*shrug* this is the world that a lot of people wanted. "if you have the Wrong Politics you should be punished", that's what we heard was Good, that's what we heard Ought To Happen.
I guess it sucks that the Wrong Politics turned out to be different from what everyone expected but, well, maybe next time it'll be your turn to call the tune.
Or we could have just not given the government such power to fuck with your life, but I guess that's just the sadistic racist transphobic conservative in me talking.
"If academia is full of a bunch of out-of-touch liberal elites, why do we want them debating medical treatments?! "
And yet if they have the Wrong Opinion regarding these treatments then that's terribly important and we need to make sure everyone knows about it (and punishes them for it).
Although you're right, in a sense, that this isn't debate; it's more of an excommunication for profession of heresy.
"In that vein, Scott Alexander asks: What Happened To NAEP Scores?"
I have a feeling this is like "life expectancy statistics", which don't calculate "how long are you statistically likely to live" but rather "how many people similar to you died before we did this calculation", which doesn't actually say anything about you personally.
One of the things that occurs to me is that the kind of people who say they don't mind a two-day train trip are the same kind of people who consider "sit on the couch browsing social media for eighteen hours" to be a useful day spent.
Exercising cancellation provisions does require payments for work ordered (as well as the creation and execution of wind-down plans) so it's different from "WE SAVED ALL Y'ALL A ZILLION DOLLARS, (trumpet fanfare)"
It's the same deal as people who watch Judge Judy and think they know how to handle a courtroom (or think they know everything about business negotiation because they watched "Shark Tank" a whole bunch of times).
Yes, that's the chief argument against strategic missile defense; that it's actually destabilizing because a defended nation can survive a counterstrike and therefore has no incentive not to attack (or, more correctly and as the story points out, it makes the undefended nation think that the defended nation could survive and therefore has no incentive not to attack, and that the only logical responses are immediate capitulation or an immediate all-out attack in hopes of catching the defended nation before its defenses are fully operational.)
The same criticism on a smaller scale was applied to Israel's Iron Dome, the idea being that the only thing stopping Israel rolling over Gaza was the threat of a mass rocket attack, and that Iron Dome negating that rocket attack meant it was only Israel's daily choice to not attack that kept Gaza in existence. (which...yeah, turns out that was exactly how it worked!)
Like, if Trump were announcing "we're going to develop a missile defense system and we're also going to eliminate our strategic nuclear arsenal", that's one thing, but he is very much not saying that.
(I'm not super worried because the reasons Strategic Missile Defense didn't work in the 60s and didn't work in the 80s still apply, and all Trumps' idea will do is spend another few billion dollars confirming it.)
"But, as one example, health care reform – done right – is genuinely unifying. If you can combine reformist fervor with technocratic competence and deliver a health plan that works, people will want at least that part of what you’re selling."
The problem here is, what's "health care", what's "reform", and what's "done right"?
Or, rather, the problem is "when you've decided on the definitions of 'health care' and 'reform' and 'done right', what do you tell the people who think that you haven't gone far enough in their preferred direction"? If there's someone who will die without Treatment X and your reform plan won't pay for Treatment X, how do you handle that?
And, it's a problem that Democrats don't seem to have any interest in solving in general. Their answer to "how do you deal with that" is similar to their answer to "how do you handle right-wing criticism", which is to scoff derisively at the notion that anyone might not think your idea is the best one.
"Set those folks at $100,000 apiece (probably lowballing, you pay intelligence assets well so they don’t defect), and you’ve saved 10 million dollars. Ca-ching!"
...you do need to re-hire people to replace them, Kim. The work doesn't stop needing to be done just because you got your rocks off.
(There's a lot of sailors who don't really have a job until a Kh-22 hits the engine room. Until then, they mostly just polish decks and iron uniforms.)
"What is this conversation _even about_? What is the point you think you are making?"
That all the various Really Rotten Things will be reverted as soon as someone finds out about them, except for DEI stuff which is all that Trump voters really cared about anyway?
That hardly seems like a controversial take or something that should trigger you.
In 2022 I said "the endgame for this is that Russia gets the land bridge to Crimea that was their original goal, and the rest of the fighting is just about exactly how much of a salient there will be in Northeastern Ukraine", and nothing about that has changed so far, and nothing about it seems like it's going to short of Ukraine somehow generating a Clone Army.
Scientists: "why would dolphins do this?"
Literally Any Guy: "I know exactly why dolphins would do this."
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dolphin-aerial-urine-behavior
"And any part of it that that industry would object to, like a public option, was off the table to start to start with."
the public option was in the bill until they needed one more Democrat vote (Lieberman).
"But there have been massive problems that absolutely no one has tackled that would be incredibly popular, but there are large entrenched interests sitting opposed to."
so healthcare reform was a massive problem that nobody had tackled that would be incredibly popular, but there were large entrenched interests sitting opposed to tackling it, and the Democrats under Obama finally got around to tackling it, and their method of tackling was to give the large entrenched interests a massive revenue guarantee, and you see that as a good thing? (Like, those were your words, "a good thing", I didn't make up that you said that.)
Or maybe I misunderstand who you think the "large entrenched interests" were in this case.
"[T]he Republicans blocking the way cannot explain why they do not get out there and try..."
Because they don't think it's a problem that doctoring costs what it costs.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/24/25”
Harry gay?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxrWuE5qC5c
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/17/25”
*shrug* this is the world that a lot of people wanted. "if you have the Wrong Politics you should be punished", that's what we heard was Good, that's what we heard Ought To Happen.
I guess it sucks that the Wrong Politics turned out to be different from what everyone expected but, well, maybe next time it'll be your turn to call the tune.
Or we could have just not given the government such power to fuck with your life, but I guess that's just the sadistic racist transphobic conservative in me talking.
"
"“How is radio astronomy Marxist?” is a question that I can’t imagine any government spokesperson answering well."
Oh, is that what they mean when they talk about Fully Automated Space Luxury Communisum?
On “Spaghetti on the Wall: Autopens and Out to Lunch Presidents”
"not only did that take over the Open Mic, but now we have an actual front page article on it."
Write a post of your own, then.
Or maybe just run away and never ever come back here. I promise that we will miss you a whole lot.
On “From The New York Times Editorial Board: The Authoritarian Endgame on Higher Education”
"If academia is full of a bunch of out-of-touch liberal elites, why do we want them debating medical treatments?! "
And yet if they have the Wrong Opinion regarding these treatments then that's terribly important and we need to make sure everyone knows about it (and punishes them for it).
Although you're right, in a sense, that this isn't debate; it's more of an excommunication for profession of heresy.
"
" Transition would imply you change when you do it, which…would have people flipping back and forth every time they took a pill? What?"
So what are the pills for, then?
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Gems in the Steam Spring Sale”
All the good use cases for AI/ChatGPT seem to be the kind of Intelligent Assistant things that they imagined we'd have back in the late 1990s.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/10/25”
"In that vein, Scott Alexander asks: What Happened To NAEP Scores?"
I have a feeling this is like "life expectancy statistics", which don't calculate "how long are you statistically likely to live" but rather "how many people similar to you died before we did this calculation", which doesn't actually say anything about you personally.
On “Of Amtrak, AI, and Arguing About Trains on the Interwebs”
One of the things that occurs to me is that the kind of people who say they don't mind a two-day train trip are the same kind of people who consider "sit on the couch browsing social media for eighteen hours" to be a useful day spent.
On “SCOTUS Does Not Exist to Please You, Especially Amy Coney Barrett”
Exercising cancellation provisions does require payments for work ordered (as well as the creation and execution of wind-down plans) so it's different from "WE SAVED ALL Y'ALL A ZILLION DOLLARS, (trumpet fanfare)"
On “The Real First 100 Days”
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*shrug* I remember 2008 when it was pretty clear that's the kind of thing people wanted from a President. Hope And Change, Yes We Can.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/3/2025”
Or you could just ban people.
"
These posts should be shut off, because they're just doomscrolling at this point.
On “Group Activity: President Donald Trump Address to Congress”
was that actually Kim?!
"
It's the same deal as people who watch Judge Judy and think they know how to handle a courtroom (or think they know everything about business negotiation because they watched "Shark Tank" a whole bunch of times).
"
Yes, that's the chief argument against strategic missile defense; that it's actually destabilizing because a defended nation can survive a counterstrike and therefore has no incentive not to attack (or, more correctly and as the story points out, it makes the undefended nation think that the defended nation could survive and therefore has no incentive not to attack, and that the only logical responses are immediate capitulation or an immediate all-out attack in hopes of catching the defended nation before its defenses are fully operational.)
The same criticism on a smaller scale was applied to Israel's Iron Dome, the idea being that the only thing stopping Israel rolling over Gaza was the threat of a mass rocket attack, and that Iron Dome negating that rocket attack meant it was only Israel's daily choice to not attack that kept Gaza in existence. (which...yeah, turns out that was exactly how it worked!)
Like, if Trump were announcing "we're going to develop a missile defense system and we're also going to eliminate our strategic nuclear arsenal", that's one thing, but he is very much not saying that.
(I'm not super worried because the reasons Strategic Missile Defense didn't work in the 60s and didn't work in the 80s still apply, and all Trumps' idea will do is spend another few billion dollars confirming it.)
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/3/2025”
"But, as one example, health care reform – done right – is genuinely unifying. If you can combine reformist fervor with technocratic competence and deliver a health plan that works, people will want at least that part of what you’re selling."
The problem here is, what's "health care", what's "reform", and what's "done right"?
Or, rather, the problem is "when you've decided on the definitions of 'health care' and 'reform' and 'done right', what do you tell the people who think that you haven't gone far enough in their preferred direction"? If there's someone who will die without Treatment X and your reform plan won't pay for Treatment X, how do you handle that?
And, it's a problem that Democrats don't seem to have any interest in solving in general. Their answer to "how do you deal with that" is similar to their answer to "how do you handle right-wing criticism", which is to scoff derisively at the notion that anyone might not think your idea is the best one.
On “Musk vs Gore”
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"Set those folks at $100,000 apiece (probably lowballing, you pay intelligence assets well so they don’t defect), and you’ve saved 10 million dollars. Ca-ching!"
...you do need to re-hire people to replace them, Kim. The work doesn't stop needing to be done just because you got your rocks off.
"
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(There's a lot of sailors who don't really have a job until a Kh-22 hits the engine room. Until then, they mostly just polish decks and iron uniforms.)
"
"What is this conversation _even about_? What is the point you think you are making?"
That all the various Really Rotten Things will be reverted as soon as someone finds out about them, except for DEI stuff which is all that Trump voters really cared about anyway?
That hardly seems like a controversial take or something that should trigger you.
On “Group Activity The Full, Unedited Trump, Zelenskyy, and Vance Video”
In 2022 I said "the endgame for this is that Russia gets the land bridge to Crimea that was their original goal, and the rest of the fighting is just about exactly how much of a salient there will be in Northeastern Ukraine", and nothing about that has changed so far, and nothing about it seems like it's going to short of Ukraine somehow generating a Clone Army.
"
Brother, if it's gonna be drugs, I think I'd rather go with coke (and get the Eighties) than Ketamine (and get the Twenties).
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/3/2025”
Scientists: "why would dolphins do this?"
Literally Any Guy: "I know exactly why dolphins would do this."
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dolphin-aerial-urine-behavior
"
Yes, well. not being "Republican Lite" hasn't seemed to be working for anybody, has it?
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/24/2025”
"And any part of it that that industry would object to, like a public option, was off the table to start to start with."
the public option was in the bill until they needed one more Democrat vote (Lieberman).
"But there have been massive problems that absolutely no one has tackled that would be incredibly popular, but there are large entrenched interests sitting opposed to."
so healthcare reform was a massive problem that nobody had tackled that would be incredibly popular, but there were large entrenched interests sitting opposed to tackling it, and the Democrats under Obama finally got around to tackling it, and their method of tackling was to give the large entrenched interests a massive revenue guarantee, and you see that as a good thing? (Like, those were your words, "a good thing", I didn't make up that you said that.)
Or maybe I misunderstand who you think the "large entrenched interests" were in this case.
"[T]he Republicans blocking the way cannot explain why they do not get out there and try..."
Because they don't think it's a problem that doctoring costs what it costs.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.