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Too many people to reply to while I'm prepping lunch, but I just wanted to say to all of you that I'm so glad to be able to have these intelligent, insightful, and nuanced conversations with you. And to read your replies to each other.
It makes me happy and hopeful.
@MBtrueb I am quoting from the article.
I have no sage remedy.
@wilpercy @SCampbell Yes, it really is!
@SCampbell did you listen to his audio version?
It's actually quite amazing listening to him polish up the essay as he reads it.
I honestly think that might have been the most coherent, clarity-laden essay on the state of the world as it really is that I've read.
I highly recommend reading it.
"There will come a point, I think, where it no longer becomes possible to escape the brute force of reality. When that point comes, the herd-instinct of the markets will work against Trump in a particularly painful way. But for the time being, we seem to be stuck in this strange mirage, in which perfectly rational people project their sense of reason onto a madman, so that living in the world feels more palatable."
"We have been presented with a world of madness, a world in which rules no longer operate and reason no longer has dominion over instinct. It is run according to the shifting demands of one utterly banal and vicious old man, who thinks nothing of human lives or of elementary decency, and pursues only his own advantage, as perceived through the shattered mirror of his mind.
"Then there is the other Taco problem. This takes place when he wants to chicken out but is unable to. This is probably the most dangerous possible scenario. It’s the one we’re in right now.
Trump cannot chicken out of Iran because he is not the only actor participating in it.
The markets have largely swallowed the fundamental underlying Trump idiocy, which is that he is the only pertinent person in world affairs. Plainly he believes this, but he is wrong.
And, for the writers out there, if you have the time, listen to the author's read version, where he actually talks about his self-edits aloud. It's a rather excellent live lesson in editing a tight, coherent essay.
"The frequency of his mad outbursts should make us all more frightened, but in fact it has the opposite effect. If Barack Obama had come out during his time as president and said that he was going to invade Greenland, the markets would have lost their shit in a biblical way. It would have been considered so shocking that the reaction would have been historic. The collapse of everything."
"Why is this happening? Because markets have projected a sense of rationality onto Trump. Just like everyone else, they have found a way to psychologically deal with his existence by pretending the world is more familiar than it really is."
" At the moment, the price of oil is obviously very high, but in future investors expect it to drop quickly. Why? What is it about events which would give someone that sense of reassurance? The natural reaction is to assume that people with skin in the game know best. I don’t think that’s right. I think they are part of a shared hallucination in favour of normality, a brain tuned to a base-case scenario."
"Last week I wrote about the political and media response to the war in Iran. This week I’m going to write about the market reaction. In both cases, we are witnessing the same process: the refusal of people to accept that the world is run by a madman"
Really excellent essay by Ian Dunt.
@Kierkegaanks Yes. There are some heartbreakingly poignant letters from him to Eisenhower begging him to recognise that all Vietnam wanted was the same freedom the US fought for in its war of Independence.
@Eetschrijver That is the only explanation for what they are doing that makes any sense. That they are enjoying it.
I think many countries - especially colonised countries - learned a LOT from the fall of France, Belgium, Holland, etc. to the Nazis during WWII.
The first was to absolutely believe your country CAN be taken from you. The second was to determine that you'd rather die than relinquish it. The third is that the invading enemy has a lower tolerance for loss than you have.
I spent 20 years living in a country that defeated and ejected an American force of over 1/2 a million at one point. I studied the history of that war, and the war to oust the French before it.
With a tiny percentage of its resources, its military technology, etc. The reality is, people who love their country (not necessarily their governments), can and do bear unbelievable levels of misery to hang onto it.
It's not theoretical for them. It's their country.
And Russia tried it too - in Afghanistan, and now in Ukraine, and it isn't working.
These attempts cost tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of civilian lives, at they still fail.
The definition of stupidity is to keep trying the same thing over and over, and keep on failing.
At some point, I think we have to simply accept, these fuckers enjoy killing innocent people.
Firstly, I want to be incredibly clear on something: the regime in Iran is murderous, misogynistic, autocratic, anti-diversity, torturing, kidnapping bastards.
All that being said, I don't know when the US and the west in general is going to learn that you cannot defeat an enemy determined to defend its own territory via aerial bombardment. Period.
It has never happened. Never. Not once.
The US has even tried it with boots on the ground - in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, in Iraq. It doesn't work
