tivert

Oh, goody. Isn't it great the Democrats prioritized keeping "the groups" and their donors happy? You know, instead of actually reorganizing around countering the existential threat they complained so loudly about?

By now it’s well known that Trump desperately wants to proof his professor wrong

By now it it's well known that globalization is for a fantasy world that doesn't exist, and people should stop listening so much to economics professors. Trade barriers need to go up to re-orient things. Unfortunately, Trump is unlikely to do it competently.

Well, about that... I sort of think maybe our food supply is also one of those strategic industries. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It is, but our political system isn't wise enough to care. It's pissed away a lot of other strategic industries for stupid reasons in the mean time. And with the nationalization of politics, I'm not sure farm state senators will continue to have the ability to focus on serving their constituents' interests in the future like they have.

It isn't quite the same thing. There is a difference between trying to empower historically marginalized groups, and trying to re-subjugate historically marginalized groups.

Not really. It's all language games.

This is just the mirror image of the liberal conceit they can magically change reality by forcing people to use different words or over-elevating some story (old or new) for ideological reasons.

The lesson from this is that it's all stupid, not just my-side's version, and it should stop.

Let’s turn it around. How does keeping the Jones Act ensure a competitive shipbuilding industry in the US? We could easily subsidize the shipbuilders, pay for training programs, and so on. But blocking competition just keeps the market uncompetitive.

Because the US can't "easily subsidize the shipbuilders, pay for training programs, and so on." It has an ideological dysfunction that prevents that. Even if you could manage to get a program like that passed, there's a large chance it'd get cut in 10 years by some libertarian to pay for yet another tax cut.

We have no problem with subsidizing farmers and roads so why not shipbuilders if it keeps our navy competitive?

That's only because of how the Constitution apportions senators and the electoral college. Farmers are spread out in a way that gives them disproportionate political power.

If you are protected from facing competition, then you don’t need to actually compete. Therefore, you don’t develop the competitive advantages. You remain at a competitive disadvantage, but it doesn’t matter since you don’t actually have to face the competition… until someday when the protection is removed and you are left to face the more advantaged competition.

However, it's not uncommon for a company or industry to fail to develop a competitive advantage, and then go bankrupt and disappear.

Without the Jones Act, it's quite possible that the US shipbuilding industry may have ended up even more moribund than it is now, decades ago.

But can that also make them more gullible?

Oh definitely. They often don't have the experience to question what they're told or see the holes and deceptions in it. For instance: they'd be more easily fooled by a fake deadline. Or in this case, they may trust and follow their leader like a little zealot, even when he's wrong and doing bad things.

In my experience, youth has little to do with honesty or corruptibility.

It has a lot to do with naivete and not having the confidence to stand up when needed.

There's a lot of easily indoctrinated, exploitable idealistic youth out there. A lot of organizations run on them.

Keep ignoring the world in front of your eyes.

Get your pink hat on, it's time to waste your energy on the wrong things.

Keep ignoring the world in front of your eyes. Edit: Also if you think the "world of maximal opposition has failed" that's very amusing as the level of opposition was extremely low.

Trump got elected, despite being portrayed constantly as both hopelessly incompetent, totally unacceptable politically, and as existential threat to democracy by his opponents and most of the media; being subject to multiple criminal investigations by them; having huge protests against him; and more than $1.4 billion spent on advertising against him. He was opposed to the legal maximum, and anything more would have gotten into armed militia territory.

My experience was markedly different.

But your experience with IT equipment does not generalize to all trade between the US and China, which includes more than just IT equipment.

This is weasel language that purports to convey a lot of meaning, but is (I feel intentionally) light on actual facts.

I don't think it's weaselly, rather it's one of those areas that's not black and white and there is a lot of variation, which does not lend itself to a crisp, succinct summary. One of the cases in the original article I linked was the supplier gives a little on margin, and the importer overall pays more due to the tariff, but not the full amount, and that's what the second article seemed to be describing.

P.S. citing easily observable facts are not a political attack.

That kind of thing can totally can be part of an attack: the most effective attacks usually start with easily observable facts (and then omit others to fit the desired narrative), because that gives them more credibility. And I didn't mean to imply that you were making an attack, I was just noting that rhetoric is in the air due to the frequent political attacks, which often leads to it getting repeated.

P.P.S. additionally, had this administration annonuced a comprehensive plan to make capital available to American industry to step up and onshore the manufacture of these goods, I would be singing a very different tone.

And we can agree that would be a good thing.

So your plan is to freak out every time some junior backbencher proposes something, like it actually means something? You'll be freaking out all the time, and what will it accomplish? You might as well put on a pink hat and run around Washington DC for a weekend.

And then, maybe when the idea actually gets pursued, it won't seem so controversial because all the energy was wasted before it was actually a thing.

Continue to pish posh while they continue dismantling the republic.

If you don't want it dismantled, you can start by not getting distracted by dumb stuff and/or taking the bait. Then, the next step is to realize the politics of maximum opposition failed, and try something else.

Have you been paying attention to the kinds of things these people publicly say and do?

Yes, I have. You didn't understand my comment, which was the motives for the tariffs (hint: they're not there to distract from Elon).

And the market is the ultimate unaccountability machine. Just pay attention to how people use it as a justification sometimes.

Who said I was crying wolf?

Trumps opponents, collectively, have been crying wolf. They've been saying we're just around the corner from a a dictatorship for years, and Trump had a whole term and a dictatorship didn't happen.

And we're talking about some new-style political correctness here, but you're jumping to "we may never have elections ever again!1!!." If there's actual danger, people need to fucking stay focused and not get distracted and habitually overreact. Overreaction does two bad things: 1) it burns up your credibility, because it's a lie; and 2) when acted upon it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as it triggers reactions of its own.

I believe Trump would have lost if this was a fair election.

Election denial? Not a good look.

In the wolf story you refer to the wolf was real.

Only at the the end, not at the beginning. In the beginning, the boy was lying to get attention.

The real moral of that story is that the villagers should have trusted the boy (to prevent his death) and help him, as he in fact saw a wolf (who ate him in the end).

No it isn't. The real moral is don't lie, otherwise people stop trusting you and bad things will happen. It's explicitly stated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf: "The moral stated at the end of the Greek version is, 'this shows how liars are rewarded: even if they tell the truth, no one believes them'".

If you get something so basic as that wrong, it calls everything else you say into question.

The story says that the boy lied, but as he died that story would have been told be the villagers who let him die. The wolf was real (he ate the boy), the villagers made up a story after the fact of how the boy had it coming as a lier to justify their position.

It is a story about people who are more afraid of the scary story and the messenger who tells it, than of the actual danger itself. About people who despite warnings let the boy get eaten, because they checked the first two times and the evil wasn't directly evident to them.

As far as I can tell, that's your imagined head-cannon. Here's the actual original story: http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/oxford/151.htm

There was a boy tending the sheep who would continually go up to the embankment and shout, 'Help, there's a wolf!' The farmers would all come running only to find out that what the boy said was not true. Then one day there really was a wolf but when the boy shouted, they didn't believe him and no one came to his aid. The whole flock was eaten by the wolf. The story shows that this is how liars are rewarded: even if they tell the truth, no one believes them.

The boy lived; the farmers believed him, and were not afraid of the story so were fooled for a time; there was no coverup.

Those quotes say nothing and are pure conjecture.

Apparently not: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/world/us-tariffs-canada-c...:

When Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on China during his first term in the White House, some studies found that part of the cost was passed on to American consumers. Suppliers in China also cut their prices in many cases to offset part of the cost of the tariffs. [emphasis mine]

I will tell you exactly who will pay the increase (and then some, because there's always juice on top of juice): we will; you and I, and every person and family we know. That's who.

It's worth noting that you're basically quoting a line of political attack. From the same article I linked above:

Democrats spent the weekend hammering the message that Mr. Trump was responsible for making life in America more expensive.

“In one reckless move,” said Representative Gabe Vasquez, Democrat of New Mexico, “the president just raised the price you pay for gas, the truck you drive to work, a computer for your small business and everything at the grocery store, from avocados to tequila.”

Underneath all that noise, I'm sure things are far less simple than any side's attacks claim. Unfortunately, all almost anyone hears on any issue are political attacks, which are blasted from the rooftops.

The truth is (as I’m sure you all know) these are fees that we pay to the federal government separately when we import goods from these countries. Other countries don’t pay a dime.

The mistake you're making is only considering first order effects (gov collecting tariff taxes), and ignoring second and greater order effects (how people respond to those taxes).

The truth about tariffs is actually more complicated: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/20/opinion/trump-tariffs-tra...:

A good place to start disentangling things is the argument ad nauseam over who pays for tariffs — the consumer or the foreign producer? Contrary to what both sides sometimes assert, the question has no simple answer. “Despite over a century of theoretical debate on the incidence of tariffs, sound empirical evidence on who bears the burden of trade tariffs is sparse,” according to a 2015 article in the University of Chicago’s Chicago Policy Review.

...It’s true that up front, a U.S. tariff is levied on Americans, not foreign producers. But what really matters is who bears the ultimate cost. If the foreign producer continues to charge the same amount at the border, then the final price goes up by the amount of the tariff, and the American bears the full cost. But if the foreign producer cuts its price at the border by the amount of the tariff so that the final price paid by the American is unchanged, then the foreign producer bears the full cost of the tariff.

Typically, the cost will be split. Americans won’t have to bear much of the cost of the tariff if the foreign producer is willing to accept a smaller profit to hang on to its share of the U.S. market. That calculation will vary product by product.

This is clearly designed to keep people busy worrying about their survival while Elon and them continue on with their hapless refactor.

Huh? Trump's not engaging in some conspiracy to protect Elon. He's always liked tariffs, and this is him doing what he believes.

Cut it out with the weird conspiracy theories. They're not helpful.

Government has enormous power, and now that power is being used for evil and for darkness, and that's the problem.

This order is "power is being used for evil and for darkness"? Come on, cut it out with the hyperbole. It does no one any favors.

> Trump is constitutionally prohibited from running for another term.

Not if they change the constitution. https://ogles.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-ogles-propo...

Backbencher proposes something dumb that'll almost certainly go nowhere? The sky must be falling, and that's proof!

I'm tired of people crying wolf, like they've done pretty much every day since 2016.

I'm not a fan of Trump, but his critics have pretty much squandered their credibility, and his political opponents have dumb strategies and even dumber priorities (if you can even take them at their word).

That is not necessarily true. The Hitlers and Putins of the world will happily sacrifice their own citizenry and their country's future for more power in the moment.

Don't you think they'd be even more willing to sacrifice Americans or other foreigners?

Several countries are entirely capable of doing this with nukes.

No, and you're kind of missing the point, which was the adversarial leader cares less about foreigners. Also: nukes are somewhat controlled with MAD, and they'd spoil that sweet, sweet land with fallout.

Why is it clear that your life won't suffer more under domestic control than foreign control, other than reflexive jingoism? Domestic control has more direct levers and the gloves are off right now.

Because foreigners are even less accountable to Americans and even less interested in their well being than any domestic group? It just stands to reason, there's not even the weak ties of being members of the same group.

I mean, to be a little outlandish: if there was a conflict, and some foreign adversary could transmit a mind virus to Americans that would cause them to go on murderous rampages and kill everyone, they'd probably do it. It'd be an instant win, and there'd be some sweet, sweet land to colonize afterwards.

No, because there's no contract necessary to purchase Macbooks.

You don't have to sign a paper in a big room with lawyers to have a contract. Whenever you buy something, you're entering into a contract. It's got all the elements.

> Plaintiffs proposed a remedial term unique to Apple that would forbid any “contract between Google and Apple in which there would be anything exchanged of value.”

Wow

That seems a little broad. Wouldn't it forbid Google from buying Macbooks for employees, for instance?

Can you specify which are these "entrenched interests"?

Labor (meaning anyone who works for a living) and anyone who's not prioritizing shareholder value above all else.

So, knowing nothing about Pokemon, it was lost on me if 2024 was legitimate or not (I suspected not, but it seems the article kind of assumes you know when the cards should have been made).

This article seems to give a clearer picture:

https://www.pokebeach.com/2025/01/millions-of-dollars-of-pro...

Millions of Dollars of Prototype Pokemon Cards May Be Forgeries, Retired Creatures Employee Involved

The authenticity of the Pokemon TCG’s famous “prototype cards” are now being called into question.

Last year, hundreds of prototype Pokemon cards began to sell in collecting circles from the personal collection of Takumi Akabane, one of the original creators of the Pokemon TCG. He worked at Creatures until 2008. He recently attended events to sign some of the cards. Grading company CGC worked closely with Akabane to verify the cards’ authenticity.

The prototype cards represent the earliest days of the TCG, produced in 1996 before Base Set released in Japan. They show the progression of Pokemon cards from their “proof of concept” stage where they used their Red & Green sprites to their beta designs that used their final artwork from Mitsuhiro Arita and Ken Sugimori.

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help" are words you like to hear?

They're definitely not "the nine most terrifying words in the English language." Government is a necessity and performs important functions: we'd be worse off without it. A libertarian utopia would actually be a dystopia, at least for the vast majority.

Some day, historians will ask: Why did China eclipse the United States? And the tl;dr answer will likely be: libertarians. Myopic enthusiasm for free markets has really degraded the US's ability to make strategic decisions to maintain its advantages, and it seems on track to walk down the value chain while a few people get really rich leading it that way.

Paired with the Pixel 4a "update of death" it feels like Google is throwing in the towel on smartphones

Yeah, but their hand may be forced:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/21/24326402/google-search-a...:

The Department of Justice’s list of solutions for fixing Google’s illegal antitrust behavior and restoring competition in the search engine market started with ... breaking off Chrome, Android, or Google Play as the DOJ’s filing considers

>> The same - your “revealed preference” is different from your “stated preference”.

It tells me that you really like Truth Social and I shouldn’t believe what you say - you “revealed” your true “preference”

That's what I thought you where thinking. Thank you for at least not beating around the bush anymore.

You're wrong though, and you're thinking about this too simplistically. Yours is one possible interpretation, but not the only one, and not necessarily the right one or even a likely one. The discrepancy between "revealed preference" and "stated preference," only gives you the barest scrap of information. You're jumping to conclusions when you go from that scrap to "you really like X" and "I shouldn’t believe what you say." With the information in the scenario you outlined, about as much as you can reasonably infer is "you can tolerate Truth Social."

It's just like my scenario with the prison cell and the rotten food: if you eat it, it doesn't mean you "really like" it and "I shouldn’t believe what you say." It means you can tolerate it and you have a desire to avoid a negative outcome (starvation) that trumps whatever disgust you feel eating it.

tl;dr: complex and ambivalent feelings are a real and common phenomenon that you should consider.

The same - your “revealed preference” is different from your “stated preference”.

Go on. How do you interpret that? What does that tell you?