And now for a quick dose of reality to the Trump nonsense:

(The Guardian) Moscow has described the latest US peace proposals as unacceptable to the Kremlin, highlighting the limited progress Donald Trump has made on his promise to end the war in Ukraine since taking office in January.

Sergei Ryabkov, a foreign policy adviser to Vladimir Putin, said some of Russia’s key demands were not being addressed by the US proposals to end the war, in comments that marked a rare acknowledgment from the Russian side that talks with the US over Ukraine had stalled in recent weeks.

“We take the models and solutions proposed by the Americans very seriously, but we can’t accept it all in its current form,” Ryabkov was quoted by state media as telling the Russian magazine International Affairs.

Why would they talk about peace if they aren't under pressure or face the consequence of losing? Basic Russian thinking, which the "useful idiots" don't seem to understand.

Every time I point out what kind of an awful country the United States is, people look for ways to twist the facts so they don't have to acknowledge its long list of transgressions. — Tzeentch

Then we could have a conversation of the Bush policies and the response after 9/11. The 2003 invasion of Iraq is quite different from Korea and even from Vietnam, or the retaking of Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.

Pol Pot's power grab, which the US then supported in full knowledge of what Pol Pot was about. — Tzeentch

Is that really so?

During the 1970–1975 war, the United States provided $1.18 billion in military assistance to the Khmer National Armed Forces in their fight against the Khmer Rouge

It was Lon Nol, that the US backed up in the fight against Pol Pot. And Sihanouk claims (likely correctly) that the coup against him by Lon Nol was backed up by the CIA.



Only for the US to then, far later, to be in good terms with Sihanouk again. Which just shows how clueless the US can be in it's machinations. The US is simply one actor, even if important, that is one among many and often doesn't get it's agenda through. Here's Sihanouk with Reagan later.



So get your history and historical perspective correct, Tzeentch.

The Trump/Musk backed judge in Wisconsin lost. First real test of voter sentiment. — Mikie

Wow. Even handing out money didn't work. Which is totally disgusting and I'm really happy of the outcome.



Seems the time for Musk to quietly leave the arena and stop making it worse for his companies.

Is climate change a political "hot potato" which has bias around it? — Agree-to-Disagree

What do you think?

Climate change / Environmental policy in general
Nuclear energy / energy policy in general
Genetical research... human genome research
gain of function research
Economics... the old name "political economy" describes well the nature of this subject.
International relations / security policy

Many things can become "hot potato" issues. Usually you can see it when two sides bring totally opposite views that are "based on facts". Especially when the create a very emotional response.

And many things do have a moral character and a moral question behind them.

Do notice that many people who consider themselves to be either left / progressive or right / conservative are actually moderates and quite centrist, that do oppose violence and breaking the law, be it arson or vandalism by protesters or officials not caring about due process or rights when deporting people.

Actually many people are disgusted about both sides.

So again, you just have no idea? — Tzeentch

I know something about the history in South East Asia. Do you?

Pol Pot was supported by Mao and finally the Vietnamese kicked him out and into the jungles of Cambodia until even his supporters got enough of him. Vietnam retreated from Cambodia I think in 1989. And as usual, the US fucked up it's inconsistent Machiavellian policies and operations starting first with the Sihanouk regime and then with the fear of the Soviet backed Vietnamese. What else is new? Giving a list of literature on the US involvement doesn't refute in any way the fact that the major supporter of the Khmer Rouge was Mao's China.

Just to put into context the pathetic actions of the US in South-East Asia after the withdrawal from South Vietnam, here's a factoid from WIKILEAKS:

A WikiLeaks dump of 500,000 U.S. diplomatic cables from 1978 shows that the administration of President Jimmy Carter was torn between revulsion at the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge and concern with the possibility of growing Vietnamese influence should the Khmer Rouge collapse.

But did they give aid, just like the US gave intel to Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war? CIA did many stupid things, but then one has to look at the real military supporter of the Khmer Rouge.

Yet this doesn't seem to get through. Of course, again everything, EVERYTHING has to happen because of and only by the Americans, as there are no other actors, only proxies or victims. Would you even know or notice the Cambodian–Vietnamese War that actually put the end to the Khmer Rouge? And that this resulted in the Sino-Vietnamese border war? Unimportant because the US wasn't involved and hence something that the American historians won't look so hard into.

Anything without the Americans seems to be totally meaningless for you. That's your biggest problem. And this is the insane navel-grazing that either some Americans and anti-Americans fall into where they cannot see any other actors than their hated USA.

Pol Pot was possibly even worse, and guess who he was funded by? — Tzeentch

Mao.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were supported for many years by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its chairman, Mao Zedong; it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which the Khmer Rouge received came from China, including at least US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid in 1975 alone.

So... what is your point to @tim wood?

The US is exceptional. So exceptional in fact, that they get to commit a little genocide every now and then. Just a little. Or a lot. — Tzeentch

Well, there is the policies the US has done in the Middle East, in Central America and so on. Indeed much criticism there, which I've said myself. US Middle Eastern policy has been a giant horrible train wreck. In Latin America, the history is quite ugly also.

As I've said, Russia can have cordial relations for example with other BRICS countries and has had close ties since the time of the Soviet Union with India. I'm sure Putin hasn't been overtly hostile against India. Why would he be?



Yet it seems so utterly difficult to find and accept both positive and negative aspects from the policies of one country by some commentators here. Some can criticize one country (like US), but never say anything bad against another (like Russia), which simply shows that one isn't objective at all.

:smile:

There are also a lot of incorrect "facts", misinformation, disinformation, etc. How do you know that your experience of reality is correct and complete? — Agree-to-Disagree

- First, ask questions that have simple answers. It's the questions one poses that are important.
- Use Occam's razor
- New information has changed our World view many times through history. Yet that doesn't mean that the best theories we have now are useless.

If I'm proven wrong later and corrected, then that's good. I learn something new.

If there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation, 99% of it is detectable, if you have some basic knowledge of what basically should have been taught to you in school. And usually it's just something that is simply biased, someone pushing some agenda, not straight up lies. The easiest way to push an agenda is simply to select the facts and stay silent of anything that would question your objective or show the complexity behind the issue. Once you notice this, it's quite easy to live in an environment with mis- or disinformation.

Above all, if some issue is a political "hot potatoe", it's evident that there will be that bias around it. Give some time and the focus will be some other issue and you have a clearer view later.

and shouldn't be seen as a moderator comment. — Benkei

That's good to hear.

It's always the Americans that have no clue about what their own country gets up to. — Tzeentch

Especially when it's something that they actually did do well, which helped the World. Because they do hear about the things they did do wrong.

Funny that those good actions are usually attacked and absolutely hated especially by the MAGA-people:








But that all might be a distant memory in the future. Some Americans see all the above as failures. Actually the repulsive cartoons of Ben Garrison depict extremely well the how the MAGA-cult and the alt-right sees the World around them and their President. Notice the Vladimir Putin as the dove of peace.

ssu can you please stop discussing with an idiot? I've counted 15 performative contradictions in his last two posts. There isn't even an argument there and you're engaging him substantively as if there is. — Benkei

Very well, if you insist. Even if it's April fools day.

However this goes far deeper and shows the times we are living. First of all, this is a Philosophy forum. People here are more aware of issues than people who just focus on their work, spare time and friends. Hence the debates here are some sort of Canary in the coal mine.

Yet the fact is that with Trump supporters there usually isn't a valid argument. There's just catchy sounding ideas that have no touch to reality. Starting from the trade war we are going to see starting in earnest tomorrow. Or that your or my European country is going towards totalitarianism and the freedom of speech is threatened by liberals and wokeism. And people believe it. It think the interview that gave us between Fareed Zakaria and Aleksandr Dugin is very telling, even if Zakaria was trying to push Dugin to say something he didn't. Yet when you also listen to the Witkoff interview with Tucker Carlson, the real threat to Europe should be evident.

Ough. The imperialism is hard to miss. Since Dugin's latest book is about Trump's second presidency, he must be a quick writer. — jorndoe

Dugin's attitudes show the closeness of the ideas to the alt-right and Bannon.

The US is ripping off the band-aid, so to speak, that covered the other war-torn parts of the world after their injury from that global war. It would've been nice if it could have been done more gradually, but I believe doing it gradually would have been negotiated into doing the least amount to keep everyone happy. — alleybear

Who is going to be hurt with the ripping of the band-aid is here the real question.

I think it's the Americans themselves that have forgotten that this whole World order has served themselves a lot. The American elite and the foreign policy establishment has done a major error of not informing the American people about this. This is the fact that is totally missing from the understanding of the JD Vance's of today. Every fourth quarter from a dollar that the US government spends is debt, yet that hasn't been any problem as the World has needed dollars because of the reserve currency. What would the loss of the reserve status mean? Well, the US economy is roughly one fourth of the World GDP, so without the reserve status the normal status would be a reserve of one fourth or perhaps one third of the global currencies held. Not the 60% that it now enjoys now:



And here the counterargument that "What then would replace the dollar?" isn't valid. Nothing has to replace it. Throughout history there hasn't been a "reserve currency", only perhaps gold and silver, and you can use a basket of currencies quite easily to handle bigger amounts of money transfers.

How Trump's "Smoot-Hawley II" will go now, let's just see how awful that will be.

For example politicians here are forced to discuss eliminating “interprovincial” trade barriers in Canada. — NOS4A2

I've read about this. Canada has to really think a lot over when suddenly there's an actual border where there hasn't been an actual one earlier. And then truly look at other trade relations with other countries.

But the rhetoric from the state-funded news and its dutiful followers has turned alarmingly nationalistic and anti-American, with pundits discussing bullshit like guerrilla warfare or joining the EU. — NOS4A2

This is why I've said that talking about the 51st State and referring to the prime minister as "governor" is far more dangerous that it at first seems. Questioning the sovereignty of a nation state is like summoning up the devil. You either have extremely dark intentions, or you simply don't know what you are doing. Coming from an "expendable" country, we take these issues dead seriously.

Let's remind ourselves just how good the relations have been. Not only are there people like you or Canadians living in the US, there's about 1 million dual-citizens that have both Canadian and US passports. What is their role here?

The only lucky thing here is that Canadians understand that this isn't what Americans voted for when voting for Trump. But once the trade wars starts and if energy cuts from Canada produce rolling blackouts, the Americans can also have the grudge against the Canadians. It truly can get ugly.

Since most American manufacturing will be automated, American robot manufacturing will take off, and the network of homegrown stuff will continue to grow in a self reinforcing way. — frank

If it would be so, then you could compete with other manufacturers around the globe. But there's a scary alternative that can happen: once imports decrease, there is ample demand for the current manufacturers just to keep things as they are and not invest in tech. If American manufacturers aren't competing with the outside World, why would they have to extensively invest in technology and focus on competitiveness?

What's being undone here is neo-liberalism. — frank

What's being undone is Globalization. And in World history when globalization has decreased, bad things have happened.

Just think of this Philosophy Forum itself. Here people around the World are talking about philosophy and politics on a site that I assume has the actual servers in the US. (One can correct me if I'm wrong here.)

Assume if a tariff barrier is put up and any European or Australian that would want to participate on this forum had to pay a long distance call toll of yesteryear, meaning this posting would cost me let's say five euros and just to view this pages would cost me tens of cents per minute. You think there would be many participants for Europe or Australia then?

We just take it for granted, but this whole forum is something thanks to that "neo-liberalism" and "globalization". Do we want to throw it all away?

It has to be said that the British Republican party was exceptionally inept at implementing Brexit and capitalizing on opportunities it created. — ChatteringMonkey

And how professional and able you think Donald Trump will be in capitalizing on the opportunities a trade war against basically everybody? You think there's going to be these advantages?

Just think about it. What could have the UK done to give the promised wonderful future that the Brexiteers argued at? What was to be that great solution with Brexit? There wasn't any. That's the whole issue here. It wasn't that the Conservatives were exceptionally inept, the fact was that the idea of getting this incredible jolt of prosperity from withdrawing from Europe was simply total horseshit, a straight lie.

Just look at how trade with the EU has gone:



And compare then the total trade of the UK:


As both tables above are comparable with each other, one can easily see just how important even today the EU is as a trading partner for the UK. The only thing that has happened is that imports from the EU have increased while the exports from UK (both to EU and in total), after 2020 Brexit drop and recovery have in the last years decreased.

Yes, that's been quite troubling for sure. That spells out something far beyond any domestic issues that are present, as far as i can see. — AmadeusD

And this is the real problem with authoritarian regimes: once in power, they can easily implement to utterly crazy policies simply because they can, which their supporters when electing them didn't at all anticipate. Trump's insistence on annexing Greenland and Canada are on the less serious side on this, because there simply isn't any support for this even in the US. These (hopefully) just stay on the level of Trump's and his administration talking points in the similar way that purchasing Greenland was in the first Trump administration.

Yet there is a huge brake that limits the Western democracies in falling into authoritarianism, and that simply is the case of that we've seen in history what authoritarianism leads to and how it has utterly failed. In the 1930's it was totally different: for example Finnish journalists visiting Germany under the rule of the Nazi party could easily notice that democracy wasn't working, but they did notice the positive side how it looked back then. Because up until then, the Weimar Republic has been very volatile with coup attempts and various armed groups fighting it out on the streets. Unemployment was down and many things seemed to be improving. The most eccentric issues of the Nazi ideology could be brushed aside, which later couldn't be as the ugly reality came into light. You could back then easily read the "Mein Kampf", but to think that this is truly the playbook the Third Reich will go with only started to dawn to people in the late 1930's.

With the US there's January 6th. If Trump would really have wanted to do a self-coup, that would have been the moment as back then the Democrats wouldn't have fathomed that any US president could grab power in a self-coup. There would have been the strategic surprise and the backdrop of people storming the Capital. Now the Democrats think it's totally possible. And this puts the Trump team under scrutiny of every move they can make and every fight Trump has with a judge is viewed in this context.

So does this refute my original argument. Perhaps it leads to a situation of "authoritarianism light", where you can have changes through the ballot box, you can have democracy still prevailing with some authoritarian sidesteps being taken and things like habeas corpus not being followed. The US still has a strong economy and most of Americans feel being prosperous and OK.

In the overall it will probably hurt the US economy, in the short term at least. The long term is hard to say really. But yes, I'm also sceptical that you can just un-globalise from a world-economy because of supply-chains being so international and markets becoming smaller. — ChatteringMonkey

Just look at Brexit and the thread that we have here on PF. Now basically the last thing that the Brexiteers, who were so enthusiastic about Brexit, emphasize that the "will of the people" in the vote should be respected. And that's it. Nobody is trying to argue about green chutes or the benefits that Brexit has given to them. Yet for many years until Labor took over, they were anticipating the benefits of Brexit to be just around the corner.

And if everything goes to hell in a handbasket, the MAGA crowd won't admit it, and only will start to bitch about the economy when an administration lead by the Democracts replace the Trump administration.

I collect these little predictions that are given to me and store them so when they prove to be right or wrong, I recognize whom said what. And so far you’re batting zero, my friend. — NOS4A2

Two months is a very short time, NOS. But I think the largest issue is the intentional unraveling of the alliance system that the US has had. Now, as we are talking about Trump, he could do these incredible 180 degree turns rapidly. For example, he could just gather around all of the US treaty allies and then say that this is the "tough love" to shove them to bear their part in the defense, yet that the US is still committed on it's treaties. That's all that Trump could do.

But when he doesn't do it, then you have journalists really contemplating the possibility of the US taking military action to annex Greenland or even Canada. Now it's still quite hypothetical. Yet it is one thing for Europe to carry more weight in the alliance, a totally different issue is to seek replacement for the alliance. Both situations call for larger defense spending, but in totally different situations. And when you have for example Germany starting a discussion of getting it's own nuclear deterrence, which it could btw. do rather easily if push comes to a shove. (See Germany debates nuclear weapons, again. But now it’s different.)

And let's see if Trump goes ahead with what the tariffs he has promised in a few days from now. Will we have stagflation, recession or deflation because of markets going down? Anyway, the next six months doesn't seem so rosy. That the stock market has gone down, but the dollar hasn't been the refuge is a bit alarming. Gold on the other hand has gone up quite a while. Which actually isn't good news (but something I've invested in for many years now).



The idea that international trade is bad is simply stupid. Yes, globalization has meant that manufacturing has gone to countries with far lower salaries and hence the production has been cheaper. Yes, indeed you argue that it has been an income transfer from the workers to the capitalists. Yet the idea of transforming this by tariffs is strange, because still the labor costs in the US are far more higher and hence it will cost more to produce in the US. Throughout economic history, the argument for trade barriers has been to create an industry capable of competing in global market. Then the attempt has been successful, when the objective is to be do away with the tariffs in the long run. Yet if the policy is to have tariff's and trade barriers to sustain and industry, that is a ruinous policy, which has been implemented a lot in Africa and third world countries.

Simply put it, mercantilism didn't work. But Trump thinks it will.

Yup it's not about the world, but about America first. — ChatteringMonkey

That's the lie that people believe in. The truth is that you are better off with international trade than you are without it. In the end, Trump is just hurting Americans. But this is what Trump has been thinking all his life, that foreigners cheat the US. He will continue with this, now when there's nobody taking the executive orders from his desk that he then forgets.

(Trump's message in the 1980's about Japan)

Ask China. They seem to be thinking of Russia as a stable partner. — ChatteringMonkey

The two countries are neighbors, they have had good relations and Russia desperately needs now China. As you say, they cannot be too picky. And the likely outcome is that Russia will perhaps thank the US for giving Ukraine to it, and then continue with China.

If they take Greenland and Canada, divide Europe together with Russia, then European countries probably don't pose much of a threat to them. — ChatteringMonkey

That's not going to happen. What Trump will do is to alienate it's allies and wreck the American economy. And Russia will be very happy about it.

Now of course I can be wrong here and if I'm wrong, I'll admit it. Trump can fail even in wrecking the American economy and this can be an era of US mental breakdown, which then turns to normal again.

if they can balance the budget it might just save the government from insolvency — NOS4A2

@NOS4A2 again high on something or dreaming. The budget won't be balanced, not for a long time.

Last year the federal government spent $6.75 trillion and spent far more than it collected, thus the deficit for 2024 was $1.83 trillion. That's 27%, more than one quarter of every dollar that the US spends. Social Security, Health care, defense and the interest on the debt took over three quarters of every dollar spent.

And then there's the accumulated debt and the interest on the debt, which is now a bigger cost than defense spending in the US even with the low interest rates, now averaging about 3,3% for the debt that the US holds:

Net interest has been exploding over the past few years, with payments rising from $223 billion in 2015 to $345 billion in 2020 before nearly tripling to $881 billion in 2024. In 2025, CBO projects net interest will total $952 billion, a near-record 3.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and interest will eclipse its record as a share of the economy in 2026.

And how volatile this might be, think that 3,3% is quite low in historical perspective:

It could easily be double of this, and that 6% would be a real difficulty.

So just think about that in balancing the budget. Good luck finding well over one trillion in "waste". And notice the effect that such decrease in spending will have in the economy. So balancing the budget is in my view, a fantasy now.

Then there's the Trump tax cuts: "Extending the expiring 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) would decrease federal tax revenue by $4.5 trillion from 2025 through 2034. The House budget resolution allows a $4.5 trillion increase in the deficit from tax cuts over the next decade so long as spending is cut by $1.7 trillion."

Sorry, but there's only one way this will end sooner or later. With a dollar crisis. Or then you can use that hefty inflation and use the inflation tax. Or then you can just default.

No.

First of all, if you would live in a country with cold winters and snow, you would notice the cold weather. And I've been to the tropics, so I know how different the climate can be on this planet. The reality we are talking about isn't a subjective experience. We have subjective individual experiences, but we do share the same reality. One shouldn't confuse these two.

:lol:

No, actually very apt for our time.

The latest corruption: Trump has pardoned a campaign donor, who's represented by AG Pam Bondi's brother:

Trump pardons Nikola founder Trevor Milton

Milton and his wife together made contributions last October to President Trump's reelection effort totaling over $1.8 million, federal records show. — Relativist

This is what Trump's America is.

The proper term in English is “cession”. — NOS4A2

Assuming the Kingdom of Denmark gives away Greenland. If not and Trump takes it anyway, that is an annexation.

Given the constant shift towards totalitarianism in Europe at the present moment — NOS4A2

:snicker:

Perhaps in Hungary, something like that indeed...

It's from the horse's mouth. — Hanover

Good.

There's a lot of that in our world today. (And refraining to put some whacky picture of a horse's mouth here)

The main concern is quality. Embedding YouTube without original content will get it deleted. — Benkei

I'd hope at sometimes when the actual primary source is a Facebook posting or heck, a Signal-posting, then the actual source could be referred than to a news article concerning this. I find it good that moderator discretion is used.

For example, if Trump announces that the US is leaving NATO in a post in X with Elon applauding the act, would it still be OK to post this?

I totally understand the concern of dis/misinformation and usually I try always check everything I refer to that it's not fake. And I try to put at least the link to the source, even if it's very easy simply to copy paste the quote and find the actual link.

And if something is deleted, OK, fine. Hope that doesn't mean that people will be banned.

I've seen this pattern too, people just posting videos (sometimes hours long videos) without explaining anything about why they're posting it, how it's relevant to the topic, anything. — flannel jesus

This naturally shouldn't be done. And if you have a video, please explain in written just what it says or tells or what is the meaning for you to post it. If it's a longer one, good way is to give actual time when somebody says something that you think is so important.

So why are you worried about a little bit of global warming? — Agree-to-Disagree

I've participated in the thread far longer that you have been a member, and I'm one of the ones that is an optimist here... if optimism means that you don't believe in the end of the World.

We are extremely adaptable and our societies are far more capable of handling environmental challenges than earlier societies in history. Things what for them caused famine and possible destruction of the society are for us inconveniences. Yet those inconveniences will affect your and my life. Or are already affecting.

And that being said, global warming or climate change has to be taken seriously. It is already having adverse effects and it does create then political instability, crises and wars. The link is just hard to see.

Should one be worried about it? Well, define being worried. I'm also worried that Europe is going closer to a war especially if Russia wins in Ukraine. Do I lose sleep over that idea or that climate change will have negative affects around the World?

No, but that doesn't mean that they aren't real threats to us.

And I think the proper thread where these issues have been discussed is the Climate Change denial -thread.

Science denial seems nonsensical. Where do go from that, if it's not just climate denial?

Reality denial?

And anyway, the world will end, as I stated on the first page of that Climate Change denial -thread in the most positive way:

No, the sun will not kill all life on this planet for some 5 billion years or so. The future after that is bleak for life on our planet. — ssu

His gamble didn't pay off, but then there would probably never have come a better moment... I think it was pretty calculated. — ChatteringMonkey

Yet the fact is that Putin is a gambler. He did gamble with the annexation of Crimea and that worked well. He gambled with Syria and lost. He gambled again with Ukraine with the invasion in 2022 and that didn't go so well. But if he can snatch victory (thanks to Trump), why wouldn't he gamble more?

I think you are giving Trump to much credit, the Greenland to Panama Canal idea of total security for the American continent has been floating around for a long time. — ChatteringMonkey

Do notice the huge difference: Trump talks of annexation, of enlarging the territory of the US. That is totally different from the usual neo-imperialist playbook. It really is 19th Century imperialism. In neo-imperialism you make regime changes and focus on the trade and security agreements, not the territorial expansion of your own country. This is what makes this so strange and the war in Ukraine so different.

I think it does make sense if you see the global liberal democratic order, NATO, as a problem in itself that needs to be dealt with... — ChatteringMonkey

So now the US is the enemy?

How does that benefit the US?

If you want a less globalized world and reduced involvement of the US, Russia could be a more stable partner in a multi-polar world. — ChatteringMonkey

A more stable partner? Did you notice how stable it was when Prigozhin made his coup attempt? Did you notice that the prior leader Yeltsin had to fire with tanks his Parliament? A country where in the last 125 years one and only one leader of the country has normally retired from office without being deposed or killed or then died at old age while still in office. That you call a stable government?

And oh yes, we naturally want less globalized world, less prosperity, less wealth for everybody. Because trade is bad according to Trump. What a wonderful objective for the World.

I suspected someone has told him it’s not going to happen. — Punshhh

In polls, 70% of Americans don't want to annex Greenland and 84% of Greenlanders don't want to join the US. Notice that even our own MAGA-follower here hasn't come to defend Trump's great ideas of annexing Greenland tells how the MAGA people think about this subject. It's not what they voted for Trump to do and spend time on.

How delusional can this get?

JD Vance put up his best effort to portray this enormous brainfart as being something logical. Yet that US officials went house to house looking for someone that JD and Usha could visit, and nobody would welcome them, tells what a disaster this has been. And the Greenlandic travel agency, Tupilak Travel, that at first agreed to host the couple, issued the following statement:

“When the American consulate called yesterday to ask if the wife of the U.S. Vice President, Usha Vance, could visit our store on Friday, we replied that she was welcome. After all, everyone is welcome in our store.

“However, upon further consideration, we have now informed the consulate that we do not wish to host her visit, as we cannot accept the underlying agenda and do not want to be part of the media spectacle that will inevitably follow,” it read.

“No thanks to [a] nice visit… Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders,”

So Vance avoided a really nasty photo-op with frightened and angry Greenlanders demonstrating against the couple. Because last time when Trump's son was in town, the whole visit came as a surprise and the local drunks from a bar happily joined a photo op.

This actually simply shows the bizarre ineptness of the Trump White House.

Trump comes up with these brainfarts and the people closest to him, his own family members and the vice president, try to do something about it. Does he somehow use his State Department or the CIA to organize a scheme to get Greenlanders on his side? No. Trump is genuinely interested in the American flag flying over Nuuk, not Greenland to be an independent state with very close ties to the US, which would be something even more an irritant to Trump as the few Greenlanders could defend their country even less than Iceland can.

Hence this is a non-starter. Unfortunately this isn't the only brainfart that Trump has. His hatred against international trade is even more dangerous.

I don't think that scaremongering and exaggeration accompany those views. — Agree-to-Disagree

Ok.

If anything there is reassurance that things don't need action and understating any possible risks. — Agree-to-Disagree

What exactly you mean by this?

Here are the questions:

Why do most people go on holiday to places that are warmer than where they live? Do these people have a death wish?

Why do many people retire to warm places like Florida? Do these people have a death wish?

Why are these scientific facts true? — Agree-to-Disagree

? ? ?

What?

Sorry, but as @Punshhh said above, this sounds very strange.

I do live in a country that even still has snow and cold winters. And yes, without clothes, you would freeze to death if being outside in the winter, which wouldn't happen in the tropics. Yet the human race has adapted to a cold climate well for a very, very long time.

Yet what does this have to do with climate change?

No. It's just a hobby. — Agree-to-Disagree

What's your real point?

I accept that climate change is happening but I don't like the scaremongering, exaggeration, and bigotry that usually accompanies it. — Agree-to-Disagree

As if that doesn't happen with the those who argue that a) climate change is not happening or b) if it's happening, it's not man made?

They the more tolerant side here that are far more open for discussion?

****************************************
Science denial. Is it one step more from the definition of "climate-denial"?

Listened to JD Vance's speech in Greenland.

To me it seems like an acknowledgement that the delusions of Trump of annexing Greenland are in fact truly what they have seemed to be: totally delusional fantasies. And now the message from JD Vance is that "Denmark hasn't done enough for the defense of Greenland" and that "Greenlanders, if they choose sovereignty, should come closer to the US".

OK, let's just think this through.

For starters, if Greenlanders opt for sovereignty, that means that they aren't going to be part of the US. And what Denmark can say is the following: "We hear you loud and clear, we will put more to the defense of Greenland". And that's it. They'll put more resources to defend Greenland. What can the US say if a) Greenlanders don't want to be part of the US and b) Denmark reinforces the defense of Greenland?



Nothing.

As there is not even an Astroturf movement in the US for annexing Greenland, so this is a nonissue after what JD Vance said. Just one of those brainfarts of Trump, which he won't let to be. The US could perhaps engage the Greenlanders on having sovereingty, but that doesn't make sense. They could easily do the same thing with Denmark and the end result is that Greenland won't be a part of the US. If it's either independent or part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

So here the promise from the Inaugural address of Trump won't happen: that the territory of the US will become larger.

It still might happen in Panama.

Here is where I disagree. Deterrence is not messaging on its own. It's messaging with the threat of actual military force to back it up. I think Putin has a reasonably good idea of what we are capable of without the US, and probably knows we would have a hard time pushing back Russia on our own. In poker they say, you can only bluff or represent a hand that you could reasonably have considering how you played up to that point... we haven't exactly shown a lot of strenght up to this point. — ChatteringMonkey

If Putin is so reasonable, why did he attack Ukraine? Why did he think it would take only a few weeks? The fact is that he thought and what was briefed to him was that the Ukrainians wouldn't fight back, that it would be like Crimea all over again. Or Czechoslovakia in 1968 again.

We should show that strength, and appeasement isn't that.

There's not much pressure from the US now, that's right. From the point of view of Europe that is a fact we need to deal with. Maybe we could have tried to convince the US with a more coöperative and less antagonistic approach, but it would likely not have mattered much considering the ideological hate they seem to have for Europe. — ChatteringMonkey

This actually is the real problem, because Trump actually doesn't see any value whatsoever with NATO. He doesn't seem to understand that he is giving the ultimate prize to Russia and China by crippling US power himself. It's quite evident that Trump or his supporters don't realize how much prosperity the US gets from the dollar being the reserve currency, and it's role isn't because the US is so economically awesome.

The only "logical" reason I come to is that Trump truly sees things as personal matters and while business with Russians have been so important to him, why he had these ideas of building hotels in Russia. He also likes autocrats. Then he hates the democrats, the liberals whining about an rules based order, he truly sees all this as a great opening to improve ties with Russia. Just like Canada being the 51st state or the US annexing Greenland. Both of these ideas start to be fantasies of a delusional old man. Yet deals with Russia might be personally very lucrative for Trump, just as is dealing with the Saudis and Gulf State leaders. No EU leader will start talking about issues like this, because it would be their ass on line if they tried to bribe Trump.

Yet geopolitically it doesn't make sense. NATO without the US is still over 600 million people and surpass in every measure (except nuclear weapons) Russia. Furthermore Russia isn't the Soviet Union.

then what were preventing these tendencies in the past (prehistoric times) if there were no police, law enforcement, or laws protecting their livelihoods?

That would only be the imaginary part? — Shawn

It's a mistake to believe that before modern police and law enforcement or written laws there was just total anarchy without any laws. The benefits of having rules is evident in any society, be it family, a tribe or a larger entity of people. Protecting your property and your family members or members of your pack is obvious, actually even with animals.

(A lion pride is very effective both in hunting and in protecting the cubs... assuming there's plenty of food to feed everyone.)


With humans, this develops very quickly to much more than a mother protecting her offspring from predators or a pack taking care of it's members. If you went to steal cattle or a wife from some village, likely the villagers would form a group to take back the stolen property or people. This develops quickly to organized responses, which we would call warfare.

Coming back to the subject, just look at the history of "the police" and how it has evolved through time. Modern police evolved basically in the 18th and 19th Centuries, even if Sheriffs and similar offices had been around for far longer. It was Michel Foucault who wrote that the contemporary concept of police as a paid and funded functionary of the state was developed by German and French legal scholars and practitioners in public administration in the 17th and early 18th centuries. You do have earlier nightwatches etc. and hence there is no radical transformation from earlier times.

And what is totally normal behavior universally is that if the police lose their authority, lose the ability to keep the peace, then vigilante groups take their role quite quickly fill in the void. This can be seen from many examples when countries have fallen into civil war. This fact just shows that a society without a functioning police will quickly form something to fill this void. At worst, the vigilantes can easily turn into criminal gangs simply from the fact that the members have to be paid for their service. Taxes become a protection racket. Or then organized crime takes over.



I would say that historically the institutions and the control over people was far more weaker than today, which then is shown just how strict the laws were back then. Notice how in the legal systems hundreds of years ago, you could get from many offenses the capital punishment.

Trump has zero interest in balancing the budget, by all projections the national debt will balloon under his proposals. I'm not going to respond point by point, other than to say that I think the Trump Presidency is an absolute disaster for both America and the world, and that Trump and Musk between them are doing terrible damage to fabric of society. If that's 'hyperbolic' then so be it. — Wayfarer

:100: :up:

Or the limit concept. — jgill

Exactly.

And actually the case of the troublesome infinitesimal, which both Newton and Leibniz could quite well describe to be calculated, still was so problematic that we got the concept of limits (even if we have today non-standard analysis). Yet then it's typical that the limit approaches infinity.

I would argue that this is a case of us having the ability to use the math, but not having the philosophy behind it.

Your losing it, because that's nonsensical babble.

Fucking trollery, nos4. — tim wood

Yes, many say the same thing and question why we feed the troll.

But that's how the MAGA-crowd feels like. They are like the Brexiteers, who also cheered as they ruined their country and believed that once freed from the shackles of EU bureaucracy, they would enjoy the fruits of prosperity that "freedom" would give them. In a similar fashion the MAGA-crowd will be cheering all the way to the economic recession.

Best portrayal of the MAGA-mind has been alt-right cartoonist Ben Garrison, who depicts well the Trump worship and how the cult hates liberalism and democrats and that stuff.

How Garrison sees the Trump-team:


And what Trump is building:


And how rotten the Ukrainians are:

Then if you’re going to make such an accusation, quote one of them or describe how one of these three were disrespecting the military and the intelligence services. — NOS4A2

A military serviceman or an intelligence officer using Signal-app to forward timetables of future military strikes, an issue obviously classified in any sitution, would be severely punished. Likely that serviceman or officer would lose his or her job because of his or her recklessness of not following opsec-rules.

That these people don't give a fuck about such issues is the disrespect here. They can pray for the troops as much they want and hold up the flag, but such actions show actually how much they respect following orders.

By far, the most newsworthy statement in the whole chat? — NOS4A2

Wasn't it how to make Egypt and Europe pay?

Actually, it was Biden that didn't think there would be any need to form an international coalition to protect the Red Sea straights and Gulf of Oman from Houthi attacks (as was done dealing with Somali pirates). So the French deployed their own warships separately to defend maritime traffic. It was a great chance to build an alliance to contain Iran and it's proxies, but the US isn't in the business of forming coalitions anymore.



Since the US is had it with having any allies (except Israel, I guess) and just wants to cozy up with Russia, what is us to do other than rearm and think our security over?

I think probably you're missing that a great number of people do not think your take on his policies are that way. I mean, I can see objectively that some are vindictive, by definition, but that doesn't actually make them bad so people are open to interpret a bit differently. — AmadeusD

This is correct. And the obvious idea for the supporters is that because nothing would happen otherwise, Trump needs an Elon Musk, to go through "the waste" by a chainsaw, even if accidents happen. They don't care that this isn't how the Constitution says how these things should be done.

And some can indeed see just from two impeachments, the lawsuits and so on that there is the "deep state" and the opposition that is without reason going after him. Especially the Clinton supporters made the similar argument of the impeachment of Clinton. But then, we have to remember that Obama wasn't impeached. Biden wasn't impeached. Totally fabricated issue won't go anywhere further in court. That's the hope, at least. The US doesn't have theatrical show trials yet as in Stalin's Russia.

That said, I think its pretty obvious populism is what people do. There is something to the notion that people crave strong leaders. And most people are not that smart (shame, but true). — AmadeusD

Juxtaposition is easy. The use of "us and them". Populism succeeds if the "other", the "evil elite" is small. If it is just the few modern day robber barons, that doesn't brake up social cohesion. But once those "evil people" who are against the ordinary people are a larger group, then it get's truly ugly and becomes a monster as it tears apart the fabric that holds a society together.

I've said that when these populists go on with things like talking of annexations of territory, it's like summoning up the devil. Nothing creates so much anger than offending people like that. That's why Putin is such a threat when he says that some countries are "artificial" (as not only Ukraine is artificial according to Putin).

Take the rationals in [0,1] and form the union with the irrationals in [0,1] and you get a continuum. They are complementary in the complete interval - which itself is a complete metric space with the usual metric. — jgill

But that doesn't answer the questions we have about infinity. If we have countable infinity and then uncountable infinity, Cantor argues there's this hierarchial system of larger and larger infinities (from aleph-0 to aleph-1 and higher). Is that really how it goes? And the Continuum Hypothesis is a hypothesis, it's not a theorem.

Set theory, which can be viewed as the foundations of mathematics, simply takes infinity as an axiom. That's not a proof and that's the problem. The questions that have been around for thousands of year, things like if there is either a potential or an actual infinity are still puzzling. That's why Zeno's paradoxes are talked over and over again, even if we do understand that Achilles brushes past the tortoise in reality and we do have the math to calculate it, the foundational question are still there.

As I have stated before in this thread, we don't have a similar debate about of "Are all numbers rational?". Nobody is saying that they would be so. No, we can prove that there are irrational numbers. Above all, we can understand that there are and have to be irrational numbers. There wouldn't be this kind of over and over repeating debate Zeno's paradoxes, if we fully would understand the infinite or infinity.