All of Pazzaz's Comments + Replies

Being against kids dying isn’t a partisan issue.

Of course it is, Trump paused the program and Biden didn't. The reason that Trump paused the program is that he doesn't want to spend money on the program. He would rather spend money on other things, probably domestically on things in the US and on tax cuts. That's his whole agenda: America First. He doesn't care about other countries or the people in those countries. Thinking that both parties care about babies dying in some far away country is just hopeful thinking.

I’ll be rooting for Anora, but wow the awards process is dumb when you actually look at it.

If you want to dislike the awards process even more then you can read anonymous interviews from jury members, which make it clear that some in the jury don't watch that many movies and are generally uninformed – assuming the interviews aren't faked, as anonymous interviews easily are.

Also, I disliked Anora so I'll be rooting against it. :)

I don't usually comment about politics (or much of anything else) here so I don't really know how what I should write in these comments, but I think this is more about people wanting to know what Trump supporters are thinking than about determining what they are and aren't right about. If I was trying to prove whether or not my interpretation is correct I supposed I would do this differently.

Sorry for badgering you so much, I've appreciated the discussion. Some of the other Trump supporters here seemed to have very weird beliefs and values, but your val... (read more)

He was saying the election did not actually get held properly and that changes things.

No, it does not. Laws, regulations and the constitution exists in a society in order to coordinate behavior among it's citizens. Laws, regulations and the constitution does not assume that everyone follows the law. In fact, it does the opposite, it assumes that people will break laws, that people will break regulations and that people will go against the constitution. That's why there are mechanisms to punish people who go against them. You cannot terminate the consti... (read more)

I don't know what Trump actually thinks, and neither do you, but we seem to disagree strongly on it anyway. I don't want to try to read your mind, but that part is at least very obvious.

I don't care that much about what's in his mind. I care what he has done, what he has said and what he will do. The precise motivations don't matter that much to me.

What if Trump said "God showed himself to me and he said the vote was rigged"? As an agnostic who trusts Trump, maybe you would think it was true. But should that matter? No, because godly revelations is not ... (read more)

They certainly looked suspicious enough in some cases that they should have been investigated.

Yes, I also think it's important to investigate those things. And the US government agrees, which is why they investigated them. But they didn't find much, because the election wasn't stolen.

I think that many of the actions by the Democrats were done in the way they were because they didn't know whether or not there was rampant cheating causing these anomalies and didn't want to know, and that Republicans were far too sure about what they think happened based

You say "send it back to the states" but what would that mean? Every state held their own election. No state found any proof of fraud (at least not enough to impact the outcome). So they all verified the results. Then they sent their electors to Washington. For Trump to then say "the states should decide" doesn't make much sense, because they already did decide. They decided he lost. Now maybe he meant that every state should have a reelection, but that would go against a bunch of (federal and state) laws, rules and the constitution, so that would be bad. ... (read more)

For those who prefer text form, Richard Hanania wrote a blog post about why he would vote for Trump: Hating Modern Conservatism While Voting Republican.

Basically, he believes that Trump is a threat to democracy (because he tried to steal the 2020 election) while Kamala is a threat to capitalism. And as a libertarian, he cares more about capitalism than democracy.

Redoing elections that aren't held would be required despite that not being in the constitution (because the electors must be selected), and you could make the argument that one where the result cannot be known would be the same. I assume (obviously mindreading is often faulty) that is what Trump would have been talking about if he was more of an analytical speaker rather than an emotive one.

Yes, redoing the election would probably be a good thing to do, if there was evidence of widespread fraud. But Trump doesn't see that as the only option. The full "... (read more)

I think you are missing something. The lawsuits were fine, though maybe a little silly as most of them were thrown out because of lack of standing. I'm thinking more of the "fake elector plot", where Trump pressured Mike Pence to certify fake electors on Jan 6 (as Pence said: "choose between [Trump] and the constitution"). I think trying to execute that plan was wrong, because if they would have succeeded then Trump would have stolen the election.

And Trump may not have supported everything the J6 rioters did, but he was the reason that they were there. He ... (read more)

People often say one of the reasons they won't vote for Trump is his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. What is your view on that?

Trump has certainly contributed to the amount of distrust the latter are now feeling, of course. Though I'm personally struggling to say whether this was due to his positioning alone, or (at least in part) thanks to an increasingly larger portions of the "machine" actively weaponizing more and more of its metaphorical antibodies against the threat of his highly unwarranted "invasion".

I think one thing you're missing is the huge right-wing media ecosystem, the part of the "machine" that supports Trump, even spreading lies to support him. Take for example... (read more)

The "Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986" was passed by Ronald Reagan, a Republican, so probably not an attempt by democrats to get votes.

I believe the most likely interpretation of the events is that Trump was not actually trying to steal the elections but to make most Republicans believe that the victory was stolen from him so that he could have another chance in 2024.

Where are you getting this interpretation? He is not saying this, no one around him is saying this. He says that the 2020 election was rigged. He says that it was so rigged that ... (read more)

Thanks for answering but I don't get it. I think trying to steal an election is really bad. Is it just that Trump didn't succeed that makes the difference?

And I don't really know what you refer to when you say "Democrat's use of illegal immigration to boost their vote". I know illegal (and legal) immigrants tend to lean democrat, but illegal immigrants can't vote. Is there some study looking at demographic patterns or so? What are the immigration policies of democrats that you think is wrong, and do you have a problem with legal immigration, as that helps ... (read more)

The bill was a bipartisan bill though. As described by republican James Lankford:

It is interesting: Republicans, four months ago, would not give funding for Ukraine, for Israel and for our southern border because we demanded changes in policy, [..] And now, it’s interesting, a few months later, when we’re finally getting to the end, they’re like, 'Oh, just kidding, I actually don’t want a change in law because it’s a presidential election year.'

It's effect would have been to improve the border. That's why there were republicans who wanted it passed, be... (read more)

So the problem is just that it wouldn't help him win? So if threatening Pence with a gun would have made him president, and the supreme court said that he was immune from criminal prosecution, it wouldn't affect if you'd vote for him again? (Ignoring that it would be his third term.)

This comment is just confusing me even more. If you found out that Trump threatened Mike Pence with a gun to try to force him to count Trump's electors, would that be bad? You would prefer if Trump won, so that sounds like a good thing for him to do, right? But maybe you think it's bad for presidents to threaten people with guns, so you think it's bad. Can you answer what you think about this hypothetical?

So someone who doesn't agree with democrats hasn't thought through what they think? That doesn't sound right. I already said I disagree with the policy and how it's implemented. I just think there are other things which are a lot more important.

And I don't think choosing (2) is that weird, I just think it matters a lot what the process is to "filter out" people. Trump has said that he wants to make every executive branch employee fireable by the president. That gives a lot of power to the president, which I think is bad. I think it's good if the government... (read more)

I don't know why you are bringing up the 1876 election, when that was before the Electoral Count Act, which sets the procedure for electoral votes that was used in 2020.

I'm still a little confused.

1. Do you think it would be fine if 2016 electors changed their votes so that Trump lost?
   1. Does it depend on if it was legal?
2. Do you think it would be fine if Trump would have succeeded with his plans in 2020?
   1. Does it depend on if it was legal?

The problem is that these questions depend a lot on the details. I don't know much about the impact of DEI statements or how they are used. I mean, the Biden/Harris administration doesn't have a policy which is "anti-DEI scientists should be fired" or even "NSF grants should require DEI statements". The NSF just has the mission "to promote the progress of science, to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare, and to secure the national defense". That's really vague, and now the Biden/Harris administration has passed some vague executive orders. ... (read more)

It would probably be more constructive if we focus on one issue at a time, so I suggest we finish this topic before discussing others.

Okay.

I see all of these decision of deciding what to fund and how to fund them as political. I mean, during the last century a lot of marine research was done through the military, and that shaped what kind of research was done, and which people could do it (probably not anti-war people). I see all of these things as changing government priorities and not restrictions on freedom of speech or conscience.

On the topic of DEI... (read more)

Sorry for writing two comments, but I'm really curious of some ground beliefs, because it feels a little silly to talk about specific policy proposals without mentioning the - in my mind - biggest reason not to vote for Trump: he tried to steal the last election.

More specifically, he said after the election that the election was rigged against him. He had a bunch of court cases which sought to prove that the election was rigged against him, and pretty much every case was proven false. Then when his vice president were to certify electors from the state, Tr... (read more)

Well the reason I didn't think of DEI statements and such is because that's not really something Trump talks about much, right? He mostly talks about immigration (cats and dogs!), Ukraine, inflation, etc. So I don't know much about it.

Also, I don't really see DEI statements as a restriction on "freedom of speech" or "freedom of conscience". If I understand correctly, it's that grants by NSF to institutions have to have a section explaining their DEI initiatives. And sure you can disagree if that should be a factor, and maybe you think it's stupid to have a... (read more)

I agree empirical observations are generally more reliable than theoretical argument.

• But higher tariffs does in general increase inflation right? And he didn't influence the Fed that much during his administration, but if he did then it would make the economy worse, right? And it wasn't higher during the Biden/Kamala administration because of price-controls, right?
• Yes, I agree that it was lower. But when voting you don't vote for outcomes, you vote for people who have policies which affect outcomes. When politicians tried to improve the border, Trump to

Technical feedback on the website:

• Scrolling changes the URL. This is bad because then the browser history gets filled with the website multiple times, and trying to return to the previous page is very cumbersome.
• If someone's image doesn't load, then it's blank and you can't see that there's someone there. There should be some default picture. You're not hosting the image, so it could be unable to load if the host moves or removes the image, or if the user uses some kind of tracking protection (e.g. Firefox blocks many Twitter images).

I can argue some:

• Economy Well that obviously depends on what you mean with "price controls". None of the candidates give that much details on their economic policies, but Harris has mostly focused on anti-price gouging legislation. Now maybe you disagree with this legislation, but you have to compare it to Trumps economic policies: he wants to increase tariffs drastically, which would increase inflation. He also wants the Fed to be less independent, which could cause them to prioritize short term politics, which would be bad for the long term economy.
• Im

Yeah maybe. I tried to write what I think is true, but from the perspective of someone with different values. If I included things I didn't think were true then that feels like I'm mocking Trump supporters and I don't want to do that. For example: "The democrats are letting in immigrants who are eating cats and dogs, people's pets. Trump would stop this". Obviously it's a belief held by MAGAs, and if it was true then it's a good argument to vote for Trump. But I don't think it's true, and therefore it's a very bad argument.

Here's a steelman:

• Abortion If you believe abortion is immoral, then Trump's greatest accomplishment during his last term was to appoint conservative supreme court judges which gave the ability to ban abortion to the states. This lead to several states placing heavy restrictions on abortions. If Trump wins again, abortion might even be restricted nationally, as Trump has declined to say whether he'll veto such a bill.
• Immigration The US has seen an increase in illegal immigration during Biden's presidential term. There are many factors that influenced thi

Well, all of the questions are binary so they either happen or don't happen. They may not be sampled from some "objective" distribution, but you can still assign subjective probabilities to them. Just write how likely you think they are to happen.

Swedish perspective: It's pretty funny seeing these biscuits praised as some kind of perfect recipe/secret treasure when it's one of the most common biscuits here. And when I say common I don't mean that they can be found in stores or cafés (though they sometimes can) but that it's something many people make at home. I think the reason that they aren't more common in stores is that they taste much better when they are warm; from the oven. The stores can't compete with that.

The recipe I'm used to is pretty similar to yours (from the famous Our Cookbook) but without the ginger or salt.

So instead of a disclaimer saying that a tweet is false, we'll now have a market saying that it probably will be declared false in the future. Then later the tweet will be declared 100% false and the market would close. But I don't see why you would trust the final result any more than the disclaimer. If you don't trust the social media companies then the prediction market just becomes "what people think social media companies will think" which doesn't solve the problem.

Edit: I missed that future users would vote to decide what the true outcome was but my ... (read more)