domain:cspicenter.com
stav
15hr ago
I grew up in CA. I recently looked up the house my parents bought for under 300k in the 1990’s and it just sold for over 3 million. It used to be almost all white and now it’s just insanely wealthy tech workers who are probably majority Indian and Asian. Nobody I know who grew up there still lives there. Keep in mind this is a 1 story house and is basically 3 bedrooms and an office so by no means a mansion. I essentially don’t have a home town anymore.I see stuff like this and I don’t understand why Trump isn’t more popular. How could you see this and not be reactionary?
How could you see this and not be reactionary?
Answer: Boomers.
Boomers don't see it because they are the beneficiaries of it.
Imagine a boomer living in Monterrey. Their house is worth $3 million. They pay almost no tax and in fact receive large checks and free health care from the government. Services are high quality because of an army of low-wage immigrants. The town isn't crowded despite its magnificent natural environment. Nothing has been built in 30 years.
There's an eerie lack of children but that's a small price to pay.
It's like when all the old union workers sign a contract to grandfather in their benefits while screwing the new workers. And it's why the Democratic party is now the party of the old, upper middle class whites. The high/low coalition makes the present comfortable for these wealthy boomers while replacing their society wholesale over time.
hydroacetylene
13hr ago
I have no idea where they actually live.
20 people to a three bedroom trailer.
The secret side effect of high housing costs is extreme crowding in lower income households. They need the income from renting out bedrooms to keep paying their own way. And people can’t afford their own place, so they rent rooms, often to share.
I’ve seen people on here wondering how low functioning but not actually dangerous people can be homeless; don’t their extended families take care of them? There’s no room, quite literally, in these households. Couches are being crashed on by someone who can contribute, or a more sympathetic dependent. Bedrooms are rented out for the cost of apartments in more normal cities. You don’t see the same scenes in place like houston where housing costs are more reasonable, because low income households can accommodate people like that.
So today there was an assassination attempt on prime minister of my country of Slovakia - Robert Fico. It happened during his tradition of government meetings across the country, in small coal town of Handlová. He went to greet his supporters when a 71 years old man shot him several times, he was then carried away and sent to hospital in critical condition, he undertook complicated surgery and his fate is still not known.
All the leaders sent their condolences from Putin to Macron, Biden and Ursula von der Leyen all condemning the violence. The same for Slovak political leaders. Of course, Slovak reddit as a bastion of more progressive people could not hold their glee, most upvoted comments for one of the threads were of the like of "JFK from Wish" or "this is what you get from hate". I mention it just as a litmus test of how more progressive people think in Slovakia and to be frank I find it disgusting. As you can gather, Fico is viewed as a populist and Slovak Orban and pro Putin and all that, despite major differences that may take too long to explain. But he definitely is described as archenemy by the strongest opposition party literally called "Progressive Slovakia" here. You probably get the picture.
As for the assassin, to me he seems like an unhinged man that was supporting a lot of fringe movements from right-wing movements to talking against the current government as leaked by one policeman who released a video of the perpetration in custody, where the assassin ranted something about recent law regarding the state broadcasting and overall disagreement with the government.
At this point all I have to say is that I am in shock. Something like that never happened in 40 years history of my country. I see already a lot of spin including Guardian and other foreign press as well as very strong proclamations from parties in government about "political warfare". One thing is apparent, the politics in my country changed and not for the better. I think there will be some ripples also elsewhere, ranging from "stochastic terrorism" by having somebody radicalized by media to just politicians being more alerted to this kind of thing happening. There is also EU parliament elections in couple of weeks and this is something that may have more impact there.
That is all for now, I am not sure if this will be deleted as it is not probably quite a topic for some extra thread, but also not your cookie cutter idea thrown here for discussion. But it is widely relevant on so many levels even outside of Slovak politics so I think there may be some good discussion bellow. I may add some edit and I am willing to anybody else to update bellow if let's say Fico's condition changes in the upcoming hours when I am asleep.
Different people want vastly different things out of TheMotte.
A few times over the years I've seen people share their lists of their all time favorite Motteposters. Some names are expected, other names make me go "...wait, what? That guy? Why?". Sometimes people will list someone who I find to be totally uninteresting and whose posts I skip over as a matter of course, because they write about topics that aren't relevant to me. This doesn't mean that I or them have bad taste. It just means we have different interests and we want different things out of TheMotte.
For my part, I'm not particularly interested in a play-by-play of current events, unless the event is particularly earth-shattering, or the post has a novel theoretical take. I don't really care that Canada introduced new hate speech laws for example, but if you have a new argument I've never heard before for why hate speech laws are actually a good thing, then that could be a post worth reading.
As usual, you are the forum. If people aren't writing the kinds of posts you want to read, then you should write more of the kinds of posts that you want to read.
EDIT: Why do you think the response to your post about abortion was abysmal? I think the response was pretty good. It generated a decent amount of engagement for a top level post and it prompted some interesting replies from @RandomRanger and @self_made_human about transhumanism, so, job well done, mission accomplished.
stav
12hr ago
You're straight up wrong if you think wealthy Indians and Asians are voting to bring low income housing into their neighborhoods. Also, prop 13 was passed when my parents were in high school so that law was passed by the Greatest Generation and Silent Generation. And those 30 year old Hispanics are net takers. Whites pay significantly more in than they take over their lifetimes. Can't say the same for Hispanics and especially blacks.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
19hr ago
One difference, however, was that the French pogrom was labeled a "Reign of terror" in hindsight by its detractors, while the Russian version was called that by its own architects as they planned it out.
Um.
The aristocrats of Internal Affairs are since many days meditating a movement. Oh well! They'll have it, that movement, but they'll have it against them! It will be organized, regularized by a revolutionary army that at last will fulfill that great word that it owes to the Paris Commune: Let's make terror the order of the day!
-Bertrand Barère (translated), September 1793
If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country.
It has been said that terror is the spring of despotic government. Does yours then resemble despotism? Yes, as the steel that glistens in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles the sword with which the satellites of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror his debased subjects; he is right as a despot: conquer by terror the enemies of liberty and you will be right as founders of the republic. The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny. Is force only intended to protect crime? Is not the lightning of heaven made to blast vice exalted?
-Maximilien Robespierre (translated), February 1794
The term "Terror" as a description of the period (note that in French it's simply called "the Terror") does seem to have descended from these and other invocations by the Terror's architects, even if it wasn't the official name at the time.
Absox
8hr ago
New resident of California as of this year; was unexpectedly sent here by my work.
As far as I can tell, the workers live 2-3 to a room in rented houses, which is why many neighborhoods of East Palo Alto have 5-6 cars parked in front of 1000 sq ft (100 sq m) 3br houses.
I was in Asia over the holidays, and the food there is better (at least to my tastes), costs 1/5th as much even without counting taxes, tip, and the bevy of surcharges they add (somehow a prix fixe dinner advertised at $95 a head costs over $270 for 2), and much more conveniently located.
Honestly, I hate it here already and am looking to leave at the first good opportunity. Until then, I'm living well below my means to minimize my exposure to the 9-10% sales tax rates, driving a 20-year old car, maxing out my contributions to tax-advantaged accounts and investments in general, and trying to pay as little in taxes as possible.
A new buyer of said 3 million dollar home would be subject to property taxes in the ballpark of 40k a year. I almost wish we could level the entire area south of I-280 and redevelop it into a megacity with housing for 20 million people according to Chinese urban development practices just to spite the nimbys.
jeroboam
10hr ago
The party realignment is still in mid-swing. I have faith this narrow Republican majority is largely an artifact. Previous party alignments took decades to play out. For example, Texas elected Democratic governors as late as 1990!
The trend is clear. Democrats are for rich white people and the underclass. Republicans are for the others.
100k is very middle class today. Amongst the posh, Democrats are so utterly dominant its comical. I can't find it on Google (because of course I can't) but someone looked at political donations from every large employer. The majority of donations went to Democrats for every employer except for the NYPD and maybe one other. That's right, even supposedly "right wing" corporations like Exxon had more Democratic donors than Republican ones. Amongst tech companies and universities, Democrats held an edge of something like 10-1.
The elite is all in on the Democratic party. And that is truly new. Back in the day, there were a substantial subset of WASP-y Republicans in the northeast and California. They are utterly gone. I know these people. They vote blue now, no matter who.
jeroboam
14hr ago
Let me be annoying and argue with your steelman case, which I acknowledge you are offering to keep the conversation moving.
Few woke people actually care about appropriation. For example, it's perfectly fine to talk in a silly Italian or British accent. "Its-a bigga pizza pie-a".
But it's actually worse. Woke people don't just appropriate. They want to actively erase non-Anglo cultures. Witness, for example, the use of the term "Latinx". Or the insistence that traditional people abandon their customs and religion to support LGBT ideology.
So why do they pretend to care? Status games. Accusations of "appropriation" are a convenient way to signal higher moral status. If you can get a high-ranking person to grovel before you, you are higher status than them. If you can get a competitor fired for wearing a silly costume, then your chance at the top job just increased. This is why woke status games are most extreme in situations where 100s of people compete for a sinecure such as a college professorship. It's a crab bucket mentality.
jeroboam
15hr ago
Attempting to reach this goal by conducting a war of annihilation
I'm going to get accused of being a "Putinist" surely, but Russia is not waging a war of annihilation. They are conspicuously avoiding civilian casualties.
As usual, the worst victims of war are the men actually doing the fighting, whose lives are treated as worthless by basically everyone.
Corvos
16hr ago
I can't speak for Korea, but one-major-city countries are pretty common. England is famously lopsided: London is 7/8x the size of the next largest city, and contains almost all of the seriously high-paying jobs. With a few principled holdouts, if someone lives in a city that isn't London it's usually because they can't afford it there.
Singapore is basically a city state. I'm sure there are others.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
23hr ago
None of what you've written here makes a particularly insightful point except to suggest "Here are things I believe are crazy, how about it?" And the not-veiled implication that only idiots would disagree with you--which hardly invites discussion. There are a great number of older threads worth reading on this site without shit-stirring for the sake of it.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
8hr ago
Second, Republican organizations have been using "war on the suburbs" are rhetorical demagoguery against almost any policy to increase housing supply
You know why? Because it hits home. It takes some people a while and some never catch on, but a lot of people in the suburbs have figured out that the "sprawl" that leftists often decry is their home.
stav
9hr ago
Another reason housing is so expensive is mass immigration. You think that mass immigration from the whole world to CA has no impact on housing costs? 27% of California is an immigrant.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
9hr ago
Only real things count, not stuff you just make up, even if you use fancy names for making stuff up like "imputed damages". No one has an obligation to sell you their home just because it would improve your commute and they're not commuting any more.
stav
14hr ago
Fair enough. But CA is 100% run by Democrats so it’s hard for me not to see people being angry and saying let me vote for this other populist guy just as a reaction. They tried Bernie but he turned out to be a massive sellout. Yet they continue to vote Biden to “save our democracy” or “prevent fascism”. America has become unrecognizable yet these people vote for Biden who is part of the cabal that did this.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
18hr ago
I can work on a post about new compelling evidence implicating Israel in the anthrax attacks of 2001 if that interests anyone
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
18hr ago
In some sense the weekly thread format is vestigial at this point, but, I still like it and I wouldn’t want to change it. It draws everyone into one conversation, it encourages people to read posts that they might normally not, and it creates a FOMO effect which spurs engagement: if you want your reply to have maximum visibility, you have to strike while the iron is hot, because you only have about a day before a post gets buried under new top level posts and not as many people will see the old posts.
ResoluteRaven
4hr ago
Singapore has a new prime minister, marking the end of the political dynasty founded by Lee Kuan Yew. I don't know much about this new guy, but it will be interesting to see for how much longer the People's Action Party can maintain its current level of centralized control with less charismatic leaders. Given the popularity of Lee around these parts, I figured others may have something to add about the stability of the current system or the future of everyone's favorite Southeast Asian city-state (no offense to Brunei).
Whatever you guys might claim to be, this seems to be a place where it's ok to call an immigrant group an infestation but not to say that the antebellum south was an execrable culture.
You have either fundamentally misunderstood or are fundamentally misrepresenting the thread you linked. You are in fact allowed to say that the antebellum south was an execrable culture, and many people have said here it many times before. You can in fact argue that Confederate statues should be torn down, and you can even argue that people who think otherwise are bad; many people have argued that here many times before. You do in fact have to be careful about how you talk about any group here, and quite a few anti-woke people have in fact been banned for failing to do so properly. The objection in that thread, as described to you repeatedly at the time, was that you were conflating people to object to the destruction of Confederate memorials with slave owners.
I think the antebellum south was an execrable culture, and holding the history constant to the start of the Civil War, I prefer our actual history where their society was destroyed through mass violence to counterfactuals where it might have been allowed to fade away peacefully, continuing to perpetrate evil throughout its decline. Further, I think that destroying Confederate monuments is both stupid and evil here and now. I'd be happy to discuss either opinion with you as time permits, as either side of either opinion fit comfortably within the rules here.
Tenaz
8hr ago
An AI leader anything like our current models would just be a figurehead controlled by whoever writes the prompts and other input data. It would be extremely vulnerable to prompt manipulation, hacking, straight-up lying from those in power (who handles the AI, ensures its model hasn't been changed, and reports its output?), etc. Even were it not vulnerable to those things, it would have to get far more powerful to be a capable leader.
What are the benefits? Well it might be more consistent, allowing people to know exactly what their leader's plans are and act accordingly, but that's also a downside. An enemy actor can simulate their opposition and act with near-certainty. Terrorism becomes far more effective.
FaibleEstimeDeSoi
10hr ago
The next decade will be quite "interesting" if political assassinations became as common as they were in 19th century. Japan, Slovakia, who's next..
KMC
15hr ago
It's like we have become allergic to actual news or something.
RIP Bare Link Repository.
Don't you know? We're not allowed to talk about the news, we have to post about it.
This place is best when it is a link aggregator in addition to a discussion site. Unfortunately the mods don't seem to agree with me, and seem to resent it being used as an aggregator.
The California model.
I just got back from a brief trip to California that didn't include the parts where the violent drug zombies live. It was a lovely vacation. California is absolutely beautiful.
Let me introduce the secrets to California's success.
Be blessed with the most amazing geography and weather anywhere in the U.S. and maybe the world
Be the center of the world tech and entertainment industries
Make a deal that baby boomers get to live out their natural lives in splendor and grace while a complete population replacement happens beneath them
As a wealthy tourist, it was all very nice. Whereas the coast of Florida is loaded with aggressive traffic and people, the coast of California is dotted with pleasant beach communities. All the houses cost like $3 million dollars so no one can afford to live there. Despite the best weather and scenery on the planet, the population is going DOWN. People are friendly and nice. The restaurants are full of white retirees, still paying $1000 in annual property tax on their $4 million house they bought for $200,000 in 1981. 95% of the workers are Hispanic. I have no idea where they actually live. But the quality of service was very high and prices were reasonable (at least compared to Seattle).
A quick 5 minute drive from Santa Cruz and you're in a beautiful redwood forest. No houses or people here. Just a beautiful state park with miles of trails. I saw a school group with an earnest white teacher explaining tree rings to a group of about 20 young students. 100% of the students were Hispanic.
People are actually leaving this state, the state that has everything, that was dealt a hand of aces. Productive citizens are taxed at eye-popping rates to prop up the seniors and the underclass. It works for now. It seems kind of similar to what's happening in Europe and where the rest of the U.S. is headed as well.
In any case, I had a wonderful time. I highly recommend California as a tourist destination.
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