Mark, Republicans in USA is a liberal conservative party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_conservatism

Mark, the US left is turning away from liebralism - and it is not surprising that real liberals end up seeing republicans in a more favourable light IMO

wood \o/

yeah

so just to be clear on this also - modern liberalism started with John Locke - who influenced USian revolutionaries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke

> His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries.

The US constitution is a modern liberal constitution - it is just that in US liberal is used to refer to ideologies which is left of actual liberalism

Mark, do you know Douglas Murray?

Mark, man you must watch it: https://youtu.be/WmvPfbfzX4U?t=7846

https://imgur.com/68y2Szd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3wcjwY4mz8

!agree

!rank

wood, do you know of matrix.org?

wood, it's like federated irc/discord

mastadon is the right solution to the problem

you will get various servers with various leanings - but that is fine

the system can evolve

devpav not really in the same was as matrix.org

devpav: https://matrix.org/blog/home/#about

bob, alice and charlie are completely independently managed

so there could be rooms just on matrix.bob.com - but others could exist on botwh matrix.alice.com - and they will be the same room essentially

matrix.org is a lot harder to censor rooms/communities with - as it can just move to a different server - and from there still access all other content

you can try it with: https://riot.im/app/

it is kinda laggy at the moment

>5s latency - but they are working on it

there are many servers though - and really which one you are on does not matter much

irc federation is not open federation like matrix.org

wood, well it is designed to be similar - but decentralized via federation

anybody can bring up a matrix.org server an federate with most other servers

China should be sanctioned

actually - I don't see how germany has not placed sanctions on China yet

if you think a country is so dangerous that you cannot send chinese citizens to china for fear of government opressing them - then how is it moral to continue trading with them

China must fall

da, I'm not sure that view is completely accurate

let me find something

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/22/chinas-currency-manipulation-actually-enhances-the-global-role-of-the-dollar-sdr-rmb-balance-of-payments/

http://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/56856

> In fact, foreign investment is only good for an economy if it brings needed technological or managerial innovation or if that economy cannot otherwise raise funding for domestic productive investment. If neither holds — and they hold in developing economies only, not advanced countries like the United States — foreign investment always forces the recipient country to choose between a higher debt burden and higher unemployment.

> As long as the United States is the only country willing and able to run the current account deficits that result from foreign accumulation of dollars, the dollar will be the only important global reserve currency. And as long as other economies try to goose domestic growth or reduce domestic unemployment by forcing up exports relative to imports, either U.S. debt will be higher or U.S. growth will be lower and unemployment higher. This is why the United States will eventually limit foreigners from accumulating dollars for their reserves.

> The logic is inexorable. As the global economy grows relative to that of the United States, it is only a matter of time before Washington is forced into defensive action. The only question is how much economic pain and domestic unemployment the United States is willing to accept before it acts. As long as the dollar is easy to acquire in near-unlimited amounts, foreign countries with weak domestic demand can simply buy dollars and force their domestic demand deficiencies onto their trading partners. Until then, it doesn’t matter whether or not the People’s Bank tries to improve the SDR’s visibility. It is entirely against China’s economic interests for the SDR to replace the dollar — let alone for the renminbi to do so.

its not clear that china's behaviour has actually been a benefit to the west - I think in many ways China has gotten more out of it than the west has

Grenade - that is basically the point of what I quoted - but it'ts a very complicated issue

Grenade, the fault is mostly US' - not Chinas

> There is, in short, no way Japan could have benefited from People’s Bank purchases of its yen bonds. Only the United States permits unlimited purchases of government bonds by foreign central banks — not because, however, it is immune to the problems Japan and other advanced countries face. Like them, the United States can easily fund productive domestic investments without foreign capital, and so rather than cause productive investment to rise, foreign investment causes domestic savings to fall, which can only happen with a rising debt burden or rising unemployment.

Stefan, China is worse than VZ - I think VZ will sort itself out way before china - but yeah sure, VZ also needs sanctions (if they don't have already)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVI6KeZnHyU

Dave rubin is kinda lame and dumb

he was kinda edgy in the beginning - but really he has no wisdom and very little intelligence IMO

and completely lacks the courage of his convictions

I feel embarrased for him when he speaks or tries to make a point

@Atkins I don't really mean it like that - but he had interesting guests - but now he just talks about same shit all the time

His talk with Varoufakis was very good

Blackhawk, see the problem is he is not really intelligent enough to have interesting discussions - he does not find edge cases and corner cases or think things through

Blackhard, but I'm already sold on that stuff - I want to be engaged - and for a spokesperson for the ills of the left he is not very good at it

Poppy yeah

I don't hate him - I just wish he was not so bvapid

His recent talk with Joe rogan - it was embarrasing - he keeps thinking Joe is trying to attack his views and gets defensive over nothing - he does not seem to like being challenged - and I can understand why - because he does not have the courage of his convictions

he seems to be unsure if he is actually right in his positions

or even what exactly they are

and why they matter

you can have an intellectual echo chamber even there - just have to choose who you engage in - and maybe he is not trying to really represent his own views - but it feels too much like he treats every guest like a referendum on his views - which again - if he had the courage of his convictions - and was trying to just do a neutral talk show - he would be confident enough about so that he does not have to make it about that all the time

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-09-03-more-adults-not-working-than-working-in-south-africa/

^ More adults not working than working in South Africa

https://www.fin24.com/Economy/sa-in-technical-recession-as-second-quarter-gdp-falls-20180904

^ South Africa in technical recession as second quarter GDP falls

Spoils of socialism

I think somehow our govt here in .za thinks we are in the uncanny valley of socialism

and if we just implement more socialist policies we will be a utopia - even though so far every socialist policy just made everything worse

yup

half the population is not employed - we are in recession - but surely stealing property will fix everything

yes

we have bad inequality - but that is in part because we have had double digit unemployment for almost 3 decades

and the government tries their best to avoid any policy that would increase economic growth

rather opting for just redistributive policies

while constantly shriking the pie in real terms: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=ZA

our GDP per capita has been going down since 2011

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?locations=ZA

since 1991 the unemployment was only below 20% for one year

I would gladly pay more taxes if our govt would just get their head out of their arse and drop the anti-liberal policies

but even then they would just pocket the money and say "see, it's not working, we are too corrupt - we need to steal people's shit instead"

true dat

yeah

and the worse thing is the west running cover for this bullshit - like Theresa May saying she is fine with it as long as it is legal and democratic

like laws and populism makes things moral

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-britain-land/britain-supports-south-african-land-reform-pm-may-idUSKCN1LD0U7

^ Britain supports South African land reform: PM May

> “The UK has for some time now supported land reform. Land reform that is legal, that is transparent, that is generated through a democratic process,” May told reporters.

yup

Theresa May is a fucking snake

hope there is a hell and she is sent there

Grenade, exactly

Miss, and in soth africa the wolf to sheep ratio is closer to 10:1 😉

All of this is actually rather complex - see democracy in itself is pretty useless - it is the moral choice - but it bestows no benefits

you need values and tradition for that

In South Africa, the closest we have is communist values and tradition - so people vote for communist shit

it's not a absolute democracy - but with the level of support for socialist policies no constitution can save it

if you had spermajority support for populist socialism in USA it would also be the same

Grenade easier said than done

I have to take care of my mom

and she can't find work elsewhere easily

she is like 60 or something