"Glen Weyl, will argue NO. Consolidating power under a single leader undermines core values of democracy fundamental to America’s political system. History is also filled with examples of autocratic leadership leading to economic ruin and catastrophic decision-making. American democracy might be messy, but let’s focus on making it better, not abandoning it.
"The debate will be held on Thursday, September 4 at 7:00 PM ET at Racket NYC and stream live online." (Someone do a search and offer links in comments?)
Defy Yarvin to support his bald-faced assertions of democracy's 'failure' by actually tabulating those compared accomplishments! Shouldn't ingrate yammerers demanding that we chuck out all the traits that gave them cushy lives bear some burden of proof?
Or the fact that only democracy has ever penetrated the curtain of delusion and flattery that always... always... surrounds mighty rulers. Even geniuses like Napoleon. Indeed, the central purpose and benefit of democracy is to apply accountability even upon top elites. Allowing the best of them to notice their errors and correct them under the searing medicine of criticism.
This approach -- and not goody-two-shoes moralizing about 'fundamental values' -- should be the obvious core of any rebuttal. Alas, I have learned that the obvious is often not-so.
I meant to stop there. But the gloom jeremiads roll on and on, helping no one. Take Chris Hedges' "Reign of Idiots".
"The idiots take over in the final days of crumbling civilizations. Idiot generals wage endless, unwinnable wars that bankrupt the nation. Idiot economists call for reducing taxes for the rich and cutting social service programs for the poor, and project economic growth on the basis of myth. Idiot industrialists poison the water, the soil and the air, slash jobs and depress wages. Idiot bankers gamble on self-created financial bubbles and impose crippling debt peonage on the citizens. Idiot journalists and public intellectuals pretend despotism is democracy. Idiot intelligence operatives orchestrate the overthrow of foreign governments to create lawless enclaves that give rise to enraged fanatics. Idiot professors, “experts” and “specialists” busy themselves with unintelligible jargon and arcane theory that buttresses the policies of the rulers. Idiot entertainers and producers create lurid spectacles of sex, gore and fantasy. There is a familiar checklist for extinction. We are ticking off every item on it."
Did you enjoy reading that? Shaking your head in sad resignation over the inevitable stoopidity of your fellow citizens? Did it occur to you that's what our enemies want from you?
This rant-essay by Hedges begins by raving about idiocy without any irony over its own idiocy:
"The idiots take over in the final days of crumbling civilizations....
"There is a familiar checklist for extinction. We are ticking off every item on it."
Feh! And get bent, you perfect example of the thing you denounce!
Never before in all of history has a nation had greater numbers - or a higher percentages - of wise and smart and knowing people. And not just at the maligned universities, or in the under-attack civil service, or our brilliant (but under-siege) officer corps, or in the streets. We have more (and higher percentages of) brilliant/wise folks than all other nations and societies across all of time... combined.
Indeed, assailing and curbing and demoralizing all of the smart people is the shared goal of both MAGA lumpenprols and the world oligarchs who puppet them. Proving they are idiots, because it simply cannot succeed.
What? Hey, oligarchs! Your plan is to intimidate and crush the hundred million smartest in society? The ones who know cyber, nano, nuclear, bio and all the rest? That is your plan? Oh, you will not like us, when we finally get mad.
And yet, dopes like Chris Hedges yowl that it is working. It has to work. because you are all fooooools!
== May we find comfort and precedents in earlier, righteous victories ==
I'm reminded of a different phase of the recurring American Civil War, when (like today) the Union side needed... and then got... better generals.
Take, in particular, a moment - right after the Battle of the Wilderness - when Ulysses S. Grant heard his underlings whining about "What Bobby Lee is going to do to us next."
Grant stood up and growled:
"STOP fretting about what Bobby Lee is gonna do to us. Start planning what we will do to Bobby Lee!"
There are a jillion fresh tactics we can use in this fight for civilization... like getting all the dems in GOP districts to re-register as Republicans, which would (for one thing) protect them from being purged out of the voter rolls. But also, it would truly screw up the radicals' Radicatization-via-Primary tactic. And weaken gerrymandering,
But in order to get started, we need first to stand up like confident women and men and reject idiocies like this "Reign of Idiots" bullshit whine.
It contains some truths, sure, about the gang of criminal fools who have seized our institutions in their Project 2025 / KGB-planned putsch. And it's true that the polemical skills of Democrats could not possibly be worse.
But truths - out of context - can be lies. And Hedges's jeremiad could not have been better written by some Kremlin basement Goebbels, seeking to demoralize us.
And fuck that, you tool of monsters.
Robert Reich assesses Newsom's proposal for voters to allow CA, OR and WA to re-gerrymander until Texas, Florida and N.Carolina stop. Blue voters in the west ENDED the foul crime years ago. But may be talked into temporary retaliation vs confederate cheaters.
Note, Red states are also planning to purge voter rolls! Tell all your friends to prevent being purged by RE-REGISTERING AS REPUBLICANS. Hold your nose and do it, as I did!
The only practical effects will be (1) to protect your voting rights and (2) let you vote in the only election that matters anymore in those states, the Republican primary.
See 1st comment below for how I have long proposed we deal with gerrymandering. But for now... it's over to you. Stand up.
-------
130 comments:
As promised (and familiar to some of you).... Here's a proposed legal argument that demolishes the "Roberts Doctrine" that he concocted to protect gerrymandering. https://david-brin.medium.com/the-minimal-overlap-solution-to-gerrymandered-injustice-e535bbcdd6c
...and a more general deep-dive into this wretched crime: https://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/gerrymandering1.html
You left out the tendency of autocrats to only listen to what they find comfortable to believe. shown just a few days ago by Trump's sacking of the Commissioner of Labor Statistics. That never ends well.
Thanks Lloyd. omission corrected!
Anyone notice that today LINDSEY GRAHAM once again spoke forcefully about how it's time for sane Republicans to find an 'offramp' from the treasonous Trumpian madness? He's tried to offramp many times and on each occasion retracted it, groveling, within a day. And I have said that only one thing could accomplish that. Yes, blackmail. And can anyone doubt, just looking at him, that it is the blatant thing going on?
And if he doesn't retract, this time? If he sticks to it?
Well, that can only mean LG has a defense of counter blackmail. That the GOP is now so overflowing with kompromat and proved blackmail that his own peccadillos seem small, by comparison. And he can now defy his puppetmasters to "do your worst! And you will pay."
Huh. Can't find much about it online. So maybe the LG recantation was a single internet figment.. Alas.
While I think you overestimate the prevalence of blackmail in the GOP I think the odds are in favour of Graham being compromised. The alternative is being a born toady. Actually I think both are true.
Not only did blue voters in CA help end gerrymandering here, but in taking the high road with riskier districts, we took away ammunition from red partisans and the safe districts where THEY face challenges only from their extremes.
A return to gerrymandering re-arms the CA GOP and will piss off many CA Dems. That is a stupid way to win the battle.
There there is the idiocy of believing the ends justify the means. They don't.
Alfred is wise. Though Newsom's proposal is a very contingent and temporary shift.
I have given many reasons to believe blackmail is paramount. Very many, in fact, including likely Collins's and Murkowski's male relatives.
But #1 is my authorial ability to put myself into the shoes of villains. e.g. what would I do if I were (shudder) Trump and had been betrayed by 80%+ of my 1st admin's appointees?
1. No Adults.
2. Demand leverage! No one, not even a loyal shill, gets appointed without providing major leverage. And the best way to do that would be a visit to the back casita at Mara Lago next to a petting zoo.
The KGB provides expertise. The petting zoo or barnyard provides...
A return to gerrymandering re-arms the CA GOP and will piss off many CA Dems.
That's another way this warfare is asymmetric. Republican gerrymandering doesn't piss off Texas Republicans.
You know Californians better than I do, but--serious question--do those Dem voters who encouraged non-partisan districting in the hope that it was a first step toward a national trend feel the same when they see the R's about to pull a fast one to keep their congressional majorities and thereby keep their Democratic congressmen powerless against a fascist takeover?
There there is the idiocy of believing the ends justify the means. They don't.
They do in some specific cases. The cliche easy example is that while lying is wrong, lying to Nazi soldiers about the Jews hidden in your attic is justified. A more nuanced example is that taking up arms against government authorities was justified in 1775. A more problematic example is my belief that guillotines are a justifiable response when all avenues of legal redress are foreclosed.
A more problematic example is my belief that guillotines are a justifiable response when all avenues of legal redress are foreclosed.
"If injustice becomes law, resistance becomes a duty."-Berthold Brecht.
Larry,
I'm sure there are many CA Dems who would. be willing to go tit for tat. That argument was used when we first considered the ballot measure that put an end to this cancer. The problem is there are many other CA Dems who would not AND we'd be arming the CA GOP'ers with a valid complaint that would peel away some blue voters. Not only is it a dumb solution here... it is what the bad guys WANT us to do in response.
I've never considered lying to be a blanket bad thing, so lying to Nazi's isn't an exception. Black and white belief systems are for children much like "See Spot Run. Run Spot run." gets used to teach them to read.
As for guillotines... well...
I'd much rather start shooting the bad guys than tolerate CA gerrymandering again. MUCH rather. I'm not going to suggest that here... but only because there are other options. If you find a TX Dem legislator in your neighborhood, I hope you'll consider hiding them from the FBI.
See Spot run.
See Kristi Noem reload.
Hide, Spot, hide.
Pappenheimer
P.S. Regarding gerrymandering, I suspect Democratic state gerrymanders to be a necessary tactic against fascism. (I used to think it was technofeudalism, or neofascism, or even Accelerationism*, but recent moves like creating a Gestapo and deporting citizens ended that notion. It's straight up Hitler no chaser.) I don't like it, but the chain of events that led to 5 unelected Kings of the Supreme Court turning a Nelsonian eye to the problem also means it's not fixable through legal means.
*I hate that term out of respect for the sadly departed Roger Zelazny
Just arm Spot.
Those jerks helping to deport people aren't the only ones who can wear masks.
I've never considered lying to be a blanket bad thing, so lying to Nazi's isn't an exception. Black and white belief systems are for children
"The ends never justify the means is a black and white belief system. Just sayin'.
Just arm Spot
I've been asking rhetorically what a new Civil War would look like, since it doesn't seem to be a matter of armies taking territory. I think you just gave a clue there.
Democratic state governments start ignoring supreme court rulings and presidential executive orders and start enacting things like assault rifle bans or arresting anti-abortion protesters. Eventually, Trump has to respond militarily. And then a shot heard 'round the world.
* * *
As to your points about California gerrymandering, I know you and Dr Brin have the right of it in the long term. I'm just afraid that if the Republicans can change the rules on the fly (like the next census which doesn't include immigrants) to gerrymander themselves a permanent congressional majority, then we won't have a long term.
Hide, Spot, hide.
I sense that is some sort of childrens' rhyme, but can somebody explain the meaning to me?
Here in the States, young schoolchildren used to be (or maybe still are) taught to read with very simple "Dick and Jane" stories which have short repetitive sentences like "See Jane run. Run, Jane, run!" And among other things, they have a dog named Spot (and a cat named Puff).
I had been under the impression that Sesame Street did away with the need to teach kids as old as second grade to read that way, but it's been over fifty years since I was that age.
I owe a lot to Mr. Whiskers.
Larry nailed it. My wife teaches elementary school kids (special needs... but knows of the general curriculum) and points out that they don't teach that way anymore.
The thing about 'run spot run' is it is repetitive and simple. Kids can spot the verbs and nouns with ease. No one uses these simple sentences as they grow up. Much. When it does happen it is to punctuate a point or connote a simplistic argument.
I'm old enough to remember Dick and Jane. Spot too. I don't recall Puff, but those simplistic sentences would have got me back to that memory anyway.
Does anyone have any idea what the "Brin Trilogy" is?
https://www.amazon.com/light-dreams-Brin-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B0DTGPVVCR/ref=sr_1_19_sspa?
Larry,
"The ends never justify the means is a black and white belief system. Just sayin'.
Heh. I get what you are pointing out, but my belief system isn't that simple. I can actually argue for why the ends never justify the means without resorting to emotional assertions. The crux of the argument in this case involves the usefulness of the Rule of Law.
If you start from a position where the ends don't justify the means, you have to spend a bit more time looking for alternatives. For example, what would happen to Texas district maps if most Texas Democrats re-registered as Republicans? Its not like they have to vote for Republicans, right? The election stealers would have to adjust their strategy a bit and include options for stealing or loosing actual votes on election day, right? At that point we look again for alternatives. What would happen if SOME Texas Dems registered as Republicans voted for less extreme Republicans in primaries? Would those votes get stolen? To do THAT would require the TX GOP to turn on itself. Those alternatives turn the fight around without spreading the cancer.
I'm old enough to remember Dick and Jane. Spot too. I don't recall Puff,
I seem to recall my second grade room, which seems way too old for Dick and Jane now, but this was before Sesame Street*. My teacher was about to introduce a Dick and Jane book, and she was asking the class who already knew about them. She'd say things like, "There's a boy named... and many in the class would respond, "Dick!". Also, "They had a dog named..." and "And a cat named...". Seemed like everybody in the room except me knew all about them. It was the first I was hearing of all this.
You don't remember Puff? The one storyline I remember is them being called into the living room to see that "Puff is on the television." The kids were excited to see a show with their cat in it, only to discover that the cat was simply lying on top of the television set. A good laugh was had by all.
That had to be the inspiration of the Monty Python "What's on the television, then?" "Looks like a penguin." skit.
* Also, I could read "Hop on Pop" when I was three, so maybe I was an outlier.
Looks like one of the characters shares your name. Two fo the books are out, so a third must be on the way.
The descriptions don't make clear exactly what "Brin" refers to. Unlike Alfred, I thought a location might share your name.
In any case, it's not you.
When I 1st pub'd in 1980 a book was THE LUCK OF BRIN'S 5
If you run an internet search for 'fun with Dick and Jane', I suspect you'll also run into an old movie about an enterprising couple (George Segal/Jane Fonda) who deal with corporate downsizing in a novel method.
Pappenheimer
Not remembering Puff could just be my faulty memory. Most of what I remember from back then is a memory of a memory of a… 😏
My mother started teaching me to recognize my alphabet at two and early reading at 3. Pre- started just before I turned 4 and that’s when I got thick glasses. So… pre-1967 stuff not part of whatever got used in Denver schools back then.
Was in a pun-off with a friend and she says she is now living in a demockery. Can't say she's wrong...
Pappenheimer
If she doesn't already know it, introduce her to the term "Endarkenment"
...'fun with Dick and Jane', ...
I never saw that film, but I do remember there being such a thing. In the 70s, there was briefly a pop song that began with "See Jane. See pretty Jane." or something like that. Another one about Jack and Jill and what they were really doing on that hill.
At the time--I was a teenager--that sort of adulteration (in both senses) of children's stories instinctively revolted me, and I wanted nothing to do with it. Not sure that I'd react the same way now in my 60s.
My formative years consisted of 'Tales from Europe' (narrated in foreign languages), the *original* Bill and Ben ('oh-flobolblob! Weee-eeed!'), and Doctor Who.
As Government climate reports are to be re-written to reflect political preference, and Hegseth opines that woman should not get to vote, 'endarkenment' is apt.
Someone strike a light, please!
"Should the U.S. Be Ruled by a CEO Dictator?"
Why debate this topic as a hypothetical? To a lot of people in the rest of the world it' appears to be happening right now.
Maybe that comes from the idea that government should be run like businesses (which are feudal monarchies and tyrannies, for the most part).
Instead, we should perhaps start running businesses as democracies.
Thank you for the explanation.
Re-Registering as Republicans:
While I do not dispute the possible effectiveness against purging the voter rolls, the very fact that it has happened uncontested (and possibly gave Trump the victory) without a general outcry and burning cities is a problem on itself.
So, this trick might work once or twice, until (and AI gives them the tools for it) they self-purge all black and hispanic voters, as well as all whites considered politically unreliable. Also, if the number of registered republican voters does not match with the number of votes on election day, and they loose, they will call it a voter fraud, and the USC could very well rule in their favor, throwing out votes after the election.
It is better than doing nothing, though.
Dr. Brin,
Your 3 rules won't work. See this video . Get ready to be spooked by Markov Chain Monte Carlo Simulated Annealing https://www.youtube.Com/watch?v=Lq-Y7crQo44 .
3 rules? Never mind. Forget I asked.
Since weather is my personal hobby-horse, would just like to note this:
"The Trump administration is planning to undo most of the cuts to the National Weather Service put in place earlier this year by the Department of Government Efficiency.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has received permission to fill 450 positions at the National Weather Service, roles that will include meteorologists, hydrologists and radar technicians...."
So federal funds were wasted forcing key personnel out and more funds will be needed to to rehire them or train new people, fixing the blunder that was only recognized when Americans died needlessly due to weather events that could have been warned of by a fully functional agency.
Good job Project 2025. Add those deaths to the overseas butcher's bill of dead children that went unfed with the destruction of USAID, which led to emergency food supplies already paid for being burned rather than distributed, and the potential deaths yet to come from the demise of the mRNA vaccine research process and halting of cancer research. I am sure it's all worth it for those billionaire tax cuts.
Pappenheimer
addendum - in my job I spoke to a customer who'd had the notion implanted that defunding USAID would allow a refund check for $ thousands to be send out to every American. I advised he check on the USAID budget, look up the US population, and do some math, because in the unlikely circumstance that the $ wouldn't get vacuumed up by Musk et al, he wasn't getting that kind of cash. Not that he would do that; that'd be too much like work*.
*using 2024 data he'd be getting about $100, less admin fees.
Pappenheimer
But an exceptionally crazy one, even by CEO standards.
Pappenheimer:
So federal funds were wasted forcing key personnel out and more funds will be needed to to rehire them or train new people, fixing the blunder that was only recognized when Americans died needlessly due to weather events that could have been warned of by a fully functional agency.
Good job Project 2025. Add those deaths to the overseas butcher's bill of dead children that went unfed with the destruction of USAID, which led to emergency food supplies already paid for being burned rather than distributed, and the potential deaths yet to come from the demise of the mRNA vaccine research process and halting of cancer research. I am sure it's all worth it for those billionaire tax cuts.
Having just re-read 1984, I would argue that wasting money is a feature, not a bug. Fascist authoritarians have to keep the population working (i.e., not idle) and at the same time keep the standard of living low. That means getting rid of a lot of excess production without providing excess value to the general public.
In Orwell's book, endless war accomplished this in two ways, first by direct destruction which required continual rebuilding, but second by channeling the economy into wartime production of weapons instead of consumer goods and services.
Once one sees that, the waste delivered by DOGE seems less like incompetence and more like their evil plan all along.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Aug10-1.html
M.L. in Athens, OH, writes: Donald Trump's action on the economy, and so many other aspects of his job, reminds me of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Allegiance." In that episode, Captain Picard is kidnapped by an alien race and replaced with a doppelganger who is running an experiment to understand human command structures. The imposter implements a series of increasingly bizarre actions to test the limits of the Enterprise crew's allegiance to its captain. The experiment culminates in the alien ordering the ship into a neutron star and the command crew mutinying. In the case of Trump's increasingly bizarre actions, the command crew (cabinet, House, Senate, SCOTUS) are saying 'Fu** yeah! Let's burn this mother down!'
I know that art is supposed to imitate life, but Jesus. Idocracy wasn't meant to be a documentary.
Couldn't have put it better myself.
Oh, wow, Athens OH. I wasted some of my youth there; a weird blue dot in the red sea of Southern Ohio.
Pappenheimer
Re: malevolent intent in Project 2025, this does not rule out incompetence. The whole paper is a (wanking motion) of the aforementioned Endarkenment, and is being applied haphazardly and at cross purposes. Remember the SD members shouting "Heil Hitler!" as they were lined up and gunned down by the SS.
Pappenheimer
Bertrand Russell talked about this in "In Praise of Idleness". As productivity increases, why not give workers more free time?
Larry, what you are ignoring is the virtue signaling involved. They are making a show of how prudent they are with taxpayers money and in the process they have to ignore the value of what that that money was being spent on.
Russell's notion is quite dated by now. Workers already have quite a bit more free time... even in the US. We have so much of it that we are challenged with what to do with it.
Of course they will come back with another approach to getting what they want. The game* continues. What I'm pointing out is that our next move should not be the one they WANT** us to take because they will use our action to justify their own. They will argue they were prescient.
* It's not a nice game. I'm thinking in terms of game theory/strategic decision making. Many of the well known games are quite brutal.
** A CA return to gerrymandering would be challenged in court and tied up for a long time. If it is still tied up in the next election, the incoming Congress of 2026 could reject seating CA house members on legal grounds. Anyone not thinking through the way legal challenges alter election validity isn't seeing the immediate risk. I may be more concerned with the longer risk, but you'll need our blue seats in 2026 no matter how things work out.
As productivity increases, why not give workers more free time?
I agree, but to the fascist autocrats, idle hands are potential revolutionaries.
Larry, what you are ignoring is the virtue signaling involved. They are making a show of how prudent they are with taxpayers money ...
That doesn't contradict what I said--that despite the show of prudence, wasting lots of taxpayer money suits their purposes.
Workers already have quite a bit more free time... even in the US. We have so much of it that we are challenged with what to do with it.
Some of us do, especially in the higher paid professions. Still, I think that was truer in my father's time than it is today. My parents used to regularly attend dinner parties or theater events even on weeknights. I've worked all my adult life in IT in some form or another, and have had decent money and benefits doing so, but the company line is consistently that you're available at all times, and there's always high praise for those who "gave up their weekends and worked long hours" to get thus-and-such in under the wire.
And for the more back-breaking trades, it neither is true now nor was true back then.
Alfred Differ:
What I'm pointing out is that our next move should not be the one they WANT** us to take because they will use our action to justify their own. They will argue they were prescient.
That's probably the best argument for keeping to the high road on gerrymandering. Also that we'd be in danger of "dummymandering" and watering down our blue districts so much that we could lose a few. I think Governor Pritzker is correctly downplaying the idea that Illinois might gerrymander further, since we're probably at "optimum blue" right now.
What I'd really like to see is that Texas, Indiana, Missouri, and whatever other red states do their mid-decade adjustments suffer a blue wave and lose some of their so-called-safe seats to dummymandering. I'm not entirely convinced that this is anything more than a "Mike Doonesbury's summer daydream", but there is a possibility it could work that way.
Saw this on Stonekettle's Threads feed. It took a few seconds to realize that the image in the story is Trump Tower in Chicago and that the story is in the Chicago Tribune.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/09/trump-tower-death/
Officers responded to a call to the 400 block of North Wabash Avenue after 7:30 p.m., according to police. They found a 26-year-old man who sustained “apparent trauma” to the body. Preliminary investigation suggests he fell to his death, police said.
The location of the death was Trump Tower, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Detectives are investigating.
What next? Polonium poisoning on US soil?
Again re gerrymandering. It essentiall creates a lot of 'we'll win bby a comfy 5%' districts. If those districts swing 6%+ - possible - it could collapse the whole house of cards. Which is one more reason we MUST calibrate our efforts into red districts.
Gerrymandering is BAD - but it's not bullet proof - what it does is give more seats to the Gerrymanderers UNTIL the voters shift a bit too much - then the edifice collapses and they get LESS seats than they would in a fair election
The GOP extending the Gerrymandering may end up doing that
Dang - I saw OGH's post after I had done my one!
Larry,
I invite you to take a peek at Clay Shirky's book 'Cognitive Surplus'. It is a few years old now, but it shows what I'm describing. We THINK we have little surplus time, but we actually have heaps and gobs of it. We have for quite a while. How do we know? Look at the byproducts for what we do outside our day jobs. For example, look here. You write a lot. You write a lot about stuff you had to have read elsewhere FIRST before you write about it here.
There is a LOT of surplus time that used to be consumed by the boob toob. Now it is other stuff.
Dummymandering might happen, but I suspect they will purge voter roles to defend against that risk shortly. That's why I join our host in arguing for all Dems in those states to re-register as GOP. Do it BEFORE the purges and then register again (oh... I forgot I had already done that! My bad.) before the deadlines to make it difficult.
I'd love to see a Doonesbury summer daydream too. Mine involves orange jumpsuits and impeachments. My concern is we are more likely to get a McVeigh summer daydream next year. We have strategically sound options short of shooting people.
Full of Russians isn't it?
From Reddit:
Yes, I am his Mother. Our family is in shock and I logged on after searching for any information the police couldn't tell me. They arrived at midnight to deliver the tragic news. I pm'd the OP about please keeping this post up because as a grieving parent it meant a lot to know that people are aware and care. Most responses have been kind and respectful and I appreciate it.
His name is Sean and he suffered depression & anxiety for many years. There was nothing political about it. After some time I will be in contact with whoever manages the building about safety. If people want to die they will find away and we know they aren't always thinking about how it will affect others, especially those below (getting hurt) or any bystanders enjoying a meal or going about their business. The trauma from this has reached many and I'm sorry to all that witnessed anything. As a parent this is the worst nightmare we can experience in life. Myself, my husband and other son are in shock and traumatized.
Thank you so much for the comments I don't have it in me to respond personally to all the condolences. Please be assured it has helped me. Every thought and expression has brought comfort.
That said, there is a cultural connection to Russia as jumping to one's death seems also to be a favorite suicide method of young people there.
The best solution against gerrymandering is a representative electoral system.
I know, I know, never going to happen, focus on the present etc. But since Trump, Roberts and the other Goppers are hell-bend on tearing the house down, someone should make plans how to rebuild it after it is gone.
Using the same plans with the same flaws won't work.
By a representative electoral system do you mean proportional representation? That is multi-member electorates with parties given a number of representatives in proportion to the number of votes that they get. We have a version of that here in Australia for the Senate elections with each State as a multi-member electorate.
@Lloyd: Yes.
We have a hybrid system for the Bundestag which is somewhat difficult to explain fast and has some quirks.
Alfred Differ:
We THINK we have little surplus time, but we actually have heaps and gobs of it. We have for quite a while. How do we know? Look at the byproducts for what we do outside our day jobs. For example, look here. You write a lot. You write a lot about stuff you had to have read elsewhere FIRST before you write about it here.
For you and me, I'll concede that to be true. We're in an income bracket and a profession which gives us some leeway in that area*. For meatpackers or farm laborers, I'm not convinced.
* I can leverage free time because I'm in a very mature phase of my career in which I can retire at any moment should I choose to do so. In my younger days, even as an IT professional (or especially so), there were times (before easy remote work) when my personal time meant grabbing dinner, getting six or so hours of sleep, and then back to another 12 or 16 hour work day.
A few things about Chris Hedges (whose work I mostly admire for its forthright honesty and clarity, and lack of comforting illusions concerning human nature and the nature of powerful people):
First, he is not talking about our fellow citizens being "stoopid", he's talking about our leaders being stupid and short sighted. For a concise explanation as to why idiots tend to be in charge of corporations, organizations and governments I'd recommend this young, humorous and insightful podcaster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-SGSnCfrao
Why Stupid People Become Successful
Hedges also has first hand experience with collapsing civilizations. He was a correspondent reporting on the Balkan Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo back in the 90s where idiots waged wars and slaughter neighbors over ethnic and religious differences, neighbors that they had been living peacefully with for over half a century in the old Yugoslavia.
Don't think what happened to Yugoslavia can't happen to America.
The sad fact of life is that idiots rule. Confidence beats out competence every time. A good rule of thumb is that the confident who lack self awareness rise to the top while competent who agonize over every detail do not - or at best end up in an expendable staff advisory position.
Rule by idiots becomes more prominent as a civilization dies.
How can you look around at the world today and not see that?
More than idiocy, consider the implicit malice of professional s**t-stirrers, telling an audience of the well to do that they have reasons to be resentful. The "B" ark with the lot of them.
"Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark, all is deluge."
- Horace Mann
(I post this whenever I see the word 'ark')
https://neurosciencenews.com/social-neurodevelopment-risk-29552/?fbclid=IwY2xjawMG4HBleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETE3Y1BTUHVYalFiYkE4dm5YAR72bV5Ft8jk8488O9B3vx6a42yeIN-nZCiFIQjHDN4gZ_zfwJuL8bdiDaEVCQ_aem_NZ78Klmt6WH1hMTT6rcJtA
Now there is stupid, and then there is evil.
According to recent polling, 47% of Republicans would not care if Trump committed heinous crimes on Epstein's island. 47% of Trump voters is a little over 36 million Americans who are not bothered by such s3x crimes.
36 effing million of our fellow Americans are pure effing evil, not just just stupid.
a new psychological study that examines the personality traits of Donald Trump supporters. The research, led by Professor Craig Newman at the University of North Texas, reveals a strong correlation between conservative political ideology, particularly favorable views of Trump, and higher scores in callousness, manipulation, and other malevolent traits. The study, based on surveys of over 9,000 U.S. participants, found that Trump supporters—especially white participants—were more likely to exhibit authoritarianism, social dominance, and low empathy. The findings suggest that individuals with these traits are more inclined to admire political figures who reflect similar characteristics.
https://www.alternet.org/trump-supporters-maga-empathy/
Callous and manipulative: Study says 'malevolent personality traits' dominate Trump voters (paper by Craig Newman, professor of psychology at the : University of North Texas).
"Our findings suggest a link : between malevolent personality and : conservative political ideology, which : in our study included positive views of : Donald Trump, and that persons with : malevolent personality dispositions : view political figures with malevolent traits favorably, people who view malevolent political figures favorably also report less empathy for others and enjoy the suffering of others."
Participants in both samples completed a range of validated questionnaires measuring political attitudes, personality traits, and empathy. The findings consistently showed people who identified as politically conservative and especially those who rated Trump's presidency highly were more likely to score higher on measures of authoritarianism, social dominance, malevolent personality traits. In the first sample of men, all three predictors, social dominance, authoritarian, and psychopathic tendencies, predicted conservative ideology and favorable views of Trump, but only for the white participants.
IOW...
“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” - Captain G. M. Gilbert, the Army psychologist assigned to watching the defendants at the Nuremberg trials
It not the right wing. Violence Against Political Opponents Is Becoming Mainstream on the Left. Here’s (More) Proof.
https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2025/08/09/violence-against-political-opponents-is-becoming-mainstream-on-the-left-heres-more-proof-n4942567
So to do the math, Trump won slightly more than half of the popular vote. Slightly less than half of those don't mind if Trump committed heinous s3x crimes on Epstein's island.
That is roughly one quarter, 25%, of our fellow Americans who are evil/stupid.
That was after Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Victimhood)...
Ok, that tells me the level of seriousness to take that publication.
Governor Pritzker is calling for a political street fight. It's you right-wingers who use political violence so often that "the usual death threats" seems perfunctory.
"It's not just Hitler who uses violence to take territory and kill enemies. The Allied powers are actually planning to invade Normandy!"
Well this didn't take them long.
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/supreme-court-formally-asked-overturn-landmark-same-sex/story?id=124465302
Supreme Court formally asked to overturn landmark same-sex marriage ruling
Kim Davis, a former clerk who refused gay couples, brought the appeal.
Ten years after the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide, the justices this fall will consider for the first time whether to take up a case that explicitly asks them to overturn that decision.
Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for six days in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple on religious grounds, is appealing a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 for attorneys fees.
In a petition for writ of certiorari filed last month, Davis argues First Amendment protection for free exercise of religion immunizes her from personal liability for the denial of marriage licenses.
More fundamentally, she claims the high court's decision in Obergefell v Hodges -- extending marriage rights for same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment's due process protections -- was "egregiously wrong."
"The mistake must be corrected," wrote Davis' attorney Mathew Staver in the petition. He calls Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in Obergefell "legal fiction."
The petition appears to mark the first time since 2015 that the court has been formally asked to overturn the landmark marriage decision. Davis is seen as one of the only Americans currently with legal standing to bring a challenge to the precedent.
Davis is seen as one of the only Americans currently with legal standing to bring a challenge to the precedent.Davis is seen as one of the only Americans currently with legal standing to bring a challenge to the precedent.
I don't get that at all.
I could see her having standing to ask for a personal exemption from following the law based on her "sincerely-held religious convictions", but in what sense does she have standing to challenge the recognition of same-sex marriage itself?
I mean, if it's her right under freedom of religion to discriminate against others not of her religion, I would think that every white Christian in America could claim standing.
Dick and Jane and Spot and Puff were part of my early schooling, but I was already reading by the time they came around, so I got a bye on that, mostly. I think early reading is important to learning critical thinking skills; reading for yourself is better than being told everything.
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lw55wci4fr2w
for the second time this briefing, Trump claims he's "going to Russia" on Friday (he's actually going to Alaska, which is in the United States)
Putin has probably asked for Alaska to be returned to Russia, and for all we know, Von Schitzenpantz has already given it to him. Not that a president can actually do that, but that hasn't stopped DJT before.
Or Putin will send in the military to liberate the Russian-speaking Alaskans, and then be entitled to the territory that he takes by force. At least the North Korean soldiers won't have to travel so far this time.
As I have said again and again.
American descent into fascism is a cultural thing.
Americans voted for Trump, because they are fascists in their hearts.
Formed by decades of nationalism, corporate power and media propaganda, worker subjugation, law-and-order, racism, disdain for learning, education, the arts, human rights, and dreams of a mythical past.
The irony being that in that case, they might probably ask Canada for help.
Americans voted for Trump, because they are fascists in their hearts.
Formed by decades of nationalism, corporate power and media propaganda, worker subjugation, law-and-order, racism, disdain for learning, education, the arts, human rights, and dreams of a mythical past.
Substitute "Republicans" for "Americans" and you've got a point. Alas, our system in which land votes rather than people makes it easier than it should be for Republicans to rig the game.
The Lifeboat Foundation* – dedicated to humanity’s survival in worst-case eventualities – has reposted my award-winning essay “Singularities and Nightmares,” now a decade older but still pertinent in almost every paragraph and prediction and warning…
https://lifeboat.com/ex/singularities.and.nightmares
Well, as expected, Trump has chosen an obviously unqualified hack to be the head of Labor Statistics. If he gets confirmed, I expect massive leakage from that bureau. People will be suspicious of anything that he signs. Credibility will depend on how little he had to do with the figures.
In other news...
The Russian army managed some critical breakthroughs. It is bad, very bad.
A debate about saving democracy that will likely (needlessly) be lost
After nearly 75 years of liberal management, our increasingly dysfunctional Western Democracy is charging willy-nilly into a major smash-up as the immoral forces of 'Authoritarian & Feudal Order' threaten a resurgence.
Liberals everywhere agree in this regard and they therefore counsel the following drastic actions:
(1) Maintain the Status Quo;
(2) Stay the course; and
(3) Double-down on the very actions that have brought Western Democracy to the brink of extinction.
According to the circularity of liberal logic, the solution to diversity-induced disunity is EVEN MORE DIVERSITY resulting in even more disunity, in much the same way that majority-rule democracy can only be SAVED by the elimination (and/or replacement) of the current democratic majority in order to share power with the minority.
This same false liberal logic also applies to the problems of both CRIME and MORALITY, as the elimination of uniform behavioral & legal standards (along with the mainstreaming of everything aberrant & degenerate) eliminates both of these problems by definition.
Yet, liberals everywhere should be of good cheer, because what they call 'The End of Western Democracy' is merely another name for Political Diversity and Cultural Enrichment.
Best
___________
You'd think that the pro-diversity crowd would welcome 'political diversity' above all else, but not so much. Assuming that ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL, what's wrong with a little authoritarian feudalism anyway? Or, is the phrase 'Our Democracy' just another dogwhistle for White Supremacy?
ingrate yammerers cross the spectrum, from matthew to locum. What they share is aversion to facts in favor of sanctimony incantations... and a cowardly unwillingness to back up their assertions with actual consequences.
In fact, the last 80 years of the American Pax have been the best in human history compared to all other eras, COMBINED! And I invite you both to live in a country where the standard of living, the availability of cool tech and clean air and tap water you can drink and freedom from coerced cop-bribes, and crime rates and social inequality and a myriad other traits are more like 1936 than today.
Zimbabwe should do.
Russia's looking for a win on the map. ISW considers the thrust NE of Pokrovsk to consist of reconnaisance and saboteur units ie infiltration rather than territory control. That is clearly the intention though. If that were to happen, it can certainly develop into a salient through the 'fortress belt'.
So, cause for concern, but not despair. Yet.
As predicted in EARTH… and it could be as important as white light LEDs. “Geothermal energy’s moment is here. Once constrained by niche geologic resources, the ability to produce ubiquitous, clean power and heat from the earth’s crust is now on the horizon. Thanks to drilling advancements from the American fracking revolution, the world’s geothermal power potential has gone from an inconsequential fraction of demand to second only to solar power in renewable energy potential.”
https://carnegieendowment.org/events/2025/06/unlocking-geothermal-conference?
The most recent assessment of the situation (Aug 12)
I agree with our fine host that "the last 80 years of the American Pax have been the best in human history compared to all other eras, but I fear that that the agreement of a potential White Supremacist such as myself will give our host little comfort.
Even so, his assessment of both Zimbabwe (in specific) and the Dark Continent (in general) also appears to be rather spot on, as basic democratic principles have never been their forte, as per the similarly failed state of Liberia.
The very same could be said of our Muslim friends who currently inhabit Western Europe, though they be somewhat rapey & intolerant of the pale-skinned natives, but it would be racially intolerant White Supremacy to expect our dusky friends to abide by our laws & traditions of 'not raping' for even a minute longer.
Western Civilization was not only good, but it was great & golden while it lasted.
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Best
Dr Jo - seems to me to be a very smart cookie
From his post
We chose the brain as our benchmark for examining LLM efficiency, but there’s a problem that makes a lot of the preceding section irrelevant. It’s a fundamental property of LLMs:
There is currently no way to put a single new ‘thought’ into an LLM, apart from re-training the whole damn thing.
If you ask LLM experts, then they will say something like “This is an active area of research”. The reason why it’s an active area of research is because if you tweak a single bit in that LLM, it is prone to ‘catastrophic forgetting’. We have no clear “map of how things are stored” so we currently have no way of introducing any new information. In other words, once set up, an LLM cannot learn!
https://substack.com/home/post/p-168522053
I would like some of the smart people on this site to help me here
Is this correct???
Dr Jo is predicting that todays AI "surge" is a bubble - like the last two surges!
I don't think it takes an LLM expert to realise that.
In fact, it appears to require *not* being an LLM expert!
Hi Tony
Is he correct in that its VERY difficult to "correct" an LLM?
Look up where the US and Zimbabwe are on the statistics for intentional homicide.
Microcorruption might be not a problem in the US yet (wait for a few years), but macrocorruption is present and overwhelming. For years, since at least Citizens United.
Cool Tech, Clean Air and tap water ... well, for those who live in comfy bubbles and have enough money to spend, that might still be a thing. For the rest, it will be thrown out the window with all those pesky environmental limitations for the industry.
Says one of the guys who rooted for a convicted sex felon, who was allegedly best friends to a white billionaire sex ring human trafficker who has committed or has been suicided during his first term in office.
As I often say, modern day fascists have nothing against rape, as long as they get the pretty girls and boys, in some cases, and others gain nothing.
Vast, black box neural networks, city-sized compute engines, data lakes, tinker-toy eugenics, and Dunning-Kruger dreams of Empire all have one thing in common. They are cargo cults. Incantations.
"There is no gene for the human spirit" - GATTACA
What guys like the resident Wannabe Mengele often get wrong:
Tolerance, from the latin word tolerare, means "enduring", "suffering", not loving. It is indivisibly connected with freedom as a society. Henceforth, any attempt to limit tolerance to a group of persons, to exclude them from the graces of a well-ordered, self-determined society is an attack on the freedom of all, and thus, such societies wanting to keep their freedom, must design their laws and order in such a way that those who want to attack it must be vanquished by the means available.
The voices who wish to silence, disappear and exterminate others must suffer exactly this fate; one has to be as uncompromising, unyielding, unforgiving to their demands as they are towards others. Or else, free societies will perish.
Of course, these methods must be tempered with reason, and there is a valuable debate to be had on whether a given stance or procedure is abused or creates martyrs - but in the end, personal and societal freedom die if you allow intolerance to fester and the intolerant to gain power.
But check these two lists for yourself to determine were you are now. It is six years old.
Hi Duncan, as my earlier comment would imply, I am *not* an LLM expert, but what Dr Jo says about removing errors being difficult seems very reasonable to me. I'll try to justify that below.
First, LLMs do not follow a set logic. This can be seen from the various 'just wrong' examples of an LLM attempting simple artithmetic. 2+2=... 3.14159? (one way to square a circle, I suppose). Haven't seen what happens if you ask repeatedly, but I suspect the result would be subtly different each time.
Second, LLMs process the input in a multitude of ways. I offered a trite example of an LLM* that produced text output based on the probability of a character appearing after a preceding sequence of characters. It might form one layer of a true LLM, which would have thousands of layers where the 'next output' has a set probability according to the 'preceding sequence', as specified by the layer. (Don't ask me how these layers are organised!)
As to the problem... Apart from formally defining what it is that's *incorrect*, it's a question of what it is about the input that's ramping up the probability of the incorrect output. Given that that probability is determined by the composite sum of all the data catalogued in a myriad of ways, locating a specific input that produces the adverse effect is impossible. Indeed, it is unlikely that there is one input.
Disabling a layer at a time may give some indications, but it would be imprecise, and there are thousands. A simple analog might be an image of a rectangular wire grid being re-created from a diffraction pattern. Such a pattern would be a square matrix of point sources, brightest being along the x and y axes. It's an elementary optical trick to remove the horizontal wires by masking the dots/layer along the y axis. But what do you do to remove a specific line? You need to mask or adjust the brightness of various dots in a specific manner which isn't obvious.
Another way to think of reverse engineering a complex process like an LLM is to think of it as reversing entropy (which should be providing yet another clue as to the quality of the final result.)
* Little Language Model. Using preceding word sequences would be more productive, but it was intended as a bit of fun.
Maybe he's finally decided to come out of the closet. You can't blackmail a gay man if you are openly gay.
Her legal standing comes from the fact she has been judged to be personally liable. If you’re injured you have standing.
Her legal standing comes from the fact she has been judged to be personally liable.
Ok, but that should give her standing to argue that her freedom of religion indemnifies her against liability for defying the court decision. Not standing to argue that the court decision itself is improper.
Remember the postal worker whose Christian religious convictions prevented him from working on Sunday? He was allowed to argue that he should keep his job despite his refusal to work Sunday shifts. He was not allowed to argue that the Post Office having Sunday shifts at all was unconstitutional.
In other news: Manufacture of consent has started in Germany to ban social media for minors and smartphones in schools.
What happened to YouTube? I usually watch videos while working out on the treadmills, cycles, and Nordic tracks at the Y (Isaac Arthur and Heather Cox Richardson are favorites). But now I have to" sign in" - which isn't possible from a remote public device like a treadmill screen.
Right. I should not have picked on Zimbabwe. Let's choose Guatemala and Honduras... Feudal regimes who send $$ to the GOP and TRump every year and oppress their people to drive them across US borders.
Right. I should not have picked on Zimbabwe
They're still mad about the whole Rhodesia thing.
And I suppose the South (Africa) shall rise again too?
...that should give her standing to argue that her freedom of religion indemnifies her...
I completely agree. I think it was an error to hold her personally liable.
Rather than the SCOTUS abandoning their earlier decision, the smart thing to do is wipe out the liability and remove her standing. They've done that before to end controversial cases like the one involving 'under God' in our Pledge. The removed the father's custody of the daughter and eliminated is standing.
There is no winning scenario for Russia. They will bleed for a generation if they try to hold onto Ukraine. That's not a win that can advance a 21st century nation.
The active research isn't just one push. There are many. One of my favorites involves geometric knowledge that gets stored in a system that intrinsically encodes geometry. LLM's don't do that right now and you can see it in AI art. I know folks working on the intrinsic encoding, though, and the only thing holding them back is the design of modern GPU's. That WILL get fixed and the matrix math operations will be slightly displaced for faster ones that can't be geometrically stupid.
https://www.youtube.com/@WelchLabsVideo/videos
This guy's teaching videos have been pretty good the last few months.
https://www.youtube.com/@3blue1brown
...and of course there is always treasure at 3Blue1Brown.
There are many others covering how they work and what the limits are, but they are difficult to translate into sound bites and investment advice. 8)
I'm not sure what you're seeing or what settings are involved at your treadmill.
I can get to Hal Sparks without signing in.
https://www.youtube.com/@Infotainmentwars/streams
Alfred, the problem is twofold: Putin must continue on this path or He will be replaced. This includes eventually attacking the Baltics and Poland. Second, the window for doing the latter closes somewhere between 2027 and 2029, because rearmamemt is projected to be sufficient to protect our neighbours. He is already building up for that.
This means there is a chance that he will try to invade EU/Nato territory between now and 2027.
"Possibly the last summer in peace", as some of our analysts described the situation.
And I am under no illusion that Trump will honor Article 5. To the contrary, I think it would be wise to assume the US will support Russia, not it's former allies.
My preference for exile is Namibia should it come to that. Provided I get the necessary 200K in Euros together.
I'm not an ingrate about America. What David does not like about me is that I keep bringing up David's own choices, and how bad they were.
David likes oligarchs if he thinks they will listen to him and act as his patron.
David likes surveillance as long as David gets to influence the targets and make money from the spies.
David likes his GOP neighbor, who votes to end America.
David *doesn't* like to be reminded that he is a failed, 3rd rate pundit with some ideas that are flat-out dangerous. David doesn't like anyone going back to read what he actually said in the past.
I'm not an ingrate, but I am a critic of the host here because David is dangerous and wrong.
Some valid points. To which I would add:
David likes empire, as long as it is Pax Americana, which is greater than all other civilizations in the long horror story called history combined, and without which the entire universe is just wasted space.
As a corollary, David likes war, as long as it can be justified with the usual Pax American cult propaganda (too bad about all the L's; oh well, we meant well and we were of course the Good Guys on a mission to save the world).
David doesn’t like it when someone points out that he is really an emotion- and ego-driven cultist ideologue posing as a calm, rational, moderate secularist.
Although I disagree that the GOP is voting to "end America"; they are just voting to end the particular simulacrum of liberal America alluded to above, which those raised on it who like it confuse with America. There isn’t one America any more, if there ever was—just different propaganda machines fighting for control of the simulacrum. That’s the thing about Trump: he gets this better than any president ever, that American politics is basically professional wrestling, and he understands how to work the “kayfabe” in his favor and make the people opposing him look like stiffs.
@Der Oger
I don’t know if you’ve figured this out, but the US will sacrifice anyone, even it’s best “allies”, if it decides you’re no longer useful. This means vassalized Europe could be next on the chopping block. You’re paying how much in tariffs, and how much extra for US energy, for the privilege of continuing to be vassals of an empire on the other side of an ocean? As opposed to integrating yourself into the larger Eurasian landmass of which you are just a peninsula, which makes so much more economic and geopolitical sense?
At the end of the day, empires don’t actually respect their vassals, and if other large nations or empires have more to offer, or make the costs too high, they will carve you up for dinner. Guess who may be on the menu, Mr. Euro? As old Hank K. said: “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal”.
Btw, where do you get the idea that Putin wants to attack Europe after Ukraine? I’ve heard people repeat this over and over as if that makes it true, but I have yet to hear any good explanation for why Russia would want to do such an absurd thing. The only way I could see it happening is if a remilitarized NATO started to act aggressively, like it was gonna invade Russian territory, and Russia struck pre-emptively. But other than that, it just sounds like scare-mongering by Euro leaders, many of them unpopular/unelected, who know their populations aren’t keen on fighting Russia and they’re trying to manufacture consent. Is that what you’re doing, or do you actually believe this nonsense?
The Baltic States are very likely targets after the Ukraine. There are plenty of irredentists in Russia.
Sudan, etc:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/?utm_medium=cr&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=08_13_2025_issue_promo_september_engagement_all_actives_large_subject_line_10_10_80_a&utm_content=A&utm_term=ALL+Active+Subscribers+%28Stripe%2BCDS%2BiTunes%29
Btw, where do you get the idea that Putin wants to attack Europe after Ukraine?
Because they said so, at home, towards their own population. It's one thing Medwedjew doing it after too much vodka. It is an entirely other thing when the state media clowns like Solowjow and that Popov couple do it. Because they say exactly what they are allowed to, and do it again and again. To prepare their own people.
Because Putin said and wrote it. It is all feelings and nostalgia and revanchism, because in his core he is still wounded about the fall of the Soviet Empire.
Because they prepare for it. The maneuvers at the Suwalki Gap borders can be read as preparations for readiness, or as an cover for invasion.
Because we are already at war. Cyber attacks, sabotage operations, political destabilization through various means.
Because he cannot risk liberal democracies at his borders. The Baltics are so much more free, economically developed and less afflicted by corruption; Finnland even moreso.
Because his economy crashes. Currently, I pay around 3-4 € for half a pound of butter. In Russia, with one third of an average German income, they pay that amount, too (if it is still a pound and butter, that is to say).Inflation is around 20-25%, and the only wages that rise are that of the soldiers and their military-industrial complex. Putin is backed into a corner in this regard. The only way forward for him might be to annex the former Warsaw pact states and force them to fill the hole in his coffers (as we did in WW II with all the nations we occupied).
Because he might have become a victim of his own propaganda - his people expecting now results for all the hardships they had to suffer. He can hardly contain the elements which are even more radical than him.
And because he grows older every day, and wants to see the world under his control or burnt to ashes.
The outbreak of the war is a chance. Every factor above contributes to it. Even if it is only 30/70, I would not gamble on it.
As opposed to integrating yourself into the larger Eurasian landmass of which you are just a peninsula, which makes so much more economic and geopolitical sense?
That is imperialist thinking. That would mean total domination by Moskow and nobody wants that - the least those who had to suffer it in their past. Go, ask the Polish - they are as nationalist and conservative and anti-woke as one can be in Europe, but they hate Russia by leagues more than they hate us.
And do you really think France, a nuclear power, will give up his leadership role?
The economic sense dwindles as our dependency on fossile energy goes down. With the exception of some raw materials, we don't really need them - we can get them elsewhere, maybe cheaper.
Groceries, Food? Heck, we are still in overproduction, and they have mounting difficulties to feed their own people. And so on.
Treebeard makes a tentatively valid point that I make excuses for the American Pax as being by far better than all other paramount states - combined - and better than chaos. Indeed, despite all of those qualifications and the inarguable outcomes that most nations could develop in peace spending minuscule amounts on arms... and 95% of children in school and 90% of adults having never personally witnessed war....
...facts which put a steep burden on those claiming I am wrong...
...nevertheless, it IS daunting to be seen defending an empire. All I can say is that the end of the age of empires is imminent, if we can get another 20 years of world advances in health & education and its midwife will be America, unless it falls. Which both matthew and the ent deeply desire, despite being unable to name a single viable alternative from across 6000 years.
As for matthew, he is simply a raving idiot. Nothing that he asserts about me is even remotely true. He is a shrieking leftist version of locumranch.
@Der Oger
LOL, by your over the top description of what is going on in Russia and what Putin wants, it sounds like you are also a victim of your own propaganda.
“And because he grows older every day, and wants to see the world under his control or burnt to ashes.”
That is definitely imperialist thinking; possibly some kind of projection by neutered, formerly world-dominating Europeans?
By integrating into Eurasia I didn’t mean domination by Russia, or anyone else. You are already dominated by the USA, that doesn’t seem to be an issue for you. I’m talking about balancing that by developing better ties with the rising powers of the East in a way that would be mutually beneficial, and would actually make you more sovereign, not less. Europe can be a pole in a multipolar world dominated by no one, along with the USA, Russia, China, and others. Are you so terrified of the East in your special “garden” that you would rather stay a vassal of the would-be hegemon?
I do think there’s some kind of, dare I say, racist Euro-pathology at work here; I saw it myself when I was there, long before the current troubles, in the way Euros viewed Russian tourists like they were Mongol hordes. Whereas I see Russians as more like frontier Euros with an Asiatic flavor, not so different from Americans, so it seems natural that we would ally and leave arrogant old Europe to its fate eventually. Maybe now is that time.
Ah, thank you. My world was uncertain when Treebeard made a cogent argument that called for evidential response from me. But he is comfortably back to being a blithering nothing.
I understand this is a Polish joke (that is, a joke made by Poles)
Polish Soldier #1: Germany and Russia are both invading us!*
Polish Soldier #2: Who should we shoot first, Germans or Russians?
Polish Solider #1: The Germans, of course! Business before pleasure.
Pappenheimer
*again. I guess that would make at least 3 times that I am aware of
I found a recent report that rumpT plans to offer Putin mineral concessions in Alaska in exchange for some kind of deal over Ukraine, where our Orange Overlord is stating that territorial concessions will have to be made for peace. By Ukraine. I'm assuming that a Nobel Peace Prize is being gunned for, but I reviewed the list of prior winners, and while there is a Chamberlain on it, it's the wrong Chamberlain; it's Neville's brother Austen, who helped secure the Locarno Pact. PM Chamberlain didn't get a Nobel for appeasement in 1936.
Pappenheimer
P.S. I did notice that Norman Angell is on the list, whose work 'The Great Illusion' proposed that the primacy of international trade had made war unprofitable by the 20th C: He "tried to establish the fallacy of the idea that conquest and war brought a nation great economic advantage and ensured its living space and access to markets, trade, and raw materials." (cf Britannica). He was right, but WWI and II were just around the corner anyway.
P.P.S. I am also of the opinion that Trump is implicated in the Epstein files
Unless we take ourselves down (a possibility I still consider as slim) our empire is likely to last the century. China will be back... but they aren't a sea power in a position to fill low and medium altitude orbits at will essentially extending the oceans. We are.
Of course Goppers and Kremlings are natural allies. White supremacy, rape culture, corruption, grift, the veneration of strongmen, nationalism, merger of state and church, disregard for human rights, militarism, grievances and perverse nostalgia.The perfect couple in fascism.
If Russia is so perfect, why hundreds of thousands, of not millions of young Russians fled it at the start of the war?
Multipolar worlds: we had it at the start of the 30 years war, the seven years war, the first world war. Make of it what your will.
Well, most of this just sounds like a neutered Euro-leftoid’s framing of conservative societies with badwords. Nobody said it was perfect, but it has its advantages. I mean, if liberalism is so perfect, why was Trump elected twice, and why do conservative movements continue to threaten your liberal paradise in Europe? Why are people emigrating from there to Russia? Because you see, a lot of people actually do like it, and frame what you’re offering with their own badwords, which I won’t bother listing.
Multipolarity won’t be paradise, but the liberal alternative of world domination by one ideology and one civilization is a pipe dream that you need to wake up from, because it’s never gonna happen, and it never brought peace either.
Pappenheimer, that was a good one.
Treebeard:
Btw, where do you get the idea that Putin wants to attack Europe after Ukraine? I’ve heard people repeat this over and over as if that makes it true, but I have yet to hear any good explanation for why Russia would want to do such an absurd thing.
To reconstitute the Soviet Union?
The only way I could see it happening is if a remilitarized NATO started to act aggressively, like it was gonna invade Russian territory, and Russia struck pre-emptively.
Most likely they'd claim that Europe was about to do so and so Russia had no choice but a first strike. Y'know, just as they did with Ukraine.
@Der Oger
LOL, by your over the top description of what is going on in Russia and what Putin wants, it sounds like you are also a victim of your own propaganda.
You're arguing that someone who lives there is too brainwashed to know what is really going on--that only an observer from afar who once spent time in Europe and Russia knows the true situation?
You're reminding me of Dave Sim, insisting that I knew nothing about marriage because I hadn't yet been divorced for 16 years as he had at the time.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Aug14-4.html
Good government groups like Common Cause have always supported, well, good government, including things like independent commissions to draw districts. The trouble is, blue states tend to go for these things and red states don't. Now even Common Cause has had it and is arguing that blue states should rejigger their maps too, to fight back against Texas and other states that are going for maximal gerrymanders now. This is a huge change of heart for Common Cause. This is akin to some anti-death penalty group saying "This crime is so horrendous that the perpetrator should not only die, but should die in the most painful possible way."
...
The anti-reciprocal gerrymandering side has lost Common Cause. That says something.
Treebeard: You might be under a misconception. We do not aspire to become American in culture.
The society, the culture, the decay, the growing poverty and overall higher crime rates in the US serve as a warning, not a goal.
Trump was elected twice because
a) The US do not have free and fair elections. Gerrymandering, voter purging, reducing access to ballots, and many other issues prevent that.
b) he successfully managed to lie about his positions on making life better for the common people.
c) the US are a fertile ground for fascists, through culture and errors in the constitution.
d) "liberals" in the US are more like conservatives and "conservatives", well, are fascists. From our perspective. There is no traditional, worker-centered Left with a strong base in the unions left in the US. It is dead.
e) in sheer numbers and maybe even per capita, macrocorruption exceeds everything else seen on the world (especially under conservative rulers).
As for some weirdos with heads full of shit going to Russia: Yes, they are free to leave us. We don't need them. If I get two hard-working, educated young Russians in return, that is a win. And those videos of screaming american expat wifes after their husband has been dragged of to the meat grinder are just lovely. I hope we see some more of them in the future.
Treebeard, you either know nothing about us and Russia, and maybe not even about the US, or are lying. A lifetime of deformation with propaganda is also an option.
There are six levels of Russia:
1) The cleptocratic oligarchs and their circles. Palace compounds, access to all western luxuries and education (even now), and, if they stay in the Kremlins graces, no crime (they do not commit them by themselves, that is).
2) The greater metropolitan areas of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Generally clean and safe.
3) The other large cities and industrial centers. Corruption and grift as well as climate and time keep them worn down, dirty and crime-ridden.
4) Rural Russia. No paved streets, no sanitation, just misery.
5) Ethnic reservates of non-Russians, including Chechnya. Like rural Russia, with even more misery and discrimination. Currently dying out because Putin has recruited from these areas to save Russia 1-2 and possibly 3 from large losses (and outrage).
6) The Prison and Gulag system. Currently emptying because, well, the war.
Familiarize with it, because the US will look like that in a few years.
The CDU tried gerrymandering on a federal level by increasing certain electoral counties and reducing the overall number a bit. Would have given them +100 seats or so, at the cost of those of other parties. They failed with their proposal.
The new system we got is quite quirky and has it's flaws, too.
I began to answer this: "if liberalism is so perfect, why was Trump elected twice, and why do conservative movements continue to threaten your liberal paradise in Europe?" with the right's perfect tactic of driving hapless refugees across Western borders, which ALWAYS (incl USA) drives many voters rightward...
...and our insipidly tactic-stoopid leftist friends never, ever grapple with the perfection of that tactic in order to prioritize and maintain a ruling coalition.
But then I saw this: "Why are people emigrating from there to Russia?"
Har! Back to drooling insanity, fellah? Jibber away.
Though seriously? Treebeard doesn't even blink defending the rebuilding USSR... and propaganda like Tucker gushing ejaculatively at the one supermarket in Moscow maintained for party members. (I've been to others! Not as nice!)
onward
onward
The way with which you look at the EU, the political situation we are in overlooks the dozens of factors that led to it. It is slightly more truthful than what Treebeard and Locumranch utter, and that makes me sad.
And not willing to spend energy and time on it unless you ask.
It feels like "let's gas and burn the Jews to avoid a new Hitler."
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