domain:astralcodexten.substack.com
KMC
5m ago
Another week, another Tucker interview, another transcription of a juicy part by yours truly. I promise, this is unusual, I haven't listened to two in a row, at all, ever.
This week is Jeffrey Sachs. The part below is just after 1:44.
JS: I also have a big measure of resentment: I don't like the risks we are being put under, Tucker.
TC:Yes, well I agree with that completely.
JS: I don't like it. This is not a game.
TC: Well, you've got children.
JS: I've got grandchildren, and I really care about this, and I don't like the games, and I want people to tell the truth. And if we told the truth, we could actually stop the wars, today. I don't mean, that sounds crazy, it's not crazy. If we told the truth about the Ukraine, if Biden called Putin and said, that NATO enlargement we've been trying for 30 years, it's off. We get it, you're right, it's not going to your border, Ukraine should be neutral. That war would stop today. Oh, there'd be lots of pieces to figure out, where exactly will the borders be, how will go, I don't say that there won't be issues, but the fighting would stop today.
JS: If the government of Israel either were told, or said, there will be a state of Palestine, and we will live peacefully side by side, the fighting would stop today. These are basic facts, basic matters of truth that if we actually spoke them, if we actually treated each other like grown-ups we would resolve to seem to be these insurmountable crises. They're not at all insurmountable, they just require a measure of truth.
That was the first mention of Israel, that I could recall, but the whole conversation is about Ukraine, Russia, Putin, and NATO. It's not exactly new to me, but it's refreshing to hear someone so clearly say that this is a war of choice, and the choice is being made by the USA, and their puppet states involved in NATO.
And that was all before any discussion of COVID. tl;dl, it's obviously from a lab, we (USA) pretty clearly funded it, and Fauci has been running the germ warfare branch of the DoD for decades. Which lab, and how is unknown, but, in his own words:
JS: Our government has lied to us about every single moment of this from the start, hasn't told us anything about any of this, it's all whistleblowers or Freedom of Information Act. That's the only way we know any of what I'm describing to you right now. No one has told the truth at all.
Great interview, and I'm glad that Tucker has twitter dot com to host his stuff, rather than be consigned to the fringes of the internet.
hydroacetylene
12m ago
The federal government lacks the state capacity it had in 1860.
jkf
17m ago
I don't know how things are in the US, but in Europe you pretty much have to go underground to escape cell coverage.
I had cellular internet (also p2p wifi at one point) before Starlink, and while they sucked less than high-orbit, they suck more than Starlink.
It is extremely impressive that in a few short years Musk has been able to offer a service... lets say an order of magnitude better than literally any legacy telecom in the world -- these are extremely big companies with all sorts of infrastructure already in place, and he has totally slain them. I do believe that in the next year or two you will be able to connect a phone to his constellation from literally anywhere -- this is also very impressive tech-wise, and it happened super-fast.
BinaryHobo
23m ago
The advantage of the software industry over hardware is that hardware is bounded by the laws of physics and the costs of making things and moving them around.
It does, but the downside is that your entire industry can be commoditized by a few people (fewer than people think) or completely destroyed by your competition exiting the market and just releasing their product. Effectively every area Borland was monetizing 30 years ago is completely free now.
Yeah, microsoft's product doesn't wear out naturally, but the other side is, how much more could they have taxed the industry if linux didn't exist? On the other hand, open source hardware has never really gone anywhere.
jkf
31m ago
Indeed -- I'd venture that there is no longer in fact any product competitive with Excel in the general business market!
This is a vast improvement (for M$FT) from the 80s/early 90s when there were quite a few spreadsheet options with different pros and cons.
The product would have obviously been toast if it operated on pure value creation like if it was Coke versus Pepsi and Pepsi was free and Coke costs a $1.
Thing is it's free water vs dollar coke -- both will hydrate you, but one is clearly a different sort of product. (you will note that even though this is in fact the case, Coke sells a lot of Coke!)
SteveKirk
49m ago
My friend I literally just linked an article last week about the FBI skimming through everyone's credit card purchases for "suspicious activity."
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
51m ago
I am 95% certain on this. In this 5% chance that it happens, I would like a followup bet that some portion of the US breaks off into its own country.
I could see some portion of the US attempting to split off, but what makes you think they'd be any more successful than the last time it was tried?
hydroacetylene
7m ago
Realistically, Ohio doesn't actually have anything to gain from keeping Biden off the ballot, and the Ohio republican party just wants to be dicks about it because they can. Biden has like, a single digit chance of winning Ohio. Whether Biden is technically on the ballot is therefore a minor paperwork issue that Ohio is making a big deal about because it's an opportunity for shitflinging.
That also means that Ohio keeping Biden off the ballot doesn't actually bring any greater likelihood of secession/major consequences. It might indicate that those consequences are more likely than previously thought, but it's not a rung on the escalation ladder.
They're pretty small. Fact of the matter is subsidies for at home solar- which probably benefits Elon Musk more than solar power plants- are fairly popular among the republican base.
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