chooky
5d ago
Doesn't "trans" also connote some kind of medical procedure or is it entirely based on identifying?
chooky
11d ago
Yes, obviously! I think that what point out is already baked into my comment.
chooky
11d ago
The argument about saving only millions in Social Security fraud seems like the opposite of the actual controversy. First, DOGE seems to not cost a lot of money. Second, that DOGE is not reducing fraud and waste in SS/Medi and is instead targetting programs that it ideologically opposes is the actual criticism of DOGE.
Of course, if you also are ideologicslly opposed to various DOGE targets, then you probably view these targets' existence as counterproductive and their removal to be an efficiency gain.
chooky
19d ago
Indeed, I voted against Trump precisely because of the tariff risk, but I was copacetic on his election because I believed that, as in his first term, the bluster about the obviously bad ideas would come to nothing and he would just implement one or two actually good plans (e.g., the replacement of SALT subsidies with a larger standard deducti9n in TJCA).
But... we are just jumping straight into the seriously harmful policy right away with this one.
chooky
1mo ago
Yeah, but standing in a line to get the code for the bathroom is still annoying.
chooky
1mo ago
I'm pretty much just here for the joke that "speaking" and "making a speech" are essentially synonymous.
chooky
1mo ago
Giving a speech preventing someone from speaking seems like a tough argument to make!
chooky
1mo ago
In my experience, economic and tourism centers are just fine. It seems to me like OP is interacting with a pretty low tier if it is literally everyone who can't function.
I mean, restaurants exist throughout WV. Some of what OP is saying would make operating a restaursnt just completely impossible.
chooky
1mo ago
Earthsea just kept getting better and better for me, truly a gift of a series and especially the fourth and fifth books that came out many years later.
chooky
1mo ago
To me, the complaint is very clearly with the doctor (or practice/hospital -whatever), not the executive! So I'm not sure why this would make people admire Luigi.
chooky
1mo ago
These are still very short timelines that point to something else going on... maybe a return to office mandate for a department that had been remote?
chooky
1mo ago
A major problem with this madlib is that the second one about being nice to "white neighbors" is somewhat nonsensical because it is now unclear who exactly "people" are. In the one about Muslims, "people" is clearly everyone non-Muslim (probably mostly presumed to be white); but in the one about whites, it is exactly these whites who are the main target audience, i.e., normal "people". A better madlib might be regarding Republicans in the aftermath of the Charlottesville riots or police officers in the aftermath of some shooting controversy. For me, it is ultimately glib rather than pithy.
chooky
1mo ago
Man, I gotta say those Charles Johnson links were not very compelling. I was looking for an omnibus summation of the H1B kerfluffle with some focus, ideally better researched than the many comments/posts/anecdotes all over the place (these all ring pretty true but just looking for the data-y version). What I got from Johnson was just endless ad hominem.
chooky
1mo ago
Yes, both of these are what I find funny! The anti-straight discrimination in high end consulting is very real, and it can be a good move in interviews to volunteer that you already have kids.
I wonder if some of the twitter posts about not hiring anyone over 30 (because they are probably aware of their value and will negotiate more aggressively) is also to do with the fact that so many professionals delay starting families until their 30s these days.
chooky
1mo ago
It does perhaps create a career ceiling for high SES women until they are perceived as being "done" having children though. If you make a lot of money, you are at least somewhat indispensable, but your employer must consider that you will be out for a couple months 2 or 3 times over the next several years, so you can only become so indispensable. One solution to this is making paternity leave as robust as maternity, which has its own fun side effects of making 20-30 year olds of any gender who are likely to start families less attractive to employ.
chooky
1mo ago
While I don't argue against your Christ-as-social-measure view of what successful Christianity looks like, I do have to say that this is a kind of Christianity I do not recognize as occurring very frequently. Perhaps we can say that Mormons and the Amish come pretty close and seem to leverage this into successful pro-social cycles within their communities. But I don't think that this is how very many Catholics/Protestants actually act or contemporary Evangelicals - the latter being what I see as the most influential (on society) Christian group in the US today.
chooky
2mo ago
Fair point on actual inflation, but 1/10th still seems like a major overstatement of what "will" happen (especially because 50 years is also a pretty long assumption for a career). More broadly, inflation is more or less inevitable for a healthy economy; someone keeping their money in cash under a mattress is just very foolish to not put it into an asset like bonds, stocks, gold, real estate, bitcoin, etc.
chooky
2mo ago
This math on inflation is super wrong. 1.02^50 is about 2.6. 1.03^50 is 4.4. What inflation rate do you suggest is normal?
chooky
2mo ago
I would say that it the eventual abandonment of this "no armor" stance is what made the books (and by extension, show) weaken so dramstically. By book 4, there is no one left to die: Bran, Arya, Tyrion, Jaime, and most of the other good characters could no longer be killed because they were needed for the end game, but the books continued to introduce an unending cast of disposable, boring POVs (e.g., everything to do with pirates, the stupid Lady Stoneheart plot). Even Jon Snow's resurrection was predictable.
chooky
2mo ago
Did you ever try the Malazan series? It seems to have the highest reputation for critical value in fantasy.
chooky
2mo ago
Thanks. I thought that the length of the blockchain was making transfer costs go up... has this issue been solved?
chooky
2mo ago
Why on earth would you need crypto to solve this rather than just a credit card?
I dunno, Trump 2016 wasn't very competent - why would I expect an even older Trump to be more competent after the Biden experience. To take the opposite position on competency, the stance on tariffs is far worse policy than I would have thought possible.
I also would not have thought that Doge would seemingly be so powerful - it seems to me like Doge is usurping Congress' ability/responsibility to dictate spending to an arguable enough degree that it is surprising that it is not all being blocked for judicial review.
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