phosphorus2
No bio...
User ID: 3264
phosphorus2
4d ago
How much of that changed over the 2020-2025 period being examined, though?
A lot changed. UC went SAT optional in 2020, and UC had a big push on LCFF at about the same time. I am just going to quote from the report (link below) subsections on your items 2 & 3:
In 2020, the University of California Board of Regents, against the advice of the report by the Academic Senate’s Standardized Testing Task Force (STTF), voted to eliminate the SAT and ACT from admissions consideration. Beginning with the cohort entering in 2021, standardized test scores were no longer used in the admissions process.
System-wide changes in LCFF+ Admissions and Enrollments (2019-2024). According to the UCOP Annual reports on LCFF+ admissions and enrollment, between 2019 and 2024, the number of LCFF+ students applying to at least one UC campus grew modestly, from 27,370 to 29,577 (Table 4a). In contrast, the number of LCFF+ students admitted to at least one campus rose more substantially, from 15,829 to 21,634, driven by an increase in admit rates.
I think getting rid of the SAT makes admissions particularly tough. If you look at Table 3 in the UCSD report in 2024 the high school math GPA of a UCSD Math 2 admit (Math 2 is middle school math) was 3.65. The high school math GPA for Math 10 (calculus I) is 3.74. Really hard to get a math competence signal from high school math grades.
Race based affirmative action has been banned by California's constitution for almost 30 years. Not to mention the Supreme Court's own decision in 2023. No Child Left Behind, as an educational slogan, goes all the way back Bush's first term.
Nobody at UC cares if affirmative action is banned. They do it regardless, with the explicit purpose of increasing minority enrollment.
"No we aren't doing affirmative action, we just lowered the admission standards from high schools with lots of minorities because of our equity concerns."
https://senate.ucsd.edu/media/740347/sawg-report-on-admissions-review-docs.pdf
phosphorus2
24d ago
I have a hard time accepting 7 years as a just sentence for the level of fraud here.
7 years sounds pretty reasonable for the amount of fraud he did. And his sucky, awful, scammy demeanor makes him very unsympathetic. He embezzled and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think most of his sentence is reasonable based on the COVID / PPP unemployment fraud alone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santos#Federal_prosecution
There are very serious violent crimes that ruin lives that don’t get that amount of time. There are some murders that don’t get that amount of time.
That seems to be more of an issue with under punishing murder than anything else.
phosphorus2
1mo ago
As opposed to wildfires, which apparently pose no danger at all to the apparently fireproof plant....
It's funny, because Braunton's milkvetch relies on wildfires to reproduce. "The beanlike seeds require scarification from fire or mechanical disturbance to break down their tough seed coats before they can germinate."
The year is 2010. The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) publishes its initial environmental study on a large power infrastructure maintenance project. A portion of the project involves replacing about 200 wooden power poles that run through Pacific Palisades. The California State Lands Commission reviewed the initial study and requested that LADWP provide a Native American Ground Monitor during any digging to ensure that cultural resources are not inadvertently damaged or destroyed. By the final EIR in 2016 LADWP decided that replacing the all of those +70 year old power poles was no longer necessary.
The year is 2018. The Camp Fire ignites in northern California. It's cause was the failure of a 100 year old power line. By early 2019 LADWP decides to replace those 70 year old powerlines running through Pacific Palisades, they're in a now deemed high fire threat area. The California Public Utilities Commission has recommended they be replaced as soon as possible. Work is to start in 2019.
July 7th, 2019. LADWP has started work to replace the power lines, as well as leveling and grading new fire roads. Amateur botanist and avid hiker David Pluenneke is hiking in the area. David is a member of the California Native Plant Society. He sees that LADWP has trampled the endangered Braunton’s milkvetch. In all, 183 milkvetches were murdered. He is livid:
(What exactly would happen to a blue whale in this scenario David? What other than a bulldozer could get that whale off the mountain David?)
Our hero David reports LADWP to the California Coastal Commission. The CCC is not happy with unpermitted work done within their fiefdom. In order to get a CCC approved permit to replace the wooden poles LADWP must:
- Submit a detailed pre and post construction vegetation survey for the entire 2.5 mile stretch. The surveys need to identify the type and location of any and all sensitive species (all birds, shrubs, milkvetches), and it needs to show their location on a detailed map.
- Any work must be supervised by an on site project biologist, or biologists if the worksite is large. These observers will make daily surveys of sensitive wildlife species and they have the authority to stop any work that could result in their harm.
- LADWP agrees to excavate the new powerline poles by hand, with shovels. Workers will walk to the site. Helicopters will bring in the new poles and remove the old.
- No construction activities that generate noise above 60 dBA (loudness of an average conversation) may take place during bird nesting season, which runs from mid February to mid September. Of course this requires another observer biologist, a bird biologist, to verify.
- Pay $1.9 million in fines.
- All newly constructed fire roads must be unconstructed and returned to their original condition. Milkvetch and all.
- Etc.
I wasn't able to find if / when this particular project was completed by LADWP. Checking Google Street View, as of August 2023 these poles were not replaced. But overall there are 300,000+ power poles in LA. As of 2019, 65% of them were older than the average lifespan of 50 years old. In 2024, LADWP replaced just 2743 poles. Their average cost to replace a pole in the same year was $69,300. At their 2024 rates it will take LADWP over 70 years and $14 billion to replace all past lifespan poles.
To relook at the culture war angle - why was their a fire in Pacific Palisades? Maybe Jonathan Rinderknecht will be found guilty, maybe he won't be. But Jonathan didn't create a massive tinderbox in the LA hills for ideological reasons. Jonathan didn't let firehoses go without water while they sat a mile away from an empty 100 million gallon revisor. Jonathan didn't empower a council of retards at the California Coastal Commission to nuke every project from orbit at the behest of any and every nature activist. LA burned with or without Jonathan, the parallel Eaton fire was just as destructive and (as to current knowledge) not caused by him.
There will always be Jonathan Rinderknechts. We won't fix them by grasping for the very abstract universal meaning, or high-minded civic metaphysics, or better pathways, or whatever. If we need to have a confrontation with modern liberalism, it shouldn't be because it "prizes the autonomy of the individual above the stability of society". It should be because it fucking sucks. It empowers tiny little bean counter despots to make sure your critical infrastructure construction isn't too loud for the little fishes. It sets environmentalists as legally prescribed tattletales against those that produce and build. It fails to build and maintain basic infrastructure, and housing, and anything that isn't a patronage network. We should ask "Why was there a massive tinderbox outside our second largest city", instead of "What can we do to make sure every young man feels special."
phosphorus2
2mo ago
I bring this up particularly because psychoactive drugs are just one example of dangerous good. People have weirdly specific intuition about those drugs that often doesn't really track how they feel about the larger class.
The "weirdly specific intuition" people have on drugs is not merely because they are dangerous, its because they are also addictive. Dangerous + addictive is bad in a way exponentially worse than dangerous or addictive alone. Hence the intuition.
Chainsaws with no safeties are not killing 100k+ americans a year.
phosphorus2
2mo ago
Evolutionarily speaking, a woman's worth is largely dependent on immutable physical characteristics (modulo things like plastic surgery), so these sorts of stories tend to psychologically resonate with women.
"worth is largely dependant on immutable physical characteristics" is true evolutionarily speaking about all forms of life
phosphorus2
2mo ago
Terry Tao gives all of the great reasons why we like science. And hes right on those reasons. But he does not give the reason why his funding was cut. Which is odd, he is a smart guy, but reading his letter you get the impression that Trump / the NSF just came in and randomly cut his funding. He actually say this himself:
This is not because of a negative scientific assessment of the work, but instead by seemingly arbitrary justifications.
[Side note: very lame Terry. Your entire funding just got gutted, and you can't even nut up enough to say it was "arbitrary", just "seemingly arbitrary". Weak.]
Anyways, it just seemed odd that UCLA got its funding cut for no reason, the admin has been sending letters to colleges outlining its reasons. So I looked, and this is what I found. I took it from the link to the lawsuit below, where the Trump NSF letter to UCLA is reprinted.
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has undertaken a review of its award portfolio. The agency has determined that suspension of certain awards is necessary because they are not in alignment with current NSF priorities and/or programmatic goals. NSF understands that [UCLA] continues to engage in race discrimination including in its admissions process, and in other areas of student life, as well as failing to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias. We have considered reliance interests and they are outweighed by the NSF’s policy concerns.
Effective immediately, the attached awards are suspended until further notice.
NSF is issuing this suspension to protect the interests of the government pursuant to NSF Grant General Conditions (GC-1) term and condition entitled ‘Termination and Enforcement,’ on the basis that the awards no longer effectuate program goals or agency priorities. This is the final agency decision and not subject to appeal.
Costs incurred as a result of this suspension may be reimbursed, provided such costs would otherwise be allowable under the terms of the award and the governing cost principles. In accordance with your award terms and conditions, you have 30 days from the suspension date to furnish an itemized accounting of allowable costs incurred prior to the suspension date.
The lawsuit gives details on claims/allegations from a second NSF / Trump letter:
• UCLA engages in racism, in the form of illegal race-based preferences in admissions practices;
• UCLA fails to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias;
• UCLA discriminates against and endangers women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces
What does Terrance Tao say about these allegations? Nothing. Totally ignores them. Doesn't acknowledge them.
I am sympathetic to the argument he makes. But he is willfully blind to the larger systemic issues in his employer and university system at large. UCLA has been told over and over again to stop doing affirmative action. Its the law. And in response UCLA just sticks its fingers in its ears and mumbles something about holistic admissions and does it anyways. Which, to be fair, got them by with doing what the wanted to do for the last few decades.
But not anymore. Sorry Terry.
https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/9e9d118f-51fb-4e98-a9c0-fa060ea131ad.pdf
phosphorus2
2mo ago
Hmmm, ok. So he was the only one released from jail while the other 7 caught in the same operation remained imprisoned and have already had court hearings, and his passport was not revoked, he was allowed to fly to Israel the next day... yet the U.S. government did not intervene. Well someone intervened, who did? Who made the decision and why?
The other 7 were denied bail?
According to Shaun King's sources:
lol
phosphorus2
3mo ago
"despite all their craziness, I would rather the woke have power than people with TheMotte-like views".
I think the prevailing views and values here are anti-individualistic and anti-meritocratic. To make more precise how I'm using these terms
Ok so the motte has anti-individualistic and anti-meritocratic views, to the extent you would prefer the woke to have power. But the woke are notoriously and unambiguously anti-individualistic and anti-meritocratic. One would think that if those were your reasons you would prefer the motte, no?
A few weeks ago, J.D. Vance made a statement that citizenship in the US should be based on ancestry instead of individual choices and beliefs:
J.D. Vance does not actually say that. If your quoted paragraph was the entirety of his words on the matter then I think that your reading would be a fair one. However in literally the next paragraph, w/ emphasis mine:
So I believe one of the most pressing problems for us to face as statesmen is to redefine the meaning of American citizenship in the 21st century. I think we’ve got to do a better job at articulating exactly what that means. And I won’t pretend that I have a comprehensive answer for you, because I don’t. But there are a few things I’d suggest off the top of my head. And given that you guys are all brilliant intellectuals, I see Michael Anton back there. He’s the most brilliant. Given that you guys are all brilliant intellectuals, I think this is one of the main things that we need to run with over the next few years in our country. What does it mean to be an American in 2025?
Vance goes on to list what he thinks citizenship means. They are: Sovereignty, Building, Obligations to Fellow Americans / Gratitude. Noticeably absent is ancestry.
When Vance explicitly addresses what he thinks citizenship means and you ignore it in favor of an implicit reading it comes across as dishonest.
phosphorus2
4mo ago
You are misconstruing
Given that he has called himself a socialist and he addressed a significant group dedicated to socialism where he quoted approvingly from the Communist Manifesto, seems like they got it right.
as
one time said something in a speech
If Mamdani did actually did actually give a speech at an event for socialism, in which he described himself as a socialist, while approvingly quoting foundational socialist texts - that is very obviously not "one time said something in a speech".
phosphorus2
4mo ago
Here is the Imperial War Museum's purpose, in its own words:
IWM was founded in 1917 to document the First World War in real time, and to preserve for future generations a record of everyone’s service and sacrifice, military and civilian, across the UK and the British Empire. IWM’s remit was later extended to cover the Second World War and conflicts involving British and Commonwealth service personnel, up to the present day.
The next, and final day, had been organized at my behest. At some point, I'd evinced interest in visiting the Royal Armories Museum (to meet the ever-entertaining Johnathan Ferguson), but was enthusiastically informed by my cousin that we had the Imperial War Museum in town. With a name like that, how could I not go?
It was a bit of a drive, and the exterior was uninspiring. Very 1990s, all angular slopes and little decoration to break them up.
The insides were rather interesting. I was a bit confused by the currently running exhibition, organized by a Punjabi lady and celebrating her experience of growing up in the UK as an immigrant. A lot of East meets West, leaning towards the East. Not particularly exciting to me, I'd grown up there.
Of course there is an exhibit exploring the family, marriage, religion, and the role of women within Punjabi culture in an English war museum. Its like they picked an exhibit as conceptually distant as possible from what they tell the public their purpose is. Its so quintessentially English, of their all encompassing self debasement. Just a little snapshot, a microcosm, of the degradation of their own culture and people perpetuated by their own elites.
phosphorus2
4mo ago
America loves doomed interventions and military misadventures, but it loves them because it has such an overwhelming military and wealth advantage over everyone else it can afford to be reckless and half-ass imperialism
Not true, not convincing
I reject that population size is an important factor when deciding to halt nuclear proliferation. It is the military and the President who will handle the logistics of destruction and/or conquest.
If stopping proliferation were all Ted wanted to do in Iran maybe youd have a point. But its not. So you dont.
What? No, of course it means those things. Why do you think Ted Cruz or people who support bombing Iran care about another civil war in the Middle East? So long as they're not nuclear, they're welcome to go full Mad Max.
Becauase if there is a civil war, then all of the progressives in America are going to do whatever they can to import a billion refugees.
phosphorus2
4mo ago
The wrong goals were pursued in all of these cases.
Yeah its why I said that American superiority doesn't matter. Seems that you should be not confident in American superiority. And yet you are. Ok.
I asked this to another, I ask it to you: at what point do you think the US military asks Ted Cruz to handle logistics? This is not a Senator's role. The country's population numbers are not an important concern for him. They are trivia.
No, it is not a senator's role to do logistics. Yes, it is a senators role to make informed choices on the people he wants to declare war on. Ted Cruz not knowing basic information about the country he wants to attack is an excellent indication that he is not making informed choices.
Knowing a country's population and demographics is not trivia when you want to overthrow its government. Tucker asked those questions for a reason. Iran's government is not popular. Iran has ethnic separatist movements, there are close to 15 million Azeris. How many want to join Azerbaijan, does Ted know? 10 million Kurds, how many want a Kurdistan, does Ted know? If Syria, with a quarter of the population of Iran, caused a refugee crisis, why does Ted think that won't happen in Iran? Ted Cruz thinks everyone in Iran is Shia Persian, Ted doesn't even know there are tens of millions of ethnic minorities who have a history of separatism. The fact that Ted Cruz could not answer those questions, that he didn't know there were large minority populations, is a damning indication that he did not consider that regime change very likely means civil war and refugee crisis.
phosphorus2
4mo ago
This all may be true, to an extent (it's obviously not as simple as adding people means more state capacity).
No. It is true. There is no "may". These things I mention being complicated and multifaceted doesn't mean there is a chance or a scenario in which population is not critical in their determination.
But again: so? I'm confident America is superior regardless.
America was superior to Iraq (2003), and Syria, and Afghanistan, and Libya. Did our intervention in these countries go well for America? No, they did not.
It does not matter if America is superior to Iran. It matters if America can achieve what Ted Cruz wants to do, in the way Ted wants to do it, at an acceptable cost. If Ted Cruz does not know basic facts about the capacity of Iran to impose costs, how will Ted be able to know what costs Iran can impose?
phosphorus2
4mo ago
They're a far group whose only relevance is how much they might endanger our investments in the Middle East with their constant terrorism funding and sabber-rattling. There could be ten million, twenty, one hundred, it'd change no calculus.
Iran's population is Iran. Iran, like the US, will act on its own interests. 10 million person Iran has a much different capacity to act than 100 million person Iran does. The extent that Iran can fund terror or saber rattle or endanger US investments is proportional to their population.
Things like industrial capacity, military budget, GDP, are all largely contingent on population.
phosphorus2
4mo ago
In the context of the original comment, I am going to point out that a baby is not a potential person. A baby is a person. A gorilla will never be a person, and it will never be a potential person. But otherwise nice thanks, a pretty good way to take it into account.
phosphorus2
4mo ago
Its a beautiful book, isn't it?
https://www.themotte.org/post/1208/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/259175?context=8#context
phosphorus2
4mo ago
The US is based on this idea yes. But the idea "rights are bestowed by our Creator" is not correct on its own terms. If those rights were bestowed by our Creator, then they would have had those rights. But they didn't. So they fought a war to get those rights. Saying "we actually have these rights, King George is just going against God" or whatever is unfalsifiable. Those rights didn't exist in a material, verifiable, empirical sense in 1770. And if the war was not fought, then those rights would not exist in a material, verifiable, empirical sense.
Hence the position that "right" is a human construct. It exists not as intrinsic, regardless of the claim, but because humans make it exist.
phosphorus2
4mo ago
Also, R's are looking to have a durable advantage on court appointments due to Dem weakness in the Senate. The idea that R's auto-lose every court case is just not correct.
You would think so, but it seems that Rs are not as "good" at picking judges as Ds. Taking SCOTUS, from the lens of pure partisan power politics, the Ds have appointed 3 judges, the Rs 6. The Ds judges vote together, at higher rates. The Rs judges are split. 3 vote together, at high but less high rates as the Ds vote. Then there are 3 more moderate, more swing votes from the Rs. So the Ds are great at picking judges that advance the cause, the Rs have a mixed bag.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/06/02/supreme-court-justice-math-00152188
I can't find the graph, but lower court judge appointments follow this as well. Ds overwhelmingly go for liberal judges, Rs were pretty evenly split. A lot likely due to Rs having lower capacity to draw from though is my guess.
phosphorus2
4mo ago
Singerians who think that babies do not have more of an intrinsic right to life than other mammals of similar cognitive capabilities.
seems like a very short term view to have. maybe you can argue that a baby is currently as cognitively capable as a gorilla, but within a year or two there is no comparison, a toddler that babbles dwarfs the gorilla in this realm. do you / singer not take this into account?
does peter singer even believe in intrinsic rights? utilitarianism is not really a rights based philosophy. if singer can be summed up as "actions should be judged by their consequences in terms of maximizing the satisfaction of interests and minimizing suffering", its not immideatly clear why or how rights are needed except for expediency.
even the idea of an "intrinsic right" is somewhat of an oxymoron. a "right" is a human construct. how can a human construct be intrinsic?
phosphorus2
5mo ago
Republicans have a strong incentive to drop a big bailout to keep the urban machines from going whole-hog with the democrats again
GOP has no incentive to bail these guys out, and every incentive to let them go bankrupt. The gop will never pull these cities and they know it. Slight chance they could have pre trump, 0% post trump. If (when) they go bankrupt, they have a huge chip to bargain with and will force concessions.
phosphorus2
5mo ago
There's really no way out of this hole that has been created.
Basically everything I have read about transgenderism is ridiculous. Neovaginas, dilators, the fetishes, the entire ideology, like there is no way its true. There is no way it makes these people happy, these people are not going to be happy. They are destroying themselves. The kids parents are destroying them. Why stop them? Why argue to save them? Just let them destroy themselves. Let them destroy their children. These people are my out group, they believe almost every other thing I hate about my society, and they are destroying themselves. Why stop them?
phosphorus2
5mo ago
It shows a reckless disregard for the lives of civilians, for one.
Does it really though? These were pagers that were getting encrypted messages from Hezbollah. They set up a front company to rig them. What exactly is a "civilian" doing with an encrypted Hezbollah pager?
These weren't grenade sized explosions, most people lost hands and eyes not their lives. It wasn't something that would take out an entire room full of people.
phosphorus2
6mo ago
Guys, the subway is not very dangerous during work hours, and the problems with it (congestion, speed) can all be fixed with investment.
People need to get places outside of working hours.
I don't even disagree with what you are saying overall. But "you shouldn't be worried about public transit safety, the subway is not very dangerous from 9 AM to 5 PM" is not a very compelling rebuttal to someone who is concerned.
These changes were made within the last five years, they were explicitly made to increase minority enrollment, and CA knew that these changes would result in a bunch of unprepared students. Their justification for the change is public (below), and it is solely focused on increasing minority enrollment.
https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/underreview/sttf-report.pdf
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