Lord Ratner

Lol, I don't know what you think my core argument is, but I've said multiple times that multiple things can be true at once. I have no idea what your second paragraph is supposed to convey. You think Congress cares about safety? Now who's naive? I also never said something is right because it's always been that way. I said that groups can create norms and rules as long as they are consistently applied. You joining that system indicates a moral endorsement of the act. Otherwise you are participating in an immoral system for profit, which makes you immoral. Of course you can disagree with the system you are a part of, but there is a big difference between disagreeing with something and believing it to be immoral. You have made the claim that it is immoral: Again, your arguments border on hyperlibertarianism. The reason libertarians have never and will never have any real power in any real society is because absolute adherence to individual freedom falls apart immediately upon contact with reality. The same group of people that will complain about the government setting an age limitation will complain at the amount of money the government would be required to spend to do cognitive testing on every pilot of every age. I used to consider myself libertarian until I realized it is the political manifestation of backseat driving. This whole conversation reeks of it.

I think you are intelligent enough to have the conversation you want to have, but you are simply too self-righteous to listen. In either case, until you are capable of holding two thoughts at the same time, I don't need to write another manifesto just repeating myself. There is a safety justification that is backed up by decades of cognitive research, as well as insurance actuarial tables as pointed out above. 65 might or might not be the correct number. There is also a concept of group-based norms and expectations, which can be equally or unequally applied. In this case, the forced retirement is equally applied, which plays a huge part in determining whether or not the group norm is moral. Finally there is the concept of averaging and thresholding, which again, insurance companies (and the government, and schools, and churches, and people in general) have been doing for centuries because it is simply not practical to test all of the variables that one might want to consider individually for every restriction. If you can't get to there, we just aren't going to get anywhere.

Ah, there we go. No point in continuing with you. Armed drug dealers? I think the murder-only threshold is too high. Contrary to popular belief, people who have just broken traffic laws don't often flee a traffic stop like that. I can happily engage with the idea that the terrible attempt at a pit maneuver should not have occurred, and the cops should have simply followed the suspects until they tired themselves out. Of course then if that truck had rammed into a bus full of orphans without police intervention, the police would still be blamed. In almost every one of the videos I've watched, the expired tags are why the crook is pulled over, not why they subsequently flee. There's usually an associated warrant. Either way, hard for the cops to know at the moment.

We're repeating ourselves at this point, but this specifically shows why there's no point here in continuing the loop. You fundamentally believe that this is somehow immoral, and I fundamentally believe you are wrong. Further, being practical is just a part of life. The best answer would be to cognitively test every pilot before every flight. That's obviously too much. The worst answer would be to pick the age at which cognitive ability is at its highest on average, probably somewhere in the '30s, and then fire all pilots older than that. That is obviously extreme on the other end. Picking somewhere in the middle is what it means to work in a functional system with limited resources. Besides all of that, I have already said multiple times that if you remove all of the safety issues I still have no issue with the restriction. You do not have a moral, legal, fundamental right to work wherever you want, whenever you want, for however long you want. That exists in no religious or philosophical text. This is the same argument that hyperlibertarians make against homeowners associations. But the second word is the giveaway. It is just one of many associations that we enter into voluntarily, because groups have aligned interests and values. And just because one person doesn't like what the group has determined as a group, does not make it immoral, because the individual does not have moral superiority over a group when that group is a voluntary association created by many individuals. We have a bunch of people in our Union whining that the union isn't representing their interests because they want to work past 65. And they keep throwing DFR around because the union isn't advocating for their specific individual interest. Yet when the union does polling, the membership overwhelmingly supports age 65 as a restriction. The union has no obligation to advocate for your specific interests beyond its duty to represent you in disciplinary proceedings.

Does something happen after 8 minutes that changes the story? I'm not sure how you watched that and thought the cops were the idiots in the situation.

One reason I like appendix carry. With a claw and/or wedge you can get away with a lot, as long as the shirt is long enough. Even thin fabrics are workable if they have a pattern to hide any printing. But it's always an inconvenience. I've got a hybrid leather/kydex coming to try, because I don't love the feeling of the slide and optic pressing into my skin, but I love the positive "click" you get from kydex.

Push what through? You mean keep things the same. I'm also unclear about "no data." Are you suggesting that the entire body of cognitive research in regards to age is somehow false? Even if you are completely unfamiliar with the research, surely you have existed, right? You've actually met old people? The suggestion that there's no "fact, reason, or real logic" to say that cognitive ability declines with age is completely absurd. The distinction doesn't fall apart at all. Everyone turns 65, unless they happened to die earlier. Everyone. And every single one of those people had the exact same amount of time on Earth up until the point they turned 65. That you would think there is a comparison between racial discrimination and age discrimination shows a complete lack of moral nuance. It's not about social ick. Again, if you somehow believe that there is no cognitive effect to aging, then I suppose you can get a little closer to a discriminatory argument. But there is, factually. There is not, however, any evidence that having darker skin makes you a shittier pilot. These two are so different that I'm shocked I have to write this much about it. The age at which you can drink, vote, own a gun, serve in the military. The age in which you can be in the House of Representatives. The age which you can be a Senator. The age that you can be President. The age that you are allowed to draw social security. The age that you get a better rate on car insurance. The age that you get discounts at movies. The age that allows you to move into certain communities (55+). I think you fundamentally fail to understand what group-based means. Rather than screening millions of people, you find a statistical point where it will apply to the majority of the demographic. I don't know what this "10 people taking a vision test at a time" nonsense is, but it doesn't apply to anything that we are talking about. It's the "appropriate framing" because it supports your point 🤣. The definition of lawful is that it is done by the government in accordance with that government's rules. That's what "law" is. That's exactly what's happening here, so this isn't a legal issue. You can argue it's a constitutional issue, But that argument has failed under the system and as such is definitionally not a constitutional issue. That only leaves the moral issue, which brings it back to my framing, not yours. You believe you have a moral right to work in a certain job until you die. I do not. Also an incomplete analysis. Because the check ride system does not screen for all issues. For example, it does not screen for heart issues. We have another test for that. Just like with a cognitive test, the more responsibility you put on the check ride, the more complicated it needs to be. And at least at my airline, check rides are not even remotely complicated. They are cookie cutter, scripted, rehearsed, and unbelievably babied. But you can do that because we have a whole bunch of other processes in place that act as filters. One of those being the age filter. You can get rid of the age filter and make the check ride filter more robust, but just like with having cognitive testing, a lot of people aren't going to like the results of that. It is also simply more complicated. Again it is one thing to argue that 65 is not the correct age. But calling it "bad" discrimination is disingenuous. It's denying the reality that old people lose their marbles. Discrimination in the literal sense is not bad. We do it for all sorts of things. What you discriminate, and how you discriminate is what determines if it is right or wrong. This rule does not exist because people don't like old people. Even if you accept at face value that it has nothing to do with safety, which I do not, and it is purely about job progression, even that is being fairly applied to all participants, and as such is not immoral. Another factor that determines morality is the presence of choice. You absolutely have a choice to participate in a unionized flying job that has equally applied age restrictions, or you could work elsewhere that does not.

No, it's not at all what I said. You have two options dealing with this type of thing. An individual test, or a group-based average. Both can work, and both can allow certain cases to slip through the cracks. But let's get rid of the outrage. You have no god-given right to continue doing a specific job until you croak, even if we did want to have an individualized test. The military does it too. You (whoever) entered the career knowing there was a time limit, just as everybody did, so you were not misinformed or ill-advised. You joined anyways. And you benefited greatly from the limit, so the system wasn't so odious when it was to your benefit that you felt the need to pursue a different career in protest. Even if we had a test to capture when cognition declines to a point of concern, unless we're going to take it before every flight, you're still going to have a window where someone is unsafe. The vast, vast majority of pilots are still safe at 65, which is what makes it a good number. Pushing it up to the point where there's a reasonable expectation of cognitive failure is just setting yourself up to have cognitive failure-induced accidents. But to be crystal clear, I am 100% okay with it being age discrimination. Because that's a b.s. category of discrimination. Banning black pilots would be abhorrent because not all pilots are black and the ones who are have it as an immutable characteristic with no fundamental effect on flying. Same for female pilots, or gay pilots. But we are all going to turn 65 if we make it that long, so it's not discrimination in the racist or sexist sense. Just like not letting kids drink or vote isn't age discrimination in the moral sense.

Good luck. This is a much harder question than what gun to carry. First you have to decide where you want to conceal it, then you have to get a good belt that you like, then you just have to try different holsters to see what feels right. I only carry appendix, so I can answer questions about that.

AI Pilot leaves Air Force for Southwest Airlines

I get the question all the time. I'm at about 15% in the right seat, and I think I'd be around 70 in the left. I easily make as much or a little more than a same seniority Captain stuck on reserve, and fly less. A line Captain will make more than me, but the difference in schedule is dramatic. I probably average 30 hours of flight time a month and get paid 90 to 120 hours. I regularly eat dinner at home, put my kids to sleep, then go fly 1 hour away and I'm back before my wife gets home from work. I'm rarely away from home more than one night in a row, and if I am it's because the trip pays a bunch and still doesn't have much flying to it (e.g. a 30 hour layover for premium pay). I fly only the days I want, no weekends or holidays unless I choose, as many vacations whenever I want. I do have the luxury of a wife who makes six figures as well, but even if she didn't it would be hard to give up on this schedule when I can just wait another five or so years to upgrade, then do it as a captain.

No, it's a recognition that we aren't going to have a test, so we have to have an age. If we have a test, a lot of the guys who really want to stay past 65 would have been kicked out by 55. No one wants to open that can of worms. Air guardian has an interesting perspective from his particular operation. But the passenger airliners do not go to outfields once every few years, you simply don't need someone with 30 or 40 years of experience to safely operate. That doesn't mean they can't safely operate, but this argument that you need decades of experience to do this job is just laughable. It's a cookie cutter operation even at some of the "challenging" airfields. Yeah, I don't want to send a 23-year-old brand new Captain off to Guatemala on his own, but no one was arguing for that. In the passenger carriers the biggest threat is a compound emergency that requires very quick decision making. Considering most 65-year-olds have never even had an engine failure, longevity does not contribute to that. A focus on training, and mental quickness is what will separate pilots after about 10 years of experience. Like tac airlifter pointed out, slowing down and asking for clarification alleviates the majority of passenger carrier mishaps. You don't need 30 years of experience to do that. If we really want to start down the cognitive testing route, the 60 plus crowd is not going to like it when they start showing the cognitive decline curve on a chart on CNN every time there's a mishap. At a certain point the people in the back of the plane are going to ask why their pilot is lower on the curve. Yes, initially there will be a threshold set based on the average 65-year-old, but that threshold will be a lower score than the average 55-year-old or 40-year-old or 35-year-old. Once you start quantifying something that costs billions of dollars when it goes wrong, people will ask "why are we settling for less than the best?" No one cares when a few rich people die in a business jet, which is why everybody 65 and older can continue to fly in that career. This is a "problem" that does not need to be solved.

I think at this point it's safe to say that all sides are paranoid beyond reason. Speaker Johnson made a really interesting comment in an interview, saying that most of the loudest voices against the Ukraine bill had not yet been in the scif to receive a single classified briefing. Yeah yeah, I know, we can't trust the surveillance State. But anybody who says that is just being reflexively stupid. You can't trust anything outright, but if you really believe that us intelligence is corrupted so thoroughly that it produces no viable information, then you were just as guilty of living in an alternate reality as those who claim the absolute righteousness of funding the Ukraine fight. I am very open to the counter arguments for supporting Ukraine at this point. But I am not at all interested in hearing it from someone who has gone out of their way to avoid briefings that would give them a full picture. As to your point about the funding going to defense contractors, that was under the impression that the incredible corruption in Ukraine, which I do believe exists, was such that we could not risk sending them money outright to trust they would use it appropriately. Sending the munitions directly will obviously not completely eliminate corruption, but it's a hell of a lot harder to launder 155 mm shells than it is a pallet of cash.

Sorry, that was directed at Lookie's very sanctimonious retort.

Right, and we've never seen a program in the Air Force that didn't make it past the testing phase.

I didn't escape the first morning. However, I was on the first bus for my class with like three other people. We were so early that none of the cadets were in position to harass us throughout the in-processing line. I made it to my room without being yelled at once. And then, because I didn't know any better, I shut my door and took a nap. Amazingly enough the cadets just assumed that because the door was shut, no one was using the room, so until dinner rolled around I just sat in my room and listened to the yelling outside. Completely missed it all 🤣😂

Do you mean 1,000 round packs, or do you mean true "bulk?" I haven't researched it there are even better deals in 5k and up range. Might be interesting to see if there's any opportunities is doing a group purchase of 100k+ rounds one day. Part of me is resisting the urge to stock up too much right now because I think all of these toys are going to get cheaper as consumer spending slows. Of course that will be turned on its head if we get another military conflict somewhere that sucks up all the supply. But I've noticed the sales are getting better and better on a range of products. Might be an early warning sign.

That's tight. It blows my mind that the Rattler LT is the same length as the Charger *after* they added 1.25” to the barrel. I've never paid much attention to the "braced pistol" world until now. The Rattler is crazy $$$, but .300BLK is a pretty neat round. I just gotta wait for my ATF approval for the silencer and I'll be ready to find somewhere for a little training. I'm sure they're plenty of options on Texas🤣😂 Might have to at the Charger to the wishlist... I decided I'm going to try and minimize the number of calibers I own, and 9 mm ain't going anywhere anytime soon.

Sounds like the dude is trying to get a juicy contract for an investigation no one wants. The investigations have been done. Everyone who has a stake in knowing the answer already does. And all interested parties have decided to move on without public commentary. Besides, his defense of the UN is a bit too rosy to take seriously. I get it, he's trying to get them to find him, but come on.

You're thinking short term. In the long term suppressed interest rates have inflated the assets that are usually financed, such as houses and cars. And now the workers can't afford those things. Inflation affects everyone, but when the wealth y have quadrupled their wealth, even a 50% haircut due to inflation means they're twice as well off. The rest of us however have not experienced a similar increase in wealth, and are there for much more affected by inflation. Fuck with the economy at your (our) peril. Food is not financed, so that's not a factor. And for those who are financing food, they are way past the interest rate mattering. You are delusional if you think property tax primarily affects people who are "entirely way too well off." Honestly it's kind of hard to conceptualize anything after that statement. It indicates that you live in an alternate universe. Also, ethical arguments don't have to take into account second and third order effects? What? So ethics only matter on the date of legislation? Honestly if this is how you think about anything it starts to make a little bit more sense that you support these emotional "fairness" policies. Sure, this is a Biden problem. It was a trump problem. It was also an Obama problem. And it was definitely a bush problem since QE was invented under his watch. But really this was a Nixon, Johnson, Carter, Reagan, and Bush H.W. problem too since we unpegged from gold in 71. Yeah dude, once again, second and third order effects. I care more about my children and grandchildren having a brighter future than I do the continuance of cheap TVs and meme stocks. The sooner we jam a stick in the spokes of modern monetary theory, fiat currency, and Keynesian economics, the better. We are now in a economic cancer situation. Taking the chemo now is going to suck, but it's going to suck a whole lot more if you wait till stage 4. Biden is not tightening. Powell is tightening. To the great consternation of many Democrats. And don't worry, when Trump wins the election it will be the Republicans spending trillions that we don't have. There are no responsible parties anymore. However the real problem is that we aren't actually tightening yet. The drawdown of fed assets has been exceeded by the drawdown in the reverse repo facility, which is why liquidity has increased rather than decreased. Once the RRP runs dry, if, and it's a huge if, the Fed continues to tighten, only then will we see the effects.

I need some song suggestions for a morning alarm clock. I have an unnecessarily complicated morning automation to wake up our 14 month old, and it ends by playing a song randomly selected from a list. But I need more songs to add to the list. And ideally something a little less... assertive than this, which is the alarm I use on my phone:

I just got a Sig Rattler LT with the 6.75" barrel. Haven't got it dressed up yet, and I'm still on the fence between keeping it a pistol or getting an NFA stamp for better stock options. Hopefully the court cases work out to beat back the SBR rules a bit. That Ruger looks sick.

I like a carry gun to be as sleek as possible, minimize the things that can catch on clothing. I don't like single/double actions either. I used to think it was great when I primarily shot a SIG P229, but since moving to striker-fired (always single action) I've been converted. That's something I do like about a 1911, every trigger pull is the same force. External safeties are (in my opinion) for guns I don't want to unload/unchamber between uses. Trap shooting, hunting, etc. For a carry gun it's just something that can be in the wrong position and hinder a stressful and time sensitive use. If the gun is out of the holster that means it's time to shoot. Same theory behind carrying one in the chamber. Of course that means any holster must have complete trigger coverage, but that's pretty normal. Hair trigger: You're right, what I really was meaning to say is that the pull distance is so short. I like there to be some movement in the trigger since with a carry gun there are many scenarios where your finger is on the trigger but not firing. Obviously that's my preference, I don't think it's unsafe for a trained and competent shooter to carry a 1911, I just think most people carry them because they are cool (they are) or it's what they are used to, when there are much better options. Again, 1911 use in Mil/LEO is practically zero for a reason.

I absolutely hate 1911s for carry weapons. External safety, external hammer, hair trigger pull, low ammo for the footprint. I do like that the single stack magazine makes it thin, but there's a reason you don't see many Mil/Leo professionals using a 1911 on duty. Or 45ACP for that matter. And if you need more than 8 you're probably trying to take down a shooter at longer range. Like this dude. Amazing shot, he didn't need the extra rounds at 40 yards, but I probably would 🤣: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/indiana-mall-shooting-elisjsha-dicken-neutralized-gunman-15-seconds/ Damn beautiful guns though.

Unethical? You bet your ass. Doubly so in the states where your property tax can go up through no action of your own. I believe it is objectively immoral to change what someone owes on something they purchased responsibly and within their budget simply because a bunch of other people around them have different budgets or spend irresponsibly. Of all the plethora of things California gets wrong, prop 13 should be the law of the land. I would address that problem specifically, and make it illegal. However the better answer is to simply stop suppressing interest rates artificially. These billionaires are only to play this stupid game because banks are willing to give out near zero interest loans. No billionaire is going to do that if they have to pay 9% on it. That doesn't make it ethical. And more importantly that doesn't change the fact that the unintended second and third order consequences of this change can be very messy. However, unforeseen second and third order consequences are a Hallmark of almost all Democratic legislation, so par for the course. The problem is that this is the government trying to blame others for what it created. You want to know why the ultra wealthy in this country have reached escape velocity compared to the rest of us? It's because we have a government that believes fiat currency allows them to print as much money as they want for whatever they want. But they are so fantastically unimaginative with this power that they simply feed it directly into the banking system. Gee, small wonder that the biggest beneficiaries of this mechanic have been real estate, equities, and financial assets. Overwhelmingly things that the rich and ultra-rich own disproportionately. So if you want to fix it, let's lock our currency to something that doesn't allow the government to devalue it massively in a manner that flows almost directly to the richest people in the country. Let's stop artificially suppressing interest rates so that the wealthiest in this country can get nearly unlimited free money to spend in whatever way they see fit. Let's stop protecting gigantic corporations and Banks from the financial Doom of their poor decision making every time it comes home to roost. Too big to fail should be considered hate speech. Anything short of that it's just another trick fuck bit of legislation that will end up having second third order effects worse than the problem it was trying to solve, without addressing the root issue.