Eli Friedmann

Twitter was without a doubt a means to organize.
That's why Musk captured and killed it.
But it ALSO serves as an ego display device.
It gave each human ego essentially a broadcast network.
No more barrier to entry to showbiz.
So every egomaniac jumped on board.
Performative arguing resulted.

And seeing how eager the guy who called him Hitler is to work for him now?
Only reinforces his impression that this stuff is all meaningless anyway.
The sociopathic liar assumes everyone else is ALSO a sociopathic liar.
And frankly many people demonstrate how true this can be.

Remember:
Vance called Trump Hitler.
Now Vance is his vice president.
None of this stuff means anything to Trump.
"Sure, call me Hitler. Now it's useful to make you vice president. So be it."

This is pretty much the case.
As I've said before, Trump is a WWF brain.
To him all this political posturing IS mostly playacting.
It's all showbiz to him.
"I call you a communist, you call me a fascist! It's fun and means nothing!"
At his core he is a nihilistic sociopath, not political.

The internet also fosters a culture of ego.
Each person/account is it's own brand.
So the impulse is to want to stand out.
To argue.
To demonstrate how you are different, better, more virtuous etc.
So "small differences" are easily blown up to "irreconcilable differences".

That and also the prosaic practical issue:
we've now gotten to the point in the internet where we've blocked all the magas.
Impossible to argue with someone you've blocked.
So all that's left are non magas arguing with each other.
And then another wave of blocking.
Then more smaller arguing.

I think the farther people feel from the levers of power the more they tend to engage in pointless arguments on the internet.
To create at least the illusion that are engaged with something.
And paradoxically those arguments will occur most frequently between those adjacent rather than 100% opposite

Even I thought they would at least try a LITTLE harder to disguise that this was simply Putin's plan.
Oh well.
Even that low bar was too high apparently.

It is likely that even if a few nations committed 100% and sanctioned all the noncompliant countries it would hurt the countries doing the sanctions more than the sanctioned countries.
Meanwhile China is making massive strides on this, even as we run in the opposite direction under trump.

The problem is that (not coincidentally) the countries with the most to lose if they were to give up fossil fuels are also the most powerful and wealthy.
If all those countries were sanctioned who would collect?
What would be the enforcement mechanism?

Suppressing religion is a pointless thing to try.
Humans will never be without fear of death.
That is the price of consciousness.
We inevitably ponder the end of it.
And then create ideas to quell the fear.
The tech billionaires have a tech religion.
They call it "the singularity".
Their variation.

I agree.
As are conspiracy theories.
All facets of human behavior.
I'm sure the cavemen had their variations, as do we.

It’s too on the nose.
But isn’t everything now?

And then on top of the natural inclination that exists in most humans to want to see patterns, causation, and this escape from hard reality, there are the grifters and psychopaths.
Like RFK jr who USES the human vulnerability for conspiracy thinking for his own sick ends.
A sadistic impulse there.

Most conspiracy theories are not really a search for reality. Akin to religion they are something to believe in in order to obscure reality and thus soothe the anxious mind. In the case of religion it is the (very understandable) fear of death.
Much overlap: "wellness", "spirituality" + "anti vax".

"Definitely should not have any pain medication on hand. That would be terrible for the mother. Very traumatic to have a pain reliever available if needed."

Can’t imagine seeing an even mildly complex birth and thinking “whew, we definitely should never do this is in a location with instant access to modern medical care! Avoid having any doctors, blood supply, oxygen etc on hand. Surely that is the safe path.”

Even after the United States surrenders to climate change, the rest of the world isn’t much better.
Sad reality.

I’m sick of hearing that closing the Department of Education would send control back to the states.

The states already have control.

What they really want with a closing is lack of oversight, access to education funding, and more Christian Nationalism in schools.

Yup.

So:
Both Putin and Zelenskyy are a no.
Brilliant deal maker trump.
Pleasing nobody.
Incompetent.

Interesting.
Must be a coincidence tho.
Surely.
Her ethics have always been solid so…wait a minute here….

It sure does make you think.

NYC needs to claw back as much federal funding as possible.
Reduce ICE mayhem.
If Mamdani has been able to reduce the potential damage to the city somehow then I’m for it.
But we’ll never really know for sure.
Mamdani kept Adam’s police commissioner.
Pivot to center.
So he’s playing the game as well

It’s interesting.
I got into an argument with some strong Mamdani supporters beforehand where they vociferously wanted Mamdani *not* to go to dc to meet.
Haven’t checked in to see what they’re saying now.
People tend to follow the leader tho.
Now that it’s done, it’s “good”.

Sounds about right.
I still think Mamdani might have clawed back a couple billion by meeting with him.
Being “part of the show”.
But we’ll never really know.
We won’t be able to track “earth two” where Mamdani refused the meeting.

To Trump, a female normie centrist lib who wins a race is infinitely less congenial than *a man who wins*.
Even if he's a Muslim "communist".
He's a man, and he won.
So trump treats him as an alpha.
Trump is not really a conservative anyway.
He's just a sexist sociopath who fears being a loser.

Gender is a significant part of this mentality as well.
I can't think of many occasions when Trump has sucked up to women who have won elections.
He is even more dominated by sexism than he is by his urge to be in proximity to winners.
To him, a woman can never really be a winner.
Only men.

The more powerful the politician, the more this applies.
Because I promise you, there is not ONE president in the history of this country who has not taken actions that resulted in something you would find personally horrific.
That is the nature of the job.
None of this is personal.