Eli Kahn 🏳️‍🌈

if almost everyone has to work together to maintain the sewer system or the public budgeting process or kids being safe on the sidewalk, it takes a lot of work from many people to make that stuff work *better* but only one jerk to screw it all up

Kinda related, it occurred to me yesterday that the Shitty Man Theory of History being true while the conventional Great Man Theory is false makes sense when you consider that stuff is really hard to build and maintain and requires lots of cooperation, which almost everyone provides

I realize Trump and Miller make for stiff competition, but I think Hegseth might actually be the worst human being alive

I tried watching Adventure Time, but something about the animation style landed in the uncanny valley for me, and I wasn’t engaged enough with the story to overcome that. Everything was just too wobbly, or something

me: it’s really a bummer how many people will vote for an unqualified failson just because he can pass himself off as a hypermasculine dudebro

me: [looks in mirror] hey… wait a minute…

(I’m kidding, I don’t think this trick works for 5’4” gay guys no matter how masc we are)

see, I work out because I want to look good, and I am absolutely a soft-handed scribe

as ways of affirming one’s gender go, this is way more attainable and less harmful than curtailing people’s rights and crashing the global economy

wait let me guess: the Evil party is also objectively worse at managing the economy, but they’re still competitive because many voters assume that being willing to be Evil means they must be decisive and clearheaded, right?

I think part of the Gender of it all is that a lot of these guys feel like it doesn’t count as masculine if you’re exercising on purpose to look good or feel good, it has to somehow be accidental

which is a shame because getting ripped has never been more attainable!

and I think a lot of doctors fail to appreciate that. But of course there are important differences between law and medicine (especially that many people go their whole lives without ever being a party to a legal case, while everyone has a body)—so it could well be different! (2/2)

I think that makes sense, but I’m also reminded of the frustration I feel about doctors who complain about “Dr. Google”, because looking up symptoms online is a more accessible way for someone to get a sense of how much to worry about something than making a whole doctor’s appointment (1/2)

As with so much in public policy, a key principle is “don’t let the acceptable be the enemy of the meaningfully less dire.”

I think willful ignorance of that tradeoff is one of the most common ways people get bad policy ideas. Sometimes it’s totally reasonable to land on the side of restricting the supply of something in order to guarantee high quality—but at least be aware you’re doing that.

This reminds me of the debate about letting nurse practitioners take on more medical tasks currently reserved for doctors. Further afield, it also comes up in regard to things like safety and sustainability standards for housing. There’s a tradeoff between abundance and higher quality.

That’s plausible, but even in the replies to this thread you can see the opposite dynamic—Democratic voters saying most Americans are bad because in November 2024 most Americans did a very memorable, very bad thing

so even if you’re right, i wonder how much election results affect this

The issue at stake is that in some places, people commit crimes like tax evasion out of a sense that everyone does it and you can either join them or be a sucker.

You can see how that creates a vicious circle. But I’m not sure that behavior correlates with how people answer questions like this

A lot of polling that is worded to measure high vs low trust in a society gives fairly divergent results - compare this to the below, also from Pew, published just last December.

not a criticism of Pew or of OP, but I think the concept of high vs low trust societies is kind of undertheorized

I would be interested to see how this intersects with partisan affiliation, and how that intersection has changed over time

consider also: “Candle in the Wind”

that’s my go-to for getting phrases of the form “blank-blank in the blank” stuck in my head

“This came up in the most recent update meeting—let me forward you the [slides/meeting summary/most recent draft/etc*], which should be able to answer most of your questions”

*this will be a document they will already have been sent

babylon

i wrote a five-act play in French once

it’s an adaptation of Return of the Jedi as a classical tragedy

which one is the Shiva and which is the Vishnu

as a godless New Atheist (((coastal elite))) who wants to take God out of the schools and weaken the Christian family with libidinous pornography, I feel incredibly owned by Talarico’s nomination and can promise the swing voters of Texas that electing him will cause libs such as me to seethe

i legitimately think it’s because the state is so big and so diverse that retail politics just kinda don’t work? it’s massive ad buys and getting endorsed by the Democrats at the state convention or nothing, so it’s really hard for someone who isn’t already a big name to break through

I used to refer to people like this as “discourse rodeo clowns”, but it turned out i was basing that on a total misunderstanding of what a rodeo clown is

so I’m in the market for a new turn of phrase

the “at least Trump won’t send your sons to war” guy is someone I hear about pretty much only when Trump sends soldiers to war. his entire career is built on one take bad enough to get people to remember him forever, and he’s laughing all the way to the bank!

A lot of people ask “who is <infuriating news outlet to the right of its liberal audience for>,” and the answer is “its liberal audience.” Many papers are intentionally foils or antagonists even before the clickbait era. they need to get people angry and whether it’s at them is secondary

a fun thing about *primary* elections is I can be as kneejerk a partisan as I want and still let character issues be determinative. oh, one Democrat who’s a crook is running against another who isn’t? great, put me down for the non-crooked candidate.

evidently not everyone shares this view!

imagine voting for Ken Paxton. imagine seeing any one (1) headline about Ken Paxton and voting for him, in a primary election against a “regular” conservative Republican. Ken Paxton! him! for senate! for anything! the mind boggles

in the 2010s, there were multiple TV shows *beloved* by nerdy women fans, whose creators openly pined for a more male audience! I don’t think that level of “ugh, I don’t make art for *girls*” would fly today; Matt Rife infamously did that but his career actually suffered for it