or the most intoxicating, high stakes Prisoner's Dilemma imaginable! People, businesses, institutions, and nations, the world over, would be engaging in the exhausting and daunting exercise of how they should act in response to Trump's moves. We really get to see humanity's values in real time. After reading the many worst case scenario Trump 2025 posts, I'm left with few answers, but a hell of a lot of questions, and surely there are innumerable questions that we as a community can't conceive of. If our worst case fears come to fruition, what would that look like here, and abroad? In 1939, the world's population was 2 billion, it's now 8 billion. We are the only superpower but we have an ascendent competitor in China (despite their recent economic and demographic woes). When Hitler took power in 1933 and invaded Poland in 1939, there were no nuclear powers. There are now nine nations with nukes. The world is enormously different in many ways (technology, globalization with its reliance on supply chains, socially with previously marginalized groups like women, gays, people of color, the disabled now play vital roles the world over. The media landscape is stratified beyond belief and the search for truth is often a task that Sisyphus would shrink from. I'm wondering, if the shit really hits the fan, and again, what that exactly looks like we can only guess, but what would it take to gum up the international works? To put sand in the gears of modernity? I imagine it won't take much for the left-leaning techies to do all they can to fight back. The manufacturing sector would similarly face productivity-crushing obstacles. Good luck getting grandma's medicine! Our delivery system of social security checks might well breakdown as bureaucrats, so reviled by the GOP, quit, or sit on their hands. The vulnerability of our power grids would make them a prime target for the resistance. I guess I'm asking: at what level of pain, extreme life-altering pain, would Trumpistan clamor for the old life that met all of those lower level Maslow needs? World financial markets would absolutely recoil from instability and unpredictability. I would envision the stock market plummeting and the holdings of a lot of Americans, including a lot in Trumpistan. The US military certainly leans conservative, but there are honorable folks among them who would question the constitutionality of what Trump would demand. And about 25% of the military vote Democrat so their fealty can't be counted on, nor can the officer corps who have been taught that loyalty is to the constitution not to the demagogue with the puffed out chest who claims that only he can restore our nation's previous grandeur! As a point of comparison, wasn't it heartening to see the Israeli military and ordinary citizens take to the streets when Netanyahu sought to usurp judicial oversight! I think we would see something on a far, far greater scale! Would SCOTUS, for all of its disgraceful acts of corruption, lay prostrate before Trump? I don't think so, perhaps I'm naive. Yes, we have red and blue states but we have sizable pockets of red in blue and blue in red. Yes, we have 300 million firearms but surely they aren't all in the hands of MAGA world (though I have my concerns here). I'm absorbed by the new edition of The Atlantic, titled "If Trump Wins" as it's solely devoted to this question. Many of my favorite political writers offer their opinions (David From, Anne Applebaum, George PackerJuliette Kayyem, Tom Nichols, to name but a few. I'm lousy and looking too far ahead, hence my reluctance to even buy green bananas. I'm not making a case for optimism here, as that would be dangerously foolish, but I'm wondering if we're dismissing the unprecedented, global pushback, should Trump's fever-dreamed plan toward a dystopian hell scape play out next year. Peter T.
A Game Theorist's Greatest Nightmare...
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or the most intoxicating, high stakes Prisoner's Dilemma imaginable! People, businesses, institutions, and nations, the world over, would be engaging in the exhausting and daunting exercise of how they should act in response to Trump's moves. We really get to see humanity's values in real time. After reading the many worst case scenario Trump 2025 posts, I'm left with few answers, but a hell of a lot of questions, and surely there are innumerable questions that we as a community can't conceive of. If our worst case fears come to fruition, what would that look like here, and abroad? In 1939, the world's population was 2 billion, it's now 8 billion. We are the only superpower but we have an ascendent competitor in China (despite their recent economic and demographic woes). When Hitler took power in 1933 and invaded Poland in 1939, there were no nuclear powers. There are now nine nations with nukes. The world is enormously different in many ways (technology, globalization with its reliance on supply chains, socially with previously marginalized groups like women, gays, people of color, the disabled now play vital roles the world over. The media landscape is stratified beyond belief and the search for truth is often a task that Sisyphus would shrink from. I'm wondering, if the shit really hits the fan, and again, what that exactly looks like we can only guess, but what would it take to gum up the international works? To put sand in the gears of modernity? I imagine it won't take much for the left-leaning techies to do all they can to fight back. The manufacturing sector would similarly face productivity-crushing obstacles. Good luck getting grandma's medicine! Our delivery system of social security checks might well breakdown as bureaucrats, so reviled by the GOP, quit, or sit on their hands. The vulnerability of our power grids would make them a prime target for the resistance. I guess I'm asking: at what level of pain, extreme life-altering pain, would Trumpistan clamor for the old life that met all of those lower level Maslow needs? World financial markets would absolutely recoil from instability and unpredictability. I would envision the stock market plummeting and the holdings of a lot of Americans, including a lot in Trumpistan. The US military certainly leans conservative, but there are honorable folks among them who would question the constitutionality of what Trump would demand. And about 25% of the military vote Democrat so their fealty can't be counted on, nor can the officer corps who have been taught that loyalty is to the constitution not to the demagogue with the puffed out chest who claims that only he can restore our nation's previous grandeur! As a point of comparison, wasn't it heartening to see the Israeli military and ordinary citizens take to the streets when Netanyahu sought to usurp judicial oversight! I think we would see something on a far, far greater scale! Would SCOTUS, for all of its disgraceful acts of corruption, lay prostrate before Trump? I don't think so, perhaps I'm naive. Yes, we have red and blue states but we have sizable pockets of red in blue and blue in red. Yes, we have 300 million firearms but surely they aren't all in the hands of MAGA world (though I have my concerns here). I'm absorbed by the new edition of The Atlantic, titled "If Trump Wins" as it's solely devoted to this question. Many of my favorite political writers offer their opinions (David From, Anne Applebaum, George PackerJuliette Kayyem, Tom Nichols, to name but a few. I'm lousy and looking too far ahead, hence my reluctance to even buy green bananas. I'm not making a case for optimism here, as that would be dangerously foolish, but I'm wondering if we're dismissing the unprecedented, global pushback, should Trump's fever-dreamed plan toward a dystopian hell scape play out next year. Peter T.
