"The public sector can stop private risk aversion from disciplining necessary investments if it tries… a more democratically representative, state-directed financial system would channel investment instead based on what risks *not investing* poses to people’s material security." #AdvaitArun https://advaitarun.wordpress.com/2024/09/17/the-short-end-of-the-liquidity-stick/
[new draft post] Abundance is overcapacity https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/09/17/abundance-is-overcapacity/index.html
There are good-government cases against citizens' initiatives.
Representatives are supposed to be informed experts who do our policy work for us. Ballot proposals create immovable superlaw — often astroturfed by corporate interests, and voted on by rationally ignorant citizens. They foreclose important options of the legislature.
Yet the past few years have turned me into a citizens' initiative superfan. Legislatures are now gerrymandered, captured. We need the check.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/09/ohio-supreme-court-voter-fraud-gop.html
@csaltos if it's a malfunction they were able to exploit, I'm surprised it happened simultaneously enough that word wasn't able to get out. it's kind of extraordinary if a remote exploit could pretty reliably cause nearly every pager's battery to overheat to the point of explosion within minutes. but i guess it's possible! if that's the case, how much of our tech can be converted so effectively into bombs?
Pagers aren't usually bombs. So was this a supply chain attack? Were small bombs embedded in the pagers Hezbollah purchased, at the manufacturer or en route to end customers?
@andrei_chiffa (i think they are not willing to accept that, and are striving now to diversify away from such dependencies.)
when you find takes about your writing, both left and right, all over the internet, it just means you’ve gone chiral.
@louis the problem is we’ve developed a dependency on Musk’s companies, so withholding government contracts may not be a credible threat. 1/
@louis the kids may have developed a dependency on TikTok, but the consequences of forcing them to go cold turkey or to reels or whatever may be more tolerable than, say, our military losing communications infrastructure. 2/
@louis nationalizing the firms, or just more coercively forcing Musk’s divestiture, preserves the access we rely upon. it sets a precedent you might consider damaging or dangerous, but depending how it’s done, might usefully be a discouragement to monopoly. the only reason nationalization is on the table is because we lack alternative vendors. firms that want to avoid this risk can ensure their industries are structured more competitively. /fin
“Alternatively, we could nationalize Musk’s holdings and run national security from the government, in conjunction with private business, but not handing them the keys.” #ErikLoomis https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/09/the-inevitable-wage-of-neoliberalism
@mastodonmigration @pbump Gen Z men are kind of “normal”, relative to a shitty baseline.
But my oh my, Gen Z women just aren’t having it.
the Obama administration embraced Google as young, emancipatory, an opportunity. politicians of every stripe now treat Google as old, oppressive, an obscenity.
relatable, i suppose. even if well deserved.
A lesson of Uber is once they buy your vote, they can tax the bribe right back from you.
the cliché is that California is the poster child for bad governance in blue states, even though New York exists.
My housing policy in a sentence: Pursue greenfield development at very high densities, with the care and intelligence that desirable high density demands.
"[D]ivide most politicians into two broad categories: Enemies, and Cowards. [E]nemies are…opposed to your policy goals. [C]owards…agree with your…goals, but will sell you out…to protect their own interests. Embrace the idea that we are…pushing to elect…cowards, rather than…enemies. [T]he…work …is not to identify idealized superheroes to run for office [but] to create the conditions…that make it safe for the cowards to vote the right way." #HamiltonNolan https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/how-to-think-about-politics- ht @ryanlcooper
"There’s an old idea that elected governments are structurally biased toward deficits and generous social benefits. But it’s clear this is no longer true, if it ever was… I think both the broader recognition of hysteresis and chronic demand shortfalls in the 2010s, and the aggressive response to the pandemic in this decade, are positive lessons that need to be preserved and defended and built upon." @jwmason https://jwmason.org/slackwire/at-the-international-economy-low-interest-rates-were-ok/
a disadvantage of a two-party system is one would like to be able to shun and shame people who vote for fascist political parties, but that forecloses any meaningful democratic choice to those who would remain within the pale. it's better if those who opt out of democracy leave some for the rest of us.
“Is Laura Loomer the Jackie O America needs?”
“it’s raining cats and dogs!”
“manna from heaven!”
@andrei_chiffa DJI is a Chinese company. Regardless of American law, they have no power (other than their market power as a buyer) to force an ownership change. They do have recourse to finding or endowing alternative suppliers, which they are I believe working to do. However, an American supplier would present more options. The US state is certainly capable of forcing divestiture. Whether it would, or has given itself legal tools to do so, I don’t know.