CharonY

I think it is again a situation where both elements apply. It is stupid, but there is also a vague idea behind it. On the least ideological side there is simply the desire to keep the fires of culture wars going. It has given right-wing politics a huge boost and they want to keep that in addition of other emotional issues, such as immigration, nativism, and so on. Folks like Bannon have openly mentioned that as a key strategy before the first administration. In addition, they have realized that breaking up shared realities is incredibly powerful to get rid of any accountability (fake news, luegenpresse, etc.). This effectively neuters media and public control. Institutions that are involved in fact-finding include courts (and we see ongoing assaults there) but also universities, where one of the goal of research is to understand complex and intricate issues. This can lead to political undesirable facts. This includes issues like climate change, evolution, vaccines, but also sex and gender, which is used as a wedge issue to discredit other of science. It doesn't really matter in that context whether the mice are transgenic or transgender (especially as one could manipulate hormone receptors and observe developmental changes....). There is a concerted effort to replace deep understanding with "common sense", i.e. just replace it with things that feel emotionally true and can be whatever folks want. Thus, scaring institutions involved in fact-checking into compliance provides control and further removes accountability. That is pretty much what for example the Soviets did. I am sure that they are doing that in stupid ways and many of the folks involved are genuinely stupid. But I don't think that there is no intent behind it as a whole. I think of it as an emergent property of stupid and malicious hunger for power.

And this shows that LLM are not necessarily very good in providing clarity, despite their claim of doing so. I think there are economic folks are telling him that broad tariffs generally speaking are a bad idea. However, in his inner circle there are also proponents for tariffs. Looking at Project 2025, there is for example Navarro who proposed reciprocal tariffs to balance trade and apparently he believes that it has the potential to move supply chains back to the US. I assume that TFG hears this various opinions and since he is generally not able to synthesize information well, he is going just to pick and choose parts that he likes. Which then results in a haphazard implementation that looks amateurish.

I am mostly with MigL on this one but I would add two more stipulations. One, which can be tricky in today's atmosphere, is that folks are going to discuss in good faith. This is fairly common in scientific conferences and roundtables and expert panels, where at least quasi-consensus can be reached. This does not meant that there is a singular answer that all can agree on, but rather there is a consensus regarding the current state of knowledge regarding a particular topic, frequently with a list of open questions, areas of uncertainty or disagreement and knowledge gaps to be addressed. In these contexts, experts basically outline their viewpoint and tend to calibrate it with additional information gained by the other experts on the table. However, with a random assortment of folks who just happen to have expertise in the area, but might have different motivations (e.g. if someone works for the government and doesn't want to get fired), things may be different. The second is basically what I mentioned above already, and is related to how well a system is understood and what degrees of freedom the question offers. If the question is broad (like the overall impact on the US economy) there is likely going to be a clear consensus on immediate and well-understood effects (e.g. increase in consumer pricing), probably more variability in areas with less data (e.g. how will individual companies react in the long-term) and so on. Also, the more granular the answer is supposed to be, the less consensus is likely as often detailed knowledge is needed. For example, tariffs can increase competitiveness for domestic manufacturing based on standard models, however, it might not be true in all industries which could be specialized knowledge. And again, I think that certainty depends less on the format of discussion, but how well a system is understood in relation to the question under discussion.

This might be a bit off-topic, depending on what OP had in mind, but I think the short-term effects and especially because of the way it is implemented, as you mentioned is pretty much universally seen as detrimental. I think where folks might have different opinions is what will happen if broad tariffs would be maintained for a very long time).

There are at least three factors in question. The first is regarding the knowledge of participants and having a discussion of folks with at some expertise on the topic has high potential of improving the quality of discussions. The part that I would add is some level of moderation to keep discussions on-topic. The second part that is more or less only implied is regarding certainty of of a consensus. That would be highly dependent on the topic and how complex it is. If there are knowledge gaps, more research might be needed before experts can be certain about the topic. The third factor is how well a question is defined. In this case, good or bad could mean a lot of things. A good question is critical for high quality discussions and research. One could ask specifics, such as what outcome are tariffs likely to have on specific measures. Or even broader ones, like what is the impact on the labour market? But ideally it has to be something measurable and therefore defined.

Both tend to be related. Wittgenstein has argued that language is our key tool to construct reality, or at least our understanding of it. Limiting it, as explored in Orwell's 1984 would also limit our experience of reality. The cons have taken that as an instruction manual, after heavily projecting that the libs are doing it for nefarious purposes such as addressing systemic inequality. Instead, they are doing it to combat important things, like drinking water.

Yes, but that has probably more economic reasons. I believe in China abortion is widely legal (though there are some difficult relationships due to the one-child policy and resulting overabundance of boys relative to girls). Also, rather than banning abortions, they have create incentives, such as subsidies and other support to ease affordability (whether those are effective is probably another discussion). It is possible that things are changing, but I think the context for now at least is a bit different.

It is not only a dictator thing. It is part of the manosphere, where it is considered manly to impregnate women. Musk is a poster child for that. We are living in the stupidest version of a man's world.

It is also a very aggressive variant of the classic spin. Except that with the help of the amplifying powers of the internet, the more emotionally loaded version at some point seems to overwrite the original context, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I assume it falls under the same category as the claim that no confidential information was shared. That being said, as the administration changes rules on a whim with no relationship to evidence or reality, it probably does not matter.

General speaking, when it comes to risk management of biological agents, the models are typically not quantitative. If you run a biosafety lab, for example, it is expected to be as close to zero risk as possible. The categories you deal with are usually qualitative in nature, e.g., high vs low risk, rather than precisely quantified, which, in many cases is simply not possible. For personal care products, including soap, there are regulatory standards in terms of bacterial counts that have to be met. Because of the precise definitions, laundry does not fall under that category, but considering that laundry is in close contact with skin, it is a plausible risk.

Fair enough. It is hard to tell these days.

I don't think that it is clear that Signal is an obviously acceptable tool. According to a warning by the Pentagon: It seems that it is considered acceptable only for a narrow range of uses.

The number of seven was based on directly attributable deaths and was considered the minimum. There other estimates based on certain models as well as excess death calculations. The high end is around 35M, IIRC, but would likely include cases that were simply caused by an overtaxed health system.

This is working as designed. Folks on the top are have tweaked the system to avoid accountability and part of it is firing the folks below. Ablative armor, so to speak.

If you are referring to COVID-19, it is a) unrelated to influenza, b) caused over 7 million confirmed deaths (excess death calculations show an even worse picture), which puts it somewhere among the top 10 of pandemics. The impact of it was also clearly global, and the best response would have been a united one. Instead folks fought over PPE and vaccines (and then against vaccines). Also at the beginning, there was no telling how much worse it could have been. And yet, years later we keep seeing folks stating how unimportant it was. This, of course are those who didn't lose anyone and/or are delusional.

Remember the outcry regarding the removal of confederate symbols and statues? Meanwhile, universities are warning international students (and are hinting the same to faculty)not to leave the country as they might not be able to re-enter. But even so, yet another grad student is detained by ICE, this time in Alabama. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/us/ice-detains-doctoral-student-university-alabama.html Brownshirt tactics.

So basically unattributed account of an interaction that, as far as I can tell is entirely phony (a quick search revealed similar videos but each with another "professor"). This is astonishingly accurate, but in a sad, vacuous way. Regarding keeping a straight face, he is really good at making very detailed promises (like, autonomous driving by end of next year December, maybe November) and keep doing that for years without showing any level of self-consciousness. But maybe that is because he is such a math genius that actual numbers don't mean anything to him anymore. How does the saying go? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me every time, I must be a Musk fan.

What I am wondering about, is it normal for US Presidents to be so hands off when it comes to bombing other countries? It seemed from the thread that there were some general directions, but apparently it was up to the folks in the chat to decided whether to go forward.

My guess is until people forget and/or get distracted by the other 10000 screw ups and unlawful actions.

They also have started to arrest grad students. https://apnews.com/article/tufts-student-detained-massachusetts-immigration-6c3978da98a8d0f39ab311e092ffd892?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share

Again, I will posit that we are dealing with malignant motivations/actions paired with incompetence. The administration is full of bad actors who are trying to exploit others. But they are also terrible at their job and in hiding things. Well, there are apparently some Canadians (well below 20%) who look at that and want to join. Mostly the demographic you probably expect most to do so.

It is one of the more consistent aspects- they ultimately did it to protect their trade routes and there might be additional motivations prompting them to do it. But thinking that the Europeans should pay is basically the same idea as building a wall and have Mexico pay it. I.e., try to externalize cost and bully folks into doing it, if you can.

Just to add to the point, Spiegel just reported that mobile phone numbers, email addresses and some passwords have been found freely accessible on the internet.

With this administration I would like to introduce Charon's Y. "Why not both?"