Tuesday morning Tuesday evening Wednesday evening Thursday evening ___________________________________ See this whole shitpile? It worked. The first time. It's controlled by this whole shitpile. It also worked. The first time. I really wish there was someone to be proud of me.
I don't fully understand what I am looking at but it looks like it takes an incredible amount of hard work, skill, and attention to detail. I would wager that it working the first time was very much due to your high ability. I don't think I would be overstepping to say that hubski is quite proud of you.
you're not supposed to. That little two-day box allows me to take one multipin from one ECM, another multipin from another ECM, and spit it out to a 3-way switch and two spindle controllers. It fundamentally allows me to control and instrument an $80k tenth-of-a-micron runout 20,000 RPM tool changer spindle OR a $2k micron-runout 50,000 RPM tool changer spindle. Or, by setting it to "zero" allows me to ignore both and run a servo as a drag knife instead. This will make the device unique in the world. Got a buddy. He wanted a 5-years-newer version of the machine I'm starting with so he wrote a $250k check. Got a skycrane to pluck a machine tool out of an 8th floor physics lab, a trailer to haul it to North Carolina to be rebuilt piece by piece, and then shipped to him in California. Me? I'm ordering voltage converters off Amazon, six for $10. My seller tried to ship a 500lb CNC mill in a cardboard box. It spent 6 weeks in the North Atlantic because Ever Given. In a way I lucked out; when I signed the shipping contract I paid $2200 (and another $400 to replace the cardboard box - I have a phat pile of ISPM-15 wood that I use for cobbling shit). By the time the thing landed in the USA the quote had gone to $10k. In the land of normie CNC design you would put all this shit on terminal strips (as seen along the upper edge of the servo shot). I put the high voltage on terminal strips because anything else would be deeply irresponsible. Control? Control I put on d-subs because I don't have the walk-in-closet-sized space usually dedicated to this stuff. I have about as much room as a dorm fridge. Seven DB9s, a DB15, four DB25s, three HX12-6s and an HX12-4 control fifteen pneumatic solenoids and two high voltage spindles. The rock'n'roll shit - the actual axes on this beastie, as well as the tool changer - is a lot more plug'n'pray. Once all the hardware is connected I just need to configure it in - ECLink - SigmaWin - Mach4 - CamWorks ...and I can cut. Note that because of the versatility of the setup the machine will have to be configured several times because, depending on what I turn on, what I turn off, what I connect and how I connect it, the machine can be: - a 3-axis 20krpm mill with tool changer - a 3-axis 50k rpm mill - a 3-axis tangential knife - a 4-axis 20krpm mill with tool changer - a 4-axis 50krpm mill - a 4-axis tangential knife (note that this device does not currently exist) - a 5-axis 20krpm mill with tool changer - a 5-axis 50krpm mill - a 5-axis tangential knife (note that this device does not currently exist) - a mill-turn - a mill-turn tangential knife (note that this device does not currently exist) ...which is a configuration in Mach 4 and CamWorks each time. For purposes of programming, it's gonna show up as eleven different devices. Maybe 12; I haven't really wrapped my head around the wheel hobbing yet. I have two or three contemporaries in the same boat. They're at "if I can't make my 25-year-old Heidenhain controller do it, I'm not doing it." Granted, they're actually making watches If it works? It's gonna be fearsome. It will be the equivalent of a $500k machine. But there are so many ways for it to not work still.
I fucking hate how many boardgames now ship with a rules summary handout as a must-have for players. A thing even advanced players need because of how many moving parts there are. If I wanted to faff about with counters, switches, tokens, miniatures, modifiers, table+-sized maps, and multiple A4-size game sheets, I'd drop the pretence and play that old version of Battletech that begins with an orbital assault phase. Or one of those wargame simulations for ultimate hard-chargers that take a week to set up. I've been gifted with a first volume of Philokalia by one of the Ukrainian fellows, and it's an odd book. Really difficult to get into, state-of-mind-wise, but I'm definitely going to get back to it when I'll finish the heap that's currently open. The garden is coming along nicely.
The Stardew Valley boardgame, one that I assumed would be fairly straightforward, caused a monopoly-like rift between our friend group when we tried playing it. The damn thing had numerous handouts for rules, and I don't think we played anywhere close to how it was intended. We tried, it was just so over the top that we opted for a dumbed down version. Some people whom I've never heard swear before, sounded like seasoned tradies at the end of the night. We didn't even finish. Just called it quits after a couply beers and a couply hours. Gah!
The problem here lies in generality: it's not always easy, or possible, to simplify something and still have a viable game. Best case scenario, you can render one of those overengineered things into their simpler predecessor. For example: removing about a dozen of disconnected victory mechanisms from Game of Thrones boardgame results in something like Chaos in the Old World. At least the night was eventful, and the boardgame facilitated some of that fun. Good to see you back.[...] and I don't think we played anywhere close to how it was intended. We tried, it was just so over the top that we opted for a dumbed down version.
We didn't even finish. Just called it quits after a couply beers and a couply hours.
Oh we learned that quite quickly. We hoped dulling it down, would dull it down universally, but no. Just made it more complicated because some things were omitted, but they were attached to things we were still using, but we only discovered that at a later point. It was fun to just be angry as a unit. A collective bunch of idiots, confident in their idiocy and not too bothered about remedying it. The next boardgame/cardgame night we played Here to Slay which was much simpler, and a lot of fun.
Oh fuck yeah I remember that version of Battletech. Isn't it legit older than you? FASA banked heavily on goodwill with that system; when I played with my friends it was a good-faith effort to emulate the world. The one time I played with a different crew they all decided "hey let's wipe out kleinbl00 first and then sort it out" and I pointed out that heat penalties were assessed the next turn. They'd focus their fire on one of my mechs and kill it; I'd use that mech's lasers over and over and over again until everything within range was a slag pile. It didn't matter that the next turn my mech exploded because it was already dead. To the best of my knowledge that was the last time that group of friends every played Battletech. Needless to say the orbital assault failed. The problem with modern games is the barriers to publishing are lower and the modern nerd cares much more about collecting than playing. Used to be "games" were this closetpile of neglected bullshit between the coats and the hats. Now they cover an entire wall of the "man cave" like your virgin uncle's vinyl collection. None of them are well-thought-out, none of them underwent any real beta-testing, and none of them are going to make it to V2.0 because the audience did exactly what it was supposed to: paid for it on Kickstarter, got their copy, put 5,000 copies in your local game store (holy shit what a concept! When I grew up there were two in the continental USA) and every single nerd will play it once just to say they did. Used to be there were two ways to do things: Combined Arms or Candy Land and never the twain shall meet. But the Candy Land Crew saw all the farkle the legit wargamers got to play with and went "you know what game should be more complicated? Risk" and from that point forth, actually finishing a game became less and less essential to just hanging out in the rumpus room and pretending you were serious people as opposed to those losers who actually went on dates on weekends.
I'm from 98, so for sure the game is older. So are Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer, Cyberpunk 2020, Traveller, Paranoia, and a bitchload of other games I prefer over much of the recent dross. Between accessibility of legal reprints and easy ways to yar-har those games, they have sort of a renaissance nowadays. To me, and I'd hazard most of my friends, a boardgame failed its role if it requires so much focus, socialization is impossible or heavily hindered. Carcassonne, Chaos in the Old World, Talisman, Battlestar Galactica, and the like are my jam. Beyond those, it's too involved to talk, while not being meaty enough to really engage my inner Ender. Lack of play testing could explain most of it, but I think it's also a fashion for those overengineered mechanics. All too many people equate depth (chess) with complexity (competitive cord untangling), and I think many designers genuinely don't (want to) understand the difference. Feedback or testing be damned. Ha! Had a similar victory story, but instead of mechs I channelled inner Zukov/Ludendorf, deployed a force consisting entirely of gunboat hovercrafts, and suicide charged his line of heavy assault mechs. Because it was on the tabletop simulator, for the life of me, I couldn't tell if the guy was laughing or apoplectic. Never got a rematch, though.To the best of my knowledge that was the last time that group of friends every played Battletech.
Yeah Battletech offends me deeply. It's got an incredible amount of lore, all of it rendered as dully as humanly imaginable. It has incredible industrial design and miserable gameplay. That's the amazing thing to me - No attempts whatsoever have been made to increase the playability, starting with Fasa, passing through Wizards of the Coast and now with Piranha - fucking Mechwarrior is the most boring game imaginable where every scenario is a revelation in "this would be much easier and more pleasant if I weren't trapped in a giant robot." Here's the thing: All those games you list were designed by college kids with no friends to be played by college kids with no friends. Those college kids? They played them. And they interacted with the guys who wrote them. Cyberpunk is an excellent example. Mike Pondsmith so loved Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired that he invited WJW to playtest Cyberpunk before it was published. And between Cyberpunk and Cyberpunk 2020, they made quality-of-life changes like "youth bonuses" to discourage players from just running through the military and college as character generation buffs; Cyberpunk was entirely full of 26-year-old mercenaries hot off the GI bill. Frankly, I think Magic The Gathering fucked it up for everyone. Instead of giving you something to think about it gave you bridge for incels. Now those incels could collect baseball cards, too. Pretty soon there was a giant pile of money and people came to D&D through fucking Pokemon. And I think computers fucked it up for everyone. The massive milsim tabletop shit went right the fuck away as soon as you could give a computer the overhead. Ever play Car Wars? I reckon not. Turns are divided into ten phases, each turn takes a second, entirely so that the physics of vehicular combat can be properly addressed. A good and proper autoduel takes an hour and a half, two hours to play out but represents ten to fifteen seconds of real time; actual Car Wars racing rules allow you to condense all non-mediated turns by 10x or 100x because if you aren't cutting someone off or shooting at them the results don't really matter. Car Wars hit its peak about 1992, 1993... fast forward to 1995:
Yeah, I never got into the nitty-gritty of Battletech lore. Picked up one book and didn't finish it, because it spent 40 pages setting up a dozen people who then get wasted in the span of a paragraph or two. It'd be like the first hour of The Rock was filmed from the perspective of those soldiers who get killed off in the showers. You won't find me objecting to blaming anything on MtG, but I have no knowledge of that in your part of the world. Here? I know D&D was just some import-exclusive game that costed an arm and a leg, required real English proficiency, and had no less than a dozen strong competitors all the way until the 3rd edition came in 2002-ish. It could be close to the top today, but it's still just one of the games to most folks. There was a phase when everyone and their mother wanted to play 5th edition in 2016-2018, but now it normalized again and it's no biggie to get 3-5 folks to play Neuroshima. As to computers, maybe? I know that when I play on platforms like roll20 and the like, it's a godsend to have all those mechanical macros. It helps to move players' focus from rolling and cross-referencing to fun and roleplaying even during chunkier parts of the game. It may not work as well for Car Wars or Phoenix Command and similar, but I wouldn't know.
The english thing makes total sense to me. TSR was never particularly internationalist. More... orientalist. My entire life it was a bookish nerd thing. zero of my non-white friends touched D&D. TMNT? Yeah that one had reach. Battletech was for the anime nerds, back when "anime nerds" had Akira, Robotech and two or three things that showed up on the Sci Fi Channel at 5 in the morning. The whole Steve Jackson Games thing was a whole different group of weirdos, basically white nerds who hated fantasy. Wizards of the Coast should get credit for that, they were the first people to think that maybe these games should be internationalized. It's the basic problem with Battletech, too - if you're heavily into it, the lore reinforces it. If you're not, the lore is out of reach because it's so poorly executed. But fuck, man, 40 frickin' years later and "Kearny-Fuchida hyperdrive" is still wedged in my brain. The whole culture around Mechwarrior was kind of a shitty extension of Dune but compared to fuckin' Star Frontiers it was Cormac McCarthy. Computers allowed the more gamey-games to go from "simulating having fun" to "having fun."
Typing this out from a log on a beach where I’ve decided to take my lunch break. Mountains are out to the west and to the southeast. There’s a shipping container returning to the pacific. Last Thursday I learned there was a period of time where my employment was in jeopardy, roughly November to February, as me and my team were moved from R&D to Quality. A very frank conversation with the VP of my department, and one I benefited from. It did result in anxiety the rest of that day, then a bit of anger, then empowerment that I’m still here, and a great amount of respect for my direct boss for the support he provided during that time period. Now I’m being told by everyone how good of a manager I am, to keep doing what I’m doing, and that I have a lot of options in what I could do next here. Life’s good. Have a climbing trip this weekend. Have a lot of climbs planned. Meeting some great new people and friends from climbing groups on Facebook, of all places. Putting myself first and understanding what I want out of life…and realizing how much of it is about place. kleinbl00 I think I’m moving slightly closer to ending the search for the greenest grass.
Things are going down south at a rapid pace at work due to corporate overlords making certain decisions. I'm angry and disappointed but I'm pretty dure these decisions won't be reverted despite 70-80% opposition from my colleagues. Or put another way, I feel like it's naive not to start looking around for something else when everything that made working here great is on the balance. Any advice is much appreciated. At least the job market's good...
Go shop yourself around. Your new overlords clearly don't care much about loyalty and the old guard is likely already out there. Also keep in mind that you can freely and safely reach for careers virtually unrelated to the one you have now and that you can apply for stuff that you will feel is out of reach - in growing your authority as rapidly as you have your resume will demonstrate breadth and aptitude. Any employer worth their salt will hire an under-qualified problem-solver over a qualified seat-filler, especially in smaller, niche employment. My wife and I have basically divided our hires into two categories: "employees" and "entrepreneurs." "Employees" will do the job we hire them to do for as long as it's convenient and profitable for them and then they will do the exact same job somewhere else. "Entrepreneurs" are yours for as long as you can keep them busy and challenged and the more you diversify their workload the more valuable they become. No judgement on either group of people: "Employees" just figure their life is elsewhere and this is that job that they knew they'd have to get when they graduated school. "Entrepreneurs" want their daily routine to mean something. We lose "employees" to family shit or relocation - of the four we've lost, three have had babies and straight-up never came back to work. We lose "entrepreneurs" to greater opportunities - two have gone into practice for themselves (one came back, one moved to Minnesota), two have gone on to get higher degrees (one of them is now at a hospital we transport to regularly, one is coming back). My wife's guiding principle as an employer is one she learned from her first boss, who we're still in touch with and hang out with regularly: "make sure your employees leave your employ as better people than they came in." We pay for education. We emphasize autonomy. We manage as little as humanly possible. And while I recognize that some bosses just suck, any organization worth working with will recognize that you're contracting for a talented individual's expertise in exchange for reselling it to someone else and the most valuable people to manage are the ones that naturally want to stretch.
You hit the nail on the head. They're gonna get our group of entrepreneurs and force it into a megacorp of employees, and I just don't see that work no matter what they say. Entrepreneuring requires freedom, autonomy, the ability to tell management to fuck off. None of that will be the case because it doesn't fit the mold. Honestly, I am having a hard time thinking of things that would be out of reach (feels like they're in my 'unknown unknowns') but you make a very interesting point. In hindsight I'm happy I made the career moves I did the past year or two because it's given me much more confidence in my abilities to do other types of work.
Yeah I was gonna say "well, I don't know that we want our employees to tell us to fuck off" but yeah, a few of 'em get real strident about stuff just because "strident" is where they live and you're right, we roll our eyes and smooth back their fur and pat them on their heads and let them come around to the thing that we knew wasn't anathema to them, it was just new and it's going to be okay. And yeah, every major decision we've had to make that impacts the way our hires work or live has been workshopped extensively 'cuz frankly? The less we have to do to keep the place running the more time we have to do other shit. Managing unhappy people sucks. We've never had to do it where the cause of the unhappiness was us, and I'ma bust my ass to keep it that way. You're a talented guy with a diverse set of interests and if you apply for a bunch of random shit by saying "my opportunities for career growth are stunted under new management" who knows what you'll find. I mean, shoot the moon. Go apply to be an astronaut or something. Map the Marianas Trench. Establish a bicycle collective in Vanuatu. I reckon there's going to be... a lot of civil planning in Ukraine in another 18-24 months. Future-shaping amounts.
Always support getting out early and while you are ahead. Doesn’t sound like there’s much indication that things will change in a way you support?
In rapid succession I've gone from n00b junior specialist, to medior specialist, to near-senior specialist, decided I was fed up with GIS work and moved laterally to a medior consultant position partway through last year. I have attained an esoteric track record of projects in all corners of sustainable transportation policy. On the plus side, that means I have a cursory knowledge of a lot of other places to work; on the minus side, none of them jump out at me right now as the place to go to.
Way to make that lateral move. Only a couple from my GIS cohort wants to stay in GIS. It seems the natural progressions are (1) become data specialists/DB admins/Architects or (2) transition to manager in field of interest that GIS afforded exposure to. With this in mind, is it fair to state your interest is management/consultation of sustainable transit? Is there an emphasis on type of transit or what aspect of sustainability? Asking since I have a relatable experience in the field you transitioned out of (great job, btw), and I want to understand if there is overlap between in your role now and interests of EU companies I’ve done work with for renewables. Not because I have an in per se, but hoping to provide an adjacent field to consider. Also, jfc, kb’s first two paragraphs sums up some key realizations I had during my time between jobs recently that I am still sorting through. After your response, I’ll see if I can collate relevant advice from my time job hunting to add to that.
Severances are part of federal labor laws, so it's more of an eligibility question. A cursory look leads me to believe I won't be eligible unless they actually fire me, which doesn't seem likely as they can't fire without six months notice as I have an indefinite contract. Might be worth looking in to though.
Well it’s morning here, but I’m quite tempted to pour myself a glass of whiskey anyways for this pubski. It feels like forever since I made this post: I returned home about a month after posting. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the advice from ThatFanficGuy, goobster, and kleinbl00. In the end, for various reasons, the time wasn’t right to further pursue opportunities out there. Partially I was just so far out in the boonies with no real opportunities for advancement/networking/doing anything else. Mostly I just didn’t trust myself to actually execute any of the big ideas I had developed since that post. I did a somewhat desperate search for other options and landed on going to business school. Which let me tell you, is a discordant path for me. I’ve spent quite a long time with a strong dislike towards the typical finance/consulting bros that gravitate towards MBA programs and the overall culture that they seem to have. That being said, the more I’ve researched and talked to people the more I think it is the right path. Anyways, the whole point of all this context is that I’ve had a pretty significant life change while in the application process. I struggled HARD to write a single goddamn thing for essays. I have so many damn ideas and stories to tell but simply couldn’t sit down and put them on paper, despite spending hours in front of my computer. I’ve always had trouble focusing on things in the past, especially writing (which has been a large reason I don’t post often here), and this was the final straw. I talked to a doctor, who diagnosed me with ADHD and prescribed meds (shoutout to the SF VA, this all happened within 24 hours). This was about a week ago, and I just have such an incredibly hard time putting into words how life changing this has been. I mean HOLY SHIT. The ability to have a task, that I want and need to do, and ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO DO IT?? I used to spend hours/days on the simplest things, blaming myself the whole time for being extraordinarily lazy. The first couple paragraphs of this article could easily have been about me. And the other things, my god. My head feels calm, like a storm has cleared. I can actually listen to people, process what they’re saying, and respond coherently. I went to a climbing gym and actually enjoyed it-I feel like I’ve been going through the motions for years. I can’t remember the last time that I wasn’t immediately bored after the first climb. It feels like a key has opened the rest of my life. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky in a lot of ways, and I dragged myself kicking and screaming through a career and life that has set me up well. And now I feel able to accomplish the things I’ve always dreamed of. In the past week, I’ve either interviewed at or have received invitations for every single school that I’ve applied to (including several schools I never ever dreamed I would be able to attend). Feeling happy and hopeful. Anyways here’s a nice picture from bouldering on the beach:
Work is flying me out on a solo three week conference + study tour that will incorporate both sides of the US, Vancouver, the UK and Amsterdam. I leave the weekend after this one. The amount of stuff I have to get through before I board the flight out of Melbourne is so large I can't even find the time to get excited.
You're out in New Mexico, aren't you? I'm doing NYC, Ann Arbor / Detroit and Redmond / Seattle. If you find yourself in any of these places, I could use some guidance on drinking American beer.
Seattle, with ButterflyEffect, goobster and snoodog. America is currently dealing with a bizarre chain of events: (1) InBev used private equity to take over Anheuser Busch, makers of Budweiser (2) AB-InBev rationalized that boutique microbrews were more profitable than Budweiser, so threw all their purchase power and marketing into scooping up boutique microbrews (3) The shelves of every grocery store filled with $3/bottle IPA which no one wanted to drink (4) White Claw and others realized that no one really liked IPA and no one could make any beer but IPA anymore so they started selling "hard selzer" (wine coolers) (5) AB-InBev flooded the market with non-beers, which no one wanted to buy, because for some reason White Claw is cool but Hamm's Hard Iced Coffee is not (imagine that) It is my considered opinion that the only drinkable American beer left is Sam Adams. Meanwhile the beer landscape is so degenerate that it's difficult for me to find anything other than Corona or Heineken. Like, you simply cannot buy Killian's or Kirin without hitting a specialty store. When I was in LA I drank Baltika 7 for the simple fact that it was cheap and not half as wretched as anything else I could find. Wherever you are you're likely to find something "local" that you should drink because the locals will think it is good. Nod politely.
I was at a standard micro brewery yesterday. 12 different IPAs on tap. One Kolsch. One Amber. One dark amber/porter. One oatmeal stout. Two ciders. I had the Kolsch first (thank god people are making this amazing, highly drinkable and pleasant beer!), and then the amber. But, by and large, American beers are a waste of time. Undrinkable pucker-inducing bitter swill. Brewing has been around for centuries, and there's a reason people made pilsners and kolsch and dark beers; they were drinkable by anyone at any time. And there's a reason people make IPAs; they are the easiest and shortest time to brew, so you can churn out more of it in less time with less skill than any other brew. It's just economics with good marketing backing it up. But it still tastes terrible.
All right. I'm staying in the middle of Redmond. If you or ButterflyEffect or the gang anyone feel like a drink on the 14th - 17th, let me know. I might well be able to do this.
Somebody tag me, or kb can text me, if there’s a meet up! Making these kind of things is easier for me now than in the past, because reasons, with the exception of when I’m off in the mountains.
Everybody's drinking Foster's right now, there are no other beers available. Every microbrew brews two: a Foster's Lager inspired homebrew and a Foster's Premium mimic homebrew. You are going to feel right at home! kleinbl00 was actually the first to introduce me to this delicious type of native beer, first brewed by the aborigines. He'll be in touch!
I do not believe I have seen Foster's for sale in Australia since I was a teenager. How is it possible that people in the United States are still drinking it?
He's making a funny. Foster's very much exists in the USA because it's like buying a 40 of Budweiser except you can pretend to be cosmopolitan. It does not, however, have much in the way of market dominance any longer. Carlton bought out the Olympia Brewery in the mid '90s, as well as Clearly Canadian. Thus, Foster's was produced indigenously from 1994 to 2003. It still has shelf presence, but no more so than Asahi, Chimay or Saporro.
Yeah sorry, I had to, it's like a running joke with my sister in Melbourne. There aren't many places here you can buy a Foster's, either. There are plenty of non-IPA (and IPA) local microbrews that you'll get into here. But yeah you might have to visit some of the breweries directly or go to a somewhat-specialty store, but there are plenty of both. I hope you have a good time! You should do a trip report, I'd love to hear about your experience. Call everyone "cunt"! (no, don't)
I've always been sensitive to the argument that choosing the lesser of two evils means you're choosing less evil. However, I think I'm going to put myself down for "abstain" given the likely choice in 2024. Maybe hope that an independent can peel off a single state, and that can deny the EC to either guy, forcing a compromise solution. I fully realize the unlikelihood of that outcome.
1) Be exhausting 2) Create exhaustion 3) Point to the exhaustion, say "aren't you exhausted" 4) Use the low voter turnout caused by exhaustion to win It's extremely fashionable to shit on Biden because nobody cool endorses politics of any kind, right? Giant Meteor 2024? But at this point a vote for the Democrats is a vote for "government" and a lack-of-vote is a vote for "yeah fukkit the anarchy of 2016-2020 was actually the right direction, drink bleach, this is fine". This is Ralph Nader Jill Stein Strom Thurmond bullshit and you know it.
You're correct that a vote between government and anarchy maybe could still convince me to vote democratic. But my central issue with Biden is that he's decided that the the far left side of the spectrum is the only part that matters, because fuckit, everyone else is going to continue to vote for "government" over chaos, and the extreme leftys are the ones who might get pissed and take their ball and go home. So while there's no chance of ever enacting a leftist agenda via legislating, the administration has decided that they just get to dictate the law. This is the logical conclusion of the abuse of executive orders that has been accelerating since the Iraq War. Each president keeps pushing the limits of what he can get away until the point where we're just executive ordering hundreds of billions of dollars worth of policy changes at the stroke of a pen. It's getting damn hard to support, and I think it's very destructive in the long run. The most unsexy thing one can say these days is that separation of powers matters. But it does.
Tell me more about this "far left side of the spectrum." What's on it? - legalizing weed? - reproductive rights? - gun control? - Student loan forgiveness? - Medicare for all? - Climate action? - transgender rights? - critical race theory? There's exactly one issue there that isn't 60% or more favored by the entire mutherfucking country. That one issue? definitely favored by those it affects (people with student loans) who are (a) young (b) democratic. Your whole "extreme leftys" viewpoint could be rewritten as "anyone under 30" who, due to Biden's "extreme left" agenda, actually turned out and voted. I hate to break this to you but abortion is legal in fight-the-real-enemy Ireland while here in the land of the free, home of the brave, the Republicans are going after no-fault divorce so I'm going to have to ask you to give me that Overton Window back, you've yanked it clear over to "whatever the Republicans do is conservative" rather than "conservative means 'let's not change things'". "Executive orders" is pure whataboutism and you're better than that. You know it. One party is firmly at "we'll crash the economy to prevent veterans from getting healthcare" while the other is at "let's roll back the AUMF" except no movement on that, we're too busy playing brinksmanship over Judy Blume books. The Judicial is busy going "I am the law", The Legislative is busy going "no money for woke Marines" and the Executive just announced re-election and you're at "the real problem these days, lemme tell ya, executive orders, maaaaan" like you live in some other country or something. You're gonna vote. You're not gonna vote Trump. And I get that this is all displeasingly lolbrooks academic to you but some of us are already underground railroading misoprostil so get your cranking out of your system and rejoin the human race. You wanna bitch about executive orders? Work towards functional legislative and judicial branches.
I won’t debate the merits of any of those policies, because you and I agree on policy more often than not. Where I will continue to be the scold is in the what’s-good-for-the-goose side of the coin. I can guarantee you that if you can create an albatross of a program with an executive order that the next Republican president will take us to places we’ve never dreamed of being. Trump took the example of Obama’s dreamers executive action and gave us the travel ban. President desantis will take the percent of the student loan forgiveness and give us the abortion gestapo or something. This isn’t academic chin stroking to me. It’s about imagining all the deranged shit that deranged people can dream up and put into action by executive fiat. It isn’t a good place.
My point is not "these are good policies" it's "these are centrist policies." They enjoy a plurality of support across the political spectrum. Just click one - nine out of ten Americans support some form of legal weed. By way of comparison, Trump selected Jeff "marijuana is the devil's lettuce" Sessions as his Attorney General before firing him for not being culture-warriory enough. Crazy executive orders? Eight days in, yo! The horse, as they say, has left the barn. By your logic, the correct move for the Biden administration is to come up with the most objectionably batshit executive orders they can think of just so they can provoke bipartisan legislation to limit executive orders for the good of the country. I can't believe you really think the Trump administration showed restraint when it came to executive orders. I can't believe you really think the Biden administration will somehow trod fresh ground that hasn't already been trampled to mud by Bush, Obama and Trump. I can fully believe that some part of you resists being painted by friends and relatives as some crazy Green New Deal liberal moonbat so you've gotta triangulate to "biden bad tho" despite any evidence to the contrary. You're in Michigan, yeah? Where the Republicans figured on kidnapping the governor to get their way? There's no "both sides" here. There's "government" and "fascist crazytown" and anyone who thinks the Republican Party is somehow going to do something reasonable between now and 2026 has not been paying attention.
Your argument is that, because the executive has grown too powerful, and the Biden admin has done nothing to blunt its own power, that'll cost them your vote, despite not necessarily disagreeing with the policies they've implemented? OK... in a world where Trump and the GOP were nothing like Trump and the GOP, I guess I could see how that might be a logical deal breaker. I'm not a fan of executive overreach, but we've sure as hell got "overreach" in the judicial as well. And overwhelmingly towards one side, to boot. But we live in a world where e.g. Trump and his lawyers just implored the House to change the laws to legalize his classified documents hoarding and obstruction of justice. And the House GOP will probably try to appease him, performatively, at least, despite the dem(-ish) Senate and the presidential veto. Does GOP vs. Democrat profusely affect your household income or taxation? Is your father-in-law Wormtongue and you're King Theoden in the first half of The Two Towers? Are you David Brooks Jr.? Because I can't think of anything else that explains your apparent confusion. I will hold my nose and vote Biden. He's been OK, considering the times we live in. I'll hope for better options in the future, and try to figure out what else I can do outside of voting to expedite that future.
The biggest shift in my perception of the world, as I have decided to go "you know what, I'll bet there's a reason things are so stupid," is changing my attitude from "things are stupid" to "why are things so stupid." It's extremely bad for democracy that the leadership of the United States since 2016 has been older than the leadership of the Soviet Union in 1984. That's not a consequence of Mitch McConnell bathing in the blood of virgins, though, it's a consequence of the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, a consequence of Citizens United and a consequence of the Permanent Apportionment Act. LIkewise, it's extremely bad for democracy that the principle method for political action has become the executive order. But ever since Newt Gingrich determined that the Republican Party would never again act in a bipartisan manner, it's the only real game in town. The fundamental problem, as I see it, is American democracy depends on a bunch of customs that one party has decided no longer apply to them so for 60 years, they've been attempting to pen-test the system into fascism. And for those 60 years, schools have been painting unicorns and rainbows and eliding bullshit like the Electoral College, Reconstruction and the Dred Scott decision. Americans have grown up thinking our government is this highly-polished, refined mechanism that rewards excellence and truth, rather than an archaic and outdated parliamentary nightmare with massive in-born advantages for oligarchy. And it doesn't matter to one side, because oligarchy is their whole goal... but the other side sees one punch that might not be according to Marquess of Queensbury rule and goes "that's it, I'm officially too cynical to participate in democracy and anyone who disagrees is a patsy." It fundamentally comes down to loyalty: one side demands that it be earned, the other side can bank on it through anything. It's not even a Republican-vs.-Democrat thing: the Kennedys had no problems with racism and prejudice but LBJ figured there were more Black votes than Southern votes so he cut the Democratic Party off at the roots. It could have gone the other way. If LBJ had been happy to stick with the old guard, Henry Cabot Lodge might have won in '64 rather than the guy who moved to Arizona so the racists had a place to live. But since it's "earn my loyalty" vs. "it's gonna take a lot to lose my loyalty" Republicans became the party of racism in about half an electoral cycle.
Some argue that the actual issue is the creation of the national security state, which created (effectively mandated) a disconnect between overt governance and secret control. For example note that some of the "bullshit" you cite did not prove an impediment to progress made prior to '64. In fact, one could argue that this focus on the political theatre is somewhat irrational given the implicit acknowledgement that the parties are disconnected from quaint notions of "American democracy". It is reasonable to challenge that with the reality of actual political conflict in the socio-political arena. As for this cynic, I see the partisan jostling as internal dynamics of an elite that compete for available social, economic, and (petty) political advantages and resources, (ab)using demographic characteristics to marshall support. tldr: I think the game of baseball perfectly captures the architecture of the american system. (hint: site sections can also be informative..)
No, my argument is that executive fiat shouldn't be used to remake the huge sectors of the economy, and that being allowed to do so will be economically ruinous in the long run. The student loan debacle and now the beyond moronic EV mandates are both multi hundred billion dollar follies that Congress hasn't even rubber stamped let alone debated. I have no confusion on any of this--I have very carefully considered opinions that are based on learning and reason and a lifetime of trying to create products that help people, which is hard and requires tradeoffs. But basing opinions on Twitter soundbites is viable option too, I guess.
I'm legitimately curious about your opinion on Cash for Clunkers.
I don't have a strong opinion either way, to be honest. I thought at the time that if you want to give a backdoor bailout to auto companies, then fine. It juiced some sales at a time when they were at historic lows. But positioning it as a climate action was laughably stupid, given that the most efficient car (in terms of life cycle) is one that already exists. There's no world in which a brand new Prius beats a 10-15 year old car of almost any fuel efficiency on total carbon footprint. But the total appropriation was small and it was duly enacted by Congress, so I didn't find it offensive to anything but my sense of science. I think it's impact was minimal, it helped some people get a new car, and probably bought some goodwill from people who took advantage of it. So sure, whatever. It's been 14 years though, so my memory of all the details has faded somewhat, I'm sure.
Yeah but look - they're definitely thinking outside the box. They put the mf'n ERA up to a vote again and Robert Reich is pushing to expand the house. Considering I spent like three man-weeks trying to get initiatives launched over these very tasks not two years ago? I'm actually heartened.
This is… movement I am hopeful for? I think I’ve cleared the doomerism hurdle at last. Expanding the house would dramatically change how gerrymandering plays out - at least to start. This doesn’t seem an unreasonable ask, logic-wise. Of course, logistics required and political inertia at present would argue otherwise without internal movement in the house. Thank you for bringing on my radar as something to dig in to. Gotta say, I’m way more optimistic than I have a right to be when I see democratic progressives speak. Though, it could be since I’m puzzling out my own out if things turn out for the better. While I’m not clear on the specifics, thank you for putting in the time to advance these.
See what happens when you make apathetic intellectuals care about politics is they turn into wonks. And wonks are where policy comes from. not always for the better! Elizabeth Warren is a born appointee. So's Buttigieg. So's Stephen Miller. The thing of it is? Conservative wonkishness is "let's overturn a 20-year-old FDA ruling based on a culture war battle a plurality of our party wishes we didn't fight." Liberal wonkishness is "hey remember when we thought women were the equals of men? Let's try that again."