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Aside from that coming across like a reason to never bet on anything that sounds like it might matter, I did explicitly caveat lump value risks. And MadMonzer isn't putting all his chickens in one bet, for better or worse.
((and to bite on the obvious bait: that hasn't stopped you from offering that style of wager unsolicited.))
I dunno!
Half of the time, Monzer's definition of and pathway to fascism is absolutely trivial, or even stuff the Democratic party had done for years or even decades. Oh, the Republican party might bring politically-driven lawsuits to shut down disliked opposition media sources in the scuzziest ways possible (successfully)? They might crack down minutia of contracts when enemies are around, and find myriad exceptions when given political donations? Fire a bunch of federal officials based on nakedly political criteria, and damn the disruption? Defy SCOTUS by just lying to everyone?
Not great stuff, but it's also not exactly the end of the world.
And those are the things that actually seem remotely plausible. MadMonzer loves to ponder deeper hypotheticals, but either they require trivializing the matter to such a point as to set it wholly within the first category ("arrest political opponents" is technically hit by arresting Don Lemon; "concentration camps" by holding people in jail after they've gotten an order of removal before deportation, and I'm not going to insult MadMonzer by implying that it's what he's talking about)...
... or hilariously implausible.
Are you even pretending to believe that there's a 10% chance of Trump suspending the Constitution? Pulling off his suit jacket, falling back on his WWE bonafides, and punching the shit out of Mamdani? Invoke the Insurrection Act "on some spurious pretext" (when several cities have already had politicians and staff directly coordinating groups trying to block enforcement of federal law)? "[W]aging a war against political opponents" with the actual military?
It's just a word, and it just means 'something you don't like'.
Of course this is not something that can happen in reality, but c'mon AI video generators of the world, gimme content!
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gattsuru is an absolute god, I am continually amazed and have no idea how he does this.
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Dayum, you managed to find a reason to use that one again! That's some dedicated hatin'! Okay, I'll give you that one, though I will point out that I didn't actually demand money stakes to "prove he really believed what he was saying."
No, that I'd put closer to 1%.
(I'd pay to see him get in the ring with Mamdani, though.)
No, as someone who has complained about overuse of fascism myself, no, I do not use fascism to mean "something I don't like" and you should know better. I do not think Trump is literally a fascist, nor the Republican Party, nor ICE. I think the US government, including the past several administrations (not limited to Republican ones!) have shown an increasing tendency to appeal to identify politics, cults of personality, and disregard for previous Constitutional limits, and that there is a ~10% chance this will lead us towards an actual fascist state (for some value of "fascist" - we can argue over exactly what the definition is if you really want to, but I am talking about something we would both broadly agree looks and smells like fascism, not "something I don't like"). In other words, the actual end of the Republic as we know it, at least in all but name.
I do happen to think Trump has fanned the flames worse than Biden or Mamdani or Nancy Pelosi or whomever you'd prefer to blame, but he's not the sole or first cause. (Note also that this is an admission that I have updated my priors somewhat since that argument I had with @FCfromSCC way back when - I still mostly believe the things I said then, but with weaker confidence. On the other hand, the fact that Trump was reelected should have made him update his.)
Your dedication to insisting that nothing you said in the past should matter, sure is a sight to behold.
I'm not really demanding money stakes either, I'm completely fine with a gentlemen's bet. It's just that he expressed concerns about relative probabilities, and with money you can do things like favorable odds that take them into account.
And yes I think he should prove he actually believes what he's saying. There's nothing unreasonable in stating that he doesn't.
Never happened. I have not denied anything I've said in the past and in some cases I have even amended my opinion. I'm just bemused, as always, at the spite.
Actually, accusing someone of not believing what they are saying is uncharitable and we frown on demands that someone "prove" they mean what they say. Likewise claiming that if you don't put money on it's proof that you don't.
Right, you do the "upper lip curl, go silent" strategy when it is clear that you have contradicted yourself. Contradicting yourself is an implicit denial of what you've said in the past. That you avoid explicit acknowledgement of your contradiction and denial is hardly a redeeming virtue.
Never happened, and I don't address your screeds because they are irrational and incoherent.
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I think it depends. I don't know if I can formulate a general rule at the moment, but for an example from the other side: I don't think saying Kulak doesn't actually believe in his violent rebellion fantasies is uncharitable.
Ironically, I think Kulak genuinely does believe in them, I just think he's an instigator who wants other people to take him seriously enough to act on his suggestions. But yes, I think his hatred and desire for violence is real.
And I think most people who claim to be afraid of fascism, or who think Trump is Hitler,.are being sincere. They are ignorant and sheltered and generally have no concept of what "fascism" would really look like, but like the black people who sincerely believe that cops hunt them in the streets or the trans and gay people who think they're going to be herded into camps any day now, being a fool duped by hysterical disinformation doesn't mean you don't actually believe what you're saying.
That's a reasonable take, but personally the guy is just a bit too preoccupied with spreadsheets about how his posts perform for me to take the content terribly seriously.
This is an issue I have with "charity" and "steelmanning", it often results in attacking someone in an attempt to defend them. Is being ignorant worse than being insincere, or is it the other way around? Either way MadMozer doesn't strike me as either ignorant nor sheltered.
Well, you're not wrong that "You're an idiot" is not necessarily nicer than "You're a liar." But it makes a difference whether someone is being ignorant or being insincere. If you want to argue with someone, you should generally assume they mean what they say. Ignorance should be something you can demonstrate with counterarguments. I get annoyed when people accuse me of lying because, besides not being a liar, what am I supposed to say? You can't read my mind and I can't prove my internal mental state.
That doesn't mean all arguments are genuine. There are definitely people here who argue disingenuously. Not just the obvious trolls, either. But it tends to be an accusation people throw sloppily because they're angry or outraged at the argument itself.
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