Arthur Aron's 36 questions; John Wentworth on college costs; Nellie Bowles on the abortion fight; Nouriel Roubini and Yascha Mounk offer depressing takes
The Democratic position on abortion in 2022 is the same as Arnold's. On demand abortion for any reason or no reason at all up until birth.
This was echoed by Biden's press secretary, just to be clear. It was also Terry McCauliff's stance in the recent Virginia election. It is supported by very few Americans.
In Virginia's election McCauliff tried to make abortion a big issue, but only 8% of the electorate made it a #1 issue and Youngkin won those 55%/45%.
Support for such extreme abortion policies is not some isolated thing. It's part of an entire anti-child, anti-family ethos that has overtaken the left. There is a culture change beyond abortion of which abortion extremism is just one manifestation. The same 1990s Democratic Party that could endorse "safe, legal, rare" could also support v-chips, three strikes laws, welfare reform, and border enforcement. There is no Supreme Court ruling on those issues, the problem is where the Democratic Party is today.
The author stated clearly that he thought there would be a huge electoral backlash to the Supreme Court decision. It hasn't happened. Polls have not moved at all. There is no energy in the streets. I would rate the response I've seen to this as 1/10,000 George Floyd's. Located entirely in blue hair women that we're going to vote democrat anyway.
On July 4th the town parade had a float of blue hairs supporting the democrat and a float of families supporting the republican challenger. We stopped by the Episcopal church down the street's BBQ after the parade because we had been invited. Episcopal's are a far left branch of Christianity that are way into social justice and officially endorse abortion until birth as the church's position. They are woke as hell. The invited speaker was the Republican challenger.
There is no energy out there desperate to keep this rolling holocaust of babies going. Pro-abortion is a spent force. "It's wrong and everyone knows it, but deranged psychopaths might change their vote if you try to stop the killing" is just not convincing. I look around and I don't know a single person who wants to re-elect that senial old man that gave them race riots and $5 gas so they can murder an infant at nine months.
Well, the inflation should ease nominal debts all around, lowering the probability and severity of any debt crisis, which is one reason to suspect central banks won't hold the line on throttling down price level growth. The trick is to convince the market you would never monetize, and as soon as people let their guard down ...
Inflation can only ease nominal debts if it is accompanied by a reduction in baseline consumption - otherwise the participant will rack up new debts at the new inflated monetary rate. "We'll just print our way out of it" needs to come with austerity to actually complete the magic trick.
For households who don't have the money printer, it just means riding the inflation wave in their paychecks while drastically reducing their lifestyle. (Hard to do while watching everyone else enjoy the free money.)
For governments it means printing a bunch of new money and only spending it to pay down debt. I'm not optimistic that this will occur, but it feels like the best case scenario.
"Debt is the stickiest price." If I am near bankruptcy because of my debt service payments, and suddenly the currency is unexpectedly debased, and my nominal income rises proportionately, then that is a windfall and a bailout for me if my rate was fixed (mortgages, bonds) and arguably a wash even if it floats. Sure, the government has to roll over a lot of short term debt at now higher nominal rates, however, not real rates. Nominal government revenues and asset valuations will rise proportionately. But also, the government has a lot of long term fixed rate debt that was bought when the market thought that 8%+ inflation was a solved problem and thing of the past.
I see that compromise on deportation of long term residents will be tough, but what about money to actually follow the law on asylum: a quick hearing and rejection of 90+% of the asylum seekers?
And on active recruitment of highly skilled educated people who want to come/can be persuaded to come to study and work?
On Mounk's pessimism about the state-level subversion of elections, I have become so pessimistic that I'd almost prefer a return to the President being elected by representatives of the state legislatures as originally designed.
In my head, those states would pressure the Federal government to devolve power to them. But in reality, all legislatures want money without responsibility, so it wouldn't make a difference.
On decreasing class size their observation doesn't agree with mine. My son was teaching a class size of over 400 students with 20 TA's to handle mandatory courses in computer design and security. He has had classes over 500.
As these are subjects you actually need to understand to teach, the university is hiring "lectures" at part time at lower cost than professors, but people actually work the other half time or so in the fields being taught.
If the faculty/student ratio is increasing it is in the "junk major" fields like "X studies", not in the real STEM fields. Graduate level STEM is different.
> If the faculty/student ratio is increasing it is in the "junk major" fields like "X studies", not in the real STEM fields. Graduate level STEM is different.
I think that is the point this article is making, and this matches with my experience at a small, private, liberal arts university. When I was in school, I was delighted at the all the various interesting little classes I could take - though I took care to avoid all of the grievance studies classes.
In other words, Universities aren't trying to actually reduce faculty/student ratio, they're increasing their course catalog with a bunch of classes they hope will increase their marketability.
A commenter on the LessWrong article also made this point that I like:
> I am reminded of the claim that most flights are empty, even though most people find themselves on full flights. Similarly, most person-class-hours might be spent in the biggest classes
The Democratic position on abortion in 2022 is the same as Arnold's. On demand abortion for any reason or no reason at all up until birth.
This was echoed by Biden's press secretary, just to be clear. It was also Terry McCauliff's stance in the recent Virginia election. It is supported by very few Americans.
In Virginia's election McCauliff tried to make abortion a big issue, but only 8% of the electorate made it a #1 issue and Youngkin won those 55%/45%.
https://www.ncregister.com/news/mcauliffe-s-abortion-miscalculation
Support for such extreme abortion policies is not some isolated thing. It's part of an entire anti-child, anti-family ethos that has overtaken the left. There is a culture change beyond abortion of which abortion extremism is just one manifestation. The same 1990s Democratic Party that could endorse "safe, legal, rare" could also support v-chips, three strikes laws, welfare reform, and border enforcement. There is no Supreme Court ruling on those issues, the problem is where the Democratic Party is today.
The author stated clearly that he thought there would be a huge electoral backlash to the Supreme Court decision. It hasn't happened. Polls have not moved at all. There is no energy in the streets. I would rate the response I've seen to this as 1/10,000 George Floyd's. Located entirely in blue hair women that we're going to vote democrat anyway.
On July 4th the town parade had a float of blue hairs supporting the democrat and a float of families supporting the republican challenger. We stopped by the Episcopal church down the street's BBQ after the parade because we had been invited. Episcopal's are a far left branch of Christianity that are way into social justice and officially endorse abortion until birth as the church's position. They are woke as hell. The invited speaker was the Republican challenger.
There is no energy out there desperate to keep this rolling holocaust of babies going. Pro-abortion is a spent force. "It's wrong and everyone knows it, but deranged psychopaths might change their vote if you try to stop the killing" is just not convincing. I look around and I don't know a single person who wants to re-elect that senial old man that gave them race riots and $5 gas so they can murder an infant at nine months.
Well, the inflation should ease nominal debts all around, lowering the probability and severity of any debt crisis, which is one reason to suspect central banks won't hold the line on throttling down price level growth. The trick is to convince the market you would never monetize, and as soon as people let their guard down ...
Inflation can only ease nominal debts if it is accompanied by a reduction in baseline consumption - otherwise the participant will rack up new debts at the new inflated monetary rate. "We'll just print our way out of it" needs to come with austerity to actually complete the magic trick.
For households who don't have the money printer, it just means riding the inflation wave in their paychecks while drastically reducing their lifestyle. (Hard to do while watching everyone else enjoy the free money.)
For governments it means printing a bunch of new money and only spending it to pay down debt. I'm not optimistic that this will occur, but it feels like the best case scenario.
"Debt is the stickiest price." If I am near bankruptcy because of my debt service payments, and suddenly the currency is unexpectedly debased, and my nominal income rises proportionately, then that is a windfall and a bailout for me if my rate was fixed (mortgages, bonds) and arguably a wash even if it floats. Sure, the government has to roll over a lot of short term debt at now higher nominal rates, however, not real rates. Nominal government revenues and asset valuations will rise proportionately. But also, the government has a lot of long term fixed rate debt that was bought when the market thought that 8%+ inflation was a solved problem and thing of the past.
I see that compromise on deportation of long term residents will be tough, but what about money to actually follow the law on asylum: a quick hearing and rejection of 90+% of the asylum seekers?
And on active recruitment of highly skilled educated people who want to come/can be persuaded to come to study and work?
On Mounk's pessimism about the state-level subversion of elections, I have become so pessimistic that I'd almost prefer a return to the President being elected by representatives of the state legislatures as originally designed.
In my head, those states would pressure the Federal government to devolve power to them. But in reality, all legislatures want money without responsibility, so it wouldn't make a difference.
On decreasing class size their observation doesn't agree with mine. My son was teaching a class size of over 400 students with 20 TA's to handle mandatory courses in computer design and security. He has had classes over 500.
As these are subjects you actually need to understand to teach, the university is hiring "lectures" at part time at lower cost than professors, but people actually work the other half time or so in the fields being taught.
If the faculty/student ratio is increasing it is in the "junk major" fields like "X studies", not in the real STEM fields. Graduate level STEM is different.
> If the faculty/student ratio is increasing it is in the "junk major" fields like "X studies", not in the real STEM fields. Graduate level STEM is different.
I think that is the point this article is making, and this matches with my experience at a small, private, liberal arts university. When I was in school, I was delighted at the all the various interesting little classes I could take - though I took care to avoid all of the grievance studies classes.
In other words, Universities aren't trying to actually reduce faculty/student ratio, they're increasing their course catalog with a bunch of classes they hope will increase their marketability.
A commenter on the LessWrong article also made this point that I like:
> I am reminded of the claim that most flights are empty, even though most people find themselves on full flights. Similarly, most person-class-hours might be spent in the biggest classes