patrick.net

@wanyeburkett

Basic propositions that inform my worldview:

* People vary. Most traits are normally distributed.

* Intelligence varies and is largely heritable. (And, yes, IQ tests measure something that approximates it.)

* The United States maintains a fairly generous welfare state that's at the same time cruelly administered. Nobody starves and lots of money is spent, but it's easy to fall through the cracks if nobody is helping you, because of the adversarial nature of the bureaucracy that gatekeeps access.

* Incentives obviously matter and clearly there are people at the margins who, given an easy path to do nothing, will choose that over maximizing their full human potential. This is bad for them as much as it is for everybody else.

* Crime is bad and addressing it is a core function of the state. If the state didn't exist, then I would be free to track down and take revenge on those who might hurt me. We trade away that right for a guarantee from the state that they will handle it.

* It should be legal to build housing. Many of our problems are downstream of housing affordability. The main impediment to support for more housing is the crime and disorder Americans associate with dense cities. That crime and disorder is real and YIMBYs have to face it head on by supporting polices that address it.

* Capitalism and markets are good, both in that they maximize human freedom and choice and in the happy coincidence that they also make us rich in the process like no other force in human history.

* A very small percentage of all people are hyper-productive and inventive and it's completely rational for us to reward them proportionally. Again, people vary and, no, not everybody can do what they do.

* Inequality, therefore, isn't a big deal or, rather, it's mainly a big deal only to the extent that it makes people irrationally feel bad, which is exacerbated by the constant media drumbeat about how bad it is. (Many such cases.)

* Having children is a core human experience. Having as many core human experiences as you can is probably a good default approach to life.

* Too many people go to college. (This is another area in which extreme generosity in the form of low-interest loans with extremely favorable terms is completely ignored and even described as predatory.)

* The country you live in is fairer and more generous than you've been told (as many of these items argue) and you'd be happier if you practiced gratitude instead of resentment.

7:02 AM · Dec 6, 2023

Patrick says

Absolve all patients from legal liability for medical care bills they did not agree to in writing in advance of treatment, aside from emergency care.

https://x.com/wanyeburkett/status/1732415313138823189

wanyeburkett
Basic propositions that inform my worldview:

* People vary. Most traits are normally distributed.

* Intelligence varies and is largely heritable. (And, yes, IQ tests measure something that approximates it.)

* The United States maintains a fairly generous welfare state that's at the same time cruelly administered. Nobody starves and lots of money is spent, but it's easy to fall through the cracks if nobody is helping you, because of the adversarial nature of the bureaucracy that gatekeeps access.

* Incentives obviously matter and clearly there are people at the margins who, given an easy path to do nothing, will choose that over maximizing their full human potential. This is bad for them as much as it is for everybody else.

* Crime is bad and addressing it is a core function of the state. If the state didn't exist, then I would be free to track down and take revenge on those who might hurt me. We trade away that right for a guarantee from the state that they will handle it.

* It should be legal to build housing. Many of our problems are downstream of housing affordability. The main impediment to support for more housing is the crime and disorder Americans associate with dense cities. That crime and disorder is real and YIMBYs have to face it head on by supporting polices that address it.

* Capitalism and markets are good, both in that they maximize human freedom and choice and in the happy coincidence that they also make us rich in the process like no other force in human history.

* A very small percentage of all people are hyper-productive and inventive and it's completely rational for us to reward them proportionally. Again, people vary and, no, not everybody can do what they do.

* Inequality, therefore, isn't a big deal or, rather, it's mainly a big deal only to the extent that it makes people irrationally feel bad, which is exacerbated by the constant media drumbeat about how bad it is. (Many such cases.)

* Having children is a core human experience. Having as many core human experiences as you can is probably a good default approach to life.

* Too many people go to college. (This is another area in which extreme generosity in the form of low-interest loans with extremely favorable terms is completely ignored and even described as predatory.)

* The country you live in is fairer and more generous than you've been told (as many of these items argue) and you'd be happier if you practiced gratitude instead of resentment.

Fuck credit and figure out how to get cash.

WookieMan says

Fuck credit and figure out how to get cash.

What about "rewards"?

Eliminate the FBI, CIA, NSA, NIH, FDA, and CDC in particular, with their functions transferred to the states, as is written in the Constitution.

Yesterday, TechCrunch ran a spooky story headlined, “Former NSA head joins OpenAI board and safety committee.” Because ChatBots need the very best deep state security expertise. I’m reassured. Are you reassured?

After decades of leading domestic spying operations (including those exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden), General Paul M. Nakasone, 60, just retired from his job commanding U.S. Cyber Command and directing the NSA in February. Apparently unsatisfied with the slow pace of his retirement, a few weeks later, the nation’s top spook is now joining A.I. giant OpenAI, on its board of directors, and also to supervise its “trust and safety” operations.

Because of course.

This isn’t the first time TechCrunch reported on General Nakasone’s various public-facing operations. In January — right before the general “retired” — the tech magazine ran a story exposing Nakasone’s secretive, quasi-illegal interface with big data...

One month after that story broke, Nakasone retired and went to OpenAI. He’s obviously the perfect man for the job, depending on what you think his new job will be.

Corporate media has fussily ignored this story. Media will never ever push OpenAI to explain why the head of the NSA was a good fit for an “open” organization — it’s right in the name! — allegedly committed to trust and transparency. OpenAI has been touting the spy chief’s expertise in security and privacy.

It’s a nifty excuse. But the General’s job running the NSA was never to protect consumer data. It was to hide stuff and spy on citizens.

In other words, the NSA’s entire raison d’etre is mass surveillance, signals intelligence, and shielding its activities from public scrutiny. Nakasone’s core competencies were spying on people, finding ways to circumvent or creatively interpret privacy laws, and keeping potentially controversial practices hidden—not exactly qualifications you'd normally look for in an advocate for transparency and ethics.

But looking at the glass half full, it was a good move to help protect the AI developer from unprofitable government regulation. If it’s in business with the security agencies, Congress will avoid OpenAI like a vampire fleeing a hall of mirrors. They have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.

It was probably inevitable. It’s happened again and again, in countless other authoritarian examples throughout history — from the KGB in the Soviet Union to the Stasi in East Germany to the SAVAK in Iran under the Shah — to the point it’s become axiomatic: A nation’s ungovernable secret police must have a stake in everything. Anything they can’t control is a potential threat.

Eliminate all regulations and rules. There must be only laws enacted by elected representatives of the people. No deferral to "experts" or unelected administrators, ever. If this hinders administrations and slows down the creation of laws, all the better.

Another biggie case pending (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo; Relentless v. Department of Commerce) will determine whether executive agencies of the US Government (e.g., the EPA, CDC, Depts. of Energy, Education, Commerce, etc.) can issue regulations as if they have the force of law — that is, push citizens and businesses around by fiat where the law is ambiguous or nonexistent. A lot has changed since SCOTUS initially sought to define the scope of agency authority in their 1984 decision known as Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The federal bureaucracy has become an unaccountable behemoth, issuing sometimes arbitrary and capricious regulations that make it increasingly difficult to accomplish anything in our country. It has also enabled much of the government’s monkey business around Covid. This court appears to lean towards overturning Chevron.

Government officials must be held personally financially responsible for illegal or unethical behavior, such as passing the PREP Act.

The government giveth to pharma shareholders. And the government taketh away from everybody else. The PREP Act’s deployment during covid might have been the biggest, most harmful, and most expensive wealth transfer in history. It is a giant gold wrecking ball decorated with dollar signs.

It is bizarrely designed. Congress never actually approved Pfizer’s immunity. That mind-blowing act of deleting millions of citizens’ legal rights was done unilaterally and in secret by the Secretary of HHS, under Biden’s orders. Congress passed the terrible, badly-conceived, poorly-implemented PREP Act for safety, but nobody ever really thought it would ever be used at scale. ...

After six laborious months of research and hard work, yesterday my firm filed our new lawsuit seeking to strike down the PREP Act. We’re calling the complaint Moms for America vs. Becerra. It weighs in at around 100 pages. Here’s the link.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/t5z88avymrr65mv7q5s7b/20240625-Complaint-Moms-v.-Becerra.Doc-01.pdf?rlkey=diixuu49xqal5xtl8f2paioe5&e=1&dl=0

Impose an absolute ban on dual citizenship, because it always creates conflicting loyalties. China prohibits dual citizenship for this reason.

ALL dual citizenship, without any "Concordat" exceptions.

AmericanKulak Tell me more about this Concordat. I see only references to the Catholic Church.

Examples of those in religious occupations include missionaries, counselors, translators, religious instructors, cantors, and other pastoral care providers

Issue permanent shoot-to-kill orders against anyone invading US borders.

Here is what Kennedy will do for Health Freedom once he is in the Whitehouse:

✓ All vaccines must be subject to pre-license placebo-controlled studies, just as other pharmaceutical products are.

✓ End financial conflicts of interest that plague the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institute of Health (NIH), and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via executive orders.

✓ Make it illegal for any government agency to financially benefit from any pharmaceutical product regulated or licensed by the government.

✓ Sign and implement a treaty banning all gain-of-function research globally.

✓ Direct the NIH and Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to end the practice of allowing pharmaceutical companies to advertise their products to the public.

✓ Work with Congress to restore Americans’ Seventh Amendment rights to sue in court and complete the liability shield given to pharmaceutical companies by the 1986 Vaccine Injury Compensation Act.

✓ Support prosecution against major medical journals for racketeering with pharmaceutical companies unless they agree to end their fraudulent publication practices (such as retracting valid science, publishing false information, and acting on behalf of pharmaceutical company interests).

✓ Terminate grants to infectious disease specialists and virologists, then redirect those funds to identify the sources of chronic disease epidemics.

✓ Open up NIH databases to produce highly accurate peer-reviewed studies almost instantaneously to benefit the health of all Americans.

✓ Ban any scientist currently on the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) or Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) that has allowed medications and vaccines to get to the American public in an unsafe manner and end access to NIH funding for these scientists for at least 8 years as punishment for the harm they have done to the public.

Support prosecution against major medical journals for racketeering with pharmaceutical companies unless they agree to end their fraudulent publication practices (such as retracting valid science, publishing false information, and acting on behalf of pharmaceutical company interests).

The seminal event in expanding the commerce clause’s interpretation was the 1937 Supreme Court case National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. ...

This decision introduced the “substantial effects” doctrine, which seems reasonable enough. While labor relations certainly aren’t in the realm of interstate commerce, the case could be made that regulating labor relations is a necessary and proper step to regulate interstate commerce. But then, in 1942, we get the real kicker: the “aggregate effects” doctrine. ...

The Court, with its Jones and Laughlin and Wickard v. Filburn decisions, gave Congress a free pass to do almost anything it wants. And it certainly has.

I agree.

Prosecution is absolutely necessary.

Patrick says

Impose an absolute ban on dual citizenship, because it always creates conflicting loyalties. China prohibits dual citizenship for this reason.

I mostly agree, except:

- I doubt the "Iron Dome" is feasible. Sounds like a giveaway to defense contractors.
- "Strengthen and modernize our military" also sounds like a giveaway to defense contractors.

The border should be first as far as defense spending goes.

Repeal the PREP act. All vaccines and other medical products must come with unlimited liability for manufacturers at all times.

Issue permanent shoot-to-kill orders against anyone invading US borders.

Patrick says

Issue permanent shoot-to-kill orders against anyone invading US borders.

Require all federal laws to be read in their entirety by all legislators before they may vote on them, to discourage lobbyist-written bills.
Require all federal laws to be clear enough that a 12th-grade education is sufficient to understand them perfectly, for more public participation.
Limit bill length to 30 normal-sized pages of normal sized font, for more clarity about what is in the bill, and more public participation.
Promote the principle of very few laws, very well enforced "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." -Tacitus.

so many laws, so many rules, so much contradiction and contrivance and confusion. when the law is sufficiently complex and far reaching, it becomes impossible to follow and impossible to even know if you have followed.

no just system may emerge from or survive such structures.

from insider trading to “following too closely” so many of these crimes “are what we say they are.”

the goal is not justice.

the goal is “if they want you, they can have you.”

everyone is outlaw.

so the system runs on prosecutorial fiat.

do you ever have the slightest idea if you have really paid your taxes properly? ...

that fact that the rules are unclear is not a bug, it’s a feature. the capricious, arbitrary nature of what will and will not bring down the wrath serves to render each and all their own jailors, their own thought police for if you have no idea where the line lies, you fear to even step in that direction and you keep yourself well back from anywhere such tripwires might prove to be underfoot.

Require all federal laws to be read in their entirety by all legislators before they may vote on them, to discourage lobbyist-written bills.
Require all federal laws to be clear enough that a 12th-grade education is sufficient to understand them perfectly, for more public participation.
Limit bill length to 30 normal-sized pages of normal sized font, for more clarity about what is in the bill, and more public participation.

In a clip unearthed Sunday, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Jonathan Gruber appears on a panel and discusses how the reform earned enough votes to pass.

He suggested that many lawmakers and voters didn’t know what was in the law or how its financing worked, and that this helped it win approval.

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber said. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”

Gruber made the comment while discussing how the law was “written in a tortured way” to avoid a bad score from the Congressional Budget Office. He suggested that voters would have rejected ObamaCare if the penalties for going without health insurance were interpreted as taxes, either by budget analysts or the public.

“If CBO scored the [individual] mandate as taxes, the bill dies,” Gruber said.

“If you had a law that made it explicit that healthy people are going to pay in and sick people are going to get subsidies, it would not have passed,” he added.

Require short clear written presentation of all non-emergency medical costs before treatment for market discipline of medical costs.
Absolve all patients from legal liability for medical care bills whose costs they did not agree to in writing in advance of treatment, aside from emergency care.
Require all emergency medical charges to be limited to moderate fixed prices by law, because there can be no market in emergencies.
Require medical insurers to give a coverage response to a proposed non-emergency medical bill within one day, again to control medical costs.
Allow import of prescription drugs from Canada and from every other country because the import restrictions are a scam to boost profits.
Make it a felony to offer doctors or other medical providers payments to recommend any drug or treatment.
Ban the practice of charging higher prices for the same medicine or treatment when the patient is uninsured.

I get the point about medical expenses and not having as high a life expectancy. But do you really want to live to 78?

Ranting at this point and need to get 2 hours of sleep. Good night patnet

Not a lot of people can function with less than 6 hours of sleep daily and will eventually display medical symptoms. Those who can are a rare breed

mell says

Not a lot of people can function with less than 6 hours of sleep daily and will eventually display medical symptoms. Those who can are a rare breed

Trump is apparently one of those rare folk.

WookieMan says

Ranting at this point and need to get 2 hours of sleep. Good night patnet

You may want to consider getting more sleep and anything seizure may just go away. Not a lot of people can function with less than 6 hours of sleep daily and will eventually display medical symptoms. Those who can are a rare breed