Sunshine
2d ago
Talking shit about people is not "cyberbullying".
In your opinion, what is the difference between talking shit about people and cyberbullying?
It's a bunch of people getting together and harassing an outsider as a form of entertainment and group bonding activity, and they're doing it over the internet. Sounds like cyberbullying to me.
I'm shocked by how many people on TheMotte seem to have such a visceral disgust reaction to Aella.
For my part, I'm disgusted that so many people seem to think it's okay to cyberbully celebrities. Punching is OK as long as you're punching up? That's the logic of someone who just wants an excuse to punch people. The knowledge that thousands of people who barely know anything about you have decided to hate you as a social activity is damaging to the human mind. It's cruel to do that to someone. I also think it's unhealthy to participate in an internet hate mob. It makes people petty and frivolous.
All around it's a negative for everyone involved. If I find out that someone has wrapped their identity around performatively hating someone they've never met, it lowers my opinion of them. That holds true whether the target is Elon, Aella, or Adolf Hitler. There is just no good reason to invest your emotions in someone you have never met and will never meet.
Sunshine
8d ago
Technically I didn't say never, I said 'ever'. And I genuinely don't believe Trump has the power to punish Musk any more than he already has been.
Sunshine
9d ago
I believe he means that if the USA just exercises some fiscal responsibility for a few years they can eliminate the debt and stop paying interest on it.
Same. This proves what I've always suspected: Musk was trying to use the Republicans to push a bit of fiscal responsibility. Now that it's clear that this isn't going to work, and after presumably fighting against the Big Beautiful Bill behind the scenes, he's calling it quits.
The real mistake was the left wing's decision to alienate Musk. The Democrats really should have seen this coming (since Trump falls out with all his allies sooner or later) and they should have refrained from spending the past few months calling for people to firebomb Tesla dealerships out of spite. If they had just kept their stupid mouths shut they would be in perfect position to welcome the highly influential CEO of Twitter into their camp, with plenty of time before the midterms. Maybe they could even drive Zuck and the rest back into the fold (look what an alliance with Trump gets you, better join the right team while you have the chance!)
If only the Democrats hadn't just spent the last few months proving that they punish their apostates more vindictively than Trump ever could, they might seem like the safer and more reliable ally right now. As it is they just look dangerously unhinged in a different way.
Sunshine
10d ago
People who make their politics, religion, or sexuality the center of their personality generally are not emotionally healthy. TBH, I think we have an ongoing mental health crisis that’s manifesting itself through politics.
If I may reframe this, healthy people do not make politics, religion, or sexuality the center of their personality.
I would be shocked if the average white person was not better at writing convincing lies in European languages than the average Indian person, if for no other reason than because the average white person speaks a European first language. I'll give two more, though: Firstly because every signifier of Indian dialect is considered a red flag by people hunting for spam, so the Indian has to try not to trip over their dialect. Secondly because if you're writing copy then it matters whether you have a native command of the language and are immersed in the culture.
Cope ... about what? As I understand it, if this is cope then I must be coping with something, such as a tragedy or the receipt of bad news. Have I received any bad news lately that I would need to cope about? I don't think I have.
This is just a theory of public attitudes about corruption in politics. I'm not saying that corruption is definitely going to be fixed for all time as a result of Trump's actions. I'm just trying to explain why so many people care so little about Trump's corruption allegations, for the benefit of the many people who seem to have trouble wrapping their heads around it.
My intuition is that corruption is always an iceberg. For every act of shameless public corruption there are a dozen hidden ones.
What if this isn't true? What if there are icebergs of corruption floating invisibly beneath the surface, and political loyalty has driven people to ignore the sinking ships and pretend that nothing is wrong? In that case, the addition of a few acts of corruption above the surface (which by your own analogy is dwarfed the vast bulk of hidden corruption beneath the water) is really not that big a deal.
I think it's fair to say that if your intuition isn't true then America's government has a serious problem. Sure it would be nice if an absence of corruption out in the open meant an absence of corruption in secret, but that is a heck of an assumption isn't it? What if you're wrong?
I think your position requires you to argue that corruption in the US government wasn't widespread or problematic until Trump got involved. Which certainly is ... something that someone could say, if they felt so inclined. I find it difficult to believe.
That was what jumped out at me, too. Frankly it makes me think that I really ought to try Tinder again with some better photos, if this is all it takes.
The Reincarnation of Julius Caesar or: Why So Many People Give Trump a Pass for Corruption
This is partly in response to the post by TheAntipopulist below, but at the same time I'm about to go off on a tangent about Julius Caesar so I thought I'd make this top level.
Donald Trump is, undeniably, the most openly corrupt President in modern US history. What I mean is, no other President has been so corrupt and yet done so little to hide it. He isn't even pretending not to be crooked.
So why do so many people not seem to care?
Let's go back in time 2,000 years and talk about the assassination of Julius Caesar.
To set the stage: Caesar was a charismatic politician in ancient Rome who rose to be the leader of the Populaire faction. As a Populaire he favored redistribution from the rich to the poor, especially in the form of land reform. He also practiced what he preached, giving lavishly to the people of Rome. Notably, he left a huge amount of money to the people in his will, a cash sum to every citizen that was large enough to make a difference in the lives of the poor. And this clause in his will was a secret - people only found out about it after he was assassinated! That means it wasn't just performative or ambitious, he really meant it.
He was also one of the most shameless criminals in Roman history.
As his opponents never ceased to point out, Caesar's conquest of Gaul was built on a series of wars that he illegally started without consulting the Senate. He bragged about how he could get away with anything by bribing judges and politicians. When two of his opponents won both of the two Consular seats (essentially co-Presidents), Caesar bought one of them off with a king-sized bribe and used him to block the other's legislative agenda with his veto power.
I want you to imagine the scope of this with an analogy: A younger Donald Trump gets himself elected to Congress and marches an army into Mexico on a flimsy pretext (invasion of illegal immigrants!). He starts a blatantly illegal war using a combination of US troops and local Mexican auxiliaries, and becomes a trillionaire by enslaving millions of Mexicans and plundering their treasure. Then an unfriendly Democratic government under Bill Clinton tries to attack him by passing a bill condemning his actions. In response, Trump pays President Clinton off with a bribe of 100 billion dollars and Clinton uses his veto to block the bill that he himself just proposed, and, in fact, campaigned on.
That is how corrupt Julius Caesar was.
The thing is, everyone else was also corrupt. Corruption was a load-bearing element of Roman politics. In order to win office, a politician needed to pay out bribes, throw games, build temples, and so on. This usually involved borrowing money or owing favors. It was inevitable that when that politician came to power and those debts came due he would need to leverage his office to repay what he owed. In other words, everyone was corrupt. Literally everyone.
Enter the Optimates, Rome's other major political faction.
The Optimates were against corruption in theory, but in practice they were also all corrupt. What they really wanted was quieter, less disruptive corruption. To keep it at a manageable level. To them, the way Caesar went around flaunting his crimes was the real problem. It was one thing to pay off a few Senators, but buying a Consul was going too far.
The thing is, the Optimates also reflexively opposed all attempts at actual reform. Caesar was the one who passed sweeping anti-corruption legislation that put limits on how much politicians could squeeze out of their offices, and even his opponents couldn't deny that these reforms were necessary.
It was not really a dispute about whether corruption was acceptable or unacceptable. I would argue that the Optimates' desire to sweep it all under the rug was actually a step in the wrong direction. Caesar talked about corruption openly, and having a problem out in the open is the first step to solving it.
Later on, Caesar was serving as proconsular governor of three provinces. This office made him immune from criminal prosecution, so even when his opponents were able to take power he was safe. But the Optimates knew that Caesar would run for Consul again as soon as the mandatory ten-year gap between Consulships expired. They wanted to stop him from passing more reforms or wealth redistribution schemes, and they knew that there was no possible chance that Caesar wouldn't win his election in a landslide, so they decided to find a way to get rid of him.
They found a dubious legal ambiguity that they argued would allow them to take away Caesar's immunity and bring him back to Rome to face trial. After a lengthy debate, the pro-Optimate Senate suspended the law and the Constitution and declared their version of martial law (the Senatus Consultum Ultimum) to force Caesar to step down. Caesar surprised them by marching on Rome with his army, and the rest is history. After a civil war, which Caesar won, and an election, which he also won, his enemies stabbed him to death on the floor of the Senate house.
But when they paraded through the streets declaring that a tyrant had been killed and Rome was free, they were not greeted by the cheers they were expecting. Wasn't Caesar ambitious? Wasn't he corrupt? Wasn't he plotting to make himself a king? Why didn't the people of Rome hate him like the Optimates did? Why weren't they happy the tyrant was dead?
Because the people of Rome were not happy with the status quo. They didn't care about the Republic, because that was just a system for deciding which wealthy aristocrats would get to oppress them. They didn't care about the law, because that was just a system for deciding how the wealthy aristocrats would get to oppress them. They only cared that Caesar had given them games, feasts, and victory over the Gauls, and now he was dead.
Even the Optimates didn't try to deny that Caesar's reforms were necessary. They damned his memory but did not repeal his anti-corruption legislation.
Caesar's assassins did not get to enjoy their victory for long. When Caesar's will was read in public and the people of Rome found out that every adult male citizen had been left a part of Caesar's vast fortune, it started a riot. Caesar's assassins, who had attended the funeral in a show of peace and unity, had to flee the city in fear for their lives.
In the end, the people of Rome would riot to demand that Caesar's adopted son, Caesar Augustus, be installed as king. That's how little they cared about the Republic.
Augustus himself put the rebellion down. He didn't want or need to be king. He had already rigged the vestigial Republic so that he could rule in everything but name. The Roman Empire would go on pretending it was still a Republic for several centuries.
What to take from this? I don't think you can just measure two sides against each other and say, "This side is more shameless and blatant in their corruption, so they should be criticized more harshly." On one hand you could say that defying anti-corruption norms will erode them and make our society more corrupt. But on the other hand, bringing it out into the open might be necessary to kill it.
Now that Donald Trump is openly messing with US tax policy for personal gain with his combination of tariffs and insider trading, maybe that will be the catalyst to finally pass laws against using secret government intelligence to make money trading stocks. Maybe if it stayed at the level of Nancy Pelosi doing it under the table it would have gone on forever, but now that it's so blatant and so offensive it can be eliminated in one chaotic decade.
My intuition is that public crimes are actually less bad than secret ones. I would rather have it all out in the open.
Sunshine
19d ago
I can't help but notice that you avoided the example I actually used (Nancy Pelosi) and compared Donald Trump to Joe Biden instead.
Sunshine
19d ago
If you "genuinely think corruption is bad and should be stamped out as much as possible," then you must be equally critical of every US politician, regardless of party! After all, they're all corrupt, as we well know. I bet if I look back through your post history, I'll find an even 50/50 split between posts criticizing left-wing corruption like Nancy Pelosi's insider trading and posts criticizing right-wing corruption like Trump's meme coins.
Because you, unlike those other guys, don't just "pretend to care to use it as a cudgel against the other side," (your words, not mine).
Sunshine
19d ago
Insider trading? Family members selling access to the President? I am shocked, shocked to find that corruption is going on in here...
Well, not that shocked. Isn't this just business as usual? The sums are pretty small compared to the size of the Federal budget, and it's not like corruption in Washington is a new phenomenon.
Sunshine
21d ago
If Israel were to do everything they could to kill as many Gazans as possible without losing what remains of international support,
See, now we've gone from talking about facts to reading minds. How do you distinguish someone who wants to kill as many Gazans as possible but is held back by the international community from someone who acts in line with the attitude of the international community because they're part of it? You're essentially blaming them for things they aren't doing, but which you assume they want to do.
Sunshine
21d ago
Why didn’t America just bomb the city until everyone died?
If Israel was willing to bomb Gaza until everyone died, the war would be over by now because everyone in Gaza would be dead. Do you think this is what is looks like when a modern military power with total air superiority tries to obliterate a civilian center? It is not.
It is entirely within Israel's power to turn Gaza into a smoking pile of rubble. They are choosing not to do that.
Does Iran have the ability to destroy that command center? My understanding is that the whole point of building such things underground is to make them resistant to air attacks.
If they do, then the answer is yes. When you're fighting a shooting war then of course you have the right to attack all military targets. This is not a subject under serious dispute, except by a few frivolous activists who are just looking for excuses to criticize countries they already oppose. If Iran has the ability to destroy that base and they're at war then they have the right to destroy it, even if they have to kill one hundred skajillion innocent babies to do it.
Just like Israel has the right to bomb Gaza to ashes if that's what it takes to keep their citizens safe.
Glad we cleared that up.
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