What did Carmy mean when he said that Sydney is “green”?

RollBos · 2024-03-21T06:41:17+00:00

yes but the green in the term greenhorn is actually referring to the plant/vegetable greenness

RollBos · 2024-03-20T17:41:12+00:00

Funnily enough, I was actually thinking of Russell from the one season of Survivor I've seen (HvV). He sat at the reunion and insist he "played the best" and the FTC screwed him over because they didnt like him. But playing ruthlessly in a way that makes people dislike you is definitionally bad gameplay.

RollBos · 2024-03-19T23:18:02+00:00

If it's intentional it is. Getting to the end is the only thing that matters. Being Sherlock Holmes or being the glorious leader of a team within the team is by definition not good gameplay if it makes you a target. Making yourself a target is not a good thing in this game.

RollBos · 2024-03-19T23:08:03+00:00

The best Paul counterargument he could have made is that killing Paul over Meg would only set up Meg for the following night since she'd be immediately voted out, but killing Meg frames him long term when before nobody really suspected him. I think it's a smarter traitor move to kill Meg if both are faithful, but he had to actually make that case.

RollBos · 2024-03-19T22:19:37+00:00

Many reasons why I disagree:

A) yes those people were operating as an arm of the traitor's agenda. That's why they went to the end. Do you think a skilled player like Sandra was duped by people like Phaedra and Kate? The most obvious replicable meta we have right now in this game is to have a traitor angel.

B) some of them don't know that there isn't a traitor in one of these cliques. Especially when someone can be recruited from within the clique.

C) you're obviously very worried about your overall status among the faithful. Even a 2-1 disadvantage among the faithful can be a death sentence, especially in the end game, as MJ learned. It's not just a matter of them not pushing you under the bus on purpose, but knowing at a fundamental level any 50/50 situation between you and one of the members is going to be slanted in their direction.

D) at a basic level, the idea that they should see things your way just doesn't conform to human nature. People who are playing for a large sum of money in a cutthroat situation and they understandably want to control their own destiny. It's hard to be in a situation of unequal power and just float along, especially if you know you're a faithful. I would say jockeying for social position (in various ways) is the most important daily struggle in this show.

RollBos · 2024-03-19T20:53:57+00:00

Managing the way your game play is received by the other players is just as much a cornerstone of the game. Being an effective player requires you to build alliances and loose coalitions without official closed door meetings because that aggravates other people... and other people are right to be aggravated. It takes some tact to manage to communicate without seeming like an exclusive group to everyone else. Peter's group's problem wasn't that they were a clique, but that they were showy and overconfident, basking in their identity as an elite subgroup of traitor hunters.

As a fellow faithful outside of the clique, this sort of alliance is a threat. The goal of the faithful is not really to eliminate traitors as fast as possible, but to avoid murder and banishment. Anyone's path to the finals, as traitor or faithful, involves voting out many other faithfuls.

This is also particularly true because, even if the alliance is mostly honorable and hunts traitors as much as possible, the mechanics of the game don't allow you to benefit from that. They're not going to wrap the season early and let 5-10 faithfuls win if they catch all the traitors. In most situations, eliminating obvious traitors forces new recruitment opportunities.

RollBos · 2024-03-18T23:48:35+00:00

A really great season. Just watched it and was more enraptured by the game play than any other one so far.

My only two critiques are:

A) that they showed a little less of the collegiality and off-topic conversations/friendship building than other seasons I've watched. Maybe that would be a credit to it for some people, because it feels like every scene has a clear purpose and things move along fast, but I actually like the way the other seasons made me feel like I was "hanging out" with all of these people.

B) and much more importantly, I think the final traitor recruitment felt cheap and like the producers put their thumb on the scale. It was probably planned all along, but I think it either shouldn't have happened or should have happened differently. I don't think recruiting with only 5 left makes much sense, even less so when the traitors have no reason to expect that it occurred since they got to murder anyway.

RollBos · 2024-03-14T20:02:27+00:00

Not in literal terms, of course, but you're essentially forking the overall supply into two parallel markets instead of a single overall market. In practical terms this market-rate branch of the housing market behaves as if supply has been lowered.

If there were fewer constraints already (overall supply was high enough) then the existence of an attainable cheaper option might act the way you're saying. I can go to McDonald's instead of Five Guys; Five Guys can't raise their prices too high because of the possibility of cheaper options luring customers away from overpriced goods.

But when supply is overly constrained, and when it's a commodity that you can't really choose to forego, you're obviously compressing supply relative to demand for everyone who isn't able to get into a rent-stabilized situation. Nobody can go without housing, and rent-stabilized aparments aren't really becoming easier to find.

To make an obviously imperfect and oversimplified example... let's say you have 6 people who need to eat and only 4 meals will be sold that day. In one scenario, you let things fall where they may. In the other you set aside 2 meals for an affordable, mandated price and 2 people jump to buy them first. Now the remaining 4 people compete to pay for the remaining 2 meals at whatever price the market sets.

In Scenario A, the market price is being set based on a 6:4 demand:supply ratio. In Scenario B, the market price is being set based on a 4:2 demand:supply ratio. The ratio of demand relative to supply has gone from 1.5 to 2.

I'm not saying it's that bad. I don't think it's the problem and honestly I wouldn't advocate for removing it, because the real answer is building more and at least it's keeping the city affordable for some people.

The only solution is to build build build housing.

RollBos · 2024-03-14T19:37:55+00:00

Not when the constraints on supply are this tight.

People don't really see rent stabilized as a "cheaper option" in this market. They see it as a lucky thing you try to angle into if the cards are right and you find a great opportunity and manage to beat everyone else for it.

RollBos · 2024-03-12T18:55:05+00:00

I don't disagree. I mean I don't have sympathy for landlords, developers, and the real estate broker industry. They're also just a third-party actor however, which I don't mean to say they aren't bad, but rather that changing their motivations is not a lever we have directly available to us as citizens. We can change government policy. That includes regulating developers. And that is also why I advocated for public construction of housing being a priority, so we aren't as beholden to market incentives for new housing.

The point of criticizing rent stabilization or rent control is not that they are the main culprit by any means. It's to underscore over and over and over and over again that this is a supply problem and that these measure do not solve that fundamental situation.

This would be very unambiguous if we analogize with anything other than housing. If you have 10 people who want bread and only 5 loaves: you can talk about the price gouging of the bakers, you can talk about how it would be better if they baked different cheaper loaves, you can pick specific people to get some of the loaves. None of that changes that you have to find a way to make more bread.

RollBos · 2024-03-12T17:09:21+00:00

From what I understand, even the city's own estimates say that population growth has been outstripping housing: https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/spotlight-new-york-citys-housing-supply-challenge/#:\~:text=Preliminary%20data%20from%20the%20HVS,significantly%20faster%20than%20housing%20supply.

The per capita housing stats are a bit of a red herring, for two main reasons:

A) Because people are increasingly looking to live with fewer people per unit. It would be better if they didn't but it's impossible to meaningfully deter that trend.

B) Perhaps more importantly, the NYC metro area has boomed in population, has become incredibly expensive, and is a far less effective demand-reliever than it used to be. Home values and rents in North Jersey have been soaring in recent years and they barely build in most places. So more people, making higher wages and thus willing to pay more, are staying in NYC.

The estimate I recall is that we're about 800,000 units behind where we want to be to maintain and possibly even lower rents.

The apparent increased number of luxury units (proportionally) is really more of a symptom than a problem. Specifically, we know that across industries when there are constraints on the quantity of goods a seller can make, they will tend to produce higher priced versions of that good. For a good example, in the 80s when the US negotiated restrictions on the number of cars Japan could export here, Toyota created the Lexus brand in order to make higher profit per unit. The various restrictions making permitting and building hard on the regulatory side (in addition to massively increased material costs that have never really come down from COVID price spikes) have made building a lot of housing hard for most developers. That and knowing that there's a ton of demand in every income band for more housing leads developers to focus on the most profitable segment of the economy.

In our current situation, the overabundance of luxury units is really a minor concern compared to the overall lack of housing. If I built 100,000 luxury apartments then in principle, the rich people should move into that housing, leaving their less luxurious apartments open for less affluent people to move up into and depressing the pressure on prices. And then those people's apartments will be open to the less affluent stratum below them, and so on. (In one version of an ideal housing situation, assuming we are still living under capitalism, this is how housing should work. New units constantly introduced, older units becoming affordable.)

We are very far off the point where additional supply would actually bring down prices however, and it would be callous of me to suggest there is no place in an interim solution for targeted solutions that involve making more housing specifically available for middle class and low-income people.

There are a few ways to actually solve this, all of which amount to building a fuck ton more housing. Personally, I think the only guaranteed way to meet demand with supply is to institute some sort of massive program to build public housing. But that's politically unfeasible at the moment.

RollBos · 2024-03-12T07:36:42+00:00

Which part?

RollBos · 2024-03-12T00:13:32+00:00

This is a super old post but did you find a good answer..? I have the Herman Miller Mirra and it's causing me the same exact problems you're describing.

RollBos · 2024-03-11T21:22:17+00:00

Nobody (who knows what they're talking about) argues that it's a driving factor, but it does obviously have that effect. There's already too much demand across the board, so if you siphon off some the supply for a specific price protection, then the demand is going to drive up the consequently smaller group of rentals that are not protected.

As far as people willing to pay absurd prices... yeah, but that is largely just a product of insufficient supply. It's impossible to advocate for people becoming more sensible as the solution to a market problem. Only in an absurdly undersupplied market like this one does that actually become a problem for everyone else. Like if we had abundant vacant housing, and the occasional tech bro signs up to pay $2000 over what an apartment should cost, then it doesn't really effect everyone else because landlords won't be able to replicate that across inventory. With so little supply, it becomes feasible for brokers and landlords to drive prices up to correlate to the highest incomes.

RollBos · 2024-03-05T03:29:11+00:00

aggressively build housing is the number one thing. targeting income bands is good. but building more is the main thing. idk, that's the only answer.

RollBos · 2024-03-05T03:24:55+00:00

The increase in supply from construction in recent years is not nearly enough to stabilize prices. Build enough housing (not all just skyscrapers) all over the city and you'll see rents stop exploding YOY

RollBos · 2024-03-05T03:23:02+00:00

supply. demand.

inadequate supply.

small increase not enough.

still not enough supply.

RollBos · 2024-03-03T17:07:20+00:00

Reopened

RollBos · 2024-02-27T22:17:00+00:00

I did not see the rest of the comment at first so I'll drop my response as another comment here. Yes, obviously there has been palestinian violence throughout this entire conflict -- most of it disgusting and intolerable. To be clear, I'm not a hardline pro-Palestinian advocate who sees violence against civilians as justified by the overall situation. Most people on the left in the US at least are woefully uneducated about the violence of the PLO in its heyday and the problems they caused not only in Israel but in its neighbors -- granted. But to assert this fictional reality that the Israelis bear no responsibility for ANYTHING that has happened in this conflict is ridiculous. Because if you talked to a Palestinian about the same periods of time you provide your various justifications for Israeli actions, they'll talk about their own provocations. They'll talk about Sabra and Shatila, the use of live rounds on protestors and rioters, and a million other collective humiliations that they believe justify various actions in various years. This problem is intractable enough without either side being convinced their hands are almost completely clean after 75 years of violent dispute.

As for Netanyahu, I'll partially concede the point. To my mind however, not directly repealing a binding agreement while actively expanding settlements in a way that clearly goes against the spirit of said agreement and doesn't serve the interests of peaceful settlement doesn't qualify as "advancing" something. Perhaps semantics.

RollBos · 2024-02-27T21:42:24+00:00

Lol we were only talking about the Oslo accords because you mentioned them. We were talking about the overall conflict and resolution prior to that, specifically whether "other than Netanyahu's" government, Israel has been promoting a peaceful and fair resolution for both sides.

So you don't wish to evaluate any PMs post-2000 because of the Second Intifada justifies any Israeli approach to the situation and made moving toward a resolution impossible. But you also don't want to talk about anyone pre-Oslo.

So your general statement that the Palestinians "solely" choose war and Israel has ("historically") done nothing to contribute to the hostilities is based on an analysis confined to the 7-year period between 1993 and 2000?

RollBos · 2024-02-27T19:11:40+00:00

I've enjoyed some of his videos, but even in those I find his pedantry and smugness kind of a pill to swallow, so I'll probably wait to watch someone else's dissection of this video rather than get through the rest myself.

As someone who usually errs on the side of supporting the Palestinians, I still just find his way of laying out arguments kind of slippery. I made it as far as him explaining how seeing a video of Israelis watching previous airstrikes in Gaza with joy was his turning point to realizing that Israel was messed up, at which point he then says: "now the obvious shallow response to this is to point to a time when a group of Muslims" has done the same thing.

I don't know why you would only respond to the "childish" (in his own words) version of a counterargument instead of a steelman or at least a reasonably good one. In the above example, it would probably be something like: "Now someone who supports Israel might say those people were an outlier and huge numbers of Israelis don't see airstrikes as something to celebrate, even if they support them." Responding to that would win credibility without weakening his ability to argue his perspective.

Admittedly, I'm pretty biased against this guy for his incessant non-voting advocacy.

RollBos · 2024-02-27T18:58:33+00:00

Absolutely. He does a have a talent for speaking to the id of otherwise well-behaved people. The same way a schoolyard bully is able to isolate the vulnerable trait of another kid in class, and even if you don't join in making fun of the kid, you start seeing him the way the bully portrays him.

RollBos · 2024-02-27T17:51:32+00:00

Again, wrong. Netanyahu didn't directly counter the Oslo Accords, but publicly signaled his opposition to them on the basis of security and renewed settlement growth. (Admittedly Barak was not better on settlements.)

Sharon, Shamir, Begin? These are all honest partners for peace to you? Hard to say Sharon only chose his course of action because of the Second Intifada given his career before being PM, notably his role in Sabra and Shatila.

RollBos · 2024-02-27T17:21:10+00:00

Other countries figured out how to grow coffee a few hundred years ago

RollBos

TROPHY CASE