Difference between revisions of “RationalWiki:Saloon bar”

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an election to watch(edit)

so, venezuela is having an election on sunday, and it cannot be overstated just how important it is. the outcome could even have an effect on our elections (here in the states) in november. The G (talk) 03:46, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Not so much of a dictatorship after all? New world (talk) 08:12, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

i mean, it’s certainly no cuba or nicaragua, but venezuela is still very illiberal. they have a habit of banning opposition candidates from running if they perceive them to be too popular. (sounds familiar?) in fact, there’s still a fairly decent chance that they might steal this election like they did in 2018 (though it’ll be considerably harder to get away with it this time). part of the reason they’re having their first real election in years is because they’ve finally caved to washington’s sanctions… sort of. it’s that, and the previously fractured opposition has finally rallied behind a single candidate. in that sense, venezuela is trying to get out of it’s hungary phase after years of trying. (better start taking notes, florida!) The G (talk) 20:24, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

It is an authoritarian state (what’s “illiberal”, do you have to be liberal to support representative democracy? No, of course not! Liberal or deliberative democracies aren’t the most democratic). The entire representation of Venezuela is ridiculous, it’s obvious Maduro had involvement in 2018, but the clown from the opposition wasn’t going to be better (the “legitimate president”). Maduro lost the support of his neighbours after having stopped the opposition leader from running in the election. However the constant involvement of the US in the affairs of Latin America is frustrating, whether it concerns Cuba, Venezuela or Bolivia (in 2019). New world (talk) 21:14, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

yeah, the 2018 elections and 2019 constitutional crisis really were a crapshow in hindsight. i like to think of venezuela as our very own mini russia: a petro-state (though without the natural gas) with strong ties to organized crime – and if it ever was a democracy, it was short-lived.

still, i’m rooting for the opposition here. even if you factor out washington’s disastrous interventionism, it’s time for the socialists to go. they shot themselves in the foot (and brought the country down with them in the process) with all their corruption and mismanagement (not to mention chavez’s systematic dismantling of what few democratic institutions the country had). plus, this could be a key foreign policy victory for biden, which might improve democrats’ election odds in november. on the other hand, if maduro is re-elected, another million or so (not an exaggeration) are expected to leave the country, which will only add to our border crisis and increase our own strongman’s odds of winning (as his hardline immigration policies might see a surge in popularity). of course, this is all speculation, but there is still so much at stake in both countries nevertheless. The G (talk) 02:58, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

also, keep in mind that a significant portion of us foreign policy is the result of heavy lobbying by a country’s respective exile/diaspora community. this is the case with cuba, venezuela, and even israel. case in point, venezuela – and, by extension, cuba and nicaragua – have a pretty sizeable exile communities in this country, and they will be watching what happens in venezuela tomorrow. many of them live in florida, which is still a coveted state by both parties despite florida technically having lost its swing state status. the fact that both venezuela and the united states are having high-stakes elections in the same year is just one thing that makes 2024 an unusual year for elections (and democracy) globally. The G (talk) 03:10, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

The opposition should definitely win, though the government is probably going to be US allies, surrounded by countries led by parties from the São Paulo Forum. New world (talk) 06:43, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

…, let’s wait for observers. New world (talk) 07:26, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Exit poll had indicated a 65% to 31% González victory. Even if the poll was a bit off, it’s hard to overcome a vote deficit like that. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 12:26, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

yeah, without massive voter fraud and/or blatant rigging, anyway. of course, the regime is trying to do just that. whether they can succeed this time amid pressure from within (i.e., the opposition) and without (i.e., the international community) remains to be seen. the wild card is the military, who may view the election results as illegitimate and ask maduro to step down (unlikely absent pressure on the electoral council to divulge the results). The G (talk) 18:59, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

It depends on the actions of Petro, Lula and the other left-leaning neighbours (while they expressed doubts on the results, they haven’t been very clear on consequences). Bolivia has already supported Maduro. It also depends on the support from China and Russia. (Wasn’t Putin threatening to place nuclear weapons near the United States recently?). New world (talk) 20:31, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘you know, this was supposed to be the election where things returned to normal in venezuela. ah, who were we kidding? it’s not like dictators ever cared for elections, anyway (especially not ones supported by china, russia, and other authoritarian regimes). still, the statements by multiple government officials saying maduro should step down if he lost (not to mention the election itself) were all classic bait-and-switch tactics.

on an unrelated note, tankies and maduro’s useful idiots in the west are out in full force defending the brazen election theft and the violent repressions of protests. you can always count on them to come up with anti-us conspiracies (e.g. ciadidit). The G (talk) 21:58, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

It’s not about who wins, it’s about fair elections. The Venezuelan people’s sovereignty needs to be respected. No matter what choice the Venezuelan people make (and yes, it’s always possible for anyone to win, in defiance to polls. Otherwise why hold an election at all?). I don’t know about US intervention, but Maduro needs to let his neighbours look into the results. What other solutions are there? Intervention from the USA is rarely the solution.

If international pressure and internal unrest forces Maduro to step down, the opposition can take charge of the government. New world (talk) 22:01, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

i think the only international actors who hold the key to maduro’s exit are his supposedly pro-democracy allies in latam (lula, petro, etc.). they don’t seem to be in any hurry to see the results, though. i’ve previously posted about how lula doesn’t really give much of a damn about democracy (back when he was re-elected and everyone was saying he’s a good guy), but few people believed me at the time. The G (talk) 22:34, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

These geopolitical positions from the left are more common than you think. Since we’re often accused of supporting dictatorships out of primary anti-Americanism, this is an opportunity to prove the criticisms wrong. While the American left often has different perspectives on this, that has more to do with different requirements for governing the USA existing than for governing other countries. It would be dishonourable if these South American governments don’t act against Maduro, in their own way. New world (talk) 23:10, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

i’m not on the left myself, but there is a leftist case for ousting maduro and restoring democracy. maduro has also gone after the communist party of venezuela (PCV), the country’s oldest political party currently in operation. i used to think the venezuelan left were all acting as one (because this is more or less how they operate in brazil; i.e., different left-wing parties operating as a single coalition), but then i read a social media post from a pcv supporter decrying maduro’s persection of his party’s leaders. this makes sense, as dictators tend to lose their allies the more they consolidate power. nicaragua has been going the same thing, with daniel ortega steering the country toward totalitarianism. not even his own brother has been spared from his purges.

of course, tankies will always find a way to rationalize this by insisting they’re usa spies or cia plants or something. The G (talk) 02:21, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

(There is a leftist case for democracy. However, I don’t think the Communist Party of Venezuela necessarily has much in common with the type of left we’re talking about. We’re not talking about revolutionary trotskyists, maoists or anarchists and similar groups) New world (talk) 09:02, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

US involvement in ousting Maduro would be a total PR disaster. This is an issue Latin America has to handle on its own. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 03:38, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
I wonder how much of this is G Man’s anti-Lula bias speaking, as Lula (alongside Biden) has urged Maduro to release the voting data. Petro and AMLO are also hedging their bets before confirming or denying their recognition of the legitimacy of this current electoral cycle. That’s different from previous years. Carthage (talk) 07:19, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@Carthage the heck you talking about? Lula’s PT published a piece saluting Maduro’s victory(1) and the man himself said that everything on the election was smooth.(2) GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 10:38, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

That’s not what the media are generally reporting. Lula wants Maduro to publish the detailed results. New world (talk) 10:49, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

As someone that actually speaks Spanish and Portuguese, I’ll translate both his party pronouncement and his own declaration on the CNN’s video:

The Worker’s Party pronouncement: “The PT salutes the Venezuelan people for the electoral process that took place on Sunday, July 28, 2024, in a peaceful, democratic and sovereign journey.”

From Lula himself: “There’s nothing serious, there’s nothing scary, I see the Brazilian press treating it as if it were the Third World War. There’s nothing abnormal. There was an election. There was one person who said he had 51%, there is another person who had 40-something percent. One agrees, the other doesn’t, goes to court and the court decides.” GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 10:56, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Other than statements by the PCV, and the exit polling, something that convinced me it was an illegitimate election was the fact the Carter Center (who are regular election observers there) flipped and said so. In the past, they said Venezuelan elections were sound and Carter himself actually praised their voting system as the best in the world. Chillpilled (talk) 11:08, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Uhm, GeeJayK, these headlines and quotes don’t actually state that Lula is acknowledging Madura as the winner of the election or that he considers the election process itself to be beyond reproach, but that he’s acknowledging that there is a controversy over the results and is urging that this be settled in a judicial process.

Sure, it’s a lot more wishywashy than one might consider appropriate, but he and his foreign ministry has called for the public release and verification of the election data. These statements might just as well be read as a call for calm and for both sides in Venezuela not to resort to violence or other non democratic/judicial means to resolve their dispute. The issue is then whether the Venezuelan judiciary can actually be expected/relied upon to deliver an impartial verdict in this situation.

I agree with ChillPilled that the Carter Center’s lack of certification of the process is a pretty strong argument against it being legitimate and when combined with the lopsided exit polls, it strongly suggests that Madura is trying to fiddle with the numbers to stay in power. ScepticWombat (talk) 11:32, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@ScepticWombat How is he saying that “there is a controversy” when he said himself that “There’s nothing abnormal”? And when his own party says that the elections were free and fair? And when he knows that Venezuela’s judical system is unreliable and basically do what Maduro says? Less than a year ago Lula did say that Venezuela is a “democracy” and is the target of a “political narrative”(3). A month later, he stated again that Venezuela is a democracy and that the concept of democracy is “relative”(4) (something that is not totally incorrect, but given the context this is a terrible statement). Keep in mind that this is the same guy that said that Muammar Gaddafi is his “brother and friend(5), that he is “passionated” about the Cuban dictatorship (6) and that Fidel Castro is the “greatest Latin American of all time,(7) that he feels “proud” of Vladimir Putin’s anti-Western positions(8), that compared Daniel Ortega with Angela Merkel(9)… GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 11:59, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, while his comments may read as wishywashy, the fact he’s hedging his bets in the first place is a drastic shift from previous electoral cycles, which certain parties here are ignoring. The fact remains that Lula, Petro, and AMLO still haven’t recognized the results as legitimate. Whether or not Lula is friendly with Castro, Putin, and Gaddafi is not only irrelevant, but counts as poisoning the well. Carthage (talk) 12:05, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
They aren’t irrelevant because they show that he doesn’t care about democracy at all. Also, as I said, he is not “hedging his bets” when (1) his party said that the elections were fair (2) when the Chief Advisor to the President of Brazil for Foreign Policy said that the elections were fair(10) (3) he said that he trust Venezuela’s Supreme Court to audit the election when this is obvious bullshit. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:10, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@Carthage Would you trust the Supreme Court of Russia to audit the Russian election? Because that’s what Lula suggested. The election was rigged, a statesman should acknowledge this. That was what Chile’s Gabriel Boric did,(11) and what Lula didn’t. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:19, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

You could point this for the left worldwide, the current election however has changed the situation, as left-wing organisations are increasingly turning against Maduro. The left-wing narrative on Venezuela is changing, and that’s rather good, considering Maduro stole two elections and moved power completely from the parliament to the presidency. New world (talk) 12:33, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@New world. I find this post a bit of a red herring. That’s indeed true to a considerable part of the global left, and the reason why I mentioned Boric. Uruguay’s Lacalle Pou also recognized the victory of Venezuela’s opposition.(12) But Chile and Uruguay aside, a considerable part of the Latin American left-wing didn’t realize that the Berlin Wall fell almost 35 years ago, and they still think that being anti-western is more important than democratic values and human rights. And this is especially true about Lula, the guy we were talking about. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:41, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

For the record, I just checked and Lacalle Pou is actually from a right-wing party. That being said, Mujica did call Maduro a dictator when Lula was calling him a democrat.(13) I don’t see why some of you are simping a corrupt, incompetent and authoritarian leader. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:46, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

That’s serious criticism, though the reactions from Brazil and Colombia still represent a change in comparison to 2018. Boric is also more moderate in internal and foreign policy than Petro, Lula and AMLO. What do you want them to do? Recognising the opposition leader would mean redoing 2018, and calling for a coup d’état (Milei) isn’t helping either. I agree they aren’t doing enough, but at least they are doing something. Outside of Venezuela, nobody is expecting for the general foreign policy to change. However with Venezuela they play an important role in overthrowing Maduro and restoring democracy. It’s either that or no democracy for Venezuela. New world (talk) 12:52, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘duce, i said that earlier (it’s latam’s problem) in an earlier post.

carthage, i know we don’t always see eye-to-eye on everything, and i certainly don’t know everything (maybe i have a few things to learn on the israel-palestine conflict), but please don’t speak on things you yourself don’t know much about. venezuela is an authoritarian dictatorship, and this last sham election removed any doubt that they were. now, maybe i wasn’t clear about this earlier, but i explained that maduro could not care less about what the west (and especially the us thinks) about him. that’s not what i think; he said so himself. russia, china, and other adversaries of the united states have recognized his “victory.” honduras has also joined the usual latam suspects (cuba and nicaragua) in defending his election theft. lula, amlo, and petro have only mildly asked him to release the results. they’re not in any hurry to see them, themselves. unfortunately, being that they are his allies, i’ve conceded that they’re the only ones who can pressure him to step down at this point. if lula does that, then he will earn my respect. however, i won’t hold my breath. (to be clear, bolsonaro wouldn’t have handled this much better, because he doesn’t care about democracy, either — not that it matters, either way, because maduro doesn’t really like him or care for his opinions.) The G (talk) 17:40, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I have a different reading on the situation. Some angry governments from “The West” (of which Latin America is partly a part of, culturally. Unless “The West” means “NATO and allies”) won’t solve the situation. Seriously, if the EU, composed of small countries friendly to the dictatorships who are so nice to help them, simply decides to give some additional “lessons” to poor Latin America, that isn’t going to help in any way. This is not about “The West” and its values, this election is about the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people.

So far, Lula and Petro seem to be doing what they realistically can, if they want Venezuela to become a democracy. Added to clearer reactions from other countries, this gives a chance for Venezuelan democracy. New world (talk) 17:53, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

even being pro-western and anti-russia (and china and iran), i don’t care about what the eu says, either. lol. The G (talk) 02:06, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

(ec) and yes, gjk is right: lula has said “there’s nothing abnormal” about the election results. so has mexico’s chavez clone president amlo. still, in both cases, they’ve softly demanded maduro to release the full results. (worth noting that the venezuelan government is breaking its own laws, as well as historical precedent, in delaying the release of the election results.) The G (talk) 18:04, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Nowhere in this thread have I indicated that I believe Venezuela is anything other than a dictatorship. I merely pointed out that Lula and co have called on Maduro to release election results: like it or not that is a shift in rhetoric as opposed to previous electoral cycles. Carthage (talk) 19:57, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, you pointed out that. And ignored the fact that this “shift” is utterly irrelevant. I’ll ask again. Lula wants the Venezuelan Supreme Court to audit the election. How is that different from the Russian Supreme Court doing the same with Putin’s election last year? GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 23:24, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

still, i think lula, amlo, and petro could be doing so much more to pressure maduro to step down. to be fair, lula in particular might be taking a more pragmatic approach. after maduro kicked out argentine diplomats from the country, brazil offered temporary asylum to opposition leaders in argentina’s building (which maduro said he would honor, unlike a certain country nearby), which is more than i would’ve expected, so credit where credit is due. The G (talk) 02:06, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

This is seriously going to start again? Thank you Maduro. New world (talk) 18:31, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

wait, something seems off(edit)

look, i understand the us has a long history of disastrous interventionism in latin america, but has anyone else noticed a double standard here, or am i missing something and/or going crazy here? apparently (especially in the feeble minds of tankies), it’s wrong for the us to be involved in venezuela against the will of the people, but it’s perfectly fine when russia, china, and even cuba do it. if we’re serious about vindicating global democracy in 2024, maybe telling the enemies of democracy to back off wouldn’t be such a bad idea; if anything, it might even more desirable than taking a hands-off “none of my business” approach. otherwise, the reasoning behind our support for ukraine (and perhaps israel, depending on one’s view) falls flat. The G (talk) 05:11, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Who here is suggesting it’s fine when any power engages in imperialism? Imperialism is bad regardless of who does it. So is apartheid and settler colonialism. Carthage (talk) 08:32, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

What did you expect? At least the USA cares a minimum about democracy, more than its interests. Russia, China and Iran need to stay away from this. But will they? Do they care? China, Russia and Iran (and other imperialists) shouldn’t get involved with this election. The difference between those who support the opposition and those who support Maduro is that the latter don’t care about democracy. As to Cuba, that was even more expected. New world (talk) 08:37, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

The US doesn’t care about democracy more than its interests. If it did, it wouldn’t have propped up right wing dictatorships in the Cold War and toppled democratically elected governments, nor would it be propping up the Gulf States. Carthage (talk) 11:06, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

In comparison to China and Russia, it does. I agree the US is driven by material interests however more than any democratic ‘values’. New world (talk) 11:43, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

in my op, i made a tangential link to our own election this november. one of the rallying cries for democrats this year (and especially the biden administration) is saving democracy, both at home and abroad. think of the second paragraph of this sub-thread as a thinly-veiled jab at democrats (the first being a not-so-subtle jab at tankie hypocrisy, of course). The G (talk) 03:28, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

regardless of whether saving democracy is a serious objective, both parties have made it a point to counter china’s and iran’s global influence (the gop is split on russia, while democrats are more united against them). with that in mind, why should a washington bureaucrat want to give those countries free rein in venezuela (aside from the unlikely possibility that they intend to overhaul us foreign policy)? again, even if direct meddling isn’t the answer, telling those bozos countries to back off is still worth considering. The G (talk) 03:32, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Venezuela is a sovereign nation, not an American colony. So I think this kind of imperial parochialism is itself objectionable. “Those uppity poor countries don’t know what’s best for them, but we, the imperial power, does, and conveniently what’s best for them is also best for us.” Carthage (talk) 13:15, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

it is neither a russian or chinese or even cuban colony. the venezuelan people don’t want russian warships or iranian drones. and maybe leaving venezuela alone might be the right thing to do, but looking the other way is likely a national security risk. as new world implied earlier, we may see a repeat of the cuban missile crisis in our lifetime. (for context, nw really mentioned that putin was threatening to place nukes near the us.) The G (talk) 18:18, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

But the US gets the right to put nuclear missiles in Turkey? Look, the Venezuelan people don’t consent, obviously, but that’s not the US’s decision to make. There are practical reasons not to get involved in Venezuela beyond ethical reasons. I don’t see how advocating for taking a less hawkish foreign policy is in anyway fallacious. Carthage (talk) 19:12, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

useful information, but doesn’t answer the question

it’s fallacious because what’s moral doesn’t always translate to what’s practical. the us was right to fight in europe and asia/pacific during ww2, even though the us only got involved after it was directly attacked (due to the prevailing isolationism of the time). however, in 1956, when the hungarian uprising happened, the world looked the other way despite their desperate attempt to call for help. why? because nobody was willing to break the iron curtain and provoke an international incident with the ussr, even if helping the hungarians was the right thing to do. that said, there might be a moral case for intervention, and it doesn’t necessarily have to come from washington (more on that later). maybe you’re not on social media (good choice), or maybe you don’t speak spanish, but i’ve seen a lot of posts on my feed about the situation in venezuela. many posts bear hashtags like #sosvenezuela. there are people pleading the international community for help amid the violent crackdown and repression of protests. (as of writing, the death toll is 24, and 2,000 have been arrested; security forces are conducting portland-style kidnappingings on steroids). a group of venezuelan american activists have even created and disseminated a draft letter for people to write to their congress members. in short, it’s not so much the us who wants to intervene as it is key opposition figures and exiles pleading to the outside world for help. now, again, whether the international community steps in will ultimately depend on whether they find it pragmatic to do so. as i’ve mentioned earlier, perhaps the only countries who can effectively resolve the situation are fellow latam states run by leftists (and maduro allies), like mexico, colombia, and brazil. The G (talk) 05:23, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

i just realized i completely misread carthage’s question. oh well; enjoy the above for your reading pleasure. XD The G (talk) 12:02, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Different situations require different responses. World War 1 was wished by all major European powers, and the support the German social-democrats gave to the war while in other countries socialists were getting assassinated by nationalists for their pacifism could be seen as a mistake. In world war 2 however the situation was different, (hopefully) different from today as well. The “pacifists” of the time from left, right and centre were collaborators.

Intervention on it’s own might be morally justified, but then it’s better for a UN intervention led by multiple countries to happen, excluding the USA, then an intervention led by the USA which will profit the USA. At least that would have been better for Syria and maybe Iraq.

Do you know how many countries have had similar crackdowns? Is it moral for the USA to intervene there? What about the Venezuelan people, who will suffer more than before? Don’t the Venezuelan people already suffer from sanctions? Is that not morally reprehensible?

Did you know that you have a small communist state right next to you? New world (talk) 09:00, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

yes, and it’s that small communist country that’s propping up illegitimate regimes in venezuela and nicaragua. again, regardless of morality, imperialism is here to stay – and if the us doesn’t do it, someone else will. i’m not blinding defending the us’s foreign policy failures so much as i’m (1) pointing out the irrational double standards some people have and (2) defending the will of the venezuelan people at the end of the day. that said, maybe the us getting involved is a bad idea (which i’ve conceded in other posts), but the venezuelan people are just as fed up with the cuban and russian governments providing materiel and assisting their security forces. i’ve also noticed that the overwhelming majority of people defending maduro’s regime don’t actually live in venezuela (including a not-insignificant number of american leftists, which itself suggests a white savior complex; i.e., it’s not only the right-leaning capitalist foreign policy hawks who have this). ironically, this talking over people pretty much amounts of ideological imperialism. ideally, we probably should let the venezuelans sort this out themselves (absent any intervention, even most sanctions, dare i say), as we know by example of another caribbean country what undermining a nation’s sovereignty does to it. unfortunately, we don’t live in such an ideal world, so there is room for debate on how the crisis ought to be approached (especially if a third of that country’s population is expected to migrate if nothing changes, and few, if any of those migrants are expected to move to the countries allied with the dictatorship).

the un used to be useful for foreign interventions, the most successful example being the korean war. nowadays, the un does little than sit around on their lazy asses and pass symbolic resolutions condemning atrocities around the world. The G (talk) 17:04, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

“Imperialism is just a fact of the world. If the US doesn’t do it, someone else will.” So anti-imperialist activism is worthless, then? This is like saying that because murder will always be around, punishing it is a waste of time. Carthage (talk) 17:22, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

no. i’m saying it’s incorrect to assume that us imperialism is bad while giving chinese, russian, and even cuban imperialists a free pass. it’s also wrong to assume that the us is the only one with ulterior motives while venezuela’s authoritarian allies have benign intentions. (which is more likely: that they want their own grubby hands on venezuelan oil, or that they just love their arepas? i’ll let you decide.) The G (talk) 17:07, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Lol. You seem to be fundamentally opposed to the idea that Cuba is supporting Venezuela to have a “bloc” in the West opposed to the very hostile empire just north of their island, which has tried to coup them multiple times and has inflicted a crushing embargo on them to this day, not to mention everything to do with Batista and how Cuba got its independence in the first place. Does Cuba want Venezuela’s sweet, sweet oil? That would be a nice bonus, but that’s not the only reason. Carthage (talk) 19:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

true, which would explain why cuba has close ties with nicaragua’s ortega, despite not having much to offer. however, this rebuttal still doesn’t account for china’s or russia’s meddling, so i stand by what i said in that regard. The G (talk) 05:12, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

ok, another reason for china, russia, and iran meddling in latam is to establish a presence in america’s backyard. i did forget to mention that. the point is that these countries have ulterior motives. they’re not meddling in latam affairs just because they want to save the world from us imperialism out of the goodness of their hearts or anything. The G (talk) 02:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Who said that? If this would be about morality, you wouldn’t be suggesting for the USA to ‘do more’ than they already do, while criticizing anti-American countries for moral reasons. While there is a difference between the USA and China or Russia, your argument about morality works only with non-“Western” nations being the attacked. It’s best to prevent wars, whether China, Russia or the USA do them, and it’s best to try to reduce the profit these powers can get from them. You see, nobody here is suggesting China is ‘good’, however you have to understand that China, thanks to the bad reputation of the USA, can come to countries of the Global South and pretend to respect them and their sovereignty (which so far, it largely does). Therefore, invasion is generally not a good strategy for China to adopt. Still, it’s (generally) best to prevent wars, simply because they are inhumane, the best we can. And if they happen, it would be good to at least try to establish the republican form of government, which is difficult when an imperial power tries to profit from the countries resources. And if this doesn’t happen, I don’t think it’s that horrible to criticise that. New world (talk) 10:40, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I think fundimentally, the level that offical America ‘likes’ overseas nations being democracies because they are under the illusion that ‘democratic = pro-American’. The moment a democratic state decides to go against American economic interests, they get put on the shit list – because how can a democracy be anti-American (no, anti corp America but it’s one and the same in this POV), this clearly is due to ‘foreign interference’ which means the likes of the CIA et al needs to start ‘correcting’ them.

When I was a greasy teen, I used to suspect the likes of the CIA were masters of the realpolitik 3D chess. Now I actually suspect most are so naively pariochial they genuinely don’t understand how any democratic state could be pissed at the USA. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:05, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

an argument can be made that the us doesn’t really care too much about oil either (in the same way that washington doesn’t genuinely care about democracy), otherwise it would have invaded and plundered so many other countries (not least venezuela). even our article on chavez slightly touches on this view . of course, tankies will still use uncle sam as their favorite boogeyman to handwave criticisms of their ideology and defend gross human rights abuses.

(just for the record: to my knowledge, i don’t think any major user of this site is a tankie. i’m just ranting/venting on some of the stupid shit i’ve read elsewhere on the interwebs – that, or i’m simply exploring crank ideas consistent to this site’s mission; take your pick. at the end of the day, i think i’m only preaching to the choir, as nobody here has even come close to stooping to that level. i do appreciate the dialogue, even the disagreements.) The G (talk) 03:20, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I’d argue it’s a matrix in which decision-making is made on the old risk-reward, along with how strong the cheerleaders are for courses of action. That (for example) Venezuela there’s a lot of corp interests (not just oil) and a well-connected emigre elite who’s calling for ‘tougher actions’ on Caracas, hoping that if you tighten enough screws, they’ll fall over and the new regime will be mysteriously pro-foreign capital and pro old elite. However, at this moment in time there is not enough weight (yet) to justify an outright military intervention – to invade Venezuela would not ‘pass the Dover test’ for the American political class (ie justifying the casulties to the public). However, if the inputs change (Venezuelan military becomes more decrepit, rebels appear, Russians get a military base there) this might push enough waverers into the ‘hawk’ camp. But even then, they will normally hope it’s an ‘inside job’ with plausably deniable US assistance.

One thing we need to remember with American foreign policy is that it will normally try to at at least act to the letter of ‘the rules based international order’ because it’s a game which is already stacked in their favour, and so they clearly have a vested interest in preserving it. They don’t get everything they’d like, but they get more than they would by ‘cheating’ and with less resistance too. For example, the promotion of ‘democracy’ almost invaribly makes the target country more suseptable to pro-American propaganda, influencing etc and it sounds better to both domestic and foreign ears than a cynical realpolitik of ‘bending this nation towards our needs’. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:55, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Part of the ‘non-intervention’ in 1956 was due to the fact the French and British were busy invading Egypt over Suez, which the Soviets had backed Nasser to the point they semi-openly threatened nuclear strikes on the pair if they didn’t stop (the Soviets ‘privately’ promised Nasser this… via the latter’s London embassy, which they knew MI5 had successfully hacked) and the Americans were also pissed at this because they’d not given ‘permission’.

If Ike had decided to ‘go in’ to save the Hungarians at this point, he would have been doing it alone and most likely would have gone nuclear at the outset. What’s more, how would American forces get to Hungary? Here’s a map, you plot the course for American forces in W Germany can get to Budapest…

Anyway, Carthage has a good point here. You cannot say ‘we cannot allow (foreign nations) to have free reign in Venezuela’ but then say ‘Ukraine has the right to be friends which whoever they wish’. Well, without being a complete hypocrite. They are both sovereign nations or subsidiary powers which are within the ‘sphere of influence’ of a Great Power. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Also going to throw in here that “I saw on twitter lots of people from X country calling for “the international community” to help them remove Y” is quite a naive statement. Astro-turfing has been a common tactic of the U.S. intelligence services and one of the few things they’ve gotten quite good at – no doubt thanks to co-operation from their working relationships with Google etc. Every other attempted coup to overthrow Venezuela’s government turned out to be backed by the U.S., so I think the chances that this one “unlike all the others a uniquely native and organic push” is rather unlikely.

That said it doesn’t mean that there won’t be genuine criticism etc, since real problems remain real problems regardless of who is cynically trying to exploit them. And Hi G Man. Resident Tankie here. Sorry to violate your safe space. 🙁 Tikitime2 (talk) 11:45, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

nice to meet you, tikitime. i hope you know what site you’re on. if you’re going to make a claim, the burden of proof is always on you. speculations aren’t evidence. this isn’t 1960 anymore. us foreign policy has changed a lot since then. it could just as much be that people are simply protesting shitty governments. recall that even the us itself saw mass protests in 2020, and people made up conspiracy theories and hoaxes that george soros or some other boogeyman was pulling the strings. The G (talk) 16:25, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

regarding kp’s post on hungary: yeah, that was sort of my whole point. what’s moral isn’t always practical. that’s the world we live in. trolley problem. The G (talk) 03:23, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think it’s as sinister as all that; it grants powers of cunning, intelligence and control I don’t think the CIA etc has. Like I outlined above, ‘American influence/power’ is much more like a school of piranhas than a huge octopus with a central ‘head’ controlling everything. What’s more, I think most of the ‘useful idiot’ groups count more as ‘front groups’ than astroturfs because the former does have some real people behind it, while the latter doesn’t. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:56, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

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Is it just me or do a lot of these countries viewed as an “axis of evil” (like Iran, Cuba, and China) have a long history of Western imperialism interfering, mostly negatively, with them? Like it or not the West is the global hegemon, and many countries we have marginalized do find it prudent to ally against us, even if only out of convenience. This alliance of convenience against the hated West, for good reasons in many cases, which is still globally dominant, makes a lot of sense to me that I feel is being ignored by certain parties to this conversation. The ultimate aims of the members of this disparate alliance is irrelevant to this fact, as is whether or not a multipolar world would be better than a unipolar one. Carthage (talk) 09:11, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Axis of Evil is nothing more than a Dubya term (actually coined by current never-Trumper David Frum) to purportedly represent countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism and “weapons of mass destruction”. The list originally included Iran, Iraq, and North Korea; later, additional talking heads like John Bolton added Cuba, Libya, Syria, and others. The list obviously was a neoconservative fever dream fueled by Reagan era Cold War geopolitics — the obvious counter-example to point out is that despite Saudi Arabia terrorists being behind 9/11, they never made the “axis”. Personally, I see little that links the countries in the list other than that. (Really funny to think about this era these days, since alignment with the Soviet Union was a big part of the equation back then, and parts of Trumpism have tightly aligned with Putin now.) While Western imperialism is definitely a thing with many of the countries in this list, that’s a long and complex topic. It would be giving the neoconservative talking heads too much credit to think that they even thought of that, IMHO. 🙂 BobJohnson (talk) 12:29, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

perhaps i’m a little biased, but if a multipolar world were to exist, i would prefer brazil (or some other other regional latam power like mexico and colombia) or some other brics country like india or south africa to lead the charge because at least those countries are relatively free societies who have enough power on their own to not let uncle sam boss them around easily. even if russia, china, cuba, iran, and even north korea (though they started the war) were screwed over by western/us imperialism, none of that justifies their awful human rights records or lack of democracies. this might be a hot take, but i don’t believe countries where human rights are basically nonexistent deserve any spot on the negotiating table (and yes, that especially includes the usa’s gulf state allies). china and russia already have veto powers in the un security council. look how well that works out for the world. The G (talk) 17:28, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I don’t know where some of you guys get your history lessons (I assume it’s from YouTube and Twitter), but America didn’t start the hostilities towards Cuba and Venezuela, their governments did. The truth is, any extremist government will have to resort to authoritarian methods, and when their policies fail (it’s a matter of when, not if), they have to find a scapegoat. Blaming the US is the oldest con game in Latin America. Juan Domingo Perón, Salvador Allende and João Goulart did it before Maduro, and I think many others will do it in the future. You don’t have to resort to any weird whataboutism and red hering to acknowledge that before blaming the US (and the US did some awful things in Latam), they should blame their own governments (which were often elected in free and fair elections) for their failures. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 03:40, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

So the US didn’t support Batista, a brutal dictator who ruled over a country rife with economic inequality, and hasn’t been hostile to Cuba since the Revolution? That’s odd. Carthage (talk) 04:41, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Actually, he was a brutal dictator who ruled over what was possibily the richest country in Latin America. The US did recognize Fidel (a far more brutal dictator that turned the said country in one of the poorest in the regions, despite the USSR pouring money on them) as the legitimate ruler. It only became hostile toward them after Fidel and his gang start the hostilities themselves. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 04:51, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

The “richest country” where 70% of the land was owned by foreigners and the right to strike was forbidden? Glad to see where your priorities lie. Carthage (talk) 04:57, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

in fact, both things can be true at the same time. the us did respond to castro’s (mis)rule very poorly. it certainly wouldn’t be the last of washington’s foreign policy failures, not even toward havana. (14) The G (talk) 05:02, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

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(EC) Well, gladly, I didn’t say it was good, I just pointed out it was better than the following period. I’m not the one here supporting a dictator, you are. The land being owned by foreigners is just a nationalist gambit: people were still getting a better quality of life back then (although, again, I’m not supporting Batista or anyone else). What is the problem when it is working for most people?(15) Do you prefer a system where people got poorer and poorer? Because that’s what they got. My priorities lie in the quality of life. The Castro dictatorship failed at that. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 05:04, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

If things were so good under Batista, and again any regime that forbids the right to strike doesn’t seem like a very “good” place to me, although you don’t care about the plight of labor, the Cuban Revolution wouldn’t have happened then. Also nowhere did I state that I support the Castro dictatorship, all I have stated is that Cuban opposition to Western hegemony is very understandable in the light of history. The same applies to Iran, who suffered the overthrow of a democratically elected prime minister and the installation of a brutal US-backed dictatorship under the Shah, which directly led to the Iranian Revolution.

You are also ignoring just what exactly made Cuba “rich”, or whose hands that wealth lied in. It certainly wasn’t in the hands of the workers toiling away under back-breaking conditions for the sugar plantations. Batista deliberately sided with the rich oligarchs who ruled Cuba over the common masses, and, to quote Wikipedia, “presided over a stagnating economy where the gap between rich and poor widened ever further.” You are deliberately obfuscating this fact that Batista wasn’t popular with the Cuban people, and that his regime was backed by the US. It doesn’t matter if the Castro regime has proven “worse” for Cuba, that is irrelevant. What does matter is that the US backed an unpopular kleptocracy, and when a revolution inevitably occurred, proved to be very frosty to the replacement government. Carthage (talk) 05:24, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

(EC)How I started my last post: ” I didn’t say it (life under Batista) was good”. How you started your post: accusing me of saying that things were “so good under Batista”. Also, the Cuban Revolution wasn’t a bottom up event to my knowledge, so the “plight of labor” wasn’t a defining factor. If that was true, the revolution would have happened in countries where the conditions were much worse than Cuba, not in the fifth richest country in the Western hemisphere.(16) GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 05:41, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

“I just pointed out it was better than the following period.” Which is irrelevant to my argument. You can’t seem to grasp that fact. Carthage (talk) 05:44, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

It is relevant to your argument when you accuse me of siding with Batista over Castro, something that you did more than once. You said yourself “Glad to see where your priorities lie” and “you don’t care about the plight of labor”. How am I supposed to read these if not a comparison of the two dictatorships GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 05:49, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Anyway, your argument has already been objected by the fact that 1: the US didn’t start the hostilities and 2: The revolution wasn’t a bottom up revolution and the social conditions were much worse in other countries in Latam, so there wasn’t anything remotely inevitable about the revolution. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 06:05, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

You’re acting like there wasn’t popular discontent with Batista. Insurgency doesn’t grow out of a vacuum. Tensions were getting higher and higher by the time Castro came back from exile. Every country’s material conditions are unique, so it doesn’t really matter if other countries “had it worse.” The circumstances of Cuba were ripe for insurgency, and that’s all that really matters. Also, what do you want me to think? I point out Batista forbade the right to strike and you completely blew past that. Are you seriously going to pretend that doesn’t give the impression of complete apathy on your part, or that you don’t consider it as important as, say, the right of foreign capital to extract wealth from Cuba? Carthage (talk) 08:03, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

No, it does matter. In fact, it matters a lot. You said yourself that the social conditions in Cuba led to the revolution. Well, what’s so special about the circumstances of Cuba that resulted in the revolution except for the fact that the situation was better than in the rest of the continent? I already answer the question: the Revolution wasn’t a popular momovement, even if people didn’t like Batista, they weren’t part of the revolution. The people really didn’t participate. I’ve said that twice and you just ignored it, and I assume you’ll still ignore this part of my argument because it completely refutes yours. I also don’t know why you’re still talking about Batista when I said twice that I don’t support him (indeed, I don’t support any autocrat). Also, you are just showing that you don’t understand how foreign investment work when you say that foreign capital “extract wealth from Cuba”. In fact, foreign capital builded the capital that made Cuba wealthier than the other nations in the region, and the lack of foregin investments are one of the reasons why Cuba is so much poorer today. How do you expect that poor countries to quickly build the infrastructure they need without other countries’ money? It is possible. The USSR under Lenin and Stalin (the fathers of this theory of imperalism, which was outdated when they wrote it) did it, and their production possibility curve changed, at least at first (later things changed), without a lot of foreign investment. The result is well-known, I believe even by you. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:41, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

In essance, all revolutions are ‘minority projects’. It’s simple historical revisionism afterwards where it gets portrayed as a ‘mass popular uprising’. Case in point; the American ‘Rebellion’ in the 1770s – the best historical guesses I’ve seen was that about half were ‘neutral’ and another 15% ‘Loyalists’ which leaves only around 35% ‘Patriots’. Quite often, one side ‘wins’ because the opposing side effectively falls apart or gives up.

While you’re right that ‘foreign capital built the infrastructure which raised the Cuban SoL’, you conveniently ignore the fact that foreign capital ownership also means foreign profits – (for example) BP would extract crude oil from Nigeria (£ for Nigeria) but then ship it back to the UK (£ for UK), refine it (£ for UK), sell it as POL (£££ for UK) and finally, book the profits in London (££ for UK Govt).

This is often the cause of the classic ‘middle income trap’; that primary industry has produced a not-awful SoL but is incapable of moving further due to lack of capital because the bulk of current profits end up overseas (another issue being the small wealthy local elite preferring to salt their wealth overseas or enjoy conspicious consumption than become domestic entrepenurs). Which is why the control of major resources (such as oil fields or mines) and domestic banking is normally on the top of the list of any ambitious developing nation wishing to ‘speed up development’ – ie retaining those foreign profits to aid capital accumulation, and then directing it in a corporatist manner to the ‘best’ places (for example, investing in oil refineries and infrastructure) to expand the economic base of the country.

I duly note that the only countries which have generally been able to significantly jump up the SoL/income rankings past WW2 are nations which have done a variant of this. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:46, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Mass mobilization and, while not necessarily adherence to the political projects of movements, support for mobilization isn’t that uncommon. The 18th and early 19th century wars of independence or ‘revolutions’ in South and North America were however minority projects. New world (talk) 15:02, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Cuba also experienced massive levels of economic inequality, so clearly that wealth wasn’t trickling down. I also had in mind extractive industries or shit like sugar plantations when talking about “foreign capital siphoning Cuba’s wealth,” so Gee’s complaint is pearl-clutching. Cuba also had massive corruption under Batista, again primarily benefiting Americans. Also, @New world, I’m fairly certain the Haitian Revolution was a mass project among black slaves. Carthage (talk) 16:33, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Cuba had a massive inequality and lots of corruption. Which, again, didn’t make the country unique, as other countries in Latam had (and still have) the same problem. And yet, they didn’t saw a revolution. Again, you are not adressing my main argument: the Cuban people played a very small role on the Revolution, so claiming that it happened because of social issues is a very poor explanation of the causes of the Revolution. Also, what is the problem of the primary sector. Are you suggesting that countries can’t get rich when their economies have a huge primary sector? Really? GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 17:28, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

It’s all about power relations. All those countries you mentioned are part of the global north, and have benefited significantly from geography and colonialism. They’re the exploiters, not the exploited. Countries like Cuba are used as zones of extraction, with the resources transported to the global north, where they are then developed and sold back to consumers in the global south, and the profits kept in the north. Think of conflict diamonds in the DRC, or oil in MENA. It’s also interesting how you completely ignored KP’s comment. Carthage (talk) 17:48, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

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Regarding Karma’s comment, I didn’t even read it because it’s too long and I don’t have time to read and answer it right now, maybe I’ll do it in a couple of days. I’ve already explained to you more than once why is wrong to claim that these countries got rich because of colonialism (and although geography is indeed important, it’s not the main explanation). It’s not a matter of “power”. You seem to think that Cuba would be richer without “exploitation” from the amorphous global north. Well, lucky for you, your hypothesis was tested, and Cuba is now poorer than it was 60 years ago. So, no, “exploitation from the global north” is not the root cause of the problems in Latin America. In fact, Latin America (along with Africa) is one of the most difficult places to foreign investors to put their money, and has perhaps the most closed economy in the world. Yes, you can find American fingerprints in many of the problems of the region. But America is not the main responsible for the problems in Latin America – the choices made by the countries in the region are. This is like, basic economic history, for Christ sake… GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 17:58, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

“Basic economic history” that academics like Ingrid Kvangraven disagree with you on. You honestly believe that history is of no consequence to why certain countries are rich and others poor? Why is France so keen on maintaining its colonial empire through neocolonial means? You’re also acting like the American embargo has had no effects on the Cuban economy. Carthage (talk) 18:04, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

This is a terrible appeal to authority -Kvangraven is a complete nobody.(17) I never said that history is of no consequence to why certain countries are rich and others poor, I said many many times ITT that the US did horrible things to Latam, you’re strawmanning me again. If you want to know how colonialism played a major role on how countries got poor, you can read this paper, written by three relevant scholars.(18) You however don’t seem to believe that these countries are also poor because of wrong decisions they made. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 18:11, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

“Appeal to notability” should be classified as a logical fallacy, as it is one you use quite often. Carthage (talk) 18:13, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

So, we should give to cranks and fringe people the same weight we do to the most important thinkers of our time? Not that your post isn’t blantant whataboutism. You still haven’t answered. If the Cuban Revolution was a top-bottom event, how was it caused by social issues – issues that were much worse in other places across Latin America? GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 18:18, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Are you trying to say that Kvangraven is a crank? You didn’t even know who she was until I pointed her out to you. Are you even familiar with her research? I don’t think you are. There are also plenty of things you have ignored here: such as that foreign ownership tends to translate to foreign profits, and the fact that rich countries like France will fight tooth and nail to maintain their colonial empires, or that corporations tend to outsource labor to countries with minimal-to-no labor and environmental protections (case in point). How does your paradigm explain all of this better than dependency theory? You also seem to actively dismiss and ignore research from anything that isn’t orthodox economics. You certainly don’t pay attention to post-colonial studies. Carthage (talk) 18:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

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(EC) If she is your main source on the subject yes, she’s pretty much a crank. I did some research on her, she’s from The New School, a place known for their cranks. So, she’s probably a hack. Indeed, fringe doesn’t means wrong, as I said before. What I also said is that there is a huge overlap between those two groups. You still haven’t answered my questions (because you know you can). Why should I answer yours? Well, I’ll actually do it though.

1. Don’t pretend like the social sciences are as hard as the physical sciences

I never did. That doesn’t mean that all views have the same value. Some of them cannot stand when confronted with reality. That’s the case of your view now.

2. the effects of the American embargo on the Cuban economy.

This is probably the worst argument you could use for a plethora of reasons. I’ll just mention a few problems with this excuse of argument. 1 You said that the American investment wasn’t bringing prosperity to most of the Cuban population. By using your reasoning, the embargo should be a good thing. 2 The embargo doesn’t prevent Cuba from trading with other countries. Cuba received millions of dollar per day (in 1975 dollars) from the USSR.(19) Later, it received millions of barrels of oil from Venezuela (20). 3 how did you think the US should act towards a hostile country that was expropriating their property?

3. how foreign ownership tends to translate to foreign, not domestic, profit

Do you have a source on that? Where did you get this information? The fact that foreign investment is a key element of a successful development strategy is well-known.(21)

4. why corporations will outsource labor to countries with minimal to no labor protections and lax environmental standards

At this point you’re embarrassing yourself. Foreign-owned and firms in pay higher wages and have better working conditions than domestic firms and are typically not attracted preferentially to countries with weak labor standards.(22) Without these investments, these countries in fact get poorer. This is also well-documented by the literature, a literature that, unlike you, I’m familiar with.

5. why rich countries like France actively seek to maintain their colonial empires

What does this have to do with Cuba? GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 19:22, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

6. How does your paradigm explain all of this better than dependency theory

Unlike you, I’ve read the authors of the dependency theory. In both Spanish and Portuguese. Raúl Presbitch? Celso Furtado? Fernando Henrique Cardoso (whom later would say, as a president that people should “rip everything he wrote”? Yeah, I’ve studied them all. Their theory has been debunked study after study, and the fact that Latin America still pay attention to them is one of the reasons why the continent is poor. Again, many countries got rich with a huge primary sector. Others got poor with a secondary sector. The economy of Latam is extremely closed, they are a perfect refutation of the dependency theory.

7. You also seem to actively dismiss and ignore research from anything that isn’t orthodox economics.

No. I dismiss most of the fringe research because those studying it disagree with it and consider it bullshit. And a layman that can’t even read the papers on the subject like you will not make the paradigm shift. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 19:22, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Let’s just stop and appreciate how much you’re hawking a field of study heavily criticized for its usage of normative reasoning, toxicity, and underrepresentation of women and people of color, and outright denigration of fields of study in economics predominantly filled by women and POC and marginalization of non-Western economics. The same field that assumes in its models that the economy is a perpetual motion machine, that completely ignores ecology and sociology. Anyways.

“Do you have a source on that?”

It’s what happened to Ecuador, according to the Harvard Review:

Privatization does generally beget greater economic efficiency and profit for business owners, multinational corporations, and foreign investors. However, its aftershocks — inaccessible essential services and increased unemployment among them — overwhelmingly shake everyday citizens. When foreign companies enjoy a significant share of profits from newly-privatized companies — as is the case in Ecuador, where around 90 percent of mining firms are Canadian-owned — they may prove antithetical to local growth by exporting more profit back to their home countries than a locally-owned business would. Indeed, “IMF programs have profound distributional implications and very often who benefit are big businesses and banks based in the Global North,” noted Dr. Alexander Kentikelenis, associate professor of sociology and political economy at Bocconi University, in an interview with the HPR.

Also, KP covered that in his post you ignored.

“She’s probably a crank.” Meaning you haven’t read any of her work.

“This is probably the worst argument you could employ.” You mentioned that Cuba is poor because of its own decisions. Then you defend imperialism. “How should America react to someone expropriating their property.” You evidently consider property to be more important than equity or democracy. Interesting where your priorities lie, again. Carthage (talk) 19:51, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Oh come now. GJK is many things, but he’s definitely not a Pinochet guy. That was a bit too much. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 20:12, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Maybe. I don’t think Gee supports Pinochet, but I do get the impression that he considers Pinochet to be a lesser evil than Latin American leftists. I could easily be wrong, however. In the interest of civility I’ll remove that from my post. Carthage (talk) 20:18, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Where did I cite any heterodox economist actually? I remember citing Randall Holcombe once. You can see my edits on Murray Rothbard, Walter Block and HHH if you want to know what I think about Right-wing heterodox economists.GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 20:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I don’t have the bandwidth to properly reply to all this right now, but I will say now I’m not impresed on the hills you’ve picked to die on included ‘foreign ownership doesn’t equal profit being exported overseas’. If the foreign company didn’t get a good RoR on their investment, why the fuck would they bother investing in the first place? C’mon, I thought better of you… KarmaPolice (talk) 20:24, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

The point is that it’s a win-win scenario. Regarding the Pinochet stuff I said on this very thread that every extremist government fails and that I don’t support any autocrat, so Carthage, your point is pretty silly. I do think however that you support Castro and Maduro. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 20:28, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Define ‘extremist’. To me, political extremes will not respect certain principles and laws associated with republican rule, and ‘radicality’ is not a synonym of ‘extreme’. New world (talk) 20:40, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Do I support Castro and Maduro? I don’t know enough about Maduro to give you an honest answer. Castro I oppose, but I consider the US to be a greater evil. I have, however, read a pretty convincing piece by a socialist not to support Maduro. These reasons being that Maduro is the head of a kleptocracy in Venezuela that hurts labor: ((23)) It’s a good read, I recommend it. Anyway, I don’t really consider, say, Chinese neocolonialism to be much of a “win” for Africa. Sure they’ve built infrastructure: infrastructure that benefits Chinese neocolonialism. And they’ve provided jobs: to Chinese laborers. It may be “win-win,” but the foreign party seems to be getting the better deal. Carthage (talk) 20:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

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(ec) There are too many mistakes on your last posts, so I don’t think I’ll answer them, especially since you are not answering my questions and chose a motte-and-bailey strategy. You will however tell me when did I add right wing heterodoxity gibberish to this site otherwise I’ll ask you to remove this baseless accusation too. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 20:46, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Whatever you say, mate. I made mistakes like “foreign ownership doesn’t equate to foreign profit,” clearly. Also, I’m not new world, so they should be still be fair game, right? KP too. Carthage (talk) 20:50, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Considering what Castro, Peron, Maduro, Morales and many others did, no it doesn’t. Anyway, my point is that these countries are better off with foreign investment, and everyone gains from them. I’ve posted studies from top scholars to back my claim. You haven’t. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 21:36, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

You place a hierarchy on scholarship. “Top scholars” in your view tend to be white people from the global north who work at specific institutions, who also define who gets to be at the “econ table”, often to the detriment of women and people of color, or anyone doing innovative research. You also ignore the many caveats associated with economic research, including the replicability crisis, institutional bias, and usage of normative reasoning.

“Considering what Castro, Peron, Maduro, Morales and many others did, no it doesn’t.” Tell that to Ecuador, which you completely ignored. Also tell that to KP. Carthage (talk) 21:47, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

As someone that has actually published stuff before, this link is a joke. Accusing a field of gatekeeping is the same argument cranks and denialists of other fields use because they cannot get their garbage published. Teach the controversy is not an argument, and pluralism is useless when your views are not based on eviden e. Regarding Ecuador, your link is not scholarship. It is a story that may or may not be true about a single sector of a single country told by a minor professor from an even minor center. Is this really the best you can do? GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 22:01, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

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That blogger has also been published. Please explain what the “joke” is here? That economics is a field plagued by lack of inclusion? Is this bit here a joke:

We discourage undergraduates, women, and men from studying economics. The AEA’s first climate survey of economics clearly shows our toxic profession, especially among under-represented groups. The AEA should commission surveys of undergraduates, research assistants, and predoctoral and postdoctoral students. Harassment begins in undergraduate classrooms and often does not stop unless you leave economics.

We do not nurture the next generation. Many graduate students and economists have mental health issues. Research at Harvard found notably higher rates of depression and anxiety among economics Ph.D. students than other Ph.D. students and the general population. Departments often do send students to campus health resources. The faculty place unrealistic expectations on the students. They are aggressive in private and in public settings. Many do not mentor, even after they have agreed to be their advisors. Faculty suffer too. Leading economists Alan Krueger, Marty Weitzman, Bill Sandholm, and Emmanuel Farhi all killed themselves recently. Rest in peace

That doesn’t really seem like a joke to me.

Neither does this:

I mentor many people. They come to me as an ally, as someone who will listen. I do. Some conversations are happy, and people are looking for advice on being an economist. Some conversations are sad; people dealing with painful experiences in economics. Some get better. Some do not. Last year a Black woman undergrad asked me how to get from her satellite-school state university to a Ph.D. program in economics. We talked, and I gave her advice. I emailed her a few months later to see what she had decided. Her brother replied that his sister had killed herself. She will not be an economist. Others became economists then we drove them away. The tenure of a Native American woman economist was revoked after her men colleagues turned on her. I talk with her regularly. We discuss how she could return to academia after she is healthy again. Do you know how many Native American women are economists? Very few. Do you know how many Black economists work at the Fed? One out of 406. Economics is a disgrace.

The indignities are astounding. The new woman economist at the Board was asked by the men colleagues at lunch . Her husband is an economist I know well. An officer sabotaged her work . (Redacted.) I have talked with the woman and her husband several times. Broke my heart. Her tormentor is good friends with mine. I thought it was me. It was not me. It was them, and they have not stopped. I told her she would get better. I did. No one told me that in 2011 when I broke. I was told that I was not the first woman he targeted. No one told me I could report him. Both tormentors are senior officers at the Board, instrumental to monetary policy decisions. Neither said they were sorry.

Or how about the Southeast Asian research assistant, who I met once? He called me hyperventilating as he told me about his abusive work environment. After I hung up, I closed my door and sat in my office sobbing. Economists messed him up. I coached him on how to leave his job and find a new one. He did.

Finally, the woman economics major at Chicago went to office hours. She sat on the floor since the room was crowded. Someone offered her a chair. She said she was fine sitting on the floor. The professor looked at her and said, “I see you like it on your knees; women do.” He did not apologize to her though he did have to apologize for telling a sexually explicit joke at commencement. He continues to teach undergraduates. Economics breaks people, and it is broken. I am angry. You should be too.

The blogger in question is an economist.

There is also stuff more relevant to this discussion, like this little anecdote:

Hostile attacks from senior economists on junior economists are common, often in seminars and other public settings. As one personal example, in May 2015, on Twitter, AAAA a Nobel Laureate, was talking with BBBB (a friend) about the effects of the Making Work Pay tax credit on consumer spending. I sent BBBB my paper with Matthew Shapiro and Joel Slemrod. We find that the 2009-10 tax credit, which was partly based on AAAA’s earlier research, was less effective than the 2008 tax rebates. I shared the link to the FEDS working paper version. AAAA’s public tweet replied, “there is a reason that paper was never published. Badly flawed. Asked people to remember what they did with the money. Huh?” He was the AEA President at the time. I replied politely, “actually, it was published in AEJ: Economic Policy, thanks!” Then he said, “ok, one for your side. I have not seen the published version.” So much for an open exchange of ideas. Our hyper-competitive field allows point scoring over the scientific inquiry.

There’s also her mention of the study which found that a majority of econ research is unreplicable. You also ignored this.

The post also covers the issues of diversity and representation in economics. According to the author, who is, again, a professional economist, which you are not, the state of diversity and representation in economics is abysmal. To quote the post:

Top research on race and economics often perpetuates racist tropes.

And:

Leaders often downplay the concerns of women and minority men economists. When economists in under-represented groups report an incident, they are often told they are being too sensitive or unreasonable. The leaders of the profession turn a blind eye to such reports. Often the profession awards economists esteemed positions without checking complaints. HHHH was elected to the AEA Executive, while a case of sexual harassment was pending against him. IIII was elected AEA President in an uncontested election, even as Asian economists were concerned about his views toward them. It should surprise no one that IIII’s work as a paid consultant for Harvard upset our Asian colleagues. IIII argued that systematically subjective ratings on ‘soft skills’ justified Harvard not admitting Asians with higher test scores and grades. Asian economists have long complained others ding their technically solid work for not being creative. IIII will assume the leadership of the AEA in January. I am not here to judge, but I do think a conversation is necessary.

Care to actually address the content now, instead of merely asserting that the highly detailed and cited post of a professional economist is a “joke”? Carthage (talk) 22:08, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Paradigms have shifted many times in economics (I can give you ten examples out of my head if you want), all you need is a good study showing that your conclusions are evidence-based. The truth the heterodox methodology is just appalling, and often downright pseudoscientific. The problem with heterodox is not gatekeeping. It’s the fact that they put their ideology above the real world. The harassement against women is definitely disgusting, though I haven’t personally seen it, but regarding the allegedly gatekeeping, I’ll change the world. It’s worse than a joke. She’s either liar or has a huge presecution complex if she things that there is some form of gatekeeping preventing heterodox economists to get better jobs. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 22:22, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

An important point has beem missed here. GeeJay claimed that the U.S. embargo doesn’t prevent other countries from trading with Cuba but that hasn’t been true since the Helms-Burton Act of 1996! If you ship oranges from Mexico to Havana, you can forget about the U.S. The point is to make Cuban markets not worth engaging in by forcing foreign entities to choose between trading with them or the larger U.S. market.

The fact that GeeJayK either did not know that or DID know it but chose to present it as “the embargo doesn’t stop Cuba trading with other countries” says volumes.

Though to be fair, on a slightly seperate note, there are different kinds of foreign investment. Attracting foreign investment can be useful for third world nations looking to build infrastructure and upskill; although if poorly managed, foreign investment provides neither infrastructure nor upskilling and just hefty paychecks to politicians willing to sell the country and its people off for bargain bin prices.

This thread has reminded me though that we will have to review our economics section at some point. Although economists tend to take themselves very seriously, that respect isn’t really shared outside their own circles. The work of people like Philip Tetlock has exposed the discipline (among others) on the macro-scale – economists, regardless of their qualifications or experience, struggle to predict the economy any better than binmen or hairdressers. And on the micro-scale the only promising stuff has been in behavioural econ where social-psychology does most of the heavy-lifting. This utter inability to produce working predictive models that operate outside the confines of a lecture theatre, or a carefully massaged set of data, puts them in the same positions as psychics for a lot of people.

Add to the fact that a lot of economic studies fail to replicate (I’ve seen various figures, some as high as 40%) and the failure to predict really starts to hammer home. I’ve seen the defence made through an analogy to medicine, that a doctor can’t predict exactly how a treatment will work for THAT patient but they can predict its effectiveness overall. The problem is that even in medicine we will generally observe people responding to treatments and suffering from ailments largely as the doctors predicted, enough so that consulting one doctor is a good idea. The same can’t be said for economists, even if you do get one of the “respected” one’s – who are usually just the one’s in vogue not necessarily the custodians or weilders of a powerful body of knowledge.

Put mildly, if your doctor was as wrong about your health and well-being as economists are about the economy. You’d be well within your rights to decline their advice. This may be why some economists are so insistent on credentialism, they are aware that their epistemic standing is not as solid as they’d like, so they lean on authority. The problem is that economics is not physics. It’s not metereology. Fuck, it’s not even psychology. The simple fact is that Doctors doesn’t need to argue with a homeopath because they represent a discipline that while ever evolving and changing, actually works. Econ profs don’t have that privilege.

Tikitime2 (talk) 16:56, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I don’t know why mentioned medicine and psychology, because, well medicine and psychology are known for a much larger replication crisis.(24)(25) It’s an overall problem across sciences, and no one is immune, with sociology possibly lagging even more behind than economics, psychology and political sciences.(26) There is, however, something that most are willing to accept: One of the answers to the Replication crisis, is of course, more rigor in the models, not subjectivity – which is what heterodox economists want to do if you ever bother reading them.

I also sincerely don’t think you ‘ re familiar with Philip Tetlock’s work. I actually read his Expert Political Judgment a few years ago, very cool book (except for the appendix) and as far as I remember (I can be wrong here) he was mostly talking about people that think they can beat the market, not about economic models, though I can be wrong. That being said, I’ve never seen a DSGE model predicting that the stock market will crash in a couple of months because that wouldn’t even make sense. Something that you’ll learn in any textbook is that you can’t beat the market. Tetlock criticized grifters masquerading as coaches, so his work is not a critique to mainstream economics – indeed, behavioral economics is mainstream (and just like the replication crisis cases, he was talking about social sciences as a whole).

Regarding the Helms-Burton Act, you’re right that it is a huge problem and (along with the rest of the embargo), it should be lifted. But you didn’t say that. 1 the Special Period started 5 years before the Helms-Burton Act. 2 the Act was softened only a few years later. 3 The worst part of the bill only started in 2019 and 4 Other countries (especially China, but also many Western countries, such as Spain, with Venezuela pouring millions of barrels of oil there) still trade with Cuba, so countries still can trade with Cuba, which was my point. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 18:55, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

yeah. if anything, it would be in washington’s best interest to end the embargo on cuba because havana can trade with caracas, managua, moscow, beijing, tehran, and maybe even pyongyang – and some of these countries are already banding together.(27) even powerful us allies like india can trade with cuba, as new delhi has a history of contravening sanctions while washington looks the other way. (28) all this to say that cuba can actually benefit from this embargo (if only by rubbing its failure in uncle sam’s face) if it plays its cards right instead of playing the victim – all the while there’s a compelling pro-us (and dare i say, “imperialist”) case for ending it. but this is already a topic for another post – one which i may introduce in the near future. The G (talk) 20:03, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Gee, you have made several points throughout this discussion which got my eyebrows.

‘So, no, “exploitation from the global north” is not the root cause of the problems in Latin America.’

It’s part of the problem. If you have the main sectors of the economy dominated by foreign interests which gets the lion’s share of the wealth generated, this means our host nation won’t get the capital it needs to invest to develop. In some cases, the ‘benefits’ that the host nation gets from the ‘foreign investment’ might be nothing more than a load of minimum-wage low-skill jobs, a small clutch of foreign elites paid off and perhaps a road or two built.

‘the effects of the American embargo on the Cuban economy.’

The American sanctions were utterly crippling because Cuba had been an economic colony of the Americans before this point. Not only did the Cubans lose their prime (sometimes near-sole) markets for their goods/services but she also lost her ability to import items from America – from spare car parts to capital plant (because all her capital goods were American in design). The human ‘capital loss’ was even worse; it seems that before 1965 Cuba lost perhaps 5% of her adult population and as the vast majority in this wave were the educated urban elite, it was a significant brain-drain for a land which could ill-afford to lose them.

It’s also the very thing which made Castro embrace the Soviets – to whit, when the Americans embargoed the Cuban sugar harvest and Khrushchev stepped in to take it all. With hindsight, doing this was totally counter-productive; Castro was more an ‘economic nationalist with a socialist tinge’ in 1959 but by 1965 was a full-blown Marxist-Leninist and I will say it was mainly how bats and extremely the Americans had reacted to him which caused this ‘conversion’ (and I will say incidently kinda ruined their chances of trading with other capitalist powers).

It’s a little counterfactual I occasionally wonder about; whether instead of doing their nut on hearing about Castro’s nationalisations, the Americans sat down with Castro and cut a profit-sharing deal for Cuban hotels, sugar and tobacco in the same manner they had cut a deal with the Saudis for their oil and thus, the nationalisations don’t happen but Castro also gets the extra cash to invest in Cuba herself.

‘Are you suggesting that countries can’t get rich when their economies have a huge primary sector? Really?’

It depends on where the profit ends up and what capital transfers happen. If the host doesn’t get any real long-term benefit (skills transfers, infrastructure, decent pay to act as seed money for domestic investment, use of domestic companies in supply chain) while the ‘investor’ ends up with all the profit sitting in their own nations – no, the host doesn’t benefit. In fact, in cases like oil/mineral extraction and logging it’s very possible the host is damaged by the production which means their net economic benefit from the enterprise is in fact minus. Let us not forget the opportunity cost with natural resources; once that $100m silver mine is mined it’s gone forever – so it might be better for the host to wait until they can mine it themselves (and keep 100% of the profit) rather than allow a foreign company in to do it (and get say 20% of the profit).

‘The fact that foreign investment is a key element of a successful development strategy is well-known’

But there’s many countries which do get quite a bit of ‘foreign investment’ but are still poor. This is because the important bit is capital accumulation, rather than the origins of it. If the ‘host’ cuts very poor deals with the foreign investors and the type of investments don’t have any form of multiplier then… what’s the point? One example off the top of my head is the assembly plants in the free-trade zones in the Philippines – apart from the bare-minimum wages paid to sweatshop workers, the hosts don’t benefit one bit (and when you take into account the pollution etc, they might even lose).

The other issue with foreign investment is that it politically ‘boxes you in’. Castro found this in 1960; the moment he wanted to start ‘changing things’ for the average Cuban (whether it would work or not is beside the point here) the foreign interests screamed blue murder and started calling in all their favours in Washington to ‘do something about it’. After all, this was the origin of the coining of the term ‘Banana republic’ – a land critically dependent on a very few industries controlled by a clutch of foreign multinationals. Cuba was one of these.

‘Foreign-owned and firms in pay higher wages and have better working conditions than domestic firms and are typically not attracted preferentially to countries with weak labor standards’

You cannot say that is by default the case. The nature of modern supply lines means that a lot of production is outsourced, sometimes repeately meaning that while the BigCorp sitting in say, New York can say in their bumpf about their great labour standards etc but by the time you’ve followed it through the murky chain to the sewing sweatshop in Vietnam or Bangladesh said claims aren’t worth wiping your arse with.

You’re technically correct in saying that firms aren’t by default attracted to countries with weak labour standards. However, they are attracted to cheapness – and countries with poor/zero labour protections are almost without fail cheaper per head/hour than the countries which do have them. This is particulary endemic in outsourced production because often the wage-bill is the only spend you can control, and thus you will press on this has hard as possible. Similar can be said for lands with nil environmental protections – if I can simply discharge my industrial poisons into the river rather than actually pay for it do be disposed of correctly, it means my overhead costs are lower, and thus ‘more attractive’ because my per-unit cost is a little bit lower.

‘The truth the heterodox methodology is just appalling, and often downright pseudoscientific … they put their ideology above the real world.’

True, but much of the same claims can be levelled at orthodox economists too. Most critically, forgetting the ‘human element’ of it all, instead clinging to theoretical models and assumptions of motivations etc rarely seen in the wild.

KarmaPolice (talk) 17:51, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

that’s a good point, kp. if firms are not attracted to countries with weak labor standards, why are so many of our textiles, for instance, produced in countries like china, vietnam, bangladesh, or even latam countries like honduras and guatemala? this is a genuine question, as i only have a limited understanding of economics. explain it like i’m five. The G (talk) 06:18, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Every item produced has a ‘lump of labour’ within it. For example, a single buttoned shirt has two hours of garment-maker labour in it. If you move your factory from America to Mexico, the ‘labour price’ for this shirt shall fall (say) from about $25 to $4. But it gets even better; if I then move from Mexico to Bangladesh I can squeeze it down to about $1.10. Much of this is down to a low SoL and prices in the country in question – our Bangladeshi can buy a lot more with their $1.10 than an American can and is geared for a lifestyle which involves meals of plain rice and a new pair of shoes a year.

But another cost is labour protections and benefits. From safety protections to maternity pay, mandated employee rest areas to minimum wages – these all add cost to each labour-hour used. So that ‘$25’ in America might every well be approaching ‘$37.50’ once these costs are factored in (aka ‘total cost of an employee’). This is why you have a bunch of cheapskate low-pay bosses constantly badgering American state governments to ‘make labour more competitive’ aka cut labour protections to squash that $37.50 to $35. This sort of nickel-diming is standard proceedure in various low-wage sectors, because if you have 1000 labour-hours a week in your company (only 20 people working 50 hour weeks), that’s an extra $2,500 profit for the owners.

But it gets even better. Let’s say I’ve hit on a wheeze where I can get that $35 down to $30. Damn, that’s another $5,000 every week for the owners. Issue is, these things are legally murky. But… if you are in a country where enforcement is patchy and legal comeback difficult I could simply cut those corners and be willing to fight those claims in court. This is known as ‘the Pinto problem’ (Ford judged it cheaper to fight the defective claims in court and pay them off than fix the problem) and is also a main tactic in the business dealings of Donald Trump.

Yet we don’t stop there – oh no! I’ve worked out how to get that down to $20. Okay, it’s clearly illegal but I’ve hired a cut-out to offer the government inspector a bribe to let me get away with it. The country is fairly corrupt, so they’ll take it – in fact, they might have asked for it!. Sure, $50k in a briefase (plus delivery) isn’t cheap, but the projected ‘savings’ is $500k for a year. Ask a business, what number is bigger than the other?

This is why often the truly ‘most attractive’ countries to outsource to are lands where not only is the average pay very low, but it also has poor labour protections, poor enforcement of them and is corrupt as hell to boot. In places like Bangladesh, for a few hundred bucks I’d be able to bribe police, inspectors etc to squeeze that ‘unreasonable’ $1.10 down to say, $0.85. If your factory is using 10,000 labour hours a week (only about 150 people working 65h-weeks) the projected ‘savings’ over the year is going to be around $125k. Minus the change for bribes, that is.

KarmaPolice (talk) 16:52, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Lula(edit)

So, Macron asked Venezuela for transparency, explicitly mentioning Lula. Is Macron an anti-American communist dictator now? New world (talk) 21:27, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

i’m not quite sure where you’re going with this. The G (talk) 03:22, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Isn’t that “not enough” right now? New world (talk) 09:37, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

i mean, there is only so much he can do being a whole ocean away on a different continent (and part of the much-maligned western world. i’ve already stated that maduro’s more democratic (or less authoritarian; take your pick) latam allies are the only ones who can really negotiate a peaceful transition of government, should one happen. i’ve also conceded that they’re doing a better job than i expected. truth be told, they are probably doing the best they can given the circumstances. maybe taking a moderate stance is more effective than taking a hard line. if that’s the case, then i’ll admit that i was wrong. only time will tell, though as it’s too soon to make the call. i thought biden’s approach (an about-face from trump’s “maximum pressure” policy) would have worked, but they seem to have backfired a good bit, as the maduro regime played him like a fiddle. (he immediately blocked the opposition’s most popular candidate from running and took some americans as hostages after biden made a deal with him to ease some sanctions – to say nothing of the current situation. overall, he still doing better than trump, though.) The G (talk) 18:31, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Then we agree. I also agree that only time will tell if this approach is effective. New world (talk) 19:10, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Not been following this thread closely but Lula is apparently calling for new elections in Venezuela. “On Thursday, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that still doesn’t recognize Nicolás Maduro as the winner of the election and that his counterpart should call for a new vote. Colombian President Gustavo Petro later echoed the call for a new election.” Chillpilled (talk) 02:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Asking for elections when there is no doubt that a certain group won (and fogetting that the group that rigged the other election will still be under control of this “new” election) makes Lula look even more like the dishonest moron he is. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 03:40, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

gotta hand it to him, though. he got the opposition and the government to agree with each other. jokes aside, the really sad part here is that biden also thought it would be a good idea. go figure. The G (talk) 04:26, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Of course. And you want what, an invasion? Sanctions? To say Venezuela was ruined? How about you try to establish democratic life instead. New world (talk) 10:54, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

the least he could’ve done was shut up, in this case. as gee said, there is broad consensus on who won the election, and (might i add) the government knows this. that’s why they haven’t released the official vote tally. a “do-over” isn’t going to solve this, and to suggest otherwise is wishful thinking at best (and dishonest at worst). classic “putting one’s foot in one’s mouth” moment. The G (talk) 02:28, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

update: biden has since walked back on this suggestion. The G (talk) 19:50, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Agenda 47 and birthright citizenship(edit)

So months ago I checked the Trump campaign website and they mentioned abolishing birthright citizenship as a campaign goal. I now have read the official platform of the GOP (available here) and it contains no mention of abolishing birthright citizenship. Was this just something to throw to the rubes all along? Carthage (talk) 21:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

One of the GOP’s website designers probably realized that birthright citizenship is mandated by the Fourteenth Amendment. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 21:59, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Trump has been mentioning limiting birthright citizenship via executive order for quite some time in his stump speeches. He did not do this in his first presidential term, and my guess is that should he get a second presidential term, he won’t do that either.

I suppose that there are enough prominent Republicans born to immigrants who have taken advantage of birthright citizenship to nix that thought in practice. (Then again, Vivek Ramaswamy, who is a US citizen by birthright, was silly enough to suggest ending birthright citizenship himself (albeit for illegal immigrants only)). BobJohnson (talk) 22:59, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

If Trump gets his wish of suspending the constitution he might. Carthage (talk) 23:52, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

The GOP had a moral panic about “anchor babies” since at least 2014 as a pejorative for birthright citizenship. There is certainly a significant wing(nut) of the GOP that wants to do away with birthright citizenship and “build the wall”. Party platforms usually get ignored the day after election day. They’re created to at least create the illusion of a “big tent” within the party, and can be largely disconnected from the candidate’s intentions. Vance’s wife’s parents were immigrants, so she might have been an “anchor baby” herself. Bongolian (talk) 02:15, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

They don’t care about constitutionality, they realized that it’s impossible to implement. I was born in the US, my parents and grandparents were also born in the US. I did an ancestry DNA test with my mom and we are whiter than Wonder Bread with the crust cut off, do I take a citizenship test? (I love tests and quizzes and puzzles, and am good at them, Project 2025 please make me and all my white people take them) They want to say it but they are cowards. They want to implement something as policy that is impossible, because there is literally no way to say ‘White is right’ without giving up the game. And it’s because too many people have met other people who are sick of fighting ghosts, skin color and IQ are fucking weird ways to measure the world. Torrent (talk) 03:36, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I call out hyperbole here. The USA is one of few countries which have unlimited jus soli. Simply putting in an extra clause (say, ‘parent/legal guardian must have right to reside in country’) wouldn’t be wildly out of sync from the rules of say, European nations and no, doesn’t mean everyone has to have a citizenship test or something (Torrent, if one of your parents were citizens you would be too via jus sanguinis so no tests, save proof). I would personally offer a kind of quid pro quo – yes, we’ll limit jus soli but in return we’ll get a ‘will issue’ citizenship for people naturalised as minors. But clearly that won’t happen right now. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:15, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I think unlimited birthright citizenship is cool. It certainty lines up with the American Dream (as bullshit as it is), where someone can come from anywhere in the world to the US and make a better life for themselves and their kids. There’s so many hoops to jump through to immigrate to the US already, is there any point making citizenship harder to obtain for anybody? -Ozzyboo (talk) 19:32, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Short aside on the “anchor baby” term: I seem to recall it being thrown around during the Bush years in the 2000s and The Other Wiki indeed points to a longer history with a marked take up in the US around 2006. So, this particular fear mongering has been touted for almost 20 years in something like its current form in the US. ScepticWombat (talk) 19:45, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

And it’s just that: fearmongering. Anchor babies are literally just a net positive for American society. The more Americans there are the better off America is. I am an anchor baby. -Ozzyboo (talk) 20:03, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Possibly-stupid question; has the ‘anchor baby defence’ actually worked? As in, ‘you can’t deport me because my young kid is a citizen and needs someone to look after it?’. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:12, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

As far as I’m aware, not exactly. When the baby is 21, they can petition the government to allow their parents to legally migrate, but only AFTER the parent can prove they haven’t been in the US for the past 10 years. There is some provision to avoid deportation if you’re a parent of a US citizen, if you’ve been here for 10 years or more; only 4000 of those are given each year. So “anchor babies” really aren’t as big a deal as people seem to claim. CorruptUser 22:00, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

the ‘jus sanguini’ point I’m making is, what makes an American? If somebody from China visits the US, just to say, see Mount Rushmore and knock it off a really boring bucket list, they are not here illegally. If they can’t pay a restaurant tab and are asked to do the dishes, that is unlawful employment on an international scale. What the fuck actually matters in this? If they shat out a baby while visiting, baby is a fucking baby, we can’t deport parents for unlawful employment because they have baby with birthright citizenship? The letter of the law is a dead ideal. Torrent (talk) 06:15, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘it’s equally likely that the trump campaign scrubbed it from their website following bad press in a much similar manner that the gop is moderating their position on abortion due to electoral backlash. The G (talk) 06:01, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I found a new(?) racist claim yesterday(edit)

I found it under the VSauce short about color context, under one of the ‘VSauce just solved racism’ comments, though it’s been hidden, and I was only able to find it thanks to the Mobile Version feature where you can see other comments posted by the same person under videos by the same channel.

The claim was that other races came to be because of early humans breeding with other species like Neanderthals or some shit like that; I called bullshit when I saw that not only because the person making this claim was also spreading other racialist bullshit, but also because it contradicts the fact that race is, to my knowledge, mostly a social construct and how skin color can vary by quite a lot between generations.

Should we add a debunk of this claim to one of our articles regarding Racialism if we haven’t done so already? TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 18:37, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

What do you think can be debunked? Would it be bad if the claim were true? I don’t see why. It is likely unfalsifiable. However, the hypothesis really explains nothing. There is maybe 10 times more neanderthal dna in Europeans than there is in African folks (2-3% compared to 0-.3%). If it is just a nameless comment attached to a video, who cares? I could say, red haired people came to earth from Mars half a million years ago. Don’t embarrass me by repeating that to anyone.UncleKrampus (talk) 19:40, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

“Who cares?” is right. We gain nothing from engaging with racists on their own ridiculous and irrational worldview. We know they’re wrong, even if they weren’t racism would still be bad. -Ozzyboo (talk) 19:45, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

early humans did breed with neanderthals. i doubt the ‘other races’ part of the equation. its the half truths that sells the dogshit AMassiveGay (talk) 20:06, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

You all make true points. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 20:10, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

So some context I found Googling via this AAAS article: (29) back in 2007, there was a study entitled: “A Melanocortin 1 Receptor Allele Suggests Varying Pigmentation Among Neanderthals”. This suggested that some Neanderthals had some genes that reduced MC1R activity, which is “associated with pale skin color and red hair in humans of primarily European origin.” Of course, racialists took a look at this study and twisted it to be, “Aha! There is more Neanderthal genes in us Europeans! But not with those nasty black people! And Neanderthal=white! Therefore, Neanderthal superior, and thus, we superior!” Which actually isn’t the case… in reality, while the archaic Neanderthal human’s main range is in Europe, their later range extended into central Asia as well. From there, Neanderthal genes have spread all over the world… Articles have noted that Asian Indians also have a significant percentage of Neanderthal genes. And, not in the AAAS article, but it’s pretty fucking obvious that one stinkin’ receptor that regulates melanin means nothing for vague and pointless judgments like “superiority” (or even “race”, even though superficial characteristics are often used to create racial constructs).

While it is true that engaging with racialists is foolhardy, I think it is worth documenting their garbage viewpoints. Racialists tend to produce “scientific papers” that on the surface might look very Sciencey, with fancy graphs and dry language. Any “paper” I’ve seen however from a racialist has ridiculously obvious flaws. It’s probably helpful for those not used to reading actual academic papers or similar to document how shitty the racialist reasoning is. As the AAAS article notes, some actual academic studies actually cited Richard Lynn’s garbage. Apparently even academics get fooled. BobJohnson (talk) 20:11, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Neanderthals were ostensibly dark-skinned and brown eyed, possibly with red hair. Today, we have reason to think that other species of the genus homo, including Neanderthal, were mentally very similar to modern humans, and in no way inferior. The “he is a neanderthal” insult is a literary artifact. UncleKrampus (talk) 20:51, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Neanderthals also had larger brains than Homo Sapiens. It’s believed that they were slightly less adaptable than humans, however, which is why they got displaced. CorruptUser 21:46, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The Neandertals and the Denisovans lost out to Homo Sapiens relatively recently – though after a long and successful run. We know they were similar enough to us to interbreed but as to why we ended up with just Homo Sapiens remains a mystery. Though speculation is free – and Homo Sapiens presumably had some advantage because we are here and they are not.

I often wonder how different the world would be if we had two other species of Homo to share the planet with though.Bob^{“Life is short and (insert adjective)”} 17:04, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

If they could interbreed and produce viable offspring, they weren’t a different species. CorruptUser 19:08, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

“Species” is not as clear-cut an idea as you seem to think it is.Bob^{“Life is short and (insert adjective)”} 19:51, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

It’s a Map vs Territory issue. It’s basically a question of whether or not the populations could ever merge into the same population or not; whether or not they could produce viable offspring is a handy metric. Horses and Donkeys will only ever produce sterile offspring, ergo different species. Lions and Tigers will produce no fertile males and only in exceedingly rare cases will the females be fertile; left to their own devices, there would not be genetic drift and the populations could not merge. Coyotes and dogs can produce fertile offspring, but left to their own devices it’s pretty much only male dogs and female coyotes, and the male dogs abandon the pups resulting in the pups dying, thus if dogs and coyotes were to share the same area they would not merge over time.

In the case of Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Sapiens, well, let’s just say there are people today who still insist that Black Africans are a different species, and “produce viable offspring” is pretty much the simplest proof that those people are wrong. CorruptUser 20:27, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

So you now accept that Neandertals and the Denisovans were different species of Homo who were able to hybridize with Homo Sapiens?Bob^{“Life is short and (insert adjective)”} 06:24, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

No; I’m going to need to see some strong evidence that if their populations overlapped, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Sapiens would be unable to merge into a single population. The fact that Europeans/Asians have a significant chunk of Neanderthal DNA indicates that Neanderthals and Sapiens did produce successful hybrids which flourished. To me, that indicates that they were no more a separate species than Beagles and Rottweilers. CorruptUser 17:29, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Then you are wrong. That is simply not the scientific consensus. Many people have both Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in their genomes showing that they are the descendants of fertile hybrids.Bob^{“Life is short and (insert adjective)”} 07:00, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Sometimes two animals typically regarded as “two species” are actually similar enough to actually interbreed… to some extent. (Does this mean that they shouldn’t be called two species? Good question, that something for the scientists to figure out… which I think they still are. 🙂 ) The Forbes article BobM linked to mentions chimpanzees and bonobos (but they are very close, to the point where at one point they were not thought of as two species). Another example I can think of is bison and domestic cattle; they can interbreed to some degree, and (with the help of cattle ranchers in the 1800s) did so to the point where most current bison herds have a little bit of cattle DNA in them. Coyotes and wolves have also cross-bred without human help (well, sort of… wolves started looking for coyotes after human-induced population decline), forming a “hybrid” called coywolf. The key to this interbreeding is: do the chromosomes match up well? In the case of the coyote-wolf and the bison-cattle, they actually do… to at least some extent.

I don’t know if we have really good evidence how well archaic humans cross-bred with homo sapiens, apart from the DNA traces. Cross-hybridization probably worked better than mules, which are cross-bred from species with slightly different amounts of chromosomes, and thus are usually infertile. The “other side of the coin” is that coyotes and wolves seem to be quite compatible with each other; in fact, from the Wiki articles it seems that the eastern coyote is actually considered a coyote-wolf hybrid these days. In between, as seen in the beefalo article which covers bison-cow hybrids, you have hybrids species with better success than mules, but still “with issues”. My “hunch” after reading the Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans Wiki article is that while interbreeding did occur a little, the homo sapiens characteristics tended to dominate (perhaps due to some interbreeding “issues”)… thus the percentage of archaic human DNA is quite low in even those that have some. BobJohnson (talk) 18:57, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

It still seems to be a “map vs territory” issue, along with a hefty dose of historical baggage. CorruptUser 02:48, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
While Neanderthals and Denisovans were psychologically very similar to modern humans, there were important differences that I think is being glossed over here. Neanderthals, in some instances, had slightly larger brains that modern humans, yes, but most of that brain was in the hindbrain, which deals more with the senses, than the forebrain, which is where the bulk of modern human grey matter is located. That’s why modern human skulls are globular whereas Neanderthal skulls tend to be low and sloping in shape. Carthage (talk) 22:46, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Actually excited about Democratic candiates?(edit)

I didn’t even think this was possible, but I’m… excited about a Democratic nominee? Harris and Walz are crushing it. Will be happy to call her Madam President. I love Walz especially, he has that sort of old timey American progressive vibe that really gets me energized. Thoughts? -Ozzyboo (talk) 19:23, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Harris/Walz is unquestionably the Democratic ticket I’ve had the fondest feelings for in my lifetime. The mood among my liberal acquaintances seems a lot…”brighter” compared to any other presidential election cycle I’ve known them during. (Of course, all of this is mere anecdotal evidence.)-Flandres (talk) 19:40, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Harris was deeply unpopular in 2020. People aren’t excited for Kamala; they’ve just been so exhausted in keeping up the charade that Biden was anything but a senile old coot, only because the alternative was the villain from every 80’s movie combined, that the breath of stale air that is Kamala is basically a relief.

I guess I’ll cast my vote for President Brainworms. CorruptUser 21:33, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Wait, “President Brainworms” as in Kennedy?-Flandres (talk) 22:00, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah. I know he’s a conspiracy psycho and I realize that he might very well be worse than either Trump or Harris, but 1) my state is not a swing state in the slightest and 2) voting as a protest sends a stronger message than simply not voting, since it means my vote WAS up for grabs. Plus, I need to vote for Representatives, etc. CorruptUser 22:05, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

-Flandres (talk) 22:08, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I kinda agree with Corrupt here; that the ‘exitement’ is in constrast with the general shittiness of the previous options. I think the last time there was any real enthusiasm for a Dem candidate would have been with Obama in ’08 – at least when it comes to the Big Public who most likely shall never see them further than their TV. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:47, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

While not personally, two of my friends have met Obama themselves. I had the chance to meet Obama, but it was a bit of a hassle so I didn’t go. It’s really not that difficult to meet some of these people. CorruptUser 22:02, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

No, not really. Harris and Walz openly calling Republicans creepy weirdos is the root of it I think. Obviously the “not Biden effect” has a lot to do with it but people wouldn’t be as excited if the nominees were Newsom and Shapiro. Also, Cory being a Kennedy voter is unsurprising. The sheer irony of a RW mod voting for a conspiracy theorist addled with brainworms cannot be overstated. I am dying laughing. Vote for Harris and shut up, protest voting has never worked. -Ozzyboo (talk) 22:20, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

A few things that I can’t help wonder if it is helping the Harris/Walz combo (that isn’t in that nebulous “vibes” category):

A) Project 2025 also started trending around early July per Google trends. This gave voters “in the know” what the real Republican agenda is all about. I don’t think a lot of non-fundie/fascist/manosphere types like what Project 2025 is selling. Even casual voters might pick up on that “let’s ban abortion” motif; hell, things like banning IVF and even contraception itself have been mused by these guys.

B) Trump picked J.D. Vance as a running mate. Not exactly a natural political type. In a month, he has already has made some significant flubs (“childless cat lady” probably being the dumbest of the lot). Reportedly he’s even more unpopular than Sarah Palin according to the current polls. Not a good start, eh? According to one study, Palin cost McCain about 1.6 percentage points, so it’s possible that some of the poll tilt reflects this pick alone.

The main reason I think the “weird” angle works is because of some of the stuff above. Forget anti-abortion extremism (which is also unpopular) – anti-IVF and contraception stances are seriously out of line with American opinion. And “weird” is a great description of the neo-reactionary movement that Vance subscribes do (though I don’t think the casual voter has quite processed that bit of weirdness yet)… or a great description of Vance himself.

That being said, I also think it helps that the “vibes” Harris and Walz are pushing are sunny. It contrasts with the Trumpism doom and gloom and unless you are a Fox News addict it sure might be more appealing. I’ve said that MAGA is “time-limited” before; unlike many other countries with populist right movements, Trumpism is clearly tilted towards the “grey hair” demographic, as are a lot of the other things branded “conservative” in this country. At this point, I’m wondering if the particular brand of doom-and-gloom Other-bashing declinism that Trump is selling is running out of steam. BobJohnson (talk) 03:23, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Corrupt already explained they’re in a safe state. But can’t you vote Libertarian? KarmaPolice (talk) 23:02, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it’s the principle of the thing.-Ozzyboo (talk) 23:08, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I just might vote Libertarian. But it’s painful seeing as how they always lose, y’know? Might as well, again as a protest, but I’m too old to be so dumb as to think Libertarians understand anything about how governments work. CorruptUser 23:44, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Chase Oliver has some decent positions, for a Libertarian, I mean. But I still think it’s so unfathomably stupid to not support the most credible opposition to Trump and Project 2025 regardless of what state you’re in. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 23:59, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I can get where Corrupt is coming from; I found myself going into a GE where I would ‘need’ to vote for a Labour party (as the main anti-Tory opposition) which had been telling me to go fuck myself on a near-daily basis since Starmer lied his way into the leadership. If I had been put into a very safe seat, I would have voted Green – in this case, this would have been my ‘principle vote’.

Anyway, Corrupt the thing is that a protest vote doesn’t win. It’s kinda the point. And as you said yourself, you’re not in a swing state so you can afford to find the ‘least shit’ candidate on principles alone and vote for them, as you know it shall have 0% effect on the result. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:24, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, but the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist guy isn’t the least shit candidate. And Harris isn’t like Starmer. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 00:40, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I was merely citing that as an example – that I was being shunted into a position of ‘the unplalatable vs the unnacceptable’ with voting. And yes, I would also put Kennedy in the latter camp. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:55, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

How did Starmer lie his way into leadership? I don’t keep up with UK politics much. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 02:52, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

In short; presented self as socialist during internal election so the base would vote for him (I would have), but promptly threw it all overboard the moment he’d won (quote; ‘we’ve moved past this’ in a condesending tone), signed up to neolib economics and Third Way tinkering and did his best to drive away anyone further left than he, such as deselecting left-wingers etc. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:25, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

CorruptUser, Your single vote for the presidency may not matter in your particular state, but if you’re protest-voting for RFK, you’re protesting reality and are not well-grounded. RFK is not just an anti-vaxxer, he seeks out brainworms. First it was undercooked park whose worm actually laid claim to cranial territory. Then he thought that eating a dead bear would be yum (bear is a source of brainworms).(30)(31) Bongolian (talk) 03:45, 16 August 2024 (UTC) Also, if RFK gets significant protest votes, it’s going to encourage him to keep coming back to annoy endlessly as a perennial candidate. I’m protesting against batshit candidates (Rump, RFK, Stein & Williamson) and voting for reality! Jesus fucking Christ, RFK is even running as the fascist party candidate in California (American Independent Party). Bongolian (talk) 04:14, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘so here’s another one of my hot takes: biden is the best president we’ve had in at least a generation (if not the best in american history) when it comes to climate action (though that bar is really low). not bad for a dusty old coot often viewed as unlikeable or unappealing. here’s to hoping that kamala continues this trend. The G (talk) 04:36, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I think, if you have a “moral obligation” to vote for Kamala or whoever, depends on what your end goal is by voting, or if voting is even the most effective means to oppose fascism and affect systemic change, which is by no means guaranteed. That said, no third party candidate is gonna beat Trump because the voting system we use is designed to set up a two-party duopoly. I know that ultimately some states and localities will use voting systems alternative to FPTP, so if you want to make third parties relevant, really relevant, go local and advocate for changes to voting systems in your state and locality.

I also know that some people will choose to not vote out of moral principle, which I think is perfectly understandable too. If some first nations person doesn’t want to participate and give legitimacy to the entity that colonized them, all the power to them.

If you think that nothing is gonna change because both the Democrats and Republicans suck, all the power to you, I say. Although this presupposes that voting is the “only” way to affect change, which is not true. Vote for a Democrat in the general, because the alternative is fascism, but also protest and advocate. “Nothing will change” is pointless defeatism. Carthage (talk) 10:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I really don’t like the concept of there being ‘a moral obligation’ to vote for anyone. I mean, let’s say back in July I, along with millions of British left-wingers didn’t vote Labour and the result was that the Conservatives got in again. Are you gonna say it was our fault? That we had an ‘obligation’ to vote Labour – a party which had without fail been telling us left-wingers to fuck off and die for four years and had crafted a manifesto almost identical to the Tories? It passes the buck off the party and leadership that they should have treated us with more respect and consider us a voting bloc which needed to be courted. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:25, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

More importantly, why is it always EVERYONE ELSE who has to sacrifice to prevent the “great evil” from happening? If Trump is truly the threat to end all threats to Democracy, why doesn’t KAMALA withdraw and the Democrats put their full support behind the 3rd party candidate? In the US, it’s possible to be both the Green and Democratic party nominee at the same time. CorruptUser 15:58, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Because she’s a stronger candidate than the anti-vax activist, the “dinner with Putin” lady, and the Libertarian guy? Like, why would she do that? She’s undeniably got a movement going on here. Why would she throw that away for a worse chance at beating Trump? Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 20:02, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I suspect the little fact they are the largest not-Republican party in the country is the main issue. The fact that no third-party candidate polls with the public as individuals better than any of the presumed Democratic candidates (or even a ‘generic Democrat’ option) for Pres is a close second. Next, the Democratic party is a sprawling Blue blob on the political spectrum to the point almost all the possible candidates are already in the tent (or in Sanders case, at least hanging about the opening-flap). However, at lower levels I have heard of instances where the local Democrats have ‘stood aside’ for others and thrown their weight behind them – such as in the 22 Senate race in Utah in which the Democrats backed an Independent. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:36, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Vermont also features a non-FPTP voting system, which may have something to do with that. Carthage (talk) 16:38, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Joe Biden did withdraw, and the Democrats put their support behind the VP and a folksy governor from Minnesota, in order to help “save democracy” and all of that. So there’s that. From the polls so far, it seems like they made a good choice.

Now, I don’t think there’s anything honestly that wrong with Biden’s presidential term (In this century, I rank Obama’s presidency higher personally, but Biden’s presidency was light years ahead of Dubya, who himself was light years ahead of Trump). But it’s pretty clear that Biden’s age was holding the Democrats back. (Why Trump’s age doesn’t hold the Republicans back, who knows… he’s been looking pretty bad too lately. I guess the “Trump cult” doesn’t care?)

Trump is not the “threat to end democracy”, really…. It is the Republican party itself. Much of it, at least. (If you find one of those rare so-called “RINO” types, they are fine to vote for if that’s your thing). Trump did kick the hornet’s nest, so to speak, but the evangelicals and racists in this country have been long been the card-holders for the American pro-authoritarianism wing. In the 1980s, business ruled the Republican party; the evangelicals and racists were tossed an occasional bone. Today, it’s the reverse.

For this years’ primary, I cast a vote against both an election conspiracist and a Moms for Liberty culture war yahoo. The positions of election supervisor and school board elections used to be relatively sleepy affairs. Not anymore. BobJohnson (talk) 17:40, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

It’ll also be interesting if Trump’s praise for Elon Musk bragging about firing striking workers and the UAW calling Trump a scab is beginning to undo all of the careful stage management that presented the GOP as some kind of worker’s/pro-worker party. If so, that could be crucial in several Rust Belt swing states. Not least if the counter punch by Walz pointing to his pro union legislation in Minnesota gets traction in the media and among the voters, especially along with highlighting the PRO Act at the national level. ScepticWombat (talk) 17:42, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Even the pre-Trump GOP’s policies were incredibly harmful to the working class. They’ve always been the enemy, they were just better at hiding it before Trump. Carthage (talk) 18:00, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

That was my point (hence why I called it stage management), but the “GOP as pro worker party” narrative did seem to have gained some traction, no matter how bullshit it is (basically peddling culture war posturing in lieu of actual pro worker policies).

It has clearly been a key strategy for winning in the Rust Belt swing states along with all of the pie in the sky “Under Trump the economy will be great and so will the jobs” blatherskite. If this narrative fails, and Trump is seen as the “You’re fired!” nasty executive buddy of other sinister big boss types (like Musk), that might lose him this important edge. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I will argue that this iteration of the Republicans were ever ‘pro-worker’, they were ‘anti-elite’, in which they really meant the ‘professional-managerial stratum’ such as teachers, bosses, social workers, bank manager, civil servants etc – ‘the elites’ of their own ‘monkeysphere’. A lot of folks have a short-sighted view of society, only noticing those in their group or immediately adjacent. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:22, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

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I think boiling the excitement regarding Harris and Walz to ‘They’re not Biden’ is an oversimplification; Tim Walz’s policies are really good regarding pretty much anything (When I was reading our article on him I was like ‘Oh my God, he’s peak’), so that probably is a big driving force for the hype. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 00:00, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I think that if Harris doesn’t win election, then a women will never win the presidency. She is clearly competent, and her male opponent could not be a worse candidate (maybe indicted for a televised 1st degree murder). I can hardly imagine a candidate inferior to Trump. There is nothing wrong with being excited, and I think it is good to be enthusiastic for whomever is receiving your vote. But excitement shouldn’t be necessary for one to do their duty where preservation of the constitutional form of government is at issue. Faith in the democratic form of government may be many miles wide and only a few inches deep.I sometimes hear the self-righteous expression that boils down to, “if I don’t get my way, it doesn’t matter what happens;” and that is generally true really, until it isn’t. UncleKrampus (talk) 16:28, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Aged like milk(edit)

So, apparently Kennedy is going to drop out in the next few days and endorse Trump. Does Coryanyone in this thread want to reconsider anything?-Flandres (talk) 19:30, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Will this be enough to get Trump to be competitive again? Carthage (talk) 19:37, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I’m sure some Kennedy voters will go to Trump, but the effect this will have on the election depends on stuff we can’t immediately predict, like “where do these people live.” It’s worth noting polls without Kennedy are conducted all the time and Harris is still in the lead. It appears Kennedy was drawing a lot of voters from the “none of the above/I would not vote” group.-Flandres (talk) 20:04, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Depends too on how much Kennedy tries to help Trump and how good he is at it. (Also, rumor is that Trump promised to make him CIA Director) Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 21:13, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I thought it was Health and Human Services he wanted to appoint him to? Chillpilled (talk) 22:35, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Is there any stats on where the Kennedy voters voted in 20? KarmaPolice (talk) 22:32, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Do you guys take any issue with citing Wikipedia as a source?(edit)

I want to add a mention of nation-wide polls showing that Biden was favored among voters to the ‘Fraud Claims’ section to the 2020 U.S. presidential election in order to help further dispel claims of Voter Fraud (I know that polls can be of questionable reliability, but given how Biden won almost all the polls, I think it still strengthens the point). Though I could cite specific polls from shortly before the elections to illustrate this point, I want to cite Wikipedia instead because the article about the 2020 election polls on there is a lot more comprehensive than just that. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 15:37, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I may sometimes cite it if it’s a good reference/summary, or compilation of other references. This obviously isn’t always the case. But for instance, articles marked as a “good article” or “featured article” are more likely to be at least decent. Though given how that process works, by no means is it guaranteed, and there are plenty of decent WP articles that aren’t marked that way. One problem is WP pages are just as fluid as ours because of open editing if not more-so since WP has more public attention, so it may not be a totally stable reference. Chillpilled (talk) 16:16, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Would you say that the Wikipedia pages for the 2020 US Election Polls (And also the 2022 Brazilian Election Polls) would fall under this? TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 16:29, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

No idea, you’ll have to judge yourself. As a resource I recommend FiveThirtyEight’s pollster ratings. You might consider citing exit polls for this also, since as with the Venezuela election, those may be the most reliable polls for determining a discrepancy between official results and actual votes if there is one. Chillpilled (talk) 17:18, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

As long as it’s not excessive. The WPA template works if you want it to be a citation, and the WPL template works when you want it to be an inline link. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 17:20, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I recently found out you only need the W for the latter, like this. Chillpilled (talk) 18:44, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

If you are citing Wikipedia, why not just use the cites that WP itself uses? CorruptUser 02:49, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Because then you aren’t citing Wikipedia. You’re citing their citations. And unless you are also able to, and have read the source of the citation– which you can’t always do from the WP citation alone– well, that’s not a proper citation, is it? Kencolt (talk) 10:03, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

The reason for why I wanted to use Wikipedia for this case was because it provides a record of Election Polls that is many magnitudes more comprehensive than citing a few of their sources would allow for. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 20:51, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Just use the External sources and references and you’re fine. Citing it for any reason other than a basic introduction for shit is stupid. Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 16:15, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

The reason for why I wanted to use Wikipedia for this case was because it provides a record of Election Polls that is many magnitudes more comprehensive than citing a few of their sources would allow for. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 20:51, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I think this is one of those rare cases where citing WP as a source would be okay. What WP have done is put together all the major polls into one singular chart/graph which I suspect isn’t available elsewhere. The only other option would be to go through an fairly consuming and pointless exercise in re-making the chart/graph using the raw refs from the WP page for the sole reason to satisfy following a rule to a stupid conclusion.

However, I would make a fairly diligent search to see if anybody not WP had done similar you could use. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:52, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I wonder…(edit)

Are there any Atheists in this wiki who believe in life after death? There probably aren’t many, for fairly obvious reasons (Though the two beliefs are not mutually exclusive by any means), but if such an atheist is in this wiki, hi! Can you explain why you believe in an afterlife but don’t believe in God(s), despite both having the same issue of not having been observed by science? TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 01:44, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

There’s the possibility that this whole “life” is basically a game. Think of the R&M episode where they go to an arcade and Morty spends 55 “years” simulating the life of a regular man, experiencing an entire lifetime of emotion, heartbreak, joy, failure, success, love, and death. Then he exits the game. That’s the “afterlife” for the man he simulated. CorruptUser 02:36, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I’d like to believe in an afterlife, but I don’t think such an idea is intellectually tenable, for the same reason I don’t believe in Russell’s Teapot. Carthage (talk) 07:56, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

no such thing as cognition after death. If I begin to shuffle off, I hope and pray I am not one of those old men who say useless things. But I got a long ways to my natural death, so I got time for it. Torrent (talk) 08:47, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

what is the difference between actually helping each other and being trapped in some dork ass version of grab everything must be better at the game? It’s a boring way to play, and generally unsuccessful, since nobody in the real world likes a guy who hoards wealth. capitalism, very spooky, requires money to be fluid. How can you earn 1 million fun bucks and have no idea how to spend it and say errybody else who got ten dollars had better spend it on…. Torrent (talk) 09:10, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I’m not sure why anyone – atheist or otherwise – would believe in things for which they maintain there is no evidence.Bob^{“Life is short and (insert adjective)”} 07:31, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I have my own reasons; Anecdotal evidence, which is why I’ve never brought it up, though I may make a thread here challenging others to debunk it as per the quote in the Falsifiability article (Not for the purposes of proselytizing, obviously, but instead but to see if there are non-supernatural explanations I’ve overlooked), but that’s beside the point. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 18:34, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

If you are going to ask people to debunk your personal anecdotal evidence then that’s a big ask. It obviously can’t be done, as there is no way for another person to evaluate your personal subjective experience. It’s not open to external investigation and there is no way to set up an experiment to test the anecdote or to even establish that it actually took place in the way you claim or in the way you remember it. But if you want to run with it then good luck!Bob^{“Life is short and (insert adjective)”} 05:33, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it’s worth a shot even despite this. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 19:01, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Ok, here is an anecdote. “One day, ten years ago Donald Duck came to visit me. He explained the secrets of life the universe and everything, but I forgot to write them down and now I don’t remember them.”

So …. Did someone spike my drink with an hallucinogen? Did I have a dream which I later convinced myself was real? Did something slightly odd happen but by thinking about it and re-remembering it so often did I create the memory? Am I lying and did I just invent the whole thing only to make a point about anecdotes? Or is Donald Duck really wandering around the world randomly dispensing profound knowledge?

So you see the problem with anecdotes? (And by the way all the explanations are better then the “Donald Duck is real” one.)Bob^{“Life is short and (insert adjective)”} 19:30, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

True, perhaps ‘debunk’ was not the right word for it, but what you’ve done here is practically what I meant by it in this context; I would tell my anecdote so others can provide (or attempt to provide) explanations that are likelier than the supernatural explanation, like you’ve done as an example in your message. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 22:11, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I’ve been able to find things since the last message that may possibly explain my anecdote while reading a few articles relevant to it; I may not do the thing now. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 23:26, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

OK. That’s an very honest response. If you want to work on anything else I’m sure that would be interesting.Bob^{“Life is short and (insert adjective)”} 17:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I have a pet theory – if consciousness is just a function of neurobiological processes, then those neurobiological processes, or some element of them, will certainly be recreated either here or in some other universe. You could say it is entirely different, but I look at it this way – if you managed to come up with a code for a program on your PC, and someone parallelly brought up a code executing similar stuff on theirs, wouldn’t it be basically running almost the same thing? (There is, of course, a flaw in this argument – we are certainly not aware of any “other lives” in this lifetime.) Meow^Purr 01:33, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I am not against this line of thinking, I think it is very reasonable. We are particles and energy, and we through our lives have totally different cells. It’s the Ship of Theseus paradox, but biologically it is kinda… Fine. Our selves are piloting our ships, and as we change and grow in our bodies, we change and grow as we live in these bodies. A problem with the Ship of Theseus is to ask, what does the captain, or pilot, lose? and that always hurts because we grow. The body changes, the personality is tinkered with but still grows. if the ship is the body, you’ll sail à distance, maybe some ships are equipped to sail further than others, by biology. If the captain is your self, you’ll have to sail that ship. but by ship of theseus terms, I really think it is cool to accept that building a boat and learning to be a captain from parts you get along the way makes it both your boat and everybody’s. Why can’t the answer to the Ship of Theseus be “both are true?” There are many other questions where I would say “that is true/false” but this one paradox is so easy. Your ship, respect that it’s been rebuilt along the way, do your best to build it. Torrent (talk) 09:54, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Regarding certainty(edit)

So I keep hearing the “almost certainly” phrase used for phenomena that seem rather certain. My question is, does this extend to everything? For instance, when I kick a chair, do I “almost certainly” feel pain, if I am speaking in a strictly scientific sense? Or when I see a flower, is that almost certainly a flower, rather than certainly? 49.205.252.58 (talk) 10:20, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

“Almost Surely” essentially means that the probability of an event, as far as previous observation and models show, is 1. I.e. the chance of it should be 100%. If you have a non-infinite number of outcomes, this is the same as saying “guaranteed”. If there are an infinite number of outcomes, the nuance of “Almost Surely” comes in.

Example: If I pick a random point in the universe, the probability of picking the same point *twice in a row* is 1 / infinity. This means the probability of getting the same point twice is 0, but it is still technically a valid outcome so we would say this would almost surely not happen. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 11:15, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Do you have nothing better to do? New world (talk) 15:29, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

@New World what is wrong with asking or answering a question about the terminology used in formal scientific literature? This kind of inquiry is within the spirit of science communication and is therefore completely on mission imho. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 03:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

47.5.66.54 New world (talk) 08:59, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I see ‘almost certain’ as to mean ‘certain, but taking account of the unknown and limitations’. Eg; ‘The doctor is almost certain this lump is a lipoma’ – their training and examination ticks all the right boxes but they know they are not a specialist and don’t have any diagnosis tools apart from prodding it. If contexts like these (and I trust the speaker) I would say they’re dealing with probabilities of perhaps 95-99%. But it’s not like a term that I’ve seen used in ‘serious’ science etc, more a pop-sci and everyday context (they will either cite actual stats/probabilities or hedge-bet by using terms like ‘most likely’ or similar). KarmaPolice (talk) 11:22, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

i find people who talk with a strong sense certainty deeply suspicious AMassiveGay (talk) 17:50, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

RationalWiki has been sued(edit)

Hello editors and readers of RationalWiki,

This August, we were sued by one Nassim Haramein due to an article we had written about him. Regardless of the merits of his case, at this time, nobody on the board or named in the lawsuit has the time available to research solutions to this and endure a legal fight, so, for the time being, we have deleted the article in question and also hidden all revisions and logs from public view. We have also prevented the article from being recreated.

This decision is not final. We are in the process of contacting various legal aid organizations to see what we can do about countering this lawsuit. Until we hear back from them, the article will stay down.

These actions are an official decision by the Board of Directors. No moderator or tech may undo them.

Sincerely

Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 17:45, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

P.S. Please do not discuss Nassim Haramein himself in your responses to this post. We got sued precisely because he didn’t like what we had to say about him on this site. Regardless of what you think of him or his case, the Board doesn’t want to give more ammunition to him.

Two questions. I’ve always wondered why his page would be taken down AFTER he sued. Presumably the worst has already happened, and hiding it only makes it look like there IS actionable stuff in it. Two, this was NOT done with Kent Hoviad. (or however you spell his name) What changed here? Revolverman (talk) 19:42, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

In practice, nothing. The current makeup of the Board is just more spineless than last time, and more importantly, the people who did all the work for us to weather previous lawsuits (Trent and David Gerard) aren’t really available to do that anymore. This is a volunteer-run organization, and the Board simply doesn’t have the quality of volunteers we need right now. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 20:20, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

My one comment for now is that it’s a pity that New Mexico’s anti-SLAPP suit laws are quite weak. BobJohnson (talk) 20:30, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I’m sure there’s no shortage of motherfuckers who wanna sue us. Let’s hope this doesn’t create a precedent. Carthage (talk) 20:34, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Generally speaking, in the American court system, the RationalWiki foundation itself, as well as operators of the platform, should be protected of user-generated content via Section 230. So I’m a bit surprised by the board’s decision here. It’s as if the Foundation can’t afford any legal help now?

“Ya said not to”, BUT I will note that the lawsuit seemed to have come about when a user added an edit describing Haramein’s history of suing his critics. So, yeah, I don’t like the “look” here, especially given that while New Mexico’s anti-SLAPP laws are weak, New Mexico has a pretty decent “plantiff pays court costs for frivolous lawsuits solely intended for harassment” law.(32) BobJohnson (talk) 21:42, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I also don’t like it, as a current board member not named in the lawsuit. The timing with that article edit may be a coincidence. Apparently, some legal threat was sent months earlier, a cease-and-desist letter I haven’t seen. It may have been lost email, or maybe Trent did receive it in some form, I currently don’t know. Later came a kind of, “we filed this lawsuit, and we have an offer we think you should accept to make it all go away” shared with the board where I can’t publicly disclose details at present while it’s considered. But in reading the legal text, some things look plain weird, and I think the lawsuit could be challenged successfully if only the effort was made. –ApooftGnegiol (talk) 23:41, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

As for timing, it could be that ours was/is the top search result on Google. Bongolian (talk) 07:54, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

The complaint for damages actually mentions “appears at the top of Google search results” in the US. Just before it mentions “has cost Mr. Haramein millions of dollars of lost investments in his private companies, and millions of dollars of lost donations to his non-profit organizations.” There’s affidavits about the latter too. –ApooftGnegiol (talk) 13:20, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I do agree, it sets a bad precedent if this isn’t challenged (assuming that the suit has no real legal grounds). I am going to assume here that’s is perfectly fine to say, let possibly sympathetic persons online know of this? Plus, consider starting a ‘fighting fund’ donation campaign. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, if you think you can contact other people or organizations for help, please do. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 00:52, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking of also general ‘kicking up a stink’. There are gonna be people who realistically can’t do any more than that (I mean, the only legal bod I know is in English law and retired, so useless). Ideally, push won’t come to shove but it if does getting the word out that said shove is happening might be wise… KarmaPolice (talk) 01:05, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Are there no lawyers currently active on the wiki? Carthage (talk) 01:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Obligatory “this is not legal advice” but for possible future reference, it seems to me the SPEECH Act could cover certain cases filed abroad (which does not apply here). Chillpilled (talk) 02:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

For the sake of transparency; I have suppressed the page history at the request of the Board. If need be, we can pin this to the bar for a while? — Techpriest (talk) 22:31, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

It’s more than just finding a lawyer, it’s finding a lawyer who’s a member of the bar association in New Mexico where the suit was filed. Electronic Frontier Foundation might at least be able to give initial advice. Bongolian (talk) 07:46, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

The good news is, this is in the US court system, so fuck whoever, it is impossible to say any amount of argument, let alone sourced argument, is not allowed. Any jokes, this site also has satire protections. This is a dumb lawsuit, it will be massively difficult to move forward. I understand the private archiving. It’s not hiding it, if that’s a concern. Hiding it from the public site that made it? It’s now a legal thing and evidence and it must not change from what is documented as evidence for court, fucking with it is the incorrect move. And when this all blows over, maybe Barbara Streisand will finally shake the heat. Torrent (talk) 08:54, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the Board should look over the offending page and compare to what the suer has complained about first (if they’ve not done already). Chances are, the will be no merit in the case but it’s one of those things that doing a ‘are you really sure?’ check before engaging in battle is wise (I mean, they might merely object to one single line/claim which in fact there isn’t any evidence to back up or warrant as ‘honest opinion’). KarmaPolice (talk) 11:00, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

There’s a list of things the suer takes issue with. The short version is, almost every claim in the article making the suer’s claims seem questionable is listed. The article was not one of RW’s best, it was somewhat rough, lacking in detail. I’ve yet to look into all the details, though I’ve looked into some. Key questions for the suer include, but are not limited to: is the suer’s work properly peer-reviewed or not? Do mainstream scientists dismiss his work or not? Is a particular paper debunked or not (I’ve found the things linked in the article’s older refs on that, despite even web.archive.org having now had them scrubbed)? And on and on. Note that opining on whether such claims are true or false, at least if you do it in a way the suer dislikes, attracts legal attention here and across the web.–ApooftGnegiol (talk) 11:50, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Also: The suer claims that after a time in March this year, the article was sneakily edited in a way not reflected in the history or “fossil record” as RW labels it. I’ve checked web.archive.org, and snapshots currently present there, made in January and June this year disprove the allegation. (Only a single grammar fix was made between the two.) This is among the few truly “weird” things that really stand out in the lawsuit’s claims. (I’m currently guessing that Nassim’s lawyers have a hand in web.archive.org removing snapshots of some other things, but hopefully this evidence will remain in place while this matter is ongoing.) –ApooftGnegiol (talk) 12:58, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

The thing is, none of the above should really matter much IMHO for this case. Section 230 is pretty clear cut: in the United States, barring various illegal material, you can’t sue a platform for user-generated content. Wikipedia gets sued for defamation all the time, and by and large, because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, US cases are largely a non-starter.(33) Hell, defamation cases even for places like Kiwi Farms are a non-starter in the United States. So I like Bongolian’s advice regarding reaching out to the EFF, as this type of thing tends to be their “bread and butter” (same with the ACLU). (As a long shot, maybe even the Wikimedia Foundation for advice only?)

Unfortunately, in a state with weak anti-SLAPP laws, you still have to “lawyer up” to combat even weak cases, which costs some combination of time and money. Anti-SLAPP laws (when implemented well) are specifically designed to protect small publishers and individuals from nuisance suits that threaten free speech rights. There’s a small Youtube guy who recently did a video critique of Haramein. It is most likely much more immune to SLAPP suit type stuff, because: A) The platform (Google) most certainly has a well-sized legal department that is well aware of Section 230, and B) The individual in question is from Texas, which actually has decent anti-SLAPP laws. BobJohnson (talk) 14:01, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

So, without getting into the weeds, basically the suer objects to the page, period? And yeah, lawyering up is a standard mechanism, even if to write a couple of legaleese letters to ‘see the suer off’. One thing I am ignorant of; is the archive.org takedowns a proper memory-holing or simply being taken out of being accessed? KarmaPolice (talk) 15:04, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, and if we settle instead, his person and works will basically become a taboo subject for the future of RationalWiki as a consequence. On archive.org removed pages, for an example see(34) (for an older source which was used in the article), which simply says “Sorry. This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine.” at present. –ApooftGnegiol (talk) 16:09, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

‘Not my field’ but would a placeholder statement ‘(Name) born (date), resident (country) is a (profession)’ be allowed? (ie ‘A statement of fact cannot be insolent’). Anna Livia (talk) 19:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

it is also against John Doe 1-7 and John Doe 8-1000. They have no idea who they are suing, aside from the people who run but don’t own the server space, and then hopefully a thousand people who have used it. It’s such a strange legal tantrum, but there is advice when seeking legal advice. And it’s just Jurassic Park, ‘How can I do this?’ Not ‘should I do this?’ Torrent (talk) 04:27, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

That’s another weird thing. Well, no. 1–7 are current and former RMF board trustees, identified in the lawsuit by their RW usernames. No. 8–1000 are anonymous RW users “presently unknown to Plaintiff”. The lawsuit alleges that each of no. 1–1000 have “edited” the article the suer takes issue with. Apparently they’ve gone by the edit history of the article. But it doesn’t add up – first of all because the article had less than 340 edits prior to being censored (and you can still see and count these lines now as ones with crossed-out details here). Furthermore, many editors make more than 1 edit. In other words, the lawyers thought it would look impressive to sue an extra order of magnitude or so of anonymous folks. Also, a portion of edits were reverted ones, including by fans of the suer. So now I imagine some courtroom scene in which it’s pointed out, “your honor, most of these defendants are imaginary”. –ApooftGnegiol (talk) 13:14, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it is important for the only named defendent to be strong on the suit, and it really sucks if he doesn’t have the money to get to court and defend himself. I’m not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but he does not need to extradite himself to blow off this civil law suit, and I hate myself for using the term absolute nothingburger, but the case against fits the language. How do we create a legal a defense that avoids 1000 misplaced lawsuits in New Mexico? It’s a lay-up but it might cost consultation hours. It could take longer if we just blow it off, and I don’t think it would necessarily escalate to a US Court that is FOR the Pursuant, who is not actually in trouble. Send legal representation, I would hope the rat wiki fund would not cost so much as to make this impossible. It can’t be personal wealth that must be put up to defend this site, it’s supposed to have the money to fight it. They already got our donations, that’s what everybody already does. Torrent (talk) 05:00, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, the named defendant left it up to the rest of the board to decide what to do in response. I think time is more significant than money for him here. He’s the guy who’s mostly been absent the past years, seldom in touch with the rest of the board. Earlier in this discussion thread, I mentioned a weird claim in the lawsuit where it alleges some shadowy editing of the article leaving no history. There’s evidence to firmly disprove that this occurred in the timeframe alleged. But anyway, the lawsuit alleges that the named defendant performed this imaginary editing of the article, and I think he could get himself out of it all quite easily if the rest of us decide to go ahead with a legal fight. I think if the board musters the courage for a legal fight (depending largely on having some help, because time is the no. 1 resource lacking), the claims won’t stand a stance. –ApooftGnegiol (talk) 13:14, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Here is, by the way, a link that explains what Rational wiki is up against. https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/54534779/Haramein_v_Rationalwiki_Foundation,_Inc_et_al a lawyer who works with a firm called named ‘late night law’. Maybe we throw the case and sue every news outlet that can’t source their cuckoo bananas takes. It is an impossible case, only a piss baby would get scammed to work with a lawyer who says ‘I’ll take a piss baby case’ I dunno who exactly would be a piss baby, but I know which kinda lawyer they would hire. Torrent (talk) 05:34, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

But the issue is that even Lionel Hutz’es win cases if they’re not defended. The RMF needs to draw up a plan of action with Trent on how it shall be defended – we don’t need details as such, but at least the showing of some white smoke that they do have a plan and said wheels are turning (I also think some gustimates of cost is gonna be part of this).

Anyway, I’m unfamiliar with the American legal system – is there actually going to be a trial, or is there a kind of pre-trial ‘filtering’ where the judge simply reads the docs from each side and rules there and then if there’s enough to warrant a trial? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:33, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

One side can ask the judge for summary judgement, which is what you described where the judge rules based on the available evidence. But if the judge feels that the case can’t be adequately addressed without a trial, then it goes to trial. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 13:42, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, doing nothing to represent oneself in court is the worst option since it gives the judge cause for summary judgment against oneself (RW in this case). Bongolian (talk) 16:38, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Trent here. This is not a case of the validity of the lawsuit, but of resources. Right now I have no wiggle room at all in my “time” and “effort” slots and the RMF has enough money to pay for its server costs. If we want to be in a position to fight off these kinds of lawsuits we need to expand our fundraising efforts. If the foundation was sitting on an endowment of $100k I would fight the fight and figure it out. There is also the fact that the article was just sorta meh, and not well sourced. If this was about a flagship page or something it might be different. If someone wants to pony up for legal fees I will find the space to lead the charge. Otherwise, we are probably stuck capitulating on this and maybe need to start thinking about options for building a legal defense fund nest egg. 2601:282:1F21:A5D0:959B:7D30:7E5:DA20 (talk) 02:21, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

what is this? A ducking stupid possession horror flick? Trent can’t talk here, that’s stupid. Where does the money go, Trent? Torrent (talk) 09:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Man, debasebyorself. This is not a difficult case. Pick a DUI defense attorney NOW, they don’t cost more than 3k and would love the win. You think Late Night Attorneys are worth 100k? They can at least meet the suit and push it back if time is the issue, all attorneys know how to do that. Torrent (talk) 10:49, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

LOLWUT? This is not a DUI case. You’d want to pick a business defense attorney, ideally one who has knowledge of working with non-profits as well as Internet law. I wouldn’t mind seeing an estimated “cost of defense” for this (if possible, it might not be). Obviously there’s a difference between whether the site can collectively support a four figure attorney cost vs. six. The problem I’ve seen with these sort of cases is that they indeed can be expensive, sadly — something that some small investigative reporting outlets have found out the hard way. Since my “first impression” is that this is more “open and shut” than most defamation cases due to Section 230, maybe the costs can be reduced, but “who knows”.

In the future, I would consider having the board look into media liability insurance. Rationalwiki is not *that* different from, say, a non-profit news organization, and quick Googles indicate that there is some resources for that specific sort of org (though I haven’t investigated deep nor have priced things out, just throwing out ideas).

I agree that the article was “meh” which doesn’t help. It’s pretty obvious what Haramein’s “schtick” is, and the “schtick” fits Rationalwiki’s mission well. Haramein is a little notable within his “schtick”… but otherwise, he is not notable at all outside of it. Certainly I had never heard of this guy until the lawsuit came up. At any rate… this makes writing a well-sourced article using outside analysis links (typical of most RW articles on living figures) impossible… critical analysis just doesn’t exist about this guy (outside of one lawsuit-suppressed blog, social media comments, and a YouTube video). Any article written would have to be done using original research (which should be well sourced, of course, but in a different manner), making it a lot tougher to do well. (At least for hobbyist-contributors with time constraints, which is what you typically find in Wiki-spheres.) BobJohnson (talk) 12:49, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

FWIW – just did a Google search (European filtering) and the first few pages consist of YT videos, postings to X/Twitter, things to do with manifesting, ‘theory of everything’ etc. And this and this for starters can be used to counter the claim. Anna Livia (talk) 13:12, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

If RW’s defence is as solid as some think it is and this ‘summary judgement’ thing is a thing – I don’t think it will get to an actual trial. As this is a Federal Court, it means the person(s) writing the documents to be submitted don’t need to be familiar with the individual state. This, I suspect means asking for an assist from the likes of the EFF, ACLU etc will be of more worth (because they are more likely to have someone who will be able to give a legal opinion on this and won’t be extortionate). Finding someone to do the actual trial if it turns out to be one is gonna be much more of a cost (but again, I’m no lawyer so take the above with a lump o salt).

The issue is that if RW caves on this simply due to lack of resources to fight it, I fear that it will simply open the floodgates to more pissed-off RW subjects filing nusance suits for a grand or two expecting us to cave again. So in my book this smells like to be one of those ‘for the principle of the thing’ fights (even if the article in question was a bit shit) because well, that principle is basically, what RW is. So I suspect that the ‘total costs’ of not resisting this will turn out ultimately to be higher than if do we resist. Perhaps a lot higher.

I second BobJ’s idea of investigating some form of media liability insurance might be an idea. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:48, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I finally get to come back and there’s a freaking lawsuit. Oh joy. Luigifan18 (talk) 21:09, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

New Mexico statute of limitations for defamation(edit)

In New Mexico, the state’s civil statute of limitations is three years for personal injury and defamation. This means the filer of the lawsuit cannot do a thing about the edits before August 2021 (note the article was created in 2012). Viewing the article edit history the only edits he can take legal action against are from 8 November 2022 to 12 July 2024 since the defamation lawsuit was filed on 1 August 1, 2024. As noted by @BobJohnson above, the RationalWiki Foundation has immunity under section 230 of the CDA. The RationalWiki Foundation is not liable for third-party content. The lawsuit filer would instead have to identify the John Does who made the edits between 8 November 2022 and 12 July 2024, however, the filer could subpoena the RationalWiki Foundation to provide information that could identify them such as their IP addresses. On the other hand, it seems to filer has no clue about the statute of limitations. Filing against hundreds of John Does makes zero sense since those many other users who made edits was before August 2021. It looks like a frivolous claim. I am not sure why the article was deleted. That is not a good look seeming as you will get more vexatious litigants filing similar frivolous claims against RationalWiki if they see you quickly delete articles when sued. 103.50.33.243 (talk) 21:40, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

The issue is practicality. Who is going to pay the lawyer to fight it? A basic retainer for defense against a defamation case like this would likely be in the $5k-$10k. That’s up front. If someone is willing to pay the legal retainer I will find an attorney and get cracking. 2601:282:1F21:8BC3:F9BD:9EF1:3066:CB19 (talk) 22:32, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Again, if it gets to trial. It might end up costing 5-10k but it’s also likely to end up costing the suer this too, esp if their lawyer declines to do a no win/no fee on the private conclusion that the chances of the ‘win’ bit are slim indeed. It might also get thrown out before it gets to trial too. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:59, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

If it goes to trial its $50k-$75k. The initial retainer, the due before we sign a representation agreement is $5k-$10k. Now if its an easy slam dunk we may not sue the whole retainer and get funds back. But the out-of-pocket cash needs to even get a defamation lawyer is at minimum $5k. Who is going to pay that? If no one is going to pay it we don’t get a lawyer and we can’t represent ourselves pro-se since we are a corporation. 2601:282:1F21:8BC3:F9BD:9EF1:3066:CB19 (talk) 23:15, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

2601: My advice if you do not have the money is do not hire an attorney to save costs but file as a pro se a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The failure to state a claim should be the RationalWiki Foundation has immunity under section 230 of the CDA – it is not liable for third-party content. You can presumably download the motion to dismiss forms from the court website or download a free template from elsewhere to fill in. Ps. The filer’s attorney is a recent law graduate who does not even have a website for his law firm (Late Night Law) which he is the only attorney; all he has is a personal webpage. If you search him online you find zero ratings by clients. The filer is probably his first client and as noted the attorney recently graduated from University of New Mexico School of Law. I could tell he is greatly inexperienced for writing “Does 8-1000” on the complaint which is laughable. 103.50.33.234 (talk) 23:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

@2601: you’re right about no pro se for corporations but the complaint also lists you as a defendant. I see 4 defendants listed on the docket: John Doe 1-7, John Doe 8-1000, RW foundation and yourself.103.50.33.234 (talk) 23:28, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

This has been mentioned before, but just as a more direct thought: the EFF has a legal assistance page and I think it would be good for someone on the board (heck, I’ll even do it on behalf of the board if no one has time and if board members are okay with it) to mail the [email protected] address with an explanation of the current situation, link to case, etc., with the purpose being to get a list of their “cooperating attorneys” in New Mexico. I doubt that this case is big enough for the EFF to get directly involved (if so, yay, but I really doubt it)… *but* RW is sort of in a unique place where we are a small non-profit wiki whose purpose is, in part, to document Internet disinformation / cranks, and it’s possible that there are resources that can offer pro bono or reduced fee services for this type of Section 230 case. Particularly where there seems to be multiple compelling factors that are problematic in this lawsuit. I’m in the position where I *could* help (with enough notice) contribute to a significant chunk of that $5-$10K retainer fee, but if RW starts getting $40k bills simply to file the motion to dismiss this case (as I’ve seen in this estimate of Section 230 costs for startup companies), that’s well out of my ability (and probably everyone else’s). I do like the pro se idea as well if it comes down to that. BobJohnson (talk) 00:30, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

The likes of the EFF/ACLU might also be able to provide amicus curiae (think that’s what it’s called) for reasons to dismiss. I mean, this cannot be the first time this sort of situation has come up before, is it? I also wonder if the suer is that pissed at us to stump up $50k+ just to go through with this…. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:46, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Just thought of something. If this limitation statute is right, what’s stopping RW simply reverting the offending page to what it was at 31st July ’21 and then locking it from further edits? KarmaPolice (talk) 00:56, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

From searches on lawsuit databases (PacerMonitor, Courtlistener etc), there were only 3 or 4 previous lawsuits filed against RationalWiki. However, in those cases it seems there were problems with the plaintiff’s service of process and the RationalWiki Foundation was not served so they did not have to hire an attorney and the cases were dismissed. For example, looking at the docket for HOVIND v. RATIONLWIKI FOUNDATION, shows the RationalWiki Foundation was never served and the case was dismissed. Looking on Courtlistener the troll Abd ul-Rahman Lomax included the RationalWiki Foundation as a co-defendant in an amended complaint but that was never served either. 64.74.161.243 (talk) 02:01, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Is Alfred North Whitehead anyone special?(edit)

Someone I’m “debating” drops his name a lot like the second coming of Jesus or whatever and I don’t really know much about the guy. I know he started some school of philosophy called process philosophy but that’s about it. I’m just wondering if he’s really such a big deal or there is anything special about him.47.5.66.54 (talk) 01:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I’ll give you my non-philosophy skim-read opinion: anyone who founds a noteworthy school of thought (and process philosophy seems to be one) is not going to be a “small name”. That being said, the “skim read” impression that I get is that process philosophy (until relatively recently) was seen as a bit archaic and out of fashion. In recent years, however, there has been a bit of a revival of Whitehead in a few corners, notably in ecology (particularly in China) where the philosophy is linked to a concept called ecological civilization. So… it’s something.

The other impression I get is that Whitehead is a very deeply dry and academic philosopher. This sort of thing makes “name drops” in conversation suspect. It’s something that happens with authors/academics/scientists/etc. who write difficult / indigestible material; many times, the person dropping the name reference actually doesn’t really know the material very well, but wants to use the “name drop” to impress. Such is an argument from authority fallacy (specifically, the “false authority” fallacy). Up to you to decide if this is the case here or not. BobJohnson (talk) 01:59, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have a bot that archives outgoing links?(edit)

I have noticed that a lot of the sources we cite in our articles, especially older ones, tend to go down due to link rot (likely amplified by the fact that we oftentimes cite personal blogs and the like), with a lot of the articles I read having at least one; Would it be possible for us to develop a bot that automatically archives outgoing links (And perhaps somehow detects outgoing links which have already been taken down and warns us about it), similar to how Wikipedia does it? TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 01:43, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Would be nice. Chillpilled (talk) 02:32, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I think that there was once a mechanism for that, but it hasn’t worked in years. Bongolian (talk) 03:07, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Representation of women in media over the years(edit)

So I was thinking: the Arkham games feature women largely as damsels in distress or as sex objects, and never in the criminal gangs despite men and women committing crimes at roughly equal rates. Gotham Knights, however, does feature women largely as, you know, people and not something for the male protagonist to lust over or rescue. There’s been a sustained push to feature women as real people in media and that’s paid off, which I am grateful for. There’s also no shortage of women as fighters historically speaking (think Pearl Hart, Joan of Arc, or the Dahomey Amazons), so when misogynists say featuring women as fighters and not sex objects or kitchen maintenance machines is “unrealistic,” they’re the ones speaking out of their asses. Carthage (talk) 02:30, 22 August 2024 (UTC)