Sunshine
5mo ago
Nobody is afraid that they "missed the fascism", except possibly you because your brain is fried from huffing too much politics. Any "fascism" that is so subtle that you can fail to notice it while it's taking place in the cultural center of the world in the midst of a global political media circus (i.e. the election) is no fascism at all.
Fascism is not a mystic totem which once invoked will trigger Armageddon. If it's too subtle to notice, it's also too subtle to affect anyone's life in any way. If it's too subtle to affect anyone's life then it doesn't matter, no matter what scary words you use to describe it. If we can live in a fascist dystopia without noticing or being affected by it, then maybe the problem is that the word "fascist" is being used too lightly.
I dislike the way we treat mental disorders as if they work like bacteria or viruses. We even call them "mental illnesses." Strep throat presents in similar ways every time it appears because it's caused by a particular group of bacteria with particular traits. Autism isn't a species of microorganism, it's a cluster of behaviours observed in some humans. We can observe that many different people exhibit some or all of these behaviours without acting like they're all infected with a particular disease.
To continue the analogy: autism isn't the common cold, it's the act of coughing.
Sunshine
6mo ago
Demanding more effort is not the same thing as demanding less rage. This post is neither rage-posting nor outgroup-bashing, but you're giving it a mod warning for not "providing more than a Twitter link." What's wrong with a Twitter link? Why should you require more effort from top-level posts? Have you considered the possibility that this is actually an appropriate amount of effort relative to the subject matter? Have you considered the possibility that adding more effort to this Twitter link might not actually increase the quality of the post, because more effort is not called for in this particular situation?
Sunshine
6mo ago
As a regular Motte reader and occasional poster, I think your standards for posts are too overbearing. The Motte's biggest problem is the lack of content, and the reason for the lack of content is that the mod team is strangling it. The Motte needs more lower-quality posts, not fewer higher-quality posts.
You're not going to run out of space.
Sunshine
7mo ago
I thought the stock market would go down if Trump won, so I was holding my money to buy stock after the election. Now the market is at an all-time high, so I'd feel dumb to buy now. Serves me right for listening to the media, I guess.
My existing portfolio is doing great, though.
Sunshine
7mo ago
Did the Gillette ad show that? My understanding was that it triggered a massive backlash and actually lowered sales for about 6 months after the ad aired.
Sunshine
7mo ago
It boggles my mind that the United States, the most powerful country on Earth, is unable to issue all of its citizens with photo IDs.
Sunshine
8mo ago
My point is just that I don't think intelligence and counterintelligence are all they're cracked up to be. The Soviets won the intelligence war, but their little victory was swept away by the uncaring maelstrom of socioeconomic forces, along with their country and their ideology. They should have spent less on guns and more on butter.
Sunshine
8mo ago
We can all name issues present in society, but is Kamala Harris going to solve any of them? Is she even going to try?
She strikes me as a political opportunist who wants to be President just so she can be President. Does she even have any policy proposals? You would think that, if she did, she would be putting them into action right now as the de-facto leader of the Democratic party.
Sunshine
8mo ago
I wouldn't be surprised if Iran was just after the photo op. For all we know, the point of firing the missiles could be just to remind the world that they're capable of making trouble if anyone pushes them too far. The world duly reminded, the Iranians don't have to fear looking weak as they make the strategically sound decision to back off, regroup, and let their allies take the L.
Sunshine
8mo ago
Gaza is not a small town, it's a city. It has a higher population than Phoenix, AZ.
I don't think your point is entirely well-formed. This isn't a game of capture the flag, it isn't enough to just "take" Gaza. They're looking for insurgents who are hiding among the general population. It's naturally time-consuming. They could just bomb all 2.1 million civilians into smithereens in about a week, but if they did I doubt that would satisfy either you or the American government.
Sunshine
8mo ago
Didn't the same thing happen with the head of British counterintelligence being a Soviet double agent? And look how that turned out.
Sunshine
9mo ago
Will a second assassination attempt give Trump a bump in the polls? The first one didn't. I'm curious to see how this plays out.
Sunshine
9mo ago
In the long run, I think Talleyrand spent more of his life getting what he wanted than Lenin did. And he saw a lot of change in his life, too. He just didn't think he could control it.
I don't think the side that is theoretically less capable of violence at full mobilization would actually be less capable of violence in practice. Civil unrest very rarely results in full mobilization. The vast majority of the people involved in the conflict would not be directly involved in the fighting. Having more money to arm and pay your paramilitaries would be enough to secure victory in most cases, even if your pool of potential combatants is a little bit smaller.
Men and women are basically fungible as long as they're equally committed. A woman willing to donate $X is worth just as much to the cause as a man willing to fight for Y days, for some value of X and Y.
In the Byzantine Empire men who refused to serve in the army had to pay a fine. As time went on, more and more men chose to just pay the fine to get out of service. The Empire didn't mind this because they could use the revenue from the fines to hire Armenian mercenaries, who made better soldiers than the conscripted peasant farmers would have anyway. Even thousands of years ago, being unable to mobilize your supporters to actually fight for you wasn't a death blow as long as they were willing to contribute in other ways.
Sunshine
9mo ago
You obviously haven't been to Northern Ireland.
I have, in fact, been to Northern Ireland.
Sunshine
9mo ago
I don't think an armed uprising is plausible in this day and age. People revolt because they're desperate, and the western world is too rich to foster that kind of desperation. The big difference since the days of George Washington is that we're much richer and more comfortable now.
With no possibility of being able to productively use them against the government, guns can only be used against the citizenry. Having a right to guns just makes your society more dangerous to live in.
Sunshine
9mo ago
To be honest, I'd be against a right to bear arms if I was writing a constitution for a new country. HOWEVER, in light of the fact that the US constitution does grant a right to bear arms, I am very strongly against allowing anyone to do an end run around the process for amending the constitution.
The true test of the strength of your institutions is whether or not you can stick to them even when there's a legitimately good idea that you can't implement because your institutions are in the way. If you can't respect your institutions when they're actually wrong then you don't respect your institutions at all.
Sunshine
9mo ago
Optimal for what purpose? In order to optimize you must first have a goal.
Sunshine
9mo ago
Because consumers hate it when prices increase. When inflation hits, grocery stores prefer to raise their prices in one big jump rather than many small jumps - or so I've been told. The idea is that if you increase prices by X 5 times the consumers will register 5 separate increases, but if you raise it by 5X then they'll only register one increase. Because of that, grocery stores (and stores in general) will increase their prices ahead of expected inflation to avoid having to continue to make small price increases over time.
The logic is essentially that stores are currently priced according to next year's inflation. When inflation is low that's no big deal, but when it's high it can be a pretty penny. Continuing that logic, they could be forced to match current inflation rather than preemptively raising prices for future inflation. This would shave a small but meaningful amount off prices.
Sunshine
9mo ago
Just because it's never worked before, that doesn't mean it won't work this time.
That isn't a joke. It's probably true that grocery chains are overcharging a little bit right now. If the price controls are done very delicately, they might be able to reduce prices a little bit without damaging the economy.
The USA is more advanced than Venezuela. There are lots of things the USA can do that Venezuela can't. Successful price controls could be one of them.
Sunshine
10mo ago
To paraphrase Phyrrus, "If the elite are victorious in one more battle with the commoners, they shall be utterly ruined."
All the British political parties are in hot water right now. Granted, the elections aren't for another 5 years, but this was a warning shot to Labour not to get too comfortable in power. The electorate just threw out their last government in a pretty dramatic and coordinated way. They're entirely capable of throwing this one out, too, if it doesn't do what it's supposed to do.
The danger was never that the angry mob would overthrow the government. The danger is that the current anger will persist for long enough to have electoral consequences. The government has 5 years to improve the situation. If the British are still this mad when the next general election rolls around then the Labour regime might turn out to be very short lived.
This was not the kind of victory the government wants on its record.
None of that is really practical, though. In practice both the Democrats and the Republicans support Israel over Hamas for obvious reasons. Left-wing support for Hamas is just an electoral liability for the Democrats, not a real reason for them to actually support Hamas (which would be a much worse liability). The reason is exactly as you say: The support is cheap relative to how much threat they absorb. It's better that someone else be the canary in the coal mine. It's better that someone else take the missile attacks so that you can test your missile defense technology from thousands of miles away.
Also, in general, the American electorate is against organizations that are explicitly anti-America and/or have called for terrorist attacks against America and/or have literally murdered Americans out of sheer anti-American hatred.
No one who has any serious engagement with American foreign policy could possibly be pro-Hamas, because Hamas is anti-America. You can't sit in the Situation Room, get a briefing from the top brass, and then express your support for an organization that wants you, personally, the President of the United States, to be murdered, and is only held back from literally murdering you by the strength of your bodyguards and intelligence agencies. At some point your self-preservation instincts kick in and you realize that rhetoric can only go so far.
Sunshine
10mo ago
I don't see any reason to forbid people with XX chromosomes from competing in the XY division.
The XY category can be open to anyone. If and when gender transition somehow allows a woman to kick Mike Tyson's ass we can revisit that question.
The XX division can be restricted to only chromosomally and hormonally normal women. There can be a maximum amount of testosterone, which can be established at the same time as the authorities check the participants for performance-enhancing drugs.
This seems like the fairest option, involving the fewest unnecessary changes.
I really, genuinely, sincerely, in my heart of hearts, don't think 1/6 was that big of a deal. The demand for a Threat to Democracy outstripped supply, so the media spent 4 years trying desperately to turn a molehill into a mountain. The fact that it apparently didn't move the needle at all during the 2024 elections just goes to show that most Americans also don't think that 1/6 was that big of a deal.
The key fact about the 1/6 riot is that there was never any path by which they could have actually usurped the government. The US Government does not operate on Capture the Flag rules. It doesn't matter how many people trespass in which government buildings. Taking over a government usually requires cooperation from an armed force like the military, police, a paramilitary militia, an intelligence agency, or something along those lines. 1/6 had some unarmed old people milling about in the capital. An actual Threat to Democracy must have the ability to actually Threaten the Democracy, as in there must be some chance of damaging it in some way. 1/6 was just one of a series of riots in that time period, and not a particularly damaging or violent one at that. The fact that it was targeted at elected officials instead of random innocent civilians makes it, if anything, less morally fraught than many of the other riots that took place in the preceding months.
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