China’s presence in Africa is not colonialism, and African nations know what they are doing in participating
Conversation
One Belt, One Road is a fragile initiative and will fail to meet Chinese objectives
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50
Gonna start numbering.
12. Aung San Suu Kyi’s career is proof that the Nobel Peace Prize is purely expedient virtue signaling by the West to bolster legitimacy of its shaky claim to global moral leadership. It should be shut down, and endowment returned as a dividend to Swedes.
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13. The correct response to all things GOP and Trump is “ok boomer”, obstruction, and running out their clock. They are beyond redemption.
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14. Flight 93/Michael Anton justification for supporting Trump is stupid and people who bought it were and are delusional
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21
15. Climate change is real
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72
16. Vaccines are good
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80
17. Identity tribes are not meaningful units of natural selection and people who believe they are are dumb
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64
18. Gangsterism is a better basis for politics than purist ideology
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19. “People of color” is a terrible term and I refuse to use it
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101
Replying to
21. San Francisco is not worth fixing and should be allowed to suffer the consequences of being itself by being systematically abandoned
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114
22. High inequality is not a cosmically righteous outcome of enlightened market economics and innovation-fueled growth and people who believe that merely lack the theological imagination to worship something more interesting than financial wealth
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105
23. Everybody should give me money
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24. Seattle is the best-run major US city
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25. Euthanasia and assisted suicide should be easy and legal
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70
26. The Great Awokening has turned cancerous and should be abandoned
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27. Classical liberalism is a clueless position and people espousing it should be ignored and kept away from anything important
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28. The Electoral College is not a fundamental problem. Just a delaying ofvthe inevitable.
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29. Plastic is good
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30. Cat people make for better political leaders but dog people are more electable
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31. Singapore is a fun place to visit but a terrible model polity no matter what your ideology
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32. Political Islam is an overblown threat because it does 2x damage to itself in its territorial dar-al-islam core for every 1x damage it attempts to inflict on dar-al-harb, making it a self-limiting problem that will decline with the oil economy
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33. Latin America is politically the most ridiculous continent
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34. Anyone pretending to have more than 3 real political opinions is making shit up for lulz or delusionally self-important because politics is too hard to develop more than 3 real opinions in a lifetime
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100
35. Liberal democracy is still the best system of politics
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36. Cosmopolitanism is more enlightened than nationalism
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37. China under the CPP is not a credible ideological competitor to the West outside of China and will never enjoy the kind of soft power the US-led West once did, or even the level that South Korea enjoys today
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38. Russia is not a coherent political actor but a geopolitical shitposter
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Hitting pause for tonight. Will drive towards 100 in a couple more session over the next week.
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39. Being basic and being based are actually the same thing if you squint a bit
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40. The Nehru-Gandhi family should be ashamed of itself, take partial responsibility for turning the BJP into an unchecked force, and withdraw from public life.
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41. The EU was a good idea and an important and brave experiment, whatever its ultimate fate
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42. Georgism is a good idea that Homo sapiens is not an enlightened enough species to put into practice
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43. Politics is essentially a digital computer (as in support for people or policies is fundamentally 0/1), public political debate is meaningless, nuance kills agency, and the only way to influence it is to prepare new 0/1 options in private settings
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44. Boris Johnson is smarter than Donald Trump
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45. If, after thoughtful consideration, you still think a nation can be meaningfully analogized to a household, you're an authoritarian
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46. All interesting politics now takes place in groups <30 in size. Above that scale is all zombie egregores.
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47. QE is the monetarist equivalent of MAGA
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48. States/provinces are the worst political unit, worse than both cities and nations
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49. All ideologies are the products of people resentful about either being unable to get into, or out of, dying cushy institutions, not values or ideals
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