ndawg

I don't think Republicans don't give one solitary shit about cancel culture, it's just something they yap their jaws about to make it sound like they have ideas floating around in their head. There's no doubt that some of them are probably stupid enough to fall for this, but I think a good lot of them relish provoking controversy about Dr. Seuss even though they know their position is nonsensical. To them, it's a sign of their superiority that they get to feign outrage over anything they want and suddenly their outrage dominates the news cycle. I think that mostly, deep down inside, they just like wrecking shit. They like the destruction itself, for its own sake, but they also like the look on your face when you watch them wreck your shit. They're going to tear this country down to the skids, and none of them will have the ability to rebuild anything else in it's place, and things are going to get really, really shitty for everyone. And by the time that happens, I have no doubt that liberals will still be holding on to the same idiotic hope that maybe now, now finally the Republican rank-and-file will realize that the GOP can't actually govern. But the GOP will win again, because fascists already have a textbook solution to the problem of needing to stay popular in spite of their utter ineptitude: they'll just take wealth from the "out group" and give it to the "in group." Civilizations rise, and they decline. It's the natural course of history. Unlike other fallen empires, though, this civilization might just take the entire human species down with it. Wait, what were we talking about?

I'm not even sure of that anymore.

My fear with Biden was that he was going to try to placate everybody by negotiating with Republicans, who would get concessions from him and then renig. The GOP can't be negotiated with, because they don't want any actual policies enacted, they just want power.

Google BTC’s energy consumption and its transactional throughput.

I think the numbers point to the problem I described precisely. People FEEL concerned about cancel culture because they’re addicted to the only medium that it can even take place on. If Facebook and Twitter were banished from the Internet, nobody would be worried about “cancel culture.”

And all the while, if these people just signed out of Facebook, then the entire culture war they're willing to tear down our democracy over would utterly dematerialize. They're raging so hard against Hollywood cancel culture as if they're the next ones that will be sent to the gulags, when they could end it instantly by just getting off the fucking internet. It's not just toxic individualism, it's toxic individualism suffering from an insidious obsession with an imaginary collective enemy.

I'd like to see the Democrats dip into the standard GOP bag of tricks. "Can't figure out how to afford $15/hr? Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and figure out how to increase labor productivity."

How much productivity do illegal immigrants contribute to our economy, and how much do they cost in social services?

Biden will receive a lot more criticism from the left than Trump did from the right. 😉

In other words, they're standing athwart stupidity, yelling, "STOP!"

You are ascribing motivation categorically to people you don't know. What kinds of observations and experiences have you accumulated that give you justified confidence in ascertaining their motivations?

Neither are true. Your assertion that morality is only found at the extremes of the spectrum is not true. The counterargument I was suggesting you explore is not itself true. The latter was only meant to reveal a flaw in the former, and there will be further flaws in that counterargument that additional scrutiny would reveal. Your worldview includes your belief that politicians in the middle of our left/right political spectrum are motivated by the pursuit of power -- because if they weren't, you seemed to argue, they'd hold one of the more ideological positions that is found on the extremes. That belief can be easily refuted. A politician who is driven to make maximum progress toward their ideal can easily justify a steadfast commitment to the middle: progress can only be made at the negotiating table, after all. I don't want to come across like a condescending prick, and I'm trying to avoid sermonizing you. However, the opinions you're espousing simply haven't been tempered by even minimal critical thinking. You can clearly apply critical thinking towards the opinions of others, so why not apply it towards your own?

Because I think if you develop the habit of considering competing and contradictory points of view when you formulate opinions, you won't have to suffer from the limitations of a "robot brain" anymore.

It all starts with the same script, IMO. "We, in the X community, are under attack from Y." "We, in the Christian community, are under attack from a radical transgender agenda."

Okay, now make the obvious counter-argument. Argue that the extremists are actually the most self centered politicians, because if they really believed in their vision of progress, they'd employ a pragmatic approach designed to cause the most amount of optimal change, rather one that only causes gridlock.

I worry I'm going to sound like I'm saying something obvious, here, but what the hell. There are all sorts of types of people in this world. There are self centered narcissists/sociopaths, there are average blokes, and there are people who are deeply motivated to make the world better. A better point of view would involve understanding that there are vastly different temperaments, and they are represented quite differently in the ranks of the Republicans and Democrats. I think you're limited by a narrow perspective of politics as a never ending episode of Game of Thrones. Start seeing the differences in temperament, ethics, etc. that go far beyond ideology.

I should have stated it better. I just meant that in any sufficiently complex system, good management is a prerequisite to good outcomes. Ideology alone contributes nothing towards success. Bad ideologies -- and this is where my statement was wrong -- absolutely cause failure. Trickle down economics combined with austerity cause failure. Soviet style communism causes failure. Etc. And in my experience sociopaths are typically terrible at the job of management, because they're lazy, useless fucks when there's nothing in it for them, and good management requires producing good outcomes for everybody. This is just conjecture on my part, but if I had to bet, I'd bet that the people responsible for fucking us over are also incapable of deploying and operating top tier infrastructure. Sure, many of them might be smart, but none of them are the kind of people that carry any burden of responsibility. None of them will lose sleep if there are important things that might get missed. Right now, in 2021, all of the truly competent people have long left the GOP. And I was making a point that only really makes sense in societies that aren't already reduced to only one major political party that isn't despicable -- in a functioning democracy, the quality of the people we elect matters more than their ideological affiliation.

I'm getting a vibe from you that suggests you think our outcomes are mostly the result of the ideology of our elected officials. I think that's a really incomplete way to look at it (but apologies if I'm misreading your stance). Humans have the capability of deploying and operating reliable infrastructure. Whether any particular government can deploy and operate reliable infrastructure for its citizens has more to do with the caliber of people charged with overseeing and managing the operations. Texas could elect incompetent Democrats that tried but failed to improve our utilities infrastructure. Texas GOP could also take the stick out of their ass and try to improve our infrastructure as well, and perhaps they would succeed. But success or failure would have little to do with the ideologies of the people in charge, and more to do with their management capabilities, work ethic, temperament, etc. I'll take a conservative who knows what she is doing over a progressive who is inept any day of the week. At this point, though, I doubt I'll see a competent (R) running for office ever again.

I'm not going to argue against private companies having a place in the utilities value stream. Rather, I'm arguing against the idea you put forth that we have to choose between needing to hold a government accountable versus holding large corporations accountable, or the idea that mobile apps fundamentally change the equation for what should be private vs. public. There's a hell of a lot of steps in between power generation and residential consumption. It's an oversimplification to suggest the whole system should be public or private (and we're not even talking about regulated vs. unregulated). I think my perspective here is probably consistent with most people's. I want utilities to be well managed with a level of service that befits a first world nation. I do not want to have to play games with apps to ensure I don't get a massive bill. I want it to be impossible for me to get a massive bill, unless I use a massive amount of energy.

25-50mm in revenue is nothing. We'll see what the picture looks like after the dust settles.

Yeah I'm completely in the dark about Griddy (pun intended). It's pretty stupid, if that's what it is. If I wanted to actually make money trading energy, I'd buy/sell stocks, securities, commodities, etc. I have about as much interest in "managing" my electricity bill in real time as I do in putting a hole in my head.

I'm not sure I see the incentive for anyone in the electricity or water supply chains to build, deploy, and maintain end user software that you describe. How many end users really want to add "managing my energy consumption in real time in order to keep from getting fucked on next month's bill" to their list of things they have to stay on top of in life? There's no value being created for the end user in this scenario, there is merely management responsibility being foisted upon them, with nothing to gain.

I can't figure out why he's arguing that recent advances in technology somehow tilt the scales in favor of multinational megacorps over government bureaucracy. It seems to be offered as something that is self-evident, but I just don't see it. It's as if he's saying, "because of the rise of mobile apps and factory automation, now we should favor unregulated privatization, because technology now allows customers to effectively regulate directly." But that's preposterous, so I'm left scratching my head.

I can't figure out the connection between the technologies you're describing and the two outcomes you're choosing from.

This is a difficult sentence to parse.