What would unfortunately happen is that all professional sports would be entirely dominated by men with very few women ever competing. At the top level every little bit matters, and there biological sex just has a very significant impact

I always forgot how buff you are. (Also, very excited by this book!)

Een narratief hoeft niet te kloppen om wel te heersen ;)

My experience here is basically the opposite ;). I got the feeling that people who had a family had a relatively normal time, while people who were living one were suffering from pretty crippling loneliness from just not talking to IRL people.

I guess it's theoretically possible that *almost all* Americans who didn't support BLM went out and voted for Trump. But that's not even remotely plausible.

I do think an argument can be made against "objectively good". I would say that higher purchasing power does not automatically mean good. Well-being is, certainly after a certain point, not primarily driven by consumption.

(But most angry people aren't making that case. They're just angry at stats)

Die onderste vraag vind ik wel fascinerend. Op de een of andere manier is de boodschap dat nafluiten niet kan bij mannen wel goed doorgekomen? Dat vinden minder mannen acceptabel dan vrouwen? Ben benieuwd waar dat door komt

Sure. Al acht ik de kans inmiddels best wel groot dat we best wel binnenkort op een punt komen dat we alleen maar de output kunnen checken, en wat er onder de motorkap zit niet meer begrijpen.

Maar dat maakt voor mijn punt niet echt uit toch?

Ik denk dat twee dingen tegelijk waar kunnen zijn: Het is overduidelijk een bubbel, maar het is ook overduidelijk een technologie die serieus impact gaat hebben op de wereld op manieren die we nu nog niet voorzien.

We hadden ook de dot com bubbel, maar het internet was wel een beetje een big deal.

Hij heeft wel een klein beetje een punt dat sommige mensen op links AI wel echt onderschatten. Het is op talloze manieren kut en overhyped, maar also, het is wel vrij magische technologie die een hoop dingen echt best wel serieus kan gaan veranderen

Elke beschuldiging is een bekentenis.

You know that housingcosts are included in the consumer price index?

You might not be lying to yourself about the difficulties. Your individual income rise might be below the national average.

But the average American has more purchasing power than before.

If you insist in cherry picking his most radical posts and reading them in bad faith I don't think this is a very useful discussion.

I don't 100% agree with him either, but these strawmen aren't very interesting.

Mate, none of our posts here have value :p. We're just shouting into the void here hahahaha

"this is true" is enough in and of itself. Not every post needs to have a policy platform or fully thought out communications strategy.

The truth has value, I would hope we can agree on that. I can think of a policy or communication strategy that could follow from this, but that's unnecessary

To take another example. I'm pretty sure we both agree man made climate change is a real problem. Lots of people don't think that that is true. They're wrong. Their sentiment is not factual.

In our campaign strategy we should acknowledge that, but we shouldn't pretend they are factually correct.

But that is an entirely different discussion!

What is or isn't true should not be dictated by our political strategy. In deciding on our political communication we should definitely be sentient of the public sentiment. But that doesn't mean that we should just not care about the truth!

Once he gets into one of his massive online fights he sometimes gets a bit unnuanced :p.

But even here he's not saying what you say he is: he's saying there is not one direct metric that explains it. Not that material conditions are irrelevant. Those are very different things!

That's not the point being made here though. The point is that we should recognize when the facts and the sentiment are at odds with each
other. And that the correct response here is definitely not to pretend like the sentiment is based in fact.

What are you trying to argue here? Is this some metaphysical argument about how we should define "objective reality"?

Is your position "Reality is a combination of facts and how people feel about the world"?

Because sure. Fine. I agree. But that's just entirely besides the point here.

I don't think that's his conclusion. You're arguing against a straw man here.

I'm very certain that is not the position Will takes here.

I happen to believe that in general Will over-estimates the relative value of ideas over material conditions, but this absolutist "reality does not impact sentiment" position is not one he defends.

Except in this case it clearly is!

There is a strong sentiment about the average American getting poorer, while that is just objectively not true. Most americans are able to purchase more stuff than they have ever been able to in history. The sentiment is false. Factually not true.

He's not wrong. The sentiment is factually not true.

The median American is not materially worse off than they were before. I'm sure there are reasons for the sentiment. Anything ranging from social media algorithms to individualism and neoliberalism or whatever.

Obviously policies will and should have some material impact. But if everyone is claiming the problem is that the average American is getting poorer while that is not true you're gonna take dumb policy decisions.

There are lots of other factors that might play a role in how people feel about their financial security! Maybe increasing job security with stronger protections for employees might work. Maybe the importance of creditcards in the US economy should be attacked. Or whatever else (...)

It is a win though. You get 50 bucks extra! I would like 50 bucks!

Americans aren't broke in comparison to where Americans were in the past either.

The implication is that the solutions are not to be found in increasing material wealth of the median American, but somewhere else.