The most important thing about seizing Elon’s wealth is that he wouldn’t have it anymore.

that's just a hobby! the ideology is kleptocracy

The conspiracy theorists were all brain-melted MAGAs and as per the usual rule every accusation was and is a confession. They didn’t reveal some hidden truth. They created a smokescreen for elite abusers to hide behind.

Judge Kegstand.

South Korean culture is fascinating because it's like "We make two things extremely well: Weapons and pop stars. One of these industries is the ruthless, blood-soaked byproduct of a nation whose soul was scarred by eternal war. The other is our defense industrial base, which is respected globally."

I have really come to believe that we'd be in a much better place right now if we had put Nixon away in a dingy cell for the rest of his natural life, instead of the slap on the wrist for being naughty that he actually received.

The phenomenon of St. Luigi (both that he did what he did, and the public resposne to it) are best understood as society’s immune system kicking into emergency mode.

As I wrote, elite lawlessness also proves out the basic premise of Trumpism, which is that all of governance is finally just rich creeps doing whatever they want, whenever they want; the degeneracy of the people doing it, and what they do, is a self-perpetuating thing. defector.com/kingdom-of-t...

we need to reinstitute government ran vaccination vans and im not kidding. parents should not be allowed to kill their children with negligence. it is the duty of the state to enforce the well-being of children, at the end of the barrel of a gun if necessary.

so genuinely: uh, what was Merrick Garland doing with the Epstein files, given uh, it's brought down a royal and multiple Euro politicians/

The American president is more insulated from accountability than a British royal. Our political system provides the elite with immunity. It has to change.

We're cargo culting the 20th century

You can think of this as post-enshittification. Value to consumers or to advertisers at least provided a link to reality. But as it turns out, the 3rd stage of enshittification (once both users and advertisers are locked in) decays; companies begin to act against even their own self-interest.

Once, technology solved problems. People liked having problems solved, so they liked technology. Tech execs started to think of that sentiment as their due. So when they stopped solving problems, and people stopped liking them, they became outraged. "How dare you not love whatever we give you?"

The funny thing about modern economic discourse is that The Wealth of Nations is very clear that market failure requires regulation. I am a capitalist because “planned economy” vs “lawless markets”‘is a false choice. A smartly regulated economy is literally what Smith articulated.

I mean really, the power of the likes of Musk, Thiel, and Bezos is absolutely a great argument for going after the ultra wealthy. It's no longer a simple question of economics.

i think "instant, non-marginal tax of 95% whenever net wealth exceeds $1bn, and if we catch you trying to get around it we just take everything" would solve a lot of problems while leaving those impacted with *at the very worst* $50mn

elizabeth warren is the only true capitalist in the united states congress send tweet

This is extremely salient. You can love AI or hate and fear it, but you what you cannot do is ignore its nature or its demonstrable *current* capabilities. The author is right to draw parallels between left attitudes about AI and right wing climate denial.

The left tried for decades to pass green energy subsidies, passed them, the subsidies worked, and now literally the entire planet's electricity grid is going to convert to solar+battery. It just doesn't feel like "tech" because it mostly produces kinda boring blue collar jobs instead of billionaires

On the list of things I was told growing up were flatly physically impossible...

DING-DING-DING the Chicago school idiots believe so strongly in markets that they assume if you set them up, all will be well.

imho the market itself is a public good, and the various methods of barring eg fraud effectively create it. this is the insight that the chicago school people lacked when setting up markets in eg russia

And I almost got away with it, but the children kept screaming

"the elite of the antebellum South were degenerate gamblers who financed their lifestyles with industrialized rape and would kill you for pointing this out" is a straightforwardly accurate statement

I was compiling data on witch burnings, as one does, and stumbled upon an important truth

Ecological stress causing a turn to irrational coping and blaming strategies, you say? Well, at least this has nothing to do with our current world situation.

Yes, and that's why they think professors are indoctrinating their kids when they go off to college. It isn't what's going on in the classroom that's changing them, it's meeting people from other cultures & finding out they're great. It's eating food from other cultures & finding out it's tasty.

white dudes in Callaway hats doing this are a five alarm fire for the GOP

The obviously criminal shooting & attempting framing of Marimar Martinez only getting media traction after the killing of Renee Good is extremely frustrating

I know what he is trying to say but this framing is flat out irresponsible. The idea that AI may actually be good for something and the idea that the hype is pure bullshit are *entirely* compatible and in fact both are true.

Is anyone here an Ireland rail expert?

Also true for the US at large, though the axes are different.

I hate bananas. Haven’t been able to stand the smell or taste of them since I was five. But I’m also enough of a g-damn adult to be able to distinguish between a banana cream pie and a cow pie.

💯 this Everything that has happened in the last 14 months is terrible and none of it (except maybe DOGE) was surprising.

"Of course I support mass deportation and the racial purification of America. ...but I have *serious reservations* about this specific facility."

what this should actually tell countries that want a good relationship with a stable and prosperous US is that they should collude to help democrats

The Ukrainian drone company is called Skyfall. Indeed.

cheers to @rincewind.run for asking climate people what Dire Fuckery Headline means, like, pragmatically half these bozos’ game is wearing you down with despair if you’re a casual, you might think all US climate action ground to a halt today because the EPA threw in the towel not even close

Yeah the world is in peril. No shit Sherlock. It’s (civilization, that is) been in existential peril my entire life, and then some. These AI guys are Johnny-come-lately. Don’t Look Up!

IOW, not always but quite often, I think the racism & misogyny are downstream of the psychology. Like Trump clearly hates black people but he just as clearly hates *all* weak & marginalized groups.

Conversely, if Trump runs across a black guy who, in his mileau, is the Big Shit, the guy with power who others fear, then Trump will kiss that guy's ass! It's not like he's going to let some principled hostility toward black people prevent him from sucking up to power. Power is the thing.

To address a real voter fraud problem, look into how the GOP rounds up old folks to vote. When my father was in a nursing home with dementia, every single resident was visited by a GOP GOTV operative to get their absentee ballots filled out. "Who did you vote for, Dad?" "I voted? I don't know."

Tomorrow, I'm talking with an expert about ***PJM***. That's the grid operator for 13 states + DC. Nothing's getting built, power prices are rising, consumers are angry, governors are angry, data centers are impatiently banging on the door ... it's a mess. Got questions about PJM?

This seems like a strong argument against GOTV efforts.

Extraordinary, and also telling. The Empty (Head) Cooridor is really well defined.

it’s kinda funny how some think tanks are like “we should introduce sensible, economically sound policies to win over swing voters” while the politicians who actually win over swing voters are like, the dumbest people on earth

I sincerely think we should all block people like this, who are incapable of separating the (very real) problems with the technology from the (much more serious) problem of who OWNS the technology. That stance makes it impossible to meaningfully engage the problems.