100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
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User ID: 2039
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
2d ago
I regularly read articles about how protectionism is the secret sauce behind China's economy.
Written by whom, Experts?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
This is the professional website of the study's lead author
This is me reading tea-leaves a little bit, but some things stand out to me.
The majority of his academic background is in business (MBA) and a fanci-fied version of IT. His professional experience was with CACI which is laughably described as a "mid-size" consulting firm. CACI is a notorious "body shop" Beltway Bandit that makes billions of dollars off of staff augmentation for Federal Contracts. Their own website states they employ about 25,000 people.
This provides a mental model, at least, of how this study - and its accompanying malfeasance - came into being. This is a consultant in a classroom. "What does the client want as an outcome? Racism. Okay, great! We can work the numbers to make it say that."
In the Daily Caller piece that the reddit post links to, they have a screenshot of this guy's Microsoft Word comments - one of them literally says, "this is not the story we're trying to tell." This is straight out of a consulting 101 MBA class.
At some point in the 2000s, Academia became a kind of side option career for people who aren't actually serious academics or researchers. You could pickup up a PhD from somewhere in something and then get associate or adjunct status. Sure, this salary wasn't great, but it gave you that credential to pass around as a digital hustler - you could go on podcasts, do paid speaking engagements, consult on the side for $300 an hour. It was a weird kind of self-reputation-maxxing. And that's part of the real long term rot of the academy. If you got a PhD in the 1950s or before, it's because you were almost monkish in your devotion to serious study in a field.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
3d ago
Unfortunately, according to DOGE's own numbers, it's a lot of "on paper" savings.
From some previous contracting work, I know an unfortunate amount about how Federal procurement works. The DOGE tracker sites I've found have direct links to FPDS (Federal Procurement Data System) pages for very specific contracts. That's good! But the devil is always in the details.
For any given government contract, there is the total lifetime value of the contract and dollars already obligated to it. As a toy example, let's say the Department of Commerce wants to do some general IT upgrade. It does some market research (not really, lol, but, whatever) solicits some bids, reviews proposals, and awards a contract. The total award value may be $500m, $1bn, or even more. But that doesn't mean the contract gets a big up-front payment of $1bn. It means that the Department of Commerce has given itself permission to spend up to that limit on this one particular contract (technically, depending on the contract type and structure, it could be across a lot of smaller contracts and/or task orders, but let's keep things simple for now).
When DOGE lists its numbers, its listing that full $1bn ceiling as the "savings." A few different media outlets tried to Point And Laugh at this, but the reality is that they're wrong as well. For the Department of Commerce (or anyone) to award a contract, they don't necessarily have to already have the budget approved by congress. In the industry, the term "unfunded opportunity" or "unfunded contract" is used in this case. The Government customer has a true need for whatever it says it does and can go through the bid and proposal process - but they have no obligation to actually pay you only because you've won a contract. Now, if you do any work on that contract, that's a different story. The fact of the matter is, unfortunately, that you can have a government contract that is effectively worth nothing even though it says "eleventy billion dollars" on the piece of paper.
Returning to DOGE, that they are canceling contracts and counting the ceiling value of those contracts could or could not be significant. If the agency in question already had their budget approved (and for several of these larger, longer term contracts, it is highly likely that was the case) then this the cancelling of these contracts does in fact save money from a future budget perspective. But it's not necessarily as if DOGE "found" $1bn dollars sitting in a commerce account somewhere and has now repurposed it for the General Purpose America Fuck Yeah account. They've freed up budget room next year and in the years following.
OR, they've cancelled a contract that was unfunded to begin with and so the savings are quite imaginary. It's like if you get an unexpected car repair bill and then mentally "cancel" your beach vacation. Did something happen? Not exactly. And certainly not in a true fiscal sense.
But wait, there's more. Just because a single contract within the Department of Commerce (to stick to my previous example) got cancelled, doesn't mean the agency as a whole won't find a way to reshuffle the budget and retain those dollars. Again, Congress controls the budget and they approve it every year (or, as has been the case for about the past 20 years - I'm not joking - the pass a weird series of CRs or otherwise out of order budgetary actions to sustain the budget as is with some new starts - kind of).
So, when do DOGE cuts get real and sticky? When Congress passes a budget. That's when you'll be able to actually see meaningful money stop flowing to agency / department X,Y, or Z. Until then, it's an on paper "win" (or not, see above) and, because it's happening totally within the executive branch, nothing stops a potential Democrat President in 2028 (or whenever) from flipping the switch in the other direction and directing Department of Commerce (and everyone else) to go ahead and try to get those IT contracts rolling again.
And I think this is part, though not the largest no most important part, of Elon's likely downfall in the Trump 2.0 admin. What he is used to doing in the corporate world is not possible in the Federal Government. The entire reason the founders set the system up the way they did was to make things intentionally hard to coordinate. They split the budget passers from the budget users and the law makers from the law enforces from the law interpreters. They did this because they wanted the default option to be "nothing happens." In the 18th century, this meant Americans were mostly free, then, to run their own lives. But through gradual executive overreach, aided many times by a cowardly Congress, we now have a poor situation in which the Executive kind of gets to do whatever it wants unless Congress or the Courts calls it out.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
15d ago
Quoting a quote is fucking stupid, retard.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
16d ago
Agree with all of your points.
People willing to work for low wages just don’t exist in America.
In this case, I'm going to defer to you as your post history (assuming a stranger on the internet isn't lying!) does demonstrate a more consistent exposure to these realities.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
16d ago
Also tagging @HughCaulk.
I agree with you. I'm not advocating for deportations because of race animus. I'm advocating for 1) deportations of illegal immigrants AND 2) a massive overhaul of labor laws.
Here's is my big post on that point
I don't buy the idea that natural born Americans "just don't want to work" - I believe that combination of the welfare state and labor laws actively prevent them from easily getting basic level jobs. The only way for these basic level jobs (exactly the ones you listed) to get done is to illegally employ foreigners. To be blunt; we have outlawed cheap labor in this country, so the only way to hire cheap labor is to do it illegally one way or another. Who is going to have an easier time accepting and illegal job; someone who is already violating US law or someone who is not?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
17d ago
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
17d ago
I just feel like being excessively harsh on illegal immigration is punching down.
But this isn't being excessively harsh - this is complying with the laws (and punishments as written). There's nothing "excessive" about it.
Do you feel intense competition for jobs or homes from illegal immigrants?
That's the thing about national economies - we all experience warped market conditions (for employment, housing, healthcare, and basic goods) because of illegal immigration. That these experience may be more acute in TX,NM,AZ doesn't mean they are not experience elsewhere in the country.
A massive percentage of the American agricultural workforce is of questionable legality. Yet they've become so endemic that any agricultural concern that tries to play fair and not hire illegals finds their production costs are too high and gets competed out of business. Think about that for a second; there is a large American industry wherein the only way to remain viable is to flirt with legally dubious hiring practices.
I would like to see swift and stubborn crackdowns on that. Excessive would be letting illegal employment continue to be de facto all across the country.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
18d ago
The reason(s) for this is even worse.
If you can document that you posted a public job notice, you can demonstrate to the Feds that you are "equal opportunity" employer - even when you wanted the job to go to a specific friend-of-an-employee already. Seriously, this is how it works.
Part of it is also used by large public corporations to send noise to hedge funds. Hedge funds will scrape job postings as a rough proxy for expected hiring (and, therefore, demand) for certain companies. A bunch of ghost jobs can confuse the HF algorithm.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
18d 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.
18d ago
Experienced Tech Bro checking in.
Leet code grinding and blind resume application have been losing propositions for years. This isn't new info. The career / job strategy median is:
- Recruit hard out of undergrad. The good news is you're cheap and a degree from a "good" program will probably get you an offer. Your whole job is to learn how XYZ corp does their development / product roadmapping etc.
- 2 - 4 years in, you lateral. You DO NOT do this with blind resume flinging. You use your network of friends (you've been making those, haven't you) to figure out who is hiring and which one of your friends has the relative clout to get your resume in front of a decision maker.
- (Option B after undergrad) Do the startup thing. Whole other world, but it's an option, at least.
- (Option C) Pivot to a tech adjacent role; solutions architect, tech sales / sales engineering, technical PM. The good news here is that networking is built into your job. If you're good at your job, you're good at networking and the inertia supports itself for a while. This isn't a guarantee to wealth, but you'll never be jobless.
- If you want to stay hard on the engineering track, you job hop as much as you want to build a big salary / options. Really, however, you need to start creating some sort of public portfolio. This used to mean just having a good GitHub profiler with some pet projects. No longer. You need to be involved in some sort of ongoing and pretty large scale open source project etc. The idea is that you're creating true "subject matter expertise" in some niche.
- Now you're getting headhunted for that expertise. Well funded startups, big time roles at FFANGs etc.
The keen eyed among you will detect something here; a tech career is now much like any other professional career; you have to network and you have to develop some sort of specific edge, usually born of genuine interest and passion in a niche area. The era of "Yes, I can sling code pretty good" is over. That was 2005 - 2015, give or take a two years in either direction.
I simply don't believe the Gen-Z has it worse story. I can remember when I was in High School and everyone wanted a job at the local hardware store because it paid really well and wasn't that difficult if you had some level of real interest in, well, hardware stores. This being commonly known, kids from all over the county would stop by to drop off their resumes everyday. How many do you think were called back and interviewed?
Luckily for me, the owner's son happened to be in my grade and we were in the same Geometry class.
I had a really good summer working at the hardware store.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
20d ago
Thank you! Sincerely.
- When you say 'high liturgy', do you simply mean the High Sung Mass aka Missa Cantata? Or are you speaking more broadly?
- Definitely tracking how important Fr. Berg is to the Fraternity. He's on his 3rd run as Superior General.
- ‘rebuffed pope Francis’ - Tracking. I'll admit, as I did previously, confusion and ignorance here.
It seems to me that some sort of reintegration isn't that difficult to imagine, but that it would just take a few last painful steps on all sides to make it happen. Like you pointed out, Williamson was schismatic or, at least, cheerfully antagonistic. Another assumption I'd make is that part of reintegration would be at least a private admission by Fellay and/or other leadership that, yes, Lefenvre did some not-very-nice-things and we (the SSPX) acknowledge that. Mostly, I chalk a lot of this up to the fact that the Roman Catholic Church is a massive bureaucracy that moves very slowly (one of the things I like about it most) and the crucial variable here is mostly just time. It would also seem that everything is on pause until Francis goes to his reward as well.
Again, appreciate your continued commentary here as you're obviously more well versed on this stuff than my trying-to-TradCath-ass.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
20d ago
Thanks for this.
The FSSP and SSPX split has so many weird interconnections. I'm still parsing them. As you say, the FSSP is in full communion with Rome, yet has a much broader schizo tendency. The SSPX seems to have rebuffed Benedict XVI's sincere invitation to get back into communion. Then, when Pope Francis tried again - and SSPX rebuffed the offer again - Cardinal Burke, of all people, appears to have totally dismissed the SSPX. But it also appears to me that the SSPX has really well informed their priests in terms of doctrine. The SSPX podcast, regardless of where you come down on the issues presented, is full of priests who could be teaching graudate level theology, philosophy, and metaphyiscs. When I imagine their depth of catechesis and priestly formation versus a guitar-and-piano NO priest, I have to chuckle.
I'm looking for a reliable Latin Mass and want to avoid even accidental schism. At this point, I'm getting interest in the ICKSP if for no other reason than, as the kids say, their "drip" is "on point."
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
21d ago
Thanks! This actually aided my understanding.
Would it be your opinion, then, that the hard-to-define behavior patterns I described, and you expanded, actually do fall on a contiuum that includes outright grooming? That is, they are different in magnitude, but not in kind.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
21d ago
Dude, thanks for reminding me about The Wailing. Watched it on a random Netflix Saturday Night years ago, thinking it would be some sort of Ju-On knockoff that would help pass the time.
Absolute power banger of a film. The final ending gave me legit horror move "I am fucking scared" vibes I hadn't felt since watching OG Exorcist when I was 12 or something.
I think your post - in its entirety - is the "right" answer. This film is doubt and doubt on multiple levels. Forget "who's the bad guy", do we even know what the fuck actually happened? I think an interesting comparison to make would be No Country for Old Men. On the surface, it's a really good neo-noir-western with a hero Cowboy protagonist assisted by the grizzled elder sheriff. Unfortunately, our hero just runs out of time and luck.
Right? Maybe not. Maybe the whole pont of NCFOM is that all of the action - the chase scenes, the cleverness of the protagonist, the one-step-behind earnestness of the sheriff - is actually totally pointless. The universe scale forces of fate and end consequences of seemingly insignificant actions are as inescapable as they are unknowable. "What do I have running on this coin toss?" "Everything." What actually happened in that movie? Maybe nothing. The ending is notoriously abrupt and follows a soliloquy that, although vivid, sort of has no point. It is as if the movie itself is telling us "nothing happened in this move and you knew the end before you walked in - which is that there is nothing in the end."
The Wailing does this by confronting us, at first, with a good-vs-evil doubt situation. But the more times you watch it the more you start to think, "Can I even tell good an evil apart? Do I have any coherent plan for 'stopping' or 'fighting' evil if I think I've confronted it?" It's doubt on top of doubt so that once you simply reconcile yourself to taking a leap of faith on one plane, you are immediately confronted with a whole never world of doubt on another one.
But I could be wrong.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
21d ago
The breakeven point for flying is anywhere from 6 - 8 hours depending on personal preference. With one major caveat.
First, the 6 - 8 hour number:
- Assume 1 - 2 hours traveling to and waiting at airport before departure
- Assume 1 - 2 hours at destination airport getting bags and then getting transportation to your final destination.
This is 2 - 4 hours of "overhead" (in the business sense) time. You are not traveling at 400 - 500 mph. You are making no meaningful "progress" towards your destination.
Spending 2 - 4 hours of "overhead" for a 1 hour flight (a 1 hour flight probably being in the neighborhood of 300 - 350 miles) is a think trade on time alone. A 300 - 350 mile drive, assuming mostly interstate travel, is 5 - 6 hours. So, while the advantage is still in air travel by maybe 2 - 3 hours (expected value), you have to factor in;
- Probability of a flight cancellation or delay
- Personal cost of security lines, the airport experience, and comfort on a plane (this is highly variable person to person, I will admit).
- Big one: cost.
Flying, even an hour, is almost always a multiple hundreds of dollars expense. Yes, we all have that friend who has the story about getting a ticket to Paris for $43 dollars because he booked it on Christmas Eve or something. But the right expectation for an economy class ticket is $200 - 400 on the lower end for a 1 - 4 hour flight, booked well in advance. Add a checked bag fee. Add incidentals at the airport etc. And this is all for one person. As soon as you bring a friend or a spouse, everything doubles instantly.
But let's just go back to time alone. Let's say you're on a nice and easy 2 hour flight and your time/thru/from the airport on both sides is 1 hour. 4 hours total door to door. Good day. But let's say there are some delays, or you're a little neurotic so you leave an extra hour earlier and maybe this 1-2-1 turns into a 2-2-2. 6 hours.
A potential 6 hours and above average stress and frustration. Maybe we roll snake eyes and the flight is canceled altogether.
Versus a 6 hour drive that starts when I want it to and ends with me pulling into the driveway of wherever my final destination is. Unlimited pit stops in between. Snacks. My tunes and no one else's. I am Captain of the Car and not jammed in next to strangers in a high pressure can with leaky closet bathrooms.
It's an expected value play. A perfect flight trip is absolutely better on every metric and can be a wash to slight advantage on price. But a bad flight trip loses in every way. A median flight trip is mostly dependent on personal preference.
The variance on driving as a full experience is so much less.
However, once you get beyond 8 hours of driving, the returns to flying (by the same rubric) start to rise exponentially. Once you hit even just 12 hours of driving, you're probably talking about a potential hotel stay and you get into the area of actual injury risk due to fatigue.
The major caveat I mentioned at the top, however, is that flying is actually hugely dependent upon your final destination being within 60 - 90 minutes of the airport. Landing and then knowing you have another 2+ hours of travel through another medium of travel is, at least for me, massively demoralizing.
I have an uncle who lives 13 hours, by car, away. I try to visit him once a year. I planned out the plane-train-bus method of getting there. 8.5 hours. A likely 2-2-1 flight trip plus 3 hours in a rental car there. But then am I paying for NOT driving the rental car once I get there? No, wait, my uncle can just drive 6 hours round trip to get me. I just have to coordinate him. Hmm, maybe I can drop off the rental car a little closer to his cabin and then he meets me in betw--
No.
Me. car. Spotify. I'll stay in that dated by clean and quiet motel on the end of the first day. If I get up at 7am on day 2, I'll be at Unc's well before lunch.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
21d ago
To add to this in a different direction, there's the issue of malicious ambiguity and suggestion.
I was once at a viewing of Y Tu Mama Tabien at a campus "art house" while in college. I was there because the girl I was trying to sleep with was there and I was more than willing to sit through that mindless nonsense if it meant appearing "deep" and "thoughtful" to her.
As I remember it, during the movie's climax, the female lead has sex with both of the male leads (consecutively, not concurrently) and then, for some reason, the two male leads have a homosexual encounter. The two male leads, up until this point, are pretty typical - albeit Mexican - BroDudes. So, it's kind of an abrupt and hamfisted tranisition. I think it's supposed to be a message about the "blurry lines" between male bonding and homosexual acts? I don't know. There was a similar vibe around the whole Brokeback Mountain thing (which, funnily enough, was completely and obviously rehashed by The Power of the Dog - which one a bunch of awards).
In the "discussion" that followed the viewing of the movie, some freshman of ambiguous gender and obvious lack of ability related an emotional and oh so brave personal anecdote about "experimenting" with his childhood best friend before matriculating to college. He told us, the captivated audience, that although he is definitely straight, it was still an amazing and tender experience.
I thought the speaker was probably gay as hell - Not That There's Anything Wrong With That (TM).
Looking back on these various movies and the "discussion" that followed Y Tu Mama Tambien in particular, I think there's some level of subtle support for homosexual activity among straight men that can accompany otherwise anodyne discussions about gay people / culture etc. I can't put my finger on the reason for this. I think it's far short of hardcore grooming (as it mostly occurs in adult groups, for one). Perhaps it's just a "personal expression" thread pulled too far. Maybe light-grade fetishism? Sexualize virtue signaling on the part of practitioners? Again, I'm not certain about the why but I am closer to certain that it does happen.
Reasonable people can assert, "Suggestion isn't coercion. It's not like these people are forcing you to commit sexual acts of any orientation!" Which is true. But consider the social repercussions your average DudeBro might face if he were to go around casually chortling, "I dunno, Stacy, maybe you should go get naked with Brenda and just kinda see what happens. Could be pretty fun!" Or, as another comparison, change the independent variable from sexual orientation to race - "Yooooo! You gotta go try asian P*ssy!" or "Jewish guys always lay pipe well" -- all received outrage would be more than expected.
Yet, as that clip from Atlanta points out, the de-facto response from The Party of Science (TM) is "sexuality is a spectrum you can really do whatever you want." It's not coercion, it's support so subtle that it's eternally deniable, but there is a there there.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
21d ago
an aptitude testing for hitting
I hope you knocked it out of the park.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
21d ago
went off the tradcath deep end
Except, as you yourself have done a good job pointing out, it was the very, very, very online "tradcath" deep end.
I've listened to about half of the SSPX Crisis in the Church Podcast. These are IRL TradCaths who go off the deep end in relation to all sorts of actual theological, doctrinal, and ecclesiastical topics. But it doesn't make for good television. "The Vatican forced Archbishop Lefevbre's hand! He had to do the Econe consecrations!" is a snooze fest from the jump.
Online Tradcaths, being very online and aware of the mechanics of social media, thus decided to release the mixtape of; Flat Earth (Remix), All Them Hoes is Dudes, and (Living in a) Pedophiles Paradise.
I never followed much of Candance Owens' career. A limited background being my caveat, it appears to me she lost some esteem when she went out on her own and has dealt with that poorly.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
21d ago
Chuck Schumer (who's wife is very unfortunate looking)
Holy Jesus, you weren't kidding.
I even saw one random "uno reverse" meme trying to say Melania Trump was transgender.
This has been one of my top "obviously I know its conspiracy theory bullshit, but, hey, let's have fun" topics for years. The insane angular face, little media engagement beyond released statements. Trump's historical preference for 1980s style Big Buxom Blondes (BBBs).
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
24d ago
I would, and have, called out both men and women to their face on issues of promiscuity. I don't mean passive aggressive quips. "What you are doing, I find disgusting and degrading." - "Random sex with a silly girl you met at a bar last night makes you look desperate and weak." This has resulted in the termination of friendships and, in one case, a received threat of violence.
I appreciate your quick resort to hypothetical child abuse and felonious assault, but I don't think any of what I wrote can be construed as me flinging a burden of mine onto society.
Thank you for calling it a repressive sexual project. That is exactly what it is. Sexual gluttony should be viewed the same way gastronomic gluttony is viewed; with a recoiling disgust. I will add, as this was not clear in the original post, that I am equally against male promiscuity. The Andrew Tate's of the world that try to perform the mental gymnastics to square the double standard of "men can sleep around, woman cannot" not only fail in that task, but end up revealing their own lack of self-control, lack of adherence to higher principles and virtues, and high likelihood of defecting from a male group for their own selfish reasons. By their fruits. I am glad they are so open about it.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
24d ago
I had a very difficult time following your writing and was unable to understand your arguments (or agreements?) with my post.
Could you perhaps try an abridged version with a simpler structure?
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
24d ago
And all along the way, it's all as Zeus wills it. Zeus doles out success and failure, and the most common reason anyone's attempts at murder, thievery or revenge fails is insufficient piety. Even the most talented individuals must be beloved by the gods for their murder and mayhem to succeed.
Agree. And it's important to remember that traditional Stoicism was one of the first sort-of-trasncendental philosophies to come into existence. And far from the "I take cold showers" bro-Stocism of today, it was more about being happy with whatever your station in life is because you were acting in accordance with Zeus' ordering of the universe ....
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
24d ago
I don’t see why the default for promiscuity should be to forbid it rather than allow it.
Because it destabilizes any society in which it takes root.
Male violence is centered on three things; money (or money producing commodities; drugs), social esteem (or "respect"), and intimate partner exclusivity. This is as close to an iron law of humanity as possible. Men kill other men for the first two reasons and men kill other men and women because of the last reason.
We've advanced enough that killing for "respect" is penalized with swift and uncompromising punishment. You shot some guy because he called you out? That's a life sentence, pal. We don't, however, criminalize the proximate cause - you can talk shit about anyone pretty much to an unlimited extent (libel and slander notwithstanding) and there are zero legal repercussions (although perhaps there are social ones. More on this later).
The money/drugs questions is an interesting goldilocks situation. We criminalize murdering someone over money/drugs/assets/commodities. We criminalize the unlawful attainment of those things (theft) and in many cases (though less and less) we criminalize the mere possession of drugs. This is because drugs are still recognized as inherently high risk (if not outright dangerous) - especially when put in the context of male on male violence. Nobody should kill you over money and drugs, but if you did some crook shit to get them, you're still doing crook shit and can face consequences.
Now, promiscuity or intimate partner exclusivity. You can't kill your wife or girlfriend because she cheated on you. And, mostly, we don't think adultery should be criminalized. Up until the mid 20th century, however, adultery was harshly socially punished (I'm thinking of something beginning with a big Red Letter - "A"). As an interesting side note, adultery was and is still an offense in the United States Military. They don't give you 10 lashes or throw you in the brig, but it fucks up your career. That's interesting to me.
Only in this last case, promiscuity, have we seen a full scale social revolt on the social penalties brought on by the action. Are you selling drugs? Probably shouldn't do that. Did you steal a car and sell it to a chop shop? Bad. Did you start talking shit about Big Jim down at the pool hall? Better watch your mouth, son.
Oh, you slept with the nanny, or you slept with the pool boy? No one should deny or criticize your sexual self-expression and autonomy! Of course one can rationalize that argument into an isolated issue; a person's private sexual conduct with a consenting partner is no one else's business. But in a social context, it gets murky fast. Adultery ought not be criminalized (and, on the other side of the coin, both divorce and marriage ought not have any financial incentive tied to them), but rampant promiscuity and adultery still ought to face social consequences because that simply means the society in which they occur is aware of the high stakes of promiscuity / adultery's likely outcomes.
The 30,000 foot question this rolls back up into is; do members of a society have duties and responsibilities outside of themselves to that society that are not codified in law? Or, do we race to the bottom and leave it at "as long as you don't break any laws, you're fine."
A good place to start in analyzing this (which is true, btw) is to ask "why?" Better yet, to ask "what were the prevailing macro conditions that allowed this to happen?"
Tracing that, you'll probably stumble upon the answer that is accepted by all serious economists and historians; after world war 2, ALL of the countries that had the human capital, technological proficiency, and public infrastructure to support a massive scale manufacturing sector were literally blown to shit and had suffered massive amounts of prime age male death ..... except for the USA.
1945 to 1979 happened as a fait accompli because no other country on earth could - at scale - do it.
In 2025, this is not the case. We would be immediately competing (with drastically higher labor costs by law) with several other countries (two of which who have larger absolute populations than us) who have spent the last 40 years (re)developing their manufacturing sectors.
But wait - we're already close to optimal in terms of manufacturing value add. The Chinese beat us out because they have three times the population and negative three billion times the respect for human rights. So when you, or anyone, says "bring back manufacturing!" - what in the actual hell do you mean? It's already here. Especially the best of it. In terms of high-end technical manufacturing (complex systems, aircraft, large machinery, etc.) the U.S. is so far out in first it's not even a competition.
The "manufacturing jobs" people like you seem to want are, what, exactly? Lightbulbs? Tee-shirts? Flip-flops? These are not jobs that pay well. These are not jobs that support families. These are not jobs that make strong communities. These are subsistence level toil.
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