2024 US Election: Page 32 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

2024 US Election

Burnwinter

@Meatwad If you understood what it's like not to be from the States, you'd also understand why people who aren't from the States have opinions about the United States elections.

For example: Australia had a stupid deal to spend USD 300 billion on some nuclear submarines which were to be made in France. A few years ago the US diplomatic corps got to Australia's then leadership and convinced it to switch rails to something called AUKUS: a trilateral Australia-UK-US defence treaty under which the nuclear submarines would now be principally manufactured in the United States for 400 billion.

The parameters of the AUKUS deal are kinda absurd, like most US MIC deals: it's quite blatant the whole thing's wrapped up in a way that allows particular members of Senate and Congress to feather their own nests. Basically Australia transfers an enormous amount of state revenue to the United States—enough money to double the state funding of our education system for a decade—in return for some imaginary submarines.

The AUKUS deal caused a major diplomatic incident with France which was only patched up relatively recently. But now we hear what I could've already told you back when AUKUS was announced—the United States will not actually manufacture said submarines, or if it does, they will never be delivered to Australian control.

That's a stock standard example of how the United States treats its nominal allies.

This kind of thing should make it clear that, whatever your politics on the above, the operations of the United States empire have a vast material significance to the place I live. It is totally normal for people here to have opinions about the States including its elections, and we're going to keep doing it whether United States citizens like it or not.

Meatwad

Burnwinter
didn't have a problem with this thread until "incompetence". when i see shit like that i have to pop in and remind folk that hey it's one thing reading nonsense like that from people who can vote, another thing entirely with those who can't.

flobaba

Spot on Burns.

mdgoonah41

seems trump's nazi rally he held today at madison square garden might be backfiring slightly

Gazza M

consitutional crisis incoming. brazen about it too.

mdgoonah41

i mean, im pretty sure this is what hes angling at

If no candidate receives the majority of electoral votes, the vote goes to the House of Representatives.

This has happened twice. The first time was following the 1800 presidential election when the House chose Thomas Jefferson. And following the 1824 presidential election, the House selected John Quincy Adams as president.

a 269-269 tie is certainly possible (though very unlikely) and if it comes to that, each of the 50 states gets one vote, and republicans will likely control a majority of states.

the electoral college is a godawful system, but its in the constitution, so it cant just be changed by the speaker of the house.

Burnwinter

Meatwad Fair play, just shedding some light on it from my perspective. You're not the only US citizen to have expressed that view to me / around me over the years.

Burnwinter

I will say this, Twitter's a fucking joke now.

I shut down my main a couple of years ago, but I have a business account I use to read tweets (since that's rather hard without a login).

This low key business account has never tweeted anything but banal links relating to my technology expertise etc. Perhaps predictably, its "For You" timeline (the content recommended for it by X, as opposed to what it follows) includes a great deal of AI hype as well as tweets about software which have attracted a lot of engagement.

However, a large chunk, if not the majority of everything else that is recommended—I'd say as many as one tweet in four that gets recommended to this account overall—is modern day race science, eugenics advocacy and phrenology, Elon Musk and adjacent tweets, techno-fascism and other far right content, or pro-Trump stuff.

Twitter's overall direct influence may well have declined because its utility as a "de facto public square" is so deeply in question, but nothing else has effectively replaced it, and what is pushed on there is an absolute carnage of extreme right wing ideology, much of which is more disturbing than the usual rhetorical limits of the likes of Trump.

Gazza M

Burnwinter right now, the For You section of X-chan is a bolus of insanity. the comments section on any given post is a mixture of maga types, crypto scammers, onlyfans creators and bots. people are being buffeted by pure madness on there, but it seems like that was part of the plan

Burnwinter

Gazza M I do think the broader effect is as much to do with pulling whatever Twitter used to be (not great, but more functional) out of circulation as it is creating a platform with alternative values.

That said, I think people should be very worried by the type of ideology I have seen being normalised in and around US tech circles as they're currently represented on X.

It's viewed as a dire time for US big tech. There's been a prolonged period of layoffs, and a dip in the valuation of and questions about the business model of some major tech companies, and a long, deep dip in the success of VC-backed startups over the past couple of years.

It's all relative of course, but the days of it being relatively easier for Ivy League tech grads to secure a $300–400k pa FAANG salary are fading.

If anyone on OMITT remembers what nRx was back in 2014 (before it fell apart for the time being), some variation of those "neoreactionary" ideas now seems to verge on normal for a decent chunk of the higher profile US tech posters on X. It could be described as often extremely racist, always techno-optimist authoritarianism with a greater or lesser degree of modesty covering it up.

Having come across a lot of this content, I see Musk's antics as owner of the platform as the thin end of the wedge.

Gazza M

Burnwinter they're naked opportunists from what i can see. cosying up to the right in order to replace democratic institutions with a techno-oligarcy. if trump wins, musk will be plonked into the heart of government with authorities to gut whatever agencies oppose his agenda. I genuinely believe he's gone all-in on maga because he's running from accountability that would definitely arrive under a democrat administration

Burnwinter

Gazza M if trump wins, musk will be plonked into the heart of government with authorities to gut whatever agencies oppose his agenda.

I think this is slightly sensationalising it. I don't think Musk would have hiring and firing authority—based on past experience Trump aggressively brokers state influence to technology companies when in office, he doesn't give it away for free. Compare the current situation with his previous and current contract hijinks with Bezos and Amazon.

However, tech capital's interest in Trump's candidacy overlaps heavily with the prospect of a run-up start on huge federal contracts, as well as the continuation of subsidies many of Musk's companies have enjoyed.

If you google "Sovereign AI" (a recent speech by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang articulates this term) you can also see a major future prize looming into view: at least one of the major AI platforms being built in the USA is highly likely to become, in practice, the preferred supplier of AI to the feds. An unbelievably vast and for the time being, almost bulletproof piece of business for whichever company gets a hold of it.

Gazza M

Burnwinter it's not that sensationalist imo. Biden overturned the below EO, but this will be one of the first things on his agenda

In October 2020, the Trump Administration issued an executive order that would have stripped protections from civil servants perceived as disloyal to the president and encouraged expressions of allegiance to the president when hiring. This effort is referred to as “Schedule F” because that was the name of the new employment category that the executive order created. The administration claimed the authority to create Schedule F based on statutory language that exempted certain positions “of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character” from employment protections. Previous administrations and Congress always understood the language to apply only to a smaller number of positions traditionally filled by political appointees

Burnwinter

See also the National Security Council for Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI). Pretty sure I have mentioned this industry-government peak body on OMITT before, but if you take a look at what was leaked a few years ago under the name "the Chinese tech landscape" you will get an idea of how big tech presently lobbies the US administration for rents.

Burnwinter

Gazza M A broad spectrum purge of the federal bureaucracy is the substance of the Project 2025 initiative, which you'd think is something Trump would try to put into action, though I'd be curious to see how committed he'd actually be to it. I don't think that's outlandish.

What I'm suggesting sounds sensationalist is the claim that Trump would hand hiring and firing authority to third parties such as Musk.

I think Trump would be more likely to jealously guard that authority and only use it on behalf of vested interests based on specific agreements. There could however be some de facto agreement between Trump and Musk, or with other holders of capital about the Cabinet selection, or about the removal of specific regulations or officials, or the award of specific major contracts, and so on.

I really hope Trump doesn't win. I think a Trump victory would be very damaging to US state capacity independent of its uses. And I get the sense there would be less resistance from the establishment than there was in 2016.

Gurgen

A second Trump presidency would be much more dangerous than the first. The first time around he had various semi-sane people around him who actually tried to do their jobs but quickly found out he is an idiot. Now he is surrounded by psychopaths like Musk who play Diablo IV all day and are in league with the Kremlin. Trump himself is too lazy to destroy the country, he will just sit around eating Big Macs like before. However, the fascist incel tech bros like Elon aren't. Either way a Trump presidency is a disaster for the world at large, as foreign policy will go back to appeasing every dictator under the sun. I don't see why people outside the US aren't allowed to be worried by that. The US has its soldiers everywhere and has legislation that says it can invade my country if the ICJ dares to prosecute an American. Never mind the fact that all bullshit US culture wars are immediately imported into Europe. So we have a stake in this.

mdgoonah41

people outside the USA should obviously feel like they have an interest in US politics given how much we unnecessarily involve ourselves in the affairs of the entire world, and to be fair, how linked our consumption policies are to the rest of the world. that said, i'd just remind people who do not live here and have never lived here that its hard to understand the issues that people deal with on a daily basis that are impacted or potentially impacted by the election if youve never actually lived here, and if you are going to judge people's political beliefs, you should at least make sure you understand the issues they are concerned about.

i could comment on UK politics with a 30,000 foot view, but it would be pretty meaningless. ive visited the UK 4 or 5 times, never for more than 4 days, and ive never lived there, so its hard for me to speak meaningfully about issues impacting people in london or portsmouth or whatever. the situation in the US right now feels like a bomb about to explode, and the shrapnel is going to hit everyone, so its understandable that everyone is worried/has a take on it.

Burnwinter

mdgoonah41 the situation in the US right now feels like a bomb about to explode, and the shrapnel is going to hit everyone

I get your point, but if we're going to be doing a little judicious tone policing about sensitive political commentary, maybe the bomb and shrapnel metaphor isn't the best possible choice for you here.

flobaba

Eh, let everyone have their say. Americans are all about free speech no? If you think Kamala is or will be incompetent, you're welcome to your opinion.

In general I've found people get the leader they deserve. If Trump wins, that's what America (and the world) deserves, and will have to live with when (if) the time comes.

Gazza M

meanwhile in Australia, this is the level of scandale engulfing the leader of our nation

Anthony Albanese has broken his silence on the Qantas upgrade mess revealing an audit of his travel has confirmed he never directly called Qantas CEO Alan Joyce about upgrades for personal travel.
But crucially, the Prime Minister is not denying - as revealed by news.com.au - that he or his staff may have called Qantas’ government relations contacts or the Chairman’s Lounge “hotline” to book the flights with upgrades then offered by Qantas.
Instead, the Prime Minister is unequivocally denying for the first time that he ever personally liaised with Mr Joyce directly on the subject of upgrades for family holidays

the US needs to go back to the time when owning a peanut farm could potentially sink a presidency

MistaT

Gazza M — “Make Politics Boring Again” if you may

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