anti_dan
13hr ago
I don't really have an opinion on his overarching theory, but I think he overstates the case against populism or I suppose fails to consider the case against elite intellectual consensus seriously enough. Take his subsection about crime. Sure there are studies that punishment doesn't deter crime that well. But, is punishment actually the purpose of the justice system, perhaps the populist thinks so. Perhaps they are intuiting longer prison sentences will deter crime, and are incorrect. But, if thats the case, the populist has gotten himself to the correct opinion (tough on crime) for the wrong reason, while the intellectual has tricked himself into a bad position (soft on crime), by not considering what actually matters, that being public safety.
Take, for example this case of the CTA arson attack that is taking the nation by storm. The facts are fairly straightforward, a man with 70+ prior arrests and 15 prior convictions, including a felony arson just 5 years ago, beat a social worker so badly her retina detached. Instead of granting a detention petition (itself a new creation because Illinois repealed cash bail in favor of an arcane, and time consuming first appearance court set of procedures), the judge released the Felon with an GPS bracelet. That was subsequently removed by another judge just a few months later, and then the previously convicted violent felon with a pending felony charge poured a liquid on a woman on the train and lit her on fire. This man doesn't need to be "punished by society" he needs to be "separated from society" preferably permanently. However, elite opinion on crime has made that result in the State of Illinois, basically impossible.
And we can repeat this problem over a vast array of other social policies where elite opinion differs greatly from populist opinion. You have the trans issue where elites convinced themselves that someone's subjective opinion about themself was more important than looking at their genes and junk. You have the Joe Biden decline where for years they convinced themselves a cancer riddled (as we now know) 80+ year old was just fine as POTUS because he made one semi-coherent angry rant.
And there are other issues I'd be less stridently anti-elite, but simply would point out that they misunderstand the populists because they focus on the slogans instead of what people are actually feeling. "They took er jobs" and "They are eating the dogs" are not factual assertions, they are distillations of vibes. Lots of people know guys who can't work construction anymore without speaking Spanish, immigrants do make housing less affordable simply by the numbers, trade has made winners and losers domestically and has caused us to have critical vulnerabilities to key industries in times of global instability, and they probably were eating the dogs (but also, like defrauding medicaid and every other welfare system we have)! Climate change is another one, perhaps elite consensus is right and its happening, and its man made, very few elites seem bothered by the question: Do we even care?
And in the end, thats why I think the article is wrongheaded. The failure of elites to come to the same conclusions as populists is not simply that the populist is thinking on a less abstract level, it is also that the elite has focused on a specific part of the question that satisfies them, but perhaps quite often isn't the relevant part of the question at all.
anti_dan
16hr ago
I suspect "rational" in that standard is doing some heavy lifting, because otherwise the second step reads "not only must the State prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but must disprove every other theory as well (aside from aliens or Bigfoot)." That's a big hurdle depending on how strict "rational" is.
That second part (disprove all other theories) is a common out less entrenched judges use quite often in minor cases (most judges in state courts get crappy assignments when they start, like in traffic misdemeanor rooms) so they can avoid being appealed following a bench trial. A real life example I know of goes like this: Cop pulls up to a scene where a car hit a traffic sign of some sort (i dont recall exactly). Man is drunkenly attempting to remove the sign from the front window. Cop has him do field sobriety tests, which he fails miserably. Guy is arrested and refuses to blow at the station. Not guilty, stated reason is that the state failed to prove that defendant actually drove the vehicle.
anti_dan
2d ago
No? As I pointed out, they are hugely overrepresented in basically any kind of elite thing. e.g. they make up ~1/4 of all Physics Nobel prizes. I suppose they might fly under the radar for normies, but if you have any kind of intellectual inclinations, you'd end up noticing Jews (our forum is literally an offshoot of a Jewish blogger)
I think if it was Physics Nobel Prizes and things of that nature, people would easily brush it off. The real problem is their significant overrepresentation in law and media, and how they have used those positions to shape the law and the discourse in ways that, frankly, a lot of people find unamerican. You can love Ben Shapiro and Mike (?) Prager, but 99/100 Jewish law degree holders and media figures is anti-gun. Guns are a major thing that makes America American, if you are a gun control advocate, as most Jews are, that is going to be viewed very suspiciously. If you don't like guns just move to England. London and New York are basically peer cities, or at least used to be.
Another topic would be the military. America has a uniquely masculine military culture still. Most media Jews are uncomfortable with that. But its a very American thing. Again, if thats not your thing maybe America isn't really your thing.
Now, this isn't uniquely Jewish, it is Progressivism. The issue is that progressives dont really like anything that is unique about America and Jews are part of that memeplex. They are also, very prominent and successful as part of that progressive ecosystem, which is why the issues start to fester.
Another thing that I've often thought about this, and related question when people or groups are "accused" of being unamerican. Like, isn't it just an easy fix to do more American stuff? Buy a gun and get trained up on it. Grill some stuff on July 4th and celebrate America. Don't fly flags other than American flags. Don't complain about nice statues of dead guys who founded the country. Speak English, and if you can't really learn it, better hell make sure your kids sound like Tom Cotton or J.D. Vance by the time they are 18. Like, its pretty easy no?
anti_dan
3d ago
With false flags, we only seem to see those that are caught immediately. There's no intermediate categories of false flaggers whose alibis fall apart after moderate investigation. There's a missing part of the curve.
Jussie Smollett is a medium category, as was the NASCAR noose hoax. I mean, I knew Smollett was a hoax from day 1, as did basically everyone in CPD, but the media was fooled for a long period of time. The FBI seemingly was fooled by the NASCAR hoax as well and launched a full investigation.
anti_dan
3d ago
I hadnt even heard of this until you posted it, which makes it very dissimilar to Smollett in that his obvious hoax was reported as a real hate crime attack for at least a day, and in the end he was protected by his locally powerful friends. More evidence that left of center media is more reckless than right of center media.
anti_dan
3d ago
I dont think this man has been cancelled for doing his job, he was cancelled for doing his job very stupidly. If you are holding yourself out as an international court with enforcement powers, your job is to never issue an order that can upset the fiction that you are a real court. He has done that and issued an unenforceable set of warrants that no one actually believes will actually be enforced, or even carry any non-virtue-signaling purpose.
On top of that, the idea that Netanyahu engaged in war crimes is, itself, unserious and childish.
This guy is basically a martyr for international antisemism and leftism, but its a fate he chose, and should have known he was choosing.
anti_dan
4d ago
Memorization is trivialized by formula sheets, and is also a weaker skill that can be employed. My college, in ancient times now, wouldnt accept my perfect AP score on the non-calculus physics AP exam as credit. This was even more incredulous given my also perfect AP score on the calculus exam.
But the idea does sort of make sense. There is a reason that (at least in my day) companies would require splits on GPA between major-qualifying classes and overall GPA. If you have a 3.5 GPA, but a 3.0 in engineering related classes, you are pretty mediocre at engineering. If you have a 3.5 and a 3.5 in engineering related classes, you are a guy who is very talented, but cant be bothered to give a crap about the mandatory liberal arts classes every school imposes (it is odd, from a certain point of view, that there are no mandatory math classes for the LA people, but we all know why). These are old numbers that probably date me, even in engineering most crappy students now have a GPA similar to our old top 10%. Which just shows the problem with the current system.
anti_dan
4d ago
As someone who wishes it was easier to use them as a part of my hiring process, I don't understand why people dislike them in the least (other than the race hustlers, etc). If I am hiring a paralegal who is going to be in the research division, I want to give that paralegal 10 cases to read about a topic and 1 hour (which is obviously unreasonable) and give them 10 questions to answer about those 10 cases. Then I can weed out lots of people who are too slow or too incompetent at reading.
The only real problems with American standardized testing right now is 1) It is way too easy. Most students should not be capable of finishing standardized tests. and 2) The special needs time accommodations make them even more useless in the middle section. A person who is slowly able to do the things a person did them on time is not the same.
anti_dan
4d ago
What would satisfy me? At minimum, an attempt to say what sort of controlled datasets or natural experiments might actually distinguish “genes → institutions → capital” from “history/geography/path-dependence → institutions → capital”, and some acknowledgement of how far our current evidence is from that ideal. And even then, I’d still want an answer to a simpler question: even if Europe and East Asia did get lucky in some deep way, why must that luck be retrofitted into a story about racial essence, instead of leaving it as just that, simply luck?
This is simply where I disagree with you on where the burden of proof lies, at this point in time particularly.
Genes > Institutions is simply and Occams Razor solution compared to the Diamondian History + Geography + Path Dependence > Institutions solution.
Diamondism has had the full support of the establishment and academy for over half a century at this point, and produced nothing persuasive. Instead, often entire points that are being asserted as fact are simply rebutted by looking at, for instance, the geography that actually exists or existed, or a list of animals that exist or existed in a place. When the same set of easily rebuttable set of ideas that all resemble each other are always easily wack-a-moled one by one, its not a good sign for the overarching theory or set of theories that is outputting those theories. And that is a fundamental problem for environmental and historical theories at this point.
I do agree with some of your observations, GDP is the war machine, of course. But that is limited. Everyone knows if you gave the Congo's most elite squad American equipment and drones and satellite, they couldn't protect their own President from an equal sized group of Marines if he was holed up in some cabin in the woods. Maybe if it was something overwhelmingly strategically advantageous like a mountain cabin they could do it, but Italians throwing rocks were able to deter many landings in WWI. No one thinks the Italian tech and GDP were superior to the British at the time.
anti_dan
4d ago
Large swathes of the intelligence community already plotted a coup. Generals have already bragged about defying lawful orders and concealing that fact. Any escalation of what we've already seen would indeed be quite crippling to our Republic. Otoh, giving a speech in DC happens all the time, and J6's outcome was a 99% outlier that can hardly even be attributed fully to Trump, as he didn't control any of the security apparatus involved in the security failures.
anti_dan
5d ago
This is just a somewhat skillfully deployed call for sedition by the people in question. Obviously it would be impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt in court, but the implication is clear to anyone who is activated by the statements.
Its basically the Jan 6 case against Trump on steroids and I dont like it from either side, but here we are.
anti_dan
6d ago
How so? Just from a common perspective I've seen, marriage is a much higher risk for men. If you are successful the woman might still leave you, take the kids, the house, and a huge chunk of your future income. If you are less so, she takes the kid, the car, and a huge chunk of your future income.
anti_dan
6d ago
I have a female coworker who got married at 19, has 3 kids, and I'd estimate her career is approximately 2 years behind where it would be at her current age if she had not had any kids and just went nose to grindstone from 17-current. Most of those 2 years is time she actually took off postpartum. Any other woman in the company would probably have to take off MORE time to have those same 3 children from 30-40 (and often times spend lots of money to achieve conception) as compared to her doing it 19-27.
But, people really overestimate how hard college is. You can easily get a high GPA with pregnant with one and breastfeeding another. What you are actually losing by taking that path is 4 years of alcohol soaked hookups which you (as a female) are statistically likely to regret.
anti_dan
6d ago
Luthien's an odd case to be sure, and I've never been quite sure what to make of her as a character. In any case she's definitely an extreme outlier.
Luthien is half god, and the only battle power she has is that she is astoundingly beautiful and has an astoundingly beautiful singing voice (song being a source of godly power in the universe, as it was created by song), and her military feats all involve her basically singing really hard.
anti_dan
8d ago
Its a funny take with some support in reality, but not on the military front. The real weird part about TLJ and the sequels is, the part where the Rebels allegedly won, but in universe the Empire guys are actually stronger now. A good story is the explanation why the rebels failed to establish a new, successful, government because very few people are George Washington and competent at governance during both rebellion and while founding a new nation. Most such scenarios do fail. Washington was an extraordinary figure.
The sequels being about bad governance and failure of new leadership is probably a much better set of movies, but also really hard to write.
anti_dan
13d ago
Write it how you do, tie goes to "no". Not angry problem here. If using snap, or state equivalents becomes a pain in the ass, that's a feature. Its a horrible program
anti_dan
13d ago
Total US grocery spending is projected to be $900 billion or so, food stamps are $100 billion give or take, so 11% of the market. Supply is not highly elastic, demand, particularly on superior food goods (beef) is highly elastic. 20% seems like a reasonable ballpark number.
anti_dan
13d ago
So you are arguing people are going to market oatmeal cookies as oatmeal to get around said law?
anti_dan
14d ago
So why don't they already do this with booze and the like? Market beers and vodka as kombucha or something?
anti_dan
14d ago
Sure, but why? The Democrats when they were at their most coherent were stating that the shutdown was over sunset provisions to PPACA subsidies that they had passed as part of emergency measures when they had a trifecta during the Biden years, which actually wasn't a topic in the CR at all. So what you had was a continuing resolution on a previously bipartisan budget that failed to address a minor issue Democrats had created on their own 3 years prior and had 3 years of foreknowledge it was coming up.
Hardly "suck". At worst "mid". In reality "contrived complaints". This budget doesn't "suck" for anyone but fiscal conservatives. Almost all the covid era money from the sky programs continue its basically the Biden budget plus inflation adjustments. Republicans didn't pass a budget where all SNAP dollars are redirected to ICE and Medicaid is returned to 2007 levels. Welfare eligibility continues to be at levels Bill Clinton would have objected to, from the right. There is no case to be made. Or, at the very least, no case WAS made. Instead what happened was a niche issue that polls well for them was selected as the point of agitation, and Democrats leveraged their continued, but dwindling, media advantages to eek out some minor PR victories until a minor victory for them was achieved, likely right before a terrible PR situation for them was about to be dumped into their lap.
anti_dan
14d ago
Doesn't this already necessarily exist? You cant use snap to buy Budweiser or Cough Medicine from the grocery store.
anti_dan
14d ago
I would think the OP would point to them as just being fake email jobs where nothing of actual policy value is produced as well.
Why new construction isn't happening is orthogonal to an extra 50 million bodies that need to be housed, particularly given that new wave immigrants basically exclusively live in major metros. There is no Hatian fracking community in South Dakota.
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