We are all Slave now.

[ferrets_bueller]

Quote:
I have just spent a week in Beijing talking to officials and intellectuals, many of whom are awed by his skill as a strategist and tactician…He [Yafei] worries that strategic competition has become the new normal and says that “trade wars are just the tip of the iceberg”.

…In Chinese eyes, Mr Trump’s response is a form of “creative destruction”. He is systematically destroying the existing institutions — from the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement to Nato and the Iran nuclear deal — as a first step towards renegotiating the world order on terms more favourable to Washington. Once the order is destroyed, the Chinese elite believes, Mr Trump will move to stage two: renegotiating America’s relationship with other powers. Because the US is still the most powerful country in the world, it will be able to negotiate with other countries from a position of strength if it deals with them one at a time rather than through multilateral institutions that empower the weak at the expense of the strong…

My interlocutors say that Mr Trump is the US first president for more than 40 years to bash China on three fronts simultaneously: trade, military and ideology. They describe him as a master tactician, focusing on one issue at a time, and extracting as many concessions as he can. They speak of the skillful way Mr Trump has treated President Xi Jinping. “Look at how he handled North Korea,” one says. “He got Xi Jinping to agree to UN sanctions [half a dozen] times, creating an economic stranglehold on the country. China almost turned North Korea into a sworn enemy of the country.” But they also see him as a strategist, willing to declare a truce in each area when there are no more concessions to be had, and then start again with a new front.
That's an FT reporter, via Tyler Cowen. __________________


Interesting, but I disagree. Trump has no strategy whatsoever. That gives him far too much credit. He takes random positions, reverses them, and then reverses the reversal when it is proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that his head is squarely up his posterior at all points of a particular issue.



I've been to China ten times in the last fifteen years. The Chinese really do have a long, long term outlook. Invest in Africa. Invest in infrastructure projects worldwide. Turn the South China Sea into a Chinese lake. Turn the outer provinces tame by infusing more Han people. Control the people with an internal intelligence apparatus that is extensive beyond anything Orwell could imagine.



Trump's long term strategy begins and ends with the question of whether a given policy leads to an opportunity for him to see that his actions...on any particular day...lead to praise from his base. He increases the possibility of praise by denying any previous position the base finds offensive, declaring it to be fake news. Change one's position and then excoriate anyone who points out that your position has changed.



In his own way, Trump is also Orwellian. Europe is now our enemy. Russia is now our friend. Except this week he claims he is harder on Russia than previous Presidents, and that Russia wants Democrats to win. And the EU and the USA will sing kumbaya on trade. If "random" is a strategy, Trump has one.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller

Quote:
I have just spent a week in Beijing talking to officials and intellectuals, many of whom are awed by his skill as a strategist and tactician…He [Yafei] worries that strategic competition has become the new normal and says that “trade wars are just the tip of the iceberg”.

…In Chinese eyes, Mr Trump’s response is a form of “creative destruction”. He is systematically destroying the existing institutions — from the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement to Nato and the Iran nuclear deal — as a first step towards renegotiating the world order on terms more favourable to Washington. Once the order is destroyed, the Chinese elite believes, Mr Trump will move to stage two: renegotiating America’s relationship with other powers. Because the US is still the most powerful country in the world, it will be able to negotiate with other countries from a position of strength if it deals with them one at a time rather than through multilateral institutions that empower the weak at the expense of the strong…

My interlocutors say that Mr Trump is the US first president for more than 40 years to bash China on three fronts simultaneously: trade, military and ideology. They describe him as a master tactician, focusing on one issue at a time, and extracting as many concessions as he can. They speak of the skillful way Mr Trump has treated President Xi Jinping. “Look at how he handled North Korea,” one says. “He got Xi Jinping to agree to UN sanctions [half a dozen] times, creating an economic stranglehold on the country. China almost turned North Korea into a sworn enemy of the country.” But they also see him as a strategist, willing to declare a truce in each area when there are no more concessions to be had, and then start again with a new front.
That's an FT reporter, via Tyler Cowen. __________________


Interesting, but I disagree. Trump has no strategy whatsoever. That gives him far too much credit. He takes random positions, reverses them, and then reverses the reversal when it is proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that his head is squarely up his posterior at all points of a particular issue.



I've been to China ten times in the last fifteen years. The Chinese really do have a long, long term outlook. Invest in Africa. Invest in infrastructure projects worldwide. Turn the South China Sea into a Chinese lake. Turn the outer provinces tame by infusing more Han people. Control the people with an internal intelligence apparatus that is extensive beyond anything Orwell could imagine.



Trump's long term strategy begins and ends with the question of whether a given policy leads to an opportunity for him to see that his actions...on any particular day...lead to praise from his base. He increases the possibility of praise by denying any previous position the base finds offensive, declaring it to be fake news. Change one's position and then excoriate anyone who points out that your position has changed.



In his own way, Trump is also Orwellian. Europe is now our enemy. Russia is now our friend. Except this week he claims he is harder on Russia than previous Presidents, and that Russia wants Democrats to win. And the EU and the USA will sing kumbaya on trade. If "random" is a strategy, Trump has one.

China is not an enemy, but it does seek world domination, and its game is indeed long: https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Year-.../dp/1250081343

[Adder]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Look at the neighborhoods and schools and opportunity for blacks where progressives live. Sure, an overtly racist policy in Alabama is horrible. But go to the projects which are always designed to be completely avoided by progressives.)

In Minneapolis, we're going through a huge fight over a periodic update to the comprehensive plan, in which the city has proposed a fairly large overhaul, in part as an attempt to address very stark racial disparities in our city and region. Realizing that we have good schools and access to parks and other amenities the large swathes of the southern part of the city that are currently zoned for single family homes, which happen to be very white and to have been redlined that way in the past, they proposed opening the whole city up to small multi-unit buildings up to four units, as a way to introduce greater variety and supply of housing, and thus indirectly ease access.

The result is an uproar from those very richest and whitest parts of the city, some of whom instead argue we should invest in the north side (stand in for "black part of the city", even though it's more complicated than that) so they have good parks and schools too. Nevermind the problem of funding for that, or if it's even possible or desirable to gentrify the north side.

Naturally, all of these rich white people who live in the city also view themselves as super progressive, and as standing against the evil developers who must be behind the plan to add housing to their neighborhoods.

Point being, people are real good at ignoring that they're standing up for racism.

(None of which is to argue that adding housing to those neighborhoods is really going to do all that much for racial disparities, but it is a chip against the foundation of our segregation)

[sebastian_dangerfield]

If you're born white, every single benefit you receive that grants you an advantage infects you and you fight any efforts to remove those advantages.

This isn't factual. The allegation that all white people fight to retain their advantages over non-whites cannot be supported with evidence. It can, however, be refuted with considerable evidence.

There are innumerable opportunities to exercise your agency to either make a choice to push back on those advantages. No one does.

To offer one small example, affirmative action did not derive exclusively from the efforts of blacks. To accept your argument, one has to believe that no whites were involved in the Civil Rights movement, or attempts to dismantle Jim Crow. That's simply untrue.

And when someone like Adder even mentions trying, people shit all over them for being overly liberal saps. But it's always white people doing the shitting. That goes for feminism, LGBT issues. Whatever.

Adder trends into naivete. Everyone agrees his heart is in the right place, but sometimes, he goes too far and says things one might hear during courtesy of the floor at a Berkeley Council Meeting.

And we're not talking about the most obvious examples--overt racism. We're talking about the built-in, systemic advantages that all whites enjoy (which takes us back to whether progressives are in fact as great a danger as outright racists.

I don't see a controversy here. I have distaste for progressives who are all about "awareness" (read "virtue signaling"), enjoy judging non-progressives negatively, but do nothing, and live in segregated communities. But that's not all progressives, and they're certainly not as bad as overt racists.

Where are the black people? Look at the neighborhoods and schools and opportunity for blacks where progressives live. Sure, an overtly racist policy in Alabama is horrible. But go to the projects which are always designed to be completely avoided by progressives.)

I don't think you can lay this at the feet of progressives. There are no exclusively progressive neighborhoods. Progressives live among moderates and conservatives.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

This isn't factual. The allegation that all white people fight to retain their advantages over non-whites cannot be supported with evidence. It can, however, be refuted with considerable evidence.

Did you read the article? If so, why did you feel compelled to offer this? Do you actually think Thurgreed is arguing that no white person has ever done anything to combat racism?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

And now for a different view:



That's an FT reporter, via Tyler Cowen.

This conclusion might stem from politicians generally being so unskilled. Look around the Senate or House and see if more than 30% of politicians are people who could run a lemonade stand.

Politics attracts lots of dead enders and dipshits (trust fund shmucks, people who sold daddy's business and needed something to do, private sector flameouts). You get a shit quality of candidate because you have to chose from people who'd want such a job and people who don't have skeletons in their closet. In the Bible Belt, a person has to claim pathological devotion to Jesus in a lot of locales to get elected.

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. He's blundered through the private sector, surely, but Trump has spent fifty years in it. This is more than 95% of politicians, and may cause a few Chinese folks to think he's a chess player.

They're deluded of course. But it's nice to think someone thinks he has a plan while Russia is laughing its ass off at the man.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Did you read the article? If so, why did you feel compelled to offer this? Do you actually think Thurgreed is arguing that no white person has ever done anything to combat racism?

I read the words he wrote. It struck me as unsupportable. If it was ironic, I retract.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I read the words he wrote. It struck me as unsupportable. If it was ironic, I retract.

The article and the book are about how every white person gets defensive in conversations about race. Thurgreed further shared how that has been his experience in working on diversity and inclusion too. I've got way less experience, but that sounds right to me. That's what he was talking about.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

China is not an enemy, but it does seek world domination[/url]

Right. That makes total sense.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

In Minneapolis, we're going through a huge fight over a periodic update to the comprehensive plan, in which the city has proposed a fairly large overhaul, in part as an attempt to address very stark racial disparities in our city and region. Realizing that we have good schools and access to parks and other amenities the large swathes of the southern part of the city that are currently zoned for single family homes, which happen to be very white and to have been redlined that way in the past, they proposed opening the whole city up to small multi-unit buildings up to four units, as a way to introduce greater variety and supply of housing, and thus indirectly ease access.

The result is an uproar from those very richest and whitest parts of the city, some of whom instead argue we should invest in the north side (stand in for "black part of the city", even though it's more complicated than that) so they have good parks and schools too. Nevermind the problem of funding for that, or if it's even possible or desirable to gentrify the north side.

Naturally, all of these rich white people who live in the city also view themselves as super progressive, and as standing against the evil developers who must be behind the plan to add housing to their neighborhoods.

Point being, people are real good at ignoring that they're standing up for racism.

(None of which is to argue that adding housing to those neighborhoods is really going to do all that much for racial disparities, but it is a chip against the foundation of our segregation)

Housing is cheap in most of the country, but in the parts of the country where the economy is the strongest, it is more or less impossible to make built-out areas denser and impracticable to add housing anywhere near jobs, with the result that demand increases, supply is stagnant, and prices go up. You can think of the Bay Area economy as an elaborate exercise in transferring wealth from the rest of the world via tech companies like Apple, Google and Facebook to affluent homeowners, who stand ready to oppose any effort that might change the character of their neighborhoods, which is to say to hurt the value of their house, which has become the middle class's biggest asset. Adding density threatens this very directly. It's hard not to sympathize a little bit with an elderly man or woman whose house has become very valuable, and those people are very good at voting in local elections.

Telling the story the way I just did omits the racial angle, which is a big part of it too.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Adder

In Minneapolis, we're going through a huge fight over a periodic update to the comprehensive plan, in which the city has proposed a fairly large overhaul, in part as an attempt to address very stark racial disparities in our city and region. Realizing that we have good schools and access to parks and other amenities the large swathes of the southern part of the city that are currently zoned for single family homes, which happen to be very white and to have been redlined that way in the past, they proposed opening the whole city up to small multi-unit buildings up to four units, as a way to introduce greater variety and supply of housing, and thus indirectly ease access.

The result is an uproar from those very richest and whitest parts of the city, some of whom instead argue we should invest in the north side (stand in for "black part of the city", even though it's more complicated than that) so they have good parks and schools too. Nevermind the problem of funding for that, or if it's even possible or desirable to gentrify the north side.

Naturally, all of these rich white people who live in the city also view themselves as super progressive, and as standing against the evil developers who must be behind the plan to add housing to their neighborhoods.

Point being, people are real good at ignoring that they're standing up for racism.

(None of which is to argue that adding housing to those neighborhoods is really going to do all that much for racial disparities, but it is a chip against the foundation of our segregation)

I'm not nearly as up to speed on the 2040 Plan debate as many are. But if you are conceding that adding a greater variety of housing to those neighborhoods might not do much, if anything, to address racial disparities, why is it "standing up for racism" to complain about a plan that might not do much if anything to address racial disparities? This is a serious question because most people I know have extremely strong opinions (on both sides) about the 2040 Plan, but not a lot of facts or evidence backing up the opinions.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

So I am no fan of the game where different governments bid against each other with tax incentives to attract businesses. But if you accept that that's the game, then maybe this is just a negotiating move in that game. San Francisco previously rejiggered its corporate taxes to shift the burden to tech firms, essentially (I oversimplify). Twitter, notoriously, told SF that it was going to leave the city because of the tax burden. SF then gave Twitter (and others) a tax break to move to mid-Market. If Peskin's proposal passes, you can think of that as an indirect tax on tech firms, and future city leaders can decide to give it back as tax breaks again. Part of the background is that SF thought for a while that it was missing out on the tech jobs created by Apple and Google and others down on the Peninsula and in the Valley, but more recently companies want to be in the city because that's where twenty-somethings want to live, rather than the suburbs. From that perspective, the tax burden ebbs and flows with the city's perceived competitive advantage.

But to your point, the tax break that Twitter got was a six-year break from a city tax that was higher than other city's taxes. It's not like it was a subsidy, from that perspective.

And in the bigger perspective, businesses that depend on foot traffic are going away, relatively, because it's so easy and attractive now to buy things on-line, whether it's having goods shipped by Amazon or food delivered by Uber Eats. That's where the economy is going. Restauranteurs need to adapt, not outlaw newer options. It's a challenge for cities to revitalize neighborhoods in this new world, but they need a better playbook than Peskin's.

I haven't and am not planning on digging into this that deep. But I'm not talking about delivery vs. walk-in food. I'm talking about fully self-contained companies that are essentially closed off campuses in the city. Google does it in NY. It destroys local businesses and if companies are promising a huge benefit to local economies, I don't think eliminating cafeterias for businesses of a certain size is out of control protectionism stifling progress.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

One suggestion from Joelle Emerson in that book I haven't gotten back from my boss is that a way to combat unconscious bias in hiring is to move to structured interviewing, because the focus on specific things in an interview leaves less room for assumptions and confirmation bias, etc. I love that suggestion and am trying to figure out how to make it happen where I work.

Yes. We've have moved towards this model as well. A lot of it has to do with listing the types of questions we want to ask and limiting the subjectivity of the possible review. Difficult to achieve, but if you make the review form multiple choice with carefully-chosen descriptors and adjectives, it tends to eliminate a lot of bullshit.

TM

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

But if you are conceding that adding a greater variety of housing to those neighborhoods might not do much, if anything, to address racial disparities, why is it "standing up for racism" to complain about a plan that might not do much if anything to address racial disparities?

Because the status quo is the result of and perpetuates segregation. Also, maybe it will do something:

“A survey of localities in the 25 largest U.S. metropolitan areas showed that low-density-only zoning, which restricts residential densities to fewer than eight dwelling units per acre, consistently reduced rental housing; this, in turn, limited the number of Black and Hispanic residents.”

link

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Adder

In Minneapolis, we're going through a huge fight over a periodic update to the comprehensive plan, in which the city has proposed a fairly large overhaul, in part as an attempt to address very stark racial disparities in our city and region. Realizing that we have good schools and access to parks and other amenities the large swathes of the southern part of the city that are currently zoned for single family homes, which happen to be very white and to have been redlined that way in the past, they proposed opening the whole city up to small multi-unit buildings up to four units, as a way to introduce greater variety and supply of housing, and thus indirectly ease access.

The result is an uproar from those very richest and whitest parts of the city, some of whom instead argue we should invest in the north side (stand in for "black part of the city", even though it's more complicated than that) so they have good parks and schools too. Nevermind the problem of funding for that, or if it's even possible or desirable to gentrify the north side.

Naturally, all of these rich white people who live in the city also view themselves as super progressive, and as standing against the evil developers who must be behind the plan to add housing to their neighborhoods.

Point being, people are real good at ignoring that they're standing up for racism.

(None of which is to argue that adding housing to those neighborhoods is really going to do all that much for racial disparities, but it is a chip against the foundation of our segregation)

Yes. I've seen facebook posts from people I went to school with asking for support in their fight against these changes. So much easier to do when you don't have to actually say, "We don't want integration." It's all innocuous language that means the exact same thing these days.

TM