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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1353 Posts
On April 29 2026 03:55 Falling wrote:I have a theory that the age problem would mostly go away in the house of representatives with more competitive races. Solve gerrymandering and most of it goes away. Our parliament average age is 52 vs House of Representative is 57.5 but has been 58. We do have have 2 over the age of 80 out of 343 seats vs 17 over the age of 80 out of 435 (not counting the one that just died.) But over the last ten years sometimes our oldest member was 77 vs late 80s in the States. So with competitive races, my theory is that it naturally scales younger. However, the Senate might not change without some sort of age limit as there are only two positions to vote for and many States tend to favour one party for long periods of time. Our Canadian appointed Senate averages 65 though historically 64, which is very close to US' 64-65 average. But importantly, Canada does have mandatory retirement at 75, which would cut out 14 Senators. (Sidenote. Oh, wow. Chuck Grassley is 92.) On the surface, the averages don't maybe seem like much, but on the outer edges of elderly American politicians, you wind up with such bizarre cases that I can think of no equivalent Canadian example. Maybe with more competitive races, you would avoid cases like Kay Granger who was found in a memory care and living assistance home by Dallas Express. https://dallasexpress.com/tarrant/exclusive-where-is-congresswoman-kay-granger/And Feinstein was looking pretty rough by the end with prolonged absences due to health issues. This doesn't touch presidential elections but they are such singular events that is hard to know if the battle of the geriatrics Biden vs Trump is a pattern or an outlier that will resolve naturally.
Hmm I don't think it's that simple to solve, either with more competitive races, or even an age limit (ok the age limit would TECHNICALLY lower the age, but probably not improve actual performance).
I think most of the problems with the actual apparatus of US elected officials/elections comes down to the role money/fund raising plays in campaigns. The fact that politicians spend more time trying to raise money than trying to persuade regular voters to vote for them means the actual pool of elected officials look like what the people/organisations with the money to splash into politics want, and not what the average voter wants.
I think the age of these officials reflects that the very rich want. People who are too set in their ways to push for much significant change, grew up soaked in cold war propaganda that favouring corporate interests is basically 'fighting communism' and maybe look like the CEOs and owners that have all that money. Possibly might even have been in politics so long that they are a known quantity, and again, aren't going to rock the boat.
More competitive races I'm not sure is going to change much, since they still have to run that race the same way. Bernie has shown, exceptionally, that people CAN avoid this funding model for a campaign, but how well does this scale to small elections over all electorates? He was basically the only guy doing it, in a big nationwide election, I'm just not sure the everyday people collectively have the money to donate to smaller campaigns everywhere.
An age limit will technically lower the age, but I think you would just end up with younger (late middle age, or early elderly) people who are a bit fuddy duddy and unlikely to push for change. Because none of the underlying power structures or incentives have changed.
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On April 29 2026 04:20 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2026 23:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 19:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 17:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 16:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 13:16 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 09:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 08:52 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:My biggest issue with the way GH handled his "legitimate government" topic wasn't with the semantics of that phrase. I'm happy to listen to whatever definition someone wants to use and operate within those boundaries, although sometimes I may not personally have an answer to every related question or hypothetical. My biggest issue was how he purposely slow-rolled the discussion + Show Spoiler + to the point where he knew people were going to get tired of him dodging the meaningful part of the conversation: is it sufficient to just call Trump's 2nd term "not legitimate", or should there be some kind of action taken to reinforce those words, and if so, what actions has GH taken (or what actions will GH take in the future) when he encounters illegitimate governments? It was silly when GH said he wouldn't answer those questions of substance until someone supported him, and then after Acrofales explicitly wrote out his full support, GH still wouldn't address the actions that ought to be taken, instead saying that one person was no longer enough and that we should all take a poll. The goalposts kept moving so that he'd never have to actually talk about the topic he brought up in the first place, even after Fleetfeet showed him an example of how to structure his flowchart. Given how frequently GH mocks and gawks at the rest of us for talking the talk but possibly not walking the walk, I found his virtue signaling (Trump's second term is illegitimate but GH doesn't want to do anything about it) to be hypocritical. Furthermore, given how much crap he gives many of us for engaging with a few other posters who are bad-faith or frustrating to talk to, GH didn't really give us a good alternative today. I was and still am happy to continue with you if you take a position supporting or opposing your opening premise. I didn't say you had to support your premise that "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government". I welcome you to give us your working definition of "legitimate government" regarding your position. Again, this isn't some radical request by me, this is basic conversational conventions for effective communication "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government" in your eyes" This is obviously (to me) DPB offering to take what he understands to be your position as 'truth' for the purpose of furthering the discussion. Your response to this seems to be asserting that DPB's understanding of your position is ACTUALLY DPB's position, and then asking him to elaborate on 'his position' in this context and also explain the phrase 'legitimate government' that he used (which, actually, you used first). Are these tactics you're using within, or without the scope of 'basic conversational conventions'? + Show Spoiler +You're correct with all of this.
It's his "opening premise", not mine, and I was happy to engage with it. He brought it up, not me. In fact, while I was able to elaborate on my interest in considering how effective a president is (responding to GH's comment about a naked crack addict), I freely admitted that I don't have an immediate, good answer as to what line delegitimizes a presidency, but I was content to work off the premise he had suggested to move the conversation forward (GH wrote "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence should be enough for most rational people imo" and I accepted that). That premise was fine with me, + Show Spoiler + which is why I followed up with all the questions that GH repeatedly refused to answer, which then prompted others to call him out. Typically I'd ask if you or someone else could try rewriting the questions/engaging as someone that actually personally agrees Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure. That's because if you're going to actually concede the point to move the conversation forward, you have to actually do so in your phrasing. I'll just demonstrate myself what that looks like in this case: What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate? Keep in mind, you're not obligated to accept the premise "Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure" to continue the conversation. But if you're going (to even pretend for the sake of moving the conversation forward) to agree, your questions have to change to something like what I just showed to reflect that. I believe I am communicating this issue clearly at this point. What are your answers to those rephrased questions? [What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate?] We need to work on that together while organizing with other like-minded people. I come at it through a Black Radical Tradition lens but the general tenets (the details of which being what we need to work on together among like-minded people since this is a bottom up project) of what needs to be done are pretty universal from what I understand. -Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation -Parallel Institutions/Mutual Aid Networks -Non-Reformist Reforms -Symbolic Defiance: Basically, publicly treating the government’s symbols, laws, or leaders as irrelevant or void -Legal and Constitutional Challenges (My interpretation on this is probably a bit of an outlier but I would include appealing to the international community for help/condemnation of the US's illegitimate government in this) Exactly how any individual can help most effectively necessarily varies based on a variety of factors, but those are the general things I believe we need to be working on. It's not a comprehensive list. Rather than be critical of anything I've said (don't worry, there will be time for that), let's keep a bit of a brainstorming energy going and we can all contribute our own ideas! Thanks for this! Appreciate the direct response and engagement. I'd suggest simply supporting/enabling louder political voices. Propaganda's part of what gets us here.
Could you describe what you mean by this a bit. I don't know that I've seen you do so before?
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On April 29 2026 08:07 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 04:20 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 23:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 19:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 17:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 16:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 13:16 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 09:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 08:52 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:My biggest issue with the way GH handled his "legitimate government" topic wasn't with the semantics of that phrase. I'm happy to listen to whatever definition someone wants to use and operate within those boundaries, although sometimes I may not personally have an answer to every related question or hypothetical. My biggest issue was how he purposely slow-rolled the discussion + Show Spoiler + to the point where he knew people were going to get tired of him dodging the meaningful part of the conversation: is it sufficient to just call Trump's 2nd term "not legitimate", or should there be some kind of action taken to reinforce those words, and if so, what actions has GH taken (or what actions will GH take in the future) when he encounters illegitimate governments? It was silly when GH said he wouldn't answer those questions of substance until someone supported him, and then after Acrofales explicitly wrote out his full support, GH still wouldn't address the actions that ought to be taken, instead saying that one person was no longer enough and that we should all take a poll. The goalposts kept moving so that he'd never have to actually talk about the topic he brought up in the first place, even after Fleetfeet showed him an example of how to structure his flowchart. Given how frequently GH mocks and gawks at the rest of us for talking the talk but possibly not walking the walk, I found his virtue signaling (Trump's second term is illegitimate but GH doesn't want to do anything about it) to be hypocritical. Furthermore, given how much crap he gives many of us for engaging with a few other posters who are bad-faith or frustrating to talk to, GH didn't really give us a good alternative today. I was and still am happy to continue with you if you take a position supporting or opposing your opening premise. I didn't say you had to support your premise that "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government". I welcome you to give us your working definition of "legitimate government" regarding your position. Again, this isn't some radical request by me, this is basic conversational conventions for effective communication "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government" in your eyes" This is obviously (to me) DPB offering to take what he understands to be your position as 'truth' for the purpose of furthering the discussion. Your response to this seems to be asserting that DPB's understanding of your position is ACTUALLY DPB's position, and then asking him to elaborate on 'his position' in this context and also explain the phrase 'legitimate government' that he used (which, actually, you used first). Are these tactics you're using within, or without the scope of 'basic conversational conventions'? + Show Spoiler +You're correct with all of this.
It's his "opening premise", not mine, and I was happy to engage with it. He brought it up, not me. In fact, while I was able to elaborate on my interest in considering how effective a president is (responding to GH's comment about a naked crack addict), I freely admitted that I don't have an immediate, good answer as to what line delegitimizes a presidency, but I was content to work off the premise he had suggested to move the conversation forward (GH wrote "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence should be enough for most rational people imo" and I accepted that). That premise was fine with me, + Show Spoiler + which is why I followed up with all the questions that GH repeatedly refused to answer, which then prompted others to call him out. Typically I'd ask if you or someone else could try rewriting the questions/engaging as someone that actually personally agrees Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure. That's because if you're going to actually concede the point to move the conversation forward, you have to actually do so in your phrasing. I'll just demonstrate myself what that looks like in this case: What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate? Keep in mind, you're not obligated to accept the premise "Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure" to continue the conversation. But if you're going (to even pretend for the sake of moving the conversation forward) to agree, your questions have to change to something like what I just showed to reflect that. I believe I am communicating this issue clearly at this point. What are your answers to those rephrased questions? [What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate?] We need to work on that together while organizing with other like-minded people. I come at it through a Black Radical Tradition lens but the general tenets (the details of which being what we need to work on together among like-minded people since this is a bottom up project) of what needs to be done are pretty universal from what I understand. -Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation -Parallel Institutions/Mutual Aid Networks -Non-Reformist Reforms -Symbolic Defiance: Basically, publicly treating the government’s symbols, laws, or leaders as irrelevant or void -Legal and Constitutional Challenges (My interpretation on this is probably a bit of an outlier but I would include appealing to the international community for help/condemnation of the US's illegitimate government in this) Exactly how any individual can help most effectively necessarily varies based on a variety of factors, but those are the general things I believe we need to be working on. It's not a comprehensive list. Rather than be critical of anything I've said (don't worry, there will be time for that), let's keep a bit of a brainstorming energy going and we can all contribute our own ideas! Thanks for this! Appreciate the direct response and engagement. I'd suggest simply supporting/enabling louder political voices. Propaganda's part of what gets us here. Could you describe what you mean by this a bit. I don't know that I've seen you do so before?
Sure.
There's a stigma regarding socialism or socialist movements in general. I don't believe that's rooted in truth, and the pervasive message that 'capitalism bad' exists in the general consciousness close enough to the surface that it shows up often in popular culture. Currently popular US figure Brennan Lee Mulligan is known to go on anticapitalist rants frequently, musical artist Blackalicious is an example of a musician who touches on the subject lyrically, etc. Luigi's assassination being celebrated has anticapitalist flair. There's no shortage of examples, those are two more or less at random. Anti-capitalism is not a wholly unpopular message, where socialism has stigma associated. I don't care what the thing is called, I care about what it's calling for.
Social media platforms allow free speech and are responsive to profit/view-maximizing methods, which can be exploited to forward anti-capitalist messages. On a minimal level this is exploiting engagement methods - literally liking/upvoting/commenting/whatever. On a broader level, providing a gateway/backdoor to your preferred politics through content creators that aren't primarily political on the surface (Youtube shorts from Blackbirdcoop stand as an example, though not necessarily an anticapitalist one) which is a powerful tool to 'trick' people into agreeing with socialist methods while circumventing the stigma.
It also gives clearer pathways to collaboration.
TLDR we know a lot of the mindfuckery that leads people to believe flat earth. If you can make people believe flat earth, surely you could make them believe socialism. Weaponize it.
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On April 29 2026 09:38 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 08:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 29 2026 04:20 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 23:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 19:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 17:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 16:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 13:16 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 09:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 08:52 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:My biggest issue with the way GH handled his "legitimate government" topic wasn't with the semantics of that phrase. I'm happy to listen to whatever definition someone wants to use and operate within those boundaries, although sometimes I may not personally have an answer to every related question or hypothetical. My biggest issue was how he purposely slow-rolled the discussion + Show Spoiler + to the point where he knew people were going to get tired of him dodging the meaningful part of the conversation: is it sufficient to just call Trump's 2nd term "not legitimate", or should there be some kind of action taken to reinforce those words, and if so, what actions has GH taken (or what actions will GH take in the future) when he encounters illegitimate governments? It was silly when GH said he wouldn't answer those questions of substance until someone supported him, and then after Acrofales explicitly wrote out his full support, GH still wouldn't address the actions that ought to be taken, instead saying that one person was no longer enough and that we should all take a poll. The goalposts kept moving so that he'd never have to actually talk about the topic he brought up in the first place, even after Fleetfeet showed him an example of how to structure his flowchart. Given how frequently GH mocks and gawks at the rest of us for talking the talk but possibly not walking the walk, I found his virtue signaling (Trump's second term is illegitimate but GH doesn't want to do anything about it) to be hypocritical. Furthermore, given how much crap he gives many of us for engaging with a few other posters who are bad-faith or frustrating to talk to, GH didn't really give us a good alternative today. I was and still am happy to continue with you if you take a position supporting or opposing your opening premise. I didn't say you had to support your premise that "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government". I welcome you to give us your working definition of "legitimate government" regarding your position. Again, this isn't some radical request by me, this is basic conversational conventions for effective communication "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government" in your eyes" This is obviously (to me) DPB offering to take what he understands to be your position as 'truth' for the purpose of furthering the discussion. Your response to this seems to be asserting that DPB's understanding of your position is ACTUALLY DPB's position, and then asking him to elaborate on 'his position' in this context and also explain the phrase 'legitimate government' that he used (which, actually, you used first). Are these tactics you're using within, or without the scope of 'basic conversational conventions'? + Show Spoiler +You're correct with all of this.
It's his "opening premise", not mine, and I was happy to engage with it. He brought it up, not me. In fact, while I was able to elaborate on my interest in considering how effective a president is (responding to GH's comment about a naked crack addict), I freely admitted that I don't have an immediate, good answer as to what line delegitimizes a presidency, but I was content to work off the premise he had suggested to move the conversation forward (GH wrote "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence should be enough for most rational people imo" and I accepted that). That premise was fine with me, + Show Spoiler + which is why I followed up with all the questions that GH repeatedly refused to answer, which then prompted others to call him out. Typically I'd ask if you or someone else could try rewriting the questions/engaging as someone that actually personally agrees Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure. That's because if you're going to actually concede the point to move the conversation forward, you have to actually do so in your phrasing. I'll just demonstrate myself what that looks like in this case: What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate? Keep in mind, you're not obligated to accept the premise "Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure" to continue the conversation. But if you're going (to even pretend for the sake of moving the conversation forward) to agree, your questions have to change to something like what I just showed to reflect that. I believe I am communicating this issue clearly at this point. What are your answers to those rephrased questions? [What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate?] We need to work on that together while organizing with other like-minded people. I come at it through a Black Radical Tradition lens but the general tenets (the details of which being what we need to work on together among like-minded people since this is a bottom up project) of what needs to be done are pretty universal from what I understand. -Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation -Parallel Institutions/Mutual Aid Networks -Non-Reformist Reforms -Symbolic Defiance: Basically, publicly treating the government’s symbols, laws, or leaders as irrelevant or void -Legal and Constitutional Challenges (My interpretation on this is probably a bit of an outlier but I would include appealing to the international community for help/condemnation of the US's illegitimate government in this) Exactly how any individual can help most effectively necessarily varies based on a variety of factors, but those are the general things I believe we need to be working on. It's not a comprehensive list. Rather than be critical of anything I've said (don't worry, there will be time for that), let's keep a bit of a brainstorming energy going and we can all contribute our own ideas! Thanks for this! Appreciate the direct response and engagement. I'd suggest simply supporting/enabling louder political voices. Propaganda's part of what gets us here. Could you describe what you mean by this a bit. I don't know that I've seen you do so before? Sure. There's a stigma regarding socialism or socialist movements in general. I don't believe that's rooted in truth, and the pervasive message that 'capitalism bad' exists in the general consciousness close enough to the surface that it shows up often in popular culture. Currently popular US figure Brennan Lee Mulligan is known to go on anticapitalist rants frequently, musical artist Blackalicious is an example of a musician who touches on the subject lyrically, etc. Luigi's assassination being celebrated has anticapitalist flair. There's no shortage of examples, those are two more or less at random. Anti-capitalism is not a wholly unpopular message, where socialism has stigma associated. I don't care what the thing is called, I care about what it's calling for. Social media platforms allow free speech and are responsive to profit/view-maximizing methods, which can be exploited to forward anti-capitalist messages. On a minimal level this is exploiting engagement methods - literally liking/upvoting/commenting/whatever. On a broader level, providing a gateway/backdoor to your preferred politics through content creators that aren't primarily political on the surface (Youtube shorts from Blackbirdcoop stand as an example, though not necessarily an anticapitalist one) which is a powerful tool to 'trick' people into agreeing with socialist methods while circumventing the stigma. It also gives clearer pathways to collaboration. TLDR we know a lot of the mindfuckery that leads people to believe flat earth. If you can make people believe flat earth, surely you could make them believe socialism. Weaponize it.
Thanks for clarifying! That's more or less what I thought you meant.
A sort of Information Sovereignty as part of the parallel institutions seems to be part of what you're talking about. But you're also talking about sneaking subversive messages in/on more mainstream outlets.
Maybe that fits under parallel institutions, or maybe this sort of information warfare is its own thing?
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1353 Posts
On April 29 2026 09:38 Fleetfeet wrote:
TLDR we know a lot of the mindfuckery that leads people to believe flat earth. If you can make people believe flat earth, surely you could make them believe socialism. Weaponize it.
To be fair, flat earth hasn't had decades upon decades of state sanctioned propaganda run against it.
But otherwise I agree with you, propaganda (in the original meaning of the term) is important.
I think the turn of sentiment against capitalism is inevitable, if only because the US is more or less saturated in late-stage capitalism, and its problems will be both abundantly obvious and pertinent to the average person. Much of the developed world is also there or heading there. It's hard to be blind to the flaws of a system you are living in and being constantly being inconvenienced/oppressed by.
I'm just not sure the sort of anti-intellectual, conspiratorial spread of flat earth is a good model/comparison for the sort of change of sentiment. That would be a lot of people who maybe justifiably dislike capitalism, but don't actually understand socialism.
That can lead to a movement (I'll call a general shift of sentiment against capitalism a movement for simplicity) going to dark places. It's not like all of the propaganda against socialism is entirely unfounded, it took hold so deeply partly because of tribalism, but partly because it was during a time when certain 'socialist experiments' were showing, if not the flaws in socialism, then at least how an attempt at socialism can go very wrong.
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All system is a mixed system. Crying about capitalism is anti intellectual, perhaps except communism because it literally doesn't work if we go by the strict definition.
It's quite literally a complete waste of time and achieve nothing, other than for keyboard warriors and driving more pointless division discussion.
Much like arguing the % capitalism china actually is, what's the point again?
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On April 29 2026 10:01 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 09:38 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 29 2026 08:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 29 2026 04:20 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 23:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 19:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 17:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 16:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 13:16 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 09:06 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote] I was and still am happy to continue with you if you take a position supporting or opposing your opening premise. I didn't say you had to support your premise that "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government". I welcome you to give us your working definition of "legitimate government" regarding your position.
Again, this isn't some radical request by me, this is basic conversational conventions for effective communication "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government" in your eyes" This is obviously (to me) DPB offering to take what he understands to be your position as 'truth' for the purpose of furthering the discussion. Your response to this seems to be asserting that DPB's understanding of your position is ACTUALLY DPB's position, and then asking him to elaborate on 'his position' in this context and also explain the phrase 'legitimate government' that he used (which, actually, you used first). Are these tactics you're using within, or without the scope of 'basic conversational conventions'? + Show Spoiler +You're correct with all of this.
It's his "opening premise", not mine, and I was happy to engage with it. He brought it up, not me. In fact, while I was able to elaborate on my interest in considering how effective a president is (responding to GH's comment about a naked crack addict), I freely admitted that I don't have an immediate, good answer as to what line delegitimizes a presidency, but I was content to work off the premise he had suggested to move the conversation forward (GH wrote "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence should be enough for most rational people imo" and I accepted that). That premise was fine with me, + Show Spoiler + which is why I followed up with all the questions that GH repeatedly refused to answer, which then prompted others to call him out. Typically I'd ask if you or someone else could try rewriting the questions/engaging as someone that actually personally agrees Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure. That's because if you're going to actually concede the point to move the conversation forward, you have to actually do so in your phrasing. I'll just demonstrate myself what that looks like in this case: What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate? Keep in mind, you're not obligated to accept the premise "Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure" to continue the conversation. But if you're going (to even pretend for the sake of moving the conversation forward) to agree, your questions have to change to something like what I just showed to reflect that. I believe I am communicating this issue clearly at this point. What are your answers to those rephrased questions? [What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate?] We need to work on that together while organizing with other like-minded people. I come at it through a Black Radical Tradition lens but the general tenets (the details of which being what we need to work on together among like-minded people since this is a bottom up project) of what needs to be done are pretty universal from what I understand. -Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation -Parallel Institutions/Mutual Aid Networks -Non-Reformist Reforms -Symbolic Defiance: Basically, publicly treating the government’s symbols, laws, or leaders as irrelevant or void -Legal and Constitutional Challenges (My interpretation on this is probably a bit of an outlier but I would include appealing to the international community for help/condemnation of the US's illegitimate government in this) Exactly how any individual can help most effectively necessarily varies based on a variety of factors, but those are the general things I believe we need to be working on. It's not a comprehensive list. Rather than be critical of anything I've said (don't worry, there will be time for that), let's keep a bit of a brainstorming energy going and we can all contribute our own ideas! Thanks for this! Appreciate the direct response and engagement. I'd suggest simply supporting/enabling louder political voices. Propaganda's part of what gets us here. Could you describe what you mean by this a bit. I don't know that I've seen you do so before? Sure. There's a stigma regarding socialism or socialist movements in general. I don't believe that's rooted in truth, and the pervasive message that 'capitalism bad' exists in the general consciousness close enough to the surface that it shows up often in popular culture. Currently popular US figure Brennan Lee Mulligan is known to go on anticapitalist rants frequently, musical artist Blackalicious is an example of a musician who touches on the subject lyrically, etc. Luigi's assassination being celebrated has anticapitalist flair. There's no shortage of examples, those are two more or less at random. Anti-capitalism is not a wholly unpopular message, where socialism has stigma associated. I don't care what the thing is called, I care about what it's calling for. Social media platforms allow free speech and are responsive to profit/view-maximizing methods, which can be exploited to forward anti-capitalist messages. On a minimal level this is exploiting engagement methods - literally liking/upvoting/commenting/whatever. On a broader level, providing a gateway/backdoor to your preferred politics through content creators that aren't primarily political on the surface (Youtube shorts from Blackbirdcoop stand as an example, though not necessarily an anticapitalist one) which is a powerful tool to 'trick' people into agreeing with socialist methods while circumventing the stigma. It also gives clearer pathways to collaboration. TLDR we know a lot of the mindfuckery that leads people to believe flat earth. If you can make people believe flat earth, surely you could make them believe socialism. Weaponize it. Thanks for clarifying! That's more or less what I thought you meant. A sort of Information Sovereignty as part of the parallel institutions seems to be part of what you're talking about. But you're also talking about sneaking subversive messages in/on more mainstream outlets. Maybe that fits under parallel institutions, or maybe this sort of information warfare is its own thing?
I don't have strong feelings regarding its categorization - I think the simplest way is to compare stated goals of 'parallel institutions' vs I suppose I'll call it 'propaganda pathways'. Stated goals of 'propaganda pathways' being to disseminate either directly or subversively, information regarding why capitalism bad'. I loosely understand Parallel Institutions to have more of a harboring / fostering / tunneling role? You'd know much better how to categorize than I.
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On April 29 2026 11:14 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 10:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 29 2026 09:38 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 29 2026 08:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 29 2026 04:20 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 23:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 19:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 17:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 16:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 13:16 Fleetfeet wrote:
[quote]
"Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government" in your eyes"
This is obviously (to me) DPB offering to take what he understands to be your position as 'truth' for the purpose of furthering the discussion. Your response to this seems to be asserting that DPB's understanding of your position is ACTUALLY DPB's position, and then asking him to elaborate on 'his position' in this context and also explain the phrase 'legitimate government' that he used (which, actually, you used first).
Are these tactics you're using within, or without the scope of 'basic conversational conventions'? + Show Spoiler +You're correct with all of this.
It's his "opening premise", not mine, and I was happy to engage with it. He brought it up, not me. In fact, while I was able to elaborate on my interest in considering how effective a president is (responding to GH's comment about a naked crack addict), I freely admitted that I don't have an immediate, good answer as to what line delegitimizes a presidency, but I was content to work off the premise he had suggested to move the conversation forward (GH wrote "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence should be enough for most rational people imo" and I accepted that). That premise was fine with me, + Show Spoiler + which is why I followed up with all the questions that GH repeatedly refused to answer, which then prompted others to call him out. Typically I'd ask if you or someone else could try rewriting the questions/engaging as someone that actually personally agrees Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure. That's because if you're going to actually concede the point to move the conversation forward, you have to actually do so in your phrasing. I'll just demonstrate myself what that looks like in this case: What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate? Keep in mind, you're not obligated to accept the premise "Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure" to continue the conversation. But if you're going (to even pretend for the sake of moving the conversation forward) to agree, your questions have to change to something like what I just showed to reflect that. I believe I am communicating this issue clearly at this point. What are your answers to those rephrased questions? [What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate?] We need to work on that together while organizing with other like-minded people. I come at it through a Black Radical Tradition lens but the general tenets (the details of which being what we need to work on together among like-minded people since this is a bottom up project) of what needs to be done are pretty universal from what I understand. -Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation -Parallel Institutions/Mutual Aid Networks -Non-Reformist Reforms -Symbolic Defiance: Basically, publicly treating the government’s symbols, laws, or leaders as irrelevant or void -Legal and Constitutional Challenges (My interpretation on this is probably a bit of an outlier but I would include appealing to the international community for help/condemnation of the US's illegitimate government in this) Exactly how any individual can help most effectively necessarily varies based on a variety of factors, but those are the general things I believe we need to be working on. It's not a comprehensive list. Rather than be critical of anything I've said (don't worry, there will be time for that), let's keep a bit of a brainstorming energy going and we can all contribute our own ideas! Thanks for this! Appreciate the direct response and engagement. I'd suggest simply supporting/enabling louder political voices. Propaganda's part of what gets us here. Could you describe what you mean by this a bit. I don't know that I've seen you do so before? Sure. There's a stigma regarding socialism or socialist movements in general. I don't believe that's rooted in truth, and the pervasive message that 'capitalism bad' exists in the general consciousness close enough to the surface that it shows up often in popular culture. Currently popular US figure Brennan Lee Mulligan is known to go on anticapitalist rants frequently, musical artist Blackalicious is an example of a musician who touches on the subject lyrically, etc. Luigi's assassination being celebrated has anticapitalist flair. There's no shortage of examples, those are two more or less at random. Anti-capitalism is not a wholly unpopular message, where socialism has stigma associated. I don't care what the thing is called, I care about what it's calling for. Social media platforms allow free speech and are responsive to profit/view-maximizing methods, which can be exploited to forward anti-capitalist messages. On a minimal level this is exploiting engagement methods - literally liking/upvoting/commenting/whatever. On a broader level, providing a gateway/backdoor to your preferred politics through content creators that aren't primarily political on the surface (Youtube shorts from Blackbirdcoop stand as an example, though not necessarily an anticapitalist one) which is a powerful tool to 'trick' people into agreeing with socialist methods while circumventing the stigma. It also gives clearer pathways to collaboration. TLDR we know a lot of the mindfuckery that leads people to believe flat earth. If you can make people believe flat earth, surely you could make them believe socialism. Weaponize it. Thanks for clarifying! That's more or less what I thought you meant. A sort of Information Sovereignty as part of the parallel institutions seems to be part of what you're talking about. But you're also talking about sneaking subversive messages in/on more mainstream outlets. Maybe that fits under parallel institutions, or maybe this sort of information warfare is its own thing? I don't have strong feelings regarding its categorization - I think the simplest way is to compare stated goals of 'parallel institutions' vs I suppose I'll call it 'propaganda pathways'. Stated goals of 'propaganda pathways' being to disseminate either directly or subversively, information regarding why capitalism bad'. I loosely understand Parallel Institutions to have more of a harboring / fostering / tunneling role? You'd know much better how to categorize than I.
Fair enough, I don't think it's particularly important to definitively categorize it at this point. I think it's robust enough of an idea/concept to foster plenty of discussion around itself.
I'm imagining a parallel dedicated intra-information network of more "news" like information and then one arm of that being the "normie network" 'propaganda pathway'.
I don't want to get too far in the weeds until everyone that wants to has had an opportunity to contribute to the brainstorming work we're doing now but does that sound like I'm understanding you?
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On April 29 2026 11:01 ETisME wrote:
All system is a mixed system. Crying about capitalism is anti intellectual, perhaps except communism because it literally doesn't work if we go by the strict definition.
Yeah, it's a spectrum, anti-capitalism is advocacy to move towards the collectivized end of the spectrum because the current status quo isn't working.
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On April 29 2026 10:26 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 09:38 Fleetfeet wrote:
TLDR we know a lot of the mindfuckery that leads people to believe flat earth. If you can make people believe flat earth, surely you could make them believe socialism. Weaponize it. To be fair, flat earth hasn't had decades upon decades of state sanctioned propaganda run against it. But otherwise I agree with you, propaganda (in the original meaning of the term) is important. I think the turn of sentiment against capitalism is inevitable, if only because the US is more or less saturated in late-stage capitalism, and its problems will be both abundantly obvious and pertinent to the average person. Much of the developed world is also there or heading there. It's hard to be blind to the flaws of a system you are living in and being constantly being inconvenienced/oppressed by. I'm just not sure the sort of anti-intellectual, conspiratorial spread of flat earth is a good model/comparison for the sort of change of sentiment. That would be a lot of people who maybe justifiably dislike capitalism, but don't actually understand socialism. That can lead to a movement (I'll call a general shift of sentiment against capitalism a movement for simplicity) going to dark places. It's not like all of the propaganda against socialism is entirely unfounded, it took hold so deeply partly because of tribalism, but partly because it was during a time when certain 'socialist experiments' were showing, if not the flaws in socialism, then at least how an attempt at socialism can go very wrong.
For clarity, I'm engaging the hypothetical / thought experiment. I fully agree there are probable issues! I also don't endorse trying to sell socialism to people - that feels like an unnecessary uphill battle. Easier to sell co-ops or health care or safety nets that are 'socialist' without trying to directly sell socialism to people. Much less baggage, much easier to demonstrate why the thing might be good for them.
And with flat earth I'm just appealing to the sentiment that if people can sell a profoundly stupid and unscientific thing to certain citizens, then surely socialism, which is presumably more scientific and less stupid, shouldn't be impossible to sell to people.
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On April 29 2026 11:37 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 11:14 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 29 2026 10:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 29 2026 09:38 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 29 2026 08:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 29 2026 04:20 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 23:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 19:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 17:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 16:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:[quote] + Show Spoiler +You're correct with all of this.
It's his "opening premise", not mine, and I was happy to engage with it. He brought it up, not me. In fact, while I was able to elaborate on my interest in considering how effective a president is (responding to GH's comment about a naked crack addict), I freely admitted that I don't have an immediate, good answer as to what line delegitimizes a presidency, but I was content to work off the premise he had suggested to move the conversation forward (GH wrote "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence should be enough for most rational people imo" and I accepted that). That premise was fine with me, + Show Spoiler + which is why I followed up with all the questions that GH repeatedly refused to answer, which then prompted others to call him out. Typically I'd ask if you or someone else could try rewriting the questions/engaging as someone that actually personally agrees Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure. That's because if you're going to actually concede the point to move the conversation forward, you have to actually do so in your phrasing. I'll just demonstrate myself what that looks like in this case: What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate? Keep in mind, you're not obligated to accept the premise "Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure" to continue the conversation. But if you're going (to even pretend for the sake of moving the conversation forward) to agree, your questions have to change to something like what I just showed to reflect that. I believe I am communicating this issue clearly at this point. What are your answers to those rephrased questions? [What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate?] We need to work on that together while organizing with other like-minded people. I come at it through a Black Radical Tradition lens but the general tenets (the details of which being what we need to work on together among like-minded people since this is a bottom up project) of what needs to be done are pretty universal from what I understand. -Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation -Parallel Institutions/Mutual Aid Networks -Non-Reformist Reforms -Symbolic Defiance: Basically, publicly treating the government’s symbols, laws, or leaders as irrelevant or void -Legal and Constitutional Challenges (My interpretation on this is probably a bit of an outlier but I would include appealing to the international community for help/condemnation of the US's illegitimate government in this) Exactly how any individual can help most effectively necessarily varies based on a variety of factors, but those are the general things I believe we need to be working on. It's not a comprehensive list. Rather than be critical of anything I've said (don't worry, there will be time for that), let's keep a bit of a brainstorming energy going and we can all contribute our own ideas! Thanks for this! Appreciate the direct response and engagement. I'd suggest simply supporting/enabling louder political voices. Propaganda's part of what gets us here. Could you describe what you mean by this a bit. I don't know that I've seen you do so before? Sure. There's a stigma regarding socialism or socialist movements in general. I don't believe that's rooted in truth, and the pervasive message that 'capitalism bad' exists in the general consciousness close enough to the surface that it shows up often in popular culture. Currently popular US figure Brennan Lee Mulligan is known to go on anticapitalist rants frequently, musical artist Blackalicious is an example of a musician who touches on the subject lyrically, etc. Luigi's assassination being celebrated has anticapitalist flair. There's no shortage of examples, those are two more or less at random. Anti-capitalism is not a wholly unpopular message, where socialism has stigma associated. I don't care what the thing is called, I care about what it's calling for. Social media platforms allow free speech and are responsive to profit/view-maximizing methods, which can be exploited to forward anti-capitalist messages. On a minimal level this is exploiting engagement methods - literally liking/upvoting/commenting/whatever. On a broader level, providing a gateway/backdoor to your preferred politics through content creators that aren't primarily political on the surface (Youtube shorts from Blackbirdcoop stand as an example, though not necessarily an anticapitalist one) which is a powerful tool to 'trick' people into agreeing with socialist methods while circumventing the stigma. It also gives clearer pathways to collaboration. TLDR we know a lot of the mindfuckery that leads people to believe flat earth. If you can make people believe flat earth, surely you could make them believe socialism. Weaponize it. Thanks for clarifying! That's more or less what I thought you meant. A sort of Information Sovereignty as part of the parallel institutions seems to be part of what you're talking about. But you're also talking about sneaking subversive messages in/on more mainstream outlets. Maybe that fits under parallel institutions, or maybe this sort of information warfare is its own thing? I don't have strong feelings regarding its categorization - I think the simplest way is to compare stated goals of 'parallel institutions' vs I suppose I'll call it 'propaganda pathways'. Stated goals of 'propaganda pathways' being to disseminate either directly or subversively, information regarding why capitalism bad'. I loosely understand Parallel Institutions to have more of a harboring / fostering / tunneling role? You'd know much better how to categorize than I. Fair enough, I don't think it's particularly important to definitively categorize it at this point. I think it's robust enough of an idea/concept to foster plenty of discussion around itself. I'm imagining a parallel dedicated intra-information network of more "news" like information and then one arm of that being the "normie network" 'propaganda pathway'. I don't want to get too far in the weeds until everyone that wants to has had an opportunity to contribute to the brainstorming work we're doing now but does that sound like I'm understanding you?
Yup, seems accurate enough.
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On April 29 2026 09:38 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 08:07 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 29 2026 04:20 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 23:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 19:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 17:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 16:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 13:16 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 09:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 08:52 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:My biggest issue with the way GH handled his "legitimate government" topic wasn't with the semantics of that phrase. I'm happy to listen to whatever definition someone wants to use and operate within those boundaries, although sometimes I may not personally have an answer to every related question or hypothetical. My biggest issue was how he purposely slow-rolled the discussion + Show Spoiler + to the point where he knew people were going to get tired of him dodging the meaningful part of the conversation: is it sufficient to just call Trump's 2nd term "not legitimate", or should there be some kind of action taken to reinforce those words, and if so, what actions has GH taken (or what actions will GH take in the future) when he encounters illegitimate governments? It was silly when GH said he wouldn't answer those questions of substance until someone supported him, and then after Acrofales explicitly wrote out his full support, GH still wouldn't address the actions that ought to be taken, instead saying that one person was no longer enough and that we should all take a poll. The goalposts kept moving so that he'd never have to actually talk about the topic he brought up in the first place, even after Fleetfeet showed him an example of how to structure his flowchart. Given how frequently GH mocks and gawks at the rest of us for talking the talk but possibly not walking the walk, I found his virtue signaling (Trump's second term is illegitimate but GH doesn't want to do anything about it) to be hypocritical. Furthermore, given how much crap he gives many of us for engaging with a few other posters who are bad-faith or frustrating to talk to, GH didn't really give us a good alternative today. I was and still am happy to continue with you if you take a position supporting or opposing your opening premise. I didn't say you had to support your premise that "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government". I welcome you to give us your working definition of "legitimate government" regarding your position. Again, this isn't some radical request by me, this is basic conversational conventions for effective communication "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government" in your eyes" This is obviously (to me) DPB offering to take what he understands to be your position as 'truth' for the purpose of furthering the discussion. Your response to this seems to be asserting that DPB's understanding of your position is ACTUALLY DPB's position, and then asking him to elaborate on 'his position' in this context and also explain the phrase 'legitimate government' that he used (which, actually, you used first). Are these tactics you're using within, or without the scope of 'basic conversational conventions'? + Show Spoiler +You're correct with all of this.
It's his "opening premise", not mine, and I was happy to engage with it. He brought it up, not me. In fact, while I was able to elaborate on my interest in considering how effective a president is (responding to GH's comment about a naked crack addict), I freely admitted that I don't have an immediate, good answer as to what line delegitimizes a presidency, but I was content to work off the premise he had suggested to move the conversation forward (GH wrote "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence should be enough for most rational people imo" and I accepted that). That premise was fine with me, + Show Spoiler + which is why I followed up with all the questions that GH repeatedly refused to answer, which then prompted others to call him out. Typically I'd ask if you or someone else could try rewriting the questions/engaging as someone that actually personally agrees Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure. That's because if you're going to actually concede the point to move the conversation forward, you have to actually do so in your phrasing. I'll just demonstrate myself what that looks like in this case: What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate? Keep in mind, you're not obligated to accept the premise "Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure" to continue the conversation. But if you're going (to even pretend for the sake of moving the conversation forward) to agree, your questions have to change to something like what I just showed to reflect that. I believe I am communicating this issue clearly at this point. What are your answers to those rephrased questions? [What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate?] We need to work on that together while organizing with other like-minded people. I come at it through a Black Radical Tradition lens but the general tenets (the details of which being what we need to work on together among like-minded people since this is a bottom up project) of what needs to be done are pretty universal from what I understand. -Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation -Parallel Institutions/Mutual Aid Networks -Non-Reformist Reforms -Symbolic Defiance: Basically, publicly treating the government’s symbols, laws, or leaders as irrelevant or void -Legal and Constitutional Challenges (My interpretation on this is probably a bit of an outlier but I would include appealing to the international community for help/condemnation of the US's illegitimate government in this) Exactly how any individual can help most effectively necessarily varies based on a variety of factors, but those are the general things I believe we need to be working on. It's not a comprehensive list. Rather than be critical of anything I've said (don't worry, there will be time for that), let's keep a bit of a brainstorming energy going and we can all contribute our own ideas! Thanks for this! Appreciate the direct response and engagement. I'd suggest simply supporting/enabling louder political voices. Propaganda's part of what gets us here. Could you describe what you mean by this a bit. I don't know that I've seen you do so before? Sure. There's a stigma regarding socialism or socialist movements in general. I don't believe that's rooted in truth, and the pervasive message that 'capitalism bad' exists in the general consciousness close enough to the surface that it shows up often in popular culture. Currently popular US figure Brennan Lee Mulligan is known to go on anticapitalist rants frequently, musical artist Blackalicious is an example of a musician who touches on the subject lyrically, etc. Luigi's assassination being celebrated has anticapitalist flair. There's no shortage of examples, those are two more or less at random. Anti-capitalism is not a wholly unpopular message, where socialism has stigma associated. I don't care what the thing is called, I care about what it's calling for. Social media platforms allow free speech and are responsive to profit/view-maximizing methods, which can be exploited to forward anti-capitalist messages. On a minimal level this is exploiting engagement methods - literally liking/upvoting/commenting/whatever. On a broader level, providing a gateway/backdoor to your preferred politics through content creators that aren't primarily political on the surface (Youtube shorts from Blackbirdcoop stand as an example, though not necessarily an anticapitalist one) which is a powerful tool to 'trick' people into agreeing with socialist methods while circumventing the stigma. It also gives clearer pathways to collaboration. TLDR we know a lot of the mindfuckery that leads people to believe flat earth. If you can make people believe flat earth, surely you could make them believe socialism. Weaponize it. Luigi also has an anti-propaganda aspect. I would definitely weigh the Luigi-love against its effect of pushing more normies away from socialism (back towards capitalism if we're talking a push-pull). Consider the normie reaction to the California warehouse arsonist and firebomber of Sam Altman, both referencing him. You might even call it counter-revolutionary.
Then the issue among the more politically engaged is realizing how much mainstream socialists/prominent socialists that personally do not engage in violence also appear to shrug, or empathize, or refuse to condemn the Luigi-socialists that do. I'm speaking specifically into the negatives to the pros of " 'trick' people into agreeing with socialist methods" and "Luigi's assassination being celebrated has anticapitalist flair." I lean towards Luigi being a net negative to the socialists.
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On April 29 2026 11:41 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 11:01 ETisME wrote:
All system is a mixed system. Crying about capitalism is anti intellectual, perhaps except communism because it literally doesn't work if we go by the strict definition. Yeah, it's a spectrum, anti-capitalism is advocacy to move towards the collectivized end of the spectrum because the current status quo isn't working.
The US doesn't stop any company to become a more equal ownership for workers and management.
And 401k is pretty much tied to how well these companies are doing, and they are doing very well globally.
You have states like California raising tax on super rich and now in potential financial crisis.
You have social security schemes being exposed as massive fraud.
Again if you or someone don't see it as a legitimate government (lol), stop paying tax, go to the court and say you don't follow law from an illegitimate regime.
That's how things get put right. Socialism or not, more worker right movement or public health care etc were never out of spotlight, so this really is nothing new.
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So, UAE has left OPEC www.theguardian.com
The United Arab Emirates’ decision to walk out of Opec is a political as much as business decision, and will reignite the simmering rows between the UAE and Saudi Arabia – which had been covered up by their shared anger with Iran over its attacks on the Gulf states since the start of the US-Israel war on Tehran.
In the short term, leaving the oil producing cartel it joined in 1967 gives the UAE the freedom to respond quickly to a long-term prospect of constrained supplies, and to maximise profit. But it is a decision the UAE has considered before, as UAE and Saudi tensions over production quotas have been longstanding
The guardian is casting this as a way to court Trump's favour:
Determined to diversify, the UAE has been much more dependent on US good will than has Saudi Arabia. The decision to quit Opec may indeed cement the country as Trump’s diplomatic favourite, a status that could have investment consequences for the emirates.
What do you guys think this means for the war? Do you think it more or less likely that other gulf states will get involved? I am not sure, but it seems like the first step in this direction.
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1353 Posts
On April 29 2026 16:18 EnDeR_ wrote:
What do you guys think this means for the war? Do you think it more or less likely that other gulf states will get involved? I am not sure, but it seems like the first step in this direction.
I don't think it indicates much of anything for the war tbh.
The gulf states are right now largely irrelevant (outside of the damage they are taking and the flow on-effects of not being able to get their oil/gas out).
Whether or not they 'get involved' more or less is purely symbolic. Their actual military involvement is more or less superfluous. They are more or less already involved in the sense that they let the US use the bases on their soil.
Further involvement would probably be limited to just sending their own planes on a few bombing runs at best, likely it would be even more limited, to just expressions of support for US actions, or condemnation for Iranian ones. Less involvement would be requesting the US vacate some of those bases (probably the ones already largely abandoned to keep personnel out of the targeting of drones/missiles. They don't really have the hardware/personnel/expertise to get actually stuck in.
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The gulf states will not get directly involved against Iran, beyond what they are already, because all their precious infrastructure is in range of Iran and the US has shown it can no longer adequately protect them from cheap drones.
Saudi Arabia pushes Trump, together with Israel, for Iran war. UAE gets fucked in the crossfire and feels they aren't getting the support they deserve, so whats the point of staying in OPEC if they get nothing in return for it.
I don't think this is some advanced maneuvering, just tensions between SA and UAE.
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On April 29 2026 11:41 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 11:01 ETisME wrote:
All system is a mixed system. Crying about capitalism is anti intellectual, perhaps except communism because it literally doesn't work if we go by the strict definition. Yeah, it's a spectrum, anti-capitalism is advocacy to move towards the collectivized end of the spectrum because the current status quo isn't working.
It’s not even a spectrum. Norway is extremely capitalist in many ways and extremely “socialist” in others. People who yell about socialism know they are using a word that is totally meaningless in today’s political discourse.
On the right, you have the “if you want free healthcare, you want Venezuela” and on the left, well, you have people who don’t have a clue what they actually want so they use the word as a slogan, without ever saying if they want Denmark or a marxist utopia.
(That has been my problem with Bernie: he wants Denmark but he is selling The Revolution to his coffeehouse revolutionaries by using a word he knows everybody understands differently.)
Use words such as social democracy, and leave “socialism” where it belongs: to demagogues and loonies.
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On April 30 2026 01:10 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 11:41 LightSpectra wrote:On April 29 2026 11:01 ETisME wrote:
All system is a mixed system. Crying about capitalism is anti intellectual, perhaps except communism because it literally doesn't work if we go by the strict definition. Yeah, it's a spectrum, anti-capitalism is advocacy to move towards the collectivized end of the spectrum because the current status quo isn't working. It’s not even a spectrum. Norway is extremely capitalist in many ways and extremely “socialist” in others. People who yell about socialism know they are using a word that is totally meaningless in today’s political discourse. On the right, you have the “if you want free healthcare, you want Venezuela” and on the left, well, you have people who don’t have a clue what they actually want so they use the word as a slogan, without ever saying if they want Denmark or a marxist utopia.
I don't understand how any of this implies it isn't a spectrum.
(That has been my problem with Bernie: he wants Denmark but he is selling The Revolution to his coffeehouse revolutionaries by using a word he knows everybody understands differently.)
Use words such as social democracy, and leave “socialism” where it belongs: to demagogues and loonies.
This is on purpose. A lesser reason is because "social democracy" isn't really a term in Americans' vocabulary unless they closely follow international news/history and therefore are nerds (complimentary), but the main reason is because it's a backlash against a century of "but that's socialism!" being used to decry everything to the left of hunting the homeless for sport. It's intentionally weaponizing the fact that conservatives misuse the term.
In meme form:
+ Show Spoiler +
On April 29 2026 14:48 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 11:41 LightSpectra wrote:On April 29 2026 11:01 ETisME wrote:
All system is a mixed system. Crying about capitalism is anti intellectual, perhaps except communism because it literally doesn't work if we go by the strict definition. Yeah, it's a spectrum, anti-capitalism is advocacy to move towards the collectivized end of the spectrum because the current status quo isn't working. The US doesn't stop any company to become a more equal ownership for workers and management. And 401k is pretty much tied to how well these companies are doing, and they are doing very well globally. You have states like California raising tax on super rich and now in potential financial crisis. You have social security schemes being exposed as massive fraud. Again if you or someone don't see it as a legitimate government (lol), stop paying tax, go to the court and say you don't follow law from an illegitimate regime. That's how things get put right. Socialism or not, more worker right movement or public health care etc were never out of spotlight, so this really is nothing new.
I literally have no idea what you're talking about, did you respond to the wrong person?
The only thing I want to respond to is California is weathering this financial storm a lot better than most other states are, despite the federal government intentionally picking a fight with them in every way possible. Raising taxes on the wealthy is one of the smartest things they could decide to do. Are you aware this is currently working to get on the ballot and hasn't actually passed yet? Because you're talking about it like it already exists and has resulted in something bad.
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Rest in peace, Louisiana's 6th district. Louisiana was originally forced to change the majority-minority district to comply with the Voting Rights Act Section 2, as previously interpreted, to avoid the diluting of minority votes. Now, under the new tests, it doesn't pass the strict scrutiny required to permissibly discriminate on the basis of race. This is the so-called racial gerrymander, and now it's an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
5/10 on the wildness scale of gerrymanders
Alito delivered the opinion of the 6-member majority, and Kagan's dissent is pretty biting for those that like reading that sort of thing. Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter. + Show Spoiler +In the States where that law continues to matter—the States still marked by residential segregation and racially polarized voting—minority voters can now be cracked out of the electoral process. The decision here is about Louisiana’s District 6. But so too it is about Louisiana’s District 2. See supra, at 33–34. And so too it is about the many other districts, particularly in the South, that in the last half-century have given minority citizens, and particularly African Americans, a meaningful political voice.
You can bet this decision is on the chopping block if and when the Democrats can appoint a majority on the Supreme Court that think like Kagan-Sotomayor-Jackson. The full decision is a bit of a slog, but it preserves some bans on racist gerrymandering motivated by discriminatory purpose (the 15th amendment). Of course, the debate is ongoing on what constitutes districts drawn for a racially discriminatory purpose and what lawful steps a legislature can undertake to correct those alleged districts.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i.redd.it/r5fb0ovwzh131.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Louisiana%27s_6th_congressional_district_%28since_2025%29.svg/3840px-Louisiana%27s_6th_congressional_district_%28since_2025%29.svg.png)
