Donald Trump says that “no one knows what magnets are” during a strange Oval Office press conference. During the swearing in of a new ambassador to India on Monday (10 November), the President launched into a rant about China, whilst discussing their recent agreement to start easing rare earth export rules. “China was going to hit us with rare-earth. Now, everybody says, ‘Oh, what does that mean?’ Magnets. If China refused to give magnets, because they have a monopoly on magnets… there wouldn’t be a car made in the entire world.” He then claimed that “nobody knows what magnets are”, before going on to praise the “great deal” the two nations made in October. Whilst the talks did not end in a formal agreement, Mr Trump agreed to reduce tariffs on some Chinese goods entering the US, whilst Beijing agreed to suspend export control measures it had placed on rare earths.

The Republican party truly is the Insane Clown Posse.

Magnets, how do they work -Republicans.

  • unmagical@lemmy.ml
    2211·
    3 days ago

    Everyone says…

    No one knows…

    He really believes his thoughts are the totality of human knowledge.

    • killeronthecorner@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      If this guy wants to be taken seriously he’s gonna have to start wearing more makeup than trump

      And a candy floss wig to boot

  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
    98·
    3 days ago

    There was a British comedian I remember from a while back… Matt something… that talked about meeting a Texan couple on a plane once and the wife expressed her amazement at the marvel of flight, which is fair because flight is pretty amazing. But instead of just being amazed, she then said something like, “we’ll never know how it all works”. Like a collective we, like everyone. Like she thinks that aerospace engineers are just guessing, trying out throwing shapes into the sky until something doesn’t drop to the ground. “Nope. Sphere didnt do it. Probably shouldn’t have filled that one with people, either. Let’s try the cube next!”

    Some people are so stupid they don’t realize that they are stupid and that plenty of people, MOST people, in fact, are smarter than them and understand a lot of stuff they don’t. Like it’s not even Dunning-Kreuger because they dont know the first thing about the subject at all, and they will even admit that often times. Just unadulterated hubris to assume their ignorance is universal.

    • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
      4·
      2 days ago

      Like she thinks that aerospace engineers are just guessing, trying out throwing shapes into the sky until something doesn’t drop to the ground.

      Having worked in my checkered past in aerospace for a decade or so, there’s a very small grain of truth in that. While there is a lot of enginneering that goes back to first principles (physics and math), there are also what are euphemistically called “empirically determined constants.” That’s because, even when the equations are known, they can sometimes be a pig to actually compute (“ill-conditioned”), requiring absurd amounts of computer power.

      So if I were on the plane next to that couple, I’d have said “Yep, we’re flyin’ on a wing and a prayer and there’s a non-zero chance we could auger into the ground at any time. But don’t fret, it doesn’t happen all that often.”

    • warbond@lemmy.world
      92·
      3 days ago

      Isn’t there some question about the specifics of the mechanism of lift itself? Not like “this shouldn’t be possible!” but more “it’s easier to explain than it is to understand”

      • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
        35·
        3 days ago

        No, the science and engineering is well understood and can be calculated entirely in models that use this knowledge to precisely predict thinks like lift and drag. There is no guess work or mystery about it.

        However the common “facts” that we are often taught as explanation to children and the layperson for lift are wrong and/or incomplete. The Equal Transit Theory, i.e. the idea that when a wing splits the air, the air above and below must meet at the same time on the back of the wing causing the air on top to have to move faster due to the greater distance to travel, is just not true.

        However that lower pressure above the wing that doesnt actually result from the Equal Transit Theory, that part is true. It is caused by the deflection of air on the underside of the wing causing the higher pressure underneath and lower pressure over the top. Lower pressure over the wing does in fact cause a component of lift due to Bernoulli’s Principle. But it is also not the entirety of the source of lift. Other components include the Coanda Effect from the curvature of the wing redirecting air downward, as well as the just simple propulsion caused by the propeller(s)or jet(s) and downward deflection of air hitting the underside of the wing, which is basic Newtonian motion (3rd law).

    • -RJ-@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      3 days ago

      Under a pile of Chinese magnets - but no one knows how or why they work so they’re frightened of touching them incase they get wet, stop working and the world stops turning.

      • 7toed@midwest.socialEnglish
        4·
        3 days ago

        Pardon my hopium, I do hope it’s not misplaced -

        Given that it was a blackmail operataion among other things, and it would be mutually assured destruction if any holder of the documents tried to redact themselves and expose others. There must be some level of proliferation of at least partial copies of beyond incriminating evidence on a larger swath of people in current power that we could possibly know now.

        They wouldn’t be above using it in party infighting, but there’s no “faction” within the republican party with enough institutional power to get away with the backblow if they were to try to excise certain members. Which does mean there’s still a clock on this, but the fact that they haven’t just released with Bill and Hilary as the only two on the flight logs and dropped it, leads me to believe that this is the stalemate they’re collectively in.

  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
    26·
    3 days ago

    Someone probably tried to teach him how rare earths are important to manufacture electronics like he is five years old. And like a five year old he is, he of course didn’t understand.

  • switcheroo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    28·
    3 days ago

    Remember when a person this fucking stupid couldn’t get elected the highest officer in the States?

  • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
    20·
    3 days ago

    I’m lost for words. Every time he says something, it’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard. And I always think to myself, this is it. this is peak stupid. There is no way he can say something dumber than this with a straight face.

    I really thought we peaked when he tried to tell their Navy, that they don’t know what happens when you put water on a magnet. The god damn navy.

    But here we are. With the president of the USA, telling us, with a straight face, being serious, that no one knows how magnets work. Next he’ll probably try to tell us we don’t know how electricity works.

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      2 days ago

      everything is projection with these anti-intellectual shitbags. they don’t understand how ANYTHING fucking works, beyond the grift, and therefore NO ONE could possibly know.

      dear god hard drive disks alone… so fucking dumb.

  • betanumerus@lemmy.caEnglish
    8·
    2 days ago

    Let me guess: Trump asked someone what rare earths were used for, and someone told him they were to make magnets, especially for EV motors. Now, when having answer questions about this, the best he can say is no one knows. Also, I guess “EV” is worse than a curse word in his Gas & Oil Party.

  • Corporal_Punishment@feddit.ukEnglish
    531·
    3 days ago

    How the fuck is this guy still in power? Hes clearly mentally ill/demented.

    You guys overthrew us British for far less.

    • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
      152·
      3 days ago

      You guys overthrew us British for far less.

      That was back when the US had a spine. Nowadays we’re the dried up old man who won’t shut up about how good at football he was when he was in his 20s.

      • bajabound@lemmy.world
        91·
        3 days ago

        Don’t let this distract you from the the fact that in 1966, Al Bundy scored four touchdowns in a single game while playing for the Polk High School Panthers in the 1966 city championship game versus Andrew Johnson High School, including the game-winning touchdown in the final seconds against his old nemesis, Bubba “Spare Tire” Dixon.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
      131·
      3 days ago

      If we can explain to the morons that a tarriff is a tax, we might get somewhere. I seem to recall us being upset about taxes on “hemp” and “British coffee,” or something.

    • Floodedwomb@lemmy.world
      91·
      3 days ago

      Your country is headed the same way if you don’t replace Starmer with someone more engaging. People want change, if they dont get it from Labour, they’ll get it from Reform.

    • Fleur_@lemmynsfw.com
      4·
      3 days ago

      Rich people wanted to revolt against the British. That’s why. Bottom up change is a lot harder.

  • leadore@lemmy.world
    53·
    3 days ago

    Whenever he tries to repeat the patient, over-simplified explanations that have been given to him and screws it up because he still didn’t understand what they were talking about, I picture the scenes that must be occurring on a regular basis:

    People standing around him, some drawing pictures, others arranging things on the table, “Say this coffee mug is the nuclear enrichment facility, and this pen is the Tomahawk missile. It goes woooooooooooooooooo through the sky…”