Chasing Ennui
@chasingennui.bsky.social
I vote for the Democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
A major cause of people in their 20s complaining about the economy (which every generation has done while in their 20s) is just that they're comparing their SoL to their memory of their SoL while in HS living w/their parent (who were then in their 30s-40s).
September 4, 2025 at 6:48 PM
A major cause of people in their 20s complaining about the economy (which every generation has done while in their 20s) is just that they're comparing their SoL to their memory of their SoL while in HS living w/their parent (who were then in their 30s-40s).
To paraphrase MLK Jr., I have a dream that Americans not be judged on the birthplace of their ancestors, but by the content of their character.
September 4, 2025 at 12:50 PM
To paraphrase MLK Jr., I have a dream that Americans not be judged on the birthplace of their ancestors, but by the content of their character.
I have a modest proposal for all the pro-natalists out there.
September 3, 2025 at 7:31 PM
I have a modest proposal for all the pro-natalists out there.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but something seems wrong about using military force against drug smugglers
Rubio’s tweet announcing a US military strike somewhere in the Caribbean…if I’m not mistaken, first combat action by SOUTHCOM since the Clinton administration called off the invasion of Haiti three decades ago.
September 3, 2025 at 2:42 AM
I can't quite put my finger on it, but something seems wrong about using military force against drug smugglers
The NVDA/AMD deal is proof that, not only is the power to tax the power to destroy, but the power to destroy is the power to tax.
August 14, 2025 at 3:39 AM
The NVDA/AMD deal is proof that, not only is the power to tax the power to destroy, but the power to destroy is the power to tax.
You'd think Justice Thomas would be more sympathetic to people wanting to watch porn.
June 27, 2025 at 4:11 PM
You'd think Justice Thomas would be more sympathetic to people wanting to watch porn.
Mariam Nabatanzi Babirye of Uganda holds the record of having had more (well-documented) biological children than any other woman - 44 in total. All the documentation you really need to believe this claim is this expression
June 8, 2025 at 4:54 AM
Mariam Nabatanzi Babirye of Uganda holds the record of having had more (well-documented) biological children than any other woman - 44 in total. All the documentation you really need to believe this claim is this expression
The thing with logical fallicies is that they are often good heuristics.
For example, as @xkcd.com once pointed out, "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there.'"
For example, as @xkcd.com once pointed out, "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there.'"
June 3, 2025 at 5:06 PM
The thing with logical fallicies is that they are often good heuristics.
For example, as @xkcd.com once pointed out, "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there.'"
For example, as @xkcd.com once pointed out, "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there.'"
The idea that it's important to pass on your specific genes seems so alien to me. I don't want my wife to cheat on me, but that's b/c I value the relationship, but your monkey brain doesn't understand sperm donors and you're not going to love your kid any less.
June 1, 2025 at 7:32 PM
The idea that it's important to pass on your specific genes seems so alien to me. I don't want my wife to cheat on me, but that's b/c I value the relationship, but your monkey brain doesn't understand sperm donors and you're not going to love your kid any less.
The problem with crosstraining is that when I bike instead of run, I feel bad about missing my step goals. It's dumb, but I want to hit >10k steps, and that's hard if your daily exercise doesn't include steps.
May 27, 2025 at 3:08 AM
The problem with crosstraining is that when I bike instead of run, I feel bad about missing my step goals. It's dumb, but I want to hit >10k steps, and that's hard if your daily exercise doesn't include steps.
People misunderstand "comparative advantage." It's often not that the country doing the thing is better at it, but that the country not doing the thing has better things to do. If the US started doing a lot of low-skilled manufacturing again, it would be a big step backward.
May 23, 2025 at 3:10 PM
People misunderstand "comparative advantage." It's often not that the country doing the thing is better at it, but that the country not doing the thing has better things to do. If the US started doing a lot of low-skilled manufacturing again, it would be a big step backward.
A good rule of thumb is that ~50 murders/year may not be great but doesn't count as a genocide.
dilanesper.substack.com/p/not-everyt...
dilanesper.substack.com/p/not-everyt...
Not Everything Can Be Genocide
A Key Tool of Activists Is Very Harmful
dilanesper.substack.com
May 23, 2025 at 1:17 AM
A good rule of thumb is that ~50 murders/year may not be great but doesn't count as a genocide.
dilanesper.substack.com/p/not-everyt...
dilanesper.substack.com/p/not-everyt...
I disagree with the repugnant conclusion for a lot of reasons, but one is that you shouldn't use Utilitarianism for more than a general guideline. It's a good idea to generally aim to increase happiness, but if you get to the point where you're doing math, things fall apart quickly.
May 15, 2025 at 2:32 PM
I disagree with the repugnant conclusion for a lot of reasons, but one is that you shouldn't use Utilitarianism for more than a general guideline. It's a good idea to generally aim to increase happiness, but if you get to the point where you're doing math, things fall apart quickly.
Not sure if this has made it to Bsky yet, but it appears Musk has given Grok brain surgery to force it to agree with him on the Afrikaner farm attacks and it hasn't gone well. The left image is Grok yesterday, the right is Grok today, responding to something entirely unrelated to South Africa.
May 14, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Not sure if this has made it to Bsky yet, but it appears Musk has given Grok brain surgery to force it to agree with him on the Afrikaner farm attacks and it hasn't gone well. The left image is Grok yesterday, the right is Grok today, responding to something entirely unrelated to South Africa.
I was in law school just as online legal research was taking off. As a result, before we were given full access to Westlaw, we had to pass a course on library research, using a combination of Shepherd's, treatises, legal indexes, and dumb luck. By the time I graduated...
“Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate…Both in the literal sense and in the sense of being historically illiterate and having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”
Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College
ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project.
nymag.com
May 7, 2025 at 4:29 PM
I was in law school just as online legal research was taking off. As a result, before we were given full access to Westlaw, we had to pass a course on library research, using a combination of Shepherd's, treatises, legal indexes, and dumb luck. By the time I graduated...
Going to college (even w/student loans) is like getting vaccinated. There are people who suffer vaccine injuries, and people for whom college doesn't work out, but on average, both leave you way better off.
www.axios.com/2024/03/04/c...
www.axios.com/2024/03/04/c...
Show this chart to anyone who tells you college isn't worth it
Yes, college is still worth it.
www.axios.com
April 29, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Going to college (even w/student loans) is like getting vaccinated. There are people who suffer vaccine injuries, and people for whom college doesn't work out, but on average, both leave you way better off.
www.axios.com/2024/03/04/c...
www.axios.com/2024/03/04/c...
Hypothesis: Dating apps are at least partially responsible for the loneliness epidemic.
Pre-dating apps, if you wanted to find a mate, you had to go outside and socialize in hopes you would meet someone to date, or at least meet someone who will set you up...
Pre-dating apps, if you wanted to find a mate, you had to go outside and socialize in hopes you would meet someone to date, or at least meet someone who will set you up...
April 29, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Hypothesis: Dating apps are at least partially responsible for the loneliness epidemic.
Pre-dating apps, if you wanted to find a mate, you had to go outside and socialize in hopes you would meet someone to date, or at least meet someone who will set you up...
Pre-dating apps, if you wanted to find a mate, you had to go outside and socialize in hopes you would meet someone to date, or at least meet someone who will set you up...
I hope the people who mysteriously bought into the market shortly before Trump announced the pause are still holding and are highly leveraged.
April 10, 2025 at 5:30 PM
I hope the people who mysteriously bought into the market shortly before Trump announced the pause are still holding and are highly leveraged.
Have we really gotten to the "golden idols" stage of things?
April 10, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Have we really gotten to the "golden idols" stage of things?
Imagine if Apple's shareholders were constantly fretting over the fact that the company wasn't successful and demanding that the board dramatically overhaul its business models. Maybe stop selling phones and switch to selling groceries.
That's basically the US electorate.
That's basically the US electorate.
April 5, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Imagine if Apple's shareholders were constantly fretting over the fact that the company wasn't successful and demanding that the board dramatically overhaul its business models. Maybe stop selling phones and switch to selling groceries.
That's basically the US electorate.
That's basically the US electorate.
One of the perks of a Republican administration is the Volokh conspiracy starts writing articles I agree with.
1. Part 1 of my critique of Kurt Lash's leading anti-birthright argument. Note that Lash revised to correct some of the errors I pointed out after I posted it, without changing his thesis at all or crediting me. (Also, his original draft was 88 pages). reason.com/volokh/2025/...
88 Problems for Kurt Lash
On February 24, 2025, Kurt Lash posted 8 pages on SSRN. It was an introduction to a work-in-progress about the original public meaning of the Citizenship
reason.com
April 5, 2025 at 1:12 PM
One of the perks of a Republican administration is the Volokh conspiracy starts writing articles I agree with.
This paragraph from @bretdevereaux.bsky.social's post on the history of bread really gave me some insight into why people like Trump are so opposed to trade. Of course, thanks to Adam Smith, we've known this medieval view to be wrong for 250 years. (Source: acoup.blog/2020/08/21/c...)
April 4, 2025 at 4:21 PM
This paragraph from @bretdevereaux.bsky.social's post on the history of bread really gave me some insight into why people like Trump are so opposed to trade. Of course, thanks to Adam Smith, we've known this medieval view to be wrong for 250 years. (Source: acoup.blog/2020/08/21/c...)
If Trump had paid attention to Ferris Bueller's Day Off we wouldn't be in this mess.
a man wearing glasses is standing in front of a blackboard and saying `` anyone ? '' .
Alt: Ben Stein's economic lecture from Ferris Bueller's Day Off
media.tenor.com
April 4, 2025 at 3:03 PM
If Trump had paid attention to Ferris Bueller's Day Off we wouldn't be in this mess.
Sounds like Trump was as good a father as he is a president.
The always-bright Eric Trump gives away the game, acknowledging that the tariffs are just a form of extortion.
April 3, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Sounds like Trump was as good a father as he is a president.
AI is creating doomsday cultists who think nothing matters because we're either going to have AI doom or AI utopia in a few years. Doomsday cults are bad ideas because sometimes the doom doesn't come, and you just wind up bald, castrated, and wearing a tracksuit.
April 3, 2025 at 7:40 PM
AI is creating doomsday cultists who think nothing matters because we're either going to have AI doom or AI utopia in a few years. Doomsday cults are bad ideas because sometimes the doom doesn't come, and you just wind up bald, castrated, and wearing a tracksuit.