Post #1626167

2026-03-22 23:19 UTC

@Jer @cstross @isaackuo US leadership appears to have gotten to the point where "The USA might not be able to control the course of events" counts as an Outside Context Problem. I don't think any of our legislators realize how the next couple years are going to go, nor that their only chance to affect that was 3 weeks ago. They seem to believe they can observe events and if, in the future, things will go too far, they'll be able to call it all off at that point.

Replies (3)

@petealexharris@mastodon.scot 2026-03-23 08:45

@Kathmandu @Jer @cstross @isaackuo War is one of the most irreversible bad decisions. Not only does it destroy a huge amount of what's irreplaceable very quickly, it can't be "called off" unilaterally by any of the participants, so even after everyone knows it was a bad decision, it grinds on and on and the good decision to stop doing it is held out of reach by uncontrollable events.

Open ##1626168
@CrypticMirror@mstdn.social 2026-03-23 09:24

@Kathmandu @Jer @cstross @isaackuo A real danger is he does something big and wildly stupid, to either try and regain momentum or to dead-cat the Iran disaster off the news. There is a real danger now that Trump will do something nuclear level stupid, maybe with actual nukes. A grown up politician who got themselves this deep into a mess would push back from the table and quit or make their peace with just coasting into electoral oblivion at the next election and not compound things.

Open ##1626181
@KronoGarrett@meow.social 2026-03-23 13:05

@Kathmandu @Jer @cstross @isaackuo Or that it won’t affect them. It couldn’t possibly affect them. They are members of the managerial caste/business idiots.

Open ##1626196