iNow

Are you unfamiliar with how to use google?

Oh, so for you the swelling was in your foot! That’s weird. 😂

QFT

Meanwhile, in the USA

It feels a bit like we’re getting closer to World War 3, but I suspect we’d actually be fighting it with ourselves… against our neighbors. It’s no longer about national borders and has shifted instead to which version of truth and reality you align with. And it’s clearly not an issue limited to just the US.

My in laws do this every holiday (or did until we began hosting). Shredded carrots and mandarin oranges are common. Not horrible honestly, but my wife’s grandmother does this and also adds marshmallows. Not at all a fan, but where I really draw the line is when they put miracle whip and black walnuts into a bowl of sliced apples (a bit like a Waldorf salad which is also hate). I gag every time I try it, and I’ll eat damned near anything. 😂 Years of experience and massive college parties with my roommates confirms it’s much better done with Everclear (a high ACV grain alcohol with little if any flavor for my friends across ponds).

I tend to agree. Just a few days ago, I shared this thought elsewhere (a thought which you’ve just reminded me of): “I sometimes wonder if the steady decline in religiosity these last several years has also caused folks to seek out other sources of religious / faith based thinking with fantastical impossible to believe stories (like QAnon).”

Well, and also Putin may be the richest man in the world but appears on none of those lists. He also is often likely deserving of the “evil” moniker I previously admonished others for using.

Traits that have been with us since before the times we were living in trees are still present and being supercharged. We naturally listen to those we consider to be "like us." This has helped us survive for millions of years... listen to the parent not to eat that poisonous plant. Listen to the grandpa not to get too close to that lion... listen to the tribal elder to prepare in fall for the coming winter. These tendencies to listen to those trusted group members around us helped us survive. But that was at a time when we were only surrounded by 5-15 people. The closest neighboring tribe was several days walk away. Us / them mattered as that other neighboring tribe likely wanted to harm us, steal our things, and force procreate with our daughters. Today, however, we're exposed to hundreds of millions of people all at once. We self-select into tribes which we consider to be "like us," and the concept of verifiable reality shared by the masses has taken a backseat as compared to the need to align with powerful groups like us and virtue signal to them that we are "pure" and that we "belong" and it's all fed by a very real and very powerful desire (one which has helped us survive for millions of years) to simply not get ostracized from the group around us.

This is a valid point, but tangential from what I intended to suggest. Yes, if we make it easy to steal then more people will steal... It's why we lock our doors at night. It's not like a door lock makes our homes impenetrable, but that little extra difficulty is usually just enough to prevent those who normally wouldn't engage in such behaviors from stepping out of line. However, my point was directed more at the publics response toward the ultra wealthy. All the energy gets spent on calling them evil and creating signs saying things like, "Eat the rich!" etc. Now, we definitely should be doing a better job of taxing them, and I have no problem with signs saying, "Tax the rich!," but my point was ... focus more on fixing policy and less on the "burn them at the stake" and mob rule / torches and pitchforks mentality.

Oh. Oh, good. Back to yachts then. Super.

Depends on what metrics you use to measure ethicality

There are several parallel issues here. One is that wealth acquired by the ultra wealthy tends to get put into tax shelters and nebulous investments so it grows (but remains outside the system), whereas that same money in the hands of the less fortunate goes IMMEDIATELY into the community around them. They spend it on groceries and vehicle repairs and school clothes for kids and paying the electricity bill so it’s not dark in their apartment anymore at night and their kids can read. The providers of those goods and services in that community where this money is being spent ALSO spend the money once received for THEIR groceries and THEIR service needs and on THEIR kids. Dollar for dollar / unit for unit… the money in the hands of the less fortunate does more net good than money in the hands of the already fortunate. Yes, spending from the wealthy also creates jobs and injects money back into the system, but very little relative to money used in “trickle up” stimulation packages. Also, a bit of extra money in the hands of someone who already has a bunch of it doesn’t tend to change their behavior or encourage extra spending. Getting $1,000 tax break when you’re sitting on $50M isn’t going to suddenly result in them finally making a call to a plumber or the purchasing a new dishwasher… but for the person living paycheck to paycheck that money literally changes lives, gets spent and injected back into the system quickly, and results in lasting reductions in poverty and suffering. When you’re living at the margins, every dollar counts. It also costs a lot to be poor. When the washing machine breaks, you can’t afford a new one but you can afford to pump quarters into the machine at the laundromat… but that ends up being more expensive on net. When the car breaks down, you don’t get to work on time and you get fired. The rich, however, have tax protected ways of growing their wealth and can afford tax attorneys to hide it. Paying more tax has more impact on their ego than on their lived experience. The anger at the rich is out of hand, though. We need better policies and enforcement mechanisms, not more hate and vitriol directed at those doing better than us. Sadly, the anger is probably in large part intentionally being amplified by the very people on the receiving end. If they can keep everyone mad and focused on the wrong things, then the status quo remains stable and no progress or change gets made. Like most issues in economics, we make a huge mistake by treating it as a moral failure when at its core it’s a policy failure. Fixing the policy is just super hard because the people with the power to change the laws tend to be the same ones benefiting the most from them… and also because focusing on wonky policy details is hard for a public who’s often just trying to survive through to tomorrow and who’d much prefer throwing stones and being distracted with us/them tribalism. Perhaps this thread could try focusing on wonky policy details instead of distractions like yachts and steel boats… or not.

It’s your hand you want her to hold, eh? Hmm. Ok.

I don’t care. I mostly just stopped reading

In a weird way, Peterkin is trollish, but in a way that’s polite enough to avoid banning, but who simultaneously hijacks and needlessly spins wheels in nearly every thread he joins. High post count, low post quality… net drain instead of net add in discussions #shotsfired #meta

Yes, and we’ve learned a lot in the intervening 60 years… like how to use a computer to correct for these things Jealousy is a cruel mistress

The thing I hate most about this effort is I’m not one of the folks onboard.

Pretty sure we had this same conversation about 6 years ago, but for purposes of this thread it suffices to say that it wasn’t debt. Summarized: It was forcing them to implement austerity from the outside when they needed the opposite. It was also a refusal to let them move to their own currency to make improving revenues more possible. Finally, the situation was made worse than it needed to be bc folks kept treating it as a moral / political issue instead of an economic one.

So, too much spending from world governments leads to copious enjoyment of baklava and saganaki and sips of ouzo while viewing beautiful sea vistas and ancient sculptures? Seriously… That sounds lovely. Either governments need to hurry up and start doing more debt spending, or you need to be ever so slightly more specific. Greece’s economy tanked bc of rampant tax evasion and lost revenues experienced in parallel with not having their own currency to adjust. It was made worse by the fact that they were far less productive in terms of foods and services relative to other nations also using that same one currency…. Then when a bailout was ultimately offered to save them, they refused to adhere to the conditions set forth for receiving those funds. That’s not a problem stemming from debt. It’s from fraud, hubris, and gross incompetence.

And this is in any way whatsoever relevant to my point in the text you quoted… how exactly?

Most of the best engineers and experts I’ve known over the decades have been those best familiar with history and the humanities.

Seek mental help. You won’t get what you need on an online discussion forum. Explore these ideas with a mental health professional. We’ll all be better for it if you do.

Of course. You’re suggesting some areas of study are more valuable than others. I’m asking you who you think should get to decide which to direct student traffic into and which to cull.

Such as?