@whatzaname @HeavenlyPossum @passenger Unfortunately we don't have any model or approach to vouchsafing good lives for 8B plus humans that is certain to replicate or prove sustainable. We have to work from what exists, what we can imagine, and our judgment to decide how best to go forward.
In my view, the model provided by the Nordics is the most hopeful we have, even though of course there is no guarantee we can replicate it or render it sustainable. We can only try, this or something else.
@HeavenlyPossum @passenger I'd argue the Nordics don't merely exploit less, but provide more and better public goods than literally any societies in all of human history. No state need exploit me in order for me to die in the wilderness. They are doing something more than nonexploiting.
Of course it is possible that stateless forms of coordination could provide the same. I'd love to see an example.
@HeavenlyPossum @passenger "the goodness of states" is a phrase like "the goodness of people"—too broad to be meaningful. Under some circumstances many people are good. All people have the potential to behave badly.
the Nordic states exist and have endured for some time with a political economy—that includes the threat of worker militancy, thank goodness—that has vouchsafed a remarkable quality of life for a remarkably broad share of their populations. it's an existence proof, not a guarantee.
@HeavenlyPossum @passenger agree to disagree, we must, i'm afraid.
@passenger @HeavenlyPossum we do also see states like the Scandinavians, that provide all of those goods, and a degree of general security nearly unheard of in human history as a universal public good as well.
all states are imperfect, and even some very proud states might deserve the moniker "failed". it's unfair to compare only the worst thought-experiment outcomes under anarchy to only the best states. but there are and have been some remarkable states!
@kentwillard a problem is that the word "right" doesn't encourage balance. the core definition of a right is that it's something enforceable even over the objection of others. it's a trump card.
obviously when multiple "rights" conflict, they can't all trump one another. there has to be either a choice, or some balance struck that limits the exercise of some rights to help exonerate others.
but often, if something is a "right", people take its limitation or abrogation as a *prima facie* wrong.
[tech notebook entry] (Library + Script) vs (Application + Config File) https://tech.interfluidity.com/2023/11/14/library--script-vs-application--config-file/index.html
are there any Fediverse / open projects that aim to fill the TikTok niche?
how that could be done without invasive surveillance strikes me as… non-obvious… but i wonder if it's a thing people are working on. i know people who'd like to make TikToks, but prefer they not be, well, TikToks, or Facebook Reels, or YouTube shorts.
@SteveRoth just like in economics, the zero point often means less than we think, in life there is no neutral. trying to avoid "undue influence" is more a matter of conformity with expectations or hiding in behavior that can be considered widespread and so "normal" in that sense.
but for a country like the US — perhaps not uniquely, perhaps also for China, or India even — there can be no normal. our choices have outsize effects and will always be contested, "undue" to someone, I think.
@SteveRoth more of a stretch than Pakistan 2022 or Ukraine 2014? (I don’t consider these events US-orchestrated coups, but I certainly know people who do.)
“Recognizing that the administration’s hands are tied as long as Netanyahu’s coalition remains, Biden officials have again begun to inquire into whether a more moderate government could be formed in Jerusalem, a former US official familiar with the matter said.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-stances-frustrating-us-attempts-to-rally-arab-support-for-post-hamas-gaza/
// suppose US officials informally exert influence to accelerate a transition to a new Prime Minister. would that constitute a US-backed coup, in the way some claim Imran Khan’s ouster in Pakistan to have been?
@realcaseyrollins @gsymon yeah. that's my interpretation too, of trump both then and now. he is more narcissist than ideologue. i don't think he has much in the way of social or political views beyond a suite of inchoate resentments. but he admires, tries to appropriate, tactics he perceives as effective at accumulating power. hitler was a successful propagandist. trump wonders if he can't win from the same playbook. i do think he'll be more authoritarian in a new term tho, bc he was humiliated.
@gsymon @realcaseyrollins yeah. i might have been (was in fact) skeptical of the stories alone, but in combination with Trump’s remarks coming really quite close to Hitler’s, I’m persuaded.
@admitsWrongIfProven once you have tarred your enemy as occupiers or terrorists or war criminals or genocidaires, then it becomes easy to justify killing them. that is the sense in which this language is dehumanizing. just as in domestic politics, the way to justify cruel imprisonment is turning complicated people making complicated choices into "criminals", human sympathy is easy to overlook "war criminals" or "terrorists".
@admitsWrongIfProven (i agree it's probably a bit stitched together. i've lots of intellectual magma groping for expression these days. this was kind of a let-it-go.)
@realcaseyrollins I support big government, but not authoritarianism. I don't think Trump is into a national housing service and single-payer health care though.
Re Trump overtly imitating Hitler, we have this (old) story https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-ex-wife-once-said-he-kept-a-book-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bed-2015-8 and some pretty direct lifts https://boingboing.net/2023/11/13/trumps-veterans-day-speech-mirrors-hitlers-statements-almost-word-for-word.html
I disagree that authoritarians pursue smart military strategies in general, but I'd agree Trump would think they do.
@realcaseyrollins i hope we don't get to test either's substance. i do think trump intentionally borrows hitler's rhetorical tropes. i don't think it's (necessarily) because he's a hitler clone in a policy sense, it's because he admires authoritarian power and seeks to emulate techniques of those he sees as successful.
trump : hitlerspeak :: desantis : woke
they both think (well desantis thought) they had an easy cynical formula for persuading, and they pour it on.
but you can in fact be too cynical about the much maligned US electorate, and both of them are.
one of them might still win, because the US system makes every election a weighted coinflip and candidate idiosyncracies can only weight things so far.
but brilliant communicators or propagandists they are not. trump's skills have notably declined.
[new draft post] Pluralism or magnanimity? https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2023/11/13/pluralism-or-magnanimity/index.html
