well duh. black president? how can that be anything other than trolling

Ouch, that's actually sadly true, if you think about what hope and change actually meant to his black supporters, versus what they got.

Let me clarify. Barack Obama was never a Twitter troll.

Anyway, this is more the kind of thing I'm talking about:

Trump is threatening tariffs on steel, aluminum, and semiconductors -- things that Americans need to build things in America. Tariffs will make those raw materials more expensive, punishing firms that choose to actually build stuff in the US instead of building stuff in other countries.

Because here's the thing: that 20% tariff is going to be fully absorbed by firms. It might pull down world commodity prices a little due to decreased total US demand, but that's it. The rest is pure price hike. The US is a net importer of steel, meaning the US requires more steel than it produces, so the only price US steel producers need to compete against is the (world + tariff) price. It'll stay that way until and unless the US becomes a net exporter.

So, for example, US producers of things like machine parts - engine blocks, turbines, anything that uses a lot of steel and aluminum - are about to see their input prices go up by ~20% (on top of the 9% Wall Street tax American firms already pay). Isn't that basically the whole problem the US is facing today? Being uncompetitive in manufacturing? Yet here you are, standing ready to sacrifice what's left of your crown jewel manufactured goods industry for... what? A zero-value-add raw materials Hail Mary that, even according to irrational optimists, won't pay off for a really, really long time?

That's what I really don't get. The US got where it is today by being the world's foremost supplier of finished goods. Their wealth and power entirely comes from buying cheap resources from other countries, adding a stupid amount of value to them, and selling 'em right back. Mining is the dumbest ****ing thing, volatile as ****, huge capital expenditure and low returns, like 1.5% return on capital dumb. Eating your own **** dumb. And the capital is totally worthless for anything else when the market sags - I mean both the mining equipment, and the human capital, i.e. even the workers are good for literally nothing else and need to be completely retrained from scratch after every single minor market correction. I can understand why Trump would care about this - he has progressive dementia - but why would any other American even want steel and aluminum anywhere in the US, or even consider those jobs given they mean literally 100% guaranteed permanent unemployment within 5 years?

Like, ****'s sake, guys. Get your **** together.

Here's what mining does to a (country | state | county | town):

• Tons and tons of kids drop out of high school, because the idiot loser jobs offer the best [sub]hazard[/sub] pay.
• Everybody is loaded, so inflation goes wild until nobody is actually loaded. Housing increases the most, since living near to the mine is your key to stupid amounts of money (even if that's literally all you've got going for you).
• All secondary/tertiary/quaternary businesses in the region eventually get shuttered, since they cannot afford to compete for workers anymore.
• High prices, high cashflow, low savings encourages widespread debt-financed consumption. Consumption only stops when debt service equals income.
• Eventually the commodity prices drop below the marginal cost of operating the mine, and everybody gets laid off.
• The most indebted people declare bankruptcy, abandon their homes, etc.
• Even the people who were smart and saved are ****ed versus people who chose stable lower-paying jobs, among other things because their effective tax rate is much higher than someone with job security and the same lifetime income. (Governments do not let you defer income in a way that is useful for resource extraction workers.)
• Despite it being named for and factually part of a major resource extraction corporation, the mine company somehow goes "bankrupt" and evaporates, leaving all of the products with a megacorporation and all of the tailings with the local government.
• There are no more jobs, the houses cost too much, and everything is dirty and ugly. People move away to get new jobs, and never come back. The smart ones mail their house keys to their bank.
• The (country | state | county | town) eventually becomes a ghost (country | state | county | town).

And there you go. If mining comes to your state, now you know what to do. Sell your house and leave.

^ this is the future Trump wants for all of America ^

there goes my dream to get rich mining cryptocurrency

The real America is the Heartland. The corn fields of Iowa, the milky udders of Wisconsin, and yes, the coal mines of Wyoming. This is where AMERICA is made.

Jon, of course his tariffs would be terrible but the angry portion of the population that the notion plays to don't understand that or worse, don't care.



I never kept up with his tweets. Actually, I don't keep up with any tweets but I'd be surprised if he wasn't. His trolling would have been far different than Trump's though. Subtle and passive aggressive. Just my hunch, not researched at all.

That's interesting. I think it's an unfair comparison at face value, but if you really want to dig into this stuff based on your hunch about Obama's media tactics, you can probably make a lot out of what you can find.

In fact, I found this, which I should be hesitant to hand over to an Obama detractor because I hardly think the comparison to Trump's Twitter antics is an apt equivalence if we're talking about literal "trolling" (I would be aghast if you were actually going to suggest that Obama, let alone any president, ever dolled out the kind of garbage regularly churned out by Trump's twitter feed), but I can't help but share because it's sort of interesting (emph. added):

At this hour in a tropical paradise you don't have anything to worry about from me. Buenos Noche!

I hope I'm not being too rude, but I've often felt like this summed up a post of yours in the past. I quite enjoy your posts, though, as much as I often find myself disagreeing with them.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/04/politics/kfile-reddit-user-trump-tweet/index.html



So, uh, this is illegal, right?

Though it's certainly pathetic.

The rules have changed, yo. It's 2017, and if CNN can't get the guy impeached according to the old rulebook, why not settle for scoring some points according to the new rulebook, beginning by using the anon's own tactics against him and dox the guy in retaliation for whispering memes into Trump's ear that (apparently successfully) troll them?

Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party unfriends America!

I don't know why it'd be illegal, and I'm inclined to say that it it *is* legal, even though it does look like some weird semi-consensual form of blackmail. For all I know he got a lawyer involved to make some sort of contract with CNN. But it does seem somewhat arbitrary: why is CNN responsible for holding this guy's behavior in check rather than any other media organization? And why should *any* media organization have that responsibility? Especially when the consequence to him breaking his promise amounts to him receiving a kind of para-legal punishment.


And the fact that the whole arrangement implicitly recognizes that revealing the guy's identity would be a punishment is reflective of how completely and unabashedly mob-like our media environment currently is. It's frightening. If he doesn't hold up to his promise, it'll be left to the faceless masses to decide what to do with him vis-a-vis his punishment (presumably, he'll get death threats and receive all sorts of other abuse, and very few who will have pity on him).


Pretty ****ed up world we live in. We all have Swords of Damocles hanging over ours heads.

The last season of South Park looks like it had its finger on the pulse even more now than when it was airing!

The penny press has always been predatory, and was much worse in its early days, back in the 19th century.

They're the enemy of the state. Someone should do something.

Maybe instead of a wrestling match the conflict can be solved by a foot race tho?

No, decide the contest by comparing the lengths of their hands.

Best 2/3? Throw in golf, so its fair?

I can think of a few other examples were Obama's political strategizing could've been construed as trolling. For example, by selecting Garland to replace Scalia, I think he thought he'd chosen a candidate who'd be popular among center-right intellectuals in conservative media, and thus would be able to whip up public support on the right that would put pressure on Republicans not to prevent him from being considered. The strategy might've worked if HRC won, and GOP senators may have felt more pressure because HRC's victory seemed like a lock, and, presumable, she would've been able to choose an even more liberal judge than Garland.

It was a total failure as a strategy. But it was somewhat similar to trolling.

Americans in the rust belt are impressively bone headed about this. If people in the third world are doing these jobs for pennies an hour, why the hell would the rest of the world start paying many times the price for these good just because Americans are doing them? At best, this is just welfare for US blue collar workers with more steps.

It's like people think that the US's *relative* prosperity in the 1950's can be repeated by simply getting rid of the EPA and banning imports.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. If you are afraid to have your name associated with the stuff you write, then you probably shouldn't be posting it.

I'm not talking about the legality of releasing his name in itself, I'm talking about coercing him with threats.

CNN has every right to either publish or withhold his name, and ****WitRedditor has every right to enter into an agreement with them.

The question here is really about journalism ethics, isn't it? Well, what's the more ethical choice? Publish the information honestly and fully, knowing ****HeadRedditor will face mob justice; withhold the information knowing that they are facilitating future social harms by doing so; or make a deal, where they can expose some important information to the public, and also avert mob justice at the same time?

What choice would you make? I'm not sure that I would choose much differently.

All I know for sure is that, while I'm publicly concerned about the mob justice doxxing stuff, I'm also kind of complicit in it? I wouldn't do them harm or anything, but their employer is definitely going to lose my business because retaining someone who makes elaborate death threats on a racist forum is also not exactly demonstrating common sense.

Rick and Morty?

Someone on Reddit posted this:


I'm not a legal expert though so I'm not sure if this would apply.

As for the choice, I'm fine with them calling the person out anonymously, I just don't like the threat of doxxing they added. Simply acknowledging the apology and saying they're choosing not to disclose their identity is the right choice.

Also, 4chan already knows who the person is allegedly, and also allegedly they're 15.

By your/Reddit's interpretation of the law (and I'm not sure what this has to do with New York, since CNN is in Georgia - is this some racist Jew York reddit ****?) then CNN would also be guilty if they had published the name, because it would be a standing threat to all other r/td posters that their personal information would be leaked if they didn't stop posting. In fact practically ANY investigative journalism would consititute coercion by your interpretation, for the same reason.

But hell, I'm not a lawyer either. I guess you think you'd be able to convince a prosecutor, grand jury, and a judge/jury that what CNN did passes the same bar as revenge porn, though? Because that's how criminal law gets "applied".

CNN says the person who made the gif is an adult male and they've spoken directly with him. I don't know who this "4chan" person is, but I'm pretty sure they're lying (like they do constantly).

What a tease. I can't stand waiting until July 30 when the season actually starts, rather than the bat**** episode that aired on April 1.

Pretty much yes. Though in general just the idea of progress and that everything will be fine, which generally goes along with the futurology and weird identity **** (of either flavor), but doesn't require it, that's just the flavor of our world right now.





Well I'm not trying to reverse it, I don't think we can, really. It's more like I want to role play as if the world were how I want it to be. Except I'm trying to get that to happen on a big level. I content myself with dressing up and playing make believe though. I have been recommended that before and I must listen to it. Life is an insurmountable problem for everyone.





He is similar to David Lynch in that way where I can listen to him talk about absolutely nothing and it fulfills something in me. Again, life is a Sisyphean endeavor anyway, so absurd heroism through tactical distractions is the best choice, and I like to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and have unprotected sex while Ornette Coleman blares so I guess that is sort of like suicide. But I don't characterize things as being those three choices. Like David Lynch says, it's the doing and the doing of observing how ****ed we are can be as pleasurable and fulfilling by virtue of not averting your eyes as ****ing bad *****es to free jazz and smoking unfiltered cigarettes with mead afterwards.

I can't figure out what the deal with CNN and in the gif is. Why is everyone talking about this? It's just regular internet memeing.

And season three of Rick and Morty will be glorious because if it's bad Dan and Justin are getting vaporized. SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT

It appears that they wanted to raise awareness to ensure that memes of the sort would proliferate exponentially.

I mean I definitely support that. I saw that Trump tweeted a memed up version of him in professional wrestling and I thought it was amazing because of memes reaching the highest seat of power in the land fully.

"Meme" is becoming a pretty dang dark term y'all.

*dank dark

Well that certainly fits with their website of origin largely being 4chan and Reddit, which are basically the pancreatic cancers of the web.

Richard Dawkins is the origin of memes. All of them.

As for you guys being fatalistic about progress, well, when drastic changes are needed, most people's idea about what is really needed is gonna be missing something key. So most futurist movements are going to be completely wrong.

Most evolutionary paths are dead ends, but that doesn't absolve us from trying... and the desire to do so anyway against all odds is pretty much the defining characteristic of life itself (as well as most Hollywood screenplays, but in that case the happy ending results about 100% of the time).

The funny thing is that "Internet meme" doesn't really do justice to the full idea of memes as an analogy with genes, as Dawkins concieved of the idea, just as the idea of memes doesn't do justice to the older discipline of semiotics.

Oh wow, I just realized that Werner Herzog is the one who had interviewed Ted Nelson and that I had just watched the segment a couple of weeks ago.



I suppose I ought to check out the film, then....