Critical commentary about "tech bros" and "mediocre white men" has been circulating the news and mediasphere lately. This inspired me to write another (a third) essay in my years-long rumination on "diversity" in the startup and broader tech world.
https://t.co/W9YZSfMURl
9/10
But the broader takeaway here is that public opinion on the Iran war is more conditional than generic approval polls suggest.
Our findings reveal considerable uncertainty about the war. But they also show that many Americans are willing to tolerate substantial short-term costs—including significantly higher gas prices—when the tradeoffs are explicit and those costs are tied to the achievement of clear strategic outcomes.
Indeed, when forced to choose between higher gas prices and a substantially weakened Iran on the one hand, or lower gas prices and a future nuclear-armed Iran on the other, more Americans chose the former than the latter.
it helps to recognize competitive immigration as a calibration mechanism for societal fitness.
too low: labor gets too uppity (real talk), demanding euro-style cradle to grave comfort. too flabby.
too high: hunger games, broken social contract, no unity.
balance it.
Right now MAGA is squeezing welfare availability for immigrants, cutting off funding and heavily incentivizing those dependent on it to leave.
Re-run evidently of past migration waves, including European. Pull in, see who can assimilate, get lowest performers to go back home.
"A very large share of European immigrants didn’t assimilate at all. They went home. Between roughly 1850 and 1920, the poorer and less successful immigrants were the most likely to leave." https://t.co/O9nwvRbEDT
Senator to Scott Bessent: "Did you actually tell Pulte you were going to punch him in the face?"
Bessent: "No sir, I said I was going to kick his ass."
God bless America. 🇺🇸🫡🦅
https://t.co/nC1BXfnSQK via @YouTube
@Richard_Casey@MacaesBruno@typesfast 99% of US shit-posting by Euros - including "multipolarity" and "China century" shilling - is butt-hurt that they're all using an American tech media platform and speaking English on it.
the stages of grief for downward mobility are long.
Thread with excerpts from Richard Pipes' Property and Freedom (1999). Pipes is a historian of Russia, and the thesis of the book is that private property, as something distinct and protected from public power and sovereignty, is indispensable to human freedom.
the Portuguese and Spanish are perhaps the perfect example of how the top winners of a technological/exploratory competition usually aren't the most risk-seeking adventurers.
yet we should respect the latter's role in history for their sacrificial love of the game.
The Portuguese under Henry the Navigator invented the technology to explore the world.
Now struggling to run the passport processing machines at the airport.
And yes, "improved" has subjective elements that will be influenced by a country's existing culture and genetics; and that's a good thing.
Forcing everyone to accommodate every minority will literally turn every place into the exact same chaotic undifferentiated blob.
Evolution v. Revolution.
If your home culture *actually* improves the country you moved to, convince people of it. That's how American culture evolved (and continues), at least before we went off the rails (temporarily) with DEI and all.
But *demanding* accommodation? F off.
Bro, let’s stop pretending.
Muslims make up about 25% of the entire world’s population — over 2 billion people across 50+ countries.
Japanese people? About 1.4% of the world. One single country.
Shinto exists only in Japan.
So when people say “Japan should prioritize minorities and be more accommodating to Islam,” who exactly are we talking about?
The global majority is coming to one of the world’s smallest ethnic and religious groups and demanding that Japan change its culture, food, and traditions for them.
That’s not “protecting minorities.” That’s the majority trying to colonize a tiny minority.
Japan has every right to protect its own people and culture first.
If Muslims want to live under Islamic rules, they already have dozens of countries where they can do that. They don’t need to come to Japan and turn it into another one.
@robinhanson Convert zero-sum war to positive-sum capitalism that then funds military power, change ethno-centrism to meritocratic pluralism with global immigration positive selection, remove antisemitism and elevate individualist humanism, and you get the American strategy.
'The surge in new US business formation is being fueled by AI and large language models, which are dramatically reducing the cost and complexity of launching a company' @apolloglobal