The fifth Atlanta SSC meetup was a success – there were two new faces for a total of five. We met at the usual place (Hodge Podge) and discussed:

1. Industrialization – in a generic sense
2. Technological unemployment (a lot)
3. Inequalities in the criminal justice system
4. Universal Basic Income (a lot)
5. Gulag death rates – originally quoted as 5% – but that seems to be deceptive – see this link for more (short version – the numbers were juked – they would move the inmates about to die out of the camp when they were near death)
6. Negative rights
7. Humanism (I think described as socialism)

Thoughts that occurred to me after the meeting

1. Is there any evidence that UBI creates something other than the negative social attributes attributed to welfare dependency – I think Native American tribes have something like this with gambling revenue, and Alaskans have something like this with oil – is there any evidence based on that?
2. The government has a monopoly on the supply of law enforcement and criminal justice. Given how a person feels about that does that make you more or less inclined to give government a monopoly in health care, or anything else? Does that alter one’s opinion on extending government health care, or socialism in general?
3. Is there a bias to being innocent in the courts? If so, then the point made about publicly funding criminal lawyers weakens.

There were many other topics – there was more ideological diversity at this meetup, but I’m too late in publishing this anyway. We shall begin the next meetup by creating useful definitions of socialism and communism before any other discussion.

Last Saturday we had the fourth Slate Star Codex Atlanta meetup, with two new members (yay) for a total of five. We rambled on for about three and a half hours. Topics included

1. Guns
2. The math of revolutions and violent uprisings (historically more likely than I’d ever actually thought)
3. Negative effects of smoking cessation (one of my pet theories)
4. Creating a regional form of government between states and the federal government (the more I think about this the more I like it)
5. LARPing
6. Nootropics
7. Relations between police and the citizenry
8. And many more

The title line of the meetup came from new member BJ. The next meetup will be in three weeks or so, probably in the same place.

Here are the links

1. The Great War and TimeGhost
2. Handwaving Freakoutery