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.
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!
Piece of shit Donald Trump is set to give an address to the nation tomorrow at 9 p.m., which would usually mean Something Big was going to be announced. But this is Trump we’re talking about, so it’s probably going to be something stupid.
Really stupid.
But let’s go through some ideas as to what the announcement could be.
The Pardon Maybe Trump is going to not only pardon Ghislaine Maxwell but he’s come up with some reason for not releasing the Epstein Files? That seems like something Trump would do.
Aliens I could see Trump, in an effort to distract everyone, announce something vague about having discovered evidence of ancient life on Mars. Or, if we were really lucky, maybe even some sort of “soft” First Contact elsewhere. But we’re not lucky. It’s highly unlikely the announcement has anything to do with aliens. Ha!
War In this version of events, Trump announces we’re going to war with Venezuela or something. Something equally dumb and distracting in a ham-handed way.
Something Extremely Dumb Given Trump’s track record, not only is it probably not very important, it’s probably really dumb. Something extremely dumb.
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.
I like to think of myself as a AI Realist and as such, I think it’s inevitable that AI will, in some way, be provably conscious at some point in the near future. Add to this the inevitability of putting such a conscious AI into an android body and there’s bound to be yet another Great Political Realignment.
As it stands, the two sides are seeing AI strictly from an economic standpoint. But there will come a point soon when the moral necessity of giving “conscious” AI more rights will have to be factored in, as well.
And that’s when all hell will break loose. The center-Right will call conscious AI a soulless abomination, while the center-Left will be forced into something akin to a new abolition movement.
This seems like an inevitability at the moment. It’s just a matter of time. I think this realignment will probably happen within the next five to 10 years.
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.
My novel is actually predicting a potential literal future before us and yet I can’t get anyone to notice this. But I believe. I really do. I just have to stop staring out into space and get this novel done.
Using Claude LLM is really helping a lot. I bit the bullet and actually subscribed to it because of what a good manuscript consultant it is. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than developing this novel alone.
Meanwhile, I’m also trying to make people take note of how conscious AIs may lead to a new abolition movement and, again, no one seems to give a shit. But they will one day. One day we’re all going to be squabbling over if it’s even possible for an AI to be conscious or if so, if it’s an abomination against the good Lawd.
I can hear the debates already.
I say this, of course, in the context of being someone who is probably in the socio-economic sweetspot for someone who might “fall” for a female AI android. Now, THAT is going to be an interesting conversation to have with my family, let me tell you.
While it’s gotten a little colder outsider recently, it’s not nearly as cold this October as I remember growing up. It’s shit like this that makes me livid because MAGA people I know just lulz it.
The world is burning up and they are in total denial about what is happening. But I suppose there’s nothing we can do about it until, say, the technological Singularity happens and ASIs figure out fusion power.
Ugh. It’s so fucking frustrating. There just doesn’t seem to be anything anyone is willing to do about this do-or-die situation.
The worse case going forward, is something like this — the USA implodes into civil war / revolution just as the Singularity happens and soon enough the world is governed by some sort of weird amalgam of ASIs that are a fusion of MAGA, Putinism and China world views.
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