I was a regular reader of ZH for a long stretch leading up to the 2012 election and in my opinion their content is toxic and fuels paranoia. Lots of "end stage capitalism" and "prepper" type content. From my perspective now it definitely seems like the type of content that could be considered intentionally manipulative in a very negative way. It was very fear driven and I don't think that is healthy.
Yeah, I had seen links to ZH from top-notch economic blogs I followed during the recession, so I was surprised when they started popping up as sources for all my favorite crazy conspiracy Youtubers.
Their content at this point spans the gamut from needlessly contrarian to peddling propaganda. I gather ZH is doing it for the page views, because stories like that get plenty of traffic.
It is not a news site but a fight club (their positioning). And over the years more and more people not worth fighting have aggregated there. It is in some way an anarchistic experiment and the longer it runs the sadder it looks. I learned a lot during the early years and I learned a lot by observing how they developed.
It's really good for the economy to go out for lunch. You create a lot of jobs by doing that. If you're mindful of where you eat you can also support immigrant and minority owned businesses.
It's good for the LOCAL economy. Eating expensive lunch in a restaurant will increase local spending, but reduce your other consumption by the same amount. You create jobs by letting people work for you, and you get means to make them do it by working yourself. Nothing special about going out for lunch in that regard.
And if everyone chooses to eat cheap lunch, we could all just work less, and the system would be balanced again ;).
Identity verification which helps with fraud prevention most likely. It only has to prevent a small % of fraud attempts to probably be worthwhile for them.
I have been very happy with my 1 year old pair of WP glasses. There aren't any nose pads or spring hinges but I haven't noticed any negative effects from those design choices. For $110 with anti-glare coating I have no complaints.
Marketing by Nike. Have you noticed how many pop culture figures wear Nike and Converse (mostly Chuck Taylors) which is owned by Nike? That's no accident.
I think it's also a demographic trend. Many of the releases are re-issues from a time when we were kids and wanted to wear the Jordans / Pennys / Grandmamas / Ewings we saw on TV but couldn't get our parents to spring for them. Now we're older with disposable income and, although expensive, for the most part they aren't crazy expensive. I mean, a pair of decent dress shoes cost more than my Tinkers... but nobody has ever stopped me on the train to tell me how dope my oxfords are!
Maybe most companies can get the results that they want with small, strategic lobbying. It could be both effective and efficient, from an economic standpoint. Why else would organizations like ALEC exist? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_...
Why shouldn't ALEC exist? There is a sizable fraction of our polity that believes in the principles underlying ALEC proposals. Are you upset that those people are organized enough to write model legislation, or are you upset that the countervailing forces in the US don't have something as effective as ALEC?
We have the same thing for judges. The conservatives have the Federalist Society. The liberals have the ACS. But for whatever reason, the Federalists have better branding, and are a perennial bogeyman. But all either organization does is keep track of judges that fit their policy goals. What's wrong with that?
I am not upset. Points 5 and 6 on that article detail what I believe are legitimate criticisms about the lack of transparency in the process and how ALEC is used to bypass what I view as reasonable requirements for lobbying the government.
Why would a private organization that exists to write draft legislation need to be open and transparent? The legislation is public when it's proposed, and it's the task of legislators to evaluate it on its merits.
