themeatbridge

That just seems like the EU sold a bunch of data to China for $600 million.

I don’t think people are seeing the true American heart. I think Americans are seeing the truth in their neighbors’ hearts, though. We’ve been in denial about who we are and our responsibility to the world, because we trusted that our core values (freedom, equality, justice) would endure through scandals and fraudsters and would-be tyrants. Americans were lulled to sleep by casual prosperity and nominal world-leadership. We believed that the critics of America “hate freedom” or were jealous of our well-deserved success. Trump is the inexorable conclusion of that laziness, the funhouse mirror reflection of our own indifference to the world.

I believe most people, anywhere, are good people and want to be good people. The differences arise from defining what is “good” but largely we all want freedom, justice, and equality for ourselves. Extending that to others is a question of empathy, and empathy is created by exposure. America’s heart is our diversity, our multiculturalism, and we let that heart become overrun with bigots and tyrants.

That’s what the world is seeing, and has seen for 100 years. Bigots and tyrants, claiming moral superiority. It is the Americans who are just now seeing it for the first time.

It’s because 3d chess is a sci-fi trope. There are a few versions, but it probably became most famous from the Star Trek version. 3d chess is ostensibly more complex, although the precise rules are usually not described in fiction, and the people who are very good at 3d chess are demonstrated to be extremely smart and tactical. Having a sci-fi character win at 3d chess is itself a trope to demonstrate that the character is a genius. In those examples, often the opponent will be overconfident and derisive of the character’s strategy, only to be humbled by the loss moments later. It’s a way to showing the character is cool headed, gracious in victory, and leagues ahead of his opponents.

The 4d chess meme was an escalation of a sarcastic exaggerations of the trope, like a way of saying a moron is just doing something obviously stupid is really enacting a super-strategy that you just don’t understand.

I ask for summaries and examples for things I understand well but struggle to explain. Sometimes it’s very helpful, and sometimes it’s just deranged nonsense.

That’s why I’m less likely to ask it to about something I don’t already know. How would I know if the answer is accurate or coherent? At least with something like Wikipedia, I can track down a source and look for foundational truth, even if it is hidden under layers of bias.