The clearest case for limiting the pardon power is probably going to come down to invalidating pardons for conduct which the president ordered or was complicit in.

The price insensitivity is a direct result of a) how much people value the go where you want, when you want flexibility of car based transportation, and b) how socially coersive the network effects of that flexibility are. On top of that, cars are heavily marketed as extensions of personal identity.

Re - My profile banner and the alt text on this. 🥲

The weight of EV's is part of why they go through tires faster. But it's more that EV's can put a lot of instantaneous torque to the wheels, which give them zippier acceleration. But those acceleration profiles are controlled in software. Change the defaults on that & the excess tire wear goes away.

The thing that *is* key to liberal democracy though is that you have to have some mechanism for establishing citizenship that is not subject to the political process. Ie, it should be possible to have citizenship by right, not by poltical whim.

Markets dont exist in a vacuum independently of the social context that hosts them. That social context will always in some way shape or restrict the market. The question then is who is drawing those boundaries and what interests get prioritized? What externalities get socialized or not?

Probably the key bit of regulation that is needed on car loans is to require down payments sufficient to cover ~3 years of depreciation. Which would mean if someone wanted to buy a $120k brand new pickup, they'd probably have to come up with $40-$50k up front.

It's worth examining a bit of the underlying mechanics of this "preference". a) Ownership of your home is less complicated in SF environments then in MF environments. b) consumer lifestyles tend to accumulate a lot of stuff. So it is helpful to have more space for that stuff.

Blue Sky contains multitudes.

This whole thread is a perfect example of why it is deeply misleading to model politics on a linear left-center-right spectrum. It enables bullshit narratives that mask the combo of interests, values & priorities people are really voting on and how the cultural/info environments shape those things.

This kind of word choice is a broader problem in lots of places in politics though. It's a case of "let's use a fancy word that can mean different things to different people to obscure what we're really talking about."

The whole thing is a bullshit, bad faith attack to begin with. It isn't something that can be smoothed over by explaining it.

The entire presumption is that politics works on a linear spectrum. Unfortunately, the world doesn't map cleanly to any single spectrum, nor do any of those spectums function in a linear way.

From their sweepstakes tos (www.coverd.us/sweepstakes). So, no you can't buy more of their lottery tickets. You just can get them for free by buying other bullshit.

The whole problem is that "class" is a hand-waivy meme that tries to aggregate all kinds of different interests and values that aren't always aligned. It's an attempt to drive a coalition together without the actual work of aligning the different parts of that coalition.

For no particular reason, I'm going to point out this wiki article as particularly good and insightful. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona...

Anyone know under current House rules - can a motion to vacate the chair be raised and forced during one of the House's pro-forma sessions that they've been doing the past couple of weeks?

This is really odd to me because there is an immense amount of power in being able to dig into the details of something. Short summaries of reports are narratives. Those narratives are ALWAYS some combo of truth and bullshit. So, digging into the details is how you sus out the truth from the BS.

The way forward on this kind of thing has to be some kind of a neutral platform and app that can be used for far more than just alerts about ICE presence. Something along the lines of a "city alerts" app that allows end users to submit "local alerts" of any kind. Maybe this already exists?

This just might explain why they sued Oregon (and a few other states) for voter roll data with private SSN info.

Age yourself with a film you saw in a cinema as a kid

One thing about this as "evidence": Since the shooter is dead, this "evidence" won't ever have to be looked at or challenged in a court of law.

Here's the thing - we can't stop them from trying. And hunkering down out of fear makes the problem worse. So what can be done? Approach it like any other activity with inherent risks: Take steps to manage your risks. What that looks like is different for everyone. But hiding isn't the answer.

New technologies absolutely can be good for improving people's lives. But to keep the interests of the user aligned with the the people pushing the new tech - people have to have a substantial amount of control over the tech. A level of control that most end users aren't up for.

There is real education learned when you have to experience online images as slowly loading progressive jpeg's and fancy websites that were made by carving up designs in photoshop.

A key test will be for a citizen who is stopped by ICE to boldly say "I'm an American citizen, fuck off douchebag." and then attempt to walk away. And then any further detention or expectation of proof needs to challenged further.

I hope the next Dem prez puts on a big show of personally taking a sledgehammer to this shit and getting rid of it wholesale.

This will keep happening until a Dem administration starts more loosely interpreting the good behavior clause of Article 3.

Fake it 'til you make it - dictator edition.

If Roberts wants to go along with this, he very well may find himself facing a rapidly changing meaning of "during good behavior."

Everyone should have the right to vote if they a) physically can and b) have a basic understanding of what voting is. That includes kids.

An increasing absolute level of wealth has diminishing returns in terms of quality of life and can be positive sum across an economy. But relative level of wealth is a zero sum game with no real limits. Seriously greedy people pursue the latter much more than the former.

The conceit with anyone (big business or otherwise) falling in line with Trumpism is that they think they can still prosper and succeed even if everyone else suffers big. And Trump gives them just enough "safety" if only they kiss the ring. It won't save them or anyone else, but that's the bs idea.

"Rational Actors" in economics and political science should be seen the same way as "spherical cows" are in physics and engineering. Useful as temporary placeholders while working on a more fine grained model, but need to be seen as the blind assumptions that they are.

This is the result of modern consumerism. Nearly everything in the world is rolled up into consumer friendly abstractions/narratives/memes that discourage people from ever having to know how the sausage is really made. So it shouldn't surprise us when people confuse those abstractions with reality.

Pushing kids to learn from video/auditory mediums is an attack on critical thinking skills. This is because those mediums make it harder to ingest material at your own pace, which make it harder to ask critical questions about what's being presented. Learning from written material is the opposite.

The thing is - "rule of law" is not a principle we have to tie ourselves in knots with. It's a social contract that benefits people that abide by it. Which means those that abrogate the contract don't get to benefit from it. This is why the Nuremberg tribunals didn't just come out of German law.

Here's the thing - Unless you know that you will have real leverage to free hostages in the future, "negotiating" for them just weakens your position. As horrific and horrible as it is, there's strength in being willing to let the hostages be killed.

To mix metaphors and memes: This is the endgame of going down the road of Wilhoit's law. Everyone becomes a face eating leopard that can eat your face.

The fundamental tension here is that any kind of crypto[graphy] based solution that has strong censorship resistance guarantees needs a) real decentralization, and b) self custody of private keys. Both of those things are severe barriers to having a slick, consumer friendly UX.

Like ... Judge Katherine Parker could do the funniest thing imaginable in the Mangione case.

Chat - what happens to the value of $30 trillion in t-bills if the full faith and credit of the US is burned because constitutional law and order is set aside?

The Price Of Eggs is going to be what "Infrastructure Week" was last time.

What I love about Hunter's verification and labeler - is 1) it happened organically using protocol tools & isn't dependent on the goodwill, participation, or endorsement of BlueSky the company.