EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
I know what you're here for. What's his bias? Politically I at least like to think of myself as a true moderate, maybe (in US context) slightly naturally right-leaning but currently politically left-leaning if I had to be more specific.
User ID: 1043
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
First of all, I think appeasement is a decent framing because Putin has long been suspected of wanting to take over some of the Baltic states, also former USSR, also long-time actual NATO members. A lot of people seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking that if it wasn't Ukraine wanting to join NATO, there's no issue. I think that was false then, and still false now. If Ukraine gets rolled, those Baltic countries are still on the table, though the longer the war goes on and the more Russia bleeds it does become less likely.
Second of all, the Korean war... exists? I know, the US didn't like re-mobilize the whole country for total war, but it still had an absolutely massive military with tons of WW2 surplus stuff. The US put quite a bit of effort into winning the war and ended up in a stalemate. That's an absolutely massive counterexample such that we don't even need to talk Vietnam (where we dropped an absolute fuckton of bombs and literally drafted people... I fail to see how much more decisive we could have been!)
I think there's still an argument to be made lost in there about appeasement and Communism, but most historians seem to think that Containment wasn't super effective. But replacing it with a more aggressive military policy doesn't make a lot of sense either since the whole MAD thing was already a major factor as early as 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis. That means in the short 15-year window of time before that, during which we did fight a major war which we failed to win, is the only possible time period. What would you have done differently in the, what, 1955-1960 window?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
I don't really like this counterfactual because it was never even remotely plausible, so you have to make at least one other massive counterfactual and then we're just too far from reality for the exercise to be intellectually useful.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
I like the endowment tax. But what's the actual game plan here, if there even is one? Fire or force out half the academics and researchers, and then maybe 20 years later the ones who replace them will magically be 50-50 red and blue? Even if you think that this will absolutely happen, that leaves a giant 20-year chasm of scientific slowdown. If some of the "burn it down" people here actually do have some kind of proposal, I'm all ears, but I haven't seen one yet. If such a proposal doesn't exist, this is just a Chinese Cultural Revolution 2.0 and could well lead to an intellectual Great Famine.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
...The whole point of government is that there are some public goods that only indirectly make money, or otherwise increase quality of life in a cost-efficient way due to pooled resources?
Forest fire forecasting and management is almost definitionally something the government should be funding itself - the government owns a lot of fire-risk land, massive forest fires affect broad swaths of society, and the net effect can be monetary (even massively so) but is so indirect that private commercial interests might not have good reason or incentive to fully fund it.
"If it don't make dollars it don't make sense" is an absolutely terrible heuristic for government spending.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
I honestly don't think SpaceX even exists however without the NASA effect. Want proof? How well are non-American private orbital launch companies doing? Exactly, they are doing terrible, and are few in number. US government funded science set the stage for SpaceX to be successful. Saying "well look at SpaceX we don't need government funding" has it complete backwards.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
It's my loose perception that in foreign policy, the masses don't actually drive policy nearly as much as you'd think. Instead, it's all about "personnel is policy" at the diplomatic level (and to a lesser but still important extent, business level). Thus, it doesn't actually matter so much what the people of e.g. Zimbabwe think, it's about the diplomats and top leaders. Did a good chunk of them go to business school in Europe? Who runs in their friend circles? How are the business links? Questions like this, and including shared ideology/cultural history/philosophical affinity, are most impactful. Occasionally, this will also include military links, but again this is going to be often at the officer corps level at the lowest. To that extent, the actual "cultural alienness" of a foreign country's everyman doesn't matter.
If bonds are fraying then I view that as mostly downstream from State Department personnel changes under Trump 1.0 (and 2.0) as well as, honestly, Trump's trade policies, not some fundamental chasm in mindset... though some of it probably bleeds through even to the elites.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
LOL, not my most tactful argument but this forum is about "light not heat" so I'm willing to be less persuasive if it means I'm more intellectually honest.
One of these days I do want to do a top-level post about lobbyists. Maybe this isn't the right spot, but it simply isn't obvious to me that there's anything inherently evil or awful about a collection of lobbyists and special interest groups duking it out on a variety of issues and competing for lawmaker attention. I mean, first of all, what's the alternative? Second of all, how can you tell the difference between a well-meaning non-profit advocacy group and the "bad" kind of lobbying? And finally, it seems objectively true that for better or worse, there are numerous areas where good legislation literally cannot be created by a well-meaning, completely fair, and intelligent individual with a little extra time. At some point you do need people with specific industry/subject matter knowledge, and there's a limited pool of people with those qualifications. And absolutely zero of them are going to be completely impartial.
I highly disagree that adding a single sentence with vaguely DEI-sounding potential benefits to an NSF proposal abstract suddenly makes a researcher into a "political operative". As discussed up-chain, that seems to be the only sin of a large portion of the DOGE-cancelled stuff. I mean I agree that there's some moral failing involved, but you're literally calling this thinking typical of "cretinous rat bastards" and I'm just saying that minor compromises like this are eminently human. It's like being forced to use pronouns in your email signature at work or something. Like, sure, maybe it is compromising your principles. I'm Mormon, I get it, we went through some shit with Prop 8 and gay rights and such and I absolutely admire those moral stands. However, I'm not going to act like that kind of minor moral failing in a flawed system is actually such a huge betrayal that anyone who adds pronouns in their company profile deserves to lose their job... That's just vindictiveness, and of the small-minded variety.
In short, I believe strongly in forgiveness in a society where you have reddit threads telling people to cut off their family for the slightest thing in the liberal space, and calls for unrestricted lawfare on the right. I think it is something both parties need, especially on the granular and individual level. And many NSF grants are for a small handful of professors and grad students each, it's not like all of them are multi-million-dollar boondoggles. And even this moral stuff aside, it's still stupid self-sabotage on a simple practical/pragmatic level.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
Did you misplace your comment? That's not what we're talking about at all and actively misrepresents everything I said with culture war buzz words. My claim is that in an over-competitive environment, attempts to "game the system" naturally rise. That's not indicative of a moral failing on behalf of the candidates (scientists) exactly, it's just a natural thing that happens in competitive environments with poorly set guardrails. It would be mistaken to take attempts to game the funding system at face value, no questions asked. While obviously moral virtue is higher when 'doing the right thing' in more difficult environments, I think we should be careful about how we ascribe moral fault to actors in a broken system. Surely scientists deserve some blame for juicing their proposals with DEI language, but to hang all the blame at their feet is bananas.
Roughly speaking, 1 in 4 NSF grants get funded, which means 3 essentially get denied. Scale-wise, I would say even an increase in the funding rate to something like 40% would have had a disproportionately large effect in decreasing attempts to pander to the left. Also, I think that probably over half of those grants are likely worth funding, no "gay race science funding" required.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
The correct response to bias is not to throw it out - everyone has bias - it is to properly weight the biased evidence and seek other sources to come to a holistic conclusion. It’s bizarre to ignore biased data because underneath the bias there is also the other axis: direct experience. Just as bias is bad, experience is good, and they often co-occur. Tossing everything with a hint of bias also means tossing a lot of experience.
It’s kind of like the lobbyist problem. A lobbyist still has subject matter expertise. You can still meet with a lobbyist. Lobbyists can represent good causes. You just have to also include more effort in seeking out non lobbyist opinions to combine into a conclusion. Unfortunately outlawing lobbyists doesn’t work because there’s no bright line for what counts.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
Ironically however, this was the result of limited and over-competitive NSF funding causing a race to the bottom for existing funding dollars. Increasing the NSF budget allows the (highly relative) “luxury” of being principled. Clearly, the goals of reforming science and saving money are getting insanely conflated here. I argue that it’s better to do one or the other but not both at once, or you get exactly the current shitshow
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
I mean, the rational solution to “it’s not clear who is doing actual science” is taking some time to figure it out, and then making changes. I think that’s what a lot of people expected?
The first time Trump was elected was a vote for flamethrowers. Arguably that’s not what happened: there was a lot of noise but he governed somewhat traditionally. The second was a vote against inflation, with the expectation of more of the first (for most voters). I think people are surprised that Trump showed up to work with a double XL flamethrower rather than more of the same as previously.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
Full disclosure I watched the final 10 minutes, so more than the 5 minute clips floating around but not the whole thing. That clip started with a question about Poland, Trump talks about how he’s aligned with “the world”. Nothing too abnormal for Trump. Trump says “one more question” and then Vance interjects out of nowhere about how actions and diplomacy matter more than chest thumping and words, which failed (talking about Biden’s time specifically). Zelensky then says well, this has been going on longer than the last 4 years, it’s been a decade - and last time, the deal was basically the same! A gas contract (economic ties) and promises (Europe and Obama) didn’t deter the 2014 mess. So he asks: what does “diplomacy” mean, if not that? Those earlier efforts are also diplomacy. It’s a good question.
And then Vance basically says “that’s disrespectful” and calls his points propaganda aimed at the media. What? Nothing in Zelensky’s point was that weird. Again it was a fair question - this new deal sounds suspiciously similar to the old post-2014 “solution” which clearly proved to be non-durable. Vance bringing up respect and throwing a rhetorical punch directly clearly, in my view, kicked off the combative part of the video.
More to the point, it really wasn’t supposed to be such a long thing. Usually, these kinds of media events are 10 minutes of fluff and posing followed by the actual discussion. I’d be interested to know what made this one drag on so long (maybe it was inevitable, actually, given such a long time in a room together in front of cameras). However, remember: Trump literally cut it off and then Vance said wait I gotta say something first (get it off my chest kind of thing). Otherwise, take the question, start the meeting, then negotiations behind closed doors.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
True, and honestly I view China as a bad and extremely self interested actor whose bad behavior led directly to these decoupling efforts. There’s still an inconsistency in claiming that more coupling prevents war while doing the exact opposite on the other end of the globe
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
I’m aware and specifically mentioned this. But the word is more than just semantic PR, it has a pedigree.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
If we stopped paying debts, other countries do have options. They might not lead to a net benefit, but to pretend there are no other options other than war is nonsense. I realize you didn't explicitly say this, but you did suggest it. War or other force is on the table when practical of course (e.g. France occupying the Ruhr).
First, other countries might not even need to do anything at all. The direct self-consequences of telling other countries to suck it is the decline in your own trust, and those other parties can occasionally, roughly, even benefit - it's not a total zero-sum trust system, but other countries will look better in comparison which provides at least some offset to the explicit loss of future repayment. Even though the US is the world default fiat currency this isn't eternally true and doesn't live in a vacuum, other currencies could still take on some of this burden. These benefits are less explicitly tangible but that is not to say they do not exist, including via bond yield returns on secondary markets as well as the jilted country being able to issue their own new bonds at better relative rates. The exact economics are complicated and not guaranteed, I will grant you.
Finally, there IS a long history of alternative methods, the international equivalent of hiring the repo man. US companies own assets worldwide and it's entirely plausible that they could have their assets, IP, and other contract deals repossessed/modified/nullified commensurate with the unpaid amount. Yes, this might result in tit-for-tat so it's not a perfect solution, but to say their only alternative is a literal invasion is incredibly naive.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
I mean I think I'm convinced simply by my conversations with a few gay men IRL (plus some science) that "born this way" is a legitimate thing, at least for homosexuality. There are other things that play into it, of course. But it explains mostly to my satisfaction the appearance of gay men historically, there's some suggestion that you're more likely to be "born gay" when born later in the birth order as well. I think it's important to distinguish this aspect of the gay rights movement from other more ideological LGBT stuff (speaking broadly). They have different paradigms going on both in terms of the science as well as the political/ideological piece.
However I don't think I have a large enough sample size to make any particular claims about long term male homosexual relationships. My general feeling is that they still have some kind of desire for lifelong commitment though?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
Vance specifically started the fight. I think it's important we realize that's where the whole thing derailed. I don't think Trump and Vance both wanted the same thing to happen, but once it got going that's another matter, Trump is going to back Vance up plus had his own axes to grind if given the chance. Trump knows he has a certain image to maintain and was aware of the optics the whole time. Hell, at the very end, he even comments about how the whole blow up would make great TV...
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
Weirdly though, isn't this exact same logic one that would advocate in favor of increasing economic coupling with China and/or Taiwan, in order to prevent China-US conflict? And you don't see Trump saying anything of the sort there.
I read the kerfuffle today (which I watched in its entirety) at the press conference as one started by Vance, that got Trump into an old-man rant. I think it's plausible Trump was being deal-making and intentional about the thing, but Vance doesn't have the same instincts at all. Makes me question whether this was a legitimate and durable deal that would last beyond the next four years. Even without Vance-like interference, would Trump really provide a de facto security guarantee based on abstract promises of mineral wealth alone, especially given that actual mining income certainly wouldn't roll in by the time he left office, because mining takes longer than that to get going?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
Really? I find PTSD to be stronger than either of the other two, because it talks about how it could be a lifelong condition rather than a temporary thing strong men will eventually "get over"
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
Well, most specifically, the Founders weren't crazy pacifists but I think they truly intended that national armies were indeed for defense purposes only (and indeed the earlier Articles of Confederation basically doomed any national army to near nonexistence in the first place). It's called the Department of Defense because that's what the Constitution talks about as a core governmental responsibility: common defense. And it was consolidated into one because combined arms warfare made separate organizations a bad idea. Arguably, you could have continued to call it the Department of War, but not only would that have led to even more inter-service rivalries and made existing turf-wars worse, but it still wouldn't fit the constitutional background. Defense is the logical name for the department.
That background is traditionally that the government should only be worried about defense of its people. This whole global policeman thing is a post-WW2 invention. Honestly, I think it's been net positive for both the US and the world, despite having shaky philosophical foundations, so I support it on pragmatic grounds alone.
To my eyes, despite being abject policy failures, at the very least the War on Terror put other powers on serious notice that a) messing with the US would bring about world-changing consequences and b) actually did, eventually, curb terror attacks on the US (took a while and a ton of personal freedoms but that's another discussion). So I think in terms of Ferguson it counts, absolutely.
I'm going to bring up my specific pet example:
- The US is on the brink of war over Taiwan with China.
- If we fight, the US will lose.
- Declines in US military spending and/or spending effectiveness are directly connected to this theoretical but impending loss
- If we had not suffered such a decline, China would not feel as confident invading Taiwan
So personally I think we really can boil down defense spending into two choices:
- Boost it again by a lot to try and regain the global policeman role we have started to lose
- Give up on the current world order and find space as a more 'normal' superpower
I can see plausible arguments for either option. A middle option is the worst option. Rare for a super-moderate like me.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
A little plug for the Star Wars fan-fic Sublight Drive which somehow doesn't read like a fan-fic at all. It's just a few weeks shy of hitting chapter 100 and fully ending. You know how Ender's Game had that awesome feeling of space battles and strategy done in an interesting way? Tons of that. The main character has merely casual familiarity with the plot, and is, of all things, a separatist fleet commander just before the start of the clone wars. The quality is great.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1mo ago
Low hanging fruit yes, but effective, at least in my view (not OP). I do know firsthand some people who literally saw a coach for improvement, and self-recording and review was part of what they did together even though they had live sessions -- you'd think that would make recording yourself moot, but not so.
However, much like how reading makes you a better writer, I think to some extent finding (and recognizing) good speakers and deliberately imitating some of their patterns is effective.
I don't think it universally applies to writing, but for public speaking, I feel quite strongly you should just jump right in to whatever you're going to talk about. Don't spend too long on an elaborate self-intro unless your story is inherently gripping, don't have a meta-chat about the circumstances of you being there to speak, just go right in and start strong. A lot of people seem to think that by being self-deprecating or acknowledging your nervousness out loud that makes it better, but that's only a temporary and low-quality self-salve. You're allowed up to two major flubs within the speaking block itself without anyone thinking anything weird about you, and if you want to be self-aware there and then, that's fine, but for the love of God do not begin speaking with it. Anyways, by deciding to launch right in you're already doing some self-curating unconsciously. There's also the nice side effect of slightly decreasing your "um" frequency since you've already started with a habit of being concise and to the point.
On the "looking for advice" side of things, I overuse parentheticals and parenthesis constantly (side notes like this that often become their own mini sentences) and I'm curious if anyone has had that issue and what the did about it (if it even matters, maybe it's fine and good!)
First of all I think us vs them is not some kind of inevitability or natural default state. It’s occasionally a helpful heuristic but also many times a harmful one. After all, you can slice any group any number of ways - granted, immigrants might have some notable clusters but I think viewing everything is an ethnic conflict lens is largely just an intellectual trap (for liberals and conservatives alike, horseshoe style).
Other than that, speaking about an “erosion of common culture” is ahistorical and a weird framing. Culture doesn’t have some kind of entropic principle where the inevitable state is chaos, disorder, and decay. Culture changes, and just like people it changes on its own even in the absence of other influences, due to the ever-present pressures of time and history. I think part of your misconception here too is that every cultural topic and belief is a binary scale. No! Ideas and concepts and practices merge and change and contort and remix in any number of degrees. It’s not like every single issue has a slider. Historians apply sliders as a post hoc analysis tool, but it is a grave error to see only the tool and take it at face value. The same thing happens in statistical modeling - just because a linear model works well doesn’t mean you can jump right to causal inference (imperfect analogy but idea of tools not necessarily representing the whole picture is still important).
Another part of your error seems to be an undercurrent of idealization. Like you mention ideas about God as clashing but the history of ideas about God even within ‘classic America’ have been anything but stable. Even the role of religion in America has fluctuated wildly, even in times without major immigration pressure. I’m not saying immigration has zero effect, but I am saying that more humility is needed. I see so many people make not only claims of outright cultural superiority, which I think is oversimplified but I don’t care too much about, but claims that they can somehow predict the exact way that a culture will mesh and change with another. No! Absolutely not! We can’t predict these things well, we’re not Hari Seldon. The beautiful and interesting and unpredictable change and melding of cultures and ideas and events doesn’t work on those simple levels, especially in the medium time scales we often discuss, especially here.
As an example, it might well be that despite seeming “incompatibility”, Islamic beliefs end up boosting general American church attendance even among Christians because the attitudes mix in a new and unpredictable way, rather than lead to some massive sectarian civil war, creating a third Great Awakening or something.
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