What Exactly Did These Racists Think Would Happen?

collapsedsquid:

It would be great if either of the stories had pressed their sources a
little more to explain exactly how these officials—led, reportedly, by
Stephen Miller—thought that busing migrants to those cities would be a
punishment in any way. Did Stephen think that releasing busloads of
migrants in San Francisco or New York would instantly cause the city to
collapse into a dystopian, crime-ridden hellscape? Did he think that
they would eat all the famous New York pizza?

A premise like
“busing migrants to San Francisco will punish Nancy Pelosi” is not
self-explanatory. I do not immediately understand the mechanism by which
releasing a tired, huddled mass of immigrants in cities with massive
populations—and cities where asylum approval rates are much higher—would punish their representatives.

The release of these migrants to the streets without any support, of
course, is vile in itself. On Christmas Day last year (gotta love this
administration’s Christian charity), NPR reported
that ICE had released “approximately 400 migrants near the Greyhound
bus terminal with no apparent plan in place for the men, women and
children” over the past few days. Those migrants were left “completely
reliant on generous strangers who have been showing up in droves to
distribute food, water and blankets as temperatures drop into the 40s.”

But
I would like for the papers and the anonymous officials involved—many
of whom are likely to be involved in other vile immigrations
decisions—to have to spell this out. It doesn’t serve readers to leave
that question unanswered, to leave the prospect open that these
officials thought just the presence of immigrants in these cities would
harm their residents. Those migrants can’t vote; the vast, vast majority
of harm experienced by releasing them on the streets is experienced by
the migrants themselves, not the communities around them. I do not
understand how this evil act was supposed to translate into political
pressure on Pelosi, or representatives in New York or Chicago, unless
what they actually thought would happen is that crimey migrants would do
a bunch of migranty crimes in those cities, because they are racist.

This
is just the kind of thing that I might interrogate a little more.
Otherwise, the framing is left as “the presence of migrants in cities
will be bad for those cities.” And in the end, that just does Stephen
Miller’s work for him.

its not racist to think that immigrants are more likely to do crimes because immigrant is not a race and moreover immigrants cause a strain on the system is not a controversial opinion or else we wouldnt have to worry about refugee crises this not up to your usual standard of quality articles to reference op

What Exactly Did These Racists Think Would Happen?

The Bitter Class Struggle Behind Our Definition of a Kilogram

collapsedsquid:

So did the poor finally get a fair shake under the new, standardized
system of weights and measures? Of course not. The powerful found new
ways to cheat the powerless, and in some cases, the metrological
revolution weakened the political power of the masses. By helping
monarchs administer their kingdom, standard units gave them a way to
collect more taxes and thereby bolster their strength. With more
accurate and stable land measures, they could also produce better maps
of the kingdom. This allowed them to surveil their subjects more
effectively and snatch up all unclaimed territories for the crown.

In
the short term, then, the natural philosophers’ brilliant new units
probably helped concentrate power in the hands of kings and despots. “As
in many other walks of life, so in metrology, the state authority of
enlightened absolutism had little difficulty in securing the cooperation
of men of learning,” Kula writes.

@enye-word this isn’t Scott but in that piece that mentions him and I think in the same area.

The use of the word “masses“ as the harmed party there might be questionable, the people who are harmed by land tax and surveying are those who own land.

The Bitter Class Struggle Behind Our Definition of a Kilogram

U.S. has spent $6 trillion on wars that killed 500,000 people since 9/11, a report says

the-grey-tribe:

shituationist:

“While we often know how many US soldiers die, most other numbers are
to a degree uncertain. Indeed, we may never know the total direct death
toll in these wars. For example, tens of thousands of civilians may
have died in retaking Mosul and other cities from ISIS but their bodies
have likely not been recovered,” the report noted.

“In addition, this tally does not include ‘indirect deaths.’ Indirect
harm occurs when wars’ destruction leads to long term, ‘indirect,’
consequences for people’s health in war zones, for example because of
loss of access to food, water, health facilities, electricity or other
infrastructure,” it added.

In February, President Donald Trump estimated
that “we have spent $7 trillion in the Middle East,” saying “what a
mistake” it was. Weeks later, he reportedly told his military advisers
to prepare a plan to withdraw from Syria as the war against ISIS entered its final phases, though senior Washington officials have since expanded the U.S. mission— considered illegal by the Syrian government and its allies—to include countering Iran and its allies.

Seeing these numbers together triggers the word problem module in my brain: That’s 12 million per dead body.

roughly in line with epa fda and dot estimates

U.S. has spent $6 trillion on wars that killed 500,000 people since 9/11, a report says

Baba Is You on Steam

the-grey-tribe:

rendakuenthusiast:

shieldfoss:

voxette-vk:

voxette-vk:

This game looks fascinating!

Has anyone tried it?

I bought it and can confirm it is very cool.

IT sure sounds cool.

Maybe I’ll give it a try

looks too much like real work

i played the jam version essentially a demo and it was good

Baba Is You on Steam

The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution

shieldfoss:

voxette-vk:

Should the income tax include a credit for short taxpayers and a surcharge for tall ones? The standard Utilitarian framework for tax analysis answers this question in the affirmative. Moreover, a plausible parameterization using data on height and wages implies a substantial height tax: a tall person earning $50,000 should pay $4,500 more in tax than a short person. […]

Our results, therefore, leave readers with a menu of conclusions. You must either advocate a tax on
height, or you must reject, or at least significantly amend, the conventional Utilitarian approach to optimal
taxation. The choice is yours, but the choice cannot be avoided.

Checkmate, utilitarians!

Oh, did I mention that the optimal height tax is so calculated as to leave tall people with lower utility than short people? (Indeed, the standard assumptions of wanting to equalize marginal utility mean that all higher-ability people end up with less total utility.)

If you’re equalizing marginal utility, you’re fucking up. You’re supposed to maximize sum utility, or minimize sum disutility, or or or, but ain’t no version of Utilitarianism I’ve ever heard of where you’re equalizing utility, that’s most easily accomplished by just killing everybody.

there is a variation of utilitarianism called average utilitarianism that is kind of like that but it’s not very popular for p much exactly the reason you state

The Optimal Taxation of Height: A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution

Private College for $11,000 a Year? Libertarian Businessman Creates an Alternative to Higher Ed Waste

squareallworthy:

voxette-vk:

Thales College, which is launching this fall in the Raleigh, North Carolina area, isn’t Luddy’s first education venture. He started a charter school in 1998, and a Catholic school in 2001. The charter, Franklin Academy, is the third largest in North Carolina, with four applicants vying for every one kindergarten spot. But, in Luddy’s view, charters have limited potential for disruption because state regulators won’t consent to radical approaches.

So in 2007 he launched Thales Academy, a network of K-12 private schools affordable for working-class families. (Watch “Libertarian Builds Low Cost Schools for the Masses.”) Thales keeps costs down by cutting out virtually all administrative employees and nonessentials. Its seven locations (soon to be eight) with over 3,000 students don’t have auditoriums because they’re expensive to heat and cool. And they don’t have sports teams, which Luddy considers distractions. Annual tuition is $5,300 for elementary school, and $6,000 for junior high and high school.

Luddy’s latest project brings his brand of cost cutting and innovation to higher education. Students will pay $10,667 annually for a degree that will take just three years, since classes will run 45 weeks per year rather than the conventional 30, appealing to students and families unwilling to take on crushing debt. […]

Prospective students will need to score higher than the 60th percentile on the SAT or ACT. Thales will function as a commuter school, limiting the applicant pool, but the school may consider serving out of towners in the future. Some applicants, however, will be turned off by the offering of a single program with no electives, a Bachelor of Liberal Arts, with set courses offered in Western literature, ethics, math, logic, economics, and finance. […]

Thales College won’t seek accreditation because doing so would be a “hindrance,” says Dr. Timothy Hall, who will serve as the school’s director of operations and academics. Accrediting institutions require that colleges have research libraries and a certain number of Ph.D.s on their faculty, according to Hall. Luddy sees college research libraries as a waste of money in the online age, and Hall says that the school will hire the best teachers, whether they have doctorate degrees or not. […]

Thales College will accept 45 students in its inaugural class, with ambitious expansion plans if the model is successful. In Luddy’s view, ending all federal subsidies would be the fastest and most effective way to upend higher education. But that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon. Societal change comes not through advocacy, but via “exit:” Create alternatives and people will vote with their wallets.

This definitely isn’t the kind of college I would recommend for everyone (e.g. if you have the stats to get into a nationally elite school), but having followed the news about Thales Academy, I found it interesting.

I’m not sure what to make of the lack of accreditation. If you plan on grad school, it’s a problem, obviously, but if you don’t, you just put “Thales College, 2022″ on your resume and move along. Who’s going to care if it’s accredited or not?

But if it were that simple, wouldn’t there be non-accredited colleges all over the place? Is it about chasing federal funding or something?

i assume if i were john job and i looked at your resume i would look up thales college and derive some bayesian evidence about you in the bad direction from the fact that they are not accredited

Private College for $11,000 a Year? Libertarian Businessman Creates an Alternative to Higher Ed Waste

Texas Republicans defend county GOP leader as group pushes to oust him because he is Muslim

kontextmaschine:

jakke:

This might be a weird response but kudos to Shahid Shafi for sticking to his guns and not resigning in protest? I don’t at all understand why he wants to be involved with a party that’s treating him like this but if he quits then the Republicans in the county that contains Fort Worth and its suburbs have effectively blocked Muslim citizens from full participation in the political process which seems pretty grim. For what it’s worth it sounds like the proposal to remove him is going to fail.

Two important bits of Texas context, first that Muslims were a “model minority” associated with conservatism, the oil industry, and the state Republican Party. When you said “Muslim”, Texans would have generally pictured an oilfield STEM type who left an unstable Middle East for a Texas boom in the 1970s, who’s religious in a college-graduate bourgeois “values” way, who reminds oil executives of themselves more than native Christian roughnecks do.

This is key to why George W. Bush was so quick to stand up for Muslims-as-such while railing against “Islamic fundamentalist terrorism”, it’s key to why he so confidently committed the country to “winning Muslims over to Americanism” abroad and his party to “winning minorities over to conservatism” at home.

Second, what conservatism means in Texas. Texas has a reputation as very conservative, very Republican, and very rowdy so it’s tempting to think of the Tea Party and Trump-era Republican Party as just Texas carried to its natural endpoint.

But that’s not really right – the core of Texas conservatism was an older conservatism, pre-Eisenhower, a conservatism of frontier land barons and resource extraction, defending not the bourgeois 50s against the upsets of the 60s but rather the aristocratic Gilded Age against the Roosevelts’ Square and New Deals.

And even if that conservatism had captured the state Republicans, the Republicans didn’t capture the state until the mid-90s; for most of the 20th century Texas was a thoroughly blue state with a political culture of agrarian populism.

So Texas was very Republican but it was business Republican; it was very conservative but it was business conservative. Some chest-thumping broke out in the periphery like the school textbook commission, but it was a state firmly under the go-along-to-get-along country club leadership of ranchers, oilmen, bankers, land developers, and executives.

Until now.

In 2014, Dan Patrick, champion of the firebreathing, cultural-populist wing of the Republican Party, was elected Lt. Governor. (Texas Lt. Governors, who control the state Senate, run separately from and are effectively more politically powerful than Governors, who oversee administrative agencies.)

The business Republicans hate him, and by controlling the state House in the figure of Speaker Dan Strauss they had leverage to push back. Patrick called the legislature back into session to demand a bill firming up the preexisting implicit gender enforcement regime of public bathrooms as a cultural defense against gender fluidity

(The Texas Legislature meets every other year for 140 days, about 100 of which they spend on meaningless formalities and then rush to pass everything before the deadline comes, with opponents bargaining by calibrating their delaying tactics to run out the clock – Wendy Davis’ “pink shoes” filibuster was actually pretty significant in eating up a full legislative day near the deadline.)

but they turned him down; Patrick pushed for a conservative tax plan and they balked at its implications for rural school districts.

So the firebreathers targeted more seats and got some in the 2018 election. Strauss didn’t run for reelection but the Speaker’s gavel passed to his designated business-Republican heir, but the caucus knows the firebreathers have a close eye on them, and a talk-radio whip in their hand.

Which is to say, this isn’t all a random sideshow, there’s a war in the Texas Republican Party between the business conservatives and the conservative-as-identity types rn, “who controls a given county party” is very much a battleground, and “what do Muslims mean w/r/t Texas Republican conservatism” is very much the stakes.

Texas Republicans defend county GOP leader as group pushes to oust him because he is Muslim

Microplastics have been found in humans for the first time. It’s a worry

argumate:

Scientists at the Austrian Environment Agency and the University of
Vienna analysed stool samples of people from eight countries and found
every one contained microplastics.

…

Microplastics – shed by everything from synthetic clothing to road
paint – are present in 83 per cent of tap water samples, all German
beers and even in European rainwater, studies show.

Experts fear
that microplastics in the body may damage the immune system, trigger
inflammation, and can help carry toxins such as mercury or pesticides
into the body. In sea mammals, it is believed plastics damage fertility.

vaguely considering become someone obsessed with the bodily purity of the populace at large dissuaded only by thats something only crazy people do

Microplastics have been found in humans for the first time. It’s a worry

Microplastics have been found in humans for the first time. It’s a worry

argumate:

Scientists at the Austrian Environment Agency and the University of
Vienna analysed stool samples of people from eight countries and found
every one contained microplastics.

…

Microplastics – shed by everything from synthetic clothing to road
paint – are present in 83 per cent of tap water samples, all German
beers and even in European rainwater, studies show.

Experts fear
that microplastics in the body may damage the immune system, trigger
inflammation, and can help carry toxins such as mercury or pesticides
into the body. In sea mammals, it is believed plastics damage fertility.

vaguely considering become someone obsessed with the bodily purity of the populace at large dissuaded only by thats something only crazy people do

Microplastics have been found in humans for the first time. It’s a worry

What Tumblr Taught Me About My Gender Identity

staff:

This can be a tough read for those who struggle with gender identity and disordered eating, but it’s also so lovely to see someone flourish. 

Remember to reach out for help if you need it. We’ve collected a list of resources that may help. Take care of yourselves, Tumblr.

the pull quote tumblr gives me for this article is

>
“My mother’s reaction was everything I could have hoped for—she
was happy for me, and although she didn’t entirely understand what being
non-binary meant, she was open to learning. The rest of my family has
opened their arms with acceptance and the desire to learn, too. And
thanks to colonialism, they do have to learn.”

i considered making some snarky comment but as i read the pull quote over and over i realized it was already a perfect example of comedic timing koan-like it inspired me to enlightenment

What Tumblr Taught Me About My Gender Identity