United States Politics Thread 46

[Raphael]

"We stood up to Big Tech, and now Big Tech is trying to punish the country for that! Are you with us, or with Big Tech?"

I wonder how long people would be willing to go without Facebook or Instagram.

My point is, attempts to punish people in order to get them to put pressure on their own governments usually backfire.

[alice]

On a different note: who do you think has been making the death threats to Trump's appointees? Right-wingers who think Trump's showing signs of being a bit further left than they're comfortable with?

[Raphael]

On a different note: who do you think has been making the death threats to Trump's appointees? Right-wingers who think Trump's showing signs of being a bit further left than they're comfortable with?

That idea sounds a bit too convenient for me. People on the Left can do bad things, too.

[Travis B.]

On a different note: who do you think has been making the death threats to Trump's appointees? Right-wingers who think Trump's showing signs of being a bit further left than they're comfortable with?

That idea sounds a bit too convenient for me. People on the Left can do bad things, too.

Thing is, death threats are more the Right's style.

[bradrn]

Interesting to see all the commentary here. My own impressions are that everyone here is no less confused, and the government’s approach is basically ‘pass the bill and then figure out how to do it’. For every comment about the horrors of social media (and don’t get me wrong, I fully agree with those), there has been another comment about how great social media can be for isolated children to connect with people like them, so people are certainly aware of the issues here.

Regarding the ZBB and other such small sites, I strongly suspect that they will not be banned. Either because they have no Australian presence, or because there will be some kind of revenue criterion on the regulations, or because they just don’t care enough to go after a random person running something elsewhere, or all three. But ultimately it depends on how the regulations are actually written.

[zompist]

Regarding the ZBB and other such small sites, I strongly suspect that they will not be banned. Either because they have no Australian presence, or because there will be some kind of revenue criterion on the regulations, or because they just don’t care enough to go after a random person running something elsewhere, or all three. But ultimately it depends on how the regulations are actually written.

The idea that a random phpBB operator not only has to know the laws of 194 countries, but their regulations, seems ridiculous. Australia cannot legislate nor prosecute outside its borders. For that matter, you can't extradite someone for something that isn't a crime in their host country.

Of course Facebook et al., the real targets, will have to do something, as Australia could simply prevent their websites from appearing. At least, I assume it could, as Brazil blocked Twitter for awhile earlier this year. (Everyone will say "use VPNs", but VPNs are known and can be blocked as well.)

From news reports, they exempted Youtube, which makes the project seem unserious. Apparently some commissioner gets to decide what sites are affected.

[bradrn]

Of course Facebook et al., the real targets, will have to do something, as Australia could simply prevent their websites from appearing. At least, I assume it could, as Brazil blocked Twitter for awhile earlier this year. (Everyone will say "use VPNs", but VPNs are known and can be blocked as well.)

Yes, indeed. This is the whole point.

From news reports, they exempted Youtube, which makes the project seem unserious. Apparently some commissioner gets to decide what sites are affected.

I do recall there being some debate about YouTube being a special case, due to having legitimate uses by children. I found news articles talking about lobbying from The Wiggles, of all people…

[jcb]

Future generations will be as surprised that the online crossword company has a press bureau as we are that the people who give stars to restaurants have tire factories.

Remnids me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQIpoIH1bCA

Liberals do, and they love patting themselves on the back for it.

Right, second only to the New York Times... which is an absolute monarchy. Oops! It's pretty funny how illiberal the liberal sense-making institutions are.

But they won't be relevant for much longer. The Washington Post is the #2 paper in a world where Magnus Carlsen is famous and Fabiano Caruana is not, and outside liberal bubbles the New York Times is considered as trustworthy as the Daily Mail. Future generations will be as surprised that the online crossword company has a press bureau as we are that the people who give stars to restaurants have tire factories.

I realize this is a lost battle by now, but both of you are demonstrating that "liberal" has no meaning any more. The people who love the NYT are centrists; that is, moderate and conservative Democrats, and whatever little fringe of moderate Republicans still exist.

How would you divide, name, and describe the different political factions in America nowdays?

[zompist]

[I realize this is a lost battle by now, but both of you are demonstrating that "liberal" has no meaning any more. The people who love the NYT are centrists; that is, moderate and conservative Democrats, and whatever little fringe of moderate Republicans still exist.

How would you divide, name, and describe the different political factions in America nowdays?

As most Americans do: across parties, by conservative, moderate (= centrist), liberal. E.g. from Pew polls:



Note that among Democrats, just more than half describe themselves as moderate or conservative. And the percentage of liberals has risen-- it was 25% of the party in the early 90s.

When you attack "liberals", you are attacking the leftmost part of the Democrats-- people who might call themselves progressives or socialists. It's probably worth remembering that about half of the Democrats voted for Sanders. Guess which half?

Of course people use these terms in a relative fashion, so the NYT is more liberal than Fox News. But it's pretty ridiculous to call it a liberal paper; it's the voice of the center-left... the people who call themselves "moderate or conservative Democrats".

[Raphael]

Regarding the ZBB and other such small sites, I strongly suspect that they will not be banned. Either because they have no Australian presence, or because there will be some kind of revenue criterion on the regulations, or because they just don’t care enough to go after a random person running something elsewhere, or all three. But ultimately it depends on how the regulations are actually written.

The idea that a random phpBB operator not only has to know the laws of 194 countries, but their regulations, seems ridiculous. Australia cannot legislate nor prosecute outside its borders. For that matter, you can't extradite someone for something that isn't a crime in their host country.

I guess if the Australian authorities really wanted to come after you, personally, they could confiscate your income from amazon.com.au .

Of course Facebook et al., the real targets, will have to do something, as Australia could simply prevent their websites from appearing. At least, I assume it could, as Brazil blocked Twitter for awhile earlier this year. (Everyone will say "use VPNs", but VPNs are known and can be blocked as well.)

I wouldn't be too surprised if the big players turn out to have Australian subsidiaries, which could be fined.

[Ares Land]

But they won't be relevant for much longer. The Washington Post is the #2 paper in a world where Magnus Carlsen is famous and Fabiano Caruana is not, and outside liberal bubbles the New York Times is considered as trustworthy as the Daily Mail. Future generations will be as surprised that the online crossword company has a press bureau as we are that the people who give stars to restaurants have tire factories.

Reminds me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQIpoIH1bCA

[/quote]

Here on their home turf, Michelin is equally famous for both. The connection is more obvious for people my age and older, because they also make road maps and tourist guides. For younger folks I guess the link is more obscure.

As to the question of who cares about the Washington Post... I don't know, but I wouldn't be so quick to pronounce the traditional newspapers dead -- though they may smell a bit funny.
The Washington Post refusing to endorse Harris certainly didn't make or break the election, that's for sure. It does mean something; in that case that the American plutocracy (whether Californian or not) doesn't care anymore who is president as long as the money keeps flowing.

On a different note: who do you think has been making the death threats to Trump's appointees? Right-wingers who think Trump's showing signs of being a bit further left than they're comfortable with?

No idea! Though I guess a false flag operation aimed at boosting popularity isn't entirely out of the question, I guess.

There are a few areas where I allow myself to go full conspiracy theorist and the assassination attempts on Trump are one of these.

[Torco]

I love how every mention of the objectively true fact that capitalism leads to irrationalities results in mentions of stalin. this is exactly the reason why it's easier to imagine the end of the world than capitalism. stalin was a hundred years ago, or close enough. there are other options than neoliberalism forever [which is where we're headed] and stalin. people believe capitalism is some modern, dynamic system but in reality the basic rules of social life are, save details, the exact same ones we had in eighteen seventy something: you work to get points, access to all goods is conditional on spending those points, and if you don't get a job -or start a profitable small business i guess- get rekt.

Selling inkjet printer ink is a scam. But there's an alternative: buy a black&white Brother laser printer, for not much more money. A cartridge will print 1000 pages or so. (An inkjet cartridge might get just 175.)

i'm looking at exactly this product right now on my desk. it still works fine even though it's a decade old... so scams are okay because non-scams exists?

But "lol capitalism" is not actually an explanation or a solution. For any problem, you have to look at what actually causes it and what solutions are available.

capitalism is obviously sometimes an explanation. capitalism is the system that organizes most of social life, you think that doesn't have any effects?

[*]Not cucumbers, but still about food: I live right next to a major fruit producing area. As it happens, Chilean apples in the supermarket are cheaper than locally grown ones. I have nothing against Chilean apple farmers, the carbon emissions that comes with importing stuff that is produced literally next door to the supermarket is killing us.

i'd honestly not be surprised if chilean apples were cheaper for you than they are for me nominally over there. it's been reported to be the case for avocados: we pay through the ears for those here. then again, chilean peaches aren't that expensive, though some are shipped -canned, as i understand it- to the philiphines for labeling and then brought back. for llabeling. honestly this new democrat thing of being very enthusiastic for laissez faire international trade is... well, in line with the rightwards move of the part in general on economic issues.

see, regarding housing it's the stalin thing: the only two possible systems are making housing a commodity or a man named tovarisch vladimir asking you for form 37-Б and but only filling out modules Й and Ф before assigning you apartment in exactly this building. [which still sounds better than the current system, which is you better be wealthy or it's a third of your salary just for the privilege of not being homeless. russians after the revolution were always going to get bad housing, russia was an exceptionally poor country. if france, or the states, or hell even chile adopt a housing system different than pay-or-get-rekt that system would have *more* housing to distribute, the houses would not magically transform into апартаменты. look at the housing policy of china and vietnam (yes, yes, obligatory "but china illiberal china censor internet china bad blabla". a country can be bad in one thing and good in another): in china IIRC a majority of millenials own a property: the state makes sure mortgages are low and housing is available. see other social systems are possible.
____

the australian law looks wack

[Ares Land]

i'd honestly not be surprised if chilean apples were cheaper for you than they are for me nominally over there. it's been reported to be the case for avocados: we pay through the ears for those here. then again, chilean peaches aren't that expensive, though some are shipped -canned, as i understand it- to the philiphines for labeling and then brought back. for llabeling. honestly this new democrat thing of being very enthusiastic for laissez faire international trade is... well, in line with the rightwards move of the part in general on economic issues.

As for the prices... that's possible. I'd go check prices in the supermarket, but as the growing season factors in. The thing is, importing apples for Chile is a way to get apples outside the usual seasons.
So that raises difficult questions, like, would it be that big of a sacrifice to only eat apples in season?

As for labeling, there are -- as Trump would say -- many such cases. I'm not a big enthusiast of free trade myself -- I know the standard arguments, but I feel they completely ignore externalities and non-measurable impact. Though I'm more than a little suspicious of Trump's enthusiasm for tariffs.

[Travis B.]

The whole reason for the new Democrat enthusiasm for laissez-faire international trade is that it is Economics 101 that costs introduced by tariffs are practically always passed onto consumers. Trump's tariffs will not benefit the average American at all. Also, they are a massive opportunity for graft on Trump's part because of course those who get exceptions to his tariffs are those who do things like donate money to the Republican party and like.

[Nortaneous]

Housing in America is both a necessary good and a positional good, and high housing prices in the US should be seen as the outcome of policies that are popular with voters and that patch unpopular issues with the policy (which is not subject to democratic review and which most Americans are not even aware is a policy that was chosen and has alternatives) of giving the US open borders with itself.

[Lērisama]

You mean borders between individual states? I can't see any other way to parse it, given the context.

[Ares Land]

The whole reason for the new Democrat enthusiasm for laissez-faire international trade is that it is Economics 101 that costs introduced by tariffs are practically always passed onto consumers. Trump's tariffs will not benefit the average American at all. Also, they are a massive opportunity for graft on Trump's part because of course those who get exceptions to his tariffs are those who do things like donate money to the Republican party and like.

Is it even new? Globalization was the hot topic of the 1990s and internation laissez faire has been the default option ever since then.

I'm skeptical of it because I don't think importing goods for countries we can't compete with, and where we have outsourced our jobs to (or eventually will) isn't a convincing proposition. Especially so when doing so comes with a huge carbon footprint. And I'll had, even more so, when you're trading with murderous dictatorship as with China.

Though I don't think tariffs are the answer -- except perhaps as part of a much wider import substitution strategy, and I don't doubt Trump's policies will come with as much corporate grift as he can get away with.

Housing in America is both a necessary good and a positional good, and high housing prices in the US should be seen as the outcome of policies that are popular with voters and that patch unpopular issues with the policy (which is not subject to democratic review and which most Americans are not even aware is a policy that was chosen and has alternatives) of giving the US open borders with itself.

Housing prices are a problem just about everywhere on this planet. You hear the same stories in New York, Lyon, Paris, even Moscow -- even Beijing and Shanghai if I remember this right. Now everyone has his favourite culprit -- though your idea of internal US borders with tariffs and border controls are a new one. Here in France people blame renters, who supposedly have too many rights. In the US, where renters are I hear treated as subhuman serfs, I often hear it's because of NIMBYism instead.
The thing is, this is a global phenomenon, relatively new (I think it started in the early 2000s, give or take) so any explanation is necessarily global.
I'd suggest two that kind of feed into each other:

1. Wealth is increasingly concentrated to benefit the 1%, and to some lesser extent the 10%. That accumulated wealth has to be invested somewhere, and everyone loves real estate. It's an excellent investment due to point 2.
2. There used to be an understanding that a housing crisis is a serious problem, because human beings need a roof to sleep under and housing is a human right. Even Margaret Thatcher understood that in a dim way. This is no longer the case -- housing is just an investment market like any other (see point 1) and you can't have things like rent control or building programs anymore.

[Nortaneous]

Isn't the global housing crisis just urbanization? Housing is cheap in places that don't have jobs, but expensive in places that do. Most jobs used to be in agriculture; now they're in providing domestic services to people with Anglo-Norman job titles. The issue in the US is that the Anglo-Normans have a substantial part of their net worth invested in neighborhoods that are vastly more expensive than others which are geographically but not culturally nearby. This model does well at predicting the distribution of cranes in North American cities: Toronto has more cranes than all major US cities combined, and the top three US cities by crane count are Seattle, LA, and Denver, none of which are on the East Coast. (LA is a little surprising.)

[Raphael]

The thing is, this is a global phenomenon, relatively new (I think it started in the early 2000s, give or take) so any explanation is necessarily global.
I'd suggest two that kind of feed into each other:

1. Wealth is increasingly concentrated to benefit the 1%, and to some lesser extent the 10%. That accumulated wealth has to be invested somewhere, and everyone loves real estate. It's an excellent investment due to point 2.
2. There used to be an understanding that a housing crisis is a serious problem, because human beings need a roof to sleep under and housing is a human right. Even Margaret Thatcher understood that in a dim way. This is no longer the case -- housing is just an investment market like any other (see point 1) and you can't have things like rent control or building programs anymore.

Sounds about right to me.

[zompist]

I love how every mention of the objectively true fact that capitalism leads to irrationalities results in mentions of stalin. this is exactly the reason why it's easier to imagine the end of the world than capitalism. stalin was a hundred years ago, or close enough. there are other options than neoliberalism forever [which is where we're headed] and stalin.

Gosh, you almost understand that there are more than two alternatives, and then in the same post it's back to--

capitalism is obviously sometimes an explanation. capitalism is the system that organizes most of social life, you think that doesn't have any effects?

i.e. lol capitalism which is all one system, but don't dare to suggest that the other one holy soviet system has problems.