Piketty, Now on Film
 

The book was dense and repetitive. The movie is a glossy primer on it from 30,000 feet. But it is entertaining, and if you're not familiar with the themes and policy prescriptions of the book, it's a good introduction: https://www.kinolorber.com/film/view/id/3801

The most salient points are delivered by Ian Bremmer. And if I can take a victory lap, which I will, in the argument about whether current tech displaces far more jobs than it creates, and is delivering an enhanced but also dystopian future, Bremmer sides with me. He all but says, "This time it is indeed different."

The explanations of rent-seeking and how financialization has created a closed economy of speculators simply trading assets back and forth is brilliantly delivered. I've not seen those points made in a way so accessible to the average person.

A cool final note on the movie is the app through which it is viewed (for only $12) benefits theaters shut down as a result of the virus.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

I’m the first generation in my fam to make college. Good for you to be, at least, 3rd generation. #sebby3rdgenprivilegedrivestgethirdpartyvotes.sadface

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

I thought this an odd comment on Donna Reed's nipples. Then I did a google search and the auto fill suggestions came back, "Donna Reed puffy nipples third party voters," and "Donna Reed puffy nipples prior generations of household to have attended college."

You take me to school every day, Hank.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

I just watched Flirting With Disaster again two weeks ago. Mary's in lingerie in one scene, and even in late sixties, she has a damn fine figure.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

PA is even better than MN. Ouch.

PA is a mix of extremes. Eastern side of the state from Philly to about 4/5 of the way to NY border is not racially charged. Not really helpful in fight against systemic racism either, as most of it seems uninterested in race issues.

But then you go to the middle of the state. "Oh myyyyy," as George Takei would say... That's truly Alabama. Openly racist enclaves abound. Confederate flags not uncommon.

York, Gov. Wolf's hometown, had race riots in the 90s.

Then you get to Pittsburgh, where things get normal again. It's not an area interested in diversity or race issues, but like the eastern side of the state, it's got a low volume of exercised bigots.

All things considered, PA is pretty lousy on race. It either doesn't pay attention to the issue (largely because its desperate just to survive because its economy is so awful) or it's openly bigoted. For MN to be worse than PA indicates Trump knew what he was talking about when he said he thought he could flip it.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

Minnesota gets real redneck real fast as you leave the cities. Meanwhile, a veto-proof majority of our City Council just voted to (if I can sort through all the misinformation and contradictory claims) take steps to defund and dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with . . . well, they have not gotten that far yet as far as I am aware, but I’m sure whatever they come up with will be fine. In the meantime, it is supposed to be 96 degrees and humid today, so I am urging everyone I know to play this out their windows on repeat all day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KEVdHKsi9w

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

Killer Mike has given a lot of good interviews since the Floyd killing. In each, he emphasizes the need to strategize and plan and make specific demands.

I understand the symbolism of defunding cops, but that forces the question, "What do we put in their place?" It'd be best to move with more strategy, like say:

1. Immediately taking all cops with a history of complaints off the street immediately;
2. Banning the acquisition and use of discarded military hardware by all police;
3. Banning the use of predictive police measures in inner cities (IBM and Palantir sell predictive software that, in coordination with cameras and racial profiling, basically turns many inner cities into versions of the movie Minority Report, none of which protects people in the inner cities as much it controls them, in the most Orwellian sense).

But the biggest pivot the movement needs to make is perhaps the hardest. It has to focus on the legislators who pass "tough on crime" laws and the courts that sentence people under them. These cops would not be emboldened to send four officers to deal with a suspected bad check if the legislature hadn't passed crazy laws that make such petty crimes on par with serious crimes.

The movement needs to target legislators who stand behind cruel and mindless laws and call them out as: (1) racists; and, (2) fiscally irresponsible. Jailing people drives up taxes needlessly and does nothing more than convert petty criminals into more serious criminals. The protestors should start demanding the resignations of judges that sentence harshly on small crimes and legislators who've run on tough on crime platforms. Make those fuckers defend themselves in the press.

Re: Piketty, Now on Film
 

Why does it matter to you whether tech displaces more jobs than it creates, as opposed to the same or fewer jobs?

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

Those are good long term goals, but the immediate effort is to assign the right resources to problems, rather than send armed and armored warriors, many of whom view the community as their enemy, into every situation.

It really shouldn't be controversial that we respond to traffic crashes with traffic enforcement (that doesn't need guns), overdoses with EMS and mental health crises with mental health professionals. The men with guns can be backup. You know, like most of the rest of the world.

Yeah, we don't have the staffing for all of that, in part because all the money goes to the police, but the system we have makes no sense and we need to change it.

But it's lots of fun having conversations with people who only heard "abolish the police" for the first time in the last week.

Re: Piketty, Now on Film
 

It doesn't really impact me. I just like being right.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

I don't disagree. That's why I suggested the first step is demilitarizing the police.

It's nuts that these guys have battered ram trucks, armored vehicles, all kinds of lethal hand combat weapons, and assault rifles.

Most of the serious violent crime involving guns was related to drug dealing. Why was drug dealing attractive? Because of the War on Drugs that rewarded such dealing with a huge risk premium. Take away that risk premium and you take away a large portion of the market, and with it the guns which market participants previously used to compete with one another.

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 

Pretty solid take on the NYT op-ed thing.

Re: Piketty, Now on Film
 

"Why do you care?"

"It doesn't impact me."

Uh, not what I asked, except I guess it is.

Re: Piketty, Now on Film
 

That was a bit flippant. But you framed the question oddly. It's not about "caring" as much as it is about predicting certain dystopian outcomes we might seek to avoid.

It's kind of like climate change. We know it's accelerating and it's going to cause huge problems, and yet we do little about it, and will likely never do enough until it's a calamity. But we have spotted the issue. We've gotten past the denying stage. When we do not act to adequately address it now, we're making a decision to deal with the consequences.

Tech's unique displacement of labor without creation of new industries compatible with the skill sets of that disrupted labor such that they could absorb that labor (meaning the labor is in most instances permanently obsolete) is something some of us see coming. But then some of us argue, citing Adam Smith, or some archaic economic "law" (there are very few of those, btw) that new jobs will always be developed that will replace all of the old ones. We have to get past that argument, just as we had to get past climate denial.

So if I "care" about anything, it would be this: Seeing the debate move to the next phase, the more interesting one that comes after denial has ended. The one where we examine the possibility of Keynes' "leisure dividend," or "leisure lifestyle" becoming a real thing. Ian Bremmer, a very lucid thinker, seems to be on the same page with me in terms of retiring the old argument that tech will bring more than adequate replacement jobs if we just give it enough time.

Re: Piketty, Now on Film
 

Literally no one here is having the debate that you want ended. Pretty much everyone is in favor of the government doing more than you support, which is not surprising since you are the person who voted Libertarian in the last election.