This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Trump tariffs McDonald's:
BBC article for a more detailed overview.
Highlights or lowlights include:
I'm not an economist, but I don't think it's a good idea to throw out tariffs with such clear absence of rigor. The only saving grace is that Trump is fickle, so if enough people yell at him from his in-group, he might pivot in a week. If not, bloody hell.
You know, we were just talking a few posts downthread about how the "experts" are willing to blatantly lie in order to advance their ideological agenda.
We have been told repeatedly for years by the experts that making any sort of adjustment, pushing any buttons on the control panel at all, to the global trade system would lead to complete economic collapse, the rise of fascist dictators, the end of civilization, and in general all manner of untold horrors.
But why should we believe the experts? We know they're ideologically motivated liars. So, fuck it. Let's just start pushing buttons. Smash away and let's see what happens. If for no other reason to prove that you can do something different, alternatives are possible, even if you may indeed get burned.
I'm extremely leery about the potential short or medium term impacts here.
Yet, I find myself willing to see what happens, because the revelations of the past 6ish years is that the Experts WERE pushing buttons on the control panel, and were getting paid very handsomely to push the buttons, but weren't particularly motivated to push buttons that would benefit the people they nominally owed allegiance to. I'm not even talking strictly about NGOs and such, but that's a symptom of it. Hell, during Biden's term, we can't even be sure WHO was at the controls while Biden was half-cogent.
Lets push some buttons that will break some things in the short term, and then (hopefully) quickly build some replacements that are generally better for parties other than elites in the political class.
And I'm young enough I can wait to recover from any short or medium term losses before I'm forced to retire. I grew up during and in the aftermath of the '08 crash. Mentally I've been braced this sort of event for like 10 years. I do feel for those who are stuck in a position where their livelihood is reliant on stock prices, but if you're at or near retirement age you should be in safer assets anyway.
The (classical) Liberal World Order was premised on free trade and financial/industrial interconnections between various countries disincentivizing wars and conflicts and fostering greater cooperation. I sincerely believe that they do have this effect, but I can see and admit there are parts of this order that are causing major issues and yet are not being corrected. I'd point to mass immigration as one example, and collapsing global fertility as another. BOTH of these should in theory be addressable without attacking the foundations of the order itself... but we've not been allowed to even have the discussion.
I would suggest that we're in a particularly unfavorable equilibrium that could collapse into an even worse equilibrium in the nearish future. Whether this is due to irrational/malicious actors screwing with things, or due to inexorable historical forces is a good discussion. But taking a gamble that if you start wrenching on the controls now you can steer away from the iceberg and not crash into something else, well, that is not a thing to be done flippantly.
I can certainly understand people who would rather not have Trump and Co. be the ones at the helm, but the system itself wasn't going to let us have anyone better.
Bad news: there aren't any. Cash-equivalents will get eaten by inflation, everything else is going to get wrecked too.
Remains to be seen, the one interesting thing is that Tariffs are just paper barriers to trade. A 'social construct,' if you will.
We haven't physically built a wall or blown up any bridges.
If countries are willing to play ball and lower all (their) paper barriers to trade, then goods can 'instantly' start flowing again, and possibly under better overall terms. Like, just last week Trump committed to bombing the Houthis in hopes of restoring safe access to the Suez for global shipping. He clearly WANTS goods to flow smoothly.
I will precommit now, that if other countries actively take steps to reduce tariffs and otherwise appease Trump's demands and Trump is too temperamental to accept these offers in good faith and we still have most of these Tarriffs in place at the same levels come May 2nd 2025 (unless real deals are pending come that date), it is a bad thing and we will be in for some rough times. I will criticize/condemn Trump and Co. in no uncertain terms.
If other countries DON'T take active steps to reduce tariffs or otherwise negotiate, I will have to admit that my model of the world is drastically misinformed.
So my full expectation is that there will be a couple weeks of rapidfire and rough negotiations with some touch-and-go moments, but ultimately other nations will do the needful and come the end of April Trump will make a YUUUGE fanfare about signing Tariff reductions and trade agreements with those countries that capitulated, and markets will 'correct course.'
Trump has given himself a lot of runway to try and land this plane relatively smoothly, but there's going to be a lot of turbulence on the way in, that seems certain.
I'll also grant that this causes substantial uncertainty for American investors and entrepreneurs which is 'bad.' But, uhhh, what other country could they find that is inherently more stable and inviting for investment?
But what is it countries are supposed to do? It doesn't seem to be about tariffs themselves but trade deficits. Simply buying large amounts of American goods could be an option for them to get these numbers down but it's not in the power of most of the worst affected countries.
Offer access to your country's natural resources, like was proposed with Ukraine?
Make direct investments into American manufacturing like Taiwan?
I expect that the deals reached by each country will look different, with the outcomes being the result of some creative horse-trading.
Now, I'm also concerned that this will result in an overly complex patchwork of trade deals and potentially contradictory obligations between various countries, when the simplest outcome would just be everyone drops tariffs to some agreed-upon maximum and signs on to a treaty to keep them there.
But this is not some historically unprecedented diplomatic endeavor.
But neither of these deals actually change the trade deficit, which is about goods flow not investment. My point is that the new tariffs should be based on something countries can correct rather than something orthogonal to what the US's problem with them is.
Ya know, I'd actually agree it would be nice to have clarity as to how these countries can respond to quickly get the tariffs dropped, the attempt at opacity seems odd.
But I ascribe that to the mix of goals Trump is pursuing, which is to say he needs flexibility so tying himself to an algorithm means he can't maneuver much.
That's maybe the concerning part, aside from Trump's temperament. He is trying to optimize along a few different dimensions instead of merely seeking one blunt policy outcome.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link