I’m still angry about the $50 I donated to the Obama campaign in 2008. What a waste of money. It would’ve been better to set that money on fire. Yes, I know it was only $501. But the symbolism matters given how terrible a president Obama ended up being.
Month: August 2024
The Success of Messaging at the DNC. Democrats are hitting all the notes that have eluded them. It’s strange having an actually organized party. Hasn’t happened since the 1990s.
China’s Export Strategy Causes Global Market Havoc.
Taiwan jails spies ‘seduced by money’ to work for China.
Beware the Pundit-Brained Version of the Democratic Convention.
One year after Prigozhin’s death, the Kremlin is humiliated once more.
How Democrats snatched ‘freedom’ back from Trump and the Republicans.
I switched to a flip phone and dramatically improved my well-being.
Zelensky’s Invasion of Russia Sends a Message to Moscow—and Washington. Ukraine’s audacious move across the border is an effort to show the world that the country is still in the fight. Well, yes, as that was the purpose of the attack after all.
I worked at Google for almost a decade. Its problem is bureaucracy — not hybrid working.
The thinker, as he sits in his study drawing his plans for the direction of society, will do no thinking if his breakfast has not been produced for him by a social process which is beyond his detailed comprehension. He knows that his breakfast depends upon workers on the coffee plantations of Brazil, the citrus groves of Florida, the sugar fields of Cuba, the wheat farms of the Dakotas, the dairies of New York; that it has been assembled by ships, railroads, and trucks, has been cooked with coal from Pennsylvania in utensils made of aluminum, china, steel, and glass. But the intricacy of one breakfast, if every process that brought it to the table had deliberately to be planned, would be beyond the understanding of any mind. Only because he can count upon an infinitely complex system of working routines can a man eat his breakfast and then think about a new social order.
Walter Lippmann, The Good Society (1937)
Jane Says (Wrong Stuff)
I think Jane is nearly-totally wrong here. Below, I’ll explain way.
She’s right about one thing: the 1990s was not the pinnacle of human civilization. However, particularly if you were straight, the 1990s was a pretty great time to be alive no matter your circumstances as a child or adult. That’s because it saw the end of the Cold War and it was an era of (mostly) peace and, importantly, of tranquility after a long stint of dread and fear. The nuclear shadow we’d all been crouching under for forty years receded; it felt like we were far less likely to perish in a globe-spanning nuclear conflagration. Many people had been living with the inevitability of that since the 1950s. Jane is 36. Like Florrie, she’s too young to recall any of that, so she has absolutely no idea what that was like (and it really shows).
I remember talking on the playground with kids in the fourth grade about how we hoped we died quickly when we were nuked, as who would want to live after that? That’s not a normal thing for nine-year-olds to talk about, don’t you think? I wonder if Jane thinks kids of that age discuss such topics now. I am quite sure they do not. But it was common back in the 1980s.
Second, the 90s were a time of just great optimism and unbridled hopefulness. Yes, even for adults. It felt like we were on the way to solving all our problems, that some glorious future was just ahead of us, and that all of us were building it. The whole culture was just bursting with that notion. Hell, even the “pessimistic” stuff from that era seems almost comically optimistic now in retrospect.
Jane is wrong, but is both too young and too lacking in wisdom to understand why and how she is wrong. Sure, just plain nostalgia is a thing. And I don’t agree with J.D. Haltigan’s take, either. But it’s possible for two people to be wrong. And Jane is just an absolute bellend here in all ways someone could be one.
Prod Allo
No, this is not correct. There is very much a tradeoff, definitionally. “Allocative efficiency” refers to producing goods and services that meet consumer demand, e.g. producing the colors of cars that people want to buy. It is future-oriented, generally. However, Pareto efficiency (rather, optimality) is where a person cannot be made better off without making someone else worse off. The two concepts are related (sometimes) but not the same thing at all. To expand that thought a bit, Pareto efficiency is about finding the correct balance between allocative and productive efficiency, not just concentrating on allocative efficiency alone1.
The person who wrote that is confused and should read their textbooks again, but more closely this time.
Shape of the Possible
For some reason I can’t stop thinking about how often people on Reddit (and other places) are fervently insistent that things are “impossible” that have already been occurring for years. I can’t help but feel that has some sort of meaning, is some sort of indicator of both a disconnection from reality and that it’s just difficult to stay apprised of what’s occurring in such a rapidly-changing world.
It’s mystifying that those types are so insistent about it when it’d take all of two minutes of research to show that that they are wrong. For instance, it’s a common Reddit trope to declare that voice cloning is impossible or that it takes an enormous quantity of samples. But I went to Speechify, gave it 30 seconds of a sample reading and it cloned my voice 95% accurately. It’d pass just fine over a crappy cell phone and anyone would be fooled.
I just am having trouble getting past the fact that things that are now trivially easy so many people are strangely rabid about their impossibility.
Go Bot
I do not want AI anything in a single thing I use, deal with, manage or make. Fuck all of that.
Deg
Clown-ass degrowthers at it again.
I bet many of the degrowth types are also anti-vax.
Better Duck
Things to say while having sex?
“Have you ever thought about what would happen if a million chihuahuas fought a million ducks? And the ducks had tiny missiles launchers on their backs?”
Ship Friend
My best friend is 30 years older. Here’s what she’s taught me about life.
There should be a whole lot more of this, even though socially busted-ass Gen Z finds it creepy.
Pugnacious
We should change the name of “pig butchering” (as in the scam) to “pug butchering.” Those defective inbred living genetic abortions should be cleared off this planet and anyone who breeds them jammed in the slammer. Let’s have the language reflect that.
FDC
This is hilarious (and accurate): Female Delusion Calculator.
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Social media has led all too many women to believe in the fact they have a shot at obtaining that 0.6% of the male population. Good luck with that. When you have 80% of women competing for 0.6% of the available men, the dating market becomes what you see now.
Social media has ruined women’s minds. Not only women’s minds, but they are particularly bad off now. Since I am happy as I am, I just feel sad for them as I stand on the sidelines looking on, amused and confused.
Entre Ses Bras (live) – Cécile Corbel & Pomme
Cette vidéo pourrait avoir plus de pixels, mais la chanson est très charmante, comme un jour de printemps.
Ad Libitum
Microsoft is bringing annoying Windows 11 Start menu ads to Windows 10.
One of the trillion reasons I use Windows only when I absolutely have to. Fuck that OS and everything about it. And the dumbass motherfuckers who lie about it.