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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • do some really sketchy stuff. Simply put “war”

    Note that as bad as that is and as evil as it has sometimes been, it is “legal”, and thus not subject to criminal prosecution. It is specifically legal for the president to do that sketchy stuff.

    For an “official” act to be illegal, but not subject to prosecution just makes no sense. It shouldn’t be possible for an illegal act to be “official”.

    Extra bonkers is the 5/4 opinion that you can’t even mention official acts, like if you accept a bribe in exchange for an appointment, you can’t mention the appointment while trying to prosecute the bribe.



  • There’s a fair question of “would it ever be practical to do such large constructs”. As far as energy capture, between advances in energy efficiency and solar capture, one could imagine having energy beyond our greatest ambitions with no or minimal space based solar energy collection. The resources involved to construct such a thing would involve a mass equivalent to an entire planet to make a super thin shell, and we’d want to be pickier than just any old matter.

    Similar to people dreaming of Mars colonization as a workaround for climate change. Anything we could do to make Mars livable would be even harder than engineering Earth’s climate. Now maybe population growth may demand more area one day, or non replacement birth rates become so normal that population just starts shrinking.

    There is the possibility that no one can “win” against the physics, and things didn’t get much more advanced in space for any species than they are today for us. If that’s the case, then we shouldn’t be surprised that other hypothetical civilisations cannot be found.




  • This is my thought. I could imagine Biden announcing that Obama was coming in to play a very key role in his administration and that might give him a boost. That while technically the buck stops with Biden still, that Obama is very close to contribute.

    This would sidestep the “annointed one” problem, avoid skipping the primary, and while it’s short of a new candidate, it gets a very popular person near the presidency who couldn’t have been the candidate.

    I couldn’t imagine them starting from scratch at this point, couldn’t imagine who they would pick that people would already resonate with.




  • I was thinking the debate rules actually saved Trump from his worst impulses. Biden was allowed to speak at full length and Trump gets to appear like he can participate in a civilized conversation while Biden would sometimes go off the rails while trying to fill his time. A lot of his embarrassments started in a decent place, but pivoted badly in the middle.

    Trump confidently lied repeatedly without consequences, and so long as someone is unaware that it’s lies, I could imagine them finding Trump’s rhetoric credible that night.


  • I’ll agree, but he was at the same time more bold, like saying everyone wanted to overturn Roe v Wade. Confident and competent lying can get you far, but if you lie about how the people watching would feel, you undermine all your other lying.

    There are few things more maddening than claiming you know how someone feels more than they themselves do. A very credible liar can be undone if they lie that well on a matter the audience personally knows better. Suddenly all the benefit of the doubt purchased by the confidence is erased.