Category: Trumplandia

The Great Restructuring

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Given some of the layoff news of late, I’m beginning to wonder if some of my “hysterical doom shit” when it comes to AI’s scrambling of the corporate work world may actually be coming true.

I have long proposed that once AI was “good enough” that if we went into a recession, it would be come a severe one because of it. All this talk about “10x” employees sounds to my ears like an ready excuse to get rid of a shit ton of employees because you can squeeze a lot more productivity out of those that you have.

Now, obviously, this leads to the idea that we need Universal Basic Income. But the only way I see such a thing happening is if we “bribe” the elites by doing away with income tax and switching over to something like a 30% VAT. That’s pretty much what happened with stimulus checks during the pandemic — poor people got their stimmies, while the rich got their PPP loans forgiven.

Or, given how fucked up the world is, nothing may bring about UBI. The idea of UBI could be seen as a lulz and we anyone who isn’t in AI just starves to death. Good times!

And I will note — with the rise of androids with LLMs (or whatever) in them, not even blue collar jobs will be safe…eventually. In fact, the whole point of LLM androids will be to get rid of plumbers or Amazon truck drivers or whatever. There just won’t be any jobs and it will all happen a lot sooner than any of us could possible imagine.

Like, between now and 2030.

A Nation On Edge (Or Maybe It’s Just Me)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I feel bad juju in the air right now. I feel like people are on edge. Maybe it’s the lingering government shut down. Maybe it’s all the talk on Trump’s part of running for a third term.

Or, maybe, it’s just me.

Maybe I just feel on edge because I know my life is about to change rather dramatically pretty soon. In a really sucky way. All I have to cling to is this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on.

That gives me hope, if nothing else.

The Movie ‘A House Of Dynamite’ Could Have Been

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

SPOILERS FOR “A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE.”
SPOILERS FOR “A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE.”
SPOILERS FOR “A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE.”

Ok, this movie really irritates me on a number of different levels. Though I do find it amusing that the president is clearly meant to be sane like Obama, not insane like Trump. So, I’m assuming they thought the Blues would be so pleased at seeing a sane black president that the Reds would assume that sane black president made the wrong decision — even though we never find out what the fuck the decision was.

I assume. I got so mad at the plot that I skipped forward a little bit to see if Chicago blew up or not.

And I — and the rest of the audience — never found out.

That is the fatal flaw of the plot. I found this “we’ll never know” element of the story to be a big old gimmick and very annoying.

What *I* would do is maybe something like this — instead of giving the audience creative blueballs by pausing to give different POVs on the events, have one POV and have the explosion — or not explosion — of Chicago be the end of the second act.

Or, if you really wanted to be interesting, have the non-explosion of Chicago the end of the FIRST act and the rest of the movie is different people, from their POV, explaining what they did and the mistakes they made along the way.

Much better. It would be far more interesting and make for a far more serious movie instead of the bullshit that we got.

Trump Is Such A Curious Historical Figure

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It sometimes seems as though I just can’t figure out what Trump’s endgame is because the civil war / revolution hasn’t happened, it hasn’t been won by the good guys and the camps haven’t been liberated.

It seems like Trump is kind of like Hitler in maybe 1936. We all know he’s up to no good, but we just don’t quite know what yet.

One issue is how ill-focused Trump is. Hitler was lazy, but extremely focused. Trump seems more like a transitional figure. He seems like the guy who will hand over the keys to the our nascent empire to someone younger and more focused who lurch us into true tyranny.

History would suggest somehow Stephen Miller will become president and be the one to turn us into a paranoid white Christian (ironic) ethno state. And yet, no. I just don’t see that happening unless their are some serious political shenanigans.

So, in a sense, we’re king of…lucky? We’re lucky because Trump is so old, so not a “great man of history” that there’s a good chance that whenever he shuffles off this mortal coil that while he will have probably destroyed the constitutional order of the Republic, his actual final vision will be left to someone who doesn’t have the strangle hold on the MAGA faithful like he does.

But there is one thing we have to absolutely understand — no one is going to save us. As such, in the end, we could suffer through a decade’s long civil war or revolution and we may simply get so tired of bombing ourselves into oblivion that one side or the other will win.

And by that point, WW3 will have happened and the world will have moved on to the point that we won’t know what to do. Talk about future shock!

The United States Is Unstable

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t quite know what to make of the United States at the moment. All the Republicans do, it seems, is cheat and the two sides grow more and more radical. Though, to be fair, Republicans have gone full-blown fascist while the center-Left remains pretty limp wristed.

In, fact, I would go so far as to say whenever the center-Left is willing to mano-to-mano with the MAGA Right, that’s when the country will implode into civil war or revolution. I have a growing sense that whatever happens is going to be more like a revolution than a civil war in the sense that the war aims of the Blues will be to topple Trump’s regime rather than to leave the Union altogether.

And it definitely seems as though the tipping point will be either the 2026 midterms or the 2028 presidential election. If Trump fucks with either one of those elections to the point that it’s clear they’re not free-and-fair, then anything is possible.

I really don’t want a civil war or revolution. I would much rather try to get my scifi dramedy novel published while waiting for the technological Singularity than to find myself dodging bullets or bombs.

Man, Is The ‘Resistance Media’ Complex Clueless

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I run a lot of scenarios in my mind and right now it seems as though things are a lot more urgent in the United States than the “resistance” media complex might lead you to believe.

They’re so busy sucking their own cock about this or that dumb thing that they totally miss that we may have a revolution or civil war in 2026 or 2028 because Trump severely fucks with the Federal elections set for those years.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the issue of Trump potentially balking at leaving office altogether, or maybe running for a third term.

Things really are that dire.

As such, maybe Crooked Media and The Lincoln Project might stress to their audience that they need to gird their loins for the catastrophic disaster that might happen sooner rather than later.

I really hope I’m wrong. I would prefer not to dodge bullets or bombs and be a domestic political refugee.

My Hot Take On Trump & The Epstein Files

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m of the opinion that there is no there there when it comes to Trump being in the Epstein Files. I think Trump knew damn well what Epstein was doing and did nothing.

But he did not actively participate in the evils that Epstein was doing on his island or whatever. So, all this bruhaha over the files is kind of like how Saddam would not like WMD inspectors into the country to poke around, even though there were no WMD there to be begin with.

It’s all ego on Trump’s part. And a paranoia that whatever is in the Epstein Files will make him look bad in some way. But not in the way we all hope where the Epstein Files are some sort of silver bullet for fucking MAGA.

I really hate MAGA. I really do. Bunch of fucking cocksuckers.

Any Second American Revolution or Civil War Would Probably Make Our Lives Like The Movie ‘Threads’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I just don’t think the human mind can comprehend how horrific a Second American Civil War or Revolution might be. If things got as bad as I fear, we would be living in a real world ‘Threads’ movie.

Society would collapse, there would be Killing Fields, camps, extensive use of WMD by both sides. It would just be horrible. And, yet, here we are, with some on both sides chomping at the bit to have at it.

I just hope we muddle through. I really do. Even though I write all the time about civil war or revolution, I don’t actually want such a thing to happen. I’m just trying to make my abstract fears concrete.

Anyway. I have my doubts about us making it through 2026 or 2028. In both instances, I fear Trump will severely fuck with the Federal elections to the point that the country collapses in on itself.

Ugh.

You Thought The Trans Movement Was Controversial, Just Wait Until We Have Real-Life Replicants

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve talked about this before, but I have to talk about it again. The center-Left, especially the far Left is really all in a tizzy about the Trans rights — especially “protecting Trans kids.”

But just wait until we’re all arguing over AI rights, specifically Replicant rights. (Which makes me wonder what we’re going to call human-like synthetic androids when they finally arise.)

Anyway, there are two possible outcomes.

One is, the center-Left embraces android rights like it current does Trans rights. Or, the whole center-Left spectrum will be thrown up in the air and everything will change in ways we can expect.

I’m of the opinion that the Left is going to get really wrapped up in android rights while the far religious Right is going to think thinking androids are an offense against God. All the Pod Save America bros who are so squeamish about AI-human relationships and make so much fun about it will ultimately become ardent supporters of it.

It’s going to be really interesting to see how it all works out.

Interestingly, The Criticism of ‘One Battle After Another’ Is Mostly Coming From The Left

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just imagine how much money One Battle After Another could have made if it had been thrown into the maw of the culture wars as a cultural touchstone for both sides. Just one tweet on Trump’s part could have really made a difference in the movie’s box office income.

But that, for the most part, did not happen.

Yet what did happen was the Left has gotten angry over the film, in large part because they think 1) the movie portrays black women poorly 2) they are irate that white critics give it the praise they believe Sinners should get.

In fact, there was a Big Picture podcast in which the whole debate pretty much revolved around point number two. The Leftist criticizing OBAA didn’t really flat out say he thought the movie’s reception was racist, but he came pretty damn close.

Anyway. One Battle After Another is a good movie. Go see it.