if you have to choose one, rhyme or reason?

@reallywhy yes. but when opponents foolishly make it exceptionally clear, even to the people they usually dupe, that their enfranchisement is at issue, then people seem often to rise in defense.

if a phenom is normally distributed, a small increase in the average can lead to a large increase in the frequency of events above a threshold in the tail.

and a then small further increase leads to an accelerating, even greater increase in tail events.

🙁

democracy remains pretty popular!

@DetroitDan better than Ariyork!

florida is calilouisiana.

amputate.

@Ursuursulala @GreenSkyOverMe it was all good fun, ‘til i imagined how you get that open.

@grmpyprogrammer seems useless or unnecessary. (sorry! 😜)

social science is a dunning-kruger effect factory targeted especially at the kind of people who use terms like dunning-kruger effect.

orange county is califlorida.

goodhart’s law meets in-hospital mortality rates, with ghoulish consequences. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/doctors-say-hca-hospitals-push-patients-hospice-care-rcna81599 ht @gregggonsalves

My alma mater, New College of Florida, has, very unfortunately, become a subject of public interest as Ron DeSantis along with right wing provocateurs like Chris Rufo have engaged in a “hostile takeover” to remake it a “Hillsdale of the South”.

My friend Mike Palmer has started a podcast about New College and its culture. He interviews me here, if you are curious about (my take on) the place:

https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/PLMD5177451124?selected=PLMD6642810110

Podcast RSS: http://feeds.megaphone.fm/PLMD5177451124

#NewCollege #RonDeSantis #ChrisRufo

@failedLyndonLaRouchite the rich are perfectly good at buying prestige and consumption goods they enjoy, and there’s nothing wrong with your enjoying browsing the temples they build to show off and pretend to virtue.

but don’t expect good social outcomes in aggregate from spending motivated by competition to signal virtue and aristocratic patronage. good things come from it, for sure, but relative to even imperfectly democratic state spending the sector is mostly waste.

maybe plutocratic philanthropy is simply not the right vehicle for publics to rely upon to ensure defense, diplomacy, and broader policy choices that prevent nuclear war. nothing is more important for sure, but plutocratic philanthropy is a poisoned chalice. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/8/4/23819209/nuclear-war-philanthropies-oppenheimer-united-states-china-russia-cold-war-existential-risk

“Never forget that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of nature.” @Kmac & Tim Sahay https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/global-boiling/ ht @wingo

they want to have me charged with war crimes, but all i did is give orders — free speech!

@edbott happy unspecified day! 🎂

seems very current, at least through the haze that i recall it. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/

@eyesquash getting older gets pretty dark.