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https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-first-day-began-the-end-of-girls-sports-11611341066

I don’t think this was a good move. There should probably be a separate category for trans, because biologically male to female transitions are still going to have a lot of the physiology of the biologically male body. 

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4 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-first-day-began-the-end-of-girls-sports-11611341066

I don’t think this was a good move. There should probably be a separate category for trans, because biologically male to female transitions are still going to have a lot of the physiology of the biologically male body. 

Harris.jpg.9baf590dbbdfc4423248623fe5f97b4f.jpg

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3 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-first-day-began-the-end-of-girls-sports-11611341066

I don’t think this was a good move. There should probably be a separate category for trans, because biologically male to female transitions are still going to have a lot of the physiology of the biologically male body. 

This problem will solve itself. It's a bridge too far for many, and will illicit a response from more people than there are trans athletes. Politicians take the path of least resistance. This move will flip the resistance equation. It's also an obvious States-rights domain.

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12 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

5245448.jpg

 

And how nice that once the photo op was over Biden had the National Guard sent to sleep in a parking garage.

How sad that you believe Biden was involved in that call...

You keep coming with those catchy, but baseless memes though.

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1 minute ago, Lord Ratner said:

This problem will solve itself. It's a bridge too far for many, and will illicit a response from more people than there are trans athletes. Politicians take the path of least resistance. This move will flip the resistance equation. It's also an obvious States-rights domain.

Agreed

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20 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

5245448.jpg

 

And how nice that once the photo op was over Biden had the National Guard sent to sleep in a parking garage.

It was well-lit and clean for a parking garage.  Of course, in the Air Guard the worst I had to deal with was passing out in the old Balboa Yacht Club in Panama.  

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6 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-first-day-began-the-end-of-girls-sports-11611341066

I don’t think this was a good move. There should probably be a separate category for trans, because biologically male to female transitions are still going to have a lot of the physiology of the biologically male body. 

I actually came here to post about this. As a former college athlete and someone who hopes to have kids that will participate in sports, this absolutely pisses me off to no end. “The party of science and women’s rights” conveniently ignores biological differences between men and women and then signs an EO allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports. What kind of message does that send to young women athletes in this country!?

Connecticut has actually already shown what a complete cluster this is. 15 girls state track titles have been won by biological boys. A large portion of the girls state records are owned by individuals with a penis. That’s up to a potential of 15 young women that have had their state championship dreams taken away from them by a man. 
 

“Guess what girls, yeah we fought for decades to even give you the chance to compete in athletics, but now we’re going to wipe our ass with the whole Title IX thing and let guys who feel like girls come beat you.” 

Does anyone with half a brain in the Democrat party think through this garbage before they move forward with it? Does anyone remember how angry the world got when the East Germans were sending roided out women who were basically men to the Olympics, because guess what, it was completely unfair to real female athletes.

Transgender athletes need to either compete within their biological gender (“follow the science”) or you need to create a transgender division for them to compete in. 

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29 minutes ago, slackline said:

How sad that you believe Biden was involved in that call...

You keep coming with those catchy, but baseless memes though.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for taking the bait.  Of course Biden had nothing to with that decision.  However, for the last four years the left and the mainstream press blamed EVERY single thing that went wrong on Trump.  Have the intellectual honestly to apply the same standard to Biden... Oh I can hear you know...But But But.

Not my meme but it certainly holds true.  I have yet to see the grand reach across the political aisle, instead it has been a slew of executive orders and a complete dodge on the question of impeaching Trump.  He has the opportunity to push the Trump thing aside...appease and calm the GOP faithful and focus on COVID-19 relief, but he doesn't have the backbone to stand up to Pelosi and her requirement for revenge...he doesn't even have the stones to voice an opinion.  #Sad

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21 minutes ago, kaputt said:

I actually came here to post about this. As a former college athlete and someone who hopes to have kids that will participate in sports, this absolutely pisses me off to no end. “The party of science and women’s rights” conveniently ignores biological differences between men and women and then signs an EO allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports. What kind of message does that send to young women athletes in this country!?

Connecticut has actually already shown what a complete cluster this is. 15 girls state track titles have been won by biological boys. A large portion of the girls state records are owned by individuals with a penis. That’s up to a potential of 15 young women that have had their state championship dreams taken away from them by a man. 
 

“Guess what girls, yeah we fought for decades to even give you the chance to compete in athletics, but now we’re going to wipe our ass with the whole Title IX thing and let guys who feel like girls come beat you.” 

Does anyone with half a brain in the Democrat party think through this garbage before they move forward with it? Does anyone remember how angry the world got when the East Germans were sending roided out women who were basically men to the Olympics, because guess what, it was completely unfair to real female athletes.

Transgender athletes need to either compete within their biological gender (“follow the science”) or you need to create a transgender division for them to compete in. 

This is what happens when the party, and to a large extent, the voters don't know what they believe anymore. The activists with very clear, but very niche goals take over.

 

I'm amazed by how many democrat voters I talk to don't know what their party is pushing. This topic is literally one of the examples I'm thinking of.

Americans are spending more time than ever attacking their political opponents and defending their allies, yet almost no time thinking and discussing what they actually believe. This is not by happenstance.

 

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A lot to cover, but a very good conversation.

 

GPS. The point stands, it was released in a way that was not exclusionary to certain players or industries. It's a delicate balance. If the government has instead given a bunch of money to Garmin, we'd have something closer to Tesla. If the government decided it liked a certain technology, let's say satellite radio, and started giving tax credits to anyone who buys a satellite radio, knowing damn well that only one satellite radio company stands to benefit, that would be even more like Tesla.

 

Now Tesla is an established giant, and the subsidies are going away… but those subsidies were necessary for the formation of a viable electric car maker, so how will the competition develop?

 

I agree with you in some ways, I love what Tesla is doing and I want that type of innovation supported and encouraged. But it has to be done in a way that doesn't undermine our belief in the fairness of the system. As you said, if the system no longer seems fair, "then the only alternative is a violent overthrowing of those that are controlling the market unfairly by the people oppressed by that market."

 

Even if you take Tesla as a .gov success story, let's look at some examples of the more likely outcome:

 

Affirmative action: Favoring black students provides limited benefit to some black students, but overall creates an even deeper divide in outcomes: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-sad-irony-of-affirmative-action

 

Get more people into home ownership: Home owners are correlated with all sorts of desirable demographic outcomes, so let's promote it at the government level, right? Along comes 2008: https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/05/19/how-the-government-created-a-financial-crisis/?sh=661ac0e821fb

 

Higher education costs: In a comically stupid misreading of cause and effect, the government decided that going to college meant more success later in life. Incorrect. Being smart and joining professions that required additional education meant higher success. But that detail was ignored, so the .gov has been pushing college, which has created a wildly unsustainable student debt crisis, and made college costlier than ever: https://www.mercatus.org/publications/government-spending/government-policy-and-tuition-higher-education

 

Not to mention the laundry list of failed companies that only lasted as long as they did based on infusions of government cheese.

 

These aren't just ideas that fail, they often cause devastating long-term effects that are completely opposed to the original goals. The tolerance and coddling of homelessness, to include building shelters and finding supplies that make the lifestyle possible, is going to suck when we end up paying for the lifetime institutionalization of tens of thousands of people whose brains are irreparably fried from years of drug abuse. The embrace of critical race theory has resulted in the predictable rebirth of white supremacy. The American role of world police has resulted in a Europe without any form of military defense, and thus they are helpless to make even token gestures against the aggressions of Russia and China.

 

Government, as a result of the perpetual change of power, must act quick, so instead of attacking the root causes of a problem, which is a slow process, they attack the manifestations/symptoms of the problem. Feels good, but doesn't help. Liberals are similar, but mostly because they are sensitive to the emotional toll of disparities and not inclined towards solutions that allow the impact to persist. They have almost no consideration for second and third order effects, and even less patience.

 

Sports Arenas: Completely against it. For all the reasons listed above. Business is not stupid, they don't build arenas where there is no profit. All the subsidies in the world will not bring an arena to Columbus, MS. I understand the intent, but how many times must an intent be abused before you see it for what it inevitably is? I think the stadium for the Seattle soccer team was denied government assistance by a very tenacious city council member. Surprise surprise, the stadium went up anyways. Here's something similar, and there are plenty of studies showing the questionable returns of stadiums: https://www.insidesources.com/seattles-tale-of-two-stadiums/

 

Greed and power: Government by a different name. The free market struggles with monopolies in the real world. The government is the ultimate monopoly. Using that extreme monopoly to pick winners is the antithesis to a free market, no matter how much you like the technology. The challenge isn't policing private monopolies, it's using the government to police its own power. The heavy regulation of chosen winners such as utilities is indeed an example. This type of regulation is not present on the new era of chosen winners. 

 

Your power company analogy is flawed. The second power company is restricted not because the first power company won't share their power lines, but because the city won't allow the second company to construct their own. That restriction on the second (and any other) company is why the first has an advantage. Heavily regulated, this arrangement can be made close to fair (including regular rebidding for which company gets the monopoly), but it is onerous, deleterious to innovation, and should be used sparingly. Electric cars do not meet the threshold IMO. Keeping the city free of a million power lines from a dozen competitors crossing every street does. 

 

Meritocracy: you can't argue that socialism benefits from meritocracy; the two concepts are literally opposed. Of course socialism benefits from not being socialistic. In fact, progressivism is even more opposite to meritocracy than socialism. In a theoretical perfect socialism, the most capable/merited are elevated to positions of power (though it never, ever happens that way). From each according to his abilities. With progressivism, positions of authority are selected based on group-identity-based disparities. You'll get no disagreement from me on nepotism. Bad for any system.

 

I think I hit everything. Great convo.

 


I think we're taking a bit last each other with the GPS example, and I'm too lazy to do some more digging (this has been a pleasant distraction from both work and homework). But I think we both agree that there a delicate balance, and it can be hard to draw the line.

I also don't think Tesla meets the threshold to hold a monopoly on EVs or their charging infrastructure either, and wasn't my intent. But they were also not the only ones to receive tax credits: several other car manufacturers also received tax credits, though the other manufacturers elected not to pursue EVs (and associated tax credits available to them) as aggressively as Tesla. A startup would struggle to get those tax credits though, as car manufacturing (even in gas cars) has a pretty high bar for entry (lots of capital up front).

I think your new examples and arguments are valid shots. It's generally easy to fix symptoms, or make changes to make the short term metrics look good (any of this sound familiar in our AF careers?...). It's hard, and can be uncomfortable, to get after the root causes of the bad metrics or symptoms. If you get a chance to take a statistical modeling class, one thing they harp on is be very careful about extrapolating data to make predictions outside the observed data set.

I don't think the government making an investment and it failing is necessarily a bad thing on smaller projects. Cast a wide net on completing ideas, invest in the promising ones, and see what happens (think of it as a public venture capital fund investing in things that benefit society). It's that fear of failure that often paralyzes government, and makes every decision very risk adverse and overly conservative to a fault. Obviously, risks have to be managed appropriately, and not carelessly disregarded.

Meritocracy and socialism or communism aren't opposed, at least in theory. You're right, it often suffers from personal greed or ambition in practice. But at the same time, meritocracy and capitalism are not synonymous. My view of meritocracy is a way to manage *power*, and not products, where capitalism/socialism/communism all manage resources. It's easy in capitalism to say it's the same as a meritocracy, but only because in capitalism, money (proxy for resources) can (and often does) buy power.

There are other ways to manage power besides a meritocracy ("best" person to wield power based on some measure). Democracies (direct votes), republics (representatives), dictatorships/monarchies (consolidation of power in an individual/family), nepotism (I guess this is the same as a monarchy, but without the "divine right to rule"), anarchy (no management of power). All of those types of government also have some way of determining who is "best" to wield power, whether it's popular vote, bloodline, violence, family/friends, and reflect different underlying cause and norms of that society. And any of those could be fine for an individual living under that form of government, so long as your interests align with the government's interests. At least with a form of democracy you get a say in the decision in the event interests don't align, but even that is no guarantee of fairness, and it's near impossible, especially in our current world, to remove yourself from the jurisdiction of any government.

The free market doesn't really exist-it's an ideal that doesn't exist anywhere in practice, at least not at a nation state level. As long as there's an inequality of power between people (or organizations), there will be an influence on the market, whether it's formal or not. So in a sense, government is a monopoly, because the market must adapt and be limited by the rules of the society it operates in, with those rules being enforced by the government. On the other hand, government is not a monopoly because it is how society has agreed/consented/accepted to structure itself, and society also creates the market because people have needs and wants they can not procure/produce on their own, especially if people specialize in their work. So it goes hand in hand, groups of people will organize themselves in some manner, and that same group creates a market for goods/services within itself.

Government won't police it's own power, unless those in power do so based on their values/principles. Democracies in theory allow the citizens to be the check on government authority through their vote, but it can lead to mob rule of the government divides the citizenry to maintain it's power.

I guess I have to take a stance though after being wishy washy for way too long on the post. Democratic republic seems to be the best balance for a large country like ours, balancing direct votes and the time and logistics to do that for every matter. Meritocracy with caveats (ability to do the job based on technical skills and social/leadership skills). Caveat being that sometimes you don't select the best person in order to give that experience to someone else so they can learn. This encourages cross-functional learning, and prevents job stove pipes due to being locked into one career path, especially when the scope of responsibility requires knowledge and skills across multiple domains. The incentive for moving up is not necessarily more money or power, but to do apply your experiences and skills to do the most good, though admittedly there's some amount of money that does make it easier to embrace that position (not going to do it for free and not meet needs or "reasonable" wants).
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5 hours ago, slackline said:

So here’s my take on it.  If there are people far and above more qualified that would clearly do the job way better than those he has nominated it is incredibly bad and simple pandering.  If the people he’s nominated are close enough in quality/performance to those that are “better” than them, where’s the harm in giving those people that typically haven’t ever even been considered for those types of positions a shot?  

If there will be no discernible difference in how well the job is being done, I think it is beneficial to add some flavor to what is typically incredibly homogeneous.  I’m not married to this idea, and could be talked out of it by sound arguments, but I can see more benefits by going with different over same old, same old when the end product is so close that it doesn’t matter.  That other person is still going to be successful.  Commence spear throwing.

The blunt truth is it hurts non minorities. That’s the harm in affirmative action policies. It’s why white male pilots, for the most part, should go ahead and stop applying to be astronauts.

 

Edit: The sinister end result is the debasing of the meritocracy.

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7 minutes ago, Negatory said:

The blunt truth is it hurts non minorities. That’s the harm in affirmative action policies. It’s why white pilots, for the most part, should go ahead and stop applying to be astronauts.

 

Edit: The sinister end result is the debasing of the meritocracy.

Let me know when we find meritocracy.  Everything I've seen while in, and my brief time out, is who you know.

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6 minutes ago, 17D_guy said:

Let me know when we find meritocracy.  Everything I've seen while in, and my brief time out, is who you know.

Go spend some time in Mexico, South America, the Middle East (I'm assuming you have), Africa, or East Asia and tell me America isn't a meritocracy. 

 

I'm sure you're being somewhat hyperbolic, but the difference between the Western meritocracy and real nepotism, which most Americans have not experienced, is vast and shocking.

 

Ivanka Trump was an advisor, not the Secretary of State. Hunter Biden was just milking some spare change from his Dad's name, he wasn't the Secretary of Commerce. We are not nepotistic country.

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4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for taking the bait.  Of course Biden had nothing to with that decision.  However, for the last four years the left and the mainstream press blamed EVERY single thing that went wrong on Trump.  Have the intellectual honestly to apply the same standard to Biden... Oh I can hear you know...But But But.

Not my meme but it certainly holds true.  I have yet to see the grand reach across the political aisle, instead it has been a slew of executive orders and a complete dodge on the question of impeaching Trump.  He has the opportunity to push the Trump thing aside...appease and calm the GOP faithful and focus on COVID-19 relief, but he doesn't have the backbone to stand up to Pelosi and her requirement for revenge...he doesn't even have the stones to voice an opinion.  #Sad

Ok, I guess you think you got me?  He's been president for what, 2.69 days, I can't believe he hasn't fixed the decades of partisanship already!  I think you may be forgetting the 8 years of blaming Obama for every bad thing that happened.  Stop being a sore loser for long enough to realize that during Trump's presidency Democrats didn't invent blaming the president for crap that went wrong. 

Not much of a fake bait there hoss, the statement you made falls in line with 90% of the statements made by every Trump apologist on this forum.  This was the first election I've ever voted for a democratic candidate of any flavor. Thank the bang up job done by the QAnon savior for driving enough people like me away to lose him the election. 

I feel like you guys all band together at these pseudo zingers and upvote/like each other's posts that slam the supposed liberals.  #notsurewhywearehashtaggingthis

 

Edited by slackline
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There are some key differences in your examples. GPS is peak government. Launch it and let anyone who wants to develop a use do so. But creating subsidies that heavily favor an existing company is easy to do and unfair. If the govt wanted to adopt a EV charging standard and install a network of charging stations across the country for any and all EVs to use, great. But increasingly the government is handing wads of cash to private companies while allowing them to continue the trend of making everything proprietary. 
 
Lets look at State and local governments that offer massive tax breaks to Amazon to open a new warehouse or data center. Sure... they might argue that anyone opening a 100,000 sq/ft+ data center could get the break, but when only one or two companies exist at the time of the tax break that can use it, that's targeted. It's also bullshit. Take a step back and think of the lunacy of providing tax breaks of any kind to a company as wildly successful as Amazon. 
 
It should be illegal for the government at any level to offer tax breaks to specific companies or industries. If you want to incentivize companies to show up, lower taxes for all business. It is absolute insanity that Amazon, one of the biggest corporations in the history of Earth, ran a beauty pageant where every major city in America handed over infrastructure and development plans while bidding for who could offer Bezos the lowest tax burden to open a new HQ. And after literally dozens of local governments prostrated themselves at the altar of Amazon for a chance to enhance their tech presence... who did Amazon pick? New York and DC. ing really? If you think it's just a coincidence that Amazon picked the business and government hubs as their surprise split decision, then I have a bridge to sell you. They knew from day one where they were going to build, but the data-driven company that's building a global distribution network got every city to give them their infrastructure roadmaps in the process. 
 
I'm a big free market advocate, but the theoretical perfect free market does not account for government. So we have to make changes that aren't purely free market. The modern capitalists, largely in tech but not exclusively, have mastered the art of using government to entrench their positions. Remember when Amazon suddenly supported collecting sales tax on all internet purchases because they could offer their payment services to small businesses that couldn't account for hundreds of different tax rates? Apple is pushing hard on right-to-repair laws. This is the modern version of telcoms making monopolistic agreements with city governments to lease telephone poles and prevent any other companies from competing. One electric provider, one gas, one phone, one internet and cable. 
 
Progressives (establishment, not voters) have always despised meritocracy, so their disregard for the miracles provided by the free market is no shock. But conservatives (establishment, not voters) have been blinded by the incredible wealth the new robber-barons have brought to their investment portfolios, and forgot that the free market can only function if it is perceived to be fair by the participants (voters, workers). Globalization brought us cheap clothes and TVs, but 30 years in and the cost turned out to be jobs and upward mobility for a huge swath of the country. The "democratic socialists" on the left were the first to lose faith, but they are few. Now the populists on the right, both of the Trump type, and the Tucker Carlson type are starting to lose faith too. It should scare you, because your kids, and certainly your grandkids will face a very different reality if the disenfranchisement continues to spread. 
I thought the government was offering the subsidies back when the Nissan Leaf was the most advanced EV...with a range of like 80 miles.

As far as I know, the tax credits for EVs started with the Energy Improvement and Extension Act, signed by Bush in 2008, the same year Tesla released the Roadster (a car that had less that 2500 built).

So this was well before the Model S hit the road. And I guarantee that the people buying the $100k Roadster didn't give a shit about the tax credit. It seems like it was a pretty fair subsidy. It's no one's fault besides other car companies that Tesla seems to have been able to utilize it best.

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3 hours ago, slackline said:

Ok, I guess you think you got me?  He's been president for what, 2.69 days, I can't believe he hasn't fixed the decades of partisanship already!  I think you may be forgetting the 8 years of blaming Obama for every bad thing that happened.  Stop being a sore loser for long enough to realize that during Trump's presidency Democrats didn't invent blaming the president for crap that went wrong. 

Not much of a fake bait there hoss, the statement you made falls in line with 90% of the statements made by every Trump apologist on this forum.  This was the first election I've ever voted for a democratic candidate of any flavor. Thank the bang up job done by the QAnon savior for driving enough people like me away to lose him the election. 

I feel like you guys all band together at these pseudo zingers and upvote/like each other's posts that slam the supposed liberals.  #notsurewhywearehashtaggingthis

 

Actually he should fix everything in less than 100 correct?  

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On 1/21/2021 at 1:15 PM, slackline said:

One side significantly more...  Guess which

I'm guessing the side that yells "TAX THE RICH, THEY DON'T PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE!

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11 hours ago, slackline said:

How sad that you believe Biden was involved in that call...

You keep coming with those catchy, but baseless memes though.

It's a Biden administration. Right?

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