I got a text from a friend telling me about the trade and I made fun of them for not being internet literate and understanding that the reporter's account had been hacked.

Shows what I know lol.

A core part of the argument is that LLMs (and AI as a whole) are a far more revolutionary technology than cars/headsets etc.

You're really getting good mileage out of this meme lol.

My nightmare scenario is a poor economy (self-imposed or otherwise) leading to militarism and an invasion somewhere (Mexico? Canada?). Followed by Americans being shocked when their invasion is contested and then a rally around the flag effect.

And maybe China goes after Taiwan during this.

Tbf, compared to Meta (which has helped in literal genocides), the Capital One transgressions are pretty tiny lol.

Counterpoint: The Metaverse.

This along with Steve Bannon calling white South Africans far too racist is definitely not how I thought things were going to go politically at the start of the year.

1. Screen and glasses cleaning kit (my vision has improved substantially lol).
2. Rice cooker (I know there are other ways, but for supremely lazy cooks like me this was pretty amazing).
3. High quality and expensive shoes (probably costs the same or less amount of money in the long run).

Yes, those are also valid examples.

Not American but Tokyo back in 1881.

Also, basically any German city barring Heidelberg post WW2.

Does it? The populace elected him despite Jan 6.

And if I had to venture a guess, the actual "ground troops" (whether army or police forces) would skew heavily towards Trump versus the relative American.

Yeah. I have always feared that those sorts of alternatives could dissolve into majoritarian rule and well, the history of majorities' attitudes towards minorities can most charitably be described as mixed lol.

He seems like a normie I'll pay to all parties in order to make sure my business continues to make obscene amounts of money.

As compared to Musk/Zuck who have become seriously radicalized right wing crazies and have sincere beliefs in the creed.

Yes. Conceptually, it is very similar to the "shut up and dribble" criticism of athletes imo.

For these people, the "natural" way of society is basically that the dominant parties should remain dominant and that any attempts (no matter how minor) to overturn existing inequities is too "political".

It's funny - I'd always laughed off analyses that mentioned things like "the decadence of society" when evaluating the downfall of empires as the ramblings of out-of-touch and stuffy men. But maybe there was something to it lol.

Massively underperformed relative to complete dominance in the last cycle.

The BJP is still the most dominant single party in terms of seats in the parliament (though they've had to form a coalition govt).

Imo, the anti-incumbency in other elections shows that the BJP performed quite well imo.

I hope you're right. But I don't really believe that the messaging on the side of the Dems really matters that much as it won't reach the relevant audiences and they likely wouldn't believe it even if they heard it.

Need a more foundational change in the media environment imo.

I'm thinking of even longer-term trends than just this cycle - India with Modi, Hungary with Orban, European countries with {fascists_but_cutely_rebranded} parties have been gaining support over the last decade on the whole.

Even the UK has Reform polling really well rn (and Labour pooling poorly).

Let's be real owning property has always been one of the most important elements in American life since the founding of the US (the others being race and gender).

I fear that this sort of analysis fundamentally fails to understand that Trump is very much a different beast than Bush or other past politicians.

In addition, the longer term global trends (towards far right on gendered lines) are not positive. Winning in 2026 and 2028 is going to be difficult.

And there are very little safeguards on the powers of the president in declaring war or using apocalyptic nuclear weapons (!!!).

The president of the US is the most dangerous figure in human history (regardless of who it is). And we have a president who is as temperamental as a toddler.

Aren't all those cherry picked examples at or more than the median American wage lol?

It strikes me as absurd how so many people are a!ngry about a program that:

- is very small in scale (wrt to the general market).
- are very well paid (so directly competing with only the rich and local elites).

Yeah. If very basic regulation and criticism can move people towards fascism, then those people were already predisposed to fascism.

The per page might be problematic here - the amount of "excess" writing we can produce by using LLMs is much greater.

The overall effects (per page * number of pages) would probably be more usefel, though I don't expect it to be crazy high (especially when compared to factory farming etc).

Not to mention greater freedoms (across various lines including race, gender and sexuality), having greater security from outside invasions etc.

This kinda reinforces my belief that we look at things almost purely relativistically.

Yeah. Most people in the developed world live "better" lives than emperors lived 500-1000 years ago lol. Things like modern healthcare, ability to travel, general conveniences (air conditioning/heating), food options (sugar and spices used to be ludicrously expensive!) are so much better.

It's probably considered the most socially acceptable (in "respectable" circles) way to attract conservative-aligned people in order to maintain the both sides facade.

And I reckon that this coalition (which is already seemingly hanging by a thread) will splinter without Trump.

Does he? I have a hard time believing he sincerely believes in anything rather than just acquiring power for himself by any way necessary.

Of course, even if he's not a true believer but just using that particular pathway to power, he'd still govern as a fascist so at some point it doesn't matter.

Tbf the president himself is quite an extremist.

And I don't really know how many people see Vance as the inheritor of the Trump legacy (is it Elon right now lol)?

But yeah, it's a pretty terrible thing.