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On December 20 2024 00:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2024 23:52 Zambrah wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/12/19/gop-senator-rand-paul-elon-musk-speaker-of-houseDid someone say unseriousRand Paul floating Elon Musk to replace Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House since there’s nothing in the constitution saying the speaker has to be a member of Congress! Normally I’d dismiss it as something stupid some jackass floated with no real possibility of it happening but Elon buying House Speakership is hilariously possible for the modern day US Elon Musk almost certainly doesn't want to be bothered with that level of politicking, but that makes me wonder: Speaker of the House is in the presidential line of succession, right after the vice president... in a world where Elon Musk becomes Speaker, and if Trump and Vance were to die, would Elon Musk just be skipped in line (because he wasn't born in the United States), or is that a hypothetical loophole for a foreign-born person to become president?
Isn't there supposed to be a "designated survivor"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_survivor
"The designated survivor must be eligible to serve as president."
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On December 19 2024 20:08 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2024 19:42 Uldridge wrote:
How is this Santa bit even a thing? You have kids and try to make life on this planet as magical a place for as long as you can before they realize that everything is actually dogshit. What's so harmful in that?
There are a lot of reasons why kids can't understand the cold hard realities too early. They are too easily molded into ideologically driven zealots, for example, so keep that as far away from them as possible if you can. Try to let them enjoy a little. I don't resent anyone that I've been lied to about Santa, so maybe it's a you problem instead of a systemic one if you find this tradition to be so egregious. Because ‘be good and you’ll get rewarded by some magical man’ isn’t innately a problem, until oh look it’s what your parents can afford. Which then when you’re in school comparing what Santa got and you, a decent kid got fuck all, you must not have been a good enough kid right? It delays some of the realities of life, but it swaps out a systemic understanding for some kind of personal moral fault. It’s also exactly this kind of cultural practice that moulds people into ideological zealots. Unless one doesn’t consider inculcating being a good consumerist as being particular ideological, which I’d disagree with. There is some fun and good times with the tradition too. I used to rather enjoy coming down on Christmas Day with the half-eaten carrots and a note that Rudolph couldn’t finish them as he’d gotten too many treats on his journey and all that fun stuff. Did that with my kid myself, equally I’m not sure it’s a tradition I’d start today in a vacuum. Frankly overall I think Christmas has become a bit much in terms of expectations that folks struggle to meet
The reason children of need might be jealous of children of means is not that a Santa myth is or isn't prevalent, it's that they are of need and others are of means. If they are sensitive to this, they would not be immune to it the other 364 days of the year.
There is a very small window where you are 1) at school where you have such peers 2) still believe in Santa and 3) have a category of ostentatious but usable gifts. Like a 9 year old is only going to get so much. You have much more of an environment for jealousy with Gucci high schoolers driving their Porsche to school while someone else takes a bus in the midst of teenage angst. Kids are barely not stupid enough to realize they got something on Christmas that they didn't have the day before. And that's what registers most. Comparing themselves to the past.
What you're talking about happens whether they get something from their parents or from Santa. People have been complaining about the commercialization of Christmas since 1965. Things get commercialized as we become consumers, which is because we are wealthier, which is because of capitalism. Santa hasn't driven that.
Christmas didn't invent disparity - the postcommunist world did, at the same time it invented prosperity. But the Santa myth does convey a general truth that good things happen to good people. When they get slightly older they do get the brainpower to realize in hindsight it was their parents that got them everything. So no lingering resentment towards the imaginary Santa for not giving them 100 PS5s.
At the same time, if there are spoiled kids, they can enjoy the fact that some of them will be raised poorly and end up squandering the family fortune. Fortunes change all the time in America. They are being made and lost constantly. Some of the kids who aren't in the top Christmas bracket grow up with the ability to have more PS5s than they can shake a stick at.
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Police reminding workers their job is to protect capital, not people, by union busting/strikebreaking for Amazon.
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Northern Ireland25159 Posts
On December 19 2024 23:52 Zambrah wrote:https://www.axios.com/2024/12/19/gop-senator-rand-paul-elon-musk-speaker-of-houseDid someone say unseriousRand Paul floating Elon Musk to replace Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House since there’s nothing in the constitution saying the speaker has to be a member of Congress! Normally I’d dismiss it as something stupid some jackaas floated with no real possibility of it happening but Elon buying House Speakership is hilariously possible for the modern day US
Can we get back to the serious business of discussing Santa Claus as an avatar of capitalist excess and inequity?
It is genuinely more worthy of attention than entertaining the idea of Elon Musk for that position.
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Northern Ireland25159 Posts
On December 20 2024 01:12 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2024 20:08 WombaT wrote:On December 19 2024 19:42 Uldridge wrote:
How is this Santa bit even a thing? You have kids and try to make life on this planet as magical a place for as long as you can before they realize that everything is actually dogshit. What's so harmful in that?
There are a lot of reasons why kids can't understand the cold hard realities too early. They are too easily molded into ideologically driven zealots, for example, so keep that as far away from them as possible if you can. Try to let them enjoy a little. I don't resent anyone that I've been lied to about Santa, so maybe it's a you problem instead of a systemic one if you find this tradition to be so egregious. Because ‘be good and you’ll get rewarded by some magical man’ isn’t innately a problem, until oh look it’s what your parents can afford. Which then when you’re in school comparing what Santa got and you, a decent kid got fuck all, you must not have been a good enough kid right? It delays some of the realities of life, but it swaps out a systemic understanding for some kind of personal moral fault. It’s also exactly this kind of cultural practice that moulds people into ideological zealots. Unless one doesn’t consider inculcating being a good consumerist as being particular ideological, which I’d disagree with. There is some fun and good times with the tradition too. I used to rather enjoy coming down on Christmas Day with the half-eaten carrots and a note that Rudolph couldn’t finish them as he’d gotten too many treats on his journey and all that fun stuff. Did that with my kid myself, equally I’m not sure it’s a tradition I’d start today in a vacuum. Frankly overall I think Christmas has become a bit much in terms of expectations that folks struggle to meet The reason children of need might be jealous of children of means is not that a Santa myth is or isn't prevalent, it's that they are of need and others are of means. If they are sensitive to this, they would not be immune to it the other 364 days of the year. There is a very small window where you are 1) at school where you have such peers 2) still believe in Santa and 3) have a category of ostentatious but usable gifts. Like a 9 year old is only going to get so much. You have much more of an environment for jealousy with Gucci high schoolers driving their Porsche to school while someone else takes a bus in the midst of teenage angst. Kids are barely not stupid enough to realize they got something on Christmas that they didn't have the day before. And that's what registers most. Comparing themselves to the past. What you're talking about happens whether they get something from their parents or from Santa. People have been complaining about the commercialization of Christmas since 1965. Things get commercialized as we become consumers, which is because we are wealthier, which is because of capitalism. Santa hasn't driven that. Christmas didn't invent disparity - the postcommunist world did, at the same time it invented prosperity. But the Santa myth does convey a general truth that good things happen to good people. When they get slightly older they do get the brainpower to realize in hindsight it was their parents that got them everything. So no lingering resentment towards the imaginary Santa for not giving them 100 PS5s. At the same time, if there are spoiled kids, they can enjoy the fact that some of them will be raised poorly and end up squandering the family fortune. Fortunes change all the time in America. They are being made and lost constantly. Some of the kids who aren't in the top Christmas bracket grow up with the ability to have more PS5s than they can shake a stick at.
I fail to see how it’s preferable to ‘hey your parents bust their ass to get you this shit because they love you’
If Santa’s such a critical cultural symbol that he has to be upheld for some reason, why not make him state funded and dictate his output by a naughty and nice list collated by various I intelligence agencies?
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If we step outside our myopia for a moment we can see that there are cultural reasons to preserving a tradition that encourages a behavior of rewarding children for being good, to help generally parents and children in a society be in line. In the abstract. For us it's Santa because that's the tradition we have. It's effective because it's more effective than the traditions that we don't have. You are welcome to replace him with your carrot thing, but the issue is that at a society level if you get rid of one and the carrot tradition fails to take off - then you haven't made an improvement because you removed a social pressure to do something good and replaced it with nothing, and nothing is only good at achieving itself, which is nothing.
He's not critical.
There's things in the world besides the government, not to mention the government and intelligence agencies do not have a good track record with basically anything. Not everything needs to become the government.
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Half of the people feared Trump.
But you got President Ketamine-Elmo governing via twitter account.
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On December 20 2024 02:21 oBlade wrote:
If we step outside our myopia for a moment we can see that there are cultural reasons to preserving a tradition that encourages a behavior of rewarding children for being good
Sure. I agree. The reward is the Christmas gift though, not the lying and betraying your children with a fake story.
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Northern Ireland25159 Posts
On December 20 2024 03:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2024 02:21 oBlade wrote:
If we step outside our myopia for a moment we can see that there are cultural reasons to preserving a tradition that encourages a behavior of rewarding children for being good Sure. I agree. The reward is the Christmas gift though, not the lying and betraying your children with a fake story.
Or just like, regular parenting, how it works right?
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On December 20 2024 03:19 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2024 03:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 20 2024 02:21 oBlade wrote:
If we step outside our myopia for a moment we can see that there are cultural reasons to preserving a tradition that encourages a behavior of rewarding children for being good Sure. I agree. The reward is the Christmas gift though, not the lying and betraying your children with a fake story. Or just like, regular parenting, how it works right?
Very true. Rewarding good behavior doesn't have to cost money.
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Northern Ireland25159 Posts
On December 20 2024 03:20 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2024 03:19 WombaT wrote:On December 20 2024 03:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 20 2024 02:21 oBlade wrote:
If we step outside our myopia for a moment we can see that there are cultural reasons to preserving a tradition that encourages a behavior of rewarding children for being good Sure. I agree. The reward is the Christmas gift though, not the lying and betraying your children with a fake story. Or just like, regular parenting, how it works right? Very true. Rewarding good behavior doesn't have to cost money.
Or if it does, hey know where said money is coming from.
Always respected my old man regardless, but Santa stole a bunch of credit from him. Obviously adult me knows the first gen iPods mysteriously loaded up with my personal music library and resealed in the boxes were his work. At the time it was ‘wow how did Santa know?’ Something I’ve experienced at the other end of the parent/child equation!
We were a pretty salubrious primary school, not sure what the American equivalent is called, ages like 5-11 anyway. We were pretty nice too so didn’t make fun, but I do remember a kid from a particularly poor background grappling with the ‘why did Santa treat everyone else better?’ dilemma. ‘That guy is clearly an asshole why did he get a PlayStation?’ to paraphrase a conversation young me had.
Always stuck with me, probably why I’m so anti-Santa
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Northern Ireland25159 Posts
For funsies
Poll: Should Santa be abolished?No (13) 72% Yes (3) 17% Maintained, but in another form (2) 11% 18 total votes Your vote: Should Santa be abolished? (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
(Vote): Maintained, but in another form
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Idk my parents chose not to lie to us and were pretty open about us just being poor. I still have an uncomfortable relationship with giftgiving for this reason - we got socks and shirts and the pinnacle hit sometimes you'd get a box of Lucky Charms with your name on it so your brothers and sisters wouldn't steal it.
Santa is unnecessary, but if presents and mystical whimsy are part of how you express yourself, go nuts. I don't see a reason to kill the dream for everyone just because everyone can't partake at the same level - parents are still plenty free to not lie to their kids if they choose to, and its the presence of choice that matters.
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My pro-Santa argument is that kids wondering about whether he is or isn't real makes them think critically in a way that's difficult for schoolwork to mimic, because it's something they're very invested in.
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United States42640 Posts
On December 20 2024 00:48 Gorsameth wrote:
it would just skip anyone in the line of succession that is not eligible.
And no there is no world where Musk wants to become speaker. It would take up way to much of his time, plus there is no way he (and anyone else for that matter) doesn't go insane trying to herd Republicans.
I think we’d have to check whether he’s only ineligible to be elected president because that wouldn’t apply here.
Edit: read 25th amendment. Eligibility is not textually required.
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The Santa talk is a bit particular for my taste. If I had a kid, I would presume at some point in time I would think they are old enough to understand the concepts of sarcasm, fantasy, and reality. There's really many ways to progress year over year and such even if you started off with a lie.
I say sarcasm as in I would say "Santa" got you these gifts, now say thank you to big fat dad, I mean Santa...
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On December 20 2024 05:09 Byo wrote:
The Santa talk is a bit particular for my taste. If I had a kid, I would presume at some point in time I would think they are old enough to understand the concepts of sarcasm, fantasy, and reality. There's really many ways to progress year over year and such even if you started off with a lie.
I say sarcasm as in I would say "Santa" got you these gifts, now say thank you to big fat dad, I mean Santa...
I handle it by just being honest with my kids. When they ask, I tell them its a story just like other stories while also expressing enthusiasm for participating in the lore of Santa. It can be fun and magical without being some grand conspiracy to deceive children.
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On December 20 2024 03:59 Dan HH wrote:
My pro-Santa argument is that kids wondering about whether he is or isn't real makes them think critically in a way that's difficult for schoolwork to mimic, because it's something they're very invested in.
What do you mean by "pro-Santa", because letting kids critically think about Santa's existence is the opposite of telling them he exists. If you just mean that you're pro- "letting kids figure out Santa doesn't exist on their own", then that makes sense to me; I wouldn't consider that position to be particularly pro- (or anti-) Santa.
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On December 20 2024 00:48 Gorsameth wrote:
it would just skip anyone in the line of succession that is not eligible.
And no there is no world where Musk wants to become speaker. It would take up way to much of his time, plus there is no way he (and anyone else for that matter) doesn't go insane trying to herd Republicans.
You assume he would bother doing the job at all, or even show up! I wouldn't be surprised if he got the position and then treated it like any of this other jobs.
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I don't know why we've gone 9 rounds on Santa Claus. The argument for discussing him - that we shouldn't trust the government less for lying to us because we don't trust our parents less for lying about Santa can be dismissed with 2 seconds of rational thought (a lot to ask for some). We still trust our parents despite the lie because the years of them raising us outweighs the lie about a fairytale. If Fauci wants to start breastfeeding me then I'll let him pass on a couple lies here and there.
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EPT
