Not sure if this will convince you or not

I don’t think I worded my original post properly because I feel convinced already. I was just looking for a way to measure up the effects of this idea. If we are a country dependent on importing goods and we make them more expensive, it stands to reason that we either stop getting those goods (doesn’t seem easy…) OR we just deal with the price, and that doesn’t seem easy either.

I just thought this is odd… like if I wanted to propose a tax on bicycles, we could talk how many bicycles there are in the USA, if this would make sense, etc. but that’s an actual discussion. Most of the people in this thread are just asserting it’s a bad idea and either don’t know the “why” themselves, or just don’t want to say.

Yeah, I mean I don’t feel any better than Trump if someone asks me about tariffs and I just say “THEY ARE BAD, OBVIOUSLY”. I don’t feel like that’s any better than Trump’s approach where he just says “THEY ARE GOOD”.

I want to know the supposed theory behind them, if any. If there isn’t one, that’s a big red flag. The few people I know in real life that thinks they are a good idea all seem to share the belief factories will pop up “soon” and no one will care about China anymore. I don’t get it, building factories doesn’t seem that easy. The last time the US mobilized that quickly was WW2, and I don’t think we are that serious this time around.

I think it’s going to be bad but I want to put a measuring stick against it instead of just saying “THEY ARE DUMB”.

I’ve learned a lot of people can tell me they are bad, but only a few can tell me why.

That AI is going to be copying a lot of “I put on my robe and wizard hat”

For the factory workers in the industrial heartland it will be good.

So we should expect to see more manufacturing jobs? How long will they take to show up? What kind of products will they build?

Thanks for putting some numbers on it. A lot of people are just downvoting and saying “well it’s bad!”. I want to know why and I think some of those numbers above really help to quantify it. Collecting 0.8% doesn’t seem very effective, so if someone tried to defend this as a replacement for Income tax, I would say that gets an F.

We already know. We already know they’re bad.

I don’t find that a convincing argument. If this is such an economy ending thing, certainly you could say “Well, just look at X!” and it would be really bad. There should be some chart showing good before and bad after. Where’s that chart?

Trump is supposed to be in office for only 4 years, at best, after which his tariffs will go away. it would be easier to simply just not ship to the US. which is how trade partners responded to the Hawley-Smoot Act in 1930, and which made the Great Depression that much harder to get out of.

Yes, I think this is very wise. So, unless we are just saying “well, I guess this 3.7 years is a loss now…” that’s the end.

If they worked, we would see manufacturers almost instantly beginning construction on US factories, opening new ones and reopening shuttered plants.

I think the almost instantly is the problem there for me. If I was someone that could afford to build a factory, I know that it would take a couple of years to come up to speed. I also know that if the tariffs disappear, that my money is gone. It won’t work under “normal” conditions. So, I’ll want some assurance these will be in place for a while. Since no one will make that assurance, or at least someone who would would be lying, I wouldn’t feel confident enough to build anything.

I assume anyone with enough money to build a factory would think about some variation of that above. I think for that reason, no serious numbers of factories will get built. And, if none get built… what are we doing?

Well, this is what I want to know. If someone wanted to open the door in the winter, I could take the temperature and say “It was 20F in our house last night. That wasn’t a good idea.” What do you measure here? What’s the long answer?

Will we listen? No, because experts don’t count for shit in the US anymore.

You know, in a world where most people don’t listen to experts and follow data, there’s a lot of money to be made in just doing your research. It seems like over time the people and places that learn to use data to guide their hand will outperform the ones of those that do not.

I guess we will see which one is a winning strategy.

I don’t think it’s a good idea. I just want to know if the badness of the idea can be quantified. Otherwise there’s the chance that in the future, someone decides to do it again.

Hacked it!

EDIT: not sure what I said that was so controversial as to being deserving of downvotes.

I try to never just slam that button instead of replying, because then we all lose out on learning a bit more. When I read your comment, especially the bit:

Of course if you only scroll the news you’ll feel depressed because we live in a dystopia, but that’s not information overload, it’s just sad. On the other hand if simply reading anything makes you overwhelmed that just seems like a lack of reading stamina so you can just not do that, or develop that stamina.

That feels a lot like telling someone depressed: “Hey idiot, ever thought of just not being sad?” I think the really tragic point is there are some people extremely addicted to doom-scrolling, despite feeling awfully sad about it. Classical addiction.

And then, some other gems, like:

Transient relationships: He warned about shallow, fleeting social connections — something social media, dating apps, and global mobility have absolutely amplified. I don’t think this is a bad thing.

This feels profoundly against human nature. We seem predisposed, almost since birth, to try to form deep, lasting relationships with other people. You might feel this way but I’m not sure it’s a typical state.

Job instability: He nailed the rise of the gig economy, freelancing, and how fast-changing industries make it hard to stay trained up and secure.

This is all basic capitalism and it’s consequences.

But it’s not though… capitalism is hundreds of years old, yet the gig economy is not. If it’s just “basic capitalism” wouldn’t we have expected to see “ye Olde Ubere” workers in 1560?

Hmm, that’s an interesting one. As a hypothetical, it feels possible to have a world that is crime free, but still has racism, so I see a possible hole. I guess another thing that will complicate it is that the definition of hate crime has evolved over the years.

Serious question: if someone claimed deaths by smoking are up or down, there’s stats we could rely on to tell if that’s the truth or not. How do we tell the amount of racism in 2025? What statistic or statistics are indicative of racism?

I don’t find it too hard to indicate some things that were actually better in the 1970s:

• Consumer goods and appliances were typically more reliable and designed to be repaired
• Less additives in the food supply
• Obesity was less of a problem
• College education was more affordable with an entry level job
• Children had more freedom (would roam the neighborhood for hours unsupervised)
• Less surveilance

I can make all these points without saying “1970 was better in every way than 2025”. Why does it have to be all-or-nothing? Can’t some things have been better then and not worse?

Tho I think people from 70s would very much still choose 2025 living over 70s. People really underestimate how much better we have now.

Couldn’t I yearn for a time that has neither the bad points of 1970 and none of the bad points from 2025? Not everything was worse in the 1970s, and not everything was better, either.

Is this similar to violent crime? A lot of right wingers bemoan the increasing amount of violence in “blue states and cities”. Except, almost by any way you can measure it, violent crime has been on the decrease for years now. Is racism becoming worse, or are you just becoming more aware of it?

Err, did you read your own link? This wasn’t a deliberate “watermark”. It was a training error that resulted in some odd characters being inserted. This was a training defect that was fixed, not some sort of plagarism countermeasure. These marks were present for only a short time and only on a subset of OpenAI models.