English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2024-11-16 (page 1 of 2)

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Cerberus

01:06

@CowperKettle Cute.

1 hour later…

alphabet

02:21

Word of the day: boink. (Informal, US) To hit or strike (someone or something); to have sex with (someone).

Conrado

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Thanks cowper.

CowperKettle

02:56

@Conrado Yes, it was very curious to come across this scientist.

alphabet

03:42

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Dannyu NDos

Korean idiom of the day: Over the running people, there are flying people — means not to overestimate oneself.

4

1 hour later…

alphabet

04:45

2

Q: Is "parker" ([ˈpʰɑ̈˞kɚ]) a common pronunciation of "parkour" in American English?

I've recently had a small argument with a coworker about the pronunciation of parkour. Neither of us is a native speaker. She seems to believe "parker" (in narrow IPA, [ˈpʰɑ̈˞kɚ]) is the "correct" American pronunciation recognized by the Cambridge Dictionary website. And if you play the audio fil...

american-english pronunciation phonetics vowels

Comments got locked on all three answers, probably wisely.

That user--I think an EFL instructor?--always has interesting questions.

think_meaning_buildß

🤔

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

06:26

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@DannyuNDos A nice saying

Cerberus

That is an excellent building.

Xanne

06:49

@CowperKettle Sevastyanov’s House? on Plotinka (a square?)?

CowperKettle

07:02

@Xanne Exactly!

Plotinka is "a small dam" in Russian.

The dam was used to drive hydraulic engines for the metallurgical plant back in 1723, when Yekaterinburg was first established.

Плотина Городского пруда на реке Исеть

Плоти́на Городско́го пруда́ на реке́ Исе́ть — гидротехническое сооружение на реке Исеть в Екатеринбурге. Построена в 1723 году с образованием пруда, снабжавшего водой Екатеринбургский завод. Впоследствии плотина многократно перестраивалась. Среди местных жителей за плотиной и прилегающей территорией Исторического сквера закрепилось название «Плотинка». Является традиционным местом массовых народных гуляний и праздников. == История == Строительство плотины было начато в 1721 году по решению В. Н. Татищева, затем приостановлено из-за отсутствия одобрения Берг-коллегии и возобновлено в марте 1723...

English translation:

ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/…

1 hour later…

Xanne

08:25

Wordle 1,246 4/6

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M.A.R.

08:49

@DannyuNDos The Farsi equivalent is "there is many a hand above every hand."

3

2 hours later…

think_meaning_buildß

10:45

"Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein" (translated as "100 Authors Against Einstein"), published in 1931. It was a collection of essays by various authors and scientists criticizing Einstein's theory of relativity. The main intent of this book was to discredit Einstein's work, mainly due to ideological and scientific disagreements.

Einstein's response to this book was famously concise and witty. He said:

"If I were wrong, then one would have been enough."

think_meaning_buildß

11:26

Due to the lack of a primary source, it is unclear if Einstein made this kind of statement. Hawking (1988), a secondary source, claimed that Einstein said (or might have said), “If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!”

1 hour later…

Conrado

12:56

Siempre hay un pez más grande, There is always a bigger fish.

I thought that this was a Spanish proverb, but the first page of Google hits point at Star Wars references.

tchrist

13:20

Why did the opposite of heterodox turn out to be orthodox instead of homodox?

> An orthocousin, unlike a cross-cousin, is on the same side of the family; orthogamy is when a plant's ovules are fertilized by pollen from the same plant; orthochronous is a transformation which preserves the direction of time. Synonym: ipsi-

== English == === Alternative forms === orth- (before vowel) === Etymology === From Ancient Greek ὀρθός (orthós). === Pronunciation === (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ɔː.θə-/, /ɔːˈθɒ-/ (General American) IPA(key): /oɹ.θə-/, /oɹˈθɑ-/ Hyphenation: or‧tho- === Prefix === ortho- Right angle, perpendicular. In this sense, it is the angle that is "right" or straight rather than the line; orthogon is a right-angle triangle, orthocentric is a tetrahedron where all three pairs of opposite edges are perpendicular, orthoclastic is a crystal whose cleavage planes are at right angles. S...

Vikas

13:41

I need a mouse that can last a long time like keyboards.

tchrist

nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna180162

Conrado

I'm on the mom's side, from the little that's in the story.

Now if the kid was doin' harmful stuff, I might be moved to take the Police's side.

Conrado

14:03

Also, if the kid wasn't aware of what he was doing, I would also be inclined to think she was negligent. I mean, if the police asked where he lived and he didn't know.

tchrist

14:27

When I was ten I would regularly walk two or three or more miles away from my house. I crossed pavement only once to do so, the little residential street my house was on. Sometimes with other kids but often enough alone. Cars were never an issue because there were no roads. We knew not to play in the street nor even by it. And once I was 13 I ventured farther.

It is the same today as it was lo these fifty years gone by: step across one tiny quiet road on which my house sits and WHAMMO the whole wode world opens up to wherever my feet may take me, over hill and field and forest, unhindered by any road and safe from even the sound of vehicular traffic.

We must free our children from leash laws and from the surveillance state.

Yes, sometimes there were fences to hop. We knew which farmers didn't want you in their lands, stealing away with their mushrooms or whatnot.

Conrado

> The road goes ever on and on, Down from the door where it began...

tchrist

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Right now. I suppose I'm at risk of being hit by runner.

CowperKettle

14:43

This is cool? Is this a long run?

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at the run today in Yekaterinburg

tchrist

No electric fences here. And even the pastures have nice gates that the signs tells you to close so the herd cannot escape. The trails run through the cowpied lands now, and there are agreements allowing trail access in perpetuity.

CowperKettle

Today was extremely warm, +1°C

tchrist

It's about four miles. Is that long?

CowperKettle

Yes, quite long

tchrist

That was about the temperature here when I awoke.

CowperKettle

14:46

6.4 km.

tchrist

I think it's two miles out and then back again.

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CowperKettle

@tchrist Considering the hilly terrain, the effort could be high

tchrist

Our snow melted this week and has not returned. Yet.

CowperKettle

Tomorrow will be +1°C too

But snow will remain

For it to melt, it should rain.

Sometimes it rains in late November or early December, and then there's no snow for a day or two

By Siberian standards, winters here are extremely mild, but they seem harsh to me now.

Now I can see why my mom was grumbling back in Siberia when I was small.

For her it was like going away from civilization, into some Acrtic wilderness

tchrist

@CowperKettle A little, if they took one of the steeper loops or spurs. But they stay comparatively flat. The elevation ranges from 5500 to 5800 feet or so on the long flat route.

CowperKettle

14:53

In December and January, during the Soviet times, there used to come a train with some carriages loaded with ice cream. There was no ice cream in regular sale in the 1980s in Noyabrsk, so we took my children sled and went to the train station and bought a whole carton box of ice-cream from the train.

tchrist

Yes it is the same here. It is POSSIBLE to have rain in late November or early December, but likelier by far to snow.

CowperKettle

We came home and put the box with ice-cream on the balcony, because there was not enough space in the fridge.

tchrist

Oh you could get ice cream in winter? Isn't that out of season? :)

Yes we would store things in iceboxes on our porches.

CowperKettle

It was out of season, but Noyabrsk was in such wilderness that it was only available in winter

Probably priority was given to meat.

I mean to supplying meat, protein to workers.

tchrist

Oh to keep it cold in travel.

MetaEd

14:55

Wordle 1,246 3/6

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CowperKettle

When we switched to a market economy, ice-cream suddenly appeared everywhere in lots of types and tastes, in the fall of 1993.

Commercial companies had appeared and developed enough to throw their supply chains as far as Noyabrsk

tchrist

The sun still warms you here even this low in the sky and this far from midsummer. It's an altitude effect undreamt of by bottom dwellers.

Lowlanders. Flatlanders. Flanders.

CowperKettle

@tchrist I used to grab a sled and go a kilometer away with a friend to ride from a hill, unsupervised by parents.

With no cellphone, so there was no constant contact, like now.

Although my parents forbade me to move into a far-off school when a whole classroom of friends decided to move there, to support their favorite teacher

Because it would imply using a bus.

Robusto

I was just having a discussion with my wife about Ulysses by James Joyce. Her book club is considering it as one of the choices. So I took it out and read her some passages from it, by way of persuading her that perhaps the novel, which is over 600 pages of dense (though delightful) prose, could not be approached without extending the timeframe to a year instead of a single month.

Now I come to ELU chat, with the memory of the "newspaper" section of Ulysses, and my brain is filled with the same hammering, far-ranging peripatetistickiness (if that's a word? no matter, Joyce is all words, all the time, in all languages) and suddenly my head is swimming again Yes

tchrist

@CowperKettle I so hated the bus in high school that I would often enough bike or walk tye 2.3 miles instead.

CowperKettle

15:09

AI hype of the day: AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably - by Porter and Machery, in Nature Scientific Reports

@tchrist We had no bus service for kids, so I would have had to use the regular bus, which I thought was cool, because I used it extremely rarely in my hometown

tchrist

Oh there are no city busses in rural communities between hamlets and villages!

Be g

Robusto

#travle #703 +0 (Perfect)
✅✅✅✅✅✅
https://travle.earth

tchrist

Before the motor our forefathers would routinely walk ten and fifteen miles a day without a thought all the days of their lives. It did not tire them.

Or you could take a horse or mule, sometimes an ass or llama.

CowperKettle

I rode my bicycle for 64 km yesterday.. over 13 hours.

Robusto

@CowperKettle Why did it take that long?

CowperKettle

15:20

@Robusto Because I visited shops and caffees to get food, and then visited clients to hand the food over to them ))

One client was not at home, and she said over the phone to leave the package on the porch, and just as I thought, it was stolen.

Robusto

@CowperKettle Ah. So a peripatetic sojourn.

CowperKettle

Because leaving anything on a porch of a multistorey apartment block is highly optimistic in Russia

tchrist

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M.A.R.

@CowperKettle probably optimisitc everywhere

CowperKettle

I thought of using the intercom to call to the apartments of her neighbors and asking them to keep the package and then give it to her, but based on my prior experience, neighbors are usually afraid of being accused of picking something from the package.

So I did not waste my time on that.

Since she did not request it.

Robusto

15:26

@tchrist I don't slow down too much, but I always provide warning and information: "Passing on your left, five bikes!"

CowperKettle

I should get a bicycle bell again. Probably some electronic version that produces the same sound as the typical classical bicycle bell. Otherwise, people tend to not notice any screams.

All metallic cycle bells quickly break apart for some reason.

Robusto

#WhenTaken #263 (16.11.2024)

I scored 765/1000🏅

1️⃣📍2.6K km - 🗓️12 yrs - 🥉123/200
2️⃣📍196 m - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥇200/200
3️⃣📍967 km - 🗓️7 yrs - 🥈162/200
4️⃣📍76.9 km - 🗓️27 yrs - 🥉123/200
5️⃣📍1.5K km - 🗓️3 yrs - 🥈157/200

https://whentaken.com

@CowperKettle The new Garmin 1050 (?) has that feature. You just tap the screen and pinnnnng!

tchrist

Have to renege on snow.

Only on the open or south facing unforested hills has it yet melted.

Robusto

Wordle 1,246 3/6

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tchrist

@Robusto It's the kid patrols that are the main problem. They take up the whole width riding 3 and 4 abreast, and do not thin that to pass or come at you head on.

CowperKettle

15:41

@tchrist Kid patrols are groups of chatting kids on bicycles?

Maybe there should be some invention for this, like some app for chatting via bluetooth while riding.

Robusto

@tchrist Head in?

I think you're a bit groggy this morning.

CowperKettle

An app for stopping rumination is found efficient in a study jmir.org/2024/1/e56201

I should find that app..

tchrist

@CowperKettle Yes.

@Robusto Was palmtop sillies.

@CowperKettle Think of the poor cows!

Robusto

@tchrist Ugh, I couldn't do chat on a phone.

tchrist

@Robusto Quite.

I abhor data entry that doesn't use all my fingers.

CowperKettle

15:55

I have long depressive ruminations while on bicycle. Listening to an audiobook helps, but not always.

So I will read up on this "Facilitating Thought Progression" technique (FTP)

tchrist

16:07

Today I learned some of the Trumpettes’ pet names for each other: Ivanka calls Melania the Portrait and Melania calls Ivanka the Princess.

Robusto

16:23

@tchrist It's like trying to play the piano only the keys are tiny and you have to use one or two fingers only.

Daily Octordle #1027
6️⃣7️⃣
8️⃣5️⃣
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Score: 62

tchrist

@Robusto Like playing a fugue wearing mittens.

Robusto

Daily Sequence Octordle #1027
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Score: 79

@tchrist Right. Who cares about voice leading anyway?

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Nov. 16, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
💔 ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 1980

jlliagre

#travle #703 +1
✅✅✅✅🟧✅✅
https://travle.earth

#WhenTaken #263 (16.11.2024)

I scored 903/1000👑

1️⃣📍1.4K km - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥈163/200
2️⃣📍54.2 m - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥇200/200
3️⃣📍17.4 km - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥇198/200
4️⃣📍928 m - 🗓️7 yrs - 🥇191/200
5️⃣📍1.3K km - 🗓️9 yrs - 🥈151/200

https://whentaken.com

Wordle 1,246 4/6

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⬛🟩🟨🟩⬛
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Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Nov. 16, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 💔 ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 2030

Daily Octordle #1027
8️⃣🕐
5️⃣🟥
6️⃣7️⃣
9️⃣🕛
Score: 74

Daily Sequence Octordle #1027
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Score: 67

@think_meaning_buildß A 27 years old Tyson against a 58 years old Jake would have been more interesting.

think_meaning_buildß

17:50

Yes, I never thought about it that way 🤔 🤣

TIL that was Jake's FIRST fight as a heavyweight.

So a 31 year age difference and a 41 year difference in heavyweight boxing experience?!

😲🤯

1 hour later…

Cerberus

19:08

@Laurel Yeah, and a LLM can mess up far more seriously than regular image recognition.

think_meaning_buildß

19:22

Has your school started any courses on how to use chatGPT effectively @Cerberus

tchrist

@think_meaning_buildß Cheaters 101

Cerberus

@think_meaning_buildß I praesume not: schools hate GPT, because it makes it impossible to test the progress of pupils at home.

It also makes it impossible to make them practice various skills.

tchrist

> EDIT: I thank the downvoters for prompting me to check the information of the site which was accused of AI generated information, and to my shock, I could not find any support for that post. So I edited my post to delete it. It's a good lesson, next time I will check, as I never trust AI and would hate to propagate its gibberish.

6

A: Movin' On Up (Theme to The Jeffersons) 2 Lyrics line question

Fish don't fry in the kitchen conveys that things do not always happen where or in the way you expect them to. This particular song speaks about moving up on the social ladder, becoming rich from poor. You expect the poor to live in poor areas, but the song shows that if you have opportunity and ...

think_meaning_buildß

@Cerberus Those are two very important impossibilities to deal with.

tchrist

That's our site's weekend Hot Network Question.

Initially with unintentional AI lies.

I find these constantly now, all over the net. Never admitted to.

Just as well. Let them eat their own poison dog food.

Cerberus

19:27

@think_meaning_buildß Indeed!

think_meaning_buildß

That's why courses on how to use chatGPT effectively should be embraced, no?

Cerberus

@tchrist Yuck.

At least the poster admits it.

@tchrist Oh, no, where else?

Should that answer be deleted?

@think_meaning_buildß Well, using GPT won't teach them anything?

They shouldn't be using it for school.

think_meaning_buildß

Well, children shouldn't be using training wheels to learn to ride bicycles either. They should be encouraged to embrace the balance bikes.

Cerberus

I'm not exactly sure what those are.

But GPT is more like an SUV with a driver.

think_meaning_buildß

Bicycles without pedals.

The results are overwhelmingly in favour of balance bikes over training wheels.

The skill to focus on is "balance," not pedaling.

Cerberus

19:50

I don't really know what balance bikes are.

think_meaning_buildß

Remove the pedals from any bike.

Or learning to ride only down hill first.

Without pedaling.

Robusto

@tchrist The founder of Grammarhow boasts these credentials: "During the past six years, he has obtained valuable experience in writing professional emails to executives, clients, and coworkers." Wow, I'm impressed. But wait ... what exactly is a "professional" email? isn't that more of an oxymoron? Or is it spam? You make the call.

think_meaning_buildß

Don't try to confuse me with the facts because I've made up my mind.

Cerberus

20:32

A bike without pedals?

@Robusto Good call.

@tchrist Insane. Are the laws and jurisprudence not clear?

Robusto

21:13

> While Trump’s choice of Gaetz to lead the Justice Department is a clear sign that his second administration will be catastrophically chaotic, vengeful and corrupt, that should never have been in doubt. ... The selection of Gaetz just rips the mask off. With it, Trump is trolling not just his defeated opponents but many of his craven establishment supporters. It’s like Caligula trying to make his horse a consul.

think_meaning_buildß

Using Chat GPT to create Mnemonics to learn Languages

Robusto

Matt Gaetz Is the Perfect Man for the Job

jlliagre

Bicycles Recycle ― Buster Keaton on a Draisine

think_meaning_buildß

Using chatGPT to help learn a new language sounds like taking the training wheels off and focusing on the balance.

Robusto

> Once Trump won, decent outcomes for the country were probably off the table. The institutions are unlikely to hold. Establishment Republicans cannot be counted on to protect us. The best we can hope for is that our new rulers will be stymied by incompetence, infighting and self-sabotage. In that respect, Gaetz may be just the man for the job.

Cerberus

21:19

I got the idea that the Republican senate would not allow the most outrageous candidates?

Robusto

@Cerberus I wouldn't expect any Republican to grow a spine anytime soon.

think_meaning_buildß

@Cerberus yes

A balance bike (or run bike) is a bicycle without pedals that learners propel by pushing their feet against the ground. By allowing children to focus on developing their sense of balance and coordination before introducing pedalling, balance bikes enable independent riding more quickly than training wheels. == History == Balance bikes descend from the earliest two-wheeled bicycle, a Laufmaschine or dandy horse, invented by Karl Drais in 1817. These early balance bikes consisted of a simple wooden frame with two wheels and no pedals, and were designed for adult use. During the twentieth century...

Cerberus

@Robusto From what I read, it is expected that enough parliamentarians will oppose adjournment and also a few of Trump's worst candidates?

@think_meaning_buildß Oh, I see, I don't think I have ever seen those.

Robusto

21:34

@Cerberus I hope you're right, but I'm not expecting miracles at this point. Trump thinks he has a mandate.

Cerberus

> if 50 Senate Republicans are prepared to work together to make Matt Gaetz the Attorney General, they can do so without adjourning, and if 50 Senate Republicans aren’t prepared to do that, they won’t adjourn.

> But just as John Thune can’t adjourn the Senate all by himself, Speaker Mike Johnson would need virtually every member of his conference to go along with the adjournment effort because Republicans will have a razor-thin majority in the next House. Since this gambit would be in service of promoting Matt Gaetz, a man who many House Republicans hate with the fire of a thousand suns, I don’t expect it will be possible to gather nearly all House Republicans in support of it.
— https://www.joshbarro.com/p/what-will-john-thune-allow-is-the

tchrist

@Cerberus The problem is that the senators don't really have to do what the parliamentarian says they have to do.

Both houses have their own parliamentarian.

Cerberus

I mean parliamentarian as in member of parliament.

tchrist

That's not what that means here.

The Senate Parliamentarian and the House Parliamentarian are singular positions, "technically" only advisory, but in practice, binding on the legislators.

Who can't even be expected to know how to follow Robert's Rules of Order on their own. Especially in the House.

The parliamentarian keeps blocking them from doing many things, like sneaking non-budget issues in the budget reconciliation process so they need fewer votes. This keeps slightly less dishonest.

I harbor no false hope that anything will stop any of the worst things. I fully expect the Senate to do whatever Trump tells them to do, law or tradition or parliamentarian be damned.

Cerberus

Anyway, that's not what I meant, see quotations.

tchrist

21:43

Yes, I've read this.

We'll see what happens.

Cerberus

So we shall.

tchrist

The bullshit with Gaetz report and the lying Speaker interfering with the Ethics Committee is just more of the same. He had spent the previous night in Trump's boudoir kissing the ring.

Cerberus

> In order to override that blockade, Republicans need a 60-vote majority, which means winning support from all 53 of their members and at least seven Democrats.

With Republicans unlikely to reach that threshold, they will be faced with rolling back a procedural tool known as the filibuster. Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, like his predecessor Mitch McConnell, has already indicated he does not support setting such a precedent.

tchrist

On verra.

I'm so far past counting unhatched chickens that now all my nose detects is rotting eggs.

Cerberus

One would hope that Republicans, too, will see that this whole adjournment thing needs to be revised, after Trump.

@tchrist Understandable.

tchrist

21:49

The Republicans will never vote against themselves. All serious reforms are possible only after a once-in-a-generation cascade of self-inflicted calamities puts them into opposition against an unstoppable supermajority. That's what happened after Nixon.

Cerberus

But the Republicans must also hate these loopholes.

tchrist

Servile dogs.

They'll do whatever their lord and master commands.

Cerberus

They may change it once he is on his way out.

There could be bipartisan support.

tchrist

It's the populist hegemony that destroys everything.

Cerberus

They must secretly hate Trump.

tchrist

21:53

They use him to gain complete power. Without the charismatic strongman, they would still be in the wilderness, cold and bitter.

@Cerberus Little secret.

Cerberus

Right.

Maybe this is not the right subject to bring up now...

But could Trump try to appoint more than the current number of judged to the Supreme Court?

There was talk about that with Biden.

tchrist

Notice that in the only honest vote we're likely to see from them for the next four years, they elected McConnell's designated heir and rejected the two Trumpista nutjobs. Why was it honest? BECAUSE IT WAS A SECRET VOTE!

Cerberus

Yeah.

tchrist

It's the only protection they have. He will remove them from office if he catches any of them opposing him. The confirmation votes are not secret, neither in committee nor in the plenary, and they dare not be seen voting against even the least qualified piece of animated poo Trump pulls out of his butt and offers up for the Senate to confirm. All shall stick their butts in the air, eager to please.

And they love their office more than anything.

Cerberus

We shall see.

He can't quickly remove them.

tchrist

21:58

True.

Cerberus

And, in four years, he will be ineligible, won't he?

tchrist

But he will not forget.

And it's two years.

He'll start in on their defeat immediately.

@Cerberus Ineligible for what?

The way he drives them from office is he puts his titanic populist thumb down in favor of a MAGA primary opponent.

Cerberus

Isn't it the case that senators have a term of four years, half of them being replaced every two years?

tchrist

No. One third of the Senate turns over every two years. They serve six-year terms.

Cerberus

@tchrist Trump can't be president a third time, can he?

@tchrist Ah, OK.

think_meaning_buildß

22:00

8 mins ago, by tchrist

It's the populist hegemony that destroys everything.

tchrist

@Cerberus His ability to do this horrible thing has nothing to do with his office.

Cerberus

So 2/3rd of the senate should outlast Trump in any case?

@tchrist But he will be, what 82 in 2028, ineligible for the only office he cares about, etc.?

tchrist

He's been floating the idea, repeatedly, of them doing something to allow him to stay in office.

Cerberus

But that is easily blocked.

think_meaning_buildß

The population has spoken in his favor.

tchrist

22:02

He wants to be president for life. It's the only way he remains untouchable and at the reign of power. I rather expect him to get his wish.

But that doesn't mean I believe he'll be elected a third time, either. Read carefully.

Cerberus

Now you are being a bit pessimistic.

tchrist

That he will die in office within the next four years is me being a pessimist?

Cerberus

He may die next year.

@tchrist Oh haha.

In that case, the senate can safely oppose him.

tchrist

Posthumously.

I don't know. His dad hung on for ten more years with serious dementia.

The only Senators ever to oppose him were MOSTLY only those on their way out the door already, and therefore immune to the fat thumb of the populist dictator playing kingmaker in the abomination that is our primary system. Yes, McCain and Romney opposed him out of personal honor borne of a duty to a higher power than their office. They were also each almost President themselves. Honor is dead. The moral imperative is party power.

Cerberus

There should be senators who will not run again this time as well.

tchrist

22:12

A few.

Cerberus

And the 2/3 who will only run again after Trump's last term should feel safer to oppose him.

tchrist

I doubt that they have already made that decision, but even if they have, they daren't reveal it lest they be disregarded for the next two years.

Cerberus

Yes.

tchrist

No, you can't oppose him if you will ever run again.

Ever.

Cerberus

I wonder about that.

tchrist

22:13

That is the power of the populist here. It's diabolical.

The populist tyrant is always the bane of any republic. We have simply contrived to make that even worse.

think_meaning_buildß

He vowed revenge on his opponents right from the beginning.

tchrist

> “I AM YOUR RETRIBUTION!” he ejaculated, and the roar of the ecstatic crowd became deafening.

I am not making that up.

It's what he said. Again and again and again and again.

think_meaning_buildß

That bullet going through his ear has made him the chosen one.

The people have chosen him.

The storm of the Capitol is now a Tsunami.

Robusto

@think_meaning_buildß It didn't go through his ear. It grazed his ear.

tchrist

The statesmen-scholars who crafted the U.S. Constitution read Thucydides and Plato, and Cato and Cicero and many more before and after those as well—in the original Greek and Latin, no less, not in translation. They knew well the grave peril a populist of low character arising would pose to their would-be republic they were creating, far better than almost anyone today realizes.

think_meaning_buildß

22:26

Is not the earlobe part of the ear?

Robusto

@think_meaning_buildß But it didn't go through anything. It just grazed. If an AR-15 round had gone through he wouldn't have an ear left.

tchrist

@think_meaning_buildß There are many who believe that it was through God alone that he was saved. Therefore he is divinely anointed and infallible.

Sad.

And foreboding.

think_meaning_buildß

The number of votes he got is undeniably huge.

tchrist

Heartbreakingly.

Robusto

@think_meaning_buildß It's less than he got last time.

think_meaning_buildß

22:31

Okay, so a lot of people don't care anymore.

The pandemic broke them.

Cerberus

@tchrist And yet they gave enormous power to a single man.

think_meaning_buildß

The Greeks did not plan for a pandemic in their politics.

tchrist

@Cerberus It was the only model they had at the time, and they thought that they had provided multiple safeguards. They never imagined that the Senate would never remove him from office nor that the Supreme Court would approve of his excesses and grant him complete immunity.

Cerberus

I wonder why they gave so much power to one man.

And why that wasn't changed later.

tchrist

They really thought removal from office would work. They did not foresee the religious fervor that would come to dominate the political parties.

@Cerberus Because it was both temporary and revocable.

And you overstate this "power".

Electing someone consul for a year is one thing. Making them dictator for life is quite another.

alphabet

22:38

@Cerberus It is, as I recall, the second oldest written constitution still in force; they didn't have much by way of models to follow.

tchrist

@Cerberus AI answers you.

alphabet

Most of the ideas in the US Constitution were invented, usually based on writings by Enlightenment philosophers, rather than (as with modern constitutions) being based on written constitutions of other governments.

So nobody writing it had any clue how to write a constitution or how it would actually work in practice.

Cerberus

@tchrist There were two consules.

And they could have given less power to the American president.

tchrist

@Cerberus I am intimately aware of that!!

Cerberus

@alphabet "Still in force" is not relevant here. There were many, many different states with all kinds of systems.

And of course there had been many before, as Tchrist pointed out.

@tchrist I know you are.

How intimate were you and with which ones?

alphabet

22:45

@Cerberus There were, simply put, no modern written constitutions of a similar form until the United States invented the idea.

tchrist

> The Framers’ Investment in Presidential Power

The framers of the U.S. Constitution, who convened in 1787, were deeply influenced by their historical context and philosophical beliefs about governance. Their decision to invest significant power in the office of the President can be understood through several key factors:

Historical Context and Influences

1. Reaction to British Monarchy: The framers were acutely aware of the abuses of power under King George III. However, rather than seeking to create a weak executive, they aimed to establish a balanced government that could effectively …

From the AI link.

Cerberus

@alphabet That sounds so ultimately American.

As I said, there were many different states with different systems.

alphabet

@Cerberus Yes; America invented a lot of things now taken for granted.

tchrist

It's not like there was any other working democracy at the time which they could copy.

Cerberus

Some of them gave less power to one man.

@alphabet Americans always think that. You can see it in their Wikipaedia articles.

tchrist

22:47

@Cerberus In 1787? Remember, they were evicting the King and coming up with something else.

Cerberus

I am repeating myself, but there were plenty of systems which did not give so much power to one man.

alphabet

The idea of a three-branch system of government--with independent legislative, executive, and judiciary powers--had been invented by Montesquieu (granted, not an American) only a few decades earlier and had never been put into practice.

@tchrist My point exactly.

And the founders weren't exactly bad at this; except for a few years in the 1860s, the system's been working for 235 years straight. If Trump destroys it, it'll still be one of the longest-lasting written constitutions in world history thus far.

tchrist

@Cerberus Which ones are you talking about? The Roman Republic? The Venetian Republic? Oliver Cromwell's Republic? The Dutch Republic?

Or must we study Plato's Erehwon? :)

Cerberus

Or many (other) oligarchies.

The Holy Roman Emperor didn't have much power.

tchrist

@Cerberus Count the Electors.

The only thing that came as close to letting everybody vote as America did was Athenian democracy, which of course was no republic.

Cerberus

22:58

What percentage of the people were allowed to vote at the beginning?

tchrist

All freeborn men.

Cerberus

All over Europe and America, voting-rights expanded during the 19th-century.

tchrist

It wasn't just the aristos who would vote.

Cerberus

First you had have a certain amount of wealth or pay taxes.

Well, it wasn't the aristocracy who could only vote in the Low Countries either, in the 19th century.

tchrist

All male citizens could vote.

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