Templexious
Stuck in time
User ID: 2308
Templexious
7hr ago
How many headlines showed up, pointing to random studies, calling right wingers dumb or conspiracy-prone?
How many left figures show up now and imply that the left rejects grifters and grift in a way that the right does not? Perhaps this point is worth its own high-level post.
Templexious
15hr ago
Social media is an interesting case-study in "This is a thing everyone knows is bad, its structures are bad, and yet we do it anyway". A perfect example of a coordination problem, where due to competing interests no one actually exits the game, because there's just too much social consequence to exiting.
While most readers of my comment would assume I ascribe the detachment from reality that X is to Elon, it's not entirely true. Having watched Twitter's degradation from the early days, it was a blue-coded firehose of shit that went from being able to traverse in a sensible way to randomly interspersing bullshit regardless of how recent it is, to get you to click and spend more time on it.
So yeah, your ability to stay away from Twitter/X is to be lauded, and I make no excuse for my own bad social media habits, even if they amount mostly to browsing various hobby groups.
Templexious
16hr ago
The Instagram algorithm and general Zucksphere of platforms don't really appeal. The ideal platform is one which enables and promotes complexity. Either by promoting thinkers and posters of complexity or simply bruteforcing complexity by making the feed truly ideologically-diverse.
An intractable problem, but I'd at the very least like to avoid platforms that cave to foreign interests
Sick of the bots and echo chamber that X has become, I decided to visit Bluesky. Nothing serious- just a hope that the algorithm would be more curated toward centrism in a way that would prove refreshing compared to the assault on reality that X has become.
Agree with Hanania on the topic of not giving up on existing institutions, and that it is increasingly impossible to deny that X is deleterious to being anchored to earth, and wondering if perhaps Bluesky would be better?
Think again, motherfucker! For, immediately, on the front page (no account) you are assaulted with the culture war and the assumption that you've not just picked a side, but you've picked the woke side. Instead of re-anchoring and toning it down, the social media justice warriors are still out in force.
Within 10 posts, I counted 3 about trans issues, 2 about billionaires, one about gaetz, and another about hegseth. (Gabbard remains unimpeachable, it seems)
It took a bit of scrolling before actual breaks, like discussion of Disney soundtracks, or nasa space pictures, started to appear. If bluesky is to be the twitter alternative, then retreating entirely from internet social spaces is the likely path forward for those that don't wish to be swept up in the torrent.
In conclusion, for the moderates and centrists: Your signal is jammed, and only extremism will be boosted on either twitter or bluesky.
Templexious
8d ago
4B going viral on tiktok, with long-term staying power, would put the nail in the coffin for me that the app is actively designed to destabilize and undermine the United States and its culture.
Templexious
8d ago
In this case, being anti-vaccine and alt-health should be considered actively malicious.
The problem of the US are the high prices of finding and getting good care, and the byzantine system. The frustration of that has been successfully redirected into whole-system skepticism.
Which, fair enough. But outbreaks of preventable disease are bad. In the end, it will be interesting to see if RFK and the gribblers end up biting off more than they can chew by going after the immovable corn lobby.
Templexious
8d ago
The high number of people claiming that the trump picks won't last long seem to be hoping against hope. Trump does have a core number of people who do and are able to work with him over years and years.
RFK Jr is clearly a different personality than the establishment that wasn't able to last, so claiming that rfk will not last long seems premature.
Templexious
9d ago
Of all of Trump's cabinet picks, RFK Jr is the most unserious.
The credentials of the others at least seem fit for the positions.
How well has smearing Rogan worked? Not well at all, it seems. Singers tend not to be taken as seriously as Rogan, but she is best ignored.
Templexious
10d ago
Assuming that instead of trans advocates losing ground, it's shadow-speak, or fingers crossed in the background.
Seems like a particularly miserable way of viewing the world. It's a victory for your team. Take the W.
Templexious
11d ago
Intriguing!
I admit to being skeptical of the persistent "the establishment is always after me!" cries that seem to be more and more frequent.
While I see and understand the throughline of her appeal to the Gribbler faction, I don't see or understand what earns her crank-hood.
Templexious
11d ago
Sorry, that was a joke!
I phrased it in such a way that I expected most to recognize.
Templexious
11d ago
I've been reading up more on Tulsi Gabbard. Honestly, she has an incredible and distinguished track record- from being a medic in Iraq, to her Hawaiian heritage.
If she really does get the DNI position in the Trump cabinet, there is strong chance that she will attempt a bid for President immediately after.
This could cause competition for the Thelians hoping for more JD Vance after Trump leaves office. But I'm not here to wargame 2028 campaign hypotheticals when Trump isn't even sworn in yet.
It seems she and her husband converted to hinduism.
My immediate take is that her presence and native pacific islander background means you know she ascended, and worked for the positions she had. Her brief stint as a Democrat is a bit odd, but otherwise she looks like she has a pretty pristine track record that's really hard to shit on.
Her being anti-lgbt, with a track record of policies that would otherwise be fairly progressive, she seems like a standard, good pick for almost any position in ... any president's cabinet?
From reading the wiki page, I'm having a hard time figuring out why anyone would mouth-froth over the idea of her having any position of power.
Dear Mottizens, what is your view on her? Any information I've missed?
Templexious
21d ago
sure, if you want to retreat to that particular bailey.
Templexious
21d ago
I'll take the other end of that bet. In 4 years, Musk will be fine and about as rich as he is now.
Templexious
30d ago
"supplant", possibly. Increase the supply of workers and the mid-to-high iq whites are forced to move to lower crime and higher-pay, yet lower birth-rate cultural and physical zones.
Templexious
1mo ago
If it came with a total nuke of common core, most americans would consider the swap of the guard a success.
Templexious
1mo ago
Optimizing for defection by caving to the demands of defectors is bad.
Templexious
1mo ago
This got a good chuckle. Well played.
Templexious
1mo ago
American unemployment is at something like 4%
Only due to the way we collect these statistics, which is suspect at best in order to make the party in power look good. Working Amazon or gig economy is often considered "employed", but it's not really living, either. Might as well be a slave.
Templexious
2mo ago
Outside of the current Overton Window:
Crush zoning laws. We take it as a given that everyone will commute, but these are largely from zoning laws. Housing should have close access to groceries and cheap local services - ie, within walking or bike distance. If you have a pseudo-communal housing area, the community can hire maids to come clean houses and assist in the most labor-intense aspects of kids without significantly increasing the cost of living. Additionally, if fathers live less than 20 minutes from their places of work, then women will be more likely to discount the cost of having kids because their partners will be nearby in the event of emergency, et cetera.
Templexious
3mo ago
Sounds like you're strung up on is/ought.
The Supreme Court is an inherently political institution, therefore it is good to ensure that we cycle through members of our highest tiers of government on a regular basis to prevent too much power creep.
Templexious
3mo ago
The severability section at the end amuses me greatly.
It's a recent move, and the Left's grift is still there, however, they've started to tone things down in the advent of the ascending accelerationists. Granted, sites like Salon and NewRepublic seem to exist to prove the strawmen visions of the Democrats correct to a degree that feels deranged, even if one were to find the American Russophiles and Sinophiles unpalatable.
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