The EU’s position here seems entirely reasonable; they made certain concessions to the US in return for certain concessions in kind.

While the tariff rate they’re facing now is the same as what they agreed to, it’s also now the tariff rate that the US is applying globally. That means the EU is no longer receiving any special consideration, so why should they give any?

I would assume their legal theory is “Just fucking try to stop us”

He absolutely does not have the numbers to get this through congress. Across the aisle repubs and dems are mostly pro-business, pro-trade, and these tariffs don’t make an ounce of sense to any of them. Some GOP goons would vote for it just to make Trump happy, but way too many would rather protect their wealthy donors than protect the President. There’s not a lot of political future in making the Waltons unhappy.

Oh, is it that time of the month already?

For anyone who doesn’t know, this stuff happens all the time. It’s extremely routine, to the point where it doesn’t even get press coverage most of the time.

It’s not, like, good that Russia routinely tests NORAD response times. But it’s also not an indication of any sudden escalation. They’re just sampling data, like they always do.

The Germans have barely built any weapons for close to 80 years AFAIK.

You are joking, right?

Sure. It’s just probably not the primary cause in this case.

About half of all EU politics is “What are France and Germany arguing about this time?” They’re the old married couple of Europe.

Not everything is the US. Germany and France are more than capable of having beef on their own. There a few, uh, notable examples that come to mind.

You’re forgetting that the President of Norway personally refused to allow the Nobel committee to give him a peace prize, so now he’s incapable of thinking peaceful thoughts.

Again, we’re still in that “reading every over sentence” mode. For example, I say “hyper-advanced automation” and you reply claiming that “Good enough” automation is perfectly achievable. Yes. I know. I never said it wasn’t. I never said anything about good enough automation at all. And that kind of thing goes on throughout your response here.

By all means continue your conversation with whoever you think is making all these arguments, but they bare little resemblance to anything I’m saying, so there’s really no point in my responding any further.

It’s very clear that at this point, insofar as there is any logic at all to the decision making of people investing in Tesla (and there’s very little evidence of that), they’re evaluating it as a software company, not a car company.

I mean, I could point you to a few economics journalists who would argue otherwise. Ed Zitron’s been screaming about the downfall of AI for the last two years straight.

I feel like you’re only reading every other sentence of what I say. In this instance, you seem to have fixated on this part, but sailed right past the part where I said that there’s zero evidence that anyone can actually produce hyper-advanced automation. I never argued that it was a rational decision to go all in on this possibility, and that’s entirely clear from my previous comments.

Ed Zitron is completely correct, but he’s also making exactly the same argument I am; that these people cannot actually achieve the technological revolution they are promising. That doesn’t change the fact that, if their wish granting genie was real, it would basically have unlimited upside. The problem is not how they’re pricing the outcome, the problem is how they’re evaluating the probability of achieving the outcome.

unless you’re just hand-waving and predicting 10-20x growth over the next decade.

That’s exactly what they’re doing.

The problem is that hyper-advanced automation is essentially unpriceable. When your potential market penetration is “replace all human labour” your profit potential is infinite.

The real is issue is not how they’re pricing the potential upside, its that none of these companies have remotely demonstrated that they have the ability to actually produce that upside. It’s an entire industry shilling a fantasy on the back of some very impressive sales demos.

It’s very clear that at this point, insofar as there is any logic at all to the decision making of people investing in Tesla (and there’s very little evidence of that), they’re evaluating it as a software company, not a car company.

This seems to be largely based on the notion that Tesla is the world leader in self-driving, and poised to become the world leader in other areas of automation. And that would, admittedly, mostly justify their very high share price, if there was literally any evidence it was true. Of course, what they actually have is a self-driving system that is only number one in fatalities caused, and a bunch of faked demos of robots made using low paid remote operators.

Tesla is easily the single best demonstration of how fucked our economic system really is. That a company can so blatantly lie, over and over, about what their products can actually do, and somehow continue to see their share price increase tells you everything you need to know about how utterly fictitious the entire notion of the stock market is.

My wife and I played Haven back before we got married, and never got around to finishing it. Really ought to dust that game off again. Playing it as a couple was really fun, and actually helped us to learn things about each other.

You know what’s wild? The answer that immediately comes to mind is Warframe.

Genuinely, I’m not remotely joking, Warframe has some of the best video games romance I’ve ever encountered.

Two things really stand out to me about the conversations in Warframe.

First, the things they learn about you are often just as important as the things you learn about them. The article talks about the process of two people figuring out how they fit into each other’s lives, and that’s exactly what you get with Warframe. You need to actually show that you can be someone they can love, as well as simply showing interest in them.

Secondly, and I think maybe more importantly; most of the conversations in Warframe don’t feel “important.” They all are. But most of them are about comparatively trivial things. A lot of it is literally just people sharing shower thoughts, or jokes, or talking about dumb shit, or getting things off their brains. But how you handle those interactions matters just as much, if not more, than the heavy stuff.

Also, the way the characters interact feels distinct and different. Amir, the most obvious case of ADHD in the universe, writes five messages for every one of yours (these conversations all happen through “Not MSN Messenger”), and most of the time what he needs is for you to just listen while he unloads all the chaotic shit in his brain. Eleanor, the journalist, writes long, carefully formed sentences with correct punctuation and grammar. She poses questions, prods and pries, tries to dig secrets out of you. Aoi will sometimes just send you a string of emojis, and will be delighted if you reply the same way. She likes to be silly, but more importantly she needs to just know that you’re there and you cared enough to reply. It’s the written equivalent of squeezing someone’s hand. Some characters will pester you, others are more likely to wait for you to talk first. There’s a unique dynamic with each of them.

They wouldn’t be talking openly about cancelling elections, but they’d certainly be discussing it internally. And you’ll notice that the rest of the administration isn’t talking openly about it. Trump is, because he’s a raging ball of id who’s too stupid to keep his mouth shut. Important distinction there.

And remember, we’re talking about optics, which means whether or not they actually pulled ICE out of Minnesota is irrelevant. What matters is that they felt the need to say they’re pulling out. Why would they, if they didn’t care about what people think?

Don’t ever get drawn into the trap of thinking that authoritarians don’t need to care about public opinion. All governments ultimately exist by the consent of the governed. Democracy just turns that process into a formalized and largely bloodless one. There is no amount of tyranny that can keep a government in power if a sufficiently large portion of the populace doesn’t want them in power.

And Trump’s regime has not even achieved tyranny yet. They’re working on it, very hard and at a terrifying pace. But they can only get there if people let them.

They absolutely care about optics. That’s why they’re talking about cancelling the midterms in the first place. That’s why they’re pulling ICE out of Minnesota. That’s why they’re trying to cover up the Epstein files.

They wouldn’t lie so much if the truth wasn’t dangerous. Never forget that.

“This thing cannot be understood.”

Actually it can if you just pay attention to X, Y and Z.

“Ahah, you fool! I knew that all along. I just pretended I didn’t understand because that makes me look smart!”

OK? Whatever floats your boat, bud. You have fun with that.

Sure, but that just puts the administration in a double bind.

If they appeal to the idea that actually its still a war even without a formal declaration, that means that there have been dozens of elections held during “Wartime.”

If they try to go the other way, that means they need to actually get a formal declaration of war, which hands the power back to Congress. In no way shape or form does Trump want to do that. And even if he did, they’d still have to explain how this constitutes a greater crisis than WW2, which didn’t get in the way of holding elections.

If you can’t figure out the common element there, you’re really not paying attention to what’s actually going on.

It’s cost of living. Under Biden inflation skyrocketed. Now, that wasn’t really his fault, it was mostly a byproduct of stuff that happened before he got into office.

But what was his fault is how he tried to sweep it under the rug. Biden and Harris ran a campaign centered on how great the economy was. They trotted meaningless statistics and promised to change absolutely nothing. Trump, meanwhile promised to change everything.

People dying of cancer will frequently try all sorts of phony miracle cures, because why the fuck not? On the staggeringly unlikely chance that it works, you’re saved. And if it doesn’t work, so what? You were fucked before, you’re fucked after. What have you lost?

They voted for Trump because what did they have to lose? The last four years destroyed their ability to support themselves, and Biden / Harris essentially promised that the beatings would continue. “What would I change? Not a thing.” So fuck it, vote for the idiot lunatic. Maybe things will get better? How can they possibly get worse?

I’m not calling this a good decision. But it’s a decision they made for reasons that really aren’t that hard to figure out. They voted for Obama because he promised to make things better. They voted for Bernie because he promised to make things better. They voted for Trump because he promised to make things better.

We’re seeing the same play out today. Those same voters are sick of Trump’s bullshit, and they’re voting in people like Mamdani.

It’s not some ineffable mystery of the universe. It’s cost of living, plain and simple.