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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • I don’t think I am describing any hypothetical voter switching? I’m defending the value of the poll as data, and describing how the poll’s data could be extrapolated into a projection of positive or negative vibes for a desired result by comparing outcomes against naive assumptions on how undecided voters might distribute their votes. Maybe you are talking about that? I don’t consider an undecided voter deciding how they will use their vote “switching” on an issue, and I tried to make it clear that I’m not saying anybody should count on any percentage of the undecided vote, just that you’d rather be in a position where you need fewer undecided voters to reach 50% vs more. I actually left out the nuance where opinions can change over the course of a campaign, causing voters to either switch or opt against voting, that does add uncertainty to an already uncertain process. Which is my point; your language is accusing “neoliberals” of “counting on votes”, and I’m just arguing that this poll doesn’t need to count on any votes to communicate a positive, if uncertain, picture of the potential future. Your comment feels like it would be more relevant on an opinion piece about this poll that says that this election is in the bag (kind of like how your original comment implied that this poll meant the election was in the bag as a no, as I read it), which is why I am confused. I’ll admit, I can’t read Icelandic, so I haven’t read the article attached to this headline, which is maybe where I am missing context, I’m just reading the headline and a translated excerpt from the comments, so maybe there is an argument being made elsewhere in the article that I’m unaware of. I’m sorry if my tone was accusatory, I’m trying to express my confusion as to why your reaction to my comment was to talk about neoliberals counting votes, which seemed tangential to the comment I made


  • Yes. But… This poll doesn’t do that. The headline calls out 44% as the top line number, which includes 0 undecided. The tone of the headline as positive news for those in favor of EU membership is based on an implicit assertion that only 30% of undecideds would be needed to clear the 50% mark, which is a pretty good margin of error on the 50/50 division that you might naively assign to a population you have no other data on, especially before you take into a count those who may opt not to vote. It’s also notable as an opinion poll for politicians actions outside of a direct referendum (not every issue will swing every vote, so knowing that this issue has more potential to swing votes towards vs. against you might encourage actions and rhetoric supporting a closer relationship with the EU. Finally, it’s relevant as a comparison point to prior polls on this issue (in 2017, for example, a quick Google search suggests that the average was more like -20 margin opposed to EU membership, so the transition to +8 in favor is significant). It feels like you are arguing a straw man here, but maybe I am the one missing context.





  • There was a lawsuit from the AFGE (federal employees union) I think that they had to drop because it relied on the assumption that DOGE was a federal agency. When it was revealed that DOGE was just a renaming of the US Digital Service, that invalidated the premise of the lawsuit. Idk how the USDS had money lying around in its budget for a bunch of new and unqualified GS-15s to just be added to the payroll like government billets aren’t painstakingly difficult to establish, but that is another question, I suppose


  • Starting at 0 would actually be silly for a normalized market index value graph like this one because the market going to true 0 is not a realistic situation. Or thought of another way, this graph is essentially zero-indexed, but 0 is marked as 100 on the Y axis. 90 in this case could be thought of as -10% value and that would be perfectly accurate. These kinds of graphs are usually misleading in other ways, usually by picking specific time ranges to represent or cut off on the X axis. For instance, you could argue that the value that Trump is erasing here is largely offset by the market gains from November to January that could be arguably attributed to speculative optimism about Trump winning the election and so the crash that is shown is actually just a market correction. One might point out that triggering a market bubble and subsequent correction is no matter of pride in response to that argument, but it is there


  • Low income taxes. And our sales tax is typically lower than European VAT when the comparison is valid. But those generally go to the feds and the state, that do not fund municipal services, so municipalities have to collect the remainder they need through property taxes, typically on real estate and cars. And none of them fund healthcare, so we have to pay a company premiums for that. Basically the same for higher education. When you look at our total financial burden to receive the kind of services that are funded by taxes in other developed countries, we can be deceptively expensive, especially if you start thinking about the comparative quality of those services. But our income and capital gains tax rates are low, especially if you are very rich! I made myself sad





  • Unethical life pro tip, depending on whether respecting others’ religious traditions is part of your ethics: no mass I’ve ever been to has checked identity before giving out communion. If you’ve got an hour to burn for a free tasteless chip and a sip of wine and backwash, just walk in with mild confidence, mimic others, and mumble along with the prayers, and people will probably just assume you usually go to mass at another time or are traveling. There’s no Eucharist police that’s going to tackle you halfway down the aisle and throw you in an inquisition dungeon because your papers don’t check out





  • I think that’s absolutely it. I’d bet reddit has a metric that shows that their “front page” algorithm is much more “effective” at retaining eyeballs and clicks than users who view subreddits directly, so disposing a feature that reduces friction on the less “effective” method of engagement will drive more users to the front page and the algorithmic capture that drives up Reddit’s metrics. Probably harder to serve ads on individual subreddit too because sponsored posts look more out of place when the content is less heterogeneous