IanDrake

You guys talk about Biden like he's running the show. You've seen him lately, right?

How could it not mean that?

Are you arguing with my 1% figure or the concept I was trying to relay?

The concept is correct IMO, the percentage is a guess.

Before everyone gets upset, this is a known fact and it's not a bad thing for women either.

The skew only means the smartest 1% of men are smarter than the smartest 1% of women.

On the other side of the curve the same is true. The dumbest men are dumber than the dumbest women.

That means a larger percent of women occupy the IQ sweet spot.

This author has no idea what a government overthrow looks like.

Hint, it's not a bunch of unarmed Larpers and undercover FBI agents storming a lightly guarded capitol building.

Property taxes are regressive, so I'm not sure how that would help.

You know what really killed the rich? SALT deduction limits in the Trump tax plan. That policy actually caused the rich to pay more in taxes.

That's why CA tried to work around it by trying to classify property taxes as a charitable donation.

Wait and see, the Dems will pass a new sweeping tax plan that won't include the SALT deduction limit and they'll claim that it taxes the rich more.

I think that's true too. Home prices should work like bonds.

However it will likely keep going and then crash more than fizzle.

As long as the interest rate is below the rate of inflation, you'll make money by borrowing money and trading that money for something pegged to inflation, like a house.

This will work in the short term, and so I think people will keep buying.

Never, never start a business that solely depends on another business that you don't control.

I learned that one the hard way too a long time ago.

How many places have virology labs in China doing this kind of research? Now many places have wet markets?

Now calculate the probability that a virus would happen to naturally mutate in a wet market next to a virology research facility.

A lab leak has the highest probability of being true. It takes a mountain of evidence to overcome that very simple probability calculation.

How could Taiwan - a country not in the North Atlantic - join NATO?

The circle drawn on the map and the description don't match. The circle indicates south of the shore off second beach. Goat island is north of second beach and the wreck is supposed to be north of Goat Island.

Yeah, I see what you see. People are delusional.

I have to laugh when I see people calling this an insurrection. I mean, did they see these larpers in their costumes?

A true insurrection would be scary and look much different. There would be hundreds if not thousands of dead people.

What we saw was a protest with a minority of crazies who broke into a shamefully defended capitol building. Which is why the chief is out of a job.

Interesting read until you hit section 3. Then it goes off the rails.

Discussing the paradox between code elegance and complexity is interesting, but then to segue into don't code for certain companies is strange.

"but laws and norms of good behavior are always a balance between rights freedoms and safety / efficiency."

You must be not from the US. In the US, our freedoms come first and our founders constrained the governments` ability to interfere with those rights, even in the name of safety.

A popular Benjamin Franklin quote:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

For me bitcoin fixed my misunderstanding of fiat currency. The "bug" in fiat currency (inflation) is actually a feature.

I never understood the destructive nature of deflation but I do now thanks to bitcoin.

In any case, the result is bitcoin is not a currency. It's a commodity, as this article explains.

The media has ignored calls for political violence on Twitter all year long. And so, we now have this problem, an obvious double standard.

The left has failed to constrain, condem, or even recognize its extremists. That has emboldened the extremists on the right to act, since they watched the left get away with burning and looting with impunity.

Is it any wonder we ended up here. It's time to punish all who commit political violence.

Instead, we're just getting more partisan BS. That'll work.

If a politician can't block people because it is considered official communication, how can Twitter block politician's official communication?

Accusing people of doing exactly what you're doing is a well worn and bazar tactic that I'll never understand. Does it work?

You even provided a "quote" of something I never said. Good on you.

You made a statement "Oath Keepers in particular seem to have had a large and heavily militarized detachment". I asked for source video, which you now can't find and instead offer a video that doesn't corroborate your statement. So, who is moving goal posts?

What I am saying is the people causing the violence (including in the video you provided) are crazy larpers and MAGA fanatics, not oath keepers. Oath keepers are typically former military, open carry weapons, and don't look like they just broke out of mom's basement.

I am also saying I haven't seen a video of anyone who looks militarized in either organization, coordinated assault tactics, or armament. Can you cite a source video that demonstrates your statement is even close to true?

"Oath Keepers in particular seem to have had a large and heavily militarized detachment"

Source video? Larping in camo and a helmet doesn't make you militarized or an oath keeper.

Yes, it was clear security was needed. But this wasn't any of those groups.

I haven't tried, I make things, not destroy other people's things.

Perhaps a history of burning and looting might have had some influence in that difference.

Sometimes I wonder, and serious question here, when the reporter on TV stands in front of a burning building and exclaims the protest is mostly peaceful, do you see the building in background on fire?

I mean, I see the capitol building being broken into and think "that needs to stop, bring in the military if necessary".

I hadn't thought of that, yet I see the sense in the thought.

However, I don't think providing adequate police presence for a planned protest would have been showing your hand.

"Trump incited an attack on congress."

Evidence of Trump telling people to storm the capitol?

"I remain horrified at the right wing community's ability to rationalize violence"

We'll, I'm right of center and I condemn it. Just like I'm sure there is a history of you condemning this entire year of BML and Antifa burning and looting cities across the US.

I remember what Como said on CNN. "who said protests need to be peaceful". Of course CNN is the bastion of right wing extremists... Oh wait....

We have to condemn all political violence.

Really? Can a weak man lose an arm wrestling match to a stronger opponent and truly say "I let you win?"

Either the authorities were capable of repulsing an hundred unarmed civilians or they were not.

I'm unclear how both can be true, but I'm open to ideas.

I think this is overplayed at this point. You must concede one of only two possibilities.

1) The capitol building has all along been an easy soft target that could have been infiltrated by a small contingent of terrorist.

2) The police purposefully stood down and allowed this to happen while doing the minimum to make it seem like they tried.

Neither option is a good look for our country.

Now compound that with using this event as a popular excuse to restrict free speech, when the correct reaction should be to improve security at the capitol for any enemy.

If you think this goes away becuse big tech takes even moderate voices down, you don't understand what's going on.

I think we'll see more actions like this in the next few days. It's like when Obama set a date to allow transgenders serve in the military after he left office.

I for one prefer surveillance capitalism to surveillance socialism. At least in one system you can opt out.

Two years ago I left IT and started my own wealth management company...and now I'm back. I can tell you, the regulations on the retail side of finance are nonsense and help no one.

Like gun control, bad actors don't care about your laws. The only people who are regulated are the honest ones, and the amount of regulation can put them out of business, or even dissuade them from being has honest as they'd like.

If RH lied about how they're compensated, then they are certainly guilty, but the harm to consumers is just the tip of the iceberg. Consider how much RH has harmed all the honest financial advisors who had to compete with a "free" service that hides their cost to consumers.

If I had lied to one client about how I was compensated, bye bye license.

How dare you!?

And 34 years is a blink of an eye in geological time.