Comment by ToucanLoucan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ToucanLoucan | Hacker News Reader

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The real issue is people are still treating this reactionary buffoonery as if it's a trade policy that warrants critique. It isn't. Trump is a fucking idiot and he has surrounded himself with other fucking idiots and they and the reactionary base of fucking idiots they've created are cheering him on for doing fucking idiot things.

A journalist successfully reverse-engineered the likely formula used to arrive at the figures for each nation, and it's not only implemented stupidly, it's also wrong from first principles. It's the same thing an actual school child might come up with if you asked them to. This is the same kind of "economic policy" cooked up by dumbasses on reddit who sincerely believe they are qualified to "fix US trade."

If our congress wasn't also packed full of ineffectual liberals and other fucking idiots, he'd be impeached by now for sheer incompetence.

It's the same issue we had in the last Trump admin. This nonsense is elevated to undue credibility by serious people discussing it seriously. It shouldn't be debated, it should be mocked, relentlessly, mercilessly, cruelly. As should Trump himself, as should his supporters, as should his sycophantic followers. Mock, belittle, make fun of, bully, parody, just continuously until every single one of these people refuses to approach a microphone.

It's especially such a farce because what do they expect? If trump said the sky is green and the ocean is red, you'd find scores of these useless faux-intellectuals trying to "prove" the truth, and each data point of evidence would simply be met with various forms of "no it isn't! The sky is green! The ocean is red!"

In their world, any "evidence" to the contrary must be manipulated or misinterpreted, because as we all know the sky is green, the ocean is -- oh, he said it's yellow now? And the sky is red? Hah, of course! We knew it all along, it was the plan, stupid!

And meanwhile...

Most of the democrats' tiny minds struggle to operate outside of a context of rigid rules and procedures. A context of arguing a point and getting at least some degree of fair debate in return.

But this is another age of populism. It doesn't matter what you argue, on either side. Debate transforms, serving only to transmit your message to your side, ideally while inspiring them and demoralizing the enemy. It matters that you seem confident and powerful while you say whatever you're saying. It matters that you seem invincible and indefatigable.

Their world won't be back for quite some time, assuming something at all like it sticks around. They'll keep operating like robots, not understanding why an excellent diss or crude mockery matters more than 1000 additional volumes of "proof" about something in contention.

It's the age were who control the country is the one with most money, not votes, and because company bribery is accepted, don't matter how much Trump get mocked, social media algorithms aren't going to allow that to breach other bubbles, something is clearly wrong when politians ask for money note votesz it isn't a democracy anymlre

It's the age were who control the country is the one with most money, not votes, and because company bribery is accepted, don't matter how much Trump get mocked, social media algorithms aren't going to allow that to breach other bubbles, something is clearly wrong when politians ask for money note votesz it isn't a democracy anymore

Who raised the most money in the last presidential election again?

These are loyalty tests. You prove you belong to the ingroup if you show you believe preposterous things. That's how cults and religions work.

We think this is stupid because it kinda is, but this behaviour is part of the human traits and possibly is adaptive behaviour to enable the very possibility of us living in large societies.

It's a great comment thank you. The part about the changes that would have enabled us to scale as society is really brilliant. I've read a bit about this in historian theories but the focus is often very material (probably because that's what you have evidence of).

I've always been in awe at the (absolutely crazy if you ask me) concept of money. The fact that we accept to give up possessions or time in exchange for the promise that anyone in the future will provide something equivalent because we just show some token/proof (which in itself are intrinsically valueless: sticks, stones, minerals, papers, now bits...).

We've been educated to be a bit suspicious and maybe show a slight contempt for it, probably to avoid being inelegant and also particularly because a lot of big owner of it are seen as not necessarily deserving of it.

But from an evolutionary perspective it's absolutely stupefying. And at its core its extremely positive. It shows absolute trust in our peers. It's probably one of the few behavior that really binds us together.

One could argue that it's the actually one trait that really distinguish us from other animals.

> I've always been in awe at the (absolutely crazy if you ask me) concept of money. The fact that we accept to give up possessions or time in exchange for the promise that anyone in the future will provide something equivalent because we just show some token/proof (which in itself are intrinsically valueless: sticks, stones, minerals, papers, now bits...).

No offense intended, but I think the way you're explaining this is a little overly silly. Value credit was a natural evolution from the barter system and it makes perfect sense. If you wanna run down to the 7/11 for a slushie, do you want to bring a $10 bill, or a live chicken? I definitely vote $10 bill, especially because there's a non zero chance the cashier wouldn't want a chicken anyway, even if it's technically worth enough to trade for a slushie. Money just streamlines this whole process and makes even exchange for goods infinitely more efficient for all parties involved, and I think that's why virtually every organized society we've found evidence of has some type of currency, going back thousands of years.

Now, that's not to say I don't agree that the monetary system as it exists is borderline a crime against humanity. Capitalism and it's various knock-on effects, starting plus or minus with colonialism depending how you want to slice it, is, I think, the most horrific thing we've done to each other in our entire history as a species. But I don't think that's an indictment of money strictly speaking.

That's the thing here. We're so used at the concept of money that you described that it's very hard to reconcile with what money really is.

You can take any introductory banking system course and it will tell the same story. (I recommend Economics of Money and Banking by Perry G Mehrling)

It's not really a finished exchange.

Money represent a debt.

It's a one sided exchange against the promise of the completion of the other side of the exchange in the future (by someone else in this case).

It's like the amount in your bank account is not really money. It's a debt from the bank: the promise that it will deliver this amount as cash if you ask. (M1)

And money is so liquid that we never think about it that way. Except during hyperinflation periods. And bank account are so solid that we think about them as cash. Except during bank runs.

As a side note, the theory that barter really meaningfully took place is being challenged as there is no real evidence of this.

Looking at the fine print of bank accounts, I would assume they completely absolve themselves of responsibility after a catastrophic event (call it C-Day). Or maybe they defer to FDIC insurance which guarantees I will have at least $250,000 after C-Day.

That said, as a consumer, I have no comprehension of how that would actually work. Do I get my guaranteed money 7 days after C-Day or 6 months after C-Day?

If an EMP blitzes my bank's electronic hard-drive records, is it my responsibility to prove I had X dollars in the account? If so, how? I can easily print a statement, but a statement clearly easily be forged. If it's the bank's responsibility, is there any guarantee they maintain physical and up-to-date records? Is there any regulation mandating they keep such records?

What happens if hyperinflation occurs and the 250,000 guaranteed by the FDIC is enough to buy a week's worth of groceries?

There's a lot of unknown variables and potential fragility in the system.

In other complex realms like software engineering, we get evidence that those complex systems really only have the budget to build the "happy path" and lawyers fight the cases when customers get damaged by the "unhappy paths."

It seems like our monetary system is on the happy path and very few times have the unhappy paths been tested.

Literally the funniest thing about it is that LLMs conjure this "solution" when asked to deal with trade deficits using tariffs. It perfectly possible that one of Trump's people just asked ChatGPT and they implemented the answer.

Also the love affair with tariffs comes from a guy that wrote a book with his ideas and in that book he made up economic expert to support his views. (Ron Cara)

can't edit anymore, but I had a typo, made up expert was named Ron Vara

The guy he's referring to is Navarro, who invented an economist named Ron Vara to cite in his pro tariff book. He made up hi source using an anagram of his name, that's batshit crazy.

Bravo!

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