Rosencrantz2
1d ago
Finland clearly joined to prepare for a possible Russian attack in the medium term future.
Rosencrantz2
4d ago
I would never say that a type of joke is "always" unfunny but if a joke has no twist or self-flatters the teller without much seeming awareness of the vanity involved (e.g. Maga thinking of itself as Gondor), it comes across as flat footed too me and lacks the element of unexpectedness I would need to enjoy it. It's not fake learned behaviour to no longer enjoy in general jokes about women being ugly, any more than it is fake learned behaviour to grow out of all kinds of one dimensional humour (mother in law jokes, dumb Irish jokes, etc). With exceptions for actually inventive jokes in those categories.
Rosencrantz2
6d ago
But maybe what's actually funny is your troll act?
Rosencrantz2
6d ago
That is what I thought. Doesn't work for me as comedy even slightly, it just seems kind of mean spirited and slightly moves me from "4b is a slightly absurd reaction" to "man, their detractors are even worse."
Rosencrantz2
6d ago
What about that do you find funny? (I'm not even certain that I get it.)
Rosencrantz2
9d ago
I'm torn! In this thought experiment the dictatorship still has a majority population that is bent on genocide and they may get their way in time (else the dictator may have to genocide them to maintain power). But anyway, you can't go from 'prefers a benevolent dictatorship to a genocidal democracy' to 'doesn't care about democracy at all'. I didn't say democracy was the ultimate and only value I have, I just don't agree that no one cares about it.
Rosencrantz2
10d ago
I don't see how covid presented much of an opportunity for Trump to cement his power. It was a hot potato he had to handle and made life more difficult for him.
Rosencrantz2
10d ago
Legally, yeah.
Rosencrantz2
10d ago
So why didn't he become a dictator during the first four years he was president? I've never heard a good response to this one. He was already president for four years, and yet we still have democracy. He's a known quantity.
A couple of things to this:
(1) It's hard to become a dictator in the US, would be one huge reason. When people are worried he's going to 'become a dictator' there are a lot of steps that would need to happen, only some of which he has any control over. The right war, the right resistance, the right economic resentments etc. He's not likely to declare himself dictator against the popular will, it's far more likely he'd subvert normal democratic norms and processes by consent. (2) When people find Trump's dictator-forward attitudes alarming, it's not only because they think there is a practical danger of him subverting democracy. It's that it feels like an offence against the office, akin to having a new vicar appointed who is loudly atheist. (Which actually I would like, but you get the analogy.)
Based on the above, I presume that you would thereby see my judgement as faulty. But the feeling is not mutual. I don't see your judgement to oppose Trump as incorrect; I just think you're a different type of person than me and you have different values, so of course you would think differently. You see me as faulty, whereas I just see you as different; and difference is not in itself a bad thing. Does this fact give you any pause?
I mean, yeah, correct, this is one difference between right and left. A huge part of the pain of this election is (a) feeling a degree of judgement towards the electorate, but then also (b) feeling terrible about this because it seems to confirm the right's stereotypes of the left as being judgemental.
I think the right's self image of being very tolerant of different opinions is massively exaggerated though: there are tonnes of people on the right who absolutely revel in liberal tears and obviously loathe their political opponents. You say you just see me as different but in the end our ideas are probably incommensurate so if you are going to impose your beliefs on mine (as is the right of those who win elections), how do you feel okay about it if you don't think your ideas are superior but just different? Do you just see it as a valid exercise of your tastes?
Rosencrantz2
10d ago
What do you mean? I can vote against him and campaign against him. Maybe I'll stand for office, I think my 'Stop the Gay-o-Caust' messaging would be quite popular. That is all the recourse I am entitled to.
Rosencrantz2
10d ago
Trump just spent four years claiming the Dems are an existential threat to democracy and stole an election, why didn't Trump supporters stop squawking on social media and buy weapons to assassinate them?
Rosencrantz2
10d ago
That is cynicism gone too far. People care about living in a democracy because democracy appears to work better than the alternatives. I'd rather live in a democracy than a dictatorship whose policies match my beliefs, because in the latter case, if the government changes, I'll have no recourse. Do you think that is so unusual as a position?
Rosencrantz2
10d ago
I don't know if I can do justice to this request right now but I'll try briefly to at least copperman the 'democracy in peril' argument. I think we have plenty of evidence that Trump admires dictators and wants to become one and will work towards becoming one. Will he do this systematically and openly? Well no, both for characterological reasons and because it would be self-undermining for him to be seen to be doing this. But if opportunities to take more power come along or can be engineered he won't hesitate to seize them, and he is in a position where he is likely to get these opportunities, especially as he has built a following who trust him above anyone or any organisation. I find it likely that – in the event he's still alive and energetic – he'll be the real power behind the throne of the next Republican candidate to an extent we've never seen before (Putin/Medvedev style). Most of his voters will actively want this arrangement.
I don't really want to get into evidencing all of this – I would be supplying tonnes of quotes of his, that you're likely familiar with already and that Trump's admirers can just choose to say are meant non-literally. To people like me and I suspect George Saunders, Trump comes across as a creature who is transparently knowable. There is no mystery. You can follow his thought processes and drives exactly and see where they'll take him, and you can observe that he's not subject to political norms that do hold other politicians back. (Now it's very interesting that at least lots of his voters appear to either not mind this, or to see something else in him, and does this fact give me pause? Sometimes, but ultimately 99% of people I esteem and respect in the field of ideas/politics/philosophy oppose Trump so this makes it pretty easy for me to conclude that his supporters are the ones with faulty judgement.)
An additional dimension is that 'democracy is in peril' is not only about elections. It's also about the ability of ideas to face off against one another in a somewhat mutually comprehended arena. Trump and/or his followers endanger this because they have special abilities to believe in lies (and I do see this as a collective and advantageous 'ability' rather than simply a failing). Of course people in this forum just think Dems lie more cunningly, whereas Trump's birtherism or election-denying is to them more honest, because less legalistic and more bald-faced. So again, I am not going to try to provide evidence, but this is the gist of my case.
Rosencrantz2
10d ago
I (as a very liberal person who detests Trump but sometimes also find the reaction to him unhelpfully hysterical, or at least unfocused in how it's hysterical) found this post from George Saunders to be quite helpful: https://georgesaunders.substack.com/p/a-slightly-altered-course
Quote:
I am, above all else, an artist. As an artist, I am trying to be interested in what has just happened. I am trying to maintain two ideas at once: 1) Most people who voted for Trump are nice people. (I know this because many close friends and family members voted for him and, well, more than half of voters did), and 2) Our democracy really may be in peril. Trump has repeatedly said things to indicate this and people who worked closely with him the first time have said this.
So, what I’m trying to figure out is: how do the people who voted for Trump, some of whom I love, not see what I see in him? And, also, importantly: what am I not seeing, about the way the world looks to them? I'm not saying that the way they see it is right – I feel very strongly otherwise - but I am saying, or accepting that, yes, it really does look that way to them.
This mirrors my reactions to the election and in its curiosity seems more constructive than just hysteria posting. Would it help to share it with your circle??
Rosencrantz2
12d ago
I think that when the situation becomes scary, everything changes. Another covid-style pandemic wouldn't do it, until and unless hospitals became overrun on a whole new level. If it was something much more horrific, I reckon you'd be surprised how quickly people's current bravado would disappear.
Rosencrantz2
13d ago
Depends if it's a situation as unfamiliar as the first one, where medical establishments and governments were truly panicking. That fear is transmissible and I don't think there'd be that much resistance. If it's what looks like a repeat of Covid though, and there is less of a sense of the unknown, I do think people would likely resist.
Rosencrantz2
16d ago
I read most of this thread and still having trouble understanding what's going on. In what sense did the democrats do this?
Rosencrantz2
24d ago
I mean if he goes to Mars and back, then who knows. But he doesn't put people at ease and is not gifted as a communicator, so he's got quite a lot to overcome if he is going to get through all the normal gates political candidates go through (debates, speeches, interviews etc).
Rosencrantz2
24d ago
If they are not consenting in their minds, something has just happened to them they didn't want or ask for. Most normal people are never going to be happy about that. If they are consenting from the word go, but don't indicate it, then, well, that's just a weirdo.
To be honest I find it easier to imagine someone who shrugs off being beaten up because it gives them a good story or makes them feel more alive, than I do this.
Rosencrantz2
24d ago
I don't think this is a topic that is THAT secret. It's well known that rape victims sometimes orgasm and feel awful about that, and that is by no means a completely taboo topic in therapeutic communities. (It probably is in many relationships though.) Neither is it at all obvious whether that would make the ordeal overall more or less damaging. If it helps to think of this from a male perspective (I totally assume 98% of people here are male but maybe you're not), think about the female guards at Abu Ghraib torturing male prisoners via sexual touching etc. It's easy to imagine getting turned on in the house of your enemy, and it's just another power your enemy has over you in addition to electric shocks, waterboarding, dogs etc.
The part where a victim just shrugs it off and feels fine, that story I find much less likely and here's where it's complicated. The victim may well feel and tell themselves that they're fine, but then go and act differently in their lives (this is basically the life of many porn actresses). This is damage or impact that the victim can't acknowledge. Is there also sometimes a case where a rape victim can just shrug off what happened and go back to life as it was, just an experience for the wank bank, never to be considered any further? Hmm. Sounds conceptually possible. But then so is it possible to imagine someone who doesn't mind any kind of crime happening to them. It is hard to know quite what to do with that possibility.
This seems exactly right and I dunno from this if you're voting for him or not, so maybe it's a characterisation people on both sides can agree to. I also agree that a new apex predator will emerge (the Marlo to his Stringer Bell) but the interesting thing is what they will have had to go through to be sharpened into such a new variety of shark. Although I really cannot see Musk as commanding much authority with either ordinary people or non-SV elites, I do think Silicon Valley could produce the right combination of brutal drive combined with (lying) idealistic rhetoric. There would need to be an extra ordeal or formative chapter in a candidate's background though for them to reach a broader audience. Vance in theory has both though I feel like he's speedrun poverty and tech too quickly to be adequately honed by either.
Rosencrantz2
26d ago
I don't know what to say, I think Israel suffers terribly from being so unpopular on the global stage.
Rosencrantz2
27d ago
Why though? You could say the same about any level of geography. "I don't think people should care how "popular" their town is on the national stage" etc.
Rosencrantz2
27d ago
It is interesting to me that Trump's odds of winning the election are at 60% on Manifold (1), and Harris's are at 47% (2). How does this work and does it indicate insufficient liquidity?
(1) https://manifold.markets/ManifoldPolitics/will-trump-win-the-2024-election
(2) https://manifold.markets/ManifoldPolitics/if-joe-biden-drops-out-and-endorses
Even if you don't think that Russia has territorial expansion aspirations (which it does, but agreeing to disagree ...), the Finnish public is afraid of Russia invading and wants to defend against it by joining NATO. You can say that it's symbolic by the leadership, and the public is being tricked into being afraid of something that would never happen, but what is the evidence for that?
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