Goodguy
4d ago
The most likely explanation is that they just fucked up. There is no possible benefit to deliberately leaking the info to Goldberg that would make up for the embarrassment of him going public with how he obtained the information.
To end, VP Vance reportedly typing “a prayer for victory” after a course of action was decided upon.
To me this is kind of funny given the enormous discrepancy in power between the USA and the Houthis. It's kind of like if a grown man prayed for victory just before getting into a fist-fight with an infant.
Goodguy
5d ago
The simplest explanation, though not necessarily the correct one, is just that many large corporations have huge numbers of people who genuinely hold progressive political views, including on the higher levels where they can make policy. In other words, it's not that they bent the knee to the crowd, it's that they agreed with the crowd.
Many prominent tech industry people, for example, grew up in progressive households and held/hold a mix of libertarian and progressive views. It's only very recently, once the woke really well and truly overstepped their bounds, that some of them began to change their minds. I think some people might overestimate the degree to which these shifts are just staged for mass consumption. For example, the simplest though not necessarily correct explanation for why Musk went from a somewhat Democrat-leaning moderate to a full-on Trumpist over the course of the last few years is that he genuinely changed his mind.
Goodguy
5d ago
I really would have to know more about her to figure out what her motivations are. One possible motivation that no-one else seems to have mentioned is that she simply just actually believes that we are headed for a fascist dictatorship that will take away women's rights and so on.
In the course of the last few years I have seen several very smart friends of mine become rabid Trump-haters who genuinely, not in a virtue signalling way, but genuinely are worried that Trump is taking the country towards dictatorship and that there are plausible mechanisms by which Trump could create such a dictatorship. These are well-read, sharp people who do not normally display any sort of cognitive derangement or hysteria.
I myself have some worries about Trump and dictatorship and so on, which I have expressed here before, but not to the level of these friends of mine. I think that Trump would absolutely love to be a dictator, I just see no plausible path by which he or any other politician could accomplish this. Any major steps that Trump took towards dictatorship would literally cause a civil war. For example, California wouldn't sit around letting it happen, it would secede from the Union. I don't know, maybe I am overestimating the left's willingness to resist, but in any case I just can't imagine any plausible path to dictatorship as long as the politically non-apathetic Americans are split about evenly 50-50 between the left and the right. This isn't like Russia, where basically 80% of people supported Putin in the early 2000s, which gave him an opportunity to consolidate a dictatorship while backed by a huge fraction of the population.
Some of my smart friends, however, very much disagree with this.
Anyway, my point is that it's perfectly possible that this woman just genuinely feels like she has to do something, anything. Do I think that's the most likely explanation? No, but it's a possible one.
Goodguy
7d ago
I'm not fully convinced, but that's an interesting theory. Trump does seem to really love size, he constantly uses the word "big" and he likes big buildings and so on. Although to be fair, who doesn't? A USA that includes Canada and Greenland would look gigantic on the map, and Trump would then be sure to have gone down as one of the most significant US Presidents of all time. Even more than he already is, I mean. From a purely aesthetic point of view, the map would look even better if the US also expanded all the way down to the Panama Canal. There would be something aesthetically satisfying about one country's color painted over the entirety of North America. But then, if the US absorbs not only Canada, but also Mexico and Central America, well US politics would become completely unrecognizable.
Goodguy
7d ago
I still have no idea why any Republican would want to make Canada the 51st state and thus add tens of millions of people who tend to lean significantly further left than the GOP to the US electorate.
Goodguy
1mo ago
I agree, I actually had the same thought when I read it... this doesn't sound like Trump.
Goodguy
1mo ago
this all happened because Scott platformed Mencius Moldbug back in 2013
Did he? I'm not aware of this part of the rationalist-sphere lore. Do tell.
Bro you're being way too sensitive, to be frank. Yes, I'm completely fine with you calling them trans men, I just used the term "trans women" because that is the most common and thus least confusing term these days. And yes, you can refuse to hire them if you want to. I lean in favor of freedom of association overall. Although, you might want to be careful with that principle, since the same principle will cause some people to refuse to hire anyone with views that are seen as too right-wing, which indeed we have already seen happening.
As for the CRA, I think we can agree that it was in many ways a bad idea for the country. But that does not mean that it is a good thing for fervent, resentment-driven right-wingers to take over the country. Those are two somewhat separate conversations. CRA and Trumpists can both be bad.
Goodguy
1mo ago
You are still not giving any concrete reasons, based on my numerous writings on this site, to think that I am a leftist. As for "framings of leftists", that's highly subjective. As far as contrarianism, no, I am not writing these things out of contrarianism. Not sure what would convince you. You seem to be a smart guy based on some of your posts that I have read, so I don't know why you make these assumptions about me, but the assumptions are incorrect. To be fair, I am also a smart guy and I make unwarranted assumptions all the time. I'm just trying to let you know that you're not only wrong about where I'm coming from, you're on an almost flat Earth level of wrong in your mental model of me. If you insist on disbelieving me, well... you still haven't pointed out any of my writings that would show that I am a so-called leftist. Feel free to do so, but you will probably be disappointed, unless you think that because I am a social libertarian with some mild questionings of modern capitalism it means that I am a leftist.
Goodguy
1mo ago
I mean it's pretty simple, my ideal world is one in which you can talk about the fact that different ethnic groups have different intelligence levels and that trans women are more like men than they are like women, without losing your job. But at the same time, individuals of whatever ethnic group would be judged based on their individual characteristics rather than based on their group averages, and politics would not be dominated by resentment-driven fanatics of either a left or a right persuasion. This is not some weird abstract ambivalence between left and right, it is a genuine solid third view that is opposed to both the left and the right, and it is my view.
Goodguy
1mo ago
Wait though... you're still not giving any actual specific reasons based on my writings to show that I am a leftist.
I mean, if I was a leftist it's not like I would be embarrassed by being a leftist. I would proudly wave a leftist flag high, since I am pretty straightforward as a person (sometimes too straightforward) and I would have no good reason to lie on this site. It just so happens that I am not a leftist, lol.
Goodguy
1mo ago
Because I disagree with the left on many crucial, definitional issues. If you think that I am a leftist, I think you should probably explain specifically why you think that I am a leftist.
Goodguy
1mo ago
About the assassination attempt: look, it's just clear to me that there is nothing necessarily surprising or conspiratorial about the Secret Service fucking up after successfully protecting one of the most hated figures in US history, who also constantly does outdoor rallies, for 10 years. It would be surprising if they didn't eventually fuck up.
As for your second paragraph, I think that you profoundly misunderstand where I am coming from. I have spent years regularly arguing against people who engage in anti-Trump hysteria. As recently as a few months ago, I was telling lib friends that their horror of Trump was overblown and misguided. I'm not some kind of crypto leftist who is here to convince people to hate Trump, for fuck's sake. I am telling you the truth, which is that until recently I thought Trump was part good and part bad but I felt he would be effectively contained by checks and balances, but I am now worried because I am beginning to see the checks and balances waver. You may agree with me, you may disagree with me, but the reality is that I am not making a bad faith argument. I am literally just telling you about the evolution of my political thought. A few months ago I really thought that Trump's second term would be a nothingburger, both because Trump's first term was a nothingburger and because I assumed that libs and leftists would put up more resistance than they actually are.
The idea that I "inexplicably trust" the media is absurd to me. I have spent years criticizing the media to anyone who will listen. If you assume that I am some slavish devotee of the media, you are just plain wrong. I hate and distrust the mainstream media, but that doesn't mean that I have to like Trumpism.
Goodguy
1mo ago
If I'm a standard Blue-Tribe American democrat or leftist I must be a weird one, given that I have literally never voted for a Democrat in my life and I regularly criticize communists. I swear, sometimes I feel like this site is becoming too much of an echo chamber where anyone who is not actually right-wing is assumed to have leftist sympathies or whatever. I hate the woke, but that doesn't mean that I want to support what seem to me like weird, ideologically fervent right-wingers who are displaying the same sort of authoritarian tendencies, tribal emotionality, and lust for conquest that the woke displayed.
It's possible. The Secret Service are humans, not superpowered ninjas from a movie. They are good at what they do, but the reality is that there are probably like 30 million people in this country who would happily kill Trump if they could do it and get away with it. The Secret Service has managed to successfully protect Trump for 10 years, through hundreds of outdoor rallies and so on. They're not perfect, so it's rational that they eventually fucked up. One might argue that it's weird that the two assassination attempts that we know of that even came close both happened shortly before the election, but that can be explained by the fact that just before the election is precisely when random lone wolves would be most motivated to try to kill Trump.
It might seem weird that the Secret Service would not do anything in reaction to someone telling them they see a guy on the roof with a gun... but at the end of the day, it's a job for them. We all have bad days on the job when we're tired or whatever. Besides, if I my job was protecting Trump for years and having to stand around in all kinds of weather conditions listening to him ramble for hours, and someone told me that there was a reason to think Trump might be about to get shot, I can easily imagine even as an elite Secret Service operator being like "fuck who cares, I'm tired of all this shit".
Goodguy
1mo ago
The way I look at it, Trump is:
- Someone who does a lot more outdoor rallies than most prominent politicians.
- One of the most reviled politicians in US history, among a large subset of the population.
The Secret Service might be good, but they are not perfect. It's not surprising if they just genuinely slipped up after almost 10 years of protecting Trump.
Goodguy
1mo ago
I'm in favor of a brand of classical liberalism that is pragmatic and acknowledges things like HBD, that is anti-woke because it values judging people as individuals rather than based on the average characteristics of the groups they belong to, to the extent that this is feasible. Classical liberalism has a pragmatic approach to issues like population group gaps. The fact that this approach has not been followed for the most part is no reason for me to switch my actual politics, although it may be a good reason for me to switch my strategies of messaging and optics.
I question your assumption that centrists do not have to deal with reality. Why would that be the case? If anything, it seems to me that us centrists are dealing more actually with reality than either left or right vanguards are. The left and right vanguards, to me, seem like they are existing in airy clouds of their own imagined worlds, driven ahead by self-reinforcing echo chambers and the thrill of owning their enemies.
I didn't vote for Trump. I left the presidential vote blank. Yes, I feel a bit stupid, although I certainly don't regret not voting for Harris, but I think given how much libs have flexed their muscles in various politically effective ways over the course of the last 10 years, I can be forgiven for thinking that they would put up more of a fight against Trump 2: The Trumpening than they actually are. Well, in any case, it seems that I was wrong.
I did think that Trump would roll over and lose to the same move twice. His first term left me assuming that given a second term, he would spend all his time tweeting and eating McDonalds on some bed in the White House. I think I really underestimated the team that he gathered around himself since 2020. They have proven to be effective and committed, and have caught me by surprise.
Goodguy
1mo ago
There is no real evidence that "they", as in some deep state group, even tried to kill him once much less 2-5 times. As for the color revolution idea, while I hated the 2020 riots, the notion that they were organized to hurt Trump has never made much sense to me. Realistically, such riots would tend to make as many people more likely to vote for Trump as less likely to vote for him.
I just assume that if the deep state actually set up a shooting to assassinate Trump, they would probably succeed at killing him. It's hard for me to believe that they would manage to get a shooter within fairly easy range of him, yet the shooter would miss. The lone wolf theory seems way more plausible to me. In any case, if the deep state has had 10 years in which to kill Trump and they haven't done it, then they are fairly irrelevant as a political force, which is part of my original point.
As for the progressive status quo, I don't know where you are getting that from. I disagree with progressives on a range of issues, including HBD, policing, and the economic consequences of socialism. The average progressive would certainly not classify me as a fellow progressive if exposed to my unfiltered political ideas.
Goodguy
1mo ago
Trump just tweeted "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
I know that Belisarius thinks I'm a far-leftist (lol), but I think that a fair reading my post history will show that I am what I present myself as, more or less a classical liberal who hates both the left and the right.
I've spent a lot of time and energy both online and offline defending Trump and Trumpism from the often hysterically-phrased accusation that it is fascist, a huge threat, etc. I feel a bit like an idiot now, to be frank. I still hate the woke and am somewhat glad that Trumpism rose up to halt the woke's authoritarian tendencies... but lord, more and more I wish that it had been almost anything other than Trumpism doing it. The argument that Trumpism is fundamentally a classical liberal force is becoming more and more absurd almost by the hour, in my opinion.
Accelerationists (the three or four actual ones for whom it's not just a funny pretense) must be rubbing their hands raw with glee right now. Things are moving very fast.
As much as I appreciate some of what Trumpism is doing to upend stale norms and wokism, at this point I, and probably many other centrists are starting to think "shit, maybe the hysterical libs had a point about these people". And if politics is making me start to side even slightly with literal Redditors, you know that things are bad and crazy.
My biggest mistake, I think, was to extremely overestimate libs and the left. I really thought they would manage to blunt Trumpism's worst impulses and there would be a sort of stalemate like there was during Trump's first term. But libs and the left seem to be missing. Turns out that there is no deep state waiting with sharp fangs and CIA assassins to stop the orange man as soon as he tries to actually do anything that hurts the Blob. Instead, there are only old tired bureaucrats and the occasional protester wearing a pussy hat.
Whoops. Well, so much for that. I was wrong. And this shit is starting to be a bit genuinely alarming. I think I am, actually, getting tired of "winning". I wanted the woke to be defeated by classical liberals, not by a rage-filled vengeful gaggle of right-wing revolutionaries.
Goodguy
1mo ago
I appreciate many things about the new regime and their direct, bold willingness to explode old and stupid taboos. But I feel no sense of glory or triumph. The new regime, at their emotional baseline heart, is just as insane as the old. Maybe even more, because they are provoked and maddened by having been oppressed for years by the old regime. While I appreciate much of what they are currently doing, I do not trust them in any way. I fear that these are not principled classical liberals in their emotional core, they are vengeful radicals. I wish that they really were principled classical liberals, but my reading of what they do and say tells me that unfortunately, they are not. I appreciate that they are correcting the nonsense of the old regime, but I do not trust their new regime in the slightest bit.
Goodguy
1mo ago
If I have to make a choice between the twitter racists and the race communists
Reading it put in this stark way makes me glad that I find both equally disgusting. And no, I do not have to make a choice between them. Why would I? We're not in a civil war, so far at least. I'm not going to die if I continue to despise both of these tribal groups. I get that if we were in a hot civil war, I'd probably have to either leave the country or pick one of the tribal groups, just to survive. But even if, in that situation, I picked one, I wouldn't really be picking it, I would just be pretending to in order to survive, and I would happily go over to the other side if it offered me better opportunities. Internally, I am pretty sure that I will never actually choose to support either of these tribal groups. And that's in a hot civil war situation! In today's situation, I don't even have to pretend to pick one of those two groups. I can, and do, freely say that both utterly disgust me.
I don't think that would be an appropriate response. If that's an appropriate response, then it's also appropriate to tell a man who gets punched by another man in the street that he should just git gud. But part of the whole point of society is that we are supposed to have a dedicated force that prevents people from physically assaulting each other, instead of every single man having to be a martial artist or having to find some kind of mafia to defend him.
More options
Context Copy link