The XKCD is strong with this one.

What if we get married move in together and adopt kids as a joke?

Except that the oligarchs are now using the legal system to create an oppressive regime for the working class. In the meantime they’ll get to stabbing at each other. In the end, monarchy will remain.

Monarchism is the only end for capitalism (according to Marx’ Das Kapital …and the steady march of history has been consistent so far with this). So for those who disparage capitalism, they’re choosing the despotic totalitarian situation that Washington fought against during the origin of the US.

I do believe a lot of people – and the mainstream news media here in the states – want to believe this is normal and this is fine the way Trump kept wishing on camera COVID-19 was going to just go away on its own, even as CDC discovered enough instances to declare it has infected the community (e.g. the American public) and could no longer be contained via specific isolation.

They are so desperate to for things to be normal that they want to justify the outrageousness as within the threshold of normal any way they can.

I’m not sure, but Trump behaves as if he likes pushing that envelope, much the way he forced Robert Kennedy Jr. to eat McDonalds to assert dominance.

As a European center, does that put you between the radical far left (community based government, right to eat, right to housing, right to education, medical care for all, meeting and exceeding the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, etc.) and the radical far right (Monarchy, Totalitarian Oligarchy, the thing that Trump and Musk want, and will have to fight for)?

Or is it centrist as in between Neoliberal and MAGA?

The reason I ask is because here in the states Centrist means the latter, e.g. people who still hate the homeless and expect immigrants to go through (nonexistent for most) legal channels.

Yes. It’s a common feeling among economists that neoliberalism is dying. The Democratic party will have to go much further left (like radically progressive) or fade into insignificance. Probably the latter.

Same criticism is being levied on the UK Labor party and neoliberal parties across Europe.

You’re going to find a lot of support when the police can’t help themselves but be openly brutal, the way the occupying Germans did in Paris France, during the rise and fall of Vichy. The early Résistance started small, tearing down propaganda, slashing tires, cutting phone lines, as they got organized into a formidable fighting force.

It’s not popular to advocate for violence, and some revolutions can happen without violence when they’re properly organized. Martin Luther King Jr. would sucker the police into attacking non-violent protests (which they were keen to do) to appeal to the sympathy of the public and to challenge them in court. BLM is using the same means, with more emphasis on using those ubiquitous phone cameras everyone has to record it as it goes down, for the internet to view in horror.

But the Mahsa Amini protests in Iran reminded me of the adage Violence is unthinkable until the hour it is inevitable. After the death of Amini by the morality police for a minor hijab violation, Iranians protested by forgoing hijab and tipping the headcovers of VIPs (imans and government officials.) They responded with brutal reprisals from police and loyalists, which is when the protesters started flinging Molotov Cocktails at government buildings. Hangings of protestors resulted in live fire combat in the streets which resulted in Islamist loyalists poison-gas bombing girls’ schools, which is a bad look worldwide.

But don’t worry, when we see what law enforcement intends to do in the states, especially the anti-immigration and round up teams, the call to arms will be crystal clear.

I’m still sore the US didn’t take action in 2004 when Habeas Corpus was suspended and Americans were being abducted, rendered, and tortured at black sites. The HC thing was referenced in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End released in 2007.

We knew then shit was off when every Republican on the street was saying torture was right and proper, and waterboarding wasn’t torture.

What the fuck is wrong with you America Humanity?

According to the Behind the Bastards on Peter Thiel, he is really scared of death (as in dying from old age) and really wants to stay alive or take it with him.

So he may be the first private citizen to buy a DeepSouth supercomputer that has a capacity comparable to the human brain. All someone needs to do is convince him there’s software that can create an adequate simulation of him that he is essentially immortal.

Of course, this thought experiment intersects with the transporter paradox, but that’s part of the deal.

That may be a good thing as it speeds our way to general class consciousness.

That’s how revolutions start. (It’s also how violent revolt starts, which is different from revolution but can become revolution sometimes.)

Marvel Snap is still down. Like the 1980s we nerds don’t matter.

ETA: As of 11:16pm, PST, 2025-01-20, Snap’s been up for a few hours but it’s still not accessible on the Apple Store or Google Play.

I have a negative view of health insurance companies. In fact, I have a negative view of corporations, from the local mom-&-pops that underpay their employees and expect long hours, to Amazon. They all suck.

But people who create policies that cause immense loss of life (and cost and destruction) are really asking for ten-plus times the vengeance that actually comes their way.

I’m not interested in that vengeance since it won’t solve the problem, but I don’t begrudge those who suffer at their hands from wanting to kill them back.

He smacks you with a great shout. You feel glove slapped like a duel challenge. Then he offers a small tub as you feel the tooth slip from your jaw onto your tongue.

It is always morally preferrable to pirate things made by giant corporations

Fixed It For You.

Regardless of what is regarded as a crime against the state, it is wrongdoing against the public to support corporations that seek to extract more wealth than value they produce.

Intellectual property rights were a (very) temporary monopoly to give creators an incentive to create in order to build a robust public domain.

Copyrights, patents and trademarks no longer do that. So charging for content is now rent-seeking

Corporations, their share holders and the plutocrats who own them pull wealth out of the economy by hoarding it. The whenever you buy from anything but directly from the creator, you are reducing the wealth in the economy since your money goes straight into Scrooge McDuck’s swimming coffers.

And our public domain only contains stuff from a century ago. Steamboat Willie became public domain just a year or two ago. Copyright holders and courts even assert all content should be owned and licensed, including SCOTUS. (Though the US Supreme Court is a traitor to the United States and its constitution.)

Pirate everything. Steal from companies for they have already stolen from you.

a certain type of person just can’t let it be

It occurs to me that certain kinds of cosmic horror might actually be appealing as the world gets more and more hazardous, between climate-crisis related events and government destabilization. Why not investigate the phenomena that defy our current models of mechanics with stories of dread gods and fell beasts that pose a risk of life and limb but of unmaking comprehension of reality.

It is much the way that while I do think we should strive towards creating ethical, human-friendly AGI and implement safety measures to prevent them from empowering oligarchs with swarming armies of killer robots who do their bidding, that is a less boring path to human extinction than us polluting the atmosphere until it’s unlivable.

Absolutely everybody with maybe the exception of some well-sorted zen monks is crazy. It’s one of those things we learn in the wacky ward (or in my case, a partial-hospitalization program). Imagine a line going from healthy-brain to maximum-damaged brain (where ASD folk at the high end of the spectrum fall), they run:

• 0. Healthy
• 1. Neuroses (personal conflicts: I like ice cream but I also want to be lean). The best of us are here. But that’s few.
• 2. Personality disorders (APD, BPD, NPD, Being Donald Trump, probably). Note this is not too damaged, just in a way that makes psycho-killers
• 3. Psychosis, not to be confused with psychopathy which is not a psychology term but a forensic term. This is where BPD, Major Depression and so on go.
• 4. Schizophrenia, which literally means fragmented mind
• 5. Autism, according to the 1990s (pre-DSM-V) model, when it was called Autism and not ASD.

Since (according to my psychiatrists, ASD is a symptom of a high density of neurons that lead to crossed wires a lot, called kindling. When it takes place in the motor-function part of your brain, you end up with epilepsy.

ALSO: In since the industrial age and the end of extended family homesteads and the beginning of nuclear families, our resilience to domestic abuse has plummeted. (When there were aunts and uncles and grandmas around to run to when dad got drunk and handsy, it helped us manage our mental health as kids. Now we don’t have that support, and parenting has gotten worse as industrial and clerical jobs demand more of our time, so that by the 1970s, no one is actually around to parent (or to do research for civic duties). So we all are suffering from intergenerational insanity. At least it is my hypothesis.

There’s always the literary alternative:

“In that direction,” the Cat said, waving the right paw 'round, “lives a Hatter; and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like; they’re both mad.”

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat; “we’re all mad here. Do you play croquet with the Queen today?”

We all are crazy, and that’s okay. Hang with me and we’ll figure out how to manage it.

In the meantime, I love you and am with you.

(This may be a bit sappy but it applies to friends and lovers alike.)

I’d argue theocracy is serving the same cause as fascism, which is to manipulate the public to go along.

According to Karl Marx ( Das Kapital ) Capitalism bleeds money into the coffers of the ownership class until the system turns into oligarchy which turns into monarchy.

The US indoctrinates its people against communism and socialism (really, basic models from which we’d develop a community-focused economy): These words are regarded openly as derision one throws at people they want to disrespect. And yet the only alternative is monarchism, upheld by religious indoctrination (the same thing that propels dangerous cults) and fascist rhetoric ( such as the same enemy within notion that fueled the holocaust ).

Either we actively resist this, or most of us are going to get fed into the war machine and the genocide machine.

And yes, by turning away from communism – again not Soviet communism or even any given known model, but striving towards a community-based government and economic system – we ruled out all exceptions than feudal monarchy. Hence all the oligarchs paying literal tribute to Trump. He will be king.

BEHOLD THE POWER OF BAPHOMET!

ALL HAIL SATAN! 🤘