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Trump is ruining one of the greatest advantages Americans used to have over China and Russia[edit]
Yes, most people have reservations over the US for very good reasons, but most countries at least thought that they could trust the US in many aspects and, to put things mildly, tankies and some wingnuts that like the way they treat women and their LGBT community aside, no one likes China and Russia.. This of course started changing when Trump turned its back on Ukraine, but now it's reaching whole new levels with these tariffs. Punishing allies like Vietnam and Cambodia for no reason just because Trump wants an industry to call his own is something I just can't understand. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:18, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
- The Economist didn't mince any words:
- "It’s hard to know which is more unsettling: that the leader of the free world could spout complete drivel about its most successful and admired economy. Or the fact that on April 2nd, spurred on by his delusions, Donald Trump announced the biggest break in America’s trade policy in over a century—and committed the most profound, harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern era."
- The only reading that makes sense to me is one that recognizes that Trump is both a narcissistic, a whiny black-and-white idiot who always sees himself as a victim, and one who has zero brain cells capable of critical thought. I do think that his business brain cells (and many others) seem to be stuck in the 1980s (before he failed bigly and went on his entertainer path). Recall that one "theme" of that era was how Japan was going to come and supposedly eat our lunch. Now, it didn't work out that way, but as seen in a letter Trump wrote in that era (and splashed in a full page ad in several newspapers), I think from those sort of themes floating around during the Reagan age, he got a (wrong) impression that America's wealth was propping up all these (supposedly) inferior nations... and they, in return, kicked back at us and laughed in our face. So he latched onto tariffs as a way to show dominance and say "go ahead, see if you can live without AMERICAN MIGHT. Because I will use AMERICAN MIGHT to PUNISH YOU!". He has never let go of the idea since. At least... that's my theory.
- Of course, if true, this is a dumb take. Because the likely response from other nations will be a form of "ok, sure, bye bye America." As The Economist article points out, the US share of final demand for imports is only 15%. The world can live with reduced demand from America. The stock market is not the economy, but one thing investors seem to be betting on -- a take I agree with -- is that, while there will be pain from these tariffs, small American businesses will feel far, far more pain than globally connected ones, let alone the global economy.
- Now, "people voted for this shit". So I look forward to seeing how the culture war blowhards who are Trump's Biggest Fans end up feeling about their Dear Leader trashing Pax Americana. Hey, at least those folks "owned" those couple of trans women athletes or something. Sure, the "American century" had to end, but for them, I bet it was so worth the price! BobJohnson (talk) 14:42, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
- You say that as a joke but I think a disappointing number of Americans will plug their ears and yap about how making everyone (including themselves) pay more for everything that gets imported into the country is somehow a 500 IQ move. Some of the smarter ones will correctly recognize that this makes no sense from an economic standpoint and is purely an attempt to bully business leaders into bending to Orange Julius Caeser's will, but will crimestop and convince themselves that this will own the libs more than it will own them. Gabaghoul 🥩 19:53, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
- What strikes me is that the tariffs demonstrate that Trump is completely clueless about international trade and macroeconomics, as shown by the absurd formula used to determine the tariff levels towards each country, as well as the EU.
- What strikes me is that the tariffs demonstrate that Trump is completely clueless about international trade and macroeconomics, as shown by the absurd formula used to determine the tariff levels towards each country, as well as the EU.
- You say that as a joke but I think a disappointing number of Americans will plug their ears and yap about how making everyone (including themselves) pay more for everything that gets imported into the country is somehow a 500 IQ move. Some of the smarter ones will correctly recognize that this makes no sense from an economic standpoint and is purely an attempt to bully business leaders into bending to Orange Julius Caeser's will, but will crimestop and convince themselves that this will own the libs more than it will own them. Gabaghoul 🥩 19:53, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
- As the BBC describes it, it’s clear that what is touted as “reciprocal” tariffs is, in reality, not based on the tariffs those countries/the EU have put in place on US exports, but on the trade imbalances between the US and the country in question (or the EU). This bizarre approach is why it yields the absurd results that some of the highest rates are slapped on such titans of the global economy and serious US economic competitors as The Falkland Islands (42%), Lesotho (50%), Myanmar (48%) as well as St. Pierre & Miquelon (50%).
- This is obviously completely deluded, even if we accept Trump’s stated premise for tariffs (i.e. that US trading partners are unfairly hindering and disfavouring US export and “sniping” economic activity, especially manufacturing, away from the US). It simply shows that he fundamentally doesn’t understand what international trade is and apparently thinks that the US could/should run a neutral or positive trade balance against every single other country in the world, which is frankly bonkers.
- Since this notion of universal trade surpluses is apparently his idea of what a “strong national economy” looks like, it also indicates that he apparently doesn’t understand that, on a global scale, some countries must have trade deficits for others to have trade surpluses, unless we begin trading with extraterrestrials. It also ignores that, even at the height of their international economic power, any economic powerhouse in history has run trade deficits with certain trading partners as an integrated part of their economic model. ScepticWombat (talk) 03:35, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
- An obvious aside, but are non-tangible goods and services like insurance and TV shows counted when calculating net imports and exports? I ask because a lot of the U.S.' core competencies are things like software and financial products as opposed to stuff that gets loaded onto ships and sent across the ocean (this is the case for most mature economies as well). Gabaghoul 🥩 13:53, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
- as i understand it, services are currently exempt from tariffs AMassiveGay (talk) 14:27, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
- An obvious aside, but are non-tangible goods and services like insurance and TV shows counted when calculating net imports and exports? I ask because a lot of the U.S.' core competencies are things like software and financial products as opposed to stuff that gets loaded onto ships and sent across the ocean (this is the case for most mature economies as well). Gabaghoul 🥩 13:53, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
- Gay is right. [prepare selves for infodump]. Here's the state of play for the UK and USA trade-wise. [all figures in £ billions, italics 'invisible' products]
- US Bill to UK, 2023
- 51.8 - Business Services
- 27.2 - Machinery/Transportation
- 25.8 - Finance
- 14.2 - Chemicals/Medical
- 11.5 - Transport/Travel
- 10.5 - Insurance
- 9.6 - Misc Goods
- 9.6 - Comms/Computing
- 4.8 - IP
- 4.6 - Materials
- 2.1 - Misc Services
- 2.8 - Food/Drink/Animals
- 2.0 - Fuels
- 1.9 - Tourism
- 0.9 - Govt
- 179.3 - Total
- UK bill to USA, 2023
- 26.3 - Business Services
- 19.9 - Machinery/Transportation
- 18.8 - Fuels
- 9.0 - Transport/Travel
- 7.7 - Chemicals/Medical
- 6.6 - Finance
- 5.2 - Misc Goods
- 5.1 - Materials
- 4.8 - IP
- 3.4 - Comms/Computing
- 1.7 - Insurance
- 1.2 - Food/Drink/Animals
- 0.9 - Misc Services
- 0.5 - Tourism
- 0.4 - Govt
- 111.5 - Total
- Therefore, the 'total' trade deficit the US has to the UK last year was £67.8b - that in 'visibles' [the shit the Orange Negus seems to care about] the deficit is only like £2.5b with the yawning gap is in 'invisibles' [which the Negus seems to not]. But let's not stop there.
- When stuff like this is calculated, it doesn't take into account the ownership of the companies who do it. For example, Ford UK makes something like £300-400m profit yearly but sending this profit back to Dearborn will count as 'exporting' from the UK. Now, it appears the USA has something like £550b invested in the UK, which [if we assume a RoR of 5%] so that's £27.5b American orgs extracted from the UK in 2023. But this works the other way too; UK orgs hold something like £500b of American assets so if we apply the same RoR that's £25b back. So, my fag-packet says that in 2023 the USA paid out about £70b [$90.5b] in the last year to the British and the 'American invisible trade' is about 40% [with the EU 20% and China 7%] of the UK's total exports.
- However, this opens up possibilities for Brits to fight back against the Negus by boycotting American-owned companies. Not just the obvious targets like Tesla and Coca-Cola, but things which are produced by British subsidiaries. Good examples here being Morrisons, Costa, Cadbury, Beck's, Waterstones, Boots, Weetabix and Sky. For we know the Tesla boycott is one of the few things which has needled the Negus/Boor and if Corp America really starts hurting it might make them get some balls to stand up to the Negus. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:14, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
- On the level of tariffs themselves, some of the issue is what they see as 'a tariff'. Apparently, they regard VAT as tariffs. I've heard higher consumer/environmental standards are also regarded as tariffs. No sane economist or businessperson would class these as such because both are applicable equally to all comers, foreign and domestic. In this case, it's quite literally a method of trying to bully nations with superior standards; 'well, we'll drop the tariffs to 5% if you quit blocking chlorine chicken, hormone beef and titanium dioxide-dyed foodstuffs'. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:30, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
- Maybe Trump has a fixation for tangible items, kinda like the Soviets used to have? I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he just wants to see the "Made in USA" label in kitchen appliances more often, even if that means paying for products that are more expensive and often not as good as imported ones. I mean, I definitely know some people that think that bigger is better, and fail to realize, for instance, that the service sector of the economy can also competitive, dynamic and innovative, just like manufacturing. Heck, even the agriculture sector can also be extremely technological and productive nowadays, just look at Netherlands. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 20:26, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
- Unless I'm missing something, it takes far more than just raising tariffs to have manufacture coming back, or for that matter to get rare Earth elements from Ukraine. Panzerfaust (talk) 07:58, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
- I don't think the Negus gives a fuck about 'Made in the USA' labels, Gee [in fact, it's a very short list of things I do think he does give a fuck about]. I think this is geared in it's entirety to pleasing the MAGA-hats in the Rustbelt sectors of the country - he vaguely promised to 'get those good jobs back' and tariffs Shall Do It. Lo, Lowell shall resume making cotton shirts, Fort Wayne televisions, Flint cars because The Great Orange has decreed it. All the while forgetting that if America wanted those places to make those products again, the shirt would cost now $55, the TV $1,650 and the car $32k, while the McD's server is making the minimum wage [$15] serving you $10 [value] burger meals. The issue being, these folks have a pretty narrow definition of 'Good Job™' and that is making something in a factory, site or farm - office work [in their minds] is just BS paper-pushing crap, which 'produces no value' and they don't consider 'real work' ['you just sit in a comfy chair all day on the computer with a coffee. That ain't hard, boy! When I was your age I was working 20-hour days down mill pounding steel ingots with only my forehead...']. This was seen during the pandemic; in where younger white-collars went back to the family home for lockdown and found their blue-collar very unsympathetic/non-understanding about what they did all day via remote [the story which stuck in my head the most was that of a young woman who's parents kept on having a go at her for 'playing on the computer all day' and 'being so lazy to not help her parents do [shitty task]', even when she had explained fully that she worked in IT and therefore it's via a computer.] Therefore, they simply do not see how 'sitting in chairs with coffee' could snag $26b from the Brits [for example] each year.
- Unless I'm missing something, it takes far more than just raising tariffs to have manufacture coming back, or for that matter to get rare Earth elements from Ukraine. Panzerfaust (talk) 07:58, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
- Maybe Trump has a fixation for tangible items, kinda like the Soviets used to have? I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he just wants to see the "Made in USA" label in kitchen appliances more often, even if that means paying for products that are more expensive and often not as good as imported ones. I mean, I definitely know some people that think that bigger is better, and fail to realize, for instance, that the service sector of the economy can also competitive, dynamic and innovative, just like manufacturing. Heck, even the agriculture sector can also be extremely technological and productive nowadays, just look at Netherlands. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 20:26, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
- The other aspect which is important is that for various reasons they do not want to be retrained. They don't just want 'the TV plant back to Fort Wayne', they want the one where they hand-built teak-cased Radiation King CRTs for $40 p/h plus full benefits and security - it's work they understand and can do. It's one of the reasons Biden's 'Build back better' fell rather flat; that it involved producing things they did not understand using skills they did not possess. Therefore, they felt that these were jobs that Other People would get ['immigrants'] and therefore would be zero to minus benefit to their locality - the lesson here being that if you're going to big up strategic reshoring/reindustrialising you must include in the plan [and budget] facilities for expansion of infrastructure and [most importantly] skilling-up for free locals to work there [because companies simply don't bother training anymore].
- The real crux of the problem is that USA.Inc is heading full steam ahead into a huge economic storm of mainly their own making. Not only are they declaring a trade war on effectively the whole world at once [which shall be inflationary and economically damaging short/medium term] but while threatening real war against some of their own allies [making foreigners even less inclined to 'come to a deal' on the previous] hacking up the Federal Govt almost willy-nilly [short/medium-term incapability to actually do shit correctly], ramming through domestically-divisive policies [ie Project 2025] which shall cause significant civil unrest within six months [economic investors etc don't think nations with unrest 'good for business'] with a strong anti-immigrant and anti-intellectual policies which shall bite harder as they go on [as the economy will be increasingly cramped due to labour shortages and brain-drains]. Yes, sweeping tax cuts for the rich are on their way again [they will be funded by the tariffs] which will be interesting how much of the American Big Public realise it's their tariff-paying funding the cuts for the top 10%.
- Lastly, the Negus' own utter instability is also a factor here; economic bods cannot be sure that any 'deal' cut with him will actually stand longer than a few hours, or that he won't do something utterly stupid on a whim or on the advice of known morons - for example, if he followed through on his 'suggestion' that the USA stopped paying some of the interest of the national debt. The British example of Liz Truss come to mind here; that if 'the money men' lose their confidence in a country's leadership, they can [and will] pull the plug. Even if they're allowed now to use racial and sexist epithets in the office now with no pushback. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:36, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
- And Panzer is right; tariffs alone won't make all those factories come back. Labour shortages, unsuitable labour, finding a decent place to put the factory, building it, finding all the capital goods to kit out the factory, getting the associated infrastructure put in, getting the capital to fund all of this - all this will take several years. If they bother doing it at all. Even more importantly, supply chains now snake all around the world which means even if you are 'american made' you'll still be hit with tariffs. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:29, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
- I just want to talk about the inconsistency of Trump's actions. Wholly apart from the fact that these are not "reciprocal" tariffs at all, I have heard three explanations in respect of his objectives. But they cannot all be true as they work against each other.
- 1. They are bargaining ploy to get a "better deal from other nations. 2. They will obtain more revenue which will be used to offset income tax. 3. They will bring manufacturing and other activity back to the states.
- Each of these explanations has it's own problems but taken together they are absurd.
- If his objective is "bargaining ploy" then "income" and "jobs" are really irrelevant. If his objective is revenue and tax cuts, then this is absurd because the net impact on citizens will be zero (depending oh how they are targeted) and that also means he has no scope for bargaining them down. If his objective is jobs then he can't bargain - because that would defeat the objective. And the jobs stuff is nuts because some of that stuff isn't ever going to come back to the Sates - especially so if potential US producers are concerned that his real objective is "bargaining".
- Of course this is his usual tactic of throw lots of shit at the wall and then claim that whatever sticks was the objective all along! Victory to the Texas Sharpshooter!Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 17:42, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
- On the note of some of the above: The Economist pointed out recently that, overall, there's one area where America *does* have a big trade surplus. In services. That invisible thingy that Trump and his staff has zero comprehension about. That surplus happens to be nearly $300 billion. Maybe MAGA Blue-Collar Joe can't comprehend how "playing at the computer all day" is valuable. But it is. And, for now, America is actually good at this type of thing.
- (Side note: MAGA Blue-Collar Joe also is probably clueless about modern manufacturing and just how automated everything is these days; that person "playing at the computer all day" at home may actually be pushing code and debugging issues for multiple manufacturing floors scattered all over the world. But that's another story...)
- Although I still think in general that global businesses will suffer less than small American businesses, and the same on the consumer end (the poor will be far more impacted than the well-off due to higher percentage consumption patterns), this article does add another dimension to said thoughts. If the tariffs stick around, it will be tempting for countries to retaliate targeting American services. With Silicon Valley so heavily entwined in Trump 2.0, Silicon Valley firms are an *especially* juicy target. (Like The Economist article says, of course, if the tariffs are actually meant to be a negotiating tool, this would be a different story. But I tend to assume Trump administration stuff as dumb in a MAGA Type-A-asshole barrel-headed fashion until proven otherwise.)
- Shortly after the Trump tariffs happened, news came out that EU regulators are considering a billion dollar fine against Twitter. While the article says that the investigation was "progressing independently", I wonder if in reality the releasing of this news was a bit of a tariff reaction "trial balloon". BobJohnson (talk) 20:21, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
- American multinationals will in fact do a bit better than expected, partly because the weakening of the value of USD will plump up foreign-currency earnings, and thus declared profits. Whether this would be enough to offset a slide in sales/margins within the country is another question entirely, as well as asking how much global 'fucked off by America' turns into a public boycott of American-owned companies.
- This widens into being other threats to American economic power. American-owned interests overseas make a lot of cash for the homeland, and if relations end up totally in the shitter, well those interests might be boycotted, hit with punitive taxes or perhaps even forced to be divested. If American tech services become 'untrustworthy' (for example, Google starts to censor their search to be more pro-MAGA) that dominance might crumble fast as competitors grow and consumers defect. If American academia/creatives become increasingly in under the thumb of MAGA-hats, talent will flee overseas. If the xenophobic and anti intellectual tenor grows much further, the worlds elite shall go elsewhere to study, invent and push the bleeding edge. If the American 'rule of law' crumbles into ash, entrepreneurs shall look to try their luck somewhere their success can't be stolen from out from them. KarmaPolice (talk) 01:28, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
- Ho ho. I knew it: "Of course this is his usual tactic of throw lots of shit at the wall and then claim that whatever sticks was the objective all along!" Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 11:53, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
- It ain't over yet. :)
- At any rate, in the long term, anyways, the Trump administration is chugging on with its plans to ruin universities / education and American science, as well as extending a big middle finger to foreign talent. It is pretty clear to me that while the upper class twits in charge of America have gotten antsy over the tariff thing (due to portfolio damage etc.), many of them have for some reason fully bought in to the idea that universities are an engine of a "woke mind virus" or some other culture war bullshit, and not an engine of innovation.
- Personally I see the tariff war thing as "short term" noise. Such is quickly reversible. The long-term damage to engines of innovation, less so. BobJohnson (talk) 14:18, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
- This of course raises another issue. How are Americans going to produce high-quality manufacturing goods if they don't even know how to produce them? In the end, the American population will end up paying for worse goods that are more expensive than their foreign counterparts! I wrote about the infant industry argument here and, as I said, in order for it to work, you also need good education. Trump loves to mention how high tariffs were in the 1900s, but back then American schools, especially those in urban areas, were also among the best in the world, and the country was one of the pioneers on public education. Now, the American government is actively trying to destroy public education. Trump is IMO doing everything wrong. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 15:13, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
- I don't think the wannabe feudal lords around the Negus' throne gives a fuck about that. They're mainly in tech/finance, real estate, dirty energy, extractives, agriculture or retail. Their business model doesn't really need a well-trained mass workforce or tech/sci development. In fact, most don't even need decent infrastructure or a prosperous home market. In fact, turning inwards into a 'Fortress Gilead' offers other benefits - that they can become a full-blown stratified oligarchy protected from internal disruption or external competition. Putinism has shown the way; America is wealthy enough in natural resources for a generation to provide enough for the oligarchy and their support/security apparatus while the masses slowly succumb to despair, anger or resignation.
- This of course raises another issue. How are Americans going to produce high-quality manufacturing goods if they don't even know how to produce them? In the end, the American population will end up paying for worse goods that are more expensive than their foreign counterparts! I wrote about the infant industry argument here and, as I said, in order for it to work, you also need good education. Trump loves to mention how high tariffs were in the 1900s, but back then American schools, especially those in urban areas, were also among the best in the world, and the country was one of the pioneers on public education. Now, the American government is actively trying to destroy public education. Trump is IMO doing everything wrong. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 15:13, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
- Ho ho. I knew it: "Of course this is his usual tactic of throw lots of shit at the wall and then claim that whatever sticks was the objective all along!" Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 11:53, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
- But I accept the above theory relies on a wannabe lords being smart enough to think like this. It's quite possible a lot of the above simply never think things fucking trough, think everything will continue to function fine however much you shit on it. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:09, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
Serious question[edit]
So, I checked the "recent changes" page and there's this "Fuerdai" & "Jose Molina" that keep poping up. Who the fuck is Jose Molina & who or what is (a) Fuerdai?? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 20:44, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
- Fuerdai
and most likely José Molina (baseball).
Bongolian (talk) 06:12, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
- "Fuerdai", "Jose Molina" and the recent spam shit in recent changes are related to Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/BMX On WheeIs
. the Wikipedia LTA page just shows how determined the user is at causing disruption. Lavalizard101 (talk) 14:09, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- "Fuerdai", "Jose Molina" and the recent spam shit in recent changes are related to Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/BMX On WheeIs
Kurzgesagt's video "SOUTH KOREA IS OVER"[edit]
Kurzgesagt recently made video titled "SOUTH KOREA IS OVER" which, predictably, talks about a potential major crisis which could happen in South Korea. Particularly, it talks about SK's extremely low[birth rates, which he argues would lead to a collapse on nearly all fronts.
Economically, there would be too few workers to support all retirees, and the smaller workforce more generally would lead to a permanent recession by the 2040s, as well as forcing the government to cut essential public services due to the lack of money from taxes. Culturally, the already existing loneliness problem in SK would be aggravated by the higher number of people with no children or siblings, and the lack of young people would lead to a shrinking of youth culture and various cultural traditions dying out, as older people would have no way to pass them forward to future generations. Militarily, the ongoing war against North Korea would become even more of a problem as there would be fewer young people to join SK's military to deter against a full-blown confrontation.
He also argues "there's really no way back", as SK would still face major difficulties even in the most ideal scenario, where the birth rates rapidly raise to 2.1. However, he still believes it's possible for SK to get out of this mess eventually as long as the country actually faces the root causes of the problem. In particular, he attributes the falling birth rates with the country's workaholism, low wages, high cost of living and education, low spending on family benefit, and old-fashioned cultural norms, in addition to other factors associated with low birth rates such as more wealth and education. He also cites how various nations throughout the world will also face similar problems if they don't treat the crisis seriously.
I'm not used to watching Kurzgesagt's videos, but I've heard he's relatively reliable and he cites various academic sources such as OECD for his figures. Apparently, this was also much more negative compared to most of his other videos. Anyways, I'm not particularly knowledgeable on the causes and consequences of low births aside from superficial stuff. ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 19:47, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
- I recall reading about the "4B" movement in South Korea.. interesting, but not conclusive as to why birth rates are generally falling not just in SK but across the board in developed nations.
- My own thought is that in developed nations people get educated, and when educated they realize that this world really isn't pleasant... or at least not pleasant as it currently is and likely how it will remain for the foreseeable future (likely going to get worse in the future at this point actually).
- Go to university or college, get better critical thinking skills, learn about all the nonsense and little big injustices that are continuing to happen right now, tell your parents or any elder person in a position of authority or leadership, and at best they'll acknowledge it but not commit to doing anything. Or they'll smile at you with dim comprehension. Or they'll say you're woke. Guess which two of responses are most encountered?
- Sure there are small delights and pleasures that can keep one occupied and sane enough to almost forget about how this world is... but ah the key word is "almost". What intelligent person wants to have kids knowing and living through life's tribulations that they are certain to also encounter? I don't and wouldn't. Impiricism (talk) 04:11, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- Most countries face a similar situation, but what I got from that video (and by the way I adore every video by them) is that with the confluence of multiple factors, all at once, South Korea faces a more brutal challenge than even say, Japan with ageing population. The difference between South Korea and say, European countries facing a somewhat similar issue, is that it is taboo to even discuss this in Korea (partially due to a decades long trend to encourage smaller families and as with Japan, a severe hostility towards immigration [which Kurzgesagt didn't mention for a number of obvious reasons]), which may mean the harm will come when it is too late to take quicker action. I would rate Kurzgesagt very highly for reliability, intellectual integrity and fact checking. They are quite careful about what they put out and even make follow up videos correcting themselves when they get things wrong. ShabiDOO 11:47, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- Personally, I don't see low birth rates as a problem per se, especially the "sort of near replacement rates" you see in some countries that regardless get whined about by some natalists. A lot of the lower birth rates is reflective of good things, particularly advances in health and women's equality. Funny that it wasn't too long ago that the moral panic was over overpopulation.
- Low birth rates are a big problem for today's go-go capitalism model. This, along with climate change, are the two things I can see that might severely upend the current economic order long-term. Capitalism is just too dependent on a "absolute growth all of the time" philosophy at the moment.
- What I find ironic about this is that, from my perspective, this very same go-go capitalism model actually plays a large part in causing low birth rates. Countries that have embraced "work culture", to the point that they are super well known for excessively long hours and even karoshi,
"death by overwork" -- Japan, South Korea, and China -- happen to have some of the lowest birth rates in the world. Coincidence? I doubt it.
- Even outside these countries, to me there's a paradigm in current capitalism overall that happens to be very hostile towards families, babies, and women. I'll take a recent American example: the Republican House intra-party rules spat over proxy voting for new parents. Mike Johnson (along with most of the House Republicans), ostensibly the "party of family values", opposed this initiative. Why? None of the reasons I've heard are logically sound to me. Making the job easier for parents (with seemingly no logical impact to anything) seems like a no-brainer. (I mean, fuck, even Donald Trump was against Mike Johnson's proxy voting hostility here.) But it would mean that these dumbfuck (mostly male) House twits would have to give up a little control. And many of these pointy head boss shitheads hate that. (See the "work from home" hostility if you want a more generic demonstration of this problem.)
- I do think the ruling class capitalist twits are aware of "the situation", but so far, for the most part, they haven't been self-reflective enough to come around to an actual solution (which would involve, you know, things like flexibility. Less control. Less of the paradigm in some places that "pregnant woman = career death sentence". Less embrace of overwork as godly. That kind of thing) In many cases, the twit solutions are even stupider -- most natalism
movements I see advocate rolling back the clock and essentially making women baby-plopping second class citizens again. (No surprise that most natalism movements I see are heavily male.) Since the Republicans started babbling the "family values" catchphrase (early 1990s), the United States birth rate has fallen from ~2.0 to ~1.6. Way to read the situation, capitalist upper class twits!
- My suspicion is that this "capitalism culture issue" is present even in European countries with better public support systems; despite the better safety nets, it doesn't change the underlying situation much (though I suspect such things might help explain the difference between, say, France's 1.8 birth rate and South Korea's 0.8). There seems to be a globally deeply ingrained paradigm that's going to be hard to resolve as long as the ruling class believes that go-go capitalism and work are the only things to promote in life. Especially since too many twits with this go-go capitalism paradigm have a notion of female equality that's stuck in the 1800s. BobJohnson (talk) 12:16, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- Most countries face a similar situation, but what I got from that video (and by the way I adore every video by them) is that with the confluence of multiple factors, all at once, South Korea faces a more brutal challenge than even say, Japan with ageing population. The difference between South Korea and say, European countries facing a somewhat similar issue, is that it is taboo to even discuss this in Korea (partially due to a decades long trend to encourage smaller families and as with Japan, a severe hostility towards immigration [which Kurzgesagt didn't mention for a number of obvious reasons]), which may mean the harm will come when it is too late to take quicker action. I would rate Kurzgesagt very highly for reliability, intellectual integrity and fact checking. They are quite careful about what they put out and even make follow up videos correcting themselves when they get things wrong. ShabiDOO 11:47, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- I've read the conservative natalism push as more of a classism/eugenics thing because having kids (at least in developed countries) is a luxury increasingly affordable only to the wealthy. If you want people to have kids, you implement policies like extensive parental leave, make quality K-12 education affordable to as many people as possible, and encourage less gender disparity in terms of labor both in and out of the home (there's evidence suggesting that disparities in domestic labor have a negative correlation with fertility).
- These are, of course, things that the type of people who yap about declining birth rates tend to oppose on principle (at least in the U.S.). Funny how that works. Gabaghoul 🥩 13:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- I find this subject fascinating, and I wish I could write a wall of text about it. Unfortunately, I don't have time right now to answer, so I'll just say a couple of things. Indeed, I couldn't even read the posts above, so maybe people already mentioned what I'm going to say. First, Kurzgesagt despite being great in hard sciences has sometimes a few bad takes in social sciences (though don't ask me to find their older videos, as I said, I don't have time), so take them with a grain of salt on these subjects. The second thing is, does a growing population forster economic growth? Economic growth models, such as the Solow model
say yes, but their answer is somehow unsatisfiying. Let's suppose that a country has a working population of ten, with an income per capita of 1000, with a total GDP of 10,000. Now, let's suppose that the population grew to 12. We can expect the GDP to grow to 12,000, but the people aren't better off, their income remains the same. What makes people richer is productivity. Now, can a growing population result in more productivity. I'd argue it can, but the answer is far more complex. There are many reasons why population growth can (I repeat again, can) make everyone better off, but I'd personally say that the most important one is the fact that having more people also means having more ideas - the key of innovation, which is the the main drive of economic growth in the long term. However, people don't exist in a vacuum. People won't be able to have better ideas and/or put them in practice without certain insitutions, such as good education and guarantees that their rights are secure. In both aspects, South Korea, to my limited knowledge, excels, so they are far from doomed. Also, a growing population can also hinder development. It is, after all, much easier, on average, to provide to a small family. If you have six children, it's much harder to give good education to all of them when compared to people that only have two (not saying that there aren't great parents that have many children, I know some). When families are too big, this usually means that someone (almost always the mother) won't be able to work, further harming the economy. Yes, I'm not talking about the problems with healthcare and social security that South Korea will face, mostly because I don't know a lot about their welfare system, but even though they'll have some serious challenges in the next few decades, the country isn't "over" as Kurzgesagt's clickbait suggests.
- TL;DR: yes, I think it's possible that things will go wrong for them, but the video's title is hysterical and they can compensate their dwindling population with productivity - and they have been pretty good at it so far. South Korea is a relatively rare example of a country that grew rich before it grew old, and there are many other countries in Asia and East Europe in a much direr situation. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 17:20, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- I don't believe Kurzgesagt's video is claiming that Korea is absolutely doomed (though yes the title is deceptive), but that if they don't address the confluence of multiple issues they are facing (unusual amongst countries facing a shrinking population with little immigration), and that it is in fact taboo to even bring it up, they are in for a bad time. The situation is not unique amongst developed countries. The west is addressing it via immigration and increasing retirement ages (amongst other strategies). However, a significant reduction in working age population (along with other compounding issues) without a long term plan to potentially deal with the consequences could be dire. ShabiDOO 22:12, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- @GeeJayK, on the productivity point, the video does argue why something similar wouldn't be able to compensate for the smaller workforce long enough (link timestamped):
- I don't believe Kurzgesagt's video is claiming that Korea is absolutely doomed (though yes the title is deceptive), but that if they don't address the confluence of multiple issues they are facing (unusual amongst countries facing a shrinking population with little immigration), and that it is in fact taboo to even bring it up, they are in for a bad time. The situation is not unique amongst developed countries. The west is addressing it via immigration and increasing retirement ages (amongst other strategies). However, a significant reduction in working age population (along with other compounding issues) without a long term plan to potentially deal with the consequences could be dire. ShabiDOO 22:12, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
- I find this subject fascinating, and I wish I could write a wall of text about it. Unfortunately, I don't have time right now to answer, so I'll just say a couple of things. Indeed, I couldn't even read the posts above, so maybe people already mentioned what I'm going to say. First, Kurzgesagt despite being great in hard sciences has sometimes a few bad takes in social sciences (though don't ask me to find their older videos, as I said, I don't have time), so take them with a grain of salt on these subjects. The second thing is, does a growing population forster economic growth? Economic growth models, such as the Solow model
- These are, of course, things that the type of people who yap about declining birth rates tend to oppose on principle (at least in the U.S.). Funny how that works. Gabaghoul 🥩 13:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
Of course technological progress means that productivity will be higher and each individual will probably produce more than today. But even if productivity keeps growing at the same rate or more than we've seen in the last decades, South Korea's GDP could peak in the 2040s. In other words, South Korea will enter a permanent economic recession. There are more optimistic projections that see the recession begin as late as 2050, but they are based on the medium UN demographic scenario – and there are no signs we're heading there.
- Gaba is very correct to note the link back to old eugenics of the early 20th - they on the whole are not just bitching about 'not enough kids' but also 'too many Bad kids' aka kids from parents who have been judged unfit for various reasons. A classic example is a complaint that too many 'domestic' kids up for adoption these days are not 'mistakes from white college girls' but from mothers with 'problems' (being poor/homeless counting as such) producing lower-quality product (such as being mixed race) which might have 'problems' themselves in later life (because it's all us underclass producing the 'problem people', not respectable folks).
- A lot of above view has in a diluted form transferred wholesale into (at least) Anglosphere bourgeois mores; that it was Very Irresponsible for you to ever have a kid without being able to provide everything they need, secure in the knowledge you will never Need Help from the state and you will be able to shower them with the attention/stuff the gossipy busybodies say You Must Provide. Ultimately, a lot of this is down to economics - if you have a situation where a) your're basically on your own spawn-raising, b) the setup means it's hard to get the resources together to 'do it all yourself' and c) any official help is bureaucratic/demeaning/rationed than yeah, a lot of the 'elective' kids simply ain't gonna happen.
- This 'middle class arrogance' even leaks into what pro-natal policies they do come up with; for example UKGov developed a free childcare policy a couple years back. Problem is not only is it underfunded but it can only be one through 'official methods' (with associated bureaucracy). This means working-class informal self-help can't happen - in this case Tina and Fiona both giving their £50 p/w to their retired mum to look after Scott and Sarah while they're at work (remembering that Mum might be living off £230 p/w so that £100 would be a modest but welcome increase [also helping to reduce pensioner poverty!]). Most folks would agree, toddlers being raised by Grandma is normally better than a impersonal, bargain-basement daycare who gets fucked off if you're 3mins late for pickup. Hell, strip out all the bureaucratic shit and simply give that £50 to all parents gratis you might both reduce the total bill. But why won't they do that? Fixation of getting 'scroungers', because us working-class cannot be trusted one iota with anything.
- This weave/tangent has a point; in which I think we're way overpaying for dependent care/support than we could be - not just kids, but seniors and the disabled too. I mean, we gave a system where authorities will spend £800 p/w on professional carers because they won't bung £400 p/w for a relative to do it themselves (Classism again; assuming said relative does not really need money, should do it for love).
- Another thing is that 'economically inactive' people can in fact be quite socially productive. Caring for others, volunteering, mentoring, training etc. Does the Grandma daycare or Grandpa DIY services have value? Common sense says yes, while Econ bods say no as they're not run through any metric to be crunched. Even simple stats are hard to find - the only one I found was a wild-ass guess (£250b p/a) which if correct means the British GDP is 10% bigger than believed.
- On the 'permanent economic recession' point, it all depends on how you define recession. Our current definition is very rooted around a presumption of eternal population growth, everything being priced-up and a unusually high % of working people (caused by the 'Boomer bulge' between c1975 to c2025). For economies with flattish (or even declining) pops, we very well might need to depreciate raw GDP numbers. (In fact, think it should be already; UK post 2008 had all the hallmarks of a stagnant/contacting economy but as we had an increasing GDP [due to immigration] our key benchmark 'looked okay'. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:24, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- I completely disagree with KarmaPolice’s notion of “paying too much for care”, because the underlying assumptions are dubious and the maths are completely off.
- First off, the scenario assumes relatives who are both willing and able to deliver this care, and it’s not exactly unheard of for grandparents to still be in full time employment while their grand children need care, or for those grandparents to not be located conveniently nearby. Sure, you could do the self help scheme by pooling resources, but that’s basically just lowering pay for essential services and outsourcing them to unskilled labour in the hope that “love” will cover the difference.
- As for care for the elderly, that requires skills too, unless we’re talking minimum levels of housecleaning etc. Even worse, the maths of 800 vs. 400 ignores several obvious problems: That it would mean that that family carer can’t hold a full time job, which needs to be factored in as a societal cost, likely more than offsetting the proposed savings.
- It also assumes that one professional care worker only cares for one person per week, thus ignoring economies of scale, let alone the fact that care work for the elderly also requires education for a reason, which needs to be factored in as a counter in quality to “love” (and whether everyone loves their family to a degree able to compensate for training in care work is at least open to debate). And once again, it requires that there are actually relatives nearby willing and able to take on this significant task.
- Then there’s the quite likely prospect of gender bias in this “family care model”, because who do we think are most likely to be saddled with this role? My guess would be that it would fall overwhelmingly to women, who are already heavily over represented in (professional) care work, and thus it would be an effective 50% income cut for women, if we assume they currently work as professional care workers and likely far more, unless they’re really low paid or unemployed.
- Family care sounds really good — right up until you have to quit your full time job to do it. Indeed, the problem of the state expecting families to handle this important, societal task is one that is keenly felt exactly in those states (especially in East Asia) that rely on it while also having aging populations.
- If anything, the “boomer bulge” argues for increased reliance on public care, simply because the larger number of elderly relatives needing care would be unmanageable on a family based model, as one working age person might need to care for between two and four grandparents.
- Sure, you might want to subsidise those who are willing and able to take on such care work anyway, but I really wouldn’t want society as a whole to rely on it. It’s not just “unskilled labour of love” and already doesn’t pay particularly well while being physically demanding (and often mentally straining too’), and claiming that we’re overpaying those who are willing and able to do it full time seems frankly bonkers to me. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:19, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
- Think you're misreading a lot.
- Sure, you might want to subsidise those who are willing and able to take on such care work anyway, but I really wouldn’t want society as a whole to rely on it. It’s not just “unskilled labour of love” and already doesn’t pay particularly well while being physically demanding (and often mentally straining too’), and claiming that we’re overpaying those who are willing and able to do it full time seems frankly bonkers to me. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:19, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
- -I don't assume there would be relatives to be willing/able to provide the care, only that there would be some instances where there would be.
- -Don't dump on the 'unskilled labour'. Some of those are damn good at what they do, and because they have 'skin in the game' can be more attentive to their charges than a professional carer. What's more, you get skills over time; so the relative might be more experienced than our professional. Lastly, a lot of care doesn't need skilled labour to do; which is why (for example) a lot of family carers get in a 'proper' carer in for an hour or two do do the stuff they can't.
- -Opportunity cost is very important, and is why flexible systems are vital. Sometimes there will be someone who's current 'real job' is low in pay and going nowhere. Or that they'd be willing to do it, but not for free. Speaking of wider societal cost; there's some evidence which shows low-quality daycare is usually inferior than family care for young kid re later development.
- -Speaking of cost, you're hung up on the purely example numbers I did. The truth is simple; professional care environments are more expensive due to extra overheads (insurance, admin, operating profit etc). Yes, this stuff has long been shunted onto women's shoulders, which I support family being paid for caring - in many countries, it would result in them being paid something for what they already do for free (mainly, because they have to). KarmaPolice (talk) 20:30, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
- I still don’t think that paying people a pittance, rather than nothing at all is a particularly good argument, either socially or economically. As for the extra overhead involved in professional care work, that’s at least partly due to the kind of protections that doing work professionally entails.
- -Speaking of cost, you're hung up on the purely example numbers I did. The truth is simple; professional care environments are more expensive due to extra overheads (insurance, admin, operating profit etc). Yes, this stuff has long been shunted onto women's shoulders, which I support family being paid for caring - in many countries, it would result in them being paid something for what they already do for free (mainly, because they have to). KarmaPolice (talk) 20:30, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
- Basically, if you’re a health care worker and injured at work, you’re usually entitled to some form of compensation, but if you’re injured while doing “family charity” work, you’re not. This is also something that needs to be either factored in as a personal cost for the family member or being paid for by society at large, thus eroding the purported savings.
- Is public support preferable to working for free? Of course. Is publicly supported family care better than no care at all? Sure. Is it better than “bad” care? Possibly (though I’d question how comparable “bad” daycare is to families with the resources and willingness to provide their own).
- The more important question is whether family care is really a viable alternative to public care on a societal scale, or at best a niche supplement. Another issue is that such a system would give a great excuse for certain politicians to shovel all kinds of care onto the families, returning to the situation before comprehensive welfare programmes were implemented in the first place. ScepticWombat (talk) 08:55, 13 April 2025 (UTC)
- Just as a curious real world example: Denmark, despite having a comprehensive public and private daycare system also used to have “a parental daycare subsidy” for, let’s be honest, stay at home moms.
- Now, Danish conservatives and others on the right used be in favour of this, because it very much chimed with their traditional Kinder, Küche, Kirche view of gender roles. That is, until they realised that the majority receiving this support were immigrant women (mainly Muslims) who were thus disincentivised to seek jobs, which also meant that the need to learn and use Danish became less of an issue.
- Not surprisingly, the scheme was quickly cancelled, but the right wing has sought ever since for some way to reintroduce it while exempting the former main users from being able to use it, but have been unable to because that would be blatant discrimination and thus certain to be struck down by the courts. ScepticWombat (talk) 09:10, 13 April 2025 (UTC)
Umberto Eco's famous quote about fascism and Fundies[edit]
- I have noticed that at the very least among some Fundies such quote (Trumpism has nothing to see with this, if anything local ones are quite silent about both him and the support he receives from their US brethen) about fascism seeing their enemies both so weak they're not a threat and so powerful they're the opposite applies, when they see their enemies (Satan and demons, witches, sorcerers, etc. I'm talking about Pentecostals obsessed with spiritual warfare) unable to affect them because they're bathed in the blood of Jesus that protects them of such enemies but other times they have to pray away them because the opposite happens (demons being behind mental illnesses medicine can't treat, such witches and sorcerers cursing them, etc. I'd really like this was made up.)
- And why such obsession with witches and sorcerers in this epoch, when besides them being very few and far between for what I have seen online they seem to have far more important to worry about than cursing Christians?. These people seem to love LARPing. Panzerfaust (talk) 07:34, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
- Erm, sorta wrong.
- They're immune to Satan's whiles because their faith in Jesus is steadfast. Temptations from Satan's minions are everywhere, constantly looking for inroads. If you succumb, it means your faith wasn't steadfast. And the main way for the steadfastness is to live your life to the literal word of the Bible and constantly repent for your sins.
- Biblical literalism is all the way through. For them, we are living in the final days before the Great Tribulations - all that shite in Relevation involving Whores of Babylon and Marks of the Beast. This also means all the bits about miracles, spirits and direct divine interventions etc is all literally true too, so why can't these things happen now?
- From a sane sociological POV, it's all quite self-sealing. Anything Bad is Satan's work; Bad is anything which takes you away from uncritically accepting Scripture and how your pastor etc interprets it. Therefore, it is ultimately hostile to not just other religions, atheism etc but also the principles of the Enlightenment, such as rational enquiry and logic. Even the most glaring evidence of all this being BS is written off as The Red Guy 'testing your faith'.
- TL:DR? The average Pentecostal mind is riddled with fear - of sin, of being 'led astray' by Satan's minions, of the imminent Apocalypse (and missing the Last Boat out), to be condemned to burn in Hell for eternity etc. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:43, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
- There's a concept in Protestant Christianity -- from the beginning -- which is called sola fide. This kind of explains the root here. Under sola fide, your path to salvation is merely acceptance of Jesus Christ alone. Good deeds don't matter as much, if at all. It's one of the big differences between the Protestants and the rest in Christianity.
- Personally, on this issue, I'm more on the side of the "old school" folks like Catholics -- this concept is honestly Biblically questionable in my opinion (though, to be fair, what Martin Luther was reacting to, the Catholic church selling "indulgences", is bullshit as well). And also to be fair, this concept is not interpreted to-the-letter in many Protestant churches. But "Jesus *IS* Salvation" is certainly an important part of the more us vs. them type churches, of which I see the Pentecostals as one of those types. As a lot of that side of the evangelical experience is more about the *cough* mystical side of the Bible (miracles and all that jazz). Small wonder that sola fide has devolved in these churches to where it's now "Belief in Jesus Is Your Shield Against Those Evil Demons".
- The ironic thing here is that such belief is often aligned with the view that they believe in "Biblical literalism". Yet, they don't seem to, really. To give one huge glaring example, in Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus literally states that the second most important commandment in Christianity is to "love your neighbor as yourself". This certainly doesn't line up with the fact that many (IMHO correctly) perceive large portions of American Christianity as intolerant. (8 in 10 "nones" see it as such), something backed up by all those angry preacher types that seem to do nothing but hate. Furthermore, evangelicalism is peppered with a lot of screeds on things that often have extremely thin (if any) Biblical justification. The Rapture is an excellent example -- its Biblical support is thin. But it sure is a great vehicle for uppity types who think they are morally superior than everyone else because they have their Jesus Get-Out-Of-Hell-Free card or something and they will get whisked to paradise while all those evil Others will suffer fire and brimstone etc. (There's Biblical warnings against that type of judgmental shit, e.g. Matthew 7:1-5, James 4:11-12, etc., but such is yet another example of passages that the "Biblical literalists" seem to ignore.).
- In other words, if their religion really *was* real (it isn't methinks, but let's entertain the thought), there's a helluv a lot of so-called Christians who might be surprised where they end up. BobJohnson (talk) 01:57, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- Sola fide needs a rewrite - most non Calvinist mainline Protestants state you need genuine repentance and reasonable efforts of retrofication (ie 'good works') - which means the Pentecostal loophole is semi-sealed. To whit; even the Negus can be by their lights 'a good Christian' by occasionally repenting, saying you love Jesus and then toddling off to do Evil In The Eyes Of THE LORD. (Though some Pentecostals have soaked up the Calvinist idea that earthly rewards are sign of divine grace - and that if the Negus had lost said grace surely the rewards would be removed?)
- TL:DR? The average Pentecostal mind is riddled with fear - of sin, of being 'led astray' by Satan's minions, of the imminent Apocalypse (and missing the Last Boat out), to be condemned to burn in Hell for eternity etc. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:43, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
- The way I started to self de-programme from this cult was realising this loophole (and abuse) and then calling out evidence of it being used (one time literally quoting the Good Samaritan parable). I then realised that if suicide wasn't a sin most Pentecostals were fairly likely to kill themselves when they were certain 'they were in a state of Grace' to make sure they got to heaven. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:19, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- Pardon my ignorance but was is the UmbertEco quote? Bongolian (talk) 05:23, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- "By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak."
Number 8 on Eco's list of 14 Common Features of Fascism. Nowhere Man (talk) 17:49, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
- "By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak."
- Pardon my ignorance but was is the UmbertEco quote? Bongolian (talk) 05:23, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- The way I started to self de-programme from this cult was realising this loophole (and abuse) and then calling out evidence of it being used (one time literally quoting the Good Samaritan parable). I then realised that if suicide wasn't a sin most Pentecostals were fairly likely to kill themselves when they were certain 'they were in a state of Grace' to make sure they got to heaven. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:19, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
Jacob Collier invents post rock[edit]
https://youtu.be/TURkB9zqxa0?feature=shared
Obviously I'm being hyperbolic. I am frustrated that this method of composition looks new or out of the box when it is very established, but I mean, I get it. I am impressed Collier finds a way to conduct/force a specific audience response. I am in no way against this. It is just a little tough when you see this and know it has been done very well before and the credibility goes all to this guy. It's a net good that people are giving a go to less than traditional compositions, and I know Jacob Collier isn't some chump, he knows his shit in and out. But it sucks to be the 'I told you this shit was cool' guy. Check out Godspeed You Black Emperor! , or as they take themselves less seriously by, Godspee. It is very cool, and I'm glad millions of people know that it's ok to like it now. 'I told ya so' is the burning desire, but I mean, we're all winning if the music is good. It's weird to see something familiar that has been poo-pooed go mainstream in an instant. Torrent (talk) 07:30, 13 April 2025 (UTC)
- https://youtu.be/cU_Pbd5gC2I?feature=shared and then Josh Johnson nails the Tariff conversation. Torrent (talk) 01:52, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
(Serious) Is the internet full of bullshit?[edit]
Hello. I discovered Quora and Reddit about two years ago, and I'm shocked by the amount of pure hullshit there. I originally thought these sites were simply there to answer questions, but apparently they have many communities full of three types of people: Annoying "young" people, mentally ill people and obsessive functionaries. Especially Reddit makes me sad. Do people on there really believe what they write? Is there really someone who believes that you have to reflect about wether your a boomer or a generation X'er or whatever (even though these labels are obviously bullshit to most people I know). Except as an insult or a joke, I've never heard someone who seriously identified someone born between 1940 and 1960 as a "boomer", or a person born between 1960 and 1980 as a "generation X'er". And everything on that site is super-perverse: Some people treat "atheism" as an ideology, which I thought was very far from reality, and had to be some American bullshit. In my country, an "atheist" is a non-religious person, and to most people an "agnostic" doesn't mean anything. To find other people angry about Reddit, I searched the site, and I found people obsessed with a particular hat variety, which made me completely forget about the first thing. Apparently, a "trillby" is a very "cringe" hat. Originally, I thought the hat they were randomly making fun of was called "fedora", but apparently it's a "trillby" which they call "fedora". I looked up "fedora" and apparently these terminally online people are talking about the literal Indiana Jones hat. So, apparently, people in real life don't wear that anymore? That's just not true. Some people wear it, others don't, most people don't care about the hat, including those who wear it. Then I looked at random posts about various subjects, but everyone on the site is always extremely annoying and obnoxious. Apparently, leaving your 6 year old alone on the playground right next to your house for not long is "neglect", and letting your 8 year old have an IPhone without time restrictions is "abuse". Apparently, being normal is called being a "stupid boomer", and insisting on something means you have "ADHD". Apparently, being a little arrogant (something that happens to everyone) makes you a "Karen", and your child is then most likely "neuro-diverse". Apparently, your very "cringe" if your not a sexist, and "races" exist. Apparently, you are necessarily some bullshit stereotype put in a "Starterpack". Apparently, you're a "jock" if you show off muscles, but you need to "hit the gym" with your "gym bros" if your slightly above average weight. Apparently, you will be bullied to death if you're overweight (I'm not overweight, but this is just ridiculous and obviously has to be far from reality considering most of those comments come from American users). Apparently, you have to analyse things (an irrelevant TV show, life stages, some movie, a video game, an arrogant attitude, a rebellious child, etc.) which most people in real life just do not give a fuck about.
Am I becoming crazy, or is that site full of bullshit? Or is that just how American daily life is? 2003:EE:6F10:1AF2:868:94CB:C87C:FA56 (talk) 17:40, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
- PS:This is not a shitpost, I'm seriously perplexed and I'm seriously asking myself if these people really mean what they write. 2003:EE:6F10:1AF2:868:94CB:C87C:FA56 (talk) 17:42, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
- From what I see, there's something major going on with mental health in general in the past decades. The internet is just an outlet, a place where people feel like what they say matters. The anonymity helps, and some are just swayed hard by peer pressure.
- Maybe most of the world is just fucked up like that? No doubt there are places where these kinds of minds are not as prevalent, but the inhumane, exponential growth of everything in the current century (And the last one, to an extent) is making it hard for any human being to be able to process the changes without outright ignoring most of what happens to the world, and some people think knowing what is going on in the world is a way to be shielded from the backlash that comes from the changes. This comes at a cost, and most people can't provide the mental energy required to fully process everything. But since they think it would be irresponsible to not do that, they destroy their psyche, sometimes agonizingly slow, until they become sort of a zombie that just needs to have a formed opinion about everything, lest they leave themselves open to being "exploited" by the changes they never understand.
- As I said before, the internet is an outlet. Even those who troll have some subconscious drip into their responses. It's a clear sign of what's going on the minds of those who want to be heard. Maybe we need to start listening, not to agree with them, but to be able to see why and how this is happening. That is not to say there are not meaningful discussions on this hellscape, but they are localized in small pockets, few and far between, surrounded by this sea of dysfunction.
- So yeah, Maybe most of the world is just fucked up like that. 200.160.128.227 (talk) 19:19, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
- I tend to disagree with the idea that this is all *that* new. (See tabloid newspapers, which have existed for a century plus. Also, I can bring up some stories of the major classical music popcorn drama back in the day if you want. People *love* to throw shit at each other.)
- So my response would be:
- A) Welcome to the Internet. The Dickwad theory regarding the Internet has been around since 2004. Yes, a lot of the Internet is full of shit.
- B) "Dickwads" are everywhere, in real life too. Plenty of real-life examples of things ranging from cults to obnoxious assholes to moral ninnies to the topic-obsessed.
- C) Although various cultures do have different "flavors" of dickwad, this is not limited to America. There's a lot of dickwad in *all* of humanity. Nonetheless...
- D) Social media IMHO is worse than real life. There's plenty of studies that social media nonetheless increases online disinhibition (leading to anti-social behavior) as well as increasing feelings of loneliness and isolation. No shit; social media communication just doesn't quite work the way face-to-face does.
- E) Personal observation with social media (particularly where up/downvote rules the roost), from what I see, there's a tendency to cherry-pick the whackiest, most-over-obssessed, most emotive. It's real-life, but only a small slice of it is upvoted on the usual places. Controversy will get more "upvotes" than reason; there's simply no upvotes in the normal day-to-day or "meh, whatever" or, heaven forbid, an actual debate that doesn't turn into mudslinging.
- My thoughts are to treat mainline social media as the tabloid newspaper / gossip page. It's where you will find Drama and see Drama People because these people exist, they are going to make the most noise, they are going to be the loudest, and presently mainline social media rewards this shit. The great thing about Reddit is its sub-Reddit system; the quieter sub-Reddits on more specific, more under-the-radar topics tend to be more chill, as long as they are moderated to keep the Drama riff-raff out. (People complain about Reddit moderation all the time; this is because many of the complainers are the riff-raff. :) ) BobJohnson (talk) 19:44, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
- So yeah, Maybe most of the world is just fucked up like that. 200.160.128.227 (talk) 19:19, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
- I agree that it is not a new phenomenon. It's just been exacerbated by how quickly information is spreading. My rant was less a critique of modernity and more about how most people just can't handle that amount of information without going, to to quote a famous italian, "Coo-coo crazy". — Unsigned, by: 200.160.128.227 / talk / contribs
- the answer is yes, the internet is full of bullshit. It sucks, but we all gotta look at the bullshit. It is everyone's job to sort the information we're given. It is your job to care about the information you receive on the internet and in your life. My suggestion is, if it doesn't affect you and you can't affect it, let it go, at least as much as it takes your time. If you want to act, you can, but this would be a bummer place to start, since quacks and maniacs kinda have pressure over what can be said here. Torrent (talk) 03:02, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I agree that it is not a new phenomenon. It's just been exacerbated by how quickly information is spreading. My rant was less a critique of modernity and more about how most people just can't handle that amount of information without going, to to quote a famous italian, "Coo-coo crazy". — Unsigned, by: 200.160.128.227 / talk / contribs
- I think you discovered that people who post a lot, especially text and memes, tend to be deeply troubled (to put it as politely as possible). Happy people with lovers, friends, and stimulating work don't have time to post and post and post, and surely not on someone else's site. This is also why Mensans tend to be boring: if you are smart and successful, you are busy doing things not hanging out and telling people you are smart. So the people who invest time in Mensa tend to be the people without fulfilling private or work lives. The Internet was dominated by teenagers and bored older people with a few cranks and fanatics and social media is too. Polydamas (talk) 05:31, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- 'Mensans' is the funniest term I've heard in a while. Is that real? Shit like this keeps me coming back. Torrent (talk) 05:42, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- American subcultures from the 20th century like (science fiction) fandom and the Mensans went bad in many of the same ways as the Effective Altruists and LessWrongers today, however the blast radius was smaller because nobody trusted them with the equivalents of billions of dollars.Polydamas (talk) 05:55, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- I think you discovered that people who post a lot, especially text and memes, tend to be deeply troubled (to put it as politely as possible). Happy people with lovers, friends, and stimulating work don't have time to post and post and post, and surely not on someone else's site. This is also why Mensans tend to be boring: if you are smart and successful, you are busy doing things not hanging out and telling people you are smart. So the people who invest time in Mensa tend to be the people without fulfilling private or work lives. The Internet was dominated by teenagers and bored older people with a few cranks and fanatics and social media is too. Polydamas (talk) 05:31, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
Future looks bleak[edit]
Seeing how at least a hundred innocent people have been effectively trafficked and sent to CECOT, as well as that Insurrection Act that Trump will invoke on the 20th... 2600:1700:103A:D800:382A:8748:DAA0:3C15 (talk) 20:14, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah. Every day is an uphill battle to not kayemmess. It's like most of this country loves this man now. 2001:67C:2628:647:9:0:0:136 (talk) 21:55, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
- While it's amazing in some ways (given his blatant disregard for humanity and the rule of law) that he has a 43-45% approval range, it's far from everyone: more than half the country disapprove of Trump in most polls these days. I suspect that the number will go lower over time; the financial impact of the Trumpism chaos hasn't quite hit "Main Street" yet.
- It sadly won't go to zero. Trump definitely has masked off so many Americans. Not that anyone with their eye open didn't know that culture war conservatives were always hypocritical regarding their "freedom!" jingoism. But it turns out there really is a lot of flag-waving types that will throw the entire nation's power away in the hope that a Strong Dictator will "owns the libs". (And their idea of a strong dictator is... a seriously old fart who was a business failure in real life, but found success in reality TV? Oy... television really is the opiate of the masses!) BobJohnson (talk) 01:58, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- As well as the 'shit hasn't hit Main Street yet' section, we also have the folks who are by inclination or design deliberately not engaging at all with anything remotely political. It is common in authoritarian regimes that a lot of the Big Public will 'turn inwards' into personal/private pursuits which generally escape the eye/ire of the regime. Regular 'distraction activities' include sports, hobbies, self-improvement, classic literature/art/music [the modern stuff being politicised and thus verboten], family and most obviously, drugs and booze itself - perhaps the best example most folks would get is what people did 'to distract themselves' during the Covid lockdowns. This is known in the jargon as 'social atomisation' [I call it 'Own Bubbling']; where a regime buttressed by a small stratum of party zealots floats on a sea of a wider public which is doing their best to pretend the regime doesn't exist. They can be roused into action, but only when it directly pierces the bubble.
- Therefore, the question becomes twofold; a) how many 'Own Bubbles' end up getting punctured in the next 3-6 months and b) how capable is 'the opposition' capable of mobilising them against the New Order. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:52, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
Insurrection Act soon?[edit]
A January 20, 2025, executive order declared a national emergency at the southern border and mandated a report by April 20 on whether to invoke the Insurrection Act to achieve “operational control.” Question is, why did Trump wait to invoke the insurrection act, instead of doing it on day one as he said he would? 2001:67C:2628:647:9:0:0:136 (talk) 21:53, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
- Probably to let Americans acclimate to the authoritarianism, like foreplay.2601:140:C005:490:D8AB:70ED:3774:FC02 (talk) 22:23, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
- Looking through the actual legislation, only 10USC§253, condition (2) seems to allow for this sort of use of the insurrection act. It's impossibly broad! (Also the navy is explicitly mentioned earlier but the air force is not, so they might at least refrain from bombing migrants at the border) There are no time limits everywhere but presumably to even have a hope of surviving or at least drawing out a court case they need to at least pretend that they made a good faith effort to enforce whatever law they want to say they can't enforce. Namako (talk) 22:43, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
- That's pretty optimistic considering the administrations current track record of laws and abiding by them. Also, the US Navy has a pretty considerable air force themselves (I believe 2nd largest in the world, with the US Air Force as 1st). A real worry would be the use of autonomous drones for border security, which would no doubt be considered and used. 2601:140:C005:490:65EC:AAC6:144F:F95F (talk) 03:50, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- That's also pretty optimistic. The deployments will not be restricted at the border. Even if they say it will, it won't be for long. This will be a nation wide operation. They will go into workplaces. They will go into schools. They will go into hospitals. They will go down the street, knocking on doors, and searching every room. This time they'll remember to check the attic. They won't need a warrant. And after all, if you "don't have nothing to hide" then why wouldn't you let them turn your house inside out? Assuming you fit their ever-narrowing definition of "legal citizen," that is; If you look like an illegal immigrant, they'll accuse you of being one and whisk you away in an unmarked black van. If they find that you are anti-Trump or voted for Kamala, van.
- And it's also optimistic to assume that the members military would object. Nope, they're ready and willing. Most people who join the military these days are there because they fallen down a propaganda trap brewing for decades; they see themselves as defenders of 'their' America. Either that or they think they're Rambo, or because it's a way to legally harm and kill people. Don't rely on the officers. Many of them are compromised too. Trump and Hedgeseth fired a lot of the high ranking officials whom were deemed disloyal and replaced them with MAGA partisans. Anyone who refuses to follow orders on "ethical grounds" will be court martialed, and the military courts are sympathetic to Trump too. That is barring the fact that the National Guard is even less restrained and even more partisan.
- And that's before we get into the AI facial recognition and digital surveillance. They've already used facial recognition to track down campus pro-Palestinian activists. You know they're going to expand this. This is I'm not joking. US democracy is over, because people voted for a man who promised to dismantle it. I've already flew to a country with jus sanguinis citizenship law that I have living relatives in. (No, I'm not saying where. You know I am taking this seriously if I've already left the country I was born in. And my claim is still pending so I'm unsure if I'll be sent back.) but I understand that not everyone else has this avenue available. To the people who must remain, I can only offer empty words: Good Luck, and expect this dark chapter in American history to last a lot longer than 4 years. 2001:67C:2628:647:9:0:0:136 (talk) 05:03, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- You are forgetting one important thing [even if we leave aside inclination for all to 'go along with this'] - competence. The shredding of the Federal Govt is meaning that the admin chain 'o command is seriously out of whack right now, and the cretins the Negus put charge on the whole are utterly incompetent. Frankly put, it's only folks who have zero knowledge about how shit actually works who think the Big Boss can sit in the top office, 'push buttons' and lo, it magically happens [which includes most of the senior leadership in the Administration now]. No. What happens is that they set the very broad-brush goal, then bureaucrats/managers/technocrats underneath need to work out how to achieve these goals, whether they can actually fucking be achieved and then relay orders etc to make the wheels turn. As I said to a colleague last week, it's all well and good for the Pointy-Haired Boss to talk crap about 'positive thinking' and other business cliches but words don't change legal requirements, increase resources/time or alter facts of physical reality. Clearly, things are gonna fuck up if 'the people who make dreams into reality' have been fired, are dealing with nuts orders or are following various 'creative inertia' as passive resistance [like malicious compliance] and the ones who remain are a bunch of incompetents/newbies who have been hired on being politically reliable alone. And these are the folks going to make Gilead? History shows us that like Putin's invasion of Ukraine, militaries which are stuffed full of politically-reliable cronies suck at actual operations.
- That's pretty optimistic considering the administrations current track record of laws and abiding by them. Also, the US Navy has a pretty considerable air force themselves (I believe 2nd largest in the world, with the US Air Force as 1st). A real worry would be the use of autonomous drones for border security, which would no doubt be considered and used. 2601:140:C005:490:65EC:AAC6:144F:F95F (talk) 03:50, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- Looking through the actual legislation, only 10USC§253, condition (2) seems to allow for this sort of use of the insurrection act. It's impossibly broad! (Also the navy is explicitly mentioned earlier but the air force is not, so they might at least refrain from bombing migrants at the border) There are no time limits everywhere but presumably to even have a hope of surviving or at least drawing out a court case they need to at least pretend that they made a good faith effort to enforce whatever law they want to say they can't enforce. Namako (talk) 22:43, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
- Speaking of 'legal requirements'... I note that Trump and co seem to be more and more intent into disobeying laws and even SCOTUS rulings now. Did you know there's a % demographic of right-wing people who believe strongly in following at least the letter of the law? Previous dictators like the Austrian megalomaniac got where they did because they got that and ensured every legal t and i was correctly done before moving on with said dreams. This rather chilly respect for the law includes folks like military officers and LEOs. In this respect, the military is just like an other big org; with the generals sitting in the big office, the grunts on the field 'doing the shit' and with all those officers in the middle 'making it all fall together'. But hell, not even all of 'the generals' approve and each time another commander [like that one in Greenland] who gets sacked due to not sucking off Trump the officer class is gonna get a little more pissy.
- For this reason, and many others which I could write an essay on I urge the readers to not go over the Despair Event Horizon - 'MAGA has won, Gilead is here, might as well suck it up for a quiet life' - peddled above. They have not won. Gilead is not here... yet. But I do believe it's got to the stage where [for example], military personnel need to be reminded that their oath was to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign or domestic. Not to the Orange King. Not to build Gilead. Not for the MAGA feudal elites. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:00, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- A few notes on the "more positive end, sort of":
- A) Some "blue states" already are starting simply ignore Trump's orders, especially when they are clearly illegal. New York in particular flat out has ignored Trump's attempts to end diversity in education and eliminate New York City's congestion pricing. The more Donald Trump openly flouts the rule of law, the more this gives "blue states" carte blanche to do the same and start ignoring the most bullshit of Trump's orders. (Short of Trump sending the military in, of course, which would probably end up being civil war level shit. But as KP noted above, the military is not completely tied to Trumpism and possibly can act as a firewall to Trump's stupidest impulses. To give one recent example: a combination of a military firewall and federalism is what helped neuter the worst impulses of Jair Bolsonaro.)
- B) Watch for the reactions of, well, essentially everyone else. It is hard to think of exactly who is an ally to Trump's vision of America. (Russia? El Salvador? Hungary? Anyone else?) The United States (until now, I suppose) has gotten a lot of advantages from being the world's "safe haven" for investment. Trump's bullshit has started to make a lot of people wonder about that these days. And it's clear that Trump, for all his bluster, still doesn't want a complete economic crisis on his watch.
- It is clear that the reason Trump's "tariff the world" bullshit were paused is because that bond markets were starting to panic and people were starting to unload US treasuries big-time. And the United States is not in a great position for this sort of thing. The 123% debt-to-GDP is sustainable if the "investment vibes" believe that nothing bad will happen; it is *far* less so if uncertainty rules, and investors demand a nice yield premium for taking on risk.
- Long term, a lot of what Trump is doing undermines this "safe haven" / center of the financial world status regardless; I expect the post-Trumpian pain to be far worse to the US than Brexit was to the UK. But I do think that investor pressure might also put a clamp on some of the worst Trumpian impulses (though, sadly, I have to emphasize the "might" part.) BobJohnson (talk) 12:35, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- One addition from an analysis today:
- While I think it's pretty clear that "the immigrants!" are a popular rally cry among the right, I think the Gestapo-level, proto-Nazi shit of deporting "enemies" to a foreign gulag (even if they did nothing wrong at all and were merely an "administrative error"), and Trump's penchant for disobeying court orders, is a massive overreach, at least in the court of opinion. Such is shown in an analysis of poll data if you break down the details: even only 28% of Republicans agree that Trump should flout court orders.
- Sadly, even in the above analysis, there is still some "wiggle room" for some horrid shit, like what went on in the detention camps with Trump 1.0. But many people who howl at immigrants (rightly or wrongly) have a "tiered" view, where the foreign-born doctor is ranked much higher than the foreign-born manual laborer. Neo-Nazis like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon don't give two flying flips about this sort of nuance. And these neo-Nazis certainly don't give two fucks about due process; I think that sort of authoritarian shit is a very minority view in America at the moment. So this is perhaps yet another area where the administration is overreaching, and a talking point opportunity for opposition politicians (if they actually grew a spine). BobJohnson (talk) 13:36, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- For this reason, and many others which I could write an essay on I urge the readers to not go over the Despair Event Horizon - 'MAGA has won, Gilead is here, might as well suck it up for a quiet life' - peddled above. They have not won. Gilead is not here... yet. But I do believe it's got to the stage where [for example], military personnel need to be reminded that their oath was to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign or domestic. Not to the Orange King. Not to build Gilead. Not for the MAGA feudal elites. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:00, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
One of the things which worked against Liz Truss was bringing in the lettuce (ie mocking her by comparing her to something fairly trivial). What 'animal, vegetable or mineral' could be used for Trump?
Could Machiavelli's The Prince be brought into the discussion? Anna Livia (talk) 15:29, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- An orange, maybe. ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 16:44, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- I have two candidates!
- Fat, ugly, unwanted, toxic but yet convinced of its own beauty - the cane toad.
- Unable to cope with reality - the ostrich. (Yes, I know it's apocryphal)Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:30, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- Blobfish perhaps.
- With Truss it was mainly which would last longer in office/the display - so what a/v/m for the tawdry trumpery? Galloping Gertie? Anna Livia (talk) 23:04, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- Trump is the Black Bear. Kinda scary, but most likely to be digging in your garbage for sustenance. Make yourself big and the black bear shrinks. Never treat a black bear like a pet, it doesn't see you as a friend. Torrent (talk) 04:08, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
What happened to the RW Support Server?[edit]
I try to open it, but it says the server has no channels; It wasn't like this a few hours ago, is this only happening on my end? If not, then what happened? TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 00:07, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Same issue for me, first explanation that comes to mind is that someone with administrator rights has nuked the discord. Which could mean their account was compromised, but this is just a guess. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 07:07, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- The Board of Trustees part is still there. Spud (talk) 09:11, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Isn't Tech the only one with admin rights? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 12:48, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I hate to say it, but it seems like Techpriest went rogue and nuked every part of the server except for the Board chat. She is the owner of the server, and she just changed her profile pic and username. Techpriest did not respond to my Discord message asking her what happened.
DuceMoosoliniYour friendly RW
dictatormoderator 13:33, 16 April 2025 (UTC)- She's the last one I'd see doing something like this. That's more of a Carthage thing. Did something happen yesterday on the discord? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 14:00, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I'm pretty sure that she once said that she wasn't going to delete the server if she left the site. She said that if that happened, she would give the server to someone else. So I assume that she had a good reason for nuking it. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 14:03, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- This just sucks. I was active on that server way more than even on RW itself. There were like tens of thousands of messages on there, including some posts of mine that I would have really liked to save to my notes or something... Techpriest (aka @color_out_space on Discord) does not answer to my DMs either. It's sad that so many years of good-faith interactions had to be deleted as to not be used against us. Though I understand given the nature of the last few weeks' legal discussions on there. What a shitty time to be on RW, honestly. I hope it will be restored at some point in the future. KaDaShOvA (talk) 16:58, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Hopefully the channels are just hidden instead of deleted, but I'm not sure if that's the case. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 17:19, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- This just sucks. I was active on that server way more than even on RW itself. There were like tens of thousands of messages on there, including some posts of mine that I would have really liked to save to my notes or something... Techpriest (aka @color_out_space on Discord) does not answer to my DMs either. It's sad that so many years of good-faith interactions had to be deleted as to not be used against us. Though I understand given the nature of the last few weeks' legal discussions on there. What a shitty time to be on RW, honestly. I hope it will be restored at some point in the future. KaDaShOvA (talk) 16:58, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I'm pretty sure that she once said that she wasn't going to delete the server if she left the site. She said that if that happened, she would give the server to someone else. So I assume that she had a good reason for nuking it. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 14:03, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- She's the last one I'd see doing something like this. That's more of a Carthage thing. Did something happen yesterday on the discord? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 14:00, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I hate to say it, but it seems like Techpriest went rogue and nuked every part of the server except for the Board chat. She is the owner of the server, and she just changed her profile pic and username. Techpriest did not respond to my Discord message asking her what happened.
- I was surprised too. I just checked the server today and bam. Techpriest, if you're reading this, I hope you're doing okay. — Exaskliri (they/them) (talk | contribs) 17:26, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
Server status[edit]
Okay, just a quick announcement. Tech transferred ownership of the RW Discord server to me. Most channels are back up. I will be keeping the server open and up as a place for all of us to continue chatting together, although I will have to spend some time reestablishing some stuff and reorganizing. DuceMoosoliniYour friendly RW
dictator moderator 01:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
Inflation devalues Debt... Kinda[edit]
There's a weird argument, that Inflation is really actually good because if you have a dollar in debt, it is worth the dollar including the dollar's drop in value. This is stupid, because nobody gets more dollars to pay debts. Except for the people who can increase their income to match inflation. Torrent (talk) 03:17, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Of course, the only ones who can increase their income to match (and surpass) inflation are billionaires. The oligarchs are enjoying this inflation even more than the furries! Bonus points, they can call themselves trillionaires sooner. 2001:67C:2628:647:17:0:0:347 (talk) 05:11, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- That's actually a well-known effect. When you owe money to a bank and inflation is high, inflation is transfering money from the bank to you. The reverse is also true: when you have deflation, your loan with the bank will skyrocket. This was one of the causes of the Great Depression, I wrote about it here. Of course, in practice, interest rates tend to follow the inflation rate (the Fisher effect
), but if you want to borrow money and you expect the inflation to rise more than the banks expect, this might be a good time to do it. Now, beating banks in their own game is difficult, but it is possible, even if it sound like gambling. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:09, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Except most folks can't negotiate fixed-interest loans and lenders have gotten vary wary of doing long-term fixed interest period [esp during unstable times] - I would guess the end was the 70s with a combo of both floating currencies and oil-related inflation. So it's a lot harder to pull off. I would guess now the major exploitation [apart from currencies] is through interest-free credit/debit lines; one thing I really noticed in '22/'23 that large companies were a) dragging out payments to suppliers while b) getting shit-hot on collecting cash owed prompt. Ie that in an era where inflation was running at 0.5%+ monthly it was trying to extort interest-free short loans off their creditors while stopping their debtors from doing similar. Obviously, this is a game which seriously favours the super-wealthy due to power disparities. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:24, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, I was talking about fixed-interest loans. So, changing my argument. If you lend money to the government and you expect that inflation will rise faster than the Fed will raise the interest rates, now it might be a good time to sell your US Treasury Bonds. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 14:31, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I don't know about the "oligarchs" fully liking what's going on... from what I'm seeing, the sentiment in "biz" papers like The Economist and Wall Street Journal is now very sour on Trump (though The Economist always was to some degree, the Rupert Murdoch papers generally have been Trump cheerleaders from what I remember, so this is a shift). One Substack (I know, but Charlie Eaton is a professor that seems to specialize in higher education financialization) even speculated that Harvard's recent pushback against Trump wouldn't have happened without a pissed off ruling class alumni to help. Also, I'm seeing some evidence that the parts of Silicon Valley who haven't got high on whatever Elon Musk is on are now heavily souring on the administration (one data point -- YCombinator co-founder Paul Graham, who voted for Trump, has supported Muskian bullshit in the past, and in January 2025 spewed out a long-winded spiel against "woke", recently tweeted regrets about his Trump vote.)
- Yes, the rich can weather inflation and the dollar decline and the end of Pax Americana and the end of a major pillar or legal stability and all of that better than the poor. But that doesn't mean they want or like what is happening. Methinks most of the oligarchs voted for Trump 1.0... not this. Guess they failed to read Project 2025 very carefully... BobJohnson (talk) 15:04, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, I was talking about fixed-interest loans. So, changing my argument. If you lend money to the government and you expect that inflation will rise faster than the Fed will raise the interest rates, now it might be a good time to sell your US Treasury Bonds. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 14:31, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Except most folks can't negotiate fixed-interest loans and lenders have gotten vary wary of doing long-term fixed interest period [esp during unstable times] - I would guess the end was the 70s with a combo of both floating currencies and oil-related inflation. So it's a lot harder to pull off. I would guess now the major exploitation [apart from currencies] is through interest-free credit/debit lines; one thing I really noticed in '22/'23 that large companies were a) dragging out payments to suppliers while b) getting shit-hot on collecting cash owed prompt. Ie that in an era where inflation was running at 0.5%+ monthly it was trying to extort interest-free short loans off their creditors while stopping their debtors from doing similar. Obviously, this is a game which seriously favours the super-wealthy due to power disparities. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:24, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- That's actually a well-known effect. When you owe money to a bank and inflation is high, inflation is transfering money from the bank to you. The reverse is also true: when you have deflation, your loan with the bank will skyrocket. This was one of the causes of the Great Depression, I wrote about it here. Of course, in practice, interest rates tend to follow the inflation rate (the Fisher effect
possible marshal law on 20th[edit]
It looks like trump might declare marshal law on the 20th of April. We're really scared about it. Koafox (talk) 14:12, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Not Godwin's Law-ing, but that has a notable birthdate. Anna Livia (talk) 15:59, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- What's your source? I wanna look into this. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 16:10, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Wikipedia page [1] - Births 1600-1900 (and other places) Anna Livia (talk) 17:25, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Trump's administration is musing about whether or not to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 on that date. Ostensibly for the supposed "border crisis", but many fear worse.
- (Keep in mind though that around the world, state leaders have been impeached for trying to invoke a bullshit martial law that goes too far.) BobJohnson (talk) 16:18, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Am I the only one to notice that this date is Easter Sunday? KarmaPolice (talk) 16:47, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I wouldn't buy into this conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theorists are worthless human beings and you shouldn't believe what tripe any of those horrible people in the White House or any conspiracy theorist says. Captain Chrome (talk) 17:29, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Except there has been examples of conspiracy theories which proved to be true. For example, price-fixing cases, Watergate and corps hiring 'consultants' to thwart worker unionisation attempts. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:36, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- It's not much of a "conspiracy theory" when Trump 1.0 first threatened to use it to deploy federal troops to the Mexico border in 2019 and then threatened to use it to deploy federal troops to suppress Black Lives Matters protesters in 2020. The question (as always with Trump) is whether bark > bite, but I personally bet that he actually will try to use it in order to send troops to the Mexican border (though I expect immediate lawsuits afterwards, of course).
- Whether it goes further than that, it's hard to say. It's not impossible given the state of the Republican party these days, but it's also easy to see Trump and his other cronies "overplaying their hands", so to speak. BobJohnson (talk) 18:00, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- It's certainly interesting when Snopes does not instantly dismiss it as nonsense. They are pretty good at keeping an eye on internet fake news.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:11, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Except there has been examples of conspiracy theories which proved to be true. For example, price-fixing cases, Watergate and corps hiring 'consultants' to thwart worker unionisation attempts. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:36, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- I wouldn't buy into this conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theorists are worthless human beings and you shouldn't believe what tripe any of those horrible people in the White House or any conspiracy theorist says. Captain Chrome (talk) 17:29, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Am I the only one to notice that this date is Easter Sunday? KarmaPolice (talk) 16:47, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
Hatred of Reddit[edit]
Something that has always fascinated/perplexed me is how you apparently can't say anything good about Reddit on the Internet without some bozo replying, "Reddit moment! Keanu Chungus Wholesome 100! Thank you for the gold, kind stranger!", or something similar. First of all, I'm not like that (or at least, I actively try not to be like that). Secondly, even if I was like that, what would be the point in mocking me over it?
It's doubly absurd when the exchange is happening on Reddit itself. Seriously, there's an entire subreddit, R/averageredditor, whose users all have this mentality. Let that sink in: you have an entire community of people who love hating on Reddit users, and it's hosted on... Reddit. By definition, every single user of that subreddit is a massive hypocrite.
The sad thing is that there are a lot of good reasons to criticize Reddit: the bots, the groupthink, the mods who abuse their power, the fact that Spez decided to make Reddit's API private to anyone but the highest bidder, etc. But none of the complainers ever seem to touch on these criticisms- instead, they rely on making fun of popular jokes and memes among the Reddit community, which you could argue are very much oversaturated, but they don't really reflect the site as a whole.
I don't really have a conclusion here. This is just something I've had on my chest for a while. Lizardcreator (talk) 01:09, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- I use reddit and have literally never seen anyone reference "big chungus" or Keanu Reaves. Ioe bidome (talk) 01:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- They're memes from 2018ish, I don't understand why they're so heavily associated with Reddit today either. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 01:53, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- I am on a number of Reddit communities and usually find them very helpful. I have also never heard of "Keanu Chungus". Nevertheless, like everything social media associated, I am sure I could find a lot of crap on Redditt if I spent the time looking for it and cared to use my time interacting with it.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 07:43, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- They're memes from 2018ish, I don't understand why they're so heavily associated with Reddit today either. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 01:53, 17 April 2025 (UTC)