Quantumfreakonomics
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User ID: 324
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
I don't have the stomach to open these, but I can't get over how much text there is on the thumbnails.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
Reddit's politics reflect the fact that the company is based in San Francisco. But it is left of center for San Francisco, which puts it far, far to the left of the nation.
This doesn't get the causality right in my opinion. When you look at the big censorious changes that happened on Reddit, they were usually demanded by the volunteer moderators, not by the paid admins. Mods going on strike is what caused Reddit to ban /r/NoNewNormal just days after the the CEO posted a poorly-recieved announcement defending free speech and debate. Mods also whined for years about "brigading" by /r/TheDonald. What they were really upset about was that TheDonald was attracting a right-wing userbase.
This is part of why it was such a big deal when Reddit decided to steamroll the mods on the unpopular API changes last summer. They had literally never done that before. They always caved.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
What Nybbler said is likely the proximate cause, but the deeper issue is that in an increasingly globalized economy, America’s comparative advantage shifts away from physical manufacturing and resource extraction (which is the domain of no college men) and towards finance, technology, and intellectual property (which is the domain of educated professionals). This leads to a general resentment against “the system”, which Trump offers in bulk.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
With what hardware? With what network? Does Hezbollah have the capability to run landlines to every single foxhole? Bugging stationary infrastructure is espionage 101.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
One of the wonders on the internet is that you can go to /r/Lebanon right now and see people freaking out. Apparently lots of residents are frantically disconnecting all of their electronic devices.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
Is this like the Chinese balloon thing where it turns out low-sophistication incursions happen all the time and just never get detected or reported on until a big event draws everyone’s attention to the issue?
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
The part where a few migrants catching ducks and geese at the park turns into a nationwide panic over Haitans eating other people’s housepets. People are already talking about Haitian voodoo and cannibalism. It’s not hard to see where this would go in the absence of constraints.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
Folk epistemology really does boil down to literal witch hunts and blood libel if it festers long enough. I’m not sure what to do with this information. Go back to mainstream institutions controlling national discourse?
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
I don’t think anyone in Hezbollah thinks they aren’t at very high risk of being killed in an Israeli attack if a war breaks out.
This is the war. It’s happening right now.
A communications disruption can mean only one thing: invasion.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
Anyone who’s watched Mythbusters knows that high-explosives look very different from overpressure failures.
This looks like high-explosives to me.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
First thing I though of:
Israel has 20 IQ points max on the Arabs, and this is already what it looks like.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
Disagree. Assuming there is a write-in or minor party option, “I am willing to vote but these guys all suck,” is a coalition that you would be defecting against by staying home. Simply showing up demonstrates latent potential.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
Voting isn’t just throwing your opinion into the aether. It is a form of acausal trade between you and everyone else in the country who thinks like you. By not voting, you are defecting against your own allies, which is by definition antisocial and Molochian.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
If you had asked me beforehand which special interest would be most likely to produce radicals who try to kill Trump, I would not have guessed Ukraine. Trying to make sense of it in hindsight, maybe the fact that volunteers for Ukraine tend to be violence-oriented boosts their likelihood of committing violence.
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
There's no hella epic based video, so this one won't even energize the base. Maybe if there's a manifesto or something
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
Are you guys keeping up with this "ABC Whistleblower" story? Earlier in the week there were "reports" that someone would be filing an affadavit regarding ABC News's conduct during the debate. Fast forward to today, and we have the alleged affadavit. The source seems to be "Black Insurrectionist--I FOLLOW BACK TRUE PATRIOTS @DocNetyoutube" on X.
This is obvious bullshit right? The names are conveniently redacted. To throw another monkey wrench into it, Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted this morning that the whistleblower was killed in a car crash, before quickly backtracking (on the car crash, not on the whistleblower).
Is it going to be like this for the next two months until the election? Will it ever end? Do I just need to stop paying attention to internet bullshit? Will the inevitable defamation suits bring things back into equilibrium?
Quantumfreakonomics
1mo ago
I couldn't stop laughing at this video clip from the hallowed halls of Congress earlier this week. It has the exact same tone as schoolchildren bullying an overwhelmed substitute teacher. I think that's a good metaphor for the id of the two parties.
Quantumfreakonomics
2mo ago
For the very top household names it probably is (biblical scholar Bart Ehrman charges about this much for an appearance), Walsh and Co picked a number that was too good to pass up, but not so outrageous as to arouse suspicion.
Quantumfreakonomics
2mo ago
I was referring to the government not knowing how money works. A government that doesn’t understand how money is the way you get people to do the things they don’t want to do is doomed.
Quantumfreakonomics
2mo ago
In this case why isn't the pro Palestinian charged with assault or Violation of a Constitutional Right Causing Injury?
Well, was Scott Hayes actually injured? The pro Palestinian got shot, a much more severe punishment than if he were to be convicted of simple battery.
Quantumfreakonomics
2mo ago
Not only do they not have any money, they don't even know how money works!
Quantumfreakonomics
2mo ago
My reaction to this is: what the fuck? Did she really feel pressured into handing a random black person money because they were talking about reparations? LOL
It seems highly relevent that she was paid $15,000 for this interview. I too would likely pay a few hundred bucks to stay in the good graces of such generous benefactors.
Quantumfreakonomics
2mo ago
I will laugh my ass off if the hack that solves this turns out to be “generate an image of the word ‘strawberry’,” followed by, “how many R’s are there in this image?”
Quantumfreakonomics
2mo ago
Scott’s short treatment of the subject in his review of Malleus Maleficarum gives the most defensible explanation:
God isn’t trying to maximize a 21st century utilitarian view of the Good, He’s trying to maximize His own glory. Allowing some evil helps with this, because then He can justly punish it (and being just is glorious) or mercifully forgive it (and being merciful is also glorious). But, if God let the Devil kill everyone in the world, then there would be no one left to praise God’s glory, plus people might falsely think God couldn’t have stopped the Devil if He’d wanted to. So the glory-maximizing option is to give the Devil some power, but not too much.
This is the best they can come up with. I’m serious. I don’t believe in God, but conditional on there being a magic sky fairy, this is the most likely explanation.
Paul himself gestures in this direction. Read Romans 9 sometime, especially the metaphor about the potter and the clay.
Interesting tidbit from the new NBC News poll: Project 2025 has a net favorability rating of negative 53 points. Only 4 percent of registered voters have a positive opinion of it.
I realize that basically nobody has actually read the 922 page policy document, but how does a pretty mainstream conservative policy agenda end up with lizardman numbers?
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