PeepinGoodArgs

@PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com

Check out my digital garden: The Missing Premise.

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PeepinGoodArgs,

Island nations are facing rising sea levels thanks to climate change.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Vote for Biden so Lina Khan, Harbinger of the Modern Antitrust Paradigm, can keep doing the lord’s work and prevent this shit.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Khan is must more active in examining proposed mergers of large corporations than previous FTC administrators.

I’m gonna fanboy out a bit here…

She came to prominence when she was still in law school and wrote Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.

This Note argues that the current framework in antitrust—specifically its pegging competition to “consumer welfare,” defined as short-term price effects—is unequipped to capture the architecture of market power in the modern economy

Ever since the disastrous law and economics movement took over in the 1970s, anti-trust has been about low consumer prices. Basically, and simplifying quite a bit, it didn’t matter how big a corporation got, whether they were part of an oligarchical or monopolistic market structure, as long as they could prove their prices weren’t extorting consumers, it was all good.

In Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox, she basically criticizes that economic perspective as permitting anti-competitive practices, consolidation of market power, and harm to consumers as a consequence.

Amazon, after all, rose to prominence by legitimately offering consumers lower prices on books, basically by reducing distribution costs and not owning any physical stores. It passed the savings onto consumers. So, there’s nothing inherently wrong with offering lower prices on stuff.

The problem, according to Khan, is that Amazon has continued to offer lower prices to consumers as it grew larger and larger and into the massive platform it is today…most of the time. Some of those lower prices may have been legitimately obtained…but the FTC is suing Amazon because it has employed its monopoly to price competitors and then shift to charging consumers more.

Under the old anti-trust paradigm, low consumer prices were all that mattered. Under Lina Khan, market structure and consumer prices matter. A monopoly that maintains low prices is as anti-competitive as any monopoly, and negatively impacts our economy.

So, it’s not so much that anti trust has been given teeth, but that, under Khan’s leadership, the FTC is much more likely to attempt the bite. And she started with Amazon, which is a bold move.

PeepinGoodArgs,

I still read the news and argue about it with people on the internet, which is what I’m recommending against doing. Don’t be me. Live your life. I’m seriously not sure I’m more off “informed” than if I were to just draw furry erotica all day.

For me, the key question is, What does being up to date help you? And my answer, as someone that is constantly up to date, is that it doesn’t.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Any number of hobbies. Try to make a tree grow.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Maybe a controversial take, but there’s no reason to pay attention to the news.

It’s basically propaganda through and through and made to make you feel small and unsafe in your own home.

Honestly, I think half the US would be more informed if they never watched the news again.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Just use regular chatgpt. It’s the same thing without the Microsoft integration…

PeepinGoodArgs,

I have a temporary dream (as in we’ll see how long this lasts…) of building a database of legislation by state that can easily be queried.

I think a lot of people rely on the news to tell them how to interpret legislation when it’s actually really easy to figure it out for yourself if you know where to look. And with the proliferation of AI, it should be even easier to know what legislation is without some political analyst with an agenda.

Anyway, the idea is to have all this available on one website that uses open source code for the underlying database.

PeepinGoodArgs,

I’m trying to choose not to drive as Millennial, because fuck that shit.

PeepinGoodArgs,

The 2020 census was a clusterfuck thanks to Trump wanting to include a question about whether the person was an illegal immigrant or not.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Don’t pay. Just leave please.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Would many straight men even read this fabled column? Again, I asked some friends. “I probably wouldn’t be interested in reading a column by some dude cos I’d just think, well, that’s him I guess. I can’t imagine finding it useful or applying it to me in any way.”

I think this is it for me. Women vary, and what works for some dude’s woman probably won’t work for mine.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Failed college when I was around 18 or so. I wallowed for a bit, but eventually I developed a really strong drive to learn. I may have been dumb, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be smarter if I tried.

Long story short, I joined the Navy to go back to school to get my degree and now I have a fantastic job that’s beyond easy.

But that drive to learn new stuff cannot by quenched now. I want to learn everything!

PeepinGoodArgs,

Wisdom

PeepinGoodArgs,

The concept of enshittification.

Granted, the concept applies specifically to platforms, but the idea is basically what capitalism is:

  • Be good to everyone
  • Be good to suppliers (supply-side economics)
  • Be good to shareholders and, subsequently, alienate both users and suppliers of content. The platform collapses.

Late-stage capitalism is when shareholder wealth is maximized at the expense everyone else. So you have 3 billionaires with 50% of the wealth of all humanity or something, the middle class squeezed into oblivion, and a roiling undercurrent of pure fucking rage ready to sever heads like watermelons from a vine.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Well, in what context is 1984’s Newspeak welcome? I’d say it’s as insulting as any sarcastic remark. Otherwise…it’s fine.

PeepinGoodArgs,

I can taste a huge difference between iodized salt and kosher salt. The former has a strong metallic taste that makes the salt flavor overwhelming. It’s easy to use too much. It’s easier to control the taste with kosher salt.

PeepinGoodArgs,

I remember the first time I went about 30 mph on my conventional bike down a hill. I had so much fun, I went up the short hill again!

I’m graduating soon and plan to reward myself with something pricey. An e-bike is a strong contender because I hate driving my car as much as I do.

PeepinGoodArgs,

And in this debacle, I don’t WISH to be anti-social, I’m anti-social but not in a voluntary manner. I’m in my prime years and I need friends and relationships at this age but my privacy standpoint is mangling with those.

But so this isn’t a conundrum you chose. That’s why people here are so into privacy. Instagram is social, sure, but is that the kind of socializing you want? Really? We know it’s bad for the mental health of teenage girls. What’s to desire about that? What’s to desire about the algorithm that actively tries to make you hooked on the app?

These are the kinds of questions behind the privacy communities, among others.

Also, don’t lie to women. Extreme things usually only look extreme until a person understands them. Explain yourself and give them an opportunity to come around and/or be willing to make compromises. Having an Instagram account you use every now and then to verify your humanity in a virtual world seems reasonable to me.

PeepinGoodArgs,

My wife of a year younger than me is the mom in the meme. I’m 35. The joke is still alive!

PeepinGoodArgs,

As opposed to the people who don’t vote because they live under a rock or in their mom’s basement?

I mean, I’m kidding, but people you’ve never met can absolutely fuck up your life when in comes to politics.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Well, it’s the weekend, so, I’m going to do homework and play video games.

Frankly, fuck America. Most of the country clearly wants this. So I’ll let them have it. And sure, I might die, but then I’ll be done with all this bullshit and won’t have worry anymore. And when the people who wanted the dystopia the US will become have a change of heart and realize they manufactured their own chains and locked them before throwing away the key, I’ll only regret I won’t be here to say I told you so.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Now what misanthropic government would do that? Surely none exist!

PeepinGoodArgs,

Cook the bugs and eat them.

PeepinGoodArgs,

Necessity for me, too. After three years of using Linux, I went back to school and it was needlessly difficult trying to get everything to work together. The nail in the coffin was when I had to use some proctoring software and I couldn’t use a virtual machine. I just went back to Windows.

If I didn’t have to use Windows, I’d probably still use Linux. I really enjoyed how snappy it was.

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