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.

Fair enough. Let me rephrase what it seemed you were proposing to make sure I understand it. You feel that the state should only fund programs that are specifically profitable, and that other degrees should still be available but otherwise receive no subsidy and be paid for by the students themselves. However, you feel that any funding/grants for research should be available for top students in any field? I think the difference might be that when I saw "grants" I did not think about things like academic scholarships to help undergraduates pay for school when I was talking about funding, but rather that governments often provide a lot of research funding via grants for academic research. (I may have bled in some context from my microbiologist friend when I read your post, who was no longer a student but needed to petition for research grant money).

LMAO. I remember having one (CMPUT 201 too!) giving a lecture and then pausing at the slides and saying "Hmmm... I don't think that that is right." I then realized that he was just using the slides from the other section's professor and definitely fit the bill of "professor that wants to research, but is obligated to teach some class." I did get a research internship with him though (he was making an RTS to study AI!) which was still pretty cool. Led to his course's mark distribution being a comical spike lol. It's one of the things I learned which is that a lot of the times you get better educators at less prestigious institutions. My time at Macewan Community College I had all PhDs for professors... but it wasn't a research institution. So the profs that were there largely enjoyed teaching. Definitely had some of my favourite profs there. I used to think similarly. Excluding less/unprofitable fields from a wider student body necessarily limits pool of prospective students though. And if top students across all fields are equally eligible for grants and funding, then I feel it is even more likely it will become a vehicle of abuse for more privileged students getting equal access to funding/grants while having innately less competition from a smaller pool of eligible students to become the top student in an "unprofitable" field.

That's not unreasonable. I'm a lefty but recognizing "is this a good use for government funding" is always a valid question. My biggest concern is that if you make it self funded, it will become privileged. And once that happens, I wouldn't be surprised that University degrees even in "useless" sciences become increasingly valuable (it will empower employers - often richer in our society - to more effectively gatekeep). There's also some differences in getting into a field more as an interest/hobby (I read a lot more history now, and definitely learn from it), which is definitely valuable, compared to having an organized academic discipline that is in some way organized and able to petition for grants and funding moreso than Allan With a Passing Hobby in History would be able to do. And even then those grants are still pretty political. My Microbiologist friend talked about how it was a lot easier to secure funding if your proposal included cancer or HIV over napthenic acids of tailing ponds. The latter though is very important to understanding the environmental impact Alberta's oil sands developments have. Mine was a sociology of health and wellness course. I was so engaged that professor actually asked me if I would be open to a graduate degree even though I was in a Science-Specialization program. It was very fascinating and some of the truisms I had that got challenged (especially with our culture's focus on weight) was just, well, very interesting.

The biggest "employability" value I find virtually any degree provides is an implicit "You were able to start a reasonably difficult thing and committed to finishing it" which... is often a useful mindset to have hahaha. I agree. Although even then I find it very much depends on whether the STEM you're taking is in the applied sciences way. Engineering has specific accreditations and whatnot and very current and obvious uses for a variety of purposes. Someone with "simply" a Physics or Math degree (both still STEM) will often not have the same degree of opportunity. Plenty of rivalry between us (Computer Scientists) and the Computer Engineers too. But I know a Master in Microbiology that now makes movies. I wouldn't suggest that subsidizing her academic career (she did some post-grad work doing some research at U of A) was worthless or anything simply because she did not continue to work in that field. @Gromnir brings up a good point that there is 100% varying degrees of elitism that come from people that attend University and that definitely needs to get nipped in the bud. It is very easy for me to toss shade at my oil worker high school peers that mocked me for going to University instead of the oil patch because, unfortunately for them, the oil patch is very cyclical in its booms and busts and many of them are struggling now while I am not. But I do feel it's vital to understand that the ire they feel towards "environmental groups destroying their jobs" and concern over anyone that talks about wanting to reduce dependency on oil isn't necessarily because of some frothing insistence that producing oil is definitely not harmful. But that it's what they know, how they once made a very good living, and now it feels like that has been taken from them and for many life is now much, much more difficult. The challenging part has been trying to help them recognize that I don't fundamentally think they're pieces of **** for working in the oil field because that is a narrative they have often internalized (that is varying degrees of false... but still varying degrees of truth in a lot of cases. Those CompSci/CompEng rivalries had their degree of smug elitism (I'm learning the pure science... you're just applying it - and will probably make way more money than me... so I need to concoct a justification to make me feel better) during those interactions.

It's interesting because some of the classes I'm most grateful for having taken were arts electives in my otherwise STEM heavy education haha. It's invaluable to understand psychology when interfacing with dozens of different people and the different ways they prefer to work, learn, and interact. Even taking stuff like Sociology and understanding Social Desirability Bias and Learned Helplessness helps me understand post mortem survey feedback whether through private/public betas with end users (the smaller and more private, the more likely social desirability has an impact) or coworkers that feel like their current situation is "just the way it is" and they need to just deal with it. But I also have reservations about "University should be about getting a job." IMO that's more the purview of trade schools. Even with programming, if your interest is about getting a job in programming then a technical school will likely have a shorter/cheaper program and you'll very likely come out of it a more technically capable programmer than a lot of CS programs.

Social Studies is probably a more generally useful subject (it teaches you about history and politics, for example) than carpentry. I'm a computer programmer and I benefit from social studies. Carpentry would not be a useful skill for me for hopefully obvious reasons; it is of course a useful for skill for society as well.

Dabbled a bit with Immortal Empires as Wulfrik (never played him before, picked him randomly from a wheel haha). I love these mega campaigns. I have a feeling I screwed up by focusing on other Norsca and not Bretonnia/Empire (though they were all attacking me so...) At least it was easy to confederate!??

I've seen people straight up excuse it because at least those were for "creating jobs" or some such. I'm a bit dubious, but it's also why I advocated for any supports to be delivered to individuals moreso than businesses. More guarantee that supports would go to people (including business owners) to help during a particularly unusual circumstance of time. Part of me thinks that this is a symptom of people that still think that tuition is what it was in the past as well. And also coming to terms with the reality that adjusting for inflation, $50k in 1990 would be $115k today. Median incomes from 1990 ($54k) have not matched that at all ($69k in 2019 pre-Covid). Incomes really took a hit following 2008, but were growing steadily at least since 2015... but still well behind inflation. I'm curious the degree of income inequality, but I remember having my mind blown that if you define "middle" class as the second, middle, and forth quintile of incomes, in Alberta that would mean a household (typically two incomes) income for $330k (!!!!) would still qualify as "middle class." Even though the median household income was about $90k. I think it's why it led to some comedy such as Wall Street journal breaking down Obama's tax policy with this definitely-representative-of-the-people infographic: The link I had showed his numbers to be the fixed rates (usually worst case fixed rates are typically higher than worst case variable rates as well, short of interest rates just ballooning while the loan is active). https://www.nerdwallet.com/best/loans/student-loans/private-student-loans This states that the median fixed interest rate is 7.81% https://www.marketwatch.com/picks/thinking-about-taking-out-a-private-student-loan-these-are-the-latest-rates-01661270551 I see a lot of people stating it'd be unfair. I'm curious how the actual breakdown is, as there is a lot of people (including me) pushing back on the sentiment. I think it's a convenient angle to utilize if you want to advocate against it, but hard to tell what is truth and embellishment on the Internet.

I've become increasingly wary of explicit narratives regarding "taxpayer" since I feel that it's deliberately done in such a way to specifically suggest that you have less say on what happens if we believe you are not a "taxpayer." (i.e. often used to make the case about how dare some "freeloader" benefit completely at expense to you) Which is why the term will be particularly emphasized for something like this. The interesting thing I learned about your private loan system (Canada got rid of ours, all Student Loans are done with an arrangement between Provincial and Federal governments now) is that interest can start accumulating from day one, while you're still in school. Our system (and I believe your federal subsidized loan system) free interest payments until you are out of school. Ours also has payment/interest suspension if you don't make enough money, though that has its means tested imprecision. So after 4 years of $10,000 at a 10% interest rate, your balancing owing once you're out of school is about $52,000. You can definitely see how someone that then does 2/4 years of grad school suddenly find themselves in a lot of debt (about $85k/$130k respectively assuming $10k financing holds). I was able to benefit from Canada's interest rate/payment freeze while I was a contract worker at BioWare (making a whole $12/hr... woo) which I was lucky enough to flip into a permanent position getting paid $55k after a year. If I had had that $52k of debt and had another year of interest, it'd be about $57k. Luckily I only had $30k in debt and the interest was frozen in that time. I paid it off in about 10 years (very nice having that extra payment per month!). Fortunately, though, I'm now at a point where I'll pay well over $57k a year in taxes. In general I suspect I'll be a net "giver" for some time (ideally I'm always a net giver, personally. I prefer to avoid social assistance as much as I can as it means others will be able to benefit from it. We'll see if I get up into my 80s or 90s though. The reality of living longer and the costs of health care is a big reason why I still advocated for a well funded public health care system even when I was still very conservative since it's tricky to know. But hopefully I'll have enough saved up to be comfortable! (Weird to think I'm half way there now!)

Important to read the study IMO. A lot of the negatives they were describing were talking about the psychological well being and trying to contextualize that. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4154000 (free download) Some of the metrics they assess was that there was no significant difference in people's bank account balances after being on the metric of some time. This reads as bad if you your measure of good is an improvement in bank account balances. It means people spent money. They noticed that people spent the money on food, housing, and things they needed. They ruled that the objective measures were largely null over the time frame, while subjective measures had a slight decline, though could also be largely null. Further, when assessing some of the subjective measures (emphasis mine): "Instead, the data seem most consistent with the notion that the windfall was insufficient to address participants’ needs, which in turn generated feelings of distress. We find that relative to the Control group, cash groups experienced greater stress in deciding how to spend money, were more likely to think about money, and were more aware of both their own needs and those of their friends and family—all of which (partly) mediated the effects of the treatment on the primary survey outcomes." If the needs weren't being met, it doesn't seem surprising to me that the savings accounts would not go up. The authors themselves recognize that the results of their study is actually unusual compared to other studies in the field. This is in part why they were "shocked by the results." They did try to control for this, and some explanations they put forward for this is that the amount of money doesn't go as far in a place like US compared to some more absolute poorer countries, and also that they did their study during the COVID pandemic. The study also is more about looking at Unconditional Cash Transfers rather than UBI. Part of the motivation for the study was analyzing whether the stimulus checks given during the peak of the COVID pandemic were actually effective. The researchers also found that participants that received a cash transfer felt additional stress and pressure to use some of that money to help out friends and family (indeed, one of the bigger objective measures of using the money was transfers). And as even the abstract points out, by having the money made the specific cash needs more salient to them compared to the control group. This doesn't mean the control group doesn't have those needs, and it would come across as callous to suggest that poorer people remain poor because on some way they may be resigned to their economic realities and feel less stress. I'm not sure how the WSJ concluded that this made people work less. It wasn't something I could find in the study and looking for anything that could resemble employment trends they only asked about it at t1 to get a baseline for the economic situation at the start of the study. If you can find it let me know! (Was on holidays and/or work trips, so for necro)