4 ms·

Oh come on. You’re trying to be edgy without any understanding of reality. It’s like saying History will record Gavrilo Princip as having won WW1. Huh? Americ

Oh come on. You’re trying to be edgy without any understanding of reality. It’s like saying History will record Gavrilo Princip as having won WW1. Huh? America’s current troubles are political polarization and ballooning deficits. Both of which are happening in every developed country, having nothing to do with 9/11. The foreign interventionism is a 100 year tradition in the US, nothing new under the sun. The only thing Bin Laden accomplished is making air travel annoying, making some military contractors filthy rich, and getting hundreds of thousands of his Muslim brothers killed over values that are slowly eroding in the Middle East anyways. The American global military empire was always going to decline over time, if anything, his actions reversed that decline and led to more American intervention. He got the opposite of what he wanted.

pjc50 4mo ago
I do think spending a trillion dollars on Iraq might have something to do with the deficit.
- pembrook 4mo ago
  Did France, Germany, the UK, etc. spend a trillion dollars in Iraq? How did they get themselves in the same ballooning deficit death spiral? The US did spend a Trillion on Iraq. But during Covid they spent nearly $5T...in 1/4th the time they spent 1 in Iraq. They also spent $9T on QE. Iraq is a drop in the bucket. The real problem is a structural one with modern democracies. Turns out when you can legally take your citizens money at gunpoint and also tax the entire world via inflationary money printing with few short term consequences, this power gets abused.
  - watwut 4mo ago
    Germany dont have the same ballooning debt problem: https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/germany/usa?sc=XE02 https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/germany/usa?sc=... Their economies have problems, but USA leads in debt.
    - pembrook 4mo ago
      They do have the same problem. You're not adjusting for growth rates. Also, Germany's debt isn't in the global reserve currency, so their problem is arguably worse. The actually have to pay for it using their 0 growth economy. The US will just tax the entire world to pay for its debts by printing more of the global reserve currency and inflating it away.
  - amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
    If the problem is booming deficits, then the cause isn't taking citizens money at gunpoint, because that doesn't cause a deficit. The cause is the voters, they want the benefits now but they don't want to pay for them, so they pass the bills onto their children and grandchildren. The government is doing exactly what the voters are asking for.
    - pembrook 4mo ago
      This is very true. However, institutions being granted this power in the first place (unlimited taxation via threat of violence, unlimited deficit spending power, unlimited money printer access on the global currency) is what enables the abuse by the politicians and voters all acting in their short term self interest. If the US didn't have the world's reserve currency like Germany/France/UK/etc, the bill would come due via the bond markets. The demand for Euro-denominated debt is not near-infinite in the same way the demand for USD-denominated debt has been (at least up until now).
watwut 4mo ago
> America’s current troubles are political polarization and ballooning deficits. American problem is one sided right wing radicalization, not polarization. If left of center moved the the right even more, the issues would remain.
- pembrook 4mo ago
  I will call this Exhibit A in proving my point about polarization, thank you left-leaning person lacking in self-awareness. Now we just need a right-leaning person who lacks self awareness to offer a rebuttal to you and we can complete the picture.
  - amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
    Are Americans really more polarized? I guess it depends on when you choose your baseline. It's certainly true that the political parties are more polarized, didn't used to be as ideological as they are now. To a large extent, the southern Democrats all left to join the Republican party, and the "compassionate conservatives" have mostly abandoned the Republican party. I expect with the split between MAGA and the America first people we are beginning to see another realignment.
    - 40four 4mo ago
      It’s an interesting question if we are more polarized now than at some point in the past. Hard to say, I wonder if there is some way to measure this? Maybe you could compare the amount of “undecided” voters over time. You always here people say one half of the country is red and the other half is blue, but in reality is probably more like 1/3 each red/blue and another 3rd who don’t subscribe to the dogma of either side and are fed up with the endless bickering between the two teams. One thing that’s for certain is the tech giants tech giants and news companies are attempting to manipulate us more than ever. It might feel like we’re more polarized that ever, but I think much of that is because it’s good for business, and they are shoving division in our faces on a daily basis. There is real evidence of this by an awesome project called “Tech Watch Project” (https://techwatchproject.org/ https://techwatchproject.org/). They have a data dashboard with real time charts at https://americasdigitalshield.com/ https://americasdigitalshield.com/. The idea is that tech giants are purposely trying to manipulate voters in the middle by feeding them more biased search results, notifications, et cetera. The thing about this, is that on close election they can literally swing elections the way they want them to go by manipulating undecided voters algorithms. In elections with wider margins it’s not going to have an effect, but in close races it only takes a point or two to get the desired result. This is a power they should not have and it needs to be talked about more.

pjc50 4mo ago

I do think spending a trillion dollars on Iraq might have something to do with the deficit.

pembrook 4mo ago
Did France, Germany, the UK, etc. spend a trillion dollars in Iraq? How did they get themselves in the same ballooning deficit death spiral? The US did spend a Trillion on Iraq. But during Covid they spent nearly $5T...in 1/4th the time they spent 1 in Iraq. They also spent $9T on QE. Iraq is a drop in the bucket. The real problem is a structural one with modern democracies. Turns out when you can legally take your citizens money at gunpoint and also tax the entire world via inflationary money printing with few short term consequences, this power gets abused.
- watwut 4mo ago
  Germany dont have the same ballooning debt problem: https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/germany/usa?sc=XE02 https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/germany/usa?sc=... Their economies have problems, but USA leads in debt.
  - pembrook 4mo ago
    They do have the same problem. You're not adjusting for growth rates. Also, Germany's debt isn't in the global reserve currency, so their problem is arguably worse. The actually have to pay for it using their 0 growth economy. The US will just tax the entire world to pay for its debts by printing more of the global reserve currency and inflating it away.
- amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
  If the problem is booming deficits, then the cause isn't taking citizens money at gunpoint, because that doesn't cause a deficit. The cause is the voters, they want the benefits now but they don't want to pay for them, so they pass the bills onto their children and grandchildren. The government is doing exactly what the voters are asking for.
  - pembrook 4mo ago
    This is very true. However, institutions being granted this power in the first place (unlimited taxation via threat of violence, unlimited deficit spending power, unlimited money printer access on the global currency) is what enables the abuse by the politicians and voters all acting in their short term self interest. If the US didn't have the world's reserve currency like Germany/France/UK/etc, the bill would come due via the bond markets. The demand for Euro-denominated debt is not near-infinite in the same way the demand for USD-denominated debt has been (at least up until now).

watwut 4mo ago

> America’s current troubles are political polarization and ballooning deficits. American problem is one sided right wing radicalization, not polarization. If left of center moved the the right even more, the issues would remain.

pembrook 4mo ago
I will call this Exhibit A in proving my point about polarization, thank you left-leaning person lacking in self-awareness. Now we just need a right-leaning person who lacks self awareness to offer a rebuttal to you and we can complete the picture.
- amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
  Are Americans really more polarized? I guess it depends on when you choose your baseline. It's certainly true that the political parties are more polarized, didn't used to be as ideological as they are now. To a large extent, the southern Democrats all left to join the Republican party, and the "compassionate conservatives" have mostly abandoned the Republican party. I expect with the split between MAGA and the America first people we are beginning to see another realignment.
  - 40four 4mo ago
    It’s an interesting question if we are more polarized now than at some point in the past. Hard to say, I wonder if there is some way to measure this? Maybe you could compare the amount of “undecided” voters over time. You always here people say one half of the country is red and the other half is blue, but in reality is probably more like 1/3 each red/blue and another 3rd who don’t subscribe to the dogma of either side and are fed up with the endless bickering between the two teams. One thing that’s for certain is the tech giants tech giants and news companies are attempting to manipulate us more than ever. It might feel like we’re more polarized that ever, but I think much of that is because it’s good for business, and they are shoving division in our faces on a daily basis. There is real evidence of this by an awesome project called “Tech Watch Project” (https://techwatchproject.org/ https://techwatchproject.org/). They have a data dashboard with real time charts at https://americasdigitalshield.com/ https://americasdigitalshield.com/. The idea is that tech giants are purposely trying to manipulate voters in the middle by feeding them more biased search results, notifications, et cetera. The thing about this, is that on close election they can literally swing elections the way they want them to go by manipulating undecided voters algorithms. In elections with wider margins it’s not going to have an effect, but in close races it only takes a point or two to get the desired result. This is a power they should not have and it needs to be talked about more.