ControlsFreak
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User ID: 1422
ControlsFreak
1hr ago
We require people to get car insurance because we know they will make the wrong decision (not getting insurance) if left to their own devices.
What type of car insurance do we require people buy? Hint: it's not the type that compensates them if they screw up their own car. It's for a different purpose. What do you think that is?
Most of the rest of your comment appears to be just additional restatements of the things I've already responded to. Yes, car owners lack knowledge, and they'll make mistakes sometimes when they don't use the services of a professional. I don't see where you've made any further advancement on the argument.
When it comes to the more subjective stuff it does get a bit fuzzier but the fundamental problem remains, no layman has the knowledge and experience to make these judgements, just googling a pubmed article is not enough, smart and educated people think they can figure it out but this requires training and experience. The average person has no chance and society needs to be organized around protecting average and below average people.
I do think that this part is a slight refinement. At least one that I only obliquely addressed, not directly. When it comes to the subjective parts of auto repair, it gets fuzzier, but the fundamental problem remains. Laymen aren't going to have the knowledge and expertise to make those judgments, and the Chilton guide isn't enough, either. They need training and experience. Average person has no chance... of that last few percent that is still probably within the realm of the basic guidance where there might not even be a consensus, anyway.
The regulatory state has its problems but we require building codes because people will elect to live in a poorly built slum if given the choice because it's cheap. We have to protect people from themselves.
This is just tripling down on paternalism, and it's one that is soundly rejected in most rationalist spaces. YIMBY is currently reigning supreme, haven't you heard?
People don't like being told what they can/can't put in their cars, but nothing is more important than thousands of pounds of steel hurling down the road at high speed, where lives are at stake. We can't possibly let people work on their own cars. ...or at least, that's the conclusion of your logic.
ControlsFreak
2hr ago
You see a lack of consensus and a range of suggestions and think that this means that you must have an individual artisan. I see that and think, "Seems like there's kind of a range where most of the time, people will probably be okay-ish, so long as they're doing something plausibly in that range." At least until we have a more clear consensus. They can still go get advice, and if so, they'll get whatever doctor they trust, who thinks they should be in whatever part of that range. That's not killing them (at least not enough to form a clear consensus yet).
The rest of this is pretty much just paternalism. Like, I get it, many car owners are not equipped to handle the various minute considerations and the art of motorcycle car maintenance. We know car owners will insure themselves or get killed with poor decisions if left to their own devices (the number of bozos who get underneath a car that's just on a hydraulic floor jack, SMH; or maybe they'll screw up a brake bleed procedure and have a massive braking failure on the highway, etc.). But we don't ban it. Millions and millions of people still go to car repair experts, because they know they have zero knowledge. We don't ban auto repair experts, either! Sure, some people spend too much money on silly aftermarket turbos or whatever, and some of them even screw it up and blow up an engine, possibly causing death. But imagine if we took that and decided to ban people from buying their own car parts; do you think that "unnecessary car repair costs" (including the new cost of being required to go to a professional for literally every little thing) would decrease?!? I honestly do not have any idea what possible model of economics you could be using to get to this result.
ControlsFreak
2hr ago
I'm sure all of that is very helpful to many people, but we're not talking about banning doctors. Remember, we are not stuck with just two possibilities of "banned" and "mandatory". For many, could you not just have massive warning labels that say, "This product is meant to treat specific conditions in specific ways; please consult a medical expert before use," in case someone has difficulty identifying the correct medication? They could still be sold by pharmacists, who can inform you of what you need to know about it (as they already do). If you show any uncertainty, they can say, "If you don't know, you should contact a doctor." The checking in sounds mostly paternalistic, basically just a verbal reminder; what's the real point here if you're not physically making sure they're doing as instructed?
Because remember, you're not actually making sure that they're not taking the medication incautiously. You're not actually going into their home and dispensing a precise dose at a precise time. You're an occasional verbal reminder that they need to comply with the instructions on the package of the TB drugs, another set of eyes to check if there are other medications that might interact. You're not actually stopping them from doing something dangerous.
Some medications have side effects that will very rapidly kill you that are rare enough patients wouldn't think of them
What do you actually do about that?
EDIT: The warning label can even say, "This product is dangerous if not used correctly," or even, "This product is dangerous even if used correctly," with another recommendation to consult a medical professional.
Now what part of that changes by forcing a doctor into the process? Does the doctor come to your house and give you your pill, so you don't take the wrong dose? Does he monitor you 24/7 so that you don't take specific different medications at the same time? That might seem wild, but does he at least come twice a day to make sure you are taking it correctly so that it will treat your underlying disease?
EDIT: Wasn't looking for it, but Zvi's most recent had this and this. Interesting, to say the least.
ControlsFreak
1d ago
That makes sense. I'd imagine that a lot of eyes would be on trying to estimate the electoral dynamics, and there's obviously a lot of probability there. All parties will care a lot about assessing the following lines-on-maps: what might it look like if they take a Trumpist think tank peace plan essentially on day one; what might it look like if Ukraine burns Trump enough that he withdraws support and they have to proceed with the war with just other European support; what might it look like if they successfully delay the Trumpist stick from being final until after the German election (and the resulting German policy becomes more clear).
I doubt that either Russia/Ukraine can afford to basically totally avoid talking to Trump until the German election; they both have a bit too much to lose. But they both probably have to work through the various probability assessments to determine whether they want to approach Trump with a, "You're so great, Donald! You can make peace happen; let's do it right now!" or a, "You're so great, Donald! You can make peace happen; let's begin a deliberative process to start working through our negotiating issues over the next few months. There are a lot of intricate details, but we know that you're an incredible negotiator who will have no trouble working through all of them once we can (eventually) get everything on the table for you." We'd probably need to draw some decision trees and estimate some probabilities/costs have any sense for which parameter regions lead to which results.
I would suspect that there are a number of possible regimes, too. If the Trumpist think tank plan really does have strong enough sticks, there might be enough of a bargaining range already and enough risk in waiting that it best serves both sides to agree quickly. (Notwithstanding any concerns about whether US Intel is capable of making such an assessment either way... or whether Trump would believe their assessment and go in with a correct estimate of the other parties' interests.) I would also suspect, with lack of any other looming possible game changers in the near future, the most likely outcomes are either 1) Negotiated peace almost immediately (in diplomatic timescales) after Trump takes office, 2) Negotiated peace soon after the German election, or 3) Something significant enough happens in the German election that lead to a parameter regime such that war continues for some time, with or without US support. Or, of course, 4) Someone screws up trying to string Trump along, he loses it, they get the stick, then scramble to get back to the negotiating table and salvage anything they can salvage. Of course of course, Trump could also lose interest, not pursue this think tank plan, do something wild and completely different, or whatever. It's kind of an annoyingly big game tree... :/
ControlsFreak
1d ago
At the risk of sounding like I'm just trying to defend some random video-maker's honor, I'd say that I don't think he totally ignores that stuff. For example, here. I would agree, however, that even his analysis of coalition dynamics is a bit America-focused (which somewhat makes sense, since America is the big dog in the coalition and has some of the most important political dynamics happening right during this time), and a little less of getting into the nitty gritty of the other individual coalition nations' politics. He hasn't made a video specifically on that German development yet, though I think it would plausibly fall within the general thrust of the description of European dynamics in the video I linked in this comment.
Of course, I would like to know more about the coalition dynamics and how they could come into play. Do you think the Europeans are getting their business up to snuff enough that even if Trump tries to utilize this "concept of a plan" dual-threat that Europe will be able to promise enough support for Ukraine in the event that America abandons them that Ukraine's estimate of the costs won't shift enough to overcome the bargaining friction? Or is there some other dynamic of the coalition management that you think is more salient to be thinking about?
ControlsFreak
1d ago
On the first point, I don't think the requirement (from his academic view) is that it needs to be a decisive move or push the Russians back to the 2022 borders; it just needs to be enough of an increased threat of costs (on both sides) to overcome the bargaining friction that is keeping the war going. I've been kind of slow to take on this sort of mental shift after watching his videos for a while, but I'm finding the logic relatively more compelling over time.
On the second point, I don't really know. I don't pay attention to all the details of political campaigns. My non-hyper-focused read was that he just campaigned on, "The war is really bad and destructive; I'm going to end it; I'll do it immediately; don't ask me how." I don't know that he ever really committed to any sort of plan. It's worth pointing out here that this includes him not committing to this think tank plan... or even really ever acknowledging it at all, as far as I know. It's just an idea that's out there that seems interesting and has bounced around in my mind.
ControlsFreak
1d ago
Don't set ridiculous red lines that are easily broken.
I'm feeling a bit spammy at this point, but William Spaniel did it two months ago, and he called out this Wikipedia article in the process.
ControlsFreak
1d ago
There is still no deal that Putin would offer that Zelensky and the Ukrainian people would accept, and Trump's claim that he could end the war in 24 hours is laughable and delusional. Until at least one of Putin or Zelensky are utterly desperate, no peace will be possible.
A week or so ago, I posted a comment that appears to have been mostly ignored. In it, I referred to the work of William Spaniel, a political scientist of game theory and international conflict, who was in turn referring to a Trumpist think tank plan to end the war. Short short story is that it's basically a two-sided threat to make both Putin/Zelensky, well, not necessarily "utterly desperate", because from his academic view, you don't need utter desperation to make peace. Instead, simply shift their estimates of the costs/benefits enough to overcome whatever bargaining friction is still getting in the way. (One needs some Lines On Maps lore from his channel to understand that the major view of his discipline is that wars don't just happen because of substantive disagreements; you need both a substantive disagreement and a bargaining friction.)
That said, I think even Trump will have a harder time of it than he expects. Any pressure applied to Ukraine will also change Putin's calculus, insofar as it will incentivise him to exploit Ukraine's new weakness to push the lines of battle further in Russia's favour. Creating enough desperation on the Ukrainian side without creating corresponding greed on the Russian side will be a very hard needle to thread.
Maybe to go into slightly more detail, the proposed plan is not to try to simply manage Russian greed in some way. Instead, it's to just straight threaten them, too. If they don't agree to basically whatever Trump has decreed, he will flood Ukraine with unthinkable quantities of top-tier weapons (and remove many of those silly restrictions on them). That would shift Putin's calculus to being almost entirely about whether he actually can really escalate against a full-fledged and unleashed American proxy without being even more directly escalated on. Because if not, that's a pretty significant threat that opens up a wide range of plausible bargains.
I didn't go into full detail in my other comment, but he thinks that the spectre of Trump (and possibly this Trumpist plan) could have been part of the impetus for both Ukraine's Kursk offensive and also Russia's recent ramping up in the east. If they think that Trump could get elected, roll in, threaten the crap out of both of them, and just up and declare that he thinks the solution should be X (plausibly with it corresponding to the current state of the war, with some horsetrading), and if at that point they'd have nothing better to do than accept, then they're both incentivized to rapidly ramp up as much as they can and make as many gains as they can now, before Trump draws his line, probably even if it's unsustainable.
ControlsFreak
2d ago
The nuclear establishment is completely controlled by the feds
Don't we already have a solution for that? Nuclear sanctuary cities! Make the feds actually come use their own guns to deport your power plants.
ControlsFreak
4d ago
It's somewhat relevant to the discussions about the federal government workforce. The federal government employs a lot of people, and those people aren't being spewed out by a magic high-IQ-only people factory; they're just regular people, from the regular population. Some are really smart and capable; others, less so. Different agencies have different dynamics that draw from different subsets of the population.
There is a legend in the research community of a new director taking charge of one of the national labs and saying in his first appearance in front of the workforce some form of, "We know that 50% of you don't want to do anything. That's fine. We're not going to make you; we won't fire you. Just don't get in the way of the other 50%."
The reason for this legend is not overly linked with any dynamic particular to the federal government, but it has a slightly special form in such places. There is a long, complicated story about the inherent difficulty of evaluating research efforts. In every industry, you'll have people who frankly do not have the skills or ability to contribute to the actual mission/bottom line, but they obviously don't want to have that figured out. They might lose their job! So, they try to make it kind of look like they're doing something, even if it's dumb/not productive. In industries where it's harder to evaluate whether something is actually contributing, there's a lot more room for this to flourish. Also in industries that are so bloody rich that they can sort of afford to scattershot all over the place a little and not worry too much about economy. See also the tech industry in some recent times. The federal government has a bit of both floating around. Depending on the agency, their mission may be more/less well-defined. Some pockets clearly think that their mission is approximately everything. Some defense orgs definitely think this, as it's extremely easy to slide down the slope of thinking that you have to account for literally every possible situation, every possible contingency, every idea that could be used against you or by you to gain an advantage.
Couple these two things (a workforce so large really isn't drawn from just the best and brightest) and such a broad mix of groups being more-or-less mission-focused and more-or-less clear on what contributes to that mission, and you inevitably get allllllllll sorts of pretty random crap. Some is really really good; some is, well.
I'm riffing on all this in part to say that there will definitely be some obvious low-hanging fruit for Elon/Vivek, but there is also just such a massive diversity of agencies that have such different missions, different needs, different levels-of-evaluability, that it will likely be a lot more difficult than Elon just rolling in to Twitter and saying, "Everybody bring the code you've written in the last year directly to Elon." Sure, if they have the time and inclination to scratch and sniff down to small groups like this, they'd find some set of people who say, "I take the Latin from the internet and put it in the goddamn logo!" But a lot of times, they'll get some mountain of hazy documentation about 'work' that is supposedly in line with a mission that may be extremely sprawling, unclear, and questionable in the first place. But it might actually be good-ish! Hard to tell without a deep dive and lots of expertise... multiplied over and over again in thousands of different domains that require all different sorts of expertise. Godspeed, Elon... godspeed.
ControlsFreak
5d ago
I'm definitely thinking about this classic banger. Of course, before he goes into the dynamics of how leaving has a good chance of going poorly, he basically makes a case that conservatives were probably right that "mainstream" "neutral" institutions actually were biased against them. This leads me to wonder, as someone who does not have a Twitter account, what is the steelman of the liberal claim that Twitter has now become actually biased against them?
ControlsFreak
5d ago
Wouldn't it be awesome if we had a category for things other than "mandatory" and "banned"?
ControlsFreak
6d ago
I actually enjoy teaching, but the opportunity cost of displacing research time is too high. I think the way to isolate this question is to hypothesize a literally magical offer: you have an almost entirely-filled research life with your typical 24 hour days, and you can choose to either keep that as it is or get some number of bonus hours that can only be used to teach. I'm sure some people would dislike teaching, itself, enough to just reject the bonus hours. I'd kinda like them.
ControlsFreak
6d ago
Ya know, I had that in my mind at one point, and I know I had gotten busy and distracted last night, and I partially forgot it. And yet, I think I still had a point. We've talked here recently about how generally hyperbolic and castastrophizing many left-wing online spaces are (which is why I called that out in my comment). Like, just look at reddit. And then, if a potential normie waltzes into the space (think what's happening with young voters), they see that all this hyperbole is Obvious Nonsense if you've ever touched grass (or, ya know, watched a Pens game with a Republican). But they also learn that if you even think about disagreeing with the hyperbole, it's the banhammer for you. It's radicalizing, one way or the other; either you're radicalized to join the herd and spout hyperbole... or you're radicalized to hate those folks. In captured spaces, the hyperbole just ratchets one way, up ever further. They're not just wrong; they're dehumanizing or threatening your existence.
Honestly, the last thing folks like AOC need to do is quadruple down again with the catastrophic rhetoric. Especially because you're saying this in the process of moving your own position closer to theirs! Simply say what they're actually wrong about and why and how you'd do something better. Tarring everyone who has ever supported anything like what you're moving your own policy position closer to as having dehumanized entire groups of people is just gross and insulting.
ControlsFreak
6d ago
Does the guy you watched the Pens game with last night lack any sense of compassion whatsoever and dehumanize immigrants almost completely?
ControlsFreak
6d ago
Trump and the Republicans lack any sense of compassion whatsoever and have dehumanized them almost completely, giving them license to enact whatever brutal policies they can dream up.
This is the type of hyperbole that makes me find it completely impossible to hang out in online forums dominated by lefties for very long. Like, have you ever talked to a Republican? In person?
ControlsFreak
7d ago
I'm missing anything here about budgets and R's "slash[ing them] so much". Will we be getting to that soon?
ControlsFreak
7d ago
All you have to do is click the link and then click max for the duration.
You're trying to change goalposts again to individual compensation packages, not something about budgets. Please just pick one set of goalposts and stick with them.
ControlsFreak
7d ago
That again suffers a denominator problem. That other sorts of spending have exploded doesn't tell us much about what you're making claims about. Perhaps something like this would show the precipitous decline that very neatly corresponds to some notable R actions taken? (Click max x-axis, I don't remember how to embed that into the link.)
ControlsFreak
7d ago
Where is your evidence that the personnel budgets have been constrained, specifically, especially given that I mentioned a significant shift in the composition of the workforce by pay scale?
ControlsFreak
7d ago
That's not a problem of budgets, though. That's just a head count. Of course, it's also highly confounded by general employment in the denominator; surely, you wouldn't say that looking at the spike in that plot in 2008 is because they suddenly decided to hire a bunch more government workers. And oh wait. Ahem, I think they say.
I can't find it right away, but Tyler Cowen recently shared an image showing the extremely different composition of the federal workforce over the years when binned by location on the general schedule; far more folks on the higher end of the schedule. This is likely much more directly in the control of the bureaucracy. Additionally, if your complaint is that entitlements are getting in the way, I'm not sure who's to blame for that.
These are both complains about how the budget is spent, not that the budget has, itself, been slashed. The latter just simply isn't true.
ControlsFreak
8d ago
ControlsFreak
8d ago
I was able to speak this evening with someone I know who works in a suitable job, suitably high up, for a large multi-national. They also pushed back a bit, but I was able to prod. That company has fleet vehicles for a few categories of folks, many of which are plausibly job-needs-based. Some of those job-needs seemed like they might be replaceable by an ACaaS. Probably the biggest one that wouldn't have worked was a set of positions where they would be visiting multiple locations each day with overnight stays along the way. The problem here is actually kind of subtle, because it's not the first problem you'd think of with Uber. With Uber, your first problem would be that you may just be heading from town to town on your trip, so you might not get a human who wants to drive out there. With ACaaS, if the same company runs in the neighboring town, it can just join the fleet there. No, the problem was that then you'd have to pull your suitcase out of the trunk every time you got to a new location, and you're visiting 3-4 of them before you stop for the night!
Beyond job needs, this multi-national gives every single VP or higher a fleet vehicle. Why? Honestly, my interlocutor explained the reasoning, and there was nothing there that really made a distinction. Why not offer it to one level below VP, even a cheaper car (they offer different tiers of cars to different levels already)? No real reason. It would cost money. But it costs money to give them to VPs and up, too. At one point, the explanation was that the people high up enough already made so much money that they didn't want any more cash, so it was about finding other perks for them. (I lol'd a bit.) I guess you can save a little in taxes. I didn't dig in to details of how they compute it, but I was told that they do have a monthly charge on their paycheck to cover whatever taxable portion; it seemed like they didn't have much detailed paperwork and that it was a mostly fixed monthly charge; it also seemed pretty cheap. We consulted with ChatGPT about reasons to offer company cars, and it threw in that there could be cost benefits by making a deal with an auto company to buy higher volume for cheaper or to save on insurance.
Reason after reason just didn't draw a line. "It's a status symbol." Well, if your employees were all some multiplier more productive, couldn't you give one level below VPs their slightly lower status symbol, and give more expensive status symbols up the chain? Basically, it's expensive. If it was cheaper, I guess they could throw the perk around a bit more. Of course, like any perk, some employees might not even value it much; might prefer cash. My wife complains that her salary is lower because they offer health insurance, even though she doesn't use it, because she's on my insurance.
I was at some point told that those folks definitely didn't need company cars. In fact, when I poked around with whether something like Uber/ACaaS could make any sense if it could be done at the right price point, I was told that it would absolutely be just fine for those folks who are getting their car just because they're a VP-or-higher. Okay-ish for some job-needs. Just don't have a suitcase.
Their view, from the perspective of a multi-national, would be that it would be extremely localized. You mention some of the factors. Are you paying for parking passes? How much does that cost in your area? Would they be transiting in/out otherwise? If your city is going to hell in a handbasket, what's the value of making sure your valuable-enough employee doesn't get stabbed in the subway? We sort of settled on the idea that some set of factors could make it plausible in some places (again, the price point is a huge driver). But you're not going to have the same case in Peoria that you would in NYC or wherever.
They also told me that there are, indeed, folks in the business who are, for lack of a better word, agitating for the company to subsidize commuting costs for more employees. And it seems like this sort of Uber type thing is vaguely in scope of one of the ways they're proposing to do that below the level of company cars. I'm more of a 'just give me cash' kinda person, unless, like I said, there is some very acute parking situation or something that really aligns the business incentives.
Facebook messenger? That sounds like some niche service that you want me to get to contact you. Don't you have, like, SMS on your phone?
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