domain:samschoenberg.substack.com
MotteInTheEye
20m ago
Fair enough if you're complaining about free enterprise that you don't approve of, but it's rather different if the job in question is paid for by your own money taken at the proverbial gunpoint.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
24m ago
US airports sometimes mix international and domestic gates. The difference is that on arrival international flights kick all the passengers over to customs and usually make them go back through security before flying onward. But that can just be rearranging a couple doors.
Zephyr
37m ago
That aside, I am a big fan of national ID cards. The US should have one, and so should every other country. I don't understand why the right is so opposed to it. It's the easiest way to control illegal immigration.
As someone who is opposed to it, what I'm most worried about is the possibility of the government being able to 'unperson' someone. I live in Canada, where the government literally banned people who had not taken the COVID vaccine from entering a lot of establishments, enforced by presenting positive proof that you had been vaccinated. This severely curtailed my ability to participate in society until the restrictions ended.
Here are some of the wonderful things that a government could do with a national ID, ranked approximately in order of how long it would take the slippery slope to get to that point.
- Require it for the purchase of (guns/abortion drugs/hormones). Use the fact that the person purchased them as an excuse to '3 felonies a day' them.
- Require it for sign on to the internet, in the name of 'safety'. This would probably start by requiring it for access to online government services, then expand to being required for internet sign on for people caught committing a felony involving the use of a computer network (think like, child pornography, or large scale fraud), then to children to ensure they only access the 'safe' parts of the internet, then to everyone, as a generation has grown up thinking it is normal.
- Require it for transit (for example, to use a bus, or to start your car); track people's movement with this (to be fair, this would require a digital ID; to also be fair, the chances of it being non-digital in this day and age approach 0).
One thing I think is a very big disconnect between the left and the right is that a lot of the right (the libertarian/small government part) sees governments as (at best) a necessary evil, while the left doesn't necessarily think of it the same way. As someone who has libertarian leanings, what I see is that the government is constantly expanding its own power, while making decisions that are not to the benefit of the majority of its constituents. Elections tend to be shams, as we don't get to vote on the policies we actually want - we instead vote only on the policies we are allowed to vote on (for example, a large portion of Brexit was people voting against immigration; but the government decided it wanted more immigration anyways, so did that all on their own; in the last Canadian election, none of the parties that have ever formed government before ran on decreasing immigration - and we have roughly the same absolute amount of immigration as the US does, with 1/10 of the population). Here are the results of the last Canadian election; notice all the blue in Western Canada? It doesn't make a difference at all, as Quebec and Ontario voted to continue allowing Central Canada to loot the piggy bank in the west (and from my awareness, this occurs in the US too; cities have a lot of seats, and overwhelm the nearby countryside, even though the policies that are desired by the city are not in the best interests of the countryside). They also constantly violate their own rules; in Canada, it was determined that the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was 'not justified' in breaking up the convoy protest against him and his COVID policies. He suffered no consequences for this action. The order in the Canadian military to take the COVID vaccine was determined to be unlawful; however, by the time the ruling came through, it was too late to seek recompense for it (as a member of my family personally experienced).
To take a slightly more 'hinged' take on it; right now, in the US, I think it's fairly safe to say that a large percentage of leftists consider the current government to not only be illegitimate, but evil on top of that. I can assure you that when Biden was in charge, a large percentage of rightists considered it to be the same situation. Both parties spend approximately 50% of the time feeling like they're under siege from a government completely unaligned with their values; why would they ever accept anything that would make it easier for the government to do evil things to them?
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
39m ago
The US was founded by people who rebelled against an overseas government they considered illegitimate (albeit for quite selfish reasons of their own). They were not against the very concept of government and notwithstanding that Thomas Jefferson quote everyone likes so much, they were not advocating regular revolts and coups.
The founders would be aghast and agog about many things in today's world. However, one thing you can definitely say about them is that they anticipated and expected that the future would be very different from their own time and they knew they could not anticipate or dictate to future generations what government they would choose. They set down guidelines and checks and balances they hoped would stand the test of time, but even in their era there were cracks showing, and there was violent disagreement over the Constitution itself and the Bill of Rights.
There was also no shortage of nepotism and incompetence and self-centeredness among the elites, from the era of Virginia's dominance to Tammany Hall, and most certainly within the Confederacy.
The founders, if you took to the time to explain to them how institutions like the NSA came about, would eventually understand the concept of intelligence and national security, be concerned about privacy and individual rights, but would probably be a lot more upset about rise of federalism following the Civil War. (Though they would probably understand why and how the Civil War happened.)
Please put to rest this tired argument made by people like you and Kulak that "The Founding Fathers lived for violence and wanted regular bloodbaths, would be horrified that you have allowed (Thing I Don't Like), and cry from the grave for you to slaughter your political opponents." That is not who they were and it was not the world they sought.
Eliza
54m ago
It's disorienting to realise that our media diet is selected and proportioned far more by the availability/prominence/outrageousness of those particular news stories, than any objective importance of the events they describe. News media, like everywhere else, is scrambling to keep broadcasting with squeezed budgets. It's much simpler (and cheaper) to repeat verbatim a report from some NGO than pay an investigative reporter.
Gaashk
1hr ago
Good administrators can be good, but it's not the sort of specialized position for which no qualified citizen is available, and must be drawn from the pool of foreign Olympians.
Lizzardspawn
1hr ago
Needing permission to leave sounds a lot like the Berlin Wall, but I think makes sense for the EU combined area.
You don't need permission to leave. Just EU airports (and most in the world) are separated in international and domestic flight sections. To get in the international part you need to pass border control. And it is impossible to move between the two sections. I think that usa is unique in that regard.
Mantergeistmann
1hr ago
It depends on if the parking lot is considered to be on the facility's property - I know some federal facilities are like that (the parking lot is "federal property", and then there's another "controlled area" beyond that). For schools, a lot of gun laws are I believe based on the distance from the school, if not based on "yes the parking lot and green fields are school property". If I'm correct about the distance thing, I'm sure there's a case out there where someone couldn't (or was legally found that they could) have a gun or something in their own home due to being within that limit.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1hr ago
a) I think you are underestimating the historical levels of animosity Anglo Protestants had towards Catholicism, especially in the first half of the 19th century. Anti-Catholicism was a major animating force behind the original nativist movement. b) Indian immigrants have assimilated absolutely fine so far c) I would also point towards the current level of animosity being directed towards the overwhelmingly-Catholic, European-descended immigrants from Latin America (despite protestations to the contrary, this is not confined to illegal immigrants). There's not nothing to the cultural compatibility argument, but it strikes me as being very weak, especially in an American context, and mostly deployed as a pretext for garden-variety racism and/or classism.
Integration and assimilation was both expected and enforced
Immigrants assimilate faster now than they did in the 19th century. I'll admit that I can't speak to the British experience, but here in the US the common critique that immigrants aren't assimilating isn't borne out. Immigrants learn English if they don't already speak it, intermarriage rates are high, etc... This is largely a conflict between the norms/aesthetics of (white) liberal and conservative Americans with immigrants as props, not between natives and immigrants.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1hr ago
They're implying that this illegal immigrant from Guyana is a sketchy character and it seems like he is a sketchy character
This is profoundly circular
"The media is trying to make them look sketchy, and from media reporting, they seem sketchy, so that makes sense"
This is confusing on so many levels.
Everything the district has on file indicates Dr. Robert affirmed that he was a citizen who was eligible to work for the school district
The district claims that he completed his I-9 verification. I can understand why they'd be in none the wiser. But to fake a citizenship ? He must have created a fake passport or a social security card. That's hard mode.
competed in the Olympics
Why was he illegal in the first place ? A nation's olympic representative would qualify for an O1 with an instant EB-1 green card. Public school districts are also eligible for cap-exempt H1bs. He could've become a citizen legally by now, if he wanted to. I won't be surprised if this is a case of 'dude keeps choosing the contrived illegal option over the straightforward legal option because people can be selectively stupid like that'.
That aside, I am a big fan of national ID cards. The US should have one, and so should every other country. I don't understand why the right is so opposed to it. It's the easiest way to control illegal immigration.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
1hr ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on lots of things. Also attempting The Eternal Dissident: Rabbi Leonard I. Beerman and the Radical Imperative to Think and Act.
BurdensomeCount
Unable to escape TheMotte's cycle of Samsara...
1hr ago
Brilyn Hollyhand
Literally who?
I am not sure it does work very well. Any message which comes down officially from the school, no matter if it is about drugs, rape, abstinence, civic pride, the glory of communism or whatever is inherently uncool and cringe. Good luck competing with TikTok.
Not all propaganda efforts are effective or worthwhile. I don't feel compelled to stamp out teenage contrarianism, rebellion, or progressive resistance.
The mandated schooling already does some indoctrination. That indoctrination doesn't spit out perfect American optimists, no, but it doesn't try to do that. I don't think it needs to. Nations shape culture through education all over the world. Maybe my ideal program isn't more myth based story telling in history. The program could be physical, fun, and/or charity focused. I'm open to better ideas.
At its core, pressuring young people into service is fundamentally gerontocratic, democratic only in the "two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner" kind of way.
If we speak only of compulsory military service, then it's more accurate to say using bodies to achieve physical tasks is fundamentally a young man's game. I like the idea of a civil service that ships you around to travel, help with charity or maintenance work, and creates bonds with Americans. FEMA disaster relief that uses our college aged manpower 19 year old. The goal isn't to only reduce propensity for violence, but to increase our commonalities through exposure, shared experience, and civic duty. If achieved, these could do more than reduce a trend of support for political violence.
I am sure the PBs see themselves as ultra-patriotic. Of course, different people had very different ideas about what being an American was all about, from lofty ideas about the relationship between the state and the individual over an entity who protects their god-given right to own other humans to run of the mill nationalism you find in any nation.
It doesn't seem we disagree too much. 'Capital W-ord' isn't a plain construction it's shaded with some irony. I don't consider their branding, self-image, or claim to 'patriot' as legitimate. I explain what I recall of their image in the following sentence and mentioned January 6th prior. "Real American Patriots®" might have been a stronger form. Perhaps a case of thinking myself clever.
I assume some of the people discussing this…
That's the thing, though—I have never once (before today) seen Roth accounts mentioned in the context of this.
Of the first page of Google results for shoebox hsa strategy, every article, including a YouTube video and the Reddit thread, fails to mention either the Roth-sweep or the growth-death strategies as alternatives to the shoebox strategy; only the Bogleheads Forum thread even brings up the Roth-sweep idea. (HowToMoney gets half credit for at least suggesting the idea of maxing out your Roth contributions before you put anything in your HSA; but they still don't even touch on the idea that you could do a lot better than the shoebox strategy with existing HSA-eligible receipts.)
Corvos
2hr ago
Imagine a world where we have a good public school system, but a teacher is refusing to teach or use effective methods to teach. Who will discipline or fire them?
Well...
DENNIS: We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week. But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting. By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more--
ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
More seriously, lots of schools like Oxford and Cambridge seem to have been able to run themselves without a specialised professional administrator class until recently.
faceh
2hr ago
So, how many hundreds or thousands of hours would you say is it acceptable to use to find more than a tiny handful of such gems? Please give a serious answer with actual numbers.
You'd want it to be somewhere around a 1:1 ratio of [Time spent searching:Time spent enjoying] if you ask me, although the search can be rewarding in its own way, since you stumble upon curiosities and learn new things in the process, often.
And the most efficient way to find stuff is to to connect with people who have already done the searching and have dredged up gems, and are happy to share those findings. There's communities out there that like the things you like, and have more free time than you do, and thus there's gains from cooperation to be had, rather than trying to search everything up solo.
So think of it less in terms of the time spent finding the music you like, and more in terms of finding communities that spent time finding music you like, and can save you a lot of time and effort via combing efforts.
If I spend 10 hours to find a single album that I will then add to my collection and listen to sporadically going forward, I do think I'd consider that time well spent. Especially if I spread that 10 hours out over weeks or months.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
3hr ago
Some extra Clair Obscur thoughts (I'm at the second Axon fight rn)
- the party composition reminds me of adult-only VNs: there's a hard cap on one human male in the party to avoid accusations of NTR. Maybe this changes in Act 3 (I've seen cosmetics for party members I don't have yet), but don't spoil this for me
- the Act 1/Act 2 changeover reminded me of D&D stories about players that only play one character build with different names. It's totally a different dude, he has a white forelock and a scar!
- I feel like Sciel is missing her share of character development. She's just... there.
- Gradient counters are my bane
I will need a different build soon, as the damage cap is spoiling my current approach:
- Lune is there to put the initial burn on the enemy party, then heal when needed or use Mayhem (the one that burns all your taints)
- Sciel exploits the burn with the skill that jumps to burning enemies and hits the remaining one next turn if necessary
- Maelle doesn't use the skills or stances at all (other than the shield-busting one). I've put a bunch of Luminae on her basic attack (double strike, +50% attack, +50% attack on the first turn, +50% attack after a free shot, +Powerful on self, +Defenceless on the enemy etc) and gave her the rapier that applies burn, this allows her to deal 3-5k per hit and keep the enemy Defenceless and everyone else to deal 5k-9999 damage per skill hit, plus 9999 burn damage every turn.
The problem with this is that 9999 burn damage per turn used to be the reliable killer of everything, but the bosses are getting too tanky now. If Lune or Sciel run out of AP or are incapacitated, the damage output drops quickly. I could theoretically mod the game to have 99999 damage cap and keep burning, but I'd rather look for a new build that can reliably hit the damage cap on multi-hit skills.
Quantumfreakonomics
3hr ago
Who is Brilyn Hollyhand, and why is he suddenly a subject of discussion as if everyone knows who he is?
ABigGuy4U
3hr ago
Why would such individuals not simply up and leave?
—Having the freedom to change jobs
—In Diocletian’s Rome
Anon, I....
hydroacetylene
3hr ago
The rural western US generally has a male slant in the population. Entirely possible he just wasn't going to be able to find a girlfriend- and the trades are not high status among mormons, who push college very strongly(in fairness, their college is free).
sarker
It isn't happening, and if it is, it's a bad thing
3hr ago
prīnceps merely means 'first' - the prīnceps senātūs ('first of the senate') originated during the Republic, and later Augustus took the title prīnceps cīvitātis ('first of the citizens') to pretend that he was merely first among equals rather than a king.
Grant_us_eyes
3hr ago
I have never claimed to be a clever man.
FYI, you get the ability to break the damage cap in act 3. So hang on to those big hit builds, they'll come back in usefulness.
More options
Context Copy link