[ExI] Trump on ​linear induction motors ​

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 12:07 PM, Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com>
wrote:

​> ​
> Political power simply shouldn't exist.
>

​D
eath
​ shouldn't exist either​
, but at the moment I'm more concerned with does or doesn't than should or
shouldn't.
​ ​
That's why I got so frustrated in the debate before the election when
people
​kept ​
telling m
​e​
they were voting for the Libertarian or not voting at all because nobody
should have that much power; but it was always clear as a bell that
somebody *WILL* have
​that​
 much​
power and the only
​control​
 we had on November 8 was
​to decide ​
if that somebody was a imbecile or not. To my mind the correct choice was
obvious
​ and it was to most American voters too, but unfortunately not to the
Electoral College, so despite not having a majority or even a plurality of
people behind him the imbecile became Presadent.    ​



> ​> ​
> But do you think there should be anyone with such overwhelming power?
>

​No of course not! But my opinion matters little, like it or not the fact
is somebody *DOES* have such ​
overwhelming power
​ and that is very unlikely to change before the Singularity. And the thing
that terrifies me most is that a airhead like Trump has the power to make a
Singularity happen​ in the very next hour, but not the sort of Singularity
we usually talk about on this list.

​> ​
> This isn't like the president simply has a tiny bit more power than you or
> me. Instead, she or he can order the death of millions. Such power is
> dangerous...
>

​Yes it most certainly is dangerous, and it's even ​more dangerous if the
man with that much power is so stupid he couldn't poor water out of a boot
if the instructions were printed on the heel.

​> ​
>  it's foolish to believe that such concentrated power existing in the
> first place will be unlikely to attract the wrong people
>

​
Yes
​ but there is no bottom to wrong. There are insecure Email server type
wrong people and there are ​
Chicxulub
​ extinction event type wrong people.​ We ended up with
Chicxulub
​.

​> ​
> The elite's desire will not likely go away, but can't each of us at least
> try to undermine the means?
>

​No please don't try, not if you think increasing ​the defense budget by 78
billion dollars will decrease the elite's desire to project force.

​> ​
> Why would _you_ want imperial subjects kept in line? You want to live
> under a well-oiled authoritarian regime?


​
That wasn't the question I was addressing , it was "are aircraft carriers
technologically obsolete?". And my answer was no.

​> ​
> When was the last time the military budget actually went down?


​The answer is 2010 under Obama, the US ​
military budget
​ has gone down every year since then. ​It was
20.
​1%​
of the federal budget
​or 4.6% of
gross domestic product
​ ​i
n 2011
​, but only 15.9%
​
​
of the federal budget
​or 3.3% of
gross domestic product
​ in 2015.

John K Clark






>
>
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