Maggie's Farm

Misleading. While most economists say that some deficit spending is necessary to increase the money supply as the economy grows, or to respond to emergencies, few believe that very high deficits are economically healthy. Very high deficits undermine the value of U.S. debt holdings, mean increasingly large portions of the budget have to go for debt service, reduce funds available for old age benefits as the population ages, and make it harder to borrow in the event of a real emergency.


Misleading. It was draconian tariffs that most economists thought would lead to a recession. However, Trump backed away, at least temporarily, from his tariff threats. The talk, as if you could believe the American president to tell the truth, rattled markets, but they quickly adjusted once Trump delayed the tariffs.


Misleading. The average EU tariff on US goods was about 3%.

Maniac: Keep arguing with the bot

For the record, posting by Zachriel on Maggie's Farm long predates the advent of human-devised Large Language Model Artificial Intelligence.

The government had threatened the Soliman family with immediate deportation. The case was moved to the immigration system for regular deportation proceedings, which allows the family due process, so the judge dropped the emergency order. The family has argued the deportation is intended to unconstitutionally punish them for Soliman's actions.


Mamdani's has condemned anti-Semitism, the Oct 7 attacks on Israel as a war crime, and the right of Israel to exist with equal rights for all. It is possible to be against Israel's actions and not be anti-Semitic.


Gallup: 92% of Republicans, 53% of Independents, and 32% of Democrats are extremely or very proud of America.

Democratic and Independent pride in America has slipped since Trump's election, many decrying his constant lying, seeing his actions as bullying other nations including friends and allies, and seeing his concentration of executive power as dangerous to liberty. Republican pride has increased over the same period.

jlawson: If they're not here legally, then they can be deported.

Yes, and that's what deportations proceedings establish.

jlawson: Visas and green cards can be revoked.

Sure, but assuming a rule-of-law system, revocation isn't arbitrary, but governed by law and constitution. That's as opposed to a president threatening whether to deport, prosecute, or otherwise use the power of the government to go after someone because they opposed him politically or personally got on his bad side.

James: LW pride in the USA has been significantly lower than the RW's prior to the 2016 elections.

Generally correct, but it’s also important to note that the political Left and the political Right are not necessarily homogeneous groups. Just as someone might argue that the Left tends to find fault, it can also be said that the Right tends to turn a blind eye to those faults.

One might consider the country as having fallen short of its ideals, or one might take pride in the long struggle towards those ideals no matter how imperfectly achieved. As the political Left tends towards the betterment of society (in their view), they are more likely to dwell on what needs perfecting than on what has already been perfected.

Consider Dr. King finding fault: “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’.”

James: You and other progressives just hate the country, period. And want to destroy it.

The story of America is one of constant struggle towards greater freedom, often against the dark forces of tyranny. As such, America has long been a beacon of freedom in an imperfect world. America still has a lot to contribute, but bullying friends and allies who share America’s democratic ideals hurts the cause of liberty, while concentrating so much power in the executive risks undermining republican governance.

The invention of the calculator will mean people's arithmetic skills will atrophy. And you may not always have a calculator on hand.

Socrates was skeptical of writing. As his student, Plato, related:

Before the printing press was invented, literate people had knowledge of just a few texts, from which they could often recite, and which others would easily recognize. These include the Bible, Homer's Iliad, and the Arthurian legends.

After the printing press, people might have shelves and shelves of books. An avid reader might scan their collection and take down something that appears interesting, but the wealth of books being so great, they can't quite remember whether they've read it before or not.

Abelard Lindsey: Did any of you actually read the John Carter piece?

Yes.


That the proverb is old and venerable means that this is not a new phenomenon. The white, rich, connected, children of alumni could always advance with a "gentleman's C"—systemic discrimination. It just means credentialism has always had an asterisk.


Very much true. And while the Old Guard might fearfully argue AI will atrophy people's skills, or make them cease to exercise their memory, or even forget which texts they read, it doesn't mean intellectual progress will stop. Rather, these young people, for whom AI is native, will use the new technology to further advance knowledge in ways that can only be imagined at this point.


As if history and literature have no value. The writer exaggerates certain trends that do not support his argument about AI, but do show his biases. Consider that he could have just as well written, "There is no organic market demand for researchers studying the Roman Republic or Shakespeare."

Will there be change? Of course. Will universities disappear. It's possible. Some certainly will. But other universities will adapt, especially research universities, such as Harvard Medical (unless destroyed by the mob).


It's not that the writer doesn't make a few good points. It's just that he doesn't bother to consider aspects which countervail his position. And he didn't even have to use AI to get lazy about it.

Abelard Lindsey: We all know the universities have become completely FUBAR over the past three decades.

That's a common source of poor reasoning: assuming your conclusion, or petītiō principiī. You don't even question it. Sure. Universities have had problems. What else is new? Something that has supposedly been going on for "the past three decades" (or in the case of credentialism, centuries) can't be traced to AI. The other problems are exaggerations or overgeneralizations.

Consider Harvard, which has produced 161 Nobel Prize winners. In the last three decades that includes Amartya Sen, Claudia Goldin, Oliver Hart, Michael Kremer, Robert C. Merton, Alvin Roth for Economics; Carolyn Bertozzi, Martin Karplus for Chemistry; Gary Ruvkun for Medicine; Roy Glauber, Jack Szostak for Physics. Perhaps in the future, robots will make scientific breakthroughs unassisted, but that is not yet. More likely, scientists will work with AI. Now, consider how Harvard will decide which student to accept into their research colleges. There has to be a way to sift through the applicants. Currently, they look at their records in undergraduate studies.

Abelard Lindsey: The purpose of any human institution is to empower people to accomplish, whether it be the development of fusion power, curing aging, or getting us out into space in a big way.

And currently, it's clear universities continue to produce some of the most advanced research. While one may speculate that AI will radically change universities, or even lead to their demise, the argument was weakened by not addressing countervailing influences. In other words, the writer should have adopted the position, arguendo, that universities will adapt. Then he might see where his original thesis could be improved, or discarded. Instead, he used partisan exaggeration to clue you in: It's all a bunch of gender benders! With purple hair!

Abelard Lindsey: You seem obsessed with the existence of institutions as having value in their own right, independent of self-empowerment.

That IS the heart of actual conservatism, to not dispense with long-established institutions without aforethought, and that reform is preferred when reform is possible. However, we didn't claim that universities will survive AI, just that the argument was speculative at best. In fact, AI will become not just common, but expected, even taught as a methodology—probably at universities.