#marginal revolution

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Like “realism,” utilitarianism is often code for “being a selfish jerk.” Think of “longtermism,” which concerns itself with a hypothetical future containing trillions of synthetic, simulated humans living inside computers. Making each of those synthetic people very slightly happier will produce a gigantic aggregate benefit.

Even a very small amount of additional happiness multiplied by trillions of imaginary people adds up to more happiness than all of the people currently alive can ever experience. By that reasoning, there’s no amount of misery one could inflict on today’s living people that would outweigh even the chance of bringing a dollop of joy to those far-future sims.

For the selfish, utilitarianism works best when it provides a justification for making themselves better off at others’ expense. At first blush, longtermism militates for everyone to don hairshirts in support of the happiness of those trillions of future sims.

But longtermism is an offshoot of “effective altruism” (whose leading spokescriminal and financier was Sam Bankman-Fried), which offers an ingenious solution to this problem: earning to give.

“Earning to give” is the utilitarian, effective altruist notion that one should take the highest-paying job one can get, even if that job involves inflicting untold misery through pollution, inequality and exploitation — provided that you eventually give all the gains away to good causes that outweigh the harm you did while earning them.

And since succeeding as (say) a high-powered investment banker requires that you wear the finest clothes, drive a showy car, live in a fancy home, fly first class and eat at Michelin-starred restaurants, all of these comforts can be explained as utilitarian necessities one must endure on the path to earning enough to give away so much that you make lots of people better off.

- Rich People's Gain is Worth Less than Poor People's Pain: A new way to think about utilitarianism, courtesy of the Office of Management and Budget

#office of management and budget #utilitarianism #rationalism #earning to give #marginal revolution #marginal utility #omb #longtermism #intellectual honesty

[leapingmonkeys]

Good Thread on Apple Case

#DOJ complaint against Apple #Lazar Radic #marginal revolution #tyler cowen #antitrust #apple

[arcticdementor]

a href="https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/04/solve-for-the-equilibrium-13.html">https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/04/solve-for-the-equilibrium-13.html “we’ve disabled the save button until you fix those pronouns...”

flagamuffin

#quote #reddit #culture war roundup #link in quote #marginal revolution #google docs

[marxism-leninism-meowism]

pretentious cynical fucks that think solarpunk is an apolitical cozy pseudo-punk movement are so unimaginably stupid. like okay whatever go off and have ur glorious revolution. i'm gonna be here making community and planting a garden and dismantling systems of oppression brick by brick in the communities around me, building something new and beautiful in their place. maybe you should give it a shot.

#solarpunk #cripplepunk #as always i'm not anti-violence to the end but i believe we should all value people over destruction #you have your plans for the Revolution but have you spoken to your neighbors? #have you learned what crops are native to your area? #have you spoken with the indigenous people to the land you are living on? #do you know the history of that place you call home? #do you know how to live with the planet instead of using it like a tool? #do you know how to be kind? #do you treat disabled people with kindness and respect? #...or are disabled people on the margins of your ideals? #are we just a footnote? a 'this isn't about you' eye-roll follow up to a post about how Leftists Need To Work Out and Be Slim and Get Jacke #i have a lot of thoughts on this as you can maybe tell

[tranny-fragrance]

i watched Us (2019) and golly gee that movie is kinda confusing in terms of message

#like obviously the tethered are the poor n the marginalized & stuff #and the events of the movie are akin to some sort of revolution #but then the tethered are portrayed as cruel animalistic murderers #basically portrayed as unsympathetic as they can be #other for small moments #but you’re still supposed to see what the tethered experience to be a horrible plight #and yet it seems like the movie wants you to think they’re like #going too far or something #which like yeah they’re murdering like everyone #so i’m just like wondering why the movie has them do that #it’s not unreasonable for the oppressed to seek to kill their oppressors #whether they know they’re oppressors or not #but the movie does really portray them as understandable it’s very #yeah they’re oppressed but they’re trying to kill me so it’s okay to not pens why thought to why they’re doing this #idk if i was going anywhere with this

[polaraffect]

sometimes I truly genuinely forget nuance is dead on the internet and then I have to read people who should be on the same side argue about politics on the internet and I start wanting to bash my head into a wall.

#damien.txt #ohhh my god. rattling the bars of my cage. lesser of two evils is a real and true concept. #revolution and changing a fucking country and keeping marginalized people alive takes many different forms #and guess what! voting for the 'somewhat lesser right wing' president over the 'extremely right wing' president IS one of those forms! #change is not going to happen because you voted third party or didn't fucking vote. it is actively going to make things worse actually #truly i think half the people making these comments have no idea how the us government works. #revolutions and protests and community projects and other revolutionary activity i wont explicitly name here will change things. and we #should also be doing that. but we can't just sink into the idealism of those things and ignore the actions we can take around us in reality #and in our reality at this moment. truly. voting strategically to keep republicans out of office is critical. #do you know why the government has been particularly shit the past couple years? sure yeah biden is a shit president and that's part of it #but also. thinking back to 2017-2020. when trump appointed all those conservative right wing people #to positions that opened up. like the supreme court justices. and laws and things started to take a downturn? #whoa..... almost like.... we should prevent that from happening again..... like that was Bad or something...... #im truly begging you to take a look at project 2025 and see if that's something you're willing to risk #'im still not voting for joe he supports genocide' cool i guess. hope you enjoy your moral superiority complex. let me know how you plan #to actually do anything about the genocide anyways. #politics

[besnouted]

youre so correct and thanks for saying it because my conservative 'theyre taking away my guns' dad is CONSTANTLY talking about how i need to buy a gun. and then i hear the same from my pro gun leftist friends but 1. the attacker thing you said and 2. maybe im not ready to fucking shoot someone. and having that gun in the house during any time without a need for me to defend myself puts me in MORE DANGER because then the gun instantly transforms from tool for defence into a tool to instantly stop my mental illness. community is always better than a single operator weapon

YES. EXACTLY. like i might not be shedding any tears if someone idk gets shot while trying to enact a hate crime but that... does not mean i'm chomping at the bit to shoot someone personally. and i would in fact like to avoid shooting someone if at all possible even if that person was trying to hurt me. i think the second thing is another point people really do not consider either like i actually have no idea where the guns in our house are and uh! that's on purpose! for similar reasons! and i can say when i DID know where they were at our last house, it was agonizing

#like god idk if marginalized people are having to arm themselves that is a tragedy. that isn't powerful #even when it comes to armed groups that i'm vastly more comfortable with #my response to seeing them is 'why did we get here and how do we fix it' not like. whoah epic revolution moment #if moral panic and bigotry can be this effectively used to sick the populus against each other. then something is very wrong #and the solution isn't more guns #gun violence / #suicide / jic

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread  

Margins and Murmurations

set in a near future after a climate crisis, in an oppressive militarised state somewhere in Europe

A 72yo trans woman and her friend have long since escaped, living in the woods together, until a resistance fighter arrives and they find themselves drawn back into the fight

centres queer and trans characters, sex workers, and the complicated process of activism and survivial

large cast

#Margins and Murmurations #aroaessidhe 2023 reads #I picked this up the MC is aro - though this is only vaguely mentioned in a single line tbh (without the word) #i feel like it could have been a bit clearer however still really liked her! a great MC #a trans woman not concerned with other people’s idea of passing is gr8 #liked the complexities of revolution and community organising and that intercommunity issues are never going away #(ie vegans being like no meat in our safe space and disabled people being like. ok but we'll die tho?) #the writing is a bit rough in places #there’s a lot of worldbuilding told through the characters telling it to each other like……they clearly know this already; and are only sayin #saying it for the reader to learn. awkwardly #some headhopping and I think sometimes more concerned with telling us something that the characters and narrative…. #the time travel thing is very much………I feel like you could have taken it out and it wouldn’t have changed anything? other than her descicion #descision making? the end also felt abrupt. I know there are other books in the world so maybe that had something to do with it #but yea it's interesting and i enjoyed it overall! #do check CWs #aromantic books #(kinda. and there's bits of romance with other characters)

[khizhina]

no ouroboros motif like the generational one. young people will always preach that they know better than their predecessors but go on to be just as violent and close minded. 

#if theres anything we know about the cycle is that there will always be new ways to hate marginalized people #thinking about gen z tiktok trend where they were going to start a revolution as if they were katniss but now threaten amber's life and use #incel talking points regularly

[lavandulacosmos]

"Many can't grasp it, though they had tried, What rose up here like an ocean tide? Why was world order shaking and strained? A nation cried out. Then silence reigned. Many are asking: what was the cause? Who made from bones and the flesh the laws? More and more ask it, there seems no end, Haltingly, for they can't comprehend - Those, for whom Freedom bequest had brought, Ask it: is Freedom so great a thought?"

Márai, Sándor - Mennyből az angyal (Angel from heaven) excerpt

Translated by: Leslie A. Kery

#quote #poem #poem excerpt #sandor marai #márai sándor #angel from heaven #revolution #freedom #1956 #on the margins of tragedy #had this poem on my mind recently

[virtue-and-beneviolence]

awww that's fine, it's not like bread is an old doggie at the end of her rope

which brand did u get btw? if it's dnamydog or orivet u might as well ask for a refund bc they're worthless (tho results can be extremely funny)

I think my mother bought the dmydog lmaooo we were gonna swab both dogs together and then I died of COVID and I'm a lazy pos and never signed up to even do it for bread

Now I wanna see how badly they fuck it up tho

Like pls, tell me I have a Pomeranian-shepard or something equally ridiculous lmao lmao

#lmao the SNP revolution really killing it on those profit margins for mid science huh

[mostlysignssomeportents]

As Quiggin explains, this method would produce some pretty startling policy recommendations:

If a policy halved Elon Musk’s income, while doubling the income of a single randomly chosen US household, it would be evaluated as neutral. If the policy doubled the income of two households, it would be beneficial.

- Rich People's Gain is Worth Less than Poor People's Pain: A new way to think about utilitarianism, courtesy of the Office of Management and Budget

#office of management and budget #utilitarianism #rationalism #earning to give #marginal revolution #marginal utility #omb #longtermism #intellectual honesty #Litmus Tests

[leapingmonkeys]

The new UAPs report

#UAP #ufo #AARO #nimitz #gimbal #Marginal Revolution #tyler cowen

[arcticdementor]

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/04/u-s-a-poll-fact-of-the-day.html remember, left-libertarians think the only problem with open borders is the potential for backlash from deplorables

flagamuffin

#quote #reddit #culture war roundup #marginal revolution #link in quote

[l-sincline]

Don’t mind me ranting in the tags just don’t have anyone to complain about this to feel free to be on your merry way

#so obviously the big video game beef rn is the new Harry Potter game coming out #everyone’s fighting over if they should be ‘allowed’ to get it because they like Harry Potter #and of course every millennial ever is like ‘well I like Harry Potter and not jk Rowling so I’m separating the art from the artist and- #-getting it anyways’ my brother in Christ #jk rowlings ideals are so heavily ingrained into the shit she wrote for Harry Potter that it’s no longer possible to separate them #jk Rowling IS Harry Potter. when you pick up this game you are literally playing a game about oppressing a revolution #because a marginalized group in the game (which is already problematic. fucking goblins bro) is rising up against their oppressors and you #are actively trying to stop them from doing that #MOREOVER #I saw someone last night say that it was okay to buy it because there’s ‘no ethical consumption under capitalism’ #my guy #jk Rowling IS NOT CAPITALISM #CAPITALISM is fucking NESTLE not terf asshole British woman #also jk Rowling herself has CONFIRMED that as long as she is making money from her franchise she DOES NOT CARE that she’s an asshole #anyways let’s see let me get my conclusion paragraph #if you still sincerely like Harry Potter in 2023 you’re on thin fucking ice #if you buy the new Harry Potter game after so many people have told you not to I don’t want anything to do with you #if you pirate the game you are still on thin fucking ice #jk Rowling is not capitalism and buying Harry Potter things under the idea ‘no ethical consumption under capitalism’ is just not true #jk Rowling is a bitch and if you don’t hate her you should start #sincline txt

[probablyasocialecologist]

How can a person make up for seven decades of misrepresentation and willful distortion in the time allotted to a sound bite? How can you explain that the Israeli occupation doesn’t have to resort to explosions—or even bullets and machine-guns—to kill? That occupation and apartheid structure and saturate the everyday life of every Palestinian? That the results are literally murderous even when no shots are fired? Cancer patients in Gaza are cut off from life-saving treatments. Babies whose mothers are denied passage by Israeli troops are born in the mud by the side of the road at Israeli military checkpoints. Between 2000 and 2004, at the peak of the Israeli roadblock-and-checkpoint regime in the West Bank (which has been reimposed with a vengeance), sixty-one Palestinian women gave birth this way; thirty-six of those babies died as a result.That never constituted news in the Western world. Those weren’t losses to be mourned. They were, at most, statistics. What we are not allowed to say, as Palestinians speaking to the Western media, is that all life is equally valuable. That no event takes place in a vacuum. That history didn’t start on October 7, 2023, and if you place what’s happening in the wider historical context of colonialism and anticolonial resistance, what’s most remarkable is that anyone in 2023 should be still surprised that conditions of absolute violence, domination, suffocation, and control produce appalling violence in turn. During the Haitian revolution in the early 19th century, former slaves massacred white settler men, women, and children. During Nat Turner’s revolt in 1831, insurgent slaves massacred white men, women, and children. During the Indian uprising of 1857, Indian rebels massacred English men, women, and children. During the Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s, Kenyan rebels massacred settler men, women, and children. At Oran in 1962, Algerian revolutionaries massacred French men, women, and children. Why should anyone expect Palestinians—or anyone else—to be different? To point these things out is not to justify them; it is to understand them. Every single one of these massacres was the result of decades or centuries of colonial violence and oppression, a structure of violence Frantz Fanon explained decades ago in The Wretched of the Earth. What we are not allowed to say, in other words, is that if you want the violence to stop, you must stop the conditions that produced it. You must stop the hideous system of racial segregation, dispossession, occupation, and apartheid that has disfigured and tormented Palestine since 1948, consequent upon the violent project to transform a land that has always been home to many cultures, faiths, and languages into a state with a monolithic identity that requires the marginalization or outright removal of anyone who doesn’t fit. And that while what’s happening in Gaza today is a consequence of decades of settler-colonial violence and must be placed in the broader history of that violence to be understood, it has taken us to places to which the entire history of colonialism has never taken us before.

#palestine #israel #gaza #zionism #settler colonialism