Felagund
1yr ago
My read was that chrisprattalpharaptr was essentially trying to push for conversing politely, and tyre_inflator's main point was that the conversation that happens here is useless.
So one seems closer to me to needing mod action than the other, given the standards of this place.
Felagund
11mo ago
Many of us have been pointing at NRx for being esoterically or even exoterically Zionist for some time,
Why are the jews your only issue?
Like, objectively, there seem to be far more important things to life in the US than whatever minor portion of the budget gives aid to which parties in the middle east.
Felagund
1yr ago
In a scenario where there is not surplus labor, employees are paid more and (perhaps) prices increase.
Sure.
The price increase is spread equally to everyone,
Maybe? Depends on the industries most impacted. I'll grant it.
yet the “surplus resources” (the money that would ordinarily go to the top) are all given to the employees and not the top.
Wait, you're missing several factors here. If I understand what you're saying, your model is that more employees->wages down->employers pocket the difference. But what's left out is that often that money will go to hire more workers, to scale up the production, or the extra labor lets more firms do things. Competition should drive profits down towards zero, as firms have to drop their prices, so "the top" doesn't actually really benefit much. (And a large amount of low skill labor I would think would go into competitive industries).
The end result is that the people with the most amount of money have to pay more, which is a great result
No. The goal should not be to have people pay more. That's a loss. We want prosperity. Elon Musk or whoever taking a loss doesn't help you out.
The lower and middle class also have to pay more, too, but this counterbalanced with their increased pay and quality of life. In the end, they benefit the most.
Why do you think increased quality of life, given that you mention increased costs in the same sentence, with no attempt to compare the sizes of the effects?
If my business sells coconuts off the highway, I greatly benefit if I can pay my coconut sellers slave wages. What if there are fewer people willing to sling my coconuts off the highway? I simply need to pay them more to work for me, no questions asked, because if I don’t I lose all my money, but if I do I still make money.
Well, I'd need to raise wages to get more workers to sell more coconuts up until the point where the cost of raising everyone's wages outweighs the benefit of the extra coconuts sold. It's not exactly all or nothing, but what you're saying is roughly right.
That part is obvious, but your take would suggest that I would attempt to make the same amount of profit by simply pricing my coconuts higher.
Not exactly. It's actually supply and demand. Fewer workers means I can sell fewer coconuts, which means I can raise the cost because I don't need to try to sell to quite as many people—I don't need to appeal to the ones previously on the edge.
What actually happens is that I might try to sell my coconuts for more money, will probably fail, and ultimately will have to just give more money to my employees. Oh well, I will have to sell four of my six vacation homes.
I guess I'm not exactly seeing why the selling of vacation homes is necessary, nor why that's a good thing.
In America there is a huge number of businesses that generate enormous absurd profits which have this same ceiling. An obvious one is Amazon, and another obvious one is Starbucks.
You do realize that Amazon's only able to be so profitable by being enormously useful, right? There are some predatory practices here or there (see some of their pricing policies, in relation to other vendors), but on the whole, they're very good for you, the consumer?
There is a point at which people will refuse to shop online if the prices are too high.
Or, they'll buy from other vendors online or whatever. But yes, Amazon and its sellers do have to set prices at ranges that people will buy them at.
Sorry Bezos, you’ll have to sell your half a billion dollar yacht.
Do you think Amazon and Bezos have merged finances?
Starbucks is milking the consumer dry with their overpriced drinks, but they honestly cannot price them at $14 a drink.
Supply and demand. If the price is to high, switch to alternatives, or don't buy (and people do, whether other stores, or prepared at home). Starbucks will only raise prices for as long as they think that the product of the customers at the higher price times the change in price is more than the product of the lower price times the additional customers. (Sorry, that's probably hard to read. It's the difference between two different rectangles on a demand curve. But I don't have a way to represent to you the diagram.)
It’s people who have a pseudo(?) monopoly and/or have amassed such industry/marketing knowledge that competition is effectively impossible, and they’re making absurd profits when we can just make take and give it to the middle class simply by decreasing the wage pool.
This makes more sense for the Amazon example than the Starbucks example, because Amazon's a lot harder to compete with than Starbucks.
But remember, why is Amazon hard to compete with? In part, because of anti-competitive practices, but also in part by being really good for the consumer, in ways that you need huge, costly, scale to match. Amazon is skimming value, but it's value that they've created, that their competitors can't keep up with.
Nevertheless, you're right that in this case, you could presumably cut into Amazon's profits without any huge consequences, unless there's some factor I'm missing.
But keep in mind! If we kill/forcibly retire/cause never to have been born/outlaw a bunch of workers, Amazon can afford to maintain it's workers, but all the other companies that can't afford to do so now have to cut back on their workers, and scale back on what they're doing. And so you just increased Amazon's market share, because they, due to having more breathing room due to being more profitable, can handle the increased austerity when other firms cannot.
Forgive me if there are any errors in that analysis. My last detailed interaction with economics was only a basic principles of microeconomics course a few years ago, so I imagine there must be some.
Felagund
1yr ago
All of the “economic efficiency” is just going to go to the very wealthy
No? Do you think that labor in general only helps the very wealthy? Does your job only help the very wealthy? At the very least, it helps you and everyone you buy anything from, not even considering whatever benefits whatever youedo accomplishes. Likewise, immigrants help themselves, help everyone they buy things from, and help those who they work those, and help those who buy from those whom they work for, by increasing supply, and so driving down the price. Is this bad for those currently in the niche that those people are in? Quite possibly, as long as it's disproportionately there, to an extent that it exceeds the benefits of the immigration. But everyone else benefits, at least.
Your companies will actually be lobbying the government to increase health and fertility.
Aren't you arguing that having more workers is bad?
Felagund
2mo ago
Then it's in your interest to estimate the probability space and act accordingly. Not to assume everything magically cancels.
Throwing up your hands and doing nothing is lazy and irresponsible, considering the stakes.
Pascal was quite right to criticize this attitude of carelessness or dismissal in Pensées 195:
Before entering into the proofs of the Christian religion, I find it necessary to point out the sinfulness of those men who live in indifference to the search for truth in a matter which is so important to them, and which touches them so nearly.
Of all their errors, this doubtless is the one which most convicts them of foolishness and blindness, and in which it is easiest to confound them by the first glimmerings of common sense, and by natural feelings.
For it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment; that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be its nature; and that thus all our actions and thoughts must take such different directions according to the state of that eternity, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment, unless we regulate our course by the truth of that point which ought to be our ultimate end.
There is nothing clearer than this; and thus, according to the principles of reason, the conduct of men is wholly unreasonable, if they do not take another course.
On this point, therefore, we condemn those who live without thought of the ultimate end of life, who let themselves be guided by their own inclinations and their own pleasures without reflection and without concern, and, as if they could annihilate eternity by turning away their thought from it, think only of making themselves happy for the moment.
Yet this eternity exists, and death, which must open into it, and threatens them every hour, must in a little time infallibly put them under the dreadful necessity of being either annihilated or unhappy for ever, without knowing which of these eternities is for ever prepared for them.
This is a doubt of terrible consequence. They are in peril of eternal woe; and thereupon, as if the matter were not worth the trouble, they neglect to inquire whether this is one of those opinions which people receive with too credulous a facility, or one of those which, obscure in themselves, have a very firm, though hidden, foundation. Thus they know not whether there be truth or falsity in the matter, nor whether there be strength or weakness in the proofs. They have them before their eyes; they refuse to look at them; and in that ignorance they choose all that is necessary to fall into this misfortune if it exists, to await death to make trial of it, yet to be very content in this state, to make profession of it, and indeed to boast of it. Can we think seriously on the importance of this subject without being horrified at conduct so extravagant?
This resting in ignorance is a monstrous thing, and they who pass their life in it must be made to feel its extravagance and stupidity, by having it shown to them, so that they may be confounded by the sight of their folly. For this is how men reason, when they choose to live in such ignorance of what they are, and without seeking enlightenment. "I know not," they say ..."
Felagund
5mo ago
I like having BurdensomeCount around, and would be sad to see him banned.
My opinion probably doesn't count for all that much, but I like to think I'm one of the relatively more measured users here.
Felagund
7mo ago
I assume the question here has an intended answer (there wasn't much fraud).
Anyway, asking anyone who does think the 2020 election was stolen, do you have any examples of things that seem like obvious problems or evidence of substantial fraud? I'm currently inclined to think that there wasn't anything of that sort, but a lot of people seem really firmly convinced, so I'd be interested in seeing the evidence.
Essentially zero of this is a product of Biden being elected. You picked Floyd, which was during Trump's term, and a bunch of things that are generally not action by the federal government.
Like, there's plenty to complain about Biden for (e.g. student loans!), but stick to what he's actually done? Or explicitly say that the problem is the missed opportunities for the right to crack down on these things, in which case the problem is not so much that the democrats are (mostly) in power, but that the republicans aren't?
Felagund
1yr ago
I don't think it's something to be worried about if someone lets a family member fill out their ballot for them. Maybe it's illegal, but when you're saying that an election is fraudulent, and what you mean is "some people illegally let their spouses fill out their ballot for them," that's not what it sounds like you were saying, and it's not what people care about.
Felagund
1yr ago
"But they didn't, is the thing"
I really don't get your model of the government. The reason Trump got a bunch of justices is because three justices died. He got lucky. The reason other Republicans did not appoint three justices is because they did not have enough justices die. I don't get what you think any other Republican should have done, or how you think pre-Trump Republicans failed us.
Trump deserves no credit for Ginsburg, Scalia, and Kennedy dying. That was never about him, that was about them being old.
Trump's also fairly pro-choice for a Republican, so Dobbs is a weird thing to list as an achievement of his for that reason.
Felagund
2yr ago
But the president isn't spending money in this case. He's just not collecting money back. Those are different. Moreover, Biden v. Nebraska wasn't ruled upon on constitutional grounds, and the affirmative action case involved Harvard, a private actor, where the Constitution only applied because of Title VI (and further, the probably incorrect precedent that the phrase in Title VI is just supposed to be a summary of the equal protection clause)
Felagund
1yr ago
The causes of the obesity epidemic are also worth considering. From reading slime mold time mold, it seems pretty clear to me that there should be more emphasis on the importance of your body being properly calibrated towards whatever your proper weight is, and we should be more aware of what is causing them so much more frequently to diverge.
Of course, willpower also can suffice, should the first fail; that just becomes progressively harder to make oneself do the more they are misaligned.
Felagund
1yr ago
I'm sure you could make the argument that I changed rather than the space, but then I'd challenge you to show me any interesting and civil back-and-forth between a real liberal and conservative here that's happened recently.
It's really quite sad.
I wonder if there's some way to promote more of this. Because the site is rather lopsided politically, it's significantly harder to have an evenhanded conversation.
Felagund
1yr ago
What was problematic about the Arizona 2022 election?
My overall impression was that the Republicans just ran a slate of terrible candidates and lost. (By a very close margin, in the case of Hamadeh.)
Felagund
2mo ago
I'd recommend historic protestantism. So neither modern evangelicalism, nor the woke mainlines. If you DM me your area, I could probably find some churches that have a reasonable chance of being good.
Felagund
1yr ago
I just looked it up again, I'd forgotten about that. It looks like it was problems with toner printing too light before it was fixed, and they were still able to vote, just their ballots were counted separately or something? I'd imagine that would cause some people not to vote, especially with it hitting social media, which yeah, could well have meant that Hamadeh would have won.
Why would you assume that it was interference rather than just an error, though? I'd thought that in those districts the voting was mostly administered by republicans?
Felagund
1yr ago
and I admit at having ongoing puzzlement as to why 2020 stolen election claims retain so much cachet among republican voters and officials.
Yeah, it's a mix of things. I think the main way people end up believing it is due to deep amounts of distrust in mainstream sources and in the political system, combined with a lack of skepticism and maybe some motivated reasoning towards appealing propaganda. When you have Trump promoting this, it gets followers. Combine that with some purported evidence (I think there was some graph of a bunch of new votes added at once in some state), and people think that they're right.
At least, that's the way it comes across to me, when talking about ordinary voters. I'd assume there's some of that for politicians, etc., but that there's more of that for the sake of the political benefit. I remember that being a thing in the lead-up to the 2022 election, of people being more likely to consider/endorse the theory in the hope of gathering support from Trump and so winning the primary.
Felagund
1yr ago
simply because the earlier amendments require things like trials and forbid self incrimination.
They argue that if it conflicts with other portions of the constitution, it satisfies or supersedes them. I think they still think there are processes for dealing with these things and challenging actions of this sort, it just doesn't have to start with a conviction.
I can’t imagine that Trump or his supporters aren’t going to fight pretty hard against anyone refusing to put Trump on the ballot.
Certainly, as they should.
It’s definitely against the spirit of free elections to refuse to put a declared candidate who meets the qualifications in state law on the ballot.
Sure. But it might be what the constitution requires, if they authors are right on this. Keep in mind also that the constitution is "the supreme law of the land."
Without a conviction, and one that’s specifically mentioned in the constitution as disqualification for office, they’d have a very strong case.
This is another basis for disqualification from office.
Felagund
2yr ago
Okay, it has lower sourcing standards than is normal. Sure. Based on that, I can totally believe that there are many people who are in there who shouldn't be. But that still doesn't address how unreliable it is, which was what @faul_sname was trying to do.
My hypothesis is that this isn't a scientific source, it's not a database of murder victims. It's a post-2000s propaganda campaign meant to fill the gap in the physical and documentary record with a crowd-sourcing approach of uncritically collecting testimonies and names 60 years after the fact.
That's not an answer. You gave a non-answer before, and you just did so again. I don't get it. All you have to say is "I think a bunch of the purported people never existed (either mistakenly or deliberately)" or "a bunch are still around, they just never checked their data, and they probably left subsequent records" or "a bunch are still around, they just didn't leave records in places we can find them" or "they died around that time, but from other causes."
Our standard for asserting that people were probably murdered doesn't have to be that we actually witnessed it, or dug up graves that are definitively there. A whole lot of people vanishing is itself evidence. (It is not, of course, evidence for the method of their death, and does allow for their deaths being incidental rather than intentional—e.g. if they all died from being overworked, that would still explain the "people vanished.")
To be clear, I don't actually myself know how extensive genealogical databases (for example) are, but you haven't actually attempted to answer the question that faul_sname was posing to you. My complaint isn't so much that I'm sure he's right on this, because I don't have the time to figure out how best to verify and assess that. But he clearly put in some effort as to seeing whether the database results were consistent with what they were described as, out of a random sample they seemed to be, and you have not been willing to give any account of your own about what we should find if we tried to investigate the people in the database, nor what actually happened. Once again, the reason that I bring this up is not because I think there's no way you could prove him wrong. It's that he provided evidence and effort to an extent that, if you could not respond to it, it seemed fair to say that you got shredded, as Amadan so delicately put it, made it pretty clear what sorts of things would be relevant responses and what he was actually arguing, and you didn't respond in a way that addressed his arguments, even when repeated more emphatically. That felt like it was a relevant example, and it still feels so.
Felagund
2mo ago
assuming there is an eternal existence beyond my single finite life, it is vastly (infinitely!) improbable that I'm experiencing the finite life right now.
Is this still true if eternity is not temporal? (Or: might not be temporal)
I do think John deviates a bit from the other three to a suspicious extent, but what specifically are you talking about? I poked around in there but I didn't see anything that was particularly clear on salvation through grace.
It's pretty clear that we're saved by the father drawing us (see e.g. John 6:46 and surrounding), and it's by belief (same area, also John 3:16).
Sure, but there's a big difference between "I forgive this particular act" and "mere belief in me automatically erases all acts"
See the above reference in John. But no, it wasn't individual acts, but statements in general. See, e.g. Matthew 9:2.
Sure, maybe he's being metaphorical with some of this, but "he actually meant this unrelated and almost directly contradictory thing" should at least raise some eyebrows.
What unrelated and almost directly contradictory things are you thinking of?
probably doesn't mean "don't worry about it, your sins don't matter as long as you believe"
Correct, it doesn't. Sin's an awfully serious thing. Antinomianism is far too prevalent in modern lay Protestantism. We should certainly not be sinning more that grace may abound.
Edit: Should be John 6:44.
Felagund
10mo ago
I get that the libertarian candidate often has the best policies, but do you not care at all about your vote mattering? I suppose some of this depends on whether you're in a place where there are competitive elections.
This feels to me a like a sort of post I don't like seeing others make. It's criticizing our common outgroup (generally speaking), progressives, and is kind of just irritated. It doesn't provide too much more value or insight than "hey, bad thing happened over there." I agree with it, of course, being its author, but I want to do better. Any thoughts about how I could talk about the same topic, while holding the same view, in a better way? Or is the answer just find other things to bring up?
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