In all seriousness, why don't we regularly clean the statue of liberty? Is this intentional/would be technically difficult or just another case Of New York being unable to maintain infrastructure?
Hear me out: nuclear disarmament through selling ad space on the moon.
Initiate an international treaty whereby companies can buy a certain number of warheads to detonate on the lunar service to inscribe their company logo for eternity.
The stat about coal is pretty far off. The linked source says, "Carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal use is responsible for about 40 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuel use." That's a long way from 40 percent overall.
You have no chance of winning as long as you insist on making statues of famous people. I would simply pull people off the street and entomb them in giant coal pyramids to ensure they have a bountiful afterlife.
I feel like making a large number of statues from flammable material could backfire, which would be terrible for the environment - I suggest we just bury the coal in a hole in the ground where it can't do any harm
You have a problem here, slightly different than expected! at the least, make sure to seal those statues so they don't self heat under ambiant oxidation conditions and then light up from the inside out.
This is the funniest thing I have ever read on Substack. The combination of arch satire, bringing back castrati, with hilariously dumb random thoughts, Justice Justice, is just perfect.
A mix of “funny” and “get away with subversive because it is funny”. I missed whether you have plans to reform the Jones Act?
For a more serious take, I recommend starting with Vivek’s Ten Commandments. A few would have to be changed; I have “climate change is real or I’ll cut you” on my bingo card, and his line about the Constitution is a textbook example of “profound-sounding bullshit”. But, unlike the other candidates, he actually has a platform, which is something.
I believe your Supreme Court scheme would be better served by appointing Victoria Justice because we, as national, deserve a hot Supreme Court justice and she's partially Puerto Rican and almost certainly has some native ancestry, making it more likely you can pull off your Chief Justice goal
Prefer you make pop-ups that ask people to do something about the ePrivacy Directive, not the GDPR, personally, but it's a minor point. You have my vote. 8D
The Trump thing is surprisingly close to actual arguments I've read for constitutional monarchy...
(I.e., the argument that if you don't have a monarch or other similar outside-the-governent-head-of-state, people will be too inclined to revere the head of government and not question, rather than properly holding them to account as an employee of the public.)
Hey, instead of just cleaning the Statue of Liberty, how about we reopen the torch?? It's been closed ever since a terrorist attack back during *World War I*, it's not like it hasn't been repaired since then, but they still haven't reopened it to visitors!
The best thing about the liturgy is the concept of antidosis (dealt with in the link). If Elon is asked to fund a warship he can say Why me, Zuck's richer than I am. Zuck can then either concede that he's richer, and fund the warship, or he can say No, Elon is richer, in which case Elon and Zuck exchange all their property, and Zuck pays for the liturgy but out of his increased (if he was right) fortune he has now got from Elon.
Unfortunately, as an election map enthusiast, I must correct you: Ottawa County voted for Donald Trump in 2020, and so has broken its streak of always voting for the winner. Your campaign would be better served focusing on Clallam County, Washington, which currently has the longest unbroken streak of voting for the winner (having done so at every election beginning in 1980).
(That said, I happen to live in the Cleveland area and have many acquaintances in Ottawa County — actually — so I can introduce them to the idea of forcing Elon Musk to build ships for the navy and report back their thoughts.)
I propose an alternate solution to the coal problem: we have a moral imperative to send what coal we have to Mars and other potential future colonies. Those poor deprived planets have starved too long without the precious bounty of a rotting environmental collapse, we owe it to the future to share the spoils of the past with them. No one cares about global warming on Mars. Alternatively: make Scott's proposed monuments on the moon. This removes the risk of spontaneous combustion and also stamps the power of American indomitability for millennia to come.
I keep hearing about the US losing interest in guaranteeing the safety of commerce from Peter Zeihan. Japan is a wealthy country that needs world trade. A US-Japan alliance might make sense. World trade is less essential for the US, but it's still pretty nice.
I condemn your proposal for the Statue of Liberty. After cleaning it, it should be gilded. Or even better: coated with _Aluminum!_ I'm sure there's an allegory for technological progress in there somewhere.
re: popup war -- Just install the ninja cookie plugin for your browser. And, no, it won't mean that you have to constantly relogin to all your sites that require you to make one.
reverse primogeniture is sometimes called ultimogeniture or postremogeniture, and as long as Barron promised to take care of his dad, it seems like a reasonable deal to me
“When I am elected, I will mandate that all American websites serve popups to European Union residents explaining why the GDPR is annoying and why it affects even Americans who have no say in it.”
It’s hardly that popular over here. Worst legislation ever - probably with no effect on privacy but a big cost to small business, or anybody with a video doorbell.
And the snake oil salesmen came out of the woodwork on that one, consultancies became GDPR experts overnight and much money was made from the gullible.
"The Athenians had a parallel liturgy for rich people who would select and sponsor theater productions, but I think we can skip this one for now."
We can update this to have rich people finance non-Marvel, non-Star Wars movies. Adult-oriented, a-political dramas of the kind that don't really get made much anymore, like say The Shawshank Redemption or Eyes Wide Shut. Add it to your campaign platform to lock down that all-important film buff demographic!
Taking it partly seriously, I understand there may be a use for mined coal as fertiliser. It is a long time since I heard about the research, but coal is carbon, which is what plants need. It’s a matter of turning it into useful carbon. Currently not as lucrative as mining coal to burn for the purpose of endangering human life but has potential.
It’s not a bad idea, the liturgy. Although to mix two ideas here, maybe the billionaires could get their faces on Mount Rushmore, or equivalent, if they volunteer most of their wealth to the state.
> When I am elected, I will mandate that all American websites serve popups to European Union residents explaining why the GDPR is annoying and why it affects even Americans who have no say in it. If the Europeans want to be able to access Google, Facebook, Twitter, or any other US-based site without clicking “I understand” every time they reload it, they’ll have to pressure their government to do something about GDPR.
*Sigh...*
First off, a lot of American websites (mostly newspapers) already do that. If you visit them as an european, they serve you a page that says "We don't want to comply with GDPR, fuck you and your data privacy, you don't get to read our articles" in a slightly more polite tone.
Second, the GDPR doesn't mandate cookie banners, and it's perfectly possible to comply with GDPR without a banner. Substack doesn't have one, for instance. What GDPR mandates is active consent before any kind of tracking of identifying data that isn't necessary to deliver your core service. That means you can (1) use regular cookies without a banner if they're used for site function (eg authentication) and (2) collect anonymized data if you want to track usage statistics. But what most sites with those banners want is (3) collect an invasive profile of everything you do to target you with ultra-personalized advertising, and that's against the spirit of GDPR. These cookie banners are a form of malicious compliance.
You want an end to cookie banners? Ask Google to lower the pagerank of any site with one, and publicly advertise it. That's probably what they'll do once they manage to roll out their own GDPR-compliant advertising.
>They deserve a candidate who will reject the failed policies of the past and embrace the failed policies of the future.
They might deserve that, but to have a chance to fail, policies first need to be implemented, and the president is a pretty lousy role for making that happen, considering that he's always at the center of attention and at least half the country hates him and everything he stands for. Everybody knows that some anonymous unelected paper pushers enact actual changes, have you considered applying there?
While I support the idea of building giant statues of black/Black people in principle, I am concerned white/White supremacists would ally with anti-climate extremists (unless they are the same people already?) and burn the statues in a double-whammy release of both hate and carbon. Should these statues be erected, 24/7 protection by armed guards from the Black Power movement would be required.
The statues shouldn't be of actual black/Black people because that would be racist. Or something. They should all be giant coal statues of bottles of Aunt Jemima as that would also be a comment on capitalism.
Based on my offering this idea to improve the platform, I should get one of those $20 gift cards.
Har har. There are three types of people who like to say Dems are obsessed with The Former Guy.
1) You’re either secretly rooting for their success every step of the way (and the success of the justice system which would be inactive without the Dem’s so-called obsession – with shout-outs to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger).
2) You're politically too ill-informed to realize your mirth emanates from cynical manipulation by the hypocritical big players trying to cling to power (From Fox to Musk to the GOP writ large).
3) Or you’re in that very special, very real tribe that has convinced themselves that democracy itself is secondary to stopping the trend of wokeness.
Anyone who isn’t “obsessed” with keeping the TFG and his cronies away from the Oval is playing with fire. And not a good citizen for always counting on the Dems to clean up the biggest messes!
Hopefully he'll then open a chain of fitness facilities, so that when you visit the flagship location, you can say you set foot in Chief Justice Chief Jim Justice's chief gym.
All asynchronous communications, including internet comments, emails, text messages, voice messages, news articles, blog posts, youtube posts, social media posts, social media comments, comments of any kind, letters to the editor, letters of any kind, written publications of any kind, handbills, protest signs, end times signs, band flyers, religious flyers, political flyers, and notes in class cost $1 to post. NO FRANKING PRIVILEGES. Two individuals can establish a mutual free channel, which may be revoked by either party at any time with no repercussions.
I (genuinely) donated to my local food bank as a way of putting my money where my mouth is with this comment.
"The few people who continue to be interested will get their knowledge from the IRS website rather than far-right forums, denying extremist groups a key method of recruitment and organization."
You say this like the IRS is not an extremist group. In IRS court, you're innocent till proven guilty. Being able to chuck the bill of rights in the wastebasket sounds pretty extremist and anti-American to me.
Hey, CIV IV-players: The word is 'ultimogeniture": Play some CK3 and actually learn about civilisation!
("I would support reverse primogeniture-based inheritance - ie the youngest son takes the throne - just so we can have a “King Barron”. Ha! Restricted vocabulary. ) update: Obviously, another CK-player beat me by 8 hours. Well, my real point is about what is the superior game and me being disgusting, thus no delete.
statue of Liberty is extremely fragile and refurbishing it will be an enormous technical challenge. I've read about it's maintenance and it's harrowing.
We in the UK (well, the England part back then) had elected kings in early Saxon times. Anyone could apply, but the main qualification was that one had to prove to everyone's satisfaction that one was descended from the god Wodin!
"For too long, Americans have groaned under the weight of foreign cookie-related-pop-ups which they and their elected representatives have no control over. It’s time to fight back.
When I am elected, I will mandate that all American websites serve popups to European Union residents explaining why the GDPR is annoying and why it affects even Americans who have no say in it. If the Europeans want to be able to access Google, Facebook, Twitter, or any other US-based site without clicking “I understand” every time they reload it, they’ll have to pressure their government to do something about GDPR."
I demand reciprocity on this! There are too many whiny complaining little American pop-ups about "I see you are based in the EU so we can't show you this website/article/cute photo of something or other because of GDPR, because despite our vaunted technologic, economic and every thing else superiority apparently it's too difficult not to steal your data or automatically link you to 599 advertisers or something".
And I don't have to click "I understand" on Facebook etc. (seldom as I use them) so I have no idea what is going on there.
"I propose that religious conservatives drop their opposition to puberty blockers for transgender youth. In exchange for the government funding all sex reassignment surgeries, young trans women will do two years of community service in religious choirs, allowing the Church to recapture 18th-century hymns that have fallen into disuse."
This could be doable, as puberty blockers are (allegedly) a temporary measure and are reversible. The only flaw here is (1) it was the Catholic Church had castrati in choirs and due to the double whammy of 'the Pope won't sign off on this' and 'Catholics don't sing in church anyway, what do you think we are, Protestants?' it won't fly and (2) the churches that do sing hymns and which might be amenable to changes on doctrine to accommodate this are the Protestant ones which emphasise communal congregational singing, not listening to choristers. And I think megachurches have long abandoned 18th century hymns, there seems to be some horrors that I am glad never to have experienced; it would appear that now they don't have church choirs, they have 'worship teams' who all sing the same material from the one big provider:
Glad to see someone with a platform making the case for American monarchy. Give the people the messy, flamboyant, outrageous dramaking they crave and let boring normies back in real government again.
I'd like to take this space to put forward my personal political platform designed to raise revenue, increase employment, and most importantly improve American's mental health: set corporate tax rates equal to the average time it takes to get a question answered by a live, US-based customer service specialist. I am more than happy for a company that answers consumer questions and issues within a few minutes to pay nearly nothing in corporate taxes (they can use the savings on hiring the needed people), but if it regularly takes people upwards of an hour on hold to get a real answer, get ready for a 70% tax rate.
I thought this was a ridiculous joke until you explained about the constitutional monarchy. Now I want to vote for you or anyone else who will put your platform into effect, because it is clearly the only practical solution to our country's current situation.
Clean the statue of liberty then COAT IT IN GOLD USING ELECTROPLATING. We must do this as our patriotic duty! Let it shine forever, golden and glorious. This can be the FIRST thing that King Trump "does"!
Here's likely the most accurate general narrative:
TFG quickly amassed a huge following based solely on his talent for "owning the libs." It was mostly fun and games among uninformed cynics who had already convinced themselves democracy was a joke and government should be drowned in a bathtub.
But when the MAGA trajectory turned so dark so quickly, most of his fans simply closed their ears to the outside world of facts and laws and civil norms. Why should all the fun end? Just keep scaring the libs. This became their only compass setting. Which turned them into a literal cult. Soon they were willing to physically fight, lie, and lose family members for this guy who ordered them not to believe their own eyes -- only believe him. It was very much like like pre-war Nazi Germany. Keep the Champagne flowing when you don't want people looking at the dark side.
Still today, his supporters refuse to even glance at all the widely available facts; it's way easier (and more fun) just to call the libs hysterical. It is despicable that the vast majority of Republicans continue to undermine, ridicule, and attack anyone who is serious about democracy and respects the rule of law -- anyone willing to attempt the very difficult work of saving this democracy at its greatest period of crisis since the Civil War (which a plurality of Republicans would like to do over). Absolutely deplorable.
I remember a day when people still had the ability to feel enough shame that they never would have followed such a horrible man down this rabbit hole. Some here have taken the stance that they really don't care if he goes to prison, but the Dems are still hysterical. This is nihilism, and passive-aggressive support for authoritarianism.
If you don't believe in democracy, please just don't vote.
Honestly the Liturgy idea and the Constitutional Monarch idea are worth serious consideration. Who the hell cares what big naval ships are named? Give me the USS "I didn't even have to pay for this", because that's what I'll see every time one of them sets sail. The USS Bill Gates will be great bait for right-wing nutjobs, practically a jobs program unto itself. And "this is the only way we're ever getting rid of them, you know it to be true". I do, Scott. *sobs* you're so right it hurts.
On wikipedia, I have read that during WW2 when deciding between adopting 5 star generals or "marshalls" one of the factors in consideration is that George Marshall would be one.
To be clear this was a point AGAINST using Marshalls as it would be "undignified." Some people just cannot be reasoned with.
It doesn't sound plausible to me, for two reasons:
1) I doubt that the Titanic would have set off without sufficient coal to ensure it could complete the journey. The fire was discovered before departure, so they could take it into account when determining whether there was sufficient coal on board, but I think they would have allowed for the possibility of a coal fire in any case.
2) Water resistance is roughly proportional to the square of the velocity, which means that the fuel efficiency of a ship drops when you get close to maximum speed. In other words, if the captain were concerned about not having enough coal, that concern would counsel lower speed, not higher speed. The crew had put out the coal fire, so the captain wasn't trying to use coal before it burned up.
There is one more thing I would like you to put on your agenda. Include some statement that a) foreign citizens are entitled to vote, providing (insert as appropriate), and that b) once you're elected president, the US steps in for setting up similiar rules all over the Western World and as such, lay the foundation for worldwide acceptance of your wise recommendations. Please be assured, that you can count on my vote.
I loved this post, but let this slide without a comment: "40% of CO2 emissions come from coal."
Nope. As the linked source says, 40% of /fossil fuel/ CO2 emissions come from coal.
The interesting question is, What fraction of CO2 emissions come from burning wood?
The US EPA says that "Total Emissions in 2021 are 6,340 Million Metric Tons of CO₂ equivalent". That doesn't include anything but the direct effects of economic activity, though; it doesn't count people burning wood, forest fires, or deforestation.
SUSPICIOUSLY, there doesn't seem to have ever been any other study of how much wood is burned outside of Europe, even though this may be a major contributor to global warming. I'll estimate the wood-burning CO2 contribution by multiplying the UK US-wood-pellet output by 2 (assuming at least as much wood is taken from the UK itself), and multiplying that by the world population divided by the UK population (in 2021): 17.6*2*7888/67.33 = 4124M metric tons/yr of CO2. This is if anything a gross under-estimate, since very few people in the tree-poor UK burn wood for fuel.
Then there's CO2 emissions from forest fires. UNDRR, whoever they are, wrote (https://www.preventionweb.net/news/wildfires-2021-emitted-record-breaking-amount-carbon-dioxide) that "Nearly half a gigaton of carbon (or 1.76 billion tons of CO2) was released from burning boreal forests in North America and Eurasia in 2021," but said that was 150% more than the mean from 2000 to 2020. That means the mean is 704 million metric tons/year. I think it's reasonable to assume that fires in the rest of the world produce at least as much CO2, giving us 1.41 billion metric tons/year from forest fires.
So, total emissions from wood, in metric? tons, are at least:
4124M from wood burning
1408M from forest fires
(12+20)/2 = 16%, X / {(6340M+1408M) + X} = 0.16; 0.16 * {X + 7748M} = X; 0.84X = 0.16*7748M; X = 1475M from deforestation
7007 from wood, total. That's 7007 / (7007+6,340) = 0.52499 of all CO2 emissions. Wood, not coal, is the biggest source of CO2 emissions. (Unless mammalian respiration, which nobody counts, is.)
The coal statue one has to be one of the most racist ideas, intended to be a good idea I've ever heard. Not only can anthracite be more than black (it has many shades) the idea of carving up ANOTHER mountain after offending Indigenous Americans by carving heads into mountains.
However making the Trump family US Monarchy seems like a FANTASTIC idea. It would save us from a possible president donald or Ivanka.
Sovcits: not cost-effective; far-right extremists don't actually cause that much harm, it's just hyped by the media
Giant statues: I don't think the coal miners would be any happier about this given that it's (a) obviously made work which would be considered similar to welfare (yes, of course this is all irrational) and (b) the subjects of the statues. Also, the statues would eventually catch fire and the result would be the same.
Datasets: actually not a terrible idea - aside from the data benefits, the tests could easily be used as a threshold for high school graduation and thereby eliminate some perverse incentives from NCLB
Justice Justice: as he's presumably a very Trumpy conservative, I don't think Democrats would go for this one
Lying about college: wouldn't work; elite colleges would have a strong incentive to provide accurate information to employers asking who actually graduated from them
NYT journalists: Yes, clever, but would almost certainly be considered to violate 1st Amendment given intent. Also, the NYT could just change its name.
Pop-ups: actually not a terrible idea
Statue of Liberty: this would result in incremental erosion of the statue as the exposed copper in turn corrodes. While this would actually be an even better metaphor for American society, I don't think people would like that.
For JUSTICE JUSTICE
What about voting rights for cats?
That thing where today's humour becomes next year's serious policy.
I would unironically support the liturgy thing. It's not the worst idea.
I ran the Trump-for-monarch plank past the most liberal members of my household, and they're for it. You may be on to something there.
(My favorite plank was funding warships by liturgy. We need the ships.)
Best solution to Trump anywhere. Chief Justice Chief Justice is nice too. You can count on my vote.
In all seriousness, why don't we regularly clean the statue of liberty? Is this intentional/would be technically difficult or just another case Of New York being unable to maintain infrastructure?
This was legitimately hilarious
" reverse primogeniture-based inheritance" has a name.
It's called "ultimogeniture", which does sound very cool indeed.
Hear me out: nuclear disarmament through selling ad space on the moon.
Initiate an international treaty whereby companies can buy a certain number of warheads to detonate on the lunar service to inscribe their company logo for eternity.
Enjoy the full moon, brought to you by McDonalds.
I love these. Well, except the college thing, we still disagree on that somewhat.
Amazing shitposting.
Fact check thread:
The stat about coal is pretty far off. The linked source says, "Carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal use is responsible for about 40 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuel use." That's a long way from 40 percent overall.
This was incredible 👏👏👏👏
$9,999,999/hour AND a CIA pension, what a gig.
With that kind of money, they'll be able to buy a few battleships. The only question is who will they invade.
You have no chance of winning as long as you insist on making statues of famous people. I would simply pull people off the street and entomb them in giant coal pyramids to ensure they have a bountiful afterlife.
As the only up here who isn’t bought and paid for I can say this: the liturgy agenda is a hoax.
I feel like making a large number of statues from flammable material could backfire, which would be terrible for the environment - I suggest we just bury the coal in a hole in the ground where it can't do any harm
More nominative determinism! Can we find anyone with the last name President while we're at it?
Wonderful post. I haven't laughed this hard in a while.
My god, I have something to add.
Coal combusts if you make it too big of a pile. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378382099000053
You have a problem here, slightly different than expected! at the least, make sure to seal those statues so they don't self heat under ambiant oxidation conditions and then light up from the inside out.
I am proud to support Scott Alexander for President, who will give American voters what they deserve, and make an inedible mark on American history.
This is the funniest thing I have ever read on Substack. The combination of arch satire, bringing back castrati, with hilariously dumb random thoughts, Justice Justice, is just perfect.
A mix of “funny” and “get away with subversive because it is funny”. I missed whether you have plans to reform the Jones Act?
For a more serious take, I recommend starting with Vivek’s Ten Commandments. A few would have to be changed; I have “climate change is real or I’ll cut you” on my bingo card, and his line about the Constitution is a textbook example of “profound-sounding bullshit”. But, unlike the other candidates, he actually has a platform, which is something.
I believe your Supreme Court scheme would be better served by appointing Victoria Justice because we, as national, deserve a hot Supreme Court justice and she's partially Puerto Rican and almost certainly has some native ancestry, making it more likely you can pull off your Chief Justice goal
Prefer you make pop-ups that ask people to do something about the ePrivacy Directive, not the GDPR, personally, but it's a minor point. You have my vote. 8D
The Trump thing is surprisingly close to actual arguments I've read for constitutional monarchy...
(I.e., the argument that if you don't have a monarch or other similar outside-the-governent-head-of-state, people will be too inclined to revere the head of government and not question, rather than properly holding them to account as an employee of the public.)
Hey, instead of just cleaning the Statue of Liberty, how about we reopen the torch?? It's been closed ever since a terrorist attack back during *World War I*, it's not like it hasn't been repaired since then, but they still haven't reopened it to visitors!
I don't know if this is a joke or not. I guess I will just have to vote for you and find out.
The best thing about the liturgy is the concept of antidosis (dealt with in the link). If Elon is asked to fund a warship he can say Why me, Zuck's richer than I am. Zuck can then either concede that he's richer, and fund the warship, or he can say No, Elon is richer, in which case Elon and Zuck exchange all their property, and Zuck pays for the liturgy but out of his increased (if he was right) fortune he has now got from Elon.
I regret to report that Ottawa County, Ohio, broke its winning streak in 2020. https://boe.ottawa.oh.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GN20-Summary.pdf
Unfortunately, as an election map enthusiast, I must correct you: Ottawa County voted for Donald Trump in 2020, and so has broken its streak of always voting for the winner. Your campaign would be better served focusing on Clallam County, Washington, which currently has the longest unbroken streak of voting for the winner (having done so at every election beginning in 1980).
(That said, I happen to live in the Cleveland area and have many acquaintances in Ottawa County — actually — so I can introduce them to the idea of forcing Elon Musk to build ships for the navy and report back their thoughts.)
I propose an alternate solution to the coal problem: we have a moral imperative to send what coal we have to Mars and other potential future colonies. Those poor deprived planets have starved too long without the precious bounty of a rotting environmental collapse, we owe it to the future to share the spoils of the past with them. No one cares about global warming on Mars. Alternatively: make Scott's proposed monuments on the moon. This removes the risk of spontaneous combustion and also stamps the power of American indomitability for millennia to come.
A single iceberg sunk the Titanic. What will the Zuckerberg do?
I keep hearing about the US losing interest in guaranteeing the safety of commerce from Peter Zeihan. Japan is a wealthy country that needs world trade. A US-Japan alliance might make sense. World trade is less essential for the US, but it's still pretty nice.
I see no donate link. There is supposed to be a donate link.
(65k $2 donors to get in on the debates? ...How many readers do you have? That sounds almost doable.)
Better than the liturgy, you can just issues letters of marque. Explicitly constitutional, AND violates international law. A win-win!
I condemn your proposal for the Statue of Liberty. After cleaning it, it should be gilded. Or even better: coated with _Aluminum!_ I'm sure there's an allegory for technological progress in there somewhere.
re: popup war -- Just install the ninja cookie plugin for your browser. And, no, it won't mean that you have to constantly relogin to all your sites that require you to make one.
Absolutely hilarious. And yet it makes alot of sense.
reverse primogeniture is sometimes called ultimogeniture or postremogeniture, and as long as Barron promised to take care of his dad, it seems like a reasonable deal to me
You should add to your presidential platform that you would abolish the penny and possibly the nickel.
Brilliant. Also bringing back the Liturgy ain't the worst idea...
“When I am elected, I will mandate that all American websites serve popups to European Union residents explaining why the GDPR is annoying and why it affects even Americans who have no say in it.”
It’s hardly that popular over here. Worst legislation ever - probably with no effect on privacy but a big cost to small business, or anybody with a video doorbell.
And the snake oil salesmen came out of the woodwork on that one, consultancies became GDPR experts overnight and much money was made from the gullible.
"The Athenians had a parallel liturgy for rich people who would select and sponsor theater productions, but I think we can skip this one for now."
We can update this to have rich people finance non-Marvel, non-Star Wars movies. Adult-oriented, a-political dramas of the kind that don't really get made much anymore, like say The Shawshank Redemption or Eyes Wide Shut. Add it to your campaign platform to lock down that all-important film buff demographic!
Taking it partly seriously, I understand there may be a use for mined coal as fertiliser. It is a long time since I heard about the research, but coal is carbon, which is what plants need. It’s a matter of turning it into useful carbon. Currently not as lucrative as mining coal to burn for the purpose of endangering human life but has potential.
It’s not a bad idea, the liturgy. Although to mix two ideas here, maybe the billionaires could get their faces on Mount Rushmore, or equivalent, if they volunteer most of their wealth to the state.
> When I am elected, I will mandate that all American websites serve popups to European Union residents explaining why the GDPR is annoying and why it affects even Americans who have no say in it. If the Europeans want to be able to access Google, Facebook, Twitter, or any other US-based site without clicking “I understand” every time they reload it, they’ll have to pressure their government to do something about GDPR.
*Sigh...*
First off, a lot of American websites (mostly newspapers) already do that. If you visit them as an european, they serve you a page that says "We don't want to comply with GDPR, fuck you and your data privacy, you don't get to read our articles" in a slightly more polite tone.
Second, the GDPR doesn't mandate cookie banners, and it's perfectly possible to comply with GDPR without a banner. Substack doesn't have one, for instance. What GDPR mandates is active consent before any kind of tracking of identifying data that isn't necessary to deliver your core service. That means you can (1) use regular cookies without a banner if they're used for site function (eg authentication) and (2) collect anonymized data if you want to track usage statistics. But what most sites with those banners want is (3) collect an invasive profile of everything you do to target you with ultra-personalized advertising, and that's against the spirit of GDPR. These cookie banners are a form of malicious compliance.
You want an end to cookie banners? Ask Google to lower the pagerank of any site with one, and publicly advertise it. That's probably what they'll do once they manage to roll out their own GDPR-compliant advertising.
>They deserve a candidate who will reject the failed policies of the past and embrace the failed policies of the future.
They might deserve that, but to have a chance to fail, policies first need to be implemented, and the president is a pretty lousy role for making that happen, considering that he's always at the center of attention and at least half the country hates him and everything he stands for. Everybody knows that some anonymous unelected paper pushers enact actual changes, have you considered applying there?
While I support the idea of building giant statues of black/Black people in principle, I am concerned white/White supremacists would ally with anti-climate extremists (unless they are the same people already?) and burn the statues in a double-whammy release of both hate and carbon. Should these statues be erected, 24/7 protection by armed guards from the Black Power movement would be required.
The statues shouldn't be of actual black/Black people because that would be racist. Or something. They should all be giant coal statues of bottles of Aunt Jemima as that would also be a comment on capitalism.
Based on my offering this idea to improve the platform, I should get one of those $20 gift cards.
Hey, I’d vote for you if you were on the ballot
Har har. There are three types of people who like to say Dems are obsessed with The Former Guy.
1) You’re either secretly rooting for their success every step of the way (and the success of the justice system which would be inactive without the Dem’s so-called obsession – with shout-outs to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger).
2) You're politically too ill-informed to realize your mirth emanates from cynical manipulation by the hypocritical big players trying to cling to power (From Fox to Musk to the GOP writ large).
3) Or you’re in that very special, very real tribe that has convinced themselves that democracy itself is secondary to stopping the trend of wokeness.
Anyone who isn’t “obsessed” with keeping the TFG and his cronies away from the Oval is playing with fire. And not a good citizen for always counting on the Dems to clean up the biggest messes!
Literally laughing out loud! Great post!!!
Can someone please explain to me the NYT joke?
Why should NYT journalists get 10 million dollar a hour?
(I'm not American, maybe that's why I don't get it.)
You've my vote - I could buy you some more if you were well funded - NFT's, crypto & debased dollars accepted. SWIFT SWIFT
These are excellent plans, and I am in.
Can I be Secretary of the Navy? I promise to make sure the Liturgy is spent well.
Why no parallel liturgy?
Scott, I also competed at the NOSB finals in DC! What a blast from the past XD
What’s your position on invading Canada?
Hopefully he'll then open a chain of fitness facilities, so that when you visit the flagship location, you can say you set foot in Chief Justice Chief Jim Justice's chief gym.
Or at least you can try to say that.
You should write a screenplay for a political satire film. It's all right there.
A single issue platform proposal:
All asynchronous communications, including internet comments, emails, text messages, voice messages, news articles, blog posts, youtube posts, social media posts, social media comments, comments of any kind, letters to the editor, letters of any kind, written publications of any kind, handbills, protest signs, end times signs, band flyers, religious flyers, political flyers, and notes in class cost $1 to post. NO FRANKING PRIVILEGES. Two individuals can establish a mutual free channel, which may be revoked by either party at any time with no repercussions.
I (genuinely) donated to my local food bank as a way of putting my money where my mouth is with this comment.
"The few people who continue to be interested will get their knowledge from the IRS website rather than far-right forums, denying extremist groups a key method of recruitment and organization."
You say this like the IRS is not an extremist group. In IRS court, you're innocent till proven guilty. Being able to chuck the bill of rights in the wastebasket sounds pretty extremist and anti-American to me.
Hey, CIV IV-players: The word is 'ultimogeniture": Play some CK3 and actually learn about civilisation!
("I would support reverse primogeniture-based inheritance - ie the youngest son takes the throne - just so we can have a “King Barron”. Ha! Restricted vocabulary. ) update: Obviously, another CK-player beat me by 8 hours. Well, my real point is about what is the superior game and me being disgusting, thus no delete.
Bonus points if Musk does his best L Ron Hubbard impression and has his most devoted followers cater to his every whim while he sails the high seas.
https://manifold.markets/Tossup/will-scottalexander-write-another-b?r=Sm9zaHVh
This post was so good I'm betting on it
missing a period:
"Donald Trump is the best person in the world at all three of these things"
statue of Liberty is extremely fragile and refurbishing it will be an enormous technical challenge. I've read about it's maintenance and it's harrowing.
with enough money etc. of course
There is nothing I have read this year that I enjoyed as much as this. But now I just feel even more sad that real politics is so sh-t.
Is Scott a secret r/NonCredibleDefense aficionado?
I feel you should include the Irish presidential platform as per Michael D. Higgins.
If elected, I promise to own not one but *two* dogs while in office, said dogs to be at least one-third my own body size:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0j5zBJrYOw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XQvqHv2k0Q
We in the UK (well, the England part back then) had elected kings in early Saxon times. Anyone could apply, but the main qualification was that one had to prove to everyone's satisfaction that one was descended from the god Wodin!
"For too long, Americans have groaned under the weight of foreign cookie-related-pop-ups which they and their elected representatives have no control over. It’s time to fight back.
When I am elected, I will mandate that all American websites serve popups to European Union residents explaining why the GDPR is annoying and why it affects even Americans who have no say in it. If the Europeans want to be able to access Google, Facebook, Twitter, or any other US-based site without clicking “I understand” every time they reload it, they’ll have to pressure their government to do something about GDPR."
I demand reciprocity on this! There are too many whiny complaining little American pop-ups about "I see you are based in the EU so we can't show you this website/article/cute photo of something or other because of GDPR, because despite our vaunted technologic, economic and every thing else superiority apparently it's too difficult not to steal your data or automatically link you to 599 advertisers or something".
And I don't have to click "I understand" on Facebook etc. (seldom as I use them) so I have no idea what is going on there.
"I propose that religious conservatives drop their opposition to puberty blockers for transgender youth. In exchange for the government funding all sex reassignment surgeries, young trans women will do two years of community service in religious choirs, allowing the Church to recapture 18th-century hymns that have fallen into disuse."
This could be doable, as puberty blockers are (allegedly) a temporary measure and are reversible. The only flaw here is (1) it was the Catholic Church had castrati in choirs and due to the double whammy of 'the Pope won't sign off on this' and 'Catholics don't sing in church anyway, what do you think we are, Protestants?' it won't fly and (2) the churches that do sing hymns and which might be amenable to changes on doctrine to accommodate this are the Protestant ones which emphasise communal congregational singing, not listening to choristers. And I think megachurches have long abandoned 18th century hymns, there seems to be some horrors that I am glad never to have experienced; it would appear that now they don't have church choirs, they have 'worship teams' who all sing the same material from the one big provider:
https://apnews.com/article/worship-music-hit-makers-bethel-hillsong-elevation-passion-2982ab331782af96cfcc67a974793961
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWicNLXxtj4
I think you'll have to stick with the Anglicans/Episcopalians on this, and they're not the ones opposing trans rights anyway.
"My team took second place, because taking first would have made me an elite, which I am not."
Well damn, I'd vote for you, based on this alone! 😁
Glad to see someone with a platform making the case for American monarchy. Give the people the messy, flamboyant, outrageous dramaking they crave and let boring normies back in real government again.
Jim Justice to the Supreme Court. I’m dying. 😂😂😂😂😂😂
You forgot “bring back calling forth levies of yeoman archers to hunt deer for population control”: https://twitter.com/WB_Baskerville/status/1699048078651629753
I'd like to take this space to put forward my personal political platform designed to raise revenue, increase employment, and most importantly improve American's mental health: set corporate tax rates equal to the average time it takes to get a question answered by a live, US-based customer service specialist. I am more than happy for a company that answers consumer questions and issues within a few minutes to pay nearly nothing in corporate taxes (they can use the savings on hiring the needed people), but if it regularly takes people upwards of an hour on hold to get a real answer, get ready for a 70% tax rate.
Clean up the country first, THEN clean up the statue. Otherwise, you are just another politician.
Fuckin lol, this is the weirdest and funniest post I've read in a long time
> New York Times journalists play a central role in the American information ecosystem, and I believe they deserve this.
Honestly, my favorite part of the article. This one is a deep cut.
I thought this was a ridiculous joke until you explained about the constitutional monarchy. Now I want to vote for you or anyone else who will put your platform into effect, because it is clearly the only practical solution to our country's current situation.
Not the worst platform I have seen, not by a long shot.
Clean the statue of liberty then COAT IT IN GOLD USING ELECTROPLATING. We must do this as our patriotic duty! Let it shine forever, golden and glorious. This can be the FIRST thing that King Trump "does"!
"So if you know someone in Ottawa County, please tell them about my ideas."
Are you sure about this? I thought you were trying to campaign there.
Anybody supporting the USS Musk is a LITTORAL NAZI
Here's likely the most accurate general narrative:
TFG quickly amassed a huge following based solely on his talent for "owning the libs." It was mostly fun and games among uninformed cynics who had already convinced themselves democracy was a joke and government should be drowned in a bathtub.
But when the MAGA trajectory turned so dark so quickly, most of his fans simply closed their ears to the outside world of facts and laws and civil norms. Why should all the fun end? Just keep scaring the libs. This became their only compass setting. Which turned them into a literal cult. Soon they were willing to physically fight, lie, and lose family members for this guy who ordered them not to believe their own eyes -- only believe him. It was very much like like pre-war Nazi Germany. Keep the Champagne flowing when you don't want people looking at the dark side.
Still today, his supporters refuse to even glance at all the widely available facts; it's way easier (and more fun) just to call the libs hysterical. It is despicable that the vast majority of Republicans continue to undermine, ridicule, and attack anyone who is serious about democracy and respects the rule of law -- anyone willing to attempt the very difficult work of saving this democracy at its greatest period of crisis since the Civil War (which a plurality of Republicans would like to do over). Absolutely deplorable.
I remember a day when people still had the ability to feel enough shame that they never would have followed such a horrible man down this rabbit hole. Some here have taken the stance that they really don't care if he goes to prison, but the Dems are still hysterical. This is nihilism, and passive-aggressive support for authoritarianism.
If you don't believe in democracy, please just don't vote.
HAHA
Honestly the Liturgy idea and the Constitutional Monarch idea are worth serious consideration. Who the hell cares what big naval ships are named? Give me the USS "I didn't even have to pay for this", because that's what I'll see every time one of them sets sail. The USS Bill Gates will be great bait for right-wing nutjobs, practically a jobs program unto itself. And "this is the only way we're ever getting rid of them, you know it to be true". I do, Scott. *sobs* you're so right it hurts.
On wikipedia, I have read that during WW2 when deciding between adopting 5 star generals or "marshalls" one of the factors in consideration is that George Marshall would be one.
To be clear this was a point AGAINST using Marshalls as it would be "undignified." Some people just cannot be reasoned with.
reverse primogeniture-based inheritance is called ultimogeniture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimogeniture
Be careful what you wish for.
My sides! This is art!
It doesn't sound plausible to me, for two reasons:
1) I doubt that the Titanic would have set off without sufficient coal to ensure it could complete the journey. The fire was discovered before departure, so they could take it into account when determining whether there was sufficient coal on board, but I think they would have allowed for the possibility of a coal fire in any case.
2) Water resistance is roughly proportional to the square of the velocity, which means that the fuel efficiency of a ship drops when you get close to maximum speed. In other words, if the captain were concerned about not having enough coal, that concern would counsel lower speed, not higher speed. The crew had put out the coal fire, so the captain wasn't trying to use coal before it burned up.
There is one more thing I would like you to put on your agenda. Include some statement that a) foreign citizens are entitled to vote, providing (insert as appropriate), and that b) once you're elected president, the US steps in for setting up similiar rules all over the Western World and as such, lay the foundation for worldwide acceptance of your wise recommendations. Please be assured, that you can count on my vote.
Unfortunately, Republicans defund Veteran healthcare at every opportunity, but other than that the platform is pretty solid
I loved this post, but let this slide without a comment: "40% of CO2 emissions come from coal."
Nope. As the linked source says, 40% of /fossil fuel/ CO2 emissions come from coal.
The interesting question is, What fraction of CO2 emissions come from burning wood?
The US EPA says that "Total Emissions in 2021 are 6,340 Million Metric Tons of CO₂ equivalent". That doesn't include anything but the direct effects of economic activity, though; it doesn't count people burning wood, forest fires, or deforestation.
Yale tauts a study (https://environment.yale.edu/news/article/yale-study-yields-surprising-insights-into-effects-of-wood-fuel-burning) which says that "Emissions from wood fuels account for about 1.9 to 2.3 percent of global emissions." But on the other hand, the NRDC (https://www.nrdc.org/stories/no-burning-wood-fuels-not-climate-friendly), citing a study, says "wood pellets sourced in the United States and burned for energy in the United Kingdom emitted up to 17.6 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2019." That would mean US wood pellets burned in the UK account for 10% of all wood burned for fuel, which is absurd.
SUSPICIOUSLY, there doesn't seem to have ever been any other study of how much wood is burned outside of Europe, even though this may be a major contributor to global warming. I'll estimate the wood-burning CO2 contribution by multiplying the UK US-wood-pellet output by 2 (assuming at least as much wood is taken from the UK itself), and multiplying that by the world population divided by the UK population (in 2021): 17.6*2*7888/67.33 = 4124M metric tons/yr of CO2. This is if anything a gross under-estimate, since very few people in the tree-poor UK burn wood for fuel.
Then there's CO2 released from deforestation--cutting down trees, even without burning them, makes them decay and release carbon. The London School of Economics says (https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/whats-redd-and-will-it-help-tackle-climate-change/), "Land use change, principally deforestation, contributes 12–20% of global greenhouse gas emissions."
Then there's CO2 emissions from forest fires. UNDRR, whoever they are, wrote (https://www.preventionweb.net/news/wildfires-2021-emitted-record-breaking-amount-carbon-dioxide) that "Nearly half a gigaton of carbon (or 1.76 billion tons of CO2) was released from burning boreal forests in North America and Eurasia in 2021," but said that was 150% more than the mean from 2000 to 2020. That means the mean is 704 million metric tons/year. I think it's reasonable to assume that fires in the rest of the world produce at least as much CO2, giving us 1.41 billion metric tons/year from forest fires.
So, total emissions from wood, in metric? tons, are at least:
4124M from wood burning
1408M from forest fires
(12+20)/2 = 16%, X / {(6340M+1408M) + X} = 0.16; 0.16 * {X + 7748M} = X; 0.84X = 0.16*7748M; X = 1475M from deforestation
7007 from wood, total. That's 7007 / (7007+6,340) = 0.52499 of all CO2 emissions. Wood, not coal, is the biggest source of CO2 emissions. (Unless mammalian respiration, which nobody counts, is.)
The coal statue one has to be one of the most racist ideas, intended to be a good idea I've ever heard. Not only can anthracite be more than black (it has many shades) the idea of carving up ANOTHER mountain after offending Indigenous Americans by carving heads into mountains.
However making the Trump family US Monarchy seems like a FANTASTIC idea. It would save us from a possible president donald or Ivanka.
If we are going to have a liturgy, don't do "modern equivalent warship" stuff.
MAKE THEM BUILD AN ACTUAL TRIREME!
This was wonderfully hilarious!
Liturgy: actually a decent idea
Sovcits: not cost-effective; far-right extremists don't actually cause that much harm, it's just hyped by the media
Giant statues: I don't think the coal miners would be any happier about this given that it's (a) obviously made work which would be considered similar to welfare (yes, of course this is all irrational) and (b) the subjects of the statues. Also, the statues would eventually catch fire and the result would be the same.
Datasets: actually not a terrible idea - aside from the data benefits, the tests could easily be used as a threshold for high school graduation and thereby eliminate some perverse incentives from NCLB
Justice Justice: as he's presumably a very Trumpy conservative, I don't think Democrats would go for this one
Lying about college: wouldn't work; elite colleges would have a strong incentive to provide accurate information to employers asking who actually graduated from them
NYT journalists: Yes, clever, but would almost certainly be considered to violate 1st Amendment given intent. Also, the NYT could just change its name.
Pop-ups: actually not a terrible idea
Statue of Liberty: this would result in incremental erosion of the statue as the exposed copper in turn corrodes. While this would actually be an even better metaphor for American society, I don't think people would like that.