Many of the same liberals who have been browbeating me over the past several years with their insistence that they are NOT the same as the Trump Republicans, are excusing this.

You’re right, liberals. Once again you prove that you are not the same as the Trumpists. Even with this pardon, you do continue to be better than them. You’re better than terrible. You’re better than horrible, better than abysmal, ever so slightly better than abhorrent. Congratulations.

Meh, these people are pure corporatist fascists, not free-market capitalists. These are very different things.

No true Scotsman.

I’ve played a ton of NMS for the same reason I’ve played a ton of Minecraft: you can build and be creative, and you can acquire and upgrade stuff until it’s maxed out. But, once I’ve built my base and maxed out all my stuff, I lose interest. Fallout 4 also has base building and item customization and upgrades, but there are also story missions and objectives.

Yes, they are not consistent in their own logic. They are hypocrites. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t committed to global, free-market capitalism. They’re committed to it in the same way a religious person might be committed to their faith, despite not following, or even knowing all of its precepts. In fact, the rules and definitions of global, free-market capitalism don’t matter. The rules of capitalism are whatever they want them to be, similarly, again, to a pastor who molds his denominations religious teachings to whatever suits him.

Well, they have to balance their commitment to global free markets with their desire to destroy countries run by Communists, or any country that isn’t sufficiently Western and liberal in their political or economic philosophies. China is especially problematic, because they’ve accounted for so much of the global growth that’s occurred over the last several decades, but they are ultimately run by Communists, and they are certainly not liberal or Western enough.

Unfortunate that intelligence doesn’t seem to be a requirement for having success under capitalism.

“Capitalist utopia” is a bit of an oxymoron, no?

I think it is.

Biden is a neoliberal technocrat, a group that is becoming less and less relevant with every passing year.

Musk has publicly praised the book, ‘The Capitalist Manifesto: Why the Global Free Market Will Save the World,’ that came out last year. The book, as you would assume, advocates for essentially unregulated, free market capitalism. I think Musk, and others like him, see a second Trump term as an opportunity to try and bring about the capitalist utopia that the book envisions.

If you’re a capitalism supporter, this is likely good news. And long may the free market reign. If you’re a socialist, well, you better be organizing workers like there’s no tomorrow.

Nuance is important, but it’s also difficult for laypeople. Not because they’re unintelligent, necessarily, but because they haven’t studied and trained like experts have. That’s why we have to be able to rely on experts. But, deferring to the authority of experts means giving up at least some power. I think that can work when there’s trust between the experts and the laypeople, but when trust is lost, laypeople will no longer respect the authority of experts. That’s what the experts, the “elites” have to understand: their expertise gives them authority, and with authority comes power, and, well, as uncle Ben would say, with power comes responsibility, and accountability. I don’t think the experts of today take their responsibility seriously enough, nor do I think they take proper accountability.

Voters’ perceptions of the economy are starting to flip along partisan lines

I mean, no shit. People act like partisanship is arbitrary, but it isn’t. We fundamentally disagree about what economic policies, or even which economic systems are best. If you think unregulated, free-market capitalism is best, you’re going to be happiest when the free-market capitalist party is in power. If you’re a neoliberal, you’re going to be happiest when the neoliberals are in power, if you’re a social democrat, you’re going to be happiest when the social democrats are in power. If you’re a socialist, you’re going to be happiest when the socialists are in power.

We are a profoundly stupid country. Even the intelligent, educated people are stupid, because they didn’t think this could happen, and they have no idea how to fix it.

America’s top oil trade groups, meanwhile, said imposing the tariffs would be a mistake - exposing a rare moment of discord between the industry and Trump.

I want this to happen so bad. Please, Trump, stick to your guns. Fuck this shit up! It’s the only way the idiots in this country will learn.

What am I saying, Americans are incapable of learning. You know what, do it anyway. Fuck the bozos!

at some point some country will weigh the risks of climate change and take matters into its own hands.

Yeah, I could see that happening. Maybe even the US. Maybe Elon Musk reads a Twitter thread about geoengineering, decides it’s the solution to warming, starts a company called GeoX and convinces Trump and the Republicans to give him and GeoX $5 billion a year, he buys a bunch of jets, fills them with sulfur dioxide and has them fart out a bunch of it around the Arctic every year. GeoX stocks soar, Musk becomes the first trillionaire, and the US federal government has added only a trivial amount to its already vast debt total. It almost doesn’t matter if it works or not.

Yes, it was sarcasm. But, I think the push for solar geoengineering, or as some people are calling it “solar radiation management” is coming.

So, what does this all mean for us? It means we have even less time to get our act together. Reducing emissions isn’t just a good idea — it’s crucial.

I don’t think this will motivate countries to dramatically increase emissions reduction efforts, but I think it will motivate countries to begin geoengineering. Geoengineering is cheaper and easier than rapid emissions reduction, and the results are more immediate. Yes, it doesn’t solve the core problem, which is the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere, but it treats the symptom, albeit temporarily. Why put a lot of time, money, and effort into fixing the core problem when you can spend comparatively less time, money, and effort just treating the symptom? Then you can just pretend the core problem doesn’t exist and go about business as usual.

Edit: sorry, I should have added the /s.

I am absolutely convinced that geoengineering is coming.

So much of our government has apparently been operating on a simple gentleman’s agreement and it’s only stood up because nobody challenged it until now.

Politicians have been challenging it from the beginning, it’s just most of them had the good sense not to do it so overtly. Trump doesn’t worry so much about that because he’s successfully convinced a large segment of Americans that up is down, black is white, and that he is the messiah.

The switch and the steam deck have really changed the game.

It works perfectly for me, but I don’t play online games. I hope they can get those games running in Linux so those folks can switch over.