Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
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User ID: 1226
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
7hr ago
the tariffs have not in fact collapsed the economy, while the institutions' commitment to being paranoid ninnies about covid did.
Putting a pin in this.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
7hr ago
Yes.
The trouble with the comparison is that communism is dead as a political force. The handful of self-identified communists are sanctimonious LARPers with no aspirations to power, whereas fascist sympathizers keep surfacing in positions of influence inside right-wing populist movements. The right-populists wants to engage in whataboutism so they don't have to talk about their neo-nazi problem, but there just isn't the kind of symmetry they're looking for. There's no equivalent neo-stalinist movement. The closest you get are pro-palestinian activists, who rather famously don't get along with mainstream left-wing politicians.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
15hr ago
it really does seem like ardent lefties have to discard a lot of fundamental fairly obvious facts about baseline reality to maintain their ideological commitments.
Interesting.
Its definitely the one place where the average response doesn't drastically misinterpret a person's post and respond to the persons' hallucinated point rather than the plain words they said.
Your mileage may vary. I am routinely imputed views I don't hold. This forum is roughly equivalent to an above average political subreddit, just with the ideological inflection reversed.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17hr ago
That, uh, doesn't address any of the points. The existence of ownership doesn't preclude cooperation. Coining a new term doesn't do anything about basic physical realities like "if I eat that apple, you can't."
And how are you going to try alternatives when a guy can't even get you to explore them?
Please, put something forward. I'm not going to think your thoughts for you, especially since they're apparently inscrutable. All you've said so far said "property is a mental disorder" on repeat.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17hr ago
I...don't think this is true. It probably is true that you can't maximize the benefits from all of them.
To the extent that you pursue any one of those goals, you sacrifice the other two. And that's being charitable and assuming there are actual benefits and these policies don't just make America poorer and weaker. Raising enough revenue to replace income taxes requires extraordinarily high tariffs without a decrease in imports (good luck). Trading partners are not going to accept radically asymmetric tariff arrangements, so if you're conceding tariffs as part of trade negotiations, you're effectively dropping the tariffs and any attendant hypothetical benefits (i.e. returning to something approximating the status quo after torching a bunch of good will).
I suppose one could reconcile tariffs-as-industrial-policy with tariffs-as-tax-policy if one supposes that the economic boom from ISI policy will be so massive that even with massive hikes in taxes on imports, people will still consume enough imports to generate a substantial amount of revenue. This is a) not credible b) under Trumpian trade theory, a bad thing.
Frankly, the most honest pitch would be that this is just right-wing degrowth policy - arguing that poverty is an acceptable tradeoff for certain intangible benefits (for left-wingers, it's environmental protection and anti-capitalism; for Trumpists it is the reestablishment/reaffirmation of certain social hierarchies). The Trump administration seems to willing to make this case, though I don't know that they realize that's the case they're making.
And so the US can't just threaten to tank your economy (which they absolutely can do) they can threaten to cripple your national security structure as well.
The problem is that this is an iterated game, which the Trump administration seems to forget. After decades of acquiescing to US preferences on a range of subjects, suddenly the US comes to you and says "You've been taking advantage of us. Give us more." Worse, their demands are irrational or incoherent - their primary grievance seems to be that their consumers buy more stuff from your producers than your consumers do from their producers. The 'deal' they're offering is that you should give American good privileged status in your domestic markets while they tariff your products at home and that you should cut off your biggest trading partner.
Not only is this a shit deal, you're also going to ask yourself "what about next time?" (and, if you're someone depending on US security guarantees, "do I believe they'll actually show up if the shit hits the fan?") The US is a valuable market, but it's not so valuable that you can't live without it. Especially if they plan to shake you down on the regular and you're starting to doubt they can be counted on in a pinch.
The leaked Signal chats were very instructive in this regard.
Were they?
That seems very obvious to me, which is part of why I can't shake the suspicious feeling Secret Sauce Stuff might be involved.
Has Trump ever done anything to make you think 4D chess theories are plausible and not cope? Trump had an anti-China trade deal on his desk during his first term. He vetoed it.
Ownership exists because many (most?) things are rivalrous - if I have it, you can't, and vice versa - and finite. Even things which are not rivalrous or finite are generally produced with such things (e.g. software may be functionally free to reproduce, but producing it in the first place took real labor effort and material resources). Different ownership schemes are different ways of determining who gets to decide to use/have/dispose of various rivalrous things.
You can't escape from this. A communal ownership arrangement is still an ownership arrangement. If the question is "why private property?" the short answer is that private property with regulation has so far proven to be preferable to alternatives in most cases.
Here's something from years back, before I'd zeroed in on the perverse nature of ownership: ...Capitalism is psychopathy with a makeover.
This is a word game, intent on framing things as negatively as possible by drawing a dubious analogy. There's a fair point about how original title is often rooted in a claim asserted by violence, but there's an equally fair counterpoint of "so what are we going to do about it?" Someone is getting final say over the disposition of stuff. That's not a distinctive feature of capitalism - the State (or Community or whatever entity you imagine) asserting their right to dispose of resources is no less arbitrary - so the real question is what gets us the best outcomes (or at least better outcomes)?
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
2d ago
The reason why you'd want to rehabilitate Hitler (aside from the straightforward reason that you think Hitler had some pretty interesting ideas and gets a bad rap) is that Hitler and the Nazis are by their mere existence are uniquely delegitimizing for the authoritarian right in a way virtually no other part of the ideological spectrum has to contend with.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
3d ago
I dunno. I would have a stronger opinion of this if I considered myself more economically literate. But the basic strategy that seems to be shaping up, as reported, of essentially forcing countries to choose between the US and China does make sense.
The Trump administration advances multiple mutually exclusive theories justifying high tariffs:
- Tariffs are industrial policy - basically, ISI
- Tariffs are a revenue substitute - tariffs provide a rationale for further income tax cuts by replacing them with consumption taxes
- Tariffs are a negotiating strategy - we're going to use tariffs as leverage to force concessions
The problem is that you can't have all three. If tariffs are a negotiating strategy, you're agreeing to drop them in exchange for whatever concessions you're angling for, negating their use as industrial or tax policy. If they're revenue raisers, you're counting on Americans continuing to prefer imports over domestic consumption, so there goes industrial policy. If they're industrial policy, you're betting on Americans switching to domestic production and thus not replacing revenue.
There are other problems, as well. For example, the Trump admin not having any coherent idea of what they're looking for in a trade deal (in no small part because Trumpian trade theory makes no sense), so trade talks are floundering. Anti-Chinese coalition building is not consistent with trying to shake down your trade partners. ISI has a terrible record (I mean, who doesn't look at Argentina and think it's something to aspire to). Not to mention, the entire endeavor seems to be rooted in either a delusional belief that the US can reclaim post-war era style manufacturing supremacy despite radically different global economic conditions or just straight autarky.
Even being maximally charitable and assuming there's a serious plan behind all this, the Trump admin being so high-handed and transactional towards allies is absolutely the wrong way to go about negotiating the creation of an anti-China trading bloc, especially when they're also badly overestimating the strength of the US' position. The US already benefits substantially from the present global economic arrangement, so going to your trading partners and saying "give me more, also cut off your biggest trading partner who produces a bunch of difficult to replace inputs for your domestic industry" is a tough sell. Doing it in an aggressive and insulting matter further undermines the goal by invoking national pride.
If you wanted to build an anti-China trading bloc, you would probably try to carefully negotiate a multi-lateral trade partnership with other critical trade partners in a way that encourages trade to shift away from China rather try trying clumsy threats and hoping for the best with bilateral negotiations.
We'll see if he's able to pull it off.
I feel like I've been hearing this line more and more lately :V
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
5d ago
People have regularly been pointing out that Trump routinely devolves into gibberish since 2016 at least. This is a guy whose re-entry into the political sphere was in the form of spearheading the most trivially disprovable conspiracy theory I've ever seen. His mental fitness is not a new topic. His supporters just don't care, because they have never cared about any aspect of Trump's fitness.
It's always helpful to remember that Donald Trump a) will never intentionally admit he did anything wrong b) is a fully post-truth individual. I don't think Trump has been all there in a while, but he's also a narcissist and a pathological liar.
On a different note, this interview helpfully provides an illustration of how Trump likes to pretend to be retarded but is also just an idiot. They're quite easy to tell apart. Compare:
TIME: The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that you have to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia. You haven't done so. Aren’t you disobeying the Supreme Court?
Trump: Well, that’s not what my people told me—they didn’t say it was, they said it was—the nine to nothing was something entirely different.
TIME: Let me quote from the ruling. “The order properly requires the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador.” Are you facilitating a release?
Trump: I leave that to my lawyers. I give them no instructions. They feel that the order said something very much different from what you're saying. But I leave that to my lawyers. If they want—and that would be the Attorney General of the United States and the people that represent the country. I don't make that decision.
to
TIME: Well, I mean, the question is, how can CEOs make long-term plans and investments if our tariff policy can change from day to day and still remains so uncertain?
Trump: How can they make long-term investments? I'll turn it around. How can they make long-term investments if our country is losing $2 trillion a year on trade?
TIME: Will you consider giving exemptions—
Trump: No wait, just so you understand. How can we sustain and how is it sustainable that our country lost almost $2 trillion on trade in Biden years, in this last year. That's not—when you talk about a company. I had the head of Walmart yesterday, right in that seat. I had the head of Walmart. I had the head of Home Depot and the head of Target in my office. And I'll tell you what they think, they think what I'm doing is exactly right.
"Golly shucks, I'm just the president of the United States, what do I know about one of my banner policies?" vs defensive gibberish.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
5d ago
It certainly does! Most complaints about how the left always gets its way and the right never does are simply selective perception or "not-winning-hard-enough"/"everything-I-want-is-the-bare-mininum" style complaints. The US political system is incredibly status quo biased. Sometimes this helps the right, sometimes it helps the left.
I'm reminded of this comment from a few years ago on the old place:
It's strange, isn't it, how no one feels like they're in charge.
If your goal is to radically change the legal status quo, US governing systems are generally arranged in such a way where you have to win everything by large margins. The right is generally in favor of this whenever the left wants to do things.
including the entire judiciary at every level and every non-political hire in the bureaucracy (which means they have to be willing to, after winning, use the political capital necessary to fire everyone and replace them with their own)
Given the strong propensity of American conservatives to treat these groups as hated enemies regardless of their behavior, the long-run trend will always be that these groups end up aligned against them. Until such a time as the right can overcome both its ideological hatred of civil servants and its human capital problem, it's not going to produce any solution more sophisticated than either serial arson or bringing back the spoilers system.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
7d ago
Cooper is not merely angling towards anti-communism (where, as you note, there'd be a number of more successful and less odious icons you could hitch your wagon to). He, as far as I can tell, genuinely favors something fascism-adjacent* and is trying to rehabilitate far-right authoritarianism.
Even extending him the charity of assuming he's merely interested in the hard core right-wing authoritarianism and not the genocide, this is awkward for him in several respects. The first is simply that most of his co-partisans are howling bigots, which is embarrassing when you're trying to come across as serious and respectable. Even if you yourself are immaculately well-behaved, you're going to be tarnished by association. The second is that if you're trying to pitch respectable fascism, the historical record of the Nazis is a big problem. Even people who might be on board for the strict top-down social regulation are liable to balk at the aggressive expansionist wars and industrialized mass murder.
So on the one side, you have him here rebuking other parts of the far-right for being indecorous. On the other side, you have him downplaying Nazi atrocities as a combination of tragic misadventure and "the commies made me do it". The end goal is to move fascism closer to the Overton Window and people like the groypers are an impediment to that goal.
*he seems to be somewhat cagey about his actual preferred political arrangement, but his anti-liberalism combined with some of his other statements plus that very caginess makes me strongly suspect that his actual views are well beyond the pale and he's hiding his power level.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
12d ago
Really? What major were you?
Math for undergrad, stats for grad school. Had a Chinese professor who was pretty terrible, but I also had several other Chinese and Korean professors who were totally fine and a number of American professors who were also pretty bad.
The TAs were always fine, even the ones who weren't native English speakers.
The number of Chinese students we retain is awful (under 50%, sources are all wildly different)
Probably because we don't try very hard.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
At least from personal experience, I suspect it's unaddressed because it's an incredibly minor problem.
It is alienating and subconsciously hostile to one’s innate sense of community when the prevalence of myriad exotic accents reaches a certain level.
Speak for yourself. I truly do not get the visceral disgust people experience from hearing other accents or languages.
Also, the Chinese nationals are totally spies for the PRC.
Really? All of them?
See, I am a China Hawk, and I think it is absolutely braindead not to siphon off every bit of human capital from them we can. The risk of the occasional PRC spy pales in comparison. You don't have to give them jobs designing ICBMs.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
The defense of forcing ideological diversity, per your own words, is that it directly influences someone's ability to contribute to the organization.
The defense of forcing background diversity is that it directly influences someone's ability to contribute to the organization.
it's categorically different from adding diversity of demographic characteristics under the belief that adding such diversity would increase diversity of thought.
Why? What is the categorical difference between "You need more conservatives because it will add perspectives you haven't considered" and "you need more [women/blacks/etc] because it will add perspectives you haven't considered". You don't actually articulate what makes it different.
The primary distinction I see is that while both are ideological arguments, the latter is not arguing for ideological representation while the former is. Other than that, either way you're dealing with an argument to use an imperfect proxy for some nominally desired underlying quality (and in both cases the nominally desired quality is a figleaf for ideological goals).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
(honestly a completely reasonable opinion if you’ve ever spent a significant amount of time on a major university campus)
...why?
The fact that the US attracts a ton of foreign talent is a feature, as is the fact that many of these students bring money into the country. The national security pretext is largely irrelevant (we're mostly talking about undergrads and it's not especially difficult to vet or just exclude foreign nationals when dealing with genuinely sensitive research).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
Giving conservatives preferential treatment or using a conservative "Czar" to oversee such things is categorically different from that, because ideology - and specifically a diversity of ideology - does directly influence someone's ability to contribute to the organization
This is identical to DEI arguments. As I'm sure you're aware, there has been a great deal of effort invested in the idea that diversity is not an ideological goal, it is a pragmatic benefit. The right-wing argument is that this is not true for, say, women, but is true for conservatives (and only conservatives, not other views with poor representation in academia).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
Indeed, when the media discuss economic issues they are more likely to interview a businessman than an economist.
As an aside, I think it has generally been to capitalism's detriment that people tend to conflate business, finance, and economics when these are three different fields. Businessmen make terrible ambassadors for capitalism.
I don't even understand how exactly viewpoint diversity is supposed to be done?
You're overthinking it. It's affirmative action for right-wingers. You do it by hiring right-wingers into faculty positions until the Viewpoint Diversity Czar is satisfied. The specifics of their viewpoints are largely irrelevant, because the actual point is to try and install a bunch of Trumpist faculty.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
15d ago
University endowments are not general purpose slush funds for the University administration. They can't just allocate money from the endowment to replace research funding.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
15d ago
The Trump admin has the power to crush Harvard. They have HUGE reasons to play ball, the things that the administration can do to them are existentially threatening.
The Trump administration has made it abundantly clear that showing your belly is the wrong move, because it won't earn you the tiniest shred of leniency. When the barbarians tell you to throw open your gates and surrender or be destroyed while you can see the smoke rising from the last city to surrender, you're not going to comply. You're going to hunker down and put out calls for aid.
Harvard has a lot of wealthy and influential alumni, and they may reasonably believe that making themselves a beacon of opposition will allow them to weather the storm more or less intact.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
15d ago
Columbia caved and didn't get their funding back, so there's not much reason for Harvard to accommodate the Trump administration's demands that they install right-wing commissars to monitor the university for wrongthink.
The Fed's letter included contradictory demands. One can't require merit-based admissions and hiring while also requiring viewpoint-diversity admissions and hiring:
Woke Right theory wins again?
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
15d ago
C is highly defensible, but it's far more common for D to masquerade as C. Not even necessarily intentionally/in bad faith - people have their personal hobby horses they fixate on and most of the systems they're complaining about are very complex.
It won't generate literally zero revenue in an accounting sense, though it might damage overall tax revenue, on account of depressing economic activity while not raising much money. Tariffs are highly distortionary.
I'm really not that worried about it. The demise of US manufacturing has been tremendously exaggerated, and the panic about it has less to do with pure manufacturing capability than with
a) anxiety over the rise of China and the loss of US manufacturing supremacy. Autarkic economic policy will make this worse, not better. The proper remedy for this would be heavy investments in industrial automation (the US is embarrassingly under-roboticized considering it's the world's most advanced economy) and closer trade ties with allied countries (e.g. Mexico). The problem here is that there's very little appetite for this sort of thing - US labor politics is adamantly anti-automation, domestic producers are more interested in squeezing rents out of a captive market, and industrial policy is largely treated as a jobs program. Even so, there is a limit to what the US can do about this. China has 4x as many people, a state with far fewer fetters on its power, and a policy commitment to industrial overcapacity.
b) the social consequences of industrial consolidation, which also have less to do with China alone (seeing as they predate Chinese industrialization) and more to do with broader shifts in global economic circumstances (e.g. Japan eating into the US' international market share in the 80s) and technological improvements that made manufacturing less labor intensive and encouraged physical consolidation. This was very bad for a lot of rural industry and the communities that depended on them, but creating zombie industries to prop them up is absolutely the wrong move.
The US has the second largest industrial base in the world, by quite a margin. We don't produce a lot of cheap consumer goods, but I don't see a reason to care that we're buying t-shirts from Vietnam instead of Mississippi.
I did. I was not impressed, especially since they're not exactly delivering on defeating the Houthis (and probably will fail for the same reason the Biden admin failed, which is that it's really hard to bomb a determined adversary into submission).
More importantly, the crude transactionalism doesn't speak highly of the current admin's thought processes. Which shouldn't surprise us, since this is a bunch of amateurs trying to do foreign policy.
I guess you're going to have to clarify what you mean by "secret sauce", because I think this is grading Trump on an outrageous curve. Most of this stuff either doesn't matter or would've happened under any semi-competent president, and without the myriad own-goals that Trump inflicts upon the country foreign policy-wise in the meantime. Trump has a pattern of doing very impulsive things, occasionally punctuated by something reasonable (usually because someone else talked him into it or because the machinery of the USG more or less made the decision for him). I don't see much reason to extend him charity on this, especially when it's been a personal fixation of his for a long time. Trump just thinks tariffs are neat, and he doesn't know enough about trade or economics to understand why this is a bad idea.
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