domain:youtu.be
jeroboam
1hr ago
Didn't the UK have some sort of "Freedom Day" and then totally renege on it?
jeroboam
1hr ago
Interesting and probably true. If we just "let it rip" it's likely we would have ended with fewer overall deaths as the disease would have quickly exhausted itself. The Omicron event would have happened in March 2020 instead of January 2022.
Obviously, in this counterfactual, the acute phase would have been awful. Hospitals would have been overrun, but it's unclear how much lifesaving care was happening anyway. Irresponsible use of ventilators definitely killed lots of people who would have survived otherwise.
In nearly every country, the damage caused by the Covid response was worse than the disease itself. China gets an F. Australia gets a D-. Sweden did it best, but I think that's only because there wasn't a "Super Sweden" that simply ignored the disease completely. (Maybe some African countries fit that bill due to lack of state capacity).
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Stop worrying about people not having kids! Like, if you're reading this and that is something that you were worried about, I'm begging you, please, it'll be alright. Evolution works! It doesn't need your help! Organisms that are supposed to reproduce, will. Defective organisms that are unable to reproduce will weed themselves out, and rightfully so. It's almost a tautology. Humanity will not go extinct; but if it does, it'll be because it deserved to, and there won't have been anything you could have done as an individual to make a difference either way.
I'm not worried about humanity going extinct. I am worried about losing the ability to maintain an industrial society. Like there will be Amish in 200 years, but an all-subsistence-farmer society sucks. And yes, I am aware that the Amish are not pure subsistence farmers, but they depend on being able to trade with industrial society for inputs like solar panels to maintain the not-subsistence-agriculture parts of their society.
erwgv3g34
2hr ago
From "Marriage Makes You Rich and Stupid" by Megan "Jane Galt" McArdle:
Marriage allows you to pool nonrival goods, such as Netflix accounts, but also what economist Bryan Caplan calls “semi-rival goods,” such as kitchens and cars:
Two childless singles, each earning $50,000 a year, marry. Both keep working, living by the old-school principle of "share and share alike." What happens to their material standard of living? If all depends on how rivalrous their consumption bundle is.
If all their goods are rival (like food), the answer is "Their standard of living stays the same." $50,000 times two divided by two equals $50,000.
If all their goods are non-rival (like Internet access), the answer is "Their standard of living doubles." They pool their money and buy a $100,000 lifestyle for both of them.
In the real world, of course, couples are rarely at either pole Most goods are in fact semi-rival. Consider housing. If you share your home with a spouse, you don't have as much space for yourself as a solitary occupant of the same property. But both of you probably enjoy the benefits of more than half a house. If a couple owns one car, similarly, both have more than half a car. Even food is semi-rival, as the classic "You gonna eat that?" question proves.
But this is not the only benefit of marriage. Marriage also enables specialization. Which can be illustrated by a piece of wisdom I have developed in my brief three and a half years of marital bliss and now pass onto my friends who are getting married: “Marriage makes you stupid.”
I mean, I used to know where I kept my batteries and old documents. But when we got married, my husband, who is much tidier than I am, took over organizing the house. Now, unless it’s a piece of my clothing or kitchen equipment, I have no idea where we keep anything. And while I’m pretty sure I used to be able to put up shelves, now all I know how to do is ask my husband to do it.
On the other hand, he has no idea how much money we have, or in what accounts. And he can’t do the grocery shopping, because he doesn’t know what we consume. Individually, we are less competent to survive on our own. But collectively, we eat better, and we have a tidier house and better-managed finances. And our shelves don’t fall down so often.
Obviously, child-rearing is a major area of specialization. One interesting thing I’ve heard from gay parents is that they find themselves falling into roles that you might describe as “Mom” and “Dad,” even though this is obviously not some pre-programmed gender destiny. It just doesn’t make sense to try to jointly manage a kid 50-50; one parent keeps the social calendar and decides what kids Junior can play with, because two parents trying to do it actually makes the task take a lot more time, as both people have to learn about all the friends and the birthdays and the parents, and then negotiate what Junior does with her time. I’m not saying this happens with every gay parent. I’m just saying that gay parents I know report considerable benefits to specialization.
Specialization also allows for external income gains -- perhaps one reason that married men make a lot more than single ones do and married households are richer than single ones. Some of that is selection effect, of course -- stable, responsible men are probably more likely to get married, especially in this day and age.
So while pooling nonrival and semi-rival goods is an excellent benefit of marriage, it is far from the only one. And it doesn’t stop with economics: There’s also better health, less depression, and happier and healthier children to consider. At the end of his piece, Caplan calls being single a “luxury" good. But it’s not exactly an aspirational one.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
The 4B movement will not change America because it will be embraced by an extremely small number of people who all come from subcultures with South Korea-tier fertility already.
It's also, as far as anyone can tell, not the cause of Korea's uniquely low fertility, because Korea's fertility is not uniquely low. It's on the low end of average for the region; Japan is actually an outlier up for developed East Asian fertility. Taiwan, the PRC, Monaco, Hong Kong, Singapore all have extremely low fertility and South Korea is on the lower end of average among that group. Not an outlier. The real question is 'what is Japan doing so right to have nearly double South Korea's fertility rate?' not 'why is South Korea's fertility so low?'.
And why developed East Asian countries have such low fertility rates is mostly known- they're highly urban places which generally have non-abrahamic religions which they barely practice in an ultra-competitive society in which childhood sucks. People don't like putting kids through hell, and South Korean and Chinese childhoods are hellacious. Strivers the world over generally have lower fertility rates, and everyone in these countries is a striver. Add incredibly dense urbanism and the lack of religious influence to raise fertility, it's not that hard to explain.
some of the strongest advocates for gun rights are men who have never and would never [intentionally put themselves in a position to need to] fire shots in anger
The abortion rights debate is literally just a mirror of the gun rights one (especially if you accept the progressive framing that "nobody deserves to die by someone defending themselves over property, because all fetuses criminals are conceived? born innocent and literally couldn't help but being a burden on society"- complete with 'future lawyer or doctor' applying word for word).
Are you just trying to control women?
Are the motives for gun control initiatives primarily conducted with the end goal of controlling men?
They're certainly couched in "protecting innocent children from evil men is worth the violence risk", and so the abortion initiatives have learned to take the same tack (protecting innocent children from evil women is worth the rape risk).
Amadan
I will be here longer than you
2hr ago
Sexually successful men dont hate women, they just don't treasure them, and treat them how [sexually successful] women treat men; as disposable.
I guess it depends on what you mean by hate. "I hate you personally and want to hurt you" is pretty rare, but "I consider you to be a disposable object to be used, and your feelings on the matter are irrelevant because you're not really even a person" is a kind of contempt near enough to hate as to make little difference.
Abusive men don't hate women, they hate the world and women just can't resist being around them for some mysterious reason.
I think some abusive men are just misanthropists who hate the world and take it out on those they can (which are most often their partners and children), but some abusive men definitely do hate women and take out their lack of success (sexual and otherwise) on them.
Or by "men who hate women" does she mean that don't soyfully agree with generic feminist talking points? I once ended a relationship over watching The Imitation Game, of all things. "Ah, here's Kiera Knightly reprising her role as a modern woman trapped in the past" was apparently such a hateful comment that it got me a continuous diatribe about women's suffrage until I flat-out got up and left. I wonder if that was proof that I hated women.
I dunno man, but you have so many of these anecdotes, the punchline always being that a woman rejected you for inexplicable and irrational feminine reasons (usually relating to you talking about how much you resent all things female). Do you actually like women? I mean as people, not as things you want to fuck? Pardon the blunt phrasing, but that is kind of what the "men who hate women" construct is getting at. I sometimes hear men who clearly despise women deny it and say that of course they love women, when what they really love is sex with women, and the fact that there is a woman involved in the process seems to be an annoyance to them.
Felagund
2hr ago
How sane is bluesky? Because I imagine interacting with far-out people wouldn't be great for depolarization. I'd think the best place would be moderate lefties, perhaps?
Felagund
2hr ago
Yeah, I imagine there's some level of selection in who you end up interacting with.
Regarding 1: I don't know that I'm convinced by this. Suppose someone is the candidate of the "End Democracy Party." Someone who is pro-democracy could understandably be disappointed with their election. Of course, that would still be the democratic result, so their complaint is really with the populace that they have, that it is not a suitable one to attempt to maintain a democracy in.
Similarly, one could be disappointed with a decrease in the effectiveness in democratic governance. I think this was closer to what they were complaining about: that this indicates the need to win the "stupid vote," pointing to tangible harms wrought by people finding the wrong things appealing. "Democracy makes us listen to and appeal to the people with the bad opinions" is a valid critique of democracy, and so saying that that seems to be more the case than they once thought is an entirely reasonable sentiment.
2 is false. Vaccine skepticism in general has definitely risen since 2020 (the people putting in place mandates should really have considered the second order effects).
I'll in large part grant 3, though.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
2hr ago
"The sum of"?
Stop worrying about people not having kids! Like, if you're reading this and that is something that you were worried about, I'm begging you, please, it'll be alright. Evolution works! It doesn't need your help! Organisms that are supposed to reproduce, will.
Total violation of Hume's guillotine. Yes, obviously, whichever human organisms manage to reproduce in the modern environment, will, and their traits will proliferate, and afterwards it may be said that evolution "worked". Evolution also works when underground mammals lose their sight, or male anglerfish lose their brains. Whether these adaptations to selection pressures are desirable is another question.
The bulk of people reproducing now are (a) extremely high time-preference poor people, or (b) highly religious people. There is also a tiny number of rich people breeding well. If you do not want humanity to consist of this type of population in the future, low birth rates should bother you.
Felagund
2hr ago
Why is Tetanus less relevant in the first world? Are we less likely to get dirty cuts?
urquan
2hr ago
Yes, that's absolutely correct.
But the association persists in people's minds. There was a youtube comment (bottom of the barrel, I know) that I saw which absolutely flabbergasted me. Who knows who the person who said it was, whether male or female, whether Western not, or whether they just weren't another 13 year old let loose on the internet posting silly takes. But they said:
Getting married is so expensive, there's no way young people can do it!
And then a thousand comments in response going, "what the hell are you talking about, marriage reduces your costs because you're sharing expenses!"
In subsequent comments, the person made it clear they weren't talking about wedding costs or honeymoons or anything dumb like that, they honestly believed it was more expensive for two people to live together than to live separately.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
Genuinely didn't know that, thought polio being eradicated in the western hemisphere+even slightly non-shithole parts of the eastern hemisphere was due to vaccines, like smallpox. Thanks for the context.
In practice I suspect countries which don't have to worry about cholera can skip polio shots, but I now understand why it's still on the vaccine schedule.
I care to bicker about a number if it's the difference between 32 and 68 or 80. I don't care between 68 or 80. I sincerely doubt any person has some marginal number between those 2 figures which significantly changes their opinion. Use whatever number between those you feel like.
But since you asked, babies are recommended to get 2 influenza shots in the first 12 months of life, so the number is 20 and not 18. If we're counting the combos, MMR & DTaP would count for 24 and not 18 (8 total doses of these shots). HPV is 2 or 3 doses. When I count, I get 72 or 73 not including the RSV.
the "around 80" comes from boosters (teal), RSV, and "some children" recommendations like dbl flushots per year for very young children which I believe to be routinely recommended for those following the schedule and my experience with young children going through this process at multiple median pediatric practices in different states
Quantumfreakonomics
2hr ago
2rafa
3hr ago
It’s mostly that low time preference and intelligence are both correlated with each other and almost certainly linked to neuroticism. Affluent PMC women may rarely get abortions, but they probably worry about possibly needing one more than those who actually get them at higher rates.
ABigGuy4U
3hr ago
I think it might just be depression, housing unavailability and financial insecurity. When you’re clinging by the fingernails to the bottom rung of Maslow’s hierarchy, you aren’t going to be too concerned about self-actualization and fulfillment.
I’m utterly baffled; what could “sigma” possibly mean in this context? Usually “epsilon” is the mathematician’s Greek letter of choice to denote very small quantities.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
3hr ago
The first question is how trustworthy it ever was. I’m not convinced it’s worse now than it was, in fact the sheer diversity of sources available does a pretty good job of keeping the press honest because if the majority of the news slants left, it’s now trivially easy to start one that corrects the bias. And once you add in press from other countries to the mix, we probably have news at least as accurate as any other point in history.
But second, the point is to consume less news, and perhaps be more choosy about it. Because at the end of the day, outside of very prominent elites, our actual influence over events is minimal and more than likely counterproductive. It’s not necessary to follow news to the point of insanity (there have already been two murders attributed to the victory of Donald Trump and his effect on liberals’ minds) if the best you can hope for is to maybe sometimes getting a jolt of dopamine because some conservative stuck it to a liberal (or vice versa). The juice isn’t worth the squeeze, especially as it gets harder and harder to tell the difference between outright propaganda designed to make you hate an out group and news that just so happens to make the ourgroup look bad. Why is it necessary to be reading hours of news? Does it help you live better? From r my money, I just scan the headlines of Google News, and while I’m sure I’m not super informed, I’m not missing anything much. I’m also in a much more sane headspace than the people drinking from the information firehouse and placing more importance on a given news story than it actually deserves.
I’ll make exceptions if the issue n question affects me, someone I actually care about, or is a cause I’m involved in. But 99% of the news isn’t that at all. It’s international news that doesn’t affect me and that I can’t do anything about. It’s court intrigues that are entertaining but not important. Or sometimes it’s important stuff. The important stuff you’ll definitely hear about one way or another. People will talk about it,
You didn't even quote the most operative part of my comment:
So some on the DR perceived a return to normalcy with Swift's fame, dubbing her Aryan princess as a playful acknowledgment of a sort of reversion from the pop-culture dominated ressentiment towards the jock and the prom queen that is foundational to wokeness
You have admitted that backlash against Swift is influenced by resentment towards a White archetypical beauty and social type that resonates in particular with White girls and seems to be threatening in some way to a non-white audience. When I mentioned "the worship of the weak and ugly and broken" I was referring to Wokeness as a whole that elevates ugly and broken people. You are overstating your disagreement.
The DR is correct to interpret Swift's fandom as a latent celebration of "whiteness" as it were, in a way that does not apply to other pop stars, and correct to interpret the resentment towards it as having a racial undertone that the Right Wing should perceive and not support just because Swift endorses a Democrat.
You still have to explain why Swift is getting that backlash, and other comparable popstars do not get the same backlash, despite not doing any of the things you claimed it’s necessary to do - uglifying oneself, “worshipping weakness”, making a postmodern critique of femininity - to avoid backlash.
Can you just acknowledge that Katy Perry's "persona" is not the same as Taylor Swift's? And that the latter is playing a straight archetype of popular white girl? Katy Perry is not going for that, she has her own image and look. I don't think Katy Perry plays the "popular girl next door" persona like Swift does. I don't think Perry goes for the "Prom Queen white girl vibe" like Swift embraces. Do you? If you agree with me then I'm still struggling to understand why you take such issue with my comment.
2rafa
3hr ago
As @Amadan says, Korea’s demographic decline seems more likely to mirror those of every other advanced nation (including countries like Saudi Arabia that are much more socially conservative, even if they’re slowly liberalizing) than be something unique because of this “4B” phenomenon. In fact polling shows that many South Koreans, male and female alike, still want more children than they have, just like Americans.
That international correspondents saddled with the Seoul beat (Samsung, Kpop, Squid Game, DPRK, plastic surgery get boring to write about after a while) would write about this is one thing, that anyone else takes it seriously is quite another.
The standard recommendation is one shot in the first year of life.
Yes, 24 is the number I used after breaking down the vaccine cocktails.
HPV is one or two doses.
You are still hiding the ball, because you've counted 47 with some fudging and there's only 24 other recommended shots on the schedule. Even with these inflated numbers you only get 71. "A hundred dollars? What do you need fifty dollars for?"
Boosters are not teal, teal shots are not recommended for all children.
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