To turn it into a source of graft for the Trumps? Use the war to indebt the Ukrainians to his family personally.
He would only be spending American money, not his own, and he'd gain a source of graft as well as regain prestige. Furthermore, money would primarily flow from blue constituents to red ones.
Sounds perfect for Trump.
I'd like to note that to me this seems like mostly an Anglo problem, and more specifically an American one.
There are well written games and other types of media but they're increasingly, or even generally, produced elsewhere (or by people from elsewhere) despite most games being made in America.
Personally i think it's a combination of a pipeline problem and a cultural problem. Part of the pipeline problem is how much the industry have grown (the quality people are spread too thin) but also the general reputation of the industry. Who with talent and in their right mind would work in gamedev? Especially AAA?
It's kind of similar to online communities, once you reach a scarcity tipping point of quality people then why bother with something that doesn't pay? Especially when you're actively or passively selecting for bad people.
The culture part I'm sure you're all aware of.
In the Nordics we could raise our debt to gdp by 100 percentage points and we'd still not be as indebted as Italy.
Europe could easily bear more debt, I just don't think it's really needed.
Ioper
4d ago
Everything is relative of course but there was rationing in Sweden during the war, even for basic things like food.
Ioper
4d ago
Making up for lost time and brighter expectations of the future I'd imagine.
It's not like the war period was good to Sweden or free of stress and worry, Sweden was both economically depressed and cut off from much trade. It was the post war period with intact industry and great demand for both raw materials and goods that was good.
All status isn't relative to the people around you at a given moment but also to what people have previously experienced. If tides are rising quickly then almost everyone is going to be perceived as higher status than before.
They dont have to, the eu energy market is configured so they can just leech on their neighbours.
Ioper
7d ago
I mean, it's possible but just horribly inefficient. Even just hydrogen is really inefficient.
Ioper
7d ago
That's the thing, I don't think it will. The art scene isn't driven by cost or even talent considerations (beyond a certain threshold).
For the things this will be viable for I don't think anyone gives a shit who is doing the composing and it employs a microscopic amount of people.
If you want to look at ai impact on employment i would look at some kind of cost competitive field that actually employs a lot of people, like animation.
Ioper
7d ago
The people I know that work in music (I've done so a bit myself too) don't really give a shit.
Composition was already a winner takes it all kind of thing and the vast majority of money is made through live performances. To the extent that this replaces anything I don't know anyone that has gotten paid anything meaningful for creating equivalent (or adjacent) audio slop.
We've talked about this previously but these kinds of jobs are not handed out on a merit or cost basis, and there is already an extreme oversupply of people capable of doing them.
I don't think this changes anything at all, but it is certainly interesting.
It's probably fine in the US specifically for the coming three decades or so given the abundance of cheap NG, which of course is the actual plan, just like cheap Russian NG was in Germany.
Haven't they've been doing a couple of massive upgrade projects and maybe those were mismanaged and/or the rising interest rates are somehow fucking them?
Ioper
13d ago
Considering Mohammed it would make some sense... And what is Ramadan if not massive religooooon sesh?
I don't know. To me the vast majority of this seems like sarcastic jokes which I perceive as undermining the appeal of Islam to both westerners and middle eastern adherents. It makes islam both less mysterious, less serious and less scary. It isn't great for your religion when people wear it as a costume and make fun of it.
It seems similar to the early stages of how people secularised from Christianity in the west.
Ioper
14d ago
Same thing for me. I really loved black coffee but the acidity eventually started to give me severe heartburn so I had to switch to milkbased coffee drinks, which works fine. A cappuccino is usually no issue.
Why don't you have grinder? They're cheap. Do you just drink at work and you're in an office?
At one point I drank too much coffee (like 7 cups a day) so now I'm limiting myself to 1-2 cups a day and have been for the past 15 years, it works great. One in the morning and possibly one in the afternoon.
Add in that their current plan for growth is expanding their already inflated global manufacturing marketshare through very aggressive industrial policy, in market segments where at least the rich world is practically certain to engage in things like high tariffs, at a point in time where people are already safe/friend-shoring.
It's a setup for disaster.
Ioper
14d ago
I'm not asking you to. I don't think this can be solved.
People are either writing long form stuff on places like substack or they're in private discord servers/group chats when they want to discuss stuff.
I'm just mourning a bit.
Since there is close to no inflow of quality posters it is a problem, especially since we're close to reaching scarcity tipping point of quality posters so as that they have no other quality posters to talk to (or who're willing to engage).
To be clear, I'm not claiming to be a quality poster, I'm just pointing out that we're bleeding quality engagment in general, and have been since almost immediately after the original split from ssc. The liberal/leftwing exodus was easier to notice but we have lost plenty of rightwingers as well, who've not been replaced.
Fundamentally the issue is a lack of quality inflow, of any ideological flavour. It seems to happen to more than this community. Perhaps people are just on substack and twitter now, idk.
Ioper
14d ago
I'd argue the same goes for the high quality posters as well, at the very least in terms of engagment.
The quality is just down overall, regardless of topic. Perhaps there are less offensive drive by posters but who cares?
Ioper
14d ago
The average American is more affluent than the average west European but how much depends on how you define both affluence and western Europe.
The more striking difference is the level of UMC pay, where Americans really and unequivocally are much better off than their European counterparts.
Scandinavia was horrifically riven by civil war and strife? Are we talking about pre-history here or are you referring to the vikings?
I'm not saying things were completely peaceful or that the people were peaceful but Scandinavia most certainly wasn't horrifically riven by civil war and strife. It was a bit below the norm regionally and mostly engaged in military adventurism and mercenary work elsewhere.
I mean, you could always go to Scott? (Or put yourself on his waiting list)
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