• 0 Posts
  • 78 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: August 2nd, 2023

help-circle


  • What would “in” consist of?

    Democrats had both houses and the Oval Office in 2021. The Democrats were as “in” as they can reasonably expect to get unless we want to go back to 2011 when the Democrats had all that and a supermajority.

    What was stopping him from doing something now? Who forced him to send more arms to Israel?

    And how is the Democrats ability to do the right thing inhibited in any way by people complaining about a CEO supporting genocide?

    These arguments sound a lot like when my 10 year old tells me that they’ll stop watching video games and do their homework as soon as I stop nagging them. That’s nonsense. They do their homework when I take the laptop away and tell them they can’t have it back until the homework is done.



  • It’s completely disingenuous to refer to it as just “visiting family.”

    He was the one who decided to post a photo op in Tel Aviv. His previous posts make it clear that he knew he was doing so right next to an active genocide. According to the article, pro-Israelis interpreted it as an endorsement of Israeli policy.

    Reasonable people still have boundaries. Reasonable people don’t “hold their nose” at genocide. Reasonable people stop believing in empty promises when every Israeli atrocity is rewarded with praise and unwavering support.







  • I don’t need to guess. I know from having been to China and having talked to people.

    It’s mostly a combination of 3 things:

    1. Tons of infrastructure. If you decide to start manufacturing some random thing you can easily get all the stuff you need to get started.
    2. Regulations are generally very favorable to small startups and businesses. This is partly why so much of the stuff on Temu is crap.
    3. A huge population. That’s the main source of ultra cheap labor. Farmers in rural China can still make as little as $1.90 per day. All a factory owner needs to offer is more than that and they’ll have a line of applicants.



  • Not rude at all. The original question is why certain people behave in a certain way.

    The first point addresses the direct reason why some voters would refuse to vote for Harris due to her stance on Israel. When people believe they are being harmed they tend to focus all their attention on the immediate harm. It’s not a logical choice but people don’t act logically in these circumstances.

    As an example of this, I’d offer our response to 9/11. The entire nation came together to pass the PATRIOT act and start a war in Afghanistan. There’s no logic in passing a bill that was so long that no one in congress could have read it before voting on it. It’s hard to argue for the logic of invading Afghanistan. There wasn’t really an objective (besides “get OBL”, who we later ended up assassinating in an other country) and in retrospect it’s certainly clear that it caused far more harm than good. But we were in an emotional state. The people watching their relatives getting bombed in Gaza are in a similarly emotional state.

    The second point addresses why Democrats attempts to convince them are failing so spectacularly. Getting someone to vote for your preferred candidate is an exercise in persuasion. Much has been written about the art of persuasion and “insult your audience,” isn’t generally a recommended technique. One counterexample is “pickup artists”. They theorize that by insulting or “negging” women they can motivate the woman to counter the insult by seeking the mans approval. While this does work on some small percentage of women, the vast majority are more motivated to find their mace.






  • Charity is about who benefits, not about who decides how to provide that benefit.

    The idea of choosing a charity based on the donor’s will of how it will get spent describes almost all types of charity. If someone donates to any charity at all, they have made a choice on how to allocate their resources and they just take it on faith that that’s the people who need it the most.

    Furthermore, any given dollar of his can only be spent once. The money he spent on himself enriches himself. It’s a considerable amount of money but it’s a tiny fraction of the money he controls. Any dollar he gives away can’t be spent to enrich himself.

    Finally, Buffet has donated over $57 billion. How is he supposed to distribute that? Fly a plane around the country and dump cash out the window? Send a huge check to the IRS? Give it all to your favorite charity? The obvious answer is that he sets up an organization that will analyze existing charities for need and effectiveness and then distributes his assets accordingly.