To be fair, it's virtually impossible to tell whether a text was written by an AI or not. If some motivated actor is willing to spend money to generate quality LLM output, they can post as much as they want on virtually all social media sites.
The internet is in the process of eating itself as we speak.
lol what? tariffs and protectionism have been the policies of the republican party and conservatism forever
since Reagan it's been the party of pro-business and free market capitalism. it wasn't until the right wind populism that slowly started during the tea party and eventually led to Trump that we started seeing protectionism
And I have a bridge to sell you
I'm not claiming he is going to do this, I'm saying I think he has an opportunity to do it. The fundamental question is what Trump has in mind. Is his goal to just extract as much money as possible for him and his friends while keeping everything else more or less the same? Or does he have a more radical vision?
Certain individuals connected with the new Trump administration (looking at Vance and his financier Peter Thiel) have some radical beliefs in a new sort of technocratic authoritarian state. If this is really their goal, I think universal healthcare is a useful stepping stone to popular support for more radical items.
Trump took over GOP. It's not the same party as before.
Tariffs and deporting millions of people are both quite radical changes of the status quo. Illegals have been a fundamental part of our labor market for decades. GOP historically has been pro-illegal immigrants even if they've kept mostly quiet about it. It's good for business. Reagan, the GOP quasi-religious symbol, legalized millions of illegals.
Tariffs fly in the face of established free market capitalism economics. Milton Friedman would be turning in his grave. You are artificially repressing the market through strong government regulation. Again, a radical reshaping of American policy.
I think Trump actually has a short window of action for very dramatic change. For example, if he comes out and says he believes we need universal healthcare because of the corrupt elites and whatnot, I think people will rally behind him. His popularity would jump up 20 points overnight. I think his voters are actually expecting some type of radical change.
The country is hurting and when people elect populists, it means they're at the end of their ropes. Some of the class consciousness needs to be released with a pressure valve otherwise we're headed for some murky and potentially ugly consequences.
People like Bannon understand this. I think they see the way the winds are blowing and want to be in a position to benefit
i gave two examples of simple ideas that don't fundamentally change the status quo yet are popular
that doesn't mean that simple ideas can't work
there are simple ideas, I think, that would work very well. however a populist would never go for it because it's bad marketing.
for example I think in all cities with significant junkie populations we should have clinics giving out free heroin shots to addicts. simple idea. i think it'll work
but the majority of the people would not approve of this. they don't want to see the data and research about lowering HIV rates, lowering crime, lowering healthcare costs, etc. they don't like junkies and they feel icky giving out free heroin to addicts
i'm not saying simple idea = bad. I'm not even saying populist = bad. i said that in practice it's usually tied to ideas that seem good on the surface but when you scratch the veneer off it's not nearly as good as it seems.
like i brought up above, if we restructured how our government spends money we could increase our effective spending while lowering taxes and it would have magnitudes more impact than the marginal increase in revenue from taxing the rich. so why don't we do it?
because it's a complex overhaul that would require a large initial investment and you wouldn't see the fruits for more than a couple election cycles- something a populist cannot afford.
Why do people keep using “populist” like it’s a negative?
because it's virtually always tied to policies that are meant to be easily digestible for the lowest common denominator. as it turns out, however, that complex problems virtually never have simple solutions.
ie Trump and his border wall in 2016. Populist with a populist platform to stop illegal immigration. What does it actually accomplish? Nothing because
a) it's impractical to actually build a wall across the entire length of the border
b) majority of illegal immigrants come legally on tourist visas and then overstay
but why focus on "The Wall"? Because Trump understands that it's an easily understandable symbol he can point to.
Left wing populism is similar. For example "tax the rich!" is a common mantra. And sure, taxing the rich is good. But what use is there in increasing tax revenue by a fraction of a percent when we are bleeding money at the seams to corruption? It's not going to solve our deficit. It's not going to lower taxes for the average American. Look at how the military will spend $100k on a bag of metal bushings that me and you can buy on Amazon for $100.
But how are you going to tackle the problem of deeply ingrained corruption? It permeates from our local institutions all the way to the upper echelons. Look how Haliburton got billions of dollars worth of "no-bid" contracts during the Bush administration. Just happens that Cheney, the most powerful VP in history, used to work there.
There is no easy solution. So populists come and say "tax the rich" or "build a wall" when in reality it does absolutely nothing to fix the actual problems. But the real solutions are complex and hard to relay to voters. and in fact, the solutions are painful and no politician would ever campaign on painful policies. For these reasons I think we are doomed as a society and that technocratic countries like China are going to dominate us in the next century unless we can radically change course
Can anyone copy paste the actual article here? It's behind a paywall. I generally like Jacobin so I'd withhold judgement until actually reading the article.
Although I'd disagree on "Bidenism" as a term simply because Biden has not had nearly enough impact or influence to merit that word existing.
I sleep 8 hours a night and wake up at the same time every day. I've found that as long as my sleep schedule is consistent and reliable, my energy levels are fine. It doesn't really matter how busy I am throughout the day.
Once the sleep schedule gets out of whack (I sleep in too much, or have to wake up at 3am for work trip) then it takes a good 5 days or so to go back to normal
I think federal government probably sent a pretty please over to reddit HQ to censor this.
They're afraid of it fomenting further dissent. It's a delicate situation when the plebs are upset. A little bit is OK, in fact preferable. But too much can lead to a chain reaction that cannot be controlled.
I feel instructing people to do things goes into the action category.
exactly. that's how US law works. in England, the state has much broader powers to arrest you depending on your speech. Like for example, the first statement I made
“i believe all [plural form of random ethnic slur] should be brutally murdered”
a very similar post on twitter got someone sentenced to 2 years in jail over in England just a few months ago. let search around and find the direct quote....
i found it
“Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care… If that makes me racist, so be it”
My interpretation is that this is a belief. He didn't explicitly instruct anyone to do anything. He said, in other words - "if people set fire to all the muslim immigrants, i wouldn't care" or basically "i would be happy with people setting fire to all muslim imimgrants"
in England, that's a crime. in the US, you have to be much more explicit. You have to
a) specifically instruct people to do something "everyone, attack that person in the red hat"
b) hold the belief that your statement has a real chance to followed. so for example, if you right now say "hey kava, beat your wife" you almost certainly could not be charged in the US because a reasonable person would not immediately beat their wife because of a statement like that
c) it has to be immediate - so you have to say something and it happen in the very near future. so if you write "let's stab all the [ethnic slurs]" and then someone reads that 3 months into the future- you can't be held liable.
So I believe the US laws, in this case, are so much better than English laws.
The US does a lot of shit wrong. So many things. But on speech? I think best in the world.
edit: there's more on this topic if you're interested: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test
I appreciate the personal anecdote. I believe in cases like the one you detailed, assisted suicide is not only morally justified but I think perhaps even obligatory. It does sound horrific and I can only imagine how horrific it feels to be that person going through that period of time.
When I say duty to live, I'm more speaking to those who are not terminally ill. Another user brought up a good point where what we need to do is look at the death % rates and see how they shifted. For example, if 20% of people now die from assisted suicide, do 20% less people die from cancer and other similar diseases? Then assisted suicide is for all intents and purposes relegated to terminally ill patients.
If the number, however, is let's say 15% less people die from cancer, that would imply 5% more people are dying because of assisted suicide than would have otherwise died. This is the part I'm scared of.
Again, I appreciate your comment. It must have been a profound thing to witness. For good and for bad.
things not in the physical realm should have consequences not in the physical realm
I mean, it depends. I think the current laws in the US are more or less fine.
For example, if I send you a death threat through an online message, it should be equivalent to me sending you a death threat in any other fashion.
So I'm not a total absolutist, but I am a strong free-speech proponent.
I think saying something like "i believe all [plural form of random ethnic slur] should be brutally murdered" is an expression of a belief. it's a horrific belief, yes, but it's a belief. I think it constitutes as free speech and therefore the government cannot prosecute
however let's say I'm a musician at a concert and i see a guy in the crowd and point and yell to the crowd "hey everybody, attack that [singular form of ethnic slur] and rip his [religious apparel] off" - that isn't a belief. that is an incitement to violence.
that should be a crime.
in England, both the first and the 2nd are crimes. here in the US, it's only the 2nd
yeah it's a weird time. over in England during the anti-immigrant riots some people got sent to jail for inciting violence for some twitter messages. If you actually read the messages and compare it to the rhetoric coming out of many people about this CEO, many people would be sent to jail if we were following the same standard.
obviously the US is not England and we have free speech protections- but people really should exercise caution
Never say anything you aren't willing to stand behind. Because it won't go away. And with authoritarian regimes coming to power... you gotta be cognizant of the potential consequences
But generally, I agree with you. The further we get away from groupthink the better we are for it. When we self-censor out of fear of disapproval we are perpetuating the cycle and making it more likely the next person doesn't speak their mind.
Just because everyone believes something is right, does not mean it is. The majority has been wrong in the past and it will be wrong in the future.
am i mistaken? are we on a website for discussion in a thread about the topic of conversation or are we in a hospice ward for terminal cancer patients?
i haven't made a single reply to someone unsolicited in this thread. again, you have nothing meaningful to say so you default to vague pearl clutching.
i will absolutely speak about abortion to someone if the topic of conversation is abortion. i will tell someone how i feel- if it is solicited. i support abortion, personally. i spent a good hour arguing with some religious people at an anti-abortion booth on my campus when i was in college.
Those just glorify the military industrial complex
watching a soldier's legs get blown up by a drone with 3 dead soldiers around him pick up his rifle and shoot himself in the head isn't really what I would call a show of glory
i feel privileged to be able to see war footage. this hasn't really been possible for most of human history. you can look and see the brutality of war and what it really means to "die for your country"
i don't agree with censoring war videos. i'm glad that reddit abstains from this. i'm certain they will be banning it in the future. in think in near future we will not get any media outside of a giant firewall much like China
ok please enlighten me Freud. can you show me where I implied that my opinion should be law and what my biases are? besides the potential ones I mentioned such as potential religious indoctrination from growing up catholic and the fact that i may think differently should i be in that position. what other ones are impacting my thinking?
MAID is the ultimate expression of bodily autonomy
shooting yourself in the head is the ultimate expression of bodily autonomy.
an institutionalized system of euthanasia is something else entirely. you are requesting that the government/healthcare institution kill you.
Except you are not. You haven’t actually discussed MAID itself other than saying it generally makes you feel icky
i've written near a dozen comments about this at this point. i haven't mentioned eugenics once except to make the comparison of the progressive appearance in the 1900s. you write yet don't read
Can you explain why you’re against MAID without referring to eugenics or any other historical issue?
read any of my dozen comments where i discuss this with people who actually address the conversation instead of nitpick on some imaginary offense. my primary concerns are two fold
First off, using the word “execution” is pretty loaded. I just wanted to put that out there, especially because you’re, “not trying to tell anyone they’re wrong.”
well that's one of the things i take issue with. the ideological approach we take to this. we start using nice sound names and acronyms - euphemisms- and it can sort of hide what we are doing. the words we use matter. unrelated tangent- they've done a study in the US. you ask people whether or not they support a "death tax" and a majority will say of course not. you ask them whether they support an "inheritance tax" and all of a sudden support is flipped. do you see what I mean? the language matters.
and the fact that everyone that we are coming up with these acronyms like "MAID" (which is new to me, by the way. I've only ever heard doctor assisted suicide up until this point) i think shows that as a society we are trying to avoid some of the conversation about this. euphemisms disguise what we are really doing and they disguise what we really feel. this may be for good intentions (empathy or what have you) but road to hell is paved with good intentions
It’s not just on the individual who is making this decision, but health care professionals who use their professional opinion on the mental state of the individual. If a person is suicidal, generally a mental health care professional is involved.
and doctors in the past have cleared the compulsory sterilization of individuals in Canada (and many other places). i have immediate family members who are doctors. some of the beliefs they hold would offend many in this thread. just because they went through medical school and trained and have above average intelligence- does not mean they will necessarily be on the right side of history.
I think these are all good reasons to be skeptical, but I also don’t think they’re reasons to completely prevent access.
i understand this. someone is suffering in pain in a way that life is unlivable. they are terminal so they are going to die anyway. I would not be able to deny them death if they is what they wanted. I wouldn't. So I'm not even saying we shouldn't have this policy. I just think if we do implement it, it needs to be limited to those types of cases specifically. Once we start moving into people who aren't terminal and people who are suffering from mental health exclusively, I think we would have opened a box we can't close.
especially because you’re, “not trying to tell anyone they’re wrong.”
i'm honest to God just trying to look into this at a deeper level. I try to be civil, I try to be empathetic with those who have suffering loved ones (I have also had suffering loved ones, in fact I have some going through something right now). I'm amazed at the level of response I've gotten to my off-hand comment. I've never gotten a fraction of the response on any lemmy comment I've written before.
I fear we are not ready as a society for this. that this may open the door for horrific consequences further down the road.
two major things to keep in mind
a) majority of hispanics in the US have been there multiple generations. while they may hold some varying level of ties to their family's home country, they've more or less been mostly americanized and are effectively just a different flavor of "american"
add in the fact that these are a more socially conservative people who more likely to be religious and it makes sense why they have been moving to the right. GOP could have taken advantage of this a long time ago. I think it's strange that Trump is the one to finally harness this group of people, but I guess reality is stranger than fiction
b) the US isn't stupid and it imports right-wing anti-left people. For example from Cuba or Venezuela. Miami has a massive Cuban population and they're all descendants from people fleeing the communist Castro regime. The Cubans are bred from birth to believe the Castro regime was evil and they're told all about the horrors (conveniently nobody remembers the just as brutal Batista regime, coincidentally supported by the US).
So all it takes is for there to be a connection between "democrats -> left wing -> communist" and all the Cubans turn against the DNC.
what I find fascinating is that you talk to a young Cuban who is one or two generations separated from Cuba, they have all sorts of horror stories and hatred for the Castro regime.
But you talk to an old-timer, someone in their 60s or 70s and they have nostalgia and nuanced views. Sort of like how people view the Soviet Union.
If we're gonna summarize all of this I'd just say this- assimilation. We're watching the process of how Irish went from "ethnic minority" to "white" and hispanics are going through a similar process