Cheating and dishonesty are often framed as ethnically and morally indefensible. Either someone is honest or dishonest, without any ‘grey area’ in-between, or without taking into account the context of the situation. But rather than having to choose between what I believe to be a false dichotomy, I think, instead, many of the prevailing notions… Continue reading In defense of (some) dishonesty

Browsing various message boards and communities, such as on Reddit and Hacker News, several common questions and concerns keep coming up regarding Covid stimulus, inflation, etc. I will try to address some of these topics. Will there be hyperinflation due to Covid stimulus? Why hasn’t there been much inflation? In spite of trillions of dollars… Continue reading Answering and Addressing Covid-related Economic Questions and Concerns

Saw this from Moldbug Vae victis   Over the past few weeks I have been seeing this narrative by the dissident/alt-right (but also some on the left, too) that the widespread belief among Trump voters of election fraud is societally destabilizing and poses systemic risks.  I take the opposite stance that it is not destabilizing.… Continue reading Election Fraud, Unrest, and the Legacy of Trump

I believe it is possible to understand, categorize, and delineate social phenomena and human behavior with almost the same rigor as scientific and physical phenomena. It is time to put the science back in political science. The internet is vast, and society and human behavior is varied and complicated, but it can be done. With… Continue reading High-status, low-status conservatism

A narrative I have been hearing from Ramz and others on the dissident/alt-right is that America is sinking, in the final stages of dying, is primed for civil war, etc. Bill Gates Paul put out this video in which he wants bigger stimulus than the $600 because he believes that America is dying and he… Continue reading No collapse of America, yet

In October 2020 in the post WTF Happened in 2008 I correctly predicted that any decline of Airbnb’s rental business due to Covid would be temporary: Supposedly, Covid has hurt Airbnb and the rental market, but I predict it will be temporary and things will quickly go back to how they were pre-Covid. There is… Continue reading Airbnb and Disney…Media Narratives Wrong Again

Bill Gates Paul grades Trump’s presidency, giving him an abysmal 1.5 grade point average: The video got 70 down-votes and 300 up-votes (20% down-votes), so evidently a lot of viewers took issue with Gates’ assessment of Trump’s presidency. Gates makes some good points, and I overall agree, but his grading metric/rubric is faulty, and I… Continue reading Grading Trump

I came across this interesting discussion and scathing Reddit review of the Lambda coding bootcamp. The above links affirm what I have long suspected, which is that coding bootcamps are a soft form of a scam. I am not alone: a Google search shows a similar conclusion, that coding bootcamps, although they initially held promise… Continue reading The Coding Bootcamp Scam

From Quillette The End of the World as We Know It? The gist of this article is that the world needs more people to stave off crisis of innovation, and that arguments against overpopulation and economic destruction due to too many humans, are unfounded. I have seen similar arguments made by, generally, neoliberals, who argue… Continue reading Population: It’s quality that matters, not quantity

Now Josh Brown, aka the Reformed Butthead, is hyping Bitcoin after it has already doubled. As usual, Josh is late to the party. And if his past predictions are any indication, this is a top for Bitcoin and it will probably fall to $7k or lower soon. In fact Bitcoin has already fallen from a… Continue reading Bitcoin: It Still Sucks