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Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

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Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#792
post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In no way this is a good example of such a system, but I still find Bosnia and Herzegovina political system absolutely hilarious. After Dayton peace agreement the literally put ethnicity requirement for presidents to Constitution as a hard rule. One Bosnian, one Serb and one Croatian. And yes, the country is ran by 3 presidents at the same time. So there is no longer a competition whether the main guy in the country…

Interesting. When I put my programmer hat on, there's something inelegant about this approach, because it involves hardcoding the words "Bosnian", "Serb", and "Croatian" into the constitution. It seems like with a sufficiently clever electoral rule, you could generate a small "national steering committee" with an odd number of members, where each major faction is guaranteed representation. But that also sounds a lot…

>What happens when the 3 presidents disagree? Maybe the trick is to incentivize consensus-driven decisionmaking?

That's where High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina comes into play. This is external guy appointed by the EU (US also was participating in the appointment in the beginning, but they withdrew themselves from the process quite a few years ago). This guy has the power to fire any (like ANY) politician in the country. And the permission to overrule or enforce any law.

This guy is probably controlled by EU and can't turn into dictatorship mode, but you never know. At the very least two times presidents were fired due to political disagreement.

EU considered to discontinue this practice, but local people encouraged EU to leave things as is. Cause nobody trusts politicians and the systems is still pretty corrupt.

Anyway, whatever decision presidents have to make, all 3 must agree. That's why a lot of controversial topics are hanging for eternity (e.g. recognition of Kosovo).

When country was trying to choose a national flags, all the parts couldn't find the agreement for a long time. That's why High Representative just approved his own version nobody really liked. So today if you visit the country, you will find Serbian flag in the parts where Serbs live and Croatian flags in the part with Croats. Actual country flag normally is in the parts where majority is Bosnian.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it can be justified with rationality alone.

I phrased it poorly: Being an adult child has moral and ethical consequences. Behaviours and emotions that are totally legit and tolerated in a child are no longer so in an adult. An adult that has all the privileges and freedoms of adulthood over childhood, like the ability to vote, drink, drive and hold an office, also has to abide by the moral obligations of being an adult.

But if you're rich enough (or poor enough, hah) nobody's gonna hold you to "adult behavior" standards. Is there really a moral or ethical aspect to "don't get into a shouting match on Twitter"? Or is it simply childish?

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that people have to be loyal to a single political party?

In the USA, you can’t be a Democrat and Republican supporter. Their stance vary way too much. This is proof that someone pretending to support both does in fact support none and more importantly can’t be trusted. It’s about being trustworthy and loyal to your country.

No, I am an American and I think some things the republicans do are dumb and some things the democrats do are dumb. This tribalism is not helpful for actually sifting out what policies are sensible and what aren’t.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#795

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I phrased it poorly: Being an adult child has moral and ethical consequences. Behaviours and emotions that are totally legit and tolerated in a child are no longer so in an adult. An adult that has all the privileges and freedoms of adulthood over childhood, like the ability to vote, drink, drive and hold an office, also has to abide by the moral obligations of being an adult.

But if you're rich enough (or poor enough, hah) nobody's gonna hold you to "adult behavior" standards. Is there really a moral or ethical aspect to "don't get into a shouting match on Twitter"? Or is it simply childish?

> But if you're rich enough [..] nobody's gonna hold you to "adult behavior" standards

but that's a problem, isn't it?

That's on us. Why on earth did we stop expecting adult behaviour from ultra-rich people?

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when Obama threatened Fox Sports mergers due to how Fox News covered his first term in office, and trued to get the Saudis to sign a pro-choice vendor agreement with the embassy. Biden also threatened law firms that represented Trump and threatened to ban them from government buildings and revoke security clearance. It was the standard thing for dems to do when dealing with political opponents. Both sides…

> Biden also threatened law firms that represented Trump and threatened to ban them from government buildings and revoke security clearance. I did a few quick searches for more information about this claim of yours. I also asked Claude and ChatGPT to research it. I can not find any sources to back up this claim of yours. Can you source it for me? For example: https://claude.ai/share/d36c7a89-adff-4625-9cd6-89e60b254e…

It was a rhetorical device ascribing things Trump actually did to Democratic presidents to show parent's false equivalency. Everything I listed were things Trump did, though I changed the other parties involved to preserve the political dynamics as best as I could.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#798
post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like of the Nietzschan philosophy? Yes, but the rest I disagree. I just think that most people (on both political sides) are not really better. If they would be given the position of power they would be corrupted and incompetent too. So in a sense you got what you deserve - and your democracy is working.

How does it connect back to the Nietzschan philosophy you mentioned?

The idea that the oppressed would be morally better when given the position of power is naive.

They are oppressed because they are already morally corrupted. Otherwise they would rather die for their freedom in the first place.

Nietzsche called this slave moral.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think FPTP ends up working out a lot different in the parliamentary context. The US only has 2 parties in Congress, despite FPTP. In terms of strength of 3rd parties, I'd say they are generally quite weak in the US system, somewhat stronger in a proportional representation parliamentary system, and potentially overpowered in a FPTP parliament like in the UK. Historically I believe the 2-party system in the US was p…

> the 2 major parties have acquired too many extremists. You're blaming both parties for where the US is now?

MAGA is basically a reaction to the far left.
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