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The MAGA ideologues can stay cultists longer than we can stay solvent? I'm in Texas, and I've got a neighbor, down the road, who was in custom home construction

The MAGA ideologues can stay cultists longer than we can stay solvent? I'm in Texas, and I've got a neighbor, down the road, who was in custom home construction; he's out of business now. Why? He can't import lumber, reliably; he used to hire "under the table", and he bought small steel supplies in bulk from Alibaba. So... pretty much his entire business model is kaput. He keeps telling me that, any day now, Trump's 11D chess moves are going to make him (my neighbor) solvent again. He just sold his (white) truck, and is selling his house. Still flying his Trump flag, though.

reactordev 1y ago
11D, got to wait for the 12D move to fix everything. /s
franktankbank 1y ago
Big if true. One more ; ought to do it.
platevoltage 1y ago
Sounds like the type that buys lottery tickets every week actually believing that they will hit one day. Just a matter of time.
silisili 1y ago
I think this is probably the same phenomenon that makes people fall for romance scams despite the obvious red flags. Like a sunk cost fallacy for human emotion - is there a term for that? Nobody seems to want to admit they were wrong or 'had', so do the alternative - being had even more.
- ivape 1y ago
  I think it has a lot to do with who you are admitting it to. Let say you know you are wrong, but you have to admit it to your enemy. Many emotional people would rather die than do that, hah (over my dead body!). Unfortunately, this is the end-state of arousing politics. There's a whole media industry around making politics emotional now days, and quite frankly we really need it to go back to boring men and women discussing boring things on CSPAN. It was never meant for the average American (or Britain), simply because it takes too much dumbing down to make it palatable for ordinary people. It's OKAY not to know what is the right thing to do about global trade. The political-media-industrial-complex survives by making people believe they actually know what they are talking about. It's very difficult to suggest to someone "hey, even though you invested thousands of hours ingesting this content, you actually don't know anything about it" - who wants to admit that, first to themselves, and second to your enemy? Your Ben Shapiros, your Tuckers, Rogans, Maddows, Jon Stewarts are part of the industrial complex. We need to find an off-ramp for people that lets them keep their dignity while accepting ignorance. I personally don't have any ideas on how to do this because here in tech, you either know your stuff or you don't, there's no ego when you don't know (you'll just look stupid).
  - konstmonst 1y ago
    China did it better - most of their managers are engineers. US needs to make use of this pattern. Oh, and add an IQ and an EQ test as a requirement to being a president.
  - silisili 1y ago
    You make good points. There is obviously the nature of admitting to enemies that you were wrong that you touch on. What I'm referring to is admitting to yourself that you're wrong, which seems much harder to do. I just experienced this recently even in comments. For the record, I'm not a Trump hater, I'm rather neutral on politics. But in a recent interview Trump made an absolute fool of himself re: some guys hand tattoos. I felt secondhand embarrassment even watching it. Yet there were so many defenders show up, to explain what he -really- meant, or that he knew it was wrong but was proving a point, etc. I just don't get the mindset. Sometimes it's ok to admit the person you admire made a mistake. But not in the US, apparently. Because too many people have tied not only their identity but income to it.
  - hackable_sand 1y ago
    I have seen that ego, fear, superiority, and otherwise emotional instability appear most prominently in technical people.
  - wqaatwt 1y ago
    > Your Ben Shapiros, your Tuckers, Rogans, Maddows, Jon Stewarts That’s not really a balanced take in any way. Sure there are things that Stewart can be criticized about but at least he is generally semi rational and not a lying treasonous degenerate (like e.g. Tucker). It’s like saying that Trudeau, Trump and Putin are all the same because they are all politicians..
    - ivape 1y ago
      I can't leave Stewart out because any serious history on this topic must credit him for the genesis of this type of media.
- james_marks 1y ago
  It’s categorized as a need for Consistency with one’s prior self. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistency_(negotiation) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistency_(negotiation)
  - silisili 1y ago
    This is kinda close, but not a perfect fit. It's best described as the brain putting up blinders to ignore obvious problems as not to have been duped. This is close, as it mentions changing beliefs for consistency, but not exactly the same still. The root isn't consistency, it's not having been dumb enough to get scammed.
spacemadness 1y ago
It sucks having some semblance of critical thinking skills as an American. It grows more painful every day and I'd rather just give myself a lobotomy at this point. I'm sure it felt similarly for many folks during Brexit who knew better.
segfault88 1y ago
This is a quote from Carl Sagan: > One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- ethbr1 1y ago
  The first step to getting out from under a charlatan is admitting you were an idiot. Some people seem constitutionally incapable of ever doing that.
- andrekandre 1y ago
  > It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. religion and fandom can be like this as well...
CoastalCoder 1y ago
I'm curious how he reconciles his "under the table" payments with the Republican party's supposed "law and order" platform.

reactordev 1y ago

11D, got to wait for the 12D move to fix everything. /s

franktankbank 1y ago

Big if true. One more ; ought to do it.

platevoltage 1y ago

Sounds like the type that buys lottery tickets every week actually believing that they will hit one day. Just a matter of time.

silisili 1y ago

I think this is probably the same phenomenon that makes people fall for romance scams despite the obvious red flags. Like a sunk cost fallacy for human emotion - is there a term for that? Nobody seems to want to admit they were wrong or 'had', so do the alternative - being had even more.

ivape 1y ago
I think it has a lot to do with who you are admitting it to. Let say you know you are wrong, but you have to admit it to your enemy. Many emotional people would rather die than do that, hah (over my dead body!). Unfortunately, this is the end-state of arousing politics. There's a whole media industry around making politics emotional now days, and quite frankly we really need it to go back to boring men and women discussing boring things on CSPAN. It was never meant for the average American (or Britain), simply because it takes too much dumbing down to make it palatable for ordinary people. It's OKAY not to know what is the right thing to do about global trade. The political-media-industrial-complex survives by making people believe they actually know what they are talking about. It's very difficult to suggest to someone "hey, even though you invested thousands of hours ingesting this content, you actually don't know anything about it" - who wants to admit that, first to themselves, and second to your enemy? Your Ben Shapiros, your Tuckers, Rogans, Maddows, Jon Stewarts are part of the industrial complex. We need to find an off-ramp for people that lets them keep their dignity while accepting ignorance. I personally don't have any ideas on how to do this because here in tech, you either know your stuff or you don't, there's no ego when you don't know (you'll just look stupid).
- konstmonst 1y ago
  China did it better - most of their managers are engineers. US needs to make use of this pattern. Oh, and add an IQ and an EQ test as a requirement to being a president.
- silisili 1y ago
  You make good points. There is obviously the nature of admitting to enemies that you were wrong that you touch on. What I'm referring to is admitting to yourself that you're wrong, which seems much harder to do. I just experienced this recently even in comments. For the record, I'm not a Trump hater, I'm rather neutral on politics. But in a recent interview Trump made an absolute fool of himself re: some guys hand tattoos. I felt secondhand embarrassment even watching it. Yet there were so many defenders show up, to explain what he -really- meant, or that he knew it was wrong but was proving a point, etc. I just don't get the mindset. Sometimes it's ok to admit the person you admire made a mistake. But not in the US, apparently. Because too many people have tied not only their identity but income to it.
- hackable_sand 1y ago
  I have seen that ego, fear, superiority, and otherwise emotional instability appear most prominently in technical people.
- wqaatwt 1y ago
  > Your Ben Shapiros, your Tuckers, Rogans, Maddows, Jon Stewarts That’s not really a balanced take in any way. Sure there are things that Stewart can be criticized about but at least he is generally semi rational and not a lying treasonous degenerate (like e.g. Tucker). It’s like saying that Trudeau, Trump and Putin are all the same because they are all politicians..
  - ivape 1y ago
    I can't leave Stewart out because any serious history on this topic must credit him for the genesis of this type of media.
james_marks 1y ago
It’s categorized as a need for Consistency with one’s prior self. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistency_(negotiation) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistency_(negotiation)
- silisili 1y ago
  This is kinda close, but not a perfect fit. It's best described as the brain putting up blinders to ignore obvious problems as not to have been duped. This is close, as it mentions changing beliefs for consistency, but not exactly the same still. The root isn't consistency, it's not having been dumb enough to get scammed.

spacemadness 1y ago

It sucks having some semblance of critical thinking skills as an American. It grows more painful every day and I'd rather just give myself a lobotomy at this point. I'm sure it felt similarly for many folks during Brexit who knew better.

segfault88 1y ago

This is a quote from Carl Sagan: > One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ethbr1 1y ago
The first step to getting out from under a charlatan is admitting you were an idiot. Some people seem constitutionally incapable of ever doing that.
andrekandre 1y ago
> It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. religion and fandom can be like this as well...

CoastalCoder 1y ago

I'm curious how he reconciles his "under the table" payments with the Republican party's supposed "law and order" platform.