Honorable mention for 8mm. It isn’t a good movie, unless you go for the very 1999 aesthetics. But I’ll give a shout-out to that quote delivered by Joaquin Phoenix: “If you dance with the devil, the devil don’t change. The devil changes you.”
Lord of War
Here’s the intro to Lord of War. I love the little smirk he pulls off at about 45s.
This does not have the seeds of a civil war.
Look back to 1861. The US was split between slave and free states. Both regions had different economic models that were in conflict. The slavers of the south controlled most of the nation’s capital. The slaves were worth more than all the railroads and foundries of the north. They had oligarchic control of the southern states.
When Lincoln was elected, it was the first time that an outspoken abolitionist became president. It was clear, that the demographics of the US were changing in a way that would lose their power and status. So they started a war.
Those weren’t the uneducated racists that you find waving confederate flags today.
The US has seen presidential lawlessness before (notably Andrew “Trail of Tears” Jackson). It also has seen lawlessness by state politicians (eg Harry F. “Massive Resistance” Byrd or Governor Orval “Blood will run in the Streets” Faubus).
The only way I could see a civil war is, if Trump directly threatened the Middle Class and/or the Wealthy Elites.
I work retail and we’ve had an onslaught of freight
How’s going now? Any noticeable change yet?
Lemmy.world is trying very hard to comply with the law. I think the same is true for lemm.ee; in that sense, they have already caved.
Sooner or later, EU governments are going to take a closer look at the fediverse. There are very loud demands that regulations should be more vigorously enforced. Some instances may not survive.
Maybe what happens first is that some instance gets sued. Maybe by the copyright industry, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some disgruntled user.
The EU doesn’t value the freedom of information (“free speech”) in the same way as the US, and a lot of people on the fediverse will tell you that it’s just more American bullshit. You shouldn’t assume that there is any “we” that wants to get around regulations.
By crashing the US economy, he is teaching a better lesson about fascism than any history professor.
Ok, another answer closer to the ground. 2 goals are often invoked. Reduce the trade deficit and increase domestic manufacturing.
… means that more goods (and services) come into the US from the rest of the world than the US delivers in return.
Reducing the trade deficit makes Americans poorer by design. There will be fewer goods available for Americans, either because they have to give up more to the rest of the world, or because they don’t come into the country in the first place.
The rest of the world is willing to loan money to people, companies, and governments in the US. It is also eager to invest in the country, because it really was a good place in which to do business. Look at the current big thing: AI. You can’t really do that in the EU, and investing in China has its own risks. Trump may actually reduce the deficit by making the US more of a South American style banana republic.
One manufactures stuff outside the US and transports it there because it is more efficient. Americans can be more profitably employed in different areas. Moving more manufacturing to the US should be expected to leave the average American poorer. It should not be expected, in isolation, to reduce the trade deficit as it creates new investment opportunities that potentially attract foreign money, increasing the deficit.
However, while Americans would be left financially poorer, there may be benefits not captured by conventional econometrics. Maybe manufacturing is more emotionally satisfying in a way that is not captured by only looking at the wages. Who knows?
Unfortunately, getting to that state will be brutal. Millions of people will have to find and learn new jobs. That is what happened when manufacturing was off-shored. Reversing that will have the same cost. Some economists have come to believe that the psychological cost of such structural changes has been vastly underestimated, and that is why trade agreements are so unpopular. The benefits from free trade may not outweigh the psychological pain and disruption of communities. Reversing free trade will have similar effects, that are likewise virtually impossible to measure.
I think the most objective benefit would arise if a war happened that disrupted trade. For example, if Trump invaded Canada and Greenland, this would probably lead to the US being embargoed. Then it would appear good to have already built manufacturing capacity in the US while it was still easy. You need physical goods to fight wars, after all.
There is no absolute, objective way to judge if some policy is a good or bad. We can only determine if some policy achieves its goals. This is difficult as different justifications for the tariffs have been given.
We can also have philosophical arguments over whether the goals are good in some abstract sense. For example, some people on the right feel that the US not having access to X-mas knick-knacks and gifts is positive, as it will force people to engage with religion.
Huh. Haven’t actually seen panic on Lemmy. I only see it on social media accounts of economists and logistics people.
The average person probably only knows the functioning of the DNS and one or two email apps. And quartz, of course.
Whenever anything is “federated” the easiest comparison is email.
Yes, but how many people know how email works? More to the point, how many people, who aren’t looking for the answer on GitHub, know?
…as a drunken man uses lamp posts — for support rather than illumination.
The question makes me remember Daryl Bem, a celebrated social psychologist. He published a much cited article called “Writing the Empirical Journal Article”. About 15 years ago, he used this advice to prove that humans can see into the future. His advice is probably still used to teach. That’s probably the worst thing you can do.
There’s a few billionaire numptie
Like who?
That would certainly be quite surprising. The expression of Trump being right is flexible enough to be interpreted in various ways.
The only plausible way would be if he achieves some largely meaningless concessions and the media spins it as a win. But if the American electorate gets the idea that the US can get free stuff by throwing a fit, then any agreement is not worth the paper it is written on.
Well, I guess that’s the answer. If Trump achieves anything positive with this, then the reaction with be self-destructive.
Do you have any particular scenario in mind that ends with Trump being vindicated?
I don’t think you have the choice. Products that aren’t imported are made with parts that are imported. In fact, there will be products that have several layers of products tariffs in them, for example cars. Parts are made, assembled into bigger parts and ever bigger parts, and may cross the Mexican or Canadian border each time.
These tariffs are a monumental act of economic self harm. That’s what the stock market is saying. Stocks have (rational) value because you are entitled to a share of future profits. The stock market crashing tells you that the pros expects that a lot of value is not going to be created. Trillions of dollars will not be paid out to stock-owners, and further trillions will not be paid out as wages. The real wealth that is the other side of that money - all these new goods, cars, phones, TVs, dishwashers … - will not exist in the USA.
So, don’t worry about hitting them in the wallet.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on an American ball sack—for ever.
Maybe watch out for products from Russia and Belarus, as they are not included in the tariffs. This may start a new era of economic cooperation; putting the US in USSR. Ironically, Russia is still hit hard because of oil taking a nosedive.
Trademarks have valid uses but they, too, are perverted. Think about luxury goods. The purpose of the brand name is simply to signal that the owner is able to afford the brand. These brands have nothing to do with consumer protection.
I consider them parasitic. Whatever utility someone gets from signalling with an exclusive brand is provided by society, not the company.
The public domain is not just useful but unavoidable and necessary.
You could imagine a world where all available physical matter is owned property. But intellectual property is an arbitrary legal creation. It is not finite.
EG Trademark law. Only the owner of a mark may use it to trade. The mark proclaims who is responsible for a product. If there were no unowned trademarks, you could not start a business without first paying off some owner. This would clearly be economically disastrous. So having unused, potential trademarks is necessary.
EG Patent law. Only the patent owner may use a certain invention; some trick of doing something. The patent is published so that others may learn from it and perhaps come up with other ways of achieving the same end. After (usually) 20 years, everyone may use the invention. Scientific theories, mathematical theorems, and other such things are always public domain.
If patents were broader and/or lasted for longer, you’d eventually not be able to do much business without having to pay off some owner. The owners could basically demand a tax on any kind of economic activity and deny consent for anything that might threaten their status. Progress would grind to a halt. It would be a new kind of feudalism.
So, a public domain is not just useful but absolutely necessary to our civilization.
Anything could be made into intellectual property. For example tax farming in ancient Rome and elsewhere. Monarchs granted special privileges, such as granting the East India Company a monopoly on trade. Or they might grant some person the monopoly on opening coffee houses in the country or a certain city. A title of nobility could be seen as a kind of intellectual property. Such titles were traded in a limited way. Anything that can be allowed or forbidden by the government could be turned into intellectual property.
That’s not correct. There are other forms of IP besides copyright, such as trademarks, patents, or even trade secrets.
What you are saying is somewhat true for US copyrights (and patents) per the copyright clause in the US Constitution. But mind that typically copyrights are owned by the employer of the creator, who may be a writer, even a programmer, photographer, or any other such professional who may not be considered an “artist”.
You would probably not consider yourself an artist for writing comments here, but you get copyright nevertheless.
European copyright has a very different philosophy behind it, which does not consider the public at all. It’s quite harmful to the public, actually.
That’s no moon.