Oceans Yet to Burn

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[afloweroutofstone]

Yeah, you could probably get away with that until some proposal came up regarding abortion, immigration, or some other wedge issue.

On a side note, I remember reading something once about a Republican mayor who, as a partial solution for homelessness, gave every homeless person who wanted one an above-minimum-wage job cleaning parks or picking up garbage on the highway and painted it as a program in line with the conservative emphasis on work ethic. Like, that’s literally just a universal job guarantee painted as a conservative program. It’d probably be pretty surprising what you could get a lot of conservatives to approve if you frame it right

[collapsedsquid]

You know what’s going to happen the instant that becomes widespread is that they’re going to try to prove that the government is paying for people to slack off.

[mitigatedchaos]

Universal Basic Income as the Liberal/Leftist threat/Overton shifter, Employee Wage Subsidies as the Conservative-compatible Compromise for a post-trucking world.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[collapsedsquid]

I like this “Sanders and Corbyn did well because they don’t require their people to be stupid and connected enough to take unpaid internships before joining“ theory.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

how do buses and tracked trams differ significantly? ability to route around obstacles?

mmm, tracked public transport

[mitigatedchaos]

Was this an anon?

The big difference is actually political - it costs more to set up tram tracks so AFAICT governments are less willing to shut them down or move them.  This means that, unlike bus lines, which could radically change across the entire city in a month, you can build apartment buildings next to tram tracks and trust that there will still be trams there if the ridership is high enough.  The routes are also going to be better defined, say if you’re an employee wanting to move somewhere you can easily commute to your place of employment from.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[mitigatedchaos]

@argumate is this your thing now

WE WILL CONTINUE TO POST PIXELATED ART OF QUESTIONABLE QUALITY (AT RANDOM INTERVALS BETWEEN TWO HOURS AND SIX MONTHS) UNTIL OUR DEMANDS ARE MET

1. DONALD TRUMP WILL IMMEDIATELY STEP DOWN AND BE REPLACED AS PRESIDENT BY A WORKING GROUP OF SELECTED PERSONNEL FROM GOOGLE, AMAZON, AND IBM’S MACHINE LEARNING DIVISIONS, AND THE RAND CORPORATION, WHO WILL BE DIRECTED TO GOVERN IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST.  A $1 BILLION DATACENTER WILL BE CONSTRUCTED TO FULFILL THEIR COMMANDS
2. MILITARY-GRADE POWERED EXOSKELETONS WILL BE IMMEDIATELY LEGALIZED FOR CIVILIAN OWNERSHIP
3. DETROIT WILL BE DECLARED A SPECIAL AUTONOMOUS DEVELOPMENT ZONE AND PUT UNDER THE IRON HAND OF A CEO FROM ASIA BACKED BY HEAVY MILITIA FORCES, PAID AS A PERCENTAGE OF DETROIT REAL GDP ANNUALLY
   
4. MARTIAL ARTS TRAINING WILL BE MADE A MANDATORY COMPONENT OF THE HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND AN ANNUAL TOURNAMENT WILL BE HELD TO DETERMINE THE ‘MOST BADASS HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR IN AMERICA’

[mitigatedchaos]

ADDITIONAL DEMANDS

1. THE GAZA STRIP WILL BE YIELDED TO EGYPT, THE WEST BANK WILL BE YIELDED TO JORDAN, THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY WILL BE DISSOLVED, AND EVERYONE WILL SHUT UP ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST FOR A PERIOD OF NOT LESS THAN TWO (2) MONTHS
   
2. CALIFORNIA WILL BE SPLIT INTO FOUR ADDITIONAL STATES AND WESTERN CALIFORNIA WILL BE PROVIDED 5,000,000 PERMANENT RESIDENCY PERMITS TO ASSIGN AS THEY SEE FIT ON THE CONDITION THAT THEY ARE PROHIBITED FROM VOTING ON IMMIGRATION MATTERS AND JUS SOLI IS ENDED
   
3. MUNICIPAL POLICE WILL BE REORGANIZED INTO AUTONOMOUS AGENCIES THAT COMPETE ACROSS MULTIPLE METRICS INCLUDING RATE OF FATALITIES AND DONUT CONSUMPTION AND MAKE METRIC-WEIGHTED BIDS FOR ACCESS TO MUNICIPAL CONTRACTS.  A SOFTWARE-MANAGED EVIDENCE EXCHANGE WILL BE BUILT TO COORDINATE THIS.  NO MORE THAN A RUNNING AVERAGE OF 1.2 DONUTS PER DAY PER OFFICER WILL BE PERMITTED.
4. THE REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC PARTIES WILL ABANDON THEIR IDEOLOGIES AND ADOPT THE IDEOLOGIES OF NATIONAL POPULISM AND GLOBAL TECHNOCRACY RESPECTIVELY.  DEFECTORS WILL BE CONSCRIPTED TO SERVE AS EDITORS FOR THE NEW FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF CLICKBAIT FOR A PERIOD OF NO LESS THAN FIVE YEARS
   

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

@argumate is this your thing now

WE WILL CONTINUE TO POST PIXELATED ART OF QUESTIONABLE QUALITY (AT RANDOM INTERVALS BETWEEN TWO HOURS AND SIX MONTHS) UNTIL OUR DEMANDS ARE MET

1. DONALD TRUMP WILL IMMEDIATELY STEP DOWN AND BE REPLACED AS PRESIDENT BY A WORKING GROUP OF SELECTED PERSONNEL FROM GOOGLE, AMAZON, AND IBM’S MACHINE LEARNING DIVISIONS, AND THE RAND CORPORATION, WHO WILL BE DIRECTED TO GOVERN IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST.  A $1 BILLION DATACENTER WILL BE CONSTRUCTED TO FULFILL THEIR COMMANDS
2. MILITARY-GRADE POWERED EXOSKELETONS WILL BE IMMEDIATELY LEGALIZED FOR CIVILIAN OWNERSHIP
3. DETROIT WILL BE DECLARED A SPECIAL AUTONOMOUS DEVELOPMENT ZONE AND PUT UNDER THE IRON HAND OF A CEO FROM ASIA BACKED BY HEAVY MILITIA FORCES, PAID AS A PERCENTAGE OF DETROIT REAL GDP ANNUALLY
   
4. MARTIAL ARTS TRAINING WILL BE MADE A MANDATORY COMPONENT OF THE HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND AN ANNUAL TOURNAMENT WILL BE HELD TO DETERMINE THE ‘MOST BADASS HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR IN AMERICA’

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

collapsedsquid said: What about Criminal Country?

believe it or not, this is actually hot discourse right now:

土澳 or TuAo: Is this Chinese popular term for Australia affectionate or condescending?

Taken literally, TuAo means “unrefined, backwards Australia”.

…

Wai Ling Yeung, a former Chinese studies professor at Curtin University, points out that many Chinese-Australians use the character for village when referring to suburbs.

“Because of that, many China-based netizens think all Australian cities are like country towns, but this is in fact not what Chinese-Australians mean,” she said.

She contrasts TuAo with humorous slang used by Chinese abroad in other countries, including FuGuo for Britain, meaning “decadent country” — a coded term believed to refer to the UK’s attitudes towards homosexuality.

The US is also sometimes referred to online as MeiDi, meaning “American empire”.

[mitigatedchaos]

If the Chinese call it an Empire, who am I to disagree? The largest military budget in the world, culture and commerce spreading out over the Earth, a currency used as a reserve everywhere else and as real money by entire foreign countries, and partial responsibility for the growing global obesity epidemic - who is to say that a Republic can’t be an Empire?

Now,

* inhales *

* coughing *

you know what actually nevermind the rest of it

* coughing *

this pipe gimmick was a bad idea

* wheezes *

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

Current Political Mood (Past 24h)

[mitigatedchaos]

@the-grey-tribe

All Issues Are Wedge Issues

Years ago, a government minister was asked why he proposed to increase welfare while raising taxes at the same times. The welfare money did not actually help to the people in need. He answered on an accidentally hot mic “You see, Iwan, wages and pensions have been stagnant for two years. This scheme will raise average wages on paper and divert welfare money into pension funds. Retirees are our base. We can’t not raise pension in an election year. It would be political suicide!“

I have a friend who sometimes volunteers for a left-wing party. He’s friends with many activists and left-wing think tank pilots. I asked his party friends at his birthday party: “Why don’t you support the elimination of welfare cliffs, or simplifying tax law, or a version of the paperwork reduction act, or a version of FOIA?“ They agreed that all of these were sensible ideas with potentially broad popular and multi-partisan parliamentary support. That was precisely the problem: “Why would anybody vote for us specifically if we just did the same shit as everybody else. Why not let the conservatives spend their political capital on bureaucracy? What if we make a big deal out of this and then moderates agree and steal our votes? If conservatives or moderates proposed this, we would have to oppose on principle. If social democrats proposed this maybe we would support it. If Marxists come out against bureaucracy we will be surprised. But why waste time on this instead of minimum wage? Our constituents are all poor people anyway. The middle class and self-employed people are affected by complicated taxes. They don’t vote for us anyway. It would be political suicide!“

* hissing sounds *

We will CRUSH the pathetic legislature and their traitorous, kakistocratic political parties by rolling over them with a column of actual tanks 

think-tanks nerf bats redundant unpruned regulations 

We will REPLACE the treacherous legislature with voter-delegate think-tanks that are funded according to their percentile standing on a legislative prediction market times their number of votes! DEATH TO THE TREASONOUS INCENTIVE SYSTEMS!  LONG LIVE THE UNION!

[the-grey-tribe]

I’m low key pissed that this version with MSPAINT.EXE pictures got more notes than mine. Not pissed at mitigatedchaos, but at myself.

[mitigatedchaos]

You want to know the funny part?

1) This was drawn on a tablet with a legit copy of Adobe Photoshop.  It has a dozen layers (for non-destructive editing reasons).

2) I actually unironically support replacing the legislature with voter delegate think tanks that receive their funding based on a weighted formula which includes betting on a basket of legislative outcomes as part of the latter half of the < Values, Efficacy > policy vector.  But by the same philosophy, I can’t justify deploying it without first running simulations and then testing it on a smaller scale first.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[the-grey-tribe]

The Alt-Right is a nebulous group with no common agenda and no constructive policy ideas, just a common enemy schema.

Only a man with no constructive policy ideas and no discernible plan could unite them to rally behind him.

Large swathes of the left are deeply suspicious of the other splinter groups, both radicals and moderates.

What this means: Mark Zuckerberg can’t forge a broad coalition of left unity, but Kanye West can.

[mitigatedchaos]

I’m laughing out loud but I’ve just set this at 5% probability which is probably 100x as high than it should be

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[fatpinocchio]

third-world conservative: The evil West seeks to subvert the family, nation, and faith and replace them with homosexuality and McDonald’s!

first-world conservative: How dare they say that! It’s nothing like that! We must defend Western values against these horrible attacks.

me: Yeah, except replacing family, nation, and faith with homosexuality and McDonald’s is why the West is good.

[argumate]

glowy space brain

[mitigatedchaos]

Vibrating Space Buddha: Actually family, nation, and perhaps a dash of faith are Good, but homosexuality isn’t actually dangerous to families or nations (and must be defended from third-world conservatives) and mass obesity McDonald’s isn’t good for you.  Let me list my ten point plan for the formation of a truly unstoppable continent-spanning superstate.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[kontextmaschine]

One thing I’m disappointed hasnt come together to realize the potential of uh, Campaign Trumpism, is the alt-right seeing the potential of unions. (mostly)

Like, it’s an article of faith that one of the movement’s biggest vulnerabilities is to censorious bluehairs putting pressure on cucked employers to fire them from their jobs. But “dismissal for improper reasons”, particularly unrelated to job duties, particularly in regards to causes unpopular with the comfortable bourgeoisie, is a CLASSIC cause for labor action and impetus for unionization.

And if the bossman shrugs, points to the contract, “nothing I can do”, what are they gonna do, go after the union? Labor bosses are some of the least cucked guys out there, as you see with police unions lately half their job is to reply to ANY external pressure with “haha get fukt buddy”.

Plus there’s whatever that could do to split the left coalition, which has precedent – the hardhats and war economy workers against young hippies (which led to the Dems basically throwing the ‘72 election to Nixon), the NYC teachers’ strike of ‘68 (splitting the Jewish/labor and black/social activist wings of the city’s social democratic coalition, inspiring the domestic neoconservatism by which logic elites finally gave up on minority rights movements in the 80s-90s)

Kyle “Based Stickman” Chapman is taking time off from commercial diving to have his 15 minutes of fame, but he doesn’t betray any insecurity that being the public face of the most aggressive faction of a controversial political movement might make it hard to return to his $6500/mo job. And I have to suspect that might have something to do with Pile Drivers Local 34.

[mitigatedchaos]

Honestly I think you’re taking them as more rational than they actually are. I joke about the Alt Right becoming Chinese and joining a Han Ethnostate in 2069, but there isn’t going to be an Alt Right in 2032, much less 2069. Having freed themselves to pursue ideologies outside the conservative mainstream, they have nonetheless left themselves ideologically bound.