I have noticed that people who think of themselves as very smart are particularly susceptible because the flattery algorithms reinforce what they already believe to be true, so they fail to view them with appropriate skepticism, and instead imagine that they have special insights.

The rich people of today only have two ideas: 1. Let’s kill everyone 2. I need a bunker so after we kill everyone I can emerge from underground, spread my wings like a peacock, and continue to be rich

Dying in office because you insisted on clinging to power until the very end instead of letting a new generation of leaders rise should be seen for the shameful, egomaniacal act that it is.

Honestly, the great crisis of our society is the unwillingness of institutions to inflict consequences. Impeach the president, fire the sex pests, expel cheating students, excommunicate an unrepentant heretic, prosecute the war criminals. Believe in your institution enough to enforce its rules.

textbook sanewashing

Anyone who has supported Ukraine throughout the last 4 years already knows what Jacobin is. In the communities that raise money for Ukraine and support volunteers, that magazine and the people who write for it, are at this point seen as a part of the propaganda wing of the enemy forces.

Imagine claiming to be a Star Trek fan while expressing disdain for at least 90% of what Star Trek is (and always has been)

this is unironically the best case for punitive taxation there are arguments about fairness and freedom and whatever else but at the end of the day it is self-evidently far too dangerous for society as a whole for anyone to have that much money, the end

Over $70 billion burned on the metaverse. Europe’s single biggest disadvantage versus the US in tech is not regulation, a lack of innovation or “grit”. It’s the fact we are not sitting on the kind of entrenched cash piles (owed to past success) that mean that this isn’t a bankruptcy event.

If I said that some of your favorite VCs lacked the ability to introspect, and that they spent close to zero time thinking about how their actions had negative impacts on the world? You'd probably say that I was being unfair, by practically calling them psychopaths. They say this about themselves!

"I got my PhD by writing prompts instead of doing research, I'm winning" got some bad news, there still no jobs and now you also know nothing

I am so tired of so many people constantly siding with very obvious, insane, deep evil at every opportunity.

University is not a business, students are not customers, education is not a product, researchers are not salespeople.

I feel like the past few years have closed the case and ended the debate on a fair number of political ideologies. By which I mean that previously, I often thought that while I am confident in what I believe, I can understand why someone else can honestly believe very differently about some topic.

Can't now find it but there's a classic old tweet which said something like "Every time we're on the verge of achieving class consciousness in America a CIA sleeper agent activates and, their eyes glowing red, they just tweet out "John Brown was a white saviour"" and I think about it often.

An entire political movement founded on uncovering hidden messages in documents to discover the powerful secret pedophiles and meanwhile the powerful pedophiles out here sending gmails saying "Hi fellow pedophile when are we meeting to do pedophilia again"

Palantir’s founder is pro-Russian. Ukraine should not work with Palantir

Already as children, we are taught basic lessons of what is good. Things like honesty, kindness, wisdom, reason, keeping your word, being polite, getting along with others. Seeking to improve yourself, your community, your country, seeking to improve humankind itself. Most of us try our best.

If we ever believed in any higher principles like justice, freedom, reason, rationality, fairness, equality, even politeness, all the positive qualities and principles that Trump and his kind entirely lack, then now is moment that we stop tolerating the replusive, deranged evil that they represent.

Or Russia. Not a coincidence that dissidents from authoritarian nations and reporters that covered those places have been waving their arms over what the Trump White House has been doing since 2017 while most US opposition and media have been sedately concerned. It’s not confusing to us at all.

Venezuela should de-escalate by trading land for peace, pledge neutrality and now choose a leader Donald approves of. That's how it was supposed to work when we do this to our neighbors.

an annoying thing about realists insisting they're the no-nonsense reality-based group is that few of their predictions have been based in reality

Trump demands concessions from Ukraine. Putin rejects the proposal anyway. Trump demands concessions from Ukraine. Putin rejects the proposal anyway. Trump demands concessions from Ukraine. Putin rejects the proposal anyway. Stuck in a Groundhog bog.

True. But this theater is getting tiresome, and I am not sure it's working for Europe. Perhaps it's time to make it clear to Trump that there are no negotiations instead of leading him to think that there are—and in the process fooling a lot of Europeans into believing that peace is close.

Helpful reminder that both Kyiv and its European partners can safely ignore Trump's pushes for a bad peace deal.

takes an unbelievable level of failed skill checks to be a loser if you're rich. you have unrestrained time and resources to hone any skill in the world and to verifiably support your local community but instead you're a selfish spineless blight on society. no excuse for it

MAGA people and others like them don't actually believe in anything. They temporarily "believe" in whatever allows them to right now feel what they want to feel, like feeling superior to others, or feeling righteous anger. They have no real connection to reality, logic, consistency, etc.

It is extremely stupid to try to meet any of Trump's demands, because Trump is a lying conman who never holds onto his word. You cannot actually make a deal with that sort of person. If you cannot somehow force him to respect a deal, he feels zero reason to do so. (Incidentally, Putin is the same.)

This meme has been relevant for just way too long.

We have a crisis of accountability in Western democratic politics. Look how the British media almost never confronts Farage over the consequences of Brexit, how Trump got away with January 6th, how Germany bogged down legally confronting the AfD. That's why I'm so happy about what happend to Le Pen.

Honestly, Western companies that invested in Russia before 2022 and then had their assets stolen by the Russian state can suck it up and cry about it. If you are a private business, this should be a lesson on the dangers of doing business in a dictatorship.

Hei newspapers, If you title anything other than 'Trump ceasefire bid fails as Putin rejects ceasefire" you are part of the problem.

The funniest part? Donald Trump couldn’t care less about “American taxpayer money,” “the lives of Russians and Ukrainians,” or “peace on Earth.” The only things that truly matter to him are his bottomless ego and his relentless obsession with proving how “tough” and “victorious” he is.