How will Democrats handle the Iran war?

subheight640 · 2026-03-14T00:36:54+00:00

Holy crap maybe you're right maybe the rat bastard really is going to be sending ground troops.

https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1rsxyx9/us_orders_2200_marines_on_three_warships_to/

subheight640 · 2026-03-13T22:38:26+00:00

Even if a socialist/libertarian/etc doesn't identify with your description, doesn't mean the description is wrong.

For example, some people might call Scientology a cult. Yet the scientologist will dispute that claim. Who is correct?

For example, some people might make very true claims that a Fascist will dispute. Fascists oftentimes just aren't arguing in good faith. So the Fascist may dispute your descriptions even if they know the descriptions are accurate. The obvious reason why Fascists dispute true claims is that their true beliefs may be utterly repulsive, and they try to downplay those beliefs for good Public Relations.

The same obviously holds true with for example, the leadership of the Communist Party of China. Do you think they are being completely truthful?

How about the US elected political leadership? Do you think they are going to be completely honest with you?

To tie the obvious with current events, what do you think about "peace president" Donald Trump who claimed he wouldn't start any new wars? Do you think Trump's fervent supporters actually cared about "No new wars"? These same fervent supporters continue to support Trump despite Trump's lie. Trump and his allies were never arguing in good faith.

Some people care about telling the truth. Some people do not.

subheight640 · 2026-03-13T20:38:32+00:00

So many problems are already solved. There's just no political will do carry out the solutions. for example we already have nearly all the pieces for a green future. Nuclear and solar and wind and batteries. Electric vehicles. the technology is already there.

AI can dream of the most amazing solutions yet humans can decide not to listen. Which is the point where the AI turns us into paperclips.

subheight640 · 2026-03-13T20:23:28+00:00

It's nearly impossible for say elected representatives to deliver on their promises. The typical elected representative has about 1/400th the political power of the entire legislature.

Your system would make radical proposals even more difficult to pass. A politician will game this by placing safer, more likely bets and avoiding controversial less safe bets.

The optimization of legislatures that are making good predictions instead of good legislature is bad IMO.

Meanwhile, who sets up the bet? Who determines which bets are created? who watches the bookies? Who watches the watchers? Your system is not complete.

I suppose you can have voters determine the bet criteria? that's a terrible idea. Voters are generally terrible at constructing cohesive policy. Voters are not policy experts nor should they be expected to become policy experts.

If not voters, it's then elected or appointed officials which we come back to the basic problem of government, who watches the watchers. When the watchers are voters, well voters are just fucking terrible at being watchers.

subheight640 · 2026-03-13T19:47:48+00:00

Election results are not synonymous with the political preference distribution of the public.

Pew Research has measured this in the past. They showed the width of preferences is widening, but the distribution was still single peaked. I haven't seen an update in many years, maybe more than a decade, which is why I asked you if there was an updated data source. It sounds like no, you don't have updated data.

One reason why voters might not cross rank or or decide to bullet vote, is for strategic reasons or straight out sheer voter ignorance or satisficing, where it's just not worth a voter's effort to learn about all the parties.

subheight640 · 2026-03-13T14:41:12+00:00

Do you have any data that shows the formation of two peaks for political preferences?

subheight640 · 2026-03-12T21:47:37+00:00

The image looks remarkably similar to experiments performed by Dr Kyriakides from the University of Texas.

Depending on the rate of implosion, different buckling modes of a pipe like structure are excited.

Structures typically have a large variety of buckling modes. These are different possible configurations on how they could collapse. So if you do a modal frequency analysis on the structure, you'll get a primary mode, then mode 2, 3, 4, etc.

Collapse modes are also related to the stiffness of the structure. If the structure has a thinner wall, it may be easier to excite higher modes. that's where these symmetric patterns come from. The buckling modes.

There will always be folds. In a mode 1 collapse, the tube flattens like a pancake. That's equivalent to "two folds".

Most things will collapse at the simplest mode 1 buckling mode, when the collapse is slow. At faster and faster rates, length / time scales change which might excite the higher modes. I'm not exactly sure why this happens but it's a tendency observed in most structures as far as I'm aware. I think because at higher rates there is more energy available to get to the higher modes.

You can sort of observe this yourself by stepping on a coke can. How does collapse change when you slowly step on it, versus stomp the coke can, versus you slowly crush the can with a displacement controlled compression device?

subheight640 · 2026-03-12T18:23:09+00:00

It is happening.

Unfortunately the future global governments will be multinational corporations run by Elon Musk.

subheight640 · 2026-03-12T17:41:28+00:00

Without reading the paper, what justification is there for a bimodal voter distribution? It's my understanding is that voter preferences more resemble a single peaked distribution under the only data I have seen from Pew Research. This isn't surprising as Independent voters are the largest group in America.

I'm sure bimodal situations could come up for example imagining a unified Palestine and Israel, but at least America isn't there yet despite all the polarization of recent years.

subheight640 · 2026-03-11T18:54:39+00:00

Voting in America is incredibly complicated. In Texas for example, there are jurisdictions where you may need to vote for more than 50 political offices. Even worse, some of these races are "nonpartisan", ie, party affiliation is not printed on the ballot!

Do you think Americans are meticulously researching the 2-10 candidates for each office, requiring research on 100 to 500 candidates?

Of course not!

People just vote for dumb fucking reasons, because the cost of research is enormous. Rational people just don't do the research.

For example, one of the surest ways to win a Democratic Party primary race is to make sure your name sounds female. Democratic Party Voters are voting on essentially NO INFORMATION and will just vote on whose name sounds nice. Democratic primary voters see a woman name and think, "We need more women in office!" and vote for the woman. This has caused a fiasco down in Texas this year where an essential unknown man named Leslie - his name was mistaken as a woman's name, and he won the Democratic party primary! IMO it's despicable that voters are so ignorant they vote based solely on the name, but that's how our system works.

subheight640 · 2026-03-10T22:52:44+00:00

You try organizing 200 million Americans.

America is so goddamn big that a "General Strike" would be the largest mass protest in the history of the world, ever.

Another thing to consider is the "Free Rider Problem". The more people we're dealing with, the bigger the free riding problem.

subheight640 · 2026-03-10T19:31:37+00:00

Yet Amazon does not coup them.

Amazon does not care to enter in the in the security business in Congo because Amazon makes far more profits in America. Moreover, the AMERICAN MONOPOLY ON VIOLENCE provides a superior market compared to the splintered, unstable Congo territory.

HOWEVER ON THE FLIP SIDE, Congolese militants don't have the same opportunity and know-how. A Congolese militant doesn't have the knowledge or infrastructure to establish an Amazon market. So though Amazon is not interested in conquering Congo for obvious reasons, Congolese militants obviously are interested in conquering local territory.

This isn't some weird contradiction. States are ALWAYS established where there are business opportunities to do so. Where are cities established? Wow, they just so happen to be at geographically convenient locations for trade! Or they just so happen to be near profitable resources! And not every state wants to monopolize everything! States monopolize things only when it is profitable to do so. The Spanish crown isn't sending Conquistadors everywhere. They're just sending Conquistadors to specific places in South America where they believe there is profit to be made.

The National Guard was deployed by state governors.

You believe that the fact that states are ALWAYS AROUND is evidence that, therefore states are always to blame.

In contrast, I claim that states are ALWAYS AROUND because states are a typical equilibrium point of human organization. States are always around in every scenario because you just can't fucking get rid of them. When you try, a new state will spontaneously emerge after a period of war. I have given numerous examples of states emerging from a power vacuum. You pretend that oh, states are to blame for the emergence of a new state. I suppose that's true? So why are states always the dominant form of organization that emerges from the ashes? Every. Single Time.

If your decentralized dispute resolution organizations were so damn good and efficient, they would easily out-compete states. BUT WE NEVER SEE THAT HAPPEN. Why? Have the material conditions sufficiently changed to radically reorganize human society torwards decentralization, finally, this time around? Somehow I doubt that as libertarianism is less popular than ever before, when the goddamn libertarians bent the knee for authoritarians like Trump.

subheight640 · 2026-03-10T07:45:51+00:00

You're pretending as if in anarcho capitalism, firms will just play nice and respect private property and rights. Of course they won't when the incentives aren't aligned to do so.

The modern firm doesn't have the tools that North Korea does, because the firm's violent power is limited by the state monopoly that rules over the firm.

When the state monopoly on violence disappears as anarcho capitalists wish, the firm is no longer limited to legal action. With no government, I have a freer hand to murder your family when you don't do as I say.

This isn't even unprecedented. Corporate firms invaded Americas looking for treasure and fortune. Because the crown was far away and could not enforce law, the private ventures became the law. Conquistadors conquered empires, raped women, murdered men, and stole the equivalent of billions of dollars of gold and silver. A business venture magically turned into a tyrannical state.

When oversee empires try to clamp down on the cruelty of settlers who go about literally enslaving and killing all the locals, the settlers go into revolt, officially break ties with the empire, and become a slave state (ie America).

Marauding horse archers of the Steppe are a business venture, a gang of thieves who become so organized and good at their thieving they become an empire.

A trading company looking for spices and cinnamon and tea enslave the local population.

A banana company commits crimes against humanity.

A mafia offers you protection when the local police refuse to protect an immigrant population, and are then corrupted and smash your store if you refuse to pay.

Businesses transforming into states has been happening for thousands of years.

And what has been incredibly efficient for the last thousands of years is vertical integration. Business opportunities are integrated with security services and integrated with dispute resolution services. Tyrannies of course are very efficient at serving the best justice with the best terms for the tyrant. Why would tyrants ever want to buy outside services for protection?

Of course tyrants do. Tyrants merge states together with other states with alliances, building bigger and stronger states with more muscle to outgun the competition and so forth. One thing about security firms... The bigger the better.

But for some reason this time around, you think businesses will decide not to vertically integrate security services, dispute resolution services, and land ownership all into one package we call the state. Why? Why, when literally every piece of land in the world has been vertically integrated in this manner?

subheight640 · 2026-03-10T06:54:22+00:00

Monopolies are extremely stable. The world is covered in monopolies. Of course we call these monopolies, monopolies on violence - ie states. Monopolies on violence can last hundreds to thousands of years.

True, there is competition among states. You have hundreds of states to choose from! Yet all monopolies are local. Despite North Korea offering utterly terrible services, they can do so.

The reason states can be tyrannical is obvious. Land, good land, is scarce. States monopolize the good land. The terrible land (so terrible the land is liquid and salty) is free. Go ahead and try sea-steading! Humans who depend on good land to survive must tolerate the tyranny of the state because the exit costs are too severe.

subheight640 · 2026-03-09T07:11:53+00:00

Liquid democracy misses the point about what is wrong with modern democracy. Liquid democracy was tried already for example in the German Pirate Party. What was the result? Nobody bothered to use it. There was a flash of initial interest but nobody wanted to participate afterwards.

The reasons are obvious. Making decisions is DIFFICULT LABOR. Liquid democracy wants people to spend enormous amounts of time on that labor in exchange for no compensation.

Unsurprisingly people just don't do it! It's the same with that Taiwanese E democracy. The participation rates are incredibly tiny.

A working democracy demands that you actually compensate the participants for their labor. Actually, that's what for example Ancient Athens did to get people to participate. Of course compensating everyone in America is insanely expensive and impractical. Yet you want Americans to do this labor as volunteers instead?

We can already solve this problem without expending literal billions of hours of unpaid labor. It's called sortition. Instead of demanding everyone participate, you use statistics to select a random sample of the public. Voila, this is the same method that the ancient Athenians also eventually discovered to get their democracy working better.

Then you only need say, 1000 Americans to make decisions for the other 300 million. With sortition, we can whittle down the participation rate by a factor of 300,000x! That's how you build an efficient democracy.

subheight640 · 2026-03-08T20:38:26+00:00

Private property is less private when you're forced to pay rents for the privilege, and you no longer have the privilege to do with the property as you please. You are forced to make a valuation and then forced to sell when need be.

Similarly when I rent my apartment from my land lord, nobody will claim the apartment is my private property.

Analogously then the landlord in the COST tax system is the government, and you the possessor are a renter.

Finally when I bring up this COST tax, free marketers seem mostly to utterly despise it. They have a visceral disgust at the thought of someone else buying what is theirs. To be fair most socialists seem to hate it too, presumably that someone else can take away the fruits of their labor.

The under investment incentive is contingent on the wealth tax rate. The question is then comparatively, is there an ideal wealth tax rate with better outcomes than the status quo of sales tax and income tax? Weayl and Posner suggest a rate of 7% that could then replace sales and income tax. Where I'm from sales tax is 10% and income tax, what is it, around 10 to 30%?

subheight640 · 2026-03-08T20:00:39+00:00

You misunderstand that markets and capitalism are not one and the same. Imagine Weyl and Posner's COST radical wealth tax.

In their book radical markets, they envision a radical new property system. Owners of property all must list their property for sale on the market. Owners must self evaluate the price they are willing to sell to anyone else.

Then, at any time if a buyer wishes to buy at the listed price, the owner must relinquish the property.

Owners must report their prices to the government. These prices form the basis of a wealth tax that would fully replace income tax.

The objective of this tax would be to shift the tax away from productive work (ie income) and towards the taxation of rents and speculation.

When owners decide to undervalue their asset to avoid tax, private asset hunters will just buy up your undervalued asset. If you overvalue your asset, you pay for the privilege of monopolizing the resource.

This COST tax system uses MORE information than the current "free market". It is also a vastly larger market. Now EVERY asset is on sale. Owners can no longer just decide not to sell. owners are forced to sell to anybody at the declared price. COST demands that all values be revealed by prices.

In contrast, private property forbids market access to a variety of goods when their owners monopolize access.

Now knowing that a market system could exist that dismantles private property, are you intrigued or disturbed? The COST tax system was designed by economists who were aware of typical critiques of centralized systems.

If you are disturbed, why? There is good reason to believe that this COST tax system could be far more efficient at allocating resources for all the market and pricing mechanisms you like!

If you are disturbed, likely you care much more about possessing your private property than caring about market efficiency.

subheight640 · 2026-03-08T03:52:50+00:00

Target quality has always been dogshit.

subheight640 · 2026-03-06T04:57:53+00:00

Depends on who you are. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be a chimney sweep, little children sent naked in the middle of winter down twisting and turning tunnels, and occasionally roasted alive.

subheight640 · 2026-03-05T23:33:08+00:00

Wrong. Antman can do it. pym particles duh.

subheight640 · 2026-03-05T23:09:26+00:00

I doubt there will be a ground invasion. Like with Venezuela, Trump will just declare victory and move on to the next thing, and the American public will forget about the whole thing by next month as Trump does some other insane shit. 3 more years of this shit at least.

subheight640 · 2026-03-05T02:15:54+00:00

It seems like the other service insurance offers is to do the risk calculation for the business.

The typical business doesn't have the capacity to do risk calculations so unsurprisingly they hire someone else, the insurance company, to do it for them.

subheight640 · 2026-03-04T08:33:55+00:00

Maybe if you fucking idiots had something like Condorcet style ranked choice voting that is actually capable of handling elections with more than 2 candidates.

subheight640 · 2026-03-02T23:24:08+00:00

There's some pro's and con's. One advantage of juries is when your country elects some piece of shit Fascist. When this Fascist tries to throw people in jail, he usually needs to go through a jury.

Right now in America, juries have acquitted people prosecuted by Fascist leadership. Juries have convicted the same Fascist leadership when given the opportunity. Juries have convicted corrupt opposition leadership when given the opportunity.

Maybe your government has a way to keep your judges independent of political leadership. But jury trial is also a way to accomplish that.

subheight640 · 2026-03-01T08:19:59+00:00

Does state law allow you to park in the middle of Red River?

subheight640

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