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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • You’re saying “there’s a reason reputable economists say”, as if there aren’t reputable economists also saying something else, like “tariffs are a tool and predicting impact is difficult if not impossible due to complexity”. So, whats the point in mentioning that “reputable economists say” unless you’re pandering to an appeal to authority. Economists are just people and can make mistakes, entire groups of people like “reputable economists” can have the wrong ideas at the same time, or collectively jump to conclusions. I don’t care what economists say, I care about why they say it and if it makes sense. Your point is “there’s a reason why” and you load this with “reputable”. How do you qualify reputable and what is the reason they say? Could they be wrong and if not, why is there an economy at all?

    Engineers make mistakes all the time too. The idea that an engineer can’t be wrong about engineering and a layman can’t comprehend even intuitively understand engineering concepts is exactly what an appeal to authority is about.







  • I’m glad you started your dissertation with “the way you x is via y” because it immediately informed me that I was reading the work of an expert genius and as a smooth brain, when a genius writes, I read.

    One question, wouldn’t higher prices on imported cements sort of make local cements automatically cheaper, giving them an advantage without asking them to cut corners? In a free market you will often see a “race to the bottom” on goods, whereby manufactures and producers will cut costs so low that they lose money, so long as there is some other incentives that would lead to profit. Video game consoles are a common example. The console is sold at a loss with the expectation that they will make up the difference on the consumables, games and related services.

    If local competitors can produce for lower cost than competitors it may drive more people, who generally just want to save money, to local businesses, creating demand, driving growth.








  • I’m aware of rosy retrospection and declinism bias, I actually hated my childhood and I think about how amazing things now all the time. I use to deliver pizza with a paper map and no cell phone.

    Notice I didn’t say that we need to roll back to the 90’s. Tech is good, it feeds my family, but its not good for people in its current form. I’m reluctant to give my child access to computers and the internet, she’s only 2 now but her eyes sparkle when she sees a screen and as soon as we show her a video she goes from borderline adhd to comatose. Screens have a lot of power over peoples attention so we should be careful about what we put in them, for the well being of the end user.


  • The thing is, older people can remember what life was like before the younger people were born.

    For me, I had to find a playboy out in nature, which was like winning the lottery, or you had to know someone, which was weird. Nowadays you just google it and you can watch grandma scat porn on auto for days. As a fully grown adult I know which life was actually better, the one with less granny scat. I didn’t jerk off as much but I went outside and socialized with people and played hacky sack because that’s what my friends did or looked through their mtg cards, or waxed a curb and tried to pull off some rondey mullen shit.

    The internet as we know it and the world we built around it is not good for people, the kind of social media that we have is not good for people. I don’t think we need government regulations, in some ways sure, but what we really need is education and understanding. We need a pro-people movement that prioritizes quality of life in a meaningful way.