People Continue To Think We’re Going To Have Another Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If my Webstats are any indication, a lot of people have come to believe that the United States is ripe for another civil war. At the moment, I lean towards believing this is not the case, especially if Ron DeSantis — or someone like him — is the Republican nominee.

But as long as Trump is a viable political force, there is the chance he, unto himself, could provoke a civil war. It could be that his historical purpose is ultimately not to just wear down democratic norms to the point that someone like DeSantis can finish our transition into autocracy, but to be the individual that literally destroys the United States by causing its collapse into Red and Blue.

I know how hysterical that sounds, but given Trump’s tendency to say the quiet part out loud and his very radical proposed second term agenda anything is possible on that front. It could be that Trump won’t even have to cheat that much in 2024 — it will be very similar to 1860 in the sense that Blue States, rather than Slave States will feel that their political foes are so politically ascendant that they have no choice but to attempt to leave the Union.

I only suggest such a thing because in my personal life, within my own family, macro trends are beginning to interfere with my ability to have any sort of political debate with people I disagree with. There is a real rage within the Red movement and if Trump’s radical second term policies are enacted, the country could collapse into two warring states because Blues begin to equal the rage of Reds.

This is all very speculative. Again, a lot hinges on Trump. If he’s out of the picture for some reason, then well, lulz, the chances of a civil war are significantly lower — if none existant.

We still have a long time between now and when all of this might happen, which would be between Election Day 2024 and Certification Day 2025. Most of the Biden Administration may be impeached by a Republican House, which will only serve to enrage Blues and, as such, when the time comes they my be primed and ready for a “National Divorce.”

Was It Something I Said?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to plow my way towards finishing the second draft of my first novel and as such I continue to dwell on why literary types don’t want to work with me — even if I’m willing to pay them. I suppose this fact goes hard against my self-perception and makes me question if they see something about me that I don’t.

You would think that being in the liberal arts that literary types would find me particular brand of colorful personality endearing and interesting. But, as it is, I may come across as overbearing and maybe a little bit creepy? And, yet, I honestly struggle to see how that is the case.

I have done everything in my power to come across as “normal” as possible but I am shocked at how quickly literary types have been dismissive or even snooty towards me when I ask them for help.

I suppose should I ever become any sort of success that, by definition, the very elements of my personality that they find so “distasteful” will be seen as intriguing and interesting. But I have to become successful first for that to happen and for that to happen…I need the assistance of the people who think I’m a creepy weirdo. Or, at least, their help would definitely speed the process up.

But all is not lost. This novel project is improving a great deal. I just have to believe in myself. Wish me luck.

I Was A Centrist For A Day & All I Got Was A Headache

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When I was a wee young thing, I discovered a collection of the works of conservative thinker George Will and for a few days I was a nascent Young Republican. This soon faded, however, and I reverted back to my usual center-Left ways.

I find myself thinking about that event after spending a lot of mental energy mulling the political concerns of my Traditionalist relative. I have spent a lot of time weighing all of his legitimate criticisms of the center-Left and ultimately the whole thing just left me with a headache.

The reason is — he, along with the entire MAGA echochamber — conflate the soft power of Twitter with the hard power of the U.S. Government. What’s more, MAGA — especially its “thought leaders — have a huge fucking chip on their shoulder. They want to shit on smug Twitter liberals while at the same time they crave the validation of those very same people.

It’s like a high school nerd who would do anything to sit with the “cool kids” but if it ever happened, all they would do is bitch and complain about how the “cool kids” were idiots.

That contradiction combined with the not-so-latent racism, misogyny and bigotry of the MAGA movement makes me snap back to my usual center-Left anti-MAGA ways no matter how much my Traditionalist relative rants about the Biden Administration may have gone overboard in its efforts to crack down on COVID disinformation.

The issue is — MAGA and its Traditionalists allies are so alarmed by the rapid demographic changes in the United States population that they will do anything to maintain power. Even to the point of actively working to establish permanent white minority rule in the context of a Christian ethnostate.

I’m just not all that worried by the browning of America and I’m not all that worried about women having more economic opportunities. Sounds like a good time to me. I’m far more worried at the moment about the rise of chatbots and the possibly Singularity happening in the context of a moderate to severe recession in 2023.

That is something to worry about, not how fucking annoying it is that the woke cancel culture mob has an orthodoxy about the proper use of pronouns.

Chatbot Regulation Is Looming

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I spoke to my Traditionalist relative today who is by nature 100% against any form of regulation and was taken aback by how open he was to regulating chatbots. Now, the subtext of this is not so much saving jobs as it is, of course “bais.”

I’m sure in his MAGA podcast echochamber they’re all aghast that ChatGPT is too “woke” simply because it doesn’t validate their MAGA agenda about such hot button topics as “What is a woman?” So, the whole issue of how chatbots could radically transform our economy in a very short amount of time is a lulz, but a chatbot not validating the policy goals of MAGA is a bridge too far.

It will probably start with hearings in 2023 by the Republican House looking into how powerful ChatGPT is in education overnight. And, along the way, it will become a MAGA Nazi talking point as chatbots grow more culturally potent that they need to be regulated to stop the “woke indoctrination” of America’s youth because it won’t let little kids learn jokes about women.

It all goes back to something I think about all the time — MAGA Nazis love to conflate the soft power of smug Twitter liberals with the hard power of the government that they want to control so badly. MAGA Nazis have gone from 2016’s “Fuck your feelings” to 2023’s “ChatGPT is hurting my feelings by not agreeing with me so it has to be regulated to do so.”

And all of this is going to happen really, really fast. It might even feel like it just snapped into place overnight. ChatGPT is definitely a ping from the a possible Singularity. None of us are prepared for how radically our economy may be changed

There’s An Alternative Universe Where I’m ‘Catturd’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Given my background and personality along with how easy it is to be a MAGA Nazi grifter, there’s definitely an alternative universe where I’m a “Catturd” like figure. I have a knack for self-promotion and the MAGA Nazi grift economy is so potent that if had a brain transplant and was a MAGA Nazi, it would be me that Elon Musk was tweeting at, not Catturd.

I often look back at the long arc of the MAGA Nazi grift and am amazed at how easy it would be for me to find myself a MAGA Nazi “thought leader” who occasionally dined with our POS former POTUS.

Any cost-benefit analyst would tell you that cold hard metrics would encourage anyone with no ethics or standards to join the “Trump Train” if they wanted a great deal of outsized power, influence and, yes, cash.

But it’s just not to be, I’m afraid. I know my true north and I’m not prepared to become a “success” at the MAGA Nazi grift at the expensive of my mental well being. I would probably drink myself into oblivion and wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if I went the Catturd route.

Just having peace of mind is worth it. I would rather be comfortable in my own skin, be true to myself than all the success of being a MAGA Nazi might bring.

The American Right’s Rage Is Real

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, fascism is very popular in the United States. There is a certain segment of the American Right which has, because of the huge cultural chip on their shoulder, given up on democratic norms and craves permanent white minority rule.

They feel so put upon that they are willing to sacrifice their American birthright of democracy in the name of not having to learn people’s pronouns or ensuring that their children aren’t “indoctrinated” with the “mind virus” of the “woke cancel culture mob” while at college.

There’s an extensive not just permission structure but ecosystem that has been built out for MAGA Nazis and their fellow travelers. They are so enraged about the changing nature of American society — and what they feel they “can’t say anymore” — that they would rather live in a fascist state than have the politics of a functioning Western democracy where things would get hashed out one way or another.

It’s because of how broken our politics are so broken that things that would otherwise get hashed out — like “What is a woman” — are festering to the point that our slide into fascism is almost inevitable at this point. And the “woke cancel culture mob” does none of us any good by screaming at the top of their lungs over how many pronouns can dance on the head of a pin or this or that “unwoke” thing in a movie that triggers them because it doesn’t fit their strict woke orthodoxy.

The part that boggles my mind is MAGA Nazis love, love, love to conflate the soft power of smug elite Twitter liberals with the hard power of the government. They do this to the point that they are forced to twist themselves into rhetorical pretzels when it comes to basic issues of free speech. In the end, it’s a matter of “Free speech for me but not for thee.”

They want to control who gets free speech, but in such a way that they “own the libs,” even if makes them look like hypocrites.

All of this boils down to the extreme negative polarization because of changing American demographics that make straight white Christian men feel nervous about their status in society. It’s very easy to see the trainwreck that is about to happen in American politics at some point between now and, say, spring 2025. I say this with fear that things like ChatGPT could destroy the American economy rather quickly as we transition into a post-work economy.

I don’t know what to tell you. There are no easy answers, no easy solutions. Maybe get a passport? Figure out what you believe in when it comes to things with real world implications?

Regardless — good luck!

‘Babylon’ Did ‘Representation’ in Art Right

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The more I think about what I saw of Babylon before its plot grew too trite and I bounced, the more I like it. It was very interesting and I rarely rolled my eyes or checked my watch — which is a pretty big compliment coming from me. But the key thing that I was impressed with was how it was able to do “representation” in an organic, non-woke way.

Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy and Diego Calva plays Manny Torres in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

I think this came about because first and foremost I was so engaged in the story and the characters that I didn’t have time to disassociate and begin to pick apart how fucking woke it may or may not have been. I, as an audience member, was so engrossed in the interesting story I was being presented that I bought into the various non-white men who were involved in the story.

I really liked one secondary character — the woman director who we saw some of as part of the Margot Robbie plotline. I did, however, find myself thinking, “Were there that many women directors in Hollywood back in the day?” But that was just my usual overthinking.

The only reason why this is even important to me is the novel I’m working on has a lot of organic representation in it, to the point that I’m afraid the fucking MAGA Nazis will claim I’m being too “woke.” Fuck those guys. If you’re going to tell a modern American story well, you have to address the stories of POC, women and the LGBTQ communities. Though, the first novel in what I hope to be a six novel project is set about 25 years ago — and “Babylon” was set around 100 years ago.

In general, I really enjoyed how over the top and colorful the characters of Babylon were. I just think they were not as well served by their plot as they might have been. The plot near the end was just so trite that I stopped character about the characters — there didn’t seem to be anyone who had any moral center that I could latch on to as sort of my proxy as an audience member. Everyone was debauched.

Watching Babylon I was reminded how much work I have to do to make my characters not just characters but people. I need them to be a group of people you’re willing to spend more than a few hours with to learn what happens next. The story still isn’t as dark or “thrilling” as it needs to be — but it is intriguing. I hope, maybe, to save up enough to get an editor involved in the process at some point between now and when I start querying in fall 2023.

A Newspaper Suggestion For Mike Bloomberg

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here’s my Christmas gift for plutocrat Mike Bloomberg who apparently craves buying a major newspaper like The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal — I suggest he disrupt the newspaper business instead.

Why buy one newspaper for a few billion dollars when you could totally transform the way people get their news? What I would do is take the concept of Twitter –or, more specifically the my personal idea that involves cherrying picking the best elements of Usenet and fusing them with Twitter — and give the concept a paid editorial staff.

If I had a few billion dollars to play with, here’s what I would do — I would have a common brand domain name, but each major city across the country would have their own subdomain — nyc.domain.domain and so forth. If you used my idea of the Post being the central element of a new social media startup, that would give you all the space you needed to write a traditional length newspaper story. (I have written a lot about this idea on this blog, so if you’re really all that interested in the UX of my social media daydream just look under “startup” or maybe “Usenet.”)

Anyway, wanting to buy a major America newspaper — when none of them are for sale — seems like a fool’s errand. Now, obviously, if Bloomberg did as I suggested, the entire newspaper industry would fucking hate his guts because the plan would…work.

If you could transition the entire newspaper industry away from print with an app that allowed for long-form newspaper articles in the context of threaded discussions…well, you’ve built a better mouse trap.

I Am Not Perfect

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Occasionally, I find myself daydreaming about writing not just under a pen name, but taking up an assume identity to get these novels published. I am so woefully imperfect that as this first novel gets better and better and I come within — at least in my own mind — shouting distance of getting published I review in my mind all the very flawed-human things I’ve done over the years.

I’ve managed not to do anything illegal over the years, but I have done a lot of things — usually because of booze — that make me wince now that I am an old, wiser graybeard. It just seems if I came up with the character of a 24-year-old transgendered Hispanic girl then maybe I could somehow find success without instantaneously being canceled for stupid shit I did in Seoul nearly 20 years ago.

Whenever I think shit like this, two things happen.

One, my ego kicks in and I’m like, “Fuck it, we’ll do it live.” Meanwhile, I also think of the old saw, “It’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.” So, yeah, I know I may be courting disaster by putting myself in the public eye by writing a really great pop novel — but at least I will have written a really great pop novel.

At this point, the object of writing this novel isn’t so much to get rich and famous — even though that would be great — it’s to prove a fucking point: I don’t suck.

I can tell a great story, if nothing else. So I’m willing to risk the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune if it comes to that.

I Haven’t Felt This Alone Since South Korea

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because of some quirks in my personal life, I find myself late Christmas Eve all alone. I haven’t been this alone since I was living in South Korea. If you want to feel alone, walk around the streets of a massive Asia city unable to speak the language day after day.

Anyway, I only write this post because, yet again, someone from South Korea is interested in me and I can see them looking at my Korea-specific posts. I really, at this point, want to be forgotten in South Korea — by both expats and Koreans alike. All that was a long time ago, guys. A very long time ago.

Yes, I was bonkers and drunk all the time, but I’ve changed a great deal since all of that. It’s like I’ve had a brain transplant. I was full of manic pride back then and it didn’t help that soju hits my body like some sort of warped crank. I get really loud and hyper if I drink a lot of soju. Which, back in the day, I did.

But the idea that — anyone — would give a shit about me in South Korea evokes a great deal of mixed emotions. I know I wronged a few people in South Korea who have a reason to want me to come back to South Korea so they can, I don’t know, yell at me. And, thankfully, there are a few people I made really happy while I was there and they would just like to hang out.

At the moment — I’m not coming back to South Korea. I may want to, but if I do, it’s going to be for a very specific reason: I’ll suddenly have enough money to do it. There are a few ways that this might happen rather abruptly, but the one I’m hoping for is I sell my first novel and it’s a big enough success that that unto itself, could fund a trip back to Asia for a little while.

And, yet, at the moment that’s very much a daydream.

It could be a decade — or more! — before I ever set foot in Seoul again. But while there’s life there’s hope.