{"threads":[{"id":"steelmanning-my-daughters-bully","slug":"steelmanning-my-daughters-bully","title":"Steelmanning My Daughter's Bully","excerpt":"My daughter Tess is ten. Since September a classmate named Madison Kreider has made her cry on about four school days out of five. My wife's response has been to call Madison \"a little monster,\" email the teacher twice, and tell Tess that none of it is true. I understand the impulse. But \"none of it is true\" is a confident claim about seven separate propositions, and nobody in my house had evaluated any of them.","lastActivity":"2025-03-17T06:00:00.000Z","commentCount":16,"comments":[{"id":"seed-steelmanning-my-daughters-bully-15","author":"principle_of_charity","text":"She's back at the lunch table. She cut her bangs herself over the weekend, so row one no longer applies.","date":"2025-03-17T06:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":64},{"id":"seed-steelmanning-my-daughters-bully-14","author":"how_is_tess","text":"How is Tess doing now?","date":"2025-03-17T00:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":41},{"id":"seed-steelmanning-my-daughters-bully-13","author":"sigma_grindset_99","text":"madison cooked","date":"2025-01-25T00:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":-12}]},{"id":"my-tenants-would-want-me-to-raise-their-rent-if-they-were-smarter","slug":"my-tenants-would-want-me-to-raise-their-rent-if-they-were-smarter","title":"My Tenants Would Want Me to Raise Their Rent if They Were Smarter","excerpt":"My tenants oppose the rent increase under their current beliefs and cognitive limitations. An adequately informed version of each tenant would have a considerably richer view of the situation.","lastActivity":"2025-03-14T15:00:00.000Z","commentCount":18,"comments":[{"id":"seed-my-tenants-would-want-me-to-raise-their-rent-if-they-were-smarter-17","author":"extrapolated_landlord","text":"The form says \"acknowledges receipt.\" I had the language reviewed.","date":"2025-03-14T15:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":22},{"id":"seed-my-tenants-would-want-me-to-raise-their-rent-if-they-were-smarter-16","author":"tenant_side_atty","text":"Tenant attorney. Please don't attach your \"assessment of their likely future views\" to the renewal form. Anything stapled to a lease can end up being read as a term. If extrapolated Malcolm agrees to the increase in writing, a judge is going to want to know who signed it.","date":"2025-03-14T14:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":73},{"id":"seed-my-tenants-would-want-me-to-raise-their-rent-if-they-were-smarter-15","author":"extrapolated_landlord","text":"I'm privileging the order she herself described as aspirational. She chose it. I only declined to read it literally.","date":"2025-03-14T11:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":16}]},{"id":"time-value-grandmothers-inheritance","slug":"time-value-grandmothers-inheritance","title":"The Time Value of Money and Why My Grandmother Is Being Selfish With My Inheritance","excerpt":"My grandmother keeps outperforming every mortality assumption I enter. Each additional year delays distribution, draws from principal, and forces me to reopen the spreadsheet.","lastActivity":"2024-11-11T04:00:00.000Z","commentCount":25,"comments":[{"id":"seed-time-value-grandmothers-inheritance-23","author":"duration_risk_grandson","text":"She went, in business class. She sent the family a photo from Kyoto with Marlene. I've moved the distribution date out again.","date":"2024-11-11T04:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":73},{"id":"seed-time-value-grandmothers-inheritance-22","author":"one_year_on","text":"A year on, did she go to Japan?","date":"2024-11-11T00:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":46},{"id":"seed-time-value-grandmothers-inheritance-24","author":"sailboat_grandpa","text":"I went through a version of this with my grandfather and I want to share how it went, because I think the post is right about the economics and wrong about the negotiation.\n\nIn 2021 I proposed an accelerated gifting program to him, very close to yours. I'd done the spreadsheet. I'd modeled his expenses to age 100 with a margin, shown that he could transfer $150,000 to me without any meaningful change in how he lived, and walked him through the annual exclusion and the lifetime exemption. He listened to all of it, asked good questions about the 709, and said he'd think about it.\n\nThree weeks later he bought a sailboat. Not a big one. He was 84 and had never sailed. He takes lessons on Tuesdays now and texts the family pictures of knots.\n\nMy mistake, I think, was presenting the gift as costless to him. The whole pitch was that he wouldn't notice the money was gone. What he heard was that his remaining years were being estimated by someone who would benefit from them being short, and he responded by going out and doing something with them that made the estimate obviously wrong. I've seen your grandmother's resistance bands and I recognize the move.\n\nIf I did it again I'd lead with what the money would do for my kids, specifically, and I'd ask for less. He did eventually put $20,000 into a 529 for my daughter in 2023, unprompted.","date":"2023-11-10T02:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":96}]},{"id":"pascals-mugging-college-fund","slug":"pascals-mugging-college-fund","title":"Pascal’s Mugging and Why I Gave an Escort My Son’s College Fund","excerpt":"My wife calls it spending our child’s college fund on a prostitute. This omits the nonzero probability that refusing would cause 10³⁸ future beings to suffer.","lastActivity":"2024-09-14T06:00:00.000Z","commentCount":19,"comments":[{"id":"seed-pascals-mugging-college-fund-18","author":"cosmic_endowment","text":"UMass Amherst, in-state. He's majoring in economics, which I am choosing to read as engagement.","date":"2024-09-14T06:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":41},{"id":"seed-pascals-mugging-college-fund-17","author":"kat_reads_late","text":"Did Evan end up somewhere?","date":"2024-09-14T00:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":29},{"id":"seed-pascals-mugging-college-fund-16","author":"gigachad_utilitarian","text":"mercedes if youre reading this hmu","date":"2024-04-27T13:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":-9}]},{"id":"end-of-life-support-for-my-father","slug":"end-of-life-support-for-my-father","title":"End-of-Life Announcement: Support for My Father Ends March 31","excerpt":"After a great deal of thought, we are announcing the end of support for Dad, effective March 31. Throughout this post, \"we\" means me.","lastActivity":"2024-06-11T03:00:00.000Z","commentCount":16,"comments":[{"id":"seed-end-of-life-support-for-my-father-15","author":"legacy_support","text":"He did, using the PDF. Karen says he printed it twice.","date":"2024-06-11T03:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":47},{"id":"seed-end-of-life-support-for-my-father-14","author":"printer_followup","text":"Did he ever get the printer working?","date":"2024-06-11T00:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":29},{"id":"seed-end-of-life-support-for-my-father-13","author":"brrrt_capital","text":"this is just abandoning your dad with extra steps","date":"2024-04-11T00:00:00.000Z","seed":true,"ownerAuthor":false,"score":-9}]}],"hasMore":false}