just don’t call me a psammophobe you beach.
what you inevitably find is that, if the only way to get anywhere is to drive, there isn’t anywhere worth bothering to go.
look on the bright side: this year’s anomaly is just next year’s baseline.
@DetroitDan here is just a few minutes ago.
a sunrise over the Black Sea.
@DetroitDan i can’t wait to grill you about the places you’ve been.
velvet
32.5%
red
(13 votes)
32.5%
blue
(13 votes)
15.0%
black
(6 votes)
20.0%
purple
(8 votes)
@exchgr “smart”
@ben we were into time machines, imagine traveling to the future in the blink of an eye. turns out, we got what we wanted.
@codinghorror anything to divert energy from diluting the text commons with AI-generated bulk.
@Alon @JohnMashey @MadMadMadMadRN @BenRossTransit @phillmv @pluralistic sometimes anticorruption is actually anticorruption. it’s untenable to oppose anticorruption in general, of course. it’s easy—and right as far as it goes—to argue state capacity depends upon public trust, which depends upon a mostly honest state. but corrupt sabotage of state capacity (including to prevent forms of corruption) also wears the cape of anticorruption.
@Alon @JohnMashey @MadMadMadMadRN @BenRossTransit @phillmv @pluralistic (i guess i’m referring to histories i’ve read of the HDB going back to the 1960s, LKY exhorting experimentation in housing, expecting and tolerating missteps. but if Singapore has since privatized planning, they seem to continue to be oddly successful at it, still capable of building sizable new towns and integrating them well, no?)
@Alon @JohnMashey @MadMadMadMadRN @BenRossTransit @phillmv @pluralistic yeah. government bureaucracies are obviously very heterogeneous, so using “government bureaucracy” as an explanation doesn’t take you very far. in the US, well-funded activism openly intended to sabotage and discredit state action renders a culture of extreme skepticism of government largely self-fulfilling, which publics then take as “natural”. but it’s just one, very bad, equilibrium! 1/
@Alon @JohnMashey @MadMadMadMadRN @BenRossTransit @phillmv @pluralistic in the US and elsewhere, my sense is that successful state action requires a culture that rewards activity and tolerates honest failure. Singapore is probably the signal example here, but the US under FDR too. experiment and fail, and do it again, find what works. 2/
@Alon @JohnMashey @MadMadMadMadRN @BenRossTransit @phillmv @pluralistic because corruption is always possible, however, under a culture of skepticism of state action, plutocratic interests find it easy to paralyze an entrepreneurial state (apologies #MarianaMazzucato) under unobjectionable banners like “accountability” and “anticorruption”. /fin
@JohnMashey @MadMadMadMadRN @BenRossTransit @phillmv @Alon @pluralistic it’s very general i think. https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/3513.html
@MadMadMadMadRN @BenRossTransit @phillmv @Alon @pluralistic sure. that’s much of the problem. as keynes said of bankers, they’d prefer to fail conventionally than risk succeeding unconventionally. so fail conventionally they do!
@djc @SteveRoth we’ll never know, but i don’t think so. i think that the contours of the deal suggest that the Biden Administration quietly let Rs know that they did have alternatives — that they prefered not to use! — but they were not in fact hostages.
@BenRossTransit @phillmv @Alon @MadMadMadMadRN @pluralistic that’s a useful framing. fundamentally, we need an administrative state capable of doing what’s required to deliver good outcomes within wide procedural guardrails, rather than one whose actors are primarily concerned with the risk of being seen to have done something objectionable.
all is calm on the Romanian Black Sea coast. it’s the first time i’ve been since it’s not been so calm in the country just north of here, the first time i’ve been since COVID.
the sunset light touches Portul Tomis in Constanta, Romania. the sea is flat, waveless.
@phillmv @Alon @MadMadMadMadRN @BenRossTransit @pluralistic in an individual case, maybe. lawyers take cases on contingency, if the damages may be large. but if a private right of action causes litigation-fearful firms to change their behavior, it also protects those who would never sue. if adtech surveillance brought expensive claims so it was uneconomic to pursue it, those who’d never sue are also protected. 1/
@phillmv @Alon @MadMadMadMadRN @BenRossTransit @pluralistic and in practice, “filling forms” and prompting bureaucracies to act often also requires lawyers, who must be paid up front if there will be no damages to be paid from. we’re discussing at to general a level to know whether and who will be priced out of relief. it depends on vwry specifics. /fin
@Alon @MadMadMadMadRN @BenRossTransit @phillmv @pluralistic we oughtta sue them for that.
@Alon @phillmv @pluralistic i’m not endorsing this kind of activism. on the contrary, i’m skeptical both of localistic and Fed-based approaches to addressing climate change. just noting that in systems where most of the administrative state is dysfunctional, people seek out capable levers (courts, the Fed) as substitutes. often tragically, as none of these are great at balancing diverse interests.