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halvarflake
@halvarflake
, 8 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
With the fronts between those yelling criticism of capitalism and those yelling that it is the only solution, I always wonder: Do y’all really think in such simple categories? There are things that are magical, and there are things that are horrible in our existing economic ...
... systems, but I do not think that the terms “capitalism” or “socialism” describe them very well. Also: I get annoyed when people conflate “markets” and “capitalism” or “redistribution” and “socialism”. You can Imagine having a system with UBI and intentionally...
.... hyperinflating stores of value; such a system bears no resemblance to capitalism yet uses markets. You can have a highly capitalistic system with strong redistribution.

The ills that are plaguing us politically right now are issues such as negative externalities that are...
...not priced in (from CO2 via pesticide pollution of groundwater to cyber security) as well as distortive (and dynastic) inequality (accumulation leads to exponential riches, and since money in modern societies is an important information-transmission medium, this distorts ...
... resource allocation society-wide).

Well-functioning markets are great because they permit decentralized decision making. In absence off gross inequality, they are highly democratic, and egalitarian. You build something people like, you get resources to build more. No need...
...to convince a king or party committee that your product is a good idea. Decentralized decisionmaking. It may be the secret sauce that helped capitalism outperform all centralized economic systems.
Anyhow. I find it useful to think about markets and currencies as allocation instruments and information-processing instruments, and they may be the best thing we have invented for solving large-scale allocation problems. It also becomes evident then that In a highly unequal ...
... society allocation decisions get distorted. There are society-wide efficiency arguments for redistribution and prevention of dynastic wealth.

Too many on the left reject markets, too many on the right reject redistribution and properly pricing in negative externalities.
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halvarflake
@halvarflake
Sometimes I suspect that the reason why the cryptocurrency crowd and me have difficulties understanding each other is because we have different views on the origin, and purpose, of money. My view is similar to the one espoused by Aaron Brown in "Red-Blooded Risk": That money ...
... arises automatically from debt, and that it's purpose is a medium of exchange, and a *short term* storage of value (long enough so I can transact with it). The cryptocurrency people appear to mostly have a view of money as "gold equivalent" and somehow think that it should...
... be a long-term store of constant or appreciating value.

I don't know who is right, but I do know that an appreciating currency has all sorts of bizarre effects on investment decisions, and with a lot of talk about it being revolutionary, there are surprisingly few ..
Read 4 tweets
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halvarflake
@halvarflake
I quipped "every bureaucratic process becomes a random process with bias at a certain scale" this morning. This is important, because it applies to hiring in the same way as to performance review, and even project execution.
For hiring, performance review and promotion, it is usually hurtful for the employee because they are led to believe the processes are objective. I strongly suspect these processes could be made cheaper, fairer, and more transparent by openly acknowledging the randomness.
I have joked before that a randomized promotion process (in essence a lottery where winning chances are modified by peers) may be asymptotically fairer, more transparent, and easier to de-bias with regards to subgroup promotion chances.
Read 5 tweets
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halvarflake
@halvarflake
Few people know this, but up until age ~18, I was convinced I would make hand-drawn animation my livelihood. Computers/reverse engineering happened, and my life took a different trajectory. I once (around age 21) thought about taking an gig at Pixar (they were ...
... looking for people with a math + animation background, and I happened to have a bit of both). Anyhow, to this day I am a huge fan of animated short movies, and there are a few I really really love. I will share 2 of them in this thread:
"The last knit" - - a beautiful little movie about doing something *really* passionately.
Read 4 tweets

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The Meturgeman
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"Have you ever been high up in the mountains when a storm overtook you? The sky became black, thunder deafened your ears and torrents of rain threw you to the ground. You tried to descend to a lower, more safe terrain.
Your foot almost slipped across the bare, wet rocks, your way illuminated only by frightening bolts of lighlning, and every moment you felt you were about to fall into the abyss. Suddenly, the sun reappeared and the storm clouds rapidly drifted away,
the dull roar of thunder faded and the blue sky and green fields appeared so friendly. You were overcome with a feeling of gratitude for the Almighty Creator of nature.
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“Celia”
@_celia_bedelia_
Julian Castro was Secretary of HUD for two years. There was a man named Shaun Donovan who was there for 5 and a half years and was actually the one that implemented the program y’all are talking about. Seriously whenever people bring I know y’all don’t understand how things work.
The DASP (Distressed Asset Stabilization Program) was created by the FHA in 2012. Here’s a decent overview: safeguardproperties.com/fhas-distresse…
What a lot of people don’t realize is that some policies don’t always work exactly as intended and over time they need to be adjusted or modified. Do you know who the Secretary was that implemented changed to the program? JULIAN CASTRO.

hud.gov/sites/document…
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Ida Bae Wells
@nhannahjones
Did you ever hear of this little thing called racial apartheid that was visited upon the descendants of the enslaved and was not ended in all aspects of American life until1968? That allowed codified discrimination in housing, schools, public accommodations, employment, lending?
These people are still alive. These people are my father's generation. Many of them are not even elderly.
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court actually has a name for this: It's called badges of slavery because black people uniquely suffered from these laws passed *only* because they descended from the enslaved.
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(y/n) (y/l/n)
@hstylesisjagger
y'all really think david bowie is problematic and did all those things: a debunking thread
every year on january 10th we have people getting brave calling david bowie a pedophile, a racist, a rapist, a nazi sympathizer. their sources being... a tumblr post.
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Jess 🌿
@antalalakam
So these vegans would prefer folx in the Arctic buy astronomically expensive fruits and vegetables grown in California with who knows what pesticides and picked by migrant workers with no rights or job security, flow in halfway around the world?
The oil, the chemicals, the exploitation, the cost all factor into the ethics. It’s not just the life of a seal. The carbon footprint of each type of food alone is wildly different. You may think it’s a simple decision but there are so many factors that must be considered
I’m tired of people who don’t live that life, sitting in comfort in a place with access to 5 grocery stores within three blocks, talking about what folx in the Arctic should or shouldnt be doing.
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Ivan Throne
@IvanThrone
🔥FIRE THREAD🔥

On Knowing Reality And Your Place In It

from @IvanThrone,

The Dark Triad Man.

I was out for dinner with some people the other evening.

The discussion was centered on psychopathy and capacity.

Right up my alley.

There is Theory,

And there is Practice...

/1
Everyone wants to be a Psychopath.

Everyone wants to think about how "cold" they "really" are.

Now, on one level, we're all animals.

We all have a lizard brain.

Survival is the First Law, and never underestimate a animal backed into a desperate corner fighting for life.

/2
What I see missing from most people,

Especially those that like to tell themselves that they have a psychopathic streak,

Is real world experience.

It matters.

It matters more than any streak.

Do you understand this?

Most don't.

Many such cases.

/3
Read 22 tweets

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