[ExI] Trump on ​linear induction motors ​

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 4:12 PM, Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com>
wrote:


> ​>> ​
>> 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.
>
>
> ​> ​
> We don't decide that -- not in any meaningful way.
>

​Some of us tried to, some of us didn't.​


​> ​
> It's a mug's game to think that power can be so concentrated and somehow
> it will be unlikely for someone bad to grab hold of it. Constantly ignoring
> this problem too is like arguing who should captain the Titanic after the
> iceberg hit.
>

​And that would have been a meaningful argument because a better captain
would have made sure the lifeboats were not half full when he launched
​them but would instead have overfilled them which could have been safely
done in such a glass smooth calm sea.

​There are bad situations and there are worse situations and there is a
difference between the two.​


> ​> ​
> Do you believe someone power-hungry like Clinton would be better?
>

​Of course she would have been better and so would you and so would
everybody on this list! But don't get too bigheaded over that complement,
being a better presadent than Trump is setting a very low bar.


> ​> ​
> Why?
>

​Because she's not ignorant, not jaw
droppingly​
​
​stupid, and because
she is not ​
Vladimir Putin
​'s puppet.
Oh and also because for her the truth was not a totally alien concept,
she'd actually been known to engage in truth telling on occasion, but Trump
is so accustomed to lying he will do it automatically even when the truth
would serve his interests better.

​>​
> Let's try an analogy. Yes, some dictators are worse than others. That,
> however, should never be an argument for dictatorship.
>

​But it obviously is a argument that some dictators are worse than others!
So if you live in a dictatorship but had the opportunity to decide between
a bad dictator and a worse one the decision is obvious, or at least it
should be. I agree it's not the ideal solution but the perfect shouldn't be
the enemy of the better because you're never going to live in a perfect
world. Perfect is out of reach, you're just going to have to settle for
better.


> ​> ​
> Some masters treated their slaves worse than others too. I trust you
> wouldn't have argued for merely having better masters over abolishing
> slavery.
>

​But I would argue that because ​some
 masters treated their slaves worse than others
​some slaves were less miserable than others, and I would prefer to be one
of the less miserable ones.​

​> ​
> There were reasons not to want Clinton in that you have ignored. When I
> talked to folks here in Seattle who didn't want her in,
>

​They ​must have been hard to find in
Seattle
​, that's Clinton country,​

​> ​
> none of them mentioned her insecure email server.
>

​That certainly wasn't the case on this list.​

​It all seems comically trivial now. ​


> ​> ​
> They feared her militarism, her love of police power, and her coziness
> with corporate elites.
>

​And the fools ​
actually thought Trump would score better on that ?! Or maybe they thought
they made some sort of grand historical gesture by voting for the
Libertarian guy who's name now escapes me as it has to nearly everyone in
the country. Oh well
I guess you can find fruitcakes everywhere even
​in ​
Seattle
​.​
​

​
>> ​> >​
>> 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.
>
>
> ​> ​
> Where have I said that? Reread what I wrote. Do I have to explain it to
> you? I want the military abolished. Is that clear?
>

​No that is not clear, if It were I'd understand why you didn't seem to
care that somebody who felt almost the exact opposite of everything you
believe in would be the most powerful person in the world because the
alternative was not perfect. Perhaps you're too perfect for this world but
I am not.​


​>​
>  the numbers support you here. Defense spending went down under Obama for
> several years.  It by a huge amount -- and, no doubt, some of this was
> merely pulling more forces out of Iraq.
>

​Merely? In our everyday macro-world  ​(lets not involve quantum mechanics
in the discussion right now) things always happen for a reason, and what
happened is the US military budget went down. Don't expect that to happen
under Trump.

​John K Clark​




>
>
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