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tanadrin

@tanadrin.bsky.social

190 followers 69 following 1.4K posts

I also poast at tanadrin.tumblr.com. Fiction, worldbuilding, and other nonsense at tanadrin.de. Aurë entuluva!

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tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 15h

the real bad guy in astronomy is kepler. what do you mean there's no way to directly compute the position of a body in an elliptical orbit from time elapsed alone? what is this transcendental equation bullshit??

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 15h

idk man, it's a nightmare down there

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 15h

all scientists can be classified according to just two variables: whether they're more mad physics or mad biology, and whether their hubris is in calling up what cannot be put down, or seeking to understand what no man was meant to know

we were definitely not meant to know about that worm with a hundred buttholes, for instance

Reposted by tanadrin

The Lincolnshire Poster @desiderratum.bsky.social · 15h

"At long last, we are pleased to announce that we have built the brass head, from Robert Greene's beloved play 'Thou Shalt Not Build Ye a Brazen Head'"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friar_B...

Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 15h

"you know, mad scientists, like shakespeare wrote about!"

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 15h

what on earth does his mental model of european history look like, i wonder

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 16h

older than that. 17th century is 1600s. he's back-porting an extremely mid-20th-century archetype to (generously, assuming the very end of the 1600s) the time of the golden age of piracy and the glorious revolution.

Reposted by tanadrin

Kozy Raccoon @kozyraccoon.bsky.social · 1d

I think we need to face the fact that:
- the dangers of migrants are largely mediatic fiction
- immigrants are the central scapegoats of the far-right
- a far-right that has a monopoly on the media
- and this is all used to push a Gramscian project to re-establish reactionary thinking

Reposted by tanadrin

Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 1d

updated, disappointing version of the Odyssey where a shitposter goes on a quest that takes them far from home [having to post like a grownup]

by the time the return, none of their mutuals recognize them anymore

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

i guess it'd be hard to craft a legally useful entrenched clause that said something like "don't put highly contingent policy that amounts to stupid culture war shit in the constitution." would save a lot of trouble if you could, though. might've avoided that whole Prohibition mess, for one.

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

well, that makes me sit up and take notice

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

i am v much not a Trade Person, and would certainly *like* to be convinced that NAFTA is the test case that shows free trade is always and everywhere an unalloyed good with no tradeoffs. but i'm not. and when a guy who won a nobel prize and spend a big chunk of the 90s arguing just that goes "oops!"

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

also i guess china joins the WTO in the 2000s which is around when wage growth stalls out again for US workers (at least based on the FRED charts I can find), and the overall US labor force participation rate is declining from ~1998 (though not by much at first)? looks murky to me.

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

i'd feel better about that chart if it had the word "real" in its title so i knew the person who put it together wasn't using nominal wages. and if there were a way to factor in the impact of unemployment/dislocation.

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

if bill clinton had said in 1994 "between half a million and a million people in manufacturing jobs are gonna have a permanent and lasting reduction in their standard of living" i'm not sure it woulda passed.

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

real median household income was more or less flat from 1999 to 2015. idk, there was an initial rise, but it's not a crushing victory for NAFTA. and even if it had been, i don't think you can claim a rising tide lifts all boats when it does not, in fact, lift all boats.

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

i don't think NAFTA or capitalism are the root of your problems here, i gotta admit

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

that wage growth did eventually pick back up in the US is to me proof that free trade and economic integration aren't doomed propositions, but these policies *do* have to be carefully constructed and you can't be blithely optimistic about them.

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

also free trade and free capital movement in europe exacerbated the eurozone crisis in the 2000s. like there are real policy tradeoffs here! some of them are quite bleak, depending on what sector of the economy you work in.

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

well, no, not exactly. blanket wage growth didn't occur (something Krugman notes as one of the things he was wrong about IIRC), and displaced workers were shunted to other sectors where they earned less. wage growth stagnated in the US until like 2015, so you can't put the biden boom on NAFTA

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

and figuring out a way to minimize the disruption to people whose industries would be affected.

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

Some degree of economic dislocation and change is inevitable with time; the (good) argument against NAFTA wasn’t an argument against trade or even long-term integration of North America economically, it was managing the transition better, avoiding running up a massive trade deficit,

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

Idk, i think sacralization is at odds with making something feel familiar and comfortable. And we are already way too uncomfortable with sex and our bodies; a bunch of weird semi-religious mystique around childbirth just gives people neuroses and unrealistic expectations.

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

Paul Krugman (for example) does not support the Trump tariffs, but IIRC he did say he was overly polyannaish about the effects NAFTA would have, so I think it would be wrong to lump everybody with concerns about specific free trade frameworks in with the fully anti-trade crowd.

tanadrin @tanadrin.bsky.social · 2d

And even some of the people who were in the latter camp have argued that in retrospect the former were right about their concerns.