TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
No bio...
User ID: 373
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Huh? How snail-brained are 22-34% of these voters? Why would you care if he gets convicted?
The fact you'd say this is a pretty emblematic of how crazy the US (and this site) have become. This might seem like a hot take, but people generally don't want their leaders to be convicted felons.
Well, maybe that would have held more true back before trust in institutions collapsed. Those 22-34% are the last vestiges of that era. The thought is that anyone can lob an accusation, but a conviction carries more weight. Yes, most people understand that prosecutors would generally only bring cases that have a good chance of winning, but they can still fudge around the edges.
Nowadays, Trump could probably murder someone on live TV and a majority of the Republican voters would say he didn't do it. That's basically what the election loss denialism came down to. Why let evidence get in the way of vibes and dunking on the outgroup!
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
This goes to the founding principle of democracy. Democracy, and a (regulated) free market are the two pillars of national success in the modern age. Any country that lacks one or both of them ends up nearly always being a pretty bad place to live in.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Obviously Trump sacked Bannon, who was one of his most prominent populist advisors. Stephen Miller, who was in charge of immigration, started strong but kept getting undercut by Trump in a number of ways, although he personally still had some sort of seat at the table. Peter Navarro himself was basically shipped off into a hidden office where he had little access to Trump after a certain point, although the tariffs he helped initiate did go through. Navarro would eventually regain favor, but only by joining the Crazies and insisting the election was stolen.
US foreign policy will be damaged because, uh, lots of people believe the election was rigged in Georgia.
This is not what I said at all.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
It wasn't entirely responsible, but it gave it a significant boost. Similar to the thinking of how Vegetarianism is already a thing now, but I hardly foresee it becoming dominant until vat-grown meat is widely available and considered on-par with traditional animal bits.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
I agree with your first issue that SCOTUS justices should still require a majority for senate confirmation. Otherwise it centralizes too much power in the hands of the Executive.
I disagree with your issues on the "one justice per term" side. Most of what you brought up can already happen in the status quo, but it does so extremely unevenly. Trump got three picks in one term by sheer luck. It was fortunate since he (or really McConnell) appointed principled conservatives, but one should always be wary of what could happen on the flip side. At least having some consistency in the timings would make it feel like less of a lottery to both sides.
I think reasonable people could disagree on whether getting to remove a justice is net-beneficial or not. If the SCOTUS had a solid reputation for nothing but principled legal analysis, then it would be bad. But in many ways the SCOTUS has effectively become "the other legislative branch" in that it flagrantly ignores the spirit or even the letter of the constitution. If that's the reality, then it probably should be more responsive to public opinion.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Without numbers or any sort of statistical analysis, this sort of take is little more than "vibes". The 60s had the Beatles, but the modern day has Taylor Swift. How do we compare the two? It mostly seems like personal preference, so it's silly to imply it has much greater significance.
As another counterpoint, a different artistic field, video games, has been doing absolutely gangbusters over the last few years.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
The likelihood Trump wins?
50-50. Biden's currently down by about 10 points from where he needs to win comfortably, but the vibecession is easing and a lot of his low polling is just disaffected leftists who are sad that he hasn't been as extreme as they wanted him to be. They'll almost certainly come around when Trump is in the news more. That said, Biden still has big problems in terms of immigration and his age, so there's a lot of uncertainty.
What will a second Trump term be like?
Somewhat more of the same, but probably moderately worse. If you've read any of the "behind the scenes" books of the Trump presidency, you'll know it was basically a three ring circus between:
- The Establishment: Old neocons who favored things like tax cuts, aggressive military use, and immigration "compromise" (effectively open borders). Examples include Reince Priebus, Gary Cohn, Sean Spicer, Rex Tillerson.
- The Far Right: Immigration hawks and isolationists. Examples include Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Stephen Miller.
- The Grifters: People who were ideologically flexible and were more concerned about their own advancement rather than any policy. Most of these people came to power through a mix of flattering Trump, court intrigue, and cable news appearances. Examples include Hope Hicks, Jared Kushner, Mike Pompeo, Anthony Scaramucci, Kellyanne Conway, Ivanka Trump.
When Trump's term began, all three rings were fairly evenly matched. But as the years went on, the Establishment was utterly annihilated while the Far Right was cut down and sidelined pretty harshly as well. Towards the end it was mostly just grifters. After J6 there was a fourth ring, The Crazies, who insisted Trump really won the election. People like Giuliani, Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell, and others took the reins in the final days.
If Trump were to win a second term, I doubt he'd bother much trying to reach out to the first 2 groups, and mainly focus on The Grifters and The Crazies. There'd be even less of a pressure to push through immigration reform, and US foreign policy could be negatively impacted.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Metaphysics is incoherent to anyone who isn't totally immersed in it. It takes the worst aspects of formal philosophy, mainly the mountain of jargon and the lack of applicability to the real world, and dials it up to 11. I have enough problems with normal ivory tower philosophy already, and metaphysics is where the ivory tower ends and philosophers build castles in the sky.
Implying it's not possible to debate the veracity of religion without diving into metaphysics is like saying it's not possible to debate the reality of the Holocaust without discussing the intricacies of chemical compounds on the walls of Auschwitz gas chambers. "There's lots of back and forth on these points, and your arguments are incredibly outdated if you don't discuss these particular chemical compounds". Nah, I'm almost certain there's nonsense somewhere if you're using it to prove this, but I'm not willing to devote dozens of hours to identifying where it is.
Unlike the disdain that people who argue with Holocaust deniers might express
The point of the Holocaust example isn't whether disdain is involved or not, but rather that they're leveraging information asymmetry to "prove" their point via jargon dumping, effectively setting up a no-win scenario for people who aren't utterly immersed in the niche topic. If they bite, they'll get demolished. If they don't bite, the denier can smugly claim victory by default. The only winning move is to not play that game, but rather to zoom out and focus on the bigger picture where information asymmetry is less severe.
It's fine to not follow this debate in detail, everyone has their own bandwith.
You're right, I really don't want to discuss metaphysics. I'm perfectly fine debating the veracity of religion in non-metaphysical ways, but if metaphysics is the only thing you want to discuss then there's not much to be gained from either side by continuing this.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
as well as the DEI requirements
DEI is bad generally, but it's not even close to being decisive here. The problem was the US let its DIB atrophy during the 90s to 2010s, and the US had a massive turn away from manufacturing towards service jobs.
and the US was deeply involved with those
Besides Victoria Nuland and John McCain visiting during the events, the Maidan was almost entirely a grassroots Ukrainian movement. Every time I've pointed this out the pro-RU side has retorted with unfalsifiable narratives of the CIA being behind everything, effectively saying nothing in the world ever happens without the CIA having a hand in it. If that's the way you're going then we'll have to agree to disagree.
Talking about this conflict as being a war of Russian aggression feels the exact same to me as talking about how the Iraq war
It's easier than that: whichever side has their troops on the land of the other side is the aggressor. The US was definitely the aggressor in Iraq + Afghanistan, and Russia is certainly the aggressor now.
The severity of the factual stories that have come out of the current situation reach far beyond the level of anecdote.
Again, this is evidence of Ukraine's recruiting being corrupt, and possible issues regarding manpower quality, but not of a total lack of men to hold guns. It's not like Russia doesn't have recruiting issues of its own.
In that scenario the Ukraine is reduced to a series of radioactive craters
Escalating the conflict is strongly against Russia's interest up until both sides launch all their nukes at each other, which is just bad for everyone.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
The US was a settler-colony while Ireland was more a case of classic imperialism. I think FarNearEverywhere should have mentioned "being (an unwilling) part of an empire" as opposed to "colonialism", as it gets at the core idea better.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
hajnalized
What does this mean?
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
A good film but I don't think it would really get the point across.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Do you have a better term for the phenomenon of a range of given high-impact events that can be envisaged beforehand, but which are very hard to predict which, if any, will actually happen?
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
When I open your links, and the first thing I see is stuff like this:
Ekyroptic universe, and Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology
It's indicative of someone trying to do what Scott described here. I'm not touching that stuff for the same reason I wouldn't try to go toe-to-toe with a Holocaust denier on the precise chemical compounds in Auschwitz gas chambers. I'd probably lose, and not necessarily because I'm wrong. Make your point legibly if you want to continue on this particular axis.
Instead, I'd zoom out and say the entire argument is the classic motte and bailey of God of the Gaps. Pointing out a gap in scientific knowledge does not mean the alternative is Christian theology. At best it simply muddies the waters, but why should one believe your specific God is the logical alternative, when there are many other gods that people believe in, or perhaps that science just hasn't had the capabilities of studying the ultimate cause yet?
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
I don't think the West is actually capable of spinning up their weapons and arms manufacturing capacities in time for it to be relevant. Even if the political will appeared overnight, there's a big lead time which would prevent this from being relevant on any timescale that would help Ukraine before Russia wins.
WW1 occurred over 4 years, WW2 occurred over less from the USSR/USA's perspective, the sides which produced an overwhelming amount of equipment (esp. the USA). Sure there's a spin-up time, but it's measured in years, not decades, assuming there's political will.
This conflict was instigated by the west - I don't think Russia particularly wanted this war, but they weren't given a realistic choice. They're not going to agree to any peace negotiations now either, seeing as how it has since come out that the Minsk accords were explicitly made in bad faith (well, that and the fact that they're currently winning and have no incentive to stop).
It's nonsense to think the West was the primary antagonist here, especially after Russia's invasion of Georgia effectively killed the Budapest Memo. Russia seized Crimea in 2014, but even after that the West was largely content to leave Ukraine in limbo. It was Russia who threw the dice in 2022. It's their troops who are invading. Saying the West is the primary instigator of this conflict is like saying the UK started WW2 in Europe, or that the USA started WW2 in the Pacific.
Also, Minsk died in large part due to Russia not following it.
There are far too many stories for this to be a matter of "anecdotes".
This is just availability bias. You're likely plugged into the pro Russian information sphere, which will signal-boost any possible problem with Ukraine's recruitment to maximum effect, like how BLM did the same for police killing unarmed black men, which happened but all the stories made people thought thousands of cases happened per year. Extrapolating anecdotal stories to broader implications on population levels is extremely fraught.
I think that Ukraine's current manpower issues are severe enough that there is no realistic path to victory for them moving forward
This is indeed a far less ridiculous case than the one it seemed like you were implying, although I still disagree. I can see the population math preventing Ukraine from doing the "head-on, faceplant into the teeth of enemy defences" style of warfare that Russia's using to take tiny slivers of land. At least, not without other factors like supply bottlenecks in Kherson. It could still win fairly handily if the West really geared up for a war economy and treated this like Russia was attacking the West broadly and that Ukrainian soldiers just happened to be in the way. Ukraine could also win from a black swan event that toppled Putin and caused chaos in Russian leadership, which looks unlikely until it isn't.
Although I'm personally becoming more pessimistic about Ukraine's chances given the lack of urgency in the West. A negotiated settlement where Russia keeps most of what it currently occupies looks increasingly likely.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
On a whim I decided to watch a bit of the Ben Shapiro interview, and I'm thoroughly unimpressed. When Ben asked him what his favorite argument is for the proof of God, he says what essentially boils down to the First Cause argument, something that's been trounced in the internet atheist debates for decades. When pressed with a follow up of what caused God then, he responded with special pleading. He dressed it up with fancy words like "that which is properly unconditioned on this reality", and his presentation is polished, but he's just regurgitating arguments from a debate that was largely settled over a decade ago. After watching a bit more and hearing nothing but a few "God of the Gaps" arguments I closed the tab.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
I'm partial to the 90s or the 2000s. Noah has a pretty good piece on it. The 90s were a time of prosperity in the West on nearly all fronts. The 2000s were a time of international disasters and blunders (like 9/11, war on terror, authoritarians rising), but domestically we could still ignore it, as those problems wouldn't really come home to roost until the 2020s.
Other than that, the 80s weren't that bad, nor were the 50s. I'd skip the 60s and 70s.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Sounds a lot like how a rationalist would approach a topic, no?
Yes, it indeed sounds so much like a rationalist that it also sounds like he's not defending the superstitions of Christianity at all!
I should have said "nobody relevant defends the superstitions of Christianity", i.e. there might be some, but no major public intellectual does it and gains any sort of traction. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was the most prominent defense in recent times which got a fair degree of traction, and not a single sentence in her defense was about the actual superstitions.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
In terms of ammunition and military supplies, Russia seems to have a clear advantage in the current conflict. Just to be clear, I'm of the opinion that starting this conflict with Russia was a terrible misstep on the part of the west, and the consequences of Western defeat are going to be nasty.
In terms of ammo and military supplies, yes Russia seems to have the advantage... because the West doesn't see Ukraine as a sufficiently galvanizing issue to make serious commitments. I think we're basically in agreement here.
On the other statement, we're in direct disagreement. I think the West, especially the US, could afford to lose most of Ukraine at relatively little cost. On the other hand, Russia's (really, Putin's) decision to invade has turned Russia's already bleak future even more unpromising.
I don't think we're going to get credible or accurate information about the exact casualty numbers out of Ukraine - there's too much incentive to lie for everybody involved in the process. But every single other indicator we see shows Ukraine having serious recruiting issues, failing to meet mobilisation targets and sending women to the front - which are all things that would not be happening if they had a healthy pool of recruits and lots of manpower.
Exact numbers are impossible obviously, although estimates are probably reasonable within an uncertainty band. I'd be surprised if Ukraine's casualties were greater than 175% of the estimates the US makes, for instance. US intelligence has been quite good in the war so far, correctly predicting that Russia could indeed invade when most European intelligence thought it was needless US warmongering.
Ukraine's manpower anecdotes are indicative of problems specifically of its recruiting pipeline being corrupt and leaky. I feel like you're doing a motte and bailey here of implying force quality issues (which are legitimate, and exacerbated by casualties) will become a decisive factor when Ukraine effectively runs out of men to hold the frontline (a goofy idea that won't happen).
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
This easily seems like the most likely possibility. Social Justice will be assimilated to some extent by left-leaning institutions like the media, bureaucracy, academia, etc. but the craziest parts will be screaming into the void. The most interesting part will be to see what kinds of issues make the jump, e.g. do trans issues end up on the assimilated side, or are the inherent contradictions with traditional feminism too much?
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
On your first point, most of what you're saying is true, but again it must be said that China isn't overtly supporting Russia by sending weapons. If it was, the war would be a completely different ball game. Comparing just NATO countries to Russia (and NK + Iran), the overall manufacturing potential is still overwhelmingly in favor of NATO despite deindustrialization. Political will is the utter decisive factor here, as factories indeed take time to be converted to warmaking potential, but it's been almost 2 years now and quite little progress has been made since there's a distinct lack of urgency.
There's a big difference between people and ammunition - people take a lot longer to make. If you get started right now, it takes at least 18 years and 9 months to produce a human being
They're not getting started right now though. Humans don't just start reproducing when a war breaks out, it's a continuous pipeline. Your comment on the 18 years thing is like you're implying there wasn't a single person in Ukraine under the age of 18 when the war broke out, but that's obviously not what you're saying since that's just totally goofy. I really don't know what point you're trying to make here.
Casualty numbers are hard to come by, but the ones I've seen certainly match up with the Ukraine being forced to send women into the field.
Most casualty estimates I've seen are around 150-200K for the Ukrainian side, which is nowhere close to using up all the men in Ukraine. You could double it AND factor in a huge Ukrainian population loss from refugees, and it still wouldn't come close. There have been corruption issues in the Ukrainian mobilization pipeline since the war began, so the anecdotes about women or septuagenarians being kidnapped and being put into uniform are likely that, plus some degree of issues regarding force quality as I mentioned earlier. Mobilization wasn't exactly pretty on the Russian side when they had their big drive, even though they were pulling from a population 4x the size.
Implying a black and white picture of Ukraine being on the verge of having all its military-aged men being dead simply isn't credible.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Not gonna happen.
Nobody seriously defends the superstitions of Christianity, and while social movements can survive a large amount of inconsistency, all attempts at "cultural Christianity" have basically been failures due to the inherent contradictions. It's just a bridge too far to try to harness the culture of Christianity while ignoring the superstitions that underpin them, while also having people who do believe the superstitions loudly proclaim they're undeniable truths.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
I thought about making a similar post on Internet Historian (IH) here, but I thought it might be a bit too much like aping /r/drama, which would be this site's most obvious failure-mode. People seem fine with it though (which might be a bad sign, or I might be just reading too much into it), so I'll leave my thoughts.
The only thing to really fault IH for is insufficiently crediting the article in his original video. He did credit it, but should have been more explicit that the video was a dramatization. Even with this, though, there's leeway since copying is absolutely rampant on the internet. 95% of modern journalism articles are regurgitated from social media or copied from other journalists. Most prestige articles from things like Substack are using the main arguments from other people, repackaging them, and changing them only slightly. It's how humans work, and usually nobody bothers to cite sources. In many cases it would be very difficult to tell where one person's thoughts start and another's begin. HBomber seemed to think copying words was the obvious smoking gun, but apart from a few segments most of IH's video was so heavily paraphrased that this mostly falls flat.
The supposed "coverup" is just a maximally uncharitable way of looking at the situation. HBomber is trying to collect a scalp here so he's taking things out of context and manipulating the story to seem as damaging as possible.
Then the wider internet gets involved, and since IH tilts conservative the cancel-happy leftists see blood in the water and out come the Hitler analogies. By their own logic, anyone who's made a dead baby joke should be presumed to be a murderer.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
My main argument was that the gish-gallop claims were falling on their own merits. That hasn't changed.
I don't disagree.
More options
Context Copy link