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This comment and the parent’s are the best retorts I’ve seen yet to the “these people are just stupid” idea we hear all the time. These “rules” are not calculat

This comment and the parent’s are the best retorts I’ve seen yet to the “these people are just stupid” idea we hear all the time. These “rules” are not calculated and brilliant, and that’s the point. They’re controlling at any angle they want.

Herring 1y ago
No, it's still stupid. High corruption leads to weaker economic performance (eg compare red vs blue states). Nepotism looks like winning right until it sinks your company.
- myko 1y ago
  Right, this is why fascist governments tend to fail. In the meantime, though, normal folks will be hurt.
  - kelnos 1y ago
    And in the meantime, the people in power in these fascist governments tend to make out like (literal) bandits.
    - Aeolun 1y ago
      This is fine if it ends by being subjected to that convenient device they developed in France somewhere in the 1800s.
      - spiderfarmer 1y ago
        That is a divisive issue.
        gortok 1y ago
        By “divisive” you mean dividing heads from bodies, right?
        spiderfarmer 1y ago
        Yeah. Also called "air gapping".
      - LeonB 1y ago
        Very unlikely in the first place, but second, that way lies far worse chaos. Similarly, when Julius Caesar turned the republic into an empire, and was subsequently assassinated: it did not mean the empire reverted back to being a republic - rather that centuries of increasingly despotic emperors lay ahead.
        tsimionescu 1y ago
        Agree that it's unlikely, but while knives in the back still led to centuries of imperialism, the guillotine cleanly ended absolutist monarchy in France once, and then some ships and exile ended the second time, and it generally stayed dead afterwards.
        tialaramex 1y ago
        Note that modern France is the Fifth Republic so that's a whole lot of turmoil given how relatively recently they killed their last king.
        lores 1y ago
        It's iterative republic development. Release a republic, test it in the field, make improvements. Makes sense to me.
        A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        :D I don't know why, but something about this made me giggle.
        tialaramex 1y ago
        Nazis again? We did Nazis remember? End of the Third Republic, all of that? Everybody agreed Nazis were a bad idea, why the fuck are there more Nazis?
        dragonwriter 1y ago
        > Note that modern France is the Fifth Republic so that's a whole lot of turmoil given how relatively recently they killed their last king. Their last king wasn't killed by the French, but died in exile in England, and was one of three (or four) kings (Louis XVIII, Charles X, (arguably Henry V), and Louis Phillippe, who reigned between the First Empire (and consequently also after the First Republic) and the Second Republic (and consequently also before the Second Empire.) Their last monarch was even later, and also wasn't killed by the French, but died in exile in England. The series of governments after the last monarch includes only the Third through Fifth Republics (and, depending on how you look at it, the Vichy regime between the Third and Fourth Republics.) And IIRC there wasn't much substantive difference between the Third and Fourth Republic; the latter was basically a restoration of the former after France was freed from German occupation, not a change in governing philosophy by the French people, so you could argue that there were as few as two substantively different French systems of government after the last monarch was deposed.
      - nandomrumber 1y ago
        [flagged]
  - blitzar 1y ago
    Looks to me like a legitimate and democratically elected regime. There are many unsolved issues in the world, having sympathy for people getting exactly what they want seems like a waste of a finite resource.
    - beeforpork 1y ago
      It is not a waste. (1) It is still an interesting topic, because in this case, it has world-wide consequences. (2) Many of the problems of the world can only be solved if people are convinced that those are important problems. You need to fix people's closest problems first, like their bread and perceived security. Each individual has just one life, I wouldn't say it's selfish to want an OKish life, and only then think about what's best for the human race. (3) Most of the right voters were convinced (and might still be) that they were doing what is good for them. But it isn't. They voted wrong, they were tricked against their actual will. (4) This is not a singular event. The same may happen somewhere near or around you maybe sooner than later, so analysig how it happened, which groups exactly voted against their own advantage, and how to make the consequences clear and understandable beforehand, and how to prevent it in general -- all this is important. Not wasted resources at all. The opposite. We need to remember that this is not a boring news topic.
      - blitzar 1y ago
        Until america experiences the full consequences for their stupidity they will continue being stupid. Children get told 100's of times they will burn their hand if they touch the stove. In the best case scenario they touch it once anyway, with a responsible person nearby and then never again. The sooner that happens the better for everyone it is.
        beeforpork 1y ago
        OK, burning is happening right now, so mission accomplished, I guess? Are you sure people will learn from it? And who is the responsible person nearby in this reality? > Children get told 100's of times they will burn their hand if they touch the stove. In the best case scenario they touch it once anyway, ... That is not the best case. I never burned myself on a stove. Also, this is not an individual Darwin problem like the stove example -- this has consequences for many bystanders who did know better, and many more bystanders who had no say in this.
  - Yeul 1y ago
    Normal folks vote for the fascists. How many Americans despise the liberal universities and their students? How many Americans think the US should be a Christian nation? Fascism is popular. Many people will fall for it. Time and time again. The US is not special- it happened in Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Portugal. It can happen in America.
    - Not4Hire 1y ago
      ...has happen3d. <-FTFY
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- zombot 1y ago
  Not stupid, just careless. Trump has fuck-you money, he doesn't care about the rest of the country. He wants means of extortion so people have to lick his boots to get a reprieve.
- reverendsteveii 1y ago
  They're not selecting to maximize performance, they're selecting to maximize their own control. Pete Hegseth isn't SecDef because he's good at it. He leaks war plans and can't get through a press conference without being seen with a drink in his hand. He's SecDef because he'll do what Trump tells him to do regardless of whether it's legal or a good idea. The tariffs aren't meant to bring manufacturing back. They'd have gradual and consistent and the money raised would be earmarked for developing that industry at home if they were. They're arbitrary because they're the way the people in charge punish countries and companies that don't bend the knee. Everything they're doing is about removing the institution of government with its pesky rules and procedures and bringing everything under the control of one guy who can reward and punish arbitrarily as he sees fit. Overall economic performance simply isn't a factor. It's changed my outlook a lot to make an arbitrary decision to stop assuming people are stupid when their stated goals don't line up with their actions, and to start assuming the easily predictable results of their actions are their actual goals regardless of what their stated goals are. Once I did that, I started being able to understand and even predict what these previously inscrutable people would do next.
  - Herring 1y ago
    ? I look forward to your article about Americans obviously being pro-obesity, and finding heart disease super attractive.
    - reverendsteveii 1y ago
      their stated goals (avoiding obesity) don't line up with their actions (food choices that promote obesity), so they must have different goals (enjoying food regardless of whether it promotes obesity). not the opposite of their stated goal, just a different one.
      - Herring 1y ago
        Then I can agree with that: short-sighted decision-making on both obesity and Trump's tariffs.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > No, it's still stupid. It doesn't serve the goals you think it should, that's not necessarily stupid. > High corruption leads to weaker economic performance (eg compare red vs blue states). Yes, but the people who are pursuing corruption don't care about maximizing aggregate economic performance, they care about maximizing their power over others, which is isn't the same as "economic performance" and, to the extent that it related to economic performance, doesn't have any necessary relation to a broad aggregate, its more concerned with very specific aspects of relative distribution.
  - Herring 1y ago
    Who is "others"? Who is "aggregate"? You're being vague because your idea doesn't make any sense. Let's be clear: 1) Trump very clearly - very obviously - cares a lot about broad US economic performance compared to China. 2) This is at odds with his desire for unlimited power within the US, because corruption and oppression doesn't do very well economically. That's why it's stupid - it doesn't serve its own goals. One of those two has to give. He and his voters don't understand "Woke" is great for the modern economy. You want everyone working at their absolute full potential. Slaves don't invent chips, corruption drives away business investment, etc. It's very simple to understand if you're not a racist, but the South has been stuck on this point for generations.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    > It doesn't serve the goals you think it should I maen, what are their goals? To make more money? Yes, stupid to crash the economy just to insider trade. Power and influence? Yes, it's stupid to overextend too fast. Ask 99% of regines from human history (Rome, Soviet Union, Great Britian). Ideaological warfare? Yes, it's stupid to outright declare constitutional war on day 9x out of 1400. What are their goals? > the people who are pursuing corruption don't care about maximizing aggregate economic performance, they care about maximizing their power over others, which is isn't the same as "economic performance" well they should have. Again, Bread and circuses. Mess with people's money and they get neither. Again, stupid move. This could have been an easy, silent, calculated takeover in the course of two years. Instead they just swung a hammer at the house and are frustrated that people are yelling at them.
- elliotec 1y ago
  It’s not about the economy! They don’t need that anymore. It’s about POWER. They already have more than everything money can buy, and more than the GDP of most countries. It’s not about the “company” anymore. They want _everything_. And will do whatever they can do get it, even if we think it looks stupid. “Whoopsie doopsie we said something contradictory, anyway you’re all wrong and deported - don’t call back ever, and your school doesn’t get your taxes anymore but bombs for killing people in the Middle East does!”

Herring 1y ago

No, it's still stupid. High corruption leads to weaker economic performance (eg compare red vs blue states). Nepotism looks like winning right until it sinks your company.

myko 1y ago
Right, this is why fascist governments tend to fail. In the meantime, though, normal folks will be hurt.
- kelnos 1y ago
  And in the meantime, the people in power in these fascist governments tend to make out like (literal) bandits.
  - Aeolun 1y ago
    This is fine if it ends by being subjected to that convenient device they developed in France somewhere in the 1800s.
    - spiderfarmer 1y ago
      That is a divisive issue.
      - gortok 1y ago
        By “divisive” you mean dividing heads from bodies, right?
        spiderfarmer 1y ago
        Yeah. Also called "air gapping".
    - LeonB 1y ago
      Very unlikely in the first place, but second, that way lies far worse chaos. Similarly, when Julius Caesar turned the republic into an empire, and was subsequently assassinated: it did not mean the empire reverted back to being a republic - rather that centuries of increasingly despotic emperors lay ahead.
      - tsimionescu 1y ago
        Agree that it's unlikely, but while knives in the back still led to centuries of imperialism, the guillotine cleanly ended absolutist monarchy in France once, and then some ships and exile ended the second time, and it generally stayed dead afterwards.
        tialaramex 1y ago
        Note that modern France is the Fifth Republic so that's a whole lot of turmoil given how relatively recently they killed their last king.
        lores 1y ago
        It's iterative republic development. Release a republic, test it in the field, make improvements. Makes sense to me.
        A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        :D I don't know why, but something about this made me giggle.
        tialaramex 1y ago
        Nazis again? We did Nazis remember? End of the Third Republic, all of that? Everybody agreed Nazis were a bad idea, why the fuck are there more Nazis?
        dragonwriter 1y ago
        > Note that modern France is the Fifth Republic so that's a whole lot of turmoil given how relatively recently they killed their last king. Their last king wasn't killed by the French, but died in exile in England, and was one of three (or four) kings (Louis XVIII, Charles X, (arguably Henry V), and Louis Phillippe, who reigned between the First Empire (and consequently also after the First Republic) and the Second Republic (and consequently also before the Second Empire.) Their last monarch was even later, and also wasn't killed by the French, but died in exile in England. The series of governments after the last monarch includes only the Third through Fifth Republics (and, depending on how you look at it, the Vichy regime between the Third and Fourth Republics.) And IIRC there wasn't much substantive difference between the Third and Fourth Republic; the latter was basically a restoration of the former after France was freed from German occupation, not a change in governing philosophy by the French people, so you could argue that there were as few as two substantively different French systems of government after the last monarch was deposed.
    - nandomrumber 1y ago
      [flagged]
- blitzar 1y ago
  Looks to me like a legitimate and democratically elected regime. There are many unsolved issues in the world, having sympathy for people getting exactly what they want seems like a waste of a finite resource.
  - beeforpork 1y ago
    It is not a waste. (1) It is still an interesting topic, because in this case, it has world-wide consequences. (2) Many of the problems of the world can only be solved if people are convinced that those are important problems. You need to fix people's closest problems first, like their bread and perceived security. Each individual has just one life, I wouldn't say it's selfish to want an OKish life, and only then think about what's best for the human race. (3) Most of the right voters were convinced (and might still be) that they were doing what is good for them. But it isn't. They voted wrong, they were tricked against their actual will. (4) This is not a singular event. The same may happen somewhere near or around you maybe sooner than later, so analysig how it happened, which groups exactly voted against their own advantage, and how to make the consequences clear and understandable beforehand, and how to prevent it in general -- all this is important. Not wasted resources at all. The opposite. We need to remember that this is not a boring news topic.
    - blitzar 1y ago
      Until america experiences the full consequences for their stupidity they will continue being stupid. Children get told 100's of times they will burn their hand if they touch the stove. In the best case scenario they touch it once anyway, with a responsible person nearby and then never again. The sooner that happens the better for everyone it is.
      - beeforpork 1y ago
        OK, burning is happening right now, so mission accomplished, I guess? Are you sure people will learn from it? And who is the responsible person nearby in this reality? > Children get told 100's of times they will burn their hand if they touch the stove. In the best case scenario they touch it once anyway, ... That is not the best case. I never burned myself on a stove. Also, this is not an individual Darwin problem like the stove example -- this has consequences for many bystanders who did know better, and many more bystanders who had no say in this.
- Yeul 1y ago
  Normal folks vote for the fascists. How many Americans despise the liberal universities and their students? How many Americans think the US should be a Christian nation? Fascism is popular. Many people will fall for it. Time and time again. The US is not special- it happened in Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Portugal. It can happen in America.
  - Not4Hire 1y ago
    ...has happen3d. <-FTFY
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
zombot 1y ago
Not stupid, just careless. Trump has fuck-you money, he doesn't care about the rest of the country. He wants means of extortion so people have to lick his boots to get a reprieve.
reverendsteveii 1y ago
They're not selecting to maximize performance, they're selecting to maximize their own control. Pete Hegseth isn't SecDef because he's good at it. He leaks war plans and can't get through a press conference without being seen with a drink in his hand. He's SecDef because he'll do what Trump tells him to do regardless of whether it's legal or a good idea. The tariffs aren't meant to bring manufacturing back. They'd have gradual and consistent and the money raised would be earmarked for developing that industry at home if they were. They're arbitrary because they're the way the people in charge punish countries and companies that don't bend the knee. Everything they're doing is about removing the institution of government with its pesky rules and procedures and bringing everything under the control of one guy who can reward and punish arbitrarily as he sees fit. Overall economic performance simply isn't a factor. It's changed my outlook a lot to make an arbitrary decision to stop assuming people are stupid when their stated goals don't line up with their actions, and to start assuming the easily predictable results of their actions are their actual goals regardless of what their stated goals are. Once I did that, I started being able to understand and even predict what these previously inscrutable people would do next.
- Herring 1y ago
  ? I look forward to your article about Americans obviously being pro-obesity, and finding heart disease super attractive.
  - reverendsteveii 1y ago
    their stated goals (avoiding obesity) don't line up with their actions (food choices that promote obesity), so they must have different goals (enjoying food regardless of whether it promotes obesity). not the opposite of their stated goal, just a different one.
    - Herring 1y ago
      Then I can agree with that: short-sighted decision-making on both obesity and Trump's tariffs.
dragonwriter 1y ago
> No, it's still stupid. It doesn't serve the goals you think it should, that's not necessarily stupid. > High corruption leads to weaker economic performance (eg compare red vs blue states). Yes, but the people who are pursuing corruption don't care about maximizing aggregate economic performance, they care about maximizing their power over others, which is isn't the same as "economic performance" and, to the extent that it related to economic performance, doesn't have any necessary relation to a broad aggregate, its more concerned with very specific aspects of relative distribution.
- Herring 1y ago
  Who is "others"? Who is "aggregate"? You're being vague because your idea doesn't make any sense. Let's be clear: 1) Trump very clearly - very obviously - cares a lot about broad US economic performance compared to China. 2) This is at odds with his desire for unlimited power within the US, because corruption and oppression doesn't do very well economically. That's why it's stupid - it doesn't serve its own goals. One of those two has to give. He and his voters don't understand "Woke" is great for the modern economy. You want everyone working at their absolute full potential. Slaves don't invent chips, corruption drives away business investment, etc. It's very simple to understand if you're not a racist, but the South has been stuck on this point for generations.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  > It doesn't serve the goals you think it should I maen, what are their goals? To make more money? Yes, stupid to crash the economy just to insider trade. Power and influence? Yes, it's stupid to overextend too fast. Ask 99% of regines from human history (Rome, Soviet Union, Great Britian). Ideaological warfare? Yes, it's stupid to outright declare constitutional war on day 9x out of 1400. What are their goals? > the people who are pursuing corruption don't care about maximizing aggregate economic performance, they care about maximizing their power over others, which is isn't the same as "economic performance" well they should have. Again, Bread and circuses. Mess with people's money and they get neither. Again, stupid move. This could have been an easy, silent, calculated takeover in the course of two years. Instead they just swung a hammer at the house and are frustrated that people are yelling at them.
elliotec 1y ago
It’s not about the economy! They don’t need that anymore. It’s about POWER. They already have more than everything money can buy, and more than the GDP of most countries. It’s not about the “company” anymore. They want _everything_. And will do whatever they can do get it, even if we think it looks stupid. “Whoopsie doopsie we said something contradictory, anyway you’re all wrong and deported - don’t call back ever, and your school doesn’t get your taxes anymore but bombs for killing people in the Middle East does!”