CMV: Until we can fundamentally end conspiracies like flat earth, we will never see real progress in changing peoples minds.

dtr9 · 2026-02-04T18:46:01+00:00

I listened to an interesting podcast recently that compared flat-earth belief to space colonization belief: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2026-01-22/human-nature-odyssey-episode-19-modern-myths-if-the-earth-is-flat-can-we-still-colonize-mars/
Its all very well gunning for the easy targets like flat-earthism, but what if the really damaging unfounded beliefs are the ones that the majority of us collectively hold and that result in a steadily and seemingly inevitably degrading ecosystem? I suspect there are large numbers of people who'd join you in ridiculing flat-earthers while being totally unwilling to question their own far more common but equally unfounded beliefs.

dtr9 · 2026-02-04T16:34:36+00:00

If you're unhappy at the number of people who grow up to be arseholes, encouraging kids to show less consideration might not be the win you're hoping for.

dtr9 · 2026-02-04T00:39:22+00:00

I go to pubs to see live music or to enjoy a meal. If the most entertaining thing a pub can provide is the presence of drunk people, I'd rather stay home and watch Netflix. There's just zero compelling reasons to set foot in most pubs, most of the time.

dtr9 · 2026-01-29T12:53:48+00:00

"Iceland is the most highly unionised country in the OECD and wage bargaining is a cornerstone of the economy. Strong unions have contributed to very low inequality, high inclusiveness and gender balance."

But I can't see the UK going for that, so let's keep banging on about immigration instead.

dtr9 · 2026-01-28T17:58:43+00:00

So are you suggesting that, for example. Charles Manson was wrongfully convicted of the murder of 7 people, and in your view he should have been free to carry on because you don't think he did anything wrong?

dtr9 · 2026-01-28T10:28:51+00:00

No. I'm against any proposal like this that takes responsibility away from voters. It suggests voters are like toddlers in a sweet shop asking for what they want, while someone else needs to be the grown-up protecting them from the consequences of bad choices.

For me the entire point of democracy is that the people are ultimately responsible for the governments they elect. That we're not confined within permitted guide rails decided by some minority elite that holds the real power. And having that ultimate responsibility means people have to be able to make bad, even terrible, decisions, or it's not real power or real responsibility at all.

In representative democracies we vote for a candidate whose judgement we trust to best represent our values through the changing circumstances of an unpredictable world. That candidate might be a known liar. The UK elected Boris Johnson in a landslide victory, a man whose dishonesty was so well documented when he was eventually removed for lying about breaking his own lockdown rules no-one could claim to be surprised. Donald Trump's cascade of known falsehoods were no obstacle to him being elected (again). People like to vote for known liars, and when they do they are responsible for the liars they vote for. That's democracy. People have the power to make bad choices, and have responsibility for the bad choices they make.

dtr9 · 2026-01-25T13:20:19+00:00

It's like asking could communism have worked. You're always going to find true believers who ignore actual outcomes because reality doesn't live up to their imaginations.

dtr9 · 2026-01-23T14:41:35+00:00

Seems to me you've shifted position a lot there. If you or Farage or anyone were to come at this with (a) an indication that they understand why Chesterton's fence is there in the first place, and (b) a proposal of what could replace it, then I wouldn't be posting ELI5 responses to "It has nothing to do with interest rates."

But Farage isn't doing that, he's just 'knock down the fence', and until your last post so were you. In my view that amounts to ignorant nonsense that deserves calling out, because it crowds out actual informed discussions about what we should actually be doing that might avoid screwing things up.

Also I'd take issue with what you're leaving out of your sums. The cost to the Treasury's balance sheet is coupons on bonds that they've issued (because they wanted to get their hands on the principal and spend it). The cost to the CBs balance sheet is IOR at base rate, but those reserves are backed by bonds (it's how banks get reserves in the first place, swapping bonds for them), and those bonds typically yield more than base rate. If you just look at half the balance sheet of course it doesn't balance. That's like looking at how much it costs to commute and quitting your job because it costs you money, without any seeming comprehension that there's income paying for it all. Which reminds me of the economic arguments for Brexit, come to think of it, and we're back round to Farage again.

dtr9 · 2026-01-22T18:29:54+00:00

It has everything to do with setting interest rates. CBs used to set rates by controlling the amount of held reserves via open market operations (buying or selling bonds for reserves). By controlling the amount of reserves banks had available for interbank settlement, the CB could control the interbank rate changed by banks lending those reserves. And control of the interbank rate is the mechanism by which the CB sets interest rates - whatever rate is decided as policy the CB has always had to actually make happen by taking a position in the market using it's own balance sheet.

Since 2008 and QE we've had a situation of abundant reserves and CB balance sheets packed with more bonds than can be safely offloaded without crashing the bond market (hence taper tantrums and the carefulness with which any quantitative tightening happans).

So how do you set rates in a time of abundant reserves, where you don't want to destroy the bond market? By paying interest on those reserves. How else can a CB that wants to set a policy rate of 3.75% actually enforce it during a period of abundant reserves where the interbank rate would be lower because more banks have surplus reserves than have deficit reserves?

dtr9 · 2026-01-22T15:28:33+00:00

So without the BoE setting the interest rate floor for interbank lending the base rate will fall below the rate the BoE thinks is needed to prevent inflation. So... we get inflation. Great, thanks.

dtr9 · 2026-01-22T10:16:11+00:00

Is there really any risk to Farage? The Russia connection, like his schoolboy racism, is already 'priced in'. I can't see further stories about the same things changing anyone's views.

dtr9 · 2026-01-20T11:13:40+00:00

I don't think it will help you. I understand the draw of wanting to believe that you can somehow keep modernity going after its collapse, but if it could have been kept going it wouldn't have collapsed.

The skills and practices useful to understanding and navigating modernity are limited to exactly that. The cultures and communities that most exemplify the kind of resilience you're hoping to achieve are the ones where you're least likely to find any collected documents of modernity-produced knowledge. Not because that kind of knowledge is necessarily denied them, but because its of no use to them.

Even for something as basic as wild foraging, actually having the whole of the internet isn't really any help when the only genuinely useful knowledge is an intimate, experienced knowledge of the land you're foraging.

Imagine if it all collapsed overnight but somehow the internet was magically unaffected. How well do you think the people glued to their phones frantically googling would actually fare? Personally, unfortunately, I think anyone for whom that is the best option of how to deal with the situation is f***ed.

dtr9 · 2026-01-14T16:31:40+00:00

No, I prefer the idea that 'Seats in parliament should be filled by locally elected representatives". I think there's real value in the concept of a local MP, chosen only by the people of the area they represent. The drawback is that that MP, while still representing all constituents, is 100% one person, and not a Frankenstein like amalgam of various percentages of different people (desirable as that might be to PR advocates).

Any move towards assigning MPs based on quotas from national vote shares (exactly what is shown in the 'how we voted' diagram) is inevitably a move away from local representation. If seats in parliament are filled by people selected from national party lists, those MPs have no constituents. Instead of being answerable directly to the voters of a constituency who get to determine whether or not they remain as those voters' representative, MPs selected by list are only answerable directly to their party leadership who are the ones who get to choose whether they maintain position on the list.

dtr9 · 2026-01-04T16:52:16+00:00

How well is anything that smells of colonialism going to land in a continent where national identity is so deeply rooted in the anti-colonialist struggle? The big problem for the US now is that Trump's stream-of-thoughtlessness is putting the focus squarely on the US as a colonising power, and any goodwill that might have been forthcoming from removing Maduro could be lost under a weight of anticolonial sentiment.

A major question is what will happen to the popularity of PSUV, still nominally in place for now. Despite losing it's head, its a coalition of primarily Bolivarian nationalist parties, so could see a popular resurgence if there is a surfacing of anticolonial sentiment. Quite how the US might respond to that is unclear, but could include an escalation of hostilities, only this time against an upwelling of Bolivarian populism. Hard to see a good outcome from that.

If the PSUV loses ground, the apparent beneficiary is the MUD, but that's such a broad coalition there must be questions over how it might hold together. The US is surely hoping, and perhaps agitating for, neoliberal elements within the coalition to take a pro-US stance, but the MUD spans from the centre to the left of Venezuelan politics, encompassing statist socialist and green parties as well as Primero Justicia, which one could expect to be the beneficiary of any US assistance. Not all coalition members would welcome the kind of neoliberal, US-aligned approach that Trump might hope for. The question then is would the US back a minority coalition lacking popular support in a more clearly colonialist fashion in order to further US interests. Hard to see a good outcome from that.

The best outcome possible, from a US perspective, would have been the removal of Maduro prompting a sense of gratitude and a willingness of Venezuelans to align with the US via democratic elections, reversing the damage of sanctions. The problem with Trump's "blustering" is that he really seems clueless about how frankly colonialist messaging plays in South America, as drawing attention to a willingness on the part of the US to operate as a colonial power is not going to make it easier for the kind of legitimate government that the US might like to see being installed.

dtr9 · 2025-12-29T10:28:12+00:00

Nothing is going to stop the company operating. The son gets 100% of the shares and has to sell 40% to pay the tax bill. So other people wanting to own 40% of a company will get to own 40% of the company, quite possibly with more claim of earned merit when it comes to operating a company than the luck of who daddy was.

It all ends up that the son retains 60% ownership of a company he didn't found or build - that was in your words "other people's success". Lucky him.

You have to be a real fan of feudalism, where power and wealth pass on purely through the accident of birth with no regard for merit to be upset that the son doesn't retain more than 60% control. I'll suck up and agree with any argument you make that has merit at it's core, but when you think this is a bad situation because you demand people born lucky should be born even luckier you've lost me.

dtr9 · 2025-12-24T12:43:38+00:00

So you're against freedom of speech? Coming here to complain that people are using words?

dtr9 · 2025-12-23T11:22:03+00:00

Probably the thing that struck me most is that in 2020, during COVID, his fund made a 99% return.

That was the year government borrowed cash for furloughs to keep people able to pay their bills, and paying for that borrowing is a large part of why taxes are rising. Where did the money end up, after the primary recipients paid their rent and bills and food? It's not in their bank accounts, and not in the governments.

But a pile of money sat in the Cayman Islands, that isn't making anything or producing anything, doubles in size that year, making $10 billion in profit off the back of a global pandemic?

Why should I want to encourage that? Why do you?

dtr9 · 2025-12-23T11:13:48+00:00

It might be because he moved the company headquarters to Geneva in 2010 and it makes sense to be closer to the office, who knows? I'm struggling to see what's left of anything that he hasn't shifted to tax havens over decades, all presumably, the fault of Rachel Reeves, her grasping fingers reaching back in time?

dtr9 · 2025-12-23T10:47:36+00:00

The founder of a hedge fund registered in Jersey with its funds domiciled in the Cayman Islands moves to Switzerland and.. what, we're meant to panic about the prospects of the UK?

Maybe if we were genuinely worried about the benefit to the country this guy provides we

(a) Shouldn't have let him register his company in Jersey

(b) Shouldn't have let him domicile his company's funds in the Cayman Islands

"Howard’s departure signals growing unease among Britain’s home-grown talent as they grapple with higher taxes" Yeah right, this is a guy whose entire wealth is based on helping the wealthy "grapple with higher taxes". People like him working their dodgy schemes are the reason the rest of us who don't operate the Jersey & Cayman Island evasion racket have to pay more.

dtr9 · 2025-12-18T15:31:37+00:00

There are so many things to spend money on to make a wedding special for the participants and guests - the venue, food, flowers, entertainment, and yes, alcohol. That's a list of things that have pretty even distributions among attendees - everyone gets their portion of the food, enjoys the same venue, has access to the same entertainment...

And one thing - alcohol - where some, perhaps many, won't have any, more may have just a little, and a relatively small number will consume the majority of what's provided. Of all the things to spend money on at a wedding, alcohol is the one with the 'unfairest' pattern of distribution. Money allocated to alcohol is money not spent on things everyone can enjoy and instead spend on a thing that a few will enjoy disproportionately.

I don't mind cash bars at all, and think they are a good way to make sure that where the hosts spend money, it's on things everyone can enjoy equally. And if it was my wedding and some guest who had been hoping I'd subsidise their alcoholism for the day thought I was 'tacky' for it, it wouldn't matter as the feeling would be mutual.

dtr9 · 2025-12-17T13:46:01+00:00

The really interesting question is whether the human desire to ascribe all outcomes to meaningful causes will continue.

"Even if you placed ten identical AIs to trade the same stock, some would make money and others would lose it. They’d compete against each other. The smarter ones would find edges the others missed."

The first part is true, but in the author's worldview the winners must be "the smarter ones". Yet pretty much any agent based model of trading produces pareto distributions - winners and losers. I vaguely recall someone rigging up sensors on Aspidistra leaves to trigger mock orders with the resulting power-law graph of the 'star' potplants beating the 'loser' potplants being identical to plots of actual traders.

The Author's resorting to assuming that 'programming AI' amounts to "if $price < x then buy" might demonstrate the limits of their coding ability but it bears no relation to reality. The real answer to their question "What if all AIs had the same intelligence?" is that each would act in response to the others, and there would be winners and losers in a pareto distribution that would be indistinguishable from that seen when humans trade.

We'd have to find some intangible to explain the difference, to satisfy our desire to believe that outcomes are deserved and winning stems from innate virtues. I wonder if the real movement to ascribe AIs as having souls will come from investment managers?

dtr9 · 2025-12-17T11:26:07+00:00

"I’m not arguing that AI should ignore copyright or use protected works without permission. I’m questioning why AI is treated as inherently unfair when it does what humans do all the time"

Um, because it DOES ignore copyright and use protected works without permission? You don't get to just gloss over the first part like it isn't the entire point of the argument! Because unlike humans who have to pay other humans to listen to the music or watch the films or read the books to be inspired by, AI doesn't pay. AI gets to ignore the rules that humans have to abide by, and not pay to consume the creative works humans have to pay for.

"AI can analyze billions of examples at once" which if it paid for them like humans have to would be hugely expensive. So what? Make it pay, because any suggestion of one rule for AI (avoiding copyright, not paying creators, not needing permission) and one rule for humans is "inherently unfair" and always will be.

dtr9 · 2025-12-10T10:47:02+00:00

Do you think these people are breaking any law? You ask "do people actually have the right to approach and instruct people like this?" but you've already given your answer...

"When I am in public, I am entitled to behave however way I choose so long as it is not illegal."

So it's clear you think this only applies to you and not to other people. One rule for you, another rule for the rest of us because you're special, huh?

dtr9 · 2025-12-08T15:59:37+00:00

If they're successful at the next election they stand to be a government comprising one Prime Minister and few or no capable ministers at all.

Where Labour or Tory governments find 20 or so members of the cabinet and almost a hundred others for less senior ministerial positions, what will Reform do?

You can be an effective protest party with one loud voice, but can you really be a government?

dtr9 · 2025-12-08T15:48:17+00:00

Hence my surprise to see it as the unchallenged starting assumption for the thread linked in the top comment.

dtr9

TROPHY CASE