EPTSocialism Anyone? - Page 8
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GreenHorizons
United States23804 Posts
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12425 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23804 Posts
On April 09 2025 13:53 Nebuchad wrote: Economy will probably crash though, at least that's what my Bluesky is telling me I wouldn't know how it works (I have that in common with Trump). It can crash a little, but after WWII a deliberate effort was made to interconnect the economies of the world in such a way that the destruction of a major one like the US would drag everyone down with it. I don't know that the world can really let the US economy "crash" completely without global war ensuing. So it's kinda in everyone's interest to just do whatever it takes to get past Trump without that happening. That said, Impervious made a reasonably convincing case China may be more willing than most to push it. + Show Spoiler + On April 09 2025 06:28 Impervious wrote: China is a net exporter in this situation, and large and diverse enough where they are overall self-sufficient, so they realistically don't need to trade with the USA like we do in Canada. They can provide everything they need for their population through internal production or existing trade with other nations. Yea, it'd hurt their industries and growth in the short term, but I think they'll be absolutely fine standing up to the USA, even in a protracted trade war. They also have the authoritarian government needed to actually go through with it..... The USA is a net importer, so they would struggle in the short term if trade was cut off or significantly costlier in this trade war. The USA will have an extremely difficult time replacing their trade with China with trade from other countries, especially with these global tariffs being levied on every country, and it would take years to ramp up domestic production to replace this trade reduction. I think this is definitely going to hurt the average American more than the average Chinese citizen. Prices at something like Dollar Tree or Walmart are going to go up, which is really going to hurt the Americans who are already worse off. And I can't see Trump or the republican Congress and Senate do anything to help these people. And even if they do something, it wouldn't be enough, nor would it be quick enough. It'd lead to civil unrest far faster in the USA than in China. There isn't really an opposite lever that the USA has on China. China has the cards here. Some of the key industries in the USA can't survive with a significant import of certain raw goods that the USA doesn't have, or can't develop in a short period of time. A number of industries would run into issues if a trade war lasts more than a few months and current stockpiles of those materials is depleted. This will have an impact on their military, as their military relies on some key materials that China is threatening to cut off. If they do, that will really hurt the USA. While there is definitely some key goods that the USA exports to China that would be difficult to replace, there isn't really a reciprocal situation that I've heard about that is anywhere near as severe, so this is another area where China is holding the cards. I really think that this is going to hurt both countries in the long run, but China is going to come out of this as the winner. And given how intertwined Canada is with the USA, this is also going to indirectly hurt us too. Given how stubborn Trump is, I don't see him caving quickly, and at this point, I think Xi is probably fed up with Trump enough that he'll keep this up just to spite Trump. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18252 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23804 Posts
On April 09 2025 16:06 Acrofales wrote: Anybody know what the rules are on indirect trade? Let's say a "new" mobile phone producer sets up shop in Mexico. They are really just Xiaomi, but repackaged in a slightly different case, and called Arrocito. Would these be subject to Chinese tariffs? Or Mexican tariffs? There are other types of tariffs that would make them subject to Chinese tariffs, but currently they would be processed under the Mexican tariffs. It may not be as common as we think though When tariffs are levied against a specific country, that country might attempt to circumvent the tariff by rerouting products through a third country to avoid the higher taxes. Research in the aftermath of the 2018 U.S.-China trade war examined this phenomenon, finding that, while tariff circumvention through Vietnam did happen, it wasn’t as widespread as many had initially thought. That said, there still was an increase in tariff circumvention more broadly, and specifically via Chinese-owned firms in Vietnam. The findings suggest that if a country is considering implementing tariffs, a better approach might involve ownership-based duties or firm-specific sanctions instead of blanket tariffs. hbr.org At 104% it'll probably be more appealing though. There are other ways around tariffs too. Not to mention the lack of infrastructure to actually assess and process all this. EDIT: The US doesn't have comparable workarounds for getting the rare earths it depends on though. But if China decides to further choke off its supply, the ripple effects could be extremely painful across many industries, says Lyle Trytten, a critical minerals expert. “The U.S. does not have the means to create the materials it needs to create the devices it survives on,” he says . time.com | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23804 Posts
On April 09 2025 13:53 Nebuchad wrote: Economy will probably crash though, at least that's what my Bluesky is telling me I wouldn't know how it works (I have that in common with Trump). I guess we should sorta get an idea of what we would consider a "crash". sufficient to make 2026 mostly a given for Democrats (still looks tough for them in the Senate). I'm thinking the Dow would have to go under 20k and/or the nasdaq/S&P 500 would need similar drops. What are you thinking? | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12425 Posts
On April 10 2025 00:46 GreenHorizons wrote: I guess we should sorta get an idea of what we would consider a "crash". sufficient to make 2026 mostly a given for Democrats (still looks tough for them in the Senate). I'm thinking the Dow would have to go under 20k and/or the nasdaq/S&P 500 would need similar drops. What are you thinking? I don't really care. But obviously a crash is less likely now that most tariffs are paused and the bonds have gone down a bit. The odds of the US killing itself without hurting everyone else have slightly gone up. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23804 Posts
On April 10 2025 02:44 Nebuchad wrote: I don't really care. But obviously crashes are less likely now that most tariffs are paused and the bonds have gone down a bit. The odds of the US killing itself without hurting everyone else have slightly gone up. Don't really care about what? I wonder if he had decided on this before he "truthed" or whatever about it being a good time to buy? | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12425 Posts
On April 10 2025 02:51 GreenHorizons wrote: Don't really care about what? I wonder if he had decided on this before he "truthed" or whatever about it being a good time to buy? About what amount of drop would constitute a crash or not ^^' My best guess is that either someone finally managed to make him admit that the tariffs are impopular so he redirects them as a weapon against China to save face, or the guy who has a bunch invested in bonds and thought he'd make money on that shit himself because the yield was going up and got him to change course. I am annoyed that I have been forced to get a basic understanding of what all of these words mean. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23804 Posts
On April 10 2025 02:55 Nebuchad wrote: lol. Yeah, I'm not even sure how the increase on China and keeping the 10% tariffs on everyone else works out on the math as far as the volume of trade impacted before and after the pause. About what amount of drop would constitute a crash or not ^^' My best guess is that either someone finally managed to make him admit that the tariffs are impopular so he redirects them as a weapon against China to save face, or the guy who has a bunch invested in bonds and thought he'd make money on that shit himself because the yield was going up and got him to change course. I am annoyed that I have been forced to get a basic understanding of what all of these words mean. what a cluster. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18252 Posts
On April 10 2025 02:58 GreenHorizons wrote: lol. Yeah, I'm not even sure how the increase on China and keeping the 10% tariffs on everyone else works out on the math as far as the volume of trade impacted before and after the pause. what a cluster. On-topic: do you think a fascist making a total ballsup of the country is a useful recruiting tool? Do you feel people in your surroundings are more open to ideas of socialism now that Trump is fucking everything up? Or are they just defensive and wishing things go back to "normal"? | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12425 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23804 Posts
On April 10 2025 03:05 Acrofales wrote: On-topic: do you think a fascist making a total ballsup of the country is a useful recruiting tool? Do you feel people in your surroundings are more open to ideas of socialism now that Trump is fucking everything up? Or are they just defensive and wishing things go back to "normal"? Both. The Democrat meetings I've been to have devolved into a sputtering mess. The DSA meetings are looking slightly better, as organizing various things gets easier when the weather isn't so bad. The random people I start conversations with when I'm out and about are very much wanting things to stay/return to normal. I interact with a lot of frontline workers and that's where I'd say I've seen the most noticeable uptick in interest, but it's modest at best. I've tried a lot of different things, and I've seen exponentially more things tried, I am at a loss for how to get people to behave in proportion to the severity of what we're witnessing. I recently realized that the Maryland man that the Trump admin kidnapped and locked in a foreign prison was only discovered to be there by his wife/family as a result of catching a glimpse of him in some of the propaganda released bragging about kidnapping/imprisoning people. https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/maryland-man-deported-el-salvador-kilmar-abrego-garcia/ If that was the only thing Trump had done I would think we needed to be in the streets and there would be no shortage of people to join me. The reality is that the people that would can't afford to and the people that can afford to don't bother. The handful of the people that can afford to that bother to show up do it for these 50501 protests where they are aggressively opposed to being disruptive/impactful. (EDIT: I should say that there are/have been a spattering of more radical actions, but we need so much more.) ChristianS wrote something years back that I've been thinking about a lot lately. On September 26 2021 11:52 ChristianS wrote: + Show Spoiler + On September 26 2021 06:39 Belisarius wrote: All of which is why the voting rights bill was so important. If the US is a full neofascist state in 12 years time with a 43% R popular vote, I think this year will go down as the last chance you had to hit the brakes. Gerrymandering is just so unbelievably poisonous to democracy. To stop it, you have to overtake it. Biden came alongside, but then he chickened out and let two random senators decide the trajectory of the next 20 years. The R's now seem free to accelerate into the distance, limited only by the sheer incompetence of the candidates they're cheating into office. Does a voting rights bill fix it? The nature of US politics is that Republicans will inevitably be back in power sooner or later, and so far they don’t seem to face any penalty in public opinion to openly despising rule of law and aspiring to violent takeovers. Gerrymandering is fucked but it’s a pretty slow way to seize power compared to, you know, just doing it. I mean, GH pointed out that “we need the Republican Party actually” is ridiculous for a Democrat to think. Which seems right to me. Nothing about the modern Republican Party seems capable of becoming compatible with democracy, let alone interested in doing so, and the public seems apathetic at best. Gorsameth pointed out we need two parties in our system, which seems right to me too. What disturbs me is that “the Republican Party is irredeemable and cannot realistically be reformed or replaced” and “our system cannot function without 2 parties” aren’t incompatible statements, but the implication of both being true is catastrophic. It feels like we’re all doing the math on our current velocity toward the cliff and distance from it and maximum braking force, but the math isn’t actually very hard. We just keep recalculating because the result we keep getting is unfathomable. Which got updated a bit later with something else I've been thinking about even more: If your math is coming out differently I’d love if you’d show your work. EDIT: I'd rather there not be a fascist speedrunning us toward WW3 though if that wasn't obvious. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23804 Posts
On April 10 2025 03:09 Nebuchad wrote: At this point I'm still convinced that the Dems easily sweep the next elections fwiw. They have the built-in advantage of being the opposition party in the system and Trump is doing and saying a bunch of very silly things that make him lose popularity (of course he's also doing evil things but no one cares as we know). On top of that, he plays with people's money and everything I know about politics tells me that's a huge mistake. Even Jimmy took a pause from owning the libs when he realized that he might only be able to afford to rent the libs. The main reason I can hold out hope is that Trump isn't actually on the ballot in 2026. You're right about the advantages, but they also had many of those/others going into 2024. As we know though, Democrats winning is just all of us losing in a different way. | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium5090 Posts
I think the very nature of genetic variability creates a non-equal set up and trying to correct for that might be stifling for many people to the point where the system will be broken or worked around. You'll get bad actors as well, just like with the our current capitalist system. So how do you balance these, to me at least, seemingly incompatible - or at least difficult to align - ideas? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23804 Posts
On April 23 2025 22:36 Uldridge wrote: So, one thing that I'd like to address is how to balance the equation of elevating the lowest common denominators, basically people who've been hit by the bad circumstance stick and how much we should let people hit with the opposite run free and do their thing. I think the very nature of genetic variability creates a non-equal set up and trying to correct for that might be stifling for many people to the point where the system will be broken or worked around. You'll get bad actors as well, just like with the our current capitalist system. So how do you balance these, to me at least, seemingly incompatible - or at least difficult to align - ideas? As a socialist, what would you suggest/like to do about them? | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium5090 Posts
There's also tendencies for people to lead and other to take less responsibility. Not everyone wants to bare the same burden. Some people get extremely stressed if they have to take on too much responsibility for them to handle. I think these are fine as long as the people that make decisions in systems aren't necessarily driven to be compensated more than others. You don't get there easily, because humans are very comparing and as soon as the "but I did more than him" idea seeps in you're screwed. But then you also have the fact that they might get favors (i.e. idol forming), like preferential treatment, or who knows what. How far do you go in a model where everyone part of a system is equal owner? Do you let that slide? Do you let these advantages build (creep) up? Do you beat these down? Having a decentralized idea of progression is very difficult to tackle. Let's say we try to digitally innovate our factory and someone has a very innovative idea, but people are against it because it disrupts their workflow. How do you solve for this? At the moment I don't see the checks and balances being made to fix this problem. So things the only way forward will be very very slowly, or not at all. Or am I missing something? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23804 Posts
On April 23 2025 23:00 Uldridge wrote: I don't really know. There's tendency for people to form hierarchies. There's also tendencies for people to lead and other to take less responsibility. Not everyone wants to bare the same burden. Some people get extremely stressed if they have to take on too much responsibility for them to handle. I think these are fine as long as the people that make decisions in systems aren't necessarily driven to be compensated more than others. You don't get there easily, because humans are very comparing and as soon as the "but I did more than him" idea seeps in you're screwed. But then you also have the fact that they might get favors (i.e. idol forming), like preferential treatment, or who knows what. How far do you go in a model where everyone part of a system is equal owner? Do you let that slide? Do you let these advantages build (creep) up? Do you beat these down? Having a decentralized idea of progression is very difficult to tackle. Let's say we try to digitally innovate our factory and someone has a very innovative idea, but people are against it because it disrupts their workflow. How do you solve for this? At the moment I don't see the checks and balances being made to fix this problem. So things the only way forward will be very very slowly, or not at all. Or am I missing something? You touched on one of Neb's prefered vectors, so I suspect he'll have more to say, but I would start with this: Musk and Trump help us take notice that the status quo of capitalism is failing pretty catastrophically in this department, correct? | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium5090 Posts
But you're not addressing the central theme that I'm positing humans have tendencies to create Musks and Trumps and Tailor Swifts and Hasans and Michael Schumachers and whatever. Somehow we can't help ourselves. We could argue this is a vice of the oppressed, wanting so badly to be part of the oppressor class, but maybe it's deeper than that. I don't know. Let's start from a different framework. Suppose you have an egalitarian system. There are no oppressors. Can you think of a case where under such a system the dynamic of oppressor<->oppressed starts to take place? If so, what do you do about that? Let's think one level deeper about the oppressor<->oppressed system; what is underlying reason for this to exist? What human expression, desire, ambition causes this to surface? You don't just start with a "this is the king" situation, you arrive there somehow, yes? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23804 Posts
On April 23 2025 23:37 Uldridge wrote: Presumably it's socialism.I'm aware the current system is just revamped feudalism, yes. If you're suggesting we need a different system, I'm all for it + Show Spoiler + because I do not like it at all so you don't need to convince me. But you're not addressing the central theme that I'm positing humans have tendencies to create Musks and Trumps and Tailor Swifts and Hasans and Michael Schumachers and whatever. Somehow we can't help ourselves. We could argue this is a vice of the oppressed, wanting so badly to be part of the oppressor class, but maybe it's deeper than that. I don't know.+ Show Spoiler + This phenomena comes up frequently in socialist works. I've discussed this before and political education is critical. Not just so people do what we have learned are best practices, but to recognize when and how to hold each other accountable, as well as remedy the damages caused when we fall short. Let's start from a different framework. Suppose you have an egalitarian system. There are no oppressors. Can you think of a case where under such a system the dynamic of oppressor<->oppressed starts to take place? If so, what do you do about that? Let's think one level deeper about the oppressor<->oppressed system; what is underlying reason for this to exist? What human expression, desire, ambition causes this to surface? You don't just start with a "this is the king" situation, you arrive there somehow, yes? this is the video that's missing with the particularly relevant part starting at ~2:55 I've since read more Fanon and think it's a good recommendation, but I could certainly appreciate complaints about it being a bit more inaccessible than Freire or Memmi's "The Colonizer and the Colonized". Generally speaking, socialism doesn't make every problem humans face go away, it provides us a better foundation from which to build towards better remediation than capitalism. While I'm generally uninterested in these 'but what about human nature' style discussions, I would say a lot of it has to do with outdated evolutionary responses to times of prolonged scarcity and fleeting abundance. Like other behaviors (violence for example), we'll have to learn how to resist some impulses, hold people that don't accountable, and remedy the damage caused when people fail to do either/both. | ||
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