I have nifty tech, yes, but I also have vaccination deniers, Nazis, and my fourth “once in a lifetime” economic crises. I’m never going to buy a house. I’m never going to retire. I’ll probably never even pay off my student loans.

I personally think that, largely speaking, if imports are cheaper than local production, that’s a good thing!

I’m hardly an economist, right? But I agree with you, broadly speaking. But first covid, and now Trump round two is showing is the weakness of global integration. As long as everything goes smoothly, it’s jam for everyone. But let something screw up the logistics, or someone duck up the balance of trade, and everything can go to shit really fast. There are lots of things we can’t make here, but we rely on them. That is less than ideal.

I don’t know that tariffs are the way to address that issue, or even if it needs to be addressed at all. O do know that the way Trump is doing it is all wrong.

I saw a smart flip phone once. Small smart screen on the outside, small smart screen on the inside, and a keypad that you could use to type with, using the forgotten skill.

I would love one of those.

And now they are gonna get away with this, too.

I’d go with “deshittification,” myself. It’s not important how or why they are shit, just that they are, and the laws in question prevent us from fixing it.

The airport tried that shit on me today. I was able to make it print me a boarding pass, though.

I’m becoming a luddite in my middle age.

I think that’s a feature, not a bug.

How’s that working for you? I’ve got a surface, and I like it, but I know that Windows is not exactly an efficient piece of software.

I’m old enough to remember them promising, repeatedly, that the nude scanners didn’t, couldn’t save images.

Joke’s on them though. They can’t delete my pictures fast enough to avoid the trauma.

If there was a viable non-genocide candidate, o wolf have voted for him.

Most of us are not getting richer, nor working shorter hours, nor living better than our parents. We’re past “services” and on into “parasites.”

In principal, tariffs can prop up domestic industry that is having trouble competing with cheaper imported products. In practice, this winds up being really complicated, because the world is a lot more interdependent than it was 80 years ago.

Just like he was counting on China you need us more than we need them.

I really hate people who are constitutionally unable to negotiate in good faith.

I prefer the real Enterprise.

I agree with you that the systems we have built keep the powerful in power. That’s what they get out of the deal.

But the point of civilization has less to do with them, and more to do with interactions between regular people. If I have a dispute with you, for example, over some property, we can call on lawyers, police, regulatory bodies and similar to help us settle our dispute. We maybe don’t like the resolution, but, by and large, we accept it.

Without those systems, I could just beat you up, and take the property for myself. You’re only real option would be to kill me, and take it back.

Similar, we can do things like vote out our leaders, or move to other places. We have options besides burning down the castle, or setting up a guillotine.

Civilization is about giving us that alternative.

That’s wife material, that is.

Nothing got hijacked, “civilization” structured around the threat of violence was exploitative from the start.

It’s not a threat of violence, it’s a preferable alternative to violence, for both sides. Revolts aren’t great for those in power, but they are catastrophic for a significant number of those not in power.

And you are missing mine.

And once again, Trump does what he wants, and no one is willing to stop him.

Will no one rid us of this turbulent president?

The government gives the working class a way to have their grievances heard and addressed in a way other than starting a rebellion.

Yes, it serves to keep the powerful in power, but that’s irrelevant to my point. It also serves to make sure the little people get taken care of well enough that we don’t kill the ones in power.

For a more specific example, see unions. The alternative to unions is plant managers getting killed.

And explained that he was using AI to do a part of the job that needs to be done by humans, because it helps them figure is the solution.

That’s not why we built them. They got hijacked for that, and they need fixing.

They were built so we had an alternative to killing each other over disputes.