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The Demoralization is just Beginning

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Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#651

Post by rayiner »

rat87 wrote: post #227
rayiner wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> often deployed to support anti-immigrant, anti-assimiliationist views. So what? Immigration is optional. The people supporting large-scale migration from countries without functional democracies should have the burden of proving that cultural attitudes salient to democracy are not durable. Even in the U.S., I'm not persuaded that the Anglo-American republic as originally conceived survived the mass immigration of c…

Immigration is core to American identity and America's success. It's one of our core defining values The American that was originally convinced was imperfect and much worse then the America we have today. We literally had slavery and most adults couldn't vote.

Find my anywhere in the federalist papers (or the anti-federalist papers) that says anything about immigration.

What you’re talking about is a 20th century creation. We never tried to be an “immigrant nation”—we were a big open country with no welfare state, and it was favorable for us to allow extensive immigration to populate the continent and displace the native americans.

In the 20th century we accidentally found ourselves with British Americans being a minority then created this idea of an “immigrant nation” to assimilate all the Germans, Italians, etc. But it’s a retcon.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#652

Post by dudefeliciano »

desumeku wrote: post #647
dudefeliciano wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to me and 80% of the German electorate, yes. We are seeing the effects of MAGA on the US and the world in real time, I don't think AFD would fare any better.

Well, I hope more immigrants and more green deal policies and more political establishment somehow solves the housing crisis and the neutering of the country's industries in some opposite day fashion.

I just wish those issues were talked about, then we could try to start solving them. If we talked about those issues half as much as we talk about what the AFD considers the problem, we would be well on our way. Instead we talk about the scourge of children turning trans, and how the immigrants are killing literally everybody, and how climate change is just a paranoia, and how shit our politcal establishent is that has given us stability for the past 80 years.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#653

Post by sp4cec0wb0y »

dumbledoren wrote: post #494
andsoitis wrote: post #89

> The main product made by the US is the dollar, and it used those manufactured dollars to outsource everything. Most jobs in the US are now basically fake These two hot takes at the top of the essay really undermines everything else the author might say in the article and brings into question how serious and critical their thinking is. Several comments here against the article talk about the Chinese economy problems…

> These two hot takes at the top of the essay really undermines everything else the author might say in the article and brings into question how serious and critical their thinking is. Does it though... If anything, the numbers prove him right: https://layoffs.fyi/ > Several comments here against the article talk about the Chinese economy problems and this article in this morning’s BBC is a pretty good summary of the…

I am struggling to see how that chart of layoffs prove him right in the assumption that: 1) the US only produces the dollar 2) US jobs are fake

If you think DOGE is a legitimate source of determining fake jobs you are mislead and not worth listening to.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#654

Post by agumonkey »

6510 wrote: post #635
agumonkey wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, but it seems in France the situation in degrading. The same 1% being richer while workers / students waiting in line for food charity stories were common. Part of it might be due to COVID, but I can't shake the feeling that business management (influenced by anglo-saxon/american culture) is harder than before and squeezes employees. Not only a feeling, I worked on precarious jobs that shouldn't exist, and w…

I suspect that people self-manage a lot more if the pay is right. If they stop doing that it seems like you need a more expensive manager, or perhaps you do.

well partly but my comment was more systemic, a lot of "new management" was about naive quantitative approaches. measure stupid traces / outputs and forcing people to hit target objectives without looking at the workflow, tooling and team dynamics

people with enough skill and compatible mindsets need no management, they care, they will innovate, improve, repair

if the structure is at odds with that, they will ask to compensate the pain by large salary bumps because pleasure is turned into pain

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#655

Post by makeitdouble »

flyinglizard wrote: post #486
makeitdouble wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wether the US is a beacon of freedom is too much of a landmine, I'll just point out that there's about a few dozen countrjes around the world where you'll enjoy enough personal freedom. > Culture is something that's very hard to replicate. You are highlighting the global influence of the US. By definition, you'll get access to that global shine almost wherever you live. Nobody will immigrate to the US to watch Disney…

It's called the American Dream rather than American Reality for a reason. People follow this dream into the country. If China had enough of a hold on Western culture, it could too manufacture this perception which would draw immigrants in.

> People follow this dream into the country

Or not. Unsurprisingly US immigration dropped a lot during the first Trump presidency, which coincided with COVID making things worse. In numbers Germany was also getting more influx than the US, but they sure weren't happy with it either.

https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/international-migration...

> China [...] would draw immigrants in.

Assuming that China wishes for more population to come in sounds pretty weird to me. They fought an incredibly unpopular fight on their own citizens for decades to reduce population growth, a foreign influx of people is probably the last thing they want IMHO.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#656

Post by sp4cec0wb0y »

danny_codes wrote: post #77

Well this was embarrassing to read. Good god man read an economics textbook or at least talk to an economist before posting. Is industrial capacity important? Sure. Is it the top of the value chain? No.

This is what happens you feed the ego of software engineers. Make them think they are smarter than everyone else and that they cannot be wrong simply because they are good at software engineering.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#657

Post by greenhearth »

pif wrote: post #388
KaiserPro wrote: post #349

Going back to a gold standard will limit the money supply. This means that there will be less capital for building $thing. A gold standard means that when the economy gets overheated it pops, then contracts and you get deflation. This makes crashes last longer and harder. It requires greater fiscal discipline to overcome. The problem with the USA "empire" is that for a trading empire to work you need a plan, and stic…

> That takes planning, money vision and time. And a dictatorship. Democracy does not fit very well with long term plans, unless you either make huge efforts to ensure everyone gets their fair share (see Scandinavia) or you have a good plan for people being rich with not too much effort (see Switzerland and other tax havens). Concerning the USA, the divide between the extra rich and the general poor is nowadays too la…

Plenty of authoritarian countries that have been economic disasters.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#658

Post by sp4cec0wb0y »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #631

Are bits like "they put you in jail for memes" intended to drive away people with a basic grasp of reality so that he can start a cult? Or has he already driven away everyone and his cult aren't able to point out the absurdity as they are all down the same rabbithole?

Hit it right on the nose. This cult already exists and its easy to detect. Simply, do they treat Elon Musk like a intellectual god? Lex Fridman, Geo, and that bunch all happen to be a part of the same pseudointellectual cult. That is the rabbit hole.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#659

Post by sp4cec0wb0y »

cudgy wrote: post #405

“There’s two simple steps to restore American greatness: 1) Brain drain the world. Work visas for every person who can produce more than they consume. I’m talking doubling the US population, bringing in all the factory workers, farmers, miners, engineers, literally anyone who produces value. Can we raise the average IQ of America to be higher than China? 2) Back the dollar by gold (not socially constructed crypto), a…

The second step has no merit. Backing the money supply using gold would be a bigger disaster.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#660

Post by fuzzfactor »

flyinglizard wrote: post #483
southernplaces7 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>democracy was protected by codes of conduct, honor, and most importantly, strong content moderation in the form of monopolistic legacy media. 50 years ago? Perhaps some of what you describe applied, in very limited form and only if you view a small segment of the media/political landscape with extremely rose-tinted glasses, but go read more of U.S media history to see how completely off base you really are. Media in…

50 years ago someone like Trump wouldn't have a way to obtain a platform from which he can amass a big enough public following. Anyone that wanted to play had to play nice with the establishment. 50 years ago, editorials mattered. Any messaging of a politician or candidate would be followed with context, analysis or discussion by journalists.

Even more amazing when you consider that 50 years ago Trump was embarrassingly in the Enquirer quite often in situations not nearly as respectable as Stormy Daniels, and that was only the gossip they could corroborate. Much more was withheld from publication. People were mainly talking about the way he couldn't be trusted with anything. Plus him & Epstein were eventually running buddies at one point.

For decades the vast majority of those who even knew Trump existed were aware from the beginning he was a fake and it was just so curious to watch him take the pratfalls that he set himself up for. He only became widely known because he was such a complete failure compared to ordinary businessmen, and he would not shut up about how successful he was, it just emphasized how much he didn't have a clue and he was all PR. It was so cringeworthy people could not help but notice. Some things never change.

But under those media conditions he was merely a comic figure for the longest time. Bragging about how rich he is when he's actually bankrupt in more ways than one.

It just wouldn't have been very easy to build critical mass among people who would be willing to take him the least bit seriously. Especially about anything concerning money.

Now it's too late.

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