ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
No bio...
User ID: 626
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
57m ago
In surprising news, Kim Jong-un wins North Korea’s parliamentary elections with 99.93% of the vote.
I always wondered: who does the 0.07% of the votes go to? Do they pick a lucky volunteer tasked with running against Dear Leader? Is there someone autistic enough to actually try on their own?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
Irish Americans had high rates of criminality until the around the 20th century. And the Irish in Ireland had low IQ's until their country became a banking hub.
It's debatable whether or not this is an honest presentation of facts, but just assuming it as true for the sake of argument: liberals have been promising to do the same for other populations since time immemorial. American blacks are still not integrated, and Africa is still a basket case. How much longer until you accept you were wrong, ans who will be held accountable for it?
Sure, instead it got the consolation prize of being the wealthiest city in the world, and one of two megacities that makes a major imprint on all of American culture and entertainment.
American culture and entertainment are on life support.
I might sound like a broken record, but I think TFR is the root cause of all this. Western governments see population decline (and consequent tax base erosion) as a sovereign risk and will do whatever they can to forestall it.
We know this is not the reason, because the governments have data that show immigrants are a massive money sink. Some of them even decided to share it with the public!
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
The amount we've found is so infinitesimal that the upside to implementing voter ID is nil
Mechanically, how would you even know that, if you don't bother verifying thr voter's identity?
That implementing it to make people "feel" that the election is more secure is pointless
Why does literally every other country do it, then?
That voter fraud is already a low salience crime, because there's no personal benefit and you'd have to do it at a massive scale to accomplish anything.
Politics is notorious for being motivated by collective belonging. Limiting the analysis to direct personal benefit seems like intentionally blinding yourself.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
To get local politics more on side. There was a story bout Trump looking into supporting the populist right-wing parties in Europe, or Europens helping the campaign against Trump, for example.
Also, during the era in question, liberalism was particularly high on it's own supply, and it seemed like the western elites literally believed the End of History thing, and thought they can turn Arabs into gay race communists overnight.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
How exactly are you supposed to argue the object of a policy without questioning motives?
What do you mean? I've seen plenty of discussions of say, the minimum wage, that don't assume the pro- side is explicitly aiming to drive low-wage workers out of jobs.
Lots of places allow a driver’s license
Not anywhere in Europe that I know of. It's the government ID card, or a passport, nothing else. I suppose I can't guarantee no one else does it, but Driver's license-as-ID is a distinctly American thing to me, that,if anything, sounds more exclusive not less (what if I never owned a car, so never bothered getting one? Don't driving lessons + exam cost way more than getting an ID?).
They also tend to integrate their existing database of citizens.
The EU has no centralized database of citizens, but every EU citizen can vote in the local ans European elections in the country they live in.
which America stubbornly refuses to do
That's something that can be debated, or added as a condition for supporting the policy. No need to go "muh racism".
I daresay most of the other democracies are smaller and more centralized
Individual countries are smaller, but not by that much. Germany has a population of 80 million. Russia spans a larger area and has 140 million. The EU is more decentralized, spans a comparable area, and has a 400 million people.
None of this strikes me as particularly relevant in the era of thr digital panopticon anyway.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
9hr ago
How is this “sleight of hand”? It’s the crux of the argument. Opponents really believe that the laws will hurt many more qualified voters than fraudulent ones. If true, maybe the stated object isn’t the “real” object.
They should be able to make the argument about the object of voter ID, then, without having to question the motives of it's proponents.
This is exactly how the signature Jim Crow policies worked. Setting voting requirements that were easier for your guys and harder for their guys. People are citing THE RACISMS because THE RACISMS are kind of the most obvious comparison.
This is also how literally the entire rest of the world works: if it's too hard for you to get an ID, maybe voting just isn't for you. Acting like race enters into the equation at all is basically agreeing that the racists are right.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
9hr ago
which was basically corporatist colonialism without any noblisse oblige
I'm happy to admit that European colonialism with noblesse oblige was better (I think even the Chinese were impressed with what was left over), but we seem to have decided that it's racist and it's better to do nothing, send food over every mce in a while, and constantly self-flagelate. So the Chinese seem to win this one.
Let's say the US massively pulls back from it's efforts stabilizing the world. What do you think fills the void, and why would it be better?
Probably some rough times initially, with people jumping in to fill the power vacuum, and later on more uneasy truces, and less galaxy brained attempt at End Of History-esque spread of liberalism.
Though I have a bit of an issue with the question - pulling out now means we'd get the worst of both worlds. You already messed up the world several times, and withdrawing isn't going to undo it.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
14hr ago
I see you haven't watched any of thr new Treks, then.
If you could see the exact same trend going back decades, then the tariffs had nothing to do with it. Or maybe it turns out that the recent trend doesn't add up to a spit in the bucket, and only looks bad if you zoom in extremely.
Any chart that mysteriously begins at the point of the thing it's trying to criticize is virtually guaranteed to pull that trick. Even longer (but still short term) charts are suspect, Paul Krugman was notorious for that shit, for example.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
19hr ago
Empire of Dust
Of the things you mentioned this is what I'm most familiar with. What's supposed to be the problem with building infrastructure while being mildly derogatory of the natives? Even if I'm the target, I'll literally take it over the gay race communism you guys shoved into Europe.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
22hr ago
- Something something, there's no evidence anyone voted multiple times.
- Did you check?
- Lol, no.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
22hr ago
Emphasis on "organic". Mass movements require coordination, and anyone who tried organizing something as simple as a book club will tell you how much inertia coordination typically needs to overcome.
I suppose an organic mass movement is not entirely impossible, but when we're talking about simultaneous uprisings spanning multiple countries, we're entering pissing on some and telling them it's raining territory. Even with the recent protests in Iran, you could literally see the blob prepping for the op.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
That doesn't answer the question. Do you think that a world where the IRGC has nukes is more stable or less stable than the counterfactual that we currently live in?
Yeah, the part that answered it is "I'm not sure, but it's not difficult to imagine". You can round it off to "yes" if you don't like my uncertainty.
Secondly the only two countries to voluntarily relinquish an existing nuclear weapons capability that I am aware of are South Africa and Ukraine, who are you referring to?
Gaddafi. Looking it up now, I see he didn't quite make it to the finish line.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
Given the crackdown of western governments against social media, when a few elections didn't go the way they wanted, I find it hard to believe that the role of the US in the Arab Spring was non-central, and it was all about some dude setting himself on fire.
Frankly, the very notion of "organic" mass movements is in dire need of evidence.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
My question for you is do you think that allowing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to have nukes would have a stabilizing effect on world affairs or do you agree with me that it would have a destabilizing effect, if the latter how much of a destabilizing effect?
I mean... during my lifetime, no one had a more destabilizing effect on the world in general, and the Middle East in particular than the United States. If it's even true that Iran is scrambling for nukes, it's patently clear the reason they're doing so is because America deposed a ruler that handed off his in good faith, on the assurance that he will not be attacked. I'm not sure what effect a nuclear Iran would have, but a world that becomes more stable as a result is not difficult to imagine.
Wait till you see how the US stock market is growing compared to others.
Can I please get this chart in a version that goes back more than one year?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
I disagree about characterizing it as lying, but yeah, the simple statement that his insults don't really mean much, and are more reflective of whether he perceived their target as loyal or disloyal than of their actual merits, is uncontroversial.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
They already tried a sequel, doubt they'll do anything else with it.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1d ago
I dunno, man. I am entirely sympathetic to the American normie populist right, in no way see them as inferior, and the reason I think Trump is being puppeteered, is that he jumped head-first into an idiotic war that he explicitly campaigned against, and which is exclusively in the interest of Israel and against the interest of the normie populist right.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
This is happening in context of a recent FBI report suggesting that Fulton County Georgia had tabulated approximately 20,000 more absentee votes than they had recorded sending out.
Ah... nothing like a good flashback to all the "no evidence of voter fraud" discussions we had here to start the day.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
Not every single one in the intelligence community, just the specific department she's in charge of, and perhaps not even all of those, I'm sure there are many hiring decisions that are insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it doesn't look like he got hired as the receptionist either, so...
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
Keep in mind he's not a European.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2d ago
Isn't DNI run by Tulsi Gabbard? How is she "the intel establishment"?
If the only thing that could convince you is literal sci-fi technology, why are you doing the "it worked for the Irish" bit, then? That argument certainly doesn't meet the standard that you put upon people who disagree with you, so it should be rejected on similar grounds.
The bad news would have been that we've spent an inordinate amount of time and resources victim-blaming, and excluding people out of public life, for not enthusiastically hopping on the current race-equality bandwagon. This is why I asked who will be held accountable for it, it's not something we can gloss over with "teehee, I guess it doesn't matter now".
By that metric, there's nothing special about New York. I'm not buying a ticket to watch any of the stuff they make there, there's more than enough local artists I can enjoy. Even in the US a trip to the city scarcely seems worth the bother, and the city's impact on the rest of the culture is dwindling.
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