5 ms·

A thought experiment: if our "leadership" had instead been chosen by an adversarial foreign power trying to inflict a maximal amount of damage on our country, h

A thought experiment: if our "leadership" had instead been chosen by an adversarial foreign power trying to inflict a maximal amount of damage on our country, how would they differ?

lapcat 11mo ago
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
- mindslight 11mo ago
  I didn't though. I asked for what the difference would be. Also keep in mind stupidity has been given a tricycle for the mind in the form of social media, and social media is full of foreign influence campaigns.
  - lapcat 11mo ago
    > I asked for what the difference would be. Why? > social media is full of foreign influence campaigns. And local influence campaigns. Which social media campaign gave RFK a brain worm in 2010? Trump has basically been Trumpy for 40+ years: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1ityrsu/1987_fullpage_ad_in_the_new_york_times_washington/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1ityrsu/1987_fullpage...
    - mindslight 11mo ago
      Sure, and they wouldn't really be effective if they weren't true believers. These people still had to get into those positions of leadership and broad power.
  - amypetrik8 11mo ago
    In this case never ascribe to geopolitical maneurverings as what can be explained by simple (((corporate greed))) and (((political greed)))
    - mindslight 11mo ago
      ((sure, as if your (((((idiotic pigeonholing))))) is not (((((((even more disempowering))))))))). {{{{seriously, you can fuck right off with that noise}}}}
- UncleMeat 11mo ago
  Hanlon's Razor is a pithy saying, not a fundamental law of the universe. There aren't a ton of things that can be explained by malice but cannot possibly be explained by stupidity. This becomes a thought terminating cliche really fast.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
quickthrowman 11mo ago
A foreign adversary would likely try much harder to influence the Federal Reserve Bank than the Trump administration already has. I think they would’ve asked for a wholesale firing of the voting members with yes-men replacements and several rate cuts after that, but it hasn’t happened. The Trump administration backed off from firing Powell and Cook, which I wouldn’t expect to see if someone else was pulling the strings. Impacting our ability to borrow money/causing inflation are the strongest non-military weapons that can be used against the US, in my opinion.
- mindslight 11mo ago
  But there are limits to how hard such policies can be pushed, right? For example the President can't just order the military to shoot all of our missiles straight up in the air, as many soldiers will balk and even if a few do get launched, the jig will be up. (however it might be part of a good strategy for when you are about to lose hold on power) An explicit policy of this administration is to decrease the value of the US dollar. And while monetary inflation does somewhat influence other countries' willingness to loan money (ie buy Treasuries), isolating us from our allies and demonstrating general instability are also quite fundamental to that.
angelgonzales 11mo ago
I think an adversarial foreign power would push to expand rather than diminish state funded media like CPS, PBS and NPR. They’d probably also try to reduce the right to keep and bear arms and would increase regulation and taxes to damage domestic industrial capacity and reduce competitiveness. I don’t think our leadership at the executive level is doing this. I don’t think an adversarial power would invest $100B into TSMC Arizona or push Japanese car manufacturers and European pharmaceutical companies to build domestically. Thank you for sparking this thought experiment I actually did enjoy doing some research on this topic.
- moogly 11mo ago
  > think an adversarial foreign power would push to expand rather than diminish state funded media like CPS, PBS and NPR. They don't need to do that. They are defunding and demonizing those and instead taking over TikTok, CBS, CNN... X and WaPo already taken over by colluders. Oh, and the cabinet is all Fox News people.
- mindslight 11mo ago
  > push to expand rather than diminish state funded media like CPS, PBS and NPR I don't see why. If they were not planning on taking over the place long term, then they'd want to decrease state capacity not increase it. ( Furthermore in the US, corporate media conglomerates make up most of what we'd traditionally consider state run media ) > reduce the right to keep and bear arms Why exactly? In this context, small arms mainly just give the population more tools to harm each other as the place falls apart. > increase regulation and taxes to damage domestic industrial capacity and reduce competitiveness Regulation has been increasing for decades. But even overbearing regulations are a downright level playing field for innovation compared with having to bribe the administration (with money and political prostration) to avoid becoming the target of capricious attacks under the color of law. > invest $100B into TSMC Arizona or push Japanese car manufacturers and European pharmaceutical companies to build domestically These are beneficial, but it feels like we're back up against the limits of continuity and showmanship. Complete repudiation of constructive investment (eg CHIPS Act) would raise eyebrows. And a few big state-directed investments here and there aren't going to reverse the tariff assault on our distributed industry. Furthermore unless the economic bargaining power of workers drastically changes for the better, foreign-owned factories in the US are still going to result in most of their generated wealth leaving the US. And without that, the main benefit of domestic factories (nationalization in a time of need) is fundamentally abhorrent to the US political environment no matter who is in power.

A thought experiment: if our "leadership" had instead been chosen by an adversarial foreign power trying to inflict a maximal amount of damage on our country, how would they differ?

lapcat 11mo ago

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

mindslight 11mo ago
I didn't though. I asked for what the difference would be. Also keep in mind stupidity has been given a tricycle for the mind in the form of social media, and social media is full of foreign influence campaigns.
- lapcat 11mo ago
  > I asked for what the difference would be. Why? > social media is full of foreign influence campaigns. And local influence campaigns. Which social media campaign gave RFK a brain worm in 2010? Trump has basically been Trumpy for 40+ years: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1ityrsu/1987_fullpage_ad_in_the_new_york_times_washington/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1ityrsu/1987_fullpage...
  - mindslight 11mo ago
    Sure, and they wouldn't really be effective if they weren't true believers. These people still had to get into those positions of leadership and broad power.
- amypetrik8 11mo ago
  In this case never ascribe to geopolitical maneurverings as what can be explained by simple (((corporate greed))) and (((political greed)))
  - mindslight 11mo ago
    ((sure, as if your (((((idiotic pigeonholing))))) is not (((((((even more disempowering))))))))). {{{{seriously, you can fuck right off with that noise}}}}
UncleMeat 11mo ago
Hanlon's Razor is a pithy saying, not a fundamental law of the universe. There aren't a ton of things that can be explained by malice but cannot possibly be explained by stupidity. This becomes a thought terminating cliche really fast.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]

quickthrowman 11mo ago

A foreign adversary would likely try much harder to influence the Federal Reserve Bank than the Trump administration already has. I think they would’ve asked for a wholesale firing of the voting members with yes-men replacements and several rate cuts after that, but it hasn’t happened. The Trump administration backed off from firing Powell and Cook, which I wouldn’t expect to see if someone else was pulling the strings. Impacting our ability to borrow money/causing inflation are the strongest non-military weapons that can be used against the US, in my opinion.

mindslight 11mo ago
But there are limits to how hard such policies can be pushed, right? For example the President can't just order the military to shoot all of our missiles straight up in the air, as many soldiers will balk and even if a few do get launched, the jig will be up. (however it might be part of a good strategy for when you are about to lose hold on power) An explicit policy of this administration is to decrease the value of the US dollar. And while monetary inflation does somewhat influence other countries' willingness to loan money (ie buy Treasuries), isolating us from our allies and demonstrating general instability are also quite fundamental to that.

angelgonzales 11mo ago

I think an adversarial foreign power would push to expand rather than diminish state funded media like CPS, PBS and NPR. They’d probably also try to reduce the right to keep and bear arms and would increase regulation and taxes to damage domestic industrial capacity and reduce competitiveness. I don’t think our leadership at the executive level is doing this. I don’t think an adversarial power would invest $100B into TSMC Arizona or push Japanese car manufacturers and European pharmaceutical companies to build domestically. Thank you for sparking this thought experiment I actually did enjoy doing some research on this topic.

moogly 11mo ago
> think an adversarial foreign power would push to expand rather than diminish state funded media like CPS, PBS and NPR. They don't need to do that. They are defunding and demonizing those and instead taking over TikTok, CBS, CNN... X and WaPo already taken over by colluders. Oh, and the cabinet is all Fox News people.
mindslight 11mo ago
> push to expand rather than diminish state funded media like CPS, PBS and NPR I don't see why. If they were not planning on taking over the place long term, then they'd want to decrease state capacity not increase it. ( Furthermore in the US, corporate media conglomerates make up most of what we'd traditionally consider state run media ) > reduce the right to keep and bear arms Why exactly? In this context, small arms mainly just give the population more tools to harm each other as the place falls apart. > increase regulation and taxes to damage domestic industrial capacity and reduce competitiveness Regulation has been increasing for decades. But even overbearing regulations are a downright level playing field for innovation compared with having to bribe the administration (with money and political prostration) to avoid becoming the target of capricious attacks under the color of law. > invest $100B into TSMC Arizona or push Japanese car manufacturers and European pharmaceutical companies to build domestically These are beneficial, but it feels like we're back up against the limits of continuity and showmanship. Complete repudiation of constructive investment (eg CHIPS Act) would raise eyebrows. And a few big state-directed investments here and there aren't going to reverse the tariff assault on our distributed industry. Furthermore unless the economic bargaining power of workers drastically changes for the better, foreign-owned factories in the US are still going to result in most of their generated wealth leaving the US. And without that, the main benefit of domestic factories (nationalization in a time of need) is fundamentally abhorrent to the US political environment no matter who is in power.