It's just my opinion, I could be wrong

This might be a long post, but in the context of the current election, and broader, I wanted to write up a primer on how inflation works. This is a hot topic at the moment, and one of the strongest talking points in politics, particularly within the right-leaning circles. It's also one of the least understood topics generally, and thus one of the easiest to inaccurately blame on people or actions for political purposes. Furthermore, actions related to inflation are the perhaps surprising cause of several pressing societal woes (eg: housing prices, wage stagnation, etc.), so it would be great if the general population better understood what was going on. So, hopefully, this will help. What causes inflation Milton Friedman (famous economist) once observed: "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." This is, broadly, true: inflation happens when more money is competing for the same amount of goods and services, and thus the people with the goods ans services...

Something I've been thinking about recently: Often when someone (or a group of people) commit some heinously evil act, the media (and/or their supporters) will try to promote a narrative of the importance of focusing on why they got to the point where they were "compelled" to that type of action. They (the supporters) will insist that the motivating factors should be addressed if we (society) want to prevent that type of societally destructive behavior in the future, and that just focusing on the actions in isolation doesn't properly account for all those responsible. You can see this in numerous different situations; here are some examples. In Israel/Gaza, supporters attempt to justify the murderous terrorist actions of Hamas by pointing at the conditions in Gaza. In the case of mass murderers, supporters will often insist on asking why the deranged individual was driven to commit acts of murder, and if more societal support might be possible. In cases of ubiquitous ...

Every once in a while, I have occasion to reflect on the act of having children, and whether or not it can be justified in the existential sense. I have children, and have made the choice to have them, so for me it's more or less a post facto analysis, but still a somewhat interesting philosophical one. Some pundits have made a big deal about the idea that declining birth rates in first-world countries is a societal problem (eg: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/30/health/elon-musk-population-collapse-wellness/index.html). This is not, generally, a problem currently, as birth rates in poorer and less educated areas more than make up for declines in procreation among the wealthy and educated. There is, certainly, a valid but more nuanced argument that the shifting demographics as a result of who chooses to procreate is degrading the quality of the gene pool for humanity, but that's not a very politically correct argument to make in public, so most people steer clear. I'm not going...

Ben Shapiro has an interesting take on the current state of the Ukraine invasion, and what he perceives at the likely and/or necessary endgame for the war: https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1605899823491620866 Now, Shapiro is not a dumb person (even though he has plenty of viewpoints and opinions which I don't personally agree with), but this line of thinking exemplifies the idea that opinions are very often shaped by assumptions, and people can reach very different conclusions if they start with different assumptions (which may or may not be stated). In this case, Shapiro assumes that Ukraine cannot push Russia out of all of its territory (and/or that "defeating its invasion" is not inclusive of repelling Russia from all the territory which it has invaded, but only halting their advances). I don't know that either of those assumptions are accurate. Moreover, I somewhat disagree with the premise, in concept. The interests of the US, in a geopolitical sense, are mo...

 One of the more significant political moves which Biden has done, even if it's somewhat under the radar in terms of national news reporting, is the place extensive new restrictions on China's access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology. For a primer, see: https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/10/27/biden-s-unprecedented-semiconductor-bet-pub-88270 I've been trying to wrap my head around the motivation for this. After all, the status quo seemed fine from an outsider perspective, and aggravating China seems politically dangerous. It's also the kind of move which would traditionally be done by the more right-wing people in the US political sphere's (despite Trump's essentially "rhetoric only" approach to foreign policy, which was fairly damaging to the US efforts in general). However, I have another theory now, which I'll expound upon; no idea if this is accurate, but it's conceptually interesting. Currently, a lot of US semiconductor...

I don't care about Brittney Griner. That's somewhat inaccurate, I suppose. In relation to her as a human being, I care about her: I don't want her to be abused, or mistreated, or killed, etc. But in relation to the plethora of stories and attention that her situation continues to receive, I don't care as much, and I certainly don't think any of it warrants news media or Presidential administration copy. If you need to catch up, here's the latest as of today, for reference: https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/34982248/brittney-griner-moves-russian-penal-colony-exact-location-unknown I don't care about her (beyond as any other person) because she's largely responsible for her current situation. First, she's a criminal: she brought known-illegal stuff into Russia, without respecting their laws. As Americans, we project our views and opinions a lot on other countries, but Russia has their own laws, and if you're going to visit there and you ignore ...