6 ms·

The current administration is not merely racists, autocratic, and hell bent on insuring all wealth is held by the oligarch class, it is also engaged in the mos

The current administration is not merely racists, autocratic, and hell bent on insuring all wealth is held by the oligarch class, it is also engaged in the most venal, short-sighted, and destructive assault on the basic functions of governance and civil society I can imagine. I don't care what one's view is on the appropriate scale and role of federal governance, some operations are best and only accomplished at that level, and this short of bullshit is not just a disservice to, it is an attack on the citizenry.

janice1999 1y ago
Destroying federal governance seems on point for people who read Yarvin and want to rule feudal micro-states as techno-kings.
- amarcheschi 1y ago
  I guess they see themselves as high officers in those states. I fail to understand how someone could read about living in a dictatorship and go "yeah, I would like to live like that"
  - jfengel 1y ago
    You don't have to see yourself as a high officer. You just have to imagine that you will be restored to your deserved state. In that state you are slightly better than average, and only those who are morally defective suffer. (Those are the ones who are now unjustly keeping you from succeeding on your merits.) The high officials are the truly great ones who have restored the natural order. You don't need that. You just require being recognized as somewhat better than most.
    - Larrikin 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - Hikikomori 1y ago
        Racists were just temporarily embarrassed by the civil war.
        e40 1y ago
        Were they? If so, embarrassed about what? Losing it?
        Hikikomori 1y ago
        I think they and right wingers are only embarrassed by losing, it explain their behaviour.
      - janice1999 1y ago
        You reminded me of the Lyndon B Johnson quote which seems more relevant that ever. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
        AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        The trouble with this quote is that it's too easy to misinterpret it exactly in favor of the people it's criticizing. Racism is a system for pitting poor white people and poor black people against each other. But the perpetrators are not the people in the other tribe, they're the people telling you that there should be separate tribes.
      - GolfPopper 1y ago
        Bacon's Rebellion [1] in colonial Virginia, 1676-7, was a a multi-race and cross-class uprising against the colonial government and the aritocratic planter class. The rebellion's failure was followed by measures that served to alienate the poor white population from the enslaved black population. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion
  - anigbrowl 1y ago
    Evidence suggests ~30% of people are content to be worse off in order to inflict a larger loss upon others. This paper makes for rather grim reading but imho provides a very useful heuristic for understanding the political enfironment in an era of mass communication. Humans display a reduced set of consistent behavioral phenotypes in dyadic games https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451
    - spencerflem 1y ago
      This really feels like the best explanation for what's happening right now :c
    - SchemaLoad 1y ago
      Isn't 30% roughly the percent of people who voted for this situation?
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      > Evidence suggests ~30% of people are content to be worse off in order to inflict a larger loss upon others. This paper makes for rather grim reading but imho provides a very useful heuristic for understanding the political enfironment in an era of mass communication. Pinning this on human psychology is ignoring how the game is set up. If you structure something in such a way that the person who gets the most points wins and gets a prize, a move that causes you to lose one point but causes your only opponent to lose two points will put you ahead. That's arithmetic, not psychology. The issue, then, is when we allow things to be structured that way -- as zero sum games. Instead what we should be doing is stamping out anything that fosters artificial scarcity. Moreover, as the paper points out, that's what happens in dyadic systems. Which is to say, two party systems. If you have the option to cost yourself a point but cost one of your opponents two points, that's an advantageous move in a two-party system, but not in a five-party system even with a zero-sum game, because then you've cost yourself a point against three of the four other parties. So if you want to get rid of that, have your state adopt score voting (specifically score voting, not IRV or any of that mess) instead of the existing voting system which mathematically constrains us to a two-party system.
  - andrekandre 1y ago
    > I fail to understand how someone could read about living in a dictatorship and go "yeah, I would like to live like that" fwiw there are religious people who read about the great kings in the bible and wish they had one of those today, and they vote (not endorsing, just sharing my experience)
    - padjo 1y ago
      There are also religious people who look forward to the coming of the “end times”. They also vote.
      - andrekandre 1y ago
        yep, they definitely do
      - cess11 1y ago
        More importantly, US oligarchs are religious. Mostly evangelical, mormon or some postmodern derivative, like Thiel, Yarvin, Musk and their ilk. In the US, even people who aren't very religious in practice still harbour religious beliefs like the state of Israel being a divine entity. I.e. like Ted Cruz, who knows some english biblical phrases but isn't religious enough to stop himself from playing golf with the pharaoh, and yet strongly holds on to the antisemitic zionist belief that jews must move to the state of Israel and eradicate their neighbours.
        phatskat 1y ago
        I think Cruz is likely a lot more religious than he puts out only because his brand of religion is, or at least was, too extreme for a lot of people. His father is a fundamentalist leader a la Handmaid’s Tale, which should have been a lot more worrying a lot sooner for a lot more people.
  - g-b-r 1y ago
    Partly being submissive, partly betting on being among the rulers, partly distaste for most of the world, and partly just idiocy and insanity
  - johannes1234321 1y ago
    Democracy is complicated. The world is complex, but you get only a limited set of choices (in some implementation a few more, in others a few less) which means the burden in the end is on you. Now you take the wannabe dictator, which takes that all of you "I'm like your dad and will care about all those problems, so you only have to care about your direct environment, doing your job, taking care of your family, all else will be handled"
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  Wow, that's possibly the bleakest set of opinions I've ever seen detailed. I can't help but think that this is typical self-loathing and ensuing self-destruction turned towards society itself. I need to read his actual writing, though. I'm sure there's also some element of actively pandering towards people in power desperate to justify their hold through some ideology.
  - zingababba 1y ago
    Just read his Gray Mirror posts or watch a podcast with him. If you really want to get the full experience you need to go back to his unqualified reservations stuff but it can be VERY tedious.
    - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
      He is simply not that smart nor that interesting. Just a mega cringe-lord loser who got the ear of other cringe-lord losers who happen to be unfathomably wealthy.
      - voidhorse 1y ago
        Yeah, it's amazing to me that any of these clowns consider themselves intelligent when they end up holding philosophical and political beliefs that the average high-schooler could tell you are completely wack. The natural consequence of the worship of financial success, strong isolationist tendencies, and social atomization. When you "don't rely on anyone else" and managed to make billions with your "own wits" anything you think must be genius or at least correct, right? It's insane how our current socioeconomic structure has effectively let men with the social maturity of twelve year olds gain absurd amounts of influence and power.
  - g-b-r 1y ago
    So you don't know that the vice-president's mentor completely agrees with him
    - 1y ago
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  Also not much of a coincidence that Yarvin is an out and out white nationalist, though he denies it, or at least the name: "I am not a white nationalist, though I am not exactly allergic to the stuff" - whatever the hell that mealy mouth answer is meant to mean. He even wrote a bloviating article to further clarify that he is not a white nationalist. You'd be forgiven though, if you didn't read the title. It spends most of the article sympathizing with, understanding, agreeing with and talking of how white nationalism "resonates" with him. But don't worry, he swears he's not one at the end!
SSilver2k2 1y ago
Agreed.
thr0waway001 1y ago
If the US was a rebellious teenager then they are past their doing coke and doing corn phase and onto their face tattoo and smoking meth phase.
decremental 1y ago
[dead]
pstuart 1y ago
The administration is so devoid of any value it staggers the mind. The only thing that I can agree with is that our dependence on China is not a good thing (Oh yes, and minimizing governmental fraud and waste) -- the concepts, not any of the actions done to address these concerns. What makes this mess even more disheartening is that about of third of the population loves it.

janice1999 1y ago

Destroying federal governance seems on point for people who read Yarvin and want to rule feudal micro-states as techno-kings.

amarcheschi 1y ago
I guess they see themselves as high officers in those states. I fail to understand how someone could read about living in a dictatorship and go "yeah, I would like to live like that"
- jfengel 1y ago
  You don't have to see yourself as a high officer. You just have to imagine that you will be restored to your deserved state. In that state you are slightly better than average, and only those who are morally defective suffer. (Those are the ones who are now unjustly keeping you from succeeding on your merits.) The high officials are the truly great ones who have restored the natural order. You don't need that. You just require being recognized as somewhat better than most.
  - Larrikin 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - Hikikomori 1y ago
      Racists were just temporarily embarrassed by the civil war.
      - e40 1y ago
        Were they? If so, embarrassed about what? Losing it?
        Hikikomori 1y ago
        I think they and right wingers are only embarrassed by losing, it explain their behaviour.
    - janice1999 1y ago
      You reminded me of the Lyndon B Johnson quote which seems more relevant that ever. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
      - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
        The trouble with this quote is that it's too easy to misinterpret it exactly in favor of the people it's criticizing. Racism is a system for pitting poor white people and poor black people against each other. But the perpetrators are not the people in the other tribe, they're the people telling you that there should be separate tribes.
    - GolfPopper 1y ago
      Bacon's Rebellion [1] in colonial Virginia, 1676-7, was a a multi-race and cross-class uprising against the colonial government and the aritocratic planter class. The rebellion's failure was followed by measures that served to alienate the poor white population from the enslaved black population. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion
- anigbrowl 1y ago
  Evidence suggests ~30% of people are content to be worse off in order to inflict a larger loss upon others. This paper makes for rather grim reading but imho provides a very useful heuristic for understanding the political enfironment in an era of mass communication. Humans display a reduced set of consistent behavioral phenotypes in dyadic games https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451
  - spencerflem 1y ago
    This really feels like the best explanation for what's happening right now :c
  - SchemaLoad 1y ago
    Isn't 30% roughly the percent of people who voted for this situation?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    > Evidence suggests ~30% of people are content to be worse off in order to inflict a larger loss upon others. This paper makes for rather grim reading but imho provides a very useful heuristic for understanding the political enfironment in an era of mass communication. Pinning this on human psychology is ignoring how the game is set up. If you structure something in such a way that the person who gets the most points wins and gets a prize, a move that causes you to lose one point but causes your only opponent to lose two points will put you ahead. That's arithmetic, not psychology. The issue, then, is when we allow things to be structured that way -- as zero sum games. Instead what we should be doing is stamping out anything that fosters artificial scarcity. Moreover, as the paper points out, that's what happens in dyadic systems. Which is to say, two party systems. If you have the option to cost yourself a point but cost one of your opponents two points, that's an advantageous move in a two-party system, but not in a five-party system even with a zero-sum game, because then you've cost yourself a point against three of the four other parties. So if you want to get rid of that, have your state adopt score voting (specifically score voting, not IRV or any of that mess) instead of the existing voting system which mathematically constrains us to a two-party system.
- andrekandre 1y ago
  > I fail to understand how someone could read about living in a dictatorship and go "yeah, I would like to live like that" fwiw there are religious people who read about the great kings in the bible and wish they had one of those today, and they vote (not endorsing, just sharing my experience)
  - padjo 1y ago
    There are also religious people who look forward to the coming of the “end times”. They also vote.
    - andrekandre 1y ago
      yep, they definitely do
    - cess11 1y ago
      More importantly, US oligarchs are religious. Mostly evangelical, mormon or some postmodern derivative, like Thiel, Yarvin, Musk and their ilk. In the US, even people who aren't very religious in practice still harbour religious beliefs like the state of Israel being a divine entity. I.e. like Ted Cruz, who knows some english biblical phrases but isn't religious enough to stop himself from playing golf with the pharaoh, and yet strongly holds on to the antisemitic zionist belief that jews must move to the state of Israel and eradicate their neighbours.
      - phatskat 1y ago
        I think Cruz is likely a lot more religious than he puts out only because his brand of religion is, or at least was, too extreme for a lot of people. His father is a fundamentalist leader a la Handmaid’s Tale, which should have been a lot more worrying a lot sooner for a lot more people.
- g-b-r 1y ago
  Partly being submissive, partly betting on being among the rulers, partly distaste for most of the world, and partly just idiocy and insanity
- johannes1234321 1y ago
  Democracy is complicated. The world is complex, but you get only a limited set of choices (in some implementation a few more, in others a few less) which means the burden in the end is on you. Now you take the wannabe dictator, which takes that all of you "I'm like your dad and will care about all those problems, so you only have to care about your direct environment, doing your job, taking care of your family, all else will be handled"
MangoToupe 1y ago
Wow, that's possibly the bleakest set of opinions I've ever seen detailed. I can't help but think that this is typical self-loathing and ensuing self-destruction turned towards society itself. I need to read his actual writing, though. I'm sure there's also some element of actively pandering towards people in power desperate to justify their hold through some ideology.
- zingababba 1y ago
  Just read his Gray Mirror posts or watch a podcast with him. If you really want to get the full experience you need to go back to his unqualified reservations stuff but it can be VERY tedious.
  - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    He is simply not that smart nor that interesting. Just a mega cringe-lord loser who got the ear of other cringe-lord losers who happen to be unfathomably wealthy.
    - voidhorse 1y ago
      Yeah, it's amazing to me that any of these clowns consider themselves intelligent when they end up holding philosophical and political beliefs that the average high-schooler could tell you are completely wack. The natural consequence of the worship of financial success, strong isolationist tendencies, and social atomization. When you "don't rely on anyone else" and managed to make billions with your "own wits" anything you think must be genius or at least correct, right? It's insane how our current socioeconomic structure has effectively let men with the social maturity of twelve year olds gain absurd amounts of influence and power.
- g-b-r 1y ago
  So you don't know that the vice-president's mentor completely agrees with him
  - 1y ago
FireBeyond 1y ago
Also not much of a coincidence that Yarvin is an out and out white nationalist, though he denies it, or at least the name: "I am not a white nationalist, though I am not exactly allergic to the stuff" - whatever the hell that mealy mouth answer is meant to mean. He even wrote a bloviating article to further clarify that he is not a white nationalist. You'd be forgiven though, if you didn't read the title. It spends most of the article sympathizing with, understanding, agreeing with and talking of how white nationalism "resonates" with him. But don't worry, he swears he's not one at the end!

SSilver2k2 1y ago

Agreed.

thr0waway001 1y ago

If the US was a rebellious teenager then they are past their doing coke and doing corn phase and onto their face tattoo and smoking meth phase.

decremental 1y ago

[dead]

pstuart 1y ago

The administration is so devoid of any value it staggers the mind. The only thing that I can agree with is that our dependence on China is not a good thing (Oh yes, and minimizing governmental fraud and waste) -- the concepts, not any of the actions done to address these concerns. What makes this mess even more disheartening is that about of third of the population loves it.