The New Coffee Room

In fairness, a total lack of shame reads as "strength" in many contexts. Definitely a good point about the weak minds though.

Another area this comes up is in belief in free speech. I am guessing Trump haters on twitter are all but unanimous that Musk does not care one bit about free speech, and that he only uses that messaging to cynically appeal to his tribe. Again, a rhetorical binary. Meanwhile, on the continuum of actual belief in free speech, I believe Musk tends towards actual belief, even while his practical choices have to weigh lots of confounding factors against that belief.

@jon-nyc said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:

"And you know, it's not like I agree with everything the administration does," said Musk. "So it's like, I mean, I agree with much of what the administration does. But we have differences of opinion. You know, there are things that I don't entirely agree with. But it's difficult for me to bring that up in an interview because then it creates a bone of contention. So then, I'm a little stuck in a bind, where I'm like, well, I don't wanna, you know, speak up against the administration, but I also don't wanna take responsibility for everything this administration's doing."

Toadyism runs on a continuum, it’s not binary. There may exist some policy that could cause Elon to publicly criticize Trump but we haven’t found it yet. The economy and the fiscal trajectory are close, but again he can criticize indirectly by attacking surrogates.

We could spend an afternoon placing various republicans along the continuum from independent minded to cultist but each of them definitely have their place on it.

I don’t know any elected GOP official that has publicly denounced the open corruption, for example. (Which is different from claiming that none have done so)

of course it's a continuum. I understand those sorts of things, because I am not a child, nor chained to directional rhetoric. My original claim was that the mainstream Trump-hating view of Musk, for instance the predominant view in your Twitter feed, would be that Musk is at an extreme end. You can claim that it's totally not surprising that Musk would say what he's saying, because you know where on that continuum he resides, and it's not at the Trump toady extreme. Now go find anywhere on your twitter feed where the direction of a bit of Musk rhetoric from a Trump hater, was to nudge anybody's opinion away from Musk being an all-in toady for Trump. I bet it would take a long while to find that. It won't be a cathartic release for a Trump hater to nudge anybody away from that line of thinking, so they won't.

Man this stuff is just amazing. I told ChatGPT I was practicing the beginning of hte third section of Chopin nocturne opus 48#1, and that I was practicing the 4 vs 3, and this is how it turned out:

I wonder if it trains itself, and maybe the next time someone asks that question, it will be more likely to provide the second grid first.

Link to video

@jon-nyc said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:

It’s not remotely surprising. Since it’s Congress not Trump he can criticize. Like how he indirectly called Trump’s tariff policy moronic by unleashing on Navarro.

I'm sure that makes perfect sense to you. But the realities you attempt to weave with your words don't really comport with each other. I'm sure in other contexts you would acknowledge that a policy or bill which Trump brands himself with, such as tariffs or the Big Beautiful Bill, would be treated with great deference by Trump boot lickers.

@LuFins-Dad said in The Big Beautiful Bill needs its own thread.:

Good for Elon.

Sure doesn't comport with any purely cynical perspective on Elon. Which is to say, the mainstream Trump-hating perspective on Elon.

I asked chatgpt about some coding stuff, just to test the waters. It eventually asked me what I was working on, and I got cheeky and remembered Pinky and the Brain. I paraphrased what I remembered the mouse saying every episode.

Let me know what you’re working on — I can help right now!

You said:
I am working on the same thing I work on every day. Planning to rule the world.

ChatGPT responded:

Ah, just like Pinky and the Brain!

In that case, you’ll need:

Python for automating your evil lair operations, machine learning for predictive world domination strategies, and maybe some deepfake generation for diplomatic interference.

C# for building your sleek desktop control panels and surveillance systems with smooth WPF UIs.

ChatGPT-4o to write, debug, and optimize all that code while also giving you moral support when your minions fail you… again.

Whenever you’re ready to deploy your nefarious code, just let me know. I’m here to help you rule the world — one semicolon at a time. 🧠

That's impressive.

Also impressive that the copy/paste to this forum, managed to include the emoticons correctly.

Great post.

I read and enjoy LD's pride month posts. It is a great TNCR tradition.

@89th said in It’s way too early but let me tell you what I like about this list:

If he adjusts his policy positions just enough, yeah he could win Rogan and others over. Aside from policy, I'm a Pete fan... classical pianist, mayor, rhodes scholar, veteran, speaks 7 languages, gay sex, cabinet secretary, harvard, oxford... almost everything I find impressive. And yes, extremely well spoken, and could be a breath of fresh air after 4 years of Trump petulance and corruption.

Link to video

On the bright side, both sides of the political aisle are clearly ok with wealth redistribution. That redistribution will become a necessity as profits concentrate in businesses with few employees.

Another thing I noticed as I was on my way out of sports fandom.

Link to video

He's the smartest and smoothest talker of the bunch. He'd do fine on Rogan. His politics will be an issue in a general election.

He's long since proven that he doesn't suffer much from shame. He will be fine, and this will be good for his career.

@LuFins-Dad said in Trumpenomics:

That’s a stupid approach to take from a markets analyst. He’s actually trying to goad Trump into not reconsidering tariffs and to pull the trigger…

Plenty of people out there hoping Trump damages the economy as much as possible. I'm sure they'll take the opportunity to goad Trump into more macho tariffs.

@Horace said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:

Good reddit thread regarding Sam. This guy unsubscribed at about the same time I did, with about the same reasoning.

https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/1kv5unv/why_i_just_canceled_my_subscription/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I liked this response. It's something I've been thinking about lately. The economy of subscriptions to individual public commentators. Their price is often the same as a subscription to a top-tier commentary magazine or service.

For $60 a year you can get a subscription to The Atlantic, which publishes new content everyday, some by Pulitzer Prize winners. Sam asking $150 a year is ridiculous in comparison

Patreon tends to be saner, where creators request subscriptions on the order of $1 or $3 per month. But the substack crowd tends to start at $10/month or more.

As for Sam, his pursuit of money is too obvious, compared to his professed higher motivations. I still recall how he was charging separately for his Substack writings and for his podcast. When he consolidated everything at a higher price, he attributed that to an oversight. What you can know about Sam is that he is compelled to maximize his revenue, and he is ashamed of admitting that, and will never admit that.

As health supplements go, that one is probably more reasonable than most. At least you know that if it does make a difference, it'll be a positive one.

Good reddit thread regarding Sam. This guy unsubscribed at about the same time I did, with about the same reasoning.

https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/1kv5unv/why_i_just_canceled_my_subscription/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I didn't listen to Rogan's standup because I don't like bad comedy, but if "they" are ubiquitous and powerful enough to jam down the throats of the culture the notion that it's ok for large corporations to fire anybody who doesn't consent to the vaccine, and if that idea was not cut and dried at the time, and in retrospect seems like a jaw dropping overreach, I guess I will forgive anybody for referring to "they", as if we all understand who "they" are, even if it's not a list of names somewhere.