AnthonyB's recent activity
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Comment on What I learned about billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s private retreat in ~society
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Comment on What I learned about billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s private retreat in ~society
AnthonyB Link ParentI feel like this could be said about the vast majority of op-ed pieces. At least the guy went to a party that no tildo will ever be invited to.They're just run-of-the-mill opinions that you can get anywhere, from someone who doesn't actually know more than the rest of us.
I feel like this could be said about the vast majority of op-ed pieces. At least the guy went to a party that no tildo will ever be invited to.
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Comment on A brief history of fish sauce in ~food
AnthonyB LinkMostly offtopic but obligatory link to the Tasting History garum episode. It's a classic.Mostly offtopic but obligatory link to the Tasting History garum episode. It's a classic.
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Comment on Traders placed over $1bn in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war. What is going on? in ~society
AnthonyB Link ParentJust to add to what you and LukeZaz said, be sure to vote in the primary elections. Corruption isn't just a Republican problem (though they are much better at it), the candidate matters more than...Just to add to what you and LukeZaz said, be sure to vote in the primary elections. Corruption isn't just a Republican problem (though they are much better at it), the candidate matters more than the letter next to their name.
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Comment on Any male victims from female abuse? in ~life.men
AnthonyB Link ParentAbsolutely not! I mean, it wasn't fun and the relationship did a bit of a number on me at the time, but it's not like this was a traumatic experience. And even if it was, I would still find it...is it insensitive of me to find this account .... amusing
Absolutely not! I mean, it wasn't fun and the relationship did a bit of a number on me at the time, but it's not like this was a traumatic experience. And even if it was, I would still find it amusing.
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Comment on Any male victims from female abuse? in ~life.men
AnthonyB Link ParentI had a very toxic and emotionally abusive ex in college, and while I am far from door sized (maybe the size of medieval peasant's door), I almost went to jail during one of her meltdowns that...I had a very toxic and emotionally abusive ex in college, and while I am far from door sized (maybe the size of medieval peasant's door), I almost went to jail during one of her meltdowns that eventually involved the police.
The story for anyone interested, because why not. It's a doozy:
I took her to visit my parents in central Florida and we decided to go to Universal Studios in Orlando. It was a pretty good day, despite the fact that she made me ride the Harry Potter ride a half dozen times. Anyway, as the park was closing, we went to a gift shop so she could get gifts for her family. We walked in about 5 minutes to closing time and she took a half hour to pick stuff out. I could sense the disdain from the people who were waiting to close the store, so when she decided to change something mid transaction, I said something to the effect of, "C'mon, they need to go home. I'm sure [family member] will like what you picked out."
Huge mistake. That led to her screaming at me outside the store for a good 5-10 minutes, then, bizarrely, threatening/trying to jump over a ledge into some watery pit that was 10 feet below. Then, once she calmed down to a functioning level, she berated me the entire time we walked across the park to the parking lot. It felt like every 2-3 guys we passed gave me the "hang in there, brother" look and countless women and children seemed to gaze at us with bewilderment. As a socially awkward person who hates being the center of attention around strangers, it was hell.
She was still yelling at me when we got to the parking garage, and at one point she threw her purse, which caused her belongings to scatter across the concrete floor. I picked them up, of course, because I just wanted to go home and that was not a hill I was willing to die on. Then, when we finally got to the car, she stopped and refused to get in FOR AN HOUR, and continued to berate me the entire time I pleaded with her to get in. I had my moments in this relationship, but I was calm the entire time because I didn't want to further cause a scene. At some point I discretely started recording the audio, because I thought it would help her realize what she was like in those situations. Anyway, right as we got into the car, she realized her mascara was missing and demanded I find it. Another 30-45 minutes down the drain. Now we were one of the only cars in the garage.
After I finally got her into the car, which by the way, she was still yelling at me the entire time, we started to make the hour long drive back to my parents' house. I was fully checked out at that point, just thinking about what the recording was going to sound like, which must've made it worse because she started opening the door and threatened to jump out as we were driving 70mph down the freeway. Unfortunately, the road didn't have a shoulder and the nearest exit was about a mile or two away, so I couldn't really pull over. That's when I finally broke down and started screaming things like "WTF is wrong with you?" I finally gave up and started calling 911 because I felt like I had no other options. When I did that, she closed the door and promised not to do anything. I was pretty sure that I hung up before anyone could answer.
When I finally got off on the exit and pulled over, I grabbed a water bottle from the back seat and squeezed the shit out of it, which caused it to burst open. That's when she got out of the car and started sprinting to the freeway. Mind you, this was a random pitch black road on the outskirts of Orlando. There was nothing/no one near by, except for the freeway. I genuinely thought she was going to run into traffic, so I started chasing her to stop her. We were both all-state track and field athletes in high school and we always talked about racing each other. I did not expect it to go like that.
That's when the police lights came on. In my state of heightened stress and emotion, I assumed they had somehow traced my call and that the calvary was coming to my rescue. In reality, it was just a highway patrolman who had just watched a car erratically pull over only to have a young woman jump out and run for her life from her male persuer. Obviously, from his perspective, I was not the good guy. Lucky for me, she and I both stopped as soon as the lights came on. Within minutes, there were two other police cars on scene and I was on the hot seat.
There was a lot of craziness that night, but the craziest thing was how she completely changed her demeanor as soon as the cops showed up. She was totally normal and saying everything was fine when they first questioned her. Meanwhile, I was a bit of a mess. I had water all over me, I was afraid that I was going to jail, and I had just spent about three excruciating hours in hell. Apparently, all the stress made it look like I was on drugs, because they kept telling me that my eyes didn't look normal. It didn't help that she was sitting there calmly telling them how crazy I was.
Fortunately, I had my recording. The tables turned really quickly when I mentioned that, and I'm not above saying that watching her eyes widen when I pulled out my phone was one of the most satisfying moments of my life. Unfortunately, Florida is not a one-party consent state, so the only thing I could do to get everything wrapped up in that moment was to delete the recording and take her home. Whatever, it was a lot better than going to jail, and I don't think it was going to change anything anyway.
To wrap up this incredibly long and embarrassing story that no one asked for, I'll leave you with the important lesson I learned from that relationship (which, regrettably, did not end that night). There were a lot of red flags and crazy fights like that before that night, but like so many other people in those situations, I tried to push through it. It's not worth it, and it will never work out. That relationship brought out the worst in me and, I suspect, her as well. When it got crazy like that, I did things that I am ashamed of. I yelled, I hit things (not people, thankfully), and I said awful things. Those are behaviors that I never did before that relationship and have not done in the ~15 years since that relationship. Despite my proclivity to repeat dumb mistakes in life, I learned to never take part in a relationship like that one and to break things off when those red flags come out. It's a lot better than looking under cars for a tube of $12 mascara while your partner tells you what a piece of shit you are, and it's a hell of a lot better than going to jail.
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Comment on TV Tuesdays Free Talk in ~tv
AnthonyB Link ParentIt's pretty crazy how they managed to have three of the 5-10 biggest stars under 30 on the same show before their ascent AND Colman Domingo before he became a leading man. It's up there with Once...It's pretty crazy how they managed to have three of the 5-10 biggest stars under 30 on the same show before their ascent AND Colman Domingo before he became a leading man. It's up there with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Dazed and Confused, The Outsiders, and Freaks & Geeks.
I'm currently rewatching the first two seasons so I can remember what's what in season three. I know it's a lot and there is no shortage of problematic stuff in the show, but man, when it's good, it's good. S2E5 is one of the best episodes of TV of this decade imo. Having said that, I also have my doubts that they'll be able to land the plane, especially considering the mess that The Idol was.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
AnthonyB LinkSo, I'm not a guy who really follows games. I check this thread every week and read the reviews of games that I'll probably never play because I'm a basic bitch with basic bitch tastes. But I kept...So, I'm not a guy who really follows games. I check this thread every week and read the reviews of games that I'll probably never play because I'm a basic bitch with basic bitch tastes. But I kept seeing these ads for Crimson Desert, so I checked it out on Steam and saw the positive reviews, did a very quick Google that lead to a reddit comment where someone described it as RDR2 meets BOTW. Those are two of my all-time favorites, so I was sold. I didn't look at anything else because I like to go into things as blind as possible. I've put in about 30 hours so far and I both enjoy it and despise it.
The good part is its beautiful, incredibly ambitious, and gigantic. It has the go anywhere thing that BOTW did, and the sweeping gorgeous landscapes of RDR2, so credit to that random redditor. In fact, the first major area looks exactly like the Valentine/Horseshoe Overlook area, and the stamina bar and movement is basically a carbon copy of BOTW. It's the kind of game that I feel like I would absolutely love, but there's just one or two major flaws.
First, I have no idea what the hell is going on. I mean, I kind of do, but the story is a mess. Maybe that will become more clear over time, but I'm four chapters in and there's not much to write home about.
Second, and more importantly, there's just too much. Waaaaay too much. To paraphrase an analogy from NFL commentator and multiple time front office fuck up Michael Lombardi, it suffers from the 'too many items on the menu' problem. Meaning, if you go to a restaurant that has 5-10 things on the menu, there's a good chance that those things are going to be good. Conversely, if you go to a restaurant with 150 things on the menu, which includes a wide range like spaghetti, chicken tika masala, sushi, foie gras, and gumbo, the quality is probably going to suffer. Crimson Desert has 1000 things on the menu, and, unsurprisingly, most of them aren't very good. You can do so many things, but it's a complicated, convoluted mess, and more often than not, a huge pain in the ass. For example, there are items you can come across that you can trade in bulk. However, in order to do that, you need to invest some money in the bank. How do you do that? You collect 500 silver from mining/logging/stealing/pillaging/whatever, turn that into a gold bar at the bank (or steal one from a secret place), then invest it. Then, you need to get yourself a wagon. But in order to do that, you need to find the wagon fence, then build up your camp, find the missing members of your tribe, do some tedious missions for those members so you can find other members, make sure you've found the right specialist for building the wagon, then assign them to build a wagon for 14 game hours, then do a few other things that I haven't looked up yet because all of that tedious work takes a shitload of time. By the way, none of this is ever clearly explained to you. You either slowly come across this info as you play the game, or, look it up when you first come across one of those trade items that are everywhere. This happens all the time. You find something while you're out exploring or traveling for a mission, but you don't know what it means and you won't find out until you do a different mission or look it up. I find myself googling multiple times per hour, and the last time I did that, the top comment on the YouTube video was "you have to search every fuckin step of this game."
Maybe this will be a Cyberpunk type thing where 18-24 months from now they'll have worked out some of the kinks and a good game will emerge, but for now I wouldn't recommend it unless you're the type of person who really enjoys getting into the nitty gritty and doesn't mind clunky controls/combat.
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Comment on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home targeted with molotov cocktail in ~tech
AnthonyB Link ParentI'm no expert, but I feel like there needs to be some amount of organization in order to be a revolution. Either I'm not cool enough to know who those people are (very possible), or they don't...I'm no expert, but I feel like there needs to be some amount of organization in order to be a revolution. Either I'm not cool enough to know who those people are (very possible), or they don't exist (also very possible).
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Comment on Is new music dying? Everyone’s flopping. in ~music
AnthonyB Link ParentI love KEXP, both for discovering new music and for looking up a band I just got into so I can watch their performance. Cheryl Waters is my queen.I love KEXP, both for discovering new music and for looking up a band I just got into so I can watch their performance. Cheryl Waters is my queen.
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Comment on ‘Metal Gear Solid’ movie in the works from ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ duo as they ink Sony first-look in ~movies
AnthonyB Link ParentHa, I can't imagine any other studio producing a Death Stranding movie. It probably didn't even have to be a hit game. A mostly silent protagonist walking around a gloomy post-apocalyptic world...Ha, I can't imagine any other studio producing a Death Stranding movie. It probably didn't even have to be a hit game. A mostly silent protagonist walking around a gloomy post-apocalyptic world with a weird little psychic baby strapped to his chest has A24 written all over it.
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Comment on Boomer hate in ~society
AnthonyB Link ParentYeah, I suppose that's one of those things that I've always heard about but never took a close look at. I think it's easy to make that leap when you're bombarded with stuff about how young people...I don't really think I buy the idea that aging inevitably leads to conservatism, at least not to the same degree among all of us, even when you stay in the realm of statistics and ignore individual exceptions to focus on people in aggregate.
Yeah, I suppose that's one of those things that I've always heard about but never took a close look at. I think it's easy to make that leap when you're bombarded with stuff about how young people lean left because they're young. I took a very quick peek and came across this, which, to save you a click, says:
Folk wisdom has long held that people become more politically conservative as they grow older, although several empirical studies suggest political attitudes are stable across time. Using data from the Michigan Youth-Parent Socialization Panel Study, we analyze attitudinal change over a major portion of the adult life span. We document changes in party identification, self-reported ideology, and selected issue positions over this time period and place these changes in context by comparing them with contemporaneous national averages. Consistent with previous research but contrary to folk wisdom, our results indicate that political attitudes are remarkably stable over the long term. In contrast to previous research, however, we also find support for folk wisdom: on those occasions when political attitudes do shift across the life span, liberals are more likely to become conservatives than conservatives are to become liberals, suggesting that folk wisdom has some empirical basis even as it overstates the degree of change.
(The full study is behind a paywall)
And then there was this older article from The Guardian that said:
It is very difficult to tell whether it is getting older, or being born at a certain time, that causes people to have different political preferences. One way to go about it is to track the same people over time, observe how their political preferences change and then compare those changes to the results of different elections.
This is the approach I took in our 2014 study. By taking the average of seven different groups of several thousand people each over time – covering most periods between general elections since the 1960s – we found that the maximum possible ageing effect averages out at a 0.38% increase in Conservative voters per year. The minimum possible ageing effect was only somewhat lower, at 0.32% per year.
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Explanations of electoral change based on generational shifts may be neat, but they are not necessarily accurate. Our scepticism about them is reinforced by the fact that social liberalism has not historically been a very strong predictor of vote choice in Britain. It is also more weakly related to age than one might imagine: social class, education and religiosity are also important predictors of these attitudes.
Old and young people who are similarly social liberal are often quite dissimilar with regards to their party choice. This may be changing due to the emergence of Ukip and the likely moves by the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn to embrace protest movements of the “new left”. But for the moment, vote choices appear largely driven by ageing, not generational, effects.
This means that the Conservatives probably shouldn’t be too worried about their support base thinning out and being replaced by younger, less conservative generations. If history repeats itself, then as people get older they will turn to the Conservatives. Our evidence suggests that this is probably not due to “social ageing” (getting married, having children or an increasing income), but rather to the direct psychological processes of ageing that tend to make people more resistant to change. This, in turn, makes people gravitate towards parties that defend the status quo.
I'm not really sure what to make of all that just yet, but it's interesting and I appreciate you making me think about something I hadn't really considered before.
As for generations (and Generations ... and I suppose the other, more insane Generations) I'm not all that interested in, nor qualified to, defend the any of the claims about the different generations, I was just trying to share a fun little tidbit I came across once.
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Comment on US Democratic National Committee avoids taking a stance on Israel, AIPAC in ~society
AnthonyB Link...DNC members rejected a symbolic resolution to limit the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and dark-money corporate groups in Democratic primaries — an unsurprising result that is nevertheless a blow to those within the party that have been infuriated by the pro-Israel group’s recent interventions.
They also punted on a pair of sweeping resolutions concerning conflicts in the Middle East that pushed the party to support conditioning military aid to Israel. The measures were referred to the party’s nascent Middle East Working Group, which is meeting for the fourth time this week and has been slow to coalesce around an agenda.
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A Pew Research survey released this week showed 80 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents hold unfavorable views of Israel, up from 69 percent last year and 53 percent in 2022. A NBC News poll conducted in late February and early March, meanwhile, found that 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic change from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023.
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US Democratic National Committee avoids taking a stance on Israel, AIPAC
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Comment on Boomer hate in ~society
AnthonyB Link ParentWhen it comes to the 'Gen X being the most conservative' thing, I did a terrible job explaining what I meant. I wasn't trying to say that Gen X are more conservative than everyone else right now,...When it comes to the 'Gen X being the most conservative' thing, I did a terrible job explaining what I meant. I wasn't trying to say that Gen X are more conservative than everyone else right now, and neither is Twenge (or at least, that's not how I remember it). But when you compare them to other generations at various stages of their lives, they appear to be more conservative, and some of the graphs in your link seem to support that, though not enough to be definitive since there's some overlap with how the ages are broken down. For example, ages 60-69, which includes some older Gen Xers, is surprisingly more conservative (R +10) than 70-79 (R +5), which is all Boomers. But the one that really stands out is the "Snapshot of the partisanship of age cohorts over the past 25 years." Those who were in their 20s and 30s in 1999 were more conservative than people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, and the people who were in their 20s (all Gen Xers) were as conservative as people in their 70s. That's pretty weird, right? (Completely unrelated: look at the Obama effect in 2009. God damn, Democrats need better leadership) We're kind of comparing apples to oranges since these polls aren't looking at specific generations, and your link doesn't have info on how the Boomers leaned politically in their 20s, but IIRC, they were more liberal than Gen X was at that age. I listened to Generations as an audiobook about a year ago and I don't have time to revisit it tonight to hear Twenge 's full argument about Gen X's conservativism, but I could check it out tomorrow and update if you're interested.
As for Gen Z, I used "following in their footsteps" as it relates to them being more conservative than other generations at that age. There was a lot of riffraff about that after the 2024 election when there was a big shift in how young people voted compared to previous elections.
Obviously, as people age, they tend to become more conservative. Their brain starts to turn to mush, they watch more local and cable news, and the world changes faster and faster. It's no surprise that they gravitate towards the party/ideology that says 'keep it like the olden days, resist the scary changes, and keep your money.' People have been using the line "If you aren't a liberal at 20, you don't have a heart. If you aren't conservative at 50, you don't have a brain," for as long as I've been alive, probably longer. So yeah, of course, Boomers, as they enter their 70s and 80s are more conservative than other generations, and young people, despite some of the trends in 2024 and weird social media induced conservatism (tradwives/manosphere), are broadly more liberal/progressive. There will likely come a day when Millennials and Zoomers are the most conservative generations. Yuck. Or yay? Idk.
In general, of course, generations are fake and the lines between them are arbitrary, so in terms of actually looking at data, going based on age or year of birth directly, as the pew research stuff does, makes more sense.
I guess it depends on what you're trying to look at. The lines between generations are arbitrary, and there's a lot of blurring between generations, but I wouldn't say they're fake. I'm not a Strauss-Howe guy or anything, but I think there's some use in having generations as a very basic cultural identifier for people born during a particular stretch of time. No one's going to fit neatly into a box, but times change and we're all influenced by our environments, so it makes sense that shared childhood/adolescent experiences that are unique to a specific era would broadly shape the identity and worldview of a group of people.
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Comment on Donald Trump posted on Truth Social this morning that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again" as his threatened attacks on Iranian infrastructure loom ahead of deadline in ~society
AnthonyB Link ParentHey, as far as headlines go, this is pretty good. Same with NYT's "Trump Calls to Wipe Out a 'Whole Civilization' as Iranians Reject Threats." Perfect? No. But it's a step above the usual...Hey, as far as headlines go, this is pretty good. Same with NYT's "Trump Calls to Wipe Out a 'Whole Civilization' as Iranians Reject Threats."
Perfect? No. But it's a step above the usual 'President vows to retaliate with force against Iranian aggression in Strait of Hormuz.'
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Comment on Boomer hate in ~society
AnthonyB Link ParentBoomer as a colloquial term has made it difficult to tell when someone is referring to the olds or actual Baby Boomers. Baby Boomers have a pretty wide range, but it usually cuts off in the early...Boomer as a colloquial term has made it difficult to tell when someone is referring to the olds or actual Baby Boomers. Baby Boomers have a pretty wide range, but it usually cuts off in the early 60s. Looking at some of the graphs in your link, that would make Gen X the more conservative generation, which is one of the arguments made by Jean Twenge in her book Generations. According to Twenge, Gen X is the most conservative generation (apparently, that's what growing up with television, lead paint, and Reaganism will do to a person), and their Gen Z kids appear to be following their footsteps.
I always find it interesting how generations get their own little cultural identities and how they change over time. Personally, as a millennial, I always thought of Gen X as the Pavement-y, slacker, 'don't sell out' generation, and the Boomers as the hippie, protest, rock-'n'-roll generation, but neither of those brands match the reality, nor have they stood the test of time. Gen X is a lot closer to Ben Stiller than Ethan Hawke on the Reality Bites scale, and all the progressive/radical politics of the 60s that Boomers take credit for was actually led by the silent generation. Meanwhile, someone who is older, younger, or had a different media diet than me probably has a completely different impression of Boomers and Gen Xers.
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Comment on What if AI just makes us work harder? in ~tech
AnthonyB Link ParentOh, my bad. Haha sometimes I forget that not everyone is a weirdo like me who remembers usernames and the broad political ideology behind them. My comment was 100% sarcasm and was intended to be a...Oh, my bad. Haha sometimes I forget that not everyone is a weirdo like me who remembers usernames and the broad political ideology behind them.
My comment was 100% sarcasm and was intended to be a nod to the incredibly long list of communist/socialist movements that were crushed/overthrown by brutal US-backed pro-capitalist forces, or, as you pointed out, made to suffer by American sanctions and embargos.
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Comment on What if AI just makes us work harder? in ~tech
AnthonyB Link ParentExactly. It was a benevolent squashing. Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Pinochet, the Contras, and many, many others can all thank Uncle Sam for protecting the workers!Exactly. It was a benevolent squashing. Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Pinochet, the Contras, and many, many others can all thank Uncle Sam for protecting the workers!
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Comment on Suggest media in which the antagonist is an idea or an abstract concept rather than a person or intelligent entity in ~talk
AnthonyB Link ParentAll is Lost is a solid PvN movie. Old man Robert Redford vs the sea.All is Lost is a solid PvN movie. Old man Robert Redford vs the sea.
I mean, the answer is pretty obvious, right? It's a dry run to see who gets the invite on the giant dick rocket that takes society's winners up to Bezos's space colony when civilization inevitably collapses under the pressure of the resource wars. Duh.
On a slightly more serious but still half-baked note, this line stood out to me:
My friend and I have this stupid little joke about the value of sucking at math. We both know a couple people who think they know everything because they were good at every subject in highschool. It doesn't matter that they didn't study or specialize in something, they watched one TED Talk or read one book and they think they're an expert. Us, on the other hand, well we know we aren't experts at the things we didn't study because we sucked at math and therefore know that we don't know things. If being smart at 17 can cause a normal to overestimate their understanding of the world, imagine what all that wealth and power does to a billionaire.