wingdingspringking
No bio...
User ID: 1348
wingdingspringking
1mo ago
"Probability is interesting, but when it comes down to it, the only thing it's good for is gambling"
I mean, yeah. But on a fundamental level, just about every decision we make is a gamble of some sort. Any significant choice in life is boils down to a decision to expend some amount of time/money/energy with the hope of reaping some reward. Any information that helps you make these decisions more clearly is therefore extremely useful.
wingdingspringking
1mo ago
Agreed. If I could be guaranteed that Trump would be dead within 6 months and Vance would take over, I'd actually consider giving them money.
wingdingspringking
1mo ago
What if they were to force them on a non-allied government? If completely unconstrained by world opinion/sanctions, Israel might do something like force march the entire population of Gaza into Lebanon and then just annex Gaza. It's not like there's much Lebanon/Hezbollah could do to stop it.
To be fair, I don't think the current government is capable of human rights abuses on that scale despite what its detractors might say. But after a few more iterations of the cycles of violence, who knows. Not to mention the fact that Israel's government is going to be increasingly fundamentalist as the ultra-orthodox become an ever larger segment of the population.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
I agree. I think an independent judiciary is one of the better aspects of the US government system, and I'd really hate to see it done away with. That being said, in my mind, it comes down to probabilities. I think simply allowing Trump to win after having attempted to circumvent the election results the first time would signal that doing so is now fair game. I think we would see far fewer uncontested elections. And I think ultimately it could lead to electoral violence in the fairly near future.
On the other hand, I think the probability of a Democratic sweep is relatively low. Even in the case of a Democratic trifecta, I think the likelihood that all senate Democrats would be onboard with something like this is very low. And finally, if that law did somehow pass, I suspect that it would then be held up in courts for a very long time before being implemented, if not struck down entirely. In other words, the risk of the worst case scenario occurring there is extremely low.
So by that measure, the safer path is to go with Harris (and all republicans down ballot). It's certainly not a pleasant vote. But I'd like to think the reasoning behind it is sound.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
Sure, there are some dirty tactics used with absentee ballots. I'm actually all for election security reform. I have no problem with voter ID requirements.
My problem is that the more grandiose claims of election interference are a lot harder to believe. Claims that the election was stolen by fake ballots being added to the count. Claims that dead people were voting in sufficient numbers to swing the election. I've never seen anything that supports these claims with sufficient evidence to be convincing.
As for the "gains", well, if you had evidence of a conspiracy to overturn a US Presidential election, that evidence could be used to get you almost anything you could want. Huge amounts of money, either from the right or from foreign powers. National fame. Or maybe just assuaging your own guilt. If you had thousands of people involved in something like this, you don't think a single one of them would defect?
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
To be fair, I'm strongly against changing the Supreme Court. The difference there is that the Democrats are still working within the framework of government that exists. The constitution gives the president the right to appoint justices, and there is no cap to the number. Would it be a break with tradition to pack the court? Yes. Would i support an amendment capping the number of justices? Also yes. But the fact remains that everything being done is following a precedent that has existed for quite some time. Partisan justices are nothing new. Even threats of court packing are nothing new (FDR).
When you start acting outside of the institutional framework, you get into really dangerous territory, especially with respect to elections. The threat of escalation is high. If one side does something, the other side will do it too. I really don't want to see every election being questioned by the loosing side. If that happens, it's only a matter of time before we get real political violence.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
Violence in the "state's monopoly on violence" sense of the word. If the state is physically preventing you from doing something you are otherwise physically capable of doing, that is the state exercising said monopoly. Were the state to do that, we would likely see real violence afterwards.
If the state is merely making it harder to get to polling stations, well, they already do that. Here's a sensationalized news story about how the right is making it harder for minorities to vote by selectively closing polling stations. In actuality, I'm quite sure that both sides do this when they have control over where to place polling stations. That's the nature of politics. Anything that hasn't specifically been banned is in play.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
If violence is being used to prevent voting, I really doubt anything we are saying matters. At that point we are inches away from armed civil conflict.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
"Should" in what sense of the word? In an ideal world? Sure. In actuality, organizations act in their own interest. This is true for state agencies, private organizations, sovereign states, etc.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
I would vote for someone like that in a heartbeat. So would a lot of people I know. I really hoped that it would go more in that direction after the 2020 election. And I somehow still hope that it will go in that direction after this election. That may be unwarranted optimism. But I don't think it's outside of the realm of possibilities.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
Cheating in what sense of the word? Influence campaigns? Those have been run by everyone. Intelligence agencies, state actors, private companies, etc. Anyone who has something to gain by one administration winning can try and convince people. That's how the system runs.
But if by cheating you mean what Trump keeps claiming, which is that large numbers of fake ballots are being added to the count, then no, I do not believe it. I would need to see pretty strong evidence to substantiate this claim.
The reason I'm skeptical is because cheating in such a way would require a huge number of people keeping silent. Given that any one of them would stand to gain a lot by defecting, it really seems unlikely that all would keep silent. Contrast this with something like Epstein being killed. Do I think that was a conspiracy? Quite possibly. The number of people involved was small. That would have been much easier to keep under wraps.
Given the difference between our current living situation in the US and that of a failed state like Somalia, I'd say we have a lot left to lose. Are the policies of the current administration chipping away at the foundations of society? Yes. Are they likely to cause its collapse in the next 4 years? Probably not.
As I said in the original post, I don't have any particular attachment to democracy. It's just the means that we chose to uphold the power of an aristocracy. What I do have an attachment to is the current system and everything that's been built on top of it. Is it long term stable? No. But nothing is long term stable. I'd like it to last as long as possible, since change to something new is likely to be violent and chaotic.
On a slightly more optimistic note, I don't agree that we have no control. The aristocracy is willing to grant the population a decent amount of say over cultural things in return for their economic hegemony. A lot of the idpol stuff on the left was selected for precisely because it doesn't interfere with the aristocracy owning things. So there's no reason to think they wouldn't be amenable to the culture moving in a different direction as long as they can still own everything.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
Or maybe a sufficient number of the people backing him are peeled away by some other movement. Just because the competition this cycle was weak doesn't mean it always will be.
Or maybe Trump has a stroke. Or maybe age takes its toll and he starts having that same vacant look Biden does. Assuming that an individual low likelihood event wont happen may be safe. But assuming no low likelihood events will happen is not.
That's not exactly a good faith interpretation, but I'll answer it anyway. 12 years ago I didn't have sufficient experience with the world to realize that human nature makes utopias impossible. I think that's the fundamental fallacy of the left. And I think that as people get older (assuming they are willing to consider new viewpoints), they tend to accept that. Hence the old adage about people becoming more conservative as they age.
So no. I didn't care about "binders-full-of-women". I believed at the time what I had been taught that leftist policies could make the world better. I no longer believe that. That being said, I would like to hold on to some of what we currently have in terms of a society. And subverting faith in democracy is one of the fastest ways to lose that.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
I was referring more to the entire legal process that was attempted. As for the Jan 6th riot, to me that's a non-issue. More of a media circus than anything.
My primary concern is simply that democracy is a lot like the banking system in the sense that it requires everyone to have faith in the system working. Once a sufficient number of people stop having faith in it, it ceases to function. Because of that, I think claims of cheating should be taken quite seriously, but false claims should be treated very harshly.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
Economics and military strength are not directly linked per say, but there is a lot of overlap. There are certainly incentives for allied countries to hold large amounts of US assents, as well as to allow US companies access to their markets. We take for granted the fact that McDonald's is even allowed to exist in a lot of other countries. Without the implicit threat of force, we could see our access to foreign markets (both as a producer and as a consumer) diminish in the long term. And this would certainly make us poorer overall.
As to your other point, I agree that a lot of democratic policies are having an adverse effect on living conditions. If there were simply a vote on whether or not to continue with those policies, I would certainly vote no. But as it is, there are more factors to consider.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
I hear a lot of people say that. It seems like a pretty big assumption. There are a lot of things that can happen over the next 4 years.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
I've heard that argument from the right a lot. And quite frankly, I think it's an attempt to rationalize away the fact that Trump is an exceptionally bad candidate. Will the Democrats come up with reasons why people should vote for them and not the Republicans? Of course, that's what they do. The Republicans do the same thing. Will everyone buy it? No.
This is certainly anecdotal, but the last time i voted for a Democrat at the top of the ticket was Obama. And frankly, were I to have the choice again, I would go with Romney. Not everyone is consistent.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
No, an autocracy requires an autocrat. The democrats are most definitely an aristocracy. They have different factions that vie for power and influence. Also, all of those things you mentioned are within the realm of legal possibility. Do I support them? No. Are they legally tenable within the US framework of government with enough votes? Yes. Gerrymandering is perhaps the best example of this. And both sides do it.
In contrast, acting to subvert faith in/circumvent the legal means of transferring power is not only breaking the rules of the system, it threatens to undermine the whole thing.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
It's simply a vote against Trump. He's the linchpin holding the Democratic coalition together. Once he's gone, many of us want nothing more to do with the Democratic party.
As for why I'm so against Trump I have a couple of reasons. They basically boil down to a) I like living in a stable society and b) I like living in a rich society.
Stability:
There are really only 2 stable forms of government: Autocracy or aristocracy. We live in an aristocracy. These tend to be the more stable of the two, since there are competing factions with overlapping interests. Because of that, it's hard to enact change without stepping on anyone's toes. So change comes slowly. This allows a lot of institutions to be built on the bedrock of a (somewhat) stable system.
When an aristocracy changes into an autocracy, things usually get ugly. You get a lot of purges, and often a bunch of erratic government behavior. Look at the early Roman empire. For a more modern analogy, look at China. They were briefly an aristocracy with competing factions holding each other in check. Now they're an autocracy with Xi making questionable decisions. Life in China now does not look as good as it did a decade ago. Yes, there are multiple reasons for this. But the change in government structure is certainly one of them.
I think the whole "stolen election" affair moves us a lot closer to autocracy. Mainly by casting doubt on the electoral process, but also by normalizing the use of extra-legal means(fake electors) to hold on to power. To be fair, i don't think Trump will become an autocrat. He's not Julius Caesar. But he might be the Gracchi. Using populism to upend the old order doesn't usually lead to a better system. Instead, you just get chaos.
Wealth:
The US has a large empire. It is largely economic but there is a military component. The US dollar is only the reserve currency because the US is able to project force around the world. When the perception of strength goes, the huge inflows of cash will go too. The more the US leans into isolationism, the faster this will happen. And Trump's refusal to support the provinces/maintain the boarders is really pushing us in that direction.
All that being said, I'm not a big fan of the current culture of the "aristocracy" in the US. I think it's decadent and weak. But I also think that reform from within is possible. I think culturally the pendulum is swinging. Maybe not back to where it was, but certainly away from some of the craziness that we just saw over the last decade. I'd much rather see where that process goes, as opposed to opting for populist chaos.
At the end of the day I'm an institutionalist. I think the institutions in this country took a long time to evolve, and I'm not ready to abandon them, even if some of the people running them are crazed cultists.
wingdingspringking
3mo ago
I’m probably not a good representative of Harris backers, but I’m definitely way more enthusiastic about her than I was about Biden. I’d say this boils down to the fact that she has a decent chance of winning if polls are to be believed. Going from certain defeat to having a fighting chance is invigorating. Something akin to a last minute touchdown that ties up a game. All of this is in spite of the fact that I find the majority of her policy positions abhorrent.
wingdingspringking
4mo ago
How low can they go? This is one of the few places in modern society where true Darwinism shines through. At some point, we've selected for the people whose reproductive drive is strong enough to overcome the hurdles presented to it by the modern world. At that point, rates go up.
wingdingspringking
9mo ago
The rate of incarceration of black men is 1 in 81 according to this: https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/the-color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons-the-sentencing-project/. So slightly under 1.5 percent. While high, that's not enough to slant the demographics highly in favor of women. I would think that the state of inner city black communities might be due to other factors. Likewise, post war societies are typically full of heavily traumatized men with severe PTSD. That might account for some of the behavior you're describing.
As for the actual process, I don't doubt that there would be some major challenges. But on the other hand, the process by which gametes are formed is very well understood. In addition, there are multiple species that do have different sex ratios at birth. Given that their gamete formation process is relatively similar to ours, there are likely several avenues that could be explored.
wingdingspringking
9mo ago
Two problems there. 1) The unforeseen consequences of modifying human psychology are very difficult to speculate about. 2) The engineering required to do this would be many orders of magnitude more difficult.
Why do people protest? At the most fundamental level, it is because a large group of people on some level have done a cost benefit analysis and decided that protesting is more in their interest than not protesting. Their underlying motivations might be different (social status for some, entertainment for others, etc). But everyone needs a reason to be there, and that reason needs to be sufficiently positive so as to overcomes any negatives.
Let's look at a very safe, very "developed" society like SK. What are the positives of partaking or supporting such a movement.
What are the negatives? Almost nothing.
1)Men might be mad at you. But there's not much risk there. Especially for younger women, since said men will still likely make concessions in order to have a chance to sleep with them.
2)The older generation might be mad. But in modern society, many young people are financially independent. So the older generation has much more limited leverage.
Contrast this to a less developed society. What are your benefits? Possible concessions (with a lower probability) and personal fulfillment. That's probably it. Your peer group will probably distance themselves from you out of fear of sharing the negatives, which are:
There are probably many more negatives, but I think those three are probably sufficient to deter most people. So looking at a cost benefit analysis, the choice to protest in SK vs in SA looks pretty clear.
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