Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, April 22, 2025
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77 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
“The free market” did not industrialize America. Henry Clay’s “American System” was a mixed model similar to what China has used for decades.. because that’s what it takes to succeed. Companies are risk-averse, and absolutely will not invest without the components in place which America used to possess.
Rather than China, the “blame” for deindustrialization should be pointed directly at the billionaires Trump surrounds himself with.
Do you imagine “conservative” economic pundits may acknowledge the Trumponomics emperor has no clothes? Think again.
Noahpinion has a post up with lots of links to people like Oren Cass sticking by the idea tariffs are bitching fine and will reindustrialize America (like that’s good).
“Noahpinion”
” … ”
snip
” … ”
It’s very disconcerting having the number of comments on the front page match the actual number of comments on the posts…
From an article about how Colorado outdoor businesses are being hurt by tariffs:
@wr:..match game…
I don’t know how you are accessing OTB. Currently my front page says 3 comments and it says 4 on the Tuesday’s Forum page.
Let’s see what happens when I post this comment.
ETA: Now the front page says 3 comments after I reload the page and the Tuesday’s Forum header says 5 comments.
ETA2: My OTB front page shows No Comments on the “Emergency” post. When I open that thread there 4.
It’s important to note that Cass is truly a pundit and not an economist by training. He is also pretty young at 42 and has very little real world experience mostly having political and think tank jobs. He is a lawyer with an undergrad degree in economic policy, adjacent to economics. So as is true of nearly every other profession, you can find people in the field or adjacent fields who believe in stuff no one else does or voodoo. In the case of medicine we had doctors who actually believed in literal voodoo opposing essentially all standard care. Some of those helpfully sold alternative med packs including Viagra for big bucks, not that they were trying to make money off of the rubes, I mean people who did their own research.
Steve
I understand that Tesla earnings reports are coming out today. Are such reports reliable? A savvy guy like Elon can probably manipulate the data.
Meh. I’m not going to complain about the cache causing the counters to be out of date (easily fixed by a hard-refresh – CTRL-F5), as long as OTB remains accessible.
Bandwidth is typically the most expensive part of running a popular website or platform. I don’t begrudge the developers working to reduce that just a bit.
@charontwo:
The post has no such links.
@charontwo:
The post has no such links.
This is the first time I got caught multi-commenting. There were three, and I could only delete one. The site timed out while it was loading and I think it caused a redo. I may have created one of those extras but I don’t think I was responsible for both.
Like Oren Cass, I am not an economist. A hundred years plus ago, we de-agriculturalized (to coin an awkward term). What happened? With mechanization and fertilizer and county extension offices to teach new methods, we got really good at agriculture. Output went up while employment dropped from something like half the country to something like 5%. And the country boys, and girls, moved to the city, got union factory jobs, and were better off. (Simplifying to a 30,000 ft view.)
That’s what’s happened to manufacturing. Despite offshoring, U. S. manufacturing output has steadily increased while employment dropped. With automation and process development we got really good at manufacturing. But there’s no place for the city boys and girls to go for better jobs.
And we didn’t offshore because other countries had more mature, efficient industries, but because they had lower labor costs. (China is recently getting to having more mature industries and Taiwan is better at chips.) Is that what GOPs are trying to change? Lowering our cost of labor by cutting wages?
@charontwo:
Maybe what people want is a job that pays a living wage, has regular hours, paid overtime, benefits, a pension, and doesn’t require one to be on call 24/7.
Factory jobs used to be like that.
@Tony W: Riiiight?! After the Great OTB Outage of 2025, as long as the site is accessible, I’m good. 😉
@Kathy: One thing these “manufacturing jobs will come back because….tariffs” people forget to mention is that those jobs were good because of (say it louder for those in the back) UNIONS!!!!
@Fortune:
It does.(???)
Each time Noah excerpts or quotes Cass in his post, he provides a link to Cass’s blog (or to whomever he’s referencing, just using Cass as an example).
Charontwo didn’t code those links into their comment, you need to visit the Noahpinion substack to see the links.
I went through and counted. The Noahpinion article has a total of 39 links. At least 5 of them link to Oren Cass comments. I will admit that there is the possibility two of the Cass links go to the same article but I am too lazy to go look.
Steve
@Neil Hudelson: “lots of links to people like Oren Cass”, and who’s more like Oren Cass than the man himself? I saw no links to other right-wing tariff supporters.
@Fortune:
Scanning the linked post, I count three links to Cass Substack entries, dated: 4/5, 4/11, and 4/15.
I stopped there.
Maybe you meant something different from what I read your reply to mean.
@Jax:
Unions were a big part of it. Not only unions in given industries, but the prevalence of unions across several industries. Today even industries with unions are not as fully unionized as they used to be.
Another big factor was a different view of stock value, unlike the share price supremacy we’re living under today. IMO, wage stagnation is largely a result of this.
Then there’s the lack of competition through consolidation, through lax or absent enforcement of antitrust laws.
It’s never just one thing.
@Neil Hudelson:
Beat me to it.
Maybe Fortune is registering a complaint that Charon is using imprecise language* that no one calls them out for like they do with Fortune. We both fell for it, so now Fortune gets to hold up the pulled rug and claim that we are all unfair and hypocritical.
I’ve long tried to understand Fortune, but I have been rebuffed, because Fortune already has a sense of my “temper and intellect”. It does not matter whether I apologize for rudeness, or admit that I can be short-tempered, or that I have struggled with it for a long time. As far as the latter, well, that is in the eye of the beholder.
Not sure of the goal. Not expecting clarification.
*Or perhaps inflating the number of pundits defending the tariffs for some unknown reason.
Per NPR, Trump is looking to replace Hegseth.
@steve:
I looked again, some of those links are to pieces about the effects of tariffs.
There is an embedded Twitter post of a business owner who claimed he had not been hit by tariffs, only to find out later that he did indeed get levied.
Fortune appears to be playing some sort of word game.
@Fortune:
I have never rolled my eyes harder than just now, and I have been the caretaker of toddlers, teens, and dementia-addled grandparents.
You got him, Fortune. You got charontwo so good. They said “Noahpinion has a post up with lots of links to people like Oren Cass” when really they should’ve said “lots of links to posts that quote people like Oren Cass”* Holy shit such an own, I wonder if charontwo will ever be able to get over their shame and embarrassment and post here again. Probably not after your withering takedown. Never a nit shall go unpicked when Fortune is on the case!
*Which there are plenty; just a quick perusal of the links Noah provides, mostly to his past posts, quotes Navarro, Lutnick, Bessent, and Grier, probably others but I only clicked on a few such links. Sorry you had to click and read, bro.
@Kurtz:
@Neil Hudelson:
Socrates, as portrayed by Plato, pretended to be obtuse and naive in order to get people to think about their answers. The resident troll, as judging from the comments on them, is just being annoying.
@Fortune:
You use trivialities to avoid taking an actual stand. And no doubt think you’ve accomplished something. Later you can question my use of commas.
You had a moment the other day when it looked like you might not be just another dishonest, gutless troll. There was a moment you could have behaved like a grown-up. But I guess that was too taxing.
Following the strong suggestion of our hosts I’m ignoring trolls. I was hoping you had a little more going on. But why don’t you just save us all the time and tell us: are you ever going to be more than a troll? Are you capable of being more? Will you put in the effort? Because otherwise what you think are your clever moves just elicit rolled eyes, and you’ll just be put on ignore.
@CSK:
The rapist has denied it, which I take as confirmation.
@Neil Hudelson:
Fortune may be upset about the Mithras thing from the last couple days.
Also, thank you for clicking on more links than I did.
If our read is correct about Fortune’s intent:
Let’s say that the only pundit linked was Cass.
That imprecise (conversational writing style) language is the equivalent of saying something like “The Constitution protects freedom of religion, especially Christianity”. So when I or anyone else hammer Fortune for typing that, but do not also complain about an introductory clause in Charon’s post, it just shows how unfair we are to anyone outside our tribe.
Neil, we should stop being such assholes to Fortune. Our bigotry against conservatives or Christians or whatever is obvious.
Now, excuse me while I go bang my head against a wall for a little while. I’m hoping the contact point is the right spot so I can forget that this shit ever happened.
I’m not making a trivial point or engaging in wordplay. I’ve maintained there’s no groundswell of support on the right for Trump’s tariffs. Charontwo said, “Do you imagine “conservative” economic pundits may acknowledge the Trumponomics emperor has no clothes? Think again.
Noahpinion has a post up with lots of links to people like Oren Cass sticking by the idea tariffs are bitching fine and will reindustrialize America (like that’s good).” I read the linked article. There was only one right-wing tariff supporter in the article. It supports my position, unless someone wants to claim Oren Cass is a major force in right-wing commentary, or a lot of people agree with him.
@Fortune:
This feels like a no true scotsman argument where you are choosing to ignore Right Wing Media that disproves you’re argument.
We could go with pundits like Newt Gingrich, Mark Levin, Charlie Kirk, Brit Hume, Victor Dean Hansen, Matt Walsh, Sean Hannity and others who have been touting the tariffs on social media, interviews, their own talk programs, etc. Or we can check out Breitbart, Daily Caller, The Blaze, Red State and others that have many articles defending the tariffs–see for example:
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2025/04/10/breitbart-business-digest-the-forgotten-economic-theory-behind-trumps-tariffs/ (or others on Breitbart: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2025/04/10/breitbart-business-digest-the-forgotten-economic-theory-behind-trumps-tariffs/)
https://dailycaller.com/2025/04/21/brit-hume-china-tariffs-economy/
https://dailycaller.com/2025/04/11/victor-davis-hanson-tariffs-trump-trade-war/
https://www.theblaze.com/shows/levintv/oleary-calls-china-tariffs-soft-but-mark-levin-sees-the-hidden-brilliance
https://redstate.com/terichristoph/2025/04/09/trump-remarks-on-tariff-pause-n2187677
https://www.instagram.com/mattwalshblog/reel/DIPh4okpwRF/
https://www.cpac.org/post/quelling-the-left-s-tariff-hysteria-trump-s-tariffs-are-leveling-the-playing-field
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q1VtIWijHA
I can go on and keep pulling links (that was just a quick google), but it’s pretty clear there is at a minimum grudging support, if not outright praise, of Trump’s tariff plan across most of the Right Wing/Conservative Media Complex. Pretending otherwise is not making a good faith argument (or not being willing to do the homework to back up your initial claim).
Here’s a link to Dr. T talking about collective action problems a week or so ago. For a couple days there seemed to be consensus around DFTFT. As with Trump. if someone cannot explain themselves intelligibly, we are not required to try to make sense of them. Especially when the obfuscation is deliberate, and we know they’ll come back and say our interpretation was not at all what they meant. It’s a game. We’re not required to play.
ETA, juxtaposition makes it look like I’m picking on you, Matt. I hadn’t seen your comment when I posted mine. Your patience is admirable. But I fear it’s wasted.
@Kingdaddy: The final kick in the teeth for the bike bag manufacturer, “Bike shops in Mexico, Canada, Australia, the U.K. and South Africa have canceled orders for Oveja Negra bags. They are saying ‘Nope, we don’t buy anything from the U.S. anymore,’” Willson says.
@Fortune:
So say that in your initial post.
Or in your first reply when several of us expressed either confusion, speculated about your intent, or replied based on a misunderstanding.
Look through past threads. It is common for regulars to say that they have pointed something out before, before applying it to that thread’s topic.
Why would we do that? Because the goal is to communicate.
Assuming that everyone has read all of one’s posts, remembered everything said, and correctly remembered it was that specific commenter who wrote it is a sure way to be misunderstood at least some of the time.
Bloggers, pundits, scholars all make it a habit to remind readers what they have said in the past.
They do that because their goal is effective communication.
That is why some of us question your intent, because the ones who have not written you off as a troll or other type of bad-faith actor have pointed to consistent patterns in your commentary that erect barriers to our understanding of your thoughts.
And, to answer your totally good faith reply to me the other day, yes, I am serious. And despite what you think of me, I have asked you many times, without snark or invective or insults, specific questions about your comments and received no response. Yet, I have still tried to have fruitful exchanges with you. An effort that annoys many others here.
If your goal here is to communicate your thoughts, even if it is our fault*, then the only thing you can do to achieve that goal is to change how you express those thoughts. Otherwise, your thoughts and your intent are left open to our interpretation. Not an effective approach when writing to a crowd you have previously identified as hostile.
Sitting in the back of the class, throwing out one-liners, does not automatically confer coolness or cleverness—punchlines matter.
*I prefer not to use typographical features for emphasis, but it feels necessary here.
@Matt Bernius: Now that was a smart comment. I probably underestimate the influence of the media outlets I’ve previously dismissed. But you’ve listed some of the right-wing opinion leaders in the press and Congress who’ve criticized the tariffs, and I have more confidence in my ability to understand the conservative zeitgeist than the commenters here. Arthur Laffer, Thomas Sowell, the WSJ, National Review, Ted Cruz, Ben Shapiro, Elon Musk, et cetera are raising concerns. The Republican Party and the average voter are withholding judgment. The outlets you listed above are all Trump’s way or the highway. It’s wrong to depict them as “most”.
I would say that most right of center economists are deliberately staying pretty silent on the tariffs. If asked I would expect them to oppose them but no one wants to get canceled and receive death threat for opposing Trump. From my broad reading of right wing sources I would say that most on the right still broadly support Trump and they think he has a good plan with the tariffs. They still believe that Trump is the only person who can fix the country. However, they want to wait to assess to see what happens. To be honest, he keeps changing things so fast I think polls are semi-useless right now since your opinions could change based upon the current proposals. Anyway, link goes to a report of a recent poll. @Kurtz: I read Noah pretty regularly. Complaining that he doesnt provide links was a pretty dubious claim. As I noted, I didnt go to all of the links but given that Cass has enough oomph to get an editorial at the NYT suggests he has some real influence.
Steve
Steve
@Fortune:
At the same time, you seem to be depicting them as not significant. That’s a clear overreach too. You have your personal assessment of the conservative zeitgeist, but as we just established it seems a bit biased towards the people whose opinions jive with yours. Again, that’s a super normal human bias.
Still I can’t help but notice you more or less handwaved away my inconvenient counterfactuals by simply disqualifying my selections as “ride or die” Trump.
You also are making the mistake of flattening out the agreement on collective websites. For example, Matt Walsh is a member of Ben Shapiro’s team last I checked. And are you suggesting that CPAC isn’t part of the conservative zeitgeist. Heck, even with the National Review, there are some writers who are sympathetic to the tariffs (usually the solicited pieces that use the Tariffs as a jumping off point to attack globalists, economists, free traders, and academics).
I also think, in terms of conservative zeitgeist, to look at the comment sections of sites like the National Review to gauge how their commenters feel about the tariffs. Once again, the results are often pretty mixed with lots of people defending the tariffs as “necessary.”
I agree with the notion that response to the Tariffs in the right wing space is mixed–far, far, far more than say Trump’s immigration policy and violations of due process orders where there is a much stronger level of support.
However, I categorically reject the idea that there is not a significant amount of support for the tariffs among Republicans and Conservatives (both on the ground, by pundits, and by elected officals). I also appreciate that admitting that means criticizing folks on your side–which is hard to do.
@steve:
That’s my take as well… Maybe not the death threat part, but most of those folks are doing their best Susan Collins impressions at the moment.
Which I will note, even Fortune is doing to some degree. Not only has he claimed in the past that the US exited the first Trump administration’s tariffs with strong trade relationships (something I have never seen any analyst claim), the most critical thing he will say is “I don’t think they are a good idea, but we’ll wait and see as I could be wrong.” — Fortune, if you feel that’s an unfair categorization of your position, let me know and I’ll correct.
Taking a hard stance against the leader of your own party is a challenging thing to do.
I really expected better from the UK. This is the moral equivalent to the Dredd Scott decision.
As always with this crowd, it’s a matter of lack of personal integrity. They have no true moral rudder. Every shark for itself.
@steve:
This is a good opportunity to demonstrate my point about effective communication.
I should have made it clear that I was not saying you were incorrect about Smith’s piece, rather it was about Fortune’s characterization of charon’s words.
I have not read that much Noah Smith, but the pieces I have read indicate that he takes links and citations seriously. So, imo, you made a safe assumption.
But that wasn’t my point. My fault, though.
Dude carries goalposts like they are a cross.
@Rob1:
Whether they know it or not, and the probably don’t, for once they’re fighting the real enemy.
Bill Owen, the producer of 60 Minutes, has quit.
“rare earths”
@Matt Bernius:
Yes, and the right’s rank-and-file, too. Trump voters said the economy was their #1 issue. The cornerstone of Trump’s economic plan was tariffs; he reiterated so multiple times. In response, Harris warned multiple times that Trump’s tariffs would be disastrous and a thousands+ yearly tax.
They voted Trump into office anyway.
So either:
a) Yes, the right supports or supported Trump’s very bad, no good tariffs.
b) Yes, the right is inattentive, unserious, and dangerously uninformed.
But the notion they didn’t support the bad ideas they voted in Because Economy doesn’t compute. Some are changing their minds now, as Republican incompetence is exposed (yet again, same as it ever was).
@Tony W:..
@Jax:..
In the April 17, 2025 Thursday’s Forum thread Matt Bernius wrote:
My post today about the Comment Counter is a response to that inquiry. It is not a complaint.
I will try the CTRI-F5 reset in the future.
ETA: The cover page that I see for Tuesday’s Forum shows 41 comments.
The thread header shows 46. The Ctrl-F5 prompt doesn’t change anything.
I have a TV show recommendation: The Brokenwood Mysteries. It’s on Amazon Prime, and it is a detective series.
Is it well-written? No. Not in the least. Is it well-acted? Um, well, in some cases maybe? Is there anything interesting about the way it’s structured or shot? Nope.
However it is from New Zealand where the short ‘e’ is almost always pronounced as a short ‘i.’ So letter is litter. Setter is sitter. And in the latest episode, the victim is, unfortunately, Peggy.
So, yis, Piggy is did. The mithod of dith is not yit known.
In the Iliad, after Agamemnon has his fight with Achilles, there’s a scene where two of Agamemnon’s troops come to take Achilles’ “companion” Briseis (yes, the whole thing is disgusting). The soldiers are fearful, seeing as they’re coming to take the slave girl of the strongest warrior in the entire epic. Achilles tells them his fight is with Agamemnon and not with them.
Later on he visits his mother, the sea nymph Thetis, and asks her to intercede with Zeus so he might send a plague to afflict the Achaeans, who have treated him so badly. Zeus does just that.
So, what happened with “my fight is with Agamemnon, not with you”?
I bring this up because we see similar things in fiction these days, especially on TV. Most instances, though not all, are an expression of the trope/principle that only the protagonist or the characters they care about matter.
For example, in the first season of Titans a lot of people get killed over several episodes, some by the “good guys”. By the last ep, much is made of the fact that Batman, who hasn’t appeared in the show, might kill the Joker.
Seriously?
Problem is, no spoilers, I felt something like this at the end of season 2 of Severance.
I wonder whether writers don’t see this (I’m sure we all have blind spots like this), or simply don’t care. Other than this, I really have no major complaints with how season 2 played out.
On better news, the third and last season of Blood of Zeus, an animated Greek mythologyish adventure, premieres early next month on Netflix. I might do as I did with Disenchantment, and rewatch all eps before season 3.
For B5 fans, Claudia Christian voices Hera.
@gVOR10:
Bernius is usually the only person who can get more than a line or two out of Fortune. So in that sense, Matt is the only one who isn’t feeding the troll in a strict interpretation.
So, I guess the rest of us can silently
let Fortune do their thing and wait for Matt to respond. But even then, there are still conspicuous silences.
But I confess that unlike most of us, I don’t consider Fortune a troll, so YMMV.
@Kathy:
It is and in many ways dumber. This is going to cause enormous problems.
This of you who’ve seen my instagram account, do you think you could tell I’m trans at a glance? Or are all tall women now going to get harassed in bathrooms?
Underlying this judgement is two things: the unwavering belief that trans people are inherently disgusting and you can ALWAYS tell who is trans and who isn’t. Hell, I was watching a comedian on insta and I had no idea he was trans until he revealed it as part of the joke. At 6 feet tall I’m a tall person period, but there are shit loads of tall women. There are likely more tall cis women than there are trans women. Hell I’m taller than most other trans women.
Honestly, if forced to choose by divine magic I’d sooner give up being trans than being tall.
The other thing is, how’s this going to work? I was told to use the men’s room on Saturday, but there were no stalls. It seems to me that if you’re going to force me to use a toilet then there has to be a toilet that works. The judgement said we have rights as trans people, so isn’t it discrimination if there’s not a functional toilet?
How about if i get sexually assaulted because I was forced to use the men’s room? I’ve been groped in safer situations.
The other thing coming next is a flat out ban on transition. They are doing another bullshit style Cass review for adults. They just don’t want us to exist.
Also, exactly how is anyone supposed to know someone’s gender at birth? Intersex people exist so genitalia isn’t a give away? Are we going to do genetic testing on each baby and put that on an id card? What about all the people that don’t fix into neat xx xy boxes? My guess is that there are a lot more people out there that aren’t trans and aren’t xx xy either.
It’s all fucking stupid bigotry. Top to bottom bigotry.
Elon’s been using the wrong kind of stainless steel on his Cybertrucks.
What they are using is a modified 301 stainless, which they call “30-X”. 301 is much easier to cold-mold than anything this side of the ferric stainlesses, so that’s probably why they started there. But the “30-X” Tesla is using has even less chromium than 301 in order to make it even easier to cold mold, and even true 301 is going to rust stain in a salty environment.
What kind of truck maker doesn’t give a damn if their “truck” is a rust-bucket? How did they rationalize this? Did they think their customers wouldn’t notice or did they think their customers don’t actually want a truck?
So Tesla earnings report is out. 71% slide cuz of anti-Elon sentiment. WSJ calls it “political backlash “.
@Kurtz:
The one thing that stuck out to me watching this particular back and forth today is that my writing must be much clearer and/or engaging than I thought.
@Kathy:
I’m not sure I follow you re: Severance. My partner and I had a pretty severe disagreement over the ending.
Sarah Palin lost her defamation suit against the NYT. Gee, too bad.
@Beth:
It’s not just stupid cruelty and bigotry, but so totally gratuitous and unnecessary as well. Socially it’s the ultimate in punching down.
@Beth:
This is why I believe there should be gender reveal parties at age 18 or so, when the individual has had enough time to consider the options and weigh all the alternatives.
I can see a case for age 13 (bar/bat/bae mitzvah age), but kids may not have supportive parents, and I can see a case for 25 when they can rent a car. Perhaps it can be an annual event during that period.
Everyone loves a party, after all, and it would be good for the confetti industry. I’m thinking mixes of pink, blue, yellow, green and grey confetti, so people can express as they wish (or get special confetti printed, but I think those five should cover most occaisions)
Also, sorry TERF island is being terfy.
@Beth:
MASSIVE SPOILERS FOLLOW
.
.
.
.
.
. SPOILER SPACE ENDS.
In the last ep, Innie Mark hesitates to help Outie Mark, because if the latter brought Lumon down, then Innie Mark and all other Innies, especially Helly R., would cease to exist.
That’s a critical ethical dilemma with no apparent answers, not even reintegration. Good.
But when Innie Mark does help, what does he do? He takes Ms. Casey, an innie, and her many more testing floor innies, out of Lumon, effectively ending her and their existence.
I am aware the Irving, Burt, and Fields was an attempt by the first two to connect, however tenuously, to their innies.
BTW, I was also dissatisfied with Gemma’s dialogue in that scene. telling Mark to come out as well was fine. But then she says “We have to go home.” And that sounded to me like someone prying their spouse off a party, casino, sporting event, restaurant, etc.
Consider she was out of the severance field (or whatever it’s called), but still inside Lumon HQ. One assumes there are other security personnel aside from Drummond, right? They do have to go, fast, because they’re not safe there.
They did a lot better with the goats. and I’m 90% certain the goat department scene in season 1 was just throw away weirdness.
Last, I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought the season would end with innie Mark undecided between Gemma and Helly.
@dazedandconfused:
I’ve not looked closely at Texla, but ti seems the beta nazi prick runs it like a tech company. Not as badly as Theranos, but the next worst thing.
@becca:
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving, nastier nazi prick. I hope he appreciates sleeping in the bed he’s made.
@Daryl:
🙂
@Beth:
I only recall a post or two that I was unsure exactly what you were attempting to convey. But it was a sentence or two within a post that was otherwise clear. So more like a detail.
I’ve semi-regularly noticed exchanges wherein someone makes a comment, another person replies, the op responds as if the reply disagreed with the op. Sometimes, it is difficult to tell if OP was unclear or it was a misread by the person who replied or the OP misread the reply.
A similar thing happened today. In part, due to my own lack of clarity when I replied to Steve. Upon a re-read, I completely understood why he replied as he did.
But I also note that between Steve’s initial reply and my own, Fortune had clarified that the initial comment was intended to convey that the links only demonstrated support by Cass. I read that as challenging charon’s characterization, not necessarily Smith’s piece. But it is unknown whether Steve saw Fortune’s clarification.
I should never have responded to Steve. But if I chose to respond, I should have been clearer about the updated intent of the no links claim. I suspect it had as much to do with the order in which each of us read the posts.
However, that is wholly different from the post that started the conversation. For one thing, it was factually incorrect. The subsequent clarification was apparently also factually incorrect.
More than that, the intent of the original statement would be unclear even if it had been correct. It would appear to be aimed at charon’s characterization, but we were all supposed to intuit that it proves Fortune was right all along about most republicans actively opposing the tariff policy. Indeed, three informed, attentive readers misinterpreted the intent the same way initially.
@Michael Reynolds: Yud leck Borderlands thun, tiew. It teks pless in the Freh Steat, but fitures a PSNI officer in addition to one from the Garda.
https://bsky.app/profile/theonion.com/post/3lng5r4lj522c
@Kurtz: I don’t see him as a troll in the conventional JKB or Connor/Drew/Whoever sense, but I’ve given up on notions that he intends a good faith argument/discussion. I suspected that from the beginning, though, so any frustration is my own fault.
@dazedandconfused: Take another look and explain to me why someone who wanted a “truck” would buy that. I don’t understand how it matches “truck” as a concept at all.
Not only did Tesla lose 71% of their profits but if it weren’t for government subsidies the would have been in negative numbers. Government efficiency my ass.
@Kathy: “I’ve not looked closely at Texla, but… runs it like a tech company.”
It certainly has a tech company stock valuation, which I don’t get. The vast majority of revenue comes from their car sales business, and that’s no longer growing. Their energy storage/management business has lots of capable competition. And their self-driving aspirations are not compelling–he’s been making ridiculous predictions about autonomous cross-country driving for a decade, while companies like Waymo and Cruise have already operated autonomous taxis in urban areas. Also, they’ve gone with camera-only sensors for their vehicles, with no radar, which I can’t understand. I’ve gotten used to our car with radar cruise control, especially in rain and mist, when visual cameras (and human eyes) may not be capable of seeing what’s up the road.
@Mister Bluster: “I don’t know how you are accessing OTB. Currently my front page says 3 comments and it says 4 on the Tuesday’s Forum page.”
I had it good early this morning, then everything fell out of synch.
Oh, and with the comment numbering too!
@Kathy:
Sooo spoiler-y skip if necessary
:
S
K
I
P
Aaaannd done.
At first, I thought it was cute that Innie Mark chose Helly R. Cause I’m basic like that. But that didn’t really sit right with me. What I got to was this:
1. Innie Mark (“IM”) realized that Gemma one had no idea what was going on and two was going to die if she stayed there. If her body died than all those innies would die too. In that sorta trolly problem it’s better to kick her out the door. It’s the right thing to do so he does it.
2. IM learns he’s basically been created to eat shit. Over and over again so someone he doesn’t know doesn’t have to think for several hours a day. And he does. He makes friends and builds a little life for himself with what he has and he does what he’s told. Because he know if he steps out of line he’ll be punished harshly.
He loses one friend and no one explains that to him. But then he’s given a little bit of hope. He deepens his connections to his other friends. He rebels a little and is able to eke out a little freedom. He finds love and he has hope.
But then Outie Mark (“OM”) comes along and says basically, your existence is bullshit. I’m sorry, but I made you to suffer and even though you did everything right, you shouldn’t exist. So, save my wife, and then go fuck yourself and die. It’s your job to suffer and die so that I (OM) can have comfort. And then all the other Outie People are like, yeah, you’re not a real person, sorry, fuck off and die.
So he gets to that door and he goes, fuck this and fuck them. I’m going to radically choose myself and I’m going to fucking exist even if it’s only for 30 more seconds. IM doesn’t choose Helly R. over Gemma. He chooses himself over OM. And why not? Why should he have to die to save someone else, especially when that someone else is an asshole to him.
I’m fully Team Innie Mark. Also, one of my favorite story tropes is where the hero saves the day and then dies without seeing the battle being won (see, Rogue One, Halo: Reach). My therapist hated that because it’s very connected to my suicidal ideation. To me, this ending subverts that in a great way. The hero saves the damsel in distress and then, well, he doesn’t give a shit if he saved the day or not. That’s not his problem, he’s got a hot redhead to bang and an unknown amount of time to do it. Get ready living or get ready dying.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
“We are going to make it with a stainless steel body to make a car that doesn’t suffer body corrosion!”
“Sir, there’s a reason why nobody this side of the demented DeLorean did that. the stuff is damn expensive to make into car body parts.”
“I’m surrounded with idiots! Not if we make it out of a type of stainless steel that rusts, it isn’t!”
Adding this in a separate comment that won’t make much sense unless you read the last one. Anyway.
So, in this latest round of suicidal-ness* one of the constant refrains has been something along the lines of “think of your kids!” “Think of your partner!” “Think about all the other people!”
That to me has sounded like a tacit agreement that my life is shit and in and of itself not worth living. Hey bro, your life sucks, live for these other people so you don’t make them sad. I’m sure that’s not the intent, but that’s been the impact.
I keep thinking of my grandpa and how he told me about his sobriety. He said he was never going to get sober for other people. They could all tell him that he was ruining lives and being terrible and that didn’t matter at all. He only got sober because he chose to.
I feel like there is no intrinsic value to my own life for me. I mean, sure, I could keep living for other people and watch them as they get to enjoy happiness. But what about me? I did everything I was “supposed” to do and for one shining moment it looked like it might payoff. And now it won’t. I’m back to being alone in a place that hates me. I’m not going to get a happy ending. Best I might luck into is someone else’s.
So, yeah, Innie Mark, fuck those people.
*it’s been like three days since my last attempt. I felt my heart exploding in my chest and I was fine to let it explode. Ever feel like you were about to die and be totally at peace with that? lol, that security guard had no idea he saved my life by letting me sit out in the cold. And then fucking yelled at me.
Holy crap. Some days Fortune draws more derisive comments in a thread than Trump. And that’s saying something.
@Eusebio:
I get the feeling Waymo and Cruise, despite their many flaws, want to get it done right and with a minimum of lawsuits. Whereas the chief nazi wants to do it on the cheap with his swasticars just to charge extra for it.
Last year at a big event he announced self driving swasticar cabs. they haven’t been deployed, naturally, and I’ve heard not one word about them since.
The truth shall set your bowels free.
@Beth:
I’ve a more sympathetic take on Outie Mark. To begin with, Lumon lied to him about severance. He is undergoing reintegration. the last is intriguing, as we don’t know that’s the answer, but we also don’t know it isn’t. Maybe a third person gets created as synthesis of innie and outie (shades of Tuvix).
But he does take innie Mark for granted, and it never crosses his mind he might not help util he says so.
BTW, in season one, Helly’s outie tells her “I’m a person. You’re not.” This season, Miss Huang warns Milchick his treatment might give the innies the impression they’re people. Compared to that, Outie Mark is a saint. Also, Innie Mark discovered Gemma was not dead.
Of course, one problem is that both Marks tend to act like a-holes now and then.
I’m wondering now more about how Gemma wound up a test subject at Lumon, considering it was her outie living in the testing floor (and was she Ms Casey’s outie as well?) Also when Burt got involved with Lumon and severance, and why did he think Irving needed to flee.
Hopefully season 3 will arrive by 2026.
@gVOR10: FWIW, I was less admonishing anyone as I was trying to demonstrate the difficulties associated with collective action (and the example in question keeps being demonstrated).
In defense of those who seek engagement, I think they hope (as I once did) that the person in question could be a productive member of the community. So I salute that, but don’t have a lot of hope.
@wr:..out of synch…
I hope everything works out for you.
@Beth:
I got one. Why are you so sure you won’t?
It’s usually pretty hard to figure out what is, none of us has the ability to see what is to be. Hope seems irrational, but it’s not. It’s completely rational.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Oh, I’m jumping on that. I’ve seen the tile on Amazon. But it looks like it might actually be good.
In the not-good but somehow addictive category is, Death in Paradise, in which a White British Chief Inspector is sent to a Caribbean Island to lead a Black crew of locals, featuring every second-rate British actor being dragged in to do a Jamaican accent. Is the White Inspector up-tight but brilliant and paired with a hot Black detective who is going to teach him the ways of the island? Why yes. How did you guess?
IIRC we are on the 5th Inspector and have the first Black one. Not that he can do a Jamaican accent, either.