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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   35746 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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This is really interesting. I'm not pro-Trump and I'm not anti-Trump, but I am anti-anti-Trump. But I will say that this sort of thing unnerves me a little bit.

Trump is clearly used to wheelin' n' dealin' big business, callin' the shots, callin' the bluffs, making bluffs, making quick decisions based on gut instinct and an innate knowledge of human behavior and (company) politics. People just aren't used to this in the POTUS. For most politicians, everything needs to be carefully carefully considered, because the cost of a mistake could be not just that quarterly profits are down, but rather global catastrophe.

I admire that Trump is willing to try this out for the US, and maybe it's what we need in some ways to get us to prosperity, but I also fear this and the consequences of what happens when a nation who's more dangerous calls his bluffs and his tactics. He could be doing the right thing by trying these tactics, or it could be sheer insanity and the result of putting someone in a position they're not really the right person for. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

Most of the great events in world history happened because people made decisions based on gut, and put personal negotiation above political correctness. It obviously has the possibility of causing instability — but the love of stability over significance and valor is the stuff of the neoliberal consensus, which is collapsing.

All things considered, I would prefer to live in interesting times to boring times, and I’d argue the revealed preferences of human beings are the same. Note the way veterans obsess about their service, or the way pledges go through humiliating rituals only to be bossed around and corralled by half-sober frat brothers, and then remember the situation fondly! And moreover: note how inside Russia there’s immense nostalgia for the rule of Stalin of all people, and note how pumped up the Chinese people are to take Taiwan. People would rather, especially in hindsight, live through a time that will go in the history books than one that will be forgotten. People would rather fly high, and end up too close to the sun, than swing low and drown in the deep. Would you rather be Abraham Lincoln, or James Garfield? Both were shot, but only one was shot because he was historically important.

There are a great many interesting places on Earth right now should you so desire an escape from the oppression of peace and stability.

The motte is "peace and stability" while the bailey is a smothering, devouring-mother managerial state where nothing happens too fast or slow and all the sharp corners have been sanded off of every political decision. There's a spectrum between the smothering hospice-care managerial state and biker gang anarchism, and just because someone would like to move a little further away from the former does not mean that they want to bring about the latter.

Fair enough, it was a dumb comment.

How much of this is stated vs revealed preferences? Would many modern day Russians actually go back to communist living standards?

Economists usually say it's 20-60-20: 20% of Russians have greatly improved their living standards, 20% of Russians have it much worse, 60% have about the same living standards. For the nitpickers, they are comparing extrapolated living standards, not 1975 with 2025.

So about 80% would not protest against switching to a planned economy.

Were living standards rising for the average Russian actually rising in the tail end of the soviet union? Like obviously factory workers in 1989 were much better off than in 1950 but were they better off than in 1980?

In the 80s? Not really, I'd say they stagnated. The oil glut really upset the economy, which relied on trading oil and gas for food.

The whole idea of perestroika was to reboot the industral sector and turn it into a profit center, but it backfired spectacularly.

but I also fear this and the consequences of what happens when a nation who's more dangerous calls his bluffs and his tactics.

Which is the strong nation whose elite will be ok with not being able to travel or transiting the US and using the US banking system. I am fairly sure that even Russian elites are thinking of coup every time that they have to make a connection trough Istanbul.

Russian business elites have their Maltese and Cypriot passports, Chinese their Canadian ones. You would need to sanction by country of origin to target them, which nobody has yet really done.

Owning a non-Russian passport does not change the fact that virtually all flights between Russia and EU are gone

What indication is there that he would try the same tactic with a nation that's more dangerous? I don't see any reason to believe that there was any bluff involved - being willing to impose tariffs that would be inconvenient for Americans but catastrophic for Colombians is a powerful tool of economic leverage that Trump seems willing to exert on a country that really has nothing they can do to meaningfully retaliate.

He is already trying this tactic with our allies, which is making them upset, and he doesn't care. Why should our allies care about what we want when we demonstrate such hostility?

Why should our allies care about what we want when we demonstrate such hostility?

Because they're completely and totally dependent upon the US economically and militarily. They have no hand they can play without being wiped out, and the previous administration has done far worse to them - preventing the Europeans from buying Russian gas is a hundred times worse for them than whatever Trump is doing.

Why do you think being hostile to our allies that are dependent on us with no regard for their reaction will not result in them gaining independence, not so very much unlike the origins of North America?

I honestly hope it does - I am not a supporter of the American Empire by any means.

But right now America has the whip hand, and the desperate circumstances of the ruling classes means that they're going to abuse the Europeans until they grow a pair (and a complete replacement for SWIFT, US financial markets etc). That might be a big problem for the America of the future, who will potentially regret this hostility when the Europeans break away, but that's not something the incredibly short-sighted people running the empire care about.

I agree with your opinion that Europe needs to gain further independence from North America, if only to aid in reducing its hostility. It’s dismal how many short-sighted people are able to effect America’s future at the moment.

I don't strictly mean this in particular was a bluff. But it's all a part of these types of big business tactics.

Would he try this on other more dangerous countries? I don't really know, but it is worrisome. He went further with North Korea than most others have, but that was probably overall a win. Still though, it's a much bigger risk than most presidents would be willing to take.

There isn’t some magic power line beneath which going full power play on another nation suddenly goes from very smart to very dumb. Trump forced his will on Colombia. On balance, that was probably good. But there are scenarios in which exerting this kind of pressure on a medium sized ally nation could, in fact, be very bad.

I mean what indication is there that Trump would do this to Turkey(more or less alone among middle powers in having multiple options for backers)?

I don't understand how this is a meaningful reply or what you're intending to reply to with the magic power line reference. That there are imaginable scenarios, which have not happened, where this would be a bad play does not suggest to me that the individual making said play would just run it back in the imaginable scenarios where it's a bad play.

Fair point, but I don’t think - in that case - we have had enough time to judge whether this was the right play. To be sure, I think it was probably the play I would have made, but I think it’s important to stay humble.

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