I made a community dedicated to crafting a constitution for Mars. It's mostly an opportunity for big-picture thinkers to collaborate so we can figure out how to (1) design an optimal government and (2) keep it that way.

@DadInGeorgiaUSA You're not the only one. It's weird how Republican economists don't voice these obvious criticisms.

Yes sir, that's the Deming. I can't claim to have read any of his books cover to cover, so I'm not sure I'm educated on his principles enough to say. But I've learned of his principles many times in business classes and also in healthcare contexts, and they have all seemed to me like legitimate insights into principles of how the world works, so their applicability are universal, although the specifics of the situation may require different forms of implementation.

Beautifully said. I agree. There are probably places where we aren't ready to move on to acceptance and normalcy. But figuring out how to do that effectively without inducing the opposite of the desired response is so tricky. By the way, I think the term for the LGBT+ community should be the "progressive gender, sexuality, and relationships community." The PGSR community. Because I believe those are all the issues the community is dealing with (I include relationships because non-monogamy in all its forms are also not traditionally accepted), so referring to it that way eliminates the worries about leaving out subcultures within the community. But I think the all-inclusive term "queer community" is fulfilling that same role for some at least.

@BasedMikeLee @RonPaul Definitely would be helpful.

@RJPilkington @DOGE Noted, thank you for sharing the data. Either the country continues to need to make this an issue and continue advocacy efforts or we need to move past it to simple cultural acceptance. The data suggest the former. But I also wonder if moving past it would help more. Not sure.

People are frequently inconsistent in their advocacy efforts, probably mostly due to simple awareness (or lack thereof) and salience of certain issues in their lives. And we don't have unlimited time and money and energy to dedicate to good causes, so the very nature of our limited resources requires us to pick and choose how we spend them. And when people are unaware of that reality, they wrongfully accuse people of being inconsistent (although sometimes the accusation IS warranted). For example, I see the political tribes accusing each other of being inconsistent like that all the time, and it bothers me because it feels like they're not accomplishing anything with those accusations other than dividing us further.

Yeah, it's an important question. And the follow-up question would be, "Would hate crimes go up or down if our cultural attitude shifts to simple acceptance rather than continuing to make a big deal of it?" I think there is a period of time needed for discriminated minorities to speak out and bring light to how they're being treated. But there also comes a point where you have to move on from that and let the culture shift to the acceptance state. And I guess my hope is that we're at that point.

That's so sad, and I'm sorry to hear it. And, yeah, obviously not everyone is onboard with the whole "let's just let people live how they want and love them regardless" idea. The question is how to help our culture as a whole get there the fastest (while recognizing that individuals will always be discriminatory). My suspicion is that, by now, in most places in the country, we're past the point of needing to make people's gender or sexuality or relationship choices (the ones that aren't in line with the traditional cultural norm) a big deal, and continuing to do so only perpetuates the focus on it being an issue and slows down our progress. But I acknowledge I may be wrong about that. The purpose of my original comment was to express a hope that people will give each other the benefit of the doubt when it comes to assuming the intentions of others, because all sides need to start demonstrating that good will at some point or these issues will just persist.

@stormchaser417 @DOGE Yeah, and regardless of political spectrum, I think people are just ready to stop making it an issue. Kind of like race.

@LeConneatois @elonmusk 😂

@MostlyPeacefull Tariffs hurt the country that imposes them, but they do also allow the imposing country to steal some jobs from the other country. But that job benefit is smaller than the cost, so it's a net loss. I explained the nuts and bolts of that here:

@MichelleMaxwell He's correct, but he missed the part that Trump gets wrong about tariffs:

@pitdesi There are a few other times when tariffs are good. But, yeah, he's totally on point.

I've seen a ton of misunderstandings about tariffs on X lately, so I finally wrote a very thorough explanation of when they're good and when they're bad. Why Tariffs Are Bad (And When They Can Sometimes Be Good)

When, in an environment, certain viewpoints are rewarded and divergent viewpoints are suppressed (through controlling the information people receive) or punished (socially and also economically), I think two phenomena arise: 1. Some individuals' viewpoints truly are shifted to align with the environment's accepted one. This is probably a subconscious shift, so the individual has no insight about the fact of its occurrence. 2. For individuals whose viewpoints aren't shifted to align, they falsify their viewpoints instead to avoid the repercussions of having a divergent viewpoint. Both phenomena result in a greater consensus than would otherwise be present. And when that preferential treatment of certain viewpoints evaporates (maybe through individuals gaining new sources of information), the preference falsification (category 2) disappears quickly. But the individuals in category 1 probably mostly stick with their existing worldview, although it probably adjusts over time in some of them.

@elonmusk Bugs can cause it too.

I appreciate your comments. They make me think. The reason I believe in human nature to the degree that I do, at least in its willingness to make efforts to help others and dedicate money to those causes, is because of two reasons. One is that reciprocal altruism is programmed into us, and it motivates us to spread goodwill under the belief that it could come back to us (like an innate belief in karma). And the second related reason is because of the data that show how generous wealthy people are in giving away their money to causes they feel passionate about. It seems that, when they have enough money to buy everything they want for themselves, they find other ways to spend their excess money. So they start nonprofits, which is really just them spending money to buy satisfaction in other ways.