if you let the data speak for itself, you’ll hear only lies.
@jp_koning on how accurate data about euro-denominated traffic over the SWIFT network might lead one to conclusions 180° off from what’s likely going on.
https://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2024/12/someone-is-wrong-on-internet-about.html
it’s amazing how nostalgia can turn even mildly annoying aspects of the quotidian into things i now pine for.
@gooser3000 credit card issuers used to forbid any kind of price differential in their contracts, but i think regulators have finally rendered those kinds of restraints illegal or unenforceable.
@admitsWrongIfProven it’s hard to use fire as a currency. it transfers without extinguishing, so it’s easy to double spend.
@akkartik @jannem we might all in this conversation agree that the geographical freedom to move 1000s of kms is maybe worth the cost of the remedies, of imperfectly recovering what we’ve lost by it.
but what do we think of the freedom to build and move to car dependent suburbs? also worth its costs, both in reconstituting or compensating for what wld have been easy in dense settlements, and culture and conveniences that wld otherwise have emerged we now do without?
@jannem yes. but the fact they are 8600 km is likely an outcome of the world economic change has remade. first we are unfettered by geography, suddenly free to be anywhere. then we must be depend upon the things we expensively build and run to address the costs of our new choices. it’s not really growth, it’s remedy, more like covering a kind of deprecation.
the MAGA Civil War is when Georgia secedes from Massachusetts.
i’m glad more places are offering cash discounts, to help expose and wean us from the credit card fee racket, but i wish they’d also offer debit card discounts, inexpensive without the inconvenience of carrying cash.
so much of what we’ve called growth has come from blowing up what was once free and ordinary, then restoring a poor facsimile thereof for a price. we can talk to our families over zoom. what a novelty.
claims like Mississippi is richer than France because GDP per capita aren’t the zinger you think. they just (correctly!) undermine the notion that GDP per capita is a good measure of prosperity.
how does the electrical power utilization of generative AI compare with that of bitcoin?
a thing no microblogging platform offers, but all should: a hidden by default but click-to-revealable space for attributions of claims made in the post. just links, excluded from the character limit. many posts make factual claims that strike me either wrong or extraordinary, no way to tell which.
@paninid will the MAGA base, and the Congresspeople who fear it, give DOGE the benefit of the doubt, be willing to defer to, embrace to recommendations, or will they become hostile to it and render implementation toxic?
@paninid if it becomes clear it will be the latter, why bother even with the exercise?
is DOGE going to be politically sustainable at this point under its proposed leadership?
an irony of the mad-white-guy H1B debate is that the fix most in their interest is to make the visas more generous — eliminate the tight attachment to continued employment which means visa-holders accept worse conditions than native-born would to ensure continued status.
@lackthereof @jonathankoren i wish i had any clue how to find this bottom-up party of which you speak. i guess the ghost towns are so ghostly they don't let us know where they are or how to visit.
@lackthereof @jonathankoren at levels beneath Federal office, the Democratic party simply does not exist. i get hundreds of e-mails soliciting donations. no events soliciting participation, offering an opportunity to meet candidates. i had no opportunity to meet or get to know a damned thing about the Ds who ran for state reps. i don't think there was a competitive primary. ofc in the general i just voted for the D. you can't have competitive primaries if no one has a clue who these people are.
@jonathankoren yes. i’m not claiming some kind of breakthrough is impossible. Sanders almost overthrew incumbents’ grasp over the Democratic Party. he didn’t quite. but there was a real threat.
but time is of the essence. a Democratic Party whose insiders are comfortable despite their failures is not something we can really afford. (has anyone been held accountable for fumbling the fate of the republic 11/5?) 1/
@jonathankoren i’m for eg a lot of primarying. but i think that will require building alternative institutions, to which “mainstream Democrats” will be hostile, to counter their support for comfortable stasis. maybe the Working Families Party is an example of this. /fin
@jonathankoren there’s tremendous incumbency bias in the American system. it’s silly to blame the electorate (frankly it’s always silly to blame the electorate) for what is clearly a widespread institutional phenomenon. incumbents have rigged the game for themselves. health, even survival, of the republic depends on unrigging, really altering, that game into one that prizes flexibility over insiders’ stability.
deleon would not have won by highlighting feinstein’s dementia.
@jonathankoren but they punish primary challengers brutally.
