hotspur

This is what my wife keeps saying, with certainty. I thought it was weird at first, but then I remember that he had that protective order specifically because of the strong threat of violence to him if he was deported back… to the country they sent him to.

I am hoping it’s not the case, and that this is just them wanting to avoid having to back down, but it really wouldn’t have been a big blow to them to bring one person back.

Yeah this was my reaction a while back when I saw their promos about how they want to de-extinct wooly mammoths and dodos. Like ok neat, but where are the mammoths supposed to slot in, a rapidly warming arctic that will more likely have palm trees than ice by the end of the century?

I mean I’m being a little obtuse here on purpose—these species choices are obviously guided by marketing potential. No one will pay attention if they resurrect some niche mouse that went extinct a couple years ago, so they’re picking stuff that looms large in pop consciousness.

But in the end, it’s a private company, and I very much doubt their whole goal is to make money off of conservation societies and zoos to make extinct animals—far more likely it’s to refine and recreate new genetic editing procedures which will then get ported into making purpose-built animals for industry (think the sheep who’s milk has certain valuable enzymes or chemicals built in) or like human biotech (so, like, GATTACA).

The “founder” gives off strong Palmer Luckey vibes. (This is based on visual aesthetic and his general demeanor vibes only, he could be a saint, I have no idea)

This article resonates strongly for me, thank you for posting it. I often muse that some of what gets termed a disorder or an illness is just a lazy way to hand wave over someone not being happy about fitting in with certain aspects of “normal” behavior or culture. There is of course actual mental illness, but once you start investigating stressors or traumas, the concept gets more complicated than “something’s wrong with your brain” in terms of cause and effect.

I read about a study that was about instilling “learned helplessness” in the participants, and the one group that was mostly resistant to the effect were the chronically depressed group. This led the researchers to speculate some of what was termed depression was actually an inability to suspend reality; ie the “depressed” group saw reality a little too clearly, and aside from this making them resistant to the effects of induced “learned helplessness” it also made them distressed.

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I’d imagine for the same reasons that people study the past and try and understand how events unfold. People still mention the name Chamberlain when discussing the rise of the third reich for instance.

When Snowden released his collection of files way back when, he made the argument that the panopticon that was being built wasn’t being used in the worst way at the time of his decision to whistleblow. But his point was that the construction of such tools could not be justified based on their eventual use by a worse form of American govt.

When the liberal mainstream—and this includes Biden, major media, and most other center/center-left politicians and pundits over the last year and a half—presided over the framing of anti-semitism as the act of being critical of Israeli govt actions and supported that govt in a year long punishment campaign to destroy an ethnic group, they normalized the positions that are now being used to deport green card holders and leverage higher ed into submission. Free speech on this issue was fought over last year, and generally, the anti-free speech side won.

It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re worse, or even equal in vileness to the current admin, but it is a point worth recognizing. Enshrining Trump, as horrid as he is, as an exception may be comforting, but it removes the broader narrative that brought our present about. If we don’t work to understand this sequence with clear eyed judgment, our resistance to it will likely fail.

“Scientist” as a general concept doesn’t have an inherent positive or negative value. Some scientists have invented things that saved lives or expanded our understanding of the universe. Others experimented on prisoners, or developed addicting drugs for big pharma. Personally I’d say scientists are more likely to resemble the first, not the second, but what defines the value is not the profession, but the actions they take as individuals.

His comment appeared to describe the issues with approval of scientists as a baseline, when the capitalist system they’re trapped within has other incentives and agendas. It’s a point one can certainly disagree with, but it is a coherent argument.

If one cannot learn from history, it will repeat. The actions that led to this moment are important to understand if one wants to be able to counter them and avoid them in the future.

Yeah ok, so similar MO to the other pay in and get your case squashed schemes that trump has been running. The corruption dial has really been turned to 11 I guess.

So, did this guy also buy millions of world liberty financial governance coins?

A.) this is a joke right? B.) amusing they think there’s gonna be a viable election in 2028

Yes I heard an anecdote that describes this trajectory well on a podcast recently: when a society or economy is at the beginning of a development arc, each mile of sewer, road, power, rail, etc can be justified, as it leads to economic growth that was not possible yet. But like you say, 50-100 years later all of that infrastructure requires replacement, maintenance . And the problem is, that investment does not deliver growth, it simply maintains the economic base you already have. So you’d have to be a really long term thinking society and factor in replacement costs in upfront somehow, which would make development substantially more expensive, all for a population that doesn’t exist yet, that you won’t know… a staggeringly difficult ask.

This isn’t the term, but I remember reading piece years ago discussing the concept of catabolic capitalism, which has a similar vibe; basically capitalism runs out of new frontiers to mercilessly exploit, and it retools to eat itself. So you end up with an economy (very much like the one we have now) where all growth is in dismantling and busting out the infrastructures and institutions previously erected to support the previous phase.

Yeah seems totally plausible to me, I got to see elephants in the wild a few years back, and it left me with no doubt that they were extremely intelligent. Looking into their eyes felt like locking eyes with a fellow human, you just felt there was thinking sentient creature in there. And their behavior in certain situations is very relatable, saw a mother route her calves around a too-aggressive camera tourist car, and once she was sure the babies were safe on the other side, she came back and did what I could only believe was a huge “F YOU” trumpet at the offending car to let them know they were out of line, turned around and went back after the kids.

Yeah these examples are somehow more profound to me than elephants recognizing the moon as a thing.

Uh huh, but worth it to who? So far all we’ve heard is some vague existential nonsense about how they have to implode the economy in order to save the economy. Based on the messaging I’ve heard all my life, “stagflation”is one of the least desirable economic modes to have under capitalism.

If we believe that the democrats didn’t properly recognize or hear the very real economic anxiety that Americans felt prior to the election, and that that disconnect in part contributed to their failure, I think we might also assume that Americans as a whole will not simply “take his word for it” that they should become homeless in order to drive crypto prices up.

When they were selling DOGE during the campaign, the pitch was they’d have a year or something to do their thing. The EO might have it spelled out can’t recall. But they also said they would just be an advisory group? Not insider threat hackers and political commissars at the top of every agency. Not sure why they are sweating a time limit since they dont care about any other law, regulation or protocol. I guess if they don’t deliver enough, Trump won’t do another EO extending their presence? They’re literally reworking agency stuff so that the DOGE staff have to sign off on commissioners actions, hiring etc so are they just going to revert that once the clock strikes midnight for DOGE?

I suppose the idea is that the admin wants to lock in all the creepy shit from project 2025 prior to mid terms since they know that all of it will end up being wildly unpopular and will result in republican losses in congress and potentially gridlock from that point forward… but again, their playbook essentially calls for the end of democracy, so why are they sweating something like the midterms…

That’s not how they’re doing it. They’re just slashing anything they don’t understand, entire departments. There are many interdependent systems and each uncalibrated attack brings them closer to failure/disruption.

There is no careful analysis about “people not doing their jobs” going on here.

Private equity has arrived for the federal govt.

I suspect amongst other things, this is probably a major reason Bernie is doing this tour—to demonstrate how a sane and worker-forward progressive populist message brings in a strong coalition of voters, even in states that the democrats write off as deplorable. I’m skeptical that it will change their minds, but it’s once again a reminder that continuing to shill a neo-liberal status quo message is a losing game.