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Current Events March 20-23
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ZenMode
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That is a subjective, not objective, statement also.
All of that is subjective. Your interpretation of Hamilton is based on existing views. Your opinion of Roberts views is also subjective.
Subjectivity is ALL there is in interpretation.
I'm sure I have less knowledge, but that doesn't change the fact that nearly everything, if not everything, related to interpretation of the Constitution , Federalist papers etc is ALL subjective. That's why 25 different judges, from the bottom to SCOTUS, can look at a case, Constitution and previous rulings and find so many different outcomes.
I'm not going to belabor the point, but subjectivity is the basis for nearly everything we are talking about.
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Nope. That is a subjective view, also.
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Someone is confusing a lot of distinct concepts under the rubric of "subjective."
1. Subjectivity is about preferences. You like chocolate ice cream better than cherry? Subjective; my preference is cherry. That is to say, subjectivity occurs when there is no agreed upon basis by which to judge a phenomenon. Even in matters of taste, there often is an agreed upon basis. For instance, sushi tastes better than feces. That's not objectively true, in the sense that a person who prefers feces is wrong. But they are definitely weird. Fringe. And if you prefer feces to sushi, then most people would never ask you for a food recommendation again.
Which is to say, the preference of feces over sushi is objectively wrong under a commonly held set of assumptions that are accepted as guiding the judgment. It's just that there's no law or rule requiring you to adhere to those assumptions. Which is why there are cranks in the world.
2. "Objective" claims, such as scientific theories, are also based on assumptions. For instance, the theory of relativity depends on the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers. If that assumption is false, the theory is wrong.
The virtue of scientific theories is that they can be formulated into testable hypotheses. Run enough tests and you have a lot of data, and you can use the data to assess the theory. Which is to say that scientific theories are verifiable or falsifiable. Those are distinct concepts from "objective."
3. In constitutional interpretation, an axiom (analogous to the vacuum speed of light) is that the constitution means what its words say. Is that axiom subjective? Not really. If a judge is interpreting something other than the constitution's text, then the judge isn't interpreting the constitution. The judge is doing something else. This is a definitional matter more than anything.
So when Roberts says the constitution gives the president immunity from criminal prosecution, that is objectively false. There isn't a single word in the document remotely suggesting that there is immunity from criminal prosecution, which is why Roberts' opinion in Trump v. United States makes almost no mention of the constitution. To the extent that Roberts' opinion has any basis in law, it must be found elsewhere, not the constitution.
4. Originalism is the claim that you can best understand the meaning of the constitution's words by situating them in the context in which they were written. One of its supposed virtues, its proponents claim, is that it prevents judges from imposing their own "subjective" views on the law and tethers them to some "objective" standard.
Of course, by that measure, originalism is a gross failure. Nobody believes any more that originalism cabins judicial discretion more than other methods; in fact, it's pretty widely accepted that it's even unmoored. But theoretically, it should be possible to recreate the semantic context of the constitution and thus recover the "original meaning." Theoretically. So the issue with originalism isn't that it's "subjective"; it's that its claims are impossible to verify. Or to put it differently again, its weakness is epistemic: it presumes that we are able to acquire information that actually is not available to us.
Now, lack of verifiability is a property of a method or contention. It is not necessarily fatal, given that there are similar issues with rival theories. A theory can work by means of consensus (not 100% consensus, but close). For instance, article III instructs courts to hear "cases or controversies." Oh, cool -- does that mean we can take the Kendrick Lamar/Drake beef to the Supreme Court for a decision? Oh, in the 18th century, "controversy" was commonly used in legal parlance to mean a dispute that has a legal basis for decision. There's no serious doubt that the jurisdiction of Article III courts does not extend to deciding whether it was Ross' fault or Rachel's.
In your taxonomy, the meaning of "controversy" is subjective. In a more mature way of looking at the world, it is not. Of course, the problem with originalism is that the Supreme Court usually hears cases that defy consensus; in fact, that's why the case is at the Supreme Court in the first place. So originalism isn't helpful, because it usually just translates the same dispute into a different language.
5. Subjectivity is also sometimes conflated with uncertainty, which you do rather frequently. If you flip a coin and then each of us call it while it is sitting covered on your hand . . . our calls are guesses. The coin is either heads or tails. The problem we have as guessers isn't that there's no objective reality; it's that we have no way of knowing. Or so we think. But maybe you come up with a theory that heads is more likely if the minute hand on a watch points to an even number and tails more likely if it points to odd. Now your guess isn't subjective. It is being determined by a theory -- which happens to be completely wrong.
But let's say someone else comes along with a better theory. He says "I have a quick eye and I counted the number of rotations of the coin in midair. As it started out as heads when flipped, I can say that it's going to be tails." Maybe that theory has an 85% accuracy, which means it's better than my guess or your minute-hand determination.
That theory is still not going to be correct every time. And it's not provable. So does that mean it's merely subjective? It does not. It is clearly NOT subjective, and what's more, it is clearly better than other theories. But there will be times when your "prediction" works and the better theory doesn't. That's not proof of subjectivity; it's merely that our technology isn't good enough to be perfectly accurate. Note that quantum mechanics is based on the axiom (I think it's an axiom but it might be derivable, not sure) that our knowledge can never be perfectly accurate and precise. It's called Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
*****
The point of this disquisition is to demonstrate that "it's subjective" is not a powerful statement. It's in fact one of the weakest contentions around. It's the sort of thing a person says when getting his ass kicked in argument and tries to save face instead of just admitting his lack of knowledge.
I know better than to debate words with you. I'm not going to. I've explained my position, which has the virtue of being informed by years of philosophical reading and experience in that field of "subjectivity," the law. If you think words mean something else, knock yourself out. But nobody is going to take your "it's subjective" nonsense seriously because it's sophomoric. It's a high-school level way of looking at the world. Adults, hopefully, can see with more complexity and refinement.
1. Subjectivity is about preferences. You like chocolate ice cream better than cherry? Subjective; my preference is cherry. That is to say, subjectivity occurs when there is no agreed upon basis by which to judge a phenomenon. Even in matters of taste, there often is an agreed upon basis. For instance, sushi tastes better than feces. That's not objectively true, in the sense that a person who prefers feces is wrong. But they are definitely weird. Fringe. And if you prefer feces to sushi, then most people would never ask you for a food recommendation again.
Which is to say, the preference of feces over sushi is objectively wrong under a commonly held set of assumptions that are accepted as guiding the judgment. It's just that there's no law or rule requiring you to adhere to those assumptions. Which is why there are cranks in the world.
2. "Objective" claims, such as scientific theories, are also based on assumptions. For instance, the theory of relativity depends on the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers. If that assumption is false, the theory is wrong.
The virtue of scientific theories is that they can be formulated into testable hypotheses. Run enough tests and you have a lot of data, and you can use the data to assess the theory. Which is to say that scientific theories are verifiable or falsifiable. Those are distinct concepts from "objective."
3. In constitutional interpretation, an axiom (analogous to the vacuum speed of light) is that the constitution means what its words say. Is that axiom subjective? Not really. If a judge is interpreting something other than the constitution's text, then the judge isn't interpreting the constitution. The judge is doing something else. This is a definitional matter more than anything.
So when Roberts says the constitution gives the president immunity from criminal prosecution, that is objectively false. There isn't a single word in the document remotely suggesting that there is immunity from criminal prosecution, which is why Roberts' opinion in Trump v. United States makes almost no mention of the constitution. To the extent that Roberts' opinion has any basis in law, it must be found elsewhere, not the constitution.
4. Originalism is the claim that you can best understand the meaning of the constitution's words by situating them in the context in which they were written. One of its supposed virtues, its proponents claim, is that it prevents judges from imposing their own "subjective" views on the law and tethers them to some "objective" standard.
Of course, by that measure, originalism is a gross failure. Nobody believes any more that originalism cabins judicial discretion more than other methods; in fact, it's pretty widely accepted that it's even unmoored. But theoretically, it should be possible to recreate the semantic context of the constitution and thus recover the "original meaning." Theoretically. So the issue with originalism isn't that it's "subjective"; it's that its claims are impossible to verify. Or to put it differently again, its weakness is epistemic: it presumes that we are able to acquire information that actually is not available to us.
Now, lack of verifiability is a property of a method or contention. It is not necessarily fatal, given that there are similar issues with rival theories. A theory can work by means of consensus (not 100% consensus, but close). For instance, article III instructs courts to hear "cases or controversies." Oh, cool -- does that mean we can take the Kendrick Lamar/Drake beef to the Supreme Court for a decision? Oh, in the 18th century, "controversy" was commonly used in legal parlance to mean a dispute that has a legal basis for decision. There's no serious doubt that the jurisdiction of Article III courts does not extend to deciding whether it was Ross' fault or Rachel's.
In your taxonomy, the meaning of "controversy" is subjective. In a more mature way of looking at the world, it is not. Of course, the problem with originalism is that the Supreme Court usually hears cases that defy consensus; in fact, that's why the case is at the Supreme Court in the first place. So originalism isn't helpful, because it usually just translates the same dispute into a different language.
5. Subjectivity is also sometimes conflated with uncertainty, which you do rather frequently. If you flip a coin and then each of us call it while it is sitting covered on your hand . . . our calls are guesses. The coin is either heads or tails. The problem we have as guessers isn't that there's no objective reality; it's that we have no way of knowing. Or so we think. But maybe you come up with a theory that heads is more likely if the minute hand on a watch points to an even number and tails more likely if it points to odd. Now your guess isn't subjective. It is being determined by a theory -- which happens to be completely wrong.
But let's say someone else comes along with a better theory. He says "I have a quick eye and I counted the number of rotations of the coin in midair. As it started out as heads when flipped, I can say that it's going to be tails." Maybe that theory has an 85% accuracy, which means it's better than my guess or your minute-hand determination.
That theory is still not going to be correct every time. And it's not provable. So does that mean it's merely subjective? It does not. It is clearly NOT subjective, and what's more, it is clearly better than other theories. But there will be times when your "prediction" works and the better theory doesn't. That's not proof of subjectivity; it's merely that our technology isn't good enough to be perfectly accurate. Note that quantum mechanics is based on the axiom (I think it's an axiom but it might be derivable, not sure) that our knowledge can never be perfectly accurate and precise. It's called Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
*****
The point of this disquisition is to demonstrate that "it's subjective" is not a powerful statement. It's in fact one of the weakest contentions around. It's the sort of thing a person says when getting his ass kicked in argument and tries to save face instead of just admitting his lack of knowledge.
I know better than to debate words with you. I'm not going to. I've explained my position, which has the virtue of being informed by years of philosophical reading and experience in that field of "subjectivity," the law. If you think words mean something else, knock yourself out. But nobody is going to take your "it's subjective" nonsense seriously because it's sophomoric. It's a high-school level way of looking at the world. Adults, hopefully, can see with more complexity and refinement.
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The boost in federal spending for SpaceX will come in part as a result of actions by President Trump and Elon Musk’s allies and employees who hold government positions. Supporters say he has the best technology.
GIFT LINK
—> Musk’s SpaceX Could Secure Billions in New Contracts Under Trump“…
In the Commerce Department, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service will now be fully eligible for the federal government’s $42 billion rural broadband push, after being largely shut out during the Biden era.
At NASA, after repeated nudges by Mr. Musk, the agency is being squeezed to turn its focus to Mars, allowing SpaceX to pursue federal contracts to deliver the first humans to the distant planet.
And at the Federal Aviation Administration and the White House itself, Starlink satellite dishes have recently been installed, to expand federal government internet access. …”
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Global AIDS program teetering after Trump admin’s shock-and-awe
President Trump is taking apart one of George W. Bush’s proudest achievements.“… The Bush Institute, an arm of the center that promotes Bush’s legacy, is pleading with the administration and Republicans to keep the program alive, making the case that it’s good for America.
… Since late February, the Trump administration has terminated hundreds of millions of dollars in PEPFAR grants and contracts amid its rapid effort to align foreign aid with its “America First” policy, according to a list obtained by POLITICO. On March 25, the 2003 law that established PEPFAR is set to expire with no indication it’ll be renewed anytime soon.
… Congress did appropriate funding to cover PEPFAR’s expenses through September earlier this month. Its programs can continue even if the law authorizing it expires, but only if Trump wants to spend the money. PEPFAR’s budget is between $6 and $7 billion per year.
Trump has halted most programs overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which handled a majority of PEPFAR’s projects, but so far hasn’t touched the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s, which run nearly $2 billion a year.
… PEPFAR enjoyed bipartisan support until two years ago, when congressional Republicans accused then-President Joe Biden of indirectly funding abortion abroad by providing PEPFAR funds to groups that support or provide abortions. After allowing the law that authorizes the program to expire in 2023, Congress ended up reupping it for one year last March. Every previous renewal was for five.
…
Then in January, the Biden administration acknowledged that a routine check on grant compliance in the southeast African country of Mozambique found that four nurses in a small province whose salaries were funded by PEPFAR provided abortions, which is legal in the country.
Mozambique refunded the money — $4,100 — but Senate Foreign Relations Chair Jim Risch (R-Idaho), whose panel oversees PEPFAR and would lead any effort to renew it, said it called into doubt his support for the program. “This violation means that the future of the PEPFAR program is certainly in jeopardy,” he said in a statement at the time.
… GOP term limits for committee chairs forced McCaul to give up his post atop the House Foreign Affairs Committee. McCaul’s replacement, Florida Republican Brian Mast, told POLITICO earlier this year that he wants to rethink the U.S. investment in PEPFAR.
… Payments for some of the PEPFAR projects still intact, such as a major contract to supply and deliver HIV drugs, aren’t flowing to the organizations running them, keeping crucial lifelines effectively frozen, according to a person familiar with the USAID programs allowed to speak anonymously for fear of reprisal from the administration.
Eight countries already face significant disruptions to HIV drugs and are expected to run out in the coming months, the World Health Organization, an arm of the United Nations, said Monday, listing Kenya, Lesotho, and Ukraine among them. …”
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GIFT LINK
—> https://www.wsj.com/finance/regulat...29?st=UKqccu&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink“In his first full week as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, home-builder heir and former private-equity executive William Pulte ousted more than a dozen board members at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Pulte made himself the chairman of the boards and installed a set of new directors (one of them was Christopher Stanley, an Elon Musk ally who resigned from the post a day later). He removed senior executives at the companies and the FHFA, which regulates Fannie and Freddie. Among those let go was Freddie CEO Diana Reid.
… A proposal floated to the administration last week by a Trump ally laid out how the government could transfer Treasury’s ownership of the mortgage giants to the sovereign-wealth fund that President Trump has vowed to create, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also last week suggested on a podcast that the administration could use Fannie and Freddie for a sovereign-wealth fund, though he didn’t elaborate on specifics.
Countries generally fund sovereign-wealth funds with surplus revenue, but the U.S. runs a large budget deficit each year.
Privatizing Fannie and Freddie, which came under government control after the 2008 financial crisis, could generate a windfall for the government. One proposal circulated in recent months estimated that the privatized entities would be valued above $330 billion, with the government’s stake at more than $250 billion.
Under that plan, Fannie and Freddie would raise an additional $20 billion to $30 billion from new investors, akin to an initial public offering. A raising of that size would put it on par with the largest IPOs of all time. …”
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”… If not done carefully, some worry that privatization could drive investors to demand higher premiums in the mortgage-backed securities market. That would trickle through to borrowers in the form of higher mortgage rates. Pulte and Bessent have said that any privatization efforts would need to take into consideration the effect on mortgage rates.GIFT LINK
“In his first full week as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, home-builder heir and former private-equity executive William Pulte ousted more than a dozen board members at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Pulte made himself the chairman of the boards and installed a set of new directors (one of them was Christopher Stanley, an Elon Musk ally who resigned from the post a day later). He removed senior executives at the companies and the FHFA, which regulates Fannie and Freddie. Among those let go was Freddie CEO Diana Reid.
… A proposal floated to the administration last week by a Trump ally laid out how the government could transfer Treasury’s ownership of the mortgage giants to the sovereign-wealth fund that President Trump has vowed to create, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also last week suggested on a podcast that the administration could use Fannie and Freddie for a sovereign-wealth fund, though he didn’t elaborate on specifics.
Countries generally fund sovereign-wealth funds with surplus revenue, but the U.S. runs a large budget deficit each year.
Privatizing Fannie and Freddie, which came under government control after the 2008 financial crisis, could generate a windfall for the government. One proposal circulated in recent months estimated that the privatized entities would be valued above $330 billion, with the government’s stake at more than $250 billion.
Under that plan, Fannie and Freddie would raise an additional $20 billion to $30 billion from new investors, akin to an initial public offering. A raising of that size would put it on par with the largest IPOs of all time. …”
Meanwhile, bankers, regulators and other industry players have privately worried about whether the latest management and staffing turmoil at Fannie and Freddie could cause even small disruptions in the multitrillion-dollar mortgage market.
Pulte has already sought to reduce head count in an FHFA department that oversaw fair-housing rules for the Federal Home Loan Bank system, a source of liquidity for banks. Another department that worked on housing-finance research was also targeted.
One top bank regulator said that even relatively minor mechanical issues, such as with mortgage pricing or other data, could spook investors in the mortgage-backed securities market. That could keep mortgage rates elevated or push them higher at a fragile moment in the U.S. housing market. …”
superrific
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What could go wrong with privatizing Fannie and Freddie? They used to be private (technically still are but are in conservatorship). That worked out well, didn't it?
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Autocrats roll back rights and rule of law — and cite Trump’s example
Trump’s statements, policies and actions are providing cover for attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, freedom of expression and the rule of law around the world.GIFT LINK
—> https://wapo.st/4hziQsz“… Parliament voted overwhelmingly this month to ban the event — and threatened to use facial recognition technology to identify violators.
What changed? According to Orban, it was the return to the White House of President Donald Trump.
Gergely Gulyas, Orban’s chief of staff, told journalists that the change in administrations in Washington had lifted the “American boot” off the chest of the Hungarian government, making it easier “to breathe.”
… Pride “shouldn’t have existed earlier, but it did, because the U.S. Ambassador led the march, which clearly showed that the world’s great powers supported it,” Orban said last month.
“But now the world has changed, and the Americans have called these types of ambassadors back home. … It’s clear that [Pride] won’t have international protection.”
The emboldened Orban is not alone.
As Trump upends democratic norms at home, his statements, policies and actions are providing cover for a fresh chill on freedom of expression, democracy, the rule of law and LGBTQ+ rights for autocrats around the world — some of whom are giving him credit.
Democratic backsliding in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Turkey long predates Trump; the president has been said to have derived some of his messaging from Orban.
But in several nations, including Hungary and Serbia, authorities say openly that Trump’s return has helped them serve up what critics say are fresh violations of basic rights. In Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week detained his leading political rival and dozens of others, advocates see Trump’s influence as an enabling factor. …”
superrific
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Sounds like a bullshit excuse to me. Erdogan will do what he wants to do; he's never felt the need before to emulate an American president.
Not discounting how Trump has completely trashed the reputation of America, but dictators hoe their own fields.
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You Can Now Peruse All the Books Meta Pirated to Train its AI
Trump, DOGE, and big tech companies like OpenAI and Meta don't care about free access to books unless it benefits their AI.
gizmodo.com
Over the past two years, The Atlantic has been analyzing and creating repositories of publicly-available data troves used to train AI. The site set its sights on LibGen, an archive of pirated media that includes millions of books, academic papers, and other articles. Recently the site released its findings alongside a tool for searching through the archive of millions upon millions of pirated works. With that, you can look for your favorite authors to find if they have been used to train AI models from the likes of OpenAI, Mistral, and Meta.
LibGen, a shortened name for Library Genesis, is what’s referred to online as a “shadow library” for its illicit but open nature. It includes nearly 7.5 million books and 81 million academic papers, according to The Atlantic’s report. While it contains a hoard of copyrighted material, that belies its actual benefits to society. Library Genesis has also been used by scientists to access academic works without paying exorbitant fees to publishers. Other shadow libraries like Sci-Hub have been recognized by groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation as an objective good for the progress of science.
Gizmodo reached out to Meta for comment, but we did not immediately hear back. We also asked Mistral and OpenAI to comment on its use of LibGen. In a statement to Gizmodo an OpenAI spokesperson said “The models powering ChatGPT and our API today were not developed using these datasets. These datasets, created by former employees who are no longer with OpenAI, were last used in 2021.”
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^ all my wife's academic work was illegally used by Meta to train their AI.
You can search for your own work here: Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
You can search for your own work here: Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
superrific
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That's what I've suspected since it was announced. That seemed too wild even for this administration, and I really have trouble believing anyone in the military would prepare a briefing for Elon without serious pushback.
I'm also suspicious of the "internal memo" from the IRS that DOGE's meddling in the IRS systems will cost the government $500B in unpaid taxes this year. It will undoubtedly cost *something* -- but that's like 12% of our tax revenue. There's no way a staffing shortage is going to have that large an effect. Until I see otherwise, I'm assuming that's disinformation also.
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