jeroboam
21m ago
The respectable class of Boomercons have already migrated to the left.
Trump's bombastic style actually appeals quite a bit to young blacks and Hispanics, and the Democrats are having a hard time keeping them onsides. Biden is being forced to defend the black vote, and it's going badly.
Witness Biden's commencement speech at Morehouse yesterday in which students turned their back on him.
What style is going to appeal to young voters? This or... this? Whatever the issues, one of these people has rizz. And the other doesn't.
I have Trump at 60% odds right now, but much higher if he is jailed. Personally, I plan to vote RFK this time around, but would probably go for Trump as a protest vote if he his jailed, despite his obvious awfulness.
jeroboam
34m ago
When you are weak it is best to avoid antagonizing your enemy.
The worst case scenario is that the bureacracy would just say "no" to Trump's orders, precipitating a constitutional crisis. More likely they'll just slow play his demands until the clock is run out. Then the lawfare against him can begin anew.
The only way he doesn't die in jail is if a Republican is elected in 2028. For that reason, he needs to remain popular with the people which means not triggering a crisis.
Tangentially related...
How much should Trump get even, if he is elected? Either choice he makes seems pretty fraught.
Option 1) Play the bigger man. Pardon himself, obviously, and a few limited other people. Beyond that do nothing. This will prevent a wider conflagration in the culture war. Downside: without a tit-for-tat, the left will be emboldened for much greater tats in the future.
Option 2) Do unto him as he hath done unto me. Pursue corruption investigations against his pursuers (many of whom quite deserve them). Go after voter fraud and ballot harvesting. Turn the executive branch against the left in the same ways it has been turned against the right thus far. Upside: When both sides are armed, the chance for peace is higher than when only one side is armed. Downside: The system will probably resist him, and it could provoke a bigger backlash.
If I were Trump, I'd go with option 1. In reality, I expect him to just do whatever he wakes up feeling like he should do that day with little follow through.
I have the following well-worn preference cascade hierarchy
-
My rules. In this case, race blindness.
-
Your rules, enforced fairly. In this case, all races are treated as protected classes.
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Your rules, enforced unfairly. In this case, white people are uniquely disrespected. Black people, uniquely sanctified. <--- we are here
I prefer 1, then 2, then 3.
jeroboam
4hr ago
My explanation for puzzling CEO behavior.
CEO's don't care about corporate profits or woke politics. What they do care about is status signalling within their elite group. They get more plaudits for woke initiatives than they do for meeting quarterly earnings targets. Therefore, they will purse woke nonsense at the expense of earnings, up to the point where they lose their jobs.
Corporate boards, also caring mostly about intra-elite status games, will give woke-presenting CEOs a long leash before they pull the plug.
However, there is a limiting principle. CEO's with extremely poor performance will lose their job. Being fired is low status so it keeps things from getting too ridiculous.
jeroboam
17hr ago
Sure, hospitals are different. As always there are specific exceptions to general principles.
There is no need, however, to protect a failing Red Lobster as a cultural institution.
jeroboam
22hr ago
They try, but they're just so bad at it. Part of it is unavoidable. The U.S. is the world's top oil producer now.
But also, these governments are clown-level incompetent, and are always backstabbing each other to avoid their quotas. In other news, apparently one of the helicopters sent to aid the rescue of the Iranian President has crashed with multiple casualties.
jeroboam
1d ago
This is awesome! I think we've found a new business model for Chuck-E-Cheese.
Betcha it trades down on Monday. Punters betting on Middle East chaos have always lost, this time won't be different. The galaxy brain move is to short oil here. It's worked every other time.
(Note: I also subscribe to the conspiracy theory that the oil price is manipulated by Western government actors).
Edit: Oil opened down but is now up 0.19% as of 11:00pm eastern. Middle East news is either neutral or negative for oil prices.
Edit 2: Oil now sharply down after some Fed guy pontificated.
jeroboam
1d ago
Good summary of the competing narratives.
My take... What's with all the talking points about how it's somehow evil to buy a company and then sell it for parts? Why shouldn't an owner be able to buy a failing restaurant, sell the real estate, and then let the restaurant fail? Or more, accurately, if I buy something I should be able to do what I want with it.
Is Red Lobster such a valuable institution that owners must be forced to prop it up with infusions of capital? You know, for the good of society.
We need more zombie corporations going under, and less hand-wringing when they do. Failing companies failing is the engine of creative destruction, and therefore growth.
jeroboam
2d ago
I read the speech and I have to say it almost made me want to convert to Latin Mass Catholicism.
What I was especially drawn to was the image of traditional values winning vs. how I personally tend to wallow in more negative news.
That's interesting. At first glance, I thought "why would Republicans support this law".
It seems like it would be better to get rid of group preferences. The problem is that, even when group preferences are banned, corporations, governments, and universities just go ahead and do them anyway.
Perhaps it's better to simply enshrine Republicans, conservatives, and Christians as new protected classes allowing the possibility of torts (or the threat of torts) to keep people from discriminating against them.
Since we can't stop disparate impact from being used as a cudgel, it's time to arm both sides of the culture war. Universities need to be sued for the fact that less than 5% of professors are Republican.
People who call themselves "punks" enthusiastically sign up to the same stifling speech rules as every HR department in every multinational megacorporation in the western world and excoriate others who deviate.
These punks live in a crab bucket. A person (especially a white person) has little hope of advancement in journalism or academia, where hundreds apply for every job.
Angry about his reduced station at life compared to his grandiose self-perception, the doxxer lashes out at the one group it is still permissible to attack.
For one day at least, the doxxer gets to feel powerful in an otherwise small and wasted life.
jeroboam
2d ago
I’m not really opposed to colonialism. .... Generally the colonized people (with certain political restrictions) ended up with more freedom.
I agree. Anti-colonialism, as practiced in the real world, is the belief that groups have rights but people do not. That it's better to be a slave under people who look like you, then free under a white person.
jeroboam
2d ago
Having a Bell Hook$ book on your shelf might help you get laid. Actually reading it will not. Reading it and then trying to discuss it with your date is a major libido killer.
Because nobody actually reads that stuff. Shattering the polite fiction that she reads and cares about literature is an autist move.
You: "What's your favorite part of the book?"
Her: "Um... I guess I just like um.. um... "
You: "Oh, I thought you said you liked this author".
System: Emily has unmatched you.
jeroboam
3d ago
Currently trading at 2.73 which is up 65% today but down about 98% in the last 12 months. 52 week range 0.04–117.36. Insane.
I wonder what would happen if they let bankrupt companies keep their tickers? Like BBBY was still allowed to trade with literally no assets except the ticker. And their prospectus said something like "We owe creditors 5 billion dollars. If you buy our stock we will issue shares and use them to pay our creditors. This stock has no value". And then people bid it up to crazy heights.
Is Elon Musk a failure?
Men stick their necks out because it's in their nature to do so.
If we're going to go full armchair evolutionary biologist, risk-taking makes sense when most men don't reproduce and a few lucky ones have dozens of children. That was our ancestral environment. The risk-taking genes have been tempered from thousands of years of civilization. But they're still there.
jeroboam
3d ago
You didn't read my comment. Women actually do play pickup sports (in very rare instances). They join men's games as I noted.
But women don't ever play pickup with other women. There are nearly 400,000 girls playing high school basketball in the U.S. right now. There are millions of women who played basketball in high school. And, yet, I have never once witnessed or heard about a group of women going to the park and playing basketball. Never. Not even once.
It's quite remarkable. Women just aren't that interested in sports for their own sake. What they get from athletics is different: team bonding, recognition, feelings of accomplishment, etc.. But they don't love to ball.
jeroboam
3d ago
First things first, have you gotten your T tested?
Here's what I use to save money on Lab Tests. It's really easy to get blood tests and not too expensive. https://www.ultalabtests.com/
How many other question have solutions to them that aren’t analyzed because the researcher starts with the wrong frame.
Pretty much the entirety of sociology is based on the faulty blank-slate premise.
For example, we see that boys participate in sports at a higher rate than girls. And so we say "how can we increase girls in sports". But that's the wrong framework. In fact, girls sports participation is far too high. Girls and women don't spontaneously play sports. Seriously, have you EVER seen a group of women playing pickup basketball or soccer in the park? I never have. Literally never. (Although sometimes one or two bold women will join the guys).
While girls enjoy being part of a team, they would have a lot more fun participating in something besides sports.
jeroboam
4d ago
I'm not blaming you for needing to lose weight. I probably need to lose more weight than you do. But no diet is a silver bullet, especially if you don't intend to follow it forever.
For the record, I don't expect the Shangri-La diet to work. I just hope it does. If it does, I probably will follow it forever.
Exercise is also much less important; you can get anywhere by car, and most modern entertainment is available right from the comfort of your home.
This is a red herring, IMO. Activity is not the problem. In fact, it has been reported that Americans are MORE active than they were in the 1970s when things like yoga and jogging were virtually unheard of.
It's common knowledge that you get fit in the gym but you lose weight in the kitchen. I am above the 90th percentile for activity. I can run circles around most people my age. My resting heart rate is in the 40s. And I lift. But I am still over 20% body fat according to scans. If you're focused on activity, you're barking up the wrong tree.
A 2 hour window where you eat very little is probably a big improvement on its own for most people. You need to plan out your meals much better and cannot mindlessly snack (you at least need to check you're not within the window first).
Forgot to add that one! Rules make it harder to consume calories. But... I don't think that explains it. Even intermittent fasting is not a particularly effective strategy. The problem is that fasting now just makes you hungry later.
I think it's worth trying, but improving physical health is really a lifelong goal. These gimmick diets might work for losing the initial weight, but you need to be willing to keep the diet up forever or learn the fundamental skills involved if you don't want the weight to come right back.
Funny how modern humans need "fundamental skills" but people 50 years ago just lived their normal lives and stayed skinny. This strikes me as Usain Bolt saying "you need to develop the skills to run fast" as if 99% of it wasn't God-given.
Despite the "lock her up" rhetoric, Trump didn't actually try to lock Hilary up. That's just off the top of my head. In, I don't remember any anti-Democrat lawfare from his administration, although I'm sure we can dig something up.
Why does your worldview rely so strongly on Trump being vindictive.
He's awful in many ways, but that doesn't seem to be one of them. His nature is impulsive, not cold-blooded.
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