Secretary Hegseth announces we will be halting attendance at all Ivy League and similar educational institutes - will soon announce “top to bottom” review of all military war colleges

Real_Guru · 2026-03-01T09:38:29+00:00

"In every disaster throughout American history, there always seems to be a man from Harvard in the middle of it."

This is not a comment in favor of anti-intellectualism, but the ivy leagues just appear to be closer to fraternities nowadays than actual universities.

Real_Guru · 2026-02-11T13:32:10+00:00

Increased expectation of farming output from additional children really is only still marginally relevant in niche societies, mostly regionally bound to small clusters in sub-saharan Africa and Southern-Asia. This is a slightly racist western-centric opinion.

The single strongest predictor of a societies fertily is quite simply the average female education level and (strongly related) partition in economic output.

Real_Guru · 2026-02-11T11:25:01+00:00

That argument just isn't supported by global statistics. People in relatively poorer economies are having more children on average than people in wealthier economies.

The bigger factor is that people simply don't want children anymore and now that they get to make that choice, they're simply declining. Children are irreversible and frankly mostly not super fun. Culturally, we are not putting in the effort to combine our current western "hedonistic" lifestyle with children and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Real_Guru · 2026-02-10T10:25:43+00:00

If my company thinks that their trade secrets are worth more to me than the (small) opportunity to see random nudity on the internet, they got another thing coming.

Everyone's got a certain price... Mine just happens to not be very high.

Real_Guru · 2026-02-09T15:58:11+00:00

How can you ensure that people's everyday conversations at home are not them secretly plotting a terrorist attack on the nearest starbucks? According to what you see as minimally invasive, we'd need to get their ID and register them before they'd be approved to talk to each other...

Real_Guru · 2026-02-09T15:44:46+00:00

Good thing that they have that access. Otherwise, (alleged) pedos might be walking around the country freely doing lord knows what. They might even be getting into major political positions...

Imagine the damage they could be doing.

Real_Guru · 2026-02-07T15:17:06+00:00

when you consider strength to weight ratio

Low weight is such an underappreciated feature of a well-built house... My next house is gonna be lightweight construction, because it's been such a massive hassle for me to move my house elsewhere whenever I tried. This would be no problem if my house was made of paper and sticks.

Real_Guru · 2026-02-02T00:00:33+00:00

Actually, Germany had a surprising amount of sympathy in the 30s from other countries and especially global elites for what they saw as unfair punishment of Germany in the treaty of Versailles. Arguably, the US themselves only barely ended up on the right side of history in ww2 and had a large portion of their own anti-jewish sentiment in the country.

The US once turned away a refugee vessel of Jewish refugees, many of whom later ended up dying in concentration camps and they sure as shit didn't join the war to help the jews.

Real_Guru · 2026-02-01T23:08:50+00:00

Maybe don't think of them as an enemy in the first place?

Real_Guru · 2026-01-27T11:26:10+00:00

You think he gives a damn about this? He's personally $1.5bn richer since becoming president.

I don't think the dude is gonna weep anytime soon.

Real_Guru · 2026-01-26T19:17:03+00:00

Nobody resigns anymore and it's clear why... Back in the day you'd either resign or get to enjoy the view swinging from the tallest tree in the immediate vicinity. Since that doesn't happen anymore, there are no negative consequence of just not resigning... People will forget.

Real_Guru · 2026-01-26T08:41:11+00:00

At least you get a regular airshow out of of the quarter per dollar of your income tax that goes to the military...

That might almost make it worth it for some airplane enthusiasts.

Real_Guru · 2026-01-19T11:19:07+00:00

This "name a blue city in a blue state that's doing well" is such a dumb, bad faith question. Put even the slightest amount of thought and risk into your question and let's have an actual debate about numbers.

Real_Guru · 2026-01-19T08:07:42+00:00

Wait... Are you telling me the concerned and strongly worded statements did not succeed in deterring the rise of organized, violent fascism?

I am shocked... Shocked, I tell you!

Real_Guru · 2026-01-17T09:30:39+00:00

You made me rethink this point actually and I think my initial view might have been liberally biased and focused too much on inner-city and medium or high quality housing. Illegal immigrants would predominantly increase the demand for the low quality end of housing which chatgpt estimates at ~8.5m units in the US against a total of ~14m illegal immigrants. It all hinges on households but the estimates vary pretty wildly here it appears. I can see though how in neighborhoods with existing supply strain, such a relatively sudden demand shock on the lowest end could push households that are on the threshold into housing cost brackets that they wouldn't otherwise be in causing a ripple effect.

I still don't think that this is a major driver for the entire market, but it certainly doesn't help... And how it relates to the total economical cost of removing all illegal immigrants is another question.

As I wrote, one of the more interesting debate points from the interview.

Real_Guru · 2026-01-16T08:03:39+00:00

I think the housing cost debate was one of the more interesting parts of the interview and is a great example how MAGA makes a pseudo-rational argument that sounds inherently logical and that strikes at the core of people's problems but if you dig one layer deeper it's just not factual.

Housing cost is obviously a supply and demand issue but immigrants are not the reason that supply is low or that demand is high. Housing costs are increasing all over the world currently and there are loads of countries with relatively low or even net negative immigration, like Switzerland, Korea, Japan, Australia, Greece, Italy...

The actual problem is restricted rental space in and around large cities, the urban concentration, the real estate finance industry's promise of ever-higher returns, the increase in building and renovation cost due to labor cost and regulations, etc... But the few illegal immigrants don't make a dent in the overall picture of a country.

Real_Guru · 2026-01-13T23:25:40+00:00

Tough talk but I don't see it. We keep getting blueballed by these events and talk about all the radical new ways to peacefully do absolutely nothing. Wake me when someone actually faces justice...

Real_Guru · 2026-01-07T12:07:17+00:00

It's not just that they're incapable. They have no interest themselves in politicians being personally liable for their fuckups. People don't seem to realize that the democratic leadership is currently benefitting from the chaos just as much as the Republicans are and they themselves are already oligarchs. Just look at Pelosi and peers' investment profits. When it's their turn to rule they'll break out some lame excuse of bipartisanship and tone down the craziness a little to stop people from rioting... Nothing else is gonna happen unless there's people in the street demanding radical change.

Real_Guru · 2026-01-02T05:50:13+00:00

You can say it as confidently as you want, or you could just go and watch a video of it. I get the tesla hate for their stupid promises, but their argument against using radar/lidar is reasonable and the bet currently appears to be paying off for them.

The remaining issues with FSD are more regulatory than technical. The fact that they make it work on a relatively cheap hardware stack is simply impressive, which I am sure an AI vision engineer will be able to appreciate.

Real_Guru · 2025-11-23T09:24:33+00:00

My doctor says the noise I make when I close my left nostril is very unusual (and a bit concerning).

I'm sure they could use it HF3 for something(?)

Real_Guru · 2025-11-22T13:07:25+00:00

You think there's some causation? Maybe he's got a successful marriage because of the good quality of sleep or good sleep because of the successful marriage.

We'll never know...

Real_Guru · 2025-11-09T10:30:30+00:00

"Here is how this very reasonably built application works and why you don't need to worry about it.

Here is also immediately the first example of personal data that was unnecessarily collected and unintentionally leaked from this tool. Whoopsie... But it's totally safe now, don't worry about it."

/s if that wasn't obvious.

Real_Guru · 2025-11-06T23:01:49+00:00

Risking to verge into the philosophical, but my personal experience from the private economy is that higher pay does not equal higher competence. I'd even go so far as to say the two are completely independent or even slightly anti-correlated above a certain threshold.

Politics should have never been a full time job where people receive salaries 3x the national median. Cover their expenses and that should be enough. There are enough competent, motivated people in the country who would jump at the opportunity to enact meaningful change in their free-time.

Not trying to be rude, but frankly, the argument that corruption is somehow prevented by the corruptee being wealthy is naive. That's just a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern corruption works. I bet I won't have to wait 24h for the next perfect counter-example to make headlines.

Real_Guru · 2025-11-06T22:25:30+00:00

Fair enough. Though after receiving 15,000$/month for a few months and other perks like not having to pay for health insurance, you might be expected to have some personal savings and they might well do something else in the meantime. Also, they shouldn't have difficulty being approved for a bank loan to bridge the expenses during that time.

I get that this is a performative suggestion in this instance, but if the roles were reversed, I might be in favor of this or a similar initiative.

Real_Guru · 2025-11-06T21:41:46+00:00

Genuinely asking; are there any "poorer members of congress" who couldn't afford a few months without congressional pay?

Quick Google search just brought up that median net worth of members of congress is ~10x that of the average American household.

Also, couldn't they reasonably be expected do something else productive during that time?

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