nancylebov (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nancylebov) wrote2009-04-28 01:58 pm
nancylebov) wrote2009-04-28 01:58 pm
Outliving the US: the comments
The other day, I asked whether people expected to outlive the US, and got some very interesting replies.
The most noticeable similarity was that no one expected anything good to come of an end to the US, which probably supports the idea that the US is very stable.
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tahkhleet posted a substantial core dump about politics and the state of the culture. I'm feeling rather swamped. This is unfair. Overloading people is *my* job.
Still, I'm going to pick out some bits. However, I recommend reading the whole thing.
Is Obama genuinely that awful? I'm disappointed that he isn't prosecuting those responsible for torture (and NPR did a bit about how he used the word torture before he was elected, but has dropped it since then). Is he letting *everything* important slide?
I'd have thought he's at least smart enough to take a lesson from what Katrina did to Bush's reputation.
Two "do my homework" questions:
Are his foreign policy advisors really all hawks?
How did he handle things when he was a community organizer? Did he get useful work done?
Slightly different angle about the financial elite: One of my friends believes that credentialism is part of the problem. The most likely way to get one of those very well-paid jobs is to be totally focused on the exhausting work of getting the right degrees. Aside fromtahkhleet's point that only someone who's got bad values will be willing to do the work, getting the credentials means being totally focused on incentives rather than paying attention to the larger system.
Back to my pov: Having a system which makes room for competence is a very subtle problem. If people are totally shielded from consequences, whoever is good at social climbing will get the rewards, and the quality of work goes to hell. If there is too much effort to make sure the right thing is done, people game the measurement system, and the work goes to heck.
Genocide: I've been wondering for a while whether I'll see a nation commit auto-genocide (over 75% of population killed). It just seems as though people go nuts that way occasionally, and people are much more dependent on infrastructure than they used to be. Still, I don't know that the elites are dreaming of wiping a lot of the rest of us out, though worries about overpopulation can be read that way.
For purposes of this discussion, it isn't necessary that the elites would actually benefit from genocide, just whether enough of them strongly believe they would.
The most noticeable similarity was that no one expected anything good to come of an end to the US, which probably supports the idea that the US is very stable.
tahkhleet posted a substantial core dump about politics and the state of the culture. I'm feeling rather swamped. This is unfair. Overloading people is *my* job.Still, I'm going to pick out some bits. However, I recommend reading the whole thing.
Is Obama genuinely that awful? I'm disappointed that he isn't prosecuting those responsible for torture (and NPR did a bit about how he used the word torture before he was elected, but has dropped it since then). Is he letting *everything* important slide?
I'd have thought he's at least smart enough to take a lesson from what Katrina did to Bush's reputation.
Two "do my homework" questions:
Are his foreign policy advisors really all hawks?
How did he handle things when he was a community organizer? Did he get useful work done?
Slightly different angle about the financial elite: One of my friends believes that credentialism is part of the problem. The most likely way to get one of those very well-paid jobs is to be totally focused on the exhausting work of getting the right degrees. Aside from
tahkhleet's point that only someone who's got bad values will be willing to do the work, getting the credentials means being totally focused on incentives rather than paying attention to the larger system.Back to my pov: Having a system which makes room for competence is a very subtle problem. If people are totally shielded from consequences, whoever is good at social climbing will get the rewards, and the quality of work goes to hell. If there is too much effort to make sure the right thing is done, people game the measurement system, and the work goes to heck.
Genocide: I've been wondering for a while whether I'll see a nation commit auto-genocide (over 75% of population killed). It just seems as though people go nuts that way occasionally, and people are much more dependent on infrastructure than they used to be. Still, I don't know that the elites are dreaming of wiping a lot of the rest of us out, though worries about overpopulation can be read that way.
For purposes of this discussion, it isn't necessary that the elites would actually benefit from genocide, just whether enough of them strongly believe they would.
on these, I'll admit I may be unduly harsh
but I still question if giving Obama marks for them is any more appropriate than the automatic 'action items' for "base support" that Bush did in his regime. He did after all spend a fair bit of effort doing things that his base would approve of.
re: 4 Ok, I can't say anything genuinely bad about this. However, given that all he did is say "spend more money on this" I don't count it a work of great genius. Especially since his LACK of genius will thrust enough Americans into poverty that the odds are the program will go bankrupt.
5: Pretty stingy. I'll grant, Bush probably wouldn't do that. But the way he did this implies when the PRIME mortgage holders enter hell later this year he'll be tardy in helping them...if at all.
6: Too little. He's also talking about bailing out the credit card companies. If it goes like the banks is going to be an absolute mess which empowers the CCC's at the expense of their clients. He didn't do anything about payday loans, which make loan sharking look friendly (literally! 60-200% interest rates for loan sharking versus 1300% for payday loans!)
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews/idUSTRE53J6OR20090420 talks about how the CCC's feel they need to resist more regulation. So it doesn't seem their style has been cramped too much so far or it would be talking about repealing _existing_ regulations. Moreover the democrats before this point have not been exactly spirited in their defense of the consumer.