Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

i hope not.

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

kind of surprised administration flunkies aren’t hawking tawking points about how interest rates are rising because markets can anticipate the huge boom the president’s policies will bring, but stocks are down because tariffs will cut into Wall Street fat cat margins.

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

so it becomes move fast and break everything…

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

the thing about Chris Rufo is, okay, there were Institutions he didn’t like. i get it. we all have institutions we don’t like that are nevertheless “important”, so seem oppressive. 1/

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

he could have, like, built new ones! tried to compete! persuaded people his were better! he’s good at getting millions and millions from Ron DeSantis and ideological fellow travelers. 2/

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

but he knows his positive program is paper thin. it could never compete. so he takes over institutions other people built, runs them into the dust but lives for a brief while off the inertial reputation and prestige that were the life’s work of other people. /fin

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

some of us might describe this as the work of the “neo” prefix liberalism picked up for a while. if you let liberalism collapse into exaltation of market logics, then you sell out when the price is right.

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

“move fast and break things” is good strategy to gain first-mover advantage in winner-take-all markets. it’s not a good strategy for developing high quality goods. (winner-take-all markets do not reliably reward quality. they reward speed, subject to some minimal quality constraint.)

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

it’s weird how the mishandling of COVID is so many people’s excuse for supporting the guy who mishandled COVID.

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

no source of authority beyond a boot or a rifle, is what they are after. because they can persuade no one, but they know how to stomp.

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

is there a more banality-of-evil phrase than "ICE quota"?

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

i mean, how does reducing civilian deaths "facilitate lethality"?

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

right. the US in Indochina and Korea was pretty awful about this stuff! we had, in recent memory, fought and won a "total war", whose totality seemed to leave little moral stain. that taught our military bad lessons. "Vietnam syndrome" taught different lessons. that made a real difference!

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

was just today discussing that exceptional scrupularity. on the one hand, these were awful wars, lots of death and destruction! on the hand, i maintain there is a real difference in character between the US in those wars and Russia or Israel. (but drone assassinations were a moral calamity!)

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

"His entire project has been that of imposing strict limits on the remedial power of the courts." I am haunted by this piece by @hurricanexyz.bsky.social on John Roberts eveningconstitutional.net/john-roberts... 1/

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

Often he works in increments but the direction, even today, is less relief than if he had never interceded. /fin

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

if they openly “ask”, and the Salvadorean government says “no”, then they claim exerting pressure on this “helpful, friendly partner” would be contrary to US foreign policy interests, are they in contempt? if “effectuate” is too strong, what obligation does the government actually have?

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

death cult. ht @hyperplanes.bsky.social @lethalityjane.bsky.social

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

📌

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

i don’t understand how US firms can continue to enable and offer for download Tiktok once the 90-day extension foreseen by the law potentially banning the service (and already an overstretch in its application) has passed. (this is independent of any views on whether that law was a good idea.)

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

you can just do things. stupid things.

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

policy uncertainty is a non-tariff barrier.

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

when norm violations become the norm, then whatever they are they are not norm violations.