Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

It's then even more crushing to learn that they killed her off as a hardball contract negotiation tactic with an actor who just wanted more work-life balance. And that Trek has a long history of doing shit like that to the women on the show.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

Oh so the administration plans to implement fascism without paying anyone? Excited to see how that all comes together

OMB deletes reference to law guaranteeing backpay to furloughed feds from shutdown guidance

An Office of Management and Budget FAQ document now states that only excepted employees forced to work without pay are guaranteed backpay at the conclusion of a lapse in appropriations.

www.govexec.com

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

If I'm understanding the timeline correctly: the city sent the zoning notice, DHS chose to view it as a "sanctuary politician attempting to prevent the brave men and women of Ice from" blah blah, and then protests and overreaction by cops escalated from there.

Portland threatens to evict Ice from Oregon facility over permit violations

Records obtained by Street Roots and the Guardian back claim from Oregon city’s mayor that Ice violated a land-use permit to detain people overnight

www.theguardian.com

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

Yeah, true. Maybe an article that lays out the timeline more clearly is this one.

Portland threatens to evict Ice from Oregon facility over permit violations

Records obtained by Street Roots and the Guardian back claim from Oregon city’s mayor that Ice violated a land-use permit to detain people overnight

www.theguardian.com

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

If I'm understanding correctly

Trump administration announces ‘full investigation’ into how Portland police have handled ICE protests

The city’s police chief rejected claims his officers are working in league with protestors.

www.opb.org

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

Obviously what's happening in Portland is self-perpetuating cycle at this point. But I guess this is how it started?

The US government is like the ranting, entitled guy you see at any city council meeting who thinks every minor enforcement action is a conspiracy against him personally.

Wayne E. Lee @milhistlee.bsky.social · 2d

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

Obviously what's happening in Portland is self-perpetuating cycle at this point. But I guess this is how it started? Wow it's so stupid. The US government is like the ranting, entitled people you see at city council meetings sometimes.

Wayne E. Lee @milhistlee.bsky.social · 2d

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

If they don't like it, the government has lots of administrative tools they could fight this with. In court, like normal. The government can use eminent domain, even!

But instead they will be fighting it with literal soldiers. Who are unpaid, during a government shutdown.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

The zoning rules state that people can't sleep overnight. That seems....pretty normal for an office building. And ICE is detaining people overnight, so, yup that's a pretty clear zoning violation.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

I dunno if I'm the last one to hear about this? But the reason the president is sending the *National Guard* to Portland is because the city mailed the government's landlord...a zoning violation notice?

They are sending in the troops to avoid "a monthly code enforcement fee"??

Notice of Zoning Violation on official City of Portland letterhead

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

Preferring the truth is not a default. And if you don't explicitly commit to it, you'll probably end up selecting your beliefs instead according to someone else's interests, i.e. you will become conservative

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

It is sad that "Rationalism" became a tech bro cult because there was a really good observation at the root of it: preferring beliefs because they are true is actually kind of uncommon.

jordan @jordantyranny.bsky.social · 1d

FREEDOM!!!!!!

I'd rather receive false information and keep my conservative views then receive true information and follow a socialistic agenda.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

*Articulating* ones delusion this clearly is extremely rare. But delusion itself is super popular!

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

the lies 🔄 being conservative

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

How can someone see their own self-delusion so clearly yet still do it

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

So it sounds like we agree there are some benefits to scale and some benefits to competition and it's just a matter of finding the correct setpoint between them, which is going to differ by industry. Yes?

I propose that selling e.g. books does not benefit much from vast scale. Low network effects.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

If "requires logistics" justifies allowing the merger of two firms, is the implication allowing total consolidation of most retail? Indeed maybe would be efficient in a sense to combine it all. But it's hard for me to imagine capitalism operating that way.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

Specifically Amazon can take strategic losses essentially forever, driving competition out of business in one sector after another, then eventually raising prices and otherwise manipulating the market when only Amazon remains.

Or anyway, that's the claim of Lina Khan

Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox

Amazon is the titan of twenty-first century commerce. In addition to being a retailer, it is now a marketing platform, a delivery and logistics network, a payment service, a credit lender, an auction ...

www.yalelawjournal.org

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

We do need scale at times! No one has ever really figured out how to have only small telcos, for example. But to me it does seem possible and preferable to fulfill most of what e.g. Amazon does with small companies, which would have reduced ability to coordinate anticompetitive behavior.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 1d

I'm not sure if I am part of "the anti-monopoly left" or not? I have worked with the DOJ Antitrust Division a little but I'm not a policy expert here, so take this as an opinion:

I actually do think "big = bad" is a pretty useful heuristic. Some anticompetitive practices result from raw size.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 2d

Probably not. But you never know what will blow up on the internet. I'm just cagey about it I guess.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 2d

Yes. He's just slightly changed the imaginary workings of the woke conspiracy. He's not reckoning with the fact that millions of people actually cherish their freedoms, believe in liberalism and equality.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 2d

Bonus Army situation

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 2d

Sorry to be this guy, but, maybe you should delete this? It might not be wise to give this information about your neighbors and draw attention to them in this way

John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 2d

I mean, isn't it kind of true? Left/liberals actually care about policy, outcomes, accuracy. Thus they may be held accountable to those things. The right doesn't have an equivalent structure to which they may be held accountable.

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