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If we have learned anything from this administration, even RFK Jr. specifically, is how lazy they are in pushing their agenda.

They published a "report" claiming that vaccines cause autism that was lazily created with ChatGPT that had fake citations, or citations that actively go against what they're saying. Everything in the administration is half-assed.

"Letting the virus spread to pass on the genes" seems like an idea that would come from a conversation when two drunks who are discussing how they'd solve all the world's problems.






There's no reason to put effort into crafting some convincing argument when your audience is predisposed to obey. This obedience to dictatorial authority is the great asymmetry between parties.

Do you think that makes the Republicans stronger than the Democrats? Or weaker?

I think it makes them stronger in the short term, but much weaker in the long term. (Of course, we have to survive the short term to get to the long term...)


Agree on both counts, not sure they'll be able to hold it together without Trump, often immitated, never duplicated (I hope).

Unfortunately definitiely duplicated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson

Boris Johnson is a big dumb idiot but a different kind of idiot than Trump, at least from an outsider American's perspective.

I feel like Boris is more of a typical bloviating moron. Trump is that too, but in a far more immature childish sense. Trump is always trying to come up with dumb insulting nicknames for people, every single person who has ever contradicted him is "very mean" and "overrated" and "low-competency" or something like that. Playground insults.

When other American politicians have tried to emulate the Trump style, it comes off as tryhard. Ron DeSantis tried it, it didn't work. That recent guy calling for the denaturalization of the mayoral candidate of NYC tried it, and it didn't work. For whatever reason, the weird immature insulting nature of Trump appears to only work for Trump, at least as of right now.


You may be correct, but I would add that Boris Johnson also does playground insults, it's just that his playground was Eton and therefore they're in Latin.

I'm told not even competent Latin — for a normal person that wouldn't even be worthy of comment because who even speaks it, but he keeps trying to sound impressive by using a language he, too, cannot speak.


They are fundamentally absolute fucking goofballs.

This administration is the best argument for DEI I’ve ever seen in my life, if it had anything to do with avoiding this.

Just the other day, RFK’s top vaccine nutjob (new chair of ACIP, Robert Malone) tweeted something to suggest that the Amish’s existence despite waves of infectious disease and ~no~ low vaccination is evidence that vaccines aren’t necessary.

Apparently ignorant[0] of the fact that the Amish are notoriously cloistered and isolated from the rest of society.

[0] By “ignorant” I don’t mean “has never heard the idea,” but that the degree of motivated reasoning has rendered his mind actually incapable of integrating this fact — like many others — into his world view. I’m drawing this distinction because I don’t think this is a matter of smart people pretending to believe stupid things. They are actually, at rock bottom, very stupid people, rendered such by their own ideological commitments if nothing else.


> This administration is the best argument for DEI I’ve ever seen in my life

Right, they've essentially implemented reverse DEI: always hire the agreeable white man, no matter what. Which was essentially the status-quo in the fucking 60s.

Now we have a bunch of old white men who can drink more than they can read running our government into the ground. They're all very horribly unqualified. But, they are essentially breathing doormats, which I think is vital to an authoritarian regime.


Autocracies notoriously value loyalty and compliance over competence.

Yeah, too much of the vibe around autocracies is that people don't like 'em because they're big ol' meanie heads. No. They're bad because they're literally bad at governing. They make bad decisions.

Democracy isn't good because it makes people feel good, but because in the long run democracies make far more adaptive decisions, and just hobbling along imperfectly over long periods is how you actually achieve growth.


Well, I mean, it's _both_.

One is a precursor for the other. Being mean and inflexible is their means of avoiding personal growth, which leads to the incompetence. Of course, they are exceptionally competent at being mean and inflexible because it’s what they practice in their lives.

But I think the point they’re making is that it’s moot that they are mean and inflexible if those traits make a good government. It is at least more relevant that they are incompetent at governing; even if both points are likely to fall on deaf ears and even if one naturally follows the other.


The problem is that when the going gets tough, people think they’re willing to accept big ol’ meanie heads in order to get good outcomes.

They are not aware that even if you were okay with that, that’s not the trade off that autocracy gives you.

And inversely, being “good” does not imply someone is incompetent. In general, the reverse is true because being good is such a powerful tool to achieve things (i.e. to be competent).


There is a third way - hire the most competent regardless of skin shade, sexuality and so on. It has quite a good track record.

I don't think we've ever done this. Nor do I think that if you just make everything a free-for-all that this will be the end result.

Pretty much everyone is racist. I know that sounds harsh, but in America, everyone has been exposed to racial bias at some point in their lives. Usually thousands of times.

It would be quite arrogant in my opinion to confidently proclaim said bias has had no effect on you, or anyone else. Probably, I would think, it has. It may not be measurable, but certainly I don't think that means it doesn't exist.

We've done some studies on this. Even just having a non-white sounding name on your resume lowers your chances of getting hired by over 50%.

It seems, to me, that just leaving things in their "natural" state seems to tend towards benefiting the white man. At least right now, in this particular place. That might not be the case in the future, and certainly it was worse in the past.


Empirically the system I have seen criticized as putting incompetent people in power due to their skin/sexuality/etc has yielded far far far better outcomes than the system that has been described as “hiring the most competent regardless of X…”

Perhaps the criticisms of the former and the descriptions of the latter were not accurate.

Can you describe specifically where/when you’re referring to that implemented your ideal system and achieved a good track record?


I generally hear everyone insisting that they themselves are "hiring the most competent regardless of X", it's just that pro-DEI assumes the baseline rate of competence is all groups are about the same really and anti-DEI assumes that rich == competent and oh look at the distribution of money in ${insert country here because it's not actually limited to America where it's white men with most of the money}.

Yeah this comports with my actual experience as well

> This administration is the best argument for DEI I’ve ever seen in my life

I'm going to steal and re-use this beautifully succinct observation in as many ways as I appropriately can.

100 internet points to you.


"no vaccination" is incorrect. The Amish do have lower vaccination rates than the general population, but many do vaccinate.

And those that don't are often subject to outbreaks of preventable disease:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1602295


> Just the other day, RFK’s top vaccine nutjob (new chair of ACIP, Robert Malone) tweeted something to suggest that the Amish’s existence despite waves of infectious disease and no vaccination is evidence that vaccines aren’t necessary.

What a strange argument. Did anyone suggest that people would stop existing if there weren’t vaccines? We haven’t had vaccines throughout most of human history.

People just (correctly) think that not being vaccinated will lead to a lot of unnecessary deaths.




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