Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Hermit]

One of the problems with a "Gentleman's agreement" is both sides have to actually act like gentlemen

[Ternaugh]

4 minutes ago, Hermit said:

One of the problems with a "Gentleman's agreement" is both sides have to actually act like gentlemen

 

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!"

[unclevlad]

3 Republicans joined with the Democrats in the Arizona House to repeal the 1864 abortion ban.  One down, one to go.

 

This might be interesting.  State Senate and House seats are all up for election.  The primaries are end of July.  In the Senate, there are 3 Republican incumbents with challengers.  The House is trickier, as it looks like they use the same districts...but there's 2 representatives for each district.  The vote on the ban here...for or against...may become material in the primaries.

[unclevlad]

3 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

 

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!"

 

The absolutely best black comedy ever made.  Probably the best Cold War era movie ever made.

 

And what's scary is, I think a LOT of it will sound terrifyingly familiar, albeit with slightly different spin in many cases.

Dr. Strangelove.  I suspect many of us have seen it, but it may have fallen through the cracks at this point.  If you haven't seen it, you really, really should.

[Cancer]

On 4/23/2024 at 2:56 PM, Old Man said:

...  Not that I think Trump will ever see the inside of a jail cell, ...

 

I'll settle for the inside of a coffin.

[Lord Liaden]

47 minutes ago, Cancer said:

 

I'll settle for the inside of a coffin.

 

I don't wish death on anyone, but if it's going to happen, it would be really helpful if it happened before November.

 

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

The absolutely best black comedy ever made.  Probably the best Cold War era movie ever made.

 

And what's scary is, I think a LOT of it will sound terrifyingly familiar, albeit with slightly different spin in many cases.

Dr. Strangelove.  I suspect many of us have seen it, but it may have fallen through the cracks at this point.  If you haven't seen it, you really, really should.

 

I have seen it. I agree, it's brilliant. And hilarious, in a bleak way. But I used to think the behavior of some of the characters was too crazy to be real. Now, not so much. 😞

Edited April 25 by Lord Liaden

[Sociotard]

I for one hope Donald Trump lives to 120. It's the only way I won't be bombarded with assassination cover up theories. "Heart attack? Impossible! Release the autopsy long form!"

[Lord Liaden]

I thought of that too. Honestly, I don't think there's any outcome that will lead to a clean win.

[Old Man]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I thought of that too. Honestly, I don't think there's any outcome that will lead to a clean win.

 

I'll settle for any outcome in which America does not descend into a fascist hellscape.

[DShomshak]

I would qualify this article's claim: Conspiracy theories existed long before Paul Linebarger, a.k.a. Cordwainer Smith. But it does show an unsettling link between conspiracy theory, fantasy/SF, and propaganda.

 

The Sci-Fi Writer Who Invented Conspiracy Theory (msn.com)

 

Storytelling is powerful. Use it responsibly. And some people use that power with malicious intent.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Per the (admittedly cursory) research I've done on conspiracy theories, they appeal to people on two levels. One, they make them feel they're among the special few who have seen through the public deception to The Truth. Two, they assure the theorist that the seemingly random and irrational events in the world are actually under someone's control and following a purpose, which they find more reassuring than that they're simply natural chaos.

[Ranxerox]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

Per the (admittedly cursory) research I've done on conspiracy theories, they appeal to people on two levels. One, they make them feel they're among the special few who have seen through the public deception to The Truth. Two, they assure the theorist that the seemingly random and irrational events in the world are actually under someone's control and following a purpose, which they find more reassuring than that they're simply natural chaos.

 

Don't forget scapegoats.  Most conspiracy theories helpfully provide someone to blame, and who doesn't love a good scapegoat.

[BoloOfEarth]

24 minutes ago, Ranxerox said:

Don't forget scapegoats.  Most conspiracy theories helpfully provide someone to blame, and who doesn't love a good scapegoat.

 

I don't.  They eat the grass in patches, and their milk tastes funny.  

[unclevlad]

2 minutes ago, Ranxerox said:

 

Don't forget scapegoats.  Most conspiracy theories helpfully provide someone to blame, and who doesn't love a good scapegoat.

 

That's part and parcel of supplying an agent;  the agent becomes the scapegoat...and where possible, the target.  LL's right there.  There's plenty of people that would far rather say that, say, COVID was a bioweapon being developed by China, that got away from them, than it being something that we simply have to face periodically.  They also want some way to affect things...sensible or not.  Arguably, this is how the practice of sacrifices to the gods developed...to cultivate good favor, or to try to ward off bad outcomes.  

 

The concern that we are nothing but scraps of lumber to be swept up in the next tornado of events, and we can neither predict when it will happen nor do squat to avoid it, terrifies MANY people.

 

Dean:  I agree that conspiracy theories...and certainly the social manipulations...predate Smith, but he might have been the first to use it consciously in popular fiction.  I'm not that well read in pre-WWII sci fi...but I've read some Burroughs, Lord Dunsany, Lovecraft, and some others.  They were fantastic stories.  

[assault]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

Dean:  I agree that conspiracy theories...and certainly the social manipulations...predate Smith, but he might have been the first to use it consciously in popular fiction.

 

I'd say he wasn't even close to the first, but it's an interesting theorization of it.

And an easy technique to use... 

[unclevlad]

This could make Mideast politics even more complicated...

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/28/world/middleeast/icc-arrest-warrants-israel-hamas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.oE0.x-W6.Kvkqc2sXu0Hx&smid=url-share

[wcw43921]

“Don’t vote for anyone you wouldn’t trust with your dog,”

[Starlord]

The ghosts of India's TikTok: What happens when a social media app is banned

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240426-the-ghosts-of-indias-tiktok-social-media-ban

[DShomshak]

Over the last month, Freakonomics did a series on the US immigration system, all the ways it's messed up, how it got that way, and what might be done to fix it. The trilogy ended with a look at Canada's immigration system, which works better (almost anything would), though it does have problems in implementation and consequences. Anyway, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wanted to add his own two cents. So here's a chance to spend an hour with the guy at whose desk the buck stops (or the loonie, I suppose). If nothing else, Mr. Trudeau proves he can speak in paragraphs, which is more than one can say about many American politicians.

 

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/a-social-activist-in-prime-ministers-clothing/

 

Or to let the Freakonomics program/podcast speak for itself, here's the episode blurb and introduction:

Quote

Justin Trudeau, facing record-low approval numbers, is doubling down on his progressive agenda. But he is so upbeat (and Canada-polite) that it’s easy to miss just how radical his vision is. Can he make it work?

Quote

Episode Transcript

Hey there, it’s Stephen Dubner. We recently published a three-part series on immigration, mostly about the economics of immigration. The first two episodes were focused on the U.S., and Part 3 on Canada, which has recently turned the volume way up on immigration: they now take in half a million new permanent residents a year, in a country of around 40 million. For that episode, we interviewed a variety of people, including Canada’s immigration minister, Marc Miller:

Marc MILLER: There is no doubt that we have made a conscious decision to be an open country and a country that needs to grow. The reality is, we don’t have much of a choice.

Miller’s point was that Canada, like many high-income countries, has an aging population and a need for more workers in many sectors of the economy. We did ask Miller about the pressures that immigration is putting on Canada, especially when it comes to affordable housing, access to healthcare, and potential mismatches between immigrants and jobs. But after we put out that episode, a lot of our Canadian listeners wrote in to say the pressures were even greater than we knew — especially because Canada wasn’t taking in just a half-million new permanent residents a year, but nearly 700,000 international students and 750,000 temporary foreign workers. So we decided to revisit some of these questions — not with the minister of immigration, but with his boss, the prime minister:

Justin TRUDEAU: You can invite half a million people into your home every year, if you’re Canada.

Today on Freakonomics Radio, my conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And we go way beyond immigration — we discuss whether to drill, baby, drill; we talk about how Canada is reconciling its brutal history with its Indigenous population; we hear why Trudeau isn’t a big cannabis user, even though he legalized it; and: what he might do if he loses re-election next year.

TRUDEAU: I’m ultimately a social activist who’s going to look to how I can have a positive impact on the world.

No specific point of agreement or disagreement, I just think it's worth hearing.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Pattern Ghost]

On 4/28/2024 at 3:26 PM, unclevlad said:

There's plenty of people that would far rather say that, say, COVID was a bioweapon being developed by China

 

I've never seen anyone put out the most plausible conspiracy though. Mine goes like this:

 

The US and China both have issues with a growing aging population that needs to be supported at least in part by the state, and at least in China's case, a shrinking work force. COVID-19 hits the elderly the hardest. Therefore, the two countries had motive to develop it as a means of population control. Unfortunately, it escaped the lab due to poor oversight before it was perfected. The lab which was being protected by a misinformation campaign about pangolins, the scrubbing of data sent to the CDC from the lab, and a few other key lies that were put out very loudly by the government all point to a cover up. You could then toss up many examples of unethical experimentation by the US and China throughout modern history as support and to churn up an emotional response.

 

My actual version is: Trump removed oversight we were supposed to have on that lab. The lab got sloppy. COVID got loose. Our government told a lot of lies for a lot of reasons, including trying to save face, trying to prevent retaliation against Asians, trying to gain compliance with guidelines, etc. So, a mix of stupidity, underhandedness, and misguided attempts to control and contain the situation.

[Lectryk]

28 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

My actual version is: Trump removed oversight we were supposed to have on that lab. The lab got sloppy. COVID got loose. Our government told a lot of lies for a lot of reasons, including trying to save face, trying to prevent retaliation against Asians, trying to gain compliance with guidelines, etc. So, a mix of stupidity, underhandedness, and misguided attempts to control and contain the situation.

 

As usual, Trump was the loose cannon in that plan - 'Kung Flu' and other talking points similar don't go well with the '... trying to prevent retaliation against Asians' part.  And he didn't do so well on the compliance part...  Touch it up, and you probably have something that might have legs with the right groups..

[Pattern Ghost]

12 minutes ago, Lectryk said:

As usual, Trump was the loose cannon in that plan - 'Kung Flu' and other talking points similar don't go well with the '... trying to prevent retaliation against Asians' part.  And he didn't do so well on the compliance part...  Touch it up, and you probably have something that might have legs with the right groups..

 

Touch what up, the first part or the second? The second is basically what happened. Motives unclear. Stupidity abounding. The first version is just building a better mouse trap fun.

[Old Man]

47 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

My actual version is: Trump removed oversight we were supposed to have on that lab. The lab got sloppy. COVID got loose. Our government told a lot of lies for a lot of reasons, including trying to save face, trying to prevent retaliation against Asians, trying to gain compliance with guidelines, etc. So, a mix of stupidity, underhandedness, and misguided attempts to control and contain the situation.

 

And the greed.  Don't forget the greed.

[Pattern Ghost]

21 minutes ago, Old Man said:

And the greed.  Don't forget the greed.

 

Yeah, a lot of that going around.

 

Still going around, really. Paying that COVID tax still at the grocery stores and the gas pumps. What comes up . . . never comes down apparently.

[Simon]

As I have in the past, I'm going to warn everyone that you're deviating rather heavily into conjecture and unknowns, bordering on conspiracy. THIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR THAT.