Imagine: there isn't enough money to run courts, despite courts working fine back when the state was 3-5% of GDP and now it's 30-50% of GDP.
New York City was denied twice the cost of the entire federal judiciary for just the second avenue subway and hudson tunnel projects.
Most of the judiciary isn't even mandatory spending like judge salaries, which only take about 800 million per year.
Annual payments to bondholders represent 100 times more money spent than the entire federal court system.
The state court systems which adjudicate most crimes are individually smaller than the federal court system, with even a state like California only paying about 3 billion per year for their courts, but together puts the vital role at about 25 billion per year nationwide. Including the federal judiciary that's less than 35 billion, which is still 1/1000 of the federal debt and 1/30 of federal debt maintenance, about the same as NASA, about the same cost as 3 aircraft carriers.
It's pretty strange when you think about it. Unlike NASA, the courts are a core function of government, but they struggle to "find money" for this core function while there are many non-productive things they can magically find lots of money for. The reliance on plea deals is certainly in part justified by the incongruity.
New York City was denied twice the cost of the entire federal judiciary for just the second avenue subway and hudson tunnel projects.
Most of the judiciary isn't even mandatory spending like judge salaries, which only take about 800 million per year.
Annual payments to bondholders represent 100 times more money spent than the entire federal court system.
The state court systems which adjudicate most crimes are individually smaller than the federal court system, with even a state like California only paying about 3 billion per year for their courts, but together puts the vital role at about 25 billion per year nationwide. Including the federal judiciary that's less than 35 billion, which is still 1/1000 of the federal debt and 1/30 of federal debt maintenance, about the same as NASA, about the same cost as 3 aircraft carriers.
It's pretty strange when you think about it. Unlike NASA, the courts are a core function of government, but they struggle to "find money" for this core function while there are many non-productive things they can magically find lots of money for. The reliance on plea deals is certainly in part justified by the incongruity.
It'd be really straightforward, if not necessarily easy.
Minds implemented ActivityPub and nostr support, not much different here I'd suspect.
Minds implemented ActivityPub and nostr support, not much different here I'd suspect.
It's funny -- that "past performance is not indicative of future returns" is a common bit of legalese used to say "hey don't just assume because something went up yesterday it'll go up today", but in reality we've based our entire modernist epistemology on the idea that past performance is in fact indicative of future returns. That's the fundamental concept behind science and technology. The idea that you can measure a thing, build a model, then use the model to predict the future specifically enough to design stuff that's super complicated but not only works on paper but in the real world (like the CPUs we're all using that perform billions of instructions every second of every minute of every hour of every day) is not the way previous humans thought.
It's a revolutionary idea and it's right -- but not entirely. We know that even scientifically we have to set within our models the reality that we can't predict things perfectly, and often we can't even measure things perfectly or they get predictably unpredictable. Which shows that modernist rationalism and empiricism is just one superposed truth among many.
It's a revolutionary idea and it's right -- but not entirely. We know that even scientifically we have to set within our models the reality that we can't predict things perfectly, and often we can't even measure things perfectly or they get predictably unpredictable. Which shows that modernist rationalism and empiricism is just one superposed truth among many.
The loving empathetic people seem to find it tough to coexist with people who are virtually identical to them. Bluesky is Satre's No Exit: Hell is other people.
Meanwhile, darkside fedi is filled with the chillest folks you ever saw waving a swastika.
Meanwhile, darkside fedi is filled with the chillest folks you ever saw waving a swastika.
I am the Chuunibyou of my anime.
Fantasy is my body, and delusion is my blood.
I have created over a thousand backstories.
Unaware of cringe, nor aware of restraint.
Withstood ridicule to craft countless powers,
waiting for the day my true rival appears.
I have no regrets. This is the only path.
Thus I pray, Unlimited Chuunibyou Works!!!
(Eminence in shadow is joining isekai quartet)
Fantasy is my body, and delusion is my blood.
I have created over a thousand backstories.
Unaware of cringe, nor aware of restraint.
Withstood ridicule to craft countless powers,
waiting for the day my true rival appears.
I have no regrets. This is the only path.
Thus I pray, Unlimited Chuunibyou Works!!!
(Eminence in shadow is joining isekai quartet)
I do hope it's obvious I'm just a mildly retarded blue collar guy who occasionally writes. If anyone thinks I'm trying to look smart or educated or anything, please be advised I'm just some guy from the sticks.
Who said a nation can only be wealthy with oil?
A nation requires access to energy, but you can access energy using methods other than just having oil. Free markets are useful for that.
Unfortunately, the USA, China, and Japan are also all inconvenient examples of economic success, since they all became "rich" in part by overwhelming deficit spending and central economic planning.
The problem is that eventually the amount of growth you get for the money slows and you're in a situation like Japan -- they're 30 years into a "lost decade", rates stuck at 0%, and the national debt is massive.
A nation requires access to energy, but you can access energy using methods other than just having oil. Free markets are useful for that.
Unfortunately, the USA, China, and Japan are also all inconvenient examples of economic success, since they all became "rich" in part by overwhelming deficit spending and central economic planning.
The problem is that eventually the amount of growth you get for the money slows and you're in a situation like Japan -- they're 30 years into a "lost decade", rates stuck at 0%, and the national debt is massive.
Thanks!
It's nuts thinking about how quickly time goes. I published that right before my son was born (which was a good thing because I now realize finishing the publishing with a newborn baby in the house was never going to happen), he's almost 4 now.
It's nuts thinking about how quickly time goes. I published that right before my son was born (which was a good thing because I now realize finishing the publishing with a newborn baby in the house was never going to happen), he's almost 4 now.
My first book is called The Graysonian Ethic: Lessons for my unborn son. It's a book of different essays with life lessons for my son (who is now born, of course).
My second just got released this month, it's called Future Sepsis. It's a speculative fiction/science fiction book about four people from 2024 who wake up in 2124 and have to navigate a world that's different than ours. Two examples of the changes are that (at least in this location) religion is once again a much more central part of social and civic life, and education has been totally rewired to try to form virtuous people rather than people with diplomas, but there's a lot of differences that are revealed over time.
My third book was mostly completed during the second, it's the philosophical underpinnings of the second book. I don't have a title for it yet, but the working title is "Meditations on post-metamodern superpositional epistemology". It started off as some appendixes to the second book, but I realized I had almost generated as many words in that as in the book proper and I didn't think that made sense to include by itself since a lot of people wouldn't be that interested in a bunch of esoteric discussions about a potential system of thought that might surpass postmodernism or metamodernism. I'm adding some work that's going to tie into a Future Sepsis sequel.
My second just got released this month, it's called Future Sepsis. It's a speculative fiction/science fiction book about four people from 2024 who wake up in 2124 and have to navigate a world that's different than ours. Two examples of the changes are that (at least in this location) religion is once again a much more central part of social and civic life, and education has been totally rewired to try to form virtuous people rather than people with diplomas, but there's a lot of differences that are revealed over time.
My third book was mostly completed during the second, it's the philosophical underpinnings of the second book. I don't have a title for it yet, but the working title is "Meditations on post-metamodern superpositional epistemology". It started off as some appendixes to the second book, but I realized I had almost generated as many words in that as in the book proper and I didn't think that made sense to include by itself since a lot of people wouldn't be that interested in a bunch of esoteric discussions about a potential system of thought that might surpass postmodernism or metamodernism. I'm adding some work that's going to tie into a Future Sepsis sequel.
We don't talk about this enough.
Daycare can have a place in society, but the idea you'd work full time so you can afford to pay for childcare so you can work full time is insanity.
Daycare can have a place in society, but the idea you'd work full time so you can afford to pay for childcare so you can work full time is insanity.
One of the most interesting things in contemporary discourse is there a discussion of capitalism.
When the concept of capitalism came about, it was in the throes of the industrial revolution. Employers really did have disproportionate power over the people working for them, and at the time the state was extremely weak. These ideas first began being discussed in an era where the French revolution had started and ended, and it looked as if the concept of an aristocracy was going away forever to be replaced by business owners.
The problem is, time moves on and it isn't like that today.
Among the things that have happened since the French revolution: the holy Roman empire collapsed and was replaced by a nation state called Germany. The concept of nationalism Rose. It was a century of relative peace in Europe. Those are Russia was murdered and the Communists took over that country. Nationalists from the Balkans murdered a German aristocrat causing a series of alliances to collapse upon themselves, resulting in a World war. That World war ended. Soldiers who were promised things during that World war ended up having major effects on the world including the bonus army who marched on Washington and German soldiers who ultimately took over the German government to form the third Reich.
There was a world war triggered over that. A coalition of Germany, Italy, and Japan lost that war. The world economy and world political system was fundamentally rewritten. There was a cold war between the two remaining superpowers, and the communists ultimately lost. China became communist then became more like authoritarians with some markets. The entire labor movement happened fundamentally changing the role of labor.
Meanwhile, people keep talking like the same capitalism that existed immediately following the industrial revolution was still in effect. It's absurd when you realize the entire world is different than back then.
In Marx's time, the state was almost non-existent, and capital controlled our lives (and by the way capital was not a very nice benefactor of the working class), but more importantly the state was tiny -- 3-5% of GDP, providing essentially no services besides basic police and military.
As well, the economy of that era largely no longer exists in the west. Factories are generally a relic relegated to developing nations. Company towns no longer exist. Cities like Sheffield which used to be titans of industry simply don't have those factories anymore. I have cutlery from the factories of the 1970s, which no longer exist. England is in fact a poorer country outside of London, the seat of government.
Some people point to corruption like the relationship between politicians and businessesmen as evidence capital still dominates. This is ahistorical and gets it backwards: in eras that were definitely not capitalism, the power you needed to convince was the government, not capital. You try to corrupt where the power lies. Today, that is the state.
It's always important to remember that virtually every one of the richest people on earth today isn't rich because they sold a great product everyone loved, but because they got in bed with government and did what government asked. Elon Musk may have 250 billion in net worth, but virtually nobody owns his cars. He got rich doing what the state told him to do. Bezos and Zuckerberg are both products of a massive public works project, the internet. Oil magnates sell to governments (the US government is the largest purchaser of fossil fuels on Earth, and the military industrial complex works to secure their military supplies). When half the economy is the state, it's a gravity well that pulls everything in.
The people still talking about capitalism as if such a beast still exists today are tilting at windmills. They will ultimately be just as successful as Don Quixote, since just like that character, it is no longer an era of dragons and knights, of damsels in distress and quests. The world has moved on, and those models no longer apply.
I can't get too deep into it because I'm still working it out for my next book, but today's system to me is either a modernist liberalism where previous iterations were more pre-modern, or postmodernist liberalism. No matter what, it went from a part of a more pluralistic world to a totalizing system that tears down anything else. This new form of liberalism doesn't try to protect existing rights but give new rights to people by taking from others, and in so doing the leviathan of the state grows more powerful.
When the concept of capitalism came about, it was in the throes of the industrial revolution. Employers really did have disproportionate power over the people working for them, and at the time the state was extremely weak. These ideas first began being discussed in an era where the French revolution had started and ended, and it looked as if the concept of an aristocracy was going away forever to be replaced by business owners.
The problem is, time moves on and it isn't like that today.
Among the things that have happened since the French revolution: the holy Roman empire collapsed and was replaced by a nation state called Germany. The concept of nationalism Rose. It was a century of relative peace in Europe. Those are Russia was murdered and the Communists took over that country. Nationalists from the Balkans murdered a German aristocrat causing a series of alliances to collapse upon themselves, resulting in a World war. That World war ended. Soldiers who were promised things during that World war ended up having major effects on the world including the bonus army who marched on Washington and German soldiers who ultimately took over the German government to form the third Reich.
There was a world war triggered over that. A coalition of Germany, Italy, and Japan lost that war. The world economy and world political system was fundamentally rewritten. There was a cold war between the two remaining superpowers, and the communists ultimately lost. China became communist then became more like authoritarians with some markets. The entire labor movement happened fundamentally changing the role of labor.
Meanwhile, people keep talking like the same capitalism that existed immediately following the industrial revolution was still in effect. It's absurd when you realize the entire world is different than back then.
In Marx's time, the state was almost non-existent, and capital controlled our lives (and by the way capital was not a very nice benefactor of the working class), but more importantly the state was tiny -- 3-5% of GDP, providing essentially no services besides basic police and military.
As well, the economy of that era largely no longer exists in the west. Factories are generally a relic relegated to developing nations. Company towns no longer exist. Cities like Sheffield which used to be titans of industry simply don't have those factories anymore. I have cutlery from the factories of the 1970s, which no longer exist. England is in fact a poorer country outside of London, the seat of government.
Some people point to corruption like the relationship between politicians and businessesmen as evidence capital still dominates. This is ahistorical and gets it backwards: in eras that were definitely not capitalism, the power you needed to convince was the government, not capital. You try to corrupt where the power lies. Today, that is the state.
It's always important to remember that virtually every one of the richest people on earth today isn't rich because they sold a great product everyone loved, but because they got in bed with government and did what government asked. Elon Musk may have 250 billion in net worth, but virtually nobody owns his cars. He got rich doing what the state told him to do. Bezos and Zuckerberg are both products of a massive public works project, the internet. Oil magnates sell to governments (the US government is the largest purchaser of fossil fuels on Earth, and the military industrial complex works to secure their military supplies). When half the economy is the state, it's a gravity well that pulls everything in.
The people still talking about capitalism as if such a beast still exists today are tilting at windmills. They will ultimately be just as successful as Don Quixote, since just like that character, it is no longer an era of dragons and knights, of damsels in distress and quests. The world has moved on, and those models no longer apply.
I can't get too deep into it because I'm still working it out for my next book, but today's system to me is either a modernist liberalism where previous iterations were more pre-modern, or postmodernist liberalism. No matter what, it went from a part of a more pluralistic world to a totalizing system that tears down anything else. This new form of liberalism doesn't try to protect existing rights but give new rights to people by taking from others, and in so doing the leviathan of the state grows more powerful.
I don't know anything about any of those things, but I do know that it's unbelievably hard to get drugs approved for use on pregnant women because it's actually really hard to ethically test drugs on pregnant women. A lot of people don't seem to realize that, and think that you can just give pregnant women whatever and forget that there could be consequences 45 years down the road.
"wait... Is this what you feel like when I talk about my feelings? No... It's the children who are wrong."