Perry The Cynic

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

Question is whether a low IQ Society can establish those institutions, and whether such institutions can survive a rapid decline in IQ profiles.

There is some kind of matrix of IQ x resources x maybe something else that determines what metastable social organization forms are possible, with culture as a time–moderating factor. I’ve never seen this researched anywhere, though… mathematically, I mean, not anecdotally.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@esrtweet @memeticsisyphus Do you think that societal form is downstream from IQ distribution, or is it an independent variable?

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@xwanyex California has demonstrated this at great cost with its Proposition 13, which is essentially Property Tax Stabilization. As always, it’s not the “stabilization” part that breaks, it’s the market distortion that needs to be relieved with ever more elaborate epicyclic remediations.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

I don’t get your point. You should have a right to mod your Ferrari, and Ferrari should have the right not to sell you a car.

There are two versions of “right to repair/ownership”. There’s “this is mine and I can hack it and you can’t sabotage it because you don’t like my hacks” (which I entirely support), and “you must make your stuff such that I can hack it easily, no matter how much worse that makes the product” (which I don’t).

Sadly, this is a spectrum. A bunch of Apple’s “hard to repair” reputation boils down to security measures defending you (well, your device and your account) against hardware hackery. I support “here’s a switch, you can throw it once, now we don’t support your device anymore and you’re on your own but it’s all yours”. I don’t support “you must make your device less secure for everyone so I can repair it myself”.

These problems lie with component integrations and ecosystems, not toasters and (classic) cars.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@nickgillespie That’s a non-sequitur. Even with minimal government, losing democratic legitimacy is fatal.

We need both defanging government and putting a floor under electoral manipulations. You do yours; he’ll do his.

Claiming this is either-or is not an argument you’ll win.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@spacemafia Actually, a (black hole) singularity is the suckiest thing known to physics.

Sorry; couldn’t resist. :-)

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@Robotbeat Don’t ascribe some strawman thought to me. You’re better than that.

“Encouraging” women through policy is another form of coercion. You don’t escape the politics here.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@Robotbeat @astroteuthis Don’t discount the internal differentials. TFR is not evenly distributed among regions or social classes. There is no policy that will make them all have 1/2 extra kid. You have to decide who you want to breed more, and that’s where the politics get… interesting.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@Robotbeat The kind of career you share with multiple kids is structurally different from the “go out and slay the enemy” type. You can make them easier, but they’ll never be competitive.

We used to have a “mommy track”, until feminism made that a dirty word. Because empowerment.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@TPCarney But imagine how much mischief you can do by creatively mixing up means and medians that way…

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

Expect a mature Starship to always be 10-15% below best available competition. Why leave money on the table when you can spend it on Mars instead?

And I expect most companies to fill “Starship-plus” niches rather than going head-to-head. Hard to get investor money for that.

Unless it’s a space elevator, obviously. Yeah, I know… but Starship was totally impossible too, remember? Sometimes physics gives it up if you torture it hard enough.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@astroteuthis @Robotbeat Unless you can re-engineer women’s biological clocks, longer lifespans don’t much help. You need more kids to crank the exponential math.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

It’s multi-functional. It finesses the War Power Resolution domestic issue, retains pressure on our EUropean “allies”, allows for collecting target data, and creates an auto-repeating Casus Belli we can trigger on any day we like.

It also gets the world used to the notion that EUrope does not matter diplomatically, puts China on notice that we’re touching their economic jugular, and forces a major rebuild of Near East diplomacy. And makes it impossible for Iran to link arms with their Western allies.

From this perspective, decapitating them first was vital because it removes strategic initiative from Iran.

Pretty neat work, actually. Very Sun Tsu-ish.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@HedgeDirty I wonder how much of this is from Academia’s push for “research” novelty - you don’t get cited and tenured for showing stuff people already know, but you do for claiming stuff that’s novel but ain’t so.

Probably a feedback loop by now.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@CynicalPublius At its heart, communism is based on the Perfectability Of Man. That's what "socialist man" is. Pretty much all of actual communist history is the recognition that people can't be changed at will. You can kill them but you can't change how they work.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

As the old saying goes, “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent”.

A stock index works kind of like a reverse roulette table. Each throw is roughly random, but the odds are slightly in your favor, so you win the long game… if you can stay in. 90% of “smart investing” advice boils down to calibrating your buffer so you barely survive the downturns… which is another form of (black swan) gambling, disguised as a science.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

Classic electric grids (if that's what you're pointing at) are something of a Commons (in the technical sense), with all the ensuing issues. More like Dutch dykes than commercial goods. That's a technology problem with political roots; the interconnects need re-engineering.

This is already starting. Look up "grid forming".

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@ferkthehoople @mattyglesias Great. Pass spot prices to consumers and have them make the conservation decisions based on their circumstances.

Just like with healthcare, you can price it or you can ration it.

The “great minds have decided this is right” mindset is the source of most of our current problems.

[Perry The Cynic @perrycynic]

@GMFWashington At this point, there is no agreement on what we’re even trying to achieve. Half of the left’s mission is to erase right-leaning gains, and vice versa.

It’s not the same water. It isn’t even the same glass anymore.