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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 29th, 2023

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  • You ask for a concrete action when we are no more than 16 days in. Ok let’s ignore that and pretend you are acting in good faith.

    1. Weapon shipments that had been blocked have been released
    2. After the Gaza ceasefire Israel has opened an offensive on the Westbank
    3. Words of a US president have a meaning if they are not directly felt on the ground. For instance, Trump has made it clear today that he will not oppose an ethnic cleansing operation in Gaza (and likely the same for the Westbank).

    Let me ask you a question in return. It is my impression that you suffer from confirmation bias where you sat out the election because both sides were equally bad. I therefore think it would be good for you if you set a threshold. At what point will you accept that Trump is really worse than Kamala would have been?






  • I agree in principle, but in practice it’s tricky. You must have courts that are strong enough to throw out election results if foreign interference can be proven. This has recently happened in Romania, but there are also many examples in which these laws were meaningless. The US is the obvious case where the 2016 election result should have been thrown out, but nothing happened. For the Brexit vote I think some pretty meaningless fines were handed out.

    Another question is what should happen with foreign interference that is not financial in nature. For instance, Musk speaking at AFD, or the Meta algorithms pushing political content.


  • Not so clear what you mean with “not working” here. Tariffs are costly to both countries. To Mexico because Mexican products become more costly in the US, which reduces demand. To Americans because consumer prices go up. So it’s a lose-lose. Now if Mexico enacts counter tariffs, you get to a lose-lose-lose-lose.

    Now who is the biggest loser crucially depends on the size of the countries and how important trade is. For Mexico trade with the US is much more important than vice versa. These tariffs would be devastating to Mexico. So if that’s what you mean with “working” yeah sure tariffs work.

    What’s important to realise is that these tariffs were enacted without clear demands. So without a clear intention it is impossible to define whether it works. Another point is that such generic barriers to trade are usually reserved for rogue states like Venezuela. Enacting them against arguably your closest friends is a huge escalation of the instrument, and in the long run leaves you without friends.