100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
No bio...
User ID: 2039
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1yr ago
There's no such thing as a good debate for Trump. He's an incoherent windbag.
There's also no such thing as a good campaign for Trump. He's an incoherent windbag with non-existent managerial and executive skills.
None of that matters.
47% of the country votes blue. 47% of the country votes red.
Because of the demographic makeup of states and the electoral college, that remaining 6% has slightly advantage to Red team. So, it's always Blue team's job to hold a bit of an edge. Incumbency advantage is 1-2%, the rest is usually the economy.
Biden has needed to find a simple narrative on the economy plus one major issue (default: abortion) on which to campaign. He's failed to do that. I wondered why for a long time. I thought it had to do with internal conflict within the Democrat party or an inability to sustain a consistent core narrative through the constantly shifting news cycle.
Nope. The fact of the matter is that candidate himself isn't up to the task at all. That's what we learned conclusively tonight after a few months of secret-not-secret speculation. This election has been Biden's to lose all along and he probably just did.
Now, can The Democrats still win? Probably. Their biggest obstacle is themselves. I doubt Kamala will go quietly into that good night, but she's utterly un-electable and Gavin New some was in the Biden green room tonight. Trump? His debate performance was exactly as it has always been - pretty much abysmal and an easy win for anybody not named Joe Biden. His strongest issues are immigration and inflation and he consistently overplays both (that's how we got into "We're living in hell right now!" territory). Trump will not win votes, you (the Democrats) can only lose them.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
10mo ago
I don't precisely know where Elon lands in the Motte's situation evaluation of the Culture War at present, but I think I've got an example than can be used as a lense beyond The MuskATeer himself.
This is a very recent (x)weet from Elon. If you really, carefully parse it with your far less powerful brain (than Elon's, that is) you might be able to understand that - this is just basic macroeconomic understanding. Holy shit this is fucking Econ 101
But, as I've said before, Elon has adopted just enough PodCaster Bro aesthetics to know that slight rephrasings of 1+1=2 obvious insights, combined with "thoughtful" pauses and idiosyncratic speech patterns can make you look deep to the midwits. I am convinced this is also 90% of Sam Altman's playbook.
Business-eese and consulting speaking get a lot of flak for being made up pseudo-languages that exist to further unearned vibes of authority and experience on the part of the speaker. It's fun to point and laugh that it's all either nonsense or very obvious truths dressed up in jargon.
I think the cycle is repeating itself with many different sides of the AI wars. Connor Leahy is even more egregious than Musk, and also triples down by trying (and mostly failing) to pin people down with gotcha hypotheticals that are worded to sounded apocalyptic in their profundity.
I think a good heuristic for valid expertise in a subject is the degree to which it gets a little boring. Scott Alexander's posts often veer into "holy shit, get to the point, dude!" territory. Many posts related to SCOTUS here on The Motte (of which I am thankful for, please keep them going!) often get just a little tedious - not because of jargony pablum, but because the authors generally really know what they're talking about and go multiple layers deep in reference and citation.
I'm someone who's been in the Tech industry (or, maybe more accurately, technology focused parts of several industries) for my entire career. At least at the start, "tech" was looked at as a weird subculture - the bosses knew they needed it, but it wasn't the show. In the middle 2010s, that started to change as the FAANGs became the largest and richest companies on the planet. Now that we are at peak AI hullabaloo, not only do you see people with zero technical capability presenting themselves as experts, you have an entire aesthetic-cultural superstructure. I think Musk is not only part of it, but one of those who built it. Altman as well. If you peer into their backgrounds, their techincal bonafides are questionable at best. Musk seems like a hacker level dev who brute forced his way into PayPal (and was then brute forced out). His claims about being deeply involved in engineering to this day have to be impossible (SpaceX, Tesla, and Xwitter couldn't run if so much was contingent on him). It's more likely he injects himself into meetings and initiatives here and there and mostly serves as a slight derailing force to otherwise normal activities. Altman seems to have zero background and is perhaps the poster boy for weird SF striver life.
I seek the opinions of the Mottizen community.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
This is a pretty uncharitable take, combined with a warping of the previously offered arguments, garnished with hyperbole.
Altman's being gay isn't in an of itself the issues. It's part of the larger concept that he has no direct attachment to the future outside of his own abstracted philosophy. Children ground you to the future for a bunch of obvious reasons. If you don't have them, and show no signs of wanting them, then it's reasonable to ask "well, how do you see your duty, if any, to the future?" Without a ready and familiar moral framework, that's pretty big open question. Combine this with the other available data we have on Altman's maneuverings and power plays and you start to develop a good sense that he's amoral to leaning nihilist / misanthropic.
Your use of Stalin, Mugabe, and Khan is just silly debate club tactics. Okay, bro, should I just create a counter list of obviously amazing people who also had kids? Do we want to try and tally all of that up?
Engage with the argument in its steel man form and in good faith. It's better for everyone.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
10mo ago
I find your post to be low content, low effort, and mostly a screed against your preferred outgroups. I do not see how it adds anything of substance to this conversation.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1yr ago
I hadn't thought of it until your comment, but this is another argument in favor of deeply held personal belief in a transcendent value system.
Yes, I'm talking about Christianity. Or, more inclusively any sort of tradition rooted religion.
Back to the main point - I think it's close to common knowledge that everyone develops a sense of identity throughout their life. Failing to do so, in fact, is recognized not only as a major developmental failure, but potentially a mental illness. What you anchor that identity in is incredibly important.
With the fall of religiosity and the rise of secular humanism, I'd say it's a safe assumption to make that people are now anchoring more and more of their identities in politics and culture. These aren't inherently bad things on which to build an identity. The problem is they can and will change. The above post makes this clear. For a long time, being a "good progressive" meant militant support for drug legalization. That happened and it failed. So ... which part of the identity gives? The past-identity that was pro-legalization, or the now-identity that is using evidence to update beliefs? Either way, it's a loss, because you'd have to point to your identity at some point in time and go "I was wrong." This is destabilizing even for the most ... stable person.
How does religion solve this? Religiously informed beliefs are, at their core, transcendental. They are most important in an after-life situation and can neither be confirmed nor disproved in this life in this world. That's a sort of summation of the notion of faith in general. From an identity perspective, this lets believers commit themselves to something they known will never change because it never "was" in the same sense that material things are. I'd be remiss not to tag @TheDag at this point given his post on materialism from earlier today.
The summation here is straightforward; castle made of sand, shifting foundations et cetera. Build "who you are" (whatever that means) on things that are, frankly, eternal. I've seen people who have rooted their identity in seemingly "forever" things have some nasty reality checks; military dudes ("I'll always be a Marine!"), career A-types ("Nobody can take away the fact I was the youngest VP in corporate history!"), and even family ("My sister and I will always be close").
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3mo ago
Me: "Here's my experience in the field"
You: "I'm not you, so this doesn't help me"
.... I don't know what I can do for you? I'm trying to relate my experience and perspective. I'm not trying to craft a career strategy for randos on the internet.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
6mo ago
The current environmental pressures reward the lower IQ more ohrtodox religious kind which will make society worse.
I disagree (and, also, fuck you)
whilst many professors go childless.
This is a good thing. Low-T dorks with sinecure wordcel jobs shouldn't be reproducing.
Anyone who is in a stable job, has a good wife should be having kids
I agree! In fact, earning that stable job, and keeping it, should be the kind of behavior and life pattern that results in lots of mate choices.
But it isn't because of a whole host of anti-social and technology driven causes that have made hyper-individualism the basic mode of western human personal evolution.
This is exactly what @hydroacetylene is talking about - we're not reproducing enough because, at the median, everyone is stupid and selfish and not rewarding others' pro-social behavior and choices.
And this is the the issue-behind the issue of the fertility crisis - we're not really a pro-social society anymore. We like laws that say you can't shoot me in the face and you can't take my stuff, but we're not interested in creating communities (and a society, which is a meta-community) that serves a meaningful purposes. We want a shitload of personal level guarantees backed by the lethal force of the state so that we can laugh "HAHA ITS MY RIGHTS" through a mouthful of lard sandwich.
If you're a hyper-individualist, you dont really care about the people down the street so long as they aren't allowed to fuck with you and your shit. You certainly don't care about a hypothetical yet-to-be-born-maybe-baby (abortion on demand!) and you absolutely don't care about a conceptual future culture that outlives you be centuries. That's for the "lower IQ more ohrtodox religious kind" with their fake and gay ideas of absolute truth and divinity. What uncultured assholes. Trump voters, I'd bet.
What am I getting at here, besides a post-christmas eggnog fueled rant? Probably nothing. I'm closing in 1,000 comments on the Motte and I've found most of this effort to be be pointless. I've learned a lot from this website, and it gives me a lot of optimism that the Real Internet isn't dead. There are good thinkers out there.
I ran out of steam.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
touchy-feely-schmoozy-douchey sort of interaction that salespeople are pros at
Can you just ... try harder? There's no content here. Again, I'm all ears for a meaningful counterpoint, rebuttal, whatever. There are at least two or three already in this thread. Right now, you're saying "nah, salesmen suck" and leaving it at that.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
The guy is running several very large companies
No, he isn't.
He's put some world class people in charge of his various companies to run them. Elon Musk is maybe the single best identifier and motivator of talent the world has ever seen. He's done some majorly impressive things across very different industries.
And he really wants to be seen as an genius engineer. Which is super sad to me. Dude is a world class talent picker and he has a reality distortion field that turns well adjusted smart people into cult members in their obedience.
But check out his Twitter avatar. Dude's self-conception is already out of this world.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
(Business theme here. Because I kind of want more business content on the Motte.)
I was wrong about Sales.
Beginning of my career, I was an engineer thinker, but who could Talk To Girls (TM), so I was sent out to talk to clients for technical sales reasons. Back then, I hated it because I was still trying to integrate the Autism firmware into my brain. Everything was logical, right? Cost-benefit analysis. Couldn't these stupid "customers" just see that our product provided value and pay us?
That's not how business works because that's not how humans work. Humans are not efficiency seeking automatons. We have problems, we want solutions. If we can't see how a thing helps us solve a problem, then that thing has a value of zero. Sales is the process of understanding problems deeply and then matching those problems (or not!) with a solution. It is applied empathy. It is one of the best skills to develop (so long as it is developed with integrity). If every Sales bro suddenly spent a year as therapists, we'd cure all this millennial mental health nonsense right away.
The fact is that deep engineer types who try to engineer products or services without caring about human interaction are truly trying to dehumanize humans. I get the same bad vibes from Sam Altman and Elon Musk because I truly believe both of them privately think, "Man, this would all be so much easier if like 90% of people just died." Technical elegance, engineering genius, physics-defying new invention don't. actually. matter if they fail to help people. I think the one hack here are the Theoretical Physicts who might actually be discovering capital-T Truth with math. But I'm too dumb to actually validate that.
But but but but ... Used car salesmen! Pushy boiler room stock brokers! The whole pharmaceutical industry! Can't sales be used for horrible awful very no-good reasons? Yes, but not try at scale for a long time unless there's tacit approval from lots of other humans. In all of the examples I provided, what's really going on is people want to defy reality in one way or another. They're being greedy. They don't want to live healthy they want to not feel pain. They want something they can't afford because they want to feel like they have certain status. Sales people playing into the self-deception of others isn't some black magic - it's psychological failure and manipulation that goes on constantly all over the world. Calling sales bad or evil is the same logical fallacy as calling human beings inherently bad or evil.
Can you tell I do a lot more sales and sales like things now? It's infinitely more satisfying that being a smarter than everyone else engineer. I'm not going to pretend like the software I've been involved with cured cancer, but, in many cases, I did see get applied to solve meaningful business problems. I like to think it contributed to economic growth in a small way.
If you want to be "part of a great effort to promote human flourishing" ... learn sales.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
Excellent. AAQC'd
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
10mo ago
In 1960, the median family...
A quality post, but I would caution you not to fall into Baby Boomer sunny day nostalgia.
In 1960, the median family was smoking, drinking, and physically fighting more. A lot of the "social order" that we yearn for today was at the expense of a lot of behind-closed-doors domestic abuse and built on the back of what was a fundamentally racist society. Furthermore, the American West was still "frontier" enough even then that if you were just kind of a trouble maker, you hopped on a train to California and, I don't know, go found Apple Computers or some shit.
Please also remember that In 1960, the median family that was black or living in greater Appalachia wasn't living that much better than the 1860 median family.
I am 100% behind the idea that a lot of social and political (and economic) ills today are because of social dysfunction. I am at the level of "As soon as you stop hearing "sir" and "ma'am" the rest is sure to follow." I think you should hold open doors for women, and that guys should pay on the first date. I will call the police on you for loud music after 9pm. My lawn need gettin' off of.
But, at the same time, fuck 1960. We're not going back. Ah, fuck! Look what you made me do.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1yr ago
I'll meet you half way.
I think you're right in that there does appear to be a double standard on Carroll's allegations (which a jury denied) and Trump's ability to say whatever he wants (at whatever volume he wants) about it. I'm not an expert enough in defamation to say where the line is.
But I still stand by my "own-goal" analogy because either a lot or all of this (past the first jury trial, to be specific) could've been avoided if Trump just STFUs and relies on milquetoast cliches - "The justice system functioned and I abide by the verdict." He keep creating new opportunities for potential attacks. The fact that these attacks are/may be politically motivated is irrelevant because (a) He keeps creating the opportunities and (b) It is impossible for him not to know how much certain groups have made it their existential purpose to hunt him through the courts. When you mix egotism with a martyrdom complex, you get a lot of frivolous legal activity.
To refer back to the One True Gospel, The Wire;
"Keep it boring, String, keep it real fuckin' boring" - Prop Joe
And, from the Prophet Lil Wayne;
"Real G's move in silence like lasagna"
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
7mo ago
Just for avoidance of doubt - my post is considered unacceptable?
My straightforward argument against the death penalty as that I'm pro-life in all cases (thus, anti-abortion and anti-death penalty).
I believe this because I think there has to be a hard fix on the sanctity of human life. If there is room for slippage, slippage does indeed occur and, after a few decades, you have what we have today - several million people "okay" with third trimester and even post delivery abortion. To be intellectually consistent, I don't think we should have that kind of slippage on the other end of life either (ask me how I feel about assisted suicide!)
On the death penalty side, while the cases you highlight are incredibly egregious, I don't think the State should be in the business of killing its own citizens. I like your argument about it not mattering who pulled the trigger. In death penalty cases, it seems to me like they're constructed to diffuse responsibility through a heavily bureaucratic process so that no individual has to bear full responsibility for condemning a person to death and then effecting that sentence. The prosecutor is simply adhering to their office's guidelines, the Judge allows for the consideration or pursuit of the death penalty, the jury validates that such evidence exists and was compelling, the hangman simply carries out that which has already been handed down. Who "pulled the trigger?" It doesn't matter. We've just bureaucrat-brained ourselves into collectively thinking "surely, not me!"
I also believe in the idea that someone can find meaning and redemptive power in their life even in the most awful conditions. Man's Search For Meaning is a small book about how even in Auschwitz, a guy was able to find a reason to keep going. After his experience, Frankl then had a full career. If I can forgive anyone for, instead, curling up into a bottle forever, it would be a literal holocaust survivor. I have little personal sympathy to criminals, but I believe they should have the ability to choose to try to find redemptive meaning. Now, that does come with caveats...
I absolutely believe there are many types of crimes that not only deserve but necessitate strict incarceration for one's entire natural lifespan. There are people who are either too dangerous or who have violated the social contract too egregiously to ever be let out again. They should be caged until they die. Though difficult, I do believe they still could find their own redemptive meaning even in prison. Finding that meaning, however, is not a ticket out of jail.
Yes, I am that guy that thinks that Red from Shawshank Redemption should've never been granted parole.
I don't write any of this to convince you. I'm trying to offer the best description of what / how / why I am anti-death penalty.
EDIT:
@Hoffmeister25 has a death penalty argument that I don't agree with, but 100% respect. As I read him, he believes swift execution is necessary to control the potential spread of defective genes, as well as to give clear and obvious consequences for violating the social contract. This is a consistent and honest opinion. But I worry about the "slippage" here - do we eventually turn into a state where one's potential for violent crime results in a minority-report style pre-execution? That may seem hyperbolic, but, you know, think about it duuuuude.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
10mo ago
Words versus symbols, right?
More-babies-than-rockets Musk can be called an incel because he's weird, nerd techy (instead of cool San Francisco VC techy), dresses sort of schlubby sometimes, and dances weird (Wow, that clip is truly painful).
Just as there's nothing particularly feline centric about "cat ladies." Instead, it's about symboling signalling a harsh, unattractive, bitter woman who is not only repulsive to men but unfriendly with other women.
Incel is another evolutionary branch of nice guy or neckbeard. Cat lady is the descendant of marm, spinster, and witch.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
10mo ago
was actually a pretty impressive bit of political maneuvering.
In some countries, they refer to this as a "coup".
I generally agree with the rest of your post, but it isn't Kamala's race to lose. Right now, this is a toss up, which means it's about the next "thing" that turns into the "current thing" that each candidate has to respond to. Remember, Harris got a two free news cycle passes in a row - when Biden dropped out followed immediately by the DNC. In the next few weeks some-"thing" will happen. Then, the race actually starts.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1yr ago
I'm with her
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
8mo ago
Thanks for the source. Learning has occurred.
should be a punch in the gut.
Wow, like, damn, dude, you're so based and right. I'll go take my midwit self to the euthanasia trough ASAP.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
8mo ago
Being a white collar worker from 1968 to 1998 was nothing like 30 years of being a FAANG engineer.
You're right - it was probably better. You still had company provided pensions for tenure of service. Company cars, relocation assistance, mortgage assistance was somewhat common.
And the boomers only "prosecute[d]" Vietnam in the sense that they got sent there to kill and to die;
This is correct. But @jeroboam and @hydroacetylene did a much better job of highlighting my shortcomings to this point.
The 1970s inflation hit the boomers more than the Xers, who were children at the time.
Children don't experience inflation?
The earliest Gen Xers in fact graduated into the start of the Reagan Boom; later Xers weren't so lucky.
Much like their millennial counterparts 20 years later, Gen Xers walking into the workforce in the Reagan years found obstinate Boomers hogging all of the upward mobility. Again, the economic miracle of the 1980s and 1990s went disproportionately into the pockets and accounts of boomers, often in indirect ways; real estate prices going up for ever, the wealth transfer scheme of subsidized college loans.
This is ridiculous.
This makes me feel bad. And I feel like it's on purpose. You and I don't get a long much. Sometimes you are right. Sometimes I am right. Please be cordial.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
8mo ago
A bunch of woo-woo amateur sluts I know are throwing a rager at their shared house.
They're early 30s, not married, and one bag of potato chips way from popping the buttons on their skinny jeans.
It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel.
(The above isn't actually what I'm doing for Halloween, but it is 100% accurately representative of how a lot of single Men perceive this Holiday.)
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
but she's truly the most insightful person I've ever known
She's probably not. Because she isn't old enough.
Don't take this as me saying she isn't insightful. I take you at your word. But she's not the most insightful person you've ever known. Ask if if she is. She'll say she isn't. Take her at her word.
And then realize that if you still deny reality and message to her that you think she's the most insightful person you've ever known, she'll slowly start to question your reasonable judgement of other things.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
9mo ago
-
Stop using emojis
-
Write shorter, more declarative sentences.
-
Church ... for a first date. Bruh.
-
Most importantly - Stop using OLD. Go out and talk to people in real life. You will have more success, you will have more fun, you will build interpersonal skills that transcend dating.
I've never understood OLD. If the objective is dating a real person in real life ... go do that. Why is there this odd online first step? It's like saying "Before I jump in the pool, I'll interact with a digital model of water so I understand the water better"
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
1yr ago
(Example, example, example.)
Matt Yglesias. Data for Progess. Vox.
Dude....Sources matter.
"Which is more important in an internal combustion engine? Oxygen or the flammable substance?"
It's diet and exercise. You have to have both. Together.
These pills won't make people healthier. They will make people feel better about themselves. They aren't weight loss drugs, they're NextGen antidepressants. Metabolic syndrome often does not present as visible obesity. Major stomach and liver issues can go undetected for years. People will start taking these drugs and remain at a lower body weight. Then, one day, they die suddenly and any autopsy performed with reveal superfluous amounts of visceral fat, a leaking stomach, and a liver close to non-function.
Physical fitness is, among many other things, an information feedback loop. If you are in bad shape, you have been making poor health decisions. Sometimes, this can be unavoidable (late nights during crunch time at work or school, what have you). But, mostly, it's a clear indication that you're making poor, poor choices. Using something that covers up the effects of these choices does nothing to alter that decision process. I'd wager that habitual users of Wegovy etc. probably will also habitually (ab)use other substances - alcohol, narcotics, sugar, social media. This is not a road to health.
More options
Context Copy link