one of the most charismatic people I met was a random Nebraska state senator back when I was in high school. Conversely, I've met Pete Ricketts and Jim Pillen (briefly), currently a senator and governor of Nebraska, and was struck by how awkward they were. I don't know if money is corrupting our politics, but it is allowing nerds and chuds to acheive success in politics that they wouldn't otherwise.
I'm sure this would be completely unworkable and fall apart in ten minutes for some set of reasons, but I wonder what would happen if all our elected officials had a 1 term limit but the terms were much longer? Like 10 years for the House, 15 for Senate, and 20 for President. Naively I'd hope we'd see 1) people expect to get into politics either much later or much earlier in their careers, 2) politicians caring more about the long term impacts of policies and less about the current opinions of underinformed voters, 3) less time spent fundraising and more time spent legislating/governing, and 4) more willingness to use impeachment powers to remove politicians from office when they act unethically or are otherwise unfit for office.
I can imagine a number of major downsides, but am unsure which ones would actually come about. Probably all of them and more I can't think of.
Oooooof please chat with some software engineers about that bandwidth idea that is bad. The correlation between bandwidth usage and social media addiction probably isn't even close
If the Republicans win, Spain might or might not have been a Soviet client state, but the most likely scenario is millions dead, rather than hundreds of thousands. People like Yglesias are always soft on Marxists.
I’m a bit puzzled by Matt’s statement that relaxing accountability in schools is “taking a thumb off the scale”—does Matt not know what a “thumb on the scale” is? The whole point of a thumb on the scale is to distort actual evidence in a way that favors your preferred result (i.e., making the weight of something look higher so you can overcharge the customer). A thumb on the scale does not serve “accountability.”
That "import London cops" proposal is...it's very Matt the takester. The second biggest problem is that it ignores the differences in police powers between the two countries. The biggest is how it sidestep the question "why is dc such a bad place to be a cop?"
British police officers go to Australia where they will be as safe as they are in the UK and get more money without having to deal with US style violence and threat. US violence/crime is extremely offputting to most Brits; that's why we all go to Australia instead.
Bandwidth seems like the wrong metric. But I like the idea of an increasing rate based on person hours per day.
Like, a company could pay higher taxes for ads served to me during my 3rd hour using their service today than they did for my 2nd hour using their service.
i.e. Align the incentives so they would much rather get new users at one hour per day than keep existing users around for their 8th hour.
I realize this would be a bit hard to track and enforce, but I think it might be possible if it's targeted at the biggest companies. Internally they would have data about how long I've been on their app today.
For the infinite scroll issue, I'd at least like companies to be forced to put in timers that sit on the app and tell you how long you've been there. It would also be good for people to be able to set "kick me off after x minutes" limits for themselves.
You can do that, no? I don’t know about Android, but on an iPhone you can set limits for yourself through Screen Time in settings. It’s actually pretty helpful for those addictive scrolling apps. You can also limit your overall time.
You can, but defaults are important. I think the visible timers should be mandatory. You shouldn't have to actively seek out phone-addiction management, it should just come that way on the app. If setting up Facebook included a "How much time would you like to spend on here daily?" question right after creating your password, I bet people would put in a shorter amount of time than the app would cause them to spend there naturally.
Sadly, this will never happen, but a person can dream. Maybe at least we could do more education around setting your own limits. I just set a 15 minute limit for myself on Instagram (the only social media app I have). I was getting sucked into reels - my algorithm’s good! It’s been two months and I’ve overridden it twice. It’s just a great reminder. Now I have to limit Slow Boring. :)
I don't know, I think it easily could because generally these companies will conform to the regulations of their big narkets and produce one app rather than make separate versions of the app for different jurisdictions. It's like how functionally, the American fuel efficiency standards are the California ones because they're the strictest and it would be really annoying to make separate cars for California. All those "accept cookies" pop-ups exist because of an EU regulation. Doesn't have to be the American federal government doing the regulation.
Yes, and teachers need to be allowed to be more creative and should be paid a lot more (which goes to taxes - and don’t discount the PTA fundraiser which greatly advantages wealthy schools, eg our PTA paid for a computer lab and teacher, an art teacher and half a librarian, none of which we’d otherwise have had).
I think everyone should have to spend a day (or more) in a public school classroom. Teaching is the hardest job there is. I remember all those videos made by parents during the pandemic saying “teachers should be making a million dollars!” Now that we’ve saddled them with our little brats again, we seem to have forgotten all about that.
On a similar note to your opening, if the US made it easier for British-trained medics to work in the US health system, our healthcare system would fall over overnight
“They are going to understand that Democrats don’t like to be mean to sympathetic people, but that realistically the only way to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control is — yes — to frankly and unapologetically turn away people who are in fact not rapists or murderers or terrorists but just basically normal people who simply don’t have permission to move to the United States.”
It is not mean to turn someone away when they get here, or even shortly after, if they don’t have a credible asylum claim or lawful grounds to be in the United States. It may be disappointing for those people, but it is not cruelty to turn them away.
It is mean to tacitly accept them coming here, working, building a life and a family, and then telling them to leave.
For example, our asylum system must be faster to avoid this outcome. Claims should be processed in a matter of a few months, not 5 years.
one of the most charismatic people I met was a random Nebraska state senator back when I was in high school. Conversely, I've met Pete Ricketts and Jim Pillen (briefly), currently a senator and governor of Nebraska, and was struck by how awkward they were. I don't know if money is corrupting our politics, but it is allowing nerds and chuds to acheive success in politics that they wouldn't otherwise.
I think good sense overall, but amused by the deft avoidance of the word union when referring to over staffing on NYC subway construction.
I'm sure this would be completely unworkable and fall apart in ten minutes for some set of reasons, but I wonder what would happen if all our elected officials had a 1 term limit but the terms were much longer? Like 10 years for the House, 15 for Senate, and 20 for President. Naively I'd hope we'd see 1) people expect to get into politics either much later or much earlier in their careers, 2) politicians caring more about the long term impacts of policies and less about the current opinions of underinformed voters, 3) less time spent fundraising and more time spent legislating/governing, and 4) more willingness to use impeachment powers to remove politicians from office when they act unethically or are otherwise unfit for office.
I can imagine a number of major downsides, but am unsure which ones would actually come about. Probably all of them and more I can't think of.
Oooooof please chat with some software engineers about that bandwidth idea that is bad. The correlation between bandwidth usage and social media addiction probably isn't even close
If the Republicans win, Spain might or might not have been a Soviet client state, but the most likely scenario is millions dead, rather than hundreds of thousands. People like Yglesias are always soft on Marxists.
I’m a bit puzzled by Matt’s statement that relaxing accountability in schools is “taking a thumb off the scale”—does Matt not know what a “thumb on the scale” is? The whole point of a thumb on the scale is to distort actual evidence in a way that favors your preferred result (i.e., making the weight of something look higher so you can overcharge the customer). A thumb on the scale does not serve “accountability.”
That "import London cops" proposal is...it's very Matt the takester. The second biggest problem is that it ignores the differences in police powers between the two countries. The biggest is how it sidestep the question "why is dc such a bad place to be a cop?"
British police officers go to Australia where they will be as safe as they are in the UK and get more money without having to deal with US style violence and threat. US violence/crime is extremely offputting to most Brits; that's why we all go to Australia instead.
My home heating oil delivery was up more than 20 percent from last month. People in Maine heat with oil. Can’t see that helping Collins.
Come on man, you’ve met currently serving Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti.
Bandwidth seems like the wrong metric. But I like the idea of an increasing rate based on person hours per day.
Like, a company could pay higher taxes for ads served to me during my 3rd hour using their service today than they did for my 2nd hour using their service.
i.e. Align the incentives so they would much rather get new users at one hour per day than keep existing users around for their 8th hour.
I realize this would be a bit hard to track and enforce, but I think it might be possible if it's targeted at the biggest companies. Internally they would have data about how long I've been on their app today.
Steve Cohen has a shady car salesman vibe in person. But I like his politics
For the infinite scroll issue, I'd at least like companies to be forced to put in timers that sit on the app and tell you how long you've been there. It would also be good for people to be able to set "kick me off after x minutes" limits for themselves.
You can do that, no? I don’t know about Android, but on an iPhone you can set limits for yourself through Screen Time in settings. It’s actually pretty helpful for those addictive scrolling apps. You can also limit your overall time.
You can, but defaults are important. I think the visible timers should be mandatory. You shouldn't have to actively seek out phone-addiction management, it should just come that way on the app. If setting up Facebook included a "How much time would you like to spend on here daily?" question right after creating your password, I bet people would put in a shorter amount of time than the app would cause them to spend there naturally.
Sadly, this will never happen, but a person can dream. Maybe at least we could do more education around setting your own limits. I just set a 15 minute limit for myself on Instagram (the only social media app I have). I was getting sucked into reels - my algorithm’s good! It’s been two months and I’ve overridden it twice. It’s just a great reminder. Now I have to limit Slow Boring. :)
I don't know, I think it easily could because generally these companies will conform to the regulations of their big narkets and produce one app rather than make separate versions of the app for different jurisdictions. It's like how functionally, the American fuel efficiency standards are the California ones because they're the strictest and it would be really annoying to make separate cars for California. All those "accept cookies" pop-ups exist because of an EU regulation. Doesn't have to be the American federal government doing the regulation.
As far as public schools, class size and local and state taxes are the two key components.
Yes, and teachers need to be allowed to be more creative and should be paid a lot more (which goes to taxes - and don’t discount the PTA fundraiser which greatly advantages wealthy schools, eg our PTA paid for a computer lab and teacher, an art teacher and half a librarian, none of which we’d otherwise have had).
I think everyone should have to spend a day (or more) in a public school classroom. Teaching is the hardest job there is. I remember all those videos made by parents during the pandemic saying “teachers should be making a million dollars!” Now that we’ve saddled them with our little brats again, we seem to have forgotten all about that.
On a similar note to your opening, if the US made it easier for British-trained medics to work in the US health system, our healthcare system would fall over overnight
Which is “our”?
“They are going to understand that Democrats don’t like to be mean to sympathetic people, but that realistically the only way to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control is — yes — to frankly and unapologetically turn away people who are in fact not rapists or murderers or terrorists but just basically normal people who simply don’t have permission to move to the United States.”
It is not mean to turn someone away when they get here, or even shortly after, if they don’t have a credible asylum claim or lawful grounds to be in the United States. It may be disappointing for those people, but it is not cruelty to turn them away.
It is mean to tacitly accept them coming here, working, building a life and a family, and then telling them to leave.
For example, our asylum system must be faster to avoid this outcome. Claims should be processed in a matter of a few months, not 5 years.
That would require spending much more money on legal personnel and facilities. The recent bipartisan bill that Trump shit canned would have done that.
Yes, and they never should be released into the country to start building that life.