From the Archives

I randomly came across a thread from 2014 that still resonates today. If you click, you'll see the subject.

Tangential to the actual subject, the discussion talked about someone working hard at two minimum wage jobs, doing all the right things, and why aren't things working out? After all, there are a lot of people who aren't working hard who do so well for themselves. And the author came up with the worst possible response:

You keep whining about how “unfair” it is that you can’t get a good job. “But I’m such a hard worker.” No, actual hard workers don’t feel like they’re entitled to other people’s money just because they ask nicely.

“Why do rich white kids who got legacy admissions to Yale receive cushy sinecures, but I have to work two grueling minimum wage jobs just to keep a roof over my head?” By even asking that question, you prove that you think of bosses as giant bags of money, rather than as individual human beings who are allowed to make their own choices. No one “owes” you money just because you say you “work hard”, and by complaining about this you’re proving you’re not really a hard worker at all. I’ve seen a lot of Hard Workers (TM) like you, and scratch their entitled surface and you find someone who thinks just because they punched a time card once everyone needs to bow down and worship them.

If you complain about “rich white kids who get legacy admissions to Yale,” you’re raising a huge red flag that you’re the kind of person who steals from their employer, and companies are exactly right to give you a wide berth.

That should be even more of a clue as to the original topic.

Now, one commenter said that's kind of what conservatives/libertarians say, and it's true to a point. Any person's sucky economic condition is some part bad luck and some part bad decisions, and I do lean to bad decisions being the leading driver. But no one seems interested in exploring or testing that. I still like my $3000 Plan idea from seventeen years ago, which would make a great documentary or reality series. (But with inflation, it's probably a $10,000 plan by now.)

Breaking down the barriers in gaming

Over at ChannelFireball, there's a new post about women in Magic: the Gathering (or to be more specific, "marginalized" people, a term the author uses seven times, and apparently applies to anyone who does not have both a male sex and a male gender identity). It begins with this brazen statement on what the problem is:

People who are not cis male have been actively excluded by the actions and behavior of those in the Magic community, both on an individual and systematic level. Gender imbalances don’t appear out of nowhere. The lack of consistent PT-level players who aren’t men isn’t an unfortunate accident, and we’re not inherently less interested in gaming or competition.

 

People of marginalized genders are made to feel unwelcome in many Magic spaces, whether that’s on a local Facebook group, in a thousand-person GP hall or among a private professional testing team.

That's a bold statement to make without any evidence. The gender imbalance existed long before Magic, dating back to people who played with historical miniature armies. The author brings up systematic (should this be systemic?) problems, but there's one issue. The system is controlled by a company that has been woke since its very founding. 

But let's talk about marginalized people. It's not just sex or gender identity. I'm guessing the author is relatively young, and for all her life, gaming has been, if not particularly popular, at least mainstream. It's appeared favorably in television shows, people watch others play video games over Twitch, and good looking people livestream their D&D games. 

But what was the reputation of gamers in the 1980s and 1990s?

Freaks. Geeks. Losers. It was common to comment on their appearance, with derogatory terms like "whales and rails". Their smell. Their pasty skin. That they live in their parents' basement and have never had a girlfriend. 

So those who found a community in hobby gaming were often people of low social status, the ones who didn't find success in sports or the grand popularity contest that is high school. They were marginalized for reasons other than demographics. 

That's wordy. How about an acronym? MFROTD? 

Heck, it was only ten years ago when a Gizmodo intern wrote about an OKCupid date with a Magic: the Gathering world champion, and how she was offended that he didn't disclose his geeky interest in his online profile, as if it were a herpes diagnosis or something. That's the world that older gamers knew. 

Since the author made assertions without evidence, I'll do the same. The main obstacle to women in gaming is not players or game stores or the people who run organized play, it is the opinion of other women about those women who get involved in gaming. Make that go away, and the gender imbalance will be reduced (but not eliminated).

On judging risks

 Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana and current president of Purdue University, had some powerful words in his commencement speech for 2021 Purdue graduates.

The risk of failure, of a hit to one’s reputation, or just that the gains don’t outweigh the costs,  all these can deter or even paralyze a person out of fulfilling the responsibility someone has entrusted to them. Should I make this investment, or husband my cash? Take that job offer, or stay where I’m comfortable? Engage in this debate, or sit silently?  Choose this life partner, or play it safe?

This last year, many of your elders failed this fundamental test of leadership. They let their understandable human fear of uncertainty overcome their duty to balance all the interests for which they were responsible. They hid behind the advice of experts in one field but ignored the warnings of experts in other realms that they might do harm beyond the good they hoped to accomplish. 

Sometimes they let what might be termed the mad pursuit of zero, in this case zero risk of anyone contracting the virus, block out other competing concerns, like the protection of mental health, the educational needs of small children, or the survival of small businesses. Pursuing one goal to the utter exclusion of all others is not to make a choice but to run from it. It’s not leadership; it’s abdication. I feel confident your Purdue preparation won’t let you fall prey to it.

People are bad at judging risks, especially a risk that is loudly blared across newspapers, television, and social media.  Today, I'm hearing from friends that they are afraid of going into large gatherings, even if everyone present is vaccinated and wearing masks.  My response, a likely futile attempt to get people to weigh competing priorities and uncertainties in the way Daniels suggests, is as follows.

"If your risk of death or serious injury from viral infection is determined to be less than your risk of death or serious injury from driving to the gathering, would that be enough for you to deem the risk acceptable?"

The actual ability to get to zero deaths is nonexistent.  One only needs to look at the protections around those with compromised immune systems, such as those who have had bone marrow transplants.  It is important to note that we didn't close down stores and restaurants to protect these people; we protected them directly.

There is an unfortunate level of classism in the response to the virus, with powerful people acting to try to get to zero risk... for people like themselves.  Anyone who transitioned to working from home, continuing to receive a full paycheck, fills the role of the wolf in the joke "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."  Perhaps the most egregious example came from schoolteachers.  Faced with returning to in person instruction, facing the same group of students, from a demographic with some of the lowest virus risks, they still said no.  The line of thinking is clear:

"I am a professional.  I have a college degree, maybe even an advanced degree.  I should not have to risk my own health.  That risk should fall to the grocery store clerks and delivery drivers.  You know, the lesser folk."

Some uncomfortable thoughts as the election approaches.

There are some people who will look at the polls, forget 2016 ever happened, and be confident their candidate will win. I have some thoughts that should make them uncomfortable. 

Imagine you are a person familiar with American elections. You fell into a coma on November 1, 2013 and wake up November 1, 2020. You don't know who's running, but you are asked to predict the results of the election. You're told there's a Republican incumbent and a Democratic challenger. 

You're not told any poll numbers, but you are given some other information: 

·The Dow Jones Industrial Average today and four years ago 

·The results of a survey showing how people feel they're doing compared to four years ago 

·Images of the last ten rallies for each candidate, only revealing the party of each 

·A summary of on both campaigns' ground games 

·Shifts in voter identification from state to state over the last four years 

·The Republican incumbent's favorable ratings among blacks and Hispanics 

The politically knowledgeable person would see these and predict a victory for the Republican candidate. And if those numbers on black and Hispanic voters translate into votes, the prediction would be a landslide of a magnitude not seen since 1984.

On masks

I recently saw masks (cloth, washable, reusable, not medical grade) for sale at the grocery store for the first time, four months after we shut things down "for fifteen days". Should have appeared much faster than that.

Now, there's a lot of debate about the use of masks, and it's become just another political football.

There was an opportunity for masks to not be a political issue. It simply required an unbiased, science-driven response at all stages in the process.

Instead of March messages telling us to not buy masks, imagine if we had instead gotten this:
"There are no studies about the effectiveness of masks at stopping the transmission of COVID-19, though they're not likely to make matters worse. Feel free to use a simple cloth mask or repurposed bandanna. However, please preserve the N95 and medical masks for medical professionals and first responders until supply is expanded."

Imagine if, in May, the same people who criticized "open the economy" protesters responded to anti-police protesters with the same fervor.

Imagine if we heard that all state prisoners were required to wear masks. Instead, we got officials in Democratic states saying we had to release prisoners to protect them from COVID-19, and then they threatened people who wanted to open barber shops with prison.

Because this wasn't an unbiased, science-driven response, it became a political issue, one of control. And people react predictably to government attempts at control.

In reality, there is no way to get a scientific answer to the question about how effective masks are at stopping virus transmission, because you can't design an ethical experiment to test it.

An open letter to protesters

Dear protesters,

On Thursday, May 28, you had won.

The police officer responsible for the death was arrested and charged. The entire world was in agreement that the treatment the apprehended victim received was wrong.

If you had accepted that you won, you could have moved on to trying to make changes that would actually help matters. You could have focused on passing laws to address the judicial doctrine of qualified immunity, or worked to reform the unions that fight to keep bad cops employed.

Instead, you rioted. You looted. You destroyed property, people's livelihoods.

A lot of people were willing to excuse police brutality because it happens in the heat of the moment, with the risk to the police officer's life being of a level unknown, but very real. On Thursday, you made most of these people change their mind.

Today, after hearing chants of "All cops are bastards" and seeing police officers injured and killed in the line of duty, they're back to giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Great job, guys.

Blood on their hands

Andrew Cuomo, Phil Murphy, and Gavin Newsom.

All politicians whose states mandated that nursing homes had to admit patients recovering from the coronavirus.

I can't fault politicians in general for getting things wrong. There were a lot of unknowns. But some facts were clear.

When the virus was still in China, it was known for being especially harmful to the elderly and infirm. And the first outbreak in America was in a nursing home in Washington.

So while no one knew for sure how to respond, the number two most important item on any governor's list, after "How do we stop the virus from overwhelming the health care system?", should have been "How do we keep the virus out of our nursing homes?"

Some ideas that could have been implemented would be screenings for nursing home employees, making sure nursing homes had PPE, and the like.

By the time politicians were shutting things down, it was well understood that the virus was communicable for an unusually long period of time. So the logical thought is, people who recover from the virus need to be quarantined for the safety of others.

They set up emergency field hospitals, but didn't create protocols for people who would need skilled nursing care after recovery. Maybe, I don't know, these field hospitals could have been employed?

So not only did these governors not plan to keep their elderly citizen safe, they made a deliberate policy choice that harmed them.

This decision is a consequence of the far left living in a world of fantasy. To them, thoughts and feelings are real, and decisions should only be made by people with multiple degrees and the right social background. People seeing things on the ground can be safely ignored.

The proclamations from these states show the danger of leftist policies. What's most important is how people feel. They don't want patients to feel discriminated against because of their viral status. And they want their elite peers to know that. Any number of deaths is okay in pursuit of their woke goals.

Andrew Cuomo, Phil Murphy, and Gavin Newsom have blood on their hands.


Aside:

A conspiracy theorist might point out that each nursing home patient who dies is potentially less of a burden on the state's Medicaid budget and pensions.