YARDCG
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yardcg.bsky.social
YARDCG
@yardcg.bsky.social
11 followers 250 following 340 posts
Australian student, writer, video game modder. (He/him) Acronym = Yet Another Roguelike Dev (and) CinemaGoer.

Fan of world cinema; perennially procrastinate on updating LB.

https://boxd.it/ciP1z

Has ascended NetHack.

Knowing history changes lives.
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yardcg.bsky.social
Plenty of evidence Altman's grand proclamations are cold-blooded grifting - such as his previous company, the notorious stillborn crypto WorldCoin. Anthropic, though, was split off by true believers from the "Rationalist/Effective Altruist" movement, so we get...this.

www.wired.com/story/anthro...
If Anthropic Succeeds, a Nation of Benevolent AI Geniuses Could Be Born
The brother goes on vision quests. The sister is a former English major. Together, they defected from OpenAI, started Anthropic, and built (they say) AI’s most upstanding citizen, Claude.
www.wired.com
November 17, 2025 at 5:36 AM
yardcg.bsky.social
One who had the brilliant political instincts to become one of the only three Dem Senators who voted to confirm this guy.

bsky.app/profile/madd...
maddow.bsky.social Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 14h
"Jeffries concluded, 'Pulte knows what he is doing is lawless... Accountability is coming. The statute of limitations is five years. Every single corrupt sycophant, including Bill Pulte, who continues to disgrace the law will have to answer for their actions'...”

www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
Hakeem Jeffries sends a provocative shot across FHFA chief Bill Pulte’s bow
The House Democratic leader referred to Pulte as “a malignant hack” and a “corrupt sycophant” who might be held criminally liable for his recent actions.
www.ms.now
November 17, 2025 at 12:22 AM
yardcg.bsky.social
I think it's a useful question to answer in order to calibrate where the bar ought to be set, if nothing else.
November 17, 2025 at 12:20 AM
yardcg.bsky.social
Point is - Matt et al. can definitely be wrong on the merits of caving on [insert group interest/human right/progressive principle here]- but WAS there actually a historical example of a politician who won, had progressive accomplishments and never had to cave at least once on something like this?
November 17, 2025 at 12:18 AM
yardcg.bsky.social
It has a nice ring to it. Though, it often seems to be contrasted against [famous past liberal/progressive] who is presented as stoically uncompromising all the time, with RETVRN-style imagined past vibes.

I.e. serious question - was Lincoln a reactionary centrist in 1861?

bsky.app/profile/yard...
yardcg.bsky.social YARDCG @yardcg.bsky.social · 1d
He was a man of his time...if Bsky's "fight on everything" faction lived back then, you would have been calling for Lincoln's head after he VERY LITERALLY caved on Emancipation in 1861 to keep the slave border states inside the tent, not reversing course until 1863.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A...
"For President Abraham Lincoln the proclamation created a difficult situation, as he tried to balance the agendas of Radical Republicans who favored abolition and slave-holding Unionists in the American border states whose support was essential in keeping the states of Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland in the Union.[2] Nationwide reaction to the proclamation was mixed. Abolitionists enthusiastically supported the measure while conservatives demanded Frémont's removal.[3] Seeking to reverse Frémont's actions and maintain political balance, Lincoln eventually ordered Frémont to rescind the edict on September 11, 1861.[4] Lincoln then sent various government officials to Missouri to build a case for Frémont's removal founded on Frémont's alleged incompetence rather than his abolitionist views.[5] On these grounds, Lincoln sent an order on October 22, 1861, removing Frémont from command of the Department of the West.[6] Although Lincoln opposed Frémont's method of emancipation, the episode had a significant impact on Lincoln, shaping his opinions on the appropriate steps towards emancipation and eventually leading, sixteen months later, to Lincoln's own Emancipation Proclamation.[7]"
November 17, 2025 at 12:13 AM
yardcg.bsky.social
Huh, some real Baader-Meinhof effect just stumbling into the guy not long after you mentioned him. Thoughts on this convo?

bsky.app/profile/inte...
interfluidity.com Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 2d
if these are your views, do you think democracy is actually a good idea? if so, why?
November 16, 2025 at 11:55 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
They have been promising it for a while - including in the elections they lost.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/201...
Labour’s anti-immigrant mug: the worst part is, it isn’t a gaffe
The party is under fire for its latest round of mugs. But the problem is bigger than a bargain-basement bit of crockery.
www.newstatesman.com
November 16, 2025 at 11:44 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
(Obviously, that does not change the emails being turbo-gross, to put it mildly. Gross people can be occasionally right about things, whether now or in the past.)

bsky.app/profile/yard...
yardcg.bsky.social YARDCG @yardcg.bsky.social · 1d
Not exactly the same thing, but some of this context is beginning to give me second thoughts about General Sherman.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...
Marriage and business career On May 1, 1850, Sherman married his foster sister, Ellen Boyle Ewing, who was four years and eight months his junior. Ellen's father, Thomas Ewing, was the US Secretary of the Interior at that time. Father James A. Ryder, president of Georgetown College, officiated at the Washington, D.C., ceremony. President Zachary Taylor, Vice President Millard Fillmore and other political luminaries attended the wedding.[45] Ellen Ewing Sherman was a devout Catholic, and the couple's children were reared in that faith.[46]
November 16, 2025 at 11:38 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
...4 years ago, on inflation?

www.cnn.com/2021/05/26/e...
Larry Summers sends stark inflation warning to Joe Biden | CNN Business
Larry Summers is urging Washington to tap the brakes on stimulus — or risk unleashing a serious burst of inflation.
www.cnn.com
November 16, 2025 at 11:34 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
People romanticize Nuremberg way too much. A lot more people got acquitted or received only minor sentences than you would think. I.e.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farb...
IG Farben Trial - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 16, 2025 at 11:30 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
Did you notice this part of the wiki? And check the one he once appointed as his "Justice" Minister only a few months earlier.

bsky.app/profile/yard...

observers.france24.com/en/middle-ea...
November 16, 2025 at 11:23 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/yard...
November 16, 2025 at 11:20 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
Sure.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_a...
"Under al-Shara'a's leadership, al-Nusra Front and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham perpetrated a series of war crimes, suicide bombings, forced conversions, ethnic cleansing and sectarian massacres against Syria's Christian, Alawite, Shia and Druze minorities. These included the January 2012 al-Midan bombing, which killed 26 people and wounded 63.[40] In 2015, al-Nusra fighters killed Druze villagers during the Qalb Loze massacre.[41][42][43] The Saudi state-owned Al Arabiya news network claimed that al-Nusra's leadership denounced the attack, asserting that the actions of the attackers were in contradiction to the organization's policy.[44] Al-Nusra was also suspected of carrying out the 10 May 2012 Damascus bombings killing 55 people and injuring over 400,[45] and the February 2013 Damascus bombings which killed 83 people, most of them civilians and children, and were condemned by the Syrian opposition.[46] In June 2013 al-Nusra claimed the "storming and cleansing of Hatla" during which 30 to 60 Shia civilians were killed as part of a wider campaign of sectarian cleansing in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate.[47] On 12 May 2016, rebels led by al-Nusra Front massacred 42 civilians and seven NDF militiamen while kidnapping up to 70 people after taking control of the Alawite village of Zara'a in Southern Hama.[48][49] Al-Nusra was also behind suicide bombings in Lebanon directed against Alawites and Shia populations, including the 2015 Tripoli, Lebanon bombings[50] (for which the group claimed responsibility) and was suspected of carrying out the July 2013 Beirut bombing[51] and the 2013 Iranian embassy bombing in Beirut."
November 16, 2025 at 11:18 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
If it's so reasonable, how come nobody seems to have even tried implementing it? "Oh, it's just natural for good policy ideas to die in obscure whitepapers, what can you do?" isn't really compelling.

Have you ever discussed it with any other economist?

drafts.interfluidity.com/2025/04/01/i...
Text-only image: "Unlike a tariff, a foreign-payout tax imposes no cost on balanced trade. It taxes only imbalance. If a country is running an undesirably large current account deficit, it can incrementally raise the tax rate, making it less remunerative for trade partners to hold financial claims as payment for unbalanced trade. No trading partner is singled out, no containers are held for inspection, no fuss, no muss, no hurt feelings. There's just a tax of financial instruments, which raises revenue and supports what should be universally recognized as a legitimate national interest. I can't claim this suggestion is particularly novel. The aforementioned Pettis, along with partner-in-crime Matthew Klein, sometimes proposes similar solutions. I've long described these ideas as "capital account protectionism". Like most good policy ideas, this constellation of proposals lies strewn among blog posts and whitepapers, discussed for a moment and then abandoned. The neglect has left real problems unaddressed and unaddressable. Now we get to watch Donald Trump blow up the world under pretext of filling the void. When, someday, civilization re-emerges from the radioactive muck, let's, maybe, just try this? "
November 16, 2025 at 9:42 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
A note of caution: SSRN is a preprint mill, and literally anyone with a email address can put anything on it. Having said that, it appears that this one DID go through peer review by now. (In a journal I've never heard of, but apparently it's been around since 1987.)

www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
The Folk Economics of Housing
(Summer 2025) - Why is housing supply so severely restricted in US cities and suburbs? Urban economists offer two primary hypotheses: homeowner self-interest and political fragmentation. Homeowners, w...
www.aeaweb.org
November 16, 2025 at 8:37 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/twes...
twesq.bsky.social TW @twesq.bsky.social · 9h
oh his hard drive definitely has some shit on it
November 16, 2025 at 8:28 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
Because making LLMs in particular do it results in stuff like this? (As foreseen by @davidgerard.co.uk )

pivot-to-ai.com/2025/08/26/e...

social.coop/@eb/11532835...
Evan B🥥ehs (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image This will crash the global economy
social.coop
November 16, 2025 at 8:26 PM
yardcg.bsky.social
Depends, so it's best to avoid being overconfident.

www.realclearpolling.com/polls/presid...

www.realclearpolling.com/polls/presid...
2016 Dem primary poll graph, with Clinton's consistent lead, only briefly on the verge of getting overtaken in April 2016. 2020 Dem primary national poll graph. Biden holds lead since January 2019, and only loses it to Sanders in January 2020.
November 16, 2025 at 5:33 AM
yardcg.bsky.social
Is that what we are calling 4-5% GDP growth now, according to your own link? Whatever issues it's talking about don't look that bad next to the main alternative.

fortune.com/2025/10/07/d...
Without data centers, GDP growth was 0.1% in the first half of 2025, Harvard economist says | Fortune
Is a U.S. without data centers a country without GDP growth?
fortune.com
November 16, 2025 at 5:12 AM
yardcg.bsky.social
You would need someone whose views at some point were practically identical to those of Schumer or whoever you think is your McClellan - because Sherman and McClellan seemingly started out with very similar politics. Further, the pro-McClellan case is surprisingly strong.

bsky.app/profile/yard...
yardcg.bsky.social YARDCG @yardcg.bsky.social · 1d
He was a man of his time...if Bsky's "fight on everything" faction lived back then, you would have been calling for Lincoln's head after he VERY LITERALLY caved on Emancipation in 1861 to keep the slave border states inside the tent, not reversing course until 1863.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A...
"For President Abraham Lincoln the proclamation created a difficult situation, as he tried to balance the agendas of Radical Republicans who favored abolition and slave-holding Unionists in the American border states whose support was essential in keeping the states of Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland in the Union.[2] Nationwide reaction to the proclamation was mixed. Abolitionists enthusiastically supported the measure while conservatives demanded Frémont's removal.[3] Seeking to reverse Frémont's actions and maintain political balance, Lincoln eventually ordered Frémont to rescind the edict on September 11, 1861.[4] Lincoln then sent various government officials to Missouri to build a case for Frémont's removal founded on Frémont's alleged incompetence rather than his abolitionist views.[5] On these grounds, Lincoln sent an order on October 22, 1861, removing Frémont from command of the Department of the West.[6] Although Lincoln opposed Frémont's method of emancipation, the episode had a significant impact on Lincoln, shaping his opinions on the appropriate steps towards emancipation and eventually leading, sixteen months later, to Lincoln's own Emancipation Proclamation.[7]"
November 16, 2025 at 4:20 AM
yardcg.bsky.social
AOC...as someone ambivalent about the biggest reason for the entire war at the time it started? What?!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...
Post-war photograph of Sherman and text: "Sherman was not an abolitionist before the war and, like others of his time and background, he did not believe in "Negro equality".[169][170][171] Before the war, Sherman expressed some sympathy with the view of Southern whites that the black race was benefiting from slavery, although he opposed breaking up slave families and advocated that laws forbidding the education of slaves be repealed.[172][173][174] Throughout the Civil War, Sherman declined to employ black troops in his armies.[175][176] In his Memoirs, Sherman commented on the political pressures of 1864–1865 to encourage the escape of slaves, in part to avoid the possibility that "able-bodied slaves will be called into the military service of the rebels".[177] Sherman rejected this, arguing that it would have delayed the "successful end" of the war and the "[liberation of] all slaves""
November 16, 2025 at 4:16 AM
yardcg.bsky.social
Schumer might be wrong today, but I strongly suspect you might have called Lincoln himself Schumer-coded if you were alive at the time and didn't know the future (other than who Schumer was...just pretend it makes sense for a second.)

bsky.app/profile/yard...
yardcg.bsky.social YARDCG @yardcg.bsky.social · 1d
He was a man of his time...if Bsky's "fight on everything" faction lived back then, you would have been calling for Lincoln's head after he VERY LITERALLY caved on Emancipation in 1861 to keep the slave border states inside the tent, not reversing course until 1863.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A...
"For President Abraham Lincoln the proclamation created a difficult situation, as he tried to balance the agendas of Radical Republicans who favored abolition and slave-holding Unionists in the American border states whose support was essential in keeping the states of Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland in the Union.[2] Nationwide reaction to the proclamation was mixed. Abolitionists enthusiastically supported the measure while conservatives demanded Frémont's removal.[3] Seeking to reverse Frémont's actions and maintain political balance, Lincoln eventually ordered Frémont to rescind the edict on September 11, 1861.[4] Lincoln then sent various government officials to Missouri to build a case for Frémont's removal founded on Frémont's alleged incompetence rather than his abolitionist views.[5] On these grounds, Lincoln sent an order on October 22, 1861, removing Frémont from command of the Department of the West.[6] Although Lincoln opposed Frémont's method of emancipation, the episode had a significant impact on Lincoln, shaping his opinions on the appropriate steps towards emancipation and eventually leading, sixteen months later, to Lincoln's own Emancipation Proclamation.[7]"
November 16, 2025 at 4:11 AM
yardcg.bsky.social
McClellan was clearly not the best General - but his forces never suffered a defeat even remotely as bad as the Shenandoah armies, either Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville or Chickamauga.

He was fighting the logistics-heavy "Big Boy War" when Lincoln and the press wanted a "Warfighter".
November 16, 2025 at 3:56 AM
yardcg.bsky.social
It was LINCOLN and his Secretary of War who STOPPED recruiting VOLUNTEERS in the middle of 1862 - presumably thinking they wouldn't be needed, and not wanting to pay the expense.

THEY were the ones who wasted three armies in Shenandoah for no reason, and then wasted another one at Bull Run (again).
"He learned then that the 88,000 men left behind had been removed from his control and put under the direct command of Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, a lawyer with no military experience. McClellan could no longer control the relegation of troops between his defense and offense. Then, in a blow that affected Union commanders on every front, Stanton closed down all recruiting stations in the North. From this point on, each Union soldier who was lost — whether from combat or disease — would not be replaced. Four days after the order, 13,047 Federals fell at Shiloh. More than 70,000 would be lost before Stanton’s order was rescinded three months later. The new strategy played directly into Confederate hands. The horrible reversals over the winter forced the Confederacy to initiate a draft, which prevented those already in the army from leaving and brought into their fold most of the remaining southerners from the ages of 18 to 35. So as the Union Army shrank, the Confederate Army grew." "Confederates also were retooling their strategy. Instead of defending every locale throughout the South, they concentrated their armies on the most important strategic points, Richmond in particular. After one month, on the night of May 4, the siege forced the rebels to retreat, and McClellan resumed his march on Richmond. Lee stripped troops from the Atlantic coast to the Shenandoah Valley to defend his capital. Confederate records show that in one month, the number of men in front of McClellan’s now-95,000-man army swelled from about 56,000 to more than 115,000. McClellan, who thought that additional Confederates had arrived from the western theater to expand the total to 200,000, anxiously telegraphed Lincoln for reinforcements. He had been promised another 35,000 men when he reached Richmond, but barely 10,000 would ever arrive. Lincoln and Stanton, meanwhile, failed to take advantage of the newly weakened Confederate fronts. Instead, they spent their time directing the Washington defense force as it got tangled up in a wild-goose chase pursuing Jackson’s small army through the Shenandoah Valley. Even McClellan’s rival, Gen. Irwin McDowell, could see the folly of the venture. Pleading with Lincoln not to redirect his troops from reinforcing McClellan, McDowell wrote, “I shall gain nothing for you there, and shall lose much for you here . . . it throws us all back, and from Richmond north we shall have all our large masses paralyzed.”"
November 16, 2025 at 3:47 AM