@Hyolobrika @feld that is why we invented the institutional state. it’s very much the same story as the blockchain. there’s a central power (central ledger) but no small group of people controls it, only a large decentralized community. we can trust that community, and enjoy the (absolutely extraordinary) benefits that can derive from central authority.
but, in both cases, there is always an attack surface.
@feld QE does much less than you think. But you are getting to the actually interesting questions. Fiat is extremely effective. It’s a tool of statecraft. The question is whether its effectiveness is a good or bad thing.
@feld you might address the basic point that the dollar has retained and gently increased value over time as long as it’s been held in the form of zero-credit-risk Treasuries. your graph just shows the existence of a mattress tax, not a weakness of the dollar as a store of value. while crypto has been a terrible store of value, because a currency has to accommodate those who expect to store negative values (be indebted) over fixed periods.
@feld not new to me.
@feld i’ve maybe devoted years of my life to thinking through this stuff. and, um, no.
here’s a presentation that directly addresses what you misinfer from that graph.
https://www.interfluidity.com/uploads/2017/10/Fiat-Is-Effective-Minitalk-light-edit-to-share.pdf
@feld here’s maybe a more concise and entertaining version.
https://www.interfluidity.com/uploads/2019/10/uber-but-for-slavery-2019-10-30-post-edit2.pdf
@Hyolobrika sometimes people are glad to win bets by helping them come true.
you really didn’t have to remind me.
Screenshot of e-mail summary, from Starbucks Rewards, “Your Stars are expiring soon”
it isn’t “sad” this makes me feel.
Screenshot of e-mail from the “Harris Fight Fund” beginning with “Steve, it is okay to feel sad and disappointed about the outcome of the presidential election. But, as I said on Wednesday, we can’t ever give up.” and ending “If you've saved payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately” followed by gigantic buttons to donate $127, $191, etc
@eyesquash i don’t think we appreciated at the time just how consequential that concession would be. i miss those days.
people act like i’m not resisting because all i do is sit on the couch and watch tv and eat junk food.
what they don’t notice is i’m eating Cheetos.
to salve the wound, Trump / Elon can console Zelensky that while, sure, there will be territorial concessions and no NATO membership, there won’t really be much of a NATO anyway so that’s not giving up all that much, is it?
@eyesquash no. i don’t think that’s right. institutions form the public not in the sense if brainwashing us, but in the way they structure out identities. the US two-party system, combined with the internet’s nationalization of politics, have reformed us into two wildly hostile tribes. 1/
@eyesquash if we had an electoral system that yielded multiple parties and encouraged flexible coalitions, we’d have a public no less authentic, no more brainwashed, but that would understand itself and participate in politics quite differently, with different results. 2/
@eyesquash we want a democratic system that shapes its public into something capable of deliberating and choosing well, of acting both legitimately (consent of the governed), but also wisely. how to build that is an institutional question, of the sort that the US Constitution was an early attempt. 3/
@eyesquash we are far from that ideal now, and yes it is more than dispiriting how difficult it is for publics to conduct politics not within institutions that have grown dysfunctional and deformed, but above and around them so we can change them and reform ourselves collectively. 4/
@eyesquash last week I would have said it’s hard but that’s the work. this week i am not sure whether to say that or concede defeat and try to find a less scary place for my kid to live. maybe the two aren’t mutually exclusive. /fin
to salve the wound, Trump / Elon can console Zelensky that while, sure, there will be territorial concessions and no NATO membership, there won’t really be much of a NATO anyway so that’s not giving up all that much, is it?
[new draft post] It's the parasocials, stupid https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/11/08/its-the-parasocials-stupid/index.html
from “Exit Right” by Gabriel Winant https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/exit-right/
Text: The accountability of the Democrats to antagonistic constituencies produces both rhetorical incoherence— what does this party stand for?—and programmatic self-cancellation. Champions of the domestic rule of law and the rules-based international order, they engaged in a spectacular series of violations of domestic and international law. Promising a new New Deal, they admonished voters to be grateful for how well they were already doing economically. Each step taken by the party's policymakers in pursuit of one goal imposes a limit in another direction. It is by this dynamic that a decade of (appropriate) anti-Trump hysteria led first to the adoption of parts of Trump's program by the Democrats, and then finally his reinstallation as president at new heights of public opinion favorability. Nothing better than the real thing.
@eyesquash no. the alternative is to point to institutions and leaders. the electorate is what it is, the crooked timber we all constitute. but it doesn’t have a voice or will independent of the institutions we develop to give it one. under different electoral systems, we’d have drastically different outcomes. we’d have a drastically different electorate, because institutions shape the public much more than public opinion can reshape institutions.
@falcennial (oh, i think the general point is right on and well-deserved, scorn on! but thanks!)
@falcennial i’d join your mockery, except i’m about to publish such a take even though i was sure that Kamala would win… 🤷♂️
terrible circumstances, but this is a wonderful observation by Martha Derthick, via @adamgurri https://www.liberalcurrents.com/a-practical-program-for-resisting-a-trump-second-term/
![Text:
As political scientist Martha Derthick put it:
> Congress loves action—it thrives on policy proclamations and goal setting—but it hates bureaucracy and taxes, which are the instruments of action. Overwhelmingly, it has resolved this dilemma by turning over the bulk of administration to the state governments or any organizational instrumentality it can lay its hands on whose employees are not counted on the federal payroll. [1]](media_attachments/files/113/447/696/021/032/071/original/5355aaa7e82f9e2c.jpeg)
Text: As political scientist Martha Derthick put it: > Congress loves action—it thrives on policy proclamations and goal setting—but it hates bureaucracy and taxes, which are the instruments of action. Overwhelmingly, it has resolved this dilemma by turning over the bulk of administration to the state governments or any organizational instrumentality it can lay its hands on whose employees are not counted on the federal payroll. [1]
touting a record stock market as an indicator of Biden’s great economy seems kind of dumb now, doesn’t it?
