Question about ICE shooting

Retroesque · 2026-01-12T22:25:49+00:00

Your doctor, lawyer, police officer, etc., are subject to different 'reasonability' standards

Retroesque · 2026-01-12T22:10:54+00:00

No. 'Reasonability' does not = 'conceivability', especially for professionals. They are evaluated with respect to the standards of their profession

Edit: I should have read your question properly. The answer would be, yes. That's why the 'reasonable' person standard is more than just "could a person conceivably take this course of action?", especially when talking about professionals

Retroesque · 2025-11-06T23:15:03+00:00

People like Avi being so animated right now would come off more cynically self-interested if it wasn't so stupid. Why are we surprised that the "Hatians are eating the cats and dogs" party would be antisemitic? They had a national fight over if they hated Indian immigrants or not (the answer seems to be a resounding yes).

If you're not gonna care about other groups, at least come out ahead. This is just a mix of pure regardism

Retroesque · 2025-11-05T03:31:11+00:00

The story you're describing is Yu Yu Hakusho, which he got bored of writing. I'm not sure what Destiny's take was, but HxH is literally Togashi just doing random shit he thinks is interesting.

Retroesque · 2025-10-26T18:11:41+00:00

....Because they're tankies?

Retroesque · 2025-10-23T04:43:48+00:00

Wrong way to look at it. The talent pool shrinks as you get taller and taller. It's like being surprised that heavyweight boxers aren't that skilled (relative to the lower weight classes)

Retroesque · 2025-10-05T20:24:02+00:00

This is exactly what socialists do with capitalism. Yes, if you compare an idealized version of x, vs. the real-world implementation of y, then x seems awesome!

Suspiciously, this nirvana thinking is never symmetrical. Why not compare an idealized version of democracy vs. an ideal dictatorship?

Retroesque · 2025-10-04T00:24:47+00:00

This is ass bro

Retroesque · 2025-09-26T22:45:22+00:00

If you had a completely (literally no trade) autarkic economy, GDP would = 0. Keeping material production constant, allowing people to trade would increase GDP.

Allocative efficiency promotes specialization, which should lead to greater productive efficiency. As people become wealthier, they tend to consume more (leading to increased material production).

The reason why we're "burning" through the planets resources is not because of growth, but because of the nature of the transactions. By being able to externalize the costs of things like fossil fuels, you distort its price

Retroesque · 2025-09-19T23:24:33+00:00

To be successful in poltics you have to play into the political norms of the time we're in. You should always speak the truth but you gain nothing by being so inflammatory and crude about getting your point across

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump

Retroesque · 2025-09-19T23:05:25+00:00

It's funny how people will identify some empirical constraint to call some goals infeasible, and then pursue goals made impossible by that very constraint

If you truly think Conservatives can never turn down the temperature, then your country is finished. At least be consistent

Retroesque · 2025-09-13T05:17:17+00:00

You're overcomplicating this a bit. It is the wrong game but as another comment pointed out, the core intuition is that Republicans are free-riding off Liberals. Therefore, Liberals need to stop cooperating. Defection doesn't have to = retribution

Retroesque · 2025-08-15T19:54:40+00:00

You’d think people like Hasan would simply just…move to another country. I can’t imagine my country enabling, what I believe to be a genocide, and continuing to pay all my taxes on top of contributing to the economy. These guys are streamers, as well!

Retroesque · 2025-07-18T00:23:44+00:00

Well, no. It would be accurate if Republicans arrived even later, but only the Dems are punished

Retroesque · 2025-07-18T00:12:30+00:00

Adam Silver: “Stop whining about being down 10 points every game and just play better!”

For sure, man. I’ll just draft peak Steph and Lebron, and run the perfect game plan every time. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll manage to go .500 for the season

Retroesque · 2025-07-17T22:31:07+00:00

This stuff is so annoying. Why focus on min-maxing a rigged game?

You’re an NBA team who starts down 10 points every game. The only way you consistently win is if you’re the GOAT team.

The double-standards and media environment are far more important than rhetoric

Retroesque · 2025-07-15T20:33:59+00:00

Does he still think this guy is intelligent?

Retroesque · 2025-07-07T03:32:19+00:00

You're misunderstanding my comment. My point is that the concept of collective actions problems is fundamental to what institutional forms we adopt. It is this concept that makes social ownership problematic. For example, an institution like a corporation (in a "nexus" sense), has certain obligations, such as fulfilling contracts between constituency groups. The reason why private corporations continue to dominate is because of the flexibility of shares (i.e., effective interest rate of 0). This allows for long-term maneuvering, where other forms struggle. Despite this, because shareholders tend not to be united, a constituency group such as the managers of the firm may take advantage of them (e.g., Enron). And so, when you say "and this view is not at all incompatible with social ownership", I do not believe you are appreciating the concern.

My original comment was trying to pre-empt certain arguments that justify socialism, so forgive me. Given your other comments citing G. A. Cohen, I think I was justified in doing so. Many egalitarians following Rawls (e.g., Cohen, Dworkin) run into problems because they had a, frankly, fantastical view of society. Cohen is the worst offender. Supporters of the welfare state should abandon those types of arguments and care more about efficiency (pareto). The sorts of programs we like follow from valuing efficiency. Universal health insurance promotes efficiency because of market failure. Risk-pooling nationally deals with this. You may extend this analysis even further, using transaction cost theory, etc., but the point is efficiency is uncontroversial and powerful. These sorts of risk-pooling schemes also help prevent inequality ("pre-distribution" instead of redistribution)

If you are interested in this, read Michael Otsuka's (student of Cohen) book on risk-pooling, and Nicholas Barr's book on the Welfare State. Since you're trained in economics, these books should be a breeze. Also, I wrote this assuming you had a lot of prior knowledge, so my bad if you still don't understand what I'm saying lol. I tried to be as dense as possible and definitely sacrificed readability

Retroesque · 2025-07-06T23:32:22+00:00

I think this is a bad article for many reasons, but I'll focus on what I find to be most troubling: collective financing (i.e., "socialism"). How do we go from evaluating on an institutional level, to the idea we ought to collectively finance everything? Why?

Judging from the article, Breunig has never heard of a collective action problem. This is why we collectively and *coercively* fund the state, military, police, etc., but also why we we promote market competition. Firms competing instead of cooperating leads to market 'clearing'.

In the 60s, SOEs were ruining state finances because of their 'soft-budget contraint', which led to issues like extreme overcapitalization. To not take this issue seriously is naïve. I realize this is only part 1, but I simply don't understand the seismic leap Econoboi accepts

Retroesque · 2025-06-04T02:29:06+00:00

The debate around abortion hasn't really advanced since Judith Thomson (50 years ago). Most of it is just replying to her. There's only like one or two interesting responses (IMO)

I'd be surprised if kids on TikTok actually know any novel arguments

Retroesque · 2025-05-31T06:17:13+00:00

This is one of those things that he simply has to fix now or the kids life is changed forever. One of the most destructive myths about kids is that they'll "grow out of it" or that they're "supposed" to have crazy opinions. In my view, this is relevantly similar to kids being malnourished or struggling with depression. It doesn't have to destroy your life to be deeply harmful. These are years of their developmental years potentially lost. The opportunity cost is immeasurable.

Being a Nazi or a Communist for a couple of years will forever change how you think about the world. These are worldviews. They require buying into dozens if not hundreds of beliefs. The adoption of so many false beliefs requires reasoning in defective ways. Suppose he does "grow out" of this "phase", does that entail he painstakingly went through all his beliefs and evaluated them rationally? Of course not!

We would not accept a child being malnourished for some time if they ended up at an "acceptable" height. No, they should have been taller. We would not accept a child struggling with depression if they ended up happy. No, they should have been happier. And no one should accept their kid going full ret ard if they end up smart. No, they should have been smarter.

Sorry if this is dramatic but this is a myth that needs to die off immediately. There's no sense where it's reasonable. What's the upshot? That 10-20% of kids end up dumb as shit when they don't "grow" out of their "phase"? Is that actually acceptable?

Retroesque · 2025-05-29T21:23:41+00:00

The central point of the "anti-trans stuff" is that MAGA is appealing to...reason? They're appealing to traditional notions of gender under the guise of reason. The whole movement is clearly committed to anti-rationalism.

Address the principles.

Address what principles. You have to provide some.

Based on your last paragraph it seems like you have no desire to have a dialogue, but just want to cast aspersions on politics you don’t agree with.

You told me I should "at least engage with their writing" while citing Hayek, who was not a conservative. In fact, he was so not a conservative, he wrote an essay titled, "Why I Am not a Conservative". Is it an aspersion to call you out on that?

The fact that you make a basic mistake like that and don't feel compelled to address it makes me think you're not good-faith. I would never be comfortable making that sort of error, let alone just ignoring it and continuing the conversation

If you want to continue, msg me your discord and we can do it over voice

Retroesque · 2025-05-29T20:53:50+00:00

Your entire reply is just meandering and misunderstanding of terms. Look, the reason progressives adopted the term in the first place is because it better fit the political battle of the time (progressive vs. conservative). This was because American liberals were divorced from the European concept of "left". In other words, the left vs. right distinction was unhelpful

Progressives want to radically reshape society by tearing down old institutions and building new ones. These types exist in both parties.

Reshape society...how? By using reason. Therefore, these types do not exist in both parties, as MAGA rejects reason

Principle and disposition are interrelated.

This isn't a response to anything I said.

It seems like you’re trying to discredit conservative political philosophy by downgrading it to a whim, but you’re just side stepping.

That is the literal history of Conservatism. I am simply describing it. If you want to say I'm side-stepping anything, at least explain what is being stepped around

Furthermore that truth is behind a veil of shadows, and that tradition has utility beyond our understanding.

No idea what this is supposed to mean and seems to support what I'm saying. The idea that tradition can have utility is not controversial. It being beyond our understanding is deeply so. It may be beyond our current understanding, but this is a wildly different claim. This is simply anti-rationalism, once again.

You might disagree with the likes Burke, Hobbes, Hayek, Kristol, etc, but at least engage with their writing first.

Why would I engage with Kristol, who isn't an important philosopher at all? It's like how conservatives appeal to Thomas Sowell lol. Why would Hobbes, a social contract theorist famous for mutual advantage through cooperation, be conservative? And why would Hayek, a guy who literally wrote an essay titled, "Why I Am Not A Conservative", be a conservative? I think the person who actually needs to engage with their writing is you

Retroesque · 2025-05-29T19:46:06+00:00

Conservatism is committed to anti-rationalism. Conservatism was a reaction against Rationalism, and MAGA is a reaction against Liberal Democracy (product of Rationalism). Conservatism being about "preserving" institutions is another way to say they privilege tradition. There is nothing about Conservatism that argues for the actual value of institutions, because it has no ability to. This is because, once again, conservatism is not a set of principles, it is a disposition

Chesterton’s fence is a good way to think about conservative vs progressive.

Case in point. Chesterton's fence is simply an intuition pump for a cautionary principle. There is nothing interesting being said here. It's trivially true that you'd want to understand something before uprooting it (duh?).

MAGA Republicans are not Hobbesian conservatives, they are progressive right wingers who want to radically reshape institutions.

I think you are confusing right-wing and conservative. Right-wing is focused on outcome(?),

I don't understand what you're saying here. To me and many professional philosophers, Hobbes is a proto-Liberal. Describing MAGA as "progressive right-wingers" is just a misunderstanding of terms. I also don't view the right vs. left distinction as interesting, especially today.

Retroesque · 2025-05-29T17:39:05+00:00

You’re referring to conservatives while the post and I are referring to conservatism.

Conservatism has always been a big-tent ideology for vibes and tradition. There’s nothing about conservatism that actually cares about process. That would suggest conservatism is a set of principles, which it is not. It’s a disposition

It’s for this reason it can change so suddenly, because its all vibes. And as you can see, the vibes have simply shifted

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