JohnMerrimack retweeted
it's very ironic to call marxism a religion from any liberal perspective. modern liberalism is something so drenched in dead dogma, civic ritual, and unquestioning obedience to entirely imaginary forces that it's hard to call it anything but a religious belief
JohnMerrimack retweeted
Is this the facial expression you'd expect of someone gravely concerned about AI threatening human extinction in the next 12 months?
JohnMerrimack retweeted
I did my MS in machine learning, so I have deep skepticism for these breathless claims that we’re on the verge of world-ending LLM super-intelligence when we don’t know how biological consciousness works - an infinitely more sophisticated system running on vastly less energy.
JohnMerrimack retweeted
Whenever I see somebody on here calling themselves a Marxist-Leninist with a list of flags in their bio it reminds me of children dressing up as cowboys
JohnMerrimack retweeted
Worth a read. Mainstream neoclassical economics' fundamental domain assumption is wrong. In reality there's no inbuilt tendency for a market-based economy to seek 'equilibrium', which means it's constantly unstable. Some economists are rejecting this assumption and moving towards complex system-dynamics models, which is a good thing, but movement is painfully slow.
However, for me the primary reason why this domain assumption continues to be dominant is political. We live in a belief system that has been assiduously reproduced for over 100 years. The core belief is that minimally regulated markets are fairer, more democratic and more efficient than representative politics.
Today's politicians are simply janitors, funded by the creditor class to maintain the legal and cultural infrastructure in which markets operate. Mainstream economists are head janitors, training politicians and administrators to maintain a belief that we must shed if we are to move forward.
Equilibrium (is) for Dummies, by @ProfSteveKeen open.substack.com/pub/profst…
JohnMerrimack retweeted
This is such a ridiculous take in so many ways.
First of all, his numbers are WILDLY inflated, and I do mean wildly. The French revolution, for instance, didn't "kill 2 million people": most historians would agree that direct deaths from the Revolution (including the Terror) were around 30,000-40,000. He's off by a factor of 60... He is also WILDLY off for his Russia and China numbers but I won't go there 😏
Secondly, calling Napoleon a "facist totalitarian dictator" is laughable, if only because fascism is a 20th-century ideology with racial hierarchy at its core.
Napoleon was a classical emperor - brutal at times, but no different from countless emperors before him. By this logic, every Ottoman sultan or Roman emperor was also a 'fascist totalitarian dictator,' which either makes the term meaningless or makes Napoleon not the first, which means his affirmation is false either way. Plus, fascism requires strong racial components which Napoleon completely lacked - he was promoting meritocracy and civil equality under the law in Europe, not ethnic supremacy.
Thirdly, yes revolutions tend to be bloody. But guess what: sometimes peacefully requesting for the powerful to voluntarily dismantle the entire system that benefits them doesn't work out. Strange, isn't it? Marie-Antoinette wasn't exactly famous for her empathy toward starving peasants.
Lastly this is such a weird take coming from Pinker whose entire brand is about the supposed triumph of Enlightenment values, of which the French Revolution was the defining political expression.
This may make a little more sense when you consider that his other "brand" is his claim that Liberalism is fundamentally peaceful and rational: you can understand how he isn't quite comfortable with the fact that the Enlightenment values he champions were won with blood, not debate.
This is quintessential liberal hypocrisy - wanting change without conflict, revolution without revolutionaries. Liberals like Pinker want to live in a world created by revolutionary violence while condemning that violence as barbaric.
The French Revolution was a disaster: killed 2 million people, led to the rise of Napoleon--perhaps the world's first totalitarian fascist dictator, who began wars of conquest that killed an additional 4 million people, led to the restoration of slavery, to the restoration of the monarchy, and a delay of democracy in France by perhaps a century.
Russian Revolution killed several million, led to the Russian Civil War--which killed another 9 million--led to the rise of Stalin, who killed 20 million.
There's an old cliché: you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Well, it ignores the fact that people aren't eggs, and that generally does not result in an omelette.
Again, the Chinese Revolution, perhaps the most disastrous event in history, led to the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, killed perhaps 30 to 40 million people altogether.
Clip from the @IAI_TV
JohnMerrimack retweeted
REPORT: Biden Officials Admit They Never Pressured Israel for Ceasefire, as Israeli Leaders Boast of Playing Washington
“God did the State of Israel a favor that Biden was the president during this period… We fought [in Gaza] for over a year and the administration never came to us and said, ‘ceasefire now.’ It never did. And that’s not to be taken for granted.”
—Former Israeli ambassador Michael Herzog:
A sweeping Israeli Channel 13 investigation has exposed the Biden administration’s complicity in Israel’s 19-month war on Gaza. Nine top Biden officials acknowledged avoiding real pressure on Israel—even as the death toll surpassed 30,000. Israeli leaders openly bragged they dragged out the war, playing for time until Donald Trump’s return.
Former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Ambassador Tom Nides, and others defended their unwavering support for Israel—even as they admitted enabling a campaign one U.S. aide described as “killing and destroying for the sake of killing and destroying.”
Here’s what the investigation revealed: 🧵⬇️
JohnMerrimack retweeted
Journalist Sam Husseini was removed from Blinken's last press conference. Removing journalists, refusing to answer questions, gaslighting, and impeding freedom of the Press has been a bi-partisan endeavor.
Just many liberals didn't care when a Democrat was POTUS.
JohnMerrimack retweeted
Sorry but this is 100% on you. Your capitalist class decided to move your industry to China during the unipolar moment, at a time when the US - as the sole superpower - unilaterally set the rules of the global order.
Ridiculous to play victim on that one.
And in fact, to this day, you would have been perfectly happy with this situation had China remained your cheap labor and had they not successfully developed, despite all the odds stacked against them.
The real issue therefore isn't 'deindustrialization' - it's that the expected perpetual economic hierarchy didn't materialize. You're mad that they turned the tools of globalization - which were supposed to cement your advantage - into instruments of their own development.
We've seen this movie before with Japan. Same playbook: first encourage their development as a subordinate economy, then cry foul and claim unfair practices once they start competing in higher-value sectors. All leading to the Plaza Accords which crippled Japan's economy to this day.
Which goes to show that this has nothing to do with you being a victim of China, but very much with your imperial reflex to crush any nation that dares compete with you, even if they follow your rules.
JohnMerrimack retweeted
So, let me get this straight. Russia invading Ukraine is a war-crime, but Israel invading Syria is "building a buffer-zone"?
JohnMerrimack retweeted
Never in my life will I understand how one can be silent in the midst of the utmost horror against children: Silent or even justifying this. We have a duty to protect children - all children, everywhere, every one of us. This is the base of life, isn’t it? What have we become?
JohnMerrimack retweeted
"Sieg Heil" means "Hail victory"
When you win a game of Fortnite, it says "#1 Victory Royale"
Imagine falling for it twice
JohnMerrimack retweeted
Look I don’t want to make any generalisations but Americans make me physically sick the way they bleet on about their dumb election like it’s not a completely fake pantomime democracy ritual and the entire world has to indulge them screaming about this stuff for years at a time
JohnMerrimack retweeted
Just learned that Rio Tinto, one of the world's largest mining conglomerates, starts quarterly earnings calls with a land acknowledgement
