Swamp Yankee
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Posts posted by Swamp Yankee
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So let’s see if the likes of Tulsi and the Fox crowd are as adamant about Big Finance control as they are about Big Tech. Yes, I suppose you could try to differentiate based on 1A definitions but money-as-speech was supported with regard to campaign contributions.
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On 1/26/2021 at 4:22 PM, Vito said:
I understand your point about my classmate being unable to handle the stress of the added scrutiny he received after his stand up debacle, however, I saw this “piling on” mentality numerous times in UPT. Once a stud showed the slightest crack, or weakness the “vultures” (IP’s) would start circling and the added stress caused many to washout. I also witnessed firsthand, my own IP telling me he was going to washout a fellow student the next morning during the standup! He did, after the stud fainted during a very stressful standup scenario that any of us would have screwed up. Like I said, different times.
Wow - this (revived) thread really brings me back. My biggest UPT stressor/shame was being the first stud in the class to get a standup...and then getting sat down. The scenario led to an ejection in the Tweet. All was going well until the end when I was told I was landing in trees. I forgot to position my arms in front of my face. “Lieutenant, your eyes and neck are ripped out”. Extra embarrassing since I went to Benning a couple years prior and had jump wings on my name tag. But the key point: I never forgot that again!!
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22 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:
Vito is spot on: it was a "different time".
In my opinion, a lot of the folks that washed out in my class (DLF 86-05) would have graduated UPT just a few years later. We started with 63, and graduated 42... exactly 33% washout rate. And that was not uncharacteristic.
Having been a FAIP during the 86-89 timeframe, I saw the worst of it, and then it began to trail off a little before I left. We saw a few losses in the T-38, but that burden fell mainly on the T-37 IP's.
As a PIT IP from 93-96, I didn't have first hand knowledge, but it was generally well known that the washout rate was quite low.
I can't recall specifics anymore, but I remember "leadership" mandating that pilots make it through training.
Like I stated... a lot of students that washed out would have become USAF pilots had they gone through UPT just a few years later.
I can attest to the low 93-96 washout rate as a Laughlin 94-01 class member. We lost maybe 4 with one guy going to Rucker. Another was a legitimate candidate for the funny farm (I was just an ROTC yahoo but how did he get through the AF Academy?) That said, I don’t remember anyone else who should have washed. I ended up right in the middle. Did great in Tweets and middling in -38s. Probably would have ranked higher with T-1s. Regardless, as a -130 guard guy it worked out fine.
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1 hour ago, slackline said:
***Sorry, slow morning for me with no work, just realized what a long rant this is...
You could say I’m on roughly the same page as Swamp Yankee.
Regarding the EO on ethics for Trump vs Biden, you mean the one Trump rescinded just before leaving office? https://www.npr.org/sections/inauguration-day-live-updates/2021/01/20/958710562/trump-revokes-administration-ethics-rules-on-his-way-out-the-door I seem to remember him using almost identical versions to Clinton and Obama used. https://www.npr.org/2017/01/28/512201631/trumps-executive-order-on-ethics-pulls-word-for-word-from-obama-clinton
I’ve already discussed my thoughts on climate accords. Not a fan of how it binds the US unfairly and once again, makes the US carry the lion’s share of the responsibility, but I am a fan of us doing something to address it. Ideally, I’d like to see us stay out of it on the principle of division of responsibility, but support it on the principle of “something has to be done” while working towards concrete steps.
Similarly on the WHO. I think it was a good call to point out their numerous problems on many subjects. I also think it is ultimately smart to rejoin. Maybe they’ve gotten the scare they need to start acting in an even and fair way across the board. I have my doubts, but time will tell. I would have preferred a caveat be added to his rejoining making sure it was with the expectation that they hold the line...
I’m on the fence about the pipeline. I agree with you mostly, but the tree hugger side of me is torn. Not necessarily a rational way to think about it, but the climate issues we face and the climate change deniers out there piss me off more than I should allow... Sorry.
Most of your other points feel ( I know, using the word “feel” is dangerous in a political discussion) like the typical political answers regarding any topic out there. “Yes, but...” saying you’re open minded and unbiased, but really, it’s similar to the points Swamp Yankee has been making about the so-called liberal personalities out there that do nothing but slam the left. Begrudgingly acknowledging one tiny point or aspect so you can say, “see, I’m open-minded!” while digging in deeper on everything else.
Your last paragraph is a perfect example of this. “The only positive things... However...”
I’m often just as guilty as most, but I think my disdain for both sides gives me some clarity, at least right now. I hate the left equally to the right, honestly. Give it some time for the Trump effect to wear off (hopefully it does) and I’ll be attacking the hypocrisy coming out of their mouths too. I’m not saying it’s not happening right now, just that the noise coming from the right in this moment is so loud, it’s hard to hear the noise coming from the left. Politics is just one massive scenario of the pot calling the kettle black over and over again. Us Monday morning quarterbacks and internet experts are often no different.
You know, it’s odd, they say you typically get more conservative the older you get. I have found that to be different in my case, still conservative, but definitely more open to social issues than I ever used to be. I feel like service in the AF has done that, helping the people that I’ve commanded has been a bigger eye opener than anything else. I remember listening to Sean Hannity back in 2003, and Bill O’Reilly, and even Rush Limbaugh. I used to think they were smart, on top of things, people. I have either changed a lot, or they have because I think they’re horrible people now, out for their own ratings much more than they believe in any of the garbage they spout. I still don’t like any of the personalities on the left (Don Lemon in particular is such a drama king I can’t stand him even when he’s making a valid point), but they don’t inspire the disgust those three do.
BL: I bet the difference between you and I, ideologically, is so small as to not matter in the big scheme of things. I appreciate when I get called out for being off-target vs a valid shot.
A lot of interesting discussion here. Too much to respond to at lunch hour.
Regarding ethics; my realpolitik opinion is that it is impossible to completely rein in the problems. In a similar sense to campaign finance reform, realistically you can try to contain certain aspects.
On climate change; I understand to some extent the concern about indoctrination (really education) However, having a science background and more importantly access to people knowledgeable on the subject, I can’t ignore the issue. The problem is the speed of change. So, yes, there are natural climate cycles but they’re generally measured in millennia, not decades or centuries. (The little ice age being an exception) Even the Navy is developing an Arctic open water strategy. Ultimately, the education piece will likely be viewed as similar to evolution vs creationism. We and China own a significant portion of the issue. While it’s great that sub Saharan countries are ratifying, they aren’t substantial contributors.
Good point on the media. I have a very similar perspective. Also, it’s definitely gotten worse the past four years. Fox was always strongly on the right, but they really doubled down with Trump except for a brief period very recently. CNN was slightly left but shifted significantly into an anti-Trump channel. Fox and CNN are equally partisan opposites at this point. Both were business rather than ideologically driven. Grab the audiences that will watch the longest.
I’ve also shifted left on some social issues as I’ve lead and managed people from a wider range of backgrounds.
There’s a great quote from Dean Kamen, the guy who developed the Segway and other more important, but less well-known technical innovations: “Democrats want to control what you do with your wallet and Republicans want to control what you do in the bedroom” That sums it up well. -
6 hours ago, arg said:
Oops, my bad it was Swamp Yankee. But why are you saying I called him out by asking a question? Which ones do you agree with? Am i calling you out asking that? You said Trump holds the record. For what? Total EOs? EOs signed in the first week of office? I am 100% with you on your last sentence in the first paragraph.
Here’s a few I support:
Executive order coordinating a government-wide Covid-19 response
- The pandemic is a rather significant problem. Having additional effort applied rather than wishing the problem away is prudent.Executive order mandating ethics pledge for government appointees
- Simply reverts back to a pre-Trump requirement
Executive order promoting Covid-19 safety in domestic and international travel
-Wearing masks as much as possible on airplanes seems reasonable to meExecutive order expanding access to Covid-19 treatments
- COVID is a problem with older folks. That’s essentially what this is about.
Yes, Biden’s pace of EO’s is faster than Trump, who put forth 55 in his first year.
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27 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:
Capitalism assumes a free market. Right now, especially with 230, we have anything but a free market.
Currently, the only 230 modifications that might address conservatives’ current concerns about private sector content control are those by Hawley (Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act) and Gozar (Stop Censorship Act) Both are highly troubling. Hawley’s in particular calls for companies content moderation teams to be declared politically neutral by a bipartisan commission. This is Soviet-style propaganda control that is completely orthogonal to the Constitution.
I’m also tired of the “social platform as utility argument”. If you really want this, then be prepared for government subsidies since taking this approach restricts the ability of these platforms to manage their businesses.Don’t like how the current platforms are controlling content? Get private investors to support your development of an alternative. Plenty of conservatives with such means.
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5 hours ago, MyCS said:
Just going to result in the death of some social media platforms. People will flock to platforms with less oversight.
It's the same way with texting platforms. If your messaging app isn't secure/encrypted, you're going to lose business.
That is exactly how creative capitalism works.
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4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:
This won't kill any of the big social media platforms, by their own doing and dopamine fueled tactics they have become too far ingrained our daily lives. I try to avoid thinking like the old fart that I am and look outside the container. 57% of Melienials get their news from Social Media platforms...these tech oligarchs have control on the information and put up huge barriers to entry for competitors. The only thing that seems to break that model is when something become super trendy or "hot." Tik Tok is a good example...also an example that is COMPLETELY compromised by the Chinese.
I don't want the government deciding what we can or can't see, what we can or can't post but something has to change. I lean towards breaking the monopolies that are Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Amazon...yes I know it is a very slippery slope. Regardless, fundamental changes have to be made to 230.
I agree with much of the above. However, I remain an eternal optimIst regarding innovation and disruption. None of these platforms will exist forever. The digital landscape is littered with the corpses of former online and hardware giants: MySpace, Vine, Wii, Blackberry, to name a few. The distant past includes Netscape, AOL, even Digital Equip and Wang. Trying to implement policies to control such things is probably a fools errand.
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57 minutes ago, Negatory said:
Don’t get em too scared or they’ll just pack the court and add 2 more judges
I agree with a number of Biden’s EOs but this one was a big mistake. Deportations are a critical part of managing immigration.
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1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:
The tech oligarchs are going to strangle opposing messages while basking in the protections of 230.
What are some possible solutions? At the end of the day I’d rather have companies make their own business decisions rather than the government.
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On 1/22/2021 at 12:49 PM, Lord Ratner said:
You'd have to listen to Shapiro's podcast to know that. He regularly and repeatedly calls out the right. He's the most honest and consistent voice on the right by far, and if you only listened to one conservative, it should be him.
Tucker Carlson is second on the list, but a distant second. Not because he represents the intellectual justification for conservatism, but because he is the best voice for the populist/conservative hybrid that is growing within the right. Unfortunately most of his work is on cable news, which is a garbage format. But he does appear on podcasts where his views are far more digestible. Check out him and Shapiro talking about self driving trucks. It's an eye opening exchange to a self-driving-car-evangelist like myself.
I have listened to a few of Shapiro's podcasts (working from home provides some flexibility). Sorry, he sticks to right wing talking points 99% of the time. The only "criticism" I've heard was from this summer, indicating that Trump occasionally gets in his own way with his communications style, but then it was right back to slamming the left.
Clearly, Shapiro, like Weisteins and even Rogan to an extent, rarely, if ever, criticize the right. In fact, the main talking point is that it was really the democrats who sparked the Jan 6th riots because they were just too tough and mean to Trump. That is completely ridiculous. The fact is that a very large number of Trump supporters were duped and incited by his rhetoric, resulting in an attempt to interrupt the political process. Full stop.
The right demands that the left see both sides, which the left in fact does way better than the right. It is not even close.
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1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:
Major difference. The evangelicals are a private group, they embraced Trump and overlooked his obvious religious shortcomings because they were trying to get to the ultimate goal over reversing Roe V Wade.
The NY Times is mainstream media. I think the same argument applies to Foxnews fawning over Trump. Sickening on both accounts.
Perhaps. But the evangelicals have a gigantic influence in conservative politics. They carry at least as much weight as conventional media outlets
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56 minutes ago, jazzdude said:
If voter ID was actually viewed as important/critical, the infrastructure allowing voter ID to be put in practice should be fully funded. This includes ID issuing sites, polling sites, backend databases, and verification (both before issuance, and at the polling sites to stop fake IDs from being used).
Since it is not, it's not really important, and there's nothing a politician can say to convince me otherwise. Where we spend our money shows us what we value in our capitalistic society.
So I agree, many times politicians calling for voter ID are using it as a means of voter suppression, because if they truly believed in it, they would fund everything necessary to implement it, though they never do.
So then it gets turned into something like getting turned away from the deployed DFAC because you're in sweaty PTUs and not a clean uniform (or without a reflective belt, remember those days?), despite being 110 degrees outside (i.e. stupid nonner games)Good points.
Ah yes, reflective belts. I still have a couple in old helmet bags. There’s a hilarious Reddit thread “Why is the USAF so obsessed with reflective belts?” One of my favorites: “I find it useful in identifying douche bags from a safe distance. If the sun is up, and you see someone running around or in an office wearing one, there is a very high probability that the individual is a jerk. Bonus points if they are holding a Big Blue coffee cup and spend free time yapping at people at the ecp about proper wear of line badges.”
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1 minute ago, GrndPndr said:
So what happened during the eight years of Obama/Biden? Did we just shut of the black complaint system, because there was someone in office who should be sympathetic to the cause? The complaints seem to rise and fall with whoever has been elected.
I too have friends who are "down with the cause," and they lay the blame for all of their troubles on Trump - including the challenges you list, and race problems dating back decades.
Well, now we have Biden. In a post-election world, it will be interesting to see where he lays the blame for race troubles.
Most of the people I spoke with definitely saw Trump as a major incendiary figure. However, their major point was that this stuff has been a problem since they were born.
I do agree that Republicans may get more of the blame than they’ve earned (although not completely beyond the realm of reason). And democrats can sometime get a pass. And that some POC take advantage so as to avoid some responsibility. However, those are universals that all sides do; human nature. The point here is that there are real problems that should be acted on rather than ignored, denied, orrationalized away.
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On 1/24/2021 at 10:02 AM, ClearedHot said:
100% agree that many 2016 votes were against Hillary and not for Trump. I voted for Trump this time and it absolutely pained me. I did it because I could not vote for the DNC polices which are now being thrust upon us (draconian gun control, "free" everything, seven-fold increase in immigration and enabling the Squad agenda).
I disagree with your assessment that the GOP sold it's soul nominating Trump...what were they supposed to do...rig the nomination like the DNC (sucked to be Bernie in 2016 with Super-Delegates). If Trump had the votes, he had the votes. I can however support the soul selling argument when it comes to protesting the election and other issues.
At the end of the day, I see Biden’s election as a reset to politics as usual, warts and all. Given the debacle of the past four years, that’s probably okay. If a better outsider candidate can get traction; Tulsi, Jocko(!), Crenshaw (despite the fact that SEALS annoy me) then we can try again.
Two aspects pushed me away from Trump this time: 1) His unpresidential behavior, which is important - In contrast, Reagan’s ability to communicate in a mature, articulate way was key to his success and facilitated the recovery of both the economy and our national pride. Initially I gave Trump the benefit of the doubt in just being unpolished. That wasn’t the case; he said whatever he thought would appeal to his base no matter how vile, racist, or incendiary.
2) Many of the numbers he claimed just weren’t correct. Job growth the last 3 yrs of Obama was slightly better than the first three years of Trump (pre-pandemic) per BLS stats. The trajectory of major market indices was essentially consistent from 2011 until the start of the pandemic. Thus, Trump did not rescue us from the ‘terrible Obama economy’. Crime has been steadily decreasing for decades. Trump did not dramatically affect it one way or the other.-
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On 1/24/2021 at 10:20 AM, ClearedHot said:
And this gem from the NY Times this morning calling Biden "the most religiously observant' president in 50 years" SERIOUSLY? Last I checked he is a Catholic who advocates for abortion. The mainstream media just can't help but slobber all over his knob.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/23/us/biden-catholic-christian.html
Basically, I took the article as “Biden goes to church a lot and supports some Catholic causes and doctrine.” Obviously abortion is a huge, major outlier. In all though, it is a typical Presidential exaggeration of leading a faith based life. For goodness sake, Trump in some inexplicable way became the darling of the evangelical right, despite cavorting with porn actresses, grabbing genitalia, and previously being indifferent at best to abortion. Not saying any of it is right but unfortunately this is a common tactic used to build up conventional faith bonafides.
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On 1/23/2021 at 1:04 PM, Blue said:
One doesn't need to be a trained mental health expert to know something is wrong with Joe Biden's mental state.
Biden is 78 years old, the oldest person to ever sit in the Oval Office. The next closest is Reagan, who was 77 at the end of his presidency.
This is a big ing problem for the country, and I don't know how anyone can brush it off as "he's just old," or "people are just picking on poor Joe."
Age-related mental decline is insidious. It comes and goes. Someone can have their mental faculties at 100% at the beginning of the day, but then as the day drags on and they wear mentally and physically, they get worse and worse. The results manifest themselves in several ways: people end up being excessively argumentative, they get tunnel vision and fixate on things with no rhyme or reason.
Anyone who's had the pleasure of working with those in their late 60s and 70s has seen this play out before.
It was rumored that Reagan was experiencing the beginning of mental decline during his second term; he even got some raised eyebrows during the 1984 Presidential race when he seemed to falter during the debates. That was a problem then, but at the very least you had an established team surrounding the president, and a more-or-less stable country and world.
Now you've got Joe Biden, who's starting his presidency in today's chaotic world, and surrounding himself with an eclectic band of unproven staffers and Cabinet picks.
Agree or disagree with Joe Biden's polices and ideals all you want. That's everyone's right as a red-blooded American. But the fact that we're starting a Presidential term with a 78 year old is a big ing problem.
True. Trump is 74 (and obese) so not really better. I think that says alot about how both parties operate these days. They’re both ~20 yrs older than the mean age at inauguration. In addition, MCConnell is 78 and Pelosi is 80. How did we end up here? I’m sure we can all agree that some relative youth is needed in our political leadership.
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3 hours ago, jazzdude said:
If mail in voting is secure for a subset of people like you caveat, why is it not secure for the general population?
Waiting in long lines to vote is a failure of the voting system; it means the voting infrastructure does not support the number of people that are voting. Either not enough voting sites, or not enough voting booths. Same with long waits at DMV; long waits exist due to inadequate staffing.
In addition, how would requiring everyone to vote in person actually work? It would require a complete closing of our economy for every election/vote. Otherwise, how do you ensure those that have to work have an opportunity to vote? Especially if there are long waits at the polling sites. If you don't think it'd be a problem, you've never had a crappy boss. On top of that, would there be any compensation for lost work? Primarily for low earning, hourly workers struggling to make ends meet, and don't have paid time off available to them. Mail in voting means these people do not have to take time off work to execute their civic duty to vote.
Every American citizen already has skin in the game every election, as we are voting for our representatives, it sometimes directly on measures.
If you want voter ID, what we have is completely inadequate (voter card, driver's license). You would need to verify the ID somehow. Just like our CACs; picture ID, scan and retrieve info from a database to confirm picture/name has not been altered, then two factor authentication, like chip (something you have) & PIN/password (something you know) to authenticate your vote. Anything short of that would not be secure in our modern age. If you're just going to signature match, then there is no reason it has to be done in person (so why is mail in voting insecure?).
I prefer mail in voting, because it allows me to slowly go through the ballot, research each item up for vote as needed, and make my vote without having to remember what I decided on and go somewhere to vote. Plus my state also provided a voters packet, with statements from each candidate, and for measures being considered, a statement for and against it. I'd argue it helps encourage more informed voting.In principal, I support Voter ID 100% with the points expressed above. However, it is irksome that legislatures (usually Republican) trying to pass such laws can’t help themselves from also closing or curtailing DMV hours in areas with higher minority populations. Gee, somehow there’s always a coincidental budget issue.
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Good discussion here. BLM is a problematic organization. The Marxist connections and the bizarre statement about the eliminating the nuclear family are confounding.
HOWEVER, I’ve taken the opportunity to sit down with (actual, real) black people and get their perspective. I’d strongly recommend doing the same in order to challenge your thinking. Some don’t perceive any racism but the vast majority do. It can be uncomfortable as it initially comes off as “all white people are bad” but after some reflection that wasn’t the case. After years of having grievances dismissed or having to deal with always-hostile reactions from the “I’m the least racist person I know” “I have a black friend” or the “yeah there’s maybe some racism, BUT...” crowds you get pissed off - such that opening a pressure relief valve is dramatic. Also, some folks use the problematic aspects of the BLM organization to discredit any and all complaints from the black community. That’s Fox News, Newsmax, and talk radio SOP. All of whom, by the way, are part of the mainstream media. They celebrated/defended Trump as much as MSNBC and CNN attacked/discredited him. So, overall Trump coverage was balanced, although bimodal.
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On 1/23/2021 at 11:16 PM, arg said:
There are a lot of worse places to pass out than there. Last time I was there was 89.
Very true.
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20 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:
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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42 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:
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.
Interesting article on Affirmative Action in higher education. It can be a lazy way of dealing with a very real problem of inequality. Jordan Peterson talks about equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome. The former is more important than the latter. In fact, equality of outcome is irrelevant, since people make choices as individuals. However, creating true equality of opportunity is really hard work. Municipalities need to carefully examine the resources available to young students and try to level the playing field through careful investment and accountability. That's often too hard so they just throw money at the school system and call it good. By the end of secondary education, those from disadvantaged backgrounds are substantially behind academically. Trying to correct the situation through favorable admissions can backfire. It's often just too late to address the problem.
However, favoritism in college admissions also includes athletes and legacies. Legacies = "My granddad went to BC, my dad went to BC and I'm going to BC" This often provides more of an advantage than affirmative action. The only places where legacy status doesn't help are hardcore schools like MIT. At D1 schools, the academic averages for athletes as a whole are often lower than the overall student body. You have to confront all favorability factors, not just one.
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7 minutes 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.
I agree. Meritocracy should be the overarching criterion. As we all know, however, when it comes to complex roles requiring leadership, intelligence, relationship-building, relationship-leveraging, knowledge, experience, and "street sense" you can't always identify a singular "best candidate". Different people bring different combinations of attributes. In his autobiography Colin Powell writes about the "charm school" he had to attend as a new one-star. The instructor said there were so many good candidates that everyone in the class could be killed and their replacements would be equally qualified. So given that, slackline's comment about adding flavor makes sense. It can also be helpful in getting voter support.
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13 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:
You're not considering what Weinstein is trying to accomplish. He doesn't feel any obligation towards the conservative party, because he's not a conservative. Much like flea, he's a moderate who sees his party departing reality. His goal is to save the Democratic party, or at least liberalism, from the progressive forces that are reshaping it. That's why almost all of his content covers the missteps of the left.
That's a reasonable point...he may have started out that way. The IDW-podcast left is much more willing to self-examine. That imbalance is a problem because political discussion is rapidly moving to the podcast world. It would be great if folks like Crowder, Shapiro, and Peterson truly cast a critical eye on the right. But that rarely, if ever, happens. I may be wrong on that; feel free to share examples to the contrary. While they are fond of saying (correctly) that you can't ignore the 70+ million that voted for Trump, there are legitimate reasons Biden won the electoral college and received 80+ million votes. Georgia went blue. Texas was closer than expected. Those reasons should be discussed, not dismissed.
Investment showdown -- beyond the Roth, SDP, & TSP
in Squadron Bar
Posted
Interesting turn of events. Of course, GS, AMC, and BB have unviable business strategies and will ultimately die. But this is so fun to watch. My boring index funds and stock options have served me well for the long term, especially since 2011.