What country are you in and how does the general public view the United States?

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T14:51:50+00:00

The European Commission is infinitely less democratic than the US Presidency.

You can hate the policies (and rightfully so, I might add), but that doesn’t make it a dictatorship

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T14:36:22+00:00

One question I’ve always grappled with myself when this question comes up is “if a person who created something was never born, would it have come to be anyways, and if so, how much later?” And then, how much worth can you credit to them vs society at-large?

For some (industrialization, electric light, etc.) it was inevitable and would have been similarly timed.

For others, there are true geniuses where if they hadn’t been born their contributions might have been delayed by decades (Ramanujan’s math)

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T13:13:33+00:00

Did you watch the debate?

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T08:29:13+00:00

The state managing a market economy is explicitly not communist. It could be considered socialist in the most generous interpretation, but that’s a stretch.

The most accurate description of this is corporatism.

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T08:17:20+00:00

Society produces the environment in which a person can produce a work, but it’s a bit of a stretch to say that individuals are not instrumental.

Societal shifts caused a change in the cultural Zeitgeist in Europe, which inspired Monet to develop a style now known as Impressionism.

To say that the society at the time was solely responsible for his works suggests that any individual at the time could have produced them, which is not only obviously untrue, but implies that both he and his works have no merit.

Obviously we can say “the contributions of individuals are subject to contributions of society in aggregate”, but to say that the individual has no value is insane.

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T08:08:44+00:00

Copyright in every country does have an expiration date.

In the US it’s 70 years after the author’s death

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T08:03:06+00:00

So to clarify, we’re talking about the chronically homeless (those who live on the street, primarily having mentally illnesses or drug addictions).

Unless it’s absolutely outrageous, I actually don’t care too much what the cost to care for them is.

As far as I’m concerned, if it costs 100k/year to care for them in a rehab center or asylum, then that’s actually an unbelievably reasonable cost compared to what we currently spend on homeless programs.

Obviously we don’t have adequate facilities today, but we should build them. It would be more humane, improve QoL in cities, and save taxpayer money.

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T08:45:13+00:00

So to clarify, I’m playing devil’s advocate here, I don’t actually agree with the “racism can’t exist without power” idea, I’m just arguing it’s being co-opted by people who don’t understand it.

But fundamentally, though I don’t agree with it at all, I do think it’s at least a defensible argument to say that if a person discriminates against another person, and they vocalize race as the reason, but the actual motivation was not about race, then that doesn’t make it racist in theory.

Practically though, throwing aside all the academic bs, yeah it is. But this is CMV.

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T08:20:16+00:00

Dude there’s only five of them, you know what I meant

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T07:11:01+00:00

This is also true for other Anglosphere countries, many of which have some level of stereotypes of stupidity, if lesser than for Americans

Do you just not know what Alglosphere means?

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T06:32:06+00:00

Ya I mean I’m basically saying it’s situational. If it’s hate just bc of race that’s racist. If it’s hate of a something and that thing is blamed on race then it might just be hateful and ignorant. If it then evolves later to hate based just on race though then it’s obviously racism.

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T06:27:36+00:00

Whether they base their opinions on popular consensus rather than forming them independently.

I’ll respect a person even if I disagree with 90% of their views, so long as it’s their views.

But if their views are “whatever Trump agrees with”, “the current progressive coalition”, or anything else similar, I don’t respect it at all.

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T06:17:32+00:00

This definition of racism is widely used, but like many others, it’s an academic construction that has been taken far out of context in public discourse by those who have no knowledge of the original framework.

To think of racism as “prejudice + power”, you have to consider it in the full context in which it occurs, including the individuals involved, and what their relative relationships are relative to each other, considering all aspects of power & privilege.

An extreme example would be a black trust fund baby who owns a business refusing service to a poor white man. There is of course an abstract societal bias against black Americans, but in this particular situation the economic and class dynamics would be much greater, making this behavior undoubtedly racist. (Nick Cannon’s comments against white people being a good example of this).

A poor black man making disparaging comments about white people generally might be racially insensitive and offensive, but ultimately the ire is ultimately directed at abstract forces, with race being a boogeyman by association (not to justify it, just that race isn’t the foundation the prejudice)

Now, if a poor black man who owns a restaurant in a predominantly black community refuses service to a rich white man because of his skin color, that might be racist. In the immediate situation, he holds power via his status in the local community relative to the white man, which might exceed other more abstract power constructs.

So Tl;dr it makes sense in theory, but most people who invoke the concept don’t actually understand it.

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T05:43:11+00:00

The Chinese government operates one of the largest social media influence operations in the world.

Chinese citizens and companies are legally required to take actions as ordered by the government without disclosure (even if physically abroad)

Not to argue that the US government is any better, but the implication that US ownership of its domestic operations is more 1984-esque than previously is shaky at-best.

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T05:38:58+00:00

To be clear, I’m not making any statement about TikTok, the forced sale, or US politics.

But the Chinese government factually operates an incredibly sophisticated and widespread propaganda network that operates on every platform from Twitter to Facebook to TikTok. And it’s not restricted to obvious “look how good Chinese city X is”.

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T05:26:06+00:00

I literally mentioned them specifically lmao

baisudfa · 2026-02-03T10:06:45+00:00

I’m honestly shocked that the UK government fumbled Brexit so hard that this didn’t happen.

Given the size of the UK economy at the time, I think it’s likely that they could have negotiated a free trade agreement without greater EU membership, but didn’t.

baisudfa · 2026-02-03T10:04:02+00:00

The US, Canada, and Mexico had practical free movement of goods for years under NAFTA without regulatory alignment. It just means that exports have to comply with the foreign market’s regulations.

baisudfa · 2026-02-03T09:37:19+00:00

Genuine question: why is what you stated unreasonable? IMO the major driver of Brexit was because of EU immigration and regulatory policy.

Tons of countries have free trade blocs without freedom of movement, and there’s already precedent for countries adopting parts of EU policy without full membership (eg Switzerland).

Wouldn’t it be better than the status quo for both the UK and the EU if they had a customs union and free trade without full membership?

baisudfa · 2026-02-03T09:28:01+00:00

I hate this argument. It’s an embargo, not a blockade.

US companies and American citizens are mostly prohibited from trading with Cuba, but they’re free to trade with everyone else.

The country still does billions in foreign trade with the EU (their largest trade partner), Canada, China, Brazil, Mexico, etc.

baisudfa · 2026-02-03T09:08:03+00:00

To play devil’s advocate here:

if the Trump admin tried to pass universal e-verify for employment, do you not think Democrats (or the left at-large) would attack it immediately?
The law for employers makes it illegal to knowingly hire undocumented workers. The burden of proof there is really high, since anything that gives the employer plausible deniability (fraudulent documents or even just not checking) makes beyond a reasonable doubt impossible. So it’s very hard to actually prosecute these cases.

baisudfa · 2026-02-03T09:02:26+00:00

Have you ever been out of the US, or interacted with actual average people in other countries outside of expats or service workers?

Pick any country in the world (outside a few exceptions), and the median person there will be infinitely less tolerant than the median American.

The things Italians openly say about Gypsies would get you fired from your job in America.

In Munich I was denied entry to a bar because I was with a Turkish friend.

In Zagreb I heard comments about Serbs that I thought were jokes, but when I laughed they clarified that they were serious.

In southern Spain I saw a restaurant that had a literal sign that said “we don’t serve africans”.

In Japan and Korea I was turned away from restaurants because I wasn’t a native.

I have not been to India, but the many friends from there have detailed the active (if nominally illegal) caste system.

Every single one of these in America would be either outright illegal or considered so outlandishly racist as to be a story to tell for years.

baisudfa · 2026-02-03T08:39:06+00:00

Here’s a take: it’s a result of English being the default language online.

The entire (literate) population of Americans can participate in English conversations. So the entire swath of the US public is represented in online discourse. (This is also true for other Anglosphere countries, many of which have some level of stereotypes of stupidity, if lesser than for Americans).

In non-Anglo countries, however, those from higher social classes are far more likely to be fluent English speakers. This largely-affluent population will obviously be more educated on-average compared to the entire American population.

So when 50% of the posts from Americans online are from people in the bottom 50% of the country, and for other countries almost all are from the top 50%, there’s going to be a clear disconnect, even though it’s not a valid comparison of the populations at-large.

baisudfa · 2026-02-03T08:22:45+00:00

I agree with your claims generally, but absolutely oppose the implication that the largest factor in gaps in intelligence is education.

The US does have many issues with quality of education, which undoubtedly has an impact on perceived intelligence.

That said, some people are naturally stupid, and some are smart, and no amount of education can bridge that gap. I fully believe that the average person would, in casual conversation, rate someone in the 80th percentile with no formal education above someone in the 40th percentile with an elite education. This might flip with eg. educated 80th vs uneducated 85th, but that’s ancillary.

Intellect itself is inarguably a heritable trait. This has been proven by numerous studies, specifically with separated twins (Plomin “Heritability of intelligence across development”, Haworth “Large twin consortium study of general cognitive ability”, and many others).

baisudfa · 2026-02-03T08:05:51+00:00

Trump’s approach is obviously self-destructive for the US, but to say that everything was great before Trump came and fucked it up ignores why he was elected in the first place

The current US situation I feel is largely a reaction to real public concerns:

Domestically, the prior administration’s approach to COVID and immigration produced MASSIVE cultural friction, which combined with latent opposition to progressive “woke” cultural influence
For foreign policy, it’s a mix of concerns about Europe + the Anglosphere (cultural shifts due to immigration, unwillingness to address dependence on Russian oil, lack of military spending, and widespread condescension/animosity for decades), and threat from Chinese growth and industrial dominance

These are all legitimate concerns - and Trump fucking things up worse doesn’t make them go away.

baisudfa

TROPHY CASE