this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
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My dad was poking fun at this because it's an old "haha look how dumb Trump is" but like, it's literally a tariff on everything on Earth. It's such a small point compared to the huge mess this whole stupid idea is.
It's not really a small point though. It's a huge signal about how serious these people are.
Like, if a scientific paper has the text "as an AI language model" in it, you can be sure that there's no point in reading the paper deeply. Similarly, tariffs on uninhabited islands tells you that there's no "5d chess" being played here, these people are absolute morons.
I don't see why. The problems with global tariffs notwithstanding, can you explain the downside to setting a tariff on these islands?
My guess is just that they're trying to idiot-proff the tariffs (i.e. prevent someone from putting up a shack on this island and using that to somehow evade tariffs.)
There's no upside or downside to setting a tariff on uninhabited islands. Why not include Atlantis just in case? Why not also set a tariff on Mars, Venus or Pluto just to be sure? Why not also include Middle Earth and Vulcan in case they turn out to be real?
If all they wanted was to ensure that every place in the world was covered, they could have just said that the standard tariff rate was 10%. What's more likely is they used an LLM to generate a list of every place on earth and just put a 10% next to it, showing how unserious they are.
It's the 'no brown m+m's' of global economic policy.
Assuming you're talking about the "no brown m&ms" clause that Van Halen had as part of their tour contract. If so, you might not know that it may have been a form of quality control. Van Halen had a big and complex stage show. A typical show would use 3 18-wheeler trucks, Van Halen would use 9 of them.
The complex contract ensured that they had a stage that could support all the weight of the Van Halen show. That any overhead girders were sturdy enough to hang the things they needed to hang. That the electrical system in the venue could support all their equipment. That the doors were big enough to allow the equipment to be pushed through, etc.
If the band went backstage and saw there were brown m&ms in the bowl, they'd know that the venue hadn't carefully read the contract, so they'd need to double check everything else.
Oh for sure, a "apply to everyone" tarrif isn't a well thought out approach just as firing all probationary hires isn't a well thought out approach. Just hate that people are acting like he also put tarrifs on Atlantis or Wakanda or something because he thinks they exist. An apply all rule would include those places, too, but it's stupid because of why you said, not because he's actively choosing uninhabited islands by hand.