domain:alexberenson.substack.com
BurdensomeCount
Singapore is the only country that learned the correct lessons from the British Empire.
2hr ago
They might like their neighbourhood, but they probably like $5 million for their quarter acre a lot more. Then big developers can consolidate and build something that can house more people and sell the units for $1 million each. Everyone wins: the people who sold their house, the developers, the people who now get to live affordably in the bay area, the government (a lot more tax for them) etc. etc.
Only losers are busybodies who want to restrict what others want to do with lan they own.
New housing gets built and rich foreigners like Indians come in and pay 100k over asking
This is a signal that supply nowhere near matches the level of demand. It's a sign we need to build even more, not control building.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
2hr ago
Yes. It's not because we hate humor. It's because threads full of people saying "Lol" and "This" are annoying, so we discourage it.
georgioz
2hr ago
The law would apply equally to somebody funded by Russian organization or let's say Misk foundation that is backed by Mohammed bin Salman. I personally think there is a huge difference between let's say Club of Slovak Toursits which private NGO funded by hikers as opposed to organization funded by governments like China or Saudi Arabia or Quatar - it is hard to even call them NGOs in that sense. Was it also not part o the whole controversy of "Russian collusion" where all everybody was up in arms that some foreign player is meddling in domestic politics?
To me this adds transparency to NGO sector, that leftist call it as "chilling effect" or even as you say that it will "shut down" the sector - which is not true at this point is telling. Of course they are arguing from slippery slope and there may be something there, but it is a different argument from what is happening now.
josephinesotherman
2hr ago
Really going to lean into "in a grey area". I'd be incredibly careful with phenibut, it's extremely dangerous and addictive.
For longevity: Rapamycin
For focus/attention/productivity: Phenylpiracetam (it's harder to get now from good suppliers in the US now because of a "soft ban" by the FDA, and I think phenotropil in Russia was potentially discontinued a bit back).
... in fact, you can probably look at a lot of OTC Russian pharmaceuticals:
- Selank
- Semax
- Cerebrolysin
- Mildronate
- Noopept
- Picamilon
- Bemethyl
- Emoxypine
YMMV, of all of these I've tried: Phenylpiracetam, Emoxypine, Selank, and Semax (the latter two in Russia, I have a lot of phenylpiracetam leftover from when nootropicsdepot used to sell it). I really like phenylpiracetam.
Primaprimaprima
Bigfoot is an interdimensional being
2hr ago
I really look forward to Zvi’s AI roundups every week. It’s easy to just skim for the relevant bits and ignore the rest.
LCEnzo
3hr ago
Your posts are the main thing bringing me back to the site. Too bad you didn't drop your new twitter/substack.
erwgv3g34
3hr ago
When I was growing up, it was accepted wisdom in Hollywood that any film that adapted British source material had to be set in America with American children, and the source was often mutilated to make that work: see The Seeker (an adaptation of my favourite childhood book) for a particularly egregious example, but they even tried to do it with Harry Potter.
I have always found it distasteful the way Hollywood will import successful foreign properties by remaking them instead of just subbing or dubbing them (such as the Spaniard [REC] movie franchise turning into the American Quarantine film series).
Anime is the only major exception to this, although even then there were American import companies that tried their best to localize shows rather than simply translating them (most infamously 4Kids, which would do weird things like turning rice balls into sandwiches). And who can forget the near-misses of Sailor Moon and Gundam?
2D3D
3hr ago
Strictly speaking the dynastic quality of Lee Kuam Yew to Lee Hsien Loong is clouded by Goh Chok Tongs equally unremarkably competent 'seatwarmer' Prime Ministership of 14 years, which is no small quantum of years save for the long tenures of LKY and LHL to stand as contrasts. Detractors point to an early health scare in LHLs career as the reason for extending GCTs PM tenure, but other commentators note that LKY would not have allowed an incompetent son to be in a political leadership position. I leave it to readers to determine whether LHL is a nepo baby inheriting a position he did not earn or a man groomed from high school to helm a thankless position. I for one err towards LHL doing a fair job of unclenching his fathers grasped fist on Singapore only to replace it with his own everpresent guiding hand.
As for Lawrence Wong, it is fair to say that he is less charismatic than the other leaders we are used to, but to be frank Singaporeans do not really trust charisma. Old guard oratory opposition firebrands like Joshua Benjamin Jeyaratnam and Chee Soon Juan were unable to rally the populace to their cause of freeing Singapore from Lee Kuan Yews harsh view of society and the world, and modern sweet talkers like Jamus Lim are viewed by the polity as soft idealists who will fold when push comes to shove. In short, the relative lack of charisma is not a shortcoming for PM Wong. Why Singaporeans are unreceptive to charisma is likely a combination of successful government propaganda about being wary of false prophets but also a brutal calculus by even the educated population who view politics as something best left as a topic of complaint and not a cause to rally against.
One can readily observe that Singaporean politicians are overwhelmingly senior civil servants and military generals (who are basically civil servants in the Singaporean administration), and my personal view is that save for extremely few egoists the vast majority of politicians are simply guys who got asked by their boss to take up the role of politician. Singapores political administration, especially in the Lawrence Wong cabinet, is a cabinet of civil servants forced to the top. Is being forced to the top bad? For these men, yes it is. Singaporean civil servants often command far higher salaries than politicians, and the educational pedigrees of these politicians certainly puts paid to accusations of incompetence-blind nepotism. This chart below is a snapshot of the difference between Singapore and Malaysia: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Y5CGZO4eQBY/TQS1sT9gTrI/AAAAAAAAChQ/7X-cnkUP7yE/s1600/Singapore+Vs+malaysia+Politic+2007-Final.jpg
It is a common observation in the Admin Service - the elite civil servants, recipients of extremely competitive scholarships that allow Singaporean kids of even modest income to massively overrepresent at all elite universities - that it is better to rise to Director or Deputy Permanent Secretary of a major ministry, than it is to become a member of parliament. It is an easier career progression path and salaries are inevitably higher than junior politicians, much less the eye watering salaries admin service scholars can command when they jump to MBB or FAANG - typically 0.3m is the starting salary for jumpers who go straight to VP or higher, compared to Admin Service deputy directors (the typical jumping point) who command 0.15m at that juncture.
All this is to reinforce the point that for these men of means and brains, there are much better opportunities for self enrichment than being a politician. Between a blisteringly robust private sector and an extremely aggressive Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau which set its sights on a prominent minister, there is little opportunity for a politician to self enrich and better opportunities outside the cosy confines of the civil service-politocian pipeline. As an extreme example, one of the main Prime Minister prospectives, George Yeo, lost his seat in 2011 and 'retired' to be director of multiple major conglomerates both in Singapore and overseas. Rest assured that he is making 4x the money for 1/2 the effort as when he was a minister.
So what does this mean for Lawrence Wong? Well, it means that he is, in effect, a chump. His boss told him 'I need you to take over' and like a good boy he said 'yes sir'.
https://www.theonion.com/black-man-given-nations-worst-job-1819570341
(He isn't black, but the point still stands)
PM Wong is certainly not a deer in the headlight about to be run over. If not LW then others in the cabinet would have been picked, notably Chan Chun Sing who is bafflingly removed from the new executive core despite his immense popularity among everyone that worked with him - maybe looking like a 20 year old boy trying to fit into his dads suit harms him more than even the voting populace thinks. The Singapore civil service is, by this point, a well tuned machine churning out remarkably competent administrators and bureaucrats who have proven competent at navigating their institutions away from ruin. Perhaps that is the best placeholder government a society can hope for, a solid ship well maintained till a visionary captain finds his hands at the helm. Till then, the bureaucrat-politicians of Singapore will navigate as best they can, which honestly seems like a better deal than what the rest of us (globohomo retards time-capsuled in 2012 liberalism that we are) have to go through.
ace
3hr ago
I was following your thought process until this:
Jews do not want white people behaving like Jews, and they will flex enormous political, economic, and cultural power to stop it from happening.
This is a wild statement that you need to proportionally support with citations.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
3hr ago
Because I wasn't born yesterday and I'm not narrowly focused on a particular set of proposals being made by some groups today -- and I don't believe others are either. As @zeke5123a points out, "there are a million ways to cut red tape besides allowing multiple family building in single family zones", but for some reason these organizations are ONLY focused on ways to increase density. Remove urban growth boundaries, agricultural set-asides, and other government blockades to development? No, it's all about jamming more people where single-family development already is.
And I've been hearing how horrible "sprawl" is from basically the same area of the political spectrum for decades. I do not believe the people organizing the YIMBYs have different goals than the New Urbanists and other anti-car anti-suburb leftists, only different tactics.
FeepingCreature
3hr ago
Yeah and as an additional factor, moral obligations and state actions are fundamentally different in kind because moral obligations are individual whereas state actions are collective. You have a moral obligation to save the drowning child even if you are surrounded on all sides by callous assholes; standing in a group of bystanders does not morally relieve you of failure to render aid. Conversely, if your society has decided on a tax rate that is erroneously, ruinously low, you do not have a moral or legal obligation to pay regardless, because in that situation we acknowledge that uneven enforcement is even more corrosive than wrong policy.
FeepingCreature
3hr ago
The point is: report, don't engage. The rules explicitly do not support defensive/retributive rules violations.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
3hr ago
I'm listening and learning, though I've only used Opus through lmsys and their own content moderation endpoints make this approach a no go :(
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
3hr ago
I enjoyed the first one a great deal more, though maybe it was due to the story being more engaging, while the second felt like a reprise.
freemcflurry
4hr ago
If we were really going to be libertarians now I'd have some sympathy for that. In practice the Democrats only ever want more freedom on issues that will benefit groups they like (blacks and immigrants mostly) with things like open borders, getting rid of zoning etc. Everyone else gets a boot on their face with high taxes and totalitarian environmental regulations. I don't want regulations to be repealed only when they will hurt me but left in place in all other cases.
_malcontent_
4hr ago
Before the movies came out the books themselves were adapted for an American audience. The example, the first book renamed the philosopher’s stone to the sorcerer’s stone.
There were 2 versions of the audio books. The British version narrated by Stephen fry and the American version narrated by Jim dale.
RenOS
Dadder than dad
4hr ago
I get the impression it's something else. When I lived in London, one thing I especially noticed was that many of the parks are arguably more beautiful than any german cities' I've been to, and if you look up the financing of restorations or new developments, it's not strictly London-specific, it's often from diverse sources. Same goes for the London museums in particular. Meanwhile, cheap neighbourhoods are worse dumps than anything I've ever seen in Germany. Trash in the streets, barbed wire everywhere, junkies, the housing quality would literally be illegal in Germany. Small towns are the same or worse; When I visited Hastings as a teen it looked pretty dead, lots of obvious junkies as well, and the english teachers who lived there also complained constantly about how awful Hastings has become (as a teen I didn't mind it much, actually found it fascinating). Other small towns I've visited as an adult also just look terrible, except for a minority of historically relevant cities such as Oxbrdige, that often are disproportionally rich. I can't help get away with the impression that the UK is actively pooling its money extremely non-equitably into very few places (which is funny, given that the UK elite likes to talk about equity much more than the german elite does).
On the other hand in (western) Germany, it's not rare that I drive through a rural area and just stumble into a really nice, well maintained playground, or a park, or a nice-looking town centre. I only know the funding for my tiny home town, ~5k people, but I don't think it's unusual: large parts are actually from greater german/european sources, the town itself couldn't afford it. On the other hand, even the nicest centres of large cities don't really compare to central London. Eastern Germany is a different beast though, the countryside looks as awful as UKs, and the youth is fleeing in droves. On both sides, small cities often offer the best of both worlds and are correspondingly popular; Large enough to support most kinds of jobs, hobbies and locations, small enough to be somewhat affordable , with accessible nature & farms, and it still profits from certain funding sources explicitly targeted away from the large cities. I don't see something similar to UK/London happening any time soon.
Maybe it's just a feedback loop; once a critical mass of power is concentrated into a center it feeds itself until nothing else is left, the social equivalent of a black hole. In the past, countries didn't really care or even actively worked toward centralisation, so early unification countries are especially liable. Modern countries seem to care though, so late unification countries can stave it off successfully much more easily.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4hr ago
Also Journey to Fusang by William Sanders, a much lighter book in tone.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4hr ago
B-but there might be a Pride parade there!
In any case, it seems the shooter was a pro-Russian far-righter:
Juraj Cintula, a 71-year-old man from Levice, was immediately detained by Fico's security detail.[20][21] According to the Minister of Interior, Cintula stated during police interrogation that his decision to conduct the assassination was made immediately after the 2024 Slovak presidential election.[22]
The suspect had frequented events organized by the pro-Russian paramilitary group Slovenskí Branci [sk] (Slovakian Recruits; SB). The group, which was connected to the Russian motorcycle club Night Wolves and which was receiving training from Russian Spetsnaz members, announced its disbandment in October 2022. On his social media, Cintula wrote multiple posts praising SB and its anti-immigration stance.[23] During the attack, the suspect used a pistol which he held legally in connection with his job of a private security personnel in a shopping centre.[24][25]
In 2016, the suspect had founded a "Movement Against Violence". The suspect had also been a leader of the Literárny klub Duha (Rainbow Literary Club) in Levice, which he co-founded in 2005. He had authored three poetry books, a novel, and a book about Romani people in Slovakia titled Efata. In this book, the suspect praised the programme of the far-right People's Party Our Slovakia and professed understanding of mass-murderers in cases of perceived governmental failures.[24][26][27]
This still doesn't necessarily indicate a particular conspiracy related to these movements or anything else, such movements tend to draw unstable personalities to them like flies to honey.
Folamh3
4hr ago
I mean, okay, but I was just laughing at that guy's joke. Is it against the rules to say "ha ha, your joke was funny"?
fauji
5hr ago
The same has been done in India also. It seems to be a common play to fund left wing activities through NGO funding.
Corvos
5hr ago
Do environmentalists not say that they're concerned about the effects of global warming - rising sea levels, crop destruction, etc. - precisely because it will affect people? That's always been my impression.
I would say there's a big split between the pro-humans (our children will live better, happier lives if we take better care of the environment) and the misanthropes (the environment would be better off without us).
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
5hr ago
I know it's just a TV show doing this for funsies, but I would really prefer if they actually steelmanned the pro-Palestine position before trying to mock it.
Understood.
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