But why? As BB says above, there's a good chance that most of the change will be a net increase.
So you're making a completely unnecessary ideological point that makes your preferred policy *less* likely to be supported -- and provides no particular gain rather than trading for a policy almost no or limited cost?
Additionally, while it may be a net benefit, there really are losers in some cases -- so providing some sort of protection in exchange for removing veto's and/or moving the zoning process up a layer to states is precisely the point.
Don't actually see it as a bribe; Govt. created various zones that become market inputs and influence decisions and allocation of resources.
If Govt. changes the rules that negatively impact previous decisions, it is good policy to mitigate the negative impacts on some so that they are freer to make those changes that benefit the larger portion (hopefully).
It's actually a good use of Govt. resources.
As far as I can tell, there isn't an actual Red/Blue split on the issue... I see as much, if not more NIMBY in Blue areas than Red. As I say, I think it's a valid calculus that people make, and the way to overcome the most valid objection is to recognize that some YIMBY choices will in fact harm some individuals and the party changing the terms of the original agreement ought to compensate the injured party.
The thing is, if the YIMBY assumptions are true, and most people will see increases in value then when they sell, the Govt. will see a gain in revenue from increasing those values (if we employ a semi-Georgist approach). Hence, it isn't bribery, it's the other side of making 21st century policy. Things we couldn't imagine doing in 1980 with primitive computers are now 'trivially' easy (from a technology point of view).
OMG, you kids and your fancy graphics... I remember when Castlevania was green stick figure men shooting Na*is with 45* firing vectors. And we liked it. Oh, wait, that was Castle Wolfenstein - get off my lawn.
I'm currently angry at the ARPG Game developers; feel my wrath. Diablo IV is just plain bad... too many skills on really long timers... dumb dumb dumb.
Last Epoch had a really strong release, but hasn't been able to keep up with the 3-4 month update/release cycle that's required to bring back players... so it's just grinding gears hoping its delays will see people return.
Speaking of Grinding Gears, I *should* be playing the PoE2 early release right now... but they delayed it because the realized that one of their Original Day1 plans of Account cross-over for Micro Transactions wasn't going to work. So they pushed it back to Dec6. They then pushed out the patch to update all of the Account code, and crashed PoE1, so they rolled it back. Turns out that in unifying all the Accounts across all the platforms, they were going to have to append three digits to everyone's name -- naturally there is more than one Legolas, not to mention xLegolas or xLegolasx or xxLegolasxx or, well you get the picture. Anyhow, according to the post mortem, if the old Charater limit was 24, they forgot to update that number to 27 *and* that part of the code was deployed without some sort of fault toleration (devs prob know what this means) and once one name failed, the entire section failed which caused the game to fail.
So, anyway, I'm still not testing PoE 2 *and* my confidence in the new game continues to erode; I'll definitely give it a go as PoE is the best game out there right now -- but from what I've watched, they aren't fixing PoE1 and making it better, they are making a different game that the Devs think is better than PoE2 -- and in my experience, Devs making new things because they are bored with the old have about a 25% success rate. I'm low-key expecting a big failure primarily because they have adopted WASD movement... and, well, WASD movement isn't ARPG, it's a Souls game.
Got back from our Cruise vacation and almost immediately had to go to NYC for business meeting; got to see a Ranger's game in MSG as a 'team building' exercise though.
I'm way behind on Hunting this season and should be going out today... but after the travel I feel kinda drained... so might just veg in front of College Football games and the 'puter.
Fun fact about the cruise... Hurricane Rafael formed in the western Caribbean (our destination) and the Greek Captain simply sailed us right across it's path north of Cuba when it was hitting the Caymans; then we sailed behind it one day later and stopped at the Caymans. Calm seas and no rain (other than the usual SUNSHINE RAIN ANGRY RAIN SUNSHINE you get in those parts)... Caymans were fine - it was just a little hurricane. Lady Marchmaine got to swim with the Turtles on Grand Cayman which was a highlight for her and had been a minor source of anxiety watching the Hurricane reports leading up to and during the Cruise.
There's probably a rarely read Econ dissertation out there about this, but one thing I've wondered that YIMBY's never propose is to protect (or at least mitigate) NIMBY's from economic harm.
NIMBY's win because the loss aversion is stronger than the potential benefit *and* the losses could be very particular, even if the benefits are general. So the NIMBY position is both rational and widespread.
One way to mitigate this would be some sort of Property Value protection -- could be Govt. funded, Market based, or both. Basically, your investment (and growth) is protected and should YIMBY policies tank your particular investment, you are made whole by the insurance program. It takes the primary loss aversion off the table, which then leaves the much weaker aesthetic concerns such as: I grew up here; or I like this shady boulevard and can't find an exact match near work; or I can't afford the craftsman houses in the good part of town, and they don't make craftsman houses the way they used to, etc. etc.
There's all sorts of 'mathy' things you could do to make this revenue neutral -- that is, a semi-Georgist principle that losses are covered, but 25% (50%? 75%?) of the gains from YIMBY policies are collected as a tax upon sale... and so forth.
But simply trying to sell YIMBYism as a collective good (or some sort of moral imperative) when in any one particular instance it can be a individual bad is why YIMBY's don't make progress. Pool the gains and insure the risk.
I don't know... my baseline assumption is the Senate will defer to the President's picks.
Just don't know R Senate dynamics well enough to know strong his 29 votes are. We'll see if there's now a whisper campaign to sabotage Gaetz on the right to give him cover to push back to Pres. I assume no; but that would happen first - not Thune making some Olympic stand on Day 1.
Eh, there's a pretty widely known Scientific hypothesis (esp in Farm/Organic circles) that possibly some of our autoimmune (and other) issues come from an excessive sanitation 'problem'. That's probably why he mentions 'inoculating himself' and why having dirty hands is a sign of health -- metaphorically and scientifically. Generally, though, you still avoid pissing on your hands.
Personally I wouldn't shake his hand because after three marriages and however many affairs, I doubt he's a trustworthy guy.
---
"Exposure to environmental microbes, including those found in soil, plays a significant role in the development and regulation of the human immune system. This concept is central to the "hygiene hypothesis," which suggests that reduced exposure to diverse microorganisms may contribute to the rise in allergic and autoimmune diseases."
"Mr Hegseth later told USA Today that his remarks were intended to be a joke.
"We live in a society where people walk around with bottles of Purell (a hand sanitiser) in their pockets, and they sanitise 19,000 times a day as if that's going to save their life," he said.
"I take care of myself and all that, but I don't obsess over everything all the time."
Eh, some depts. you might be able to 'shake-up' a bit with some fresh ideas and energy. I seriously doubt DoD is one of them (that's polite for impossible). Even the ones that might be subject to 'revitalization' are not going to vitalize all that much in a 1-4 yr horizon. Civil Service reform is a generational project.
Plus, it depends on what the actual 'strategery' here is... I haven't seen anything about the grand plan for DoD yet -- just the pick. Is there a grand strategy?
On the other hand, if Trump seriously is going after Dept Ed (for example)... I wouldn't discount the 'comedic effect' of having Musk/Vivek with inside access to Ed meetings/comms etc. and having the teams to expose (selectively, of course) the reasons the GenPub would want to see Ed dispersed.
Like most things, it comes down to execution; and based on the last go-round, I'm not particularly impressed by Trump's ability to execute... but this time is new.
The first part of his 'Wikipedia CV' reminds you of that really interesting Special Teams Coach that might just make a good head coach some day. Some team might take a gamble on him and win/lose bigly.
The second part of his 'Wikipedia CV' reminds you of the Special Teams Coach who was too good looking to waste his time learning what it would take to become a good head coach some day, so he went into broadcasting.
DoD is tough; not sure I'd gamble on a pick like this... he was rumored for Veterans Affairs last time -- that seems about right.
Yeah, I don't recall Nixon, Ford, or Carter ever saying anything... seemed mostly the big Federalists/Anti-Federalists, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, T.Roosevelt and FDR... not sure if Eisenhower said anything ... oh, and probably Kennedy but that was last one.
Of course, this is from a 45 yr memory, so I'm likely leaving out some McKinley bon mots and what not.
But I don't think there was any particular expectation that the latest one should be featured or say anything... would've been kinda weird, given that the new guys were still alive to say actual things.
Back in the 70s the HoP was lowkey kind of a big deal -- it's one of my better memories of the various Disney trips -- partly because it was air conditioned and gave you a 30 minute break -- but it always kinda tied the Disney experience back to America past and present... it was very on-brand: Fort Wilderness, Frontierland, to Tomorrowland and Progress. Disney's future was always an American future.
Things 'as they are' are inconsistent across 50 states.
Nothing matters for *this* election... I have no predictions or dire forecasts.
My position is longstanding and pre-dates 2020... I think the US ought to invest in a re-assessment of voting procedures to update some with modern conveniences while moderating others that are out of whack with design requirements (i.e. Neutral and Safe) and to help some states get out from under accretions of idiosyncratic voting regulations that can only be undone under a larger (bipartisan) umbrella.
It's a project, not a response to any one particular thing.
That isn't how you build systems, though. If your failure mode is right there in the design, but it only fails catastrophically when it fails catastrophically, it still fails in exactly the way you designed it (and maybe in a couple ways you didn't design).
As I mention in the first post... high trust/high collaboration is an assumption we should not take as baseline.
Sure... no reason not to. I'd want to see better process controls over the rolls and who's voted so far -- not to mention a good system for pre-counting (or not pre-counting?) that has 0% chance of leaking prior to election day?
I've seen a suggestion that the following day should be 'National Counting Day' and I have a notion that it's good in theory, but could see issues with leaky counts and an overwhelming need to predict the winner on exit polls alone... but hey, throw it in the mix.
"Justify requiring those states to maintain a second poorer-performing parallel precinct system"
Fair enough... it solves for only one vector of a problem - how to make voting ubiquitous, easy and provide a secure audit trail.
It doesn't solve for how do you provide a neutral and protected space to cast a vote.
You could, perhaps, double down on ubiquitous by removing some of the easy by requiring uploading some version of testing software that interacts with phones/cameras to prove that the Ballot is cast without interference. For example.
Again, I refer back to the DNC sponsored commercial... what if the worm turned and the DNC sponsered a commercial showing how women (or Men, pace InMD) are forced to fill out their mail-in ballot under the oppressive eye of their spouse. [or employer, or union, or precinct warden, or...]
I'm sure you're right... but honestly, I think your state is going too far in the other direction.
"Some of the latter group actually discourage, at least indirectly, in-person voting. My state is one of those, with warnings that in-person election-day voting may require a lengthy drive and long wait."
But that's part of the point of the project... elections across 50 states require adequate funding and tooling and training plus some flexibility unique to various contingencies -- but within certain parameters.
In the best possible scenario it's a national unity project which will get buy-in from the vast majority -- even as it gores various oxen from place to place.
Strikes me more as something that might happen after Trump passes from the stage, but perhaps not before the left also has occasion to become election deniers anew.
Oh, right, I sometimes forget the perqs of being the odd Catholic Distributist Crank that no one gets or takes seriously. Some of you have reputations to uphold.
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/11/2024”
But why? As BB says above, there's a good chance that most of the change will be a net increase.
So you're making a completely unnecessary ideological point that makes your preferred policy *less* likely to be supported -- and provides no particular gain rather than trading for a policy almost no or limited cost?
Additionally, while it may be a net benefit, there really are losers in some cases -- so providing some sort of protection in exchange for removing veto's and/or moving the zoning process up a layer to states is precisely the point.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Castlevania (Remembered)”
Yep, Path of Exile... free to play. It started as a Diablo II successor, but has evolved into a much better Diablo II and a much better Diablo.
https://www.pathofexile.com/game (can also get it on steam, if preferred)
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/11/2024”
Don't actually see it as a bribe; Govt. created various zones that become market inputs and influence decisions and allocation of resources.
If Govt. changes the rules that negatively impact previous decisions, it is good policy to mitigate the negative impacts on some so that they are freer to make those changes that benefit the larger portion (hopefully).
It's actually a good use of Govt. resources.
As far as I can tell, there isn't an actual Red/Blue split on the issue... I see as much, if not more NIMBY in Blue areas than Red. As I say, I think it's a valid calculus that people make, and the way to overcome the most valid objection is to recognize that some YIMBY choices will in fact harm some individuals and the party changing the terms of the original agreement ought to compensate the injured party.
The thing is, if the YIMBY assumptions are true, and most people will see increases in value then when they sell, the Govt. will see a gain in revenue from increasing those values (if we employ a semi-Georgist approach). Hence, it isn't bribery, it's the other side of making 21st century policy. Things we couldn't imagine doing in 1980 with primitive computers are now 'trivially' easy (from a technology point of view).
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Castlevania (Remembered)”
OMG, you kids and your fancy graphics... I remember when Castlevania was green stick figure men shooting Na*is with 45* firing vectors. And we liked it. Oh, wait, that was Castle Wolfenstein - get off my lawn.
I'm currently angry at the ARPG Game developers; feel my wrath. Diablo IV is just plain bad... too many skills on really long timers... dumb dumb dumb.
Last Epoch had a really strong release, but hasn't been able to keep up with the 3-4 month update/release cycle that's required to bring back players... so it's just grinding gears hoping its delays will see people return.
Speaking of Grinding Gears, I *should* be playing the PoE2 early release right now... but they delayed it because the realized that one of their Original Day1 plans of Account cross-over for Micro Transactions wasn't going to work. So they pushed it back to Dec6. They then pushed out the patch to update all of the Account code, and crashed PoE1, so they rolled it back. Turns out that in unifying all the Accounts across all the platforms, they were going to have to append three digits to everyone's name -- naturally there is more than one Legolas, not to mention xLegolas or xLegolasx or xxLegolasxx or, well you get the picture. Anyhow, according to the post mortem, if the old Charater limit was 24, they forgot to update that number to 27 *and* that part of the code was deployed without some sort of fault toleration (devs prob know what this means) and once one name failed, the entire section failed which caused the game to fail.
So, anyway, I'm still not testing PoE 2 *and* my confidence in the new game continues to erode; I'll definitely give it a go as PoE is the best game out there right now -- but from what I've watched, they aren't fixing PoE1 and making it better, they are making a different game that the Devs think is better than PoE2 -- and in my experience, Devs making new things because they are bored with the old have about a 25% success rate. I'm low-key expecting a big failure primarily because they have adopted WASD movement... and, well, WASD movement isn't ARPG, it's a Souls game.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Garlic (Specifically Toom)”
Got back from our Cruise vacation and almost immediately had to go to NYC for business meeting; got to see a Ranger's game in MSG as a 'team building' exercise though.
I'm way behind on Hunting this season and should be going out today... but after the travel I feel kinda drained... so might just veg in front of College Football games and the 'puter.
Fun fact about the cruise... Hurricane Rafael formed in the western Caribbean (our destination) and the Greek Captain simply sailed us right across it's path north of Cuba when it was hitting the Caymans; then we sailed behind it one day later and stopped at the Caymans. Calm seas and no rain (other than the usual SUNSHINE RAIN ANGRY RAIN SUNSHINE you get in those parts)... Caymans were fine - it was just a little hurricane. Lady Marchmaine got to swim with the Turtles on Grand Cayman which was a highlight for her and had been a minor source of anxiety watching the Hurricane reports leading up to and during the Cruise.
"
I'd throw a little Tahini in it... ride that garlic bomb all the way to the ground - now with 30% more umami!
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/11/2024”
There's probably a rarely read Econ dissertation out there about this, but one thing I've wondered that YIMBY's never propose is to protect (or at least mitigate) NIMBY's from economic harm.
NIMBY's win because the loss aversion is stronger than the potential benefit *and* the losses could be very particular, even if the benefits are general. So the NIMBY position is both rational and widespread.
One way to mitigate this would be some sort of Property Value protection -- could be Govt. funded, Market based, or both. Basically, your investment (and growth) is protected and should YIMBY policies tank your particular investment, you are made whole by the insurance program. It takes the primary loss aversion off the table, which then leaves the much weaker aesthetic concerns such as: I grew up here; or I like this shady boulevard and can't find an exact match near work; or I can't afford the craftsman houses in the good part of town, and they don't make craftsman houses the way they used to, etc. etc.
There's all sorts of 'mathy' things you could do to make this revenue neutral -- that is, a semi-Georgist principle that losses are covered, but 25% (50%? 75%?) of the gains from YIMBY policies are collected as a tax upon sale... and so forth.
But simply trying to sell YIMBYism as a collective good (or some sort of moral imperative) when in any one particular instance it can be a individual bad is why YIMBY's don't make progress. Pool the gains and insure the risk.
"
I don't know... my baseline assumption is the Senate will defer to the President's picks.
Just don't know R Senate dynamics well enough to know strong his 29 votes are. We'll see if there's now a whisper campaign to sabotage Gaetz on the right to give him cover to push back to Pres. I assume no; but that would happen first - not Thune making some Olympic stand on Day 1.
But seriously, Gaetz?
"
Ok, that's batsh*t insane.
"
Eh, there's a pretty widely known Scientific hypothesis (esp in Farm/Organic circles) that possibly some of our autoimmune (and other) issues come from an excessive sanitation 'problem'. That's probably why he mentions 'inoculating himself' and why having dirty hands is a sign of health -- metaphorically and scientifically. Generally, though, you still avoid pissing on your hands.
Personally I wouldn't shake his hand because after three marriages and however many affairs, I doubt he's a trustworthy guy.
---
"Exposure to environmental microbes, including those found in soil, plays a significant role in the development and regulation of the human immune system. This concept is central to the "hygiene hypothesis," which suggests that reduced exposure to diverse microorganisms may contribute to the rise in allergic and autoimmune diseases."
https://www.immunology.theclinics.com/article/S0889-8561(05)00013-5/abstract
https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-015-0306-7
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.615192/full
"
Agree on DeVos -- she did a lot of things that really helped education beyond just the Public Schools -- especially during Covid.
Also agree that I'd take the 'under' on pretty much all of his picks and initiatives if I had to bet on them.
Then again, I'd probably lose on some of those 'under' picks, but I'm not entirely sure which ones.
"
dude... I clicked on the link:
"Mr Hegseth later told USA Today that his remarks were intended to be a joke.
"We live in a society where people walk around with bottles of Purell (a hand sanitiser) in their pockets, and they sanitise 19,000 times a day as if that's going to save their life," he said.
"I take care of myself and all that, but I don't obsess over everything all the time."
"
"At Eton they taught us to wash our hands after using the toilet"
"At Harrow they taught us not to piss on our hands"
"
Eh, some depts. you might be able to 'shake-up' a bit with some fresh ideas and energy. I seriously doubt DoD is one of them (that's polite for impossible). Even the ones that might be subject to 'revitalization' are not going to vitalize all that much in a 1-4 yr horizon. Civil Service reform is a generational project.
Plus, it depends on what the actual 'strategery' here is... I haven't seen anything about the grand plan for DoD yet -- just the pick. Is there a grand strategy?
"
On the one hand, obviously.
On the other hand, if Trump seriously is going after Dept Ed (for example)... I wouldn't discount the 'comedic effect' of having Musk/Vivek with inside access to Ed meetings/comms etc. and having the teams to expose (selectively, of course) the reasons the GenPub would want to see Ed dispersed.
Like most things, it comes down to execution; and based on the last go-round, I'm not particularly impressed by Trump's ability to execute... but this time is new.
"
Never heard of the Hegseth guy.
The first part of his 'Wikipedia CV' reminds you of that really interesting Special Teams Coach that might just make a good head coach some day. Some team might take a gamble on him and win/lose bigly.
The second part of his 'Wikipedia CV' reminds you of the Special Teams Coach who was too good looking to waste his time learning what it would take to become a good head coach some day, so he went into broadcasting.
DoD is tough; not sure I'd gamble on a pick like this... he was rumored for Veterans Affairs last time -- that seems about right.
"
Yeah, I don't recall Nixon, Ford, or Carter ever saying anything... seemed mostly the big Federalists/Anti-Federalists, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, T.Roosevelt and FDR... not sure if Eisenhower said anything ... oh, and probably Kennedy but that was last one.
Of course, this is from a 45 yr memory, so I'm likely leaving out some McKinley bon mots and what not.
But I don't think there was any particular expectation that the latest one should be featured or say anything... would've been kinda weird, given that the new guys were still alive to say actual things.
"
Back in the 70s the HoP was lowkey kind of a big deal -- it's one of my better memories of the various Disney trips -- partly because it was air conditioned and gave you a 30 minute break -- but it always kinda tied the Disney experience back to America past and present... it was very on-brand: Fort Wilderness, Frontierland, to Tomorrowland and Progress. Disney's future was always an American future.
On “What If Kamala Wins?”
Things 'as they are' are inconsistent across 50 states.
Nothing matters for *this* election... I have no predictions or dire forecasts.
My position is longstanding and pre-dates 2020... I think the US ought to invest in a re-assessment of voting procedures to update some with modern conveniences while moderating others that are out of whack with design requirements (i.e. Neutral and Safe) and to help some states get out from under accretions of idiosyncratic voting regulations that can only be undone under a larger (bipartisan) umbrella.
It's a project, not a response to any one particular thing.
"
That isn't how you build systems, though. If your failure mode is right there in the design, but it only fails catastrophically when it fails catastrophically, it still fails in exactly the way you designed it (and maybe in a couple ways you didn't design).
As I mention in the first post... high trust/high collaboration is an assumption we should not take as baseline.
"
Sure... no reason not to. I'd want to see better process controls over the rolls and who's voted so far -- not to mention a good system for pre-counting (or not pre-counting?) that has 0% chance of leaking prior to election day?
I've seen a suggestion that the following day should be 'National Counting Day' and I have a notion that it's good in theory, but could see issues with leaky counts and an overwhelming need to predict the winner on exit polls alone... but hey, throw it in the mix.
"
"Justify requiring those states to maintain a second poorer-performing parallel precinct system"
Fair enough... it solves for only one vector of a problem - how to make voting ubiquitous, easy and provide a secure audit trail.
It doesn't solve for how do you provide a neutral and protected space to cast a vote.
You could, perhaps, double down on ubiquitous by removing some of the easy by requiring uploading some version of testing software that interacts with phones/cameras to prove that the Ballot is cast without interference. For example.
Again, I refer back to the DNC sponsored commercial... what if the worm turned and the DNC sponsered a commercial showing how women (or Men, pace InMD) are forced to fill out their mail-in ballot under the oppressive eye of their spouse. [or employer, or union, or precinct warden, or...]
"
I'm sure you're right... but honestly, I think your state is going too far in the other direction.
"Some of the latter group actually discourage, at least indirectly, in-person voting. My state is one of those, with warnings that in-person election-day voting may require a lengthy drive and long wait."
But that's part of the point of the project... elections across 50 states require adequate funding and tooling and training plus some flexibility unique to various contingencies -- but within certain parameters.
In the best possible scenario it's a national unity project which will get buy-in from the vast majority -- even as it gores various oxen from place to place.
Strikes me more as something that might happen after Trump passes from the stage, but perhaps not before the left also has occasion to become election deniers anew.
"
Heh, this is the meanest thing you've ever written.
"reasonable Republicans like the Cheneys, the Kristols, and the Frums"
"
Oh, right, I sometimes forget the perqs of being the odd Catholic Distributist Crank that no one gets or takes seriously. Some of you have reputations to uphold.