pc_edwin

tip of the iceberg..

There is a lot to cover and almost all of it is well hidden. Biggest culprits being the Ocean and dense unreachable forests.. Also there is the constant of change/time which has erased the vast majority of the past.

CFPB needs to be burned to the ground. How tf is this even constitutionally legal?

It doesn't matter what your political leanings are or what you think about the matter at hand. No agency should have the much power to be the judge jury and executioner. Oh and also to just write laws at a whim.

This is really not cool. I have no idea how anybody who calls them selves an American can be cool with this.

I guess the point is not some libertarian utopia, but rather to eliminate any and all institutions and mechanisms that fulfil this post WWII socialist idea of corrective redistribution.

We don't need to get into why this concept is deeply flawed both morally and structurally but if the following truths are reasonable:

- Not everybody is equal in terms of value output, importance to society and value deserved.

- The most important civilisation sustaining things exist at the tail end of distributions.

- As such these things should be held extremely high in society relative to everything else.

Then we can take these truths to make claims like "the CEO wallmart is worth more than thousands of employees combined" because the difference between a good CEO vs exceptional CEO is billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs (throughout the economy).. let alone a bad CEO.

In the same way, we can say the difference between a gifted person going deep into english literature vs the average person is massive. Does it really make sense for society to back the average person on this venture? Does it make sense for the person?

Without societies backing, it would've been nearly impossible for the average person to go into this world.

The key is average here, I'm incorrectly using the word. The lady in the article is clearly not average but is she exceptional? NOPE.

Why does her role exist, why are the such courses in such third their colleges? what happens to the students..

Thats the thing, there is no risk. No free market entity is going to write off tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on pretty much most 18 year olds.

Its almost entirely backed by the government in most western nations aka socialism.

In my alternative, we will eliminate government assistance for higher education almost entirely with the exception of highly gifted. Yes this is central planning but it is almost nothing compared to the monstrocity we have today.

The elephant in the room is the modern collectivist initiative of college/higher education for the common man. I don't how people don't see it, especially the HN crowd..

This article is shows only one of the smaller downstream consequences, it gets much worse. We are talking an entire generation indebted by trillions, entire areas of the economy with staff shortages, "highly credentialed" people working unrelated jobs etc etc

Colleges we always meant to a niche entity. Huge inequalities were not just optional downsides, rather they were structurally essential. Most people shouldn't go to college, most phds and professorhips shouldn't exist and most colleges shouldnt..

This is not a luddite take, i think these things actually should 100x but not like the way it is right now. The issue is socialism.

Government/non-profit funded high education should only be afforded to a very small subset of the population. The gifted.

Everything else should be private and amongst them most should be treated like trades/apprenticeship.

These ideas seem radical/ridiculous but most of what we think of high education these days are a consequences of extremely silly post WWII socialist policies.

I don't even have a massive problem with government funding either, this can be effective but not socalism, nothing like what we have now. More like military research during the WWWII and the early period of the cold war.

"recorded history".. glacial maximums and minimums..

Also would be very helpful to look at the worst case predictions and what that would entail hundred years down the line.

Its not cool but it really not that bad. Definitely not apocalyptic.

Its also worth it to consider whats the alternative because every version of an alternative is exponentially worse (communism and/or luddite primitive feudalism).

The British empire peacefully transferred power to their descendents/cousins, this is a success story. Speaking english. Christian. Shared ancestry.

Besides, we are not talking about breaking up the empire. That already happened with the dissolution of the USSR. We are talking about the extinction of a nation.

It would be like if the UK was split into Scotland, a puppet of the EU. Wales, a quasi independant state with strong ties to Scotland. England, a former power center. Finally Ireland becomes whole.

Do you really think the brits will be cool with this, especially if lets say Russia/China was working behind the scenes to make it happen and the so called ally EU was all too happy to gain all this new power and influence...

Btw going to back to my op, this is exactly what Putin has been doing by working on hypersonic missiles. Taking Crimea. Trying to forcefully bring Ukraine back to Russia's sphere of influence.. etc

I'm not saying I condone his actions. I'm saying his actions are rational and strategic.

Putins choices were either leave a legacy of a slowly declining Russian federation until there isn't one or make massive gambits like this reverse Russias fortune.

The thing is, such gambits carries the risk of accelerating the current fate..

If I was ever put in a similar situation, my god I pray to have the balls and conviction to pull the trigger on such moves. It would be so much easier to just put up the appearances of normalcy by moving the chairs of the titanic while it sinks..

Over the span of three decades your nation went from being a global superpower with immense economic, political and military power to a rapid declining shell of its former self.

Your economy is more comparable to an American state like Florida than a powerful country. You're nation is a political pariah with fleeting influence even among former ussr members. You capability to exert military power outside of your own borders have been effectively disabled having being surrounded by NATO and with a heavily depleted military.

All of this combined with the natural resources and land you mentioned is exactly why its open season on Russia to be carved up by actors with higher economic, military and political power.

If I was in your shoes, I would either give up and move or do anything and everything I can to improve the odds of the terrible hand your nation has been given..

It goes with out saying, I mostly disagree with Noah but I find the depth of his content so refreshing.

It is very rare to see this level of sophistication and depth from the people he shares his political believes with.

Interesting read. The underlying point here is what many of us have been saying since the beginning of the conflict.

Putin is not some crazy drugged up megalomaniac. Morality aside, his moves are clearly rational and shows a high level of sophistication.

A small window of opportunity opened up just after covid. Russia got a chance to make its last stand against the rapid decline of its sphere of influence and sovereignty.

Many people don't seem to realise how existential this is for Russia. Being surrounded by Nato on side and China on the other whilst rapidly declining as a nation (economy, birth rates, military etc etc) is really not good.

as a side note, I think 7 trillion is likely a gross misrepresentation. Its probably somewhere between 100 - 200 billion.

Climate Change: Energy != climate change. Even if it entirely did, using it as an argument without including the benefits is to put it politely (i dont want to) is very silly. AGI (if possible) will solve climate.

Economic Resources: Again talking about the costs without the benefits is extremely disenginous, especially since this authour believes in ASI

Human Intellectual Capital: Barring some exceptions, IP laws are extremely outdated and wont last for long regardless of whether Sam venture succeeds or not. Also blacksmiths making horseshoes..

Negative Extranalities: This is where having some liberties to go outside of the HN guidelines would be extremely appropriate. Progress comes with risks but the alternative is the end of civilisation. Probably just the west and not humanity since China, Middle East, India etc have not been ...

Every major problem facing humanity can be solved given enough time, intelligence and creativity. If we had a technology than can accelerate these things, it would be illogical and immoral to not bet big on it.

When I say everything I mean everything from cancer, genetic diseases, famine, drought to climate change, poverty, prosperity etc etc. This not some utopian religious claim either. Everything I've listed is solvable, we have the equations and we've already made so much progress that we know it is just a matter of x. Whether x is time, intelligence or creativity. or all of the above..

To sum it up, the author and his kin are clearly driven by quasi collectivist luddite ideology/moral_framework. It is such a shame that HNs guidelines won't allow me to appropriatly describe the author.

This is true but the thing is, it can take a decade of two for the free market to do its thing.

Its really hard to break network effects, especially at Apples scale.

If it was just gonna end with a minor gatekeeping fee, I can see myself (and other) just biting the bullet but history suggests that this is just the beginning of a massive descent.