A comment about the relative power between the river and the village. Most of the power in the village ultimately rests on the threat of coercion. Even on the smallest matter. If I resist a jaywalking ticket, there is a well-defined sequence of escalating punishments. If I defy those escalating punishments, the village will imprison or kill me. Joe Biden, or Donald Trump have the threat of imposing bodily violence if you don’t agree to their demands. Musk and Bezos don’t. The village relies on cooperation. Every dollar that Musk or Bezos have was willingly given to them by happy customers. The difference in power between the two groups is profound from a moral standpoint and I wish that people like Silver, etc. would include this in their analysis.
[Time 15:00]; Interesting to me as I am a probability geek. But, a correction on Covid risk vs. June 2020 George Floyd protests. (1): The general public and many public health professionals such as myself did not yet know that Covid mortality risk was low. (2): “Systemic racism as greater threat” would have required 34,000 systemic racism deaths in NYC during the first 10 Covid weeks, to validate.
The Free Press banned me from commenting on this platform for 30days on July 24. In their explanation for the ban, they highlighted a comment where I accused all Democrats of believing that they are better than others and I accused the Democratic Party of being a crude cult. I also inserted the letter “K” in place of all “hard-Cs” in the text because I have often referred to the Democratic Party as the party of the Ku Klux Klan. For this reason, the Free Press saw fit to suspend my commenting privileges for an entire month.
I have written to the Free Press multiple times to ask for more clarification and have received nothing but smug, dismissive, silence. Nothing in my remark constitutes an ad-hominem attack because Democrats are neither a race, nor a creed, nor an ethnic group – they are idealogues. I likewise did not use any profanity in that comment.
Bari Weiss and the editorial team at the Free Press do not promote freedom of speech. They disdain criticism, abhor anyone who questions their obvious and odious biases and make no effort to support their own readership with meaningful explanations for which content is permissible and which is not. There is NOTHING in my remark that violated their “community guidelines”. My remarks are innocuous rejections of their preening, liberal weltanschauung.
Furthermore, the readership of the Free Press is not a “community” at all. It is a large mass of people from many different lifestyles and beliefs who expect to be treated with a certain measure of fairness when they subscribe to the publication. Part of that fairness should include a proper explanation for why commenting privileges have been removed for a 30day period with the prospect of appeal. But there is NO avenue to appeal their censorious decision.
This publication is a thinly veiled effort at rehabilitating the Democratic Party by outing its worst, fringe actors and ideas, while gaslighting its readership into believing that the editors are a group of rationally minded truth seekers looking for some form of “common sense”. They are not. The Free Press is a clique of wealthy, overly credentialed wordsmiths who shadow-ban and silence their critics without recourse to any form of appeal or explanation. And their decisions to ban subscribers from commenting on their site reflects their own level of paranoia, bad-faith, caprice and malevolence.
I live and work in the People’s Republic of China. I have done so for nearly 30years. I know this culture and political system intimately and well. I know what banning innocuous commentary leads to, and I know what hard authoritarianism looks like. I do not have the credentials or capital resources of many who read the Free Press in exotic locales or from the decks of private boats or stunning vacation homes and I have never been invited to give a TED Talk like Bari Weiss. My attacks against the Democratic Party and its apologists promote nothing more than open hatred for their insidious beliefs and ideas. Hatred for an idea is allowable in a free society.
Through the arbitrary and politically motivated enforcement of their policies, The Free Press has silenced many voices on their site in the guise of enforcing civility. They are wrong. They are deliberately empowering the worst impulse imaginable in humanity – the power of the powerful to decide who can, and cannot be seen, or heard.
The Democratic Party Rehabilitation Project… DELENDA EST!
I had to edit my original comment. I bought Nate Silver's book, and the picture on page 19 describes various types of people and risk-takers quite well. Excellent book for so far.
Maybe a problem we aren’t talking about is relative risk. When Musk buys Twitter, his risk of failure may be high but it won’t “break his bank”. The entrepreneur or small business person who re-finances their mortgage to raise money is, relatively speaking, risking everything.
More importantly, these small business people/entrepreneurs are responsible with creating jobs, supporting their local community by paying taxes and supporting local non-profit institutions.
And the most important reason to talk about their challenges is that government policy ignores them - or the consequences these policies have had on their success and the chilling effect that has on others like them taking risk.
Politicians who ignore these people don’t get it. Obama’s lie, that you can keep your plan, impacted these people dramatically - when private plans were eliminated and replaced with ACA for more than twice the cost for less coverage, that sent entrepreneurs back into corporate jobs , along with the jobs they created, the time and motivation they had to strengthen their local network and community.
The journalists on Substack are starting to live this personal story and are interested in building awareness of this “class” of risk takers. Hope they will do more.
The river is quite large Michael. Come visit the regards and degens at Wall Street Bets on Reddit. Or visit the regards who are pretending they aren’t on the Value Investing sub.
I think i’m going to have to skip this months book club and buy Nate Silver’s book. He’s speaking my language. If you can identify situations where you’re more likely to make money than lose it and take repeated calculated risks you just soak in money. All day, everyday.
Thomas Sowell explained why we fall into essentially two camps ... why people line up along points of view on a variety of issues that don't necessarily seem to have anything in common ... it's the conflict of visions.
A comment about the relative power between the river and the village. Most of the power in the village ultimately rests on the threat of coercion. Even on the smallest matter. If I resist a jaywalking ticket, there is a well-defined sequence of escalating punishments. If I defy those escalating punishments, the village will imprison or kill me. Joe Biden, or Donald Trump have the threat of imposing bodily violence if you don’t agree to their demands. Musk and Bezos don’t. The village relies on cooperation. Every dollar that Musk or Bezos have was willingly given to them by happy customers. The difference in power between the two groups is profound from a moral standpoint and I wish that people like Silver, etc. would include this in their analysis.
What is up with the terrible podcast editing at Honestly?
[Time 15:00]; Interesting to me as I am a probability geek. But, a correction on Covid risk vs. June 2020 George Floyd protests. (1): The general public and many public health professionals such as myself did not yet know that Covid mortality risk was low. (2): “Systemic racism as greater threat” would have required 34,000 systemic racism deaths in NYC during the first 10 Covid weeks, to validate.
The Free Press banned me from commenting on this platform for 30days on July 24. In their explanation for the ban, they highlighted a comment where I accused all Democrats of believing that they are better than others and I accused the Democratic Party of being a crude cult. I also inserted the letter “K” in place of all “hard-Cs” in the text because I have often referred to the Democratic Party as the party of the Ku Klux Klan. For this reason, the Free Press saw fit to suspend my commenting privileges for an entire month.
I have written to the Free Press multiple times to ask for more clarification and have received nothing but smug, dismissive, silence. Nothing in my remark constitutes an ad-hominem attack because Democrats are neither a race, nor a creed, nor an ethnic group – they are idealogues. I likewise did not use any profanity in that comment.
Bari Weiss and the editorial team at the Free Press do not promote freedom of speech. They disdain criticism, abhor anyone who questions their obvious and odious biases and make no effort to support their own readership with meaningful explanations for which content is permissible and which is not. There is NOTHING in my remark that violated their “community guidelines”. My remarks are innocuous rejections of their preening, liberal weltanschauung.
Furthermore, the readership of the Free Press is not a “community” at all. It is a large mass of people from many different lifestyles and beliefs who expect to be treated with a certain measure of fairness when they subscribe to the publication. Part of that fairness should include a proper explanation for why commenting privileges have been removed for a 30day period with the prospect of appeal. But there is NO avenue to appeal their censorious decision.
This publication is a thinly veiled effort at rehabilitating the Democratic Party by outing its worst, fringe actors and ideas, while gaslighting its readership into believing that the editors are a group of rationally minded truth seekers looking for some form of “common sense”. They are not. The Free Press is a clique of wealthy, overly credentialed wordsmiths who shadow-ban and silence their critics without recourse to any form of appeal or explanation. And their decisions to ban subscribers from commenting on their site reflects their own level of paranoia, bad-faith, caprice and malevolence.
I live and work in the People’s Republic of China. I have done so for nearly 30years. I know this culture and political system intimately and well. I know what banning innocuous commentary leads to, and I know what hard authoritarianism looks like. I do not have the credentials or capital resources of many who read the Free Press in exotic locales or from the decks of private boats or stunning vacation homes and I have never been invited to give a TED Talk like Bari Weiss. My attacks against the Democratic Party and its apologists promote nothing more than open hatred for their insidious beliefs and ideas. Hatred for an idea is allowable in a free society.
Through the arbitrary and politically motivated enforcement of their policies, The Free Press has silenced many voices on their site in the guise of enforcing civility. They are wrong. They are deliberately empowering the worst impulse imaginable in humanity – the power of the powerful to decide who can, and cannot be seen, or heard.
The Democratic Party Rehabilitation Project… DELENDA EST!
I had to edit my original comment. I bought Nate Silver's book, and the picture on page 19 describes various types of people and risk-takers quite well. Excellent book for so far.
I wonder what Nate would think of a poll of Substack readers?
How much risk is the river taking when the government removes risk (section 230 exemption from liability)
The unknown, unpredicted risk of tech to human quality of life is also not being talked about.
Maybe a problem we aren’t talking about is relative risk. When Musk buys Twitter, his risk of failure may be high but it won’t “break his bank”. The entrepreneur or small business person who re-finances their mortgage to raise money is, relatively speaking, risking everything.
More importantly, these small business people/entrepreneurs are responsible with creating jobs, supporting their local community by paying taxes and supporting local non-profit institutions.
And the most important reason to talk about their challenges is that government policy ignores them - or the consequences these policies have had on their success and the chilling effect that has on others like them taking risk.
Politicians who ignore these people don’t get it. Obama’s lie, that you can keep your plan, impacted these people dramatically - when private plans were eliminated and replaced with ACA for more than twice the cost for less coverage, that sent entrepreneurs back into corporate jobs , along with the jobs they created, the time and motivation they had to strengthen their local network and community.
The journalists on Substack are starting to live this personal story and are interested in building awareness of this “class” of risk takers. Hope they will do more.
The river is quite large Michael. Come visit the regards and degens at Wall Street Bets on Reddit. Or visit the regards who are pretending they aren’t on the Value Investing sub.
I think i’m going to have to skip this months book club and buy Nate Silver’s book. He’s speaking my language. If you can identify situations where you’re more likely to make money than lose it and take repeated calculated risks you just soak in money. All day, everyday.
My two Substack subscriptions in one place, what more can I ask for!
Thomas Sowell explained why we fall into essentially two camps ... why people line up along points of view on a variety of issues that don't necessarily seem to have anything in common ... it's the conflict of visions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyG1zmdh1pA
Poker, specifically no limit Texas hold 'em, is the best game in existence. Better than chess, D&D, starcraft, politics...
If you like games, you should seriously consider attending a poker room. Just remember that gambling is a drug and enjoy responsibly