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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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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.








  • So yeah this sounds like a useful and relatively cheap and simple way to get another good indicator. But I’m a little confused also, because I thought that for the most part, these funeral directors and facilities produce death certificates for each person that they handle, so I had assumed that this data was already being collected or was collectible.

    For instance many of these processes are set up to avoid “fraud” so they’re almost automated once a death certificate exists—thinking for example social security maintaining a death list and getting automatically transmitted notices of death, etc.


  • 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…




  • Yeah this has been what I’m wondering lately. Clearly Thiel can’t be super in love with Elon since they ousted him from PayPal while he was on his honeymoon… but if he’s a useful idiot that can take the attnetion and heat, when everything implodes it’ll be on Musk and then Trump, and then Vance, who has been higher profile as VP than most, can try and worm his way in there and voila, Thiel has got what he wants. Vance is pretty off putting to most people though, which seems like bad judgement on his handlers part if they want a pseudo-legit govt CEO… but then the handlers are also super off putting in real life and clearly live in a alternate reality/bubble so maybe it’s not that far fetched.