Oh, there are certainly very big ones, but even the big ones sometimes don’t have predicted impacts because at given times some things that USED to be drivers might not be just now. For example, a 2% sales tax increase, depending on the current state of people’s buying, could have a minor impact or a major impact. If people are already buying only what they need, the impact to demand could be negligible. If they’re splurging but wages are stagnant, maybe it has a huge impact. If they’re splurging AND wages are increasing, maybe it has a negligible impact again. The basic point is, even if you understand the major drivers, without a bigger picture of the macroeconomic picture and what specific forces are driving behavior at the moment, your impact could be anything from dulled to the exact opposite of your intention.

Also, some of those factors, front running, insider trading, and market manipulation, which are evidence of a more predictable market, BECOME additional variables that impact decision making because they themselves impact other factors.

Weather forecasting might not be the best metaphor here… it’s more like the human body. You might know that some protein causes some favorable condition that you want to boost, but increasing that protein production might ALSO increase production of an enzyme for breaking it down, reducing bio-availability of one of the building blocks, leading to a reduction of another protein that’s critical for immune function. All of these pathways function together in ways that are extremely hard to predict, and it’s natural that very often you’ll be wrong.

But that’s not to say I’m being defeatist… you build better models and you try things anyway - because that’s what we do. I’m just saying economics is very, very, very hard, and there’s not just a limit to our current ability to predict, there’s a limit to how much certainty we CAN achieve.

It’s true, but it’s not because of their lack of knowledge, it’s because of the nature of the system they’re talking about. The economy is based on thousands of tiny variables, and which ones are relevant changes depending on the current state. Small changes to one part create feedback loops that effect other parts. It’s also not linear. You can change one thing by 1% and wind up changing other parts of the economy by 50%.

Economists take their best guesses based on the models and understanding they have right now, but it’s not like engineering - it’s notoriously hard to predict what the real causes and impact of anything will be. So you’re absolutely right - everything is an estimate because the system is inherently chaotic.

That’s true too, but you’re also talking about a chaotic system, and chaotic systems are stubbornly hard to accurately predict even with perfect knowledge.

Economic forecasters are like weather forecasters. The really good ones give you their best guesses, but it’s still not a guarantee of anything - there are too many variables and even the tiny ones can have a huge impact on results.

The 9 year old aside, I’m skeptical when anybody on social media claims they’re going to explain ANYTHING about economics. Even the best people in the world at it only KIND OF know what they’re doing.

See, THAT is not the slippery slope. STARTING to ban ANYTHING at all from legal transactions is the slippery slope. What happens when they decide R-rated films are distasteful? Or birth control?

Payment processors should have ABSOLUTELY no role in making ANY decisions about what legal transactions they process. Period.

The most environmentally friendly computer is the one you already have. No power savings is so great as to offset the environmental cost of manufacturing of a new machine, shipping it to you, and the environmental impact of putting the existing machine into landfill. Run it into the ground until it either physically breaks or is literally no longer capable of performing the tasks you need. It’s not an environmental gain to upgrade JUST for power efficiency.

This is useless. It’s not even high enough spec to run your Electron calculator in a sandboxed container.

/s

Also not a plan or a solution. You’re free to attack me all day - it won’t change anything one way or another. I just wish I could hear SOMETHING about what you expect people to do instead of what you expect them to NOT do.

Every single time, it’s like a broken record.

Nobody thinks the democrats did the right thing in 2024. It’s not like you’re delivering some special message everyone didn’t get. The primary was shit and the party is shit. I’ll give you the gold star for correctly identifying that there’s a problem if you want. But identifying the problem is not a SOLUTION. What’s your plan? What have you got? Because all I see is endless harping on the problem, and that’s nothing.

There’s microplastics in the food. So what? Am I going to stop eating?

Any schmuck can sit there and complain and nitpick. Let me know when you’ve got ACTIONS TO TAKE TO SOLVE IT. Contradiction is not a plan.

The way I’m constantly hearing complaints and observations without a lick of solutions or activity, it’s like I’m listening to the mainstream media.

Okay, that may be the case, and that may be fair, but if you’re only posting into instances that already support you, is it really helpful?

No third party candidate will win without support. Support must be visible and passionate. And it must be visible and passionate to people who aren’t already on your side, otherwise it’s an echo chamber. Nobody - not Republicans, not Democrats, not Greens, not Socialists, is going to win by waiting for people to come seek THEM out.

Okay, it’s my turn.

The democrats don’t inspire you with confidence? Fair.

The greens? The socialists? I’ve looked at Jill Stein… I’ve looked at De La Cruz… They don’t impress me either. In the same way you don’t owe the democrats a vote, progressives don’t owe a vote to a candidate just because they’re not a republican or democrat. Find someone inspiring and take advantage of the fact the internet has unprecedented reach.

I just looked at your post history. You’ve been here a year. I don’t see a SINGLE post supporting a third party candidate. You’re not stumping for Stein… You’re not stumping for anybody. Do you want them to MAGICALLY gain support?

Speaking of practicing what you preach… How am I supposed to get behind a third party candidate when the people who are ostensibly on that side can’t even be bothered?

Warning them clearly isn’t doing anything. They’re not going to change. They’re not getting behind anything truly progressive. But I don’t see the 3-9% of American voters building an alternative. That’s a PRETTY big number - that’s millions of people… are they all just content to criticize and not actually MAKE an alternative? The rest of us are here - surely some of you are motivated enough to give US an alternative to the democrats? Why is it the democrats that have to make an alternative that’s palatable to YOU? This argument goes both ways, you know.

And the CLINCHER is it doesn’t have to be either/or. It’s ENTIRELY possible to both do the bare minimum AND also build the alternative at the same time.

But no, we’re just gonna ride the worst of both worlds into hell. Fine by me, I guess.

The bare minimum. Admittedly it’s not much, but even .0000000000000001 is infinitely larger than 0.

I’m not any less disillusioned with the system than you are. But I also admit to myself honestly that I am not going to get out there and man the barricades. At least the minimum is SOMETHING.

You don’t like the options? Fine. You should at least be building another one. What are you, a nihilist?

So you’re actively building the alternative right now, right? You’re gonna have another party ready to go next election cycle? Link me to your projects. Surely you at least have some promising candidates lined up? And you’re out there getting the word out about them?

Or are you just going to criticize and nitpick because it’s easier?

I mean, that’s what OP is saying, but I’m saying it’s too late. The Democrats COULD have prevented what’s happening now, if for no other reason than they wouldn’t have had the balls to attempt it, but that boat has not only sailed, it’s been canonballed, torpedoed, sunk, and converted into a coral reef. There’s absolutely no sense whatsoever in talking to non-voters about it anymore. It’s done. There’s no convincing to be done. If every one of the non-voters said today, “Hey, we’ll vote for the Democrats next time”? Doesn’t matter. We’re still EXACTLY as screwed. So no, I don’t care why someone didn’t vote and I’m not wasting my breath trying to convince them they were wrong. Nobody should. If there is any path forward, it isn’t at the ballot box and it won’t involve people who are happy to sit on the fence. Non-voters are completely irrelevant now. They had power in November and now they don’t. If they want to help in whatever asymmetric BS we’re going to have to pull to just save a modicum of civilization over the next decade, they can choose to do that or not. But their political power as a group, and with it, the value of talking to them? That evaporated half a year ago.

I mean, I’m over it. Do what you feel like. It’s clear whatever the future is, this argument we’re having now? Has no part in it. Vote or don’t vote for whoever you want. Feel or don’t feel guilt. I don’t particularly care about the details of how you see it. The time when it might have mattered either way? Is over. Sure, maybe pre-election it was like trying to convince you not to kill the hostage - but the hostage is dead now. Not arguing that battle anymore. It’s irrelevant. You do whatever it is you like, but I’m never, ever, ever going to see the action in any other way, and at this point there’s absolutely ZERO point in discussing otherwise. It’s all academic. The trolley problem stops being a moral quandry when everyone is dead already. If you feel good? Great! You get my unironic and genuine thumbs up. Live your best life, my friend.

“How dare you be such a jerk? Guess I have no choice but to make innocent people suffer over it. That’ll show you!”

Oh, I’m not saying it’s okay. I would never say it’s okay. I AM saying that they’re a stubborn distraction, and engaging with them is a waste of time. It took us a good long time for people to finally realize that the MAGAs and Republicans were unreachable, and by then, how many millions of collective man-hours were wasted? The stakes in 2024 could NOT have been clearer, and these non-voters STILL rejected the logic. We don’t have the time or energy to waste now pursuing THEM either. Now is the time to engage in asymmetric warfare of various kinds, including not only protests, but ensuring continued access to “subversive” information despite the tightening noose of control by setting up reliable hosting for it outside of the US government’s control, and otherwise generally trying to preserve what we can in the face of what’s going to become an ever worsening environment. We simply don’t have the time to waste on these people.

There’s a third, less pleasant option that you’re avoiding. I understand why - I don’t relish it. But the ballot box has failed. Even if it hasn’t COMPLETELY yet, we are not even 5 months into this term, and look where we are. Harping on getting non-voters to vote is the 2025 equivalent of the reactionary generals running cavalry charges across no-man’s land in WW1. It is fighting the last war. But that war is lost.