alanschu

Reading this just be mindful to not generalize too much (seemed a concern when I saw "Russian mind") any more than Canadian Trucker Convoy is an insight into the "Canadian Mind" or Jan 6th is an insight into "American Mind." A good chunk of the information that I get comes from friends from Russia that are very much not fans of Putin and are still more than able to be critical of their country. No shortage of bat **** "true believers" that will support Russian actions, though I think that unfortunately it's a pretty human condition (I wish I had solutions to combat this). I'm not sure that they are "nuts" any more than others that conveniently will say/justify things in one particular way if they feel it is in their best interests, and can (and will) say and do the opposite if in that context they feel it is in their best interests. IME it's commonly associated with fascistic tendency, where they will openly demand that we play by our own rules (HEY MAN FREE SPEECH) only to absolutely not hold themselves to those same rules (Show me a fascist nation that didn't suppress free speech).

Sounds like other nations have already done similar stuff (article mentions Italy, among a nebulous "some" countries). I saw a joke on Victoria 3's message boards about how heating (something actively bought by people at every level of Standard of Living in that game) will actually only be a good purchased by people with max SOL which is some macabre humor (no judgment, I can only sympathize with coping however one can) for residents of the UK. It's interesting because I feel that it is somewhat short sighted to profiteer (is it technically profiteering? I think an argument could be made?) in this capacity. It'll be great for your bottom line, but I feel it will tend to have a radicalizing effect (for good or ill) on the great many people that are about to find themselves making difficult choices on meeting their basic needs. IMO you're just going to see increased extremist populism towards one of socialism or fascism not unlike a previously recent time of economic hardship which is Probably Not Good™.

My first thought was "I predict 18 car explosions in the nearish future." Excepting of course some of them carpooling. (In all seriousness I'd rather hear about stuff like this than not. That said I'll remain cautiously optimistic and not hope for too much to come as a result of this, as it seems you have).

I did appreciate the implication that somehow we feel this only applies for Saudi Arabia lol.

Oh it totally is. I just found it funny. Because for a lot of people, framing it as "SJW" thing is effectively coded for making sure it's understood that The Wrong People are being critical of people that shouldn't be criticized for those reasons that are definitely invalid. Which is somewhat appropriate when the criticism that Saudi Arabia doesn't appreciate is the criticism of murdering someone for... being critical of them. Bruce is not incorrect in this moment that there's a lot of complicated interdependency because of the state of energy production in the world today. Although honestly I find that immaterial as I feel he'd have the same stance even if Putin didn't go all bat**** in Ukraine especially given his decision to regurgitate a pejorative like "SJW" as some sort of meaningful descriptor of the question. But this is also the person that thinks it is a noteworthy suggestion to state that, indeed, Saudi Arabia doesn't "appreciate" others being critical about them murdering someone. This was definitely useful and not something that was realized. They are unique in this regard as most other countries typically encourage other states to make such criticisms...

Speaking of Truss, I did enjoy this interaction hahaha.

This does remind me a lot of how I find some degree of Conservatives (although can come from anywhere) that will point to China as being the problem for things like climate change, human rights abuses, taking jobs etc... but that the interdependence was non-trivially impacted by a lot of American companies recognizing an opportunity to save on assorted manufacturing costs (and the labour costs associated with that) by moving stuff off shore. A British friend of mine got upset at some of his friends commenting about how China is so bad for emissions while UK is so much better, because you can't really be proud of that was a big reason why your emissions improved was that you relocated a lot of your emission production to places like China via multinational corporations. I'm actually not fundamentally against globalization (IMO there's a bit of an idealized world where we functionally have no borders because we're all on some level politically equal, with sufficient mobility that opportunities are not gated by "you're lucky enough to be a citizen born in X") sowing some seeds for stuff like this to happen because, unfortunately, we're not functionally borderless with political equality. I think it's very complicated as there is probably some value in providing that type of employment and whatnot in local regions, although our world is pretty interconnected now and it will have some knock on effects that are not always easy to truly anticipate. It is unusual to see some degree of protectionism coming from the US. Even Trump had some despite being ostensibly free market supporting Republican, with his China trade war stuff... which I feel ran afoul with a lot of the business/rich demographic that often did business with China, but is actually particularly resonant with poorer demographics that saw jobs disappear overseas (often couched in varying degrees of xenophobia that can get fostered by some drum beaters).

It seems increasingly that deficit is only a problem for the next government iff that government isn't a conservative one.

This reminds me of some banks (and especially places like World Financial Group) that sell the idea to people to take out loans and invest it because they can get a better return on the market. That stuff can work but you have to be pretty willing and able to accept that type of risk and I find the WFG types especially are indifferent towards the economic realities of people as long as they can close out the loan. Stuff like that I find pretty predatory. Kinda like selling the idea of a time share as an investment (my Dad got hooked on that once. Interestingly the way out was to literally just stop paying for it. They just accepted the breach of contract and I suspect had no issues looking on selling it to the next sap).

Housing is particularly complicated because it includes a lot of challenges about the reality of "housing is an investment that you use to secure your retirement" as well. Meaning that governments contain an incentive to ensure homeowners (skewing older and a more consisting voting demographic) do not lose value in their homes because it will end up being very catastrophic towards the equity of that group. Combine that with "housing as an investment" means that there is also capital that goes into it with limited (and sometimes no) intention of it ever being used to actually house people. Combine this with government policy that is protective of home values and you get both an increase in demand (a safe, good investment) and the commensurate reduction in supply since houses get snatched up. This pushes the costs up. Additionally complicated that often house construction efforts and other attempts to redress the situation is resisted by varying degrees of NIMBYs as well as those that recognize that it will make the investments less appealing. We can point to 2008 housing crisis which saw a lot of people make a lot of money flipping junk investments and banks themselves saw that they were largely bailed out in the response to them having big dollar signs in their eyes. EDIT: This doesn't include the various ways things like AirBnB have also warped both the supply/demand for housing to the detriment of anyone that doesn't benefit from appreciating value of property.

That was one of the things that got me even as a young conservative. Probably some degree of projection (by the time high school came around, we were definitely a lower income household) but it seemed silly that a society that ostensibly is about merit and equality of opportunity that we so clearly ensured that opportunities were not equal. And I'm not even referring to higher end private schooling which I could hand wave away and rationalize to a degree, but rather that there were clear minimum standards for education that should be available for everyone since no matter how "all for responsibility" one could be... it was easier to accept that children were not responsible for financial woes within their household but ultimately pay the price in many ways. Agreed that education only plays some level of a role and has an effective expiry date. Even then, I think people can get (and apply) a lot more from the "useless" degrees than many of the critics of said degrees feel. A lot of knowledge can be applied in a different way, and IMO many, many of the skills gained during an academic career are also transferable.

I have it under reasonable assurances that that is all there can ever be too!

I have some thoughts on what might have happened... lol It's frustrating because the same people (our... politicians...) that will justify increasing wages for our politicians to ensure we get quality people and for some reason that definitely does NOT apply to our educators.... We're having similar issues here in Alberta (and Canada wide I think).

I am realizing I still have not actually seen any of the Highlander movies....

I definitely misunderstood! If you're referring to funding the education of students, then ideally you will mitigate some merit based concerns. I don't think it is gone entirely, as students without financial means may still avoid even attempting a field if there are concerns about not being able to fall back on a particular subject matter if you don't qualify for education. Of course I'm just making a supposition Maybe some field can do a study on the implications!? As someone that definitely pissed away his first year of schooling (paid for largely by parents and scholarship), I do think there is some merit to having some degree of financial investment to going to school just to add a bit more personal stake for accountability/commitment reasons. It's just trickier as that level of investment probably would need to be based on financial ability which complicates (often making it more expensive). But yes I concede this.