Posts by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #Ar7EDHWVX5hnoVErbs by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-02-14T17:06:13Z
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@interfluidity Many people have fallen for some variant of this, even nominal leftists. “The glorious semiquincentennial will be overseen by the worst people in the world, and I for one am excited about that”
(DIR) Post #ArIKOlxDT7wzqH9Yau by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-02-20T01:37:27Z
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@interfluidity President Grassley is something I’ve thought about a lot for some reason. It just feels like a Chekov’s Gun thing at this point, the gerontocrat to end all gerontocrats.
(DIR) Post #ArWF9kszXSoAiERYxc by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-02-26T18:44:39Z
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@interfluidity We could use the 14th amendment to downsize Congress too 😉
(DIR) Post #Ard0vPNvvemO8Dg0lU by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-03-02T01:08:11Z
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@interfluidity I think so. The China tariffs will go through for sure; there’s no “victory” China can sign on to here. And it feels like Canada won’t play ball either now that the Liberals have harnessed the anti-Trump sentiment so well. I don’t know about Mexico but those tariffs would, I think, be the most consequential if they actually happened.
(DIR) Post #AriO4rLcbRcUCNs2HQ by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-03-04T15:21:00Z
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@interfluidity I think so. Also, if he’s ever formally disqualified like that, someone should make the case that all his pardons are invalid. Like, it’d be no less absurd if Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bill Clinton were president right now, pardoning people and everyone was like “you gotta hand to him, this is all very cool and very legal.”
(DIR) Post #ArsvP2MuZrU0EsIo8u by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-03-09T17:21:41Z
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@interfluidity Tech tolerates a level of sloppiness and incompetence (the CrowdStrike incident, the constant Google Chrome performance issues, etc.) that no other field that calls its basic practitioners “engineers” could ever get away with.
(DIR) Post #AsHjrtH2eGAw9TlfRQ by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-03-20T15:41:45Z
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This was an all-timer. A perfect rebuttal of Effective Altruism and Roko’s basilisk
(DIR) Post #AsHjrxrLbDaqNEmiaO by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-03-21T03:14:29Z
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https://youtu.be/cdaaFcfYleo?si=bYBywdHs7w0UoZCs
(DIR) Post #AsU9XSpoAV3Z47T9ZQ by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-03-27T16:24:24Z
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@interfluidity Incoming genius strategy of “you need a passport to vote but only in red states and also a passport is meaningless”
(DIR) Post #AsaL3dZf9ORx4hL4Xg by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-03-30T16:01:43Z
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@interfluidity It’s funny that “maximizing the share price of the U.S. government” (to the extent that makes any sense) would in practice probably mean nationalizing most industries and the stock market itself while going deeper into debt. Gotta borrow some money to snatch up Cantor Fitzgerald and Tesla and return the cash to the citizen-shareholders and keep the Congress-board of directors happy.
(DIR) Post #Asz9g68jKI62boNyaG by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-04-11T15:21:58Z
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@interfluidity “People were tired of all the pain and hurting, which why they had no choice but to elect the Holy Roman Emperor of Pain to oversee the Diet of Hurts” - untold numbers of soft-focus pieces and other obfuscatory takes on swing voters 🙄
(DIR) Post #AtYLzbFTAet9S4CyGG by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-04-28T14:54:54Z
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@interfluidity I didn’t follow him on X but I recall an episode that broke through, in which he and Benedict Evans took a pro-British Raj/pro-colonialism position. He apologized at the time but it’s clear now that his reactionary turn was accelerating.
(DIR) Post #AvrIejCfpOe3Lqi9zM by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-07-06T14:01:10Z
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@interfluidity Going to need a lot of coal and oil to make those EVs and solar panels (monster trucks I agree are nostalgic stupidity)
(DIR) Post #B0arSvr4yWuSII9WC0 by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-11-25T05:01:39Z
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@interfluidity I always get a little demoralized when someone examines something that has gotten measurably worse with time but then qualifies it with a statement to the effect of “but to say the past was in any way better is just pure reaction, yuck” (or, for a more specific example, when a tech skeptic dulls the edge of their criticism of some problematic invention or trend with “now I’m no Luddite or anything…”).
(DIR) Post #B0gJC8502Zann9EuOG by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-11-27T20:05:51Z
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@interfluidity I don’t what anti-democrats—assuming they’re liberals, not reactionaries—expect a practical good government to look like. Go-to “good” autocracy examples such as Singapore or China have many deficiencies and their success, such as it is, hapoened within a democracy-dominated world order. Technocracies, like Paul Krugman’s “we trade freely” cadre of economists that he imagined replacing the WTO long ago, would succumb to groupthink and wouldn’t be routinely accountable, either.
(DIR) Post #B1E6UyCCJtzGbrthOC by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-12-14T03:23:51Z
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@interfluidity I’m fascinated by how many on the left treat the defense of sex work, OnlyFans creators, and so on as the most noble of causes (I’d don’t really agree but I gives me pause). It feels like lingering negative polarization against a right-wing that no longer exists (i.e., the Reagan-through-W GOP). Leaves us in a weird moment where seemingly no one, except a few contrarians, are explicitly anti-porn, but “porn” as we know it could be on the verge of precipitous decline anyway.
(DIR) Post #B1GDepYGOwbGgwmsJk by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-12-15T03:53:30Z
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@interfluidity Hasn’t the United States sort of done that military build-up thing? Although it’s also the one providing all the demand. The error of the tariffs has been in their blanket imposition, instead of them being laser-targeted at surplus countries, China in particular. It makes no sense to tariff Canada or India right now, e.g.
(DIR) Post #B1HAKJT1sKpMggp8jo by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-12-15T14:50:50Z
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@interfluidity I’m OK with the China tariffs, which even Biden supported to an extent, because at least they’ve moved the U.S. beyond just hoping for the best from “free trade.” They’re not enough on their own—and who knows, they might be gone soon and then we’ll be back to the “good old days” of a growing trade deficit. Maybe Japan can provide a test case of the deficit-country military buildup theory, but the early returns from its relations with China aren’t promising.
(DIR) Post #B1HINOkdU9hTZs2ce8 by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-12-15T16:21:04Z
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@interfluidity Right, I agree that negative polarization against tariffs could provide cover for reversion to strident (and destabilizing) “free trade” policies. Plus, SCOTUS potentially invalidating some tariffs could have the added effect of restoring its legitimacy with some liberals. At the same time, I think it may be hard for the U.S. to give up on tariffs completely. The politics of a Democratic president lifting a bunch of tariffs to provide relief to China’s exporters are terrible.
(DIR) Post #B1NtUtCRXUzlI8F6vI by eARCwelder@mastodon.social
2025-12-18T20:45:13Z
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@interfluidity The term originated from a 1938 play but has sadly just become a synonym for “lying” in most current usage