Best of Unstuck

RiskyFlush · November 22, 2019, 10:18pm

King Trumpo beat them all tho

Wizards.gif

TheDuker · November 22, 2019, 11:01pm

Not on list for some reason. System obviously biased against TheDuker. #RIGGED

tabbaker · November 24, 2019, 4:24am

gg rigging the stats for himself

BestOf · December 6, 2019, 6:12pm

We’ve had a lot of submissions, so thanks to those tagging posts.
Still trying to figure out the best way to make everything readable ITT, bear with me.

ITV: Impeachment Television

ITV: Impeachment Television

So what exactly are the Dems supposed to do? It’s been said numerous times that impeachment is a political process not a criminal process.

For starters, if the roles were reversed, the GOP would be blanketing the airwaves with pro impeachment ads. Like where the fuck is Tom Steyer now? #NeedToImpeach

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what comes next. I thought about making a new thread, even. But like he’s going to be impeached, then he’s almost certainly going to be acquitted in the Senate in like February. This gives him the total green light to do anything he wants in the 2020 election with zero ramifications until 2021, and if he wins zero ramifications until 2025. We all know what that means.

So we’re about to enter this new phase of just all out political war. The Dem nominee WILL be investigated by the DOJ. The president WILL use the office to pressure foreign countries to investigate the Dem nominee. The president WILL try to get foreign countries to hack for him, to cut deals to help him, etc, etc. Money WILL be funneled from Russia, Saudi Arabia and Israel to the Trump campaign. Facts will be totally disregarded. The amount of mud that is flying from the right will be orders of magnitude more than we’ve ever seen.

So what should the Dems do and what will the Dems do? There’s no way they do what they should do, imo, which is to match the fervor and intensity but do so legally. They should already be preparing now, and they’re not. They should be going for the transcripts of every call with MBS, Netanyahu, Putin, etc. They should be going through the courts now to enforce subpoenas so that maybe it plays out in time to have major public testimony about various misdeeds in June through November of 2020. They should be lining this stuff up now. Make sure the headlines are not like, “DOJ Investigates Biden/Sanders/Warren/Pete for _____________.” Make sure the headlines are about explosive testimony that’s damning for Trump. You have to win that battle, or the Comey letter is going to look like child’s play.

What else should they be doing? They should be making sure Trump is charged by NY and other states shortly after he’s acquitted in the Senate. Is he indictable? Well we should sure as shit find out, let’s make SCOTUS rule on that in 2020. Why wait? Is there any doubt the GOP would have charged Obama in like Alabama for some state crime if they had the chance???

You need the shit you’re slinging back at him to be a level more serious than the shit he’s slinging at you. If it’s an indictment in a court of law, hey, that’s not partisan politics that’s a GRAND JURY OF HIS PEERS. It’s a nice bonus that it’s ACTUALLY in the pursuit of justice as well. That it’s all legal and above board.

Meanwhile, as you keep turning the screws on him, you increase the number of unforced errors he’s going to make. All of this should be going on while the nominee totally ignores it and hammers HEALTHCARE AND JOBS AND HEALTHCARE AND JOBS AND MONEY AND JOBS AND HEALTHCARE AND MONEY AND HOPE AND YES WE CAN AND LIFE IS GOING TO BE SO GOOD FOR YOU WHEN I WIN.

Let House Oversight, Intel and Judiciary go in on him. And, while we’re at it, clear those committees of anyone who isn’t up to the task and load them up with total bulldogs who do not have future presidential ambitions. I want Maxine Waters chairing some of these hearings, so move her over or find a way to put them in Financial Services. In fact, change the house rules to bring in lawyers to do the questioning and bring in the best, most cunning, most assholic lawyer possible. Or let Robert de Niro do it, that’d be fun. This is fucking political war, democracy hangs in the balance.

On 11/4/20, there should be no dry powder anywhere within a mile of these Democratic investigations. Fire it all.

And obviously there should be targeted ad campaigns to suppress Republican turnout. There should be Super PACS that are not at all connected to the candidate that are being run by people like Tom Steyer that are running ads painting Trump as an out of touch scummy elitist who’s scamming the good Christian folks of God’s country. Has he paid for abortions for his mistresses? Who can be sure? Many people are saying it! Let’s dredge up some of the disparaging shit he’s said about Pence that ties into religion. You think Obama’s line about clinging to guns and Bibles was bad? What about this other shit Trump said?

But I have a feeling the Dems are about to walk into a fight like this…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCWjo1ymhGs

Expecting to play thumb war. One, two, three, four I declare a… Sorry, my dude, you just got hit in the face with a trident. Why’d you bring nothing more dangerous than opposable thumbs to a street fight with tridents and swords?

Source

Fall LC thread

Fall LC thread

Look, I am not so hot take that I don’t understand differences in passed down beliefs steeped in organization, tradition and culture vs a relatively new dumb ass theory. That said, it is hand in fucking hand. The rejection of science in order to protect religious beliefs is partly what fuels this phenomenon. If you are going to reject evolution you can just as easily reject the evidence that the world is not flat.

The percentage of people who believe in evolution for valid scientific reasons is vanishingly small. A lot of intelligent-design type arguments against evolution are basically sound arguments that just happen to be wrong due to the mindboggling fact that the earth has been in existence for billions of years, which is nuts.

Evolution is even a bad example, because the theory itself is basically plausible. Think about what well-informed people believe about cosmology, which is broadly speaking this:

The universe is extremely old (OK!)

The universe didn’t always exist, and it started out smaller than a single atom. (Wait, what?)

Virtually instantaneously (i.e., expansion time: human lifespan << human lifespan : total age of the universe), the universe expanded to something close to its current size due to something called an inflation field (Don’t ask what an inflation field is, because no one has any idea)

After that, the universe evolved according to the normal physical laws we see on earth, although the scales are very different. (Whew, glad that weird shit is behind us)

Except also, the only kind of matter we have any direct experience of is basically insignificant, and a solid majority of the stuff in the universe is invisible fairy dust that no one has ever seen or has convincingly explained the nature of. (…)

Also, there is a mysterious energy that permeates the universe that makes gravity work backwards for no known reason. (You’re the guys who say that flat-earth makes no sense?)

Again, I’m not saying that fairy-dust theory is false, it’s apparently true (or true-ish, or a stand-in for the truth). The point is that virtually everyone who believes this crazy shit doesn’t believe it for well-justified empirical reasons. The explanation for inflation has to do with a mathematical property called “anisotropy” that can be sussed out only through an exhaustingly precise examination of the static you see when you tune an old-fashioned radio or television to a dead channel. (<-- This is precisely true!)

What actually happens is that people’s empirical beliefs are obtained, in almost all cases, by ingesting the pronouncements of authoritative figures. There are many excellent reasons why science guys are a much better source to obtain scientific beliefs from than the Pope, but it’s a serious error to assume that a person’s choice of epistemic authority figure tells you much about that person’s character. For the most part, people just follow the authority figures that their social context tells them to follow. The only people you can really get some information about is people who were born into one social context but chose to adopt the epistemology of another–people who deconverted from a serious religious sect (not Episcopalianism) or joined a cult.

Flat-earthers are remarkable not because their beliefs are weird (the earth does look flat!), but because they are unsanctioned. The strangeness isn’t what they believe, it’s that they came to believe something that is unsanctioned by all elements of society.

Source

And here’s the most liked posts since the last update:
https://unstuckpolitics.com/search?q=in%3A%20likes%20after%3A2019-11-22%20order%3Alikes

BestOf · December 20, 2019, 8:14pm

Another fortnight gone, time for another Best of Unstuck update.

Our first multiple posts nomination

Fall LC thread

Fall LC thread

Maybe, but if your theoretical is only theoretical, is it really the model of mental health? I have yet to meet a person who is both sophisticated and impervious to the perception of others. We can perhaps wax poetic about how great it would be to be so, but I am unconvinced it is attainable. I would argue instead that mindfulness, along the lines of "I am aware of my feelings of feeling judged, and those feelings are negative. There are things I could have done better (x, y, and z), but on balance, I have achieved well, notably (a, b, and c). "

Fall LC thread

Re the pyramid, I think anything ordered around “needs” is essentially bullshit, because humans create more “needs” whenever their current ones are satisfied; “needs” are inherently an egotistical way of approaching one’s place in the world. A less egotistical way is approaching the world in terms of ways of interacting with it, there are any number of ways you can break that down, but one I like is Emily Esfahani Smith’s “Four Pillars of Meaning”:

Smith organizes her research into four pillars of meaning:

1) A Sense of Belonging , meaning relationships “where you really feel like you matter to others and are valued by them, and where you in turn treat others like they matter and are valued.”

2) Purpose , or “having something worthwhile to do with your time,” says Smith. “It’s this pursuit that organizes your life and involves making a contribution to others.” Smith writes and speaks about the best ways we can find purpose in our own lives. This includes locating our strengths and talents, what our unique perspective on the world is, and bringing that all together to give back.

3) Transcendence , “those moments where you’re basically lifted above the hustle and bustle of daily life and you feel your sense of self fade away.” Transcendence, for a lot of people, is part of a religious pursuit, experienced through meditation, prayer, and other expressions of faith. But you can also experience it in nature, or at work, explains Smith.

4) Storytelling , the final pillar “surprised me in a lot of ways,” Smith says. “Storytelling is really about the story that you tell yourself about your life, about how you became you. It’s your personal myth.”

Note that, aside from perhaps the fourth one, these are not “what do I need to extract from the world” but rather “what are the modes in which I need to interact with the world”. Ideally you want something to put in all the columns here, but you need at least one to keep you going.

Fall LC thread

One of the breakthroughs I had in the treatment of my depression was realizing that we aren’t supposed to be happy and most of the things I thought I needed/desired (which in turn drove my feelings of failure/worthlessness that were central to my depression) were created by the external world, they didn’t originate as part of some actual need or desire, rather they were there because that’s what the world I grew up in and interacted with told me I need/desire. Seems silly/obvious in retrospect, but it was a big deal for me at the time.

original post

And finally, the most liked posts since the last update.

BestOf · January 17, 2020, 6:52pm

Time for another update!

original post

Trump's America

There will be a few incidents, clearly, it’s a big country, but most of these people aren’t doing shit.

I can’t remember where I saw it, but a light bulb moment for me was reading someone say that what these people want is literally the words. That is, they don’t want to go to war with Iran, for example, they just want to hear people say that if those fuckers get out of line, you will own them. Representation is reality. Like that’s the frustrating thing about Trumpism right? He just has to say “manufacturing is coming back and we’re building the wall” and it’s true to these people whether it’s actually happening or not.

What most of these people want is to be immersed in a fantasy world where they have agency in their lives and they don’t have to experience the crushing feeling of alienation that we all feel in this age. Actually doing something isn’t just too hard, it’s impossible because it would expose the fantasy nature of this control they are asserting over things.

Edit: Like it’s hard to get your head around because most of us want concrete things to happen in the world as a result of politics, but if you entertain the idea that they don’t, things fall into place. For example, the fact that they don’t care that Trump is a transparent bullshit artist. Representation is reality to him too, that’s why they connect.

original post

Who will run in 2020?

Imagine, if you are able, a moment in history where the future of American democracy is at a pivot point. One of the most important elections, perhaps ever. A time when the scotus seat was blatantly and unapologetically stolen. A time when open gerrymandering and voter roll purging is rampant. A time when voter machines are being left purposely vulnerable. A president impeached for bribery. Atrocities at the border. Prison camps for babies. Back ally abortions on the menu. Racist fires being stoked for political gain. Science being denied. Environmental protections being torn up. Alliances disrupted.

Now imagine the opponent the Dems choose to counter this is saying he’d run with a repub, will only run for one term and parroting taking points from the right even as the gains made by the administration he is depending on for his clout by association are all being demolished one by one.

Republicans are bad but the Dems are only better in that we are the ones they are focused on grifting. I’m getting 20 emails or texts or fucking advertisements on social media a day begging me for more money. The money I already gave them has probably been spent asking me for more. By a mile the message I have heard the most from the candidates is they need my fucking donation.

Of course the rightwing pols are better at this shit. They are smarter. They picked the easy side to grift while our pols picked us, still marks to be sure, But tougher. Of course the ones who picked the easy money rubes on the right better operators. They are self selecting as more clever already.

original post

US Kills Soleimani in Airstrike

US Kills Soleimani in Airstrike

I’m pretty surprised it’s looking like the plane was shot down. Chris called it right away. I would have lost money on that bet for sure.

This will only be like the third passenger plane ever shot down I think.

There have been a bunch, there’s a Wiki list of them here.

Upgrade your Bayesian thinking imo. The question “what causes planes to go down” is a very different one to “what causes planes to go down over Tehran, on fire, at now of all times”. A low-probability theory which neatly explains the particulars can easily become more likely than a coincidence. This is also sort of what is going on in the Epstein thread. The question “what causes prisoners to die in jail” is a very different one to “what causes Jeffrey Epstein to die in jail”.

original post

And finally, the most liked posts since the last update.

Rugby · January 18, 2020, 1:26am

Are we tweeting any versions of these?

BestOf · February 21, 2020, 6:55pm

Thanks for posting that while I was slacking, ggoreo. Lots to catch up on so let’s jump right to it:

original post

Democratic Primaries 2020 - Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Regarding Joe Rogan, a few things:

Not all of the people who consume some of his content are part of this toxic crowd that is being spoken of. (If this is getting you triggered, make sure you read the rest of #1 and #2.) For example, he has on some experts in their field and does long interviews with them and gets way in depth. I was interested in eating broccoli sprouts for their numerous health benefits, and a woman called Dr. Rhonda Patrick is like THE broccoli sprouts expert. He had her on for a long interview and I watched some of it on YouTube looking for specific information. This is one of a few times I’ve stumbled onto his YouTube looking for content of a specific person who ended up having been his guest.

There’s definitely a toxicity about a lot of his content/audience. I had a friend who I cut out of my life in 2017 for a handful of reasons, but basically the dude was just a toxic macho bro guy who was really annoying to me and could never let an argument go. He also thought Trump was hilarious and would be harmless, I could have made a big bet with him that people would end up in cages but I couldn’t live with myself making money that way. Obviously I should have taken the bet and donated it to charity. Anyway, this guy LOVES Joe Rogan. I didn’t know much about him at the time, and my buddy really wanted to go see a comedy show of his in Philly and hang out, so I agreed. At this point in time, I basically only knew Rogan as the Fear Factor guy. There were definitely a number of cringe moments during the routine for me, and each time my buddy was cracking up and loved it. The biggest cringe thing was the crowd. As soon as we got near the theatre and were walking in, I knew I had fucked up and was in for an annoying evening. It was like allllllllllll dudes. Barely a couple there, no groups of women, and the jokes/comments you could overhear made me uncomfortable being part of that crowd.

Lots of these people will vote for a staunchly liberal candidate who doesn’t lecture them about the ills of their views on progressive social issues, then ignore it as that candidate does a bunch of great stuff on those issues along with the Medicare for All type stuff. Should we cater to them? Obviously not. Should we discourage their votes and support? I don’t know for sure, it’s a fair debate, but I think not. It’s complicated.

I mean, Rogan also said this, which is left of and stronger than what probably 95% of elected Dems in Congress would say about these issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeKoh2zHg1o

Like, can you even imagine Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer or insert prominent eDem here saying of family separation, “If that doesn’t freak you the fuck out, you’re not a part of the team man, you’re missing it… What are we here for? We’re here for 100 years of whatever. If you want to spend a hundred years saying, ‘Hey she shouldn’t have fucking broke the law,’ I don’t want you on the team, you’re an asshole. I don’t give a fuck if you’re right or left, I don’t care if you’re religious, I don’t care if you’re an atheist, if that’s what you support, you’re an asshole and we don’t want you on our team.”

He goes on to basically say he’s glad AOC won even if he disagrees on issues with her, because she’s getting money out of politics and represents the people in her district, not the money.

Now I’m sure people can dig up a bunch of absolutely TERRIBLE things he has said or his guests have said without him pushing back, and I get that, and the left should have a discussion of this kind of stuff, but if we want to make big changes in the next decade, we probably need the support of these types of people.

Catfacemeowmers nailed it with this:

Democratic Primaries 2020 - Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Like, what kind of people did everyone think those Main Line Republicans for Clinton would be?

I play poker with a handful of these dudes on the regular, like literally Trump voters who either fit that country club suburban Philly stereotype right down to the private golf course pullover or the Joe Rogan listener South Philly type.

The country club types are almost strictly voting on finances, so if we want to woo them with Joe Biden and promises not to raise their taxes, we can try, but at the end of the day, the teeny tiny difference between Biden’s tax plans and Trump’s tax plans may be a bridge too far and they may be in for four more years. This way we don’t get the Joe Rogan endorsement for the candidate, and we may feel morally superior in that regard, but if you think those voters aren’t spewing their toxic masculinity every time there aren’t women around, I don’t know what to tell you.

Some of the Rogan types will go for Bernie, because they really only care about 2-3 issues, and they tend to be stuff like getting money out of politics. I actually had a quiet conversation at the table with one of these types recently. He’s an Obama-Trump voter who I have considering Bernie if he wins the nomination. I had to ignore some comments during the back and forth about various issues that I really didn’t like ignoring, but by focusing on healthcare, getting money out of politics, honesty of the candidate, and just being a good person who’s not going to rip families apart, I was able to get through to him a bit. He viewed Trump as a necessary brick through the window even though he thinks he’s an asshole, and if his choice is to pick that same brick up and throw it again or to pick up a nicer brick and throw it, he’ll take the nicer brick, but he’s not voting for Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg.

Joe Rogan’s overall political views may surprise some people. Like, I’ve seen < 10 YouTube videos of this guy totaling < 60 minutes in my life, and I can tell you he’s for socialized healthcare and improving and further socializing education. He’s for less bombs. He’s not randomly endorsing Bernie… His views actually match up with the liberal wing of the Democratic party on a lot of issues.

If you ask me, the question is not whether we should seek or accept these endorsements, it’s whether we should promote them and celebrate them. There’s a moral question to it and a risk-reward question. Bernie may have alienated some supporters and sent the wrong message to them… But bottom line: if we start getting a significant percentage (maybe even like 10-15% counts) of votes from this archetype of voter over the next decade, 60 seats in the Senate are back in play and just dominating the political landscape is in play. If the Faustian bargain is to not lecture them about their bigotry and sexism, and then to placate them with policies we want to enact anyway (Medicare for All, getting money out of politics, progressive tax policy) while doing the right thing on all of those social issues… That doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me. Instead of giving them someone to blame for their problems, we fix their problems (which happen to be things we want to do anyway) and do the right thing on those social issues while hoping that their bigotry is reduced when their economic situation improves.

And, listen, if they don’t like it, they can vote for someone else next time and we should tell them to fuck off at that point. Nobody is saying we should be on bended knee on social policy for these voters.

original post

ITV: Impeachment Television

My wife forwarded this to me:

ALL THE WITNESSES: Ok we all agree. This is what happened.

REPUBLICANS: None of you were in the room!

BOLTON: raises hand Well I was in the…

REPUBLICANS: Who asked you?! Shut up! You’re a liberal pawn!

BOLTON: Um… I’m actually I’m a lifelong Republican and I was literally Trump’s national security advi…

REPUBLICANS: Shut your mustache! Somebody bring back the first national security advisor.

FLYNN: in orange jumpsuit Hey sorry guys I’m in jail lol.

REPUBLICANS: What? Why?

FLYNN: For lying to the FBI about the Russia investigation.

REPUBLICANS: Well what idiot told you to do that?!

FLYNN: The Pres…

REPUBLICANS: Shut up! No one believes either of you!

KELLY: raises hand I believe them. And I was Trump’s Chief of sta…

REPUBLICANS: Shut up! Let’s talk to the real chief of staff. Who is he?

MULVANEY: raises hand It me.

REPUBLICANS: Shit. Never mind.

PARNAS: raises hand I was also in the room. In fact, here’s a cell phone video of the President saying that…

REPUBLICANS: Wait what?! How in hell did you sneak a cell phone into a meeting with the President?

PARNAS: It was easy I just walked right in and…

REPUBLICANS: Shut up! You’re a criminal!

PARNAS: Correct. And I just walked right into…

TRUMP: I don’t know him.

PARNAS: And here’s 500 pictures of me with the President because we’re besties.

REPUBLICANS: Wait… What idiot introduced you to the President??

PARNAS: His personal lawyer.

REPUBLICANS: Cohen??

COHEN: also in orange jumpsuit Hey no sorry guys I’m in jail too.

REPUBLICANS: Why?

COHEN: For campaign finance violations.

REPUBLICANS: Who’s campaign?

COHEN: The Pres…

REPUBLICANS: Shut up!

PARNAS: It was Giuliani.

YOVANOVITCH: Giuliani! That’s the guy who had me fired from my job!

REPUBLICANS: Who are you??

YOVANOVITCH: I was the ambassador to Ukraine.

REPUBLICANS: Wait, you had her fired? Do you work for the government??

GIULIANI: Nope.

REPUBLICANS: Well who is the ambassador to the European Union??

SONDLAND: raises hand Me. I was also in the roo…

REPUBLICANS: F@$&!!!

PUTIN: rubs his bare chest

original post

ITV: Impeachment Television

I make a deep run in a poker tournament and come home to this? Ugggggggh. Curse the 73o my KK got cracked by that made me tune back into this. I miss my sweet, sweet ignorance.

If the GOP won’t vote for witnesses, the Democratic response is simple. Wait for them to acquit, then immediately open a new impeachment inquiry and subpoena Bolton, Mulvaney, etc to testify. This is a raw power struggle, it’s time to get in the fucking game.

The GOP wants to acquit for process reasons? They want to say it’s the House’s job to get these witnesses to testify? Okay, that’s within their raw power to do. But the House gets to open a new impeachment inquiry, they can say the Senate never actually ruled on the charges themselves, they ruled on the process, and so we’re going to get these additional witnesses ourselves. Oh, it’s happening in the middle of an election year? Too bad, so sad, fuck you. You could have had the witnesses and wrapped it up in early February, you didn’t, now we’re doing it. Enjoy your second impeachment trial that much closer to the election, Senators Collins, Gardner, Ernst, Tillis, and McSally. Cry us a river.

You will hear from John Bolton and then you will vote again.

Instead they’ll talk about how important the 2020 elections are to save democracy, meanwhile Trump and the GOP will be colluding with anyone and everyone, deleting voters from the rolls if their addresses are in big cities that vote heavily Dem or their last names indicate that they are likely a minority, and perhaps straight up rigging the machines. They’ll be investigating the nominee, probably the VP too, and probably some Democratic challengers in the Senate. Illegal doesn’t matter, it’s going to be within the presidents proven rights to do anything necessary, regardless of the law, to ensure his or her own re-election because it’s in the national interest.

We’re going to get shellacked in 2020 if the rules of the game are that Trump can do whatever he wants, and Democrats will play fair and hope for the best.

And not only are the Democrats too stupid to get in the game, these clowns running the party are trying to push Joe Biden down our throats so that even if we win, after four years of Trump and after the GOP has explicitly said that the president has king-like powers to do whatever he or she wants, Joe will be like, “Nah, we’ve gotta get this back under control and make some bipartisan deals with Mitch McConnell, my dear friend in the Senate.”

We are all so so so so so so so so so so so so so so fucked.

original post

This one’s a first, I’m putting this post behind a spoiler because while it’s funny, it’s also in poor taste

original post

On another topic

On another topic

Well, if your premises are wrong, that’s not a problem with the logic per se.

Also if the premises are incomplete or unknown, which is often the case due to the nature of the world (open) of analysis. There are people who are good at using deductive reasoning to reach conclusions in closed worlds like pure mathematics. Where they seem to comically fail is applying that approach to open worlds, namely the empirical one we live in. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s a trait of the people we’re talking about. Consider these two claims, the first being deductive and the second inductive:

(1) It has been shown under unobjectionable assumptions that artificial wage floors reduce total employment and result in suboptimal levels of economic output. Therefore, a new minimum wage law in Nevada will only hurt the workers it’s designed to protect.

(2) Research on minimum wage policy since the early 90’s provides little, if any, evidence that minimum wage laws, as implemented in practice, have any appreciable effect on employment or output levels. Therefore, it’s unlikely that a new minimum wage law in Nevada will have measurable deleterious effects on employment or output.

Focusing only on these argument styles as opposed to their strengths, how often do the people getting dunked on make arguments of type (2) as opposed to type (1)? How often do they express any doubt or sense of probabilism about their conclusions? I’d answer rarely to all of those questions.

I’m thinking specifically of that thread about tax cuts stimulating the economy. There is no evidence (in fact, there is anti-evidence) that tax cuts pay for themselves, and there were approximately zero economists on the IGM expert panel who believed that they would. But if I remember correctly, Mason’s argument was something like (a) he proved it on the back of a napkin and (b) some Trump slapdick had confirmed it by thinking about it. Of course, this is all built on the foolish core belief that government is inefficient, therefore any action it takes (i.e., taxing) throttles the economy by taking capital out of the hands of philosopher king job creators.

Now, mind you, he wasn’t arguing in good faith, but I maintain that the following observation holds up pretty well: the “it’s just simple logic” bros are hopelessly married to deduction, their core beliefs immutable and their ability to update and generalize from observable phenomena limited. It’s especially noticeable in libertarian/ancap/Austrian economists who eschew empiricism in favor of logic principles–and Ben Shapiro. Why that particular type of reasoning seems to be associated with so many ethnonationalist and phobic conservatives baffles me though.

original post

Iowa Caucus Predictions... SEASON Thread

My meditation teacher likes to say that there are three ways to relate to the world, doing, feeling and thinking, and that people tend to have one that is their primary mode, one that’s a backup, and one that they suck at.

As things are at the moment, the Dems have people who relate to the world via thinking and the GOP have people who relate to the world via doing (think about the emphasis on Triumph of the Will, action for action’s sake, the military etc etc) and there’s a fight over people who relate to the world via feeling. “Feeling” here suggests warm and fuzzy Marianne vibes but that’s not necessarily the case. People who get super upset over abortion relate to the world via feeling. Ditto people who feel a great sense of injustice over immigrants supposedly getting special treatment over Real Americans or whatever. You really don’t want an alliance of Doing and Feeling types where they agree to tell the Thinkers to go fuck themselves, as that describes the Nazis and most totalitarian movements in history.

A lot of the bewilderment Dems have over the behaviour of non-Dems is a failure to recognise that they simply don’t approach the world the same way. This is also the reason we need good stories with clear villains to convince the undecided. Things which logically benefit them if they think about it aren’t necessarily going to make an impact.

original post

The First Trump Impeachment: Wrap Up and AMA (Within Reason)

The First Trump Impeachment: Wrap Up and AMA (Within Reason)

Uh, no, I knew exactly what was going to happen.

Quoting locked threads is a bit of a pain, all quotes from this thread. Context is that there were rumours back then (November) that Vindman was getting fired.

nunnehi:

I don’t get this, man. Have you looked at who Vindman is? For the GOP senators, he is their literal wet dream of what an American immigrant should be. If they aren’t behind him, they will be absolutely exposed for the frauds we already know they are. It will be pounded over and over how bad this is in hearings, and the GOP won’t be able to run away from it.

nunnehi:

There are lines even these people won’t cross, in my opinion.

nunnehi:

No, this is an inflection point. It’s the point where you can tell whether there is any chance on conviction. If this doesn’t move any or many of these GOP senators, nothing will.

nunnehi:

Then we live in an absolute dystopia, and all is completely lost. Dems lose in 2020 in a massive loss, and we get 20 terms of Trumps. The reality is this will make GOP senators radioactive in 2020 and 2022, and I wouldn’t want to be any of them if they try to stand by this shitbag if he actually did this. It’s like the people around here can’t see any trends that suggest all of this shit is mattering.

I am using this Vindman smear/firing as a litmus test of what the GOP senators are going to do on impeachment (I couldn’t care less about how it affects anyone else). This is something that absolutely should move the needle for them specifically because of how they feel about heroes/military people/war, etc., and if it does nothing, nothing, I mean nothing, will.

nunnehi:

Now think about what would happen if he gets away with this scandal. I think even these scumbag GOP senators are going to understand the gravity of this to their re-election chances by the time it gets to the trial (even if they acquit), and if the Vindman firing is real that will accelerate. I can’t see it any other way, sorry.

nunnehi:

Remember, my point is very simple. You’re placing this very particular (not) incident into the mindset of the GOP having not done anything about tons of things that should have moved the needle. I’m placing this into the prism of this guy is an American immigrant war hero with a purple heart who has risen to be a Director on the NSC to these 53 people (the same types of people who defend the traitor Flynn solely because he’s a General), and he is the first fact witness (was on the call) to the crimes Trump is being impeached for. How is it this hard to see a simple difference? If this had happened, and the GOP senators wouldn’t have had their needle moved on this, absolutely nothing ever will. I’m in complete disagreement that this wouldn’t have moved the needle of at least a half dozen GOP senators.

nunnehi:

You didn’t do what I asked. Vindman wears the uniform right now, and I’m quite sure you won’t even once hear Graham call him deep state.

Hey let’s check in on what Graham thinks about the Vindman firing

Lindsey Graham: Trump ousting of Vindman 'was justified' | Washington Examiner

Boy, this must be reflecting terribly on the GOP! Probably the public are up in arms and ready to throw these bums out of office!

image1083×752 127 KB

nunnehi:

Come spike the football at the end of the impeachment process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M6samPEMpM

original post

Democratic Primaries 2020 - Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Democratic Primaries 2020 - Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

You seem to be very close to saying straight up that issues like transphobia and misogyny are niche concerns invented by educated liberals to satisfy their perpetual need to feel morally superior, which seems to imply that these issues aren’t worth caring about, or that nobody authentically cares about them, which is wrong.

I guess I’m saying two separate things:

The same people who whine about being personally attacked by Bernie Bros for not supporting M4A, or having the wrong foreign policy, or whatever, are constantly doing the same to other people for violations of liberal orthodoxy. There’s an example right there in your post where you refer to Rogan as a “sack of shit”; lib types aren’t going to call you out for that, but if I go call someone a “sack of shit” for not supporting M4A, it’ll be whining about uncivil Bernie Bros and their inability to be polite to us nice liberals.

The extent to which even mild transgressions against liberal orthodoxy are treated as sins of the most heinous kind is ridiculous. I’m talking about things like this:

Upon accepting the Rogan’s endorsement, Sanders faced backlash on social media from those offended by the podcast’s comments on transgender people — as well as the nation’s leading LGBTQ group, the Human Rights Campaign.

Alluding to those comments, HRC’s David said in a statement Rogan has “attacked transgender people, gay men, women, people of color and countless marginalized groups at every opportunity.”

“In 2019, 25 transgender people were killed because of the type of transphobia that Rogan stokes,” David added.

Bolded is frankly absolute bullshit and is an obviously offensive charge to level at Rogan. Rogan is guilty perhaps of insensitivity and of being hurtful to trans people; that’s it. The HRC endorsed Clinton over Sanders in 2016. To repeat, Clinton is close friends with Kissinger and voted for the Iraq War. Kissinger’s actions in Vietnam and the invasion of Iraq both resulted in tens or hundreds of thousands of people killed and maimed. If you don’t think Clinton is a more morally reprehensible person than Rogan you’re a moral imbecile.

The extent to which people are cast out from the liberal “club”, as the high priests of the movement attempted to do to Rogan, has nothing to do with actual real-world harm done and everything to do with maintaining the hegemony of an educated elite. Educated liberals are confident they don’t know anybody who would be mildly transphobic like Rogan, all their friends understand the niceties of discourse well enough not to do that. Therefore, he is beyond the pale, cast him and his fans into the fires of hell. They’re less confident that they don’t know anyone who supported the Iraq War, or who is OK with the staggering level of inequality which maintains the privilege of the Ivy League elite. So can’t we be a little polite about those things? Why do these Bernie Bros have to get so mad?

I’m not saying that transphobia and misogyny aren’t genuine issues, but I am saying that the oversized importance they take on in the liberal movement is not real concern for people, but rather a fight for power within the coalition. This is what that looks like:

https://twitter.com/neeratanden/status/1220837347542982656

This is purely and simply a resistance to reorganizing the liberal coalition in a way which includes people like Rogan and excludes people like Tanden. This reorganization is desirable because Tanden does vastly more damage to the advancement of a just and humane politics in America than Rogan ever has, or is even capable of doing. If you disagree with that sentence then we’re not on the same political team.

original post

Democratic Primaries 2020 - Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Democratic Primaries 2020 - Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Man, where was Warren the last 4-6 weeks.

I think the Warren from last night is the authentic Warren, and the watered down version that lost her toehold on the nomination was the over-consulted to version. One of the worst features of modern American politics (and there are a lot of bad features) is that there is a large consulting class that hovers around candidates looking to hoover up their money in exchange for terrible inside-the-beltway recommendations that largely amount to moving to the middle to where lobbyists can make more money. When people complain about lack of sincerity in federal politicians, a lot of it comes from this consulting class and their outsized influence. They polish up candidates to be appealing to insiders, which is almost diametrically opposed to what is appealing to the general public.

original post

I’ll try not to wait a month before the next update.

RiskyFlush · February 21, 2020, 7:13pm

There is so much good shit in here, it is going to take until the election to read it all. Thank you for collecting these.

Especially that cuse post on Joe Rogan. It’s in a megathread that runs at too fast a pace for even me, so I missed that one and probably a whole lot else.

Chuckleslovakian · June 5, 2020, 6:19am

bump?

BestOf · June 15, 2020, 8:42pm

This turned out to be a bit of a lie…

I’m going to try to work through the backlog of posts this week, starting with these 20:

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/sars-cov-2-electric-superflu/1265/3603

BestOf · June 16, 2020, 8:32pm

Let’s take a look at 20 more top notch posts from the Unstuck community:

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/things-to-do-while-on-lockdown-for-coronavirus/1242/222

^This one’s a chain of posts, follow it and scroll up

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/why-did-this-forum-split-from-2-2/1035/642

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/lc-thread-for-2020-hibernation-season/1332/583

BestOf · June 17, 2020, 8:21pm

These next 20 finally get us caught up to June at least:

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/the-inso0-ama-now-featuring-its-just-a-flu/1415/171

^another one where you should click and scroll up

^This one has a tweet that I can’t make embed here.

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/why-did-this-forum-split-from-2-2/1035/833

BestOf · June 18, 2020, 8:24pm

These posts get us all caught up, and today we have something special: the first post to be tagged by multiple people.

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/police-murder-george-floyd-then-riot-nationwide-links-to-streams-in-op/1904/3952

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/trumps-america/87/1454

And now, the first post tagged by multiple posters, made of course by none other than…
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1273634152433188865

Link to the post if you haven’t already blessed it with a like.

RiskyFlush · June 18, 2020, 8:43pm

LOL that Trump post is going to soon be the most-liked post on UP

Marksman · June 20, 2020, 1:33am

Really amazing to read through. I spend a lot of time reading these forums but I probably had not seen 65% of those posts before.

Marksman · June 20, 2020, 9:25am

@BestOf

BestOf · July 10, 2020, 6:51pm

Let’s take a look at some more of our best posting:

https://mobile.twitter.com/janemarielynch/status/1274512067119116289
link to post

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/why-did-this-forum-split-from-2-2/1035/1034

https://unstuckpolitics.com/t/history-of-the-world-from-a-gambler-s-perspective-a-scholarly-discussion/1998/734

BestOf · August 28, 2020, 7:10pm

It’s been about 6 weeks, let’s see what we may have missed:

COVID-19: Chapter 5 - BACK TO SCHOOL

This reopen-the-school shit is like a perfect microcosm of why and how this entire thing has been so fucked up. There is a legitimate need to get kids back to social environments, yes–I am sure that this is delaying their growth in some way. But the pressure isn’t due to fucking Republicans caring about kids, that’s all bad-faith bullshit. (Just look at how they treat school funding.) This pressure is because the leadership of this country refuses to pay people money to protect themselves because it is bought and paid for by giant corporations that rely on the labor of the parents of these children as their source of profit. Like so many fucking issues in this pandemic, this would be solved by just giving people some fucking money and increasing the availability of testing/tracing. But instead the GOP has distracted millions of Americans with the shiny object of “MUH RIIIIGHTS” and here we fucking are, pretending that we’re reopening schools for the good of the children when really we’re just going to worsen the pandemic, all so that the parents can return to their bullshit jobs without the hassle of dealing with their asshole kids all day.

On another topic

On another topic

Who is this guy?

He was an extremely annoying troll poster who couldn’t be banned because he had nudes of Mason.

On another topic

Was he any good at debating?

No. But can I just say this: a thing I’ve learned in my many sojourns on the internet is how completely useless “debate me, bro” shit is. I just don’t care how good someone is at debating. It’s a quality we glorify because rhetoric was one of the classical liberal arts back in the days of ancient Greece, but the reality is that it’s just so easy for earnest people with good opinions to get snowed by bad-faith sophists with endless layers of bullshit. Just look at this entire cottage industry of Ben Shapiro-style “DEBATE ME!” bros, do you notice how they always seem to have completely toxic views?

To explain all of this is maybe one of the greatest things ever written on the internet. I will recite a passage:

## Libertarianism Makes You Stupid
The Fallacious Proof:
 * Step 1: -1/1 = 1/-1 
 * Step 2: Taking the square root of both sides: sqrt(-1/1) = sqrt(1/-1)
 * Step 3: Simplifying: sqrt(-1) / sqrt(1) = sqrt(1) / sqrt(-1)  
 * Step 4: In other words, i/1 = 1/i.
 * Step 5: Therefore, i / 2 = 1 / (2i),
 * Step 6: i/2 + 3/(2i) = 1/(2i) + 3/(2i),
 * Step 7: i (i/2 + 3/(2i) ) = i ( 1/(2i) + 3/(2i) ),
 * Step 8: (i^2)/2 + (3i)/2i = i/(2i) + (3i)/(2i),
 * Step 9: (-1)/2 + 3/2 = 1/2 + 3/2,
 * Step 10: and this shows that 1=2. 
Even more advanced! Complex numbers have been used for centuries, who can doubt the soundness of their principles?

This is why, as a pure matter of tactics, it’s dangerous to get into preaching contests with Libertarians. Sometimes it’s better to say “1=2 is utter nonsense, and if you believe that from the Libertarian Mathematics, you’ve had your mind rotted”. Now, this does leave an opening for a reply “Nyah, nyah, you didn’t go over every line of that proof and find the error, you have to do that, or you’re close-minded”. But someone could do more good at times by pointing out that there are people walking around spouting the political equivalent of “1=2” than getting into an involved discussion about part x of step y. This is where Libertarianism Makes You Stupid, the grip of subtly flawed logic can overwhelm everything else.
Your boy domer was a master at the “nyah, nyah, you didn’t go over every line of that proof” school of argument. At the end of the day, he was still a fringe weirdo who would get laughed out of climate scientists. I’m old, I’m just done with engaging in clever 1=2 debates with sophist ghouls.

ikestoys was great at “debating.” He would also leap to the defense of George Zimmerman and Brock Turner. Sometimes you just have to understand that 1 doesn’t equal 2.

Arguing about voting, purity, and RIP John Lewis

I once saw someone say that if all concentration camps were of equal size and “effectiveness”, and Candidate A would build 10 camps while Candidate B would build 9, obviously you should vote for Candidate B.

This is a hypothetical so extremely simplified as to completely miss anyone’s point, and possibly be harmful, and yet still it is several levels above the vast majority of the General Election discourse on this forum.

One reason it misses the mark is that nothing is of equal scale or effectiveness. For example, the 9-camp administration could obviously be much more competent. The 9-camp administration could naturally encounter far less resistance from courts, legislatures, journalists, and even protestors.

If there was an ever-growing, organic, street-level resistance movement under the 10-camp administration, someone tasked solely with the goal of designing a way to fracture and dissolve that movement might very well say the best way to do so is have the 9-camp administration come into power so that the movement fights with itself over whether to go hard against the new administration or even fights over whether to challenge it at all.

Obviously it is possible for all this (and much more; there’s infinite other things to consider) to be weighed calmly and rationally and still come to the conclusion that the least amount of harm comes from electing the 9-camp administration. But I don’t think that’s what ANYONE is doing. They have started with the conclusion that feels comfortable, and they will get extremely angry when that conclusion is challenged. Not that anyone on this forum, or the internet in general, with fleetingly few exceptions, is doing anything close to a good job at laying out the counter arguments.

Still, whenever anyone uses the word “purity” I have to laugh to keep from crying. Nobody, not one flesh and blood human, nobody but the strawmen, is saying, “well there are some areas the candidate and I don’t agree.” They’re saying the candidate does active harm, and promises to do even more active harm! They’re saying the total amount of harm between the candidates is either similar or too impossible to prognosticate between.

It kills me that people have reduced this to, “well obviously the only possibility is that people are being vindictive about the primaries, and are willing to harm others to make a point.” Everyone I know that I’ve ever talked to about their decision(s) to abstain from voting or to write in a candidate is someone from a group or groups who are right at the very front of the line for receiving both direct and indirect violence from the state.

But of course all of this discussion is such a monumental waste of time as far as the election itself goes, given how close to zero your individual vote is to make an impact on whether we get Candidate A or Candidate B. The discussion is useful, however, if people are willing to listen (and to speak) with open minds and open hearts and realize exactly how the foundational depths of state depravity can make an extremely politically educated (and extremely oppressed) person choose not to participate in an illegitimate election. Like if we could just get to that point where some of you could say, “OK, I think I understand their position now.” Even if you follow that up with, “but I still think it’s best to vote for this candidate, and that’s what I’ll do,” it would be a monumental shift in your understanding of the state and its power structure and its history that I think would only do good things going forward.

I’m not sure how we get to that point. Contrary to a lot of people’s beliefs, this kind of forum debating isn’t the most conducive way to learn these things. It would have to look more like study groups, I think, where we start off not even arguing. Because right now we have a situation where someone says one paragraph they’ve formulated from 100 books read and 10 years of street-level organizing experience and talking to people who live on the streets, and 12 people come back instantly with very emotional stances on why that paragraph was all wrong.

Democratic Primaries 2020 - With a whimper

Democratic Primaries 2020 - With a whimper

When you are a dick to someone, they are less likely to join your side. That’s why you have to post that meme over and over again. To deflect from the fact that your bullshit turns people away.

That’s literally the first time I’ve ever posted that meme.

That’s why I performatively typed “where’s the fucking macro” as I needed to actually go and find it.

I understand if that part was opaque but it doesn’t change the fact that you just made some shit up.

I also never posted a snake emoji but I did post this:

image1162×161 35.4 KB

That and a number of other posts have been my ace in the hole that’s made me well aware that you people have had no desire to have a real conversation with a real person, rather, you just want to vent at a makeshift avatar of equal parts real things and strawmen.

But it’s never too late!

And, like, I get it. Most of you Lads had Liz-1 and Bernie-2 and now neither of them made it. It was so close; after looking like it’d be a Liz v Bernie contest everything went sideways in a matter of weeks. Then a fucking pandemic happened. Calling it frustrating and disappointing doesn’t really do it justice. Being alive can be unbearable and inside all of us is a deep well of pain and sadness.

Fuck, wasn’t planning on ending a post like that but there it is.

The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: Unconstitutional Slop

Not to disrespect George Orwell, but the man laid it on pretty thick in 1984. It’s not in any way subtle. Like, teenagers can and do read 1984 and understand what he was getting at with doublespeak and the Ministry of Truth and whatnot. It’s a great and prescient book on many levels, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also not hard to understand.

A thing that broke me after 9/11 was just how blatant and stupid the fascism was. They weren’t even trying. They actually fucking called it “The Patriot Act” when they created a bill to enhance police state surveillance. The Patriot Act. Like, Orwell would have blushed at that, it’s too stupid and on the nose for 1984. Teenagers reading 1984 would have rolled their eyes if he’d written about a Patriot Act that expanded domestic surveillance. America is dumber than your average 1984-reading teenager, that’s where we’re at now.

https://twitter.com/thejuicemedia/status/1288989754210557960

The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: Unconstitutional Slop

I say this with a genuine combination of love and seriousness, because I deeply appreciate all of the fantastic people on UP.

There are a lot of smart people on this forum, and smart people (especially poker players, maybe) are unusually adept at looking for and finding threats in the world around us. That said, I think we need to be careful about becoming an echo chamber for acute depressive thoughts in response to each of Trump’s new weekly horrors.

The dude is a monster, surrounded by monsters, and enabled by monsters. I’m scared too, and my family is in the process of updating our passports. But none of us UPers are made safer by driving each other toward despondent helplessness, and the game isn’t over yet.

Worst case scenario, we can all pile in a solar-powered bus caravan and get some breathless coverage from Tucker Carlson before we bluff our way (right? who else could do it better?) across the Canadian border.

Stay strong, team. We’re in this together.

The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: Unconstitutional Slop

(my pony got stuck watching an ad that it couldn’t skip)

From IRL discussions that I’ve had with people on the right(everything from RWNJs<---->bog standard conservatives) I have discovered an essential part of the desire to share their views via youtube.

It’s important to understand that all people make decisions and come to conclusions based upon emotion, the logical justifications are tacked on post hoc.

They watched a youtube that made them feel smart because the person in the video confidently delivered non-rebutted points that confirmed their “gut” instincts. It is not the concepts or arguments contained within the videos, it is the feeling that they had while watching the video that they are trying to share with you.

The video didn’t steelman their opponents’ arguments or critically examine the positive claims that were being made. So, when they are confronted with disagreement, they feel disoriented because the video that made them feel good about their beliefs didn’t convince them of those beliefs; it only reinforced what they already felt.

https://mobile.twitter.com/DBF_NYC/status/1298099551820230660

Police Murder George Floyd Then Riot Nationwide (Links to Streams in OP)

Police Murder George Floyd Then Riot Nationwide (Links to Streams in OP)

The Democratic party is a powerful force in keeping minorities oppressed also. They pay nothing more than lip service to inequality in order to dupe liberals into thinking words mean more than actionable policies.

I take a Chomsky-type view that the Democratic party are the center-right faction(GOP is the far right faction) of the Capitalist party that has essentially had one-party rule of American government. So, I agree that the Dem party tends to be a lot of talk, little action, and have a lead from behind mentality. I’ll reserve judgement for individuals on a case by case basis, valuing action over rhetoric. Which leads us to your next question…

Police Murder George Floyd Then Riot Nationwide (Links to Streams in OP)

Do you really know what their perception is? I don’t know anyone in a militia, but always thought they were primarily anti-governmental authority abuse.

None of us can peer into the minds or hearts of militia members. We can observe their actions though. They can scream from the mountain tops that they hate abuse of governmental authority. They can arm themselves and cosplay ubermench in the woods all day, every day.

In real life, right now, the police are abusing their authority. People(Black, Latinx, white, LGBTQ, men, women, etc.) are protesting that abuse. The police are responding by doubling down on the abuse while committing war crimes on and beating the protesters.

If a militia member was truly against abuse of authority they’d stand in solidarity with the protesters. Instead, we see militia members getting fist bumps and shout outs from the cops. Guess what…they were full of shit. Their words meant nothing. I will judge them the same way I judge the Dem politicians: actions over rhetoric.

Police Murder George Floyd Then Riot Nationwide (Links to Streams in OP)

First must come the solidarity. That means finding and tackling the issues we align on and not get hung up on what we don’t. As I said earlier, Black people being at much higher risk during a police encounter is absolutely a result of systemic racism. But the actual problem at hand here are the out of control POLICE! Why not address one issue at a time so as not to get divided and bogged down, which is exactly what the establishment counts on?

I’m just throwing spitballs. I don’t see how we ever unite when everyone plays right into the hands of the elites by keeping us busy engaged in culture wars

You and I are aware enough to know that politicians who are in the back pockets of the billionaires will never lead us out of the Status Quo Desert of Injustice. Change for the better comes from direct action and grass roots movements.

I don’t mean to have this come off as attacking you. However, even when I charitably read what you wrote, I see it as (uninformed?)criticism of activists who are doing their level best to use the limited resources that they have to bring change to their communities. You and I do not get to tell the people doing the work what order they should address problems in. What authority do you or I have? What expertise do we possess? What track record of success can we point to and say, “You activists should do things the way I feel is best.”?

Those that seek to divide us will always find a wedge to use as culture war fodder. The antidote is solidarity. It’s free to give and impossible to run out of. When I see people struggling for dignity, I don’t debate whether they should be trying to combat police brutality or systemic racism first or second. My solidarity is unconditional.

Danspartan · August 29, 2020, 10:32am

This one is pretty damn funny. I don’t think he lasted a day.

cuse