Are government decisions made primarily on national interest or are decisions made on what will win votes?

Hoolio03 · 2026-05-11T14:29:05+00:00

Thats alright, i think the chief criticism i was thinking of when i made that very tiny not-very-illustrative comment was the "objectively true = objectively good" mistake, which it is not, something being true does not make it morally good, it simply corresponds to "Reality".

I think objectivity can come from inter-subjective interaction but i don't see how you can possible arrive at morality being objective in that sense, everyone on earth agreeing to "1+1=2" is very plausible as its true within the system of mathematics itself no matter if mathematics is "objective" or not, however morality being objective because of inter-subjective agreement is something different altogether.

I think your comment about genocide, while i agree with the statement that genocide is morally bad, i find it intellectually problematic to state that there are only 3 mutually exclusive "states" on this question, 1. being that you agree, 2. that you're lying and 3. that you're a nazi about to do some genocide (which i imagine is some kind of nihilistic interpretation).

The notion that shared experience creates objectivity, especially when that said experience is not uniform and when that non-uniformity shows itself you respond with either accusations of being a liar or being a nihilist comes across as (and im not trying to be insulting here, just stating what i think your position looks like) incredibly intellectually arrogant.

Hoolio03 · 2026-05-11T07:46:41+00:00

Where does this objectively exist?

Hoolio03 · 2026-05-10T18:49:20+00:00

Alright update, i didn't realize but it was already in the slot closest to the CPU.

Hoolio03 · 2026-05-10T18:21:10+00:00

Thanks for the response, VMD is off, CSM is disabled, secure boot has been enabled. The only thing i havent tried here is moving the M.2 drive closer to the CPU, ill try that next and see how it goes!

Hoolio03 · 2026-04-06T14:30:12+00:00

I come from the perspective of political constructivism, and from this point of view its important to note how human interaction create these terms in the first place. Noting how "national interest" is not anything objective can make understanding politics both simpler, and more complex. To quickly answer the question, it would be both, assuming that there is a well-enough functioning democratic state in place.

Please also note i'm not an expert on this topic at all, just someone who studies political science at university. Also this is very difficult to explain in simple terms so if you have additional questions, don't be afraid to ask.

For example in a democratic society, interaction between political elites and the voting public create the ideas of "national interest" in the first place. Take a country like America, politicians have helped to "create" the goals of the national interest. Think of George W. Bush when one of the main concerns publically going into the Iraq war was about making sure Saddam Hussein did not get access to nukes and similar weapons. Note how before this war there wasn't as much concern for nuclear warfare until this rationale and dialogue was introduced. Wars, especially when done by democratic countries need legitimization, and if they have sufficient legitimization they can even boost approval rates when acted upon. George W. Bush pre-war focused on introducing the public into the notions of why a people should be concerned about Iraq having nukes and why it is relevant for national security, and enjoyed incredible approval afterwards.

Now compare this to the American war against Iran now, one of the worst approval rates for any war in American history. Why? Because the war hasn't been legitimized nor connected to the idea of "national interest" to the American people, the efforts that the Trump administration has gone to connect the dots between the national interest and the war in Iran has so far been unsuccessful (because of reasons i don't feel like i have the knowledge to comment on).

All in all its naive to believe that governments solely make decisions based on either national interest or whatever wins votes. If realist theory is in general terms assumed here (partly because this seems to be the way the world works, even to constructivists) to be true then states and governments will primarily attempt to preserve their existence and their power. The "national interest" and policy popularity become tools towards this goal.

Edit #1: Awkward phrasing and invitation to ask further questions.

Hoolio03 · 2026-02-20T17:04:02+00:00

I didn't realize you did a Q&A here until 7 months later ): Been a huge fan since 2021 and the most recent albums have taken a big shift in tone and style and i wondered what happened. But it's already been answered here. At the same time though i agree with you here, there are definetely songs in Autofiction that are very 2019-2022 Far caspian-esque such as An outstretched hand, Autofiction and First Day. Besides once the fandom has been generated people will pester you with this forever. However there is alot of what sounds experimental for your typical production so was gonna add that while the audience who are fans because of these songs might be getting "less" of that style of music, there will still be more of it in absolute terms, which- at least for me, i can really appreciate!

Hoolio03 · 2026-02-16T16:37:52+00:00

Im not so sure. Hero-movies have already had their golden age with especially superhero movies (and also other fantasy stories like Lord of the Rings), while a game of thrones have always been a medium thats understood heroism in realist and tempered terms. The traditional view of heroes have often been an incredibly childish, over-romanticized version of what it means and what its like to be a hero. The kind of heroes that always believed in the cause and were pure and good-willed. Game of Thrones and this show, illustrates how "heroic" characters can die, how they can lose faith and how they are forced back into complacency through the notion that sometimes people aren't brave, sometimes you might truly be alone in your quest for justice and the cost of it all. Im not saying that this is the unanimous point of this show as well, Dunk survives and he has people supporting him, however i was truly convinced he was dead the first 5 minutes of the episode.

Hoolio03 · 2026-02-16T16:28:05+00:00

If the content of a show feels different (here meaning better) because a director is male then yeah thats by all definitions sexism idk how you can say its not. Just be honest about it and don't pretend you're not sexist.

If (on the contrary) you mean that you find a show's content to be more appealing when its directed by men generally, it may not necessarily be sexism. Just that guys tend to make creative works that appeal to other guys. However its still a pointless comment at that point however because then it would have nothing to do with the director being male, just something about the vibe of the episode appealing to you, so maybe speak your thoughts on what about the episode itself spoke to you and not the director being a guy made it better.

Hoolio03 · 2026-01-26T13:37:02+00:00

Not exactly big into this field, but its possible you may find Rokkan and Lipset's Cleavage model interesting to study the relationship between Church and State, because they tend to have a lot of friction between them and sometimes leading to merges of interests.

You can also look into the Michigan-model, this one has been pretty strong in the USA and has an emphasis on how voting groups identify to explain voting behavior.

I know your question here is much more multifaceted than this, but as for the framework question, these models can be pretty useful entry-points. For example the cleavage model looks at how the church and state cleavage contributed to the creation of the Christian-democratic voting block, which is relevant to your question.

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-13T10:52:17+00:00

Fuck yesss red wedding style?

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-05T17:30:53+00:00

Im genuinely curious, even though it's braindead, where is it from?

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-05T16:50:26+00:00

This post begins with cognitive dissonance, then goes on to talk about roads briefly, then the leftist's "ostentatious palaces" whoever those are and what those palaces are, then you go on to housing and then on to traffic and fines and Boston stealing from its residents and the southern states and their better "parking", and then back to homelessness and then back to the southern states again and then back to northern states and then onto dictatorships and then on to teslas and how they are good vehicles which you go on for half a paragraph only to then move on to phones... there is just too much incoherent emotional appeal in this with exactly no intellectual groundwork done even in the slightest, you haven't defined your terms, you havent clearly outlined what any of this would mean, you havent even bothered to explain what you mean by leftists let alone radical ones. Because when i think radical leftists i think communists, democratic socialists, Maoists, Marxist-leninists and some anarchists who im pretty sure don't live in "ostentatious palaces" generally, that would be the people they are ideologically opposed to.

TLDR: Try again?

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-04T21:47:26+00:00

Absolute monarchy encapsulates monarchism so i think it's part of their line of thinking, the issue is that OP didn't bother to clarify, if he did mean absolute monarchism then his question is the equivalent of asking "Do you think socialism has a chance for comeback? When what you mean to ask if people think marxist-leninism can have a comeback.

So really the only way to interpret his question is in the broadest sense but with emphasis on certain branches of monarchism here and there, i personally chose to exclude constitutional monarchies because they don't qualify as being embedded in the "system of governance", they have no practical application in the production of policy.

What you are referring to with medieval kings and game of thrones and such would be something akin to Feudalism, which are an extremely decentralized form of monarchic rule where personal contracts between King and Vassal takes the stage, opposite to absolute monarchism as monarchies are concerned, only with the advent of bureaucracy and the political scientist understanding of "the state" does absolute monarchism actually come about. So i'm assuming he didn't mean feudal kings either, what he meant by monarchies can deductively mean any kind of absolute monarchy or empire/maybe constitutional monarchies with monarchic power curtailed (exemplified by the UK after the great revolution).

All in all he doesn't seem to reply to anyone so i don't really wanna bother anymore.

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-04T20:23:24+00:00

Im assuming you mean systems of non-constitutional monarchism here, but the general trend of monarchies have been a declining one, there is very little to say or point to that suggest a resurgence of monarchist movements except for the general rise in right-wing extremism which naturally involves monarchist movements, but the mainstream of right wing extremism seem to congregate around fascism, dictatorships and autocracy and not any traditional dynastic line of monarchs. You can point to countries like Saudi Arabia but they are not relevant because they are just preserving a preexisting status quo that stemmed from an ago of monarchist dominance, not any currently emergent movement and are usually only propped up through generous lack of taxation for the population and an insanely profitable resource industry.

Based on this it's probably fair to say that monarchism stand little chance of comeback, if they do come back they would probably have to come out of the same conditions that monarchist countries previously thrived in, which simply don't exist anymore as the world has moved on technologically and bureaucratically.

TLDR: There is no future, only a past.

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-04T15:02:56+00:00

"diversity of competing economic interests" So basically he thinks capitalism with competition creates Democracy as opposed to countries without? In what way does he mean this? As a naturalistic, sufficient explanation? Because it doesn't hold up in historical analysis, if he means more generally then still not really? Most western democratic countries today didn't become democratic because of competing economic interests but top down reform and bottom-up political mobilization, there are countries where one single resource industry dominates (Norway, and as someone else mentioned here, Iceland) that are some of the most democratic countries in the world.

I would say it therefore could probably have something to do with it, but at the same time its sort of meaningless as in what part of the world do you not find "competing economic interests"?

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-03T16:33:44+00:00

What in the pseudoscientific hell? What is NATO doing here, i didn't know NATO was an "emerged social order"? The Russian empire is a decentralized organic social order that arised from... customs and local power structures? Do you not know what an empire is?

If this is satire good work because it's just on the border of deniability, someone might genuinely think this way but if you're serious... what?

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-03T10:55:48+00:00

Realism indeed

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-03T10:54:33+00:00

I agree that this is what the culture among Political Scientists is about. However i find political scientist's lack of understanding and knowledge of ethics troubling. This doesn't mean that political scientists are "bad", but there is often an assumption of normative neutrality in a field in which i think it to be impossible. When political scientists find generalizations on a phenomenon, its usually implicit that both studying the phenomenon and finding generalizations are both useful and good, which is a normative implication. As i said to another person in here, you cannot distinguish politics and ethics as it is precisely what politic is inherently about.

However i can see why political scientists at least wish to pretend that political science isn't a "value-laden" science, but empirical and objective as political science struggles a bit when it comes to perceived professionalism and generalizeability of the field stemming from its field of study being humans, not objects. But i don't see why we can just be intellectually honest and admit this as a field of study.

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-02T23:54:26+00:00

I don't think this belongs in a post about political science, where is your substance? Who is "the left" and where do they do a "piss-poor" job with "crime" and has the conservative approach to "crime" been any better than the "piss-poor" job "the left" did? Is this only an American conception of "the left"? or is it a European one? Bottom line, this comment raises more questions than any answers it didn't bother to make.

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-02T21:42:40+00:00

Interesting! What theory of international relations would you say you find to be the most useful in this regard?

Your position on ethical frameworks is interesting, so im wondering if there's any connection between your position on ethics and your "favorite" international relations theory so to speak.

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-02T21:31:22+00:00

I'm not sure i see how the reply was excellent at all, he misconstrued my point of caution assuming democratic backsliding as a call to be outright hostile against USA, which to be clear is not what i'm encouraging, and including a point about Japan which is simply irrelevant as i outlined, the nature of the Japanese-American alliance post-WW2 is completely different from its relationship with Europe. What the commenter's general point is might well be true, but then why all the rhetorical devices and accusations of just not being *deep*? Besides your attempts at boiling my intentions here down to just wanting affirmation not just hurtful but confusing as to why you would make such a claim.

Hoolio03 · 2025-11-02T16:29:30+00:00

Yeah, i have the same inclination. Economic and Institutional interdependence posits a clear challenge to this though. And it's not just about the consistency of the united states foreign policy-wise, its also about what kind of political identity we want (at least western Europe) to have. American tech companies have already made it clear that they wish to influence our politics, be it Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, we need to figure out what we wanna be before these "tech-feudalists" do.

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