domain:arjunpanickssery.substack.com
4bpp
このMOLOCHだ！
4hr ago
I still think that the circumstance the investigations appear to have found nothing is only strong evidence of the investigation not having been conducted properly - based on my understanding of US election and vote-counting procedures I would estimate the probability of there being no voter fraud in any national election at a single-digit percentage (3%, maybe, with the probability mass dominated by scenarios in which I systematically underestimate the checks and balances?). It's just that I would expect fraud to exist benefitting either side (P(fraud only for one party|fraud) is low), and don't have a strong prior as to which side benefits from it more in a given election. My expectation is that the "investigating bodies" know that any truthful answer takes the form "we found abundant evidence of fraud, but no evidence that the number of fraudulent votes each party got isn't basically roughly the same", but they do not believe that making this common knowledge is something that the American electoral system could survive.
Hieronymus
4hr ago
Maybe it's because I was a teenager, but it sure felt like there was a gray tribe in the '90s. The mores of Slashdot weren't blue tribe mores, but the mores of Reddit now are. The Eich affair and CoCs in open source made it clear a change had taken place.
I'm enough of a red-triber that I don't know how it happened, only that it did. And I think we lost something important.
4bpp
このMOLOCHだ！
4hr ago
Hm. This line of argument does not seem persuasive to me because (1) I see the same "threat to democracy" rhetoric, at the same level of intensity, being levelled against candidates and parties running on an anti-establishment line in other countries (Germany, Italy), where there has so far been no indication of them refusing to acknowledge official election outcomes, and started in 2016, not 2020; (2) given that Trump did in fact cede power, I find discussion of counterfactuals to be unproductive since it's not like there is a trusted neutral party that can provide us with particularly likely ones; (3) between the "faithless elector appeals" in the US of 2016 and cases such as the recent elections in Georgia (the country) where the same suspects are actually backing an opposition's refusal to accept election results and currently trying to instigate a violent overthrow in the name of "democracy", the idea that "democracy" and not contesting election results is correlated seems ill-supported.
I do recognize, though, that if you do not accept context from other countries, an argument about Trump on this basis seems more compelling - I guess you would only have to accept that the 2016 rhetoric about him being a threat was properly prophetic, as opposed to self-inflictedly so in the "claim someone is violent to coordinate provoking them into proving you right" way.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
4hr ago
He then nailed me to the wall by saying, “Surely a man of your diverse intellectual interests and wide-ranging curiosity must have tried to find God?”
(Eureka! I had it! The very nails had given me my opening!) I said, smiling pleasantly, “God is much more intelligent than I am — let him try to find me.”
This answer from Asimov pleases me immensely. To be a humanist Jew, a top-notch scientist, and world-famous author, and to taunt the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in this way, pretty much guarantees a response.
I’ve been trying on a bit of theology recently, the idea that YHWH is the “God of the lost,” in the way other people call Thor the god of thunder and Hera the goddess of marriage. My dad has always instructed my siblings and me to pray as soon as we notice something is missing, because God knows where it went. It only makes sense to start any search by asking the One who knows literally everything and has a O(0) search time complexity, and can have prearranged everything in the universe since the beginning of causality to decrease my own search time.
Maybe I am missing something, but don't Airports already solve this problem? I feel like you could trade the 500 car parking structure for something like an arrivals/departures lane that could quickly and easily see 500 people into their cars and on their way. Apparently 60,000 people go through Dulles every day, and their arrivals area is four lanes for about a quarter of a mile (from eye-balling it).
Lazuli
4hr ago
Yes. It's excellent. I'd even argue one of the very few adaptations that's better than the original material.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
4hr ago
Instead of owning a car people could use cars as a service.
No, because of the peak load problem. A very significant percentage of those cars get used all at once.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
4hr ago
Transit share is so low that you could delete buses from every city in the USA and not notice a difference in congestion.
It's been noticed that congestion sometimes goes DOWN during transit strikes in Philadelphia. Some of this is likely reduced trips, but the claim that buses are basically cholesterol in the road system is out there.
AvocadoPanic
4hr ago
wants to ban transgenderism in adults
Not just adults, kids too. I'd also like to ban cancer in adults, or treat transgenderism as we do cancer.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
4hr ago
My personal definition of GenX:
- if you remember the Kennedy assassination, you’re too old.
- if you don’t remember the Challenger explosion, you’re too young.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
4hr ago
And once I get to the office it's unlikely that there is going to be anyone here who happens to need a ride
In a dense urban center, someone is always going to need a ride.
All the cars that would normally just disappear into garages for the day are now driving around looking for fares.
Well, no. They are only in motion if they have a fare already - this is what an algorithm would handle. Uber drivers have to roam the streets and try to chase the surge because they're humans earning a wage. With a fleet of autonomous vehicles, the unit economics of one particular vehicle don't matter, it's a very straightforward supply/demand matching algorithm at the broad market level. You'd end up having waves of fleet movement at something like a Metropolitan Statistical Area level.
Now, in addition to the typical morning rush, we have to contend with a corresponding late-morning rush that consists entirely of empty vehicles.
What does "contend" in this context mean? If I'm in a driverless car, I don't car about much more than travel time. I can doomscroll, or work on a laptop, listen to music, zone out, or, given a long enough trip duration, just recline the seat and go to sleep.
functor
4hr ago
There would likely be a lot fewer of them. Instead of owning a car people could use cars as a service.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
4hr ago
I used to have the same view, but then I started traveling more. My backpack is now my mobile office and it works fine.
It is a tradeoff, I acknowledge that.
ControlsFreak
4hr ago
The other is that they leave and try to find fares elsewhere. This makes things worse; now we've got rush hours that run in both directions, full of cars deadheading out of town in search of fares or cheaper parking.
Instead of thinking like an urban planner, can we think like an entrepreneur? What business models are possible if you're expecting for there to be a bunch of autonomous cars showing up downtown early in the morning and wanting to head back to the suburbs, making such transit super cheap? Cheap breakfast delivery from your centrally-located kitchen? (Heck, sell the 'premium' autonomous ride into work that comes with breakfast in it for you, having picked it up before it deadheaded your way...) Cheap delivery of business goods to outlying locations? Amazon is currently delivering to your doorstep, but would suburban customers be okay with an autonomous vehicle with a robot arm or something that can at least dump your package at the end of your driveway? Could they design a dual-purpose vehicle that can bring a passenger into the city, turn around, deliver some number of packages in the suburb, then pick up another passenger?
(Note that this is not a sort of argument that we'd get to 100% autonomous vehicles, but just thinking that if there is value in substitution on some margins, this may be a new margin that could be opened up.)
Skulldrinker
4hr ago
Trump was Hitler and we got Wokeist nonsense.
Wokist nonsense was plenty present before Trump. I suppose it was juuuuuuust sub-normie, but anyone at least moderately online was either a participant in it or deeply hated it.
Lizzardspawn
5hr ago
I think that we should create a CDS - car derangement syndrome, similar to TDS. To me it seems that those are the types of people that just plain hate cars and are latching on everything to make the anti car case.
sarker
It isn't happening, and if it is, it's a bad thing
5hr ago
His hypothetical involves no speed control.
Getting into doomer territory, car makers might... increase speed limits to ridiculous levels
fmaa
5hr ago
As someone without a car living in a city with functional public transport, a big feature of cars I'm envious of is their function as a mobile personal space. A car doesn't just get you places, it's a tiny room you can bring with you. People frequently use this as both temporary and permanent storage, and imo there are emotional benefits to spending your commute in a place that's yours.
Losing this is by far the biggest tradeoff I see.
WhateverHappenedToNorman
5hr ago
Yeah, the idea is that new blood is less polluted. You're dumping all of that on whoever gets your blood, but I think if you're in that situation, that's the least of your worries.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
5hr ago
But this doesn't scale, does it? How many people can achieve amazing wealth?
erwgv3g34
5hr ago
That luxury has been reserved for the rich ever since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. See "When Did Healthy Communities Become Illegal?" by Charles Tuttle.
Rov_Scam
5hr ago
In fact, self driving cars should save urbanism by getting rid of all those horrid parking lots and parking garages. Infill replacing surface parking will bring up density and also close the gap between existing businesses that are surrounded by seas of parking.
Except all the cars in those lots are now on the road, with nobody in them. The streets are the new parking lots. This wouldn't be a good thing.
faceh
5hr ago
I think it presents an interesting calculation though.
It makes it more palatable to sacrifice your 20's and 30's in the pursuit of wealth (rather than social life, sex, etc. etc.) and then, once you achieve amazing wealth, spend some portion of that to get yourself back to the vitality of your 20's (or close to it) and make up for your lost time, with a LOT more money than you'd usually have.
If money can buy back some time and health, it makes it much more palatable to sacrifice those earlier on.
Rov_Scam
5hr ago
I already addressed this, but, aside from economic concerns, the biggest downside to this idea is that it would massively increase traffic. With few exceptions, cars only contribute to traffic when someone is actually trying to get from Point A to Point B. When I drive to work, I'm creating traffic between my house and my office, but after that my car is just sitting in the parking lot all day. If cars are a service I'm start creating traffic as soon as I summon the car, which now has to get to my house from wherever it is. And once I get to the office it's unlikely that there is going to be anyone here who happens to need a ride, so it now has to create more traffic while it either finds a passenger or heads back to home base.
Now consider a typical urban rush hour. All the cars that would normally just disappear into garages for the day are now driving around looking for fares. Or driving back out to lots in the suburbs. Now, in addition to the typical morning rush, we have to contend with a corresponding late-morning rush that consists entirely of empty vehicles. Imagine what it would be like if even a quarter of the cars that are currently parked were out on the street and you have an idea of what this would be like.
The part of the grey tribe that actually had the potential to make a tribal core got re-absorbed. There's still random dissidents from that group, but they're basically atomized.
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