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They're perfectly consistent though. It's the US policy that's inconsistent, because the US has no culture of merit or human virtue and can elevate a random scammer to presidency.
Pretty sure you have complained in the past about anti-Russian sentiments or dehumanization of Slavs. And I know I have told you before that "America and Americans suck" falls under the same "Do not make generalized statements of universal boo-ness about broad groups" before.
This time I'm not banning you, though you probably deserve it, not because of your illustrious past glory, but because frankly this whole thread is terrible. You and @Shakes have been reduced to doing little more than "Nuh-uhing" at each other with some of the worst quality of argumentation we've seen in.... okay, in a day or two, but still. But whatever spite you feel for America, Americans, or the American president, you still need to take a breath and type the extra words that distinguish between specific Americans whom you hold in disregard and all Americans. Also lay off the ad hominems.
Thanks, I'll allow @Shakes to be the only one self-immolating this time. In my defense I'd say that obviously every people has a fraction that provokes dehumanization, and often that fraction takes the reins of power. My fellow Slavs these days tend to label me a Jew for what I usually have to say about our glorious Slav leadership they endorse or at least cope with, and by extension about loyalists and passive enablers. Everyone should understand that such disdain is exponentially less directed on fractions further from the causal root of the dysfunction.
I am not bantering about "no culture of merit or human virtue", however. It's a serious, good faith point that Americans do not ask of their political leadership to demonstrate any form of merit or virtue; there is no institutional requirement, and there's no bottom-up demand, apparently. Trump is legitimate, as much as Mamdani or Obama. He didn't have to be smart, or hard-working, or wise, or "presidential", or proven to have met some KPIs in governance, or anything; he just needed to win votes and he's good at that one thing. One can defend this norm (democracy, inclusivity, elite competition, larger selection pool, wisdom of the crowds, I don't care), but I don't believe it should be flaggable to bring it up.
If anything, I only concede I should have scoped it with "among elected politicians" (clearly these notions are often known and honored in other contexts, eg in the US Military below Hegseth level).
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This is a cartoonish, almost ghoulish understanding of the United States of America. It would be absurd to say about almost any country, let alone the country that has made possible the most flourishing in human history. I get criticized for grandiosity but this is far more extreme than anything I’ve ever said.
It's not my fault that you have a cartoonish "president" surrounded by cartoonish WWE caricatures, and that people like you seriously demand this freak show be recognized as a legitimate government of a nation. I understand it for what it is.
Charitably, we can say that the regime you endorse and feel kinship for is akin to a cordyceps growing out of the United States. Of course, it seeks to identify and legitimize itself with past American achievements.
Respectfully, this is just TDS. Your rebuttal is that you don’t like Donald Trump.
Yes, I really don't like Donald Trump.
It's worth a top level post though. Generally I think that "X derangement syndrome" can be a productive analytical lens. Here, for example, I use Elon Derangement Syndrome to explain what I see as unreasonable skepticism about Starship. I think Elon is a pretty bad person actually! But that has little bearing on the merits of his space program. He's an extraordinarily capable, visionary industrialist, SpaceX is a peerless global leader, Starship is insanely good. People derive "Starship won't work" from "Elon is a dishonest asshole" and I say that this only proves you don't need to not be one to win in space. Modus ponens, modus tollens.
But "TDS" is a cop-out, it is an assertion that all criticisms of Trump are driven by some instinctive hatred of the man, and not his object level failings or directly relevant priors about Trump's behavior. That's of course nonsense. The problem is that Trump really is an astonishingly low quality leader, in virtually every specific respect, a singularity of INTENSE BADNESS OF LEADERSHIP, as has been demonstrated through his entire career in more meritocratic contexts (shitty developer, shitty entrepreneur… unfortunately American politics is not meritocratic, you don't need any qualifications to rule at all); so every specific reason to disapprove of his actions kind of melds with every other reason, and you end up with the ur-reason "this kind of thing should not have any power at all", which is easy for followers to dismiss as "derangement". But it can also be just… objective assessment. Which it is.
I can praise Trump, though. Behold. He's not a coward, even seems to be personally brave (at least he has the instincts of a brave man). He's damn funny, and occasionally shows that he's a genius wordsmith. He's good at inspiring loyalty. He's kind to his friends. He can, apparently, instill party discipline. For most of his career he hasn't been a warmonger. He is capable of pointing out truths others try to ignore. He is not tribal (which is actually pretty impressive) – this is partially narcissism, but it lets him transcend insecurities and bigotries of his base, refuse to run cover for American deficiencies or problems, because he has his own brand which he holds in higher regard than "America", "White people" or "Republicans" or any other group. There might be more virtues. The best description of Trump in politics that I've seen can only be expressed in Chinese: «真小人 in a sea of 伪君子». 小人 is basically Trump's base; 君子 is what his tribal enemies want to present themselves as. But he's a genuine, exemplary specimen of his type, and they're frauds.
Alas, it does not make up for his deficiencies, and in many ways only exacerbates them. He's ignorant, stupid, impulsive, petty, vainglorious, dishonest, amoral, proud, opportunistic, greedy, corrupt, nepotistic, ungrateful and so on, a 小人 through and through. This influences his every action, and although every action can be deconstructed and traced back to specific failures in his decisionmaking, it's cheaper to just say it's Typical trump.
Part of the problem, as someone who also dislikes the man, is that there does genuinely seem to be a difference between those who dislike him on principles, and those who dislike him as a principle. Trump Derangement can be a cop-out, but there's far too many people who start with long lists of new superweapons they want to bring, a long list of supposedly unique grievances that justify their use, and then after the parallels or exact precursors to those grievances are shown to have been common or applauded, the need to launch the nukes remains. That's been true from Trump v. Anderson to the campaigns against the vulgarity of the office to grifting.
... which, uh, raises the obvious question. There's a pretty large number of other world leaders for whom each and every one of those criticisms applies, and a larger number of polities that have been either infected by or been the morass from which those leaders arose.
I can't object to that. Plenty of world leaders really seem to be terrible in very relevant and damning ways. Monke. Von der Leyen. Lula. Trudeau. Orban. It's harder to find a truly impressive one than an irredeemable wrecker. One could perhaps argue that Trump's badness is more about the unusually (for the developed world) shameless self-presentation than the content of his character or his political MO. What I'd say is that he's still unusually bad for an American leader, ie I cannot remember a single less competent President over the post-WWII period at least, and this makes him vastly more of a problem than all but maybe 2 other national leaders (yes, Biden or rather the hivemind that effectively was Biden is more competent); he's the first one in the US to build such a solid cult of personality, which is deeply corrosive and divisive because it's a cult of a shitty personality (one decent objection would be that Obama also has a cult of personality, and he's… mediocre); and that yeah, libs and Never Trumpers are correct, his erosion of norms is a great harm unto himself. "We had boats there also". "A whole civilization will die". Making the superpower's policy conditional on his petty personal grievances. Tearing down treaties. Flagrant Middle Eastern corruption and nepotism, cronyism, the first real Purge in the history of your state. Associating the White House with crypto and other tacky/scammy things. Based Intern poasting on official comms. He's not just low, he's bringing America down to his level, kicking down the whole edifice of "institutions", which had apparently rotted enough in the meantime to become precarious.
I guess what remains is that it's just sad for a straightforwardly bad, unworthy American leader to have such a large and energetic fan club. It's kind of an indictment of the whole American democracy thing, and startling vindication of the warnings of the Republic's Founders like Franklin and Adams. Trump maximizes objective functions of an elected American politician (chiefly, being electable and capable of running a coalition) and demonstrates that they can be neatly divorced from any virtue relevant to actual governance.
This seems a little prone to presentism. On top of the disclaimers you had to throw in, Lyndon B Johnson famously would wave his dick at reporters and got the FDA to pretends eggs were unhealthy just to paper over inflation. Nixon was Nixon. Ford started off the whole 'pardon the last guy' trend. Reagan had the exact same untrustworthy sack-of-shit empty-suit cargo cult leader stuff pointed at him, continuing well after he left office. Clinton interrupted national television to disclaim whether he, in fact, had sex with that woman, enough of a cult of personality that he got thrown into random cartoon intros, and a variety of hilarious corruption that at best gets the disclaimer 'not proven'. Dubya was Dubya. Obama's cult of personality has his defenders insist today that his worst scandal was a tan suit, after literal court settlements and his attorney general being held in contempt of congress (by a bipartisan vote). Biden Purged as or more aggressively.
I'll give you Carter, who was merely incompetent in his areas of expertise.
Trump's a culmination of the long-standing paean against democracy, but he's far from a novel or extreme one. The institutions hadn't rotted by coincidence.
LBJ knew shame. He was monstrous but self-aware about what he should be doing in his public capacity and what he is. He could at least be hypocritical and not wave his dick at the American voter, the story about reporters is not about a real press conference. If Trump had such a massive dick, he'd probably wave it on air, or at least certainly bring it up, along with his supposedly high IQ.
Nixon was a "problematic" but great man who worked hard, felt sincere responsibility for the welfare of his nation and talked in private much like my peer group does. I can't take Nixon bashing seriously.
Reagan was an empty suit good at reading speeches, I do think he got carried by the momentum of the era. Maybe Trump will be as lucky.
Democrats in your list probably benefit from the sovereign-defining-exceptions Moldbuggian mechanics, where their chicanery is rendered procedural and hard to criticize on norms, separately from its consequences.
etc. It's true that all that can be dismissed as special pleading. I still believe Trump outperforms all them on sum of flaws, but particularly on the shameless nature of it, the innocence of his savagery. He doesn't even seem to know what norms he violates, he's almost like a… normal uncultured low information voter LARPing being a president, which might be why his voters are so loyal to him.
But yes, he isn't a bad apple, he's an output the system permits, maybe even encourages. Just took time to roll such a specimen. And that's why I say what I say about Americans not demanding merit and virtue.
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You could write a top-level if you want, but I don't know if we're going to get very far. I disagree in the strongest terms that Trump is a bad leader and I severely question many of your assessments: Shitty developer? Shitty entrepreneur? Moreover, Trump has shown intense leadership of both the Republican Party and America using qualities you have not named: his loyalty to people who are loyal to him; his loyalty to the base; his willingness to sacrifice his private comfort for a life of public politics; his flexibility on things that don't matter; his refusal to back down on things that do matter; and, yes, we agree at last, his bravery. Because Trump has lead the way on a dozen major issues that have gone from outside serious political consideration to mainstream. He has turned the world.
So when you call America a cretinous nation and justify that with your assessment of Trump, yeah, I call that TDS. It doesn't matter if you can articulate it at length in measured ways. I don't use "TDS" to compare you to the incomprehensible rage of a leftist full of hate. I simply think your assessment is so wrong that it can only come through a kind of reality-distortion field.
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There's a reason I assume he's trying to ingratiate himself with his new overlords. Legit sounds like a classier translation of racist xanxia slop.
We should be demanding the same level of shamelessness from our own immigrants.
Yes, the reason you assume so is extremely hierarchical, amoral and anti-aesthetic priors of your psychology, pure lustful brownshirt orientation towards power and impunity. The same reason makes you a Trump supporter to begin with, and incapable of understanding principled disgust. I guess the same reason makes you insist I've moved to China, bizarrely. (I have not, and have no plans to jump through necessary hoops or put up with their own problems).
At this rate I'm more likely to come under American overlordship, if anything (hopefully not). It would be quite prudent to ingratiate myself to this ridiculous regime; and believe it or not, I've turned down some opportunities offered from up high.
Well, that psychologizing is about as off-base as possible. Fun verbiage though, makes me want to go reread some Ayn Rand.
TY for the straight answer.
I think it's perfectly on point though. Many of Freedom Stans' accusations are best understood as unconscious projection of the authoritarian brownshirt impulse. "Hierarchical and individualistic white males" is considered a Based Type in the culture war, but that "Hierarchical" part has obvious costs that Adorno et al were, frankly, just correct about. You guys want a Koryos and a Great Leader. You waited for one for your entire lives.
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Given the kind of patriotic preening Shakes routinely engages in, his unconditional and triumphant support for yet another war of aggression in the Middle East, his constant tendency to claim US victory under virtually any circumstances including the now-defunct MoU (his theory of victory seems to reduce to "We fucked them up! We fucked them up so bad"), and considering the brainrotted knee-jerk condemnation of everything China that you and many other posters routinely engage in, I'm most certainly not convinced that Dase is anywhere near as shameless as half of the posters here.
It's almost as if US hawks have no barometer for how insane they look to the rest of the world, and consider any China-bullishness as "ingratiation" because nobody could possibly ever like that country for any reason at all.
Which is still vastly more self-aware and humble than what Daes engages in on this topic, or what we see from the "America lost" faction. My god, it's like the Black Knight from Monty Python.
I actually rather like China. I don't trust them as a nation, but I do have a certain fondness. I just don't take it seriously when someone does, er, literally exactly what you're accusing Shakes of doing - shameless, jingoistic boosterism that doesn't even try to make a serious analysis of their situation. Which is easy because of how opaque they are, compared to the ten million words we spill on this forum alone wrangling over the issues and struggles America is facing, based on enormous quantities of reasonably transparent data and reporting.
Because it comes off as projection. Screaming "America lost" when what you actually mean is something more like "Iran is still holding on while their military and economy are in shambles after a few months of casual love taps, and this is arguably a failure to attain all strategic goals of the war" sounds genuinely insane. It sounds like you're trying to manifest a conclusion via sheer memery, rather than making any effort to understand - particularly when even the most jingoistic Americans (Shakes) are making meaningful admissions.
It just comes off as shameless, low-trust rhetoric, like watching some underclass defectbot try to scam a quokka.
In that case, kindly point to a comment that Dase has made regarding his China-boosterism that doesn't include any "serious analysis of their situation", and is situated in the context of a thread where he hasn't made any serious analysis. That would help prove your charge against him. I follow the guy, and while he can be needlessly inflammatory I have to say his comments are routinely more well-informed than the America First crowd here. And on Xitter there are a good number of tweets where he criticises China (I think he has requested that his account not be shared here though), so I don't think your model of him as a jingoistic unconditional booster is accurate.
This is far more true of Shakes regarding America, who talks about the war in cartoon-villain ways like "Now I advance the argument that Bestern Civilization is better than the Third world, and better than Iran, so I support our moral claims against theirs etc. etc. etc. etc." and "It's good to destroy evil and it's evil to destroy good" which just translates to an unconditional support of America against its enemies regardless of what they do and how many second- or third-order effects it may have. In spite of how inflammatory Dase can be I don't think he has said anything to the effect of "China blowing up its evil, disgusting enemies is Good Actually and I support it unconditionally". It is low-quality tribalism par excellence, it is disturbing, and it is the farthest thing from "self-aware and humble" I can think of.
Also where did you get the idea that Dase was living in China? Since many of your comments appear to imply he currently does, I'd like to see where that was indicated. I am genuinely curious FWIW.
Okay, what "meaningful admissions" is Shakes making? He's doing exactly what you're accusing the "America lost" crowd of doing - claiming "America won" when what he actually means is "America caused damage to Iran without achieving many of their larger strategic goals in the timeframe they expected, has likely burned through a significant portion of their interceptors, and is now trying to find a way out of a costly war it can't back out from without losing face and ceding ground it's not willing to cede". The idea that this constitutes "winning" is quite ridiculous; they might win yet (and they may not), but Shakes keeps proclaiming victory every time there is any shadow of an agreement and when these agreements fall apart he predicts victory any time soon. It's tiresome and it's like gleefully proclaiming that Libya was a victory in any meaningful sense because the US fucked them up so bad. It is not a reasonable metric through which to measure foreign policy, and if wanton destruction is the sole endgoal of all your engagements you should expect pushback from those who don't revel in turning countries into Somalia.
This was in response to an argument that America isn't part of Western Civilization, so it can't credibly claim any moral superiority over Iran. The point I was making is that this is snobby provincialism, call America "Western" call it "Bestern" call it whatever it doesn't matter.
This was in response to a claim of moral relativism that criticized American attempts to be moral in war as a pretention. My argument is that this is not a mere pretention, America has a righteous claim to morality over Iran, it's actually ridiculous to put America and a terrorist Islamic regime on the same moral plane.
(In fairness to @quiet_NaN I believe his argument was more in the vein that justifying war as moral causes a problem in practical geopolitics. I chose to surface this facet of his argument for criticism because we have already argued extensively about whether America is winning. And I consider it far more pernicious that many are treating America and Iran as equally just. I think this is ridiculous and deserves ridicule: we live in the free world, we can only have these debates because of the freedoms we have in the West, and too many people have bought into IRGC propaganda or, worse, a lukewarm indifference to any notion of good and evil.)
I make no apologies for actually believing in good and evil and using my sense of them to advance my arguments. I think anyone not doing this, out of a misguided sense of sophistication, is kidding themselves.
No my argument has been and remains that America won the war already in every meaningful sense. We destroyed Iran's military-industrial complex, we destroyed their nuclear program, we alienated them from their neighbors and potential allies, we won. And everyone keeps proclaiming that Iran has actually won because they refuse to surrender and they can still control the straits. To me this is like proclaiming that the Super Bowl isn't over when the Packers are up 50 points at halftime because the opposing team of George Bailey High still has the heart of the cards. It's over. So I keep repeating, every time it comes up, that Iran lost in every meaningful way, and this final trump card that they can control the strait keeps turning out to not be true.
I feel increasingly vindicated. The goalposts of the war critics keep moving. It was once confidently predicted that Iran would sink American ships, and toll the strait, and never give up its nuclear program. It was confidently predicted that at least Iran would threaten the strait, and significant concessions would have to be made. Now it's clear that a lot of traffic can still transit the strait, because the American military is that much more powerful than the Iranian military, and I'm starting to hear that maybe the Americans started winning recently, who can really say?
I know you think I've taken leave of my senses. But I think it's you who have taken leave of your senses. America is justified to fight Iran and America is winning against Iran. I have made the same argument, consistently, for months, because I believe I am right and I fully expect to be vindicated.
I am aware what these quotes were in response to. However, it's hard to ignore the original answer you gave, that both commenters were in turn responding to:
"Western Civilization is better than the Third World and America is better than Iran. Even for all our flaws America at her best is and can be a force for good. Putting America and Iran on the same moral plane is actually a form of weakness because -- well, if it's all the same anyways who cares if Iran conquers? Who cares if barbarism or civilization prevails? It's all predicated on violence anyways right? Well no, I assert that the ends towards which I apply violence are actually more moral than theirs. I do prefer my civilization to theirs. I'm not a neutral third-party observer, I'm not a nihilist. My values are better than theirs and it's justified for me to use violence to defend what's mine."
I don't think I'm misrepresenting you at all.
Yes, exactly the outline of the argument I was criticising. America is good, Iran is evil, the violence America inflicts on Iran is justified and the violence Iran inflicts on America is unjustified. Nevermind that both these states include many people who have pretty much nothing to do with the regime in question, and the regime falling apart often means power vacuums, significant instability in the region, massive civil war and other super moral outcomes. It's like collateral doesn't exist to you: the Iranian regime is Evil and therefore Evil must be destroyed. Nevermind that the Iranian regime might be the best of the options currently available to the Iranians, nevermind that American-style Democracy, Whiskey and Sexy is probably not feasible in much of the Middle East as it stands.
You are raining hellfire down on a people, causing instability and destruction in a region which isn't even in your immediate geopolitical sphere that frankly you shouldn't even be involved in, and claiming it is perfectly moral, that as the "good guys" you are entitled to use violence against your enemies. There isn't even a figleaf of pretence that you're "bringing stability to the region" (it may well destabilise it further and is already doing so); you're basking and preening and cheering on the destruction of a country.
No, I'm not a moral relativist; I do believe in good and evil. I wouldn't be able to believe that this war and its supporters are evil otherwise.
And the fact that this is your goal says everything anyone needs to know about your "theory" of military victory. Not only that, I think you're underestimating costs for the US and just how much Iran is holding on, and your argument ignores significant uncertainties around much of the data. That being said your interceptors have been burned through hugely whereas Iranian missile stockpiles as of May were estimated to be approximately still 70% of their prewar total, and they have regained access to 90% of their underground missile storage and launch facilities. Granted it is possible these are conservative overestimates, but I would not be so quick to declare Iran dead in the water yet; the idea that Iran is obviously out of options and hanging on by a thread is wishful thinking and they may well have a good amount of freedom of action left if they want to keep causing pain.
X to doubt. The strait is currently incredibly operationally disrupted and the idea that it's "clear" that "a lot" of traffic is transiting is capeshit Amerikaposting of the highest order. Only six ships went through the strait on Sunday, and I don't know about you but that doesn't sound anywhere close to a lot to me. There are multiple estimates of this, and all show significantly and catastrophically reduced shipping through the strait; as long as that is the case the supply shocks will continue. I frankly do not know where you are getting your information diet from, but you're very clearly ignoring any data that contradicts your extremely jingoistic cries of victory.
I'm sure the more you say this, the more true it will become.
"Based." What else am I supposed to believe?
This is just the problem of war, there were lots of nice civilians in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union too, a lot of bystanders and innocents are made to suffer and that's unfortunate and we all hope the suffering can be minimized. So what's your point? Warmed-over pacifism does not actually stress me. I still believe that Iran acquiring nukes would be evil, and it's good for America to stop this.
I have never argued that regime change is necessary and neither has Trump. I think it causes great confusion for war critics when they imagine that the Iranian regime surviving is proof that Iran is winning.
See, there we are. This isn't an impassionate debate about whether America is winning the war or not, it's just a debate about good and evil. You have your views and I have mine. So don't criticize me for proclaiming on good and evil when your argument just as fundamentally rests on your own morals.
It sounds like your assessment of the war is just believing pro-IRGC sources and doubting pro-America sources.
Once upon a time it was asserted that Iran controlled the strait and no ships were passing through at all. I consider this pretty decent progress toward accepting my views. Give it time for America to wipe out the last of Iran's capabilities and even more ships will start making the transit.
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Thank you for your support and respect of my wishes.
For your info, I really don't live in China, but if I did and cared for the opinion of my new MSS overlords, I'd probably tone it down with political commentary of any kind. Americans and other Free Worlders seem to often have a naive theory of preferences of authoritarian states. Peak Stalinism, Cultural Revolution, Khmer Rouge – those make a mark in the media but are abnormal conditions of power consolidation (or reconsolidation). Mature regimes seek apolitical quiescence, not fervor, and suppress overzealous and aggressive Patriots just the same as open enemies, if not harder, because Patriots can deliberately or inadvertently challenge the regime's legitimacy by exposing its flaws by its own standards and constraining strategic flexibility.* Strelkov/Girkin is a good (if extreme) case in point; China is no exception (see their crackdown on Western Pseudohistory Theory – for what it's worth, General Secretary I approve, please continue crushing low-IQ kanging on Chinese social media).
If I really were, as accused, a kneejerk America hater in China, I'd probably run some risk of getting (mildly) disciplined for "Picking Quarrels and Provoking Trouble".
Though I don't think they monitor this place in any case. But I do greatly appreciate American doctrine of free speech, and unfortunately the Chinese are not on board. Accordingly there won't be a Chinese TheMotte.
*P.S. That's another reason I get so triggered by Patriotism of @Shakes. It seems there's no consistent belief behind it, it's pure "Let's go Dodgers!" loyal cheerleading for America or even personally for Trump; no matter what Trump/America do it's good and based, even if it's contradictory. He refuses to hold his team to any internal standard at all, can pose no danger to the regime at all, and risks nothing at all (except going down with the ship).
There's personal bitterness too, I guess. I used to call myself a Russian ethnonationalist, and that project, as in, people with the same identification, has on net spectacularly discredited itself by choosing bootlicking, (delusional) prejudice against Ukrainans and the conquest of Konstantinyvka and other ruined shithole villages over the entire space of timelines where Russia was a strong nation and a positive influence on the world. Would be nice if other people took similar risks.
"Based."
My consistent belief is American Exceptionalism, that America is the greatest nation on Earth, and that Donald Trump is the avatar of American Exceptionalism. I'm willing to take criticism as it comes and I know that sometimes I look ridiculous. I don't mind. I think it's a necessary position to take. I'm even happy to criticize America and it's failures (which is, after all, the entire reason for supporting Donald Trump). But I'm not interested in criticizing America simply so that everyone knows that I'm reasonable -- I may as well as just get to the point and tell you what I really believe and not worry about how it comes across to people who will never agree with me anyways.
There was a mean reply here but it's really adding nothing of value, so let's just say that I appreciate the honesty, and "Donald Trump is the avatar of American Exceptionalism" is very true, more true perhaps than you understand. "American Exceptionalism" is a belief, a vibe, not the quality of greatness attributable to the nation itself. Trump definitely channels that. We mostly disagree on whether it is anything more than parasitic exploitation of the underlying factors of greatness.
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This is the exchange I had in mind when saying that. Read Shakes post above, too. Both are forcefully arguing for their position. I see several times where Shakes acknowledges points for the other side. I note zero where Dase does.
FWIW, I think Dase is generally very smart and knowledgeable (I've nommed him for AAQQ within the last month), which is why it sticks out to me when he slips into "China rules, America drools" mode. I would love to see him give a decoupled take on some part of the Chinese system, because I expect he really does have a better vantage point than pretty much anyone else I have access to.
But we all have topics that are hard to discuss with a proper detachment.
Comments he made a while ago, I'm not going to try to dig them up. I definitely remember he dipped out of Russia the moment they invaded Ukraine, and mentioned landing in Turkey while he figured out his next move. But I've alternated heavy posting and blocking myself to just lurking over the last few years. I am pretty sure he said something about finding a more permanent spot for himself in the Chinese AI/ML ecosystem at some point, but that's why I keep phrasing it as half a question.
He went to Argentina, iirc.
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Thank you for presenting my most based beliefs, but this doesn’t defend Dasein’s statement at all
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