201–210 of 799 posts
At least Berlusconi didn't have access to nuclear warheads. Seriously, I visited the US few times between 2005 and 2010 and each time people were raising the topic of Berlusconi. How can you have a president like that, who voted for him, bunga bunga etc etc. Now you know how you can have such personality in power too. With even more power.
The Italians truly invent everything first, eh? Fascism, trumpism, etc
It's wild that a president can say, "I don't like Elon anymore, so out of retaliation, I'm canceling all his government contracts," and ~40% of the country doesn't see that as corruption in any way, shape, or form. Government contracts should not be based on whether or not the president likes the CEO, and the CEO says enough good things about the president. If you can cancel contacts not based on merit, then it shoul…
It turns out that when elections are fought on the basis of identity (race, religion) etc corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing. I witnessed this up close in India where parties openly exist to benefit certain constituencies based on caste, language, religion and so on. It is horrifying to see this attitude take root in my a…
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We have a national space agency that has had plenty of time and money to do the stuff SpaceX is doing. Why wouldn't SpaceX turn into the funding and political football that NASA is, if it were nationalized? Like, this isn't a hypothetical. SpaceX only has a market because of the incompetence of the "public option."
> We have a national space agency that has had plenty of time and money to do the stuff SpaceX is doing. That's quite inaccurate. NASA doesn't do much themselves, they hire external contractors but keep significant control over them. SpaceX got more funding and less control and they didn't start from scratch, NASA gave them all of their technical documentation, now-how and working prototypes. NASA could have done eve…
It's wild that a president can say, "I don't like Elon anymore, so out of retaliation, I'm canceling all his government contracts," and ~40% of the country doesn't see that as corruption in any way, shape, or form. Government contracts should not be based on whether or not the president likes the CEO, and the CEO says enough good things about the president. If you can cancel contacts not based on merit, then it shoul…
Democracies only really work with an educated and altruistic population, and the US is only getting further away from that.
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On the positive side, Trump is so unstable that he'll trash your business one day and then the next day he'll reverse course. So, "if people kiss your ass enough, they get contract" does not seem to be a long-term viable strategy. (Exhibit A: Musk.) I'm 90% sure it will lead to America's ruin, but it might not quite be the same path that led the USSR to ruin. Hey, at least it looks more entertaining! :/
> but it might not quite be the same path that led the USSR to ruin. The end of the Soviet Union as a political and geographic entity was not its ruin. What ruined it and opened the door for a strongman ruler was: a) an inexperienced President (Yeltsin) who lacked a unifying vision for the newly formed republic and wasn't respected by its business elite or by foreign leaders b) the 'free market liberalization' reform…
The only thing that he was truly unsuccessful at as a politician was failing to shrug off some bullshit credit card bribery scandal.
When you've deployed tanks and mortars against the lawful government, and everyone's fine with that I can't understand why you'd let a few thousands dollars that you put on a company credit card bring you down.
> Present circumstances in America aren't that different.
They are different, in the sense that all the damage happening right now is both unnecessary and self-inflicted. Russia needed to do something to transition from the USSR. Shock therapy was a terrible 'something', but it's at least possible to see how it got there.
2025 is... Something else entirely.
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It turns out that when elections are fought on the basis of identity (race, religion) etc corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing. I witnessed this up close in India where parties openly exist to benefit certain constituencies based on caste, language, religion and so on. It is horrifying to see this attitude take root in my a…
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I'd rather not have a whole discussion over this atm (I'm out rn - maybe later), but I recommend reading Yuen Yuen Ang's paper on "Unbundling Corruption" - there are different typographies of what "corruption" is, and some nations have always had a similar type of corruption compared to others. In addition, low level corruption is orthogonal to grand corruption as can be seen in Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and the…
Fine, I don't disagree with anything you point out. However where we differ is that I believe identity politics is the trigger factor here, all the other changes you mention (loss of balance of power etc) are downstream of this.
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It turns out that when elections are fought on the basis of identity (race, religion) etc corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing. I witnessed this up close in India where parties openly exist to benefit certain constituencies based on caste, language, religion and so on. It is horrifying to see this attitude take root in my a…
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Obama was vastly more charismatic and coming after for years of an unpopular Republican president, 28% on election night. https://news.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ra...
Not that idiot was enough to resonate with voters.
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It turns out that when elections are fought on the basis of identity (race, religion) etc corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing. I witnessed this up close in India where parties openly exist to benefit certain constituencies based on caste, language, religion and so on. It is horrifying to see this attitude take root in my a…
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Obama's campaign was far less about race than Trump's campaigns in 2016 and 2024. Unless you can't hear the dog whistles.