Topic: Politics (Page 2)

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๐Ÿ”— Trillion-dollar coin

๐Ÿ”— United States/U.S. Government ๐Ÿ”— United States ๐Ÿ”— Finance & Investment ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— United States/District of Columbia

The trillion-dollar coin is a concept that emerged during the United States debt-ceiling crisis in 2011, as a proposed way to bypass any necessity for the United States Congress to raise the country's borrowing limit, through the minting of very high-value platinum coins. The concept gained more mainstream attention by late 2012 during the debates over the United States fiscal cliff negotiations and renewed debt-ceiling discussions. After reaching the headlines during the week of January 7, 2013, use of the trillion dollar coin concept was ultimately rejected by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury..

The concept of the trillion-dollar coin was reintroduced in March 2020 in the form of a congressional proposal during the 2020 stock market crash.

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๐Ÿ”— 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests

๐Ÿ”— Human rights ๐Ÿ”— History ๐Ÿ”— Military history ๐Ÿ”— Crime ๐Ÿ”— China ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Socialism ๐Ÿ”— Law Enforcement ๐Ÿ”— Sociology ๐Ÿ”— Sociology/social movements ๐Ÿ”— Military history/Cold War ๐Ÿ”— Military history/Asian military history ๐Ÿ”— Military history/Chinese military history

The Tiananmen Square protests or Tiananmen Square Incident, commonly known in mainland China as the June Fourth Incident (Chinese: ๅ…ญๅ››ไบ‹ไปถ; pinyin: liรนsรฌ shรฌjiร n, literally six-four incident), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing during 1989. The popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests is sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement (Chinese: ๅ…ซไนๆฐ‘้‹; pinyin: bฤjiว” mรญnyรนn). The protests started on April 15 and were forcibly suppressed on June 4 when the government declared martial law and sent the military to occupy central parts of Beijing. In what became known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre (Chinese: ๅคฉๅฎ‰้–€ๅคงๅฑ ๆฎบ; pinyin: tiฤn'ฤnmรฉn dร  tรบshฤ), troops with assault rifles and tanks fired at the demonstrators and those trying to block the military's advance into Tiananmen Square. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded.

Set off by the death of pro-reform Communist general secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989, amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social changes in post-Mao China, the protests reflected anxieties about the country's future in the popular consciousness and among the political elite. The reforms of the 1980s had led to a nascent market economy which benefited some people but seriously disaffected others, and the one-party political system also faced a challenge of legitimacy. Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation. The students called for greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech, although they were highly disorganized and their goals varied. At the height of the protests, about 1 million people assembled in the Square.

As the protests developed, the authorities responded with both conciliatory and hardline tactics, exposing deep divisions within the party leadership. By May, a student-led hunger strike galvanized support for the demonstrators around the country, and the protests spread to some 400 cities. Ultimately, China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and other Communist Party elders believed the protests to be a political threat and resolved to use force. The State Council declared martial law on May 20 and mobilized as many as 300,000 troops to Beijing. The troops advanced into central parts of Beijing on the city's major thoroughfares in the early morning hours of June 4, killing both demonstrators and bystanders in the process.

The international community, human rights organizations, and political analysts condemned the Chinese government for the massacre. Western countries imposed arms embargoes on China. The Chinese government made widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, suppressed other protests around China, expelled foreign journalists, strictly controlled coverage of the events in the domestic press, strengthened the police and internal security forces, and demoted or purged officials it deemed sympathetic to the protests. More broadly, the suppression halted the policies of liberalization in the 1980s. Considered a watershed event, the protests set the limits on political expression in China up to the present day. Its memory is widely associated with questioning the legitimacy of Communist Party rule and remains one of the most sensitive and most widely censored topics in China.

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๐Ÿ”— Hostile Architecture

๐Ÿ”— Architecture ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Politics of the United Kingdom

Hostile architecture is an intentional design strategy that uses elements of the built environment to guide or restrict behaviour in urban space as a form of crime prevention or order maintenance. It often targets people who use or rely on public space more than others, like people who are homeless and youth, by restricting the behaviours they engage in. Also known as defensive architecture, hostile design, unpleasant design, exclusionary design, or defensive urban design, hostile architecture is most typically associated with "anti-homeless spikes" โ€“ studs embedded in flat surfaces to make sleeping rough, uncomfortable, and impractical. Other measures include sloped window sills to stop people sitting, benches with armrests positioned to stop people lying on them, and water sprinklers that "intermittently come on but aren't really watering anything." Hostile architecture also seeks to deter skateboarding, littering, loitering, and public urination. Critics argue that such measures reinforce social divisions and create problems for all members of the public, especially seniors, people with disabilities, and children.

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๐Ÿ”— Arrow's impossibility theorem

๐Ÿ”— Mathematics ๐Ÿ”— Economics ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Elections and Referendums

In social choice theory, Arrow's impossibility theorem, the general possibility theorem or Arrow's paradox is an impossibility theorem stating that when voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no ranked voting electoral system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a specified set of criteria: unrestricted domain, non-dictatorship, Pareto efficiency, and independence of irrelevant alternatives. The theorem is often cited in discussions of voting theory as it is further interpreted by the Gibbardโ€“Satterthwaite theorem. The theorem is named after economist and Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow, who demonstrated the theorem in his doctoral thesis and popularized it in his 1951 book Social Choice and Individual Values. The original paper was titled "A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare".

In short, the theorem states that no rank-order electoral system can be designed that always satisfies these three "fairness" criteria:

  • If every voter prefers alternative X over alternative Y, then the group prefers X over Y.
  • If every voter's preference between X and Y remains unchanged, then the group's preference between X and Y will also remain unchanged (even if voters' preferences between other pairs like X and Z, Y and Z, or Z and W change).
  • There is no "dictator": no single voter possesses the power to always determine the group's preference.

Cardinal voting electoral systems are not covered by the theorem, as they convey more information than rank orders. However, Gibbard's theorem extends Arrow's theorem for that case. The theorem can also be sidestepped by weakening the notion of independence.

The axiomatic approach Arrow adopted can treat all conceivable rules (that are based on preferences) within one unified framework. In that sense, the approach is qualitatively different from the earlier one in voting theory, in which rules were investigated one by one. One can therefore say that the contemporary paradigm of social choice theory started from this theorem.

The practical consequences of the theorem are debatable: Arrow has said "Most systems are not going to work badly all of the time. All I proved is that all can work badly at times."

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๐Ÿ”— The Society of the Spectacle

๐Ÿ”— France ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Philosophical literature ๐Ÿ”— Books ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Socialism ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Social and political philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Marketing & Advertising ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Contemporary philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Continental philosophy

The Society of the Spectacle (French: La sociรฉtรฉ du spectacle) is a 1967 work of philosophy and Marxist critical theory by Guy Debord, in which the author develops and presents the concept of the Spectacle. The book is considered a seminal text for the Situationist movement. Debord published a follow-up book Comments on the Society of the Spectacle in 1988.

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๐Ÿ”— MKUltra

๐Ÿ”— United States/U.S. Government ๐Ÿ”— United States ๐Ÿ”— Human rights ๐Ÿ”— Military history ๐Ÿ”— Military history/North American military history ๐Ÿ”— Military history/United States military history ๐Ÿ”— Medicine ๐Ÿ”— Skepticism ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Psychology ๐Ÿ”— Military history/Intelligence ๐Ÿ”— Alternative Views ๐Ÿ”— Military history/Cold War ๐Ÿ”— Politics/American politics ๐Ÿ”— U.S. Congress ๐Ÿ”— Psychoactive and Recreational Drugs ๐Ÿ”— Drug Policy ๐Ÿ”— United States/U.S. history ๐Ÿ”— Science Policy

Project MKUltra was an illegal human experiments program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used during interrogations to weaken people and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. It began in 1953 and was halted in 1973. MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects' mental states and brain functions, such as the covert administration of high doses of psychoactive drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals without the subjects' consent, electroshocks, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, and other forms of torture.

MKUltra was preceded by Project Artichoke. It was organized through the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence and coordinated with the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories. The program engaged in illegal activities, including the use of U.S. and Canadian citizens as unwitting test subjects.:โ€Š74โ€Š MKUltra's scope was broad, with activities carried out under the guise of research at more than 80 institutions aside from the military, including colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies. The CIA operated using front organizations, although some top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA's involvement.

MKUltra was revealed to the public in 1975 by the Church Committee of the United States Congress and Gerald Ford's United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States (the Rockefeller Commission). Investigative efforts were hampered by CIA Director Richard Helms's order that all MKUltra files be destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the small number of documents that survived Helms's order. In 1977, a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered a cache of 20,000 documents relating to MKUltra, which led to Senate hearings. Some surviving information about MKUltra was declassified in 2001.

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๐Ÿ”— Policy laundering

๐Ÿ”— International relations ๐Ÿ”— Politics

Policy laundering is the disguising of the origins of political decisions, laws, or international treaties. The term is based on the similar money laundering.

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๐Ÿ”— Chanakya

๐Ÿ”— Biography ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Social and political philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Biography/science and academia ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Philosophers ๐Ÿ”— India ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Ancient philosophy ๐Ÿ”— India/Bihar ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Eastern philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Hinduism ๐Ÿ”— India/Indian history workgroup ๐Ÿ”— India/Patna

Chanakya (IAST: Cฤแน‡akya, pronunciation ) was an ancient Indian teacher, philosopher, economist, jurist and royal advisor. He is traditionally identified as Kauแนญilya or Vishnugupta, who authored the ancient Indian political treatise, the Arthashastra, a text dated to roughly between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century CE. As such, he is considered the pioneer of the field of political science and economics in India, and his work is thought of as an important precursor to classical economics. His works were lost near the end of the Gupta Empire in the 6th century CE and not rediscovered until the early 20th century.

Chanakya assisted the first Mauryan emperor Chandragupta in his rise to power. He is widely credited for having played an important role in the establishment of the Maurya Empire. Chanakya served as the chief advisor to both emperors Chandragupta and his son Bindusara.

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๐Ÿ”— COVFEFE Act

๐Ÿ”— United States/U.S. Government ๐Ÿ”— Internet culture ๐Ÿ”— Telecommunications ๐Ÿ”— Law ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Popular Culture ๐Ÿ”— Donald Trump

The Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement Act (COVFEFE Act) is a bill introduced into the United States House of Representatives in 2017 (on June 12), during the 115th United States Congress.

The bill would amend the Presidential Records Act to preserve Twitter posts and other social media interactions of the President of the United States, and to require the National Archives to store such items.

U.S. Representative Mike Quigley, Democrat of Illinois, introduced the legislation in the wake of Donald Trump's routine use of Twitter, stating "In order to maintain public trust in government, elected officials must answer for what they do and say; this includes 140-character tweets. If the president is going to take to social media to make sudden public policy proclamations, we must ensure that these statements are documented and preserved for future reference." If enacted, the bill "would bar the prolifically tweeting president from deleting his posts, as he has sometimes done."

If the bill were enacted, it would see US law treat US presidents' personal social media accounts (such as Trump's "@realDonaldTrump" Twitter account) the same as "official" social media accounts (such as the "@POTUS" Twitter account).

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