It's just my opinion, I could be wrong

I observed today that people's reactions to the verdict in this case is very reminiscent, to me, of people's reactions to the results of the last couple of presidential elections in the US. Each side had a perception of the events as they transpired in the lead-up, which was heavily skewed by the media reporting within the ideological bubble in which they resided. Each side thought the outcome was a foregone conclusion, and anything other than their desired outcome would be a catastrophic failure of the system; they could not fathom any other outcome being even thinkable. And in the wake of the actual outcome, each side's media outlets are skewing the coverage to feed the narrative which appeals to their base: either applauding the outcome as necessary and just, or deriding it as a symptom of a systemically broken country which need radical change. Neither of these narratives are either correct or productive, imho. Kyle Rittenhouse went to an area where people were protesti...

On March 25, 2014, about 7.5 years ago, Facebook announced that it was acquiring Oculus VR, the then-leader in the emerging market for VP hardware. Since then, Facebook has been integrating the technology, expanding the offerings, and generally touting the benefits of VR for the masses. Despite this huge investment and PR push, though, VR has not really moved beyond the domain of niche games, or into anything approaching mainstream adaption. Facebook persists in its push, of course, with their most recent offering being a pair of AR glasses reminiscent of Google Glass (which has since been essentially abandoned). I don't think they are going to succeed in their business goal, and I'll explain why I think this. First, we should consider what their business goal actually is, because that may not be evident to everyone. I believe that Facebook envisions a market for VR/AR applications as an emerging business, in much the same way that smartphone apps were an emerging market when t...

This post is motivated by a number of recent articles about advocacy in businesses; specifically, different companies' approaches to such. Some motivating examples: Basecamp sees an exodus of employees after CEO takes stand against advocacy within the company:  https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx58vx/basecamp-employees-are-leaving-after-ceo-bans-politics-at-work Shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway are proposing advocacy-related proposals, which Warren Buffet is opposed to, saying he prefers his company not have top-down political mandates:  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/business/dealbook/buffett-berkshire-climate-diversity.html Many companies are adopting internal advocacy programs, and/or devoting resources to such (eg: my current company has a pay-for speaker program for Diversity and Inclusion, with a new speaker for such every month, among other initiatives) The current political climate in the US is promoting the message that you are either an advocate for a cause or a...

I have thoughts on Biden's budget/tax plan (in a surprise to nobody). I'm going to just comment on a few highlights, and not the specific details, since the plan is still in flux. The Good The idea of upping the capital gains tax is something I have supported in concept for a long time. I do not buy the idea that people will keep money out of the economy if capital gains taxes are high, especially with real inflation consistently around 5-10% annually (and poised to be much higher in the short to medium term, as the economy picks up and the trillions in created money flood back into it). I think it makes for better socioeconomic policy to tax passive gains at a higher rate than earned income in general. The Marginal I don't have a strong opinion on raising the top marginal tax rate back to the pre-Trump level, and/or the specific tax rates in general. Of course these have a huge impact on people's take-home income, but tax rates should be set based on what's accepta...

Preface: This blog is called "It's Just My Opinion, I Could Be Wrong"... I feel like this is probably one of the posts which will earn the moniker. There's an issue in today's society: people, and increasingly more young people, are deciding that the gender which they biologically have is not representative of the gender they wish to be. Now, before I even get to the main point of this post, in the interest of being more complete about my view on the baseline context, I'm going to break down that sentence, and clarify where I disagree with some of the "politically correct" views on the subject. First, I think people have a biological gender (generally speaking). I'm aware, of course, that biological gender is not 100% binary: there are people with extra chromosomes, there are varying levels of expression of gender (and genes in general), there are a small percentage of people with somewhat more ambiguous gender, etc. However, the vast majority of...

Here's an unpopular opinion, at least among Democrats currently: President Trump has every right to not concede the election, and to pursue any legal avenues he wants to ensure that any issues with the vote are corrected (short of using the DOJ to do so, which would have the potential effect of influencing the outcome). So, then, why are more moderate people not supportive of his efforts to do so? Imagine, if you will, a hypothetical world in which Trump is a reasonable, well balanced, well spoken individual, with a track record of honesty and careful consideration of all perspectives (you may need to imagine someone other than Trump, as this is about as far afield of reality as one could imagine). Let's imagine, the day after the election, after not having claimed victory in an absurdly ridiculous rambling press conference filled with lies (remember, in this hypothetical, Trump is not himself), you give a speech something akin to this: This is proving to be a very close electi...

I have a frequent debate with a person at work, who shall remain nameless, about whether or not an expression of a percentage chance of an outcome has any validity. That is, his opinion is that it has no value for someone to opine that they believe an event has a certain percentage chance of occurring; in his mind, this is a non-statement, and the only valid expression of this form is a binary opinion: yes or no. In contrast, I think it's perfectly valid to say you think an event has a percentage chance of happening; that is, I think that statement has meaning. (You may think his opinion is absurd, as I do, or that my opinion is absurd; I'm not going to debate the merits of either per se. Rather, I'm going to write about why I think the ability to understand my perspective is important, in the broader sense.) The main reason he holds this opinion, I believe, is that you cannot "guess check" an opinion on an outcome which is expressed as a percentage chance. That i...