Oh no.

I have a vision of a dark future, in which we replace the jpeg compression deep-fryer with an AI-Telestrations deep-fryer.

I struggle to rationalize this for countries not already in armed conflict.

Legally, practically, or morally?

Practically, armed conflict is way more expensive, and it’s riskier. If you had two strategies for changing someone’s behavior: 1) Punch them until they agree to change, 2) Tell them they can’t borrow any more money from you until they agree to change… you would probably prefer number two because it’s less risky.

Legally… we only have 80 years of precedent for the USD being the world’s reserve currency, amd 50 years of weaponizing that power with the IEEPA. Rules for armed conflicts, on the other hand, are ancient. We have a lot of examples for acts of war in armed conflicts, and we can quickly define them and recognize them. For defining and regulating financial “attacks”… we have basically nothing.

Morally… you and I have different moral systems from the people in charge. People can rationalize some truly heinous shit.

We would need a LOT of new international guidelines for this.

It’s not clear to me where we would draw the line, since there’s not really an enforceable difference between, “Allowing you to use our financial system is causing us harm, so you can’t do that anymore,” and “You can’t use our financial system until you <insert demands here>.”

While a blockade is recognized as an act of war, an embargo is not. The US sanctions usually operate like a specific, services-based embargo, so there’s no interpretation of CURRENT international law rendering it an act of war. Again, we would need new guidelines to meet your goal.

I think shared ownership goes against human nature

I think the vast majority of things are shared. Air, water, soil… roads, schools… your education… the bathrooms at the supermarket… the murals/sculptures that make your town look less like a shithole…

It’s perfectly in line with human nature, actually, to share things. People who amass hoards of wealth and fight for power and control… those are the weirdos.

It’s nice to see that my work is still appreciated.

The tax revenue per capita in Massachusetts is about $9000. (source)

I measure it this way because it gets around the comparison problem of some places having no income tax, but high sales tax toake up for it.

Anyway, we should happily pay $4000 per year difference to not live in Oklahoma.

It’s okay to say you don’t know the answer but one is obviously not the right one. Not everything can be known.

To be clear, I’m not asking you to provide a “correct” solution because I don’t know. YOU said someone was “intentionally failing to acknowledge [your] point about her “solution” being wrong.”

You don’t actually have a solution, and for you to pile blame onto someone who is already subjugated by a cruel government is just doubling the cruelty.

But if I were that involved…

That’s easy to say when we’re talking about one specific person in one specific high profile case. How many times do you think this kind of thing has happened since 2022?

How about this… instead of patting yourself on the back for “would’ve done the right thing,” when you already did nothing… you just… keep doing and saying nothing? Because you want these restrictive laws to be changed, right? You want this problem to have never been an option because she was able to just go to a doctor first, right?

Saying and doing nothing is more helpful for making that change, than you entering this conversation by blaming the victim of bad policy.

We all agree what got here there. No need to repeat that.

I disagree. I think it’s worth repeating that the STATE failed. I think it’s worth repeating that I hold the STATE to a higher degree of scrutiny than I hold a desperate teenager. The reason I think this should be repeated is that some people only understand policy in terms of rational people making rational decisions, when that describes absolutely no one who has ever lived.

The policy is bad, in part, because it will cause people to make mistakes.

The correct solution would have been pretty much anything that…

I don’t need every solution to be listed. I just want one specific solution that you think is the/a correct solution.

What would a correct solution have looked like, in your opinion?

My opinion is: this should have been a decision involving a doctor, but the state made that impossible. Whether she made a bad decision or not, the state failed first, and I, personally, hold the failure of the state to a higher level of scrutiny than the failure of a pregnant teenager.