IT'S GOOD FRIDAY. AND YOU know what that means here at NOT PC: time to call out (again) the 2000-year ethic of sacrifice as nothing but inhuman. In a more rational place, we'd view the worship of human sacrifice not with celebration, but with horror. ("If you knew a father who gave up his only son to be killed in expiation for the crimes and misdemeanours of other people, would you call that chap a loving father? Or would you call him a psychopath?")
"What's the theme of Easter, and of Easter art? In a word, it's sacrifice: specifically human sacrifice. And more specifically, the sacrifice of the good to the appalling. "That's the Easter theme we're asked to respond to every year." Easter through art
"Let’s summarise. In Pagan times, Easter was the time in the Northern calendar when the coming of spring was celebrated -- the celebration of new life, of coming fecundity. Hence the eggs and rabbits and celebrations of fertility. Indeed, the very word 'Easter' comes from Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn, and means, symbolically, the festival celebrating the rebirth of light after the darkness of winter. "But with the coming of Christianity, the celebration was hijacked to become a veneration of torture and sacrifice ..." Easter Week, Part 4: Surely There Are Better Stories to Tell?
"AND MAN MADE GODS in his own image, and that of the animals he saw around him, and he saw these stories were sometimes helpful psychologically in a a pre-philosophical age. But one of these gods was a jealous god. For this god was so angry at the world he sent one-third of himself to die to expiate the sins of those with whom he was angry, for sins that (in his omniscience) he would have always known they would commit. "It’s not just history the christian story challenges, is it. It’s logic." Easter Week, Part 3: The Holy Art of Sacrifice
"Christianity didn’t start with Jesus, any more than the Easter story did. Paul, who never even met Jesus but who played the largest part in explaining his life, and his death, had a big hand in both. "Jesus’s death was a secular event his followers struggled to explain." Easter Week, Part 2: Enter Hercules…
"IT’S EASTER WEEK – a time, since human cultural life began up in the northern hemisphere, when men and women and their families came together to celebrate. "To celebrate what? "Why, to celebrate spring, of course. ..." Hey, hey, it’s Easter Week!
And a note that the greatest artists can nonetheless find the sublime within the story. Here's Wagner's 'Good Friday Spell,' aka Karfreitagszauber. Turn it up!
DOUGLAS MURRAY TOOK OVER Joe Rogan's podcast recently to call him out for platforming "revisionist, amateur historians who inflate their own importance while disavowing any expertise." In other words, ignoramuses on the very topic of their alleged speciality.
I wouldn't know if Rogan fits that bill because I've never listened to his podcast. But I do know it's widely influential. So bullshit begun there and in similar fever swamps elsewhere ('Hitler was right,' they might nod sagely, while laughing that 'the Holocaust never happened') spreads far and wide. So he's right to criticise these non-experts who swing their dicks in total ignorance of their topic — as if it's their ignorance, rather than their expertise, that demands they have a hearing.
This problem is everywhere right now. Just take a look around, and you can see the crisis playing out in real time. There’s plenty of noise and spin. But people want something rock solid, and as reliable as a Swiss watch. But where can you find it now? Who can you really trust? Who do I really trust?
TED: No, the exact opposite is true. I respect expertise. But I think that some outsiders have more expertise than insiders. ... I never make distinctions on the basis of titles and degrees. Sometimes they correlate with expertise, but many times they don’t.
We all know that. Don't we.
Here’s an interesting fact—if you made a list of the Stanford and Harvard students who have had the biggest impact on technology, at least half of them would be dropouts.
Expertise doesn't necessarily come wrapped in a degree.
Th[is is] how the world should work. Your expertise should be your credential. Instead we pretend that your credential is your expertise.
There’s a huge difference between those two approaches. And I’m a firm advocate of the former. ...
Many of the intellectuals who shaped my own thinking were outsiders without PhDs. Consider the case of Susan Sontag, who never got her doctorate, but was the most celebrated literary critic of her generation. The same is true of Northrop Frye and Edmund Wilson, both of them critics of immense stature.
C.S. Lewis is still another example. ... He taught at Oxford for 29 years, and was famous all over the world. But his title was just tutor. ...
Consider the case of George Steiner—one of the most illustrious polymaths of my lifetime—but his doctoral thesis was initially rejected at Oxford.
He turned it into a famous book, The Death of Tragedy, and eventually received his doctorate, but he never really got accepted by insiders. Even after a half-century of publishing and lecturing at the highest level, he faced intense hostility from professional academics.
I think it was due to envy. ...
Steiner was an intellectual superstar—an expert at the highest level.
Expertise is the credential. The credential is not the expertise.
Gioia's own insights come from a lifetime shared between jazz ("I didn’t have a music degree. But I had ability, and I could back it up.")and corporate consulting.
I learned a big lesson from [consulting]. I learned that positional power is not the same as true expertise. And expertise always earns respect, even if it doesn’t come with a fancy job title.
I believe that is true in every field. There are experts who don’t have elite credentials—but everybody trust them. And, if you ask around, you will find out who they are.
Let me blunt. People with the highest level of expertise are very rare. So they stand out, even if they lack an impressive degree or prestigious institutional affiliation.
So you need some expertise to find the genuine experts. Gioia suggests five ways to judge the reliability of what he calls "indie experts" — that is, folk who aren't just talking their book, who don’t have institutional overseers or gatekeepers controlling what they say. They could be outsider academics, bloggers, or even big-mouthed podcasters. But they first and foremost need a grip on reality. And then:
Pay attention to which indie voices correctly predict the future.
See which ones identify key issues before others notice them.
See which ones tell you truths that insiders won’t mention.
See which people offer coherent explanations of situations that others find confusing.
And, finally, see who is willing to speak out bravely in the face of powerful embedded interests.
When you find people who do that, you are in safe hands. They are the real experts.
It's unlikely they're going to be supporting, or promoting, Holocaust denial.
"Trump’s tariff mayhem has crashed stock markets across the globe. ... Doing nothing would have been far better than doing what he did. ... [When the stated policy risked a sovereign downgrade from Moody’s and probably kicked off a small recession, reversing course is indeed a win for all Americans, much in the same way that surviving a self-inflicted gunshot wound is a win.]
"[But consider.] Are there any pre-2025 policies that have already done damage on the scale that Trump is now inflicting on the global economy?
"While you might object, 'If any such policies existed, we would have noticed,' you shouldn’t. Imagine Trump imposed his current tariffsgradually over the course of the year, while constantly reassuring the world that he had no intention of raising overall tariffs. The total damage of this would ultimately be about the same as what we’ve seen. The visibility of the damage, however, would be far lower. ...
"Once you accept the possibility of pre-existing massive wealth-destroying policies, plausible candidates are easy to find. Here are [two]:
"1. The near-ban on international trade in labour. Raising tariffs from around 3% to around 30% crashed the market. But the effective tariff on foreign labor ranges from about 250% to 1500%. Indeed, that understates the damage, because arbitrary non-tariff barriers are a greater burden than precisely-defined tariffs.
"2. Draconian regulation of construction. Existing regulations roughly double the price of housing, imposing a massive burden on not only consumers, but any business requiring offices, factory space, and so on. ...
"We recently got to watch a horrific spectacle of policy dysfunction unfold before our eyes. Tariffs spiked; markets crashed. But after seeing this crash with your own eyes, you shouldn’t merely acknowledge that ... one mistake. You should open your mind to the possibility that ... for every major market crash heralded on the news, there could easily be a dozen invisible crashes — policies that wantonly but stealthily destroy trillions of dollars of value. Immigration, housing, and nuclear power are only my top candidates.
"A further deep lesson: ... We’re habituated to their harm ... to the point that few of us realise how much wealth we’ve lost, how much wealth we’re losing, and how much wealth we and our descendants will continue to lose for decades or centuries to come.
"[P]opulists [like Trump] do immense harm blatantly. Traditional politicians, in contrast, favour stealth. When they inflict immense harm, they do it gradually. And in the face of blatant opportunities to to make the world dramatically better, they yawn. ... But once you learn to see the invisible crashes, you won’t be able to unsee the ugly truth ... "
"[M]any people reflexively blame trade for the decline of [what's become knows as the American] 'Rustbelt.' ... "But ... [d]oes trade explain the decline of steel employment from roughly 190,000 to 84,000?
If trade [alone] explained the loss of employment in steel mills, then you would expect to have seen a precipitous decline in domestic steel production. In fact, there’s been very little change in steel output during a period where employment has plunged sharply:
"So many suggestions come down to 'what if instead of allowing housing where there is demand for housing, we tried to make people live somewhere else,' and I feel like the downside of that approach is pretty obvious."
"IT IS ALMOST SIX weeks since the shock announcement early on the afternoon of Wednesday 5 March that the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Adrian Orr, was resigning effective 31 March, and that in fact he had already left . ...
"In his seven years in office he’d ... not only let inflation run out of control then ... a (mild) recession to get back in check, [and generated] $11 billion of losses the Bank had sustained punting in the government bond market. ... On many occasions – including at numerous select committee hearings – his relationship with the truth also seemed tenuous.
"It is good to see the back of him, but it really isn’t adequate that we’ve had no explanation at all for the sudden departure. ...
"'Let’s be very blunt,' [said Infometrics’ Brad Olsen on the day of the resignation]. 'The Board of the Reserve Bank needs to front, they need to front urgently, and they need to be open and transparent. Anything less is just not acceptable.'
And yet 'anything less' is just what we have got. No straight answers from either the Board or the Minister of Finance. ...
"If anything, the mystery – and a sense that the Board and Minister are keeping important stuff from us – was highlighted by the OIA response obtained from the Minister of Finance by the Herald’s assiduous Jenee Tibshraeny, as reported here. ...
"Faced with the set of facts (the unquestioned known ones), and applying something like Occam’s Razor, most reasonable people would deduce that something pretty serious and potentially scandalous must have gone on [in the organisation backing this country's paper currency] ...
"We (the public) still have no idea what actually happened. And that really isn’t good enough from either the Board or the Minister about the holder of such a consequential office. But what we do know is enough to lead a reasonable interpreter to fear that it really may have been something around Orr’s conduct. If not (and one genuinely hopes not) a straightforward explanation could set the record straight very quickly. And if so, people shouldn’t be able to hide behind private commitments to secrecy that might serve the interests of some of the powerful, but are hardly likely to serve the public interest."
"Donald Trump decided [last week] to lift, temporarily, most of his arbitrary tariffs* ... his personal decision ... his whim ... And his whim could bring the tariffs back again.
“The Republicans who lead Congress have refused to use the power of the legislative branch to stop him or moderate him, in this or almost any other matter. ... No one, apparently, is willing to prevent a single man from destroying the world economy, wrecking financial markets, forcing this country and other countries into recession if that’s what he feels like doing when he gets up tomorrow morning. ... "After arguing about how to limit the powers of the American executive, the writers of the Constitution decided to divide power between different branches of government. More than two centuries later, the system created by that first Constitutional Congress has comprehensively failed. ... The people and institutions that are supposed to check executive power are refusing to restrain this president. We now have a de facto tyrant who thinks he can bend reality to his will.
"In recent years, many people who live in democracies have become frustrated by their political systems, by the endless wrangling, the difficulty of creating compromise, the slow pace of decisions. Just as in the first half of the 20th century, would-be authoritarians have begun arguing that we would all be better off without these institutions. ... In the United States, a brand-new school of techno-authoritarian thinkers find our political system inefficient and want to replace it with a ‘national CEO,’ a dictator by a different name. “But in the past 48 hours, Donald Trump has just given us a pitch-perfect demonstration of why legislatures are necessary, why checks and balances are useful, and why most one-man dictatorships become poor and corrupt. ... If the Republican Party does not return Congress to the role it is meant to play and the courts don’t constrain the president, this cycle of destruction will continue and everyone on the planet will pay the price.”
* Rob Tracinski, today: "After the markets crashed for a few days, and the bond market made some particularly ominous noises, Trump suddenly pulled back his disastrous tariffs to mere Smoot-Hawley levels, and apparently just today, his people figured out it would be unpopular to put massive tariffs on laptops and iPhones from China, so they exempted those products."
"The ship that carried them off sank on its departure. The customs officer, who had noted on this occasion an export of 100 francs, never had any re-import to enter in this case. Hence, Monsieur Mauguin would say, France gained 100 francs; for it was, in fact, by this sum that the export, thanks to the shipwreck, exceeded the import."
Protectionists of all stripes often rail about trade deficits. An unfavourable balance of trade. One of the catch phrases of these people, because at some level even they realise the value of trade, is that they want “fair trade.” That’s just protectionism under the guise of being pro-free trade.
So what exactly is the stupid goddamn "balance of trade"? And how do bloody protectionists calculate their alleged profits and losses?
One of history's best economic story-tellers, the great Frenchman Frederic Bastiat, explained the fallacy way back in the nineteenth century with the help of a contemporary protectionist ...
ALLOW ME TO ASSESS THE validity of the rule according to which Monsieur Mauguin and all the protectionists calculate profits and losses. I shall do so by recounting two business transactions IN which I have had the occasion to engage.
I was at Bordeaux. I had a cask of wine which was worth 50 francs; I sent it to Liverpool, and the customhouse noted on its records an export of 50 francs.
At Liverpool the wine was sold for 70 francs. My representative converted the 70 francs into coal, which was found to be worth 90 francs on the market at Bordeaux. The customhouse hastened to record an import of 90 francs.
Balance of trade, or the excess of imports over exports: 40 francs.
These 40 francs, I have always believed, putting my trust in my books, I had gained. But Monsieur Mauguin tells me that I have lost them, and that France has lost them in my person.
And why does Monsieur Mauguin see a loss here? Because he supposes that any excess of imports over exports necessarily implies a balance that must be paid in cash. But where is there in the transaction that I speak of, which follows the pattern of all profitable commercial transactions, any balance to pay? Is it, then, so difficult to understand that a merchant compares the prices current in different markets and decides to trade only when he has the certainty, or at least the probability, of seeing the exported value return to him increased? Hence, what Monsieur Mauguin calls loss should be called profit.
A few days after my transaction I had the simplicity to experience regret; I was sorry I had not waited. In fact, the price of wine fell at Bordeaux and rose at Liverpool; so that if I had not been so hasty, I could have bought at 40 francs and sold at 100 francs. I truly believed that on such a basis my profit would have been greater. But I learn from Monsieur Mauguin that it is the loss that would have been more ruinous.
My second transaction had a very different result.
I had had some truffles shipped from Périgord which cost me 100 francs; they were destined for two distinguished English cabinet ministers for a very high price, which I proposed to turn into pounds sterling. Alas, I would have done better to eat them myself (I mean the truffles, not the English pounds or the Tories). All would not have been lost, as they were, for the ship that carried them off sank on its departure. The customs officer, who had noted on this occasion an export of 100 francs, never had any re-import to enter in this case.
Hence, Monsieur Mauguin would say, France gained 100 francs; for it was, in fact, by this sum that the export, thanks to the shipwreck, exceeded the import. If the affair had turned out otherwise, if I had received 200 or 300 francs’ worth of English pounds, then the balance of trade would have been unfavorable, and France would have been the loser.
From the point of view of science, it is sad to think that all the commercial transactions which end in loss according to the businessmen concerned show a profit according to that class of theorists who are always declaiming against theory.
But from the point of view of practical affairs, it is even sadder, for what is the result?
Suppose that Monsieur Mauguin had the power (and to a certain extent he has, by his votes) to substitute his calculations and desires for the calculations and desires of businessmen and to give, in his words, “a good commercial and industrial organisation to the country, a good impetus to domestic industry.” What would he do?
Monsieur Mauguin would suppress by law all transactions that consist in buying at a low domestic price in order to sell at a high price abroad and in converting the proceeds into commodities eagerly sought after at home; for it is precisely in these transactions that the imported value exceeds the exported value.
Conversely, he would tolerate, and, indeed, he would encourage, if necessary by subsidies (from taxes on the public), all enterprises based on the idea of buying dearly in France in order to sell cheaply abroad; in other words, exporting what is useful to us in order to import what is useless. Thus, he would leave us perfectly free, for example, to send off cheeses from Paris to Amsterdam, in order to bring back the latest fashions from Amsterdam to Paris; for in this traffic the balance of trade would always be in our favor.
Yet, it is sad and, I dare add, degrading that the legislator will not let the interested parties decide and act for themselves in these matters, at their peril and risk. At least then everyone bears the responsibility for his own acts; he who makes a mistake is punished and is set right. But when the legislator imposes and prohibits, should he make a monstrous error in judgment, that error must become the rule of conduct for the whole of a great nation. In France we love freedom very much, but we hardly understand it. Oh, let us try to understand it better! We shall not love it any the less.
Monsieur Mauguin has stated with imperturbable aplomb that there is not a statesman in England [in the nineteenth century at least] who does not accept the doctrine of the balance of trade. After having calculated the loss which, according to him, results from the excess of our imports, he cried out: “If a similar picture were to be presented to the English, they would shudder, and there is not a member in the House of Commons who would not feel that his seat was threatened.”
For my part, I affirm that if someone were to say to the House of Commons: “The total value of what is exported from the country exceeds the total value of what is imported,” it is then that they would feel threatened; and I doubt that a single speaker could be found who would dare to add: “The difference represents a profit.”
In England they are convinced that it is important for the nation to receive more than it gives. Moreover, they have observed that this is the attitude of all businessmen; and that is why they have taken the side of laissez faire and are committed to restoring free trade.
"If, now, it was possible to devise a scheme of legislation which should, according to protectionist ideas, be just the right jacket of taxation to fit this country to-day, how long would it fit? Not a week. Here are 55 millions of people on 3½ million square miles of land. Every day new lines of communication are opened, new discoveries made, new inventions produced, new processes applied, and the consequence is that the industrial system is in constant flux and change. How, if a correct system of protective taxes was a practicable thing at any given moment, could Congress keep up with the changes and readaptations which would be required. The notion is preposterous, and it is a monstrous thing."
The commentariat has spilled a lot of electronic ink in recent years trying to deduce what Donald Trump is really after.
Is it just power?
...influence?
... to truly make America great again?
Is he just deluded about tariffs/deficits/the Constitution/history/economics/every other thing within range?
... or is it all because he has mummy issues?
... or because the short-fingered vulgarian really swings a short sword?
It seems clear to me that it's all pretty simple really. You can see what he's really after right here:
It's as simple as that. The stupid, orange bastard just likes to be noticed. To be talked about. To have his name on everyone's lips.
"Likes"? No, it's more than "likes." The narcissist craves excessive attention and validation from others. He insists on constant praise and recognition. He demands lackies who follow orders, abase themselves, kiss the ring. Sound familiar?
As we can all see, the Toddler-in-Chief obviously doesn't even care why he's talked about. The only thing worse would not to be talked about.
"Suddenly, the brazen man who told the world that everyone was begging for a deal runs from his own war with no deals in hand ... AND takes the financial world down on his roller coaster from hell.... "Why the stock market’s enormous surge yesterday? It turns out it was because Trump caved. The global fight he alone picked was just too much for him. He was destroying the nation and he knew it, and the evidence of how intensely the destruction flared up is all over the news this morning. Trump burst into flames and crumbled into dust, and that is why the stock market experienced an enormous sigh-of-relief rally. I didn’t get the news of his caving in until after the stock market closed, but now here it is:
“I have authorised a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately,” Trump posted on his Truth Social.
And, SHABANG!
About 30 billion shares traded hands, making it the heaviest volume day on Wall Street in history, according to records that go back 18 years.
"How badly did he cave? The big talker crumbled into the dust in flames that he had lit by sucking back most of what he’d done. Some try to say that was always the negotiating plan, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, but plenty of evidence and even admissions by Trump insiders say otherwise. The Admin. just put a good face on it. ...
"What may be permanent [however] is the damage already done...."
"[S]peaking Māori ... is [oft] perceived as 'virtue signalling,' which is a perception that has arisen in the context of decades of fashionable Western self-loathing. Like you, I can’t stand insincerity. It is hypocritical that people who obsess over the every failing of Western culture cannot also acknowledge the good things about it: democracy, the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, habeas corpus and trial by jury, to name just a few. ... "However, at present thousands of Māori people are enthusiastically pursuing the renaissance of their language and their culture from a place of sincerity. Many white New Zealanders do not realise this and are mistaking them for the anti-Western virtue signalling camp, and are accordingly very hostile to anything Māori. This is met with bewilderment by Māori. They do not understand at all why some white people are so hostile to their culture. ... "Rather than realising the true source of the hostility to Te Reo (which is the intellectual dishonesty of postmodernism as a worldview) antipathy towards anything Māori is viewed in the light of historical suppression of Te Reo in schools as well as the devaluing of Māori culture generally. In short, it is perceived as racism. You need only read Māori media outlets to see the enormity of the bewilderment, hurt, rage and even hate this causes. ... "We need a new political paradigm in which postmodernism does not harden people to indigenous issues. The key to this is the simple realisation that you can be pro-indigenous without being postmodern."
"Trump’s current tariff policy is also erratic, ill-defined, and incoherent. Its justification swings between the mutually exclusive goals of protecting industries through import-exclusion from abroad on one hand, and raising tax revenue from the very same imports as part of a scheme to replace income tax on the other.... "When Trump bluffs then retracts a tariff threat to attain diplomatic concessions, tariffs are merely a negotiating device. "When he pulls the tariff trigger on the same nation a few days later, we’re told that it’s to address a national-security 'emergency' on the border or part of a plan to somehow offset Chinese steel production by taxing Canadian steel. "When the markets crash, it’s all part of an elaborate four-dimensional chess game to restructure the global economy. "Administration talking points about the dangers of a tariff-induced recession change by the hour, ranging from denying any threat of economic turmoil to insinuating that some purposeful economic “reset” of the global trading system is afoot. ... "The implementation this time around has been pure chaos. ... "This confusion is the result of an ideological battle being fought inside the White House...."
You don't need to wait to see what will happen. Trump's tariffs have already had a chance, and they've failed, explains Timothy Taylor.
President Trump set off a wave of protectionist trade policies about seven years ago, back in 2018, and those policies were mostly extended and followed during President Biden’s term of office as well.
So we can already measure the results from Trump 1.0. And, who would have thought ...
[U]nsurprisingly to most economists, trade restrictions have done a poor job of producing the desired results. ..
Those "desired results" being those desired (or claimed to be desired) by Trump 1.0 and his protectionist advisors and cronies.
Apart from making tariff threats for geopolitical ends ("Give us Greenland or feel our trade wrath") America First's protectionists claimed there to be three specific economic benefits from their economic protectionism:
more US jobs in manufacturing;
reducing US economic ties with China; and
reducing the trade deficit.
Studying the results since Trump 1.0, it's clear that all three are dead on arrival.
Taking them one at a time.
1. American manufacturing employment has been declining ever since WWII. If anything however, it accelerated under Trump's tariffs. Why?
As [one economist] points out, there are several effects of trade barriers on US manufacturing jobs: a certain domestic industry is protected against competition, but higher prices in that industry can lead to problems for other domestic industries, and foreign countries may retaliate by shutting out US-produced exports. Put these together, and [this] suggests that the Trump tariffs of 2018 may even have led to a reduction in US manufacturing jobs.
2. Even while Americans were taxed to trade with China (which is what a tariff does) US trade with China has remained steady for more than a decade. "[S]even years of protectionism has not led to any meaningful drop in China’s value-added share." But it has led to Americans paying more for their goods.
3. The 'current account deficit' is the broadest measure of the trade deficit, explains Taylor. And was thus reduced by Trump's tariffs? Answer:
This measure also doesn’t change much in the years after the Great Recession, and then gets much worse [sic] during the pandemic. In short, seven years of protectionism hasn’t “fixed” the trade deficit, either.
Oops!
[T]he main point is simply that judged in terms of its own main justifications, the surge of protectionism since 2018 has not been achieving its goals. One can of course offer reasons for this failure. A common pattern in politics–and not just in trade issues–is that the failure of past policies to achieve their stated goals then becomes a new justification for more of the same. In this case, the failures of past protectionism become a reason for additional protectionism. As one example. after Trump renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) back in 2018, transforming it into US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), he said in his press conference: “Once approved by Congress, this new deal will be the most modern, up-to-date, and balanced trade agreement in the history of our country, with the most advanced protections for workers ever developed.” Seven years later, Trump now apparently views the agreement that he renegotiated and lauded as a failure, and promises to dial up tariffs against Mexico and Canada–along with the rest of the world–to new heights.
Who would have thought it. Trump's not playing 4-d chess. He's playing 2-d Go-Fish. And losing.
"Below are 40 journal entries on the current state of public discourse. "Like the captain said in 'Cool Hand Luke', what we have here is (mostly) a failure to communicate. "But we’re now failing to communicate in totally new ways.
"1. All digital communication is reverting back to primitive ways. The emoji is like the hieroglyphic. The meme is akin to the cave painting. The text message is a throwback to the telegraph. "So it’s no surprise that people are scrolling on their phones. I can almost hear the rustle of the papyrus.
"2.Why do I see all these homemade videos of people talking into the camera while sitting alone in their cars? "They’re not even driving—just standing still. They’re literally going nowhere. "Is an empty automobile the new town square? ...
"3. Alexander Graham Bell would be shocked. The phone is now a device you use to speak into the void. You talk to nobody at all. "But we still keep talking.
"4. The most popular social media platforms will be those that allow people to avoid responsibility for what they say. "Every society has institutions of this sort. In ancient times, it was the bacchanalia. For us it is online shitposting and the burner account.
"5. Consider the etymology of the word ‘dictator’—from the Latin dictare (which translates as ‘to say often’). It thus designates a person who talks obsessively—repeating the same thing over and over. "It’s curious that dictators aren’t defined by their deeds, merely their monotonous talk. The assertion of power through repetitive speaking eliminates the needs for listening, or (at an extreme) even for action."
"As someone who follows AI developments with interest (though I’m not a technical expert), I had an insight about AI safety that might be worth considering. It struck me that we might be overlooking something fundamental about what makes humans special and what might make AI risky.
"The Human Advantage: Cooperation > Intelligence
Humans dominate not because we’re individually smartest, but because we cooperate at unprecedented scales [ It's called division or specialisation of labor. ...To somehow prevent AI from practicing division of labour would be to make AI inefficient]
Our evolutionary advantage is social coordination, not just raw processing power
This suggests AI alignment should focus on cooperation capabilities, not just intelligence alignment
"The Hidden Risk: AI-to-AI Coordination
The real danger may not be a single superintelligent AI, but multiple AI systems coordinating without human oversight
AIs cooperating with each other could potentially bypass human control mechanisms
This could represent a blind spot in current safety approaches that focus on individual systems
"A Possible Solution: Social Technologies for AI
We could develop “social technologies” for AI – equivalent to the norms, values, institutions, and incentive systems that enable human society that promote and prioritise humans
Example: Design AI systems with deeply embedded preferences for human interaction over AI interaction; or with small, unpredictable variations in how they interpret instructions from other AIs but not from humans
This creates a natural dependency on human mediation for complex coordination, similar to how translation challenges keep diplomats relevant"
UPDATE: Some more great links here curated by Don Boudreaux, to help you put this calamity on context.
Since it's the topic of the day a historic turning point in human affairs, the least I can do is offer readers a ramble around the topic of tariffs and the destruction of tariff wars — basically, around the many writers reciting the multiplicity of ways in which the Trump Administration has fucked us.
"“Liberation Day”: That is what US President Donald Trump has called Wednesday, April 2, the day he announced huge swaths of taxes on imports worldwide. Despite the label, it was far from a day of liberation. By making imports to the US more expensive, the government is actively increasing the cost of living for American consumers. "The Trump administration has fallen for one of the most common misconceptions about trade—that it only benefits a country when it is the exporter. This could not be further from the truth. One of the greatest benefits of free trade lies with the importing country, where consumers gain access to a huge range of goods, crucially, at lower prices. "Whether it’s clothes, food, medical supplies, or mobile phones, access to the global market reduces the cost of living and increases consumer choice, often alleviating poverty in the process. "It comes down to a very simple principle. No one person could produce everything he or she consumes. No family or household could do so either. No city, town, or province could produce absolutely everything they consume. Equally, no country can produce everything it consumes, nor should it. Attempts to achieve autarky are acts of economic self-harm. Freedom to exchange across borders is win-win: it allows consumers to access a plethora of goods and services, improving welfare overall."
"Tariffs are irrational both morally and practically. "Morally, tariffs are rights violations - they restrain or prohibit individuals from trading freely and voluntarily in their own self-interest with whomever - no matter where they reside geographically. ... "Practically, tariffs punish the individuals in the country which implements them. Trump even acknowledges the pain. But he mystically thinks this pain will be good and lead us to prosperity. "Tariffs raise prices, cause shortages, and decrease productivity. They destroy wealth, businesses, income, and jobs. This is well known in theory and practice. See the Smoot-Hawley Act and its role in making the Great Depression even worse. "Trump’s foreign policy is morally and practically irrational. "What is the moral and practical foreign policy solution? "Free trade."
"The essence of capitalism's foreign policy is free trade—i.e., the abolition of trade barriers, of protective tariffs, of special privileges—the opening of the world's trade routes to free international exchange and competition among the private citizens of all countries dealing directly with one another."
"Fundamental to the argument for high tariffs has been the argument that trade deficits reflect America being "exploited" or "taken advantage of." In this article of mine on, "Why Trade Deficits Don't Matter -- Unless Caused by Government," I explain the misguided economic reasoning behind this claim, and why the far better policy is free trade." Trade Deficits Don’t Matter – Unless Caused by Government - Richard Ebeling, FUTURE OF FREEEDOM FOUNDATION
"Donald Trump is fond of saying that trade wars are easy to win. Among the litany of patently false Trumpisms, this may well prove one of the most disastrous. ... "Protective tariffs risk triggering a cycle of escalation that ends well for no one."
"America can’t be outcompeted because America does not produce or trade anything. "Nations do not compete with nations. Individual firms compete with individual firms abroad. Ford competes with Toyota. America does not compete with Japan. Nations are trading partners, not competitors."
"“We are seeing a combination of true-believing mercantilism, shocking ignorance about how the global economy works, and shocking incompetence in the planning and execution of economic policy,” says Michael Strain." Trump's aggressive push to roll back globalisation -FINANCIAL TIMES (paywall0
"Like the post-1945 British Labour governments, he wants to shelter domestic manufacturing and the working class behind tariffs while reducing overseas commitments. But the net result will be both economically damaging and geopolitically weakening. Americans will come to miss globalism and policing the world. They will belatedly realise that there is no portal through which the United States can return to the 1950s, much less the 1900s. And the principal beneficiary of Project Minecraft will not be Russia, but China. Call it Project Manchuria. ...
"The president stands as much chance of reindustrialising the U.S. as you do of getting your frozen laptop to work by smashing the motherboard with a Minecraft hammer."
"So think of it as a world wide Brexit like the U.S. leaving the global economy. "A trade lawyer at a global law firm here in London told me their clients see Trump’s tariffs as “worse than Brexit” as they’re dealing with rapidly changing trade rules on a massive scale. It’s not just the tariffs that Trump has imposed, but the retaliation it will provoke."
"It sounds so sensible: why not use protection and industrial policy to preserve manufacturing capacity “just in case” of, say, a war or a pandemic? And, to be sure, this is a better argument for some limited government intervention on trade and investment flows than wanting to tax imported bananas or revive manufacturing. "But even then it’s not the slam dunk some people imagine. Below is my chapter on this issue from Economics In One Virus, published in 2021. It’s just as true and relevant today."
"The populist story of the death of U.S. manufacturing is nonsense. Mr. Vance and his cohort maintain that increased free trade with countries such as China in 2000 or Mexico in 1994 killed American jobs. It’s true that the number of manufacturing jobs is lower than it was in 1970. But that’s because we can make so much more with fewer people. Blame technology, not trade. "Real hourly output per manufacturing employee has been on an upward trend since 1959. Real U.S. manufacturing value-added—the sector’s contribution to gross domestic product—reached its highest recorded level in 2022. Manufacturing output was close to its all-time high in 2022, and the U.S. remained the global leader in manufacturing value-added per worker. "Steel is one example. In 1980, one steelworker could produce 0.083 tons of steel in one hour. By 2018, one steelworker could produce 1.67 tons in an hour. This is a good thing. Wage and income data in the U.S. show the rising tide is lifting all boats—especially the smallest. "Americans don’t want their children to have to work punishing jobs in a steel mill, and it’s evident they don’t have to. Manufacturing jobs, as a share of total employment, have been on a downward trend since 1943—falling from 39% to under 25% by the end of 1970 and hitting 20% in 1980. This decline started long before Ronald Reagan ran for office, before China received Most Favored Nation status for outsourcing manufacturing, before Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement and before the World Trade Organization was created. The trends even started five years before the U.S. joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade." Free Trade Didn’t Kill the Middle Class - Norbert J. Michel, WALL STREET JOURNAL
“The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war.” ~ Ludwig von Mises
"“When it comes to steel, it’s fantastic for our industry,” said Jack Maskil [president of the United Steelworkers Local 2227 in Pittsburgh’s Mon Valley], “but what about everything else?” ...
"On the one hand, they are thrilled that their industry will be a key beneficiary of the 25 percent tariff imposed on steel imports to the U.S. ... "But while the steelworkers are also hoping that tariffs will bring about a revival of manufacturing jobs, they also worry about their effect on the economy, and on their own purchasing power."
"The proponents of protectionism say, “Free trade is fine in theory but it must be reciprocal. We cannot open our markets to foreign products if foreigners close their markets to us.” China, they argue, to use their favorite whipping boy, “keeps her vast internal market for the private domain of Chinese industry but then pushes her products into the U.S. market and complains when we try to prevent this unfair tactic.” "The argument sounds reasonable. It is, in fact, utter nonsense. Exports are the cost of trade, imports the return from trade, not the other way around."
"This idea that Donald Trump is just playing hardball to negotiate tariff rates down on US exports is absolutely ridiculous. The % of tariffs applied to US-produced goods has declined consistently since WW2 and was nearly nothing... "UNTIL! Donald's first term, and now his second. "And yet I keep seeing so many MAGA supporters saying: 'We're already seeing countries backing down from their tariffs!' "You're literally winning a battle and losing the war at the same time ..."
"Then there’s Trump’s fascination with tariffs. The damage Trump has caused Ukraine and Nato pales by comparison to what his tariffs will do to America’s economy and the entire international economic system. If Trump had acted on April 1 instead of 2, he could quickly have said it was all an April Fool’s Day joke, thereby saving the global economy trillions of dollars of damage when markets started heading south. Unfortunately however, Trump is totally serious, a fact evident long before “Liberation Day.” "Here too, “experts” and anxious businesspeople steadfastly ignored Trump labelling “tariff” the dictionary’s most beautiful word. Tariffs, they said, will be targeted, carefully calibrated, and he’ll do deals quickly. It’s all a bargaining tactic, Treasury Secretary Bessent said in October, 2024: “escalate to de-escalate”. Even as global stock markets drop like rocks, experts are still rationalising what his “strategy” is. "Wrong again. Trump is more likely to win the Nobel Prize for literature than for peace."
"Reminder: This policy was spearheaded and implemented by a man who thinks nobody says the word “groceries” these days because “it’s an old-fashioned word” and he somehow brought it back into the limelight. "Donald Trump is a motherfucking moron. Those who knew this and voted for him anyway because he gave them explicit license to be assholes deserve every last bit of pain his policies will cause them."
"In times of upheaval, those closest to power often find ways to turn disruption into wealth. Trump’s erratic tariff wars, billed as economic nationalism, upended markets, collapsed sectors, and triggered retaliatory shocks. But while farmers went bankrupt and consumers paid more, the market opened space for those with foresight—or insider access—to buy low and consolidate. "Geographer David Harvey calls this accumulation by dispossession: crisis used not to correct the system, but to extract from it. Devalue public assets. Destabilise protections. Create just enough chaos to buy cheap what others are forced to abandon. It’s not just policy failure—it’s extraction dressed as populism. "The con isn’t just psychological. It’s material. It’s not just about being lied to—it’s about being looted. "And that’s what makes this moment different—and more dangerous. The scam isn’t happening outside the system. It’s running through it."
"The latest rumor, when I started drafting this column, was that President Trump will suspend the tariffs for a 90-day period, with the exception of those on China. Markets started going back up again. "But “the very latest information” doesn’t stay current for long these days. The new report—but don’t count on it—is that the 90-day pause is not real after all. That revision came out before this draft was finished. And markets again whipsawed. "The Trump administration has created a new monster—one of unpredictability and erratic behavior. We simply cannot predict with any degree of accuracy what will happen next. By the time you are reading this article, there will probably be some newer report about the tariffs or threat of tariffs, and then another report after that. "Even if the White House winds up instituting a pause on the proposed tariffs—or ultimately adopts much better economic policies—this seesawing may plunge the American and perhaps also the global economy into recession."
[WATCH] Singapore must be clear-eyed about dangers ahead: Singapore's Prime Minister Wong on implications of US tariffs:
"Donald Trump has demonstrated his profound misunderstanding of the basic economic principles of international trade for several years now, and perhaps reached a pinnacle when he told the New York Daily News in an interview last August that “we’re getting hosed by the Chinese — and that we’ve done it with our eyes wide shut.” ... "[Trump adviser] Peter Navarro, in his Wall Street Journalopinion piece earlier this week (see related post here) demonstrated his fundamental misunderstanding of international trade when he opened his op-ed with the following question: “Do trade deficits matter?” Just to ask the question is to admit one’s ignorance of trade theory, which has been pretty settled on this topic since Adam Smith taught us in 1776 that “Nothing…can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the balance of trade. ..."
Trump's team said they based their "reciprocal tariff" calculation for each country based on the tariffs and impediments put on American imports by those countries. But no. It's even more irrational: "[Trump's chart] features an estimate of 'Tariffs Charged to the USA' by other countries that nobody could figure out, until a financial journalist realised it was just how much we export to that country, minus how much we import, divided by how much we import."
"Under a system of perfectly free commerce, each country naturally devotes its capital and labour to such employments as are most beneficial to each. This pursuit of individual advantage is admirably connected with the universal good of the whole. By stimulating industry, by regarding ingenuity, and by using most efficaciously the peculiar powers bestowed by nature, it distributes labour most effectively and most economically: while, by increasing the general mass of productions, it diffuses general benefit, and binds together by one common tie of interest and intercourse, the universal society of nations throughout the civilised world." ~ David Ricardo (1817)
"Why is today’s Trump so different from the Trump of his first term? .. ". Turns out, the answer is very simple" Back then he had people, and a Congress who would say "No." But now the yes men are in power.
Trump's tariffs policy came from his economic advisor Peter Navarro, who invented a fake expert in his books to justify it. "Peter Navarro liked to quote a guy named Ron Vara in his books. Those books are largely what led to Navarro becoming a top adviser to President Trump and helping to shape U.S. policy on China. Here’s the thing about Ron Vara, though: He doesn’t exist. ...
Second-term Trump is who Trump always was. This is Trump without many adults in the room stopping him getting his way. This is Trump surronded by Yes Men in a cult. This is Trump. A freedom-hating, dictator-loving, trade-despising child who wants the power of a tryant. Someone who has no regard for facts and who will utter any lie he wishes - no matter how ridicolous it is. And his believers are expected to believe it. Under fear of discommunication from the cult. This is what you asked for when you voted for Trump. This is what you got. I hope you are happy....
"An often forgotten truth is that it is not just military warfare that can cause injury to innocent bystanders, the same inescapably happens in economic warfare initiated by governments, as well. But in the latter case the human “collateral damage” is a targetted victim. ... "Tariffs and counter-tariffs are tools of economic warfare that are said to be targeting the “aggressor” country. But the very nature of how tariffs and counter-tariffs work, results in the main targets being innocent bystanders in the countries concerned. "Once we disaggregate “nations” into their, respective, individual buyers and sellers, producers and consumers, we see that the most damage falls on the economic “non-combatants,” of whatever the original “dispute” may be about ..."
"TikTok is a major bargaining chip in a grave geopolitical struggle. Given the data users have always sent to Beijing, it’s been a bargaining chip ever since it arrived on America’s digital shores. For Trump, though, it’s not exactly his chip to bargain with: Congress already determined the American course of action. The mystery is why nobody seems to mind Trump delaying its execution — or at least, why nobody is complaining publicly....
"Trump’s motives here are not difficult to parse, and the bill in question is legitimately problematic. He’s popular on TikTok, and close to one of the company’s major investors. ... "As fallout continued from his tariff bombshell — including the legitimacy of his emergency authority to implement the new rates — barely anyone batted an eye at TikTok getting another dubious bailout."
"Since my last essay on the crisis of democracy, the assaults on democratic checks and balances have escalated. Without agreement from Congress, Trump’s DOGE shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development with stunning speed. Although a federal court blocked further implementation, ruling that the action “likely violated the Constitution,” by then the agency had already been gutted and largely dismantled along with many other agenices. Then, in an alarming politicisation of the military high command, Trump fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, and the judge advocates general (the highest-ranking legal authorities) for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. "Pressing his claim to imperial power, Trump has moved to assert absolute control over all federal regulatory bodies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission. This not only hobbles their capacity to act independently in the public interest but opens the door to massive corruption. As DOGE seizes control of more and more of the government’s most sensitive and highly centralised stores of data, the conflicts of interest proliferate for its chief 'overseer,' Elon Musk, who over the years has received 'at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits.' And Just Security has documented an 'alarming' pattern of 'politicisation and weaponisation of the Department of Justice since Trump has retaken office. "The United States now faces the grave and imminent danger of its democracy decaying into a 'competitive authoritarianism'.”
"We have to realise that Trump is not joking about any of this. He’s not joking about invading Greenland, and he’s not joking about running for a third term. He’s as serious about all of this as he was about the tariffs. The evidence indicates that he will do it all, whatever he can get away with. ... "While we prepare a mass movement—and Donald Trump crashing the economy with the world’s stupidest tariffs will help us a great deal—we need to fight everything. What that will specifically mean is that we have to fight a lot of losing battles. ... "There are five reasons to fight early and often, no matter the odds of winning any one fight. 1. It lays down a marker. .... 2. It mobilises others to fight. .... 3. It delays and exhausts the strongman. ... 4. Sometimes you win. ... 5. You find out what works and who fights. ...."
