DeMaxwell

Consulting fisheries scientist, former CA state employee, libertarian, small-business owner, bird hunter, dog lover.

[Mickey Kaus @kausmickey]

I ran for office in CA in 2010--not especially well--but I did get to attend some local Dem party meetings. (I was running as a Democrat.) At one, I think it was in Eagle Rock, I had the misfortune to be preceded by a tall, handsome Latino running for another office. He was charismatic, funny, friendly, articulate, thoughtful. They loved him. This guy is a potential governor, I thought. Then I realized: He's just starting. By the times he's promoted himself to the level where he'd run for statewide office he'll have made so many commitments to so many interest groups --especially, but not only unions--that he'll be indistinguishable from all the other hack party Dems. And if he doesn't do that, he won't get promoted by them.

The CA Dem party--statewide and in LA--is a giant machine that produces a certain kind of go-along operator. The prototypical product is someone like Javier Becerra, a nice man, not too smart I'm told, who hasn't achieved much-- whom even the Bidenites didn't think a lot of--but who pays his dues and promises not to thrown any wrenches into the machine. He's experienced! Karen Bass is another product--smarter, but her achievements are actually negative: Her city burned down. She's experienced too!

Experience, in this context, *means* being part of the machine. There's no other way to get it. This wouldn't be such a problem if there were in-party Gorbachev-style reformers running around. But none are in sight. It wouldn't be such a problem if there were a competing machine producing equally experienced, unimaginative apparatchiks. Voters could then choose which machine to pick, and by doing so hold the other machine's feet to the fire (if it's possible to hold a machine's feet to the fire).

But there isn't a competing machine. There is only one machine: the Democrats. Once (not coincidentally when the state GOP was more viable) the Democratic machine probably served the electorate well. But rot gradually set in, as unions demanded big salaries for less work, as bad teachers weren't weeded out. New non-profit bureaucracies grew up to "solve" problems like homelessness, but they siphoned off a lot of money in salaries--which gave them a vested interest in making sure the problem was a permanent one. Regulations, seemingly sensible in themselves, added up to insanity--as when the heavily populated Palisades burned down because an earlier fire on its outskirts wasn't completely extinguished, in large part because that might have harmed some endangered plant species (resulting in fines!). https://t.co/U5wTMri9mx

Mayor Bass didn't fail. The machine she heads failed. It has stopped serving the voters. The only way to change (or, crazy thought, replace) it is with an outsider--almost by definition someone who lacks the "experience" of placating Democratic interests.

That's Pratt. I'm sure he'd make mistakes. (Hard to believe he'd make as big a mistake as appointing his sworn enemies to high positions, the way Trump did in his first term.) But Pratt seems quite willing to correct his missteps. And he has the one thing that a holder of LA's "weak mayorship"--where you have to talk other people into doing what you can't do yourself--must have, which is energy.

Following Jim Newton's weary advice is like giving Leonid Brezhnev four more years in 1977. The message: The machine is tackling the problem, and if it's failing that's because our problems are intractable, Nothing can really be done. Maybe incrementally. At great expense.

That's what the people with experience say.

PS: Newton says it's "gibberish" for Pratt to talk about building big drug treatment facility on federal land. Why is it gibberish? It's entirely conceivable that the Trump administration (or even the Shapiro administration) would give LA a piece of land. Such a facility has been tried in San Antonio with apparent success.

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@BriannaWu The second statement is a claim many on the left agree with. The first statement is a complete fiction— no one says or believes that.

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@BriannaWu You say Rowling want to “eliminate trans women from participating in society”. What’s the clearest, best example of that?

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

Warren Buffett's late investing partner, Charlie Munger, once said, "Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome." This is one of the most important sentences in English.

It also explains why government can't solve most problems, why it can't work for us either.

Anytime you have a problem, you have an incentive. The incentive is to fix it or otherwise get away from it. That's what it means for it to be a problem, by definition.

Nobody has more incentive than you do to solve your problem. The government has almost zero incentive to solve your problem.

This isn't because government is broken or corrupt or whatever. It's much more deeply structural to government itself. It is because you are first person to your problem, and the government is third person to your problem -- unless, of course, your problem is a problem for the government (and then, watch out).

You don't just have an incentive to solve your problem, though.
You have an incentive to solve it well.
You have an incentive to solve it fast.
You have an incentive to solve it cheaply.
You have an incentive to solve it with what you already have if you can.
You also have an incentive to solve it in a way that can scale to other people who have the same problem who can then purchase your solution from you.

"Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome."

The government has none of these incentives.

These incentives have effects. When you solve your own problems:
The incentive to solve it well is an incentive to quality.
The incentive to solve it fast is an incentive to efficiency.
The incentive to solve it cheaply is an incentive to economy.
The incentive to solve it with what you already have is an incentive to ingenuity.
The incentive to solve it in a scalable, salable way is an incentive to enterprise, entrepreneurship, and surplus, thus to abundance, wealth, and prosperity. It also multiplies at least some of the aforementioned incentives.

"Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome."

The government, again, has none of these incentives.

The government, as a detached third party, has no incentive to quality, no incentive to efficiency, no realistic incentive to economy, no incentive to ingenuity, and no incentive to enterprise or surplus. It simply doesn't have them. All it has is incentives to follow (or break) policies it has set for itself that simulate these virtuous outcomes, often badly, frequently shot-through with corruption.

Another fact is that government is run by people. Government may not have any of these incentives, but the people working within government do have incentives. They have the incentive to private profit through public resources. That means they have an intrinsic incentive to corruption that the best of them must constantly work to resist or repel, but that incentive never leaves.

"Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome."

This is why the idea of seizing control of the government to make it work for us is a huge mistake. We cannot do that because it cannot be done. You and yours care about your problems, and people can be hired or paid to care about your problems where you lack solutions, but the government doesn't care about your problems.

It isn't that the government might be good or bad that matters. It's that the government's incentive structures do not point in the right directions almost anywhere.

This isn't to say the government is useless. It isn't. It has a role to play, which is a duty it is to fulfill in exchange for the power to govern the affairs of men.

The government has a role in securing and protecting its citizens, keeping the peace, maintaining order, and securing the intrinsic, inalienable rights of citizens against all third parties, including itself, along with all attendant necessities and obligations. We outsource those duties and responsibilities to the government primarily to centralize final conflict resolution (force, or violence) in a single place and to handle the specific affairs of state.

Government should have and feel an incentive to do those things well, not just out of oath and patriotism but because any failure in this regard should result in the government as it is presently constituted being taken away from the scoundrels who don't fulfill their end of the bargain when we consent to their power over us.

If the government isn't able to fulfill that basic duty, among all possible explanations, we can be certain that its incentives to do so are confused, muddied, buried, or secondary to other incentives that have become stronger. These can and will include incentives to rule, incentives to corruption, and incentives through accountability being confused, broken, or unclear. "A house divided against itself," it has been said, "cannot stand."

"If you show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome."

The place where government power therefore needs to be exercised is in the domain of accountability for crimes against their citizens and their rights. Unfortunately, individuals within the government are deeply complicit in these corruptions and crimes and therefore lack the proper incentives to achieve it.

Otherwise, in other domains, the role of government must be shrunken, not grown, not wielded. A "Stakeholder Economy," for instance, is a government-managed economy that has corruptible and misaligned incentive structures that will ultimately fail. It isn't for lack of the right people or clarity and purity of the driving ideology that it fails but because the underlying incentives are incorrect, misaligned, and guaranteed to be corrupt.

"If you show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome."

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@Sarah4Texas @DonnyFerguson @GOP So you’ll oppose policies that make things more expensive for Americans? That would be great, but certainly hasn’t been the outcome of D policies in the last thirty years (e.g. energy, housing, education, health care, etc.). Hint: subsidizing and regulating increases costs.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

This is the first and likely the last time I’ll retweet an ad, but I love it.

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@kiradavis @GavinNewsom It could be done with existing infrastructure. If the Governor is sincere about this, he should temporarily repeal specific rules from the Incidental Take Permit issued by CDFW. Those rules are what will restrict diversions from the State Water Project in the Delta.

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

Governor Newsom releases executive order asking Cal. agencies to maximize water diversions during heavy rains expected over the next week. With no specific exemptions provided, will diversions continue to be restricted by rules imposed by CA agencies? https://t.co/sluXQ0zCbi

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@Yair_Rosenberg @JonahDispatch There’s a pending community note (which I and many others have reviewed and supported). Maybe sign up to be a community note reviewer and help out?

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@RachieRach429 New pants for the win!

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

Good dogs!

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@RachieRach429

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@stevenfenaroli Twins?

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@KDEarthAdvocate @jenbenthehen I wanted to read what the bill was about and reasons for opposing it. That’s my point. None of that information was linked with calls to oppose the bill that I saw.

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@jenbenthehen I was reading all the opposition alerts to that bill last night. None included any description of what the bill was even about- just the assertion that it was certain to kill fish and destroy the Delta 🤷🏻‍♂️

[New York Post @nypost]

Thomas Matthew Crooks ID’d as gunman who shot Trump during Pa. rally https://t.co/7ycBdrQ7WK

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@blondealex I remember those days! What movie are you most excited to watch with them when they’re old enough?

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@ErikLindy The data we have isn’t great, but for fall-run Chinook in the Central Valley it’s 75% hatchery origin fish. Higher in some rivers and lower in others.

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

New blog post: Half measures aren’t enough: California must confront hatchery and harvest impacts to achieve salmon recovery goals. https://t.co/dfNZrP86Ud

[Erik Lindberg @ErikLindy]

The inconvenient reality is clear.
Wind and solar (W&S) don’t replace any power plants, they simply add intermittent electricity to the power grid which forces power plants to slow down (and save a bit of fuel)
The fuel saved doesn’t cover the cost of W&S infrastructure.
Simple.

[DeMaxwell @bcavallo]

@RachieRach429 52!