Jace, Extat

And ain't that the most goddamnedest thing about it! The dirty commies stole our whole economic model and did it way better! Motherfuckers! They have their own goddamn-motherfucking-can-you-believe-it space station! A space station! The Chinese are good at shit. They must be stopped.

They're successful communists.

China isn't just communist or authoritarian, they're a peer competitor too. They got magnificently wealthy off trading in markets secured by U.S. military power and used that wealth to usurp production capacity (and jobs) from the states they trade with. They're a malign actor with a tremendous amount of power that we in the West essentially gave them in return for cheaper goods. We should not be trading with them or countries that do business with them.

Some ideas just don't translate to reality. Tragic, but there it is.

China is an authoritarian police state which derives its right to rule from professed communist ideals. That's just what communism looks like in the real world.

One of a kind Well... yeah. You don't want rivals if you're the hegemon. They're communists! Trade with them was the biggest U.S. mistake since maybe ever. They're fucking communists!

I would sooner put out my own eyes than see that.

We have the capacity to do both, manage Europe and counter China. We need to be expanding the federal government and DoD, not shrinking them. We need a real Space Force that has real resources to deploy in orbit. We need to be making unmanned tanks and planes a national priority, like a Jobs in Every State! kinda thing. This bushwacking of federalism in favor of private enterprise is not going to help beat China. That's interesting. I can imagine national programs to replant forests and terraform against climate change. But you're gonna need a functioning government for that.

I think the 30s are gonna be waves of government failures to adapt to world events and automation that's going to see states take more and more power at the expense of the federal government. I don't think the U.S. will go away, though. Individual states may do insane shit like mass arrests of liberals or LGBT people. I almost feel like that's inevitable. But I don't think California will take up arms against Texas or anything.

Well I certainly hope you're correct, but I doubt it. I don't think the internet is capable of returning to "normal" and the internet is what drives our culture now. Peoples' whole identities are built around what they do and who they view online, and I don't think the Pandora's Box of insanity can be reigned in at this point. This is the biggest tragedy of Trumpism in my mind. I can't lay the rise of China as a superpower at Trump's feet, that mistake was made decades ago, but the abdication of U.S. supremacy depresses and disturbs me. I cannot understand why anyone (American) would want to surrender U.S. hegemony over the world, and to see it happening due to simple ignorance and spite is horrifying. There will be more countries going after nukes in the next two decades and it'll only increase the opportunities for a WW3. I don't necessarily disagree with you here, but Trump and Trumpism isn't even trying to revitalize American manufacturing. It's not a goal, they don't have slogans like Make it in America or anything. All they're interested in is tax cuts and deregulation. Again, I don't really disagree. I'm very hopeful that AI will do wonders for healthcare. But there's no interest from the Right to make sure these changes benefit everybody. They'll put people out of jobs because automation is cheaper and never look back. That's going to make a lot of angry people with nothing to do except get sucked into AI curated internet hellholes and I don't think that's gonna lead anywhere good.

The one time Karradin agrees with me and we're discussing an American Holocaust. Yipee! I'm worried about drones too, specifically machines building machines to "maintain public order." The opportunity for abuse of the masses by the ultra-wealthy whose companies produce that stuff is obvious and feels inevitable. And such systems being governed by crazies from Trumpistan is the stuff of nightmares.

Warning: This one's gonna be dark. If you don't want it, click away now. Ye be warned. I think it could get pretty bad. Like, Jace gets sent to a camp bad. Not by Trump, I'm sure I'll survive Trump. But what comes after is haunting to consider. There is power, now, in encouraging madness in this country. And with AI, automation, that'll be possible in say 30 years, you don't need 350 million people to maintain a world empire. You could have pretty sweet standards of living and full employment with, say, 100 million. Which ain't too far from the number of people who voted for Trump. But that's just me.

My fears exactly. I think about it every day, what horrors might come after Trump.

Right up until the moment guys start shooting into the crowd, I'm sure.

Oh buddy... oh buddy. If Trump dies at 105 with his cock in a hooker's mouth there are gonna be conspiracies that she was a secret dem who poisoned her tongue. It's why I have no hope for the future. Trump dying might be the worst thing to happen for America in a hundred years.

That's a real interesting question, and my early thought is that maybe this is a product of the internet and internet culture. Things like nationality don't really matter at the level of peoples' ability to communicate with or listen to each other anymore. I think that manifests in folks identifying with people and movements that share their general vibe and worldview rather than their national interests. Because on the internet what's really the difference between someone who agrees with you in Romania vs someone in Russia? There isn't one, practically.

I think you're right on, there. He's so crazy and inconsistent that it's actually not hard to just believe anything about him and that's what his appeal is. You can imagine him saying literally anything, and if you're constructing an adoration of a person then a sense/belief that he would agree with you on X,Y, or Z seems important to me. I'm not sure if it would be better or worse for the country if Trump were to waste away and die. On one hand, there is no real successor to MAGA as a movement because Trump could never share his spotlight and it could become aimless and a hindrance to Republican candidates because none of them measure up. On the other hand, I expect endless conspiracy theories whenever Trump dies that claim he was murdered by Dems or the Deep State. And the madness which follows could produce some kind of political end-stage boss whose insanity and evil makes Trump look like a sad old man who was just driven by impulse and a craving for applause... which is what he is. I don't think Trump wants to destroy the republic and institute an autocracy, really. He's doing shit that may well lead to such a thing, but I don't believe that's his own intentional project. That's him being a fucking retard and just trying to win at his latest stupid stunt. The kind of people who could reassemble MAGA without Trump, those people will be believers in at least the power of its internal insanity and craving for a Supreme Leader and follow that through to destroy democracy.

John Cena made a heel turn? That actually sounds kinda fun.

I do not claim to be a prophet but God has come to me in his righteous wrath and made a promise on the future which depressed and destroyed me: Kirk Cousins is going to end up in Indy. Were my sins so great? To deserve this torment of has-beens and mediocrities cast as uplifters of a team so close to success? This I ask of the board, for after his pronouncement of doom upon my people God has not spoken to me. I am cast upon the rocks of unhope and unholiness, weeping great tears of sorrow for the greatness of days long lost.

I just thought it was excessive. I ain't the right person to be making arguments about being nicer and shit. Did my best. There it is.

You and others here seem to have a lot of anger in ya. Give ol' Jace a taste. I just got home from work and got nothin' goin' on. Tell me exactly why it boggles a mind that I might advocate outreach instead of blanket rejection, and where that's got us to this point. Ya ain't scared, are ya? Tell me what you think. But where does this lead us? You can't just throw away a third of the country, you have to live with these people for this to be a functioning society. Not every Trump voter is a monster, most of them are just stupid. I'm not asking you to be their best friend, but is it too much to ask to hear them out? Maybe try to persuade them to think more critically rather than ridicule them for not doing so already? Y'all bullied mcbigsky so bad he doesn't even comment anymore, and I had nothin' to say to that. He's a big boy, I thought he could handle it and make his own choices. But this @Back in Black-Snow fella? This poor wretched creature? Shame. Shame on all o' y'all. He popped his misshapen, no earlobe havin', head into your midsts and ya lopped it off immediately. Didn't even toy with the food, let alone eat it in the end, you just swatted him into the dust of Republicans-past and called it Friday. So he's a moron? So what? You gotta be a moron to vote for Trump, at least he was able to form a coherent feeling against something Trump had done. That's pretty good for one of them! This kid was actually having a thought that wasn't "LoLs, Trump make libs mad". That's a fucking miracle, for one of them. That shit makes me believe there might actually be a God, whose design is to the good; that one of these mouth breathing edgelord fucks can actually develop a perspective beyond "LoL, Dude" and say to themselves and others "I didn't like that." So give the next one a fuckin' chance and see what they have to say before you destroy them.

Don't tease. Use that breath to take a hit and tell me what's what.

I don't see why. My interests and welfare are tied to the interests and welfare of the United States, all of it. And it does not serve the interests of the United States to have half of the country at war with the other half, so it does not serve my interests. To what point and purpose? So that you can feel smug and superior while driving potential reclamations back out of the sunlight when they dare emerge to it? Or do you have a grander goal to which I am unfortunately blind that this haranguing drives towards? I'm saying "hey, maybe we could be a little nicer to folks" and you see contrarianism. Do you even hear yourself?