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Lol now TheMotte is getting into trump assassination territory....Should I stop coming here and start watching fox news?
It has been quite the journey over the last decade seeing this general space, in its various homes, drift from being a place for a variety of dissenters, idle imaginers, original thinkers, and malcontents to being just another space for Trumpers to get together and gripe about everyone but themselves.
Imagine what the forum would look like if every progressive who flamed out and tearfully quit after losing an argument didn't do that.
Well that is a pretty uncharitable way to put things. I'm to the right of most of my social circle but I'm to the left of whatever this place is turning into. People just get sick of getting downvoted and unable to post in real time, eventually they say something rude and get banned or they say "fuck it" and leave.
When the conversation turns to being worried about trump picking his VP based on possible assassination, putting guns in holes as a generational family gun stash in your back yard, "powers that be" conspiring to eliminate people like you, heavily downvoting someone pointing out having sex with blackout drunk people is probably wrong, being afraid to leave your red state for fear of being locked up for defending yourself, practicing religion harder being the only answer to societal ills, women only being truly happy barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen....I mean the parody starts to write itself at some point.
You've been shitposting here from day one, dude.
One man's trash.
Sorry, I kind of have to agree with ArjinFerman—at least, it would be disastrous for the forum if everyone started adopting your tone and habits of response. You're consistently above-average in antagonism and dismissiveness. And this definitely is one of the factors in you drawing more downvotes—it's often the reason if ever I downvote you. That of course doesn't address the overall problem of voting based on whether people like it driving dissenting views away, but it could make a meaningful difference in your particular case.
So I guess, two.
I know you don't like deficit spending, but I don't think I was particularly rude or dismissive in that recent exchange. I didn't accuse you of magical thinking as you accused me for disagreeing on monetary policy (I save that for the religious debates where I am summarily chastised). I feel that budget hawks continually underestimate the power of extend and pretend, and we may, in fact, be able to do it forever.
No, you're right, you were reasonable in that exchange, and I probably shouldn't have said that. I was the one less able to control my
tonguekeyboard. I guess I was thinking of other comments of yours. If all your comments were like the ones in that exchange, well, I'd prefer it if you'd get further into the weeds of what precisely was going on, but you were certainly civil enough.If by extend and pretend, you mean the current policy, doesn't that end up requiring more of the world's resources each time, and is growing at a faster rate than the US's or world's economy?
I think infinite borrowing can be done at a sustainable rate; just not the one we're at. If it's below inflation, or below economic growth, there's not much of a problem. We're just in a much worse situation than that, and I think the way you tell that isn't by looking at who has e.g. the largest military, but at interest rates, amount of government spending spent on debt, rates of economic growth, etc.
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