So I tried to explain the GameStop situation to some of my students using Pokémon. And I think what I said is mostly true so I figured I would share here (A thread)
#GameStop

Let’s say 10 Weedles costs $20. Weedle here is a metaphor for Gamestop’s stock
Ash Ketchum has 10 Weedles.
Gary Oak thinks he’s smart so he’s going to try and short Weedle. He borrows these 10 Weedles from Ash thinking that the price of Weedle will eventually go down. He sells them immediately thinking he can buy them again later at a lower price and return them to Ash then.
After seeing what Gary is planning, Brock and Misty talk to other Pokémon trainers and they all start buying up EVERY Weedle on the market. This will eventually force Gary to buy the Weedles from them. Remember, he needs to eventually return them to Ash since they were borrowed.
If these Pokémon trainers hold on long enough, these Weedles will evolve into much more expensive Beedrills. Gary will have to buy them at this more expensive price in order to give Ash his assets back.
As far as I understand there was a Hedge Fund (Gary) that shorted GameStop (The Weedles). He thought the price would go down. People on Reddit (Brock and Misty) saw this and told other Pokémon trainers to buy up all of the GameStop shares (the Weedles).
The Hedgefund (Gary) is now losing a ton of money while people on Reddit (Pokémon trainers) are making bank.
GameStop was a shitty stock to have just like Weedle is a shitty Pokémon so it made sense for the hedge fund to bet against it. I mean look at this dumb Pokémon.
They didn’t expect Weedle to evolve into this bomb ass Beedrill. But it did and now they are fucked. Womp womp
I’m not sure this is all 100% exactly how it works but that’s how I understand it. Hope that helps

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So I'd recommend reading this thread from Dave, but I thought about some of these policies, and how they fit into the whole, a lot, and want to offer a different interpretation.


I think California is world leading on progressivism that doesn't ask anyone to give anything up, or accept any major change, right now.

That's what I mean by symbolically progressive, operationally conservative.

Take the 100% renewable energy standard. As @leahstokes has written, these policies often fail in practice. I note our leadership on renewable energy in the piece, but the kind of politics we see on housing and transportation are going foil that if they don't change.

Creating a statewide consumer financial protection agency is great! But again, you're not asking most voters to give anything up or accept any actual changes.

I don't see that as balancing the scales on, say, high-speed rail.

CA is willing to vote for higher taxes, new agencies, etc. It was impressive when LA passed Measure H, a new sales tax to fund homeless shelters. And depressing to watch those same communities pour into the streets to protest shelters being placed near them. That's the rub.

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Tip from the Monkey
Pangolins, September 2019 and PLA are the key to this mystery
Stay Tuned!


1. Yang


2. A jacobin capuchin dangling a flagellin pangolin on a javelin while playing a mandolin and strangling a mannequin on a paladin's palanquin, said Saladin
More to come tomorrow!


3. Yigang Tong
https://t.co/CYtqYorhzH
Archived: https://t.co/ncz5ruwE2W


4. YT Interview
Some bats & pangolins carry viruses related with SARS-CoV-2, found in SE Asia and in Yunnan, & the pangolins carrying SARS-CoV-2 related viruses were smuggled from SE Asia, so there is a possibility that SARS-CoV-2 were coming from
I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x