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The Demoralization is just Beginning

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Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#801

Post by AnthonyMouse »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #791
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because those are all different products. Water in the desert is a different product than water at the river and they can still differ in value even in a competitive market because of the cost of transportation.

I think that's a very reasonable way to look at it. But it still means that the auction strategy doesn't always work, because water flowing to me is a different product than water flowing to the auction winner.

Those are differences in the buyer/seller rather than differences in the product. It's why people value something differently, not why something is a different product. Even if the water is in the desert in both cases, you might still value it less than someone else, e.g. because you already have some and they don't, but that isn't a difference in the thing being sold.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#802

Post by ZeroTalent »

hermitcrab wrote: post #796
ZeroTalent wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called lamphshading. Lampshading is when someone acknowledges a flaw or controversial aspect upfront, often humorously or ironically, to deflect criticism or give the appearance of humility or openness. Saying something like "A home for poorly researched ideas" while actually propagating extremist, controversial, or misleading content is a tactic intended to: disarm critics, avoid accountability, and create p…

I guess similar to when people (often the 'alt right') say something abhorrent and then claim afterwards they didn't really mean it.

"it was just a prank, bro!"

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#803

Post by Panzer04 »

csense wrote: post #787
tmn wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be an orthodox opinion I see often, and I get the intuition. But time preference is a real thing. Tech is the easiest example. People buy tech that they don’t need that will be significantly cheaper in the future. I’m not a historical expert, but this specific point didn’t seem to be an issue during the time periods we were on the gold standard.

Having lived through the 1990's, "Deflation = bad" is a claim I am very skeptical of. In the 1980's and 1990's computer industry, your dollars could buy a lot more megahertz or megabytes every year. If the "deflation = bad" people were correct, everyone should have held onto their dollars waiting for next year's tech, knowing it would be a lot better than this year's tech. No one should have wanted to buy computers,…

There's a difference between deflation due to productivity growth and deflation due to lack of money. Deflation is good if it's the result of us producing more of a thing better and thus driving the price down.

Broad-based deflation due to a lack of money to buy goods and services is bad.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#804

Post by rat87 »

rayiner wrote: post #651
rat87 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigration is core to American identity and America's success. It's one of our core defining values The American that was originally convinced was imperfect and much worse then the America we have today. We literally had slavery and most adults couldn't vote.

Find my anywhere in the federalist papers (or the anti-federalist papers) that says anything about immigration. What you’re talking about is a 20th century creation. We never tried to be an “immigrant nation”—we were a big open country with no welfare state, and it was favorable for us to allow extensive immigration to populate the continent and displace the native americans. In the 20th century we accidentally found…

America has changed significantly since that time for the better much better.

The fourteenth amendment in particular changed the US in fundamental ways (one of which was birthright citizenship).

> we were a big open country with no welfare state

One of the countless ways we are better country today then in the past. No social security, no Medicare

> But it’s a retcon.

It's an evolution and a vast improvement

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#805

Post by Anamon »

gizmo wrote: post #671
berkanunal wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dragging somebody through the courts and fining them heavily for a simple social media post is pretty extreme Simple cute social media post where she equates afghan refugees to gang rapists. > Which opinions will get you a visit from the cops and a stern talking to? Racist ones that leads to violence. Argument started from "going to jail in europe for posting memes" to "posting statistics" to blatant racist xenopho…

Free speech must include unpopular and even grotesque speech. That's not moving the goal post that's the entire point. It's no coincidence that the laws used to punish people for speech are exceptionally vague. There is no clearly defined benchmark of harm. In fact harm does not need to be demonstrated at all. Simply asserting without evidence that a blog "leads to violence" is sufficient for those who don't believe…

Calling such posts grotesque and unpopular is quite euphemistic. They are aggressive and dehumanizing. And the determination on what should or shouldn't be protected as free speech doesn't happen in a vacuum: these attacks were targetted at a minority which is already regularly assaulted violently just for going about their day, because of violence-inciting shitposts like that. Of course you can't usually prove that post A led to violent crime B, but simply pretending like telling people over and over again that some group is criminal scum isn't going to lead to more violence against them also can't be the solution.

I also think that such laws almost have to be kind of vague by necessity, because the agitators will just try and be clever for plausible deniability. The idea is that a judge will rule on it, and the accused gets legal representation to defend their case. Of course you can always find some case where you may think the ruling was too harsh (or too lenient), but overall, the system seems to work pretty well. You really have to dig deep to find one or two iffy cases.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#806

Post by Anamon »

FergusArgyll wrote: post #562
berkanunal wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An AfD politician was fined 6000€ for posting crime statistics. No, she was not fined for posting crime statistics [0]. > Kaiser published a tile on her social media accounts with the text "Afghanistan refugees; Hamburg SPD mayor for 'unbureaucratic' admission; Welcome culture for gang rapes?" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Kaiser...

"the Rotenburg District Court concluded that Kaiser had taken the quoted information out of context in the post text and knowingly risked that the tile would be perceived as incitement to hatred by an objective observer. Additionally, the rhetorical question violated the human dignity of a distinct group of Afghan refugees." - Wikipedia You're ok with that?!

I am. She got a court date and she got legal representation. She got the chance to convince the court that she did not intend his post as an incitement to violence, and she failed to do so.

I strongly believe that inciting hate and violence against others should have consequences. And I'm glad to live in a place where society decided that there is no place for such things. We're not talking about political opinions here, but hate speech with clear intention to cause harm.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#807

Post by throwawayq3423 »

cookiemonsieur wrote: post #794
throwawayq3423 wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people are moving to Russia, now? China also has seen their ex-pat communities reduced by 90% since Covid.

ex-pat meaning westerners right ? You do know the world doesn't revolve around the west ?

I did, but those numbers include all foreigners. Where are you getting your data from?

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#808

Post by mdnahas »

ryandamm wrote: post #11

I prefer my economic takes from economists, or people who actually study these things. -there is more to an economy than manufacturing. Using manufacturing metrics to rate an economy is like scoring a soccer game based on how far your players run: in some contexts correlated with “winning” but in others it’s not. -gold is not a good currency or basis for monetary policy. -these ideas only sound self consistent withou…

As a quant who went back and took the PhD economics classes, I can tell you that macroeconomists are not experts. The number that predicted the Great Financial Crisis is a handful. They study these things, but they know little.

The microeconomists know a bunch and have some powerful mathematical tools. I have some confidence in those studying trade and cities. But comparing and measuring countries is messy and hard.

And I totally agree we should lure other countries’ brains here. The return on investment for a STEM degree is about 3 times the stock market index and we should get as much as we can.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#809

Post by mdnahas »

andsoitis wrote: post #89

> The main product made by the US is the dollar, and it used those manufactured dollars to outsource everything. Most jobs in the US are now basically fake These two hot takes at the top of the essay really undermines everything else the author might say in the article and brings into question how serious and critical their thinking is. Several comments here against the article talk about the Chinese economy problems…

It is partially true. Yes, the US invents the best medicines. But we spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare and a good portion of that is paper pushing and the prices used to compute GDP are not realistic. The best statistic - median lifespan - is dropping.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#810

Post by mdnahas »

tomhoward wrote: post #355

There's an implicit assumption in the article and the comments here that "brain drain the world" is a free lunch. But does anyone think through to the end-game of that? That when you drain the most smart/productive people away from every other country, all those countries become less wealthy and more dysfunctional, leading to societal decline, poverty, resentment, radicalisation, war, etc? Aside from anything else, t…

Economist here. You’re not considering agglomeration effects. Smart people near other smart people are more effective. So world GDP growth may be faster.

(Economists have pointed out that US growth is slower because SF is so expensive, young smart people cannot agglomerate there and learn tech faster.)

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