Today...

[obfuscator]

Obama's "liberal agenda" was mostly halted by a limp dick congress. All three branches are currently majority Republican which is as terrifying as it would be if all 3 were majority Democrat. And while I'm personally generally a little left, I understand the concept of checks and balances is supposed to prevent rampant radical ideology which is less likely to be the case now. I would have settled for a Democratic senate with Trump as head executive, but full on Republican makes me uneasy. Its just baffling how some of these republican candidates think. Some of their ideology in economics is valid, and they're patriotic as all get out but ffs the religious values have to go.

To be fair, Trump is pretty far from mainstream republicanism in many respects. It's far from a given he and congress will just play nice and get along...

[Alg]

Do people seriously expect him to put America first? He doesn't even respect the people in it

[obfuscator]

Why should America have a trade deal that doesn't benefit America?

 

They shouldn't, but the point is that on average, free trade deals do benefit America. It doesn't mean every single person in America benefits equally (which as I said is a separate policy issue).

 

Why should I vote for someone that won't put the domestic economy first

See above.

 

Question: What do you think Trump should do to fix this supposed problem? Most of his suggestions deal with imposing large tarrifs and tearing up free trade deals. This sounds nice at first glance, but is not something that consumers will tolerate in the long term. The second the price of a new smartphone quadruples (make no mistake, it will if all manufacturing was done domestically) people would riot.

 

Essentially, globalization and free trade allow for increased economic efficiency - people in the western world get high quality, affordable goods; and people in developing countries get increased work opportunity and the social mobility that comes with it. It is effectively impossible to have the best of both of these worlds; and consumers at large make the choice for free trade with their actions; day in, and day out. This is not something that can be legislated away; short of turning to communism.

 

If I were to predict the state of things four years from now, I'd say that this will be what people will be most disappointed in Trump for. He's made it a big part of his platform, but it's the one thing he has essentially no real control over.

[obfuscator]

You subsidize industry until the infrastructure is built up enough for them to be profitable

This is a pipe dream. You will be subsidizing industry indefinitely (there are jurisdictions that do so). To subsidize industry takes tax dollars; which means less money in the pockets of American citizens, which doesn't fix anything.

 

You use tariffs as a way to shelter your industry until it reaches that point

The industry never does reach the point where it can be profitable. Consumers will always choose the cheaper options, which motivates companies to cost cut (either with outsourcing or automation).

 

You have the infrastructure to produce and you lower the tariffs to a point where it's still profitable for domestic factories.

There's no magic number for tariffs. Every point you lower them leads to increased productivity and profitability, and as consumers experience cheaper goods and services, the urge to outsource grows again.

 

Some industries might use robots but on the whole more American workers would be employeed than not.

Sure, but *employment* by itself is not any sort of goal. If every american had a job earning $1 an hour, would you consider that a success? Of course not; because the purchasing power of that salary is not significant. Whether that number is $1 or $100,000, it's the relative purchasing power that's important; and it is a well understood fact that the decreased efficiency of isolated economies leads to an erosion of purchasing power, not an increase. 

 

Would the world economy be worse off with tariffs? yes

Would the american economy be better? yes

This line of reasoning is strange, to say the least. If the American economy would be better off with increased tariffs, it stands to reason that any other country would also have the same experience. By that token, every country should be totally isolationist in its economic policy. In fact, why even limit it to countries? Let's create trade borders across states - why should someone in Florida be able to buy a car made in Georgia, and vice versa?

 

In fact, this is exactly what Canada has (inter-provincial trade barriers). It is estimated that their removal could boost Canadian GDP by something like 10% alone; that's how bad they are for efficiency and productivity. The same holds true for trade barriers worldwide.

[Alg]

 

Do people seriously expect him to put America first? He doesn't even respect the people in it

 

See my previous post if youre an illegal mexican, gay/trans, middle eastern

 

http://forum.tip.it/topic/195466-today/?p=5594316

 

tl;dr Culture swings from one extreme to another

 

 

That said I feel that our culture has swung too far the other way with things like being judged negatively for not supporting Caitlyn Jenner.

Okay, but if you're seriously trying to compare this nonsense to centuries of systematic oppression as comparable extremes, then the only real argument there is that you don't want to leave your comfort zone. There's nothing to argue there. It's not an argument. It's not even a point. it's nothing but privilege to say that "they called me names for disagreeing with them" is even remotely worthy of being considered in the same thought as "they literally want to lock me up and electrocute me until I turn straight, or they want to deny me basic human dignity because my existence doesn't fit in the little bubble they've created for themselves, or they literally want me dead".

 

Because, surprisingly, rejecting bigotry doesn't come from the same as bigotry. If that was seriously the point you wanted to make, just say it. Don't dress it up in silly pseudo-logical arguments. Just say it and I'll drop the whole thing, because it's not a point that's worth arguing against.

 

That's not even getting into the fact that the yam in question throws a temper tantrum every time someone disagrees with him. That's the point I was trying to get at in my previous post. This is a man who's spent the last several months attacking every imaginable minority over nothing; who the world is eager to forgive because that's just what men are supposed to do? I have a hard time his alleged economic policies are worth normalizing bald-faced hate, let alone encouraging it.

[Hedgehog]

Also if people judge you for being disrespectful towards trans women, maybe you should listen to them

[Hedgehog]

That's literally what disrespect means though

[Kalphite]

its been about a day and I can't stop thinking about this. I'm so anxious about what this means. My two best friends are bisexual women that have been sexually assaulted, one of whom is Latina from a mostly undocumented family, and they are both terrified for their well-being after this and shattered that instead of finally seeing the highest glass ceiling broken they're forced to see that no matter how qualified a woman may be she can be overrun by an incompetent, inexperienced misogynistic man. Seeing that as a man you can be accused of sexual assault by 12 (!!!!!!!!) women in a country where most women are so afraid to come out against their aggressors that rape and sexual assault is barely ever reported (and is not misreported any more frequently than any other violent crime) in addition to standing trial for obvious fraud and possible paedophilia and be congratulated for it and still become the most powerful person in the world. it's just [bleep]ing disgusting. His election enables all kinds of misogyny and racism to be thrown much more into the open than was every previously socially acceptable (a campus landmark at my school had the words "kill 'em all" spray painted on it the night trump won the election as an example off the top of my head) and has people legitimately fearful for their well-being. I can't empathize with anybody who would knowingly thrust this upon somebody else or who gives few enough shits about other people and their agency to recognize this and support him anyways.

 

And as if that isn't enough, we just elected a man who already has a plan to shut down the EPA , deregulate pipeline construction, fracking, and the coal industry and withdraw from the paris climate agreement at a time when we need to be putting dramatic effort into slowing climate change rather than enabling it. and this isn't even getting into how disastorous his tax plans and insurance policy will be for lower/middle class Americans and how he'll have the republican congress and supreme court to actually accomplish it and plenty of more issues that would be the worst . 

 

I know people cry wolf at every election, and there are always people who think their political opponents will end the world where not that much changes. But I just feel like this is something so ridiculously different. The last time republicans controlled all three branches of government was from 2001-2007, where their rampant industry deregulation ended with the great recession. It would be another thing if Democrats controlled at least one body of government as a check for this, but I just have a terrible feeling about this.

[Bonez899]

As a Canadian I am severely worried about Trump being elected. How will this affect the maple syrup production? When is he building the wall? How long should I wait before WW3 begins?

 

 

 

/s

 

I know this could have a huge impact, however given that he doesn't even take office for another 2+ months I think that you should take a deep breath and relax until January.

[RpgGamer]

TIL that Ring is a racist bigoted butt head

 

(I jest, I actually respect political opinion because it's your freedom to feel whatever the hell you want even if I disagree)

 

Thank you Obfuscator for your posts they've been great, despite me usually disagreeing with you (as far as I remember anyway)

 

And yes this all feels so very reminiscent of the 2004 election when I was horrified to see Bush win again, because that went so well.

 

2nd edit: I've also told myself that enough Republicans might hate trump enough to keep him in check but God damn it does that seem unlikely at this point

[Alg]

 

That's literally what disrespect means though

 

On a personal level yes and I don't treat trans people I know personally like that.

 

But on a societal level what general society is obligated to accept its just that trans people have the rights to live without violence or discrimination, not [bleep]ing proper pronoun usage or theoretical understanding of the sex gender divide and how the theory around it differs from today verses from when Simone De Beavoir proposed it.

We can't live without violence or discrimination if we aren't even allowed the chance to define ourselves on our own terms. This is little better than an echo chamber; one that doesn't even consider the very people it affects.

 

You can't have it both ways. Acceptance means nothing if you're also rejecting the very foundation that acceptance is based on, or setting the terms for the people you're allegedly accepting of without their say. This is terrifying, coming from you. :v

[Ember]

.

[Tesset]

not [bleep]ing proper pronoun usage

Why not?

[obfuscator]

TIL that Ring is a racist bigoted butt head

 

(I jest, I actually respect political opinion because it's your freedom to feel whatever the hell you want even if I disagree)

 

Thank you Obfuscator for your posts they've been great, despite me usually disagreeing with you (as far as I remember anyway)

 

And yes this all feels so very reminiscent of the 2004 election when I was horrified to see Bush win again, because that went so well.

 

2nd edit: I've also told myself that enough Republicans might hate trump enough to keep him in check but God damn it does that seem unlikely at this point

No problem....

 

Anyway, I get what you're saying about bush, but really; what did he do in his second term that was so awful? The Iraq war was already underway (that was a first term thing) and the financial crisis was not really *his* fault. I just think it's easy to get sucked into overreaction to every little thing a politician does when you don't align with them (I've certainly fallen into this trap before) but their actual policies end up not being nearly as bad as the initial panic projects.

[Lower Levelled]

 

TIL that Ring is a racist bigoted butt head

 

(I jest, I actually respect political opinion because it's your freedom to feel whatever the hell you want even if I disagree)

 

Thank you Obfuscator for your posts they've been great, despite me usually disagreeing with you (as far as I remember anyway)

 

And yes this all feels so very reminiscent of the 2004 election when I was horrified to see Bush win again, because that went so well.

 

2nd edit: I've also told myself that enough Republicans might hate trump enough to keep him in check but God damn it does that seem unlikely at this point

No problem....

 

Anyway, I get what you're saying about bush, but really; what did he do in his second term that was so awful? The Iraq war was already underway (that was a first term thing) and the financial crisis was not really *his* fault. I just think it's easy to get sucked into overreaction to every little thing a politician does when you don't align with them (I've certainly fallen into this trap before) but their actual policies end up not being nearly as bad as the initial panic projects.

My Bush issue is No Child Left Behind.

[obfuscator]

 

 

TIL that Ring is a racist bigoted butt head

 

(I jest, I actually respect political opinion because it's your freedom to feel whatever the hell you want even if I disagree)

 

Thank you Obfuscator for your posts they've been great, despite me usually disagreeing with you (as far as I remember anyway)

 

And yes this all feels so very reminiscent of the 2004 election when I was horrified to see Bush win again, because that went so well.

 

2nd edit: I've also told myself that enough Republicans might hate trump enough to keep him in check but God damn it does that seem unlikely at this point

No problem....

 

Anyway, I get what you're saying about bush, but really; what did he do in his second term that was so awful? The Iraq war was already underway (that was a first term thing) and the financial crisis was not really *his* fault. I just think it's easy to get sucked into overreaction to every little thing a politician does when you don't align with them (I've certainly fallen into this trap before) but their actual policies end up not being nearly as bad as the initial panic projects.

 

My Bush issue is No Child Left Behind.

 

Not great policy, sure....but something that had bipartisan support and could have easily been implemented under a democrat.

[Veiva]

 

Completely unrelated:

 

Does anyone know a good file manager for Unix-likes? I use XFCE on FreeBSD, but Thunar crashes way too often. It seems a bug with file sort order changing, and it hasn't been fixed properly.

I've been using KDE for a while, and Dolphin works pretty well for me. It was good (or maybe familiar) enough to make it onto my netbook when I was running Fluxbox.

 

Dolphin doesn't have a FreeBSD maintainer and thus isn't in ports or the binary package manager. Ugh.

[Lower Levelled]

The poor white support of Trump was remarkably high where I live, per usual

[RpgGamer]

Despite quoting me Ring, I think you missed the parenthetical part of my post, so long as you're telling people they aren't listening, but I digress.

 

My thing is that you should take every opportunity to spread tolerance and sympathy as well as empathy and knowledge. Compromise is fine by me

[obfuscator]

Despite quoting me Ring, I think you missed the parenthetical part of my post, so long as you're telling people they aren't listening, but I digress.

 

My thing is that you should take every opportunity to spread tolerance and sympathy as well as empathy and knowledge. Compromise is fine by me

stop spreading your tolerance on me!!!11!!

[Tesset]

 

 

not [bleep]ing proper pronoun usage

Why not?

 

 

Because you should understand, acknowledge and accept that most of the country will never support trans people.

 

Why not?

[Major Dash]

Because a good majority of the people who live here weren't raised to be tolerant of those people. The same way people weren't tolerant of black people until our generation. Even our parents generation isn't unanimously accepting of blacks.

[Tesset]

Because a good majority of the people who live here weren't raised to be tolerant of those people. The same way people weren't tolerant of black people until our generation. Even our parents generation isn't unanimously accepting of blacks.

That hardly points to "never" finding widespread acceptance.

[Major Dash]

 

Because a good majority of the people who live here weren't raised to be tolerant of those people. The same way people weren't tolerant of black people until our generation. Even our parents generation isn't unanimously accepting of blacks.

That hardly points to "never" finding widespread acceptance.

 

 

No, it doesn't, and everything with time will be 'accepted' to some extent probably. Where do you live? If you live in a big blue city/state, it might be hard to imagine that people don't like trans and gay people. If you lived in a poor, rural, red town/state, you might see things a bit differently. Those people aren't so progressive. 

[Tesset]

 

 

 

Because a good majority of the people who live here weren't raised to be tolerant of those people. The same way people weren't tolerant of black people until our generation. Even our parents generation isn't unanimously accepting of blacks.

That hardly points to "never" finding widespread acceptance.

No, it doesn't, and everything with time will be 'accepted' to some extent probably. Where do you live? If you live in a big blue city/state, it might be hard to imagine that people don't like trans and gay people. If you lived in a poor, rural, red town/state, you might see things a bit differently. Those people aren't so progressive.

I live in Nebraska, one of the most rural, red states in the country. I am well aware what queer prejudice looks like. I still refuse to accept the notion that trans people shouldn't expect to have their genders respected. No matter how people were raised.