xkcd

Tyndmyr

What I always found weird about the government not supporting infrastructure projects is that they create so many jobs. Every politician since the recession has sworn to increase the employment rate and then ignored the easiest way to do that. It does not take that much training to learn how to pou...

Tyndmyr

Clinton's defense that the information was not marked is bogus. Information is not classified because it is marked, it is classified for what it contains. Information is marked classified for what it contains. How do I determine if the contents of an unmarked email qualify as 'classified' before I'...

Tyndmyr

Why is picking the wings of a fly a dick thing to do?

Unnecessary suffering is sort of an evil thing to try to maximize.

Tyndmyr

Let me try to describe the thought process more clearly. Imagine that some aliens drop an embodied thought process onto a planetthat is similar to Earth, but otherwise without life. It doesn't matter whether the embodiment is organic, robotic, or in some other form. What matters is that it is a com...

Tyndmyr

That's intentionally missing the point and you know it. In order for the economy to double when doubling the workforce (without increasing technology), you need to double the capital. And some forms of capital such as oil wells can't be doubled. You want to make the argument that letting in refugee...

Tyndmyr

There could be a wisdom of the crowds type of effect (for example: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/07/429720443/17-205-people-guessed-the-weight-of-a-cow-heres-how-they-did) that allows uncoordinated masses to arrive at allocations that are just as good as the experts. That sounds more li...

Tyndmyr

If I paid $200,000 for a house, and then due to changes in the area its assessed at $150,000, I've just lost $50,000. I won't be able to sell my house for what I paid for it to break even, or make a profit. If I wanted to lose money I would rent, not buy a house. A house is never a guaranteed inves...

Tyndmyr

Wow, so 45 talked about the problems with Wall Street and said he'd drain the swamp in the same breath, but taking someone from Goldmann Sachs and putting them in charge of the Treasury is a fulfillment of his promise to drain the swamp? Ok, glad at least the voters know how to pivot. He's put his ...

Tyndmyr

Pivoting happens in politics a great deal. And it's something that can be done now, not a last election thing. No I know that, except it doesn't happen half as much as people suggest that it does. Every pundit said Trump was going to pivot to less-fascist policies. He uh, did exactly not that. Now ...

Tyndmyr

I don't mean at the legislative level, necessarily. I mean at the voter level. KnightExemplar's thesis is that the Democrats need to move hard right to try to steal voter share from the Republicans, but doesn't seem to be willing to accept that the Republican electorate needs to move left at all, e...

Tyndmyr

It's true that strong border controls go together with the development of strong central states, but that doesn't mean that older systems were really more open. It's more that the old barriers were more diffused, instead of concentrated at clear geographical lines. And less defined from a procedura...

Tyndmyr

I believe it's a factor, sure. And possibly one, even after controlling for republican midterm power gains, but I suspect that the large advantage enjoyed by Republicans in midterms outweighs it. End of the day, people showing up to vote more reliably is really hard to overcome. That won't be a fact...

Tyndmyr

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/technology/donald-trump-phone-social-media-security.html Trumps phone is unsecure, and risks being compromised. Hackers could turn on his camera and microphone and record his every conversation. Republicans haven't commented on this lapse in security standards. I t...

Tyndmyr

There is some technology focused on driver attention. Cameras that can capture what you are looking at and rattle you if your focus leaves the road too long. Haptic feedback, seat shakers and that type of thing. Tesla looks at something, what the steering wheel, and I think they reduced the time ou...

Tyndmyr

That's the thing about the Mariel boatlift, people pan it as all sorts of bad policy, but when you look at the numbers, you don't see anything. Look at the huge numbers of people that were rapidly moved into the Miami labor market. The paper shows(provides evidence) that it had no effect on wages o...

Tyndmyr

One of my fears is that, if this explanation finds resonance, people will try to change our economic systems too quickly. As qetzal points out, we are dependent on today's competitive games for our food, shelter, and medicine. Try to change the system too quickly, and it could really hurt people. F...

Tyndmyr

Democrats can't really be satisfied with ignoring republicans and being ignored by them. It's not working out well for them. Appealing to more voters may not be a moral necessity, but it is a practical step to getting more balance of power. If the Democrats pivot right on most of their core issues ...

Tyndmyr

Jan 4th is when I got confirmation from them regarding the refund, though I initially emailed about it sooner. I've definitely not received it yet, and frankly, am not counting on doing so. Odds seem...not great.

Tyndmyr

Anyone getting the impression a lot of this is a shoot first, ask questions later sort of approach? With regards to the immigration thing, certainly. It'd have been much less of a problem had there been a reasonable delay for implementation. At least then, bugs like "oh shit, we fucked up the ...

Tyndmyr

Social ownership of the means of production. Everything else is irrelevant or an invention to fit your narrative. Lots of people don't want to own the means of production. They would rather put dollars earned into improving their personal lifestyle than into, say, factory equipment. This isn't inhe...

Tyndmyr

While not a game, still crowdfunded, and essentially a toy...the Lily drone project apparently tanked. I ordered mid-2015, and the date got pushed further and further back. Their website is still promising delivery in "winter 2016" for new orders, but existing orders have no ETA. Requeste...

Tyndmyr

Unfortunately, my ideas are holistic in nature. I advocate a citizen's wage alongside free lifelong learning, so career changes are not so risky/painful. It's hard to implement any one of my ideas in isolation because many of them depend on each other to be practical :( If all your ideas depend on ...

Tyndmyr

Three elevator pitches for https://peermorgan.wordpress.com/a-person-in-trouble/ : 1. This essay starts with a definition of life as a thing that uses information to survive. It says there are two main kinds of life: evolution and thinking. People came out of evolution, but they're now using thinki...

Tyndmyr

Yep. It can't be structural. Rich people are just smarter and better to everyone else, and that's why we are doomed to being subservient for life - just accept your position as a slave because you are too lazy, stupid, and poor to do anything for yourself. It's not that. It's that you tend to get o...

Tyndmyr

Nate's the Guy Who Can Predict The Election Because Science. That's the big claim to fame of the website. If he is wrong, then it's a bit cheap to point at everyone else who was also wrong. Nate is...less wrong. And also usually fairly open about showing his work, and admitting when he was wrong. I...

Tyndmyr

Washington Post is definitely liberal, but not nearly so skewed as say, the Baltimore Sun. Wall Street Journal is pretty decent overall. Lotta economics stuff, and it's a bit to the right, but in stuff worth paying for, it's actually decent value compared to most. It's...rough out there to find news...

Tyndmyr

Gang rape livestreamed on Facebook I'm beginning to understand how people turn conservative as they age; the longer they live, the more of this kind of appalling bullshit they see, and the more they feel there needs to be a means of keeping it from happening again. At any cost. But there isn't. And...

Tyndmyr

It's broader/easier, I think. But not much. The evangelicals are a subset that care more about specific issues. I mean, now they're super associated with the pro-life movement, but that wasn't always the case. Pre-70s, the battle lines were drawn quite differently. At that point, some liberals were ...

Tyndmyr

All people are people. Business owners, workers, whoever. Yes, I routinely point out the flaws whenever someone comes up with some way to remodel all of society. There are almost invariably costs that they haven't considered. These are not specific to business. In this particular example, we have o...

Tyndmyr

Just to be clear, my problem isn't just your lack of empathy, it's that not helping people is specifically your goal. Whenever someone ever talks about doing anything to help anyone, there's Captain Concern Troll, having to come in and tell everyone how the bigger concern is that it might hurt busi...

Tyndmyr

While not a game, still crowdfunded, and essentially a toy...the Lily drone project apparently tanked. I ordered mid-2015, and the date got pushed further and further back. Their website is still promising delivery in "winter 2016" for new orders, but existing orders have no ETA. Requested...

Tyndmyr

At a certain point, there is some odds playing, yes. I think there would be at least SOME luck involved in a perfect play-through, in addition to ludicrously detailed planning. You can skew those odds in many ways, though. Scouting is super big, team building, etc. I have mixed feeling about the Jes...

Tyndmyr

Well, this year, I started to take different forms of Doomsday argument a tiny bit more seriously. The form of the argument that I've found slightly unnerving: what is the chance that the world population distribution over time will resemble a) sigmoid until eternity, b) exponential until fast coll...

Tyndmyr

But you can get around that judgmentalness because evangelicals know how to do political math. My point wasn't that it was "impossible to get around". Just that the thing that aligns people left/right doesn't seem to be religion, but judgmentalism. Religion merely happens to mirror it to ...

Tyndmyr

I mean, if there's absolutely no data, then I guess, continue with the ad hominems, I suppose. Looks like it's the best you've got. Seriously? You accused me of lying about the positions of others, when I did not. You are a liar and now a hypocrite. As for your position on inequality, please. You d...

Tyndmyr

Which phone did that tweet come from, I wonder? I haven't been keeping up on that, but if the campaign trail split in tweet origins continues, that role might be of increasing significance.

Tyndmyr

Some people are expendable, so long as the mission gets done. Seems to be an intentional theme. There are parts where you can avoid this, but still, building stress, bad traits, etc happens sometimes. It might be *possible* to play through without losing anyone, but it's certainly not easy, and I do...

Tyndmyr

This thread has kind of a crapton of pro/con inequality stuff in it. It didn't start with your post on this page. I have absolutely no problem with responding to multiple posts at once, or addressing when I am doing so. You were the one who got all accusatory, not me. The only point in clarifying th...

Tyndmyr

Inequality doesn't show up until the second paragraph. I'm clearly responding primarily to Trebla's response to me. I address inequality in general terms, but only my view on it. I certainly do not take ucim's view on it, I merely clarified that the pro/con way of looking at it seems odd. So you ar...

Tyndmyr

I was responding to Trebla, not you. You may have noticed that we had some back and forth conversation going, with the occasional quote. You interjected into that conversation, convinced it was about you, not the other way 'round. Then you should have quoted them; otherwise, the assumption is that ...

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