Notices by Patricia Aas (patricia@social.vivaldi.net), page 7

But my superficial understanding is that it says that when you see a velocity increase in the unemployment rate (even after allowing for three months of smoothing) there is a good chance the economy is in trouble. (Someone who’s good at math please correct me if I’m off. My insomnia makes my brain lazy.) And if that’s it then… I mean… I guess that sounds reasonable? “If your temperature is significantly higher than normal, you’re probably sick”

My completely unsolicited and ridiculously amateur thoughts:

I can’t seem to find good data that increasing the interest rate does anything outside of the obvious: making loans more expensive (and thereby a lot of other goods) and lending more profitable. Basically, taking from the people who need to lend and giving to those who have enough to lend out. Reverse Robin Hood.

The current inflation seems to have complex and interacting causes and I think there’s a reasonably good chance it would’ve sorted itself out.

The interest hikes have, however, also contributed to the inflation, while increasing housing costs dramatically for owners and renters. And simultaneously gutting the Norwegian construction sector.

So… my guess? There’s a good chance there will be a recession, maybe not a big one 🤷🏻♀️, but even worse: I think there’s a good chance the central banks created it.

So… the stock market freaked out because an indicator of a recession called “the Sahm rule” was triggered by the unemployment numbers coming out of the US.

This of course weakened the NOK and already Norwegian unemployment was going up, so now half of the Norwegian economists are saying that the Norwegian central bank should increase the interest rate to make the NOK more attractive and the other half is saying they should decrease it to make sure we don’t end up in a recession.

Thank goodness economists have an answer for us when things look bleak.

Also it’s starting to bother me that central banks have managed to carve out a completely undemocratic space for themselves, basically becoming an unelected branch of government.

I’m struggling because I am angry.

I’m angry that these people who are in a field that has a complete disconnect with the type of problem they are claiming to solve, have had so much influence and power.

Every single regular person understands how this is bullshit, they just wrapped it up in stuff that sounded complicated, mathy, scientific and rigorous.

Try to ask any woman on the planet what are the considerations (variables) affecting if, how and when she would leave her abusive husband. She could write you a whole paper, it would have so many variables. One single decision. So many possible outcomes and blowbacks. So much risk to be managed. One single action in a relatively small part of a complex adaptive system. And she knows it in her bones.

And these assholes make a childish formula and fuck up real peoples lives over it.

“Making people believe that Capitalism exists is a Russian psyop” is not something I have the energy to discuss.

Basically everything you were ever taught about human “biological” genders is ridiculously simplified. The human condition is a multifaceted thing and people need to grow up and realize we’re not kids anymore and do some reading. There are dozens of intersex variations. And it’s much more common than most people realize. Here is a specific genetic variation in the Dominican Republic: “Güevedoce”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCevedoce

We need better education when 95% of the adult population doesn’t know what intersex is.

Humans bodies are amazing, we don’t even know how many people are intersex because we don’t chromosome test infants and it might not be possible to find out otherwise.

“A 46,XY mother who developed as a normal woman underwent spontaneous puberty, reached menarche, menstruated regularly, experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth to a 46,XY daughter with complete gonadal dysgenesis.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/

And the depth of propaganda Americans live under astounds me because if you ask people on the street about if they should have universal healthcare a good bunch still say no.

That is a level of Stockholm syndrome the Swedes would have zero tolerance for.

I knew American healthcare was abysmal, but I was still shocked when I learned a few years ago that Americans pay for ambulance rides and giving birth.

I know I should’ve realized.
It just wasn’t in my realm of possibilities.

I went to school in the US from 95-97 and while I was there I volunteered at an “AIDS hospice”. And the premise seemed to be that it was a place where folks went to die.

Now remember I was a kid and Norwegian and clueless.

Years later someone said that I was lying when I told them this. Because why would someone be dying of AIDS in 96? There had been drugs for years by then.

So as an adult I realized that the people I had been caring for when I was a teenager were probably people who were dying of a treatable disease because they didn’t have healthcare.

And for the people who have left, and broken from this belief system… that is a massive thing. This isn’t a political choice, this is a fundamental shift in religious and community identity.

I can’t see how that can scale. But maybe it can?

I’ve been really wondering how do you convince anyone whose political views are so deeply tied to strong religious beliefs. But maybe these evangelical Christians have an advantage here, the combination of strict dogma with unconditional forgiveness, might mean that a complete shift is possible. That a narrative can be formed where they were “led astray” but that there’s complete absolution from that.

Most people are very prideful and struggle to change their minds once they have expressed an opinion out loud. But this group is quite special in that they receive their “opinions” externally, and these opinions can then potentially be “strong opinions lightly held”.

Here I am sitting in Norway reading about white American evangelical nationalism because apparently this has become my problem…

To be quite honest I might be out anyway, the way this went down disgusts me to this day

For real folks, If you don’t vote out Herb (and replace him with someone who was not complicit in this) next time… I’m out for good.

I’ve had so many “allies” who disowned me the moment I rocked the boat.

The C++ foundation is a trash organization that kicked out anyone who wouldn’t vote for a rapist to teach beginners at CppCon. And CppCon… I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole, I would strongly recommend against giving any money to it. And you couldn’t pay me enough to join the C++ committee.

So I guess the abusers won.

But to be honest, I think C++ lost.

And all the people who were angry with me for not being patient with the process… thanks a lot, that was a huge help, how’s that going?

Bitter? Me? How can you tell? 🙃