I hope that translates into something meaningful happening in the midterms. Of course, even if the election does end up being a big rebuke of Trump, that will hardly bring an end to the conflict. We’re probably only just getting started.

As soon as someone releases a small electric pickup truck, I’m grabbing one and holding on to it as long as possible. It’s gotta have LFP batteries, though. Those last a long time.

Seems to me the number of genders depends on the culture. If your culture says there are only two genders, then there are two, in that culture. If your culture says there are more than two, then there are more than two, in that culture.

She’s a neoliberal. Neoliberals are NOT opposed to dictatorships. They are opposed to anything other than neoliberal capitalism. They are opposed to authoritarian socialist systems, but they absolutely will also oppose a democracy that they consider to be not capitalist enough. Friedrich Hayek, one of the architects of neoliberalism was very clear on the matter:

At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.

How fucking ironic is that.

We need Greenland

No we don’t. We really don’t. We need a better, more affordable healthcare system, we need more affordable housing, we need to achieve true, sustainable energy independence by transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, and we desperately need our electrical and other infrastructure to be updated, we need walkable, public transit focused cities that people actually want to, and can afford to live in, that are also sustainable and environmentally resilient. We NEED those things, and more. We don’t need Greenland.

“Here’s our North Star: does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.”

It’s about damn time. No more moral victories, you gotta WIN before you can change or improve anything.

China should sell $10 billion worth of weapons Venezuela.

“Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it,” Trump said, starting as he meant to go on by telling a lie: he claimed that inflation was the worst in 48 years when he took office, when in fact it had come back down to 3%.

He went on to place blame at the feet of Biden, previous trade deals, immigrants and what he described as a corrupt system.

Fascists can’t actually solve problems, even though they will tell you they’re the only ones who can. They don’t have problem solving skills, that’s why they’re fascists. They blame, deflect and scapegoat, and do it very aggressively and forcefully. Unfortunately, many people mistake that for strength. But fascists are not strong, they’re weak, and they try to compensate for their weakness by acting very strong, in very superficial ways. That’s why they are so focused on hyper masculine performance.

REAL strength is not an over inflated ego, it’s not threats and cruelty, it’s not being ignorant and proud of it, it’s not unnecessary aggression and violence. Real strength is accountability. Weak people think it shows strength to never admit when you’re wrong, but that’s completely false. Real strength is owning up to your mistakes, but not so you can crumble into self loathing, it’s so you can learn from them and become better. Real strength is learning, it’s knowledge and understanding.

You can’t fix a problem that you don’t understand, and you can’t understand a problem if you are unwilling to look at it honestly and critically, without bias. But that takes humility and weak people think humility is weakness, and they think arrogance is strength. The opposite is true. Humility is STRENGTH. That’s why fascists can never lead, because leadership takes real strength and they don’t have it.

If driverless taxis ever go mainstream (and that’s a big if), it will be from companies like Waymo, not Tesla. Tesla shouldn’t be seen as a serious company. I mean, they do sell legitimate products, but their $1.6 trillion market cap isn’t based on what they sell today, but what their cult member investors think they’re going to bring to market in the future. You know, all the stuff that will usher in the post-human, techno utopia. It’s all nonsense, and someday it will all come crashing down, though that could take a while. People can stay delusional for a long time.

I’m tired, boss

work on honing the party’s messaging in the coming years.

I think focusing on the message isn’t going to help all that much. I think most voters have become desensitized to political messaging. Obama’s own “hope and change,” message helped with that desensitizing, after people felt that in the end they had neither.

I think most Americans are now looking more for a real, material plan for improving things. And I don’t think the problem is that no one has a plan, plenty of politicians do, but I think Americans just aren’t sure which plan will work. It’s the perfect environment for political grifters who are able to convince people they have a plan to help them, even though they have no such thing. One thing I think most Americans were pretty confident about was that the plan that establishment Democrats put forward of “nothing will fundamentally change,” was not appealing. When the people are absolutely desperate for positive change, that’s the last thing they want to hear.

How would a civil war be fought in the US in 2025? Where would the battle lines be drawn? It seems like if any skirmishes were to break out anywhere, the police and the military would come in and reestablish order very quickly. Maybe if there was fighting within the military itself, but then whichever side controlled the most strategically important military bases would win quickly and easily. I just don’t see it happening.

I could see some kind of guerilla action, however. I could see assassinations, shootings and bombings, kind of like what happened in Northern Ireland in the 90s. Maybe cyber attacks as well.

Deflation would be bad, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that debt defaults, both public and private, would skyrocket. So, no, we don’t want lower prices, as that would certainly mean a significant recession, if not depression.

What people, desperately, desperately need is for their income to AT LEAST keep up with inflation. Any household that doesn’t see their yearly income increase at least as much as the rate of inflation, are getting a pay cut. And when you consider that housing, a ubiquitous, universal human need, has increased in price much faster than the overall rate of inflation, really people probably need their income to increase much more than the base inflation rate.

The US is the dictator of the world, and has been for some time.

Yeah, Trump’s an idiot, but the American people are bigger idiots for voting for him, twice.

I really think we’d be better off just reducing GHG emissions as quickly as possible. I realize we’re not doing that, but that fact doesn’t necessarily make solar geoengineering (or solar radiation management, whatever you want to call it) a better idea. In fact, it might make it a worse idea. Geoengineering should only be done (if at all) in conjunction with rapid reductions in GHG emissions and carbon capture and sequestration. Doing geoengineering without GHG emissions reductions and carbon capture is at best a complete waste and at worst a total disaster.

And the neoliberals/libertarians/anarcho capitalists cheered. Of course people who worship the “free market,” and who believe that governments can only ever do harm and that taxation is theft, want the government to be dysfunctional. Because, ultimately, they don’t want the government to function, at all. Why would they? Why would someone who adamantly believes that governments are always bad want a functioning government?

Who was projecting that global energy related CO2 emissions would increase from 34 gigatons to 50 gigatons between 2014 and 2040? Was that a reasonable projection? What was it based on? Is this evidence of “progress” or inaccurate projecting into the future?

I can project that the murder rate will increase 50% between now and 2050, and then when the murder rate only goes up 10% I can say, “omg, we’ve made such great progress on the murder rate,” even though it still went up, because it didn’t go up as much as I projected it would. But was my projection likely or even feasible in the first place?

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