I think USAID does real good, and it's a shame that's stuff is going away. It's very good that its black money and propaganda functions will be gone, though I assume agencies like the CIA will pick them right up.
I have mixed feelings about the administrative state, but the way it's being dismantled, and the speed with which it's being dismantled, are undeniably reckless and will cause a great deal of suffering while doing damage to a myriad of institutions that are, at least for the most part, good (like universities).
I don't think Xi sees the U.S. the way the U.S. sees China. Putin may see the U.S. the way the U.S. sees Russia, though, but if he were running things, I have no doubt that the military would be his first target, not cancer research grants or the Department of Education.
In fairness, it's not a particularly original idea. See, e.g., this book, which was written in '94, when Trump was just a hotel owner, serial bankruptcy filer, and frequent tabloid fodder, who was the primary cause of the death of the USFL.
This might be one of the strangest things I've seen someone say on this site. I can see a comparison to, say, Orbán, in that it looks like Trump is trying to remake the government and to some extent universities in his ideological image, but even that comparison, which unlike comparing him to Putin or Xi (two very different rulers from each other, even) makes some sense, is pretty limited. He hasn't yet gone after the press, or protestors in really, and even his attacks on universities (through withholding grant money) are nothing like Orbán's yet.
Leaving the realm of myth and religion, it strikes me as very much a case of the political struggles of Cold War and post-Cold War America "creat[ing] circumstances and relationships that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part." Specifically, I think this is a path we've been headed down since the end of WWII, with all the contradictions, both domestic and international, of the economic and political order that came out of that.
DEI as like PR or QA or other common, in some cases even necessary corporate practices, is a pretty good way of thinking about it. It also helps explain why a lot of bad DEI programs or practices are out there, why there are a ton of people out there selling easily replicated and scalable DEI programs that probably don't do anything to promote actual D, E, or I.
The thing is, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a person who opposes DEI because of how it's implemented, and not because they think D, E, or I are bad things.
Re: Twitter, I plan to go down with the ship. I've tried a couple of the replacements, and find them either to be either very boring (Mastadon) or almost entirely populated by the sorts of people I went out of my way to avoid on Twitter (BlueSky). Since I see almost none of the far right stuff on Twitter, at least for now, it remains mostly bearable, though I did block literally hundreds of people talking about a certain conflict in a certain part of the world (including some people here).
Speaking of the far right stuff, Musk's attraction to it was apparent pretty much as soon as he bought Twitter, when he started interacting with those people openly over there. For example, he has repeatedly agreed with and amplified "Great Replacement" views.
I assume the use of dog whistles is really just trolling, because he's already shown us who he is, and everyone acting as though his flirting with the far right on Twitter, or hanging out with AfD in Germany, etc., doesn't mean he's like them is either kidding themselves or doesn't really care if he's like them.
Or such people are at this point just so reflexively contrarian about anything said by anyone to the left of the median House Republican that they've lost all sense of perspective and gravity.
If anything, what the Democrats have shown in this moment is that agency is something they lack completely. They are not agents, they are large blobs of jelly in expensive clothing.
“Russia messed with us during Vietnam, now we mess with them. Payback is a best served cold.”
I thought we got them back much sooner, in their "Vietnam."
Hopefully this time our payback doesn't produce villains who will haunt us for decades and result in our being mired in an endless war on a concept like the last one.
I'm genuinely curious about what made you so confident that he hadn't said it. Not only is it on his Wikiquote page, with the source, but it's from a pretty well-known Orwell essay, at least among people who actually read Orwell beyond the two books everyone's read. Hell, the essay has its own Wikipedia page:
Only problem is that there is no evidence he ever said or wrote that sentence – or anything like it.
Not only is this an actual Orwell quote, but it's from a fairly well known Orwell essay, one in which he discusses one of his major influences for the ideas in 1984, James Burnham, a man who was a frequent contributor to the National Review, and an influence on American neoconservatism, though like Orwell, the early neoconservatives disagreed with him on many points, and Burnham was himself openly critical of neoconservatives, as was pretty much required back in the day to publish in National Review.
A couple people I've worked with over the last few years got laid off at the Department of Ed. Only one of them was probationary. Trump has said he wants to eliminate that agency, so I assume the handful of other people I know who work there will suffer the same fate soon.
One can't merely "leave." "Leave" is an abstract verb that can refer to many possible actions. Leaving takes a form, and some forms are better than others. For another, simpler example, leaving a 5th story apartment by going out the apartment door, down the stairs or elevator, and then out the main door, is one way of doing it, and diving out the window is another. Before we evaluate whether leaving is good, we should make sure we're doing it by the door, and not the window.
While it is true that this person at the very least plays fast and loose with some of the statistics, I think their broader message is correct. That is, viewed with traditional metrics, the economy looked pretty good last year. Viewed with expanded metrics, such as under employed, people who've stopped looking at work, prices of everyday goods relative to what they were a few years earlier, etc., last year's economy looked pretty bad, at least if you were not already wealthy.
The liberal/Democratic narrative both in the lead up to and with extra vehemence after the election, was that people were being deceived into believing that the economy was bad, and they were worse off financially than they were in 2020. In addition to being ridiculously condescending (as though people can't look at their bank accounts and credit card statements, or the price of a new car or a home, or home repairs, or groceries, etc.), this narrative was also just wrong, and it's good that people are trying to point this out with numbers, but it'd be better if they were using the numbers correctly.
I'm saying that I think this cure is worse than the disease. Generally, curing the person by killing them is considered bad medicine. And I think killing the patient is the ultimate goal here. Hell, Musk has basically said so in the past.
I will say that the tiny accelerationist voice in the back of my head keeps saying, "Yeeeeees," though.
It's true that in literally all aspects of life we have two choices at the most abstract level, change or not change, but I can't think of a single domain in which merely asking, "Should we change or not change?" is particularly useful, nor can I think of many, if any, in which "Change for change's sake" is useful.
Since you are fond of analogies (e.g., the forest one above), I'll offer one: imagine if a person is in an abusive marriage. They have two choices: stay in the marriage or leave. If we only ask this question at this level, pretty much everyone will say, "Leaving, obviously." But what if "leaving" means being homeless? What if it means getting into a relationship with an even more abusive person? What if it means jumping out of an airplane without a parachute? Without specifying what leaving entails, we haven't really addressed the question of whether leaving is better.
Do I think halting all cancer research is better than doing research as we've always done it? No. Do I think it would make sense to evaluate the way we do cancer research funding to make sure we're not wasting money where that money could be better spent on curing friggin' cancer? Sure, that makes sense.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/17/2025”
More of the Seasteading, but instead its fortified neighborhoods, type.
"
"Defund the Police," Libertarian Edition.
"
I think USAID does real good, and it's a shame that's stuff is going away. It's very good that its black money and propaganda functions will be gone, though I assume agencies like the CIA will pick them right up.
I have mixed feelings about the administrative state, but the way it's being dismantled, and the speed with which it's being dismantled, are undeniably reckless and will cause a great deal of suffering while doing damage to a myriad of institutions that are, at least for the most part, good (like universities).
I don't think Xi sees the U.S. the way the U.S. sees China. Putin may see the U.S. the way the U.S. sees Russia, though, but if he were running things, I have no doubt that the military would be his first target, not cancer research grants or the Department of Education.
"
In fairness, it's not a particularly original idea. See, e.g., this book, which was written in '94, when Trump was just a hotel owner, serial bankruptcy filer, and frequent tabloid fodder, who was the primary cause of the death of the USFL.
"
This might be one of the strangest things I've seen someone say on this site. I can see a comparison to, say, Orbán, in that it looks like Trump is trying to remake the government and to some extent universities in his ideological image, but even that comparison, which unlike comparing him to Putin or Xi (two very different rulers from each other, even) makes some sense, is pretty limited. He hasn't yet gone after the press, or protestors in really, and even his attacks on universities (through withholding grant money) are nothing like Orbán's yet.
"
Leaving the realm of myth and religion, it strikes me as very much a case of the political struggles of Cold War and post-Cold War America "creat[ing] circumstances and relationships that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part." Specifically, I think this is a path we've been headed down since the end of WWII, with all the contradictions, both domestic and international, of the economic and political order that came out of that.
On “From Vox: How Democrats should respond to Trump’s war on DEI”
DEI as like PR or QA or other common, in some cases even necessary corporate practices, is a pretty good way of thinking about it. It also helps explain why a lot of bad DEI programs or practices are out there, why there are a ton of people out there selling easily replicated and scalable DEI programs that probably don't do anything to promote actual D, E, or I.
The thing is, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a person who opposes DEI because of how it's implemented, and not because they think D, E, or I are bad things.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/17/2025”
One thing is for certain: if this country is well and truly cooked, then it's us who put it in the oven and left it there.
"
Re: Twitter, I plan to go down with the ship. I've tried a couple of the replacements, and find them either to be either very boring (Mastadon) or almost entirely populated by the sorts of people I went out of my way to avoid on Twitter (BlueSky). Since I see almost none of the far right stuff on Twitter, at least for now, it remains mostly bearable, though I did block literally hundreds of people talking about a certain conflict in a certain part of the world (including some people here).
Speaking of the far right stuff, Musk's attraction to it was apparent pretty much as soon as he bought Twitter, when he started interacting with those people openly over there. For example, he has repeatedly agreed with and amplified "Great Replacement" views.
I assume the use of dog whistles is really just trolling, because he's already shown us who he is, and everyone acting as though his flirting with the far right on Twitter, or hanging out with AfD in Germany, etc., doesn't mean he's like them is either kidding themselves or doesn't really care if he's like them.
Or such people are at this point just so reflexively contrarian about anything said by anyone to the left of the median House Republican that they've lost all sense of perspective and gravity.
"
1) Yes, it's pretty obvious at this point.
But more importantly,
2) Dude, are you on Twitter?
"
Turtles at least have some agency.
"
If anything, what the Democrats have shown in this moment is that agency is something they lack completely. They are not agents, they are large blobs of jelly in expensive clothing.
"
What could possibly go wrong?
https://x.com/RepTimBurchett/status/1889719640923762971
On “Beware: Promises Being Kept”
“Russia messed with us during Vietnam, now we mess with them. Payback is a best served cold.”
I thought we got them back much sooner, in their "Vietnam."
Hopefully this time our payback doesn't produce villains who will haunt us for decades and result in our being mired in an endless war on a concept like the last one.
"
Fair enough. Subtract a point for ChatGPT on that one.
"
Sorry, meant to link to the essay, and somehow didn't:
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/second-thoughts-on-james-burnham/
I'm genuinely curious about what made you so confident that he hadn't said it. Not only is it on his Wikiquote page, with the source, but it's from a pretty well-known Orwell essay, at least among people who actually read Orwell beyond the two books everyone's read. Hell, the essay has its own Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Thoughts_on_James_Burnham
"
Only problem is that there is no evidence he ever said or wrote that sentence – or anything like it.
Not only is this an actual Orwell quote, but it's from a fairly well known Orwell essay, one in which he discusses one of his major influences for the ideas in 1984, James Burnham, a man who was a frequent contributor to the National Review, and an influence on American neoconservatism, though like Orwell, the early neoconservatives disagreed with him on many points, and Burnham was himself openly critical of neoconservatives, as was pretty much required back in the day to publish in National Review.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/10/2025”
A couple people I've worked with over the last few years got laid off at the Department of Ed. Only one of them was probationary. Trump has said he wants to eliminate that agency, so I assume the handful of other people I know who work there will suffer the same fate soon.
On “From Politico: Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong.”
This, which is something Smith and Stensil and the like simply can't comprehend.
On “Deficits, Debt, and DOGE”
Should we let Musk and his epigones do this work? Who knows?
https://x.com/AaronBlake/status/1890071364239061279?t=Yh5itGc_1-WONKOwBLT9CA&s=19
If only we had voted for Romney, amirite?
"
One can't merely "leave." "Leave" is an abstract verb that can refer to many possible actions. Leaving takes a form, and some forms are better than others. For another, simpler example, leaving a 5th story apartment by going out the apartment door, down the stairs or elevator, and then out the main door, is one way of doing it, and diving out the window is another. Before we evaluate whether leaving is good, we should make sure we're doing it by the door, and not the window.
On “From Politico: Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong.”
While it is true that this person at the very least plays fast and loose with some of the statistics, I think their broader message is correct. That is, viewed with traditional metrics, the economy looked pretty good last year. Viewed with expanded metrics, such as under employed, people who've stopped looking at work, prices of everyday goods relative to what they were a few years earlier, etc., last year's economy looked pretty bad, at least if you were not already wealthy.
The liberal/Democratic narrative both in the lead up to and with extra vehemence after the election, was that people were being deceived into believing that the economy was bad, and they were worse off financially than they were in 2020. In addition to being ridiculously condescending (as though people can't look at their bank accounts and credit card statements, or the price of a new car or a home, or home repairs, or groceries, etc.), this narrative was also just wrong, and it's good that people are trying to point this out with numbers, but it'd be better if they were using the numbers correctly.
On “Deficits, Debt, and DOGE”
I'm saying that I think this cure is worse than the disease. Generally, curing the person by killing them is considered bad medicine. And I think killing the patient is the ultimate goal here. Hell, Musk has basically said so in the past.
I will say that the tiny accelerationist voice in the back of my head keeps saying, "Yeeeeees," though.
"
It's true that in literally all aspects of life we have two choices at the most abstract level, change or not change, but I can't think of a single domain in which merely asking, "Should we change or not change?" is particularly useful, nor can I think of many, if any, in which "Change for change's sake" is useful.
Since you are fond of analogies (e.g., the forest one above), I'll offer one: imagine if a person is in an abusive marriage. They have two choices: stay in the marriage or leave. If we only ask this question at this level, pretty much everyone will say, "Leaving, obviously." But what if "leaving" means being homeless? What if it means getting into a relationship with an even more abusive person? What if it means jumping out of an airplane without a parachute? Without specifying what leaving entails, we haven't really addressed the question of whether leaving is better.
Do I think halting all cancer research is better than doing research as we've always done it? No. Do I think it would make sense to evaluate the way we do cancer research funding to make sure we're not wasting money where that money could be better spent on curing friggin' cancer? Sure, that makes sense.
"
This is probably your weakest attempt at avoiding a question.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.