The New Coffee Room

Big if true. I hope some of it comes out in the wash. Lots of talk so far, to be sure.

Tell him from me that he's a jerk.

I'm happy we can all rest easy that Brady and Belichick will never sniff the hall of fame in their sport.

He's had recent go-arounds with an expert in the field, who started by attempting to rhetorically dunk on him (and his colleague Bryan Caplan). From memory, the expert's quote was something about how he feels bad about criticizing someone who nobody takes seriously, except maybe his friend Bryan, who is also not taken seriously by anybody. But this expert decided to push back on Hanson's lunacy just the same. Hanson engaged, they had a back and forth, and the expert came away with a better and more respectful understanding of Hanson's points, while still maintaining some minor disagreements.

Hanson still refers back to the original argument against our cultural belief in health care, made in Elephant in the Brain. I think he believes it still stands.

He has tweeted about it recently.

And here is the exchange with the expert, who gets just slightly put in his place, IMO. I continue to believe Hanson has a good chance of being remembered by history as an important thinker. Hanson definitely thinks his output warrants that.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/contra-hanson-on-medical-effectiveness?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&hide_intro_popup=true

@jon-nyc Great. Then it remains very odd how quiet the opposition was to the status quo under Biden, where Russia was slowly consuming Ukraine.

@LuFins-Dad said in Gifts for Putin, Demands for Zelensky:

@Horace No question, the hysterical anti-Trump screeds are overwhelming. And I’m not implying that you are posting anything hyper partisan.

I didn't think you were, I am just genuinely curious where the other side of this both sides are equal argument can actually be heard, beyond fringe internet corners which are never discussed in public but for the opposition making fun of them.

So far, the guy that I tend to listen to a little more than most, Ben Shapiro, hasn’t directly addressed it. I think he’s waiting for Monday. But his XPosts have been filled with a bunch of reposts of some of the more hard core pro-Trump guys attacking Zelenskyy and practically fellating Trump and JD.

I assume the daily wire crew will call Zelensky stupid or suicidal, and they will broach the forbidden topic of what America's true interests are, in keeping Russia from Ukraine. That topic is kept at bay in the public conversation by dismissing as inconceivably heartless, anybody not focused on the morality of the situation. But they won't be beholden to those rules as they talk about it, not in the face of Zelensky's behavior in the oval office.

@jon-nyc I am sure he would have said he's one of you and not a globalist all along. Both he and his wife are persona non grata in leftist circles, and have been for years.

I'm not clear when that podcast was released, but he had no issue pushing back against Vance (who I agreed with in the exchange) at the time.

If China had come out in support of Trump, that, too, would have been proof of how horrible Trump was.

I have difficulty balancing Lindsay Graham's one minute soundbite against the wave of shrieking TDS hysteria on the other side.

I will again point out for the god knows how many'eth time that there is nothing wrong with "whataboutism" arguments, and in fact they are exactly what are called for to combat arguments that make claims about "this political side is especially bad/scary because X". An equal and opposite whataboutism about X logically nullifies such arguments. Of course in any given specific, the whataboutism might be weak, but they have to be judged individually rather than as a class. There is nothing wrong with the class.

And it goes without saying that they are employed relentlessly by both sides of any argument here, often by the same people who will dismiss them as a class of argument when others use them.

You will not find "whataboutism", by that name or any other, in any list of formal logical fallacies.

Hm, actually Tucker has been weaving narratives about how evil Ukraine is, I will grant that. I'm not sure I ever hear echoes of Tucker at his most fringe, anywhere other than Tucker, though.

Here's Tusi on Fox News. The Fox News host wonders why the Trump administration loves Putin so much. (And asks a bunch of vacuous questions along those lines, which Tulsi handles adequately IMO). Where should I go for the insane partisanship from the right?

@LuFins-Dad is there someone whose opinions I can listen to who champions the blind partisanship on the right? Obviously the naked rage and hysteria about Trump destroying civilization is anywhere, so I don’t need help finding that.

I posted some words from Rubio yesterday, is he on the insane partisanship side? Jeffrey Sachs? Mearsheimer? Glenn Greenwald? I’m trying to think of people who are contrarian as compared to, say, The Bullwark, or David Brooks.

IMO, Beethoven’s second to last sonata was his 31st.

Baseball shouldn't lose weight just to be more attractive to young people. Baseball should lose weight to be healthier.

IMO there are 32 Beethoven sonatas.

He called baseball fat. Shots fired.

I think he’s talking about Donald Trump. Trump has been trending lately on Twitter. Everybody gets their 15 minutes.

Some practical realities from VDH, as he sees them