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Secession is a fantasy.
Look at Brexit. It's an incredibly difficult split, that is and was always be a clusterfuck of administrative nightmares. We are talking about a Union that is quite recent, with a level of integration that falls EXTREMELY short of anything resembling a federal system, and that was planned as a possibility with a roadmap on how to do it.
You take every aspect of Brexit and you multiply each problem by ten thousands, and you will still be very far off the complexity of american states seceding. That's just not happening unless something HUGE and totally unforseen happens. It's not planned in the constitution: how do you make it without radically changing it and why on earth would the congress allow a change in the constitution like that when they can't fucking fix the electoral college? What happens to the money? What happens to the army? What happens at the fronteers? What happens for businesses? What happens to the banking system? That's just scratching the surface.
It's unfeasible unless there is, like, world war 3 or aliens land in Washington.
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Is it unlikely though that aliens will land in Washington? I would say it is simply impossible to assess the probability of that happening, which does not mean that the probability is small. It is merely an event outside the "commonly expected". You know, once the aliens have landed, it will always have been an inevitability.
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On December 14 2020 21:00 rope123 wrote:
Is it unlikely though that aliens will land in Washington? I would say it is simply impossible to assess the probability of that happening, which does not mean that the probability is small. It is merely an event outside the "commonly expected". You know, once the aliens have landed, it will always have been an inevitability.
What an unexpected and odd turn for the US politics megathread to take. 
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On December 14 2020 21:00 rope123 wrote:
Is it unlikely though that aliens will land in Washington? I would say it is simply impossible to assess the probability of that happening, which does not mean that the probability is small. It is merely an event outside the "commonly expected". You know, once the aliens have landed, it will always have been an inevitability.
Oh, right, that makes sense.
I think I want to bet you one million dollars that aliens won't land in front of the White House in 2021. Shall we? I mean since you can't assess the probability, why not? I assess that the chances are astronomically (haha) small so everybody is happy 
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On December 14 2020 22:00 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2020 21:00 rope123 wrote:
Is it unlikely though that aliens will land in Washington? I would say it is simply impossible to assess the probability of that happening, which does not mean that the probability is small. It is merely an event outside the "commonly expected". You know, once the aliens have landed, it will always have been an inevitability. Oh, right, that makes sense. I think I want to bet you one million dollars that aliens won't land in front of the White House in 2021. Shall we? I mean since you can't assess the probability, why not? I assess that the chances are astronomically (haha) small so everybody is happy
You don't understand the point I make by trying to appeal to my "common sense". The only reason you feel confident that aliens won't land in 2021 is that history tells us they didn't land in 2020 or 2019 or all the years before and since - apparently - nothing seems to have changed, you ask yourself: "Why would they land now?". This is similar to the following situation: You are trying to cross a street, before you do it, you want to figure out wether it is dangerous to do so. Therefore, you observe the street and other people who are trying to cross it. Sometimes a car drives on the street, but you cannot communicate with the drivers. As it turns out, nobody is having any difficulties to cross the street since the cars drive very slowly. Thus, you infer that it is safe to cross the street and you begin your own attempt. While you are in the middle of the street, the cars suddenly speed up and you get run over. As long as you have no way at all to figure out the motivations of the drivers and the reason for them speeding up, you can't complain that it was statistically unlikely that they would in fact speed up! It is irrelevant that everyone before you did not get run over. Maybe you were only observing a small section of time, the only really short period when it was safe to cross the street and from now until all eternity it will be dangerous.
It is the same with aliens. If aliens ever land on earth, it was statistically probably likely that they would do so. If they don't, it probalby was unlikely. At this point in time of human development we cannot yet satisfyingly judge the probabilities. Earth is not close to a heat death.
To come back to your bet. Is it rational to take you up on it? Statistically speaking it is impossible to know. We can't even judge wether it would be rational to take a bet where I have to pay you 10 dollars if aliens don't land and you have to pay me a million if they do. Where is the cutoff point: 10 Million, 100 Million, 100 Trillion? Why then, might you ask, would nobody sane want you to take up on that bet. It is because we are averse to the risk of losing a significant amount of money if the risk of losing is not assuredly insignificant. Since aliens might very well land or might very well not land, we don't want to risk anything by betting on a certain outcome.
Predicting the future always suffers from this dilemma of course. Who would have bet that the Tokyo Olympic Games would be cancelled before he or she knew of corona.. if someone in 2019 would have tried to figure out the Bayesian probability for that to happen, he would probably have come to a low number and offered good money for people wanting to bet on a cancellation.
The thing with aliens though is, that aside from historical precedent, which in itself is not enough to be able to make any reasonable prediction, we have no way of figuring out the relevant factors. Fermi's paradox is a paradox for a reason.
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On December 14 2020 22:47 rope123 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2020 22:00 Biff The Understudy wrote:On December 14 2020 21:00 rope123 wrote:
Is it unlikely though that aliens will land in Washington? I would say it is simply impossible to assess the probability of that happening, which does not mean that the probability is small. It is merely an event outside the "commonly expected". You know, once the aliens have landed, it will always have been an inevitability. Oh, right, that makes sense. I think I want to bet you one million dollars that aliens won't land in front of the White House in 2021. Shall we? I mean since you can't assess the probability, why not? I assess that the chances are astronomically (haha) small so everybody is happy You don't understand the point I make by trying to appeal to my "common sense". The only reason you feel confident that aliens won't land in 2021 is that history tells us they didn't land in 2020 or 2019 or all the years before and since - apparently - nothing seems to have changed, you ask yourself: "Why would they land now?". This is similar to the following situation: You are trying to cross a street, before you do it, you want to figure out wether it is dangerous to do so. Therefore, you observe the street and other people who are trying to cross it. Sometimes a car drives on the street, but you cannot communicate with the drivers. As it turns out, nobody is having any difficulties to cross the street since the cars drive very slowly. Thus, you infer that it is safe to cross the street and you begin your own attempt. While you are in the middle of the street, the cars suddenly speed up and you get run over. As long as you have no way at all to figure out the motivations of the drivers and the reason for them speeding up, you can't complain that it was statistically unlikely that they would in fact speed up! It is irrelevant that everyone before you did not get run over. Maybe you were only observing a small section of time, the only really short period when it was safe to cross the street and from now until all eternity it will be dangerous. It is the same with aliens. If aliens ever land on earth, it was statistically probably likely that they would do so. If they don't, it probalby was unlikely. At this point in time of human development we cannot yet satisfyingly judge the probabilities. Earth is not close to a heat death. To come back to your bet. Is it rational to take you up on it? Statistically speaking it is impossible to know. We can't even judge wether it would be rational to take a bet where I have to pay you 10 dollars if aliens don't land and you have to pay me a million if they do. Where is the cutoff point: 10 Million, 100 Million, 100 Trillion? Why then, might you ask, would nobody sane want you to take up on that bet. It is because we are averse to the risk of losing a significant amount of money if the risk of losing is not assuredly insignificant. Since aliens might very well land or might very well not land, we don't want to risk anything by betting on a certain outcome. Predicting the future always suffers from this dilemma of course. Who would have bet that the Tokyo Olympic Games would be cancelled before he or she knew of corona.. if someone in 2019 would have tried to figure out the Bayesian probability for that to happen, he would probably have come to a low number and offered good money for people wanting to bet on a cancellation. The thing with aliens though is, that aside from historical precedent, which in itself is not enough to be able to make any reasonable prediction, we have no way of figuring out the relevant factors. Fermi's paradox is a paradox for a reason.
No.
What you are missing is that the problem is not that there is one chance on X that a secession happens in the US. It's that it makes no sense and has no reason to happen. The ingredients are not here whatsoever, that's why I say the chances are astronomically small.
I still bet you a million dollar versus ten dollars that no alien land in 2021. Make it two millions if you want.
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On December 14 2020 23:13 Biff The Understudy wrote:
No.
What you are missing is that the problem is not that there is one chance on X that a secession happens in the US. It's that it makes no sense and has no reason to happen. The ingredients are not here whatsoever, that's why I say the chances are astronomically small.
I still bet you a million dollar versus ten dollars that no alien land in 2021. Make it two millions if you want.
I would probalby agree with you that, if an attempt were to be made to figure out the bayesian probability of a secession to happen (which btw does not equal to a chance of 1 in X), we would come to a low number (not astronomically low though). This of course only holds true if we exclude unknowable probabilities from the equation (which we have to if we want to continue to make predictions and not give up on the matter entirely). What I take issue with is you proclaiming that an alien landing is unlikely. It is not, as of now, it is a black box. As all the factors, that we would need to have a decent understanding of to be able to make a good predicition (likelihood of the development of intelligent life, possibility of interstellar travel, intergalactic travel restrictions set by a federation of advanced civilizations etc etc etc), are more or less unassessable, figuring out a probability is a meaningless endeavour.
You wanting to take that bet, does not mean it is rational to do so. Your intiution appeals to your expectations formed by the past alone. That is not sufficient.
Another example: Would it be rational to bet against GOD's existence being proven in 2021 or an angel appearing in front of the white house? Yes, it would. From our current point of view neither the concept of GOD nor of an angel makes any sort of scientific sense, so a rational being should not expect their appearance and bet against it. Such a statement cannot be made about an alien landing though. In this matter humility in regard to our predictive capabilities should be the correct state of mind.
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Basically, black swans exists. Secession move from a state is a such black swan event. Russia annexing a part of Ukraine, the current pandemic, the fall of soviet union or both world wars (especially number 1, which were totally unexpected at its time), nuclear war or aliens landing in front of the WH are other examples of black swans.
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On December 14 2020 23:29 rope123 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2020 23:13 Biff The Understudy wrote:
No.
What you are missing is that the problem is not that there is one chance on X that a secession happens in the US. It's that it makes no sense and has no reason to happen. The ingredients are not here whatsoever, that's why I say the chances are astronomically small.
I still bet you a million dollar versus ten dollars that no alien land in 2021. Make it two millions if you want. I would probalby agree with you that, if an attempt were to be made to figure out the bayesian probability of a secession to happen (which btw does not equal to a chance of 1 in X), we would come to a low number (not astronomically low though). This of course only holds true if we exclude unknowable probabilities from the equation (which we have to if we want to continue to make predictions and not give up on the matter entirely). What I take issue with is you proclaiming that an alien landing is unlikely. It is not, as of now, it is a black box. As all the factors, that we would need to have a decent understanding of to be able to make a good predicition (likelihood of the development of intelligent life, possibility of interstellar travel, intergalactic travel restrictions set by a federation of advanced civilizations etc etc etc), are more or less unassessable, figuring out a probability is a meaningless endeavour. You wanting to take that bet, does not mean it is rational to do so. Your intiution appeals to your expectations formed by the past alone. That is not sufficient. Another example: Would it be rational to bet against GOD's existence being proven in 2021 or an angel appearing in front of the white house? Yes, it would. From our current point of view neither the concept of GOD nor of an angel makes any sort of scientific sense, so a rational being should not expect their appearance and bet against it. Such a statement cannot be made about an alien landing though. In this matter humility in regard to our predictive capabilities should be the correct state of mind.
Let's say you were trying to guess the numbers for a lottery with unknown rules. You have no idea what the range is for each individual number or how many numbers you need in total. While you don't have any base probability to work with, you do know that the likelihood of getting all numbers right is lower than the likelihood of getting one number right.
My expectation that aliens won't land in DC next year isn't so much based on the past as it is on the number of successive assumptions required to be true for that to happen.
Now let's say next week we find some kind of cosmic footprint, that wouldn't bring us any closer to assigning the event a probability but it would reasonably increase our expectation of it by eliminating multiple assumptions.
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On December 15 2020 00:39 Dan HH wrote:
Let's say you were trying to guess the numbers for a lottery with unknown rules. You have no idea what the range is for each individual number or how many numbers you need in total. While you don't have any base probability to work with, you do know that the likelihood of getting all numbers right is lower than the likelihood of getting one number right.
My expectation that aliens won't land in DC next year isn't so much based on the past as it is on the number of successive assumptions required to be true for that to happen.
Now let's say next week we find some kind of cosmic footprint, that wouldn't bring us any closer to assigning the event a probability but it would reasonably increase our expectation of it by eliminating multiple assumptions.
That I agree with to a certain extent. We can definitely make scientific observations (and argue over their interpretation) as of right now that increase or decrease the likelihood of first contact, we even can argue that it is more likely that aliens will land in the next 100 years than in the next year. It is still - in my uninformed opinion - impossible to assign any numbers to those probabilities. Thus, we cannot claim that aliens landing in 2021 is astronomically unlikely (aka lower than 1 %? 0,01 %? 0,0000001 %?)
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On December 14 2020 23:46 Neneu wrote:
Basically, black swans exists. Secession move from a state is a such black swan event. Russia annexing a part of Ukraine, the current pandemic, the fall of soviet union or both world wars (especially number 1, which were totally unexpected at its time), nuclear war or aliens landing in front of the WH are other examples of black swans.
Yeah. But secession is not that kind of black swan at all. We are a few terrible decisions, misunderstandings and horrible luck from, say, a nuclear war. It's unlikely, but it can absolutely happen given the set of circumstances.
Secession on the other hand is a long, arduous, extremely difficult process over years and years, requiring a gigantic amount of effort from all the parties involved. It won't happen because of some bad luck or terrible misunderstanding.
The fall if the Soviet Union was decades in the making, and the circumstances were all set for it happening. There is none of those circumstances in the US. You would need something HUGE happening for the scene to be set for something like that.
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On December 15 2020 00:56 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2020 23:46 Neneu wrote:
Basically, black swans exists. Secession move from a state is a such black swan event. Russia annexing a part of Ukraine, the current pandemic, the fall of soviet union or both world wars (especially number 1, which were totally unexpected at its time), nuclear war or aliens landing in front of the WH are other examples of black swans. Yeah. But secession is not that kind of black swan at all. We are a few terrible decisions, misunderstandings and horrible luck from, say, a nuclear war. It's unlikely, but it can absolutely happen given the set of circumstances. Secession on the other hand is a long, arduous, extremely difficult process over years and years, requiring a gigantic amount of effort from all the parties involved. It won't happen because of some bad luck or terrible misunderstanding. The fall if the Soviet Union was decades in the making, and the circumstances were all set for it happening. There is none of those circumstances in the US. You would need something HUGE happening for the scene to be set for something like that. A few years ago the same would have been said about Brexit.
I'm not saying Secession isn't a distant fantasy but don't make the mistake of underestimating how boneheaded people can be once they set a course.
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On December 15 2020 01:28 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2020 00:56 Biff The Understudy wrote:On December 14 2020 23:46 Neneu wrote:
Basically, black swans exists. Secession move from a state is a such black swan event. Russia annexing a part of Ukraine, the current pandemic, the fall of soviet union or both world wars (especially number 1, which were totally unexpected at its time), nuclear war or aliens landing in front of the WH are other examples of black swans. Yeah. But secession is not that kind of black swan at all. We are a few terrible decisions, misunderstandings and horrible luck from, say, a nuclear war. It's unlikely, but it can absolutely happen given the set of circumstances. Secession on the other hand is a long, arduous, extremely difficult process over years and years, requiring a gigantic amount of effort from all the parties involved. It won't happen because of some bad luck or terrible misunderstanding. The fall if the Soviet Union was decades in the making, and the circumstances were all set for it happening. There is none of those circumstances in the US. You would need something HUGE happening for the scene to be set for something like that. A few years ago the same would have been said about Brexit. I'm not saying Secession isn't a distant fantasy but don't make the mistake of underestimating how boneheaded people can be once they set a course.
Yeah, I agree with the Brexit comparison. Things almost nobody wants can happen in politics when brinksmanship is involved. I can envision a scenario in which republican politicians let the secession discourse be considered legitimate and pretend to adhere to it or adhere to some "light" version of it in order to appeal to the more extremist base. The extremists are happy it gets traction and moderates are content thinking it's all talk. Then the party get highjacked by some charismatic proponents of cesession, maybe some political fact (perhaps a states-rights supreme court decision) drives tension and riots and it's all a snowball nobody in the republican apparatus can actually stop.
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Brevity is still only a mediocre-at-best comparison because it had a feasible legal pathway to becoming reality.
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Seccession is a lot different from Brexit. A better comparison would be London trying to leave the UK. It's the same level of likelihood. Not only would that be bad for the UK, it'd be bad for London, and it really doesn't make any sense financially or geographically (as red/blue states aren't contiguous).
It's also flatly impossible with only a slight plurality or majority in favor of it. It takes beyond super majority numbers. Additionally, the people most in favor of secession are the wrong age group for it. Only 5 states have a majority republican <35 voting base, and that is the age group who would be relied upon to do the fighting.
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I'm surprised nobody said it would be like Catalonia trying to leave Spain yet.
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With the 4 freedoms of the EU it really wouldn't be that hard if Catalonia stayed in the EU but left Spain. They would need spains approval but it highlights the 4 basic issues that would come ie movement of people currency swapover economic borders and shared trade standards. They would still be sending money to the rest of Spain just in a different format too.
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On December 15 2020 04:21 Sent. wrote:
I'm surprised nobody said it would be like Catalonia trying to leave Spain yet.
That is much more similar but there is still a significant historical and sociocultural difference between Catalonia vs. Spain and conservative regions of the U.S. vs. The U.S. as a whole.
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On December 15 2020 00:56 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2020 23:46 Neneu wrote:
Basically, black swans exists. Secession move from a state is a such black swan event. Russia annexing a part of Ukraine, the current pandemic, the fall of soviet union or both world wars (especially number 1, which were totally unexpected at its time), nuclear war or aliens landing in front of the WH are other examples of black swans. Yeah. But secession is not that kind of black swan at all. We are a few terrible decisions, misunderstandings and horrible luck from, say, a nuclear war. It's unlikely, but it can absolutely happen given the set of circumstances. Secession on the other hand is a long, arduous, extremely difficult process over years and years, requiring a gigantic amount of effort from all the parties involved. It won't happen because of some bad luck or terrible misunderstanding. The fall if the Soviet Union was decades in the making, and the circumstances were all set for it happening. There is none of those circumstances in the US. You would need something HUGE happening for the scene to be set for something like that.
Secession is a long, arduous, extremely difficult process over years and years. However deciding to do it can be quick. The decision or the move towards secession is the black swan. All you need is strong enough will in a certain amount of the population, born by change in the political climate.
When the Soviet Union fell, it seemed obvious that it had been decades in the making, however do you think during those decades before the fall, that its inhabitants or power players knew that it was already doomed?
The downfall of democracy and their very strong economy in Venezuela was a black swan to its inhabitants. When it first happened, it happened quicker than most of them could imagine.
When the first world war started, many citizens didn't believe it for the first few weeks, since it was so incredibly unlikely and stupid. It sounded like a bad joke to them, the economy were going amazing and no one had anything to gain from going to war. It were deemed to be too costly to go to war and besides, everyone were prospering and the future had never seemed so futuristic. Therefor it was unthinkable that anyone would, before it happened anyway.
If you asked someone in 1930 that you should be worried that we might blow up the entire planet with just a few tons of plutonium, they would have looked at you the same way we are looking at the proposition of aliens in front of the white house. Not only would it take a long time to build up a such capacity, but why would anyone do that? It would be idiotic, stupid beyond belief, ensuring our own destruction while paying a lot of money for it! Never mind that it would also require something that is impossible back in 1930. Yet here we are today, worrying.
The thing is, you can never fully neglect different possible paths that the world will move towards, especially at a time for US citizens when their belief in democracy and the country's core values (institutions, the american dream, etc) is at a record low. That's when you get a lot of highly unlikely, but yet possible and stupid, scenarios for the future.
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United States42682 Posts
On December 15 2020 06:40 Neneu wrote:
If you asked someone in 1930 that you should be worried that we might blow up the entire planet with just a few tons of plutonium, they would have looked at you the same way we are looking at the proposition of aliens in front of the white house. Not only would it take a long time to build up a such capacity, but why would anyone do that? It would be idiotic, stupid beyond belief, ensuring our own destruction while paying a lot of money for it! Never mind that it would also require something that is impossible back in 1930. Yet here we are today, worrying.
Fun fact, nuclear weapons featured prominently in a lot of sci-fi in the decades before they existed. People knew what they were and, roughly speaking, what they did. The technology didn't yet exist but the conceptual framework existed. They were basically comparable to laser guns now. We don't have laser weapons but if someone from the future told me that it was a big deal I wouldn't be hugely surprised by it.
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