Tacherus
2mo ago
What is your evidence of the general rule?
To make sure I understand, you’re saying “in general, capitalism leads to decisions made by people with skin in the game,” right? Would you be willing to flesh out an argument a little more? I just don’t see why that’s true.
Tacherus
2mo ago
The beauty of capitalism is that it usually (though not always) aligns incentives in a positive way because the people making decisions have skin in the game.
Doesn’t the whole concept of externalized costs undermine this claim?
I’m don’t think it’s a specific failing of capitalism but the insulation of decision-makers in business from consequences seems alive and well to me.
Tacherus
2mo ago
Appreciate the suggestions. I’m not sure what it was but today I feel fine. I’ve gotten pains before at the top of my tibia near my knee but that’s been ok. This was weird in that it was soreness lower down by my ankle. I ran 4 miles last night though and today it’s perfectly fine.
Tacherus
2mo ago
My 10k training is getting pretty tough, and I might need to skip a run or two from some lower shin pain. I think I’m improving but still have a ways to go to get my pace to 9-minute miles for the race.
Japanese is a blast but very challenging as well. I’m wrapping some of the major grammar points for my proficiency test in December. The main focus now is “elevating others” and “lowering yourself” correctly.
What’s fascinating to me about this is to do it correctly you have to know who the subject is. And since subjects are often implied by context in Japanese, you have to be correctly tracking quite a bit more than simpler “change I ate an apple to I didn’t eat an apple.”
I’m still playing piano but have decided between the race and the test I have to dial music theory back a bit until December. Still enjoying playing songs though.
Tacherus
2mo ago
That’s wild. So they’re not fans of criticizing sitting presidents or something? I guess I did have an ex-air force friend at one time who wouldn’t criticize the sitting president, but didn’t mind if I did.
Tacherus
2mo ago
Surely you agree though that bringing it up only after the decision is made is worse than before or both though right?
Tacherus
2mo ago
For the first problem, various interest and political groups usually put out voting guides. You could delegate the decision to a group whose priorities you generally agree with (assuming there is one) and use their voting guide.
If forming any of those opinions seems so odious that you’re willing to claim you don’t care, why put up a fight? Concede you couldn’t be bothered to form an opinion in advance so complaining afterwards is unearned.
Is aimlessly complaining about whatever while making no effort to help or improve things or even understand what’s happening so important to you?
These problems and sub problems were invented by you, they aren’t requirements by any stretch of the imagination.
Tacherus
2mo ago
That makes it sound a bit like you’re not simply not voting, you’re not really “participating” at all.
I’m also grappling with whether or not to vote at all, so I’m asking myself as I’m asking you—are you actually doing anything other than complaining? And complaining in the most ineffective way to the least degree possible?
To the second question you asked, an attempt at a steelman would be to imagine you’re in a room with a bunch of people and dinner plans come up and you say nothing. The choice is narrowed to two restaurants and you say nothing. A vote is taken and you think it’s pointless so you leave during the vote and come back.
It seems to me even if you’re the only one who wants Mediterranean and there’s no hope of swaying enough to your side, you still come off badly if you can’t even be bothered to say that.
Like I said though….grappling with it myself. Not sure what I’ll do.
Tacherus
2mo ago
I’m not sure if you think my answers qualify, but I think at least part of what you’re observing is due to the nature of the question.
“I thought X and now I don’t” would seem to warrant a bit of a follow up as to why you did and why now you don’t.
Most things people think, especially early on, are from being told, not experience. Told by whom? Well….
Tacherus
2mo ago
I’m not saying it’s not rational, just that I’d mainly encountered descriptions of getting a wage or salary as exploitative because of profits etc. etc.
The idea that you’re getting something (stability) in exchange for lower upside had never occurred to me.
I don’t think it’s a bad trade at all. My main point is it was an unquestioned assumption I’d held and it led to me rethinking a lot of things.
Tacherus
2mo ago
The ones who surprised me were 20s with maybe a girlfriend or boyfriend.
I wasn’t surprised the older ones didn’t want to take risks per se…but it did reinforce that calling wage labor inherently exploitative was ignoring many non-tangible benefits that people opt for.
Tacherus
2mo ago
Something else I was wrong about. The Christians insisted back in the Great Atheism Wars that atheism/science was just another religion replacing Christianity.
I thought that was absurd, and atheism is certainly not a religion for me, but I concede I am in a small minority. I think one of the better explanations for The Madness is people scrambling to fill their religion-shaped holes. I genuinely don’t think I have one because of my upbringing, but many friends and family who claimed to turn away from religion are clearly just new members of the nascent Woke/Science religion.
It’s made what I thought was intolerable about the Christians seem tame in hindsight. I’m not sure where it leads though.
Tacherus
2mo ago
I was wrong about what people are like and what they want.
At my first corporate job after grad school I was unchallenged, frustrated with the slow pace, and eager to make more aggressive plays.
I left for an AI startup after a couple years and it totally changed the trajectory of my career and my life.
What blew my mind was trying to recruit people and seeing how risk averse they were. I left 6 years ago and most of them still work at a 200-year old company.
I completely reworked my model of what people get out of “wage slavery” and realized that many, many people will trade 20%+ of their earning potential for stability and security.
My dreams of democratic workplaces with profit sharing and so on fell apart because I realized, as much as the left might insist otherwise, that’s not actually what most people want.
Tacherus
2mo ago
Thanks for the links. I’d assumed he was just saying as many bad things as possible in a sentence.
Tacherus
2mo ago
You’re spot on with the drifting of parties. I was just reading
The other day—the gist is that Trump and Kamala are both talking about tariffs, but they’re “different.”
We don’t know what Kamala’s proposals are but obviously we don’t need to know to conclude they’re better /s.
But Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign, said in a statement that Ms. Harris would “employ targeted and strategic tariffs to support American workers, strengthen our economy, and hold our adversaries accountable.”
Tacherus
2mo ago
Thank you for the link, it is an excellent pointer to further reading about "what happened to the Marxists."
Tacherus
2mo ago
Well that consumed my entire evening but jujutsu seems pretty cool. I did the tutorials and am excited to try it at work tomorrow!
When you say “under wraps” you make it sound like this is established but not widely known. What leads you to call it a fact? I’m open to her being crazy but can’t seem to get any deeper than “I want to create an opportunity economy.”
Do you have a link handy to this Salier description? It sounds interesting.
Tacherus
2mo ago
I did not, and I accept that nearly none of the “he’s the end of civilization” rhetoric was right. In 2016 I was all in on Bernie. I honestly don’t recall if I was alarmed about Trump. I think I wasn’t, more just very put off and pretty committed at that point to lefty policies.
But This Time Might Be Different.
I only started paying attention in 2012 or so, so I’ve had two occurrences now of seeing the anti-Christ turn out to not be that bad.
As I said, I struggle with it. Maybe I’m deluding myself but absent the election stuff I probably wouldn’t care at all about this election. As it stands I feel some unease about Trump.
I can’t see myself voting for him this time largely because 2016-2020 was so anti-climactic. There’s a real chance I will just make a protest vote.
Tacherus
2mo ago
I suppose it will depend on the next candidate’s relationship to Trump and his relationship to the party. If someone who disavows Trump can get to the general maybe it won’t work. Otherwise it seems an easy enough attack.
Tacherus
2mo ago
How can he not? The dynamic seems less driven by re-evaluation and calming down and more due to needing to paint the current opponent as the end of the world. Whoever the 2028 republican candidate is will need to be portrayed as the worst yet, which necessitates “Trump wasn’t actually so bad.” It’s inevitable I think.
I don't follow the question really as I don’t see bureaucracy or democracy as the same type of thing as capitalism.
All I’m saying is whatever its virtues I don’t see how capitalism somehow leads to more decision makers having skin in the game. Would you be willing to flesh out an argument?
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