Currently leaning towards "it was good because the situation doesn't look like it's about to become guerrilla warfare, and any damage to the legitimacy of America as a democratic institution was basically already a sunk cost while Trump is still in power".

Feeling very malleable on this though, and there's a lot of pessimism about American culture baked into that assessment that might be illogical. I feel like an accelerationist in regards to wanting a resurgence in democratic Liberal ideology in response to Trump, which is a sign my feelings are wrong, since accelerationism is usually among the dumbest attitudes on most other topics.

@Tumbles What if Maduro is simply replaced with the next in line from the dictatorships power structure and the only changes to policy that will be made is that the US will now be able to profit from Venezuelan oil?

Which Venezuelans seem happy? The ones on TV? There are many layers of selection bias going on there.

@xjp Hasn't like an enormous proportion of the population literally fled the country? I haven't really been tracking Venezuela in recent years and there's plenty of time before resolution for my understanding to evolve, but I'm pretty confident from what I've seen so far that Maduro was a Bad Dude.

@Orangey The conflict in Venezuela is mainly about nationalization vs. privatization of its vast oil reserves. Whatever we see is filtered through the media, which is owned by the same oligarchs who stand to benefit from privatization.

Yes, many people have left due to economic hardship. But that's the effect and stated purpose of US sanctions against non-compliant countries, not something they're saving Venezuelans from. Though they do like to pretend.

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d499

@xjp none of this contradicts Maduro being a dictatorial despot the people want gone

@Orangey I wish he had been a better dictator, then maybe Venezuela would still be a sovereign country instead of about to be pillaged by Epstein's clients so they can afford more pedo islands.

@xjp I mean unironically yes, right? I'm not even saying it was good that Trump did this, haven't wrapped my head around it yet, but your arguments are not convincing to me at all whatsoever. You imply that I'm wrong about Venezuelans being happy Maduro is gone, but instead of providing evidence of some kind your support the claim by gesturing at American sanctions, which is a bit of a non sequitur. You are currently coming off as some sort of anti-west tanky person who is huffing copium about America being the source of all of Venezuela's problems, with socialism and corruption and despotism being secondary.

@Orangey I didn't sign up for getting into a whole argument about how Venezuelans feel about Maduro. I've seen crowds of people celebrating and crowds of people protesting the kidnapping. What I'm saying is that the media is only going to show you the side that benefits Western economic interests, so you can't form an unbiased opinion based on that. And likewise Venezuelan state media is only going to show you people who support the government. I think it's good epistemic hygiene to take the biases and ideology of media sources into account when consuming them.

I don't have hard data on the issue, do you?

@xjp Well I'm not sure I'd call it 'hard data' but a third of the population fleeing the country does add some weight to one side of what I'm hearing. And you could call it bias or a prior, but "socialist dictator wasn't good for the country" is not hard for me to believe.

There's also a qualitative element to it. In addition to the fact I've seen much much more that suggests Venezuelans are happy, the reactions glad Maduro is gone have generally been normal people or subject matter experts, and the reactions upset Maduro is gone have generally been people who use the word 'capitalism' in saying why they are upset, or who's username is Xi Jinping.

@Orangey You're right, socialists coming into power is highly correlated with countries becoming destabilized and war torn. We just disagree on why

Btw, it wasn't a non-sequitur to point to American sanctions when you first pointed to people leaving as evidence that they're against Maduro. It's a perfectly valid point that people can leave due to economic hardship caused by sanctions independent of how they feel about the leader.

@xjp you're right, not fair to call it a non sequitur, reading back. But it seems that your judgments about the situation are very much based on a worldview I'm opposed to.

@Tumbles Likewise! On an unrelated note, how is it possible that you created a market with a negative balance? Doesn't it say "Insufficient balance"?

@xjp I have a special hardcoded ability from the admins to make 100 mana markets for free

@Tumbles Wow. Talk about corruption! (Jk.)

If you're still not sure does this resolve YES or NO

@Tripping I'm inclined to force myself to make a judgment call even if I'm still unsure