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 -
US and China slash tariffs as trade war cools
It looks like we will experience a de-escalation of the tariff battle between the US and China.
How does this line up with your personal predictions for how this was going to proceed?
My belief was that both sides would maintain 100+% tariffs but exempt essentially everything that matters. This development shows that I was wrong and I don't understand something about the events that have occurred. Does anybody have any ideas on what I missed?
Giving myself credit for calling this one, although we can quibble over exact timing. I tried to keep my head down a bit until the outcome could truly be called.
Quoth me:
(I solemnly swear I didn't edit anything material in this post to make my prediction look better)
and
I think my May 2nd deadline was also met, since China was technically the ONLY holdout that still had massive Tariffs on it at that point.
And then there's this bit from the OP article:
Remember what I said up there: "and markets will 'correct course.'
I'm sure there will be other disruptions, but someone can probably run some numbers and tell me if this recovery basically makes all the turmoil of early April a wash in terms of broad economic impact (on the markets, that is). WHICH IS TO SAY, if all the doomsaying and gnashing of teeth at the time was... premature and melodramatic.
I continue to think my Model of Trump is far better at predicting his actions than virtually any pundit out there, and he's far more of a rational actor than even people here credit him. Yes, I'll accept the argument that Trump backed down faster because he was afraid of really breaking something, but the whole argument is over whether the U.S. will find itself in a stronger position after all this is done. I see this as evidence that yes, the U.S. will be able to reduce global 'paper' barriers to trade, and other countries may be handing over some tribute to the U.S. to keep in its good graces for the next few years.
The one thing I admit surprise over is that there's been relatively few deals regarding the purchase of U.S. goods OR offers to sell foreign resources. The U.K. is apparently going to buy U.S. Beef, and the Ukraine Mineral Deal is signed, and I guess there's some additional deals with Vietnam. Honestly I can say I thought there'd be more capitulation by now, but now there's a new deadline in place.
So maybe Trump hasn't brought home the bacon just yet.
To add on to my prediction, I'll say I expect that the 'final' deals being worked on during the pause will start getting executed BEFORE the one month countdown mark hits, that is we should start seeing them in the next 60 days.
I do expect more hard agreements for purchases of resources and goods, and I ALSO expect some legislation might follow that is designed to bolster U.S. manufacturing for military purposes (i.e. aimed at onshoring factories that can produce tanks, ammunition, planes, and ESPECIALLY boats).
As we get a bit closer to the deadline, I might take a stab at guessing which countries might try calling his bluff and letting the timer run out. I'm not so blind as to expect everything to go completely smoothly. I wouldn't have called the India-Pakistan kerfuffle starting up for example.
Britain and the EU won't buy beef from hormone-fed cattle. The way they talk about it, this probably won't change.
As discussed previously this is a nothingburger, but if it makes Trump happy, good job Zelensky.
Sounds like they may align with RFK Jr.'s stance. It'd be interesting if that creates enough of a market for hormone-free cattle that it shifts U.S. production as a whole.
I don't have any specific insight as to intentions there, but I assume markets will respond to shifted incentives like that.
I'm pretty sure the main goal of that particular provision is to give the U.S. a "stake" in Ukrainian independence that falls short of bringing them into NATO, but justifies them having some kind of presence in country to act as a deterrent.
Like holy cow, your own article points out:
So if the U.S. has an official agreement granting an interest in those deposits, even if its not mineable now, its a decent deterrent to future Russian incursions into the border areas that Russia would have to cross through to drive into Ukraine. It gives a future U.S. president some basic cover to drop some troops or similar in, if needed.
The U.S. keeps finding deposits of rare earth elements and other resources within its own territory (whether they can be extracted economically is a different question).
There is no SOLID reason the U.S. should have any stake in the security of Ukraine, but contriving one that's enough to give plausible cover for future actions is helpful towards leveraging a peace agreement.
This is what I'm trying to get across, if you assume Trump is JUST trying to secure the first order goal, getting more minerals for the U.S., rather than using that as leverage to work towards a lasting peace agreement, you're severely underestimating the man. Hell, he's apparently gotten Ukraine actually paying for U.S. weapons now. A second step seems to be using American companies to rebuild Ukraine, but I'll go on record saying that rebuilding probably won't solve their their population nosedive so in the longer term it'll be a bit pointless.
So Trump and Vance whine for the past year about how sending over weapons is too expensive and we need to stop, but 4 'slightly bigger' mineral deposits of questionable economic value will serve as a casus belli for dropping in American soldiers?
Isn't Ukraine mega bankrupt? They'll be effectively paying America with America's own aid.
The “mineral deal” is basically just a shuck that allows Trump to give Ukraine security guarantees in a way that he can plausibly sell to his own base. Zelensky was too much of an obstinate fool to see that and had to be dragged kicking and screaming all the way to getting what he wanted.
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