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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   2088 thread views

Transnational Thursday for February 22, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Are you still doing these, @Soriek? Yours were always great.

Anyway, among the recent news that I've seen was that Milei was able to cut Argentina's spending across the board by passing what amounts to a continuing resolution unilaterally, without needing to consult the legislature, to the point that the budget is now balanced. The reason why this is a cut is because of inflation—if you pay people the same number, but it's now worth half as much, then you're effectively paying less (and since the taxes scale, it works out).

I'm not sure how this affects things politically, but having the option of this seems to avoid some of the problems of government shutdowns that we hav. in the US. I hadn't considered that continuing resolutions could act as a way to constrain spending, whel inflation is so high, as I thought of them rather as a part of the current, problematic US system.

Hey sorry, I’ve been pretty slammed the past few weeks and haven’t had time to really sit down and grind these out, they take a while.

I do have to admit my enthusiasm has been waning a little lately, here and on forum in general. I’ve never been really into the culture war side of things, but I like the userbase here and noticed a lot of people like to talk foreign policy, so this was an attempt to create a central place for that kind of discussion. The hope was for TT to develop into something more community driven / self-sustaining without me, if users were into it. But after nine months it looks likely we won’t reach that; I think last week had zero posts and today has one. Which is fine, if people’s interests just lie elsewhere, not every swing is a hit.

Yeah, I have to admit I've been a consumer of your posts rather than a contributor. But it was immensely interesting to read what you brought up! Thanks for it.

I look forward to these threads, and your contributions to them, even if I rarely have much to add! I don't follow Indian news, largely for my own mental health, so it pains me to have to passively consume most of the time, but consider me another one of the many people who would be sad to see you not continue, even if all we do is upvote and go hmm.

I didn't post in those threads because I'm pretty ignorant on most countries and I don't want to speak just to speak, but I always looked forward to them. I hope you'll find time and energy to keep posting some of it.

I guess the interest has always been somewhat low, but I feel like the downturn might also be because of the mollywhop that was the site rollback.

I like these, for what it's worth.

Understandable. For what it's worth, as someone who is mostly a lurker, these threads are one of the things that keep me lurking.

It's consistently been among the most valuable things I get out of themotte.

Thanks, I'm glad to hear they've been resonating!

I don't post much here in general but I have to say, like many things on The Motte, your Transnational Thursdays are like nothing else I've seen on the internet. I love reading about foreign affairs, and a lot of these countries, you just don't hear about them except for these threads.

If you want to take a break or quit entirely, by all means, go for it. I would just be interested in where you got all the material for your posts in the first place.

Much appreciated!

It's a combination of the news and personal knowledge / connections. I'll pick a country I've been following and read as many articles across as many outlets as possible till I feel like I understand what's going on, then combine it with personal knowledge of the history of the area via books or wikipedia or whatnot. I've also lived in quite a few different countries so know some of their issues from a more personal lens; can talk to my friends about what things look like on the ground.

Try The Economist. It comes out weekly and deals mostly with international affairs.

Ah the Economist! Always predicting the future of the 80s no matter what decade we're in!

I think they should always have been in the main CW thread, which already regularly hosts culture war happenings from other lands.

If there wasn't a standalone place there might have been more engagement on my posts, but I think there would have been less reason for other people to feel like they also had a dedicated place to contribute their own posts. This was borne out after the transition; submissions-other-than-mine did go up a fair amount after making the independent thread, though ofc they're still low. More to the point, I don't like how bitter the culture war thread has become and didn't want every attempt to talk foreign policy to get overwhelmed with the customary hobby horses of complaining about immigrants or the perfidious deep state.

If we'd left them there, yeah, there might have been more traffic.

The hope was for TT to develop into something more community driven / self-sustaining without me, if users were into it. But after nine months it looks likely we won’t reach that; I think last week had zero posts and today has one. Which is fine, if people’s interests just lie elsewhere, not every swing is a hit.

Yeah, I feel bad. International happenings are usually not as viscerally interesting as the latest domestic scissor event, at least not to the people who self-selected to be here.

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