sun_the_second
No bio...
User ID: 2725
sun_the_second
2d ago
How would they do that?
sun_the_second
5d ago
What are the investments to make if one believes that Trumpworld will arrive in 50 years? Given that few seem to really believe it, it should make bank if true.
sun_the_second
8d ago
Without licensing, how can an average homeowner tell the difference between a plumber whose work will catastrophically fail in 6 months and one whose work is unlikely to do that?
sun_the_second
9d ago
You don't really expect people to outright say "damn that Trump, why is he so appealing?" even that's what they feel, do you?
I expect people to say "damn those republicans, why are they so easy to appeal to with what does not appeal to us". Which people do say.
This is completely backwards. There is no evidence she has spent a single day working in McDonalds. It's Trump who's honest here because his "lie" is just advertising, and everybody knows how it works. Kamala is the dishonest one, because people (including you) actually believe she made a factual statement about herself.
This is also how we know people upset at this aren't upset at dishonesty or stolen valor...
I suppose you're right here. I'm not so much criticizing Trump, I'm just incensed that it's working. The way I see it, fool me once means shame on you. But fool me twice, thrice, a million times, and you're an "honest liar" and we're supposed to regard you as someone so detached from truth that it's not even in question whether anyone is actually being deceived.
According to some sources, there is (or was, back when conscription was 2 years and dedovschina was more prevalent) a similar role reversal day in some Russian army bases among conscripts, where the "older" conscripts took on the roles of the novice ones. According to the same sources, this role reversal was not very humbling - none of the novices would dare to subject the "granddads" to the same tribulations they were subjected to, because the next day everything would be back to normal.
I don't know if the slaves in Rome were much consoled by Saturnalian symbolic role reversal. Did they have the presence of mind to think "the master will just go back to his usual oppressive self tomorrow"? Perhaps. Could they state it out loud?
If my leaders are going to put on airs of being worldly, I want them to keep the pretense up for more than one day a year.
sun_the_second
10d ago
but they'll be drowned out by legions that are upset that Trump did something mildly appealing to the common folk.
Where are those legions who express the belief that it is unbefitting of Trump to appeal to the common folk (as opposed to saying it's wrong to falsely appeal)? I've linked mine.
"Of those service workers whose viewpoint I do see on Reddit" had to pass through so many filters that it will bear no resemblance to any remotely normal person. Reddit is a propaganda platform.
What's your platform that is not a propaganda platform?
The only visceral feeling I get here
Here on the Motte? If not, then where?
I agree with other users that it's a clever publicity stunt, in that it will work with his base and the opposing base, naturally, is irrelevant to him. It's also bad, in my personal opinion, because it's transparently dishonest to associate yourself with menial work that you do not do and have never (in my knowledge) done. If Kamala is acting like her time at McDonalds was a nightmare, she's at least being honest even if she'll alienate the voters (likely red-voting anyway) who think menial work is always ennobling.
sun_the_second
10d ago
but no one who's freaking out about it seems to be credibly approaching it from the "stolen valor" angle.
No one? Not one single person on planet Earth? Well sure then.
What's your definition of "someone"?
Do you think /r/antiwork is in any way representative of a typical McDonald's worker?
Well no, I think a typical worker in service industry or any other low-paid job posts on TikTok, not Reddit. Of those service workers whose viewpoint I do see on Reddit, or for example on various discords, they're closer to /r/antiwork in their ideology than to "it's 'onest work".
This isn't about The Motte. It's one of those things that has visceral resonance, and the more you push back against it, the more it will look like Trump had a point to begin with.
Unfortunately, our visceral resonances seem to be at odds.
There's definitely a stolen valor angle. "Kamala had actually worked there while Trump never had a day of retail work in his life". Do you think upper PMC democrats are the ones posting on Reddit about the entire thing being a sham?
McDonalds is the most well-known public-facing minimum wage job, but I don't doubt there'd be stolen valor vitriol over CostCo too.
To me it looks like there's a huge disconnect between themotte's view of a typical democrat voter and reality. Just off the top of my head I'd assume there are more low socioeconomic class "that's why I shit on company time" democrat voters in the country than upper class "mcdonalds is too good for presidents" snobs.
sun_the_second
10d ago
They use the same rhetoric where they want to educate homogenous nationalistic citizens, if that makes you feel better.
sun_the_second
16d ago
Recreation is not a valid use? Why? We have a long list to go through if we just start crossing off anything that's not at the bottom of the Maslow pyramid.
sun_the_second
16d ago
The Society of Critical Care Medicine and the World Health Organization are top authorities who disagree with that.
They do? Good to know! Next time I go volunteering to Gaza, I'll make sure to trust those top authorities and not the Hamas militants next to me.
sun_the_second
16d ago
Also, I was under the impression the most fanatically religious Jews were exempt from conscription, or at least try very hard to avoid military service.
sun_the_second
17d ago
"Willing to stick with it" does not sound as impressive when you're just funding the work, not personally putting your nose to the grinder 12 hours a day. And maybe Musk does put his nose to the grinder, but I don't see him doing that. I see him posting midwit takes on twitter.
He needs a PR team to tell him what to do to look more like the modern Tony Stark and less like, well, Trump.
sun_the_second
19d ago
Is "directionally true" the new buzzword that means "actually not correct, but we wish it was"? Might as well say Johnny's answer to a math problem being "three billion" is "directionally true" when the real answer is "five". It's totally meaningless.
sun_the_second
20d ago
"I want a civic ritual that will unite all of us"
"No, not like that!"
sun_the_second
21d ago
The sentiment is that those Native Americans were more like each other than Europeans and Natives were like each other, and the internal affairs of Natives are, quite literally, different than an invasion from beyond the sea.
sun_the_second
22d ago
Are you familiar with the concept of "password"? It is an ancient empirical test that will give you a yes/no answer on whether someone "knows" something.
You haven't ever seen "protagonist blurts out a random phrase that turns out to be the correct password" in fiction?
sun_the_second
24d ago
As for Israel, as long as the US, or nations in general, maintain border and immigration controls, the State of Israel must continue to exist as a haven for Jewish people persecuted in other countries.
I broadly agree with the sentiment, but, you know, I don't think it's in the Constitution of the United States.
sun_the_second
24d ago
The rub is that hyping up and celebrating the repenter is also part of status. Ask anyone who was a well-behaved and diligent kid with a layabout sibling how they felt when their sibling was praised and hyped up for merely measuring up for once, while their own constant diligence was taken for granted and any lapses were punished much harder than the constant inadequacy of the sibling.
sun_the_second
26d ago
And to be clear my grounds for dismissal are pretty simple. First, this is the go-to story every single time a social media story contradicts or embarrasses the cathedral. It never happens that Russian Trolls are pushing the narrative of Project 2025, or calling Trump a danger to democracy, or calling Republicans fascists. That is never considered trolling. But when the story is something embarrassing to the establishment, that’s the trolls. Kinda interesting how one set of stories is always pushed by, started by, faked by, or amplified by Russia, and the other side absolutely never is.
Based on the "cathedral" and "establishment" phrasing, it looks like you believe the Democrats are basically in control of the country. If so, then why would Russia, should they aim to destabilize, push narratives against the underdog Republicans? They are already losing, if Russia starts helping Democrats they'll just lose harder and then there'll be no destabilization, just securing the Democrat regime.
sun_the_second
27d ago
Even if we assume your empirical evidence is sufficient to ensure humans can be self-sufficient (now and always), Capital_Room did not acknowledge that and you base much of your post on a gotcha that he allegedly did.
sun_the_second
27d ago
That's your block quote. The second quote in my comment is from Capital_Room. They do not match as you say they do.
sun_the_second
27d ago
Here, you acknowledge, but skip right over something key. You acknowledge that being fully self-sufficient is a lower bound. That is, excepting the severely disabled, the vast vast majority of able-bodied humans can, indeed, be self-sufficient, as evidenced by millennia of history.
He said:
than if they try to be fully self-sufficient.
To try is not to be.
sun_the_second
28d ago
This is a very fascinating post and I'll probably ask more questions later, but for now I have one.
Am I understanding you correctly that straight sexual people want there to be no sex and asexual people want there to be as much sex as possible?
Is this meant to imply that we should accept low-class nonwhite people being falsely accused, because they're not us?
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