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What's the possibility that Trump goes out of his way to rope in high profile people in his administration into specifically illegal deeds as a sort of cult-like / frat-like hazing ritual specifically to manufacture leverage or blackmail material over them so they become increasingly loyal stooges that gradually get inclined to commit crimes out of their own violation? Like how in some books/shows being turned into a vampire/demon is more about "letting loose" of all your inhibitions and unleashes what you really have been wanting to do the entire then but pesky things like "shame" or "fear of punishment" kept you at least within the bounds of morality? I feel like there needs to be some broader explanation as to how so many people previously thought to be establishment type "conservatives" all seem to accelerate into a tunnel of self destructive nihilism within months if not weeks of working for Trump?
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Oct 3, 2019 03:08
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 22:53 |
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Bolton is also kinda old and probably knows he's peaked, so in theory striking back is his next best shot at being relevant for the NeverTrumper crowd in a post-Trump world.Dapper_Swindler posted:ehh. maybe sorta. i think its more alot of these guys are opportunistic chuds or weird dead eyed freaks who are fine with doing bad poo poo because either they don't care, can justify it or weird religious nuts. some of it is also covering for Big Piss and they are already too deep to back out now. I mean it seems weird, wasn't Pompeo CIA? Confirmed fairly overwhelmingly by the Senate? This is a level of corruption that Senate R's seem to be uncomfortable with.
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Oct 3, 2019 03:19
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Arglebargle III posted:WRT both Laure Engels Wilder and Climate Change the settlers on the American Great Plains have been victims of junk science cooked up to benefit industry from day 1. The aridity of the Great Plains was a known problem to basically anyone with an education, but railroads published junk science that claimed that plowing and settling land caused rain. This was sort of seen as a quasi-scientific, quasi-divine phenomenon that rewarded good Christian cultivation of the land. This did not save anyone from the droughts but it did give them the psychological cover to furiously deny their farming practices had anything to do with their failed farms. So wait a sec; people go on about Lysenkoism in the former USSR and how socialism is why agriculture wasn't as successful it could've been, but the US had their own version of failed agricultural practices based on wishful thinking this entire time? And largely because of capitalist motivations?!
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Oct 6, 2019 03:56
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Dapper_Swindler posted:sorta different types of bullshit because the soviet scientists knew better by lysenko got in deep with stalin and that was that until kruschev and than mao adopted parts of it because he liked stalin and believed the various bullshit. but yeah pretty much. there is a great behind the bastards on lysenkoism and its effects in russia and china. I think though the point is there two situations aren't fundamentally different. There's probably more of a similarity between this and the Great Leap Forward because its loads of people plowing fields in a manic belief that it'll be able to grow crops and it's largely decentralized, but these political-economic phenomena seem all more similar than different, and I think this is a useful counterpoint to raise in response to conservatives.
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Oct 6, 2019 05:42
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ThanosWasRight posted:She has a hard-on for dictators in Asia like Modhi. I'm surprised she doesn't love Erdogan. The US is in a position to do something to help the Kurds at minimum geopolitical cost. Kashmir and Xinjiang involve varying degrees of nuclear war.
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Oct 10, 2019 03:58
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I went to what I thought was a barber but turned out to be a stylist, asked for a short haircut and that was around 40-50$ CAD. Usually its 20$ at a barber; I was confused and wasn't expecting it to be that much, I hadn't asked and didn't see a price just assumed it'd be about the same as elsewhere. I don't really know what I got out of it for the 2x amount; but maybe someone else with a more complicated request might have gotten more out of it. Does anyone know what do you get out of more expensive haircuts? As far as "numbers" go, I usually just ask for something between a "1" or "2" all around; I don't know anything about haircuts. I do find them relaxing and would go more often if my hair grew faster.
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Oct 10, 2019 17:35
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Party Plane Jones posted:https://twitter.com/yenisafak/status/1183028907693477888?s=20 This is rage inducing in a way I never thought I'd be enraged.
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Oct 13, 2019 02:49
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I'm not sure if this is the best thread to ask, I personally have liked to use RationalWiki as a means to debunking Alt Right arguments and gators online; it has in one convenient space, a compilation of events, positions, past statements and so on. But I've heard recently that the rationalist community, which I hadn't realized is a thing. Is toxic and possibly overrun with the alt right. By rationalist do people mean the dark enlightenment people or is there some other postmodern conservative online community I need to watch out for? Is rationalwiki good or at least not bad, do they have any actual connection to this supposed rationalist community?
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Oct 19, 2019 19:19
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FlamingLiberal posted:Isn’t there a standing policy or law in the US that if The Hague attempts to arrest an American for war crimes we will use any needed force to prevent that or something? I think that policy comes from the Bush Admin (not shockingly) Yeah there's already been long standing policy that the US doesn't allow itself to be held accountable to international bodies. But Post-Trump without major efforts to fix this will probably get many times worse as the US slides into an increasingly combative and antagonistic international world as climate change gets worse.
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Oct 19, 2019 19:22
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FizFashizzle posted:sorry for the lovely link, but the day after basically calling for impeachment, Rep. Rooney is resigning. Oh wow, just yesterday he was in the "And he isn't retiring" group.
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Oct 19, 2019 20:03
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So my brother texted me asking me, in all seriousness, why is it acceptable for left wing groups to pass around guillotine/eat the rich memes, and why would that be acceptable, instead of being seen as anything other than left wing ISIS. I don't wish for privacy reasons to post the whole text, but I would like to respond to him in depth, except for the fact that having only a very surface level general knowledge of marxist critiques; is there anyone who I could PM or discuss on discord my brother's text, compile a list of videos or articles for him to watch. The goal wouldn't be to convert him or anything, but at least outline the arguments, calmly and rationally, with as much evidence as possible so he can at least acknowledge socialism as a valid economic-political ideology even if he won't explicitly support it.
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Nov 22, 2019 16:14
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A lot of good posts that respond to a very small and specific tidbit, but I'd like very much to pm one or two people who I can show the whole text to because it isn't something that can be resolved with just a single paragraph.evilweasel posted:it seems he's objecting to joking about violence not about economics, so "here are some treatises on why i agree with the economics" is unlikely to be pursuasive That's because I didn't post the whole text and it goes much further, I think constructing an argument that validates socialism as a ideology is the right tactic because his thinking I am pretty sure, stems from not seeing it as valid, ergo its memes/jokes aren't valid; to put it simply. I have no idea who he's talked to or what he's read to inform his position so I'd like to make a crash course sort of attempt. e: Hieronymous Alloy posted:There are a few different angles but the main one is satire and lack of means. When ISIS makes a threat there is reason to believe they will attempt to carry it out. When someone posts Time for Guillotines on Facebook it's clearly a joke. Even if they built a physical guillotine there's no path forward for implementation. In fairness though revolutionary socialism does call for some amount of violence.
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Nov 22, 2019 16:29
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evilweasel posted:what is legal and what people need to personally tolerate in other people are two incredibly different things Additionally, there's the context of family gatherings/car rides and so on where there's political discussions where I maybe mention late stage capitalism being the cause of something and then getting "You're not actually as far left as those people" in response and I don't really have the resources, quick thinking, or indepth knowledge to press my position. It isn't just specifically this question, though it prompted it in the immediate sense (He wants to ask me for my thoughts because he doesn't want to risk alienating any of his coworkers, drat you unconditional family love!  ) but he's asking me because there's been a chain of conversations where I posit that socialism is good, actually; and he responds with borderline kinda bad arguments but they take a lot of effort to unpack, much like the text I got in its entirety, and car ride conversations kinda move around. So this would be a good opportunity to try to put together a primer.Because the requisite knowledge and steps to go from "Billionares are actively actually causing harm" to "so they deserve to be guillotined" is not an answer he'll accept, ostensibly, because they could always be taxed more and regulated; while the actual arguments as to why that's insufficient I lack the knowledge to adequately explain.
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Nov 22, 2019 16:59
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ewiley posted:I mean, the op's brother asked a rhetorical question by phrasing it rhetorically. "Why aren't you ISIS" presumes an awful lot and phrasing it that way *probably* means he's not open to being convinced. Well, not literally this but close enough that the text as a whole is "a lot to unpack". Like I guess I'll post it: quote:Hey RS, There's some additional texts that do get a little into economics which I won't post for sure for our privavy but I've largely only responded with, "uh, maybe I can respond this weekend? I feel like there's a lot to unpack here."
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Nov 22, 2019 17:07
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evilweasel posted:yeah that text is entirely "uh i'm pretty uncomfortable with this whole violence edgelord thing" and he is basically saying "look i understood it to be joking originally and now it seems to be driven by people who are not joking and i'm not down with that" It's more that while its true about the edgelord thing; I am sympathetic to the fact that, taking marxist critique to its end point that as PJ says, capitalism has no answer to climate change; you need to do away with capitalism entirely. And well, there's the rub. Not that I think its part and parcel to socialism, but I think there's some validity in how to couch it in reasonable terms.
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Nov 22, 2019 17:26
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evilweasel posted:
I mean you aren't talking to PJ you're responding to me, and what I choose to take away from PJ's post is not necessarily everything she's said or intends. The key word doing a lot of work though in the expression "the core issue with climate change is if sufficient power can be accumulated behind people pushing to fix it to force people who would like to defect/ignore it to play along." is if. What if, it never actually happens? Or happens so late as to have materially harmed a majority of the human race? The utilitarian calculus here is the longer you wait, the more harm accumulates that can not be further mitigated, maybe at best delayed and be some future generations problem. While action sooner, more immediately, may undo or mitigate much further future harm, with maybe some harm in the short term. There's a lot of scientific data out there, and I'm not expert and can only read summaries, but I get the sinking feeling we're much closer to that tipping point then ever before. The marxist critique of capital is that the powers that be's short term interests are whats driving them, and fundamentally lack the foresight, morality, or intention to sufficiently act with the decisiveness required or give anything other than the most tepid or lukewarm apathy at best; while a majority seem strongly determined to obstruct that process that may require removing from them some of their power and influence. It isn't really an issue of industrialization requiring fossil fuels, in fact it can be made such that it doesn't. But resources needed to be allocated first, and who has a hand in allocating those resources? The Powers That Be. Fusion power has been invested at levels far less than "Fusion never" totals accounting for inflation. Knowledge of climate change and the need to Do Something, Anything Really, Please? Has been around since the 80's. Isaac Asimov gave a talk about the Greenhouse Effect in like 1986 about how the whole world needs to get together for something to be done, outlining some of the major economic and political hurdles, in 1986! It's already been pointed out that China and india aren't really meaningfully socialist; but it should be pointed out that in per capita terms, China, which its state capitalism, is at least onboarding something like 30 new nuclear reactors over the next 50 years and is reducing their total share of coal consumption in favour of renewables by a considerable amount; they are doing far more in terms of effort, relative to their GDP than the First World currently is doing. Additionally China and India act in an international context. If you had a One World Government where the wealth of the first world could be redistributed to the Global South, then much of the "growth at all costs" mindset of the CCP wouldn't need to exist beyond personal enrichment or meeting metrics for promotions. Nearly the entire renewables market exists because of China biting that bullet first and making those investments into their massive solar panel production plants and so on. So I think its fair to say that capitalism as a system has so far has been the biggest impediment, and that dismantling it is one solution and that it is also fair to say that it doesn't really have solutions; the solutions all by and large seem to depend on trying to convince people to sacrifice material conditions in the short term, for a payoff in the long term, appeals to morality, ethics, conservation, etc. There has been no uniquely capitalist solution; just a lot of companies who at best, recognize they can profit by trying to get ahead of things and lobbying for every other industry to also jump onto the bandwagon as well so they can compete in that space fairly. An argument like, "We need to orient our nation's economy to prepare for climate change so we can become world's leaders in exporting climate change mitigation technology and services" just doesn't seem to exist. Everything that does exist is piggybacking off of government subsidies and regulations i.e redistribution i.e "socialism" i.e state capitalism. All the other solutions thus depend on this process happening fast enough, and pray that there's no big major fascist takeover that happens that reverses the trend that resorts to ecoaparthied instead.
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Nov 22, 2019 18:15
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evilweasel posted:so the problem i have with this is basically the phrase "capitalism as a system" because i think it fails to deal with the fact you have two problems: how do I convert this one country's economy to emit less carbon; and how do i convert all countries' economies to emit less carbon. Okay lets look at it from a goals oriented way first. As you say any single country could, by virtue of passing laws, formulating regulation guidelines, and raising taxes can reduce emissions "easily"; however I feel like you're glossing over the importance of domestic politics. Under one theory I've encountered which I feel like explains it convenient; if we accept as a given the "Keys to Power" theory; which posits that for any "ruler" regardless of system, their "rule" is defined by the relationship between them, the ruler, who has access to various powers and resources of the state, and their "keys" underlings and/or interest groups who get delegated power and responsibility and are given a slice of the resources of the state in turn. Under this theory, we could posit that the ultrarich constitute a very important constituency. They are additionally, a resource the state can tax (in theory), and are also keys to powers in of themselves, in some ways of looking at it they *are* the rulers and the *rulers* are merely their keys depending on your level of cynicism. As such, the ruler under this model is, in order to implement climate change mitigation, has to compete with the capitalist class for resources, influence with their keys (the media), and in some circumstances the capitalist class simply subverts the ruler control over the military to replace the ruler. We can put aside "capitalism" and look at it from a different lens, we could do machiavelli and comes to broadly the same conclusions. That there are in fact serious doubts on a single nation's ability to crack the protective bubble of entrenched interest groups. Assuming to be clear, if the capitalists aren't shadow rulers; but are either keys to power or are an interest group/demographic constituency. They are still clearly a very powerful one; and one very easily able to switch their support between different rulers, or different keys underneath those rulers that those rulers rely upon to maintain their power. So, even if we dispense with the marxist lens and look at it from power politics, you basically still have this, wildcard? Something that unlike say, young people who are unreliable and fickle, capitalists are hyperaware while also being fickle; and as time went on and their share of the wealth increased, they demand more; and further seem cagey about any talk to bring them to heel even if slightly. From a domestic politics standpoint of power politics, looking at it from the Prince's perspective for a moment; even if you manage to get a few "Barons" (heh) to defect to your side; and this lets you force through reforms; you're still left with a large number of incredibly powerful self-interested power players who are always seeking their moment to turn on you to become the next "King". Under either framework, of Machiavelli or the Keys, the solution seems broadly the same. Become the Sultan in the case of Machiavelli; in practical terms this doesn't mean "become a dictatorship" but it does mean no longer having "powerful (robber) barons" that have control delegated to them. Ultimately this means needing to completely dismantle them of their relevance in being "keys" to holding power. The exact method as to "how" a nation reduces its emissions pales in-comparison to the task of actually achieving unhindered political consensus to act decisively. The Keys to Power theory better outlines the web of interconnection that lets them "control" that consensus. The (US) government could throw Manhatten Project level of effort and funding at nuclear power, at decarbonization, at electrifying the car grid, empowering a METI like bureaucracy to shift the economy out of fossil fuel use tomorrow and see results within a record breaking amount of time while also funding a UBI, M4A, and space travel. The "harm" of these policies and a public backlash can be mitigated or prevented altogether with the right combination of social policies supplementing these changes to ease the nation through the transition. China can't quite actually give no fucks; they're ultraparanoid about domestic unrest, back in 2011 it was reported China sees over 70,000 protests a year over a variety of political, economic, and environmental problems. The government swiftly intervenes, acquiesces to the demands of the protestors while arresting the ring leaders in a carrot and stick approach to maintaining stability. So while it is authoritarian, lets not overemphasis this, China clearly has constraints in what it can do and has to be careful about when it wields its stick because of the "Keys to Power" theory above. The ruling oligarchy has keys and resources and has to be very careful in balancing those keys and interests even if the keys are more concentrated into the military and bureaucracy than in a democracy. But it is true though that China is able to act in ways the US cannot; and it largely comes down to a very important fact. The ultrarich in China, insofar as they can be cleanly separated from the party apparatus which is still mainly comprised of true believers and technocrats; are a tiny fraction of the political relevance or share of the economic wealth of the Chinese socio-economic political establishment. There are probably Generals or even Colonels in the PLA with more influence than the richest Chinese billionare; and as long as that is true the Chinese upper class remember Deng's "rubbing a raddish up their butt" speech and behave and knuckle under. Which lets China build nuclear power plants and tax the rich while eliminating taxes on farmers. So not yet addressing "all nations" it seems like a lot of signs and evidence point to while maybe not eliminating rich people, eliminating their influence and power or dwarfing it by the influence and power of other groups. As for all nations I feel like this is the easiest part. As soon as the US and China can both be willingly and enthusiastically onboard with implementing reforms and some sort of international consensus exists, like say, establishing a new core organ of the United Nations that's in charge of climate change matters instead of it being parcelled up between the Human Development Fund, the World Bank, and the various technical institutions and real money and development aid is put into it you can see I think a quick snowball effect. Individual nations have an easier time getting its keys to turn if the world has a hand in turning them; probably because many nations can in an international sense "lend" each other keys and that "keys of power" politics is equally applicible on the global stage. But there's a step 1, and step 1 is certain nations need to see climate change mitigation as not as "cooperating" in a game of the Prisoner's Dilemma, while also being able to navigate the domestic political obstacles.
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Nov 22, 2019 21:40
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Demographics make the US political outlook at least somewhat optimistic as long as Republicans aren't able to aggressively above and beyond their current level continue their anti-democratic minoritan policies. The growing concentration of voting power into the most populace states, increasing their share of the popular vote and Electoral College votes (Next census is 2020 which probably shifts some votes to the big states), and shifting demographic trends (Purple Texas) means that its possible for national level elections to become extremely uphill battles for the GOP absent them radically changing the rules (proportional EC votes in swing states like PA). Since something like the 16 most populace steps absent Texas are either Dem strongholds or lean Dem or shifting purple. Over the next 20-30 years I think Conservatives will slowly realize this and begin to readily agree to abolish the Electoral College because not doing so is less favourable to them over a long enough span of time under current trends. The problem is it is very uneven, and 2 Senators per state means you have a lot of states which are red, staying red, or shifting red, which gives them an outsized level of influence and power nationally. Plus locally its a lot easier to take power and screw things up. My concern would be the Republicans making a lot of last gasp authoritarian efforts, like splitting a state's EC votes to be proportional; which would hand them the election in all close elections. Instituting an "Electoral College" for local statewide elections, and stubbornly refusing to admit PR, Guam+Other Pacific Islands, and DC as states. Then of course you have find a way to even more aggressively gerrymander and voter suppress. I'm not sure what other procedural quasi-legal tricks they could do before resorting to violent suppression. But if they can be prevented from all of this, if a Democrat wins in 2020 that is aggressive and proactive in preventing this; HR1 gets passed and signed into law, if RBG's seat is secured, three dem lean states added to the union and aggressive and ambitious policies are passed and implemented before the next federal election and at least major improvements underway before the first midterms, I think then yeah Demographics due act as a sort of battering ram to follow through with the breach, bursting and shattering the fortress that the GOP and Conservatives have erected since Nixon. I think yes, there are conservative sections in the latinx and African American community but if the Republican collapse and implosion is fast enough, its too fast for them to recover by attracting Catholic and Evangelical African Americans. And your next political realignment can be more neatly between a moderate fiscally conservative small government party and a labour left leaning party, with the nativists and evangelicals ousted from relevance except as regional terrors.
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Nov 24, 2019 05:44
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Ice Phisherman posted:There's also seriously liability when you deal with AI and truckers. Who is at fault when there is a crash, a death, multiple deaths? I think the general idea with AI controlled truck driving is that the AI only needs to be good enough that the insurance costs involved force out human drivers as uneconomical compared to a machine. Because a machine making the wrong decision in 1% of circumstances is better than a driver that crashes from being sleepy, inattentive, incompetent, or making the wrong decision most of the time. So I think the idea is insurance pays for it, if someone gets hit and killed, the insurance pays it out and this happens rarely enough to be vastly better than currently unionized truck drivers with benefits.
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Nov 29, 2019 01:07
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Payndz posted:If (big if, but the polls show a gradually shrinking gap...) Labour win the upcoming UK election and noted socialist jam-making vegetarian grandad Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister, would that increase or decrease the odds of a Bernie vs Trump election in 2020? I thought it was tories being favoured with +60 seats?
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Nov 30, 2019 21:52
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 22:53 |
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VH4Ever posted:Him loving up PR to the point where its refugees hand him defeat in FL would be poetic justice. Rooting for this now. Sadly I believe voter registration of Puerto Ricans is unusually low?
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Dec 6, 2019 16:38
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