In a gaming context, the term I use to describe what you call "Smart" is "System Mastery". I do think there is a similar concept for navigating the modern bureaucratic state.
She became one later when it turns out she did all that TFA stuff with zero prior Jedi or Force training. Which is insane.
No it isn't, it made perfect sense, or at least as much sense as The Force ever makes. Hey, remember when Luke Skywalker managed to fly an X-Wing excellently the first time he got in one, and indeed managed to make a shot that was considered impossible, even with computer assistance, by the rebellion pilot sitting next to Luke? How much Force Training did Luke have at that point? For that matter, how much force training did Anakin have when he was Pod Racing? Sure he wasn't great at it, but he was a little kid flying a remaindered pod, and Qui-Gon was shocked a human could pod race at all - he specifically says that human reflexes are too slow for Pod Racing.
There is no textual support for the idea that Force Powers requires extensive training to use - when training Luke, Yoda suggests that the most important thing is mindset, Luke can't lift his X-Wing out of the swamp because he doesn't believe he can, not because he hasn't trained enough. This is speculation, but I think "Jedi Training" is more about inculcating values and mindset that learning specific techniques, in the same way that the Spartan Agoge was more about brainwashing young Spartiates than teaching them any particular skills.
For a brief shining moment after The Last Jedi I thought Disney was going to do something interesting with the Star Wars franchise, that they were going to tear it down and rebuild it in a new direction, something that drew from the past but led to a new future, a progression for the series. But no, there was no plan and they let that insipid hack Abrams come back a make a move all Star Wars fans could come together on and agree was bad.
That's my general experience too, but I prefer to have a conversation with a person and not an archetype, so I wanted to open by asking, since the format of the post precluded Maury from explaining her reasoning.
This seems like the best take on this whole sorry affair. Chris Rock was legitimately out of line, and while he deserves condemnation for that, that didn't make it OK for Will Smith to smack him.
Yeah, I'm with you on this. This manager is acting like their employees' only options are work at Applebees or die, which is an interesting assumption when the labour market is this tight.
Weirdly, this manager seems to believe in the Iron Law of Wages.
It shows that relying on petroleum as heavily as we do is not just an environmental risk, its a geopolitical one. Now of course some thing are easier to electrify than others (you can't electrify the Haber process, and some industrial process heating is very inefficient with electric heating), but domestic heating is low-hanging fruit, and I understand there's a lot of domestic gas heating in Germany.
Overall I think this is good news for the Democratic Party - it helps to reinforce in the minds of politicians that Twitter is not Real Life and that what actual voters (contra the tiny but extremely loud activist community on Twitter) actually want is competent governance, not performative activism.
Unfortunately, it appears so far that a large fraction of Republicans actually do prefer performative activism to competent governance and that's a serious problem.
I can understand that, unfortunately I'm not sure that reform of your system is even possible any more. For one thing, while every developed country has been overtaken by institutional sclerosis, the US is the most heavily affected. For another, a significant minority of your country seems to want to destroy its democracy outright.
I don't know how to fix that, or even if it can be. For 20-25 years things will probably be fine, by my long-term recommendation is find somewhere to run to, and hope that when the US falls it doesn't take the whole world with it.
The parties would be more ideologically coherent (due to the power of the whip), but possibly less rigid. Right now the ideological position of each party is driven by the primary voters - with my amendment I would expect that power to move tot he party leadership, making it easier for a party to steer itself to better appeal to the median voter.
Thanks for running the numbers Burt, is this based on votes cast for President or votes cast for Congress? In either case, based on New Zealand's history, I would expect voting patterns to change a lot under this system - third parties will attract more interest and you might see an increase in turnout in the bluest and reddest states since their votes would matter more now.
In my experience, Parliamentary systems are more inclined to remove leaders than Presidential ones are (indeed mere unpopularity is often reason enough) and I think part of the reason is that elected presidents have a source of public legitimacy independent from the legislature, while Prime Ministers do not.
Honestly, I think the Founding Fathers' refusal to acknowledge parties was one of their major blind spots. Parties has already formed in Parliament by that point, and the idea that factions wouldn't form was stubborn naiveté. In any case political parties are already baked into your electoral law, so I'd say that ship has sailed.
I'll admit pitching things to people isn't my strong suit. When New Zealand adopted MMP in the 1990s, two big arguments for it were that successful countries like Germany used it and it would help protect from a single person from gaining too much power.
I don't know if either argument would succeed in the US.
That's a fair point on 1, perhaps change to set an initial number, but allow it to be changed by legislation, subject to a minimum based on the population of the smallest state?
The lack of will is a product of the fact that partisan divisions make it nearly impossible to assemble an anti-President coalition in the legislature. Plus there is the issue of legitimacy. You can see it in the way Pelosi and some of the other Democratic Congressional leaders acted when considering impeaching Trump. They see the Presidency (though not Trump specifically) as superior to them, and I believe the US public see it that way too. That will make it very hard for Congress to win any constitutional conflict with the President.
Which is precisely why this will never fly in the US
Oh, I know.
You have been paying attention to all the state and national party bosses censuring Republican politicians for not towing the Trump line haven’t you?
Indeed I have, but why are they doing that? My suggestion is that Trump has whipped up the voting base to the point where the leadership needs to be pro-Trump to keep getting voted in. Consider than when Mike Pence refused to throw the election to Trump it was the Republican base and not its leadership that threatened him. I think Trumpism is a bottom-up problem, not a top-down one in the Republican party.
Hard pass. Parliamentary systems aren’t all that and two bags of chips (American or British).
If the US and UK were the only two countries in the world you might have a good point. Parliamentary systems not only include the other Anglosphere countries (New Zealand, Canada and Australia), but also The Nordic Countries, The Netherlands, Japan and Germany. Basically all of the highest-functioning democracies in the world are Parliamentary. By contrast, which other Presidential system countries are we calling successes here? France?
the administrative state ... is required of any government in a modern, multi-cultural democracy.
Sure, that's not my point. My point is that the executive branch of a modern government has a massive amount of power and Presidential system concentrates all that power in one person while crippling the ability of the legislature to rein them in. Presidential systems are dictatorship bait. Fixing your civil service is an entirely different question that is likely beyond the scope of constitutional reform.
Frankly I’d rather we simply allow those territories that wish to to become independent nations.
I agree, but so long as they are territories, they should have some say in who the President is.
Most of America’s oligarchy wouldn’t in as much as this would create massive economic instability.
t's possible, but I don't think it too likely - other countries manage to make this system work just fine, better in fact than yours.
Section 1 is less about the house than it is limiting the Senate's effect on the Electoral College. The one big problem I think the house has is gerrymandering, and that what section 2 is about.
It seems to me the big change the Senate needs is re-apportionment, but since that's the one thing that can't be amended in the US Constitution, I'm not sure what exactly to do about the Senate. The only thing I could think of was to prevent the Senate from shutting down the legislature entirely.
It's a long weekend for me, as Sunday is Waitangi Day, but only plans are to rest. I got my booster this morning, so I want to make sure I have time to take it easy.
The big problem they had is that after episode 6 they had to go on a shooting hiatus due to COVID, at which point the Actor who played Matt dropped out of the show (breaking his contract) and fell off the face of the Earth as far as anyone knows. Also, part way through making episode 8 they had to cut back on actors and locations, again due to COVID. So the back part of the season was a mess, but I don't know exactly how much was under their control.
But yeah, they really needed 10 episodes because that was really compressed.
My parents are coming down to visit me this year (which was touch-and-go for a while with the travel restrictions), so we're having lunch at a restaurant, and well spend the rest of the day at my place.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Here Comes the Groom(ing)”
In a gaming context, the term I use to describe what you call "Smart" is "System Mastery". I do think there is a similar concept for navigating the modern bureaucratic state.
On “The Mary Sue Problem And Giving The People What They Want”
No it isn't, it made perfect sense, or at least as much sense as The Force ever makes. Hey, remember when Luke Skywalker managed to fly an X-Wing excellently the first time he got in one, and indeed managed to make a shot that was considered impossible, even with computer assistance, by the rebellion pilot sitting next to Luke? How much Force Training did Luke have at that point? For that matter, how much force training did Anakin have when he was Pod Racing? Sure he wasn't great at it, but he was a little kid flying a remaindered pod, and Qui-Gon was shocked a human could pod race at all - he specifically says that human reflexes are too slow for Pod Racing.
There is no textual support for the idea that Force Powers requires extensive training to use - when training Luke, Yoda suggests that the most important thing is mindset, Luke can't lift his X-Wing out of the swamp because he doesn't believe he can, not because he hasn't trained enough. This is speculation, but I think "Jedi Training" is more about inculcating values and mindset that learning specific techniques, in the same way that the Spartan Agoge was more about brainwashing young Spartiates than teaching them any particular skills.
For a brief shining moment after The Last Jedi I thought Disney was going to do something interesting with the Star Wars franchise, that they were going to tear it down and rebuild it in a new direction, something that drew from the past but led to a new future, a progression for the series. But no, there was no plan and they let that insipid hack Abrams come back a make a move all Star Wars fans could come together on and agree was bad.
On “If I Gave The State of the Union”
That's my general experience too, but I prefer to have a conversation with a person and not an archetype, so I wanted to open by asking, since the format of the post precluded Maury from explaining her reasoning.
"
Why a silver standard? What are you hoping to achieve?
On “Sticks and Stones and Hair Loss”
This seems like the best take on this whole sorry affair. Chris Rock was legitimately out of line, and while he deserves condemnation for that, that didn't make it OK for Will Smith to smack him.
On “Applebee’s Internal Memo Leaked”
This is correct.
"
Yeah, I'm with you on this. This manager is acting like their employees' only options are work at Applebees or die, which is an interesting assumption when the labour market is this tight.
Weirdly, this manager seems to believe in the Iron Law of Wages.
On “From NPR: The Senate approves a bill to make daylight saving time permanent”
Here's hoping New Zealand follows your lead. Now there's something I don't say often.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Candy that You Can’t Get Here”
Happily my weekend plans now include D&D again, I'm looking forward to getting back into it again.
On “The Energy Factor”
It shows that relying on petroleum as heavily as we do is not just an environmental risk, its a geopolitical one. Now of course some thing are easier to electrify than others (you can't electrify the Haber process, and some industrial process heating is very inefficient with electric heating), but domestic heating is low-hanging fruit, and I understand there's a lot of domestic gas heating in Germany.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Taxes”
Theoretically I have D&D on Sunday, but since the bottom of my street is currently infested I don't know if it will happen.
On “An Interesting Development in the San Francisco School Board”
Overall I think this is good news for the Democratic Party - it helps to reinforce in the minds of politicians that Twitter is not Real Life and that what actual voters (contra the tiny but extremely loud activist community on Twitter) actually want is competent governance, not performative activism.
Unfortunately, it appears so far that a large fraction of Republicans actually do prefer performative activism to competent governance and that's a serious problem.
On “A Proposal for the 28th Amendment”
I can understand that, unfortunately I'm not sure that reform of your system is even possible any more. For one thing, while every developed country has been overtaken by institutional sclerosis, the US is the most heavily affected. For another, a significant minority of your country seems to want to destroy its democracy outright.
I don't know how to fix that, or even if it can be. For 20-25 years things will probably be fine, by my long-term recommendation is find somewhere to run to, and hope that when the US falls it doesn't take the whole world with it.
"
The parties would be more ideologically coherent (due to the power of the whip), but possibly less rigid. Right now the ideological position of each party is driven by the primary voters - with my amendment I would expect that power to move tot he party leadership, making it easier for a party to steer itself to better appeal to the median voter.
"
If I wrote an Amendment that I thought could actually pass, it would have been a lot less interesting because it would have been a blank post.
"
Thanks for running the numbers Burt, is this based on votes cast for President or votes cast for Congress? In either case, based on New Zealand's history, I would expect voting patterns to change a lot under this system - third parties will attract more interest and you might see an increase in turnout in the bluest and reddest states since their votes would matter more now.
In my experience, Parliamentary systems are more inclined to remove leaders than Presidential ones are (indeed mere unpopularity is often reason enough) and I think part of the reason is that elected presidents have a source of public legitimacy independent from the legislature, while Prime Ministers do not.
Honestly, I think the Founding Fathers' refusal to acknowledge parties was one of their major blind spots. Parties has already formed in Parliament by that point, and the idea that factions wouldn't form was stubborn naiveté. In any case political parties are already baked into your electoral law, so I'd say that ship has sailed.
"
I'll admit pitching things to people isn't my strong suit. When New Zealand adopted MMP in the 1990s, two big arguments for it were that successful countries like Germany used it and it would help protect from a single person from gaining too much power.
I don't know if either argument would succeed in the US.
"
That's a fair point on 1, perhaps change to set an initial number, but allow it to be changed by legislation, subject to a minimum based on the population of the smallest state?
"
The lack of will is a product of the fact that partisan divisions make it nearly impossible to assemble an anti-President coalition in the legislature. Plus there is the issue of legitimacy. You can see it in the way Pelosi and some of the other Democratic Congressional leaders acted when considering impeaching Trump. They see the Presidency (though not Trump specifically) as superior to them, and I believe the US public see it that way too. That will make it very hard for Congress to win any constitutional conflict with the President.
"
Oh, I know.
Indeed I have, but why are they doing that? My suggestion is that Trump has whipped up the voting base to the point where the leadership needs to be pro-Trump to keep getting voted in. Consider than when Mike Pence refused to throw the election to Trump it was the Republican base and not its leadership that threatened him. I think Trumpism is a bottom-up problem, not a top-down one in the Republican party.
If the US and UK were the only two countries in the world you might have a good point. Parliamentary systems not only include the other Anglosphere countries (New Zealand, Canada and Australia), but also The Nordic Countries, The Netherlands, Japan and Germany. Basically all of the highest-functioning democracies in the world are Parliamentary. By contrast, which other Presidential system countries are we calling successes here? France?
Sure, that's not my point. My point is that the executive branch of a modern government has a massive amount of power and Presidential system concentrates all that power in one person while crippling the ability of the legislature to rein them in. Presidential systems are dictatorship bait. Fixing your civil service is an entirely different question that is likely beyond the scope of constitutional reform.
I agree, but so long as they are territories, they should have some say in who the President is.
t's possible, but I don't think it too likely - other countries manage to make this system work just fine, better in fact than yours.
"
Section 1 is less about the house than it is limiting the Senate's effect on the Electoral College. The one big problem I think the house has is gerrymandering, and that what section 2 is about.
It seems to me the big change the Senate needs is re-apportionment, but since that's the one thing that can't be amended in the US Constitution, I'm not sure what exactly to do about the Senate. The only thing I could think of was to prevent the Senate from shutting down the legislature entirely.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The 20 Year Roof”
It's a long weekend for me, as Sunday is Waitangi Day, but only plans are to rest. I got my booster this morning, so I want to make sure I have time to take it easy.
On “Sunday Morning: “Landis: The Story of a Real Man on 42nd Street” by Preston Fassel”
The big problem they had is that after episode 6 they had to go on a shooting hiatus due to COVID, at which point the Actor who played Matt dropped out of the show (breaking his contract) and fell off the face of the Earth as far as anyone knows. Also, part way through making episode 8 they had to cut back on actors and locations, again due to COVID. So the back part of the season was a mess, but I don't know exactly how much was under their control.
But yeah, they really needed 10 episodes because that was really compressed.
On ““Zero Covid” Policy Not Going Well In Hong Kong”
I can't say I'm surprised. New Zealand tried zero COVID with Delta and it failed. There's absolutely no way Omicron is beatable using isolation.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Not Even A Mouse”
Merry Christmas for those who observe it.
My parents are coming down to visit me this year (which was touch-and-go for a while with the travel restrictions), so we're having lunch at a restaurant, and well spend the rest of the day at my place.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.