aurum

Sounds a bit speculative to me at this point still. I responded to the debate debacle by saying people should let it go. The time frame didn’t seem realistic to me and there didn’t really seem to be anyone else who was a stronger candidate. Also, from an optics POV it looks kind of weak if Biden just drops out immediately after the debate. Trump would trash him for that. Ultimately though, if the Dems feel they would have a better shot with someone else than I support it. I do appreciate the 4 year run Biden had but the future matters the most. The most important thing is that the candidate is able to unite the left. No more complaining about how this person isn’t good enough. No more RFK or protest vote nonsense. No more false equivalencies with Trump. No more “can’t it be anyone else?”. Unite and fight. That’s what is needed right now.

That is a conspiracy. Please be mindful of the standards for this forum.

Latest album was really mediocre in comparison to his older work. He is too stuck on what worked in the past. Still doing Ken Kaniff and Paul Rosenberg skits. Still ending songs with "I'm just kidding X, you know I love you". It all feels stale to me. I was really hoping "Death of Slim Shady" meant he was going in a new direction. He could have explored new territory. Instead it was the opposite. Evolve or hang it up I think are his options at this point.

The devilry of Trump has been pointed out ad nauseam since 2016. And to act like it hasn't is deeply disingenuous. The problem is lack of listening, lack of understanding and lack of taking these critiques seriously.

And it may be much more than just an endorsement: https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2024-07-15/musk-plans-to-commit-around-45-million-a-month-to-new-pro-trump-super-pac-wsj-reports

Actual investigators don't just jump to conclusions. They have to find sufficient, credible evidence before making a claim. Sit tight and wait. We will know more soon.

Campaign promises are irrelevant when you have someone who wants to overthrow democracy. That should be the end of discussion right there. It’s also a laughable hypothetical considering we know what the conservative agenda is. Legalize all psychedelics? Project 2025 doesn’t even want legal porn.

The best thing he said was that there are inherent tradeoffs between individualism and collectivism. That is a valid insight you can keep with you. But there’s so much nonsense and rationalizations in here it’s not even worth sifting through. It’s a good idea to discern between a genuine balanced perspective and “both-sideism”. Owen is doing a lot of the latter here.

That's incorrect. Many of the politicians themselves are strongly religious. It's not just an act they play for the masses, although some may do that.

You’re all good.

Not the time to be joking about something like that.

Politicians survive assassination attempts. It’s not like assassination is an easy thing to pull off, even if you are a determined shooter. Just look at examples throughout history. Also, see that many people who survived such attempts were not historically always the “good guys”.

Holy cringe. Owen’s political takes are so consistently bad.

@kyle barnett We've had many threads of this topic in the past, I'd recommend searching the forum for those. To summarize my position, I would love if we could create a product that effectively replaces animal meat. Obviously lab meat companies like Beyond Burger have attempted to do just that. But I'm not convinced that these lab meats are better from a health perspective yet. So at this point, I still eat animal foods. That may all change in the upcoming decades. We are still in the infancy of such a project.

Such as? Every major world power has engaged in imperialism, colonialism, exploitation etc. The US is unprecedented in terms of the global power it has achieved, with a significant amount of that due to its unique geographical advantages and embracing of liberalism. So of course its potential for abuse is much higher. We will not be able to find historical examples of world powers acting exactly the same. The world has evolved. My point is that there is a kind "Evil-American exceptionalism" argument that is being made in this thread. And it's an untenable position. If you want to call American foreign policy evil, fine. But don't create this story that America is somehow special in its evilness. If anything, America as a whole is relatively uncorrupt compared to most countries. And that's partially why it has been so successful and has the power it does.

It's unique only in form, not in kind. It's not an east vs west debate per se, it's about who has power and who doesn't. Who is able to bully who? If we swapped the power the west has with the east, the east would behave just like the west. There is nothing inherently morally superior about the east that would prevent this. In addition, countries with less power are often found to be more internally corrupt. Don't mistake lack of bullying for lack of corruption.

Is it causing you any symptoms you are aware of?

Solidarité. Perhaps a foreshadowing of things to come in November for the US. For the idealists out there, it's worth noting that it required cooperation between centrists and leftists for this to happen.

@Rafael Thundercat Too conspiratorial and pointing the finger at elites.

The US is not uniquely corrupt. It simply has more power to abuse because it has been so successful. No third world country can instigate a coup against a first-world country because they have no power to do so. But they would if they could. https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023

If you want to go with polls, here is a poll from the NYT suggesting Trump is ahead: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/elections/polls-president.html Here is an aggregate of polls that suggest Trump may be edging over Biden, although it is close: https://www.realclearpolling.com/latest-polls This is not to suggest that my polls are right and yours are wrong. Or that I know Trump will win. I'm simply saying we don't truly know at this point. And people who feel certain one way or the other are likely self-deceived in their certainty. If you want that, fine. My point was simply that Trump has no interest in that.

Oh, much worse. With Trump it will be UNHINGED American selfishness. If you think that Trump is a monster, then you should agree that this monster is not capable of giving a shit about Russia, Ukraine, Palestine or any of this. This monster will not do your bidding. Trump will use the power of the American military against foreign countries in the same way he runs his own life, which is complete selfishness. He will fuck over the rest of the world just like he fucks over everyone else, to whatever degree he is allowed. The reason he hasn't been able to do so is because the world is smart enough not to allow such things. But this is the kind of character we are talking about. It's not that Joe Biden being a weak senile man makes him less capable of destruction. It's that he is orders of magnitude more morally developed and less corrupt than Trump. And yes, that is true despite whatever evil you feel America is currently doing in the world. It's actually not Americans that will suffer the most from this. Americans may actually benefit to some degree from Trump's unhinged selfishness. He will put America above every other country. At least until it backfires. So it's actually the rest of the world that will suffer the most. You think Trump is going to bring you the justice you seek, but in the end it will be everyone who suffers.

Trump agenda has nothing to do with creating an enlightened balance of liberalism and conservatism. We attempt to do that kind of SD Tier 2 thinking on this forum. But that's not what this is. Yes, that's what makes it bad. It's very obvious from studying history what the problems of dictatorships are. And why the US Founding Fathers themselves went to great lengths to ensure that power would not end up being concentrated in the hands of one person or even a few people. It doesn't need to be new to be a problem. Because the SCOTUS just granted Trump a form of presidential immunity from being held liable to the law. This is a huge deal. Also, many people are concerned over Biden's recent debate performance and are questioning his ability to win. The reality is that there are all kinds of predictions and interpretations of the polling out there. We don't know who is going to win. But a Trump victory is certainly not out of the realm of possibility, not even by a long shot. Therefore it must be taken seriously, especially when the stakes are so high if he wins. +1

Yes that's exactly right. A democratic leader can only be as wise as the citizenry that elect them. We have Trump, Biden and RFK because they deeply appeal to the majority of Americans. Of course a better candidate is still theoretically possible. This is not set in stone. But these three have been very successful at persuading people to vote for them. Also, Trump is just power-hungry and willing to manipulate at a level many normal people are not. So it could be argued that he has gotten to the top through deception and not genuine appeal, which is a problem. But nonetheless, people still like him because he is effective at playing into their value system.

Oh, just a half autocratic government. I see. Here’s how to understand Trump: he will seize whatever power he possibly can. This is not an overreaction. This is exactly what he has proven through his own behavior. And there are many that would support him in doing just that. The ONLY reason he is not dictator now is because the US had enough checks and balances to prevent it. But they will be targeted moving forward. If you think Trump is just going to go home after his next four year term, you are mistaken. It was obvious that a peaceful transition of power after his first term would be tenuous. Now it will be even worse.