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United States42973 Posts
On July 31 2025 00:31 Jankisa wrote:
We went from China being where we have all of our undesirable low level manufacturing to them stealing all of our IP and manufacturing know how and then using the money they gained from all of this to buy our strategic ports and a bunch of important companies.
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What both KwarK and Velr are having trouble understanding is that the argument is not "Capitalism bad" but "Capitalism bad for people who can't fight back", thus the Kongo and chicken argument, that's why China is buying shit all over Africa, that's why they are building highways all over Europe and Asia.
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EU is failing at being good at capitalism and China and US are eating our lunch. And this is not in the way "we should exploit our workers more", it's in the "we should use our leverage and stop being pushovers" way.
Posts like this are a big part of what I struggle with in that topic because it's just so all over the place that there's really no good way to respond to it.
Jankisa isn't the biggest culprit of this, MP is far worse, but Jankisa is the one who just did it so he's top of mind.
While writing this post I tried to summarize the thesis of the post but I genuinely can't, it just doesn't make sense. Capitalist China IP theft chickens highways Africa. It's the same set of issues I had with his last post, and with many of his posts, but this one is an excellent example of it. There's just nothing there to make sense of, China isn't beating the EU at capitalism and I don't know a good way to explain why that's not the case to someone who would assert it.
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On July 30 2025 23:45 Yurie wrote:Could we get Kwark to chill out a bit? + Show Spoiler +There was a short point made about how German companies think tariffs for cars are worthwhile. Since then we have had ~10 posts discussing if Germans are stupid in the US politics thread... On July 30 2025 23:22 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2025 20:24 Broetchenholer wrote:On July 30 2025 17:22 KwarK wrote:On July 30 2025 14:24 Broetchenholer wrote:On July 30 2025 10:36 KwarK wrote:On July 30 2025 10:23 BlackJack wrote:On July 29 2025 21:50 KwarK wrote:On July 29 2025 21:11 Jankisa wrote:On July 29 2025 20:34 Gorsameth wrote:On July 29 2025 20:22 KT_Elwood wrote:
[quote]
EU CEOs want to slash their central-european workforce anyway, they gonna eat the tariffs by killing jobs seems to be on the menu for us.
German steel? Dead.
German cars? Made in Hungary.
German Defense Industry?: Hiring in Romania.
German plastics and chemicals?: Call the Chinese office for orders.
except, once gain, the EU doesn't eat the tariffs. the US does. A German company does not pay 15% extra to ship steel to the US. The US client pays 15% extra to the US government. Can you please explain to us why is Germany desperate to sign the deal and get the tariffs down from 25 % to 15 % if this is such a non issue, the US is paying it, why would they care? www.ft.comHere are some quotes from industry and leaders in EU, even Mertz who praised the deal getting done is saying it will have negative consequences on the EU and German economy, why is this so difficult to understand? Why did EU humiliate itself and gave all these concessions if all tariffs are doing is making shit more expensive for the US? Where is the logic in this? You’re not understanding, despite the long post explaining it. The trade is mutually beneficial. The tariff is paid by Americans but still interferes with the trade. If Americans start taxing themselves more then the trade goes down and both sides lose. Germany is one of the sides that would lose and so they don’t want it. America is one of the sides and therefore they shouldn’t want it. But Trump doesn’t know the first thing about anything and he thinks that if Germans are losing then that’s somehow a win for him. Tariff = lose-lose is an oversimplification. For example the EU's 10% tariff on cars. Is the EU also too stupid to realize that tariff = bad or perhaps they think the protection it offers to domestic auto companies outweighs any negatives to their consumers? Clearly the EU thought it was "good" to have a tariff against US cars but if a US tariff against EU cars is automatically bad then I'd like to hear some reasoning for the discrepancy. German lobbying. The discrepancy is German lobbying? German lobbying is bad? Germans are stupid to not realize they are hurting themselves with tariffs? Care to explain? Not sure why you immediately jumped to “Germans are stupid” but maybe some are. First, can you be less of an asshole? Seriously, just try once not to be an asshole. I didn’t say, suggest, or imply that Germans were stupid. That would be a stupid thing to imply, everyone knows Germans have made huge contributions to the expansion of human knowledge over the years. But if you, a German, feel the need to jump in and straw man my view as “Germans are stupid” then you can’t subsequently whine if I partially agree with you. You were looking for a reason to be offended and found one in your own words, I wasn’t involved, you wanted to get upset. Show nested quote +On July 30 2025 20:24 Broetchenholer wrote:
As you before argued that tariffs are always bad and shooting yourself in the foot, you must believe that germans are stupid because they wanted to shoot themselves in the foot. 1. I didn’t argue that tariffs are always bad. That’s yet another attempt to put words in my mouth. 2. I don’t believe that Germans are stupid. I also don’t believe that industry lobbyists speak for an entire nationality. But again, if you really want to get offended by your idea that Germans are stupid then it’s your prerogative. Just don’t drag me into it. 3. Not all EU residents are Germans. If my argument is that German lobbying is making the EU is shoot its residents in the foot then that does not imply that they foolishly wanted to shoot themselves in the foot. They could want to bar Spaniards from buying cheaper imported cars in favour of German ones. The interests of German industry and of the rest of the EU residents are not necessarily aligned. 4. Not all Germans are car industry lobbyists. The interests of car industry lobbyists and all Germans are not necessarily aligned. If I suggest that German lobbyists have encouraged a particular policy then that is not a statement about the intelligence of the German people. 5. Nobody has to be stupid. People working for the German car industry can rationally want to force everyone to buy German cars without being stupid. This can be an objectively bad policy for the EU as a whole and still become policy without anyone being stupid. The good of the group and the good of subsets of individuals within the group need not be aligned. This whole discussion of stupid Germans is absurd. Nobody but you is arguing that Germans are stupid and I don’t know why you’re trying so hard to convince me that they are. I believe Trump to be stupid because of all of the things that he says and does. He's an individual. No part of my observations and conclusions about Trump can be extrapolated to the population of Germany.
Doubt it. Wish you the best of luck though!
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On July 31 2025 01:36 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2025 00:31 Jankisa wrote:
We went from China being where we have all of our undesirable low level manufacturing to them stealing all of our IP and manufacturing know how and then using the money they gained from all of this to buy our strategic ports and a bunch of important companies.
...
What both KwarK and Velr are having trouble understanding is that the argument is not "Capitalism bad" but "Capitalism bad for people who can't fight back", thus the Kongo and chicken argument, that's why China is buying shit all over Africa, that's why they are building highways all over Europe and Asia.
...
EU is failing at being good at capitalism and China and US are eating our lunch. And this is not in the way "we should exploit our workers more", it's in the "we should use our leverage and stop being pushovers" way. Posts like this are a big part of what I struggle with in that topic because it's just so all over the place that there's really no good way to respond to it. Jankisa isn't the biggest culprit of this, MP is far worse, but Jankisa is the one who just did it so he's top of mind. While writing this post I tried to summarize the thesis of the post but I genuinely can't, it just doesn't make sense. Capitalist China IP theft chickens highways Africa. It's the same set of issues I had with his last post, and with many of his posts, but this one is an excellent example of it. There's just nothing there to make sense of, China isn't beating the EU at capitalism and I don't know a good way to explain why that's not the case to someone who would assert it.
Your role in this forum is not to understand jankisa though, your job is to be a neutral arbiter of forum violations. If he rambles too much maybe don't respond to him instead of condescendingly explaining to him why what he wrote is irrelevant because of some wrong understanding or terminology used. And then keep doubling down on the perceived sleight of misusing a word or an argument despite him explaining what he meant and it was not what you were talking about.
Basically what you are complaining what I am apparently doing to you despite just asking a question for you to explain your post and offering bad examples if how you could be understood. And instead of just answering the question straight up you have to go on this rant how I am trying to entrap you in words you never said.
I just wanted to understand your position so that I could argue against it being slightly annoyed by the conversation so far and you keep on yelling how I think Germans are stupid.
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On July 30 2025 23:52 KwarK wrote:
The question should really be why I am being demanded to defend the intelligence of Germans in the first place when I never said anything to the contrary.
Also you'll note that when someone proposed that ridiculous straw man I dismissed it with a single sentence rather than engage it on its merits because there was no merits to engage it on. I'm not trying to have that discussion, I'm trying to shut it down.
Broetchenholer keeps trying to drag me into a discussion of whether Germans are stupid and I keep trying to get out of it.
I guess I need to give you the same advice I gave MP the other day: there is no cosmic law that demands you respond every time someone says something that you disagree with. If you are posting because you think it's interesting or fun or otherwise stimulating, then carry on. But it sounds like you feel compelled to respond in a discussion you have no interest in, just because the other person is saying things. You dismissed it with a one-liner. If broetchen responds with a 4-pagr offtopic treatise, you don't have to respond point by point. You can just dismiss it as drivel and go do something else for a bit. Nobody has you manacled to your chair forcing you to respond to every post. Or... blink twice if you do need to be saved?
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Northern Ireland25665 Posts
On July 31 2025 04:42 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2025 23:52 KwarK wrote:
The question should really be why I am being demanded to defend the intelligence of Germans in the first place when I never said anything to the contrary.
Also you'll note that when someone proposed that ridiculous straw man I dismissed it with a single sentence rather than engage it on its merits because there was no merits to engage it on. I'm not trying to have that discussion, I'm trying to shut it down.
Broetchenholer keeps trying to drag me into a discussion of whether Germans are stupid and I keep trying to get out of it. I guess I need to give you the same advice I gave MP the other day: there is no cosmic law that demands you respond every time someone says something that you disagree with. If you are posting because you think it's interesting or fun or otherwise stimulating, then carry on. But it sounds like you feel compelled to respond in a discussion you have no interest in, just because the other person is saying things. You dismissed it with a one-liner. If broetchen responds with a 4-pagr offtopic treatise, you don't have to respond point by point. You can just dismiss it as drivel and go do something else for a bit. Nobody has you manacled to your chair forcing you to respond to every post. Or... blink twice if you do need to be saved?
Happy cake day by the way!
I do kinda get where Kwark is coming from as I’m somewhat similarly minded, and I don’t have a massive issue with people pursuing whatever level of disagreement/contempt/nitpicking or whatever it is.
It’s nae a good look for a mod though. Especially when newcomers arrive to our hallowed boards. I know the lay of the land, been here a fair while and I’ve got pretty high confidence that the mods are all pretty impartial in doing their mod things. Including Kwark for the record.
If you’re a newcomer it’s a pretty bad, or confusing look. The latest MP/Kwark shitshow would be one such example.
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I want to thank BJ in particular (not just him, but I feel it's worth pointing out because of our own history of antagonism - in which I also carry fault) he decided to argue very truthfully from both my and KwarK's perspectives. I very much appreciate the effort/gesture. I didn't expect it, I'm not sure I deserved it, and I'm thankful for it. Thank you BJ for giving it a solid effort to interpret my argumentation in a fair manner.
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I am sick of reading posters shit on others based on their judgment of how much the accused has or hasn't talked (or allegedly even thought) about the right or wrong topics their whole life.
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I think a big part of the problem (besides what Drone mentioned previously) is that a lot of posters have a couple stereotypical ideas of politics outside of their personal Overton Windows rather than a comparable level of understanding to their own.
If your politics haven't really changed since ~18, then that's not really a surprise, it is problematic though. Particularly when posters want to try to incessantly bicker like they do with someone like BJ.
The idea that doing this is helping them win over people that might be amenable to the politics BJ or oBlade advocate otherwise is just wrong. If someone isn't already to these posters' left or also suffering from stockholm syndrome under Dems, then BJ and oBlade have been coming off as the more reasonable people in these petulant pissing matches. That's quite the accomplishment given their incoherent politics (as variations of libertarians).
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Northern Ireland25665 Posts
On August 13 2025 00:05 oBlade wrote:
I am sick of reading posters shit on others based on their judgment of how much the accused has or hasn't talked (or allegedly even thought) about the right or wrong topics their whole life.
In a thread where people eventually recognise the handful of regulars, and their general posting style, that’s going to naturally happen.
If I ran into a TL poster’s point on some Reddit thread, under a different username or whatever, I’ll just assess that point on its own sakes. It’s just an argument in a vacuum, I have zero idea who’s saying it, or why, I can’t assess it in any other way.
In an environment when most of us have years and years getting to know and observe other posters, I won’t necessarily.
What one doesn’t say, or what one chooses to focus on topic wise does reveal things. The idea it does not is preposterous.
Some may occasionally visit, we do have a StarCraft section. People know I’m a Toss enjoyer. Long-term posters also know I’ve been railing against Warp Gate for 15 years, and have consistently argued that Toss should be made harder to play at lower levels relatively speaking, and have a ceiling. And that I’ve frequently conceded that Toss has many frustrating mechanics to face if you play the other 2 factions.
Somebody who’s aware of that will parse my thoughts on theoretical buffs and nerfs through that lens, because I’ve years of not demanding straight buffs behind me. Somebody who’s unaware of my posting history may see the Toss icon and conclude I’m biased and just want Toss to be stronger and argue with me on that basis.
In small enough communities where you can recognise names, and start associating general positions with them, that additional context starts to very much come into play, and matter.
Of course that’s going to happen, that’s how humans operate.
That said for my part Ima take a bit of a break from such threads as I don’t think I’ve been particularly conducive to a good environment recently
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"GH is a right-wing troll" is probably the moment the US Politics thread "jumped the shark." There's no debate to be had there. Every 3rd post contains either "bad faith," "disingenuous," or "troll." I don't understand why anyone who believes someone to be a troll arguing in bad faith, that they would repeatedly engage with them. But it's not for me to judge. It's not really a problem you can moderate out of either. I'll probably take a big step back as it's become really exhausting and honestly kind of dull when people just want to insult each other's sincerity all day. It's probably best to just use that space as place for people to vent their frustrations, and of course, for GH to foment his revolution.
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That is just people not understanding that far left people, especially in the age of social media, are way closer to far right then left or center left.
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Northern Ireland25665 Posts
On August 13 2025 06:23 Billyboy wrote:
That is just people not understanding that far left people, especially in the age of social media, are way closer to far right then left or center left.
Closer how?
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United States42973 Posts
On August 13 2025 06:58 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2025 06:23 Billyboy wrote:
That is just people not understanding that far left people, especially in the age of social media, are way closer to far right then left or center left. Closer how?
They absolutely loathe neoliberalism. Conservatives and communists both agree that it’s the worst and that anyone who thinks it’s a basically tolerable state of affairs is the enemy.
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I think there are two catalysts to the escalation of hostilities in the political threads. One is Trump, plain and simple.
The other is a passive nurturing of hostilities. How?
What has changed in recent years is people turning to an "eye for an eye" mentality. Antagonism is something that has been allowed to spread. I believe I know the root cause of this, I mentioned the cause plenty of times, but now I just want to describe the situation we're in. Users are biting back more frequently, and this is being allowed for the sake of fairness. If one bite is ok, then a bite in return must also be ok. Two for two, three for three, and so forth. An eye for an eye.
I get banned when I'm being too antagonistic, which corrects my behavior. However, getting banned is a last resort that often goes unused. Plenty of people now are far too comfortable biting because they don't get banned.
Anyhow, I told the mods plenty of times over the last few years that this is happening, what exactly causes it, that I'm an opponent of allowing it, and that this is going to backfire and turn everything to shit. I fell on deaf ears.
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Northern Ireland25665 Posts
On August 13 2025 07:04 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2025 06:58 WombaT wrote:On August 13 2025 06:23 Billyboy wrote:
That is just people not understanding that far left people, especially in the age of social media, are way closer to far right then left or center left. Closer how? They absolutely loathe neoliberalism. Conservatives and communists both agree that it’s the worst and that anyone who thinks it’s a basically tolerable state of affairs is the enemy.
I think that is true, certainly. But they also vehemently disagree, often in diametric opposition on all sorts of other things.
The leftist to Fascist, or the inverse pipeline is a thing for specifically that reason.
If they were a magnet, and one side was ‘hating Neoliberalism’ and the other was ‘almost everything else’ , they’ll strongly attract on the former, and vigorously repel on the latter
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On August 13 2025 07:04 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2025 06:58 WombaT wrote:On August 13 2025 06:23 Billyboy wrote:
That is just people not understanding that far left people, especially in the age of social media, are way closer to far right then left or center left. Closer how? They absolutely loathe neoliberalism. Conservatives and communists both agree that it’s the worst and that anyone who thinks it’s a basically tolerable state of affairs is the enemy.
1. Conservatives do not loathe neoliberalism.
2. Even if they did, that's not how you determine that people's politics are similar.
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On August 13 2025 06:58 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2025 06:23 Billyboy wrote:
That is just people not understanding that far left people, especially in the age of social media, are way closer to far right then left or center left. Closer how?
I probably should have used tankie instead of far left as lots of people here self identify as far left, when I would consider them left. But the problem is that those who would then be tankie's don't like the terminology so it feels a little rock and hard place.
Some similarities are they often both position themselves as champions of the people vs corrupt elites, have a binary us vs them world view, revolutionary or radically transformative goals, cults of leadership, ends justify the means, intolerant of dissent (purity tests).
There are Russian and Chinese miss information campaigns that basically just change a few words like replacing globalist with capitalist to hit the different market.
And you are also right that there are some big differences, but if you look at our thread with who gets along and who does not, it is pretty telling. I'm sure there is also some enemy of my enemy going on and they figure they can duke it out later or whatever.
But most people expectation is that people the more left you get you will only agree with people slightly right of you and disagree more the further right someone gets. That simply is not how it ends up working out. People can disagree with the why's but our thread is a perfect example. GH has always gotten along better and agreed more with the rightwing people then with those center left. I believe this is why people believe GH is a rightwing troll, because to them logically it does not make sense that he would consistently agree with people on the right or that he would write a joyful post when Trump won the election.
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The US politics thread going 9 rounds because one user keeps alleging that Kwark is unbothered by dead Gazan children is really beyond the pale. Frankly it's defamatory and it accomplishes nothing but shitting up the thread. Where did this influx of users that have honed their debate skills on twitter/bluesky come from? Obviously a precarious situation since Kwark is a mod and actioning this nonsense would appear like favoritism but enough is enough honestly.
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If accusing people of that kind of thing was bannable their would be a bunch of actions incoming.
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Northern Ireland25665 Posts
On August 13 2025 07:56 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2025 06:58 WombaT wrote:On August 13 2025 06:23 Billyboy wrote:
That is just people not understanding that far left people, especially in the age of social media, are way closer to far right then left or center left. Closer how? I probably should have used tankie instead of far left as lots of people here self identify as far left, when I would consider them left. But the problem is that those who would then be tankie's don't like the terminology so it feels a little rock and hard place. Some similarities are they often both position themselves as champions of the people vs corrupt elites, have a binary us vs them world view, revolutionary or radically transformative goals, cults of leadership, ends justify the means, intolerant of dissent (purity tests). There are Russian and Chinese miss information campaigns that basically just change a few words like replacing globalist with capitalist to hit the different market. And you are also right that there are some big differences, but if you look at our thread with who gets along and who does not, it is pretty telling. I'm sure there is also some enemy of my enemy going on and they figure they can duke it out later or whatever. But most people expectation is that people the more left you get you will only agree with people slightly right of you and disagree more the further right someone gets. That simply is not how it ends up working out. People can disagree with the why's but our thread is a perfect example. GH has always gotten along better and agreed more with the rightwing people than with those center left. I believe this is why people believe GH is a rightwing troll, because to them logically it does not make sense that he would consistently agree with people on the right or that he would write a joyful post when Trump won the election.
I dunno if this even holds remotely true.
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EPT
