domain:aporiamagazine.com
I mean, firstly, 'significant resources' is load-bearing here in a way that's difficult to falsify.
For Musk:
- Donating significant sums of money to anti-MAGA organizations or political campaigns
- Orchestrating a serious political campaign aimed at attacking MAGA politicians.
- Actually withdrawing SpaceX support from the Federal Government.
- Tilting the X/Twitter algorithm against MAGA.
- Successfully impeding passage of the "Big Beautiful Bill" through grassroots action.
For Trump:
- Deploy the federal executive agencies to go after Musk's businesses.
These all seem pretty falsifiable, and I'm sure we could come up with other metrics. In short, I'm waiting to see what actually happens beyond mean tweets, which seems to me to be a solid general rule. I note that this spat is resulting in Musk departing Washington... right about the time that it was announced that he would some time ago, and Congressional Democrats now publicly calling for the release of the Epstein files, which is something that I and most of Trump's base is in fact all for and Trump ran on.
What does it matter to you whether Trump cancels Elon's contracts or Elon doesn't show up for republicans next election?
My hope is that these men will actually be able to advance my tribe's interests in concrete ways. We're short on elite backing, so we've got to take what we can get, and if even what we get can't get their shit together, that bodes ill for us long-term.
Your coalition is the same, the people who vote for guns and the people who vote for abortion and the people who vote for whatever else will turn out in 2028.
I mean, it's pretty obviously not. The entire neocon wing and much of the corporate wing has defected to the democrats, and we've picked up a whole bunch of former centrist democrat and working-class types. And I think this is a very good thing; realignment and reshuffling of the power blocks gives potential for a break in the deadlock and stagnation, potential for some measure of actual positive change. You mention guns and abortion; the guns we're actually seeing a serious push on, and the abortion we aren't; Roe has been removed, but there's no actual drive for federal abortion restrictions, and I think that's quite likely a significant change from the past. From an overall factional perspective, at least, this seems like a good thing.
And the thing is, The Democrats could do the same, and maybe will after this latest loss. What we've been doing clearly isn't working, so stop pushing on a brick wall and find some way to actually deliver positive change in peoples' lives. If the parties can't do that, policy starvation proceeds and we're all in trouble.
Again, why? Obviously your leadership is fundamentally dysfunctional - how can you read what Elon and Trump are tweeting at each other and conclude anything else? Would you ever behave that way, let alone behave that way if you were representing a nation? They're just dysfunctional in ways that you or your 'faction' approves of.
If the angry twitter exchange is the limit of it, then it is undignified, not dysfunctional, and dignity was a value most of us were priced out of long ago. We can survive and potentially even thrive without dignified leaders. If the beef actually compromises the mission, then that's a very bad sign for the rest of this term. Again, my hope is that we get actual progress out of this mess. If they can't do that, then everything gets worse, the odds of a win for the current D establishment in 2028 go up pretty significantly, and that's not an optimistic timeline from where I'm sitting.
You should probably update on at least the stability of Elon.
Sad but likely true; I'm still stanning for him at the moment as he's still one of the very, very few examples of someone who's actually made things better in a material way. We need much more of that, not less.
Was this meant to link to a pop song? If so, the reference went over my head.
I've always been a fan of music videos, and my eldest likes to sit on my lap with my headphones on and listen to them. SIAMES has a good one she was listening to, and that vid popped up in the youtube recommendations this morning. Watch it if you have the time, and tell me what you see as the sociopolitical vibe the vid communicates.
You mentioned veiled threats. From my perspective, they are absolutely endemic, unavoidable, permeating every facet of our culture. I am served them organically several times a week, and so I am not surprised when I read about majorities of progressives approving of outright political murder. The last time we went round on this, you asked me where the violence was, the day before Luigi murdered a CEO. The result was broad social support for his actions from the left, up to the media posting stories about how attractive he is and how many supporters he has and doesn't he sorta have a point here, let's have a discussion about this.
I do not think we're going to see thinly-veiled minecraft references from the MAGA grassroots toward Musk. But if you care about thinly-veiled Minecraft references as a general class, there are a lot of them, and a notable amount of actual minecrafting, happening right now as we speak. The violence is getting worse. Public figures are endorsing and encouraging it. Common knowledge continues to accrue, on both sides.
where's the guy who was trying to address the address the hate in his heart with his pastor, or something like that?
If you're genuinely curious, see the discussion about distrust of emotion here. I am instructed to love my enemies. That does not stop them from being my enemies. Factions are a fact, differences in values are a fact. The question is what to do about it, and renouncing hate means turning away from many of the obvious and easy answers.
ABigGuy4U
6hr ago
Also the physical jobs have been getting automated since the invention of the domesticated ox, the wheel, the lever, the steam engine and the assembly line. So what you are left with is the hardened core of physical jobs that are the hardest and least efficient to automate.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
6hr ago
Buffett made that statement in support of tax increases that would have made his secretary pay even more.
hanikrummihundursvin
6hr ago
Propaganda is what you say, just on a much larger timescale. With the addition of blocking certain ideas and types of thinking. You don't need to spread your message all the time. Just make sure it's the only message available.
As for Rogan, he was a mildly failed comedian with a small time career in TV. Nothing about his podcast was deliberate beyond what any other random podcast was. No one knew what could become of the medium. I'd say Rogan's success was about as deliberate as a person winning the lottery. If you want to say that you can deliberately win the lottery by buying a ticket, that's that. But that doesn't fit any conception I have of deliberate action.
The left did not need to change themselves to kill the internet. They won't need to change themselves to block the next Joe Rogan. It reminds me of an old video game reviewer called Total Biscuit. He managed to position himself as probably the biggest reviewer of video games. He passed away from cancer a few years ago and nothing has replaced him. People still play video games, people still fret about missing graphics options and bad games being sold for 60 dollars, but there's no central outlet for that like he provided. No public voice echoing their woes and reinforcing the validity of their wants and needs in the face of tone deaf developers and greedy publishers.
Around 50% of America is already not on board with the program regardless of Rogan existing or not. The question for the left is not 'how do we get them onboard'. The question is 'how do we keep them silent'. How do we keep their wants and impulses locked in a societal straightjacket so they don't threaten our power. Joe Rogan is bad for left wing propaganda since he exists as an outlet for the impulses 'non left' people already have.
solowingpixy
the resident car guy
6hr ago
If you consider health insurance companies to be outsourced tax collectors and insurance premiums to be a payroll tax in all but name that's mostly imposed on the middle and upper-middle class, I wonder how different the tax burdens really are.
phailyoor
6hr ago
Construction productivity hasn't flatlined. Construction workers have cheap and easy access to power tools that significantly outperform the plug in tools of 2000. Anyways your other points don't really make sense.
CAD software makes it far easier to draw buildings and share the drawings.
Construction was likely largely switched to CAD by 2000
Phones makes communications vastly easier. Instead of a worker getting stuck or having to physically find someone they can make a video call.
Except for trainees, who make up a minority of construction workers, they should be able to do their jobs without calling for help.
Accounting, scheduling, recruiting sales and other supporting activities are easier with computers.
Not necessarily considered as inputs when computing labor productivity for construction.
Your unsourced chart is also worth less than the pixels it's printed on, unless you can provide measurement methodology. Looking up the numbers published by BLS https://www.bls.gov/productivity/highlights/construction-labor-productivity.htm shows an example of garbage in garbage out. It shows a huge spike in productivity before 2008 which your chart doesn't. Unless your methodology is perfect, the number likely reflects macroeconomic trends more than the actual efficiency of each worker.
PokerPirate
6hr ago
I don't have firsthand experience. But I've been around lots of marines who have. And I'd say infantry type jobs very strongly select for people who find the infantry "fun".
Notably General Mattis (quoted above) was an enlisted infantryman before becoming an officer and served as an infantry rifle platoon commander in his first leadership roles.
Also don't forget that gladiator fights in the Roman Colosseum were widely considered entertainment. There is a famous account from Augustine's confessions where he related an account of a friend Alypius. Alypius was outraged about the morality of gladiator fights and refused to participate. But some friends dragged him to the show anyways. Here is Augustine's account of how Alypius learned to enjoy the violence:
Alypius kept his eyes closed and forbade his mind to roam abroad after such wickedness. Would that he had shut his ears also! For when one of the combatants fell in the fight, a mighty cry from the whole audience stirred him so strongly that, overcome by curiosity and still prepared (as he thought) to despise and rise superior to it no matter what it was, he opened his eyes and was struck with a deeper wound in his soul than the victim whom he desired to see had been in his body. Thus he fell more miserably than the one whose fall had raised that mighty clamor which had entered through his ears and unlocked his eyes to make way for the wounding and beating down of his soul, which was more audacious than truly valiant--also it was weaker because it presumed on its own strength when it ought to have depended on Thee. For, as soon as he saw the blood, he drank in with it a savage temper, and he did not turn away, but fixed his eyes on the bloody pastime, unwittingly drinking in the madness--delighted with the wicked contest and drunk with blood lust. He was now no longer the same man who came in, but was one of the mob he came into, a true companion of those who had brought him thither. Why need I say more? He looked, he shouted, he was excited, and he took away with him the madness that would stimulate him to come again: not only with those who first enticed him, but even without them; indeed, dragging in others besides. And yet from all this, with a most powerful and most merciful hand, thou didst pluck him and taught him not to rest his confidence in himself but in thee--but not till long after.
I expect any breakthroughs in the physical domain to lag significantly - customer service, contracts, sales and coding will be automated, but no self-driving cars and humanoid robots*, and the humans that were formerly in those jobs will be pushed into somewhat less cushy replacements that make use of their skills but also involve some hard-to-automate real-world component - assembling and maintaining bespoke machinery, driving cars, installing cabling, etc. There is a certain possibility that this correlates closely with the jobs that have already been bullshittified, to an extent that the metrics of success in them are now also bullshit - ChatGPT may be a 100x more productive legal brief writer than the human it replaces, but more and better legal briefs could amount to somewhere between a little more and infinitely less productivity. Meanwhile, the humans freed up by this to do more productive work like driving deliveries may not actually be that great at those jobs, so you get something between a slight improvement and a net negative change to baseline productivity while also having to contend with an overall productivity tax from social upheaval (as large strata of the population curb their consumption due to uncertainty or personal socioeconomic drop).
* Always seemed obvious to me once you take away human conceit. In the former domain, you are fighting to outperform maybe 40000 years of evolution; in the latter, some tens or hundreds of millions.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
7hr ago
Spandrell proven right again. Bio leninism works because capital or class based ideologies are no longer viable, biological ones are much more intense. Neither communists nor capitalists would ever vote for someone who goes agaisnt their own holy cows on ethnic lines. Hating the host population in caseypf leftists.
dr_analog
razorboy
7hr ago
I believe what's missing from this analysis is the employer-side taxes in France are an additional 40-45% of employee compensation, whereas in the US the rule of thumb is more like 10%
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
7hr ago
Absolutely it's multifactorial. Reduced deficits pretty much track divided government.
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
7hr ago
There's have only ever been a handful of fiscal hawks in Washington (people who would vote for higher taxes and less spending to reduce the deficit). Almost everyone who calls themselves a fiscal hawk is just using it as a pretext to get half of those done (higher taxes and more spending for Ds lower spending and lower taxes for Rs).
I think the voters who support fiscal responsibility are so demoralized from never getting what they want every time it's been promised, they've taken the black pill and are just expecting a default.
dr_analog
razorboy
7hr ago
It's ironic that the Buffet quote about how he personally pays less tax than his secretary stimulates outrage about capital vs labor, but if this outrages you then you should be especially outraged by how much of the tax burden is being carried by the middle class in more socialist nations.
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
7hr ago
I only ever see some liberatarian types discuss this. Do know that MAGA is different.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
7hr ago
My impression is that they think the deficit/debt is both less immediately important and less tractable than dealing with immigration. The attitude is something like "Let's kick out 10+ million illegals and then see where entitlement spending is at". And without giving details, I'll just note that I see people who don't speak English interacting with expensive government benefits every single day. I would be very surprised if they weren't mostly right, in that mass deportation was de facto the largest cut in entitlement spending in history.
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
8hr ago
The current hit thing is Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. Which does a nice job of hitting all sorts of power fantasy beats with stereotypical characters but telling different stories with them.
Throwaway05
8hr ago
Tell me what you think about this:
I've long conceptualized trans thought content as a combination of:
- Actual trans people (rare).
- Social contagion (this being where the lonely MTF types come from).
- Malingering (mostly in a forensic setting).
- Borderline identity instability (actual hospital presenters).
When I think about item 4. my model is more women who seems to be trans while having a borderline breakdown or are just chronically severe.
It sounds like you spot more often in men, in comparison to me. I think my blind spot here is that my personal life people I know who are MTF seem to not be borderline - mostly dissatisfied with the world, lonely, looking for ego sources, which writing that out sounds borderline adjacent but I don't get the vibe from knowing them (?compromised objectivity?).
You point out your high profile types though and I go oh yeah shit sounds right.
I think this may just be my pot of MTF based off of my background however.
Really interested in your thoughts because no fucking way in hell can I have a convo about this in an academic hospital.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν
8hr ago
Ahh my apologies, apparently his name is David Friedberg. I got you to confused somehow.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
8hr ago
That isn't my point.
Throwaway05
8hr ago
I think it scratches the same itch as things like lego building, if that helps your mental model at all.
He is indeed my long lost, blackpilled, twin brother.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
8hr ago
The issue being dismissed for as long as I was alive might have something to do with it. Also the whole point of MAGA is that it's not basic "muh fiscal conservatism".
mrvanillasky
Indo Aryan Thot Leader
8hr ago
I'm surprised people, sane ones are dismissing the entire issue despite the concerns. You go online and the Maga reaction is to call Musk shcizo for questioning a very real concern.
I saw a documentary about law enforcement dealing with organized crime. There was some mobster that other mobsters tried to kill by luring him to a meeting and shooting him repeatedly in the back of the head with a 22. The bullets failed to get through his skull and tore up his scalp. He stood up, took the gun out of his would-be-murderer's hand and ran off.
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