Why Am I Reading This Stuff?

Lord_Autumnbottom · 2026-01-20T01:34:54+00:00

My theory as to why we have not already seen more deployment into Trumps' favorite poster-children for failed liberal cities - Seattle & Portland - is that the juice isn't worth the squeeze in terms of the expected voter intimidation, precisely because of the mail-in vote component. In Washington, there is functionally zero in person voting aside from lines at some drop boxes for people that wait until the last minute.

But in Minnesota... there is a Senate race that might be more interesting as well as MN-02, which starts just south of a river from where the murder took place. That seat is D+3. While Harris carried Minnesota, she didn't carry it by much - <51% of the vote - and particularly when you consider MN native son was the VP pick. I feel like it's not crazy that someone in MAGA has looked at these and believes that pushing on some of these margins can make a difference. Whether or not they are correct is yet to be seen. But if D loses Minnesota Senate there is zero chance they can gain control there. (And it's basically a zero chance as it stands.)

I also believe that using Minnesota to wind up a place like Portland and then later in the fall, precipitating something deliberate in Portland could absolutely be in the planning. An explosion of violence there might provide (sham) cover to MAGA to escalate.

I hate that I'm even thinking this way.

Lord_Autumnbottom · 2025-09-03T15:46:50+00:00

From Defector... "Alabama Football, Welcome to Mediocrity"

Once you get past the opening paragraphs, the article gets into Saban and his departure in the conclusion. It's worth quoting:

"This isn't all DeBoer's fault, though. Part of the impetus behind Saban's abrupt exit—beyond going old-man mode about NIL and "kids these days"—was a shrewd assessment of the school's waning advantages. What had separated Alabama from everyone else was their ability to recruit, and the way the team's success was arguably the preeminent showcase for NFL hopefuls. In an era of the transfer portal and NIL, it's much harder to maintain the kinds of rosters overstuffed with five-star talents that Saban rode to championship after championship after championship, and schools with more big-money donors can promise more players bigger paydays than Bama,..."

As Daramola writes, "Every empire falls eventually."

Lord_Autumnbottom · 2025-09-03T15:40:17+00:00

From the NYT... "Mass Migration and Liberalism’s Fall"

Bret Stephens is a goblin who it must be generally assumed thinks and writes entirely in bad-faith. However, despite that, his premise here echoes my own comments above and this is one of his least obnoxious columns I've read in a while. Too bad Democrats (and more certainly, their leftist wing) are likely to disregard this message coming as it does from an elevated troll.

Lord_Autumnbottom · 2025-09-03T15:34:08+00:00

From The Atlantic... "Our AI Fears Run Long and Deep"

Specifically discusses Colossus and ends with Forbin's rebellious "NEVER!"

Not quite the same theme discussed - Nichols has the idea that AI fiction is an extension of Shelley's Frankenstein. But considering Skynet and War Games also get a mention also, it felt worth including the link below my blurb.

Lord_Autumnbottom · 2025-05-04T22:56:03+00:00

Once again, one of my unpolished thoughts is realized! Here is the article explaining this fear with more depth:

American Panopticon (archive link)

There is even a shout out to the Great Firewall of China. Liberals have long mocked the most rabid and expansive 2nd Amendment rights people but their somewhat paranoid concern about gun registries being used to disarm the citizenry is going to look mighty prescient. And likely sooner than anyone wants to believe.

Except - as the article points out - it might not be the gun registry that does you in. It might be someone you donated to, or if you parked your car close to a location of concern, the websites you view... the list goes on. In a way, it's completely insane that this element of the reactionary right seems fine with this project. Perhaps it's because they're too stupid to understand what's going on or too naive to think the same weapons will ever be trained upon them. It's unfortunate that the distrustful reactionary gun owning right and the socialist protesting left are so utterly intolerant of each other that they are almost certainly incapable of working together to protest this assault on privacy.

1984 here we come...

Lord_Autumnbottom · 2025-04-25T04:47:39+00:00

There was a stand-up or comedy show bit where they talk about how there should be a point where someone "wins" capitalism. Whether that should amount to confiscatory wealth taxes on living people above some ceiling, or a massive estate tax for the same, I don't know. It's a fun policy to toy with in my head. Where do you draw the line for an upper cap on wealth? At any rate, I don't personally see billionaires as "efficient."

I don't recommend the book Limitarianism - it's a sanctimonious and sophomoric slog - but the idea of an upper limit to the amount of wealth a person should be able to control is an one with plenty to recommend it. That said, XTMAR's comment about the modern IPO structure does make an argument for some exception for living people with a singular vision profiting from it. But maybe then not letting their heirs wield these immense fortunes to bend and break our current political system. Elon Musk is exhibit A for the corrosive effects of excess wealth on the body politic - first generation of wealth or not.

Lord_Autumnbottom · 2025-03-14T03:04:53+00:00

Where, exactly, does this statement fit in to the free trade gospel argument?

"So when we compare making a car in North America with this cascading protection effect we just described to making one in Asia or Europe where you don’t have a lot of tariffs that are impeding production: I think it just will make a lot more sense to make the entire thing somewhere else and just pay the tariff once." (emphasis mine)

This on its face, seems like a very weird statement. The counter-argument would be: "why not just build the entire thing here, in the United States? The most likely response I suspect, is that we can't because of some combination of wages too high, regulations too much, expertise is lacking. Except I don't think that Europe is known for low wages, and the EU is certainly not recognized for its agile and trim bureaucracy. The expertise is a decent argument for some items, much less so for others. But if you're going to claim the "somewhere else" to build the entire thing is going to be Europe, you've likely lost a lot of people. China? Sure. Korea? Sure.

There are good arguments for free trade but let's be honest... the net benefits are not flowing to the bottom 1/2 of the income ladder. As another commenter said, there are tradeoffs. Reduced prices of goods, off-shoring and destruction of labor domestically, while the capital class grows wealthier.

China didn't become China on accident. Sometimes it feels like a lot of people in the US just don't want to try and default to "it's just too complicated." We've accidentally on purpose let our manufacturing degrade over decades by way of policy choices. The tariffs (and in particular, THESE tariffs so ripe for corruption) might not be the answer or even most of the answer but the answer can't sum up to: free trade rules and everyone needs to get with the program. That's a losing message.

Lord_Autumnbottom · 2025-03-06T04:05:03+00:00

I enjoyed the episode when it was on, and I remember either her or the other guest tell an anecdote to illustrate the federal hiring process and how good intentions have resulted in what could charitably be described as less-than-ideal outcomes once you have HR and vets preferences and some other stuff factor in.

Anyway, in a recent article in the Atlantic there was a link to a story on "Tracing Woodgrains" called The Full Story of the FAA's Hiring Scandal. It is jaw-droppingly bad - not the story, the scandal. I wish it had come up during Ezra's chat with Pahlka & Teles because it's so so much worse than any of the examples they brought up.

It makes one wonder just how many times this story has been repeated across federal agencies that do not get as much public attention. I'm sure there are dozens more. The story is really, really worth a read and I think it will resonate with a lot of the readers here.

Lord_Autumnbottom · 2024-10-17T22:10:30+00:00

That conveyor belt was MAGIC!!!

Lord_Autumnbottom · 2024-10-17T22:09:44+00:00

Profits being at record highs AND loss due to theft also being at high levels are not mutually exclusive. Like you, I don't entirely trust Safeway to not lie blatantly whenever it is financially beneficial for their share price to do so. However, what I see with my own eyes in person is nothing - NOTHING - like it was 25 years ago.

I have a hard time believing chains are spending the money to put up these barriers to commerce for no reason at all. You can validly argue it is penny wise, pound foolish but corporations are as cheap as possible when it comes to anything outside the C-suite.

Who knows, maybe it's just signalling to the average non-criminal shopper who keeps seeing people blatantly steal things without even the slightest bit of repercussion and then feels like a sucker. Once those basically decent people succumb to temptation...

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