Alan Pentz on personnel decisions; Lorenzo Warby on Jews and group victimhood; David Friedman on the Current Thing; Richard Peterson on 1955 and the birth of Rock 'n' Roll
On revenue growth & leadership changes: this may be applicable to your standard small business. But for a rapidly scaling tech startup it doesn't follow. Revenue grows too fast for that kind of executive turnover to be feasible. I suspect that one of the main reasons why many rapidly growing tech startups flame out is that revenues grow too fast for the requisite leadership to be hired and on-boarded.
Warby is right about the history, but look, group reparations for unjust treatment are reasonable when the group of victims is still alive and well defined. Like currently living black people who lived under Jim Crow in the South should absolutely be paid reparations.
That's not to say that the creation of Israel was a just way to pay reparations to the Jews. You don't pay reparations (in land in this case) by stealing from an uninvolved third party. (That's also not an ok way to defend yourself from European antisemitism.)
At this point I don't think it super matters that the Palestinians were stolen from, because now *those* people are all dead. But the idea that it was ok to create Israel the way they did is nuts.
Your suggestion that land was stolen is hard to understand. European Jewish migration to Palestine began many decades before the Holocaust under Ottoman, not Arab, sovereignty. At the time, the land was sparsely populated and emigrating Jews generally pursued two courses: (1) settling uninhabited (and usually unappealing) areas, and (2) purchasing land from Arabs, many of whom were absentee landowners. Significant Arab in-migration occurred during this time period as well, especially as the land became more productive and economic opportunities increased.
Arab land losses and displacements certainly did occur in 1948, but that was a consequence of the Arab war to destroy the newly declared Jewish State. It seems inaccurate and inconsistent with historical precedent to describe losses of land by an aggressor in war as "stealing from an uninvolved third party".
Thanks for the link. This sounds about right. To me, it’s really difficult to establish a state by displacement or by force in the post WWII world even though, historically speaking, this is how states get built.
“Indeed, had the Zionist movement emerged and met conditions favorable to achieving its goals one century earlier, things would probably have gone very differently. First, while it’s not true that in the mid-19th century Europeans thought no moral rules applied in their interactions with non-Europeans, it’s fair to say that relative to the mid-20th century they were less constrained in that respect. Thus, had Jews established a state in Palestine around 1850, they could probably have almost completely emptied the country of Arabs.”
Well - it seems to me - you'd have to go back another 75 years and quash German romanticism in the bud. Because German-speaking Jews were as captivated by it as anyone - its mingling of cosmopolitanism (its seeming promise of it) and its invocation of a misty past that was more mood than anything concrete, its nationalism being of a folklore-ish, probably largely fake, sort; not perhaps much deeper than the way food and maybe some dancing was pretty much it for multiculturalism circa 1990 - and I'm pretty sure that by 1850 many of them were looking forward to being German citizens forever.
So in this game it seems to me you must posit that the Germans pull the rug out from under the Jews much earlier than they did. Which perhaps leaves the exercise in disarray.
Reparations from China for their negligence in letting a lethal engineered virus slip out from one of their labs seems reasonable based on your qualifiers for reparations. Yet, for some reason, I never see anyone mention this. I guess sovereign immunity applies in some cases, but not in others and you can only pierce the veil under certain circumstances?
I don't personally think that lab leak has been established beyond a reasonable doubt, nor that it's been shown that Chinese government negligence was the cause, but YMMV
The lab leak is an issue of gross negligence, which is a civil matter with the burden of proof set at “more likely than not” and not “beyond as reasonable doubt” as you stated.
If the virus had leaked from a U.S. based lab with any corporate ties, however remote, I’m sure there would be lawsuits all over the place and in the jurisdictions most favorable to the plaintiffs.
The Jews conquered the land. They deserve it by right of conquest, and they have built a vastly superior civilization then the Palestinians have. If anything they should finish the job.
This at least is an honest comment. However, if we apply the right of conquest rule, then the Palestinians can conquer Israel and expel the Jews. Are you also fine with that?
Actually descendants of slaves are a well defined group—essentially every Black American that had a Black citizen ancestor in 1960. So that is slightly too inclusive with a few West Indians who still happen to be descendants of slaves so maybe get UK to contribute to our program. I was advocating a $40k lump sum for those 30-50 years of age for all of 2020 and unfortunately Democrats did the $2k check to everyone that ended up being counterproductive…just another missed opportunity in America. I went go on every major macro site and promote it and everyone ignored me…and that’s how you get the Democrat’s trillion dollar stimulus that might end up getting Biden beaten and we still haven’t paid reparations!
I’m basing it more on current financial data and the fact babies need food and old people need pensions. So I would base the payout on age and young people would get $15k upon meeting certain requirements like no felonies and graduation from college or serving in the military. So we can’t have another PPP situation where thugs get free dollars and buy guns and drugs.
Most people (ie us) are fairly mediocre time servers. We can be encouraged to do a bit more and with more enthusiasm with the right incentives and organization but generally we are just going to do the job, passably well.
Most innovation and growth in output is driven by a handful of people in an organization. Everyone else is there to keep things ticking over (which is important). An org with 80 percent mediocrities (not incompetents) is just fine.
The issue with bright, ambitious people is often they have one good idea. They are then promoted on the basis of this one good idea, but they aren’t the people that will come up with the next good idea. If they aren’t great managers/leaders (and most of them are not), then you need to push them out- not because they are deadwood necessarily (they are harder working and more capable than the timeservers), but because you need to give their postions to the people with the latest great ideas and hope that that a few of them might become great leaders and managers.
Ironically, the time servers have a greater chance of keeping their jobs.
I look back at organizations I have left and see former colleagues who are finishing up 20-30 year runs at these firms doing the same thing they were doing 10 years ago. I couldn’t imagine doing that. I need change and new challenges every three years, but looking back I see they made a valid choice.
How the Jews managed to jump ahead of the Native Americans for the silver medal slot in the victimhood Olympics is something to behold. It’s actually quite tragic when you think about it given the official government treatment of Native Americans, which was often brutal and unjust. I guess the Jewish lobby was just more effective than the tribal lobby?
Now that the Jews have lost their silver medal status, how will they adjust to the new normal as members of the white adjacency?
And if you want to get a feel for what I’m talking about in a tangible way, compare the number of Holocaust museums in the U.S. to the number of Native American museums dedicated to the atrocities committed against them.
This isn’t surprising and had little to do with Jews. Americans don’t want to highlight their own atrocities. Easier to build museums to commemorate the suffering caused by another country.
I think Friedman and Klein would agree that, regarding what a President Trump would regard as *his task*, they agree in part with Trump and disagree in part with him.
At my company, I see the mistake of keeping lousy people around as being attributable to two factors:
1. Concerns about replacement time. For people with specialized skills, sometimes a poor performer is better than none at all, and usually the more specialized the skills, the harder it is to find a suitable replacement candidate who represents an upgrade.
2. Sunk costs. It isn't costless to hire and train new people, and since salaries are our single biggest expense, for certain managers I think there is the desire to try to recoup some of that initial investment by keeping mediocre people around longer, hoping they get better and generate a positive ROI.
Obviously, these aren't mutually exclusive, but #1 is a lot more defensible than #2.
3) silos of power? In my experience, a lot of the reason that senior management in certain functional areas likes to maintain large teams is to flex their egos in the corporate power structure.
That makes sense, but it doesn't happen much here. We're a professional service firm, and managers can't keep people around long term if we aren't getting billable hours out of them.
I suppose one of the easiest ways for Israel to stop succumbing to the victim narrative is to immediately stop accepting taxpayer funds and munitions from the U.S. every time some skirmish arises over there. Nothing screams self-sufficiency like, you know, actual self-sufficiency.
What was a problem America faced in 1940?? Lack of defense manufacturing capacity. For some reason people don’t view defense manufacturing like all other forms of manufacturing?? If you want to increase steel production capacity you do so incrementally from one year to the next. So it’s good for America to be manufacturing munitions while we aren’t at war because it increases manufacturing capacity. The only industry in which increasing capacity could potentially deplete supply would be historically with energy…but in 2024 America has decades of natural gas reserves which is the most important fossil fuel.
Is the distinction between fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence relevant to a choice between the two Presidential candidates? It would seem not, because each candidate is old.
Path dependence and personality would differentiate each candidate's feasible set (search for solutions) and decision-making, no?
I believe that David Friedman's argument (not me btw) is that different people's cognition declines at different rates. So while Biden showed diminished capacity in the debate, Trump did not.
Fluid and crystallized intelligence also influences the choice of problems to be solved.
On revenue growth & leadership changes: this may be applicable to your standard small business. But for a rapidly scaling tech startup it doesn't follow. Revenue grows too fast for that kind of executive turnover to be feasible. I suspect that one of the main reasons why many rapidly growing tech startups flame out is that revenues grow too fast for the requisite leadership to be hired and on-boarded.
Warby is right about the history, but look, group reparations for unjust treatment are reasonable when the group of victims is still alive and well defined. Like currently living black people who lived under Jim Crow in the South should absolutely be paid reparations.
That's not to say that the creation of Israel was a just way to pay reparations to the Jews. You don't pay reparations (in land in this case) by stealing from an uninvolved third party. (That's also not an ok way to defend yourself from European antisemitism.)
At this point I don't think it super matters that the Palestinians were stolen from, because now *those* people are all dead. But the idea that it was ok to create Israel the way they did is nuts.
Your suggestion that land was stolen is hard to understand. European Jewish migration to Palestine began many decades before the Holocaust under Ottoman, not Arab, sovereignty. At the time, the land was sparsely populated and emigrating Jews generally pursued two courses: (1) settling uninhabited (and usually unappealing) areas, and (2) purchasing land from Arabs, many of whom were absentee landowners. Significant Arab in-migration occurred during this time period as well, especially as the land became more productive and economic opportunities increased.
Arab land losses and displacements certainly did occur in 1948, but that was a consequence of the Arab war to destroy the newly declared Jewish State. It seems inaccurate and inconsistent with historical precedent to describe losses of land by an aggressor in war as "stealing from an uninvolved third party".
My point of view is very close to this: https://www.philippelemoine.com/p/the-zionist-dilemma
Thanks for the link. This sounds about right. To me, it’s really difficult to establish a state by displacement or by force in the post WWII world even though, historically speaking, this is how states get built.
“Indeed, had the Zionist movement emerged and met conditions favorable to achieving its goals one century earlier, things would probably have gone very differently. First, while it’s not true that in the mid-19th century Europeans thought no moral rules applied in their interactions with non-Europeans, it’s fair to say that relative to the mid-20th century they were less constrained in that respect. Thus, had Jews established a state in Palestine around 1850, they could probably have almost completely emptied the country of Arabs.”
Well - it seems to me - you'd have to go back another 75 years and quash German romanticism in the bud. Because German-speaking Jews were as captivated by it as anyone - its mingling of cosmopolitanism (its seeming promise of it) and its invocation of a misty past that was more mood than anything concrete, its nationalism being of a folklore-ish, probably largely fake, sort; not perhaps much deeper than the way food and maybe some dancing was pretty much it for multiculturalism circa 1990 - and I'm pretty sure that by 1850 many of them were looking forward to being German citizens forever.
So in this game it seems to me you must posit that the Germans pull the rug out from under the Jews much earlier than they did. Which perhaps leaves the exercise in disarray.
Reparations from China for their negligence in letting a lethal engineered virus slip out from one of their labs seems reasonable based on your qualifiers for reparations. Yet, for some reason, I never see anyone mention this. I guess sovereign immunity applies in some cases, but not in others and you can only pierce the veil under certain circumstances?
I don't personally think that lab leak has been established beyond a reasonable doubt, nor that it's been shown that Chinese government negligence was the cause, but YMMV
The lab leak is an issue of gross negligence, which is a civil matter with the burden of proof set at “more likely than not” and not “beyond as reasonable doubt” as you stated.
If the virus had leaked from a U.S. based lab with any corporate ties, however remote, I’m sure there would be lawsuits all over the place and in the jurisdictions most favorable to the plaintiffs.
The Jews conquered the land. They deserve it by right of conquest, and they have built a vastly superior civilization then the Palestinians have. If anything they should finish the job.
This at least is an honest comment. However, if we apply the right of conquest rule, then the Palestinians can conquer Israel and expel the Jews. Are you also fine with that?
Black people in america are the luckiest black people in the world. We owe them nothing, they should be paying us reparations.
I was talking about black people who lived in the south in the 60s and had to sit at the back of the bus. You think they were treated fairly?
Actually descendants of slaves are a well defined group—essentially every Black American that had a Black citizen ancestor in 1960. So that is slightly too inclusive with a few West Indians who still happen to be descendants of slaves so maybe get UK to contribute to our program. I was advocating a $40k lump sum for those 30-50 years of age for all of 2020 and unfortunately Democrats did the $2k check to everyone that ended up being counterproductive…just another missed opportunity in America. I went go on every major macro site and promote it and everyone ignored me…and that’s how you get the Democrat’s trillion dollar stimulus that might end up getting Biden beaten and we still haven’t paid reparations!
I am not opposed to reparations for descendants of slaves, but I can also see the argument that it's been too long for a moral debt to still exist.
I’m basing it more on current financial data and the fact babies need food and old people need pensions. So I would base the payout on age and young people would get $15k upon meeting certain requirements like no felonies and graduation from college or serving in the military. So we can’t have another PPP situation where thugs get free dollars and buy guns and drugs.
Most people (ie us) are fairly mediocre time servers. We can be encouraged to do a bit more and with more enthusiasm with the right incentives and organization but generally we are just going to do the job, passably well.
Most innovation and growth in output is driven by a handful of people in an organization. Everyone else is there to keep things ticking over (which is important). An org with 80 percent mediocrities (not incompetents) is just fine.
The issue with bright, ambitious people is often they have one good idea. They are then promoted on the basis of this one good idea, but they aren’t the people that will come up with the next good idea. If they aren’t great managers/leaders (and most of them are not), then you need to push them out- not because they are deadwood necessarily (they are harder working and more capable than the timeservers), but because you need to give their postions to the people with the latest great ideas and hope that that a few of them might become great leaders and managers.
Ironically, the time servers have a greater chance of keeping their jobs.
I look back at organizations I have left and see former colleagues who are finishing up 20-30 year runs at these firms doing the same thing they were doing 10 years ago. I couldn’t imagine doing that. I need change and new challenges every three years, but looking back I see they made a valid choice.
Is that why you switched street corners at which you yell at people walking around??
Change is good!
How the Jews managed to jump ahead of the Native Americans for the silver medal slot in the victimhood Olympics is something to behold. It’s actually quite tragic when you think about it given the official government treatment of Native Americans, which was often brutal and unjust. I guess the Jewish lobby was just more effective than the tribal lobby?
Now that the Jews have lost their silver medal status, how will they adjust to the new normal as members of the white adjacency?
And if you want to get a feel for what I’m talking about in a tangible way, compare the number of Holocaust museums in the U.S. to the number of Native American museums dedicated to the atrocities committed against them.
This isn’t surprising and had little to do with Jews. Americans don’t want to highlight their own atrocities. Easier to build museums to commemorate the suffering caused by another country.
I think Friedman and Klein would agree that, regarding what a President Trump would regard as *his task*, they agree in part with Trump and disagree in part with him.
At my company, I see the mistake of keeping lousy people around as being attributable to two factors:
1. Concerns about replacement time. For people with specialized skills, sometimes a poor performer is better than none at all, and usually the more specialized the skills, the harder it is to find a suitable replacement candidate who represents an upgrade.
2. Sunk costs. It isn't costless to hire and train new people, and since salaries are our single biggest expense, for certain managers I think there is the desire to try to recoup some of that initial investment by keeping mediocre people around longer, hoping they get better and generate a positive ROI.
Obviously, these aren't mutually exclusive, but #1 is a lot more defensible than #2.
3) silos of power? In my experience, a lot of the reason that senior management in certain functional areas likes to maintain large teams is to flex their egos in the corporate power structure.
That makes sense, but it doesn't happen much here. We're a professional service firm, and managers can't keep people around long term if we aren't getting billable hours out of them.
As per, Warby is vomiting his own pernicious victimology.
Jews are despised for not succumbing to the victim narrative, viz the ‘people love Dead Jews’ trope.
I suppose one of the easiest ways for Israel to stop succumbing to the victim narrative is to immediately stop accepting taxpayer funds and munitions from the U.S. every time some skirmish arises over there. Nothing screams self-sufficiency like, you know, actual self-sufficiency.
What was a problem America faced in 1940?? Lack of defense manufacturing capacity. For some reason people don’t view defense manufacturing like all other forms of manufacturing?? If you want to increase steel production capacity you do so incrementally from one year to the next. So it’s good for America to be manufacturing munitions while we aren’t at war because it increases manufacturing capacity. The only industry in which increasing capacity could potentially deplete supply would be historically with energy…but in 2024 America has decades of natural gas reserves which is the most important fossil fuel.
"... until there was competition in the music licensing industry, only plain vanilla big band/crooner music could get distribution. "
The link doesn't work for me, but this particular statement is plainly untrue.
Re: Age and political leadership.
Is the distinction between fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence relevant to a choice between the two Presidential candidates? It would seem not, because each candidate is old.
Path dependence and personality would differentiate each candidate's feasible set (search for solutions) and decision-making, no?
I believe that David Friedman's argument (not me btw) is that different people's cognition declines at different rates. So while Biden showed diminished capacity in the debate, Trump did not.
Do you believe we live in a Mad Max hellscape?? Trump showed he’s nutz!