64000+ entries in 0.021s
mircea_popescu: hey, i know a certain petro plant that got free gas for about 8 months.
mircea_popescu: "I suppose I could pull up my Bloomberg terminal if I wanted to do some research before making an investment decision, but I feel like that’s not in the spirit of this app." << A-HA! caught you elaineo !
mircea_popescu: anyway, the context is the earlier rewrite of luminous, the sf story. you know it ?
mircea_popescu: this one's of that latter kind. the footnotes are mine, but the text is originally published by ballas over at thelastpsychiatrist.com ; linked there in the first line.
mircea_popescu: others are adnotations, like the recent rothbard series for instance.
mircea_popescu: well, truth be told, there's no official "turning loose" as such. girls can leave if they wanna, some do now and again, but it's not that common.
mircea_popescu: hey, i didn't realise azn immigrants are even allowed to be lazy
mircea_popescu: i won't even ask what do you think makes me gather the dork is having a great time from that pic.
mircea_popescu: elaineo free shit is terrible, which is why wanna-be pimps hang around highschools trying to paw off "free shit" to the better looking 16yos.
mircea_popescu: the original discussed "promising companies", but there's really no difference -- women are great company.
mircea_popescu: you're welcome, but do you happen to know what's the worst thing that can happen to a gifted woman early on in her life ?
mircea_popescu: for all the gargle, there's ~nothing came out of marc a & paul g's up and coming rap label firms.
mircea_popescu: last fucking thing i want is to have to argue at idiots about music being too loud each week and actually be confronted with literall different idiots with identical idiocy in them
mircea_popescu: many ways to see how shitty it is. seriously, i want to change my fuckable 3years leases neighbour for a horde of unwashed 20something 2-week leasors ?
mircea_popescu: well, i'ma opt out of arguing waze without prejudice, because while it's basically an antieconomic game of masturbation, i'm too lazy to argue it.
mircea_popescu: it's not winning anywhere. the whole thing is a more-successful-than-usual spam&fraud campaign by graham and friends.
mircea_popescu: and because there's specific laws protecting public interest from a time before the bush power grabs
mircea_popescu: there is, because publkic transport is mostly state, whereas uber is federal.
mircea_popescu: "regulatory compliance" it's called in-universe. but in practice, they're exactly like the old time soviet govt entreprises.
mircea_popescu: all "us registered corporations" are simply agencies of the usg.
mircea_popescu: in actual point of practice. no "underserved minority" is getting into the recent suv crossover.
mircea_popescu: but what actually happens is that the blue state will tryt to get people who didn't vote for the pantsuited hilarity unable to use cabs.
mircea_popescu: so that self-important schmucks in washington can spy on foreign nationals daily, and now and again "sanction" foreign government with taxi strike generated in the usual manner ?
mircea_popescu: let's take the first one. why would $random city in $national country give up its taxi transportation system to the usg ?
mircea_popescu: meanwhile in historical elaineo terrible, "Uber is a great example of a hack: Taxicab licensing rules are annoying and only serve to make a few people’s lives better (the taxi medallion owners) while making many people’s lives worse. Waze allows drivers to report speed traps and police checkpoints because we all know that CHP officers only issue tickets to fill their quotas. Airbnb shirks rental and zoning regulations, an
mircea_popescu: i recall. was well received here too. somehow it's not money laudnering when the right idiots do it.
mircea_popescu: "If pet food companies used the same business model as startups: Jim creates a dog food factory and gives away dog food for free. 450 million dogs line up for free dog food. Purina Dog Chow understands that non-paying dog food consumers are currency, and buys Jim’s factory for $42 per dog." << in other historical elaineo lulz.
☟︎☟︎ mircea_popescu: if they're not happy, they'll bark their unhappiness to the stars above.
mircea_popescu: otherwise, indian continent wolves adopting indian kids into their litters make excellent parents.
mircea_popescu: elaineo this works well for adults. kids need to be fed.
mircea_popescu: i expect not. so why do you expect other people/parents who don't even have enough sense to find #trilema could teach their kids anything, including how to make mayo ? leaving aside something as intricate as capitalism.
mircea_popescu: well, technically the definition of investor, neh ? one who owns commercial paper in excess of 0 cash nominal value.
mircea_popescu: eh, i find it hard to believe you can live in bay area and not be an investor. don't they force-feed everyone stocks, options, etcetera as part of employment there ?
mircea_popescu: so supposing you were going to teach me about capitalism ... what would you say ?
mircea_popescu: though granted this may be more a description of my poor understanding of selfsame styler.
mircea_popescu: ah, too bad. i'd expect you'd like him, seems to me exactly in your style.
mircea_popescu: yes. everyone was expected to understand the reference.
mircea_popescu: ailleurs there is a reference to "la joie c'est ailleurs", which is my own reprocessing of "la vie est ailleurs", which is a kundera novel, and the yarn of reference, criticism and tongue in cheekness does continue
mircea_popescu: now then -- the iliterate migrant worker who wins 100mn worth of powerball you would have learn how to read and write so the shysters won't trick him with contracts. this makes sense. yet the innocent daughter of a VC you wouldn't have understand engineering, so the shysters won't feed her crap in their description of "reality" ? what's this girl to do if she ever has to fix her car, pay 8k for a new johnson rod, like george
mircea_popescu: this may suggest that "human capital" was of no importance, value or interest. what mattered was ailleurs.
mircea_popescu: jakob fugger was the proper example for this "rich man financing the dissolution of medieval system into industrial society". and the emperor had his artillery wheels bound in hay so as to not disturb his sleep.
mircea_popescu: when you pick two examples but fail to pick the proper one among them, teacher knows you didn;t actually do the reading.
mircea_popescu: consider it from this angle : for 1 point, who was emperor maximillian ; for 1 point, what did he order be done to his artillery pieces and in which town ; for a further point who happened to live there and for the remainder 6 poins, why did you not say his name ?
mircea_popescu: this is a dubious statement of the actual history of the matter.
mircea_popescu: no argument here. however, crassus was ill served by his army at carrhae.
mircea_popescu: having a large army behind you (and money is strictly nothing but) is, obviously, an important ingredient in gaining battlefield glory and the laurels of caesar.
mircea_popescu: but this aside, you familiar with the general fate of lottery winners ?
mircea_popescu: to date of that ancient boyish dream of you know, "trading toothpicks for car parts and those for plastic bags and so on until trillionaire!"
mircea_popescu: moreover, consider the case of mr hruschev of the soviets vs mr lee of the singaporeans. it is a factual matter that no one to date had control, properly called financial in this context, of more resources than hruschev. nor probably ever will. what good did it do him ? and lee started with two old boats and some captured rats. he grilled the rats, sold them and went from there, completing one of the very few cases documented
mircea_popescu: trying to "understand thermodynamics" without any shits given for the atomic theory will result in tears.
mircea_popescu: no, i did not. but the reason is unrelated : engineering deals with discrete, concrete items, before your eyes. finance deals with complex systems of such items.
mircea_popescu: elaineo well, a master, i expect. but not self perceived, perception dun enter into it. substantial master.
mircea_popescu: r human completeness. fixing your head so you don't suck at engineering is earlier stop on the same road. first, you learn to walk, THEN you learn to fuck. "the most important skill" is a discussion of age and station appropriateness, naught else.
mircea_popescu: "The most important tech skill, then, isn’t computers or engineering — It’s the art of getting paid to control vast amounts of money." << this then is rank nonsense on the level of "the best car is one with a really powerful engine". really, no steering needed ? brakes optional ? some people are good at finance, some people are horrible at it. yes, fixing your head so you don't suck at finance is absolute requirement fo
mircea_popescu: one could indeed readily so imagine ; doesn't take much.
mircea_popescu: being a ~competent~ engineer, of any kind, can't possibly be a regression. it's intellectually required for human life.
mircea_popescu: lligned with the above -- woman, you have to be able to think clearly, and correctly, and when i say "take no crap from anyone, be it wikipedia or your mom", i actually mean ~something~. it's not a ra ra ra, it's an actually specified artefact, it belongs in engineering, with process assurance and quality control and all that jazz, not as part of a pep rally.
mircea_popescu: "If you’re a Venture Capitalist, the last thing you want is for your child to go into wage slavery." << more in the same vein. i do take the tack you recommend ("you have no choice in the matter ; the bullwhip is right over there if this doesn't translate otherwise") with my own slavegirls, in a limited sense, thereby forcing them to proficiency in ~certain aspects~ of software engineering. those aspects are exactly those a
mircea_popescu: i dunno how common this case is in general ; but i guarantee it is the only case where it actually matters, which is to say at the top. that's why torvalds got off ass, that's why rich got off ass, pick any one of the actually competent.