Charles🐀

Tax, accounting and fraud.

[Charles🐀 @TaxCharles]

@dialecticdummy @JJSharpers What specific nutrients? What specific developmental deficiencies? If I show you a group of 5 year olds, will you be able to identify breastfed from formula fed? Of the people you interact with daily, can you reliably predict which were breastfed? If you can’t, why is it best?

[Charles🐀 @TaxCharles]

@MicahMartin1995 @unherd @beccasteinfeld Throughout history, most children died before their fifth birthday. Breastfeeding is good; baby formula is also good. The priority should always be that the baby is adequately fed.

[Charles🐀 @TaxCharles]

@JM8872113995537 @JJSharpers Children and mothers often die in those countries. Look up maternal death statistics is Nigeria for example. Raising a child is tough. Formula is an excellent option where it is available. Parents should be supported whatever they opt for. The mother’s and baby’s health is key.

[Charles🐀 @TaxCharles]

@dialecticdummy @JJSharpers The expectation is that the child is FED, kept clean, warm and safe. There is absolutely no need to breastfeed. Support should of course be provided to people that choose to breastfeed.

[Jonathan @jabberwock951]

@JayneShannon @bubblebum7 Definitely a benefit, although you need the size of the reduction to put it in context.

4-5% relative risk reduction of breast cancer for every year spent breastfeeding, so the average woman would go from 14% lifetime risk to 13.4%. So not huge, but could prevent 1:200 cases.

[kunal @KunalTandon]

Not to get too political, but do any red states have BBQ that competes with blue states?

[黎明 @itsdawn_logs]

中国的小偷为什么断崖式地下降？

我前阵子看过一个采访，一个开了二十多年手机维修店的老板说了一句话，我觉得特别有意思。

他说，“以前经常有人拿手机过来卖，我不用问都知道，多半不是自己的。现在这种人，几个月都碰不到一个。”

他说以前那些人进门都差不多一个样。

戴着帽子，眼神飘来飘去，手机没有盒子，没有发票，就一句话：”老板，你看看值多少钱。”

老板也不傻，大家都心照不宣。

可这几年，别说卖手机了，就连有人捡到手机，都恨不得马上联系失主。

很多外国人来中国以后，最惊讶的也是这一点。

快递放门口没人拿，外卖放楼下没人偷，手机掉在商场，回去找还有可能找得到。

于是很多人开始夸：中国是不是没有小偷了？

其实，不是。

真正消失的，不是小偷，而是”当小偷这份工作”。

很多人总觉得，一个人偷东西，是因为他坏。

可现实里，大多数小偷没把自己当坏人。

他只是觉得，这是门生意。

有利润，有风险，算完账，觉得还能干。

二十年前，偷一个钱包，里面可能就是几千块现金，转个弯钱就花了。

偷一部手机，找个地方刷机，再卖给二手手机贩子，又是一笔收入。

那个年代，小偷最重要的能力，不是技术有多高，而是跑得快。

可现在呢？

你偷一部手机，刚开机，人家就能定位。

刷不了机，解不开锁，很多手机还能直接远程锁死，最后拆零件卖的钱，可能还不够你冒这个险。

以前偷的是一万块。

现在偷回来，只剩几百块。

这买卖，越来越赔。

更关键的是，现金没了。

以前的钱包，就是钱。

现在的钱包，很多年轻人一年都不带一次。

不少人出门，就拿一部手机。

你把钱包偷走，里面可能只有身份证，还有两张已经忘了密码的银行卡。

忙活半天，收获二十块钱现金，找谁说理去。

最狠的还不是这个。

最狠的是，现在你想跑，都不知道该往哪儿跑。

以前一条街可能只有银行门口有监控。

现在呢？

小区、电梯、商场、地铁、停车场、便利店，甚至很多居民家门口，都挂着摄像头。

有人开玩笑说，现在不是没有监控死角，是死角里面还有个大爷举着手机拍短视频。

你还没走出这条街，业主群已经开始找人了。

很多人会问，那以前那些小偷都去哪儿了？

这个问题特别有意思。

如果你把小偷看成一种职业，这个问题就很好回答了。

一份工作，如果工资越来越低，风险越来越高，还随时可能进去几年，你觉得还会有人抢着干吗？

有人去送外卖了。

有人去跑网约车了。

有人进工厂了。

赚得未必更多，但至少晚上睡觉不用提心吊胆。

人其实没有大家想得那么复杂。

绝大多数人，不是在善恶之间反复挣扎。

而是在不断算账。

这件事划不划算。

值不值得。

风险有多大。

收益有多少。

只要账变了，人就会变。

很多人觉得，是中国人突然变好了。

我倒觉得，是整个社会慢慢把这笔账改了。

现金越来越少，手机越来越难销赃，监控越来越密，移动支付越来越成熟，身份信息越来越完善，违法的成本一点一点往上涨，合法赚钱的机会一点一点变多。

等一个人准备伸手的时候，他脑子里已经先算完了一遍。

偷这一单，可能赚不了多少钱。

可一旦被抓，后面好多年都赔进去。

那只手，自然就缩回来了。

所以外国人觉得中国安全，不只是因为小偷少了。

真正厉害的地方在于，一个社会慢慢把”偷东西”这件事，变成了一门没人愿意干的生意。

所以我觉得很多制度最成功的时候，并不是天天抓坏人。

而是让越来越多人觉得——

算了，不值得。

[Jarvis @jarvis_best]

1. Twitter was the epicenter of wokeness

2. Twitter allowed the left to live in an echo chamber that both rewarded their worst instincts and persuaded the institutional libs to go along with them

3. This locked elected Dems into a Catch 22 where if they were normal about something Twitter would get mad at them; but if they acted Twitter about something, normal people would be annoyed.

4. Elected Dems weighed their options and decided to appease the terrorists

5. Everyone got pissed off at them because they were crazy

6. Elon bought Twitter and turned it into X

7. The left self exiled to BlueSky and secret caves outside of Kabul to regroup

8. Elected Dems and hopefuls felt liberated to signal that they were normalsauce by wearing jeans and hats and eating meat and stuff that would get them literally not figuratively crucified under Woke 1.

9. The exiled left coalesced around a few radicals in terrorist enclaves like NYC and Minnesota and Michigan and told the libs that if they opposed them they’d blow up their cars

10. Free from strict woke constraints imposed by Old Guard Twitter the libs and the left and the rube centrists joined forces and won every single race in the world including the usually right leaning race for assistant comptroller to the garbage collectors union of Swinefister, Nebraska after the candidate wisely deleted a bunch of old tweets about how he wanted to drown every single cop in a vat of acid to free Palestine.

11. So really this is all Elon’s fault.

[Ms.Andry Cohen @NyetflixNoChill]

@RobDenBleyker If you’re in line to see hole, STAY IN LINE.

[Charles Foster Wallace @TweetN4ABeatN]

@johnjhorton You've found yourself too far along the laffy-taffy curve.

[Nick, 30 @an0n_Nic]

@bugsandfishes You should want more people earning more money so they can buy more of your colour craft designs and vintage items. Then you’ll get more money too. I’m serious, it works. That’s how we got here in the first place.

[侥幸没歪 @jxzdmzw]

我很愿意认真回答这位德国朋友的疑问。

你的第一个问，其实是在说，由于中国是一个威权政府，因此人民在政治上不受认真对待。

这个命题本身就是错误的。威权政府，并不意味着人民不受认真对待。民主政府，也不意味着人民就受到认真对待。

新加坡是威权国家，菲律宾是民主国家，难道新加坡人的处境，不如菲律宾人吗？中国是威权国家，印度是民主国家，难道中国人的处境，不如印度人吗？

你的第二个问，你的发问本身并不严谨。不能笼统地说，中国人没有政治自由。这个问题要分两个维度来讲。

1、政治参与自由。
从这个维度讲，中国任何人有参与政治的自由。中国人都有权利申请入党、考公务员。筛选规则与民主制度不同，但不等于中国人没有参与政治的自由。

中国制度与民主制度的区别在于：

民主制度下，一个人只要有钱，可以在任何时候参与政治。就像川普一辈子没有从政，老了突然想要竞选总统，他就可以参选，而且成功了。

但在中国，任何官员都必须从基层公务员做起。一个人无法因为有钱，就能一步登天当上高官。

这种制度的好处有：

A、公平性。
中国有大量的高层领导人出身平民家庭，如胡锦涛、温家宝、汪洋、李强，等等。像习近平这种红二代，反而是个意外。

B、专业性。
任何一个高层领导人，都必须经过几十年不同级别岗位的历练，他对国家各个层面的情况的了解，以及他的治理经验，不是一个企业家、一个明星，或者一个未治理过一个城市的议员，所能相提并论的。

C、远见性。
由于领导人不受制于短期的、非理性的民意，因此可以规划长远的发展战略，并以唯一执政党确保该战略的长期、有效的实施。

D、政策不受资本干涉。
你选择从政，就不能从商。你选择从商，就不能从政。这样一来，资本的归资本，政治的归政治，资本无法干涉政治。

2、政治权利自由。
当然，中国制度有其“表面上”的代价。为什么只是“表面上”的，后面再说。先说这种代价。

代价就是中国人不拥有谩骂政府、抨击政策的自由。我们可以批评政府，但必须在一种就事论事的理性语境中。我们不能喊“习近平下台”或者“共产党下台”。

我们也不拥有全民选举的自由，建立政党的自由。

这些“代价”为什么只是表面上的，可以从一则寓言说起：

一农场主临死前问儿子；猪抱怨饲料太差，牛报怨活太重，鸡报怨窝太脏，怎么办？ 儿子说：“喂好饲料，干轻活，清理鸡窝。” 农场主摇摇头说：你啥都别做，给他们选票，让它们选择你或者你媳妇管它们，让它们以为这个家是它们做主。

这个寓言让我们思考，作为人民，我们要的是什么？我们要的其实是更好的生活，而不是选票以及骂政府的自由。

回到开头那个举例，新加坡缺少很多民主国家所具备的政治自由，但没有人会认为新加坡人受到压迫。

这就涉及到自由的定义，自由到底是什么？

按照罗斯福的定义，自由包括：言论自由、信仰自由、免于匮乏、免于恐惧。

在我们计算一个社会的自由度时，我们计算的是自由的总量，而不是单项自由的含量。

举个例子，很多非洲国家拥有选票和骂政府的自由，但人民生活贫困，出行只能靠双脚。我在中国，生活富足、商品丰富、服务便捷、社区安全，我坐3个小时的高铁可以抵达一座大城市，我也有经济条件时不时出国旅游。

你认为非洲人自由，还是我自由？

诚然，中国还有很多人口，在物质生活上并不自由，但这是经济发展不充分导致的，不是政治压迫导致的。一个贫穷地区，无会因为给你民众选票和骂政府的自由，他们就变富裕了。

因此，当你谈自由的时候，你要计算自由的总量，不能单看一项自由的有无和多寡。你也不能将经济问题，归咎于某一项政治自由的问题。

坦率讲，我觉得你们的民主制度，已经病入膏肓了，中国人并不羡慕你们那种制度。

[Charles🐀 @TaxCharles]

@Lewandowski_24 @Jimbob00172 Don’t forget the bats and crested newts.

[Charles🐀 @TaxCharles]

@MFishwreck @ryangruber @jbarro Bath is not countryside

[F.A. Gigioti @FaGigioti]

@avery_online rollercoaster zoned

[Matthew Zeitlin @MattZeitlin]

when i have really dumb questions i'll ask chatgpt or gemini because i don't want claude to think i'm stupid

[Sam Bowman @s8mb]

So much of our electricity supply is now based on fixed price assets: wind, nuclear and solar electricity that have low running costs but high set-up costs, and the electricity grid itself.

This means that new demand can lower prices by spreading these costs out among more buyers, and data centres can lower electricity costs (and, empirically, are lowering them). I've even had conversations with eminent economists who find this counterintuitive, so it is not surprising that policymakers and the public may also feel sceptical.

[AnechoicMedia @AnechoicMedia_]

Apparently I assumed incorrectly that people reading my post understood how credit card rewards work.

The average reader seems to think that rewards are funded by interest, and card bonuses are their moral reward for not carrying a balance and paying interest.

In their imagination, they are getting something for nothing, and would prefer this arrangement continue giving them free money at the expense of other, less deserving people.

This is not the case. Some facts that suggest this is not how things work:

- interest rates are actually lower on rewards cards, and this disparity is greatest for high-FICO customers. It is not the case that rewards are an inducement to lure customers into higher interest products.

- most rewards are captured by customers who don't revolve balances, while only about a quarter go to the customers actually paying interest. Why would sophisticated banks calibrate their reward programs to waste most of the marketing spend on worthless customers?

In reality, the cash flow is that every time you use your card, you're prepaying ~2-3% in fees, from which you later receive ~1-2% worth of rewards.

Before you paid the bank any interest, you already represented an incredibly high-margin sale. It is not a fluke that their system rewards your participation. They will happily play this game all day with you.

So it's highly unlikely that you're some exception getting out more than you put in. Even if you're one of the net subsidy recipients, as typically told, you'd still benefit from abolishing the game.

And the thing is, this parallel economy of selling you marked up airfare is totally optional to the maintenance of an electronic payments system.

That rewards are sustained more through fees, than through interest, can be seen in countries that regulate fees. When the EU capped fees at 0.3% in 2015, rewards programs largely disappeared, suggesting it was the fees that made them possible, and not interest income.

[Charles🐀 @TaxCharles]

@WB_Baskerville The rewards come from interchange fees, not credit interest. US businesses get charged ridiculous fees which get passed on to customers. In Europe, these interchange fees are capped or businesses can refuse cards that charge them fees that they consider too high.

[Charles🐀 @TaxCharles]

@IntestinalBookW @WB_Baskerville Your credit card ‘rewards’ are because of the ridiculously high interchange fees the credit card companies charge US businesses. The fees are capped in Europe thus few ‘rewards’. You’re indirectly getting back a tiny fraction of what you pay, in the form of ‘rewards’.