Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Lord Liaden]

If that was intended to make me feel better, I'm afraid you missed the mark.

[L. Marcus]

"Welcome to humanity -- you must be new."

[TrickstaPriest]

This probably explains my recent trend of wanting to run a 'gentlemen thieves' campaign over a straight-superhero setting...

[Ranxerox]

16 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

This probably explains my recent trend of wanting to run a 'gentlemen thieves' campaign over a straight-superhero setting...

 

Well, you know what they say, there is no honor among gentlemen.

[Doc Democracy]

12 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

If that was intended to make me feel better, I'm afraid you missed the mark.

Well I found no corroborating articles.  If you want, I would be content with you ascribing this to my failing mental capacity and that people are actually more moral (or at least come with a higher price ticket).  😬

[DShomshak]

The Nov. 16, 2019 issue oif The Economist has a very interesting special report on global migration. Economist Michael Clemens estimates that if everyone who wanted to move could, global GDP would double. That's $90 trillion per year. People who migrate from poor countries to rich ones instantly become 2 to 6 times more productive. That's a lot of money just waiting to be picked up by any government willing to open its doors and let them in. The usual arguments against immigration -- they drive down wages for the native born, they bring crime, they'll never assimilate -- don't stand up under close examination. And yet, governments throughout the developed world are going populist-nativist and erecting literal or regulatory walls to keep people out. This, The Economist argues, is deeply stupid and counterproductive. It is also, they suggest, immoral.

 

Whatever difficulties immigration brings, they argue, are fairly easily dealt with through policy. Even nativist rage at seeing strangers enter is controllable: The articles cit Australia, which has double the percentage of foreign-born that the US has, with less backlash.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Whatever difficulties immigration brings, they argue, are fairly easily dealt with through policy. Even nativist rage at seeing strangers enter is controllable: The articles cite Australia, which has double the percentage of foreign-born that the US has, with less backlash.

 

Why Has Australia Fallen Out of Love With Immigration?

[DShomshak]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Why Has Australia Fallen Out of Love With Immigration?

 

Okay, more backlash than I thought (though it mentioned there was some). :-(

 

Thus paragraph stood out to me in the linked article:

 

"On a local level, two competing visions of Australia are essentially fighting for votes: the Australia longing for a nostalgic past, and the Australia trying to figure out the next phase of integration for a more globalized nation."

 

That seems to be the issue in the US as well -- a lot of people angry that the real world and the future are stepping on their fantasy of how things were and ought to be.

 

Tough patooties. People who tell the big wide world to go away are doomed to decline. The last several centuries of Chinese history shows this all too clearly, and it's not the only example.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Old Man]

ICE Creates Fake University, Lures Foreign Students, Collects Tuition From Them, Then Arrests and Deports Them

[Lord Liaden]

It's hard to look at those given details and see this as anything but a money-grubbing scam by the American government exploiting vulnerable foreign-born students.

 

At least it's one reprehensible act that can't be blamed on the Trump administration -- it was started before he took office. But the current reputation of the United States abroad can't bear further tarnishing.

[Pariah]

At this point, I feel that one could no more tarnish the reputation of the United States than burn Pompeii. That ship left the harbor a long, long time ago.

[DShomshak]

It's also a point for the "Abolish ICE" crowd. Some of the agency's functions may be necessary, but their methods suggest an agency that is rotten to the core. I am of course willing to be persuaded otherwise if any representative is willing to explain why such methods are the only way to prevent some greater harm, but I doubt they will.

 

Machiavelli warned that leaders and regimes can survive hatred, but they cannot survive contempt.

 

Dean Shomshak

[death tribble]

Donald Trump has pardoned a turkey.....himself.

 

Thank you, I'll be here all week, try the fish.

[megaplayboy]

15 hours ago, Old Man said:

ICE Creates Fake University, Lures Foreign Students, Collects Tuition From Them, Then Arrests and Deports Them

Every federal attorney associated with this should be disbarred for life.  

[Lord Liaden]

Suddenly, the Chinese Threat to Australia Seems Very Real

 

It's looking like Australia may be the canary in the coal mine, as to what the rest of the world can expect from China in the future.

[Hermit]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Suddenly, the Chinese Threat to Australia Seems Very Real

 

It's looking like Australia may be the canary in the coal mine, as to what the rest of the world can expect from China in the future.

 

Well, that's terrifying. My own knowledge of this has been second and third hand and I'm sure some Aussie posters here can correct or clarify but  I had seen concerns among some Australians that China had too much economic influence over their country. That too much Australian Real Estate was being bought up by foreign investment, that too much trade relied on it etc... but this is some whole new level stuff.

[Pariah]

Both Russia and China trying to take over the world? Gee, it sounds like the Cold War all over again. Imagine my joy.

[Hermit]

48 minutes ago, Pariah said:

Both Russia and China trying to take over the world? Gee, it sounds like the Cold War all over again. Imagine my joy.

 

If we're going to have a cold war sequel, I want NASA to get major funding to get some American Astronauts on Mars and back again! There ought to be something good about this.

[Pattern Ghost]

6 hours ago, Pariah said:

Gee, it sounds like the Cold War all over again.

 

All over again? It never ended.

[Hermit]

1 hour ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

All over again? It never ended.

 

The USSR broke up...

now it's Son wants revenge

 

it's like a Rocky to Creed transition

[Old Man]

7 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

All over again? It never ended.

 

In hindsight.  But in 1999 it sure as hell felt like civilization had turned a corner, wherein the former USSR was nominally democratic and the Chinese were more interested in getting rich than invading their neighbors, and the Internet was about to usher in a new age of free communications and commerce.  And then it all went to s---.

[DShomshak]

Indeed, some of us were naive in thinking "gentle commerce" could tame the Chinese Communist Party and that Russiams could transcend their history of autocracy with speed. I know I was. It's why I curbed my enthusiasm when the Arab Spring happened: We'd seen this movie before.

 

The Fall of Communism and the Arab Spring have not been total failures; a few countries emerged with somewhat better governments that have not completely reverted to brutal authoritarianism. But it's two steps forward, 1 3/4 steps back, with a lot of blood along the way: most notably the crackup of Yugoslavia for the Fall of Communism, and the Syrian horrorshow for the Arab Spring.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

On a cheerier note, NOVA recently aired "The Violence Paradox," based on Pinker's Better Angels of our Nature (the phrase is used, and Pinker is one of the talking heads presented). The world is getting better... slowly... so far. But past performance is no guarantee of future returns. As Pinker says, the worldwide decline in many forms of violence does not guarantee that violence will continue to decline; but it shows that continued progress is possible.

 

Less happily, much of the violence in the world today seems to be in direct reaction to past progress, from people who'd rather see the world burn than give up their tribal loyalties, prejudices or caste privileges.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

On a cheerier note, NOVA recently aired "The Violence Paradox," based on Pinker's Better Angels of our Nature (the phrase is used, and Pinker is one of the talking heads presented). The world is getting better... slowly... so far. But past performance is no guarantee of future returns. As Pinker says, the worldwide decline in many forms of violence does not guarantee that violence will continue to decline; but it shows that continued progress is possible.

 

Less happily, much of the violence in the world today seems to be in direct reaction to past progress, from people who'd rather see the world burn than give up their tribal loyalties, prejudices or caste privileges.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

I'll also recommend an article about economic modeling in the November, 2019 Scientific American. Here's the abstract:

 

"Wealth inequality is escalating in many countries at an alarming rate, with the U.S. arguably having the highest inequality in the developed world.

"A remarkably simple model of wealth distribution developed by physicists and mathematicians can represent inequality in a range of countries with unprecedented accuracy.

"Surprisingly, several mathematical models of free-market economies display features of complex macroscopic physical systems such as ferromagnets, including phase transitions, symmetry breaking and duality."

 

Perhaps the most important result of their modeling, though, is the result of a pure free market with no external force of wealth redistribution, pro or con: If there is any possibility or unequal results in an exchange -- even if "winning" is just the result of a coin toss -- the inevitable result is that wealth concentrates until one ecomnomic actor ends up with virtually everything, and everyone else is left with virtually nothing. Laissez-faire advocates, take heed.

 

Dean Shomshak