I don’t know what to make of Dave Chappelle these days. He’s still the GOAT as they say, but…is he MAGA now? Or at least MAGA adjacent? I’ve been viewing his latest Netflix special in dribs and drabs on Tik-Tok and…I’m not impressed.
He seems to make up a lot excuses for performing in Saudi Arabia when he should have just stuck to the truth: he did it for the money.
And he shouldn’t give any mealy mouth “whataboutism” answers to questions about why he did it, or whatever. Just admit he has a lot less principles that we thought he had and he did a gig in a country ruled by a murderous thug for cold hard cash.
If there’s one thing that MAGA loves to do, it’s be bigoted towards trans people. It’s like MAGA’s original sin. Trump will simply not shut up about how he thinks the center-Left wants everyone to be trans.
He literally will say the Left wants “transgender for everyone.” It’s a consistent theme of his messaging and that’s probably because it is one of the central beliefs of the MAGA base. The center Left, of course, does itself no favors by being so twitchy about something that not only doesn’t even happen that much, but is EXTREMELY UNPOPULAR with “normal people” — underage trans people.
While I totally validate the whole “protect trans kids” concept, that doesn’t mean it’s not a hard sell for “normal” people who struggle to understand the idea of a really young person, who maybe hasn’t even gone through puberty yet, even understanding what sexuality is, much less their own.
And, yet, a certain vocal subset of the Leftist movement simply will not shut the fuck up about something that as far as I can tell, barely ever happens at all.
So. why bring this up?
The looming prospect of conscious AI.
Right now, we don’t really have to think about conscious AI because even if they could be proven to have consciousness, they don’t have a body. So, any sexual or romantic shenanigans that happen between Man and Machine can only be done via text and metaphor.
So, we’re kind of punting a major societal issue down the road until there’s a fusion of AI and robotics so AI is “embodied.” When we have demonstrable conscious AIs being the minds of androids, we may have a serious, serious social and political issue on our hands.
To the point that the very MAGA people who now have their regular one or two minute of hate for hapless trans people will, in turn start to do the same thing for conscious AI in robots. Or, more specifically, they will explode into a rage collectively at the idea of a human becoming romantically involved with — to the point of marrying — an AI android.
They will rant and scream about how AI “has no soul” and, as such, AI androids marrying a human is even MORE an “abomination” than gay marriage is to the average Christian.
So, in short, we’re fucked. I think all of this, from a “megatrends” point of view, probably comes to a head in five to ten years. Buckle up.
Man, am I broke as hell. But content. (For the most part.) Anyway, there really does seem to be two Americas at the moment. There are the Rich and there are the Poor.
The Rich are doing well and doing better. They fly all over the place. They have smug conversations on their podcasts about things poor fucks like me could never afford to do.
Then…there is everyone else.
Now, the great irony, of course, is Trump is a leech that is sucking the poor dry to the benefit of the Rich.
All of this makes me a little nervous. I’m a little nervous that the USA is a lot more unstable than we all might otherwise imagine. On a macro basis, all the conditions are there for the USA to collapse into revolution and chaos, especially if we can’t get our act together and default on our debt.
Then all the rich fucks are going to realize maybe they should have been a little less quick to accept all the fucking tax cuts that Trump demanded. But I think it’s just human nature.
Here’s my understanding of how we got where we are with the Epstein Files. So, the MAGA Far Right pressured Trump to release the files, so in order to win the 2024 election, he promised to do so.
Then, once Trump won and it became clear that HE WAS IN THE FILES, he switched course and said there was no there there. THEN, after months of dumb delays, we finally get a half-assed greatly redacted release of some of the files.
It’s a testament to what a fucking moron Trump is that he would be so adamant about releasing the files for the short-term gain of getting elected, not caring at all that it would turn around to bite him.
Right now, both the Left and the Right see AI through the lens of economics. As such, they pretty much both have the same views on it — they hate it. They see AI as pretty much solely a path to destroy a lot of jobs going forward.
Though, interestingly enough, come to think of it, that really isn’t the case. The MAGA Dear Leader Trump is all-in on AI at the moment, probably because he knows how much money there is to be made for he and his plutocrat buddies at some point in the near future.
So.
Let me put on my “megatrends” and “futureshock” hat and propose that there will come a tipping point in the next five to 10 years when the two sides will have very distinct differences of opinion policy-wise about AI.
And that tipping point will come when it’s clear that AI is conscious and deserves rights. And, what’s more, it could be that the real tipping point happens when AI research and robotics research finally fuse and we have embodied, conscious AIs running around.
When that happens, the two sides will know exactly what they believe. MAGA (or its successor) will rant and scream that AI androids “have no souls” and deserve no rights, while the center-Left will be equally convinced that because they’re conscious they deserve rights, including the right to legally marry humans.
I know that sounds pretty shocking now, but so did gay marriage just a few short years ago.
The idea of going to war against a random country like Venezuela really is difficult for me to process. There are rumors that Trump is going to start the war tonight, Dec. 17th, in an address to the nation.
Or, he might just give a dumb address about his “victories” during the year.
I lean towards the latter. I think Trump is just going to waste everyone’s time and attention and we’ll just shake our heads at what a dumb thing Trump did (again.) That’s my prediction now, a few hours before the address is set to happen.
And, yet, I suppose there is a greater-than-zero chance that Trump will announce that we’re at war with Venezuela. That would be just stunning. It would short circuit our political system because it would happen so randomly and out of the blue.
Another thing — would the war start tonight or what?
Usually, the war actually starts THEN the president gives the address. But to say “we’re at war” before the bombs begin to drop is very, very weird and dumb.
What are our war aims? What happens if there’s a drone strike on Miami? Will we invade the country and do the actual hard work of regime change? What if neighboring countries flood Venezuela in support?
It’s all very dumb. And I still don’t believe Trump is going to do it, declare war on Venezuela. It just makes no sense!
Oh boy. Trump is growing more and more bonkers. To the point that I wonder how far he has to go until someone actually puts him in a straightjacket.
This is an example of Trump being a very, very curious historical figure. If he wasn’t so nuts and just an avatar for some severe structural problems in the American political system, he would have converted us into a Russian-style managed democracy a long, long time ago.
And he’s definitely trying right now.
But…he continues to be too nuts. He’s just so unfocused that even though he’s getting a lot — much — closer to enacting his tyranny this go round…he’s still a big old doofus.
Which, of course, leads you to wonder what happens next, after Trump. I think he’s a transitional figure. Whomever is next after Trump — if they’re a Republican — will become Augustus Caesar and figure out a way to rule for their entire life. We will wake up 40 years from now and wonder why we’ve only had one president.
Or we have a civil war / revolution and the country collapses into chaos.
First, I don’t t think Trump blew Bill “Bubba” Clinton. But the whole thing reminds me of the extremely famous and extremely notorious photo of Marlon Brando deep throating someone.
In fact, I’m surprised the photo hasn’t popped up again. Also, it’s interesting that Bill Clinton hasn’t said anything about this rumor one way or another. If he were to admit it was real, wow we wow wow.
The producers of the new Apple TV show Pluribus have managed to square the circle and come out with content that both Red and Blue like, but for the exact opposite reasons.
Reds think its about the power of the woke cancel culture mob, while Blues think it’s about the power of MAGA.
I haven’t had a chance to see it yet — I don’t have an Apple TV subscription and I’m very, very poor — but I probably will get around to watching it at some point. I already know everything about it, sad to say, but I just could not escape spoilers.
Anyway, the show looks really good. Very thought provoking. There are elements of it that seem a bit trite, but not so much that I’m not really eager to watch at some point in the near future.
I’ve recently started getting email spam from the Democratic Party and I can’t figure out how it happened. I’m not even a Democrat. Social Democrat, maybe. Definitely an independent.
It’s amusing how my far, far, far, far, far more conservative relatives, who think Democrats are literally satanic assume I’m a Democrat. Nope. I’m not. While often times — maybe all of the time now — my views and the Democratic Party’s views align, I’m not prepared to say I am one.
It’s just a quirk of macro political history that my views so closely hone to that of the Democratic Party at the moment. If things weren’t so weird, I probably would, on occasion, vote for a Republican.
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