domain:alexepstein.substack.com
I understand that argument, and I think that there is a lot of sense to it. I would have said something very similar yesterday, probably. But I'm just bewildered at Trump repeatedly getting emotionally heated about this issue, out of left field, with nothing really compelling him to do it. It seems like a deep emotional reaction. It's starting to seem to me that something really bugs Trump about the Epstein matter on a personal level, beyond just journalists annoying him about it. I don't necessarily think that where there's smoke, there's always fire. But I am seeing a weird amount of smoke coming out of Trump about this lately. He's acting defensive about it beyond his usual level of getting annoyed when attacked. He's bringing it up un-prompted. Those are very common behaviors that people engage in when they are trying to hide that they did something.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
3hr ago
7.77 million tons of rice production annually isn’t trivial and neither is 77,000 tons of green tea
FtSoA
3hr ago
Yeah, in theory.
But, in practice, how often is there actual accountability? And a good way to fire them?
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
3hr ago
If it were viable to employ illegal workers as baristas, you would be shocked at how horrible the QoL for baristas is too. Have you seen how bad the QoL is for soldiers? It’s because they don’t have a choice!
Wow, horrible, picking berries. They are performing literally the same physical movements that a grocery stocker performs, except the objects are lighter, they aren’t breathing in microplastics all day, the ground beneath them isn’t concrete, they don’t hear horrible pop music 24/7… how could anyone do this?
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3hr ago
He killed the guy simply by hacking his leg? That's unexpected.
Just a few days ago I read a court opinion where somebody died from being slashed in the face. He didn't bleed out; rather, an air bubble got into his blood vessels and he died of a heart attack. (I unfortunately don't have the link on hand.)
FtSoA
3hr ago
Could just be a narcissism flare up.
I have a hard time believing there's any actually damning evidence against Trump or really anyone, or else someone would have leaked something by now. It's been a big issue for years, multiple administrations.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
3hr ago
Well only the fruit pickers wage would go up. The mechanics wage would not, and the price of their food would.
If everyone's wage goes up equally you're just describing inflation.
They would love when the price of consumer goods go up if their wages go up as well.
What is the source that they fled for work at factories as opposed to increases in efficiency of agriculture and an absence of employment driving them to work in factories?
Any amount of physical labor is backbreaking if you have a supply of illegal labor that you can abuse. Even retail would involve an inhospitable amount of bending and lifting if the employer could abuse them without the public seeing.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
3hr ago
Imagine trying to convince my 1800s great great grandmother that my great grandmother, who just kicked her from the inside, was not a baby.
Would be difficult. Fortunately nobody not made of straw would need to. All pro-choicers say is that if she wants an abortion she can get one.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
3hr ago
I appreciate the advice. It's even good advice! The failure I envision is on my part, and yes, I'm aware of the risk of self-fulfilling prophecy here.
Stop being lazy, and grab the goddam reins. Because no one else is going to.
My own dad has said the same to me, on many an occasion. He's the opposite of lazy, being an extremely hard working man who has, time and time again, worked himself to the bone to ensure his family and children wouldn't need to.
I say that, but it actually seems to me that you do a lot, and are not one of the perpetually unmotivated. Your substack is active, and mine has only one lonely post, so you're way ahead of me there. You mod here. You're a friggin' doctor.
Thank you, but a lot of that is simply a consequence of my natural proclivities! Everyone has hobbies, some people are lucky enough to have hobbies that are quasi-productive.
I intrinsically enjoy writing, enough to outweigh the chore it can sometimes be. I like arguing with internet strangers, and can usually stay polite while doing so.
Medicine? I hated med school, and was a slacker for most of it, doing my best to cram at the last minute. Most doctors are rather type A individuals, I somehow survived despite being the opposite.
I eventually got better, after graduation, I spent several years working very hard to avoid the fate of never entering higher training, and for the purposes of escaping India. I suppose that is a concrete example of me becoming better, the previous exams were ones I "had" to give. Everything after was something self-directed, and I'm justifiably proud of myself, even as I've found many things about life and work in the UK disappointing and a chore.
If you had to sum up my laziness, it is rarely truly catastrophic. If I'm worried about my house catching fire, I'd probably do something about it instead of waiting for a fire to tickle my ass hair. But my life would definitely be far better if I was more motivated to do the things that I really ought to do, and earlier. For the sake of privacy, I won't go into too many details, but it has had personal and professional consequences.
There are definitely people worse off. I'm not lazing in bed high on weed all day without a job, I have a relatively demanding one, even if most other flavors of doctor have to work harder. I occasionally do things that people appreciate, but can I really take credit for that? It's just a fact about my preferences that I like writing instead of say, only video games and going out clubbing.
Gym time will ultimately make you feel good. I am sure there is a physiological reason and I am equally sure that you know what this reason is probably better than I do, but perhaps haven't reached that point of that good feeling, and you perhaps doubt that it is a point you will likely reach.
I'm not sure about ultimately. Back in med school, after a messy breakup, I was motivated enough to lose about 10 kilos while working out at least twice a week, for 6 months. I was even doing HIIT on the side, dodging the odd cobra outside (not a joke). I think six months of solid effort should normally be enough to figure out if I enjoy something for its own sake!
I didn't like going to the gym at the end, the only thing that got better was that I stopped having DOMS after the first few weeks.
Have you read the studies suggesting there could be a relationship between macular degeneration and regular use of semaglutide? Admittedly there are many caveats by the authors (admirably so) regarding the design of the study and how it was not designed to establish causality. But still. How are the peepers?
I did read them when they came out, and was slightly concerned, but not to the degree it put me off. I'll probably have to look at follow ups, but the fact that, AFAIK, medical bodies haven't immediately begun recommending regular eye tests to patients on Ozempic is suggestive. I'll have to look more into it again, but I'm not worried enough to not take the meds.
My peepers are currently rather sore. But before you get alarmed, that's because I spent this afternoon looking at Magic Eye images on Reddit and ended up straining them.
(You should have fewer qualms about throwing most things you write onto your substack. Your slice of life and the odd wistful recollections are a pleasure to read, and I'd certainly follow along. Link your substack again, if you don't mind, I'd be happy to give it a follow)
Throwaway05
4hr ago
A common pathway for something like this is:
-you nearly bleed out
-medical attention arrives
-in the meantime multiple organs are not getting enough blood and therefor oxygen
-this may include the brain
-you are taken to the hospital which keeps you alive
-but you are already dead OR
-while in the hospital swelling, tissue death, infection from all of the damaged areas causes problems leading to formal death later
tons of stuff like this can happen.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
4hr ago
Imagine trying to convince my 1800s great great grandmother that my great grandmother, who just kicked her from the inside, was not a baby.
I am not convinced that Epstein was part of some deeply shady business that the public is not yet privy to. I try to be reasonable and keep an open mind about what might have happened. I appreciate your nuanced analysis. I'm going to use this as an opportunity to discuss Trump's recent reaction, because I find it fascinating:
What’s going on with my “boys” and, in some cases, “gals?” They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and “selfish people” are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein. For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 “Intelligence” Agents, “THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,” and more? They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called “friends” are playing right into their hands. Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it? They haven’t even given up on the John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr. Files. No matter how much success we have had, securing the Border, deporting Criminals, fixing the Economy, Energy Dominance, a Safer World where Iran will not have Nuclear Weapons, it’s never enough for some people. We are about to achieve more in 6 months than any other Administration has achieved in over 100 years, and we have so much more to do. We are saving our Country and, MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, which will continue to be our complete PRIORITY. The Left is imploding! Kash Patel, and the FBI, must be focused on investigating Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, The Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting Thugs and Criminals, instead of spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old, Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein. LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT! The 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen, and they tried to do the same thing in 2024 — That’s what she is looking into as AG, and much more. One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the “HOTTEST” Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
My attempts to objectively evaluate the probabilities of what might have happened are being altered in real-time by watching Trump act like a dog who just snatched a piece of meat off the table and is then sitting in the corner of the room with guilty eyes.
This is kind of hilarious to me. Trump is openly doing the complete opposite of what someone would do if he actually wanted to get over the whole Epstein business, and if he didn't actually know more than he lets on.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
4hr ago
Child support payments are part of modernity, not social conservatism
Those two are not antonyms. Contemporary American Social conservatism perceives itself as being "timeless" "common sense morality," but it's very modern. Imagine trying to convince your 1800s great great grandmother that a fertilized egg that's barely visible to the naked eye is a "baby" or "person." It's something social conservatives believe they've logicked themselves into, much like leftists believe they've logicked themselves into "trans women are women!" I'm skeptical either "really" believes it, deep down.
funzodonzo
4hr ago
Ehhh.. there's a ton of sophistry on the internet, The Motte is no exception. Let's not pretend this is the Library of Alexandria or the old salons of Europe. There is an occasional interesting and well-thought out post, but those are mostly an exception. This is why I mostly lurk and now just skim top level posts for an interesting topic. It's probably best to view this site as a place where somewhat rightwing malcontents talk amongst themselves with an occasionally centrist or somewhat liberal poster chiming in.
Look, I used to be quite liberal, but back in the "age of woke" I got turned against progressive idiocy. I read SSC, Less Wrong, Steve Sailer, etc. and that helped me see the overreach and sometimes straight out wrongness of the mid 00-10's progressive and liberal ideologies. However, I never dug that deep beyond some rightwing/centrist thinkers. Now that a lot of the right is either in power or in the spotlight (see X), I see how stupid much of it is. Politicians talking about banning chemtrails, TACO Don who doesn't understand trade beyond a general love of tariffs and wants to continue scamming his supporters (e.g. formerly Trump University, now Trump Coin, Trump scent, etc.), and to quote SSC, the spineless toady JD Vance. It's just all so stupid! Well, stupid and malicious. It reminds me of an older meme about Pakistan; that they'd be 100% ok with the world blowing up as long as India was destroyed first.
There are strong arguments to be made about some right wing positions, e.g. reducing the deficit, decoupling from China, demanding NATO allies pay more, on-shoring, etc. but these clowns are just bad at this. The BBB adds to the deficit, tariff schizophrenia doesn't allow for a stable and long term industrial policy, etc.
The left might be wrong a lot of times, but that doesn't make the current right correct.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
4hr ago
I just watched a few episodes of Elfen Lied before being rather turned off. I appreciate an anime that shows off some titties as much as the next man, but the characters seemed one-note and the plot and pacing were.. lacking. You call it "almost good", but I'd have to say that's a better assessment than I made, heh.
hydroacetylene
4hr ago
he may have had his attorneys bribe the security team at the jail so they didn’t stop him.
It literally seems more implausible that he was able to pay his attorneys to bribe them than that the guards would have turned down this bribe. Prison guards are cheap to bribe and what are the gonna do, admit to committing a felony?
The guards letting it happen is the least implausible part of this story.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
4hr ago
I feel like this discussion is the missing ingredient to lots of the topics du jour. Let's take the leftward drift of young women- well social conservatism today seems to have, uh, not discussed what other people owe to them, only what they owe to other people.
Yep. There was a commenter here who said women lacked "accountability" because they want to be able to f*** without risking being pregnant for nine months. I'm going to hazard a guess that that message won't be a particularly popular one among young women, as like with most voters they prefer politicians who will make their lives easier rather than harder.
That said, one should be wary of parts of the gender-divide narrative. Trump's performance among white men was actually worse in 2024 than in 2016, while his performance among white women improved. CNN exit polls confirm the same phenomenon.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
4hr ago
Just like beards, they used to be non-conformist now they're common enough.
Hadrian has entered the chat.
2rafa
4hr ago
Because there certainly was enough evidence to convict him of interstate trafficking of a minor for sex (with himself), which is the killer charge in all of these cases and which Epstein’s lawyers would have told him guaranteed he was going to die in jail given the salacious public attention to the case, the fact that federal sentences don’t have more than a small reduction for good behavior / parole, and grandstanding by the prosecutors on the case.
He had lived like a billionaire for 30 years, private jets, satisfying his sex addiction with teenage models, doing whatever he wanted, and now faced not merely the prospect but the certainty of spending the rest of his life in jail - and not only in jail but in jail as a chomo, the worst of the worst, where (like Derek Chauvin) it was inevitable at some point that the guards would turn a blind eye and he’d get beaten, stabbed and so on (maybe even sexually violated) by other inmates.
Many people would kill themselves in that circumstance. It’s one of the least suspicious cases of suicidal tendency imaginable. If someone in that circumstance told me they were thinking of killing themselves I would literally think “yeah, that’s unsurprising”. It’s common for people facing charges like this who are out on bail to kill themselves. As for how he did it, he may have had his attorneys bribe the security team at the jail so they didn’t stop him.
Magusoflight
4hr ago
What’s funny is there’s plenty of office drones who have full sleeve tattoos now
I'm making the argument against being stuck in a local maximum.
You probably mean minima.
One that relies on an international supply chain for its industrial production and the existence of a large enough empire to secure sea lanes. A type-2 technology.
Now, you define a "complex" drug as one that relies on international supply chains and "the existence of a large enough empire to secure sea lanes". I have to admit, this is a.. novel definition. Are you typing this on a "simple" device? The phone or computer you are using relies on a supply chain of such staggering, globe-spanning complexity that it makes Ozempic's look trivial. If you have taken a Tylenol in the past decade, there is an excellent chance it was manufactured in India or China and shipped across those same sea lanes. Unless you are a primitivist writing on handmade parchment, you are a beneficiary of these "complex" systems. It seems strange to draw the line here, at a medication that saves lives.
Saying diabetics are addicted to insulin because they would die without it is a tautology.
Oh, not all diabetics would die. They could, in an ideal world, live short but tortured lives! Is that a tautology?
So is saying men are slaves to biological necessity. These are realities well understood since antiquity.
So? Care to reproduce such arguments in full instead of waving at them?
You will not literally die without electricity or information technology. You seem to conveniently enjoy that particular fruit of modernity, while crying about this one.
Such addictions may well be natural, but they are cumbersome, and one of the common criticisms of modernity is that it has tricked people into novel addictions under the guise of liberating them from natural ones. I would have thought this line of reasoning to be popular enough as to not demand explanation. But here we are.
Once again, the number of people who eschew electricity or computers seems awfully small. Modernity is, on the whole, quite nice. It could still do with improving.
I could throw it all back in your direction, but I'm afraid I know too well the source of your confusion, and it is that you think American Psychologists among other colleges of experts have dominion over the English language and its conceptual space. As if they can declare the valence of things by fiat.
I am not an American Psychologist, nor do I think they have "dominion over the English language". I also happen to think you're twisting that poor thing to your own ends, with willful ignorance of your actions.
Spare me your sophistry. If you Google "definition of addiction", one of the first hits is the Wikipedia article for the same, which says that:
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences
Ozempic doesn't cause "substantial harm". Any negative consequences are grossly outweighed by the upsides of not being obese, let alone diabetic.
Your definition is ridiculously archaic, and by that definition, one could be addicted to collecting stamps, to morning walks, or to breathing. You have diluted the word to uselessness.
But as we are now in a place that is open to people who are not adherents of this religion, I therefore enjoin you to consider that such authority is not self-evident.
I have no "authority" over you, and never claimed to. Short of mod-abuse by banning you, which I've never done and have little inclination to do. I still have little patience for such clearly confused, utterly sloppy thinking, with the added temerity of trying to take the moral high ground through word-play.
It’s crucial to understand why this isn’t the case. The mechanic competes in wages with the fruit picker (in an economy with an absence of illegal labor), not directly but transitively, because the mechanic competes with somebody who competes with somebody who […] competes with the fruit-picker. Increasing opportunity for the lower class increases it for the lower-middle, which increases it for the middle. Everyone’s QoL and wages increase. Food prices increase, but wages increase higher than they for the lower and middle. It won’t increase wages for the upper white collar professionals, because there’s a strict barrier where they simply would never consider entering a trade or working as a chef even if wages in these places rose considerable, which is because of the class association. (And remember remittance payments: 66 billion yearly just for Mexico!)
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