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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • I think strategically used tariffs (i.e. used in trade negotiations for specific sectors or items, not unilateral tariffs) can convince a country to export items at a price that benefits one country more than the other, usually in tandem with an agreement to reciprocate. Basically, countries agree to trade at certain rates or exclusively sell. Tariffs are the “bad cop” of trade negotiations.

    The tariff isn’t what lowers the price, it’s the threat of the tariff that lowers the price or keeps it stable.

    Imagine Canada exports maple widgets at $10 a piece to reflect the true cost of manufacture. The US says that is too high, our people can’t afford that price once it’s on the shelves, so how about you export them for $8? To sweeten the deal, we’ll export freedom widgets to you at reduced cost.

    Canada responds saying $8 for maple widgets is too low, $10 is firm and we’ll deal with the current cost of freedom widgets. The US threatens a targeted tariff on maple widgets at 25% which doesn’t affect the price of maple widgets in Canada or their sale price to importers in the US, but importers in the US have to pay $2.50 in tax on top of the purchase cost for maple widgets which drives up the cost for US consumers.

    This results in the price of the item increasing in the US $4.50 over the price determined to be “affordable” which will result in reduced imports and reduced purchases of maple widgets by consumers. Canada now has to find somewhere else to sell their maple widgets since the US isn’t buying at the same rate which drives down the value of maple widgets in Canada.

    And if the US was feeling particularly vengeful at being denied their cheap steady supply of maple widgets, they could convince other countries to not buy Canadian widgets at all or impose a blanket ban on all Canadian goods (see: how the US obliterated the economy of Cuba because of “communism” which was really just Cuba not wanting to be the US’s sugar plantation anymore).

    Canada will evaluate this and determine that selling maple widgets is essential to their economy and less profit for their maple widget industry is an agreeable trade compared to the US not buying at all.


  • but surely him rising again is more important than his death?

    Depends on how fixated a faith is on the “sacrifice of the Lamb.” There’s one interpretation that Jesus’ suffering and death is what appeased God and fulfilled the prophecy and ended the law of Moses. If you’re the kind of person that buys into God being the sort of deity that wants to kill himself in order to satisfy his own bloodlust, then yeah, I could see Christ’s death being the more important part.

    Surely the resurrection should be emphasized as the result, but the death is what God demanded to atone for the sins of the world. The resurrection was just proof that he held up his end of the bargain.

    I think that the Christ story suffers from the audience knowing details about the story that the characters don’t to the point that the big miracle at the end falls flat. Everyone just ends up focusing on the mechanics of Christs death rather than its purpose.


  • I like your perspective and wish Christianity aligned more with your post than whatever it’s doing now.

    I’m not Christian, but I have observed that the worship of the cross and Christ’s death is directly tied to the theological idea of salvation, especially with evangelicals. If his death is the single most important part of your faith, then the cross becomes a symbol and reminder that you’re saved and not going to hell. It was primed to become a symbol and eventually an idol.

    I also think historically the cross as a symbol for Christianity comes from the Greek letter chi (x) in the spelling of Christ. “X-tians” was a shorthand form way before the “taking Christ out of Christmas” nonsense.

    But to the original point of the Klan burning the cross: I’ve read that they argue that cross burning is a medieval European affirmation of faith, something that is doing double duty of arguing that it’s an expression of their faith and connecting them to their “racial” roots.






  • It works like this:

    • Teach at a public school
    • That school receives funding directly or indirectly from federal programs under the executive branch, including the Department of Education
    • DEI support disqualifies institutions from receiving Federal funds
    • Supporting DEI and trans rights while receiving Federal funds counts as defrauding the US government
    • DOJ takes up the case

    While EOs are not laws, they have the potential to do massive amounts of damage because most of the government runs on agencies under control of the Executive. And while universities and public schools are not federal, they receive shit tons of funds through grants, contracts, and subsidies from a wide array of federal agencies (see: academic panic at the NSF and NIH halting grant review and funding as a result of Trump’s recent orders).





  • derfunkatron@lemmy.worldtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world*Permanently Deleted*
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    1 month ago

    Is this enshittification or the convergence of objects into the same design due to regulation/demand/function/etc. (I’m sure there’s a name for this but I can’t recall it)?

    Cell phones are certainly enshittified with planned obsolescence or incompatible text messaging protocols or ‘walled gardens’, but what else should a cell phone be besides a cellular networked pocket computer with a camera?

    What features (besides a dedicated headphone jack) is missing from a modern cell phone that your old one had?



  • Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality comes to mind.

    Hyperreality is the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality.

    However, after thinking up some doom and gloom shit about the future, I reversed course: Why speculate about future kids when most of us grew up with a manipulative media diet? Saturday morning cartoons were wildly manipulative, the emergence of social media damaged a lot of people’s expectation of reality, and the last three election cycles in the US were heavily impacted by the ability of certain populists to generate memes.

    AI will speed up the content generation process and introduce some absurd elements like six-fingered watch models, but I don’t think it will be more manipulative than media already is, just weirder and faster.

    My ultimately positive forecast: the kids of the future will create their own networked spaces outside of the mainstream internet and just continue on with their lives ignoring what doesn’t interest them and seeking out what does. Regardless, we’ll never understand it anyway.




  • Mainly because they are members of the class of people that will benefit, directly and indirectly, from a Trump presidency.

    Knowing this, they aren’t stupid for voting for the person who will enable the gross accumulation of wealth through the systematic deregulation of industries and privatization of government services. There’s one group of people who will benefit from this: the wealthy (who are disproportionately white and male).

    The idiots are people who voted for Trump thinking that his administration will result in a net positive for them socially and economically.

    Voting against your interests is dumb; voting inline with your interests is not.