cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
9d ago
Still playing factorio space age. I think we've had a thread about it every Friday since its release. It deserves it though, solidly awesome game.
We finally made it to Aquilo. Kept feeling like every other planet still had minor things we needed to fix. Aquilo feels like the seablock mod a bit. You need to build your own land.
The high power costs of drones, and the requirement to use heating pipes adds some new challenges. Builds tend to look pretty different.
I'm also trying to build a massive space platform for some forms of production. Its almost 4500 tons so far. I expanded it from a ~1000 ton ship that was producing its own space platform. I think I want to see how ridiculous the space platforms can get.
Quality has also been a fun mechanic. Feels like burning massive amounts of resources for slightly better stuff. But factorio is all about using up massive amounts of resources. And usually the resource sink is science, but sometimes science isn't enough.
cjet79
11d ago
I do wonder if the DOGE organization is just a way to offer a cudgel to the private sector that they can wield against the bureaucracy.
Right now it is mostly one way power. A regulator can come in and say "hey we don't like this" and a private company is faced with a costly and lengthy legal battle to overturn that.
Now musk can say "oh you don't like that thing, maybe you are being inefficient and need a reduced headcount".
If your goal is to reduce overall regulation it will mostly fail. If the goal is to reduce regulation for the people that have connections to DOGE then it will probably succeed.
Main problem is this is bureaucratic end-state problems. When the main reward you can hand out to political allies is an exemption from the worst regulations and taxes that everyone else must face.
cjet79
12d ago
I think there was a case of this in 2020, guy got a delivery truck and drove it into a crowd at a parade. There was also the Unite the right rally in Charlottesville where a guy drove his car into a crowd. So it does happen sometimes.
Maybe people who go on these killing rampages often want to make it a murder suicide event. Guns make the suicide part easier at the end, whereas the car murderers tend to get caught.
Mass car murder also seems like a crime of opportunity, you need the right circumstances to actually pull it off. Most sidewalks are full of hard things that will wreck a car, including up to concrete barriers that are specifically designed to stop a car. Larger vehicles are necessary. And crowds of people in a flat non barrier area that are not so dense that the vehicle will be immediately stopped, and not so sparse that they can easily see what is happening and move out of the way.
It's a messed up person in the first place that wants to commit mass murder. But I think they usually want more choice in their targets, they want to be dead afterwards, and while cars and trucks are ubiquitous they are actually more expensive than guns and ammo. There are ways to get large vehicles, like theft or working a job site with them. But those are still a little harder to pull off than just buying guns.
I think there is a steady supply of crazy and crazy mixed with the wrong meds that if we magically banned all guns in the US you'd probably see more car based killing rampages. But guns have a specific purpose and they are good at that purpose, so I think they will remain in use.
cjet79
16d ago
This is the full interview: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ry1IjOft95c
What was great about it is that Trump is a New Yorker, and this is a podcast of New Yorkers. I of course knew intellectually that Trump was from New York. But it didn't sink in.
New Yorkers have an aggressive and bombastic style of talking and interacting that often involves lots of interruptions and talking over one another, active ribbing each other, and grandiose exaggerations (that everyone in the conversation knows are exaggerations). Trump is often given too much of a chance to talk. It leads to him ranting and going on weird tangents. This happened quite a bit early on in the Joe Rogan interview he did, and I could not watch more than ten minutes of it. Trump gets accused of being a bully for the ribbing he constantly does. And finally Trump is known as a liar for his constant grandiose claims.
In the flagrant interview Trump is interrupted, he is talked over, and there is ribbing going on constantly, and Trump loves it and thrives in it. Because he is a New Yorker and that is how they talk and interact. He even extends the interview for an extra 30 minutes or so. His ranting is far lessened. His weird tangents are there, but don't dominate the conversation. He is quick on his feet with jokes. There are very few awkward moments.
To be clear, I am not a New Yorker. And their style of interaction can grate on me. I can take it in small drunk doses in person, and can barely stand it at all when sober. For podcast listening it can be real fun, but is often a bit overwhelming. I don't regularly listen to flagrant, but they can have some absolutely laugh out loud banger episodes when I'm in the mood for it.
I just finally feel like I understand Trump, and that is a huge relief. I don't feel like I've ever really understood him in the past, and I don't feel like I've ever understood any other president or presidential candidate in my lifetime (except for Ron Paul).
cjet79
17d ago
I just don't think that these sit-down interviews are that important when it comes to a presidential general election campaign.
They switched my view. Trump's flagrant interview literally changed my whole opinion of him, and I voted for him and it was my first vote for a republican candidate ever.
Joe Rogan has 18 million subscribers and he did an episode with 3 million views right before the election with Elon musk where he endorsed Trump.
Rogan has higher viewership then all of the mainstream media combined. I think the longform interviews were more watched than the debates.
To think this doesn't move the needle is a little crazy to me. Sure they didn't do crap back in the 1990s but we live in a different world. And Trump moved with the world rather than clinging to old strategies.
cjet79
18d ago
Real poetic and stuff, but too "battles of the sexes" heavy for me to really resonate.
Men and women are different, but they are still ultimately the same species. The variations among our minds can dwarf the average variations of the sexes. The tallest woman is much taller than the average man. The most caring and consensus driven man is much more so than the average woman.
Whichever woman you are talking about might just be a psychopath. They aren't all that rare. I knew at least one maybe two hot women psychopaths in college. Not a moral bone in their body, though a little less dangerous than the three male psychopaths I've known that have to find balance while dealing with a male sex drive.
cjet79
21d ago
Ya there should be some way, we are mostly hosting and communicating through steam
cjet79
23d ago
I'd still hold people accountable for any rulebreaking that the AI does at their behest. Its certainly not a get out of jail free card. But they aren't going to stop using a useful tool. "I spoke to an AI about security systems" becomes instead "I spoke to a knowledgeable friend about security systems". And then we are just having either less honest conversations, or dumber ones if they don't do the research in the first place.
cjet79
23d ago
This does not seem like "padding out the word count". I use AI in this same way when I need an expert-ish opinion on something. I won't always post the exact text of the AI, but it seems fine to do that, especially if you are just gonna ape the conclusions anyways. This was a responsible use of AI.
cjet79
23d ago
add me on steam: https://s.team/p/dwg-vdjj/KQWDPRPP
I can stream the game for you if you are online in a bit.
Right now I am building a small factory on vulcanus, and someone else from themotte is building up our Nauvis base
cjet79
23d ago
I have a group of themotte players with a server on steam, any interest in joining?
cjet79
23d ago
This isn't really the right place for this kind of thing. We are a discussion forum, not a place for organizing political action.
If you want to discuss that website, or discuss who you prefer for president, or discuss why we need approval voting all those are fine.
cjet79
24d ago
Yeah all of them announced completion of their vaccine literally the day after the election.
And it'd be better to begin geoengineering now than to wait 20 years, wouldn't it?
Not really. Depends on the discount rate and the cheapness of various solutions. Basically do the geo-engineering when it makes sense from a cost benefit perspective.
cjet79
24d ago
I originally had something in my post about negotiating with terrorists.
I didn't want to be confused about calling the dems terrorists. But there is somethign to the US policy of "no negotiating with terrorists". If someone threatens you with violence or defecting, it makes sense to no longer negotiate with that person. Basically once that is on the table there is no guaranteed off-ramp except more violence.
If the democrats are willing to hold the government hostage, then there really isn't much room to negotiate with them. The only winning move is not to play.
cjet79
24d ago
Multiple companies announced the completion of their vaccines immediately after the election.
This feels like the health equivalent of street racing, motorcycle driving, skydiving, and shooting up heroin. And then worrying about smoking as a health risk. I'd tell someone with those problems to go ahead and smoke if it gets rid of any of their other terrible habits.
I'm also aware that we can basically do massive climate change on the cheap whenever we want. Sulfur dioxide seeding in the upper atmosphere or a massive sun shade in space are orders of magnitude cheaper than carbon emissions reduction.
cjet79
24d ago
I think they exercise the veto power prior to Trump doing anything, and they exercised it without any serious consequences. There were generals lying to Trump about troop levels in foreign countries, and not only were they not court marshaled for insubordination they were lauded for their efforts. And I'd be pretty happy to with generals that were willing to stand up and defy orders like "shoot american civilians" but they used their "backbone" to defy the president by continuing to wage wars abroad that the president and voters did not want.
I agree that there is a good use case for a veto among the bureaucracy and state agents. But they basically demonstrated the worst level of judgement in exercising it pre-emptively, used it for dumb things, and then suffered no consequences. Theoretically good, but in practice it was awful.
cjet79
24d ago
I think there are subscribers only open threads, but otherwise no you don't have to pay to comment. Though he usually expects a real name with the comments. Which is another reason I can't post it. I'd reveal my real name in the process. (I could theoretically go through the trouble of creating a fake account, but it's all just extra friction for an inferior interaction.)
cjet79
24d ago
That is a valid point. I do feel like there is a major difference in scale. And that the Hillary email investigation was not based on a fabrication by her political enemies.
Not investigating a real thing is bias. But investigating a fake thing is bias. And obviously you might not know which is which until afterwards. But the investigators should have figured out which was which sooner. Their failure to do so in the trump Russia thing was either massive incompetence or willful bias and political favoritism. Normally I'm willing to assign incompetence to the government, and maybe I would have if it had only dragged on for a year, but three years beggars belief.
cjet79
24d ago
I've seen it said, or maybe heard it said. But I can't point to anything specific.
Usually when I see or hear it I just realized I'm living in a totally different information environment than whoever said it, and I give up most hope of discourse with them.
cjet79
24d ago
The neocons adapted so well to the Democrats that one wonders if they ever belonged with the Republicans in the first place.
cjet79
24d ago
Thanks, I post here because I like the engagement I get better. Scott knows where this forum is, and I'm probably way to late to get this post noticed if I made it as a comment over there. You can feel free to post a link on his blog back to this comment, or even fully quote it over there if you want.
cjet79
24d ago
It's not the politicians lying that was the problem. It was the intelligence agencies covering for them and joining in on the lies. As well as other parts of the machinery of government that we expect to be non-partisan and stay out of elections.
cjet79
24d ago
Scott Alexander endorses basically anyone but Trump
The main points:
- Trump will move the needle towards right wing strong man authoritarianism.
- The democrats might seem worse, but they aren't.
- Some of us want to punish the democrats for being bad by voting for Trump, but this isn't a good thing to do if Trump will be actually worse on the things we care about punishing the democrats.
I went back and read Scott's 2016 anyone but Trump election endorsement.
The main points:
- Trump doesn't have solutions, he just wants to blow up the system.
- Trump is high variance.
- He will lead to anti-intellectual populism dominating the conservative movement.
- Trump won't do as much about global warming.
- Trump pisses off the libs, and this will further radicalize the libs rather than bringing us back to a better spot.
I would maybe suggest in the future that these posts are counter-productive. The most recent one moved my needle more in favor of Trump. I can't believe I'm considering voting for a major party candidate (I've voted libertarian the few times I've bothered to actually show up). Going back and reading the old anti-endorsement was even worse. With hindsight answering the criticisms:
- Trump did not blow up the system. People blew it up in an attempt to oppose him. Generals lied to him about troop deployments. Prosecutors invented novel legal theories for going after Trump. The FBI encouraged censorship of a story by heavily implying it was false when they knew it was true. Pharma companies held back the release of their vaccines to not give any perceived benefit to Trump. Congress and intelligence agencies spent three years persecuting Trump based on an accusation that was entirely made up by the Clinton campaign.
- Trump had a high variage twitter account. Crazy things were said sometimes. But the actual day to day governance was fine. There were fewer major wars and foreign entanglements started. War seems like a very high variance problem especially wars with a nuclear power involved.
- I feel that the conservative movement has come to a healthier space where they differentiate the university and educational establishment that they hate from intellectualism in general. This worry did not materialize.
- He didn't do much about global warming. I'm happy about that. Honestly worrying about something with consequences 20 years out feels a little silly at this point. It was nice when we had such long time horizons.
- He did indeed piss off the libs. Trump Derangement Syndrome did not go away. He also didn't "crack down" on them. He didn't send Hillary to jail, despite how much her Russia hoax thing probably meant she deserved it (I know she would have gone in for other reasons, but seriously talk about norms breaking). Trump has weathered a great deal of hate. He seems uniquely suited to it. I am happy with him in this role. It has helped a large number of people learn to basically ignore "cancel culture" attempts. Or to immediately look with suspicion at any story of someone doing something awful.
I really feel like there is some gell-mann amnesia going on with Scott. He reads these horrid stories about Trump. With the details sensationalized in the worst possible way. And he accepts them as fact. Meanwhile the New York Times threatens to dox him so they can run a hit piece article on him that they sourced from a weirdo on wikipedia with a knack for rules-lawyering.
He talks about how Trumps norms violations are loud and unsubtle. While the democrats only subtly and slowly violate norms. But this is a framing that has been shoved down our throats by the media. Every minor violation of Trump's is blown out of proportion, and every major violation of the democrats is minimized and not talked about. How is it not a massive norms violation to spend 3 years investigating and accusing a sitting president of Treason based on a campaign dosier that was almost entirely made up by his opposition? And the people doing this knew it all along. I don't think democrats or liberal leaning people seem to realize how much the Russia Hoax thing has utterly fucked their credibility on everything. Especially after the Hunter Biden laptop story came out, and it turned out that the intelligence agencies helped them cover up exactly what they had been accusing Trump of doing.
This is supposed to be a government system where one side wins, implements their things, becomes a little too unpopular for going too far, and then the other side wins and get to do their thing for a little while. They switch back and forth. We all learned in 2016 that no, this is not actually how it operates. There is actually a hidden veto by the bureaucracy and the deep state. If they don't like the president they can decide not to let him do his thing. People are righteously pissed off about that, and many of them would happily see that bureaucracy and deep state dismantled if it meant they never get to use their veto again. And one way to test if they still have the veto power, and one way to give someone an incentive to fix it, is to keep electing presidents that we know they will "veto".
Trump is a vote for restoring norms. For restoring the ability of democracy and the vote to actually pick a direction for the country, rather than have that direction dictated by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats. I dislike Trump on most of his policies, but it wouldn't be a vote for his policies. Its a vote for voting on policies.
No worries someone else from themotte has been super available, they also like trains a bunch. So you'll be happy to know we aren't neglecting the trains like I would.
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