To those of you expressing despair at this point, I say get a grip. We have many institutions and professionals who stand between us and looming tyranny. Though sure, the oligarchs and fascists and (yes) Kremlin-led commies who are waging a putsch against our Great Experiment know this! Hence they are focusing their central energies at demolishing those institutions and professionals.
They began their purge right after the inauguration, by dismissing, re-assigning or neutralizing top experts on counter-terror, counter-espionage and cyber-security, then putting those who remain under direct command of appointees who are either suborned or deeply unqualified. A 100x version of what happened under GW Bush, when smaller purges appear to have led directly to the tragedies of 9/11.
(Every GOP senator who voted to confirm the current bestiary of Trumpian nominees has been directly culpable.)
(And if (when?) a major terror or other calamity happens, denounce those who eviscerated the corps of professional protectors!)
The professionals by now know they are the chief targets. Yes, you are justified to say that ICE raider-thugs are just as big a push. And sure, it's horrific. And I'll get to that, tying it to the mad right's all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
Right now, as individuals, the professionals are keeping their heads down. But I am sure each of the one MILLION members of the American Protector caste is asking self: "What will be my limit?"
The treasonists know this question is being asked into a million mirrors, every day. They are hoping that most of the professionals will - when they finally get fed-up -simply make a 'gesture' by resigning. We've seen thousands already. And boy has that done a lot of good? Not.
But there are other options. My own prediction?
It will start in some big city police department. Already there are anecdotes of folks - many of them citizens - fleeing ICE thugs to take shelter behind cops. So far, I know of no such confrontations that have gone physical. Yet. The masked ICErs generally turn tail at that point. But what if even just one cop begins a trend...
...by demanding the ICErs show ID. NOT to the person they are trying to grab, or to the surrounding public with their phone cams... but to the police themselves. City cops who say
"Oh, sure. Handcuff your suspect. And prepare to hand me a RECEIPT for detaining him. But if I see you using force greater than necessary, I will arrest you. Now wait over there, all of you... please."
== Would that be enough? ==
Would that be enough? Of course not. It would show solidarity between urban citizens and their constabularies. But even if it spread nationwide, we would need much more.
Fundamentally, our officers and such are sworn to obey the civilian chain of command... and there's little provision for when that chain of command is both insane and likely treasonous.
But then, solving such problems is why we hired them! And I do know this. It doesn't begin with resigning in protest!
== A man's GOT to know his limitations! ==
Dirty Harry said that, in Magnum Force. And I know mine. My limitations. Some of them.
Look, I am a theoretician. Though certainly my postings and activism and books have put me on lists. Indeed, they may land me - someday - on a train manifest. Well, I have already decided to die on this hill.
But I serve best by raising options. Possibilities.
Hence I will soon begin a series of postings about What democrats might do, if/when back in office, after microcephalic/blackmailed jibberers and KGB agents have been expelled. And the long-needed revival of a sane conservative party commences, from political sidelines.
My list of proposals is long. And some items I recommended as much as 20 years ago.
If I am still around, I'll post it all and see if ideas can make the kind of difference they are supposed to do.
== Relevant miscellany ==
Do tune in to this lovely “Letter to My Old Master” recited by the inimitable Laurence Fishburne.
Russia is merging its three largest oil companies -- Rosneft, Gazprom Neft & Lukoil, part of accelerating seizure of private companies, aimed at rebuilding the USSR, whose fall Putin called 'history's worst tragedy.' It sounds so preposterous. Putin and his 5000 fellow Lenin-raised "ex" commissars are re-creating EVERY aspect of the evil empire, except the egalitarian verbiage! And the US right adores them. One would not have credited it in a sci fi story!
But given their recent great victory over the America ...
I’m loyal to the first civilization that ever at least somewhat instituted fair play. And hence the only one that produced not only justice, but also Adam Smith’s prescription of flat-fair-creative competition -- the c-word that no ‘conservative’ ever utters anymore, in their rush to ally with “ex” commie-kremlin-commissars, plus murder sheiks, hedge parasites, carbon lords, cable impresarios and inheritance brats, all in order to resume 6000 years of feudal darkness.
The irony is thick! Adam Smith’s c-word (‘competition’) is what made this the most creative (another c-word) of all eras.
NOT the monopolist capitalism that gave itself a well-deserved bad name, but the flat-fair-broad and joyful competitiveness that happens when ALL children rise up fed and educated and confident, exactly what Friedrich Hayek recommended
...and pulling in that ladder, by starving children and trashing education and slandering our brilliant universities, is the oligarchs' top priority.
WHY is no one mentioning Adam Smith? While Republicans and their allies mention Smith's name - and wave flags a lot - they betray his principles and those of the US Founders, at every turn, conniving with oligarchs to END flat-fair competition forever.
Meanwhile Democrats are the ones fostering actual, Smithian flat-fair-creative competition... and not one of them will mention that fact or Adam Smith's name!
== Revisiting history ==
A thought occurred to me. Actually connecting several past thoughts. Elsewhere I've shown how the deepest mental schism in American life -- between pro- and anti-modernity impulses -- goes back all the way to 1778, when Cornwallis went south knowing he would find more romantic/nostalgics who would hence be loyal to the King. A trait that manifested during the Calhoun Tariff Tiff and then when a million poor southern whites marched and fought and many died to defend the feudal privileges of plantation slaver lords... and again when Gone With The Wind cultural waves romantically extolled the Olde South...
...and now, bilious anti-modernism that manifests (with much geographic overlap) across the same confederate heartland, as spite toward universities and all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
In earlier missives I laid out the varied Phases of the American Civil War... and the current one - phase 8 or maybe 9... is nasty.
But a commonality just occurred to me.
Among the travesties that led to the worst episode (so far) -- the 1860s 'Civil War' - was the Fugitive Slave Act, supported by the John Roberts of the 1850s - Roger Taney, cursed be his name and memory and honor.
After which, bands of often-masked irregular southern cavalry began rampaging and raiding across northern states, smashing into homes and workplaces, snatching neighbors and ignoring victims who waved documents proving they were free persons, and not 'illegals.'
Sound familiar? Has anyone else made the parallel with today's monstrous ICE depredations? Because those slave-catcher raids had deeper effects than merely a run for the Canadian border.
They radicalized northerners, who would never have voted for Lincoln had they not been fiercely offended by such nasty aggression and oppression in their own villages and counties.
Another major result? Northern states began re-activating their dormant militias. And thusly by 1861 hundreds of thousands of brave True Americans were almost ready, when Lincoln called for volunteers.
Almost. Bull Run was a calamity but those who stood up stayed up. And stepped up again. Till the Union found its generals.
Newsom/AOC in 28.
78 comments:
GMT-5. I never understood why Hal felt it necessary to kill the scientists in suspension. But it made an amazing scene.
Hal would have had the same conflict of duty with all the crew except the one(s) with mission security clearance, and they might not have agreed with the 'tidiness' of Hal's working solution.
Resigning is a standard way to resolve conflicts in command (Adm. Holsey should perhaps have done it earlier). However, these are not 'standard' times and, if I can see what 'upholding *and* protecting the Constitution' in these circumstances requires, then so can several thousand flag officers. How they go about maintaining their oath is up to them. I doubt they're going to tell me, so all I can really do is trust in their reputed ingenuity and non-complicity.
"GMT-5. I never understood why Hal felt it necessary to kill the scientists in suspension. But it made an amazing scene."
There was cheering in the theater for THX-1138 when the number of robotic cops in service declined by one.
Both instances were drama by screenshot. Forget the gun. Chekhov now has a computer.
Professionals alone won't save you. Those still in office and deemed sufficiently loyal not to be fired, that is. I still see the odds of MAGA "winning" as high.
Quantico and DHS have lowered the standards for recruitment (being loyal to the regime and appearing sober at the recruitment interview could seem to suffice in the future.) The Gestapo had their roots in the Prussian Political Police, which the Nazis took over in 1932 and supplanted regular Police officers with their own people.
The mass media (and the billionaires that own them) have surrendered or were supporters of the regime in the first place.
The Democrats are still a mess.
What I do think what helps is that the regime fucks it up faster than they build up things, and the courts seem to act as a check, or at least slow things down until they reach the supreme court. Also, MAGA shows lines of fracturing. Epstein, tariffs, yadda yadda
When, not if, the AI bubble bursts, things will get tenfold worse than they are now (Just think of the US credit rating when GDP suddenly halves.) We all can only hope that the bubble deflates slowly and if it crushes, it does so before January 20th, 2029. (I am appalled that our own leaders ignore the threat, and will feign complete surprise when it happens, as they always do.)
There is the myriad of grassroots local resistance groups who mount a more effective and successful opposition than anyone actually paid to do so. An intelligent autocrat would allow the fire to slowly burn out. Putins path to totalitarian power took at least a decades, of not two.Trump and his cronies keep the flames alive by pouring oil into it by the barrel.
>>We have many institutions and professionals who stand between us and looming tyranny.
The evidence thus far suggests otherwise.
Larry (from last thread),
I agree that interstellar flight will likely be among the easier challenges, but I don’t think moving a representative sample to Terra will be the most challenging act. We are going to need chunks of Terra with us in Sol’s system long before we go interstellar. It won’t just be humans colonizing Mars.
V.Vinge wrote this into his book involving the Slow Zone trading ships. I suspect he got that right.
As evidence for ICE inspired radicalization... I need look no further than my wife. She normally avoids politics. She teaches at an elementary school in a mod-to-severe autism class. She focuses on life outcomes for these kids.
That was until... masked ICE agents showed up in the schools and the homes of her kids. OMG(!) was she ever spitting fire.
A local mother was radicalized enough to show up ICE raids and interfere. No doubt that qualifies as obstruction, right? The local sheriff squad that protects ICE agents got quite physical with her during her arrest leading to a short stint in the hospital. My wife showed up at the rally outside the county jail calling for her release AND ONLY THEN realized the arrested woman was the mother of one of her kids.
(I mostly take over kid watching duties during protests, but I did help her on the IT side when she wanted to set up better ways for her new friends to communicate. Her group can usually field between 30-50 people at events now... and they aren't the kind of people who need any prompting to show up. All of them got radicalized somehow.)
So... yes. What is happening now rhymes with the consequences of the Fugitive Slave Act.
I guess the machine didn't like their answer to the question, "Do you feel lucky?"
Dr Brin:
I never understood why Hal felt it necessary to kill the scientists in suspension.
He killed the two awake astronauts because they suspected he was malfunctioning and might have shut him down (thus endangering the mission). He might have determined that the sleepers would have had the same suspicions once awakened, especially after asking, "Hey, what happened to Poole and Bowie?"
I don't recall if the source of HAL's psychosis was explained better in the novel. I do know that the explanation given in the movie 2010 felt (to me) like a retcon.
What I do remember of the novel was that they were headed for Saturn (not Jupiter) and that the HAL chapter was titled "Abyss" referring to the dark, empty space between Jupiter and Saturn, and that even if you didn't know exactly what was coming, the title was ominous in its foreshadowing.
As evidence for ICE inspired radicalization... I need look no further than my wife.
My wife too. And my college age daughter. And my 91-year-old mother. You don't want to get the women angry. You wouldn't like them when they're angry.
https://www.threads.com/@stonekettle
Kamala Harris should sue 60 Minutes for editing the Trump "interview."
Presented without further comment.
"They got the guns but, we have the numbers".
We don't need the elites.
I have a message for President Snow. You can torture us, and bomb us, and burn our districts to the ground. But do you see that? Fire is catching. And if we burn...you burn with us!
A few examples of what numbers can do against mere weapons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j972c-yynY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZPzZ_NEwEQ
(The second one takes about 2 and a half minutes to get to the good part)
The comparison of ICE to the Fugitive Slave Act is commonplace both online and offline. As is the comparison of Roberts to Taney.
It is amazing how *ignorant* centrists and GOP are of the sheer level of anger at directed at them. And at complicit Democratic party factotums as well.
I saw more than one John Brown-themed sign at my local suburban No Kings a couple of weeks ago.
Opposition to ICE / GOP is playing very smart right now, with inflatable costumes and meme warfare breaking through the media blockade on reporting accurately on the actions of the fascists in charge. Oligarchs like Musk and Ellison are doing their part by massively changing the media ecosystem in favor of fascism.
But at some point, Trump is going to overtly order extra-judicial killing of not just some brown folks in fishing boats, but of his opposition among white, middle-class US citizens.
And at that point, the John Brown memes of this fall will look prescient.
It is amazing how *ignorant* centrists and GOP are of the sheer level of anger at directed at them. And at complicit Democratic party factotums as well.
I didn't think anyone but me would be sporting the guillotine image on our signs. Oh, boy was I wrong about that. One protester was even carrying a 3-D likeness made of cardboard and silver foil.
The awesome reporting / editorial staff at Teen Vogue were all laid off today.
Conde Nast have determined that Teen Vogue is being rolled into the parent magazine.
If you have not been following, Teen Vogue has been one of the finest investigative journalism magazines in the world for a few years now.
Conde Nast owns Teen Vogue, Vogue, Wired, and the New Yorker, among others.
There has been significant oligarch interest in buying Conde Nast in recent months, with many speculating the purchase would be to further silence critics of the current administration and its close ties to well-known oligarchs.
We don't need the elites.
Exactly. They need US. And the pedestal we have put them on needs to be lowered somewhat.
Larry, I would not call it radicalization. I would call it what Machiavelli named virtu: that level of citizenship where you are politically awakend and fight for the better of the republic. That hard to grasp mixture between courage and duty (though fueled by anger).
Someone should write a list of businesses to be boycotted.
Let's call it a consumer general strike.
It works, Canadians and EU citizens boycott US goods, too. Go, ask Elon.
matthew: "It is amazing how *ignorant* centrists and GOP are of the sheer level of anger at directed at them. And at complicit Democratic party factotums as well."
No one gives a rat's patoot about your splitter masturbations and howls at your allies. I asked you to show us ONE accomplishment by your supposed (and mostly nonexistent except as screeching gnats) "left" ... or ALL of their accomplismnets... that did as muich good as the Infrastructure Act and the other 2021-22 Pelosi bills. passed in close consultation with Liz & Bernie & Stacey and AOC etc...
Bet you can't name ONE provision of those bills right now. Nor the many consensus reforms that will be rushed the minute the coalition regains power... despite your harmful yammerings.
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2019/08/five-devastating-rebuttals-to-use-with.html
...ALL of them are coalition builders and all would call you a frippy splitter who at best harms us for the sake of jerking off. Though I disagree with them. Because increasingly the better theory is that you are a Putin troll Kremlin basement dweller.
Tho the Teen Vogue thing was actually interesting.
A woman in my writing group posted a picture of herself wearing guillotine earrings on Facebook more than a year ago.
She thinks there shouldn't be any billionaires. I don't agree with this conclusion. To me, it depends on how you make your money. I can certainly understand the sentiment when we're talking about people who sell coercive products. For example, the executive who jacked up the prices for the epi-pen in return for a 40 million or so bonus made her money not through creation or competition. Instead, she made that money through exploiting loopholes in patent law and health care regulations known as the "end of patent problem."
OTH, billionaire writer JK Rowling made her money in an entirely non-coercive way: creating a fictional universe that delighted so many people she created a massive demand for books, movies, theme parts, and branded consumer goods built upon that universe. While many left-wingers are now mad at her for her positions on trans ideology, there was nothing unsavory about the way she made her fortune.
No one NEEDS to read a Harry Potter novel, therefore her billions didn't come from coercive exploitation of human necessities. On the other hand, the manufacturer of tnf-blocker Enbrel has made a mockery of patent law. At this point, it appears they will extend that patent monopoly to 34 years through various "new uses" and other exceptions to the 20-year limit.
Btw, Enbrel costs something like 5k a month (primarily used to treat rheumatoid arthritis). Pretty disgusting to see those profit margins when they build upon publicly-funded basic science research.
So, I can see the anti-oligarch sentiment building to French Revolution levels while not entirely agreeing with them.
David, you have shown that you are not a trustworthy ally. Over and over.
You howl at me because you do not like when I point out how far your nose is up oligarch techboi ass.
And how much personal responsibility you bear for enabling them, over and over.
It is not coalition splitting to point out how bad *your* judgment is, David.
You are not my coalition.
You are part of what must be defeated.
The utter idiocy of your support for DoJ / IARPA-types who *always* put party loyalty to the GOP over respect for law & order.
Your personal groveling to any billionaire that hawks your books to his classes.
Your blind worship of the world's richest man right up to the point he was giving Nazi salutes (and since that event too, don't think that is not noticed, despite your claims to have broken ties).
David, you are not on the team you claim to fight for.
Either you are a world-class chump at character judgment or a quisling.
Either way, you should not be a pundit for *my* coalition.
To me, it depends on how you make your money.
Anti-billionaire sentiment depends on two things, not just one.
How you make your money, and/or how you use your money. The latter is analogous to using super powers for good or evil.
The example I think of for "how you made your money" is Bill Gates vs Mitt Romney. Bill Gates created a useful product that transformed civilization. Mitt Romney made a fortune by walling money off from the commons.
My example for "how you use your money" is Illinois Governor J B Pritzker. The fact that he's a billionaire doesn't detract from the fact that he uses his powers for good. When he ran against the former governor, Republican billionaire Bruce Rauner, many liberals complained that there is no difference between one billionaire and another. They were wrong. Rauner wanted to destroy unions*. Pritzker defends liberal values against Trump.
Elon Musk is an example of someone who made (at least some of) his money honestly but now uses it for evil. J K Rowling may have become villainous in the esteem of some, but isn't particularly using her money for evil.
* I'll give Rauner credit for never embracing Trump, even though their terms overlapped. Rauner was a Mitt Romney type Republican when it came to business, but he was no social extremist, and he even signed the bill that repealed Illinois's "trigger law" which would otherwise have outlawed abortion once Roe went away.
PERFECT! With every word and sentence you prove you are the enemy of every single thing you claim to support. Sure, we say that same thing to each other! Except for this. I demanded resort to facts.
-That AOC, Bernie, Liz, Stacey, Jaime Harrison (the latter two were DNC chairs) help maintain the coalition that *I* call for. Your supposed heroes side with me.
-That you - a raving ignoramus - know nothing about the 2021-22 Pelosi bills, how many good things they contained. Or what they had planned together next... or what we'll do if our coalition wins... which will include lots of PRAGMATIC reforms to prevent today's inferno of horrors from recurring..
The gist, you are a liar idiot. None of the things you said about me, above, are remotely true. You are our locumranch from the left. Or rather 'left' since you could not cite anything by Marx and are likely just a kremlin boy.
Is this a good time to talk about FORTH? ;-)
JV - on billionaires. You bring up the argument of what you might call the humanist—adjacent billionaire. I don’t disagree with anything you said about Rowlings and her attainment of wealth. But if I *wanted* to argue for with you on this (which I don’t) I would attack “her billions didn’t come from coercive exploitation of human necessities.” I would take the “Mother Teressa was a friend of poverty, not the poor” approach.
It's interesting to pause and to do some arithmetic with Buffet, Gates (who pledge to give 99% of their earnings to charity) and Rowling who has given +200 million and is worth 1.2 billion —and think about just how much the philanthropists *need* to hang on to — which I suppose they’d argue is necessary in order to keep invested to perpetuate the continuation of their charity work. I wonder how many people (excluding this forum) stop to savvy that 1% of a billion is 10 million. Compare that 1% to the lifetime earnings of an average American who started working in 1983 and retires this year.
I just don’t think the exceptional philanthropic billionaire refutes the argument for some sort of salary cap.
The Christmas season is approaching (plus a certain feast?) so by all means go forth and swap t'il you drop.
Ha ha! Just duck a bit when the spittle flies. 8)
Oddly enough, though, I AM getting more coding done recently. Not FORTH of course. Just Java... because I'm comfortable there.
The 'philanthropic billionaire' argument covers just enough ground to refute the 'kill the billionaires' argument... not salary caps.
The better argument against salary caps is to pay attention to who gets to enforce them, when, and how. Our elected officials are all (mostly) rich people. Trusting them to decide who does NOT get rich is essentially what we'd be doing. Makes me wonder how they'd decide. THEN there is also the issue of enforcement. Someone has to do that too.
Der Oger has a fair point. Radicalization might be the wrong word. Sorta.
What I'm seeing looks more like a Calling to Duty. If I were a religious guy, I'd might use metaphors like "Seeing the Light" and "Moved by a Higher Purpose".
De Tocqueville explained it well enough many generations ago, but in modern language it boils down to us still being barbarians at heart.
Glimmers of the gravity lasers – ‘grazer’ – plot elements of my novel EARTH. Unlike gravity wave detectors like LIGO, quantized units - gravitons — 'may one day enable gravity to be controlled like electromagnetism is today.”
https://physics.aps.org/articles/v18/175
To me the 'philanthropic billionaire' argument is a nothingburger
A more cogent argument is that an individual "can" do things that a "corporate entity" will NOT do
Today Elon Musk is the poster child of that argument
With Tesla and SpaceX he has moved humanity forwards
IMHO he should be permitted to continue on that path
The problem is that in order for that to happen in today's system he needs to "own" an incredible amount of wealth
To me we need a different model where somebody can lead the charge on things that we need without having to actually "Own" that resource
A good post overall with the following inaccuracies & misstatements:
To those of you expressing despair at this point, I say get a grip. We have many institutions and professionals who stand between us and looming tyranny.
This is false, as the so-called Protector Castes have no general constitutional duty to protect individual citizens from harm, even though the duty of law enforcement is typically owed to the public at large, but not to any specific person. This is also is known as the "public duty doctrine".
This principle has been affirmed in the following Supreme Court cases:
(1) DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services (1989), which ruled that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment does not require the state to protect any individual from violence or harm that may be committed by a third party;
(2) Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005), which ruled that a person did not have a "property interest" in the enforcement of a restraining order and, therefore, could not sue the police for failing to protect her and her children from her estranged husband, who abducted and murdered them;
(3) Warren v. District of Columbia (1981), a D.C. Court of Appeals case which ruled that the police have a general "public duty," but no specific legal duty exists to provide protection to any individual citizen.
Adam Smith’s (...) flat-fair-broad and joyful competitiveness that happens when ALL children rise up fed and educated and confident, exactly what Friedrich Hayek recommended
This is also false, as Adam Smith advocated for SOCIALISM, a political system that Hayek thought 'unworkable' and famously described as 'leading to serfdom', adding that 'socialists wouldn't be socialists if they understood economics'. Hayek also claimed that communism leads to fascism, rather than the opposite.
What do the above misconceptions have in common?
They both confuse *non-biological altruism* with *kin selection*, the former being a discredited moral fiction and the latter being a well-supported evopsych principle.
Once upon a time, there were probably few observable differences between moral altruism & genetic kin selection, but that was back when societies & nations still had high levels of genetic homogeneity, as opposed to the chaos of imposed genetic diversity which now forces every individual to ruthlessly COMPETE AGAINST every other individual in society.
What comes next is extremely ugly and your only chance is to tribe up & surround yourself with kin because your kin is the only Protector Caste that you can actually rely on, lest you become yet another diversity-based statistic.
Especially now, as our flawed legal system increasingly considers 'self-defense' to be an unacceptable 'Act of Violence'.
Best
You see that fire over there? It's the Pelosi Bills used for heating while the Tangerine Tyrant considers wiping his ass with the Constitution.
It doesn't matter anymore.
Pelosi personally profiteered from the stock markets because "capitalism, Baby". (Of course, GOP lawmakers are more corrupt; but even if 95% of Goppers are corrupt, and "only" one third of Dems, it still means 66% of Congress should wear orange, not fine suits).
But even if Pelosi bills matter and she did not fail you:
Merrick Garland squandered the various opportunities to bring Trump into jail. Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema blocked critical legislature in the Senate. Fetterman must be considered blackmailed, but even with him, the Laken Riley Act should have never gained the Dem votes it got. And don't get me started at Biden, Harris, and the campaign, living costs, and making the radical right stronger by co-opting their positions.
Corruption exists in both parties, but the difference is: While the GOP is defined by it, the Dems have it only as far as it makes them ineffective at governing when in power.
Pelosi's Congress and Bidens Administration had one job: Make sure that something like Trump does not repeat itself. They failed.
"Pragmatic Reforms" won't save you anymore. They will burn even faster when a competent version of Trump is elected. Only radical restorative justice and profound cultural change will do. There is no way back or around it.
On a personal note: What makes it so damn hard for you to say:"Sorry, I was wrong, those Techbroligarchs fooled me?"
There were those who predicted them, a generation ago.
Looks like sunk cost fallacy to me, or the inability to admit a mistake.
A more cogent argument is that an individual "can" do things that a "corporate entity" will NOT do
That power can also be used for good or for evil. It's a mistake to consider it an unqualified good. When it happens to work out, much can be accomplished by charging ahead and damn the torpedoes, but it can also lead to disasters which could have been avoided by listening to informed advice. See the Titan-whatever submersible for an example.
Today Elon Musk is the poster child of that argument
With Tesla and SpaceX he has moved humanity forwards
How so? We're closer to landing a colony on Mars but less likely to have a functioning economy and civilization to support that in time to make it happen.
Between turning Twitter into a MAGA propaganda site, manipulating elections, and DOGE, Elon Musk has done more to promote the Endarkenment than any good he accomplished before that.
One of the most evil men in American history died last night.
Good old VP Dick Cheney.
His invasion (W did what Cheney told him to do) in search of weapons of mass destruction (have we found those yet?) resulted in the deaths so of over 655,000 Iraqis (who for some reason did not greet us a liberators) according to Lancet, but on the plus side Cheney's cronies at Haliburton were awarded over $39.5 billion in no bid contracts related to the war.
That's about $60 per dead Iraqi - and a perfect example of late stage capitalism at its finest.
I didn't know it was possible for him to die. I guess his Darth Vader suit failed.
When Jerry Falwell died, I actively celebrated, even though his damage had already been done. But I can't even feel as if Cheney's death alleviates anything. He's already irrelevant.
Locoweed:
<<
Adam Smith advocated for SOCIALISM, a political system that Hayek thought 'unworkable' and famously described as 'leading to serfdom', adding that 'socialists wouldn't be socialists if they understood economics'.
>>
Wowsers. Up is down, black is white. In this corner, Smith, in that corner, Hayek. It's civil war on the Right, folks. Brin, matthew, chill out and watch the common enemy fight themselves.
Three huge cheers and I'm baking a cake.
I'm about to explain an i insanity of the gone-mad right. But first, one of the very-far left. Those of you who want to understand why our far-left seems obsessed with wrecking the general, liberal coalition that can save America and civilization should read HOMAGE TO CATALONIA (by Orwell). It's not the right that tears itself apart. Their lockstep Nuremberg rallies - like Fox (Lie Central) -are puppeted by oligarchs who are mostly unified in purpose: to end social mobility that might threated the feudal power they are bent on leaving to their inheritance-brat sons. Every day, Putin (via R Murdoch) issues talking points and by nightfall every Republican parrots them.
History shows that it's far leftist splitters who shoot their allies in the back, hang them or piss in their faces. Unless reasonable folks can maintain a strong coalition. Alas, that may take a roosevelt.
(Note that Bernie, Liz, AOC and former DNC chairs Stacey Abrams and Jaime Harrison etc, from the DemParty's PRAGMATIC left wing are the ones who are fighting hardest to keep the coalition together and p;event the kind of sanctimony-splitting that hurt us so badly, in the past.)
This rant of mine was triggered when one of you posted: "Adam Smith advocated for SOCIALISM, a political system that Hayek thought 'unworkable' and famously described as 'leading to serfdom', adding that 'socialists wouldn't be socialists if they understood economics'."
Well, I deem Hayek to be a tragic figure. He had all of the elements in front of him. But because oligarchists flattery-lured him into relative isolation from challenges - and liberal intellects who still engaged with him could not penetrate 'socialism' cliches - he never grasped the difference between pro-competition socialism we see in Scandinavia and anti-competition socialism of Bolshevism and Mao-ism.
To THIS day, the distinction is not pounded the way it should be. Scandinavian socialism today and Rooseveltean for the 2nd half of the 20th both proved the validity of equalizing opportunity and not outcomes. That miraculous era of growth and declining poverty had lessons, the fundamental one being DON'T WASTE TALENT!
Of course, food/shelter/education/safety for all children plus free (merit-based) university... and some comfort growing up... should be sufficiently justifiable simply on moral grounds! On a basis of basic decency! And hence liberals think that moral grounds are enough!
Alas, we have discovered, sadly, that many of our neighbors use incantations to dismiss those children as undeserving animals who are outside of their Circle of Inclusion. Moreover, chiding them for that doesn't seem to help. We need something more. Something to be the partner of compassionate decency.
That partner is the c-word -- competition. It OUGHT to be the other half of the argument for opportunity socialism for all children. CONTINUED
CONTINUES.
Hayek himself said (as did Adam Smith before him) that the larger number of empowered, knowledgeable competitors a market system had, the less error-prone and more productive markets would become. And so, again, the core refutation vs oligarchy and neglect of children is "STOP WASTING TALENT with poverty and neglect!"
Socialism for adults? That's iffier. Especially when you are edging toward trying to equalize OUTCOMES. Market failure MUST remain a frequent event (with the human participants getting many 2nd chances to have learned from earlier failures and never cauterized by poverty.)
Hayek was right that command-allocation socialism is a trap... except when it comes to COMMONS like the environment and scarce resources and preservation of future needs for unborn generations...
...and remembering that ALL GOOD THINGS BECOME TOXIC WHEN ACCUMULATED IN EXCESS. Oxygen, water, food, sex... and wealth.
But this is much the fault of liberals, for forgetting their founder, Adam Smith, and for letting would-be Maos and Lenins rant against the c-word. The core word that gave us pretty much everything we had. The c-word that oligarchs hate, above every other word! Because their goal is to prevent the children of the poor from ever again competing fairly with their inheritance brats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia
Celt while I deeply despised Dick Cheney.. and yes it was the boring LOGISTICS CONTRACTS that were the core focus of his cabal's rape of us all... the Iraqi Shiites DID welcome us as liberators... in the First Gulf War, when Bush Sr then betrayed them and let Saddam kill a million of them... and your Iraqi death figures should separate out those GHWB caused with that betrayal ... one reason GHWB was the worst president of the 20th century.
But... I had no objections to toppling Saddam, later. It did not require another gigantic war.
Alas, we have discovered, sadly, that many of our neighbors use incantations to dismiss those children as undeserving animals who are outside of their Circle of Inclusion. Moreover, chiding them for that doesn't seem to help. We need something more. Something to be the partner of compassionate decency.
That partner is the c-word -- competition. It OUGHT to be the other half of the argument for opportunity socialism for all children.
Not disagreeing with the intent, but don't those same neighbors dismiss those outsiders as inferior competitors as well? I mean, if one presumes that any black, Latino, or female professional is a DEI hire who cannot possibly perform the job as well as "my kind" can, then one also assumes that those people's contribution as competitors would be pointless.
Anybody here from Texas? Perhaps you can explain what your idiot governor meant by a 100% tariff on New Yorkers moving to Texas. And then explain why you all love electing poorly educated fundies to state office.
You should be thankful that the Kurds did not desert the West and entered the Moscow/Teheran/Beijing Axis after being betrayed by both Bushes and Trump.
I'm not from Texas, and while my in-laws used to live in Austin, that doesn't give me any particular insight.
My guess is that Abbot is reacting to the "millions of New Yorkers" threatening to leave NYC if Mamdani is elected mayor, and he's trying to say, "We don't want you here, or at least if you do come it will cost you."
Phrasing it as tariffs is just sucking up to Trump and his idiot followers.
Socialism for adults??
To me we have Private ownership and Public ownership
Two different tools in our social toolkit
Private ownership (capitalism) is BEST for making "things"
Public ownership (socialism) is best for a number of things
Courts, Police, Defence, HEALTHCARE, Education
Things that involve "monopolies" - like water supply and sewage
The best countries are those that use the best tools for the specific tasks
Larry Hart
As a non American the good things that Musk has achieved - 20 years faster progress to a renewable future and cheap access to space - far outweigh the bad things
For an American..... the balance may be different!
For an American..... the balance may be different!
I get that, but the balance is probably different for a Ukrainian too. And maybe for any European menaced by Putin. The world can still catch cold when America sneezes.
I'm also not sure what good renewable energy and access to space will do us in the concentration camp after autocrats like Musk, Thiel, and their ilk decide which ethnicities count as human.
Billionaires pledging to give their billions to charity does not impress me. This is my area of expertise. They create charities that fund their pet projects. They choose to spend money the way they want, not the way our policy makers want. However, I don't necessarily agree that the policy makers are any wiser, but most of us don't have any choice in how our tax dollars are spent whereas billionaires do.
The estate and gift tax is a mess. It is difficult to enforce and collect and relatively easy to legally avoid (in tax terminology, "avoidance" is legal planning whereas "evasion" is illegal) with relatively simple tax avoidance planning. Lawmakers talking about going after inheritances are just posing for the crowds.
20 or so years ago I ran into the Bob Shamansky, now of blessed memory (as we Jews describe the dead) who was a one term member of the US House from the 12th District of Ohio - John Kasich's district. He was challenging Kasich and I bumped into him at the annual Comfest. Bob started talking to me about the need for increasing the estate and gift tax in order to go after wealthy trust fund babies like Paris Hilton. I rolled my eyes. "Bob, the only reason Paris Hilton was not disinherited was BECAUSE of the estate and gift tax." Bob knew better than me (he was a tax lawyer at the top tax law firm in Columbus) that one tool used by billionaires to avoid the tax is to make irrevocable gifts to heirs as soon as possible. They make gifts to grandchildren and great grandchildren who aren't even conceived yet. Indeed, sometimes gifts are made to several generations down of descendants. An irrevocable gift of property that you expect to appreciate in value made today will be treated as a gift at today's value no matter HOW valuable that gift is when it is finally distributed to the heir.
Another big avoidance planning instrument is life insurance. So it's no surprise that Warren Buffett is a big proponent of the estate and gift tax since much of his wealth comes from insurance.
My idea is to end the estate and gift tax, but also end the step-up in basis for capital gains property at the death of the owner. Estate beneficiaries should take property with transferred basis.
Public ownership (socialism) is best for a number of things
Courts, Police, Defence, HEALTHCARE,...
Despite my disagreement on Elon Musk, I'll give you your due here. Healthcare is especially incompatible with capitalism because the "consumer" typically doesn't have time to shop around for the best value at the time of a stroke or heart attack, or after being shot. That and the incentives are perverse as money is made in the racket by denying service.
Also, health care really is part of the commons, in the sense that letting people go untreated for communicable illness because they can't afford to pay doesn't just harm that particular person. Public health really is a thing.
also end the step-up in basis for capital gains property at the death of the owner. Estate beneficiaries should take property with transferred basis.
I was surprised to find out that it worked any differently from your common sense notion.
When people claim that inheritance tax is taken on money that was already taxed as income, they are being disingenuous. The often vast difference between what the original buyer paid for the item 50 or 80 years ago and the basis cost for the beneficiary skips taxation entirely.
(Beside the fact that sales tax and property tax are also paid with money already taxed as income. Isn't everything?)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/us/politics/los-angeles-election-monitoring.html
...
But as Californians voted on Proposition 50, which asks them whether the Democratic-led state should redraw its congressional maps to counter recent redistricting to favor Republicans in states like Texas, President Trump reiterated his view, without evidence, that the election was rigged.
“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Mr. Trump wrote in a morning social media post. “All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review. STAY TUNED!”
...
Translation: Republicans are shut out of intimidating voters.
There are three potential taxes that apply to capital assets: the individual income tax, the income tax for trusts and estates, and the estate and gift tax. The step up in basis applies to the income taxes, not to the estate and gift tax.
The estate and gift tax applies only to people with net worth in excess of $13.99 million (or married couples with net worth in excess of $27.98 million). It applies to gifts made during one's life as well as gifts made by their estate; you have to keep track of all of them.
In essence, if you get rid of the estate and gift tax you can pretty much cancel much of the revenues lost by also getting rid of the step up in basis. The estate and gift tax has a higher rate (40% versus 37%). You could make up for any lost revenues by adjusting the capital gains rate. I would be happy with abolishing the special rate for capital gains - tax all gain or loss from property the same. But - factor in the time value of money and inflation for property held for more than one tax year.
My goal is to eliminate tax planning opportunities and ease compliance (the task of figuring out how to report your gains and income) as well as enforcement and collection. Make it easier for people to report and pay their taxes; make it easier for the government to enforce the tax laws and collect the taxes owed. I don't think any of you know how hard it is to figure out the income generated by exotic tax planning instruments. There is a whole headache caused by tax deductions claimed for syndicated conservation easements. If you want to learn what that is, go here:
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMg%3D%3D_212b22f6-1fad-4373-8476-77751decbe9e
I am working on several cases involving these right now.
And for what it is worth, my plan described above has the blessing of Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. That is the most powerful conservative organization looking to lower tax rates. He supported my ideas because they would be of overall benefit to taxpayers (even though they may raise tax revenues, they can do this by lowering rates while also lowering enforcement costs as well as taxpayer costs for compliance and administration).
Right now, Democrats in Texas have 13 out of 38 seats in the US House. After the GOP changes, they will have 8 out of 38 seats. Meanwhile, right now, Republicans in California have 8 seats out of 52 seats in the US House; after Prop 50 passes, they will have 3 seats out of 52 (or maybe just 2 seats out of 52). Considering the allegations that the independent commission system voted in by California voters was gamed by the Democrats, I am sympathetic to Republican complaints about the system. See this report:
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-democrats-fooled-californias-redistricting-commission
Considering the allegations that the independent commission system voted in by California voters was gamed by the Democrats, I am sympathetic to Republican complaints about the system. See this report:
You don't like the existing system, so you're sympathetic to the Republicans arguing against changing it, even though Texas started it? Sorry, but the details of your justification don't really support your conclusion. Sounds more like rationalization to me.
Is your contention that California is doing wrong because they grabbed more seats for Dems than Texas did for Republicans? My take on that is that if Republicans don't like it when Democrats play by their rules, they shouldn't have fucked with the rules in the first place. We Democrats were ok with redistricting every 10 years with the census, even though we generally lose that game. But now Republicans want to re-rig every individual election, and then they cry foul when we do it too?
Also, it's not just Texas. California may have to make up for North Carolina, Indiana, and Missouri also cheating. Illinois can't really help because we're already gerrymandered up the wazoo. And I'd be ok with my state re-drawing fair boundaries if everyone else had to do it too. But not unilateral disarmament. Why should Republicans living in Illinois enjoy more representation than Democrats living in Texas or Florida do?
Duncan & Larry excellent exchanges. Our community is small but high quality. Even our trolls articulate their mad positions with well-parsed paragraphs.
Hugh raises interesting point, though I pretty much disagree down the line. Norquist has one priority, assisting in the emplanting of inherited wealth aristocracy. The estate tax should pervade past all tricks and obstacles with extreme severity. A child of wealth already has huge advantages and a couple of million dollars will allow quick investment if there are truly 'smart genes' involved. I which case the build back should be quick. Especially since the scion will also benefit from networks of family friends and connections.
6000 years of feudalism was enough.
The other tax which has big merit and was attacked by Norquist and completely eliminated by M. Thatcher was property tax. It should start at zero and high a high bottom, then climb ever-higher. Thatcher in a stroke ensured that the British aristocracy could eject all the paying tourists and live the life of Peter O'Toole's THE RULING CLASS. See it. Weird film.
GMT I have long suggested the tax code is THE perfect vehicle for testing optimization AI. STart with 100 stereotypical taxpayers of all classes. Your boundary condition: "No one's taxes go up by more than 5%." Then unleash the AI to minimize the number of tax provisions, compensating for losses when one break disappears by increasing others.
Juggling those 100 types to get almost nil changed obligation won't be easy. It could take AI a whole day! And with the 5% rule, no one will have incentive to wage volcanic war vs the proposed new, slimmer code.
Not sure I'll be awake for the results of California prop 50, but the races in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City look promising for the good team.
Hope springs eternal.
GMT - what you said about billionaires and inheritance makes me think of Larry Niven’s Pak Protectors drive to protect their bloodline at all cost.
I was also thinking about games that penalize hoarding. Catan has the anti-hoarding rule when you have more than 7 resources. Has anybody played Anti Monopoly “Bust The Trust?” that came out in the mid 70s.
Bill Ackman's posted support of Andrew Cuomo suggested he adopt the slogan "Make NY Great Again", which says a lot about original thinking.
Turns out people went with "New York is Great" instead.
I think Munchkin has a similar rule.
(Munckin: Uplift. Now *there's* a thought!)
Michael Bloomberg spent 8.3 million dollars to try to defeat Mamdani.
Tonight is delicious.
Thank you for this explanation. I appreciate it.
Jay Jones won the AG's race in VA. Standards are going down. But then, here in Ohio we had an AG who was impeached back in 2009, IIRC for bad behavior. We had a city council member (Hearcel F. Craig) who was living in a downtown neighborhood with very limited on street parking. There were two handicapped spaces in front of his mother's house; except she no longer lived there. The councilman and his wife lived there and both had handicapped placards for their cars...neither was handicapped. This all came out 3 weeks before election day...and he got the most votes. He later became a County Commissioner and is now a State Senator. He keeps failing up.
I am sick of politicians in a one party jurisdiction. We need viable candidates in at least 2 functional parties. One party states quickly devolve into corruption and incompetence.
GMT register in the party that owns a gerrymandered district. Then vote in the only election that matters, the primary.
The tax code should be designed to counter the "positive feedback" effect
It should NOT be easier to get even more money the richer that you are
Two parts (at least) to this
(1) The amount of wealth that you can use to grow more wealth is your wealth MINUS the money required to live on
So the more wealth you have the greater the percentage that you can use to grow
(2) The percentage return on your wealth goes up with the amount that you have
Investing a million gets a higher rate of return than a thousand
And to my surprise that keeps going so investing a billion gets a higher rate than a hundred million
It should NOT be easier to get your second million than your first one
The best solution is to change your voting system here (NZ) we use MMP
https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/#:~:text=MMP%20is%20the%20voting%20system%20we%20use%20in,as%20many%20seats%20in%20Parliament%20as%20they%20can.
This makes any attempt at gerrymandering completely moot
Der Oger,
Who HASN'T betrayed the Kurds by now?
Not saying it's a great thing to do, by they even do it to themselves.
Honestly... they remind me of a divided Germany prior to Bismark.
That'll take a while to organise, Duncan.
... FPTP makes state capture so much easier.
Meanwhile, an interesting situation in Australia, as the LNP coalition is either going to break in two, or be seen as a tail wagged dog following the Nationals' (party of Gina*) vote to ditch zero emission targets from their platform.
* Noted attending a recent Halloween party.
Larry,
The consumer DOES have time to shop around for healthcare services. Like a lot of things, though, it is best to do the shopping before one becomes a desperate buyer.
Our healthcare and healthcare insurance markets are perverse by design.
Larry,
I watched a lot of people voting this time. A great many of us drove our ballots to county offices where the election officials worked. No mailing. No polling place. No mobile vote counting machines. No extra hands on our ballots. Nothing blocking those who could do it.
The extra time allowed many of us to be a lot more direct. While I didn't get to watch people who aren't as mobile, I did get to see a few old folks hobble up to the drop boxes.
I'll be very curious to see the percentage of us that stepped up to participate.
Hugh,
Don't waste your sympathy on my GOP neighbors. If they had courage and spine, they wouldn't be on the endangered species list.
It's not that the independent commission process is rigged. The truth is much closer to there being a big education divide between people living near the coast and those living inland. The economy STRONGLY favors those with college and post-graduate degrees, so the inland communities are thinning in terms of people and wealth that stays in those communities. In terms of land it looks like there are a lot of CA GOP voters, but it isn't true if you count noses.
The GOP was better off when our state legislature drew the districts. That much is true. CA Dems were too willing to negotiate for their own safe districts and gave away too many safe districts to certain GOP communities. That came to a halt when we took that power away from our legislature.
We wouldn't be doing this redraw right now if it weren't for the idiots in Texas who want to turn this into a war between States. Well... so be it. It IS now.
Duncan,
It should NOT be easier to get your second million than your first one
Why?
If there is one thing free markets teach us it is that the price on which you'll settle for something you don't have can be quite high, but it will be much lower for the second one.
A ship at sea with no anchor is in danger if storms pass close by.
A ship with one anchor is in less danger, but might benefit by having two.
I'd argue your 'should' claim is like saying the sun should rise in the west. It simply doesn't.
We have MMP, too, with the added rule that the final result must meet the Party Vote distribution, so in the past, additional seats were added. That led to a bloated parliament, so they reformed it in the last legislative period. Directly elected candidates now can loose their seats If their overall result was to weak.
This has some quirky consequences: two dozen "winners", all in urban districts and most of them conservatives, were not seated. Some districts have no direct candidates, while mine has four (one direct and three by party vote).
Personally, I did not mind the old system.
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