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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   3669 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 7, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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My living room smoke alarm decided to go off for no reason at 3AM, and died of being crushed by a brick soon after. Are there any smoke alarm brands that aren't utter shit? Why have they gotten worse since I installed my first ones twenty years ago?

A thought was pursuing me for a long time, and visited me during Scott's poll again. What if we polled a large number of people about their SMV (e.g on 1 to 10 scale) and their SO SMV, and then check those whose estimates match estimates made by another people. It's very well known that people of both genders greatly overestimate their SMV. What if amongst people with no SMV self-bias we could find some people who are superforecasters without them having to spend tens of hours to play a game. And if you want answer to some difficult ethical question, it might be wise to ask them, they are more likely to give correct answer than people who can write long texts with links to "peer reviewed" articles.

This would all be so easily solved if dating apps published ELOs. But that would probably cause a spike in suicide rates for the entire week, so I can't quite endorse it.

The point is getting ones who correctly estimate their rating, just publishing it serves no reason.

Well, I can't imagine an ELO calculated from views and match rates wouldn't serve as the "ground truth", regardless of how they rate themselves.

I'm not saying it woudln't. Yours publishing ELOs is like leaking answers to exam before giving it to students. I am wondering about identifying people who have unbiased estimate of their own SMV. If they can read it from app, they can copy-paste it and pretend they have correct estimate of themselves.

What's the deal with 3-4 day email customer service response times?

Had a warranty issue and emailed the brand, which replied with an auto responder that I should expect a reply in 3-4 days.

For the sake of this question, let's assume for this question that the autoresponder is telling the truth, and that it's been at this wait period for months now.

Email accumulates and does so asynchronously, so a 3-4 day backlog doesn't disappear if you don't get to it quickly. Hypothetically, if the entire team got together and crunched through the queue, then theoretically they could shave the response time to 0-1 days in perpetuity. Similarly, if the team all took a vacation for a week, then the queue would become 10-11 days in perpetuity.

Unless I'm missing something, it seems like there is no good business reason for an email queue to be 3-4 days steady state. It would either stretch to infinity due to understaffing, cut down to zero if there is excessive staffing, or be managed into a 0-1 day queue with a one time crunch push if staffing is accurate. In what universe could a capably managed team have to deal with a 3-4 day email response time on an ongoing basis?

There's nothing inherently contradictory at all about what you describe, because you are calling it a queue when it is really a pipeline, and process pipeline's length is not directly related to its capacity. For example, you could have a process pipeline that contains certain things that just inherently require time, such as review by multiple people who process daily batches.

Unless I'm missing something, it seems like there is no good business reason for an email queue to be 3-4 days steady state.

Your question is reasonable. I've always assumed (without evidence) that "steady state" isn't perfectly steady, and overprovisioning to get to zero backlog constantly would be expensive. Both short-term day-to-day noise and seasonal effects (few warranty claims on snowblowers in July) could make volumes unpredictable, and a couple of days slack would let you schedule shifts based on volume.

Although as Oracle pointed out, it could be a contractual obligation. I've certainly had interactions with, say, insurance where I've been quoted 60 days to evaluate a claim, but gotten a response within a week.

It's the SLA (Service Level Agreement) that the customer service company set up with the brand.

I don't know what company you're emailing, whether it is large or small, but it is likely they outsource some of their support to a multi-client service desk that can handle tier 0 or tier 1 requests. The company is paying for a 3-4 day SLA, and if the service desk goes over that length of time there are penalties. Because the multi-client service desk has a multitude of clients, each with a different cadence for emails, the service desk will prioritize emails according to SLA, ensuring all emails are answered with the least financial penalty to the service desk.

I don't have any experience with 3-4 day SLAs (that seems excessive to me) but I have seen emails sit in a queue all day, getting answered by the night guys at 10 PM, because the SLA was 24 hours and other companies had <2 hour SLAs.

I've been reading more of James Clavell's Asian Saga. I've also been catching up on cleaning and maintaining my garden tools.

In the books every peasant bows and scrapes at the feet of the samurai. My very limited knowledge of martial arts is that those same peasants developed ways of fighting with their gardening tools because they were forbidden from owning real weapons.

So... who were the peasants fighting?

The... samurai and their military leadership? At least in Japan.

Meiji- and Edo-era peasants (and especially hinin, which were somewhere between Indian dahlit and American homeless) had extremely minimal rights, at the same time that the samurai class had an explicit right to strike those who offended their honour, a rule that was of significant relevance and controversy in an incident involving Westerners that Clavell references. (Tbf, especially 1600s-era social and economic stratification meant that people sympathetic to the peasants or, more often, merchants, were often writing the histories.)

But that didn't stop peasant uprisings from happening: Chichibu is similar in time to Tai-Pan and_Gai-Jin_, and Jōkyō the best-known early Edo period peasant uprising that would have fit for Sho-Gun.

So... who were the peasants fighting?

If German history is anything to go by: Robbers, marauding soldiers, each other, their wives, their lord's enemies when something went very wrong in the levying process, and once every few generations, their social betters in some abortive peasant uprising.

Plausibly, if my personality is that unstable, my tastes in archiving old things will also change. I'll go through a minimalist phase, throw everything out, then go through a nostalgic phase and regret it.

Keep enough small tokens to decorate my day-day living space with pleasant memories and entertaining anecdotes, then give/throw the rest away. Curate the collection on a rolling basis, trading put the least meaningful for new tokens as I collect them. That's essentially what I do now. You can't keep everything. And you can fit a whole lot of memories in a relatively small scrapbook.

Why is it that even people whose ideological positions hold that at least in general some human lives are objectively not worth living (ex. abortion of fetuses with Down's syndrome) react negatively to anyone making such a claim in specific case?

You’re going to have to be more specific.

I would not expect that most such claims are made in good faith. So the reaction might be driven by rhetorical strategy.

One of the recent cases I'm thinking of is some of the reactions to this bit from Dr. Alok "Dr K" Kanojia, from his interview with Steven Bartlett of "Diary of a CEO." It's one thing to make a blanket condemnation of his position from a view of "all human lives are valuable and worth living," but another when you're someone who talks about "dysgenics" and laments the potential effect of Dobbs on America's future demographics.

He is talking about himself. Being upset at people telling him NOT to kill himself is a recurring topic of his. I don't know why, because he can simply go into any normal part of the internet and frankly present his political views, he'll get thousands agreeing that he should "unalive" himself as they'd say.

I'm afraid it's more like he's posting to try to get a steelman of the "don't kill yourself" position, and despite wanting to be, not being convinced by the arguments. If his brain is anything like mine, it does a good enough job arguing for the "keep yourself safe" position on its own two feet (two brain halves? two cortexes?) without going to 4chan.

Since people keep talking about/recommending them, how do you use an LLM? I mean, most everything I search online is paywalled, and the free "AI tools" I've tried weren't very impressive (and ended up either shut down or paywalled)?

Could somebody give some ELI5-level guidance and/or recommendations?

Options:

  • Google's mainstay is Gemini (previously Bard) is free(ish) for now, if you have a Google account. Open it, start writing. Not private.

  • Anthropic pushes Claude. You can try Haiku and Sonnet, the lighter- and mid-weight models free, but Opus was more restricted last I checked. Tends to be one of the stronger fiction writers, for better or worse.

  • Chat-GPT3.5 is available for free at here, 4.0 is a paid feature at the same sight. The paid version is good for imagegen -- I think it's what a lot of Trace's current stuff is using. Flexible, if a bit prudish.

  • Llama is Facebook's big model, free. Llama 2 is also available for download and direct run, though it's a little outdated at this point.

  • LMSys Arena lets you pit models against each other, including a wide variety of above. Again, not private. Very likely to shutter with little notice.

  • Run a model locally, generally through the use of a toolkit like OobaBooga webui. This runs fastest with a decent-ish graphics card, in which case you want to download the .SAFETENSORS version, but you can also use a CPU implementation for (slow) generation by downloading GGUF versions for some models. Mistral 8x7B seems to be the best-recommended here for general purpose if you can manage the hefty 10+GB VRAM minimum, followed by SOLAR for 6GB+ and Goliath for 40+GB cards, but there's a lot of variety if you have specific goals. They aren't as good as the big corporate models, but you can get variants that aren't lobotomized, tune for specific goals, and there's no risk of someone turning it off.

Most online models have a free or trial version, which usually will be a little dumber, limited to shorter context (think memory), or be based on older data, or some combination of the above. Paid models may charge a monthly fee (eg, ChatGPT Plus gives access to DallE and ChatGPT4 for 20 USD / month), or they may charge based on tokens (eg, ChatGPT API has a per 1 million input and output token price rate, varying based on model). Tokens are kinda like syllables for the LLM, between a letter to a whole word or rarely a couple words, which are how the LLM breaks apart sentences into numbers. See here for more technical details -- token pricing is usually cheaper unless you're a really heavy user, but it can be unintuitive.

For use:

  • Most models (excluding some local options) assume a conversational model: ask the program questions, and it will try to give (lengthy) answers. They will generally follow your tone to some extent, so if you want a dry technical explanation, use precise and dry technical terms; if you want colloquial English, be more casual. OobaBooga lets you switch models between different 'modes', with Instruct having that Q/A form, and Default being more blank, but most online models can be set or talked into behaving that way.

  • Be aware that many models, especially earlier models, struggle with numbers, especially numbers with many significant figures. They are all still prone to hallucination, though the extent varies with model.

  • Long conversations, within the context length of the model, will impact future text; remember that creating a new chat will break from previous context, and this can be important when changing topics.

  • They're really sensitive to how you ask a question, sometimes in unintuitive ways.

Thanks! Maybe you'll mind answering two questions: About using local models, can it be tweaked so it doesn't forget context so easily? Maybe using learning runs on previous conversations? How does chatGPT retains context? I understand it does multiple processings for each prompt, and does lossy compression of previous chat history. How to simulate in in API?

You can finetune models on your personal data or information, but that only does so much. If you're more technically inclined, you can try setting up Retrieval-augmented generation, where the model queries and existing database and tries to answer based off the knowledge there and not just what it came baked in with.

Don't ask me how that can be done, but I know it's a thing. My PC isn't good enough to fuck around with the local models worth using, courtesy of Nvidia and their stingy amounts of VRAM.

How does chatGPT retains context?

I presume you're not talking about nitty gritty algorithmic details (which would be the self-attention mechanism IIRC) and instead mean how it continues a conversation or remembers details about a user?

Well, the official implementation has a "memory" feature where it gets to remember tidbits about your preferences as a user, as well as some relevant personal details like location.

The way it works is that the entire conversation is fed back to the model, with specific signs that tell it when it or the user was speaking, and it'll resume where the user left off. I think the API works this way by default, but my OAI credits expired ages ago, so if it seems to be treating each input as a fresh prompt, you need one of the many frontends available that use your API key and then handles the matter of copying back your entire conversation, which is tantamount to the model "remembering" it.

Is there no way to use Claude 3 Opus' web feature if you don't have direct access to it? I'm trying out Claude 3 Opus through openrouter.ai because Anthropic don't sell to European countries yet, but I can't see any way to get more than the usual text feature. There's image upload as well but it doesn't work perfectly.

Great post, but I'm consistently bemused that people forget that GPT-4 and DALLE-3 are freely available through Bing. I'm sure Microsoft is too.

Pick your poison, ChatGPT or Claude Sonnet. Go to their website, make an account with username and password, do a mobile verification and give them your email, promise not to do anything bad... and that's it. You just ask the machine your questions: "What are some good names for an enormously long armoured train?" and have a conversation with it: "Why do they [spiders] have eight eyes if their vision isn't so great, while birds have good eyesight with two?" You can ask it for code, stories, translation, just about anything you might ask a human (except anagrams and certain kinds of wordplay) and you get a pretty decent response, albeit it may make things up or give you blather.

It's like using microsoft outlook or gmail in your web browser, you're not downloading stuff unless you're an advanced user with a very powerful PC.

If you want the best models, you have to subscribe to Claude Opus or GPT-4, lesser models are free with ratelimiting. It's no harder than using netflix really.

do a mobile verification

Does that require having a smartphone?

It's no harder than using netflix really.

Well, given that I've never used them, or any other streaming service (particularly as my Internet isn't good enough to support them), this isn't exactly a helpful comparison.

@self_made_human you’re the one I’d ask, here.

I have been summoned.

Well, Ranger has done a pretty good job, but if you particularly want GPT-4 (or a fork) for free, then you can use Bing Copilot, either through the Bing app or your browser.

You need to sign up with your email (I don't recall if it needs to be a Microsoft account or using Outlook), and there you go. You flip a toggle to make it use GPT-4, and you're set.

Pretty KISS, and it's the best free LLM out there, being on par with GPT-4 as served through paid OAI ChatGPT.

Everything else that good or debatably better requires money, or a willingness to find shady discord bots or sign up for research previews and so on.

Summarizing dense, relatively inscrutable material when I don't have the time to read it for myself.

Quick diagnosis of issues with minor appliances or mechanical issues. I don't trust them for medical purposes. Describe the year make and model of your car and any weird noises or behavior it is making.

Song recommendations (i.e. here's a list of songs I like, give me more on this theme)

Nigh instantaneous proofreading and editing of professional letters, documents, or similar.

Quick feedback loop for brainstorming ideas or quickly 'prototyping' concepts you have had difficulty envisioning or expressing.

Right now they don't have much 'agentic' uses (I'd really like one that can e.g. order pharmacy refills or schedule oil changes for me) but I think the basic capabilities are there.

I think you misunderstood my question. I don't mean a list of use-cases like this, I mean how do you do these things you list?

Explain like I'm five — or, alternately, a sixty-something Boomer. What URL do you enter in your browser, or software do you download. How do you use the resulting page or program?

Go to www.chatgpt.org/chat, you won't have to sign up or log in. Then type in the box.

I don't find them enormously useful, but two specific uses for me:

  1. when reading a textbook, ask it to explain some passage (e.g. on a weird C++ detail) (usually helpful)
  2. write code in some language/framework, given approximately that code in another language/framework (hit or miss)

Again, not what I'm asking.

What LLM do you use to do these? How do you access it? How much does it cost? How, in detail, do you do these things you list?

ChatGPT and Bard, mostly the former, unpaid version, through browser. Sample transcript on the diamond problem in C++ multiple inheritance: https://chat.openai.com/share/603e851e-daa0-4c4b-81d7-1b8332897694

Avian flu has started jumping to humans.

Hypothetically, if it starts transmitting from human to human easily, causing a pandemic which would be a lot more deadly than covid, how would you invest in order to profit, if you were to survive? What would be your "no use for money if I'm dead, but if I survive I'll multiply my savings" strat?

I think based on the COVID response, go with online services— instacart, Grubhub, online streaming, Zoom type online services, basically anything that replicates an in-person service at home. I would anticipate at least an attempt at a lockdown if the flu is bad enough.

I have noticed that Bitcoin goes up in times of uncertainty, and then goes down when things get calmer. But the first rule of Bitcoin is not to buy it when it's back in the news, and it's been reaching highs. So probably don't buy Bitcoin now.

Might not be quite as true anymore. I think a significant reason why it went up lately, and why it might not plummet as much anymore, is because a lot of ETFs bought into it. And more are set to buy in over the next couple of years. It might be "here to stay" in a bigger way than before.

But it is something I've observed as well. People want gold and the biggest crypto when a crisis happens.

In the initial phase there will be huge wealth-destruction as industry, logistics and so on get hammered. You want to be shorting travel, energy and such or at least in cash, ready to buy low. Then you need to follow the moneyprinting and fiscal support wave.

How much more deadly would it be than COVID?

No one knows yet, but 30-50% death rate has been mooted.

Heard the same claim about covid at the end of 2019. Fool me once...

So the Black Death, which was a catastrophe but didn’t cause civilizational collapse.

For the record, I don’t believe this report without much better evidence.

Even 30% is major unpredictable transformation of society level, I think investment advice is hard in that scenario.

Yes, there wouldn't be a recognizable civilization left. Guess those without land where they can be self sufficient are screwed in that case.

Apparently it primarily affects children and young people. Older people above 50 are very rarely killed (just like Spanish flu). I think in that case civilization would probably survive since that leaves the people who are primarily in charge and can maintain things for a couple more decades. Obviously losing so many young people would radically transform many social dynamics. I think total collapse likely needs in excess of 80-90% mortality rate.

The problem is that medium ground where things can change in unpredictable ways but it isn’t the end of the world.

I MADE IT

FUCK THE HATERS

Ahem. Sorry. Got a bit too hyped up, but I've gotta be my own hype man, it's 11 pm at the hospital.

@Throwaway05, @TheDag, @AhhhTheFrench, @faul_sname, @whoeveritmayfuckingconcern (there's a lot of people who've egged me on over the years, I'll get to you all):

I got a match offer in psychiatry! While Scotland might be a little bit on the dreary side, well, endless exams are even drearier.

I was in an awkward position. If I'd done a lot better, I'd be confident in an offer. If I'd done way worse, I could have washed my hands of it and resolved to grit my teeth to prep yet another year of my short life. But I did well, but not so good that I wasn't on tenterhooks.

Most British doctors don't match on their first try, barring the least craved options like GP.

But psychiatry went from having a competition ratio lower than 1, to 9:1.

The exam got ten times harder since I began planning for it. Doubled in the span of a year. Yet I beat it. Beat all the bastards.

No more wannabe psychiatrist, upgraded to shrink-in-training. Then, barring an act of Satan, a bona fide shrink and not a LARPer

I might hold the current offer in the (mildly vain) hope that I get an upgrade to somewhere less rural, but I'll still take it. (Hmm, it seems that the hold window is already over, it seems to be take it or leave it, but I'll still ask around)

Fuck yeah. Gonna drink a lot of scotch and fuck a lot of bitches. I'm getting out.

Now, it's shame I've got 9 hours left at work, and while its going to be a slow night, I'd rather not lose my Indian license by drinking on duty. That can wait till the morning.

Congratulations!

This is, of course, amazing! I would be happy to drop in and celebrate if you're up for that kind of madness, I'll have to bring my brother. I would have been on this sooner but there was a killjoy circling and banning me for being an annoying atheist. I'm literally beside myself with joy for your victory here man! Just was able to work today on my busted knee and it is also amazing to connect on this level across the world.

Mf, you need to tell me how's your knee doing too btw.

But definitely, I feel like it's much less of an imposition to ask you drop by Scotland than come to India haha, and at least I can offer some hospitality of my own, in the form of some nice scotch. Btw, I spoke to another Indian doctor who was in the same boat with the whole ECFMG thing, and they told me it took them almost 2 years to finish when they got the ball rolling, so even if I busted my balls over it, that's almost the duration of my residency anyway. But I'll see what I can do while I'm still here, and my juniors seem keen too.

I appreciate it all my dude. And if you're too preoccupied to come, well, a dear friend of mine is probably getting married in the US, so I have reason to visit soonish myself!

Ahhh! We'll make it over, I've been meaning to visit and this gives me a good reason.

I watched that whole horrible india video, I'm surprised you guys are letting that pure putrid propaganda piece just moulder on the front page like that. You could clip together gross shit from any country and put Attenborough's voice over it. Shoot, I've done that while filming my friends.

Is Kulak like a thing now?!? I always have a knack for underestimating dumb stuff becoming very popular. Typical minding is my biggest blind spot.

I watched that whole horrible india video

I didn't.

I'm surprised you guys are letting that pure putrid propaganda piece just moulder on the front page like that.

As opposed to... what?

It has a thumbnail of a haunting dead person on it, it makes the front page of themotte look like a gore site. I know you don't care that much, weren't you literally a boogaloo boy?

It has a thumbnail of a haunting dead person on it, it makes the front page of themotte look like a gore site.

I'm pretty sure everyone here has seen worse. I'm pretty sure ~95% of people here or visiting here has literally paid money to see worse in movies, games, shows, etc.

I know you don't care that much, weren't you literally a boogaloo boy?

..."weren't"? More generally, I have no idea what the chain of logic you're pointing to here is.

I didn't watch the video because I don't find the premise interesting or edifying enough to be worth discussing. The question remains: what's your proposed solution, and why is it better than "don't touch the bait"?

were you not...idk where weren't came from, my bad I guess, some people think it is grammatically correct.. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/532254/is-werent-you-considered-grammatically-correct-because-expanded-it-would

I think it is beneath the dignity of such an august body to have that kind of dreck populating the front page. But maybe it is just my delicate sensibilities. In regards to the boogaloo reference, I just figured your race ideals were in line with the video, maybe I am wrong.

Your grammar is fine. I'm objecting to the use of past-tense; I do not believe our current society is legitimate and think large-scale violent conflict is both likely in the near-term and preferable to other likely scenarios.

I think it is beneath the dignity of such an august body to have that kind of dreck populating the front page.

I think a lot of things that are posted here are beneath the dignity of this "august body". The mods are committed to not imposing their aesthetic standards on the forum, though. This is actually what HlynkaCG got banned for: he found the presence of many objectionable people here too repugnant to tolerate.

In regards to the boogaloo reference, I just figured your race ideals were in line with the video, maybe I am wrong.

You are wrong. I don't endorse HBD, much less whatever you want to call... that whole mess. I've spent a fair amount of time arguing against Kulak in the past, when his extremism was less race-based than it seems to be now, and our views are not converging.

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Oh, I'm so happy for you! I've always enjoyed your posts, and I'm glad you now have more time to dwell on other thoughts, rather than exams. It seems you get down on yourself at times, and I hope this gives you a boost of confidence.

Thank you.

I was certainly in a pretty bad place, the combination of stress from work, interminable exams and my relationship falling apart was leaving me feel like a shallow husk of a person. But at least my grinding paid off, I built back up and better. You'd think bring "just" a doctor would be good enough for your self esteem, but in most places, you're not going to get much in the way of respect from other doctors unless you've gone through the other hoops (flaming and spinning) needed to become a resident and then specialized. And I stand on the shoulder of giants in my own family, so it's good to see them actually fucking proud of me (not that they weren't, but now I've done something properly impressive). It was all a lot to take in, but I haven't been this genuinely happy and optimistic in a while, for all that I grumble about the UK at times haha.

I'm glad you liked my posts, you can certainly expect even more hot takes on psychiatry, and they'll be better informed to boot.

And once again, thank you. Pseudonymous strangers on the internet have done a lot for me, and I'm glad that I haven't disappointed them either haha.

Congrats!

Thank you!

Nice! (Though don't let them find out about this place, given the recent Scottish speech laws.)

How permanent is this? Is there much of a chance that you'll have to leave?

I'm scared my OPSEC is irredeemably compromised, but I'm quite small fry tbh.

This is a 3 year training program that would be equivalent to an MD (completing a residency), both in the States or in India, however the UK has the option of an additional 4 years of training to specialize further into narrower aspects, at which point you're given "Consultant" status. For now, I'm interested in specializing in ADHD later, but this is the degree that lets me call myself a credentialed psychiatrist when I'm done.

Once you're in, well, unless I do something truly idiotic, I don't see any reason I'd have to leave. It's a normal residency program and they don't kick you out of one without damn good reason, and I already do hold a license to practise with the GMC after all.

Congratulations!

Most of my ancestors are from Scotland, which is why myself and all my relatives sunburn absurdly easily everywhere else.

I only hope your upcoming boy comes out with an intact soul 🧐✝️

If not, there's always hair dye and sunscreen haha.

Thank you, I appreciate it. I suppose Scottish chicks are kinda cute, not that I'm particularly picky about ethnicity if they're hot haha.

LOL. None of us are true gingers, so he should be good on that front.

Hell yeah man. As we say in the states: P=MD.

You can always catch up on whatever you feels is lacking once you have freedom to move, the hardest part is getting to the spot you just got to.

Scotland seems beautiful anyway.

I'll keep working on the USMLE thing in the background. Assuming in the 3 years it takes for my Core Psychiatry Training to end, it'll be worth the headache. I recently spoke to another Indian doctor in the same boat, and it took the ECFMG about 3 years to finish the process when he got the ball rolling, yet another reason not to sit around.

At least I don't have to give the NEET PG, fucking cursed exam, like a quarter is bullshit histopathology on top of that, and while I did learn ECGs eventually, those bastards are still pink blobs to me haha.

I appreciate you listening to me at my lowest, and I'm sure you're glad that me burning my mental health from both ends did pay off!

And yeah, I checked the rough geographic location, since in the UK training is rotational over rather large areas, and it doesn't seem to be an utter backwater. Close enough to Edinburgh that it's a short weekend drive I'd say, country roads allowing.

Fuck. I need to get a drivers license already.

Fuck. I need to get a drivers license already.

Yes.

Also do keep in mind that the USMLE is a total horror show, my suspicion is that the switch to pass/fail for Step 1 probably puts "not entirely committed" people in a bind because it's harder to tell if they are excelling at the level they will need for still scored Step 2/Step 3.

That's still a headache for the future, but you can bet it's one I'll gladly accept if I'm given the chance. And that I'll pick your brains about it whether you like it or not haha.

Congrats !

Thanks g. If anyone wants controlled drugs from a shady psychiatrist, get your orders in.

(For legal reasons, that's not me)

Well done!

Appreciate it, I just hope I don't shrivel up from the lack of sunlight, then again, it's not like I leave air-conditioned, closed climate controlled spaces all that much here.

Your first winter will be extremely depressing, make sure you go on vacation somewhere sunny (maybe India) halfway through if they give you the time.

Well, there's a reason everyone in that country is supposed to be on Vitamin D supplements. Even the gingers.

They probably won't give me time, but I likely have the option of working less than full time if I wish, without discrimination, especially since I can make a convincing case with my ADHD. That would however involve a small paycut and longer training, but I'll worry about that when I'm there. At that point, maybe I can summer (winter?) in warmer climates.

no question too simple or too silly

This is a real shower thought, but doesn’t the fact that the USSR was rival superpower to America prove without a doubt that communism actually does work? In fact, it works really well?

Thinking about it, it makes no sense to ever retort “well did it work for the USSR?” when someone brings up the prospect of communism. It worked so well that the communist USSR rivaled America and launched the first satellite. If it didn’t work well, the USSR could never have been a competitor to America. One could even argue that America cultural capital is what really led to American dominance later on, which is independent of political system and relies on America’s unique position as cultural crossroads, but that is beside the question.

A part of answer might be that USSR early gave equal rights to high IQ Jews which partially offset the inefficiency of planned economy, then after creation of Israel most Jews eventually left and economy became less free in 1960th-s. In some things, it wasn't (unironically) real communism:

abortion banned by Stalin

education in schools after 7th year was paid

...I could even speculate that if Stalin had better health and lived longer, he'd change mind on genetics too...

So, everybody knows about Lend-Lease (and perhaps exaggerates the scale of it). But I think not enough people know about the aid that the US gave to the USSR before the war. First was the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Relief_Administration, run by Herbert Hoover, which gave an enormous amount of aid to the USSR so fight Typhus and famine. Alternative history is tricky, but it's easy to imagine how the USSR might have collapsed right away if not for that aid.

After that came a ton of international trade deals, like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtorg_Trading_Corporation (exporting resources, importing machinery and technology) and Henry Ford building the GAZ automotive plant: https://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/may-31-henry-ford-cuts-deal-ussr-changes-125237773.html . So sure, it can "work" provided that it has an enormous amount of help from more advanced countries, and can get that help either from propaganda or selling natural resouces.

I think a major advantage some early communists had was revolutionary zeal. When you honestly believe you're in the founding generation of a political experiment that will usher in a bright future, you're more willing to work long hours for low pay and not try to take advantage of others to your own benefit. Once you realize that your political experiment is going to only be on par with capitalism at best, that motivation goes away. And without that motivation, your experiment starts functioning far worse than capitalism.

And without that motivation, your experiment starts functioning far worse than capitalism.

Exactly, because capitalism is unique in not only assuming humans are greedy but counting on it.

The eternal question is 'compared to WHAT?'

Feudalism 'works.'

Slavery 'works.' We had it in place for eons of human history. Rome was built on slavery, and Rome outlasted the USSR in pure duration.

And perhaps the oldest 'economic' system of all: invading the neighboring tribe, killing them, and taking their shit 'works.' It still gets some use in the current age.

But if there's a system that is completely outperformed along all the metrics that actually matter, and the alternative system survives over the long term, 'working' is not a sufficiently convincing qualifier.

Capitalism (admitting that the definition is somewhat ambiguous) solves virtually any economic 'problem' you throw at it, and it does so more effectively than any other system we've devised or evolved so far. I don't think there's ever been ANY country that collapses due to being "Too capitalistic."

So I don't hold my breath than any of the current contenders are going to replace it.

  1. Taking Communism on its own terms, historical materialism is refuted by the Soviet Union's failure even if it experienced a period of success. One of Communism's primary doctrines and promises has been the historical inevitability of the Communist form, that Capitalism's contradictions mean that it must inevitably fail, and be supplanted by Communism. This was the official belief of the Soviet Union, and remains afaik the official position of Red China. The failure of the Eastern Bloc and its reversion to Capitalism contradicts the core tenets of Communism as the right side of history. The promise of Communism was never that it could deliver a period of relatively decent development relative to expectations, it was always that it would deliver a permanent world of equality. It had such persuasive power to so many intellectuals in the 20th century because they genuinely found Marx's arguments persuasive, and believed that Communism was inevitable. The failure of the Soviet Union was strong evidence against that belief. It should be noted that the continued existence of Red China should be a riposte, but that still doesn't really fit into a simplistic view of Marx, and few on any side are very pro-China.

  2. Few people are Utilitarians, such that they'll accept any amount of abridged Human Rights for a % improvement in development. The Soviets had a bad reputation for human rights abuses. There is a point at which many of us would "most respectfully return [our] ticket" for utopia.

That being said, I largely accept that argument as regards, particularly, Castro in Cuba. Mostly because the rest of the Caribbean doesn't offer much else in the way of developmental and human rights success stories compared to Cuba, while Poland and Germany are a pretty clear demonstration that Capitalism delivered better results than Communism. If anything, economic results in the Caribbean seem to show that they should have just stayed colonized.

I don't think Cuba is doing that well, even if they're doing better than some of the Caribbean nations. Maybe they're evidence that authoritarianism can be better than democracy, when the voters inevitably elect populists who just turn the country into authoritarianism with a veneer of democracy anyway. I don't think Cuba is evidence that centrally planned economies are better than free markets.

https://www.discoursemagazine.com/p/in-cuba-the-terminal-stage-of-communism

No, Cuba isn't an argument that centrally planned economies are better than free markets. It is a reasonable argument that Communist totalitarianism is better than the right-wing, kleptocratic authoritarianism present in other small Caribbean statelets. And certainly better than whatever it is that they have in Haiti! There's a certain context dependence: I wouldn't bring up Cuba to argue that the USA should go Communist, but it's reasonable to argue that Cuba (taking into account the embargo) is way better than other countries which were similarly situated circa 1960, even where those countries have been the subject of repeated rounds of IMF Capitalist interventions and FDI. Cuba's murder rate, for example, is less than half that of the DR, and 1/10 that of Jamaica and 1/5 of much wealthier Mexico!

My overall opinion on third world development remains that the 1st world countries need to collectively agree to legalize conquest between third world nations, abolish any international recognition of existing borders, and give it 30 years to sort itself out.

My overall opinion on third world development remains that the 1st world countries need to collectively agree to legalize conquest between third world nations, abolish any international recognition of existing borders, and give it 30 years to sort itself out.

Umm, I know the theory of this is that economic growth-> more powerful third world countries which conquer their neighbors and impose a superior system. But in practice I think population sizes enable human wave attacks and borrowing that lead to mass immiseration through war. Like Russia is probably going to impose its system on Ukraine soon enough.

are you going to say that that poor backward Russia conquers rich Ukraine due to number superiority?

I think Russia conquers Ukraine and entrenches the kleptocratic mafia state system which would have gradually gotten better under polish influence.

The best example would be the Congo or Somalia, where we've seen decades of perpetual and miserable disorder.

In a world where the UN did not enforce arbitrary border set on an arbitrary date, Congo and Somalia's better-run neighbors like Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda would have a motivation to conquer, integrate, and administrate regions of those countries. Right now, only altruism can motivate anyone to help organize one of these failed states. We've outlawed any sense of enlightened self-interest.

...but Ethiopia is lost Eritrea and has problems with Tigray. Still better than Somali, thought... wait... why the international community accepts secession of Eritrea and South Sudan but does not accept secession of Somaliland?

We've outlawed any sense of enlightened self-interest.

Similarly, study of genetics of humans is backward because slavery is illegal, nobody can't design 200 IQ obedient slaves and profit from it.

My overall opinion on third world development remains that the 1st world countries need to collectively agree to legalize conquest between third world nations, abolish any international recognition of existing borders, and give it 30 years to sort itself out.

I'd agree something needs to be worked out regarding the 3rd world that probably wouldn't be politically correct, but I doubt that would work pretty well. Even if you're willing to callously sacrifice potentially billions of lives over those 30 years in order to get a better future over the up coming centuries, and you don't think there's any risk of those wars spilling over into the first world or using nukes, I don't think it'd actually result in disfunction ending. I think you'd get a lot of the dominant conquering countries not completely wiping out the populations of their conquered territories, whether out of pity, apathy, or to use the populations as poorly compensated labour. And those sorts of minority populations would just be another perpetual source of human misery.

I don't really know what would be the best solution to 3rd world disfunction, but fortunately I think genetic editing + AI will solve most problems in the long term.

and you don't think there's any risk of those wars spilling over into the first world or using nukes

If 1st world nations somehow agree to legalizing conquest in Africa, they can work out so they don't get nukes as well.

I'd be more worried about the conflict dragging in Pakistan/India/China who are borderline undeveloped themselves and already have nukes

The funny thing is that Marx was massively against Lenin and the Vanguard Party idea. Marx was adamant that you had to go all the way through to the end of capitalism before you entered the socialist phase and on into communism. You couldn't skip from a semi-feudal economy to socialism, that's not how it worked. Russia had the weakest basis for proletarian revolution, Marx wrote off anything happening in Russia. Germany or the UK were supposed to be where the revolution happens because they were the advanced capitalist economies.

China is closer to proper Marxism than the USSR ever was since they are advancing through the capitalist phase. Now I don't actually believe that the state will wither away and I don't believe in Marxism either. However, what the fall of the USSR shows is that Marxism-Leninism failed, not Marxism. Marxism has unironically never been tried.

Thinking about it, it makes no sense to ever retort “well did it work for the USSR?” when someone brings up the prospect of communism.

Generally people are advocating for communism for the quality of life it promises, this still seems like an appropriate retort regardless of how the country fared in great power competition.

If it didn’t work well, the USSR could never have been a competitor to America

Wouldn't present day Russia be a competitor to America if it controlled the same territory as the USSR + satellite states?

When most people say 'work' they mean something like 'provide good living standards for the median person'. Marxists tend not to brag about how communist countries have the biggest armies, although having a huge army is certainly possible when the state (nominally) controls the entire economy and the leadership doesn't have to pay too much attention to the needs and wants of the populace.

Like sure, the USSR worked in the sense that Russia colonised all its neighbours, spent huge amounts on its military, suppressed opposition and built walls to keep its citizens in. It failed at providing good living standards, innovating technologically, creating economic equality (arguably its cardinal goal) or creating a society that wasn't rife with corruption.

Yeah, the USSR almost kept up with the US militarily at the cost of the well-being of its citizens, while the US more than kept up with the USSR militarily while at the same time enjoying unprecedented growth and prosperity for its citizens.

As far as I can tell, the ‘communism doesn’t work’ narrative we learned in schools is bunk, but the Soviet Union consistently struggled to manage the planning of its economy because it was married to idiotic Marxist ideas like the labor theory of value, and that they were able to keep up with the west for a while by prioritizing military spending.

"Communism" in the sense of "enslave rural populations to produce grain at gunpoint, and then use that wealth to centrally plan heavy industrial development" does indeed work. For a while at least.

The oft mocked cliché, "real communism has never been tried," is in a literal sense true. The USSR that defeated Nazi Germany and rivaled America had different wage levels for different jobs, and even higher wages for more productive employees with the same jobs.

Of course, the reason "real communism has never been tried," is that as soon as you have contact with ground-level economic reality, the idea of communism becomes absurd.

The history of wage stratification in the USSR is pretty interesting. It trended upwards but AFAIK also waxed and waned. That said, it was also probably the most equal major society, the top 10% had perhaps a 25% share of total income by 1991 according to most economists who study the USSR.

The neighborhoods for party elites in Moscow or East Berlin (or Warsaw or Prague etc) were like middle class American suburbs at best.

Interesting. Do you think that was intentional? As in, actually caused by some policy of the early communists. Or was there simply not enough of a pie to grab?

Makes me wonder—say we get to post-scarcity, but never unlimited resources. I would expect some number of people to continue striving (hoarding?) for philosophical (signaling?) reasons. But this suggests that such imbalance might be…curtailed.

There was an episode where someone went to Stalin and said something like 'this situation is absurd, there are coal miners being paid more than Politburo members like you and I' and Stalin said something like 'that's as it should be - there are vacancies in the coal mines but there's a long line of people who want to join the Politburo!'

Official vs unofficial wealth is also important to consider, as you can see from the above exchange.

Party elites had huge non-salary advantages like better apartments, dachas, access to rare imported goods, caviar, cars, and for the top of the elite there were drivers, domestic staff and so on. Still, their standard of life (while vastly better than the average USSR citizen) wasn’t close to as good as the average third world elite is today (or even at the time), even though this was the second most powerful nation on Earth.

The Wikipedia for the Waldsiedlung has pictures of the gated compound that the GDR elite lived in and it’s not that great. Even including the amenities, pool, tennis courts and decent restaurant, the average West German doctor or attorney lived a materially comparable or better life than the literal Politburo of East Germany.

The USSR was flawed enough that after enough generational turnover for the revolutionary passion to wear off, the elites decided capitalism was better. I do think people overstate the extent to which communism doesn't work, that the arguments made about how bad communism and central planning and authoritarianism are prove way too much. But it's nice to have a wide variety of consumer goods, decentralized technology development, little state-backed political repression, few shortages, and for it to be very hard to expropriate a significant portion of the population or to cause a famine negligently or not. Cultural capital didn't produce the Randalls grocery store Yeltsin visited, it didn't produce America's global lead in technology, etc. "Communism doesn't work" is a reasonable way to say that.

I do think people overstate the extent to which communism doesn't work

Definitely not. Communism is just totally bankrupt as an economic ideology. The only reason why the USSR lasted as long as it did was because they let limited capitalistic ideas seep through pretty quickly. If you want to see the closest thing to Communism as written, read up about War Communism. Everyone hated it.

I agree that the ideology was bankrupt, but the fact remains that it was a rival superpower and did last quite a while. It could've collapsed within three years, and it didn't!

Also the US and West German governments kept subsidizing them through cheap loans and food aid whenever the USSR ran into issues.

E.G.

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/05/22/archives/180million-loan-to-soviet-union-is-made-by-u-s-biggest-credit-yet.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/03/business/east-germany-seeking-371-million-bonn-loan.html

I think Scott Alexander once sarcastically mentioned genetic testing for recessive disease(s) in Israel something along the times "yes, a nazi thing... practised as XYZ in Isreal". I fail to find the reference. What is the name and is it obligotary? Will some or all rabbi require testing before marriage?

I think this is what was being discussed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dor_Yeshorim

AFAIK it's voluntary and mostly anonymous, they do offer counselling so obviously that can't be completely anonymous. Couples who don't do it just face judgement from the community if they have a child who dies a horrible death from Tay-Sachs at 4 years old.

I think he was referring to Dor Yeshorim. The organisation's database is used by the traditional Jewish matchmakers to avoid pairing up carriers of diseases like Tay-Sachs.

I'm going on a 3.5 hour drive tomorrow to get to the centre of the path of totality for the solar eclipse. I have the solar glasses. I have solar binoculars and regular binoculars. I know about shadow bands and am thinking of bringing something to make them easier to see. Is there anything else I should do to take full advantage of it that I'm probably not thinking of? How hard are shadow bands to see? I saw videos of people using white sheets to see them. I'll probably be on a beach if that matters.

UPDATE: I saw the shadow bands in the snow. They were very faint at first but very clear right before the eclipse. Overall, an amazing experience and totally worth the trip. It's hard to describe the impression it made. A few minutes before the eclipse, it got noticeably darker, slowly at first and then faster and faster. Then, very quickly, it's as dark as night with a full moon, and you can suddenly see this back orb where sun was a moment ago, ringed with bright light and extraordinary white whisps of still smoke coming out of it. I am not a religious person, but angelic is best descriptor that comes to mind.

I was able to see shadow bands on the ground after the eclipse, but I didn't know they were called that until now. To me, they resembled low-quality video game lighting, like how Minecraft lightning used to work long ago. It was pretty cool.

I was able to see them in the snow just before and after the total eclipse. They were interesting. They were like waves of faint shadows all running in the same direction as the moon.

I’m driving 5-7 hours across however many state lines to do the same. Skipping my check-in with my parole officer for this. For me, just my regular aviators and a revolver in case things get dicey. White sheets seem to be for recording equipment. Just take it in and keep an eye on traffic and erratic behavior (both others and yourself). Stay safe.

I can't tell how much of this is a joke.

I expect all of it and this kind of sarcasm in my view belongs elsewhere.

I chuckled

parole officer

revolver

Separate from the odd juxtaposition here, I don't think aviator glasses are sufficient for staring at an eclipse. Is this a troll post?

Edit: Almost certainly.

The screen on my nine year old iPhone just cracked, so I’m finally facing the prospect of purchasing a new phone. I’m very pleased with the longevity of my current phone, so I’m planning to stick with Apple (yes, I know Android is supposedly better, but I’ve never heard of an Android lasting so long without any issues). Anyone have an opinion on the benefits of getting an SE vs. a 13/14/15? I’m hoping to get a decade’s use out of whatever I purchase, but I’m also cheap, so I’d prefer to spend as little as possible to accomplish that. (I assume the cameras for any iPhone on the market will be head and shoulders above what I have now, so I’m not worried about getting the best camera available.)

I Also have an SE like the other comments (this must be a case study for the type of person who buys an SE). But if I got to choose again I would probably go with the mini models or the latest regular stock iPhone. The total size difference is not that much but you are losing a lot of screen space.

Get an SE since the others are noticeably larger (and even the current SE is larger than the good old iphones used to be).

Get an iPhone 13 mini, the perfect combination of reasonable screen size and modern phone. Unfortunately it failed to sell so they didn’t make a 14 or 15 mini.

I would have but they aren't sold new anymore. My old iPhone SE 1 broke a while ago and I needed a new phone ASAP so hunting for a 2nd hand mini wasn't really an option.

Anyone have an opinion on the benefits of getting an SE vs. a 13/14/15?

The bog-standard one, which is "wait until the refresh of the SE comes out, then buy that". The current SE is an iPhone 13 in the shell of an iPhone 8, and has 5 years of support left (that's about how long its battery is going to last). The only real reasons to get a non-SE iPhone are the front LiDAR scanner for FaceID and the specialized cameras.

The only reason to go with Android is proper Firefox (with the good ad blocking) and NewPipe- but in my opinion, if your phone isn't your primary computer, those are negotiable. Android phones are fucking junk because Qualcomm sucks ass at CPU design and dominates the market enough that they don't have to care, which is why 2000-dollar Android phones get handily beat in hardware by 4 year old iPhones, and the OS being laggier doesn't help either.

Thanks! I don’t pay any attention to different types of phones, and I don’t really trust that anything Google would serve me wouldn’t be bought and paid for by some company or another, so I really appreciate the feedback.

One question: when you say that the SE has five years of support left, has Apple stated that somewhere, or is that just your best estimate?

has Apple stated that somewhere

I don't believe they ever explicitly state this, but every phone they've made in the last 10 years has had roughly a 7 year support window starting from the time it's first introduced. For example, the first gen SE was introduced in 2016, and went out of software support in 2023.

The problem with going 13 right now (I'd prefer a 13 Mini myself, all else being equal) is that it's quite expensive relative to that support window, since it's going to drop out of support in 2029 like the third-gen SE will. Sure, it's smaller and more modern than that SE is, but at twice the price it might not be worth it.

What's your favorite piece of architecture ever?

Sagrada Familia, hands down. Maybe my favorite manmade work, period.

Perhaps a bit cliche but I have never not been totally awestruck walking into the Hagia Sophia.

Saint Basil's Cathedral, might be pleb tastes but I just love the textures and colors on the domes.

I'm a fan of the Milwaukee Art Museum, but I don't exactly have a list of favorite buildings on hand.

Probably the Duomo in Florence. I lived next to it for a time and walked by it everyday. It always looked like a movie set.

Really partial to the Biltmore House. I don’t care if it’s gauche. It looks rad and makes for great tours.

What a funny name.

And accurate.

I’m not really sure if this counts as small but it’s definitely been on my mind and id like some advice on whether or not I am thinking about this clearly. I have lived in the Las Vegas metro area for the past two years and plan to remain here for the foreseeable (at least 5 more years) future, im thinking of buying a small house in a nice part of town and can just barely afford to do it.

I find myself hesitating on actually pulling the trigger because it would result in my current housing expense increasing from the 1.9K a month I currently pay to rent to 2.8-3.3K a month depending on what I actually end up buying.

I just can’t shake the sense that I would be buying at the top. This wouldn’t necessarily be an issue (I think its unlikely I would be laid off except in a case of extreme economic hardship) except that I am concerned that if the economy does dump I will be stuck in a high interest (looking at around 6.5%) loan which I wont be able to refinance if my home value drops enough.

The thing that’s annoying though is that this really is just a feeling and I cant find any actual evidence to suggest this area is actually about to undergo any kind of correction. Prices have increased a lot in recent years (up 40-50% since 2021) but this has happened in a lot of places, the regional unemployment is low and houses that get listed are selling.

Does anyone know what kind of metrics people who follow single-family real-estate sales actually follow? I appreciate that very competent people working at large financial institutions spend a lot of time and $ trying to price real estate accurately and I don’t expect to develop an institutional level understanding of these things. Im just trying to enter this with my eyes open and want to feel slightly less clueless, before making what will be my biggest financial decision to date.

Here are some metrics I have looked at:

  1. Regional unemployment https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.nv_lasvegas_msa.htm (which is basically flat).

  2. Permits for new construction https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LASV832BP1FHSA

  3. Case Schiller index calculated for Las Vegas metro area https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LVXRNSA

We are kinda in an anomolous time. The ratio of median home price:median income is in uncharted territory. Granted, this is a national ratio, so local market movement is a huge factor.

Without major amounts of extra supply coming on your local market or an exodus when Lake Mead runs dry, I don't see a regression to the mean happening any time soon. It's a hard choice, given your increase in housing cost.

In a similar position. Have stronger personal reasons to buy so I will buy regardless, but really difficult to shake off the feeling that it’s financially a bad decision. Prices are already ridiculous how can they go up any higher?? But then I had the exact same idea 3 years ago and here we are. I just really really hate that housing became a speculation vehicle that can go up or down in value in big unpredictable swings. It must be the most boring low return low risk investment ever

Rent vs buy math is difficult to impossible. If you can budget the house, and it'll make you happy, do it.

I got sick of landlords and wanted nice versions of things (air conditioner, kitchen appliances), so I did it. I also (correctly) assumed it'd make me finally put more effort into meeting people instead of moving cities constantly optimizing my career. Was it the right move financially? I won't know until I sell, and even then it's hard to include everything.

I just tell myself that it's at least non-disprovably a good choice and that the (uh, overly generalized) efficient market hypothesis says it should be similar to renting.

Is that housing cost after taxes? I assume you'd itemize after buying the house? If so, what's your marginal bracket?

Are you putting 20% down or something closer to 3%?

How plausible would getting a tenant be in the house if it made you more financially comfortable?

I have a bit embarrassing question to ask: what is the functionality of following users for? I thought that if I followed some users, I would get the notifications of their posts, but apparently it doesn't work that way (or at least not for me). Would someone be so kind and explain it to me?

If we updated it to also count top-level comments in the culture war thread, that would be an improvement, I think.

But yeah, currently it doesn't do too much.

I think that's exactly how it's meant to work l, with the note that comments aren't posts, so you don't get notified of them.

I'm pretty sure it worked in the past, but people I follow aren't so prolific, so I haven't seen any recent notification.

Now I understand, thank you. But barely anyone posts something on the Motte, so I don't find this feature as useful as I previously thought. But it can be useful in the future, thanks once again.

Posts and comments aren't the same thing. Posts are the submissions that appear on the front page; you'll get a blue notification when a user you're following makes one.

You are right, by writing 'posts' I meant post and comments, but it's not clear. So I get the notifications only for posts and not for comments?

Yes.

Thank you.

I agree it's weird. Most people do not make top level posts here, so it's largely pointless to follow people.

I still find it somewhat useful as a quick link to the people whose profiles I can check for new comments.

Hey friends, I have recently started to read nrx blogs and hanging out on this corner of the internet. I realized I need to understand economics better to be able to make sense of the world around me. It seems overwhelming to start from scratch, what do you recommend would be the highest ROI way to understand the major principles and events in economics? as that is closely intertwined with the history of states

I recommend Khan Academy as an intro. They have video lessons, and built in problems for their website. And being able to actually solve some problems is necessary to really understand economics, stuff like macroeconomics can be pretty unintuitive to think about.

Reading economics is like reading politics or history, there are many opposing schools of thought. Comparative advantage vs industrial policy and so on.

I'd just be wary of reading one book and thinking 'that's it, whew, I've got my economics'. Like politics or history, there's a great deal of it floating around, you're most likely to only find the orthodox versions. Yet orthodoxy changes! Tariffs and protection used to be despised and derided, yet they're coming back into fashion. Game theory is related and something to consider as well.

Reading Polanyi’s Great Transformation was one of the most mind opening experiences ever for me when it comes to economic history.

Thanks for realizing this. In general, people don't know enough economics.

When I took a class on microeconomics, which was one of my favorite classes, we covered, among other things, the following. I think these are worth knowing:

  • supply and demand (and graphs thereof)
  • opportunity cost
  • a good sense of just how much economic growth we've had, and the ways that has improved our lives
  • A robust sense of how the price system reflects the availability of goods and acts as a signalling mechanism for when resource usage is economically productive and incentivises innovation and entrepreneurship
  • Why "price gouging" can be good, actually. (Very brief answer: we operate in a world of scarcity, and when prices reflect that accurately, resources can be allocated more to those who need them, and incentivize mitigating that scarcity)
  • the effects of price controls, or cost-imposing regulation, including how minimum wage could reduce employment, or how rent control is "the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing"
  • deadweight loss (in taxation of goods, subsidies, and in monopolies, among other things)
  • how competition will force long-term-risk-and-opportunity-cost-adjusted profits to zero (in a sufficiently abstracted case: in practice, a bunch of things allow some, but not too much, profit to continue to be made, like economies of scale)
  • monopolies and cartels, why these are inefficient, why these are still better than the monopolists in question not existing, why cartels are better than monopolies
  • Pigouvian taxation
  • Coase theorem (keeping in mind also when it doesn't apply)

Public choice economics, and how incentives cause governments to fail, and how we often can't just trust them to solve any problems markets lead to. Some, among other government failures that happen are:

  • in general, politicians' incentives are not necessarily to produce whatever the optimal set of policies may be for the people
  • interest groups that would benefit policies that produce concentrated benefits to them, but impose diffuse costs on most others often can get those policies passed when it's inefficient
  • money spent on lobbying is wasteful: they'll spend up to the benefit of the good, increasing the cost to society
  • regulatory capture, and lobbying and weaponization of laws against competition

Also, read Bastiat's candlemaker's petition; it's hilarious.

I'm sure there's also macroeconomic things worth learning, but I, unfortunately, haven't really learned macroeconomics.

(Though I did watch one video from marginal revolution on the Solow model, which was definitely a useful concept)

It's probably also worth being aware of the whole situation with the US debt, and worth having a sense of some of the consequences of when we actually basically run out of money.

And that the ultra-wealthy usually have their wealth in the form of ownership of companies (and is exaggerated, as prices would fall as their stock sold), not giant vaults of cash.

The class I had used Gwartney et al's "public and private choice" as our textbook, so I assume that would be good, though it's possible that you might not want to spend money, and I don't know what the most efficient way to learn is.

Does anyone still 'collect' music (i.e. keep locally stored copies in some kind of organized database, regardless of format) in the current age of ubiquitous streaming?

I assume that Spotify (and the rest) has all but killed the idea of 'keeping' music on your local computer or phone amongst the youth.

As someone who has a music collection going back to when I first started obsessively ripping CDs to my PC in my teens, I find that I mostly keep doing it through force of habit, and the slight fear that things I like might disappear. Some of the older files in my collection are hard or impossible to find online these days. But with so many different streaming options and, now, an AI that can produce radio-quality music in seconds it seems like there's really no point to keeping a large local music collection unless its related to your career in some way.

So if you DO still store music locally, what are your reasons and methods?

Does anyone still 'collect' music (i.e. keep locally stored copies in some kind of organized database, regardless of format) in the current age of ubiquitous streaming?

Yeah, I use ytdl with the GUI mod.
It's very convenient.

What do you do with the music library itself?

Mostly just leave it on the harddisk and listen to it whenever I feel like it. I've uploaded a few songs to my phone but I spend most of my time in front of my PC anyway.

what are your reasons ... ?

I own all my music.

Synology NAS with a RAID setup for any media I regularly return to or like having on-hand. Music is the most regular use case, but I also use it for films and shows.

Is it worth the bother? It is for me, but I'm also a 'techy' that slightly gets off on this stuff. I'm also tinkering with Syncthing across multiple devices for accessing retro ROMs and save data no matter where I'm at - and I've maybe spent more time getting that together than consistently using it. I also daily drive with Linux for about half of the year for the sake of it. As I think is typical for my type - my PCs are far more organized than anything in my local meatspace.

I don't have any streaming subscriptions and my media pool is a little narrow. I hate ads, I hate things becoming suddenly unavailable due to corporate agreements expiring, and I don't get any benefit from the exploratory aspects of these platforms. I spent more time scrolling through Netflix/Prime for something to watch than actually watching anything, and I'm picky enough with music artists that 90% of the 'Artists who sound like X' recommendations don't pass muster to my ears.

Long-term, my plan is to backfill my digital copies with physical media when budget and interest permits. Even if I rip them once and never pull them out of their cases again, there's something to be said for a physical collection for reasons of aesthetics and conversation. But ultimately (and perhaps naively), I like the feeling of having control despite the risks. And since this all replaceable media, I won't feel too hard if an HDD ghosts.

I do still use free Pandora for 'radio' occasionally. There's a Skip limit, but I haven't heard an ad in years since using a VPN (not quite sure HOW that worked out, but I won't question it).

I'm also tinkering with Syncthing across multiple devices for accessing retro ROMs and save data no matter where I'm at

A while back I had set things up so any music added to the library on my PC that I rated as 4/5 stars or higher would also get loaded to my laptop and phone.

But again it seems to be largely obviated by the ability to set up a playlist on a streaming site which can contain all your favorites and then some.

There's even playlist migration services so you don't have to keep remaking them on new services.

I hate ads, I hate things becoming suddenly unavailable due to corporate agreements expiring, and I don't get any benefit from the exploratory aspects of these platforms.

Ultimately I think I just like the concept of being 'independent' of any given streaming service, and that nobody can deny me the enjoyment of music on own hardware.

And yes, if the streaming cos. have their way, they WILL wedge ads into every single service. I'll take the restricted library over having my auditory senses abused for products and services I don't need or want. I still have angry memories about some extremely repetitive ads that I was harangued with like 10 years back.

Long-term, my plan is to backfill my digital copies with physical media when budget and interest permits. Even if I rip them once and never pull them out of their cases again, there's something to be said for a physical collection for reasons of aesthetics and conversation.

I have a boxful of DVDs jammed in my closet, and I don't think I'll ever get rid of it because almost all of them are movies I love or loved and the absolute state of video streaming is such that I can't be sure which of them might be available at any given time, and on the same logic as above, I like the idea that nobody can control what I can watch on my own hardware.

This is hampered by the fact that I don't have a DVD player anymore.

Amazon Prime just put ads into their video streaming service, which can be disabled for a few bucks a year. But I think I'll be putting my foot down on this and cancelling prime altogether if they don't get the message that I will not tolerate ads now any more than I did with cable.

I do still use free Pandora for 'radio' occasionally. There's a Skip limit, but I haven't heard an ad in years since using a VPN (not quite sure HOW that worked out, but I won't question it).

With the advent of Song Recommendation AIs (also, ChatGPT does a pretty good job!) I find it less necessary to have a radio function at all, since I can seek out new music in a much more targeted way by telling the AI what I like, what I am searching for, then review the options it presents me directly.

The Pandora Radio option is there mostly for car trips with other people. I'm not really a George Michael or Prince fan and wouldn't acquire their albums. But 80s pop hits are the best pop hits, and they're definitely more palatable to others than, say, Autechre. I don't mind firing and forgetting a playlist there as long as we're having a good time.

I think what made me pull the trigger years ago on setting up my own media server and foregoing streaming was deciding one Thursday that I was going to watch David Lynch's 'The Elephant Man' that coming weekend. I saw it on Prime, noted its availability, played a little bit just to have it at the top of the queue, and made the plan. Friday night rolls around and it's gone; 'Unavailable in your region'.

15 minutes may seem like a lot to some folks these days. But that's all the time it took to download a blu-ray rip, fire it away, and put this nonsense behind me.

I've been willing to pay a couple bucks to rent a film for a movie night, but I do feel utterly betrayed when something I've bookmarked for later consumption is pulled when I actually go to watch it.

My habit now is if there's a series or something I'm watching with friends, I'll download local copies just in case.

I got my first MP3 player in about 2004, and never changed technology for listening to music. To this day I still use SanDisk MP3 players daily. My reasoning for doing this is:

1.) I like being able to listen to music without being tied to my phone. I can put my phone away, or not take it with me, and still listen to music. The MP3 players have long battery life and are pretty tough, but are also inexpensive; so I can take them into any situation and not worry about them.
2.) I desperately hate advertisements, so during the phase of my life where I didn't have much money, using ad-supported streaming services held no interest for me.
3.) I listen to a lot of really obscure music. For track which I got from some individual's Bandcamp, or from a private sharing forum, the MP3 player is the most practical option.

In terms of organization, though, I don't really have that. I just know where everything is, and if I forget, I find it using Everything.

https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/

I don't really have that. I just know where everything is, and if I forget, I find it using Everything.

I read a book a while back that suggested when it comes to computers, almost ZERO actual organization/sorting is needed if you have a sufficiently powerful search engine.

I don't really buy it completely, but I do often find that organizational schemas that made sense for me at the time become less scrutable later, so when I try and find, say, some videos I saved from a vacation in 2014, it's just 'easier' to sort by date and manually check files than to even try to remember the folder I stuck them in.

Music has lots of automated tools for sorting, so I've remained diligent in that respect.

I used to do that up until something over ten years ago, but then the giant HDD I kept it all on broke and I just gave up on the concept.

Nothing in life is permanent, and holding on to anything requires continuous effort and attention. Can't hold on to every piece of data that seemed remotely interesting at some point. The internet is ephemeral, but so is all existence.

On the one hand I agree, on the other, I have had a few occasions where the ability to pull up some vaguely-remembered file I made 12 years ago has been useful, it not critical.

My own policy on destroying data I need but don't want is to wait 7 years, since that's the longest statute of limitations on most crimes in most jurisdictions, barring like rape and murder.

I think I genuinely expect that if a sufficiently powerful AI were to review the contents of my hard drive(s) it could use them to form an accurate approximation of my personality and preferences and thus, if it is friendly, use that to optimize my life for maximum fun and happiness.

So perhaps I'm making a long-shot bet on immortality via being simulated by the future superintelligence thanks to the echoes of my consciousness I stored on my computer over the years.

Yes, absolutely. I do so because I think the idea of renting access to your media is insane, and it baffles me that so many people seem to be ok with it. Similarly, I also buy and rip physical versions of any movies or TV shows I really enjoy.

Also as far as music goes, I have no interest in discovering new music. I've been listening to the same music for about 20 years now, so Spotify has no actual value to offer me.

For methods, either I buy a digital download or I rip the CDs I own. Tag them, and then put them in Plex media server. They make a pretty good player (Plexamp) for mobile, though the desktop version was dog shit when last I looked. On desktop I use the web player. It works pretty well, and basically fills the use case I had for Google music back before Google killed that off.

I do so because I think the idea of renting access to your media is insane, and it baffles me that so many people seem to be ok with it.

Seems like there's just SO MUCH media out there that people accept that there's no way they can actually keep up with it all.

Imagine what it might be like owning 100 different cars when you can only drive one per day. It would make more sense to rent/lease than to just have most of them sitting unused all day.

Yes, I know storage costs round to zero for digital music. I'm mostly referring to the mentality. "I will watch this movie maybe twice this year, why bother keeping it around any longer?

I buy a digital download or I rip the CDs I own. Tag them, and then put them in Plex media server.

I'm so devoted to not relying on centralized services I went with Jellyfin instead.

I'm so devoted to not relying on centralized services I went with Jellyfin instead.

To be fair, Plex isn't inherently centralized. They offer that, but it's perfectly possible to not ever hook your media server up to their centralized service.

Yeah and probably best practices to not do that.

https://www.pcgamer.com/plex-says-controversial-service-that-emails-your-anime-habits-to-your-mates-is-opt-in-actually-pointing-at-a-screen-where-you-still-have-to-turn-it-off/

I don't quite follow. If one never uses the centralized service then surely there's no problem? Because then there are no "friends" for it to share your data with.

Yes, I'm just saying that the software is maintained by a company that may not make the best decisions for the end-users because incentives aren't quite aligned.

Yes. Almost compulsively. I like being able to have my music organized the way I like it, and to be able to listen to it on my own terms. If I have financial hardship in the future I don't have to give up music entirely because I can't justify the cost of a subscription to a streaming service. While that isn't likely to happen, I generally don't trust the subscription model as a practical matter (though I admit this has nothing to do with why I don't use a streaming service). We kind of take it for granted that these services have a fairly representative collection of the entire musical corpus, in the way video streaming doesn't, but that's being held together by rights agreements that may or may not hold in the future. As we've seen with video streaming, the motivations of the streaming services and the content producers aren't necessarily symbiotic — Netflix and Amazon want to produce their own original content, while NBC and Disney want to run their own platforms. This hasn't happened in the music industry yet, but Spotify's exclusive contract with Rogan might portend the future. What happens when Taylor Swift signs an exclusive contract with Apple Music or whoever? What happens when Universal music decides to stop licensing their catalog and make it exclusively available on their own service? What happens when half of an artists discography is on one service and half of it on another, because different rights holders own different albums? Since you don't own the music, you only own the right to listen to whatever the platform has available during the month you've paid for in the subscription. If your favorite bands bolt, then you're out of luck for the future. This has the potential to be even more annoying than with video because even if you're willing to pay for multiple services, you won't be able to make playlists as easily. I'm not saying any of this will happen, but given how cheap hard drive space is I'd be wary of dumping my entire collection I already have just to have the privilege to pay for it, and be at the mercy of whoever is hosting it.

I don’t have Internet at my house, nor do I have an unlimited data plan, so I make reasonably extensive use of my song collection. I also don’t trust that everything I like will always be available, so I greatly prefer to have locally saved recordings.

I…what? How are you here? Phone internet?

Yes, static, mostly text-only sites like this one don’t use much data, so it’s not a problem for me to participate here. If I want to stream anything or otherwise use the Internet more extensively, I either stay late at work or go to the library. It isn’t a huge imposition given my lifestyle, and it saves me hundreds of dollars per year.

It is funny, but I know people like you EXIST who live mostly 'unplugged,' but it is still pretty surprising to find one in the wild, happily outside of the angry egregore that most of us inhabit.

Eh, I’m here, aren’t I? I’m clearly not that happy.

I will say that I enjoy the absolute bafflement on some people’s faces and in their voices when they learn just how disconnected I am from large sections of modern life. I don’t have home Internet, I don’t have a TV, I refuse to download all but a very few mobile apps, I’m forever forgetting my phone at home or in the car, and these days, I’ve almost entirely given up radio as well. Other than news I pick up from IRL conversations, my connection to the modern outside world is mostly through a handful of websites, including this one.

There are some things I am not happy about in life, but my voluntary semi-seclusion from modern life isn’t one of them.

Back when there was a bug allowing you to download tracks from a number of streaming sites, I programmatically downloaded the full discography of ~every artist I'd ever liked on Pandora/Youtube Music. Stored on ZFS, served via plex, and, naturally, totally ignored in favor of Youtube Music.

I believe there is still a way to download from something like Deezer in high quality, although I haven't tried it. As in download actual tracks, not how it works with Spotify.

I don't know of any app or tech that lets you play your own local music collection but intersperses songs from a given streaming service for better variety and to emulate a more radio-esque experience. That'd be a pretty neat use case.

Last.FM scrobbling can track your music preferences across different players, that much I know.

I like using streaming services for discovering new music, and I would like to implement one-click way to download a good song and rip it to my library. I probably use youtube music more than youtube itself these days.

But I'm increasingly questioning the goal of having such a library. Pass it on to my kids? A backup in case the internet goes down? Am I the equivalent of a boomer hoarding 8 tracks or something?

Not even joking, the main goal of having such a library might be for the Friendly AGI overlord to find my hard drive and divine my music tastes so it can produce ideal songs for me to enjoy for eternity.

I store my music locally, but it's not a big collection. I do not consider myself a huge music enthusiast, usually I listen to some jazz albums or to obscure post-punk or post-cold-wave music. I do not enjoy radio and listen to my music only when the mood strikes, not very often. Some of the albums I like are semi-amateur, I doubt if many people even know them. I don't like the experience of streaming, too much of a fuss, a lot of distractions, I don't want any recommendations, I don't like working while music is playing, heck I even rarely drive with music.

And I like the experience of playing music locally, no distractions, just my music and me. I put myself into the state of day-dreaming, and I can play it anywhere, just need to take my mp3 player (yes, I use mp3 players, they are ridiculously cheap now). Mp3 players are very convenient at night, when I don't have to reach for my phone, just a little, discrete device only for music. It helps me a lot with my sleeplessness. And I'm sentimental about some archival recordings that are nowadays barely accessible anywhere, certainly not on youtube. So, the sum of my idiosyncrasies I guess.

So, what are you reading?

I'm on Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar. The writing is smooth and the character is great, though still hoping it will be more than just entertaining.

I just read a good chunk of The Mystery of the Kibbutz. I'm not reading more because it got to be an awfully repetitive book, but the first few chapters were pretty interesting about how Jewish communes were relatively successful despite how one might expect a society without free markets to fail.

I read one of each of the gentleman burglar character books (Fantomas, Arsene Lupin and Raffles) and from what I remember Arsene was the best of the bunch.

Just finished Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness but I think I may have hit the limits of my audiobook comprehension because I was left thinking "wait, when does stuff start happening?". Maybe it's just not that type of book, there have been enough potent lines that it may be a book you just have to enjoy the language of.

The Brother's Karamazov was much more comprehensible. I did have some confusion with the names, not just because of the Russian naming conventions but because apparently none of the readers could agree on a single pronunciation of 'Ivan'.

Just finished Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness but I think I may have hit the limits of my audiobook comprehension because I was left thinking "wait, when does stuff start happening?". Maybe it's just not that type of book, there have been enough potent lines that it may be a book you just have to enjoy the language of.

Were you listening to the Kenneth Branagh version? I think his reading is amazing but I haven't heard any others.

I'm only listening to what I can find for free on Spotify, mostly librevox recordings. A good reader can make a difference so maybe that explains it.

Just finished Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness but I think I may have hit the limits of my audiobook comprehension because I was left thinking "wait, when does stuff start happening?". Maybe it's just not that type of book, there have been enough potent lines that it may be a book you just have to enjoy the language of.

That's a book I truly never got. I read it and just zero percent got the point.

Finished When We Cease to Understand the World the other day. Fascinating, absorbing and concise. Well worth checking out if you have any interest in the luminaries of quantum mechanics (Schrodinger and Heisenberg in particular).

Still reading Life Worth Living. I found the chapter "Who do we answer to?" very interesting — it gets at something I've often found myself gesturing toward when arguing with more liberal or relativist people on the topic of values.

I just finished The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I have to say it is nearly perfect as a book, for me. It's the perfect mix of literary, philosophical, enough action to keep moving, enough sex to be fun without becoming grating or disgusting. The length is perfect, it doesn't drag beyond the material, and at no point was I reading just to get the book over with, but it's a sufficient length to explore a lot of ideas and really dig into the characters. It's obviously political, but not overbearing. It's about a time and a place but it is timeless, it neither holds your hand explaining things nor requires so much background that you need a history degree to get it.

I'm probably going to go back to Tolstoy for a few hundred more pages. Get at least to the start of the second war.

REQUEST: What are great graphic novels I should read? I've read and enjoyed Watchmen and V for Vendetta in the past, and read Tezuka's Buddha last year and found it to be as such a book goes very fun. I read some manga as a tween, but never got really into it, kinda feel like it's something I should explore, now that I live in a world where I could get that from a library or get it off LibGen.

Here's a few more ideas, not really "classics", but not quite as fluffy as they might seem.

Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O'Malley. You probably already know if you're going to like it. The comic is deeper and more layered than the movie (and show), but still very much the same feel.

Zot! by Scott McCloud. There's collections of the original series, and a sort of encore called Hearts and Minds that I think works best on the web. You can read that first to see if you like it - there aren't any real spoilers.

ElfQuest by Wendy and Richard Pini. I recommend the first 8 books, up through the end of "Kings of the Broken Wheel". After that the quality becomes variable, and I don't remember what's any good, and I haven't read the later stuff. But those first 8 volumes tell a sprawling epic, from cave-men to star travel, and bring it to a good-enough stopping point.

Thieves and Kings by Mark Oakley. It stumbles around just short of being transcendently good, but never quite comes together, at least IMO. But I'm fond of it anyway. There was a decade-long hiatus, but apparently he's started up again.

Lost Girls is a fun bit of erotica from Alan Moore you could finish in an afternoon. The Sandman is another good Alan Moore piece but as far as I know it's a full length comic series rather than a self-contained graphic novel, but maybe there's a compendium.

For something not involving Alan Moore Transmetroplitan was good fun and from what I remember would probably appeal to the Motte crowd for it's cyberpunk / absurd culture war aspects (sexy Sesame Street!) but it's another full series.

I will caution you that if you buy a hard copy of Lost Girls, do not read it on the bus. People will assume that you're reading child pornography, and with good reason.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

One of my handful of 10/10s. Absolute aesthetic perfection. Kundera's other pretty-good book is Immortality, which also explores the self as an experience versus the self as others project values onto. But this is the novel he lived his life to write, so the rest of his work ends up disappointing.

What are great graphic novels I should read? I read some manga as a tween, but never got really into it

Berserk. Koe no Katachi if you feel like a good cry.

I've read and enjoyed Watchmen and V for Vendetta in the past

I recently re-read Moore's From Hell (a fictionalised account of the Jack the Ripper murders) and think it's superior to both (if admittedly a lot slower), so check that out next. As noted by @fishtwanger below, try to find the edition with all the notes in the back. The notes offer interesting insights into Moore's creative process and demonstrates just what an exhaustively researched work From Hell is.

  • With the exception of his earlier Optic Nerve comics (which are "promising" rather than "good"), I cannot recommend anything by Adrian Tomine highly enough. Marvellously funny and sad slice-of-life stories about modern America, which often provide a penetrating insight into the Asian-American experience. Particularly recommend Shortcomings.
  • Charles Burns's Black Hole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hole_(comics)) is so absorbing that I read it in one sitting. A wholly unique blend of 70s nostalgia, teen angst and Cronenbergian body horror.
  • Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_(comics)) is a fascinating memoir about growing up in Iran after the Ayatollah came to power (later adapted into an animated film by Satrapi herself, also well worth checking out).
  • Blankets by Craig Thompson. Read it years ago and can't remember it in detail, but remember thoroughly enjoying it. A memoir about the author's first love as an adolescent, while wrestling with his repressive Christian faith.
  • The Sculptor by Scott McCloud. An engaging story about the sacrifices artists make in pursuit of their muse (kind of like a comic book Whiplash). Moving and powerful.
  • Hyperbole and a Half. Not strictly a graphic novel: these originated as blog posts by Allie Brosh posted on the eponymous blog, in which Brosh recounts amusing anecdotes about her life interspersed with impossibly crude, Rage Comic-esque illustrations rendered in an MS Paint knockoff (one such illustration was actually memed to death in the early 2010s). The best of these posts were compiled into a paperback collection in 2013; I'm not exaggerating when I say this book made me laugh so hard that I was often struggling to breathe. In spite of the presentation, the book contains a two-parter about Brosh's struggles with clinical depression which is moving and profound. Brosh later followed it up with Solutions and Other Problems in 2020, which is worth checking out even if it doesn't quite reach the heights of the previous volume.

Finder by Carla Speed McNeil is a distant-future graphic novel series. It features gorgeous black and white line art, transhumanism, and cultural commentary on a possible future of race, gender, and wealth. It has a focus on personal relationships within a society, and comes at anything political from oblique angles. The character art would make Walt Disney swoon with McNeil’s action lines and liveliness.

The eponymous Finder is a young man named Jaeger, of a lower caste ethnicity whose tribe has become involved with a lower upper-class household in one of the domed cities. He has a talent for finding what’s needed, but whether that’s a gift or a curse is left grey.

Cerebus the Aardvark by Dave Sim was a monumental undertaking, one of the first independent comics to hit 300 issues, contemporary in the 80’s with the TMNT and The Tick. It features insanely amazing black and white crosshatched backgrounds by Gerhard, and the character work by Sim is top notch with a caricaturist’s eye. His comic lettering is a phenomenon.

Cerebus himself starts as a funny-animal parody of Conan the Barbarian in the lost civilizations of ancient Europe, but things shift into a high gear when Cerebus gets involved with a mayor who looks a lot like Groucho Marx. It evolves into a poignant and piercing examination of second-wave feminism, the effects of church on society and vice versa, the nature of civilization, the ephemerality of sober and drugged spiritual experiences, alcoholism, masculinity, rapey incels before we had a name for it, being bros, and failed dreams. By the end we’ve met caricatures of dozens of twentieth-century celebrities and parodies of superheroes and sword-and-sorcery fantasy heroes, each one shaping how Cerebus is (or plays) the hero. Skip the text sections from issues 200-300 if you find them weird or boring, the author has something to say in them but most people won’t grok it.

In many ways, these series are diametric opposites, and visions of the future and the past respectively which will haunt you. To see if you want to read the whole series, read volume 3 of each: Finder, King of the Cats, and Cerebus, Church and State.

Seconding all of fishtwanger's recs.

Astro City is very much a comic fan's comic book, but it (and to a lesser extent, Common Grounds) are great not just by the low standards of superhero works, but more broadly as explorations of the human spirit. Nextwave takes things the other direction, and despite that is the only Warren Ellis work I can stand -- hilariously zany, completely shredding the ideas of superheroic human spirit, absolutely all the more enjoyable for it.

If you like Moore, Promethea isn't perfect in a lot of ways, but it's generally underappreciated work.

Ursula Vernon's Digger is a weirder work, but fun.

For Eastern works, Kino's Journey is better-known for its anime (good) and light novel (outstanding), but the manga iterations are still pretty strong.

I enjoyed Scott McCloud's The Sculptor quite a lot. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea but it made me feel things.

Seconded.

Sandman, of course. Nausicaa, The Dark Knight Returns, Kingdom Come, and Red Son are all classics. From Hell might be worth reading, especially if you can find a collected edition with all the notes in the back where he explains his process. Astro City (intermittently ongoing) is a favorite of mine, but some people don't get into it.

Sandman, if you haven't already. The other graphic novel I would recommend is Batgirl (2000—2006). It stands on its own and is quite beautiful.


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