WoodScientist @ WoodScientist @sh.itjust.works

Posts

5

Comments

1,215

Joined

6 mo. ago

Those were the evil Germans immigrating after the war. Not to be confused with the fine upstanding Ohio Hitlers.

I’m not a “prepper” in an “underground bunker” sense, but I do prepare for emergencies and instability, whatever form it may take: political, yes, but I also live on several fault lines

Assuming you're a homeowner, make sure to check if your home insurance policy covers earthquake damage. By default most insurance policies don't cover seismic.

There any sense on what would be good to stock up on now? When I've searched this, the advice is usually pretty worthless. Just advice indistinguishable from general prepper stuff. I've seen recommendations to stock up on things like flour, things that the US produces domestically in abundance. But some necessities are going to be more vulnerable to disruptions in shipments from China than others.

Anyone find a good guide or have a sense of what basic household necessities are going to be most vulnerable to disruption of trade with China? I'm not concerned with things like consumer electronics right now, those are luxuries. I'm talking basic food and household staples. I don't need the standard prepper list that's meant to prepare you for grave natural disasters. What's really needed is an analysis of precisely what necessities are most likely to be interrupted by this.

Has anyone seen such a list, or have a sense for what necessities are most vulnerable here?

Worse. This is really a "don't negotiate with terrorists" situation. Trump could have gone to the Chinese, and any other country, and said, "look, this isn't working. We need to renegotiate our trade deals." Public opinion has soured enough on free trade that Trump likely could get some legitimate tariff package or set of new trade deals through. The public generally likes the idea of not trading so much with China. The problem is Trump is trying to do this via decree and blackmail. He thinks that by cutting off trade overnight, he can coerce China into giving the US favorable terms.

But all this shows is that the US is an unreliable partner that is willing to back on its word at any moment. Nations can renegotiate trade deals. That isn't some unprecedented violation of international norms. But it's common sense to do these things slowly, giving both nations time to adapt their economies to the new conditions. You can't just cut this level of trade off cold turkey without causing a global depression.

That's the policy at most schools. Actually enforcing that in the face of a classroom of kids who don't respect the rule? That's a much bigger problem. They're a lot more clever at sneaking them out than you would think. Moreover, if the phones are just feet from them, their presence is never out of mind. They're a constant distraction even in a bag. Phone apps are literally designed to be addictive. Imagine if we had a rule that said "crack pipes are fine in your bag. As long as you don't take them out and smoke in class, you're fine." Even if we lived in a world where crack somehow was legal for minors to have, how effective to you think that rule could be enforced?

Or up into your neighbor's house. Then slowly steal your neighbor's house, one board at a time, and add it to your own house!

First, that is an extremely bad-faith interpretation of my words, and you know it.

Second, historically, when countries face autocratic moments like ours, often the only way they out the autocrat is by completely abandoning the corrupt center-left party that allowed and enabled the far right authoritarians. Voters often spend several election cycles fruitlessly trying to get the center-left party to make the necessary changes to challenge the autocrat. In the end, the center left party loses more and more popularity, until it collapses completely. Their credibility is mud with the general populace; they simply have no viable path to winning an election. The party needs to collapse into nothing. Only then is there enough room for a new party that can actually challenge the autocrat to rise. They try several cycles of dutifully voting for the center-left corporate party, but it just doesn't work. In the end they just have to let it burn.

Centrist Dems are not going to be able to defeat Trumpism. And this inability also makes them incredibly weak candidates to win elections against Trumpism. If the DNC is going to just keep forcing useless ineffectual centrists on the party, really, the quickest way to defeat MAGA will be for as many Democrats to abandon the Democratic Party and vow to never vote for them again. Centrist dems will just keep losing election after election after election. They're losers. Weak, ineffectual losers. They can't win elections against Trump. Biden only managed to eek out a win in 2020 due to Covid.

If Dems are going to keep forcing corporate centrists through, you are actually delaying the defeat of Trumpism by voting for them. As corporate Dems can't win a general election against Trumpism, voting for them is as completely pointless as voting for third party candidates in 2024. Centrist Dems just aren't serious presidential contenders anymore; you shouldn't take them seriously. A vote for a centrist Dem is a vote for another MAGA term. Even if a corporate Dem gets the nomination, a vote for them is still a vote for a longer MAGA reign.

If they force another corporate centrist through in 2028, the 2028 election is already lost. At that point, the goal should be to make sure that the corporate candidate loses spectacularly. The corporate Dem is never going to win, but they might eek out a 45-55 loss that lets the DNC keep pretending that corporate Dems have a chance at winning the general election. At that point, with the election already lost, the goal should be to make sure the centrist Dem loses by an overwhelming, comically large 30-70 margin or similar. You need to take so much credibility from the Dems that the party collapses completely.

We're in a fight that is going to take more than one election cycle. Accept that now. You need to think more strategically than just one election cycle in the future. Because "vote blue no matter who" can actually extend the reign of the MAGA movement.

Hopefully we won't get stuck with a shithead corporate centrist in 2028. But if we do, I'll be boycotting the presidential general election, only voting in the Congressional elections. I do this because I care about the country, and I want to see MAGA defeated as quickly as possible. If a corporate Dem is the nominee in 2028, then Dems have already lost the election. At that point, your thoughts should immediately move to 2032, as that will be the next chance Dems have at ousting MAGA.

The concentration camps for Japanese Americans were concentration camps in the 19th century sense of the word - simply a place to hold a group of civilians during a conflict. CECOT is a concentration camp in the Nazi sense of the word - an extermination camp.

We constantly condition each other all the time. It's a part of human interaction. We don't usually do it consciously, but it's conditioning nonetheless. Couples will subtly condition their behavior to be more in tune with each other.

Consider a simple example. Imagine a you're in a couple, and you just moved in together. You're both used to living alone. You're used to flicking on the bedroom light as you walk into the bedroom before bed to prepare for bed. Unfortunately your partner tends to go to sleep before you. You wake them up a few times by accident, and they understandably grumble. You feel bad about it, as you care about them and don't want to wake them up. You wince the next day when you see how tired they seem. In time, you stop flicking the light on before you enter the room. Your partner's actions have conditioned you to not turn the light on. Your partner conditioned you without even intending to. We condition each other constantly. We observe what effect our behavior has on others, and we adjust our own behavior accordingly. We usually just don't refer to it as "conditioning," as that tends to have a nefarious connotation.

Yes, that is obvious. I'm not worried about chemical contamination. Physical contamination and injury is the problem. I'm much more worried about civilians interacting with an environment saturated with these things. A kid is riding a dirt bike through the woods one day and gets garroted on an invisible glass wire dangling between two trees.

What are all those glass fibers going to do to an area after the war ends? That stuff won't decompose.

I can confirm. I was there standing in the corner watching. But in a strictly nonsexual way.

The Adjuster remains at large.

After all, nothing more saintly than shooting a man in the back!

You're right. Both sides aren't the same. One side are Nazis. The other are Nazi collaborators.

They're objectively different, but that ain't saying much.

We've been focusing on the next election for decades at this point. At some point you need to recognize the insanity of doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.

Voting for a corporate Dem IS voting in favor of fascism.

Corporate Dems know that the only path they ever have to power is if the alternative is Republican autocracy. They're too unpopular on their own to have any way of winning an election based on their personality or positions. They can only win by fear. Thus, they cannot actually dismantle fascism. They can't pass reforms stripping the presidency of emergency powers to prevent it from being abused. They can't launch a law enforcement crackdown to finally put MAGA in the ground. They need MAGA. They want MAGA. They need a giant monster standing behind them to terrify the populace into voting for them. That is the only way they can possibly win an election. In fact, they have every incentive to make that monster as big and as terrifying as possible.

Voting for a centrist Dem guarantees eventual holocaust. The Fascists will just keep becoming more extreme and violent, even when the corporate Dems are in power. The occupants of the White House will alternate between Fascists and corporate Dems, moving further to the right each cycle. Eventually they'll start killing people by the millions. Centrist Dems are unable to prevent this. They need fascists in order to get in to power.

Biden was the first to float that idea actually.

The problem with voting for a party simply because "we aren't fascism" is that it produces the most perverse incentives imaginable. If the only way Democrats can win the White House is by simply not being fascist, what motivation do they have to reform the system so that fascists won't be able to come back into power?

If there is a free election in 2028, and if Democrats somehow manage to win, they need to act decisively. They need to pass a storm of legislation that drastically curtails the powers of the presidency. If they don't, then we could be right back with another wannabe dictator Republican in power in 2032. We need to end the emergency powers, curtail the powers of ICE, end the mass surveillance, essentially dismantle the entire post-911 security architecture that put us at such a danger of dictatorship. It's an evil machine that never should have been built.

This is the fatal error of wanting to support a centrist Dem in 2028. The only way such a candidate is going to get elected is if they can run against the specter of fascism and dictatorship. They have zero motivation to dismantle the tools a future dictator would use; they need there to be a threat of a future dictator in order to win reelection. If that centrist Dem wins in 2028, and makes it so dictatorship is impossible, what are they going to run on in 2032? They need there to be a credible threat of dictatorship in order to win election. A centrist Dem can never dismantle fascism, as the looming potential of fascism is their only hope of getting elected. Centrist Dems want to dangle the threat of fascist dictatorship, like a Sword of Damocles, over your head forever. Corporate Dems will never dismantle what is their only hope of getting and retaining power.