gridlockd

Why? Because you said so?

> The cognitive dissonance of not having a real theory is causing you to lash out at me, for no reason other than pointing out your missing theory.

I wasn't aware that you're a mind reader.

> It's pretty simple really, if there's a way to determine value then there must be a way to say that it's correct in one way or another.

There's a shortcut: I simply define value in terms of supply and demand, the exchange of goods and services, based on subjective disposition.

If you are clamoring for some other theory of value, feel free to do so. I think that's a waste of time.

> If things are always just worth whatever someone will pay for them "because of the market" then you aren't saying anything at all.

If you believe that, then any further discussion must be fruitless.

> Plus you can't explain a number of common observations.

I probably can, but you won't like the explanation.

The wise thing would be to find another job, because this codebase and the company that maintains it is a sinking ship.

This is wrong. If your company is still using tabs, it is already at a competitive disadvantage. If you force me to use tabs, I will be unhappy about that, because it greatly affects the mechanical part of my work. I will perform worse at my job and probably create debates about this very issue, all the time. I insist on spaces. I am the majority of programmers, because the ergonomic benefits of spaces are obvious.

If, for some odd reason, you have team members that insist on tabs - a position that I have never encountered in the wild - then make them change, not me.

It is in fact protected in the United States:

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

> ...and companies certainly aren't obligated to enable it.

Nevertheless, it is important to know which private companies do support free speech, including all the ugly bits.

It is not a circular argument, it is a connection between cause and distal effect.

> There is no extrinsic value in the economically orthodox description of value that you describe in the first line.

I'm not sure what to make of this statement.

> So when the Aussies get their tax system, they must have asked for it. Why? Because they got it.

This is a misrepresentation. By demanding a more just system of taxation, they asked for laws, which ask for bureaucracy, which ask for labor resources, which consume tax revenue. All of these are logical implications, there is no circularity at all.

Similarly, if I ask you to serve me a hamburger, there's the implication that someone somewhere has slaughtered an innocent cow. I don't want the innocent cow slaughtered, I just want to eat the hamburger. Yet, it would be fair to say that I asked for the cow to be slaughtered.

> This is an absurdity.

Not at all. Usually there's a plausible rational explanation for why things had to end up the way they did, but such explanations might be uncomfortable.

> Have you ever complained about the proliferation of utterly terrible reality TV shows?

I don't watch TV.

> Very few people think it's anything but mindless garbage. But it's there, so it must be wanted, because it's there.

Very few people think McDonald's serves good food, yet a lot of people buy it. Similarly, nobody would continue to spend money to produce more and more TV shows that nobody wants to watch. Being "mindless garbage" clearly isn't an impediment to success with the right audience. Consider the pareto principle.

> Plenty of other examples in society of things that exist but nobody appreciates them.

Just because it isn't "appreciated" doesn't mean there isn't demand for it.

> Anyway, been reading Mazzucato recently.

Doesn't seem to have done you any good.

Bureaucracies grow because people demand them to grow, it's just not that obvious. Something somewhere is always wrong and unjust, so people petition politicians for change. The tool of a politician is lawmaking, so more laws are created. Implementing a law requires a bureaucracy. A bureaucracy requires managers. Managers want to hire more subordinates, not less. Subordinates are paid by the hour and promoted according to plan, so there is no incentive to work faster. In effect, everyone involved is always busy with something and nobody appears lazy or irresponsible.

I would argue that the tax system of (in this example) Australia is exactly what the Australians asked for, the system that they deserve. They just don't know they asked for it.

If someone stands to gain from something, one must assume the least noble of all plausible motives.

I can make up all kinds of moral reasons on why I might object to being part of a war, but "I don't want to kill people" is bullshit. "I don't want to put my ass on the line" is a good reason, it just doesn't sound too good when everybody else is doing just that.

We should be considering the implications of this claim, if it were true. There's a generation of young adults in this country that have been brought up so emotionally weak that they can be traumatized by a white person uttering sounds that resemble the n-word.

In other words, we have given white people unimaginable powers over the psyche of young minority Americans, because of an upbringing that shielded them from racially insensitive content.

In this case, perhaps the best remedy would be exposure therapy with Russell Peters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsWp07BwVk

In any event, the headline of the study should be that polyunsaturated fat promotes fatty liver disease, because both lard and tallow (both mostly satured) did not promote it significantly, but lard has a bit more polyunsaturated fat than tallow, whereas corn oil is almost completely polyunsaturated.

There's mounting evidence that supposedly "bad fats" (saturated) aren't really that bad, whereas supposedly "good fats" (polyunsaturated fats as in vegetable oils) are actually bad, at least in the amounts that we consume them.

https://paleoleap.com/many-dangers-of-excess-pufa-consumptio...

(I know this source is biased, feel free to prove me wrong)

There are Marxist extremists associated with BLM, and while "disbanding the police" may not be textbook Marxism, it is a "loony leftist idea" and therefore interchangeable with Marxism in the public discourse.

Similarly, very few of the people arguing for making the US a white ethnostate are literally "National Socialists". Yet, we call them Nazis.

I didn't say it was the only demand, it just cancels out all the other more reasonable demands. Suppose a political party promises to "strengthen national unity", "eliminate unemployment", "provide economic stimulus" and "start a war for more territory culminating in an unprecedented genocide". It then doesn't really matter that I think 75% of these goals sound alright.

> These proposals are not as outlandish as you might think, especially among the people who are impacted by them.

I think it really depends on how the question is phrased. Dismantling a particularly unpopular police force is one thing, ending all policing and imprisonment is another, and it's also not just a "local" thing.

You don't actually bring that society to the table. That's outside of your power. If anything, you promise that this society will somehow come about if only your demands are met. Kind of like the politicians that might promise almost anything, if only you elected them.

> Progressive candidates, like members of the DSA and politicians they endorse. One thing that has come out of these protests is a rise in progressive candidates, both running at all, and actually winning some primaries. The progressive candidate who won the primary for my state House seat over the long-time Dem incumbent chose to run after the Floyd murder.

Sure, but that only happened because these progressives were compatible with voter behavior. Show me the successful progressive Democrat who also supports completely abolishing all prisons. Well, maybe in Portland.

> The protests themselves have moved the overton window.

Have they really? In the public perception, these protests were against police brutality, which virtually everyone is sympathetic with. If the protests had been perceived as being in favor of dismantling the criminal justice system, virtually nobody would've supported that.

> A single recent example is how public support for protesting athletes has changed.

Supporting or not supporting someone's right to protest has been inside the overton window all along. What hasn't been within the overton window would be a position like "protesting athletes should be imprisoned" or "athletes should all be forced to attend a protest".

Similarly, defunding the police is within the overton window, but abolishing policing outright is not.

Rather, in terms of public perception, Marxism is probably best defined as "a bunch of loony leftist ideas". Some of these demands fit that bill perfectly.

Secondly, many BLM protestors are clearly brandishing symbols that are associated with Marxist/Communist ideology, many self-identify as "Marxist", and even officially they refer to each other as "comrades":

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

I agree, but you also shouldn't completely discredit yourself before negotiation has started. What do you even bring to the table? The end of protests? Protests are only being tolerated because of presumed public support, which has been dwindling due to some ugly scenes.

> The politicians and leaders need to work out the details and compromises.

The politicians only need to care about votes. In many areas, the majority already voted in Democrats with the intention of having them fix things, which they didn't.

I would argue that Democrats are generally less principled than Republicans, they're only following what they believe the majority to believe. See the Dixiecrats or their position on gay marriage.

So, without the majority vote you don't have Democrats and without the Democrats, who do you have to support? Republicans? Greens?

> The point of these protests is that one side has not been listened to, and it is getting people killed, and we're sick of it.

I noticed as much, but that doesn't magically bring you into a good bargaining position. MLK was successful because he stayed within the overton window. Malcom X wasn't, because he didn't.

The point is that no matter how injust "the system" is, no matter who is to blame for your predicament, there's always a way for you to make your situation worse still.

If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

Secondly, I probably don't disagree all that much on the (lack of) merits of the public school systems. Having said that, you can live a life within that system and not make it actively worse for yourself, no matter who is at fault. That's personal responsibility.

Trump has poisoned the well. If you bring up HCQ, you are immediately under suspicion of being an anti-science Trump-supporting conspiracy theorist. Guilt by association, reductio ad hitlerum, etc.

As for using HCQ as a prophylactic: That was the whole point right from the beginning. Didier Raoult can be credited with starting the HCQ hype, he has been prescribing HCQ+zinc as a prophylactic for at-risk groups. That's not as outlandish as you make it sound, HCQ has been used as prophylactic for malaria for the longest time and that is considered safe.

The studies that tested HCQ at a late stage (ICU) or without zinc are missing the point. HCQ without zinc doesn't work, zinc without HCQ is at least less effective, because the HCQ works as an ionophore, but if you already have a severe case of COVID, none of it is going to work. It's too late.

There are several studies that suggest that this prophylactic treatment works. There are no big RCTs that show it works, but neither are there big RCTs that disprove that it works.

See also this protocol for prophylaxis of COVID-19:

https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_...

It includes zinc and quercetin as an ionophore and is thus politically uncontroversial. However, it's unknown to what extent quercetin really works as an ionophore in vivo.

Not true:

https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/AdvisoryontheuseofHydroxychloro...

Of course, it's controversial because the WHO recommended against it and most health agencies just follow suit.

Also, American politics don't end at the border. There are countries that favor Trump, India being one of them.

The original "quack treatment", which is prophylactic zinc+HCQ (as an ionophore) for at-risk groups, has never been shown to be ineffective in an RCT. It is still being studied.

Of course the studies that show it to be effective aren't of the best quality, but they aren't entirely meaningless either.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2521-4