting so as to offset the population densities. Not entirely of course but somewhat.
You don't think a your caveats are doing a lot of work here? How big is the weighting, and do they compare to vaccinating the young and healthy vs. the old and the infirm?
In the US about 35% of hospitals are in rural areas but about 83% of people live in cities.
That's not a massive disproportion, and it says nothing about actual resource use. I've been to rural hospitals (in Europe) they're not comparable to city hospitals.
"Hey you're too expensive to treat, so just fend for yourselves" is a bit of a non starter, but the effect is the same.
You don't think it's possible to patch someone up locally, and send them to a bigger hospital if they need more complex care? Or are you saying this is not being done?
FtSoA
3d ago
Have you ever heard the phrase "the plural of anecdote is not data"?
I'm not trying to convince you that your particular eyes are lying to you. But Europe is a pretty big place. In most of it, AC is not very common even as heat waves increase.
There is objective data on this fact. In my essay, I linked to such information. This is not, to my knowledge, a contested set of facts. You could, with the language skills and internet access you have go forth and rapidly find out that either I am right in my characterization, or show data that would force me to reconsider my statements.
But you standing outside of a building and telling me I'm wrong will not cut it because 1) I've been to a bit of Europe and 2) I can read sources describing the overall situation in the U.S. vs. Europe.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3d ago
I went through a phase in the Asashoryu years where I kept a log each basho, bought a book on moves, and would attend every year the March basho in Osaka. I've been many times. Great fun; I usually imbibe on these days and am well into my cups by the last bout at 6.
This and that occured, and all the wrestlers I used to follow are now either ringside judges or back to Mongolia. I once shook Ama's hand (he would later be Harumafuji) in a back alley in Tokyo day before his match. He was with two very large tsukebito (lower ranked wrestlers who are essentially lackeys) leaning up against a massive obsidian SUV that looked as if it could carry a black Op wet team into the PM's office. Anyway he lost the next day (so much for my handshake being lucky.)
It's rumored to be a world of hookers and gangsters, hardcore tradition mixed with courtesy, violence, extortion, and quietly ignored prostitution. That said many top wrestlers end up marrying announcers, actresses, or models and retire to a life of television guest spots, reasonable dieting, and possibly a position as a stable oyakata.
TournamentFishing
3d ago
I've never heard of a faculty member denied tenure for poor teaching at one of these schools;
I was told of a professor at UPenn who never showed up to class the year he was up for tenure review. He still got tenure.
Lizzardspawn
3d ago
I don't know. But my first AC that I bought in 2004 went down to 16C, was stupid and made the room a walk in freezer. My current - lowest setting is 18C and has all kind of smart bullshit to prevent it going full blast. Up to the point that I think of tinkering with the thermistor to convince the bastard to play fairly.
Lizzardspawn
3d ago
I read it and it doesn't match reality. I look at the façade of my building and out of 40 apartments there are 30+ air conditioners. People use them both to cool in the summer and to heat in the winter. AC are extremely versatile devices when temperatures swing from -20C in the winter to 40C in the summer.
And yes we have ice drinks - we just don't enjoy as much the starbucks travesties - so ice is usually in water, soft drinks or soda water and cocktails. Or you just open an ice cold can of beer and drink it on the go.
We haven't tuned AC to 11 like US because relatively more people in EU live in regions with bearable humidity. And up to 32-33C heat is no problem if humidity is low. You just drink more beer.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
3d ago
Very reasonable and straightforward. Markets work well for many economic tasks.
But Classical Liberals don't have a monopoly on markets. China makes good use of markets in their authoritarian nationalist capitalist model. They're not liberal. The Romans had a pretty laissez-faire attitude to markets but supplemented them with aggressive imperialism.
Marketism and laissez-faire works best in economics. Classical liberalism and libertarianism are poor politics because of their openness and inability to develop a strong power base. Say you have a classical liberal state. Who gains? Everyone. But they can all see ways to make more gains by weakening the system. Big business wants to bring in cheap labour, privatize gains in labour price while socializing costs in welfare. They also want to protect domestic markets from foreign competition. Poor people want money from the rich. Middle class people want cozy sinecures. Trade unions want regulations on business and to prevent mechanization. Foreign lobbies want expensive adventurism. Nimbies want nothing to be built. Greens want industry dismantled.
So I don't disagree but if the proposal is more 'classical liberalism' then there has to be some way of developing a classical liberal power base. It doesn't seem to be very stable as an equilibrium, with so many forces with incentives to undermine it. Christianity also has many virtues but we observe it on the decline in the West, see Sunday trading, abortion rules, treatment of adultery, marriage, homosexuality... I can imagine a reasonable, justified argument that Christianity is good, shared faith makes many things easier. But without the 'here's why Christianity is declining and how this trend can be reversed' the call to action seems incomplete.
Of course this is a very big and hard problem. I can't see a way to make classical liberalism work reliably without getting captured by various interests. And a huge party-state to compel obedience like China brings with it new problems.
The Freakonomics guys were insistent that at least during the era they were doing their data collection there were (to them) clear cases of fraud (in this case match throwing). A sumotori must have a winning record to avoid demotion, which means 8/15 by the final day at least. It is my understanding that they analyzed many bouts and cases where wrestlers just happened to win on days when it was do or die were statistically improbable unless something was awry. Combine this with the reality that it's man-to-man, and no one can get inside the head of either wrestler, and matches can be over in a few seconds. I personally suspect it's happened, but isn't commonplace, particularly now.
There's currently an ethnically Japanese yokozuna (the highest rank) which has been rare since the Takanohana days (lots of Mongolian or Pacific Islander guys) and that generates local interest. Though alas, young people are often disinterested in this traditional sport and focus more on soccer, volleyball, basketball, or even judo. It doesn't help that not just any kid can do sumo or even play around at it. You have to be big, and the professional guys are packing away food and booze in impressive proportions.
There are other more culture warry scandals but this isn't the thread for it.
edit: typos
TournamentFishing
3d ago
Do the genes that code for immune system responses also tend to be the ones that have a big effect on polygenic scores for eg, intelligence? If not, I'm really not too worried about these selected embryos being dangerously similar to one another
magicalkittycat
3d ago
Idk generally biodiversity is a strength for life and gene editing ourselves to be more similar and eliminate mutations opens up some long term danger. Even just monocultures without same genetics but same species clumped up too much in an area can end up wiped out.
Now with gene editing technology perhaps we'll avoid the issues because we can literally just edit ourselves to not die to a new disease, but that's gonna depend on how much we can do and how fast we can do it.
I think it's perfectly fair at least to worry that planned genetics might have an unexpected issue the same way planned economies did. Easy to think you outsmarted the greater systems of the world until it bites you in the ass.
And now you know why all planned economies are indistinguishable from slave-owning operations.
It doesn't matter if you're less efficient at distributing labor when labor is not the limiting factor in your economy's growth. When labor is so worthless that laborers are actively competing to give it away, you (as a seller of labor) will find you must abide by more and more restrictions to sell that labor. This can include working longer hours, suffering quotas and beatings, not offending the master, actively making your job harder, and so on and so forth.
Note that, as you've identified, this labor isn't actually free to a buyer- you need to provide food and shelter (or the option to acquire those things). You don't even have to post guards if labor is sufficiently worthless (you do need them to ensure you're extracting the maximum potential from your slaves' labor)- there's nowhere for them to go, no better deal to be had, and they know that. It's more economically efficient if you provide these necessities yourself at the lowest resource cost possible, but they must be provided.
A minimum wage under slavery can be (especially when slaves are captured through conquest) zero, but zero is the lowest it can go. When the minimum wage for labor goes negative in an environment like this your slaves have no choice but to come after you for what's stored in your pantry- once enough people die of starvation, the supply of labor contracts, the wage goes back up to zero and equilibrium is restored.
Now, you might think that if something happened that grew agricultural productivity by an order of magnitude that the minimum wage would fall out, but it turns out that's not the case- instead, it freed up so many people to do so many different things that the supply of labor, then educated labor, started to become a limiting factor.
You may know that period as the Renaissance- typified by abolitions of slavery in European nations, AKA the first society-wide minimum wage law. Slavery wasn't abolished in the colonies for obvious economic reasons: the cost of labor was still basically zero there (and subsidized by colonial governments' conquest of those places).
No, slave societies invest in automation as much as they're physically able. The reason a slave society becomes a slave society is to get enough food that the most powerful are able to fund this, because if it is unable or unwilling it quickly finds itself enslaved by a rival society. That is why
is ultimately bullshit. While it is a meme for a reason, and market distortions such as 'no rival powers' can result in this- eventually a stronger society comes along and destroys them. The Confederate States lost to the Union because the Union outproduced them, and they outproduced them because their society was more industrious.
Finally, note that the inverse of that statement, "a system with five lazy layabouts who still get paid and one person who does the actual work", is an accurate characterization of unionized workplaces.
Note that the market forces that workers' ability to completely capture the regulatory apparatus also leads to depopulation- because said capture will always eventually make it too expensive for workers to produce more workers. This is the real reason TFR was an order of magnitude higher 200 years ago.
More options
Context Copy link