It’s funny because the US is usually like “rah rah democracy!!” but also loves private corporations, which are extremely authoritarian.

Many people are kind of stupid. Not ignorant. But like, incapable or unwilling to evaluate what’s a good source and what’s nonsense. Also incapable of drawing plausible conclusions even when given good sources. It’s all emotional. It’s how you can have stuff like “the outgroup have all the money and power, but they’re also poor and taking all our welfare” at the same time. Feels truthy. Anti-vaxxers get the high of bonding with their anti-vax friends and feeling like they’re part of the in-group.

There’s not really an answer. Invest in public education for 100 years, maybe. But we’re going always going to have authoritarians shitting life up for everyone.

https://theauthoritarians.org/

They tend to be more authoritarian. That means they’re more likely to prioritize in-group above all else.

There’s a book about authoritarian personalities I was reading a while ago. It talks about an experiment where they did like a model UN, but secretly sorted all the authoritarian types into one game and everyone else into the other.

The authoritarians ruined the world. Like, nuclear war. When they got a do-over, they still fucked it up.

The other group basically cooperated and solved world hunger.

Authoritarians probably shouldn’t be allowed in positions of power. The GOP attracts a lot of them.

I would also accept a “pay what you want” system. Wasting money on enforcement of $3 fares is idiotic.

Every night he jumps onto the computer keyboard until it beeps. I tried turning the computer off and he turned it on somehow.

I don’t know why. It’s after I’ve fed him. I always pick him up and bring him to the bedroom after.

This is bad. I’m so tired of people doing bad things. Stop undermining public education you donkeys.

Unknown Armies is a tabletop RPG that has a school of magic predicated on a. Being drunk all the time and b. Drinking out of really cool cups.

Post reminded me of that. Good game (though I only know 2nd edition)

They sold Bandcamp to some company I’ve never heard of. SongTradr https://www.songtradr.com/blog/posts/songtradr-bandcamp-acquisition

I buy music from Bandcamp. Drm free. Musicians get a bigger cut. You can write a note to the band when you buy and sometimes they write back. Their recommendations and write-ups feel more human than algorithm. Feels pretty good. Renting music on Spotify sounds like a bad deal for me and my personal habits.

Of course, they sold themselves and probably will enshittify in a couple years.

For older stuff that’s not on Bandcamp… Honestly I don’t feel bad about pirating music that’s 15 years old. Copyright is too long, anyway.

And for new mega pop stuff? Not my jam, but I’d probably still buy it drm free somewhere.

I also cannot recommend her novels The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed.

I hope you meant you can recommend them. They’re both very good.

I liked the dispossessed a lot

I imagine it’s because the Republican party is “absolutely evil turds” and the Democratic party is “everyone else”. Unfortunately, “everyone else” includes some farts and sharts, too.

I mean, yes, you’re right that it’s a simplistic take. However, falling for that kind of nonsense is not a sign of intelligence. Being able to assess “Is this a good source?” and “Are other people in fact people?” are signs of intelligence.

Low density places are always going to kind of suck on a lot of metrics. You just don’t have the people to support a lot of stuff. I’m sorry that small towns are dying but like there’s not really a reason they’d thrive.

Cities have been important since like the dawn of history. At least farms grow food. Suburban sprawl is the worst.

Cost of living needs to go down and wages up, but no one should be vying for low density.

Your brother is an fool and shouldn’t be allowed outside without supervision, nevermind voting and operating heavy machinery.

If libraries didn’t exist, and someone tried to invent them, I am confident that conservatives would fight them tooth and nail with a thousand bad reasons.

You might enjoy this 1964 essay “the paranoid style in American politics” : https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/

American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.

Guy I know worked for a pretty big video game studio or two. (You’ve definitely heard of some games he worked on). Then he realized it sucked. Took a job in FinTech, made like double the money for half the work.

I like to sometimes remind people that being numb doesn’t mean you aren’t being hurt. If your arm is numb and someone is stabbing it with a knife, that’s probably still a problem.

Many people are bad at delayed gratification and long term thinking.