I can’t speak for the original commenter, but I predicted 4 years ago that Trump was done in politics because the American people wouldn’t stand for a riot in the halls of Congress. Now that he’s back and the rioters are pardoned, I’m listening more closely to the people who predicted that would happen, and they uniformly say there’s a small but significant chance of a collapse.

Any people in particular you listen to? There is so much noise and everyone has a 'prediction'. Post election both sides have gotten really good at using sophisticated talking to sound like they know what they are talking about(Especially the right). I go on Reddit(main subs) its one universe, go to small less known subs, its a second universe and then Twitter is a third universe, all three are different alternative realities.

I guess I would point to prominent politicians as the best examples, although there's also smaller voices I see on Twitter and such. Schumer, Pelosi, Bernie, AOC, et cetera. I don't necessarily agree with all of their policy proposals but it seems like they understand Trump and what his goals are pretty well.

Ironically, I was actually a volunteer for Bernie, AOC back in 2018 when she was running her campaign and I went and continued this tradition trying to help AOC supported politicians like Tiffany Caban (post AOC, the party woke up and destroyed most progressive challengers)

Looking back, it really felt like a waste of time. I should have taken a hint when I saw mostly old people there, and early 20 something political science majors. Two groups that have a lot of free time on their hands or have a personal reason to be there.

I have lost a lot of faith in these people over the last few years. It was hard work to get AOC into office and a lot of her original hard fighting crew have been pushed out post election. While AOC is making waves on Twitter, I haven't seen any tangible positive changes that have been a result of her being there. We could talk about pieces of the GND being in the IRA but still thats a stretch.

What I dont understand is why you believe these people are talking about a 'collapse'? I haven't heard this too much from the progressive left.

Thats more the right wing e/acc folks that want to push the country to collapse faster because then they can rebuild faster or something like that.

too bad there's not a prediction market on this on a platform like Kalshi so we could see more clearly the odds

Yeah, no, that was my bet as well, and I was unbelievably wrong. It turns out it's really hard to bet against 50-50 odds in a mature democracy with two dominant parties. Each group has infinite dimensions to slide along if the other group begins crawling upwards.

I've been appropriately humbled by the experience. Worst bet of my career

So much of politics these days boils down to ontology.

One think that I always keep in mind is that I am not the average person. I live a confortable life with financial security. My incentives and the way I see the world is necessarely informed by my standpoint. For me, the continuity of the current institutions and the status-quo is a value.

But think about someone who has been foreclosed in the last financial crisis, people who have no perspective of ever retiring, who a are a paycheck away from becoming homeless. Do you think those people will see our institutions in the same sacred light as we do?

You mean the institutions like social security?

You probably know very well what I am speaking about, and your attitude is a example of how we are losing the vast masses for non-democratic projects that will end up being worse for them than for us.

We should get rid of our condescending attitudes and really try to see things from other's perspective. And on the other side, unless I am talking to an anonymous Peter Thiel, Musk ou Zuckerberg, it is not like we are truly part of the same elite the downtroden see with some much contempt.

Nobody is offering to transfer funding from NASA to Medicare. I just don't think this hypothesis matches up with the things we're observing.

I genuinely don't know what you're speaking about. I agree that trying to see things from another's perspective is important, but when I listen to Trump supporters explain their views they don't say the things you're saying. You describe Musk as part of an elite the downtrodden see with much contempt, but Trump campaigned on an explicit promise to empower Musk, and he's now one of the many billionaires with influential roles in the US government. The most common explanation I hear from Trump supporters is that they wanted an immigration crackdown and he's by far the most anti-immigration candidate available.

If it were a matter of people with nothing to lose not caring about American institutions, wouldn't we expect to see lower income voters heavily leaning one way?

I'm already on Manifold! I got destroyed when I bet incorrectly on the US election results but my track record is only mildly awful otherwise ;)

Never heard of Manifold. Judging only from your posts on this thread I'm going to guess it's something like astrology but for data scientists.

Am I close?

Just another prediction market. Still requires Google or Apple authentication

https://manifold.markets/ianminds/will-manifold-implement-lo...