EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 1529
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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Sermokala
United States13986 Posts
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On June 05 2019 16:57 Acrofales wrote: Post-WW2 Soviet Union had abandoned all pretenses of being socialist in anything but name only, though. But I do agree the premise is stupid. Most scientific breakthroughs don't come with profit in mind and tend to rely heavily on public funding. That is "socialist", regardless of what "ism" claims to be in power. Again, what are we talking about? Socialist approaches to science work when singular goals requiring massive resources are being pursued. The cost of this approach is that lesser innovation and breakthroughs get ignored. Stated another way, there was nothing wrong with Soviet scientists. What was wrong was how the state deployed them. | ||
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Ryzel
United States529 Posts
Poll: Do you believe the complete collapse of U.S. society will happen soon? Yes, within the next 10 years. (0) Yes, sometime between the next 10 and 25 years. (0) Yes, sometime between the next 25 and 50 years. (1) Yes, sometime between the next 50 and 100 years. (8) Not any time within the next century. (17) 26 total votes Your vote: Do you believe the complete collapse of U.S. society will happen soon? (Vote): Yes, within the next 10 years. Sorry if it's a bit off-topic and I don't mean to sound unnecessarily doomsday-ish, but I feel like I see a lot of pessimism regarding the future of U.S./world society being discussed in this thread and I wanted to get a feel for how many people actually believe this, and if so when they think it will happen. I don't mean to derail the current conversation, so if you could just put in your vote and move on that would be swell. | ||
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Sent.
Poland9214 Posts
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
Sanders has responded: That's a major departure from the field. No other 2020 Democratic presidential candidate openly supports the Hyde amendment, and many have drafted proposals to end it. Read More | ||
KwarK
United States42971 Posts
On June 06 2019 00:55 Sermokala wrote: No one is going to join china dumping their us debt obligations when its incredibly transparent why they would dump it. If anything it would be bought up for pennies on the dollar by any of the other buyers or a bank. They wouldn’t dump at pennies on the dollar lol. US treasuries aren’t at beanie baby values quite yet. | ||
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KwarK
United States42971 Posts
On June 06 2019 00:59 xDaunt wrote: Again, what are we talking about? Socialist approaches to science work when singular goals requiring massive resources are being pursued. The cost of this approach is that lesser innovation and breakthroughs get ignored. Stated another way, there was nothing wrong with Soviet scientists. What was wrong was how the state deployed them. Capitalist approaches to science are the reason we still don’t have fusion while the brightest scientific minds and the best equipped labs are dedicated to finding ways to make a hairspray that will unfrizz your hair. It’s also why the smartest financial minds with the most advanced modeling tools are dedicated to ensuring that as much wealth moves upwards as possible. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
xdaunt beleives in capitalism in regards to research, and so all of science is ideally to be deployed subject to capitalism and in the service of capitalism. There is nothing wrong with that train of though alone by itself, for the problem of a lack of motive for research should be subject to capitalism in the first place other than a general belief in the goodness of capitalism. It's a moot point anyways, as the US government throws vast amounts of money in research in USA, so much so that most recent technological advancements originating from USA can be seen as either funded or subsidised by US government. Why xdaunt doesn't see this as socialist, much the same way he doesn't see government support of big business interests as socialist is a mystery. | ||
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Slydie
1923 Posts
On June 06 2019 01:34 KwarK wrote: Capitalist approaches to science are the reason we still don’t have fusion while the brightest scientific minds and the best equipped labs are dedicated to finding ways to make a hairspray that will unfrizz your hair. It’s also why the smartest financial minds with the most advanced modeling tools are dedicated to ensuring that as much wealth moves upwards as possible. Goverments with any poltical system can fund useful scientific projects. This is especially obvious when looking at military research. Why this is an interresting topic? As for China, no, they will probably not dump the bonds but the 2 economies are so interlocked the 2 are bound to lose. Americans also have diminishing support for his flexing with slogans like "tariffs are taxes" catching on. Also, can Trump even possibly gain anything by this except appearing like a bully fighting for the US against evil China? | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
Also Russia is rubbing hands in glee. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On June 06 2019 01:34 KwarK wrote: Capitalist approaches to science are the reason we still don’t have fusion while the brightest scientific minds and the best equipped labs are dedicated to finding ways to make a hairspray that will unfrizz your hair. It’s also why the smartest financial minds with the most advanced modeling tools are dedicated to ensuring that as much wealth moves upwards as possible. This is 100% nonsense. The "scientists creating new hairsprays" and other seemingly trivial products are the difference between the wealthy US and the impoverished USSR. Those scientists may not be creating groundbreaking new technologies, but, cumulatively, they are integral to the process of capital formation and wealth generation. This ongoing and continuous creation of wealth and capital generates the resources that can then be applied to massive research projects. This is why the US was able to far-outpace the USSR in technological development. Not just on trivial things like hairspray, but also on the very technologies that gave birth to the Information Age. | ||
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semantics
10040 Posts
On June 06 2019 01:25 Danglars wrote: Biden recently clarified that he still supports the Hyde amendment. The amendment prohibits federal funds from the HHS going towards abortion, except for life of the woman/incest/rape exceptions. His earlier stance, favoring repeal of the Hyde amendment, was given to an ACLU activist. He said yes to committing to abolish the Hyde amendment, and said "it can't stay." He now claims he misheard the question. Sanders has responded: https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1136285225632370688 That's a major departure from the field. No other 2020 Democratic presidential candidate openly supports the Hyde amendment, and many have drafted proposals to end it. Read More Most people don't mind federal funding going to some types of abortions, which would be consistent with the polling on abortion. Most people don't mind abortion up to a point after a certain amount of time pregnant then qualifiers need to be attached for people to feel okay about it.A really old poll from 2011 from gallup showing it wasn't as much of a split issue. A more recent one would be more relevant if i can find one from a decent polling outlet. Next, do you favor or oppose each of the following proposals? A law prohibiting health clinics that provide abortion services from receiving any federal funds Date Favor Oppose No opinion 2011 Jul 15-17 40% 57% 3% Abortion under no circumstances is a very minority position but like gun control they have really active members, this is disportionately shown in states passing bad faith laws challenging roe v wade. The only reason to challenge roe v wade is to get it removed from the books. All roe v wade does is affirm a woman's right to abortion in the first trimester pretty much reflecting the majority opinion of most americans. The second and third trimester can be regulated under the state which is why all the heartbeat bills are in bad faith as that clearly occurs near the end of the first trimester. It's also why it's not that much of a deal to challenge the hyde amendment when you're being judged by a wider audience. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23295 Posts
Africa will welcome harnessing seemingly endless energy from the sun/wind/sea and while they share no particular affinity with Chinese culture (that I'm aware of, there's probably been some developed recently) they certainly won't lament a failing and flailing west. China, India and the US account for ~50% of global emissions, however China, India, and Brazil, accounted for a record 63% of global investment in renewable energy in 2017. For every $1 the US put into adding renewable energy last year, China put in $3 Say what one wants about China but they are preparing for a future without a US dollar running the economy and there's nothing on the horizon to stop them (other than the US not doing it's part and rushing climate collapse before their economy/industry is ready). | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
How exactly will the world be buying clean energy from China with a supply chain in Africa? What will the "supply chain" entail? Seemingly endless energy from the sun/wind/sea is not exportable the same way LNG, oil and coal is. There also needs to be a buyer and if China can monopolise African energy, they are more likely to keep for its internal use than to buy it then sell it. In any case it is difficult to see a scenario where "Africa" wouldn't just sell energy directly to the buyers, rather than selling it to China solely for China to sell. Geography places constraints on selling energy. China is loaning massive amounts of money to Africa, that is true, but most of it is being wasted in frivolous projects rather than clean energy production. | ||
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semantics
10040 Posts
On June 06 2019 02:13 xDaunt wrote: This is 100% nonsense. The "scientists creating new hairsprays" and other seemingly trivial products are the difference between the wealthy US and the impoverished USSR. Those scientists may not be creating groundbreaking new technologies, but, cumulatively, they are integral to the process of capital formation and wealth generation. This ongoing and continuous creation of wealth and capital generates the resources that can then be applied to massive research projects. This is why the US was able to far-outpace the USSR in technological development. Not just on trivial things like hairspray, but also on the very technologies that gave birth to the Information Age. The very technologies that gave birth to the information age mostly derive from defense projects and government funding. There are a lot of great things made for the markets that the principal science came from government grants, defense projects and nasa. Not saying that government should direct all research but government funding research that is disseminated to the public has benefited us greatly. There is a sentiment that the shot in the dark research for the sake of science is not attractive in a purely capitalistic society but the technological breakthroughs the research can eventually lead to is. Capitalism is how we have people profiteering off government research and then to patent it to prevent others from doing the same. I don't mind the profiteering but i do very much mind the monopolistic tendencies of capitalism, good capitalism needs to regulated as the tendency of capitalism is hierarchical by nature. Winners and losers have to happen and the more you win the easier it is to win. The power of compound interests riggs the game too much. That allows people who haven't earned wealth to be wealthy and those who earned some wealth to become massively wealthy. Leveling the starting point and how people conduct themselves is my personal line. I don't mind that people who work hard earn more but i do mind that some people who work hard earn less than their equals in working hard, because the opportunity to advance is such a hurdle when balancing trying to live a life that they can't advance. I mind that those who work hard earn a gaudy amount that allows them to stay excessively wealthy without trying and allows them to create an aristocracy passing on the vast majority of their wealth. The aristocracy point is more relevant now that money can in many aspects limitlessly influence politics legally so those with more money have more influence. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12262 Posts
On June 06 2019 02:13 xDaunt wrote: This is 100% nonsense. The "scientists creating new hairsprays" and other seemingly trivial products are the difference between the wealthy US and the impoverished USSR. Those scientists may not be creating groundbreaking new technologies, but, cumulatively, they are integral to the process of capital formation and wealth generation. This ongoing and continuous creation of wealth and capital generates the resources that can then be applied to massive research projects. This is why the US was able to far-outpace the USSR in technological development. Not just on trivial things like hairspray, but also on the very technologies that gave birth to the Information Age. Bolded is the weak part of that argument. We've generated the profits, now comes the part where you have to tie that to innovation so that the defense works, and that tie is very weak. It's important to understand that as members of the capitalist class we don't have any direct incentive to apply those profits to massive research projects. Quite the opposite actually, as a lot of the research that we could work on has the potential to be immediately counterproductive. Edit: also it's starting to get annoying that half of the socialist vs capitalist arguments are framed in terms of more state and less state but I guess that's to be expected... Just picture me unimpressed. | ||
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KwarK
United States42971 Posts
To put it simply, the difference between 1*(1.1^50) and 2*(1.1^50) may be much greater than 1 but it is entirely explained by the starting difference of 1. The Soviet Union was shitty for a whole bunch of reasons but it was productive. It wasn't good at producing consumer goods, nor at allocating resources to meet consumer needs, but it could produce a shitton of T34s if the need arose or put Yuri Gagarin in space. | ||
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KwarK
United States42971 Posts
On June 06 2019 02:34 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Though I do agree that the Chinese companies will lead the way in renewable energy, if not leading right now, the rest of the post is fancible. How exactly will the world be buying clean energy from China with a supply chain in Africa? What will the "supply chain" entail? Seemingly endless energy from the sun/wind/sea is not exportable the same way LNG, oil and coal is. There also needs to be a buyer and if China can monopolise African energy, they are more likely to keep for its internal use than to buy it then sell it. In any case it is difficult to see a scenario where "Africa" wouldn't just sell energy directly to the buyers, rather than selling it to China solely for China to sell. Geography places constraints on selling energy. China is loaning massive amounts of money to Africa, that is true, but most of it is being wasted in frivolous projects rather than clean energy production. China are colonizing Africa in the same way Britain and France used to. They're investing, but they're not investing locally. Britain built a railways across Africa, but the rails were built in Sheffield. China is doing the same thing. They're paying for Chinese companies to build rail lines within China to connect mines where China has bought the mineral rights with Chinese run ports built to load Chinese ships to fuel the Chinese market. Almost none of the money invested is spent locally to develop the local economy. It's just old school colonialism. It's no different to how BP used to own the Persian oil fields. The only thing the host nation keeps is the externalities. Most of the fault lies with the US for kicking the established powers out of the developing world in the hope that it could replace them with glorious exploitative capitalism only to find that the USSR had a similar idea. African states should look like India, a multiethnic conglomeration of arbitrary lines drawn on a map by former British governors. Instead the US and USSR exhausted each other with a policy of burning shit down to deny it to the other until eventually China moved in to scrape up the remains. The Middle East too for that matter, although Standard Oil fucked that one up by writing a blank check to the House of Saud. It should all look like Jordan but instead American greed and Soviet internationalism set shit on fire out of spite. Central and South America is obviously entirely on the US who, when denied a geopolitical adversary, unleashed imperialist capitalism in its most self defeating form and then got surprised when countries didn't like being invaded by a fruit wholesaler. The question remains to be seen what will happen when the nations China invests in eventually seek to gain control over their own national resources, as Persia and Egypt did before them. Britain and France's attempt to use military power at the Suez was curtailed by their own military weakness and the opposition of the US. Right now China can't project military power globally due to the US but that is likely to change in the next fifty years. Britain's attempt to use economic and political leverage over Persia is more likely to be the route we'll see China take, using the threat of calling in debt to force their colonies into default to ensure loyalty. But we all know how that turned out in Persia in the long run. China is building an economic empire to replace the displaced European powers but it remains to be seen how they will avoid the failures of those. Although a strong case can be made that but for WWII those Empires would have survived in some form and therefore all China need do is avoid near total destruction in war and already be ahead of the curve. | ||
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ShambhalaWar
United States930 Posts
On June 06 2019 01:25 Danglars wrote: Biden recently clarified that he still supports the Hyde amendment. The amendment prohibits federal funds from the HHS going towards abortion, except for life of the woman/incest/rape exceptions. His earlier stance, favoring repeal of the Hyde amendment, was given to an ACLU activist. He said yes to committing to abolish the Hyde amendment, and said "it can't stay." He now claims he misheard the question. Sanders has responded: https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1136285225632370688 That's a major departure from the field. No other 2020 Democratic presidential candidate openly supports the Hyde amendment, and many have drafted proposals to end it. Read More I've seen you post about Biden before, what do you think of him as a candidate? | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
On June 06 2019 03:00 KwarK wrote: China are colonizing Africa in the same way Britain and France used to. They're investing, but they're not investing locally. Britain built a railways across Africa, but the rails were built in Sheffield. China is doing the same thing. They're paying for Chinese companies to build rail lines within China to connect mines where China has bought the mineral rights with Chinese run ports built to load Chinese ships to fuel the Chinese market. Almost none of the money invested is spent locally to develop the local economy. It's just old school colonialism. It's no different to how BP used to own the Persian oil fields. The only thing the host nation keeps is the externalities. Most of the fault lies with the US for kicking the established powers out of the developing world in the hope that it could replace them with glorious exploitative capitalism only to find that the USSR had a similar idea. African states should look like India, a multiethnic conglomeration of arbitrary lines drawn on a map by former British governors. Instead the US and USSR exhausted each other with a policy of burning shit down to deny it to the other until eventually China moved in to scrape up the remains. The Middle East too for that matter, although Standard Oil fucked that one up by writing a blank check to the House of Saud. It should all look like Jordan but instead American greed and Soviet internationalism set shit on fire out of spite. Central and South America is obviously entirely on the US who, when denied a geopolitical adversary, unleashed imperialist capitalism in its most self defeating form and then got surprised when countries didn't like being invaded by a fruit wholesaler. The question remains to be seen what will happen when the nations China invests in eventually seek to gain control over their own national resources, as Persia and Egypt did before them. Britain and France's attempt to use military power at the Suez was curtailed by their own military weakness and the opposition of the US. Right now China can't project military power globally due to the US but that is likely to change in the next fifty years. Britain's attempt to use economic and political leverage over Persia is more likely to be the route we'll see China take, using the threat of calling in debt to force their colonies into default to ensure loyalty. But we all know how that turned out in Persia in the long run. China is building an economic empire to replace the displaced European powers but it remains to be seen how they will avoid the failures of those. Although a strong case can be made that but for WWII those Empires would have survived in some form and therefore all China need do is avoid near total destruction in war and already be ahead of the curve. Kwark, that's a nice write up, but what has that got to do with that GH's vision of the future world? What will the clean energy "supply chain" entail? China is not building clean energy in Africa. Clean energy as yet cannot be exported thousands of miles without substantial energy loss so much that it would be better for China to build clean energy inside China itself, nevermind exporting the energy to China and back out again to mystery buyers. | ||
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