And on the other end (and this is hardly an original observation) the 90's don't really end until 9/11.

obligatory reference to the

"I have what you'll never have. Enough."

Vonnegut quote

In an era filled with tech dipshits who never developed emotionally past the age of 13 & use their wealth to become odious monsters ...

... listen to Steve Wozniak.

I’ve become convinced Harris lost for the same reason Trump is losing now. There’s a lot of other less important factors in both cases, but I think it’s mostly about their utter failure to deal with this chart in any way that would make an average person believe they give a fuck about them.

I think this clip is the key to understanding why Trump acted the way he did with Mamdani. His world revolves around TV ratings.

"I tell you, the press has eaten this thing up."

Trump drooling over Mamdani in the Oval Office the same day Hakeem Jeffries voted to condemn socialism could not be funnier to me

russia rn…

so many memories.

was just looking at the change in the pace of NBA play over the last 25 years.

For a gen x NBA fan like myself the difference been the ~90 pos/gm of the NBA basically my whole life and the 100+ pos/gm NBA of today is striking.

This is actually something I’ve thought a lot about and I agree.

My thinking though is this really the next step in humans transition into the information age. Which has already broken the brains of a significant portion of humanity. AI could legitimately help, and make it so much worse.

I definitely see this point. I’m just not sure the mental process change is all that different. My whole gen X life has been one claim of “doing that new thing will rot your brain” after another.

Seems like the fundamental question is actually whether AI will change human nature? and I don’t know

The curmudgeon in me says we’re paving the path to our own stupidity

But engineer me wonders how different this is than the introduction of the calculator/computer?

The story of human evolution for the last 100 years has been technology replacing human skills previously thought irreplaceable

Which is a HUGE problem when you start putting humans on those rockets, which Musk said is his primary goal. He seems utterly incapable of managing risk.

When I tell my Elon fan boy friends that he’s really not all that smart he’s just a great bag man this is what I use as core evidence.

this used to be the kind of thing you’d see in a Grand Theft Auto game as an over-the-top parody of America

Not just left vs right: Most voters think about affordability and material wellbeing, not in ideological terms Most voters want a party that emphasizes cost of living issues and makes the world a better place. Few Americans think in solidly ideologically terms. "Moderates" are mostly non-ideological.

Good morning. I've got a banger new post out today that develops a new method for placing voters on the left-right ideological spectrum, and adds a new, "non-ideological"/affordability axis to usual way we chart & think about US voters (esp swing voters). www.gelliottmorris.com/p/not-just-l...

One of the great successes of modern propaganda is that we’ve allowed right wing extremists to convince everybody that the REAL extremists are someone else.

America 2025.

good news on a friday?

good news on a friday.

Farming is similar to a lot of other industries in the US. by raw numbers over 90% of farms are “family owned” small businesses.

But large corporate farms produce over 80% of the product sold.

So how you do the welfare mashed a huge difference in who it goes to.

here’s the thing, most farms in America right now are corporately owned. Farm welfare is corporate welfare.

One of the only useful real life things more than two decades on internet forums and social media taught me is I don’t owe anybody’s opinions respect and nobody owes it to me. I’ve found concern for politeness and “civility” are often as big a barrier to mutual understanding as outright hostility

so first thing is nothing you listed there has any impact on weather an election is free.

second thing is “fair”, unlike “democracy” is a term that we could legitimately debate forever. for my purposes and my definitions fair means that the laws and rules are applied equally and justly to all.

see, it’s the “them” I take issue with here.

the train of engagement and idea selling runs both ways. so if you’re talking about some nebulous “them” and not a collective or royal we you’ve lost me.

His assertion has never been that “we” aren’t, and I don’t know who “us” is?

The assertion I’m agreeing with is, regardless of whatever else “we” are doing, the easiest and most effective way of taking control of OUR government is still winning elections because that system still works.

generally, a system of government where every Citizen has the ability to participate in binding free and fair elections.

I think your definition is actually called direct democracy and I don’t think it’s possible because the government is not every adult.

There’s definitely some of that. it’s not a majority, or even a huge minority of places. that’s where the complexity comes

I’m both of the states i’ve lived in I got a ballot mailed to me every election, could easily attend local government meetings, and had relatively low bars to run for office

each one of those things represented the majority moral opinion of the time.

Until it didn’t. Or still does.

That’s actually proof our democracy worked in the past, and can work for the future.

I’d argue one of the core lessons learned in the 21st century this far is, if you want an enduring political movement, you need both. So maybe we can do both?

In America Is argue it is actually both complicated to execute and easy for the individual. The only limit to my participation is my willingness to participate.

I know Tom loves to get mired in pedantic arguments abut what constitutes fascism and that’s often annoying, but this remains the thing he’s always been absolutely fucking right about.

So many of us are seemingly ready to do anything except trust simple democracy.