US 2024 Presidential Election

Chimpzy

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Corpo garbage lining up to curry favor. "Please don't fuck me with tariffs, daddy"

Tim Cook's check better be signed Tim Apple tho.

L is Real 2025
 
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Gordon_4

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Corpo garbage lining up to curry favor. "Please don't fuck me with tariffs, daddy"

Tim Cook's check better be signed Tim Apple tho.

L is Real 2025
Why do you donate to the inauguration? Like that's not even a partisan question; this is a basic function of government that should require no input or funding from anyone other than the government; the public's one act of support should be whether they show up or not. Or is there a nuance I'm missing?
 

Chimpzy

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Why do you donate to the inauguration? Like that's not even a partisan question; this is a basic function of government that should require no input or funding from anyone other than the government; the public's one act of support should be whether they show up or not. Or is there a nuance I'm missing?
They're not donating to the actual official inauguration itself. That is organised by the Joint Congressional Commitee on Inaugural Ceremonies, and paid for by the state with taxpayer money.

What these corpos are donating to is Trump's inaugural fund, a nonprofit entity that funds and organizes inaugural events outside of the official inauguration. You know, all the pomp and circumstance celebrations at the Mall in DC and such.

These funds can also accept limitless donations. The intent was to allow newly inaugurated presidents big blowouts without doing so at the taxpayers expense, but in practice are also used by donors to curry favor with the incoming administration. In this case, donating 1 mil buys face time with Trump.
 

XsjadoBlayde

~ just another dread messenger ~
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am hoping this isnt overlooked just cos am annoying messenger, cos is heavy and only ever more relevant for ppl wanting to know how the world geopolitically got where it's at today. A really informative podcast going over America's unacknowledged history of fucking the rest of the world over with systemic war crimes, destabilising leftist governments, enabling fascist dictator coups so long as they're willing to let international corporations drain their local resources all while generations of aggressive propaganda conditioned even the more educated, cynical/critical people into broad dismissive assumptions. Is well produced if it matters also.



^Korea^
Just sharing first of each season cos they cover different countries/moment in history the US funded horrors any reasonable one of us would condemn any other nation for doing - yet we aren't even at the stage of the government acknowledging any of it let alone admittance of wrongdoing. Reperations are relegated to a fucking high fantasy concept by now.


Iraq


Cuba


Afghanistan (All MGS references for titles here, huh)


Cambodia (the current ongoing season as of typing, up to episode 5? I think?)

State of our geopolitical world will make so much more sense afterwards, garunteed promise or you money back!

But it is bleak. Very very bleak.
 

Silvanus

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Corpo garbage lining up to curry favor. "Please don't fuck me with tariffs, daddy"
Speaking of which: Washington Post's cartoonist has resigned because they wouldn't let her publish a cartoon showing various industry/media figures (including Jeff Bezos) kneeling in front of the President-Elect.

 
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Silvanus

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While this is (mostly...*) true, Biden did get $1m apiece from Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

On the other hand: Biden's inauguration fund came to ~$61-62m. Trump's is over $200m.

*That 'mostly' is because while Google and Amazon gave much less to Biden than to Trump, these figures are still understatements. Google gave over 300k, not 200k.
 

Seanchaidh

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Yes, I know-- which is why it was so strange when you earlier indicated that actions can be moral/immoral regardless of consequence, depending on a wider rule.
If you do not accept that actions can be moral or immoral regardless of consequence-- at least in some cases-- then your moral system probably will deliver worse consequences and therefore should not be used. There are different kinds of cases where this happens. One of them is when someone intends to do something that is definitely immoral and it accidentally has good consequences. And the flip side of that: when someone does something that they have no way of foreseeing or reason to suspect that it will lead to something bad. Another is the perfectionism problem: all but the most optimal sequence of events is immoral despite it being impossible to know what that sequence is in the moment. Another is the problem of fault: doing something within your rights that results in some kind of unjustified harmful reaction by someone else. As I gestured at earlier, the problem of fault makes act utilitarianism tend toward acquiescing to tyranny, and the more uninhibited are the destructive impulses of the tyranny, the more subservient the act utilitarian must be toward it. Because the reprisal for resistance is a consequence. But you know not to blame the victim, so I can only conclude that you are not an act utilitarian. Not really. Or you have a philosophical problem to pretend to solve.
 

Silvanus

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If you do not accept that actions can be moral or immoral regardless of consequence-- at least in some cases-- then your moral system probably will deliver worse consequences and therefore should not be used. There are different kinds of cases where this happens. One of them is when someone intends to do something that is definitely immoral and it accidentally has good consequences. And the flip side of that: when someone does something that they have no way of foreseeing or reason to suspect that it will lead to something bad.
This is easily overcome by recognising that it is the decision we judge, and that such a judgement depends on the information available to the person at the time. All of which has already been covered.

This would only be a quandary if we were to judge it from a perspective of retrospective omniscience and assume the decider was in the same position, which is absurd.

Another is the perfectionism problem: all but the most optimal sequence of events is immoral despite it being impossible to know what that sequence is in the moment.
The perfectionism problem is applicable to some degree to pretty much all approaches to morality in which the individual lacks 100% complete information and resource (which would be practically all of them, including rule utilitarianism). It is overcome by an iota of pragmatism.

Another is the problem of fault: doing something within your rights that results in some kind of unjustified harmful reaction by someone else. As I gestured at earlier, the problem of fault makes act utilitarianism tend toward acquiescing to tyranny, and the more uninhibited are the destructive impulses of the tyranny, the more subservient the act utilitarian must be toward it. Because the reprisal for resistance is a consequence. But you know not to blame the victim, so I can only conclude that you are not an act utilitarian. Not really. Or you have a philosophical problem to pretend to solve.
You have come to that conclusion because you insist on this canard about tyranny, which still doesn't hold true, and relies on simply writing off certain consequences altogether to arrive at the poor outcome. Yes, reprisal is a consequence. So is the possibility of success, and the probability of emboldened tyranny through inaction. And then we have it weighted against the continued suffering of the original tyranny, because inaction is also a choice.

It is easy for an act utilitarian to conclude resistance is optimal. Just as it is easy for a rule utilitarian to conclude acquiescence is optimal, because those unwilling to look at individual circumstances can conclude that if overthrowing the government isn't always right then it never is.
 
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Hades

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Does everyone hear something? That’s the sound of a coup NOT happening on Jan 6.

kinda implies Trump, his team and yes, a good chunk of his supporters are indeed worse people.
 

tstorm823

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Does everyone hear something? That’s the sound of a coup NOT happening on Jan 6.

kinda implies Trump, his team and yes, a good chunk of his supporters are indeed worse people.
This is literally the first time in my lifetime that a Republican President did not have the results objected to or protested on January 6th. If January 6th, 2021 had not played out the way it did, I guarantee you there would be objections to the votes. Democrats wrote themselves into a corner by spending 4 years pretending any contest to an election is insurrection.

As far as protestors, lefties just can't handle the snow.
 

Hades

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This is literally the first time in my lifetime that a Republican President did not have the results objected to or protested on January 6th. If January 6th, 2021 had not played out the way it did, I guarantee you there would be objections to the votes. Democrats wrote themselves into a corner by spending 4 years pretending any contest to an election is insurrection.

As far as protestors, lefties just can't handle the snow.
Fabricating a narrative about the election being ''stolen'' out of whole cloth, spending months putting pressure on legislators and vice presidents alike to abuse their power and then storming the capitol when they didn't isn't exactly ''any contest to an election''. Its a very specific contest to an election. One that's very specific to one particular political leaning in the US.
 

tstorm823

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Fabricating a narrative about the election being ''stolen'' out of whole cloth, spending months putting pressure on legislators and vice presidents alike to abuse their power and then storming the capitol when they didn't isn't exactly ''any contest to an election''. Its a very specific contest to an election. One that's very specific to one particular political leaning in the US.
Republicans did it once. Democrats behaved that way from 2001-2020 continuously. Hell, even before that, marxists literally bombed the US Capitol and Clinton pardoned them.

And you know, if now they're going to decide that they're better than that behavior only because Republicans acted like that once, I'm not upset if they never realize that moment was holding up a mirror to them, I'm content if they follow through with behaving better.