Theo Landsman
@ordinalandsman.bsky.social
Senior Political Analyst at YouGov Blue, Political Science PhD candidate , Ranked Ballot Nerd, Map poster.
You are certainly correct that being a doctor is higher status and offers more social/buying power in smaller metros although I feel like the implications there (healthcare upper class earning off of an underclass of sick and disabled medicare/medicaid/SSD recipients) are also not great.
November 24, 2025 at 6:00 PM
You are certainly correct that being a doctor is higher status and offers more social/buying power in smaller metros although I feel like the implications there (healthcare upper class earning off of an underclass of sick and disabled medicare/medicaid/SSD recipients) are also not great.
I do feel like the dynamic where talent including top healthcare talent all converges on the big metros but then transfer payments, family, etc, encourage the people with the most healthcare needs to move away from those metros leads to some pretty serious social welfare optimization misses.
November 24, 2025 at 5:23 PM
I do feel like the dynamic where talent including top healthcare talent all converges on the big metros but then transfer payments, family, etc, encourage the people with the most healthcare needs to move away from those metros leads to some pretty serious social welfare optimization misses.
The generals have gone from screaming at each other across the war room advocating for different options to just begging Starmer to come out of his tent and make a decision and it's not happening.
November 24, 2025 at 3:34 PM
The generals have gone from screaming at each other across the war room advocating for different options to just begging Starmer to come out of his tent and make a decision and it's not happening.
Absolutely, what's striking to me at this point is that I'm seeing people who have a clear and ideological preference for one of these options, basically say 'I give up, just do something, any of these is more acceptable to me than the status quo.'
November 24, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Absolutely, what's striking to me at this point is that I'm seeing people who have a clear and ideological preference for one of these options, basically say 'I give up, just do something, any of these is more acceptable to me than the status quo.'
It is kind of incredible that they need to do one (or more) of three things to not be annihilated as a party:
1) Left populism
2) Reverse Brexit
3) Implement proportional representation
And they seem to lack the will to do any of them even though not choosing is basically just suicide.
1) Left populism
2) Reverse Brexit
3) Implement proportional representation
And they seem to lack the will to do any of them even though not choosing is basically just suicide.
November 24, 2025 at 3:25 PM
It is kind of incredible that they need to do one (or more) of three things to not be annihilated as a party:
1) Left populism
2) Reverse Brexit
3) Implement proportional representation
And they seem to lack the will to do any of them even though not choosing is basically just suicide.
1) Left populism
2) Reverse Brexit
3) Implement proportional representation
And they seem to lack the will to do any of them even though not choosing is basically just suicide.
Just reasoning from first principles I think in the absence of immediate political pressure (ie is this person going to be the pivotal vote in the legislature), you need executive offices to be held by really solid people but every discrete group of nuts deserves at least one leg representative.
November 21, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Just reasoning from first principles I think in the absence of immediate political pressure (ie is this person going to be the pivotal vote in the legislature), you need executive offices to be held by really solid people but every discrete group of nuts deserves at least one leg representative.
The movie is very sympathetic to his sense of loss and disorientation but I don't think there's ever a sense that the developers did something wrong or that there is any way for him to defeat them. Notably they have gotten what they wanted by the middle of the movie and it's explicitly not reversed.
November 21, 2025 at 6:04 PM
The movie is very sympathetic to his sense of loss and disorientation but I don't think there's ever a sense that the developers did something wrong or that there is any way for him to defeat them. Notably they have gotten what they wanted by the middle of the movie and it's explicitly not reversed.
IMO the message of UP is sort of that he's wrong to stubbornly cling to the past and his yuppy neighbors in their new high-rise apartments are good people who he should engage with rather than holding in contempt.
November 21, 2025 at 4:53 PM
IMO the message of UP is sort of that he's wrong to stubbornly cling to the past and his yuppy neighbors in their new high-rise apartments are good people who he should engage with rather than holding in contempt.
Did an archival project on Berkeley CA where there was a local politician that everyone described as the worse thing that had ever happened to them who they could only understand as a CIA plot to destroy racial solidarity in the Bay who wound up having a distinguished career as a judge in Tennessee.
November 21, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Did an archival project on Berkeley CA where there was a local politician that everyone described as the worse thing that had ever happened to them who they could only understand as a CIA plot to destroy racial solidarity in the Bay who wound up having a distinguished career as a judge in Tennessee.
Right, food expenditures have gradually come down at the same time that the share of meals consumed at restaurants or as fast food or takeout has increased. Presumably if this substitution had not occurred the change in expenditures would have been way more dramatic.
November 19, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Right, food expenditures have gradually come down at the same time that the share of meals consumed at restaurants or as fast food or takeout has increased. Presumably if this substitution had not occurred the change in expenditures would have been way more dramatic.
There would be major discontinuities with inventory being taken off the market and renovated, but I've seen workable measures along the lines of 'we will cut the rent of the absolute shittiest apartments available by 50%'
November 19, 2025 at 9:57 PM
There would be major discontinuities with inventory being taken off the market and renovated, but I've seen workable measures along the lines of 'we will cut the rent of the absolute shittiest apartments available by 50%'
And really, all affordability policies sort of work this way I think? Like if you made groceries more affordable people would spend more money at restaurants.
November 19, 2025 at 9:55 PM
And really, all affordability policies sort of work this way I think? Like if you made groceries more affordable people would spend more money at restaurants.
I think people are directionally correct about the policies they want and how they'll work, they just prefer to say it in affordability terms rather than "If we built more housing I could get an apartment with a home office and an in-unit washer dryer for the same amount I pay now" terms.
November 19, 2025 at 9:54 PM
I think people are directionally correct about the policies they want and how they'll work, they just prefer to say it in affordability terms rather than "If we built more housing I could get an apartment with a home office and an in-unit washer dryer for the same amount I pay now" terms.
This in particular kind of drives me nuts, it was understood that separation of powers doesn't work because party and ideology straddle the silos within the founders lifetimes, the British had arguably figured this out around the time the founders were born, there is lots of APD lit on this.
November 19, 2025 at 8:43 PM
This in particular kind of drives me nuts, it was understood that separation of powers doesn't work because party and ideology straddle the silos within the founders lifetimes, the British had arguably figured this out around the time the founders were born, there is lots of APD lit on this.
American institutions were durable like a brick (solid, lasts a long time, completely shatters if pushed too far) not durable like a steel beam (bends but never breaks). A lot of Americanist work is fundamentally about how this is good and responsiveness is bad.
November 19, 2025 at 8:38 PM
American institutions were durable like a brick (solid, lasts a long time, completely shatters if pushed too far) not durable like a steel beam (bends but never breaks). A lot of Americanist work is fundamentally about how this is good and responsiveness is bad.
This is good, but I think it sells itself short in it's unwillingness to go further, a fair read of a lot of Americanist, scholarship, particularly the early stuff, is that American institutions were remarkably durable *against* democratic pressure in ways that made a collapse like this inevitable.
November 19, 2025 at 8:34 PM
This is good, but I think it sells itself short in it's unwillingness to go further, a fair read of a lot of Americanist, scholarship, particularly the early stuff, is that American institutions were remarkably durable *against* democratic pressure in ways that made a collapse like this inevitable.
You could probably just do weak federal voter ID mandate and call it a day but then 1) You haven't neutralized the issue because people can just run on making it stronger and 2) It's hard to see any other opportunity to rationalize the ID system in the U.S. which is cripplingly bad.
November 19, 2025 at 6:36 PM
You could probably just do weak federal voter ID mandate and call it a day but then 1) You haven't neutralized the issue because people can just run on making it stronger and 2) It's hard to see any other opportunity to rationalize the ID system in the U.S. which is cripplingly bad.
I think the basic problem is that the progressive compromise here (voter ID + universal federal id cards + some kind of pathway for undocumented people to become documented so this doesn't become a way of turbocharging ICE), is actually way less palatable to conservatives then doing nothing.
November 19, 2025 at 6:30 PM
I think the basic problem is that the progressive compromise here (voter ID + universal federal id cards + some kind of pathway for undocumented people to become documented so this doesn't become a way of turbocharging ICE), is actually way less palatable to conservatives then doing nothing.
What it really calls to mind for me is James Scott's Seeing Like a State, we rationalized the digital forest by turning it into nice, ecologically impoverished and socially devastating but transparent orderly lines of monoculture trees.
November 19, 2025 at 4:26 PM
What it really calls to mind for me is James Scott's Seeing Like a State, we rationalized the digital forest by turning it into nice, ecologically impoverished and socially devastating but transparent orderly lines of monoculture trees.
Even the ad targeting was basically a zero sum arms race with minimal or negative utility for both brands and consumers. We basically constructed a system that was bad for users and bad for buyers but created a simulacrum of consumer rationality that was attractive to executives.
November 19, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Even the ad targeting was basically a zero sum arms race with minimal or negative utility for both brands and consumers. We basically constructed a system that was bad for users and bad for buyers but created a simulacrum of consumer rationality that was attractive to executives.
You are probably right that it's not 100%, but think about what you're doing, which is filling in the horrific details about a system that you do know, but accepting at face value the one that you don't. No one is saying that exile in hunter gatherer societies involves no murder or sexual violence.
November 13, 2025 at 4:33 PM
You are probably right that it's not 100%, but think about what you're doing, which is filling in the horrific details about a system that you do know, but accepting at face value the one that you don't. No one is saying that exile in hunter gatherer societies involves no murder or sexual violence.
To me, 'these people are their family/neighbors/etc so they will look out for them' and 'these people are a nearby population with no political power so they will ruthlessly oppress them' are about equally likely, probably even get some people who do both.
November 13, 2025 at 4:26 PM
To me, 'these people are their family/neighbors/etc so they will look out for them' and 'these people are a nearby population with no political power so they will ruthlessly oppress them' are about equally likely, probably even get some people who do both.
The existence of non-enfranchised groups is problematic for democracy, which is why we should have 16 year old or earlier voting, faster paths to citizenship, a more humane justice system, etc. But again, what is the evidence that the voters in these districts have these groups interests in mind?
November 13, 2025 at 4:17 PM
The existence of non-enfranchised groups is problematic for democracy, which is why we should have 16 year old or earlier voting, faster paths to citizenship, a more humane justice system, etc. But again, what is the evidence that the voters in these districts have these groups interests in mind?
I have not been to prison or been exiled from a hunter gatherer tribe, my intuition from how both are described in first person accounts is that they're subjectively similar experiences of humiliation, loss of agency, and social death.
November 13, 2025 at 4:13 PM
I have not been to prison or been exiled from a hunter gatherer tribe, my intuition from how both are described in first person accounts is that they're subjectively similar experiences of humiliation, loss of agency, and social death.
What is really insidious about the current system is that if you are a rep in a low turnout hispanic VRA district your personal incentive is to keep turnout within your community as low as possible.
November 13, 2025 at 4:11 PM
What is really insidious about the current system is that if you are a rep in a low turnout hispanic VRA district your personal incentive is to keep turnout within your community as low as possible.