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- cross-posted to:
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So far, every country in the world has had one of two responses to the Trump tariffs. The first one is: “Give Trump everything he asks for (except Greenland) and hope he stops being mad at you.” This has been an absolute failure. Give Trump an inch, he’ll take a mile. He’ll take fucking Greenland. Capitulation is a failure.
But so is the other tactic: retaliatory tariffs. That’s what we’ve done in Canada (like all the best Americans, I’m Canadian). Our top move has been to levy tariffs on the stuff we import from America, making the things we buy more expensive. That’s a weird way to punish America! It’s like punching yourself in the face as hard as you can, and hoping the downstairs neighbor says “Ouch!”
And it’s indiscriminate. Why whack some poor farmer from a state that begins and ends with a vowel with tariffs on his soybeans. That guy never did anything bad to Canada.
But there’s a third possible response to tariffs, one that’s just sitting there, begging to be tried: what about repealing anticircumvention law?
If you’re a technologist or an investor based in a country that’s repealed its anticircumvention law, you can go into business making disenshittificatory products that plug into America’s defective tech exports, allowing the people who own and use those products to use them in ways that are good for them, even if those uses make the company’s shareholders mad.
It’s obviously the right idea, Cory’s been saying it to anyone who will listen for months if not years, but it would depend on governments doing something. How can it possibly happen then, if there aren’t powerful corporate interests hiring lobbyists to say it in a way that politicians can hear?
I’m not sure how far you read, but he argues that it would only take one country’s legislature to set this off and reap the rewards of nurturing a fully open alternative to the US big-tech stack.
With the US pissing off pretty much everyone else and losing allies by the day, it will only be a matter of time before the doors are blown open on this.
It’s a speech. He has a hypothesis at best, and expertly lays out one way for it to go.
If one country did it, they’d try to give them the Venezuela treatment.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the overall concept has incredible legs, but the finer details of tit-for-tat and retaliation aren’t quite fleshed out.
It’s why things have to happen in a certain order. You can’t do the more aggressive economic actions against the US until after certain conditions are in place. First you need to cut dependency on the US for anything essential. Food and strategic resources like aluminum, steel, and energy. You also need a strong enough military to make any US military action costly for the US.
Once those conditions are met you can take further action. Hitting the US tech sector is more of a middle option. Manipulating the US bond market is the nuclear option.
Currently these options aren’t on the table since the US can kick out the legs of that table if you tried to play those cards. But many things are quietly changing around the world while Americans are obsessing over Epstein files, Trump playing battleship, and Hegseth and Rubio fucking around with tinpot South American dictators.
But many things are quietly changing around the world by Americans
Trump is not a lone mad man. Consider that the US can have coordinated their steps with western elites. E.g. why else would they have reacted indifferent to Venezuela?
You might well be right, but I don’t think enough time has passed to call this indifference just yet.
China is mad because it was already sourcing oil from there. Apparently, they had a contingent that met with M the day he was taken. So I don’t think their vague threat really counts in this scenario yet.
America does have a decent-sized military and someone at the head who needs to prove himself every time he’s challenged. Most countries don’t really like it at least on the basis that they’re next, but challenging him would be more likely to make them next.
These are the kind of things that take a long time to iron out. If they’re going to do something about it, they’re going to wait until a few others start to do things about it.
Be the change you want to see: start lobbying government for it.
“Say it in a way politicians can hear” means bribes. You got politician bribe money sitting around? I don’t.
It surprises me from time to time just how cheap some of these politicians sell out for. If I could get together with my neighbours all contributing $50 and buy a legislator or two, we could probably get funds for a stadium.
“The former Royal Bank of Scotland submitter who was offered sushi rolls in exchange for helping try to rig the Libor rate-setting process has been banned by the UK’s financial regulator.” https://www.ft.com/content/23868e36-0095-11e6-ac98-3c15a1aa2e62
Without being able to read that article, I choose to interpret that quote as if a renown personal chef was on offer for a number of years to provide world class sushi rolls whenever the mood strikes.
It’s worse than that. It was one batch of rolls, specifically yesterday’s rolls.
Read the Bloomberg Chats That Got a Former RBS Libor Trader Paul White Banned for Life - Business Insider – https://www.businessinsider.com/read-the-bloomberg-chats-that-got-a-former-rbs-libor-trader-paul-white-banned-for-life-2016-4
People can get arrogant enough to think that they won’t get caught.
Emmanuel Clase was a Major League pitcher making ~$5M per year. He got caught intentionally flubbing pitches for $5000. 5M a year gone now to get a few thousand dollars. Why would someone be that stupid?
Because they don’t think they’ll get caught.
No please, I have already had enough irritating news this year. I wish to live in the funnier version I created where Mr Ping stays within earshot of this trader guy and serves up some delicious rolls on request.
That’s because that’s actually just the down payment. The recurring comes from board seats and roles in name only later down the line.
Who wants a stadium, though? Those things are a blight.
Oh I hadn’t meant an actual stadium, moreso stadium-level money for public works That said, there are stadiums that are defacto multipurpose community centres. Those aren’t half bad.
This is just defeatism. Not all politicians are corrupt. And even corrupt ones also have to respond to other kinds of pressures, if those are strong enough. Defeatism is what makes democracy die.
Would you have $100 for your future? The population could bring the bribes.
You and a bunch of other people together do. You’re not changing anything on your own.
That’s the type of mentality that keeps individuals from even attempting to build a large gathering of like-minded people to actually push for a change. Yeah, I’m not doing any kind of damage by myself, but that should not keep me from trying, and asking others to also try. Fuck that defeatist mindset.
Get together with others and try, is my point. A current main issue is lack of attempts to coordinate efforts, and people talking like everything is an individual effort.
Yeah, he’s been doing this stuff since I first read about him in 2010 or so; yet now, thanks to Trump lol, things look differently.
… to the masses. That’s why we are getting chat control.