Convicted felon Donald J. Trump thread XXX: Hawk Loomah

[lagtight]

@simplicitus

Your ideas would be interesting if you believed there are no elites, a view reflected in many excellent works of art, like Tom Stoppard, the Cohen Brothers, and Kurt Vonnegut.

The view that a cabal of elites are running things is the bread and butter and most homespun political theory for the last 2000 years, and particularly the last 200. It is the bog standard view of over 50% of people, aka the simple and ignorant, all over the world. It is universally believed by Trump voters and what unites the ends of the horseshoe. Now you have access to all known information in your pocket and yet you have the same beliefs as an illiterate farmer from the 1840s.

Maybe read something like The Origins of Political Order if you are actually intelligent enough not to believe the things you want to believe.

As always, simplicitus, thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings with us. I look forward to reading more of your thoughtful posts in the near future.

[lagtight]

@simplicitus

Obviously. You have nearly ascended to the level of Steve Bannon in your analysis.

Thank you!

[lagtight]

@hokie

@simplicitus

The view that a cabal of elites are running things

https://media.tenor.com/6jPvWZQbYk0AAAAM/idk-yes.gif

No one actually thinks it’s some shadowy cabal. It’s open, legal corruption, inherent to the system.

Pretty much this! Well said!

[lagtight]

@Huehuecoyotl

So you’re saying there are different economic classes and they’re in a struggle against each other?

To some extent, yes.

[simplicitus]

GenocideJoe, when I complain about the empty and vacuous ideas of some posters here, rest assured that you and whatever make believe land of politics you inhabit are in my thoughts as well.

If you are serious about your ideas, write draft laws, or a constitution, or a manifesto, or a treatise on government. All I see in your posting is an unrealistic desire for things to be better for everyone. That’s great, but we exist in a world of scarce resources where every living thing tries to eat every other living thing. Politics is the orderly management of conflict, not happy fun land.

[Huehuecoyotl]

Welcome aboard Comrade

[simplicitus]

Right of Self Determination - Monty Python Holy Grail : Autonomous Collective

[lagtight]

@simplicitus

@lagtight

My understanding of history is encapsulated in “The Golden Rule”: He who has the gold, rules.

You have a knack for creating tautologies at the expense of analysis.

Also, I don’t want to blow your mind here, but I don’t actually believe in “the media.”

“He who has the gold rules” is not a logical tautology. If it was a tautology, then “Sometimes he who has the gold does not rule” would be a logical contradiction, which it clearly is not.

[Trolly]

Why is Chakotay the number one topic on Twitter right now? Is there some kind of Voyager revival?

[AngryQueer]

@hokie

@simplicitus

The view that a cabal of elites are running things

https://media.tenor.com/6jPvWZQbYk0AAAAM/idk-yes.gif

No one actually thinks it’s some shadowy cabal. It’s open, legal corruption, inherent to the system.

It’s not even corruption. It’s just individuals following their incentives, combined with some pretty effective de facto gatekeeping. It winds up looking like it has the effects of a conspiracy, but it’s just systems and institutions. It’s capitalism.

Corruption would imply we can just clean things up and the “design” of the system would start “working” better.

[simplicitus]

That’s close to a fair point, but the thrust of my criticism was claims about “the elite” (who are implicitly defined as “the elite”). And, again, your post I quoted above is about the most empty, uninformed, ahistorical piece of political analysis I have ever read. It just has all the common tropes and cliches embraced by the ignorant mass of humanity all bunched up together in a vapid summary of the sort Trump would state to rile up the half of humanity that laps up his ignorant bullshit.

[hokie]

Incentives is a better way to put it. The system is inherently corrupt (corruptible?) because of incentives that exist within the system.

[hokie]

@lagtight

I never said or implied (did I?) that Conservative politicians are less prone to corruption than anyone else.

I’m not really interested in this “I didn’t say exactly that” game. I am assuming that, by complaining about the corruption of the system while also proclaiming yourself to be a conservative, you thus believe that conservatives are less corrupt and therefore more deserving of your support. If you don’t believe that, it’s awfully strange to keep citing things like “elites” and “corruption” as problems with the system, and makes it impossible to have a conversation based on a shared understanding of those problems.

[simplicitus]

This is almost an insightful comment that there are indeed negative consequences to even decent systems. Hell, I think a tribal society would be better for human happiness, but tribes fight like motherfuckers, until phalanxs or horse arches come along, and they are inevitably rendered extinct under unfair dictators, and everyone in tribes dies of toothaches at 35 while practicing fake medicine. Capitalism at least provides incentives for knowledge and technology to progress, where everyone will eventually have above sustenance for the first time in history or the species renders itself extinct through nuclear war.

Still, any reformer in 1924 would have given his right arm for the material and social progress over the last 100 years.

[AngryQueer]

Lagtight after the struggle session:

Trump Voter Feels Betrayed By President After Reading 800 Pages Of Queer Feminist Theory

[Xiaolongbao]

Since everyone in Media/Washington is so happy Trump survived, I guess he’s not really the threat to Democracy they previously claimed.

[Huehuecoyotl]

What percentage of this do you think is true?

Bo Burnham: How The World Works

[simplicitus]

The kind of elite who controls history. Also, a picked-on loner in the school cafeteria.
https://x.com/indianawalsh/status/1812648398366949722?t=veILCj4TLebmQQuGFblANA&s=19

[freddbird]

Weird way for Blackrock to publicize their 2nd quarter that drops tomorrow, but who am I to judge.

[lagtight]

@simplicitus

That’s close to a fair point, but the thrust of my criticism was claims about “the elite” (who are implicitly defined as “the elite”). And, again, your post I quoted above is about the most empty, uninformed, ahistorical piece of political analysis I have ever read. It just has all the common tropes and cliches embraced by the ignorant mass of humanity all bunched up together in a vapid summary of the sort Trump would state to rile up the half of humanity that laps up his ignorant bullshit.

I’m delighted that I made such a remarkable impression!