A lie (it cannot be hyperbole as the claim he made was very specifically framed)
Legal under the constitution, because he would do it via running for Vice President and having the elected President resign, and anything technically legal is not an ‘authoritarian takeover’
Illegal under the constitution, but he would legally amend the constitution to remove term limits
Something else?
And then, for whichever you believe, could you explain how it isn’t an authoritarian takeover?
(I choose this example because it’s relatively clear-cut, but we could point to Trump vs. United States, the refusal to follow court orders related to deportations, instructing the AG not to prosecute companies for unbanning Tik Tok, the attempts from his surrogates to buy votes, freezing funding for agencies established by acts of Congress, bombing Yemen without seeking approval from Congress, kidnapping and holding legal residents without due process, etc. etc. etc., I just think those have greyer areas)
Trump and crew spout millions of lies. It’s very common at this point. If you get worked up about every one of these, you’re going to lose your mind.
Look, I’m not happy about this Trump stuff either. It’s incredibly destabilizing for many reasons. But you are going to lose focus on important things if you get swept up into the daily Trump news. If you are focused on AI safety or animal welfare or poverty or whatever it may be, your most effective thing will almost certainly be focusing on something else.
I don’t think discussing authoritarian takeover is against Forum rules, though EA is not the ideal place for political resistance given its broad amount of causes for which it needs political tractability. However, it’s tricky because US political dynamics are currently extremely influential for EA cause areas, and I think we need to do better thinking through how various areas will be affected, and how policies might interact with the affect that the US administration is proto-authoritarian. We should not simply pretend the US administration is a normal one.
That said, in these discussion we should be careful to not descend into ‘mere partisanship’ though I don’t know where that line is. I wish the Forum team would give more guidance.
This is something we should think about more as a mod team- I’ll discuss it with them.
Our current politics policy is still this. But it arguably wasn’t designed with our current situation in mind. In my view, it’d be a bad thing if discussions on the Forum became too tied to the news cycle (It generally seems true that once something is on the news, you are at least several years too late to change it), our impact has historically not been had by working in the most politically salient areas (neglectedness isn’t a perfect proxy but it still matters). However, it’d also be wrong if the Forum couldn’t discuss politically salient issues while they are going on, and there is something readers could do to stop them.
FWIW in this particular situation (and I haven’t conferred with the mod team) I don’t see this thread as being against Forum rules, because the participants could reasonably believe (or for that matter, not believe) that preventing authoritarian takeover in the US is a relevant cause area to EA.
We’re probably already violating Forum rules by discussing partisan politics, but I’m curious to hear how you view Trump’s claim that he is “not joking” about a third term. Is this:
A lie (it cannot be hyperbole as the claim he made was very specifically framed)
Legal under the constitution, because he would do it via running for Vice President and having the elected President resign, and anything technically legal is not an ‘authoritarian takeover’
Illegal under the constitution, but he would legally amend the constitution to remove term limits
Something else?
And then, for whichever you believe, could you explain how it isn’t an authoritarian takeover?
(I choose this example because it’s relatively clear-cut, but we could point to Trump vs. United States, the refusal to follow court orders related to deportations, instructing the AG not to prosecute companies for unbanning Tik Tok, the attempts from his surrogates to buy votes, freezing funding for agencies established by acts of Congress, bombing Yemen without seeking approval from Congress, kidnapping and holding legal residents without due process, etc. etc. etc., I just think those have greyer areas)
I think 1, 3, and 4 are all possible.
Trump and crew spout millions of lies. It’s very common at this point. If you get worked up about every one of these, you’re going to lose your mind.
Look, I’m not happy about this Trump stuff either. It’s incredibly destabilizing for many reasons. But you are going to lose focus on important things if you get swept up into the daily Trump news. If you are focused on AI safety or animal welfare or poverty or whatever it may be, your most effective thing will almost certainly be focusing on something else.
What evidence would you need to see to conclude that an Orbanisation of the US government is beginning, but still early enough to prevent it?
I don’t think discussing authoritarian takeover is against Forum rules, though EA is not the ideal place for political resistance given its broad amount of causes for which it needs political tractability. However, it’s tricky because US political dynamics are currently extremely influential for EA cause areas, and I think we need to do better thinking through how various areas will be affected, and how policies might interact with the affect that the US administration is proto-authoritarian. We should not simply pretend the US administration is a normal one.
That said, in these discussion we should be careful to not descend into ‘mere partisanship’ though I don’t know where that line is. I wish the Forum team would give more guidance.
This is something we should think about more as a mod team- I’ll discuss it with them.
Our current politics policy is still this. But it arguably wasn’t designed with our current situation in mind. In my view, it’d be a bad thing if discussions on the Forum became too tied to the news cycle (It generally seems true that once something is on the news, you are at least several years too late to change it), our impact has historically not been had by working in the most politically salient areas (neglectedness isn’t a perfect proxy but it still matters). However, it’d also be wrong if the Forum couldn’t discuss politically salient issues while they are going on, and there is something readers could do to stop them.
FWIW in this particular situation (and I haven’t conferred with the mod team) I don’t see this thread as being against Forum rules, because the participants could reasonably believe (or for that matter, not believe) that preventing authoritarian takeover in the US is a relevant cause area to EA.