Politics

Well I think a post by MigL stated that the forum has become too political. We should do science. The problem is the politics is effecting everyone and I don’t think science can fix it. If you could stop s Trump with science it would be an act of treason. Wired magazine released the names of DOGE members and were threatened. Science is for problems not political problems. Cure a disease fixed problem…still infinite problems to solve. The Great Courses has a class on verbal judo. I briefly read a description where it said that in intense situations logical arguments don’t work. So when you are in a meeting with Trump, saying tariffs will complicate a working world economy,…

The US currently has 6 B-2 bombers at Diego Garcia ( Indian Ocean ). Lots of C-17 airlifts from South Korea last week , reportedly carrying Air Defense Systems to the Middle East. USS Harry Truman in Middle East had its deployment extended. USS Carl Vinson currently in the Indian Ocean, moving to the Middle East from the Pacific. USS Nimitz departed San Diego middle of last month heading West. Multiple Middle East countries announce ban on US use of their territory/airspace to attack Iran ( to avoid retaliatory strikes ). B-2 is capable of carrying the GBU-57 ( 30 000 lbs ) penetrating bomb, specifically designed to take out underground facilities, but two of …

If JD Vance was looking for media attention when he spoke to Fox news last Thursday then he probably succeeded beyond his wildest ambitions. While defending president Trump’s insane trade tariffs, the vice-president launched into a tirade against the ‘globalist economy’ which included this gem: "To make it a little more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.” https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/08/china/china-slams-vance-peasants-remarks-intl-hnk/index.html This remark has now gone viral on Weibo 微博 - the Chinese microblogging site - with some 140 million views, and countless downvotes and negative response…

We have had a lot of discussions about different topics surrounding executive authority and and attempts to subvert democracy to assume complete power. The AtlanticTrump Is Already Undermining the Next ElectionAnd the one after that, and the one after that.Let's start with election integrity. As it stands, orange Voldemort with a nose (OVWAN) is attempting to exert undue control over the electoral process, something presidents aren't supposed to have any involvement in, outside of their own reelection campaigns. Taking control of elections or de facto destroying them, is a key step a would be dictator has to take in order to provide longevity to their regimes. The arti…

I was curious and so I decided to do a little digging and it turns out trade conflicts and escalations were quite apparent in the lead up to both World Wars. While correlation does not equal causation, I can't help but wonder if escalating trade conflicts happening amongst other preamble criteria, could be a potential predictor of a third world war. I am curious about who exactly benefits from trade wars really? Orange Voldemort is assuming these tariffs will make America a lot of money, money for what? More money for his businesses and his butt buddies businesses to squeeze out of Americans? To fund foreign military campaigns? I've heard some talk that it's an attempt …

As economists struggle to make sense of the bizarre list of punitive tariffs announced yesterday by president Trump, some noticed that the listings appear to have been organised by TLDs (top level domain) i.e the internet country code suffix - which provides one clue (amongst several) that this list was compiled with the help of an LLM (large language model) AI chatbot system such as ChatGPT Vibe Code https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/did-an-llm-help-write-trumps-trade A surreal list of obscure and largely uninhabited islands that are being punished with trade tariffs was compiled in this report by Rachel Maddow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lStWAhGfxn0…

I'm not sure whether this just funny or sinister: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/donald-trump-ridiculed-fertilisation-president-b1219162.html QUOTE “We’re gonna have tremendous goodies in the bag for women too,” he said during his speech. “The women, between the fertilization and all the other things we’re talking about, it’s gonna be great. Fertilization. I’m still very proud of it, I don’t care. I’ll be known as the fertilization president and that’s okay.” He added: “That’s not bad. I’ve been called much worse. Actually, I like it.” His remarks instantly drew ire from the internet, with many taking to social media to express their mount…

"The body of water formerly known in the United States as the Gulf of Mexico is now listed for US-based users of Google Maps as the Gulf of America." (‘Gulf of America’ arrives on Google Maps | CNN Business) I'm not US-based. This is how it is listed for me:

I suppose "fair" is a bit in the eye of the beholder so what I mean by it is that the rules are exactly the same for everyone. We can quibble about any of the numbers I use (mostly from the IRS) but they can be adjusted as necessary to get a more accurate result, what its important is the general construct of the tax system being proposed. As in any undertaking, there must be initial assumptions made about the parameters being used. For this I am assuming 153 million US taxpayers who earn collectively $14.7 trillion plus corporate profits of $12 trillion every year. Also, assuming that the feds spend $7 trillion each year and a total deficit of $37 trillion. Other assumpt…

Hello, I am conducting a college research project on the correlation between different levels of education and viewpoints on the use of nuclear energy. My hypothesis is that the more educated a person is, the more they may understand this topic (a commonly frightening subject to many people), and thus they may see the net positives more than the negatives of nuclear power. I am reaching out to this forum to receive some more diverse feedback on this topic and people's own ideas on this correlation (if there is a correlation at all, just a hypothesis after all). I just want to hear people's thoughts and maybe their own viewpoints on nuclear energy as well. Thank you

There are democracies and “democracies”. The DJT recently ordered the bombing of completely non-military locations, committing war crimes and murdering civilians who were not supposed to be targeted at all in Jemen. Just like his beloved colleague Volodya, and yet another mass murderer netanjahu. In these pseudo-democracies of modern times every leader wants to bomb and attack other countries according to his own vision, no matter that according to their constitution he has no authority to do so. After all, he doesn't “declare war,” he just bombs something there and someone there, and they watch it on the TV and it's okay. Like here: You have…

As far as I understand it, in ancient history, the Eastern despotisms dominated the world because they fought better than democratic city-states. Unfortunately, the one-man ruling is necessary for a war. At the same time, there is an opposite tendency: free countries support new ideas, including military innovations, better than unfree ones. The general weakness of Eastern-type civilization is that the science and technology developed more slowly there, than in Western-type civilizations. As for military innovations and ideas, I can suggest three examples: 1) The Swiss have historically lived very freely, and now the Switzerland is now the country with the highest level…

Jester's license in Germany: Zölle = Trade Tariffs Klima ... = climate change(?) Massendeportationen (?) = Mass deportations And no, Annex-Ionen are no ions of annex, but annexations It is said jesters say the truth... And yes, I am very angry and very worried. WW2 is forgotten...

Do you think his extensive knowledge of financial infrastructure and awareness of the long term consequences of fiscal decisions will make him a useful person against Trump's shennanigans for Canada and its allies?

With disaffection of both political parties in the USA at an all time high, remedying the issues created by both political parties may require a constitutional amendment and a large cultural movement amongst voters to push this issue onto future candidates, explicitly mandating them with the dissolution and abolition of all multi-issue political parties in the United States. The right to assembly is retained through the retained ability of voters to form parties around single issues, so that parties can attempt to remain solution based while focused on a singular area of governance. So, with all that said, what would the pros and cons of such a system be? With or wi…

Did I seriously just watch Vance trying to make claims about being more diplomatic, to then watch a master class on how not to do diplomacy? I don't know exactly the process by which Trump and Vance receive their paycheck from Putin, but pretty sure Putin will feel like they earned it 100%. This was like watching a pair of mangy scrawny dogs trying to pick a fight with a wounded bear. I've honestly never felt such sympathy for a politician but Zelensky shows such self restraint here, I'd have smacked the eyeliner right off JDs face. "Propaganda tour" seriously? Those are real buildings destroyed by Russia, real dead bodies, real stories. Where is the propagand…

There is an interesting new article in The Atlantic (Feb 24 2025) by Jonathan Rauch entitled ‘One Word Describes Trump’. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/corruption-trump-administration/681794/ The article cites a recent book called The Assault on the State: How the Attack on Modern Government Endangers our Future - by two professors - Stephen E. Hanson and Jeffrey S.Kopstein. This book in turn reaches back over a century to the work of a seminal German sociologist called Max Weber (1864-1920) who is probably best known for his book called The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) Max Weber was interested in how leade…

During the recent US elections, polls were conducted in different countries to find out whom did people support more among the American presidential candidates; while in Europe the majority was for Harris, in Russia there were 7 times more people who supported Trump than Harris. This is understandable in light of the fact that the Trumpism is ideologically closer to Putinism: for example, in Russia, homophobia is part of the state ideology, and Trump also does not like LGBT. I wonder if Russians can now begin to change their views regarding their attitude to democracy. On TV, Russians have always been told that the excesses associated with LGBT in Europe, such as tra…

He's kinda the antichrist of Capitalism, which disturbingly, for a MAGA, is kinda Marxist. Discuss. Bing Videos

In the early 1990s, an american political scientist called Joseph Paul Overton (1960-2003) popularised a concept that became widely known as ‘The Overton Window’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overton_Window Also known as the ‘window of discourse’, it represents the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at any given time. It is visualised as a vertical axis divided into what one political commentator Joshua Terviño called ‘the six degrees of acceptance’ : - unthinkable - acceptable - sensible - popular - policy The hypothesis is that politicians and lawmakers typically attempt to ac…

Andrew Coyne a columnist for leading Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail had this to say on the eve of Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration - (quoted in full because of a paywall): https://www.theglobeandmail.com/.../article-trumps.../

Some time ago I wrote here, that Trump and Biden are two sides of the same coin, that the middle class is disappearing in the Western society, and that the inflation is a hidden taxation (for the poor, but not for the wealthy). Do you still deny these statements?

In August 2025, the owner of Telegram Pavel Durov was arrested in France. The French policemen accused him that because of the lack of the moderation in Telegram, the Telegram had become a platform for criminals like drug dealers. I am not sure that this arrest of Durov was legal. If I am not mistaken, the constitutions of all Western countries declare the right of secrecy of correspondence. Possibly all they were derived from the Article 2 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789. Because people like drug dealers use messengers for communication, the policemen indeed need to read their correspondence; so it seems that Durov was arrested beca…

Russian economy is now totally dependent on China: if China stops buying Russian oil, Russia would experience economic collapse and famine. Xi does not want to go this way yet, since he as a dictator supports dictator Putin. But Xi is probably unsatisfied with Putin's nuclear threats. I have already said that the West should declare that, in case of a very massive nuclear strike from Russia, the United States should retaliate not only against Russia, but also against of China. At the same time, there is a possibility to interest Xi with the following proposal. China will firstly join the sanctions; then Russia will experience an economic collapse and Putin's rating will…

Premises: World wide energy consumption is rising rapidly and will continue to do so; Energy distribution infrastructure upgrades are not keeping pace with increasing demand; Imported fuels have net negative economic effects to the American economy; Energy has a strong impact upon American political policy Imported fuels make America vulnerable to unstable world politics Energy producers wield too much influence over government energy policy Given those premises being accepted, questions: If there were no government subsidies, which method of generating electricity on a wide scale would be most practical? By practical, I mean p…