MAGA and Woke
As I said a several years ago, I'm done. The heart has gone out of me, and I find myself living in my own little world while letting others worry about the future. Given my family health history, I expect to die fairly young. If I don't, I'll just take it as a nice surprise.
Anyways, MAGA and Woke. The press has been covering the absurd ideas of the MAGA political lump. I don't need to go into it, and in any case, I don't have the energy. The press doesn't spend nearly as much time covering the absurd ideas of the Woke political lump, but they are just as bad. I spent years here and on associated sites talking about that, and I mostly received hatred for it. I don't have the energy to rehash it.
Thing is, there have to be a lot of people that aren't in either of the said political lumps who realize just how crazy those in them are. I've long estimated that about half the American population is nuts, broadly defined, but that still leaves half that isn't. My best guess is that they have been keeping their heads down for fear of being cancelled in one way or another.
The hope for the future is that the sanes will eventually work together to marginalize the crazies, but first-past-the-post voting makes political realignments take time. The present political split means that the sanes need to accommodate the crazies rather than hand them Binkies and put them in their playpens. Of course, some of the sanes are happy to use the crazies for their own benefit. "Why, another capital gains tax cut is just what we need."
During the rise of the internet, I had hopes for democracy. The net is the greatest information dispersal tool ever, and it provides essentially free forum space for thoughtful persons to discuss that information. A quarter of a century on, that dream has been dashed. In terms of public policy, most people use the internet to find echo chambers to support their biases, not to learn.
So the Founders were right. Democracy in its purer form still isn't going to work well. There needs to be insulation from the mob in order to get decent government. If we are lucky, we will get a realignment some time in the next several political cycles, but the sanes will need to step up.
On the other hand, if we are unlucky, the United States and the world are nowadays extremely wealthy in historical terms. That should give us insurance from disaster if the crazies remain influential.
Comments
Billy d' Toqueville sitting out here talkin democracy with a capital D
I think we had a good thing guys. Back in the time before Facebook and Twitter and Reddit and digg. We fueded with some cunts from Slashdot and eod let us live in his box.
It's gone
And don't be silly billy you won't die
I honestly miss the days before Facebook and Twitter.
Or even the halcyon days when you could actually post links on Facebook and they wouldn't be de-prioritized (or disappear leaving a blank post after 6 months).
Most of the current social media and accompanying commenters has me believing that a significant portion of the American population are sociopaths.
Then it's working!
Welcome to the "I Hate People" caucus!
Always remember: A person is fine. But people are horrible.
I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
I think about this passage and this book a lot. Almost asuch as I do the roman empire
At this point I suspect a "service and information" economy may be optimistic. :-(
At this point when DEI programs are blamed for a Black Hawk helicopter creaming an airline, the world is at least going to get an education in what age related cognitive decline looks like.