rendakuenthusiast

[rendakuenthusiast]

At least in California, I think the standard YIMBYist position is that environmental regulation is in fact being misapplied on a large scale.

It's easy for individuals or small groups to bring environmental lawsuits that hold up new housing construction projects, which means that environmental laws, even if originally passed for good reasons decades ago, are a tool in the toolbox of NIMBYs to prevent construction. NIMBYs might have genuine, although possibly misguided, environmental concerns; or they may be using a nice-sounding environmentalist argument because their actual objection to the new housing construction sounds less noble (e.g. they don't want additional people to be able to live near them lest they be the sort of people who make local quality of life worse). There's also an environmentalist argument that dense urban living is better for the environment in some respects than suburban or exurban sprawl - urban living encourages energy-efficient mass transit whereas suburban living encourages energy-inefficient car-centric living, water-inefficient lawns and landscaping, destroys additional wildlife habitat compared to building in already-urban areas, etc.

So to the extent that environmentalist laws discourage densifying urban areas or encourage people to move out of the state of California entirely and live in a more affordable suburb in a different state, this is net-bad for the environment and so these environmental laws preventing densification are counterproductive. I'm personally pretty YIMBY for self-interested reasons, but I'm also not as anti-suburban as many urbanists and environmentalists. I don't strongly object to car-centric lifestyles, I think car electrification solves most of the major environmental problems associated with cars and in any case car use improves human life and is good in and of itself even if there are some important tradeoffs.

Can someone @eightyonekilograms @centrally-unplanned @no-sharks-on-the-sun explain YIMBYism to me in more detail. What are the main YIMBY bugbears, besides zoning laws? I am all in favor of fewer zoning laws, more mixed-use neighborhoods, etc. on purely humanistic grounds (I think such places are much better to live in). But what's the rest of it? I gather people are also mad about environmental regulation, but that (if done well) serves a purpose that I do think is worthwhile. Unless there is large-scale misapplication of environmental regulation, such that it's not actually helping the environment, I can't see getting behind significant cuts in this area.

What else? What are the other major policy points?

[rendakuenthusiast]

We already directly tax income, capital gains, spending, etc. which are even more strongly correlated with wealth and life success than IQ alone is. This is also harder to game than IQ test results. Basically we already live in a world where we effectively tax IQ and this actually works better than trying to literally measure IQ and tax it.

Throwing this out as a discourse grenade (note: I do not actually endorsed this): if IQ is so strongly correlated with wealth, life success, etc., maybe we should have an IQ tax. I mean, a fair society should compensate people who are disadvantaged through an accident of their birth that they had no control over, right? Level the playing field; tax the smart. I think if Scott and his friends at the calipers club are so enthusiastic about benevolent technocracy they should take this proposal seriously.

[rendakuenthusiast]

On May 18, 1980, Richard “Dick” Lasher shot this epic photo of the eruption of Mount St. Helens. Lasher was forced to abandon his Pinto and flee the giant plume of ash on his motorcycle. Lasher survived.

"It was my fifteen minutes of fame."

[rendakuenthusiast]

[rendakuenthusiast]

This kind of thing is why it infuriates me that Steve Sailer is considered so racist that he and anyone who takes his ideas seriously needs to be barred from polite society. Steve Sailer, in talking about crime statistics broken down by race, is no more racist than the son of the last Democratic party president of the United States in his capacity as making a political argument for his father's legacy. There is no meaningful moral difference between Hunter Biden saying this in an interview and anything Steve Sailer has ever written about race and crime. The only difference is that Sailer's race and crime statistics are a lot closer to being correct.

[rendakuenthusiast]

The version of the King Arthur story I'm personally most familiar with is this early 90s cartoon I saw occasionally as a kid where an American football team went back in time to dark ages England and the quarterback became King Arthur and all the other guys on the football team because the other knights of the round table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur_and_the_Knights_of_Justice <- this one. Heh the main character's name was "Arthur King" that's pretty unsubtle even by the standards of early 90s cartoons.

anyway just a reminder for the myth lovers out there

king arthur was welsh. merlin was welsh. camelot was in wales. the lady and the lake she pops out of; welsh. excalibur; magic inanimate welsh object. etc.

on the way to see family, i drive past a lake that in which is welsh legend, is the last resting place of excalibur.

i’m just saying in my experience a lot of these legends had been so anglo-fied in the past and it’s like, all this cool shit is celtic welsh legend.

[rendakuenthusiast]

Kangel from Needy Girl Overdose <3

[rendakuenthusiast]

Glad you have powerful Hispanic mutuals

I've said this before but several of my powerful mutuals are mexican—one of the many powerful types of men on the earth

[rendakuenthusiast]

Ted Kaczynski was wrong industrial civilization is pretty great actually. Among other things it produces transhumanist drugs and holds out the hope of eventually producing better transhumanist drugs.

✨🏳️‍⚧️ A short pride comic, hope you’re all well 🏳️‍⚧️✨

[rendakuenthusiast]

when the anime tiddy seriously huge

[rendakuenthusiast]

Cover illustration by Frank Kelly Freas

Info from ISFDB

[rendakuenthusiast]

"I know my love was different from yours - but it was love, too."

Mizisua breaking me yet again ⚰️

[rendakuenthusiast]

These circles are stationary

[rendakuenthusiast]

Ulysses Ogre

it's okay, ulysses ogre. you can back up and try dubliners, it's a short story collection with much more straightforward prose, you can dive deep on one piece at a time, and once you've toyed around with that then I'm sure you'll have an easier time with ulysses. besides, I had an irish lit professor who'd been studying finnegans wake for twenty years and she said she still didn't really know what was going on in it. ulysses ogre, what really matters is if you are enjoying your time with literature and feel like you are gaining something, not whether you reach the "correct" conclusions. there's no need to try and force yourself through something if you feel like you aren't on an even enough plane with the text to reap any of its rewards.

[rendakuenthusiast]

[rendakuenthusiast]

so somerville MA has a bunch of cats competing to be bikepath mayor and

!!!!!!!!

[rendakuenthusiast]

Some people have an unhealthy parasocial relationship with the moon. The truth is just because you see the moon every day doesn't mean you are friends with the moon or even that you particularly know her