Ed Kazarian

A lot of us, including me, owe Baudrillard an apology. As much as it seemed like dude just kept recycling the same analysis about everything, that's because it was pretty much the correct analysis.

*Yeah, obviously it would have pleased Baudrillard to witness a "Gulf War That Doesn't Exist" that officially doesn't exist. #EpsteinFury

medium.com/@bruces/nexi...

Trecho de entrevista com Baudrillard em 2006, em inglês: AP We could be said to be in a merely decomposing world, a world of phantoms? In the fantasy order, there was still conflict and commotion. In the phantom order, we’ve lost our shadows and become transparent. We’re moving in a world of ectoplasms. We experience things without density or gravity. Gravitation has disappeared and been replaced by a total diffraction that many analyse as progress: you’re there in your element, totally, globally irradiated by all the technologies of the virtual . . . For myself, I feel a core of things has been lost. This loss of density is the price you pay for being able to globalise yourself and for having total information about everything. It’s rather as though you’d crossed the Styx, the river in Hell: you’re dealing with people who’re chasing after their lost shadows . . .

Baudrillard 2006

One aspect (among many) of this war that concerns me is the Islamophobic racism of the war’s supporters in congress and the media is somehow more callous and virulent despite low public support for the war.

“They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor”—Tupac

Same could be said for music

I strongly suspect the effective demonetization of musical labor has driven men from music for the same reason it does every sector

never, ever, ever, ever accept "how will you pay for it?" as an argument against social programs.

They see trans people as expendable. They would rather ensure that 100 trans people can't transition so long as there is a possibility that 1 person might mistakenly transition. In no other field of medicine is that even remotely ethical to suggest or do.

The question is always "what if a kid is wrongfully transitioned" and never "what if a trans kid is denied the ability to transition and endures years of excruciating dysphoria and has to have multiple surgeries later in life to fix the issues caused by going through the wrong puberty."

Things like this make you start to believe in the completely un-nuanced, painfully literal understanding the Freudian death instinct. I mean, what *else* could explain this?

It’s like the domino theory, but in reverse. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

why would you do this to yourself

And... bsky.app/profile/john...

I dunno, honestly. I read what she says there as pretty much doubling down. We've been on the same track the whole time. Common sense guardrails, etc. I'm *highly* suspicious of this.

Another example of the same thing. bsky.app/profile/mich...

I have been thinking about this moment - when the lies had won and my work was largely perceived as fringe while disinformation-based work was seen as mainstream, smart, and correct - for a while.

I think more people need to think about it.

Last year, I attended a talk by someone writing a history of vaccines. I tried asking what we should do if antivax became a majority belief, using my work on the trans care debate as an example.

His response was basically "haha that'll never happen with vaccines, vaccines are settled science."

Someone said recently that people doing gender studies basically have had this whole political moment figured out while everyone else remained lost. Which, like, exactly. The degree of foreclosure there about how things like moral panics work, even after decades of AV stuff, is just mind-blowing.

The epistemic structure Evan points to here is really important, and more and more pervasive. It's the same one at work in Anti-Vax stuff and seems to be animating all kinds of moral panics. There's a kind of metastasizing biopoltical phantasmatic that's at the core of the new fascism.

So now, I have to live in a reality where "everyone knows" something that is really just right wing propaganda, propped up by a handful of journalists who would deny their role in bringing this mass ignorance about.

Anyway, for the newsletter - reading the poll where voters oppose GAC for youth, but support it if doctors and parents agree it's necessary.

I spent 2022 and 2023 and much of 2024 trying to fight the lie that something was wrong with youth trans care. The lie won, now it's the dominant narrative.

Somehow, Randi getting together with Steve Bannon and conservative Christians to pretend to resist AI companies after she cut deals with them seems... on brand.

Weingarten wont answer actual teachers about their experiences with AI or concerns but can go to a SUPAH SECRET MEETING

This is so accurate in many ways, but I would add that the true animating core of the american volk is both shopping and an unwarranted feeling of superiority (towards racialised people at home and abroad) arising from a deep sense of inferiority.

Colleges See Spike in Students With Disabilities, Including Elite Schools

They are clearly trying to whip up a moral panic about disability accommodations but this article doesn't include any data on accommodations.

Texas AG Paxton Declares Therapists Affirming Trans Youth To Be Illegal And Child Abuse The declaration echoes his 2022 efforts to target parents of trans youth with child abuse, and may force conversion therapy on trans youth in the state.

1. This morning, Texas AG Ken Paxton just released a chilling new declaration:

Mental health therapists, counselors, and psychologists must cease affirming trans youth - using their name and pronouns - or potentially face child abuse charges and loss of licensure.

Its a horrifying escalation.

I remember hanging out with our friend group in the school library in the mid-80s and the girls would go through Cosmo, Vogue, etc., pointing out all the models who they judged to be fat. It made enough of an impression that it's one of the few memories I have from that time.

ASPS Members Demand Answers After Org Released Anti-Trans Statement From Behind Closed Doors The statement is a blunt tool that the Trump regime can use to strip trans youth of life-saving care.

A recent statement from the American Society for Plastic Surgeons advised against surgery, HRT, blockers for trans youth.

Now members and experts that were sidelined at the org are demanding answers after evidence shows it may have been politically influenced by the Trump admin.

Read our latest.

For ppl who aren't aware:
Old temperate forests are insanely rare nowadays and extremely important ecosystems lost forever once cut.
They're not just "old trees" but intricate networks of trees, fungi and all kinds of living creatures.
You CANNOT replant this!! Once it's gone it's lost FOREVER!!!

"If I like it or find it useful, it is in accord with everything else about me" is a central way the spectacle has colonized our thought. "If I like it, I must incorporate it into my identity" Naw dog. Enjoy trash, but keep perspective. It requires like 10% more effort in the moment of enjoyment

This all feels notably metastatic.