Item the 1st:
I think this was posted recently in a comment as an excerpt from an article on Oakland’s new mayor
“Oakland has about 400,000 residents and is deeply liberal and multicultural, the birthplace of the Black Panther Party and claimed by former Vice President Kamala Harris as her hometown.
But Oakland also is reeling from homeless tents, public drug use, illegal sideshows, gun violence and brazen robberies that prompted In-N-Out Burger to close its first location ever last year.”
This is a common journalist construct: Sentence or paragraph extolling the progressive credentials of a locale and, by extension what a wonderful place it should be.
BUT (or sometimes DESPITE)
Sentence or paragraph listing the litany of crappy, run down, 3rd world aspects of said place.
Proposed addendum to Iron Laws – Whenever one encounters such a construct, substitute the ‘but’ or ‘despite’ with “Because”, “as a direct result of”, or “we have no conception of cause and affect let alone the direction of causality, so we will proceed, seemingly completely befuddled by the completely predictable crappy outcomes of the actions we extol as right and just”
Item the 2nd:
The current kerfuffle of the week in the ultra-right/dark web/mano-centric man-achracy of the podcast world is the “debate” between Douglas Murray and Dave Smith. Whereby kerfuffle I mean everyone going on everyone else’s podcast to gossip about who owned who. Murray was on Lex Fridman (might have been the first), Smith and Murray “debating” on Rogan, Smith on Fridman, Murray on Malice, the last 57.6 Smith Part of the Problem podcasts commenting on the debate, presumably about how he, a simple comedian, totally owned and dominated. Yeah, I haven’t really followed; not really into a slap fight between a gay, snooty, elitist Brit ‘intellectual’ and David Murray. OK, that’s not fair, Dave Smith is not a Brit. And he’s got more of the smarmy pseudo-cool earnest hipster theater dude vibe going.
What I did do is start watching Murray on Fridman before all this crap vomited out. I didn’t finish it because it was time to make dinner, and by the time I got back to, the whole affair had become a big bitch fest so I never finished (or started on any of the other ones). But before I wandered off, I had seen Murray make a statement in response to a question about the cause of the Ukraine war. His take was “Putin invaded, end of story. That’s what caused the war.” While that’s trivially true, it’s not very probative. He was largely trying to dismiss those who point to the US, NATO and the EU making the conflict basically unavoidable. He was having none of that, as that would not place all the blame squarely on Putin who clearly want to occupy all of Europe and probably rapes puppies. It was a very similar, really the same, tactic as deployed against Ron Paul when he postulated US policy and blowback being a factor in terrorist attacks, specifically 9-11. If you petulantly object to examination of potential long term root cause and get all pissy if someone suggests that you look at it from the perspective of Satan and the motivations of the other actors leading up the invasion, your just not being serious.
Item the 3rd:
I’ve been going through W.M. Briggs’ Free class. I’ve just jotted down a few issues I have, nothing particularly deep, just things that make me go huh. As this is already long, I’ll just pick a couple of items in my list of questions to ponder and avoid the more ‘philosophical’ ones.
In lecture 29, he postulates the following about a student who takes a class and can earn a GPA of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. Those are the only possibilities. Then he goes on:
Now suppose she takes two classes. The GPA possibilities are now 0, 0.5, 2, 2.5, …, 4. There are no other possibilities. The mistake in Uncertainty is assuming each of these is equally likely. They are not, given G.
Now never mind the actual point he is making – there more ways to get to some subsets of the numbers than others, so probabilities are not equal, just like with the toss of a pair of dice. Why are GPAs of 1, 1.5, etc not possible (“There are no other possibilities”). Seems earning a 1 in both leads to a 1 and earning 1 in one and 2 the other leads to 1.5, etc.
In lecture 14, we find the following:
We really only need these simple facts, and these three probability rules, and we can derive nearly all the probability we’ll ever need. That’s how much we have done, though it might not see like it.
Pr(AB|C) = Pr(A|BC)Pr(B|C) = Pr(B|AC)Pr(A|C). Bayes’s theorem.
Pr(A|B) + Pr(not-A|B) = 1.
Pr(A_i|B) = 1/n, if B says there are N states only one of which must obtain (and says nothing more).
My quarrel/confusion is with the 3rd. Near as I can tell if all B says is that there are N states, one of which must obtain, we cannot say the probability of one of those states occurring is 1/n. We have no a priori way of saying what the probability of A_i is without more information in the prior B. To my mind, with the given B, there is no information to assign a probability to any of the states. Seems like the best you can do is say Pr(A_i|B) is on the interval [0,1] and SUM_N(Pr(A_i|B))=1.
Re: Item the 1st – I have observed that leftists are completely incapable of drawing the connection between the policies they vote for and the consequences of those policies.
For a group that will routinely say the ends justify the means, they don’t really like to think about the predictable outcomes of their policy recommendations.
seen benefits, diffuse costs. We’re very good at seeing direct, immediate consequences, less so at seeing more abstract connections potentially separated in time.
bad luck and wreckers
As a proggy coworker said to me when I was building a financial model, “Don’t pay attention to real numbers. Build the model and make the world fit the model.” I may be paraphrasing a bit. To be fair, there probably are places here and there where you can make the world fit the model, but you need to be realistic about it.
I have had one tell me explicitly that considering the practical outcomes of enacting policies rather than ones feelings about policies or especially if the policymaker is a ‘good person’ is having one’s priorities exactly backwards.
I advised them to stay the hell away from the voting booth.
I was told there would be no math.
Homelessness has skyrocketed because we have spent millions combatting it.
because
No, no, no! Despite. It’s despite.
Imagine how much worse it would be if we didn’t spend that money!
subsidizing it
Thanks for writing, these are fun to read.
I’m loving the South Park references!
OT – https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/1kbuc7y/oc_avg_florida_driver/
I’m calling this a win all around. We have:
1. Guy in the middle lane who speeds up so the truck can’t pass.
2. Guy in the truck who PITs himself trying to pass middle lane guy.
3. Slowest moving car on the road in the left lane, naturally, as collateral damage.
Driving slow in the left lane should be a hanging offense.
The whole state of Ohio would have to hang. I am okay with that.
I like Dave and agree with him on most things, but you’re not wrong.
Can’t say I like him or dislike him, don’t know him, but do agree with him a fair amount. But he really sets me on edge when he retreats into “Well I just want children to stop dying, how about that?!?” in that ‘duh’ tone. You’re right Dave, my argument is all about wanting dead kids. He gets push back on an idea and retreats to trying to shut down ‘debate’ by pretentious moralizing, as if people disagreeing with him really just want dead kids.
Agreed. I listen to Smith’s podcast regularly, and he’s really good on a lot of stuff. It’s been said on this forum before, but I think October 7 and the reaction thereto broke Smith’s brain, and I often have to just skip the parts of his podcast where he goes off on he subject. That said, Douglas Murray made an ass of himself in that Rogan appearance by constantly appealing to his own authority.
Douglas Murray made an ass of himself
I did not watch the discussion on Rogan, but I have heard the same thing from other people who have. A huge bundle of appeal to authority and elites. I realize that bagging on Smith out of the gate may have implied support/agreement with Murray, but nothing further from the truth. Item the 2nd started as disgust with Murray’s “Putin did, end of story” framing of Ukraine on Fridman. I just wanted to bag on Smith at the same time because I’m a dick.
To quote Volbeat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0TCBMusT8c
Counting all the assholes in the room
Well, I’m definitely not alone, well, I’m not alone
<3 Volbeat
To quote Volbeat:
Fun as heck to play. Catchy but easy enough for even a tard like me to make a passable attempt.
Today in science denialism
President Donald Trump’s administration released a lengthy review of transgender health care on Thursday that advocates for a greater reliance on behavioral therapy rather than broad gender-affirming medical care for youths with gender dysphoria.
The 409-page Health and Human Services report questions standards for the treatment of transgender youth issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and is likely to be used to bolster the government’s abrupt shift in how to care for a subset of the population that has become a political lightning rod. Medical experts sharply criticized it as inaccurate.
——-
Child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Scott Leibowitz, a co-author of the WPATH standards for youth, said the new report “legitimizes the harmful idea that providers should approach young people with the notion that alignment between sex and gender is preferred, instead of approaching the treatment frame in a neutral manner.”
The report contradicts American Medical Association guidance, which urges states not to ban gender-affirming care for minors, saying that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”
It also was prepared without input from the American Academy of Pediatrics, according to its president, Dr. Susan Kressly.
“This report misrepresents the current medical consensus and fails to reflect the realities of pediatric care,” Kressly said. She said the AAP was not consulted “yet our policy and intentions behind our recommendations were cited throughout in inaccurate and misleading ways.”
Operating under the restraints imposed by reality is no fun.
co-author of the WPATH standards – Well there’s a neutral objective source…
“empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”
Even if true – normal is doing a lot of lifting there, and there are lots of ‘normal variations’ in humans that are not healthy or desirable – it says absolutely nothing about to appropriateness of chopping bits off of children and stuffing them full of chemicals that will irrevocably disrupt their normal biological development.
legitimizes the harmful idea that providers should approach young people with the notion that alignment between sex and gender is preferred,
It’s harmful to say “you should think of yourself as female because you’re female.”
GTFOH
No, seriously, and we should also affirm to schizophrenics that the voices are real.
Let me guess, no mention that this is 100% in line with recent changes made by several countries in Europe.
The combination of politically-induced mass hysteria and big $$ to be made is powerful as hell. That’s why the US is way behind the curve on this one.
Got some evidence, or are you just upset that your policy and intentions were publicly shared?
“It’s not Grooming when WE do it!”
And “All people were born with the wrong body!”
Because of course thar’s gold in them thar drugs an’ operations!
No mention that the vast majority of “trans kids” are actually just gay, I assume.
Where is the stunning and brave in that, I guess.
That wreck…. That’s a Minnesota Fats trick shot. I don’t think a Hollywood stunt crew could pull that off successfully once in ten tries no matter how carefully they choreographed it.
I’m just hoping the poor guy in the right lane didn’t take damage from the debris.
The Trump administration’s report says “many” U.S. adolescents who are transgender or are questioning their gender identity have received surgeries or medications. In fact, such treatments remain rare as a portion of the population. Fewer than 1 in 1,000 adolescents in the U.S. received gender-affirming medication — puberty blockers or hormones — according to a five-year study of those on commercial insurance released this year. About 1,200 patients underwent gender-affirming surgeries in one recent year, according to another study.
Well, the pediatricians are doing everything they can to get those numbers up.
The Trump administration’s report says “many” U.S. adolescents who are transgender or are questioning their gender identity
…
Fewer than 1 in 1,000 adolescents in the U.S.
The first is clearly a subset of the second, Captain Journalisms. It could be very likely that many people in the first set would be a miniscule portion of the larger set.
“in one recent year”
They do not specify a year. I suppose 2020 is “recent”, but if that’s the year they used, it would be a bit different from 2024.
How much fewer than 1 in 1,000 – because that is already shockingly high if you ask me.
Well, the organic incidence of the mental illness is 0.01%, or 1 in 10,000. The occurance of people pushed into mutilation is unknown, as it is artficial, so the numbers are something they’ve avoided publishing to widely in the last few years.
A retired Pastor teaches our Sunday class. He grew up in Oakland in the 50s and 60s. When he talks about it, you can tell he feels the loss. It sounds like it was a special place 70 years ago. Then it got out of control and was thoroughly ruined.
It sounds like it was a special place 70 years ago. Then it got out of control and was thoroughly ruined.
You’ve just described every blue city in the nation.
Don’t worry though, the parasites are spreading.
Come on down to Cleveland, we can go around the area that used to be Millionaire’s Row. I’ll advise that we’ll do it during daylight, and I would advise you to contemplate making use of Ohio’s Constitutional carry in the area.
As an example, this is what we call the Opportunity Corridor…
So, Mr Ilium, what I take away from this is that I should avoid… Cleveland.
I was born there and grew up nearby. Oakland has a lot of potential. The weather is better than SF. The hills are beautiful and the area around the lake is nice. There are some really nice neighborhoods. But some of it is absolutely awful and allowed, even encouraged, to be that way by the politicians and the people that vote for them.
I was born and raised in Oakland (also ‘50s and 60s’). Some of it in a housing project in East Oakland. Hanging out by the bay and riding our bikes all over it was a great place to grow up. It sickens me to see what it has become. I’ve been back a couple times on business since I left in ‘69 – regretted doing so. The place I knew hadn’t changed so much as just disappeared.
Even if true – normal is doing a lot of lifting there, and there are lots of ‘normal variations’ in humans that are not healthy or desirable – it says absolutely nothing about to appropriateness of chopping bits off of children and stuffing them full of chemicals that will irrevocably disrupt their normal biological development.
How is it not better to work with the person to help them find a way to live within the constraints of their biological selves (whatever that means)?
You are an emotionally sensitive boy who gravitates toward beautiful things? Unprecedented!
I still think a great deal of this is driven by parents horrified by the thought they have a gay child.
There are no gays in trans-world.
Exactly. A boy with feminine traits is not a girl; he’s a boy with feminine traits.
There are no tomboys, there are only boys with bonus holes.
The trans brigade have pigeonholed every human behavior into ‘male’ and ‘female’ slots, and if you even show the slightest interest in something ‘belonging’ to the opposite ‘gender’ you’re ‘trans’. It’s complete bullshit, they know it, but it gives them power, influence, and cash, so they promote it.
A good rule of thumb I think I read here: whatever you read or hear, ask “who wants me to believe this and why?”
Case in point: Andrew Bustamante is a former CIA officer with an interesting YouTube channel. However, I know he’s been lying about stuff.
For example, he claims that the only thing the basement night shift CIA workers have to eat from is a hotdog machine. I worked the night shift at a minor NSA facility, and the spread was way better than that: pizza, hotdogs, popcorn, sandwich vending machines, etc. You could get decent hot food up to about 2300 and plenty of people ordered takeout.
https://youtu.be/zEiGqwgGCDo?si=3cpZv__ccanm0q7p&t=844
I did enjoy midnight meals at bases that offered them.
No, seriously, and we should also affirm to schizophrenics that the voices are real.
Stop shaming those experiencing cannibalistic urges. We should accept and encourage their divergency.
Hell, why not just hand the wannabe Hamasistas guns and ‘indulge your fantasies!’
Item the 1st: Good observation and yes, it is almost universal when discussing such places. What it really speaks to is the intransigence of those believing in such ideas. An intransigence that is born of feelings rather than rational thought. Feelings are gut reactions that are near instantaneous and require no effort. There are large numbers of people who are of weak character and their primary feeling is fear. Reality is just too awful to face so they invent a fantasy world and go about living in it as if it really exists.
I have been accused more than a few times of being boring. Boring because nothing ever happens in my life and I attempt to make rational, well thought out decisions. When I point out to those people that their lives are never ending train wrecks and rivers of tears, anxiety and disaster they dismiss me and reiterate that I am boring.
Boring is highly underrated.
Item the 2nd: I dont know anything about this.
Item the 3rd: I have a lot to say about this but it will not fit here. It might be suitable for an article. I have some things scratched out already, maybe I will finish it.
I like random thoughts. I like them so much I have an extensive collection of them. We need more articles like this. Thank you PUTRIDMEAT.
Item the 2nd: I dont know anything about this.
Count yourself lucky!
I’m the same way, and I do count myself lucky. And (but???) at the same time it’s interesting to note that out there in politics-land there are whole worlds like this that lots of other people get really into, and which touch on things I’m interested in, but which I don’t even know about. There’s always been “inside baseball”, but maybe this is just me starting to check out of the world.
Strongly agree. These are fantastic. I’m in a fun, not-quite out of my depth, cuz I *know* I’m drowning and I’m fascinated by the whole thing.
It’s good for a (mostly?) laymen to get to read your work and the conversation.
I strongly approve of more Random Thoughts pieces. Mine seem to purposefully go in no direction. /self-snark
Near as I can tell if all B says is that there are N states, one of which must obtain, we cannot say the probability of one of those states occurring is 1/n.
But that complicates the model.
I think Item the 1st may fall under the Fox Butterfield Effect.
I would say the Fox Butterfield Effect falls under item the 1st.
Fox is a specific example of the general case – Thing X is happening but/despite thing Y happening, using but/despite even though a very strong case can be made for a direct causal relationship in the sense of X causing Y. Which is really just a manifestation of peoples inability to properly assess cause and effect, either by completely reversing the direction of causality (Fox) or not being able to conceive of a causal path (Oakland).
I can agree with that.
Many math mistakes are the result of improper simplification, which can lead to accidentally dividing by zero, among other things.
e^i = (e^i)^(2π/2π) = (e^2πi)^(1/2π) =1^(1/2π) = 1
That is false, however e^iπ = -1 is a famous identity.
The key is knowing that (a^b)^c = a^(bc) only if a is positive or b and c are integers. Otherwise, you can get crazy things like:
−1 = (−1)^(2/2) = ((−1)^2)^(1/2) = 1^(1/2) = 1
https://mathoverflow.net/questions/94742/examples-of-interesting-false-proofs
There are many false proofs that 1 = 2, etc and they all involve dividing by zero instead of simplifying.
a = b
a^2 = ab
a^2 + a^2 = ab + a^2
2a^2 = a^2 + ab
2a^2 – 2ab = a^2 +ab – 2ab
2a^2 – 2ab = a^2 – ab
2(a^2 -ab) = (a^2 – ab)
2(a^2 -ab)/(a^2 – ab) = (a^2 – ab)/(a^2 -ab)
2 = 1
Dividing by (a^2 – ab) is the same as dividing by 0 since a = b, so the proof falls apart.
Progressive policies:
I have distilled this before but worth doing again.
Every scam has one attribute in common and every time you see that attribute you are looking at a scam, without exception – The urgent need for money.
It will be paired up with one of two things. 1. Old people in sackcloth, starving children or shivering puppies. 2. The Gods are angry, doom approaches, sacrifices must be made.
Urgent need for money – weaponized empathy or fear.
Can anyone think of a single progressive policy that does not fit this mold?
There are a few that don’t rely on money, but are about fear or empathy: open borders, gun control, affirmative action, gay marriage, etc.
I’d it’s more about statist philosophy that left vs right, though the left tends to be more statist at least in economic matters.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
H. L. Mencken
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”
Ernest Benn
You are incorrect. What. you list are the means by which power is obtained…the scam. In the end it is always about the money. Always. Ask anyone who has lived through an authoritarian regime. The authoritarian power is just the means by which they steal everything. Usurping individual’s power is about preventing individuals resisting the theft.
It is always the money.
I think you two are talking past another.
Scams need to be fueled by money, but enticing $ into the scam are often fueled through emotional pleas. Venn Diagrams. The world contains them.
Like the smishing I get threatening government action if I don’t pay now.
Waltz ousted is interesting, considering most of the chattering class picked Hegseth to be gone by last Friday.
Consolation prize…
https://thehill.com/homenews/5277929-mike-waltz-un-ambassador-rubio-nsc/
Is he going to roast them while vetoing any actions they want to take?
On item #1. I don’t remember where I first heard it but “We judge ourselves by our intentions and we judge others by their actions.”
Hence the giant stupid (fantastically common) “but”. They align themselves with all those proggie wishes and are utterly unable to see past their intentions into reality.
Hence, when things go wrong, it’s always the fault of someone else who has bad intentions.
This issue has broken a lot of brains, IMHO.
The NY Post, for example, is 100% in that camp. You can tell just as much by what is not said as by the articles they do post, which are almost comically pro-Z. Then few months ago there was a series of articles claiming that Putin was on his death bed. Et cetera ad nauseum. They can be thoughtful about lots of topics but on this one it is just reflexively thought-less.
But before I wandered off, I had seen Murray make a statement in response to a question about the cause of the Ukraine war. His take was “Putin invaded, end of story. That’s what caused the war.”
That’s the same as the Rogan show.
My kid in Seattle is reporting people are panic buying. They opened Costco early because there was a long line before doors opened. The ports are empty because there are no shipments from China, so of course people are buying everything.
I would have thought that we had stockpiled enough tchotchkes in our distribution centers to last us long enough for some sort of deal was reached.
Or has everything disappeared in a wink of an eye already?
The herd is panicking. She said they are buying a lot of toilet paper and paper towels, and when I looked it up, I found 99% of those products are made here in the US. Some of the raw materials come from Brazil, none come from China.
And here I thought they were prepping to terrorize us with another plague.
It turns out we don’t even need that anymore.
Quick. I better go buy years worth of toilet paper.
People are dumb. News at 11.
My kid in Seattle is reporting people are panic buying.
Something something dumb panicky animals.
I must have raised her right. Instead of joining in, she’s annoyed because she was looking forward to a quiet morning of shopping. She’s pretty stocked up on everything and she’s coming here in a few weeks anyway.
To be honest, I’m probably going to order a (to me) stupidly expensive wheelbarrow, because it’s unlikely they will be getting cheaper any time son.
Quick. I better go buy years worth of toilet paper.
CHINESIUM toilet paper.
Is it recycled?
All I need is a garden hose and some running water and I’ll be fine.
hillbilly bidet
Got an interesting look into grooming.
Went to my 4 and 10yo’s school, song-singing thingy. Or whatever. Each class from pre-K to 4th, when I wisely left, sang a song for their parents+. The MC said before it started that the songs were chosen cuz they make the kids, class, (teachers) whatever happy.
Perhaps most odd was that at least three songs mentioned Jesus in the religious sense. It’s a Center for Inquiry School in Indy for the 10yo, who has some spectrum issues. Mom was with me and agreed, one sounded like a sex-song but they end up ‘coming’ for Jesus. Wasn’t overtly sexualized, but lyrics are lyrics. Meh. Christian pop.
The worst offender was Sunroof by “Nicky Youre and dazy,” 2022. Fuck. Anyhoo, the song is straight-up a hot-rod hookup song.
“I got my head out the sunroof
I’m blasting our favorite tunes
I only got one thing on my mind
You got me stuck on the thought of you”
Gotcha. Ok. Then,
“You got those pretty eyes in your head, you know it
You got me dancing in my bed so let me show it
You are exactly what I want, kinda cool and kinda not
Wanna give myself to you”
And the rest of the song is pretty much the same, and equally terribly written. But these were third-graders. They rehearsed. Their parents certainly know the songs, and either it wasn’t vetted at all or poorly, IMO. They may have though it was perfectly proper.
*shaking youthful fist at clouds, onion in hand*
It’s sick seeing the generation topsy-turvy. In the ’50s parents were fearful of kids gettin’ bumpity before marriage, and now parents are actively encouraging it. I strongly believe in ‘mostly let teens be sexual teens w each other’ but, I also had the rebellion to actually go out and go out on my own and do my own shit. (I completely failed in the sexual realm. I wasn’t adventurous there, due to naive me.)
My gen manicures their kids’ lives, but now encourage and practice shit even *I* find creepy as fuck, and *I* want Heroin vending machines and legalized prostitution. (Not tonight, Darling, but I *am* famished..)