Tag: Big Ideas

MAGA Mike Is Doing America A Favor By Being Who He Is

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson is the more I learn about him, the more I know my conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — will love, love love him. I would even go so far as to suggest that they will soon be chomping at the bit for malignant ding-dong Trump to name the Speaker his 2024 veep choice.

The thing about MAGA Mike is he’s pretty much just your typical modern MAGA person. A solid 38% of the electorate loooooooves what he has to say on the culture wars and the “vibes” that are tearing the country at the moment.

After much, much, much, much time brooding over what the fuck is going wrong with America on a systemic basis, I think I may have it figured out. A combination of growing income inequality, the browning of America and women’s economic agency is tearing the country apart on an existential basis.

The browning of America is really key to America’s instability because it feeds into a white identity politics narrative. America is zooming towards a tipping point where we’re kind of like South Africa in the sense that a minority of the country controls a majority of the political and economic power. This is a very fucked up situation, no matter which nation it happens to occur in.

Anyway, we’re reaching a moment in time when Americans collectively figure out what our future will be for generations to come. Do we become an autocratic MAGA state of blood and soil, or do we allow things like the browning of America and women becoming economic equals happen as they should?

I have a fear, of course, that we’re going to “take it to the streets,” if you will. We’re going to have at it against each other in our struggle to figure out what type of America we want to be. If Trump becomes POTUS again in 2025, the possibility of a Blue “Glorious Revolution” and a reactionary counter-revolution on the part of MAGA grows by leaps and bounds.

But if it’s NOT Trump who is our MAGA POTUS, then I think we simply shrug and become an autocratic white Christian ethnostate with a thin gloss of lingering 1st Amendment rights.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Came To Love Tik-Tok Potentially Reading Minds

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t REALLY believe Tik-Tok (and Big Tech in general) can read my mind, but sometimes…eerie things happen. Take, for instance something I noticed today.

I spent a few hours right next to my elderly, wheelchair bound father. It was only when I came home and started to use Tik-Tok that I noticed something….weird. I was being pushed a number of Band of Brothers videos all of a sudden. Now, that really isn’t as big a deal as it might seen because, lulz, that happens to me all the time.

It was something else that happened with Tik-Tok that made me sit up and take notice — I was also pushed a number of Kelly’s Hero’s clips that featured Donald Sutherland as “Oddball.” I struggled to think of why this was the case, then I thought how I sat right next to my dad earlier in the day and started to wonder — did Tik-Tok read my dad’s mind? Does my dad think I’m an Oddball type character?

There are two reasons this kind of spooks me. One, if that’s what’s happening, then I have some insight into my cypher of a father that I’ve never had before. And, what’s more, if you could prove Tik-Tok (and Big Tech) and read our minds, wouldn’t they have a responsibility to, say, notify the police if some crazed would-be mass shooter’s mind was being monitored by Tik-Tok and they knew what he was thinking about doing?

But I don’t believe Tik-Tik, or anyone else, can read our minds. Yet….it is curious. All very curious.

Imagining The Reality Of Our ‘Her’ Movie Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are some basic existing things that I’m using to game out the ultimate demise of the “passive Web” by, say, the end of the decade. (Excluding a pause to get the outcome of The Fourth Turning sorted out, of course.)

The first is the growing power and popularity of Large Language Models. Another is the growing power of computing hardware in general. Another is the fact that there is some techno-cultural determinism in LLMs solving some pretty basic problems with the Web as we know it. And last would be improving XR technology.

Ok, with all that in mind, it’s pretty easy to imagine that we literally could live in a Her movie-like future pretty soon. Everyone will wear a earpiece that allows them to have real-time conversations with a LLM digital assistant. The LLM’s dataset will be the entirety of the Web. The LLM will be finely tuned to your specific personality to the point that all of today’s bitching and moaning by conservatives about chatbot “bias” will seem quaint and silly.

Instead of searching Google, we will have casual, personal conversations throughout the day about whatever it is we need to know. Websites will no longer exist — or will no longer get the (human) traffic that they get today. And here is where XR technology fits in.

Instead of the passive use of a “browser” to read a New York Times article, you will actively be presented the contents you’re interested in by your LLM — probably displayed as a multimedia AR experience at your demand. The connection between AI and XR is not as obvious as maybe it should be. It seems to me that the two will feed on each other so that both are trillion dollar industries by 2030. (Again, baring the United States collapsing into civil war / revolution because of fucking ding-dong Trump.)

The thing about it is, all of this could happen really, really fast. Within just a few months, content on the Web could collapse into a Singularity with little or no direct human interaction with it. An entire genre of media will no longer be relevant at all.

Even all the microblogging services that have popped up might no longer needed because the real-time news element of the services will be replaced with you having a really interesting, personal conversation with your digital personal assistant.

Or, at the very least, what you might previously get via Twitter or Bluesky, you will see via a XR display that you wear most of the time.

Besides the obvious historical and political obstacles to this happening, there might be some human resistance to what seems to make total sense today. As such, maybe it’s not 2030 that no one reads The New York Times website anymore, but, say, 2033 or later.

But it’s coming. I just don’t see how the Web continues to exist in its present form.

The End Of The Web

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The crux of much of the money made in the Internet era has been slapping ads on solving the problem of there being a deluge of information on the Web. But it is growing more and more apparent to me that it’s at least possible that as we careen towards a “Her” movie type future, that the Web could collapse into something akin to a technological Singularity.

The entire modern Web paradigm will evaporate into into simply interacting with a hyper-personalized LLM. So, rather than a Google-style one to many situation we have now where we all go to Google to ask a question, we will each have a LLM specifically tweaked to our personal proclivities.

What’s more, the Web itself will no longer exist.

There are elements of this potential future that I can’t quite game out yet. What about video or music? How does any one make any money off of content if all content is simply fed directly into a LLM that then, in turn, tells end users about that content?

I think we have to contemplate the idea that the next trillion dollars in tech will be made from whomever can scale Her-like software. So, rather than a smart phone, you’ll have some sort of device that interfaces with a LLM. The end product will be much like what is seen in Her or even the Apple prototype commercial from way back when where a dude talks to a high end digital personal assistant.

As such, it seems Apple would be the most obvious company to benefit from this because they don’t have a profitable search business to protect AND they have a unified software and hardware ecosystem.

The issue of online content, however, is a much more difficult thing to process. But it is easy to imagine that LLM hooked up to a real-time feed of the Internet could market the final death of all media online. If your LLM uses the ENTIRE INTERNET (including the Dark Web) as its dataset, the fact that at the moment you only can get “suggestions” about a portion of the Internet’s vast content becomes quite moot and quaint.

The LLM will simply digest all of human knowledge and give you a specific answer specifically tailored to your personality and needs. It will know everything about you and so there will be something akin to “preemptive search” that takes place.

But, again, how will some future interation of The New York Times make any money? I honestly don’t know at this point. Maybe they will be paid to feed their content directly into the LLM? But I do know that the Web as we currently conceive of it is lurching towards its doom.

Why I Need A Second Creative Track

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have really been spinning my wheels the last few weeks with the very first few chapters of the third draft of my first novel. I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit burn out. There is a very arbitrary structure in my mind about how the story progress and because I just can’t get it where it needs to be, I keep reading then revising the novel’s first three chapters over and over and over again.

As such, I think I need to give myself something different to piviot to creatively whenever I feel this way. At the moment, it seems like it’s going to be delving into the icy waters of screenwriting.

But this will happen in the context of my main goal still being finishing a mystery-thriller that is an homage to Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium series. My novel is so different that pretty much only I would notice any similarities.

Most of what is similar to Stieg Larsson’s work is structural in nature or the result of “form follows function.”

I will freely admit that my novel just isn’t as good as the novel I’m using as my “textbook” — The Girl That Played With Fire. That novel has a lot of heart. But that is, in general, what I want people to think of on an instinctual basis when they read my novel.

If they are fans of The Girl Who Played With Fire, they will feel like they’re putting on an old brown shoe. It will feel very cumfy and familiar, even if my novel is totally, completely, it’s own thing when it comes to subject matter.

That’s my goal, at least.

But I’ve studied Larsson’s stuff so much and have come to see some of his editorial decisions on a macrobasis as “the right way,” even though there is no such thing, I keep revising and revising and revising.

This is wearing me out. So, rather risk total burn out, I want to be able to pivot to screenwriting as necessary now and again.

It will be interesting to how long this plan lasts.

We’re Just About A Year Away Now From ‘The Fourth Turning’ (Maybe)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. It definitely seems as though we may have about a year before the United States either slips peacefully into autocracy or we have a civil war (Reds) or revolution (Blues.) Yes, I suppose it’s possible that some sort of third way might happen whereby Biden wins and that breaks the back of MAGA, but….oh boy. Not putting a lot of hope in that one.

All the macro signs at the moment point to Trump winning in 2024 and, soon, enough, the entire post-WW2 global world order is thrown up in the air. And that’s just internationally. Domestically, the United States will become a white theocratic ethnostate, probably as the result of a Constitutional Convention that puts MAGA enabling acts into the Constitution.

Or, put another way, the issue is how bad are things going to get? I mean, my fears of catastrophe are growing so serious that I’m thinking about the need to buy a Ham radio. Because if things really go tits up, communication will be something that we will be sorely lacking.

But, to date, I’m more interested in working on my novel to worry about something so dark. If that changes, then, well, there you go.

Could A Tyrant Trump Push America Too Far In A Second Term?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because of how, collectively, Americans are a pretty laid back bunch, I struggle to imagine a situation where there might be any sort of mass revolt against Tyrant Trump should he win a second term. Because of his age, Trump will be seen as a transitional figure, with the result being whomever his successor is being the person who finally throttles our dying democracy.

And, really, much like how Augustus was able to transition the Roman Republic into an Empire, as long as Trump and his immediate successor don’t touch the First Amendment, they should be fine. Even if elections are meaningless, as along as Americans feel as though they can bitch and moan about what’s going on around them, there won’t be any problems in the streets.

But this is Trump we’re talking about.

Trump loves, loves, loves, to besmirch anything and everything that is considered sacred, so it may be almost inevitable that soon enough, Trump will start to attack some pretty basic Constitutional rights. Ironically enough, as long as he doesn’t touch the Second Amendment, his supporters will lulz our descent into a Russian-style autocracy.

But we have to accept that Trump’s second term will not only be one based on revenge, but also will take all the parts we hated about the first term to the next level. So much so, that the entire post-WW2 global liberal order will be thrown up in the air to the point that a full blown WW3 might break out because America pulls out of NATO and South Korea. What’s more, as all of this is happening, a good 1 million smug wealthy liberals will flee the country — at a minimum.

I still, however, struggle to imagine a scenario whereby there might some sort of Glorious Revolution on the part of Blues that might involve a General Strike and that kind of thing. Americans are just too complacent to do such a thing.

The only reason why I even keep writing about this issue is there are some macro trends at work that are extremely alarming. One of America’s two major political parties is now fascist and only see elections as valid if they win them. But I can’t predict the future. Maybe “Mueller, She Wrote” is right and somehow MAGA will evaporate into the mists of political history and everything will work out because some court ruling saves us from ourselves.

Well, At Least I’ve Come Up With an Interesting Heroine

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve finally come up with a heroine who is, in her own way, just as interesting as Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander. But there’s a downside to her being so unique. Because of how dumb people can be, and how fixated on sex they can be, it’s very possible that the fact that my heroine is a part-time sex worker (stripper) may overshadow anything else I have to say with this novel.

The character has A LOT of agency — she owns the club she strips at, for what it’s worth — and I like how having the two elements of her life slam against each other leads to some interesting situations. This time of wild dichotomy was successful with Bill Hader’s TV show “Barry” and there’s no reason to believe I can’t find similar success with this novel.

But I AM a smelly “CIS white male,” and, as such, there will be a small, woke cancel culture mob element of the audience who will come at me from the left on this issue. The very element of the novel — validating sex work — that would cause a transgendered undocumented twentysomething woman to be heaped with praise will cause me to be pillared.

At least, that’s my fear.

But, I can’t help who I am or how old I am. I really like the character I’ve come up with. I will admit that my heroine doesn’t have nearly the fucked up youth that Lisbeth Salander had, but, surprise, I AM setting up the life of my real heroine — the novel is set in late 1994, early 1995.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if I manage to query this novel successfully or if the entire world will collapse and I have to use a Ham radio to find out what’s going on with the broader world.

Yet More Mulling The Mysteries Of This Website’s Webstats

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a nobody at the moment. Sometimes, I feel like I could walk off the edge of the world and it would take a while — if ever — for anyone to notice. So, ANY attention I get is of note to me. But I’m not going to complain about how I have one stalker(?) who obsessively checks this site.

No, I’m interested in those curious instances where someone looks at this Website, but clearly doesn’t want me to know where they’re really coming from. It’s no big deal — whatever — but it is curious that anyone would care enough to hide their domain name.

There was a moment in time, when such things really got me excited. But, now, not so much. I just don’t care. It’s no big deal. The idea that someone of note would be interested in me and would go out of their way to hide their URL is intriguing.

I will note that I find it really interesting when it comes to celebrity’s relationship to social media. I think there is a spectrum, with one end a celebrity being too busy doing dope shit to worry about social media and on the other end you have very insecure celebrities with a lot — A LOT — of burner accounts.

One of the most curious situations is people who not only come out of nowhere, but they find some random link deep in the site. It’s very curious. I sometimes think there is a lot going on in my Webstats that I’m not seeing. I think some of it comes from my Webstat software mistaking some people looking at this site as robots and, as such, I don’t see what they’re looking at.

Or something. Something like that. But, in the end, it’s all value free. It is going to be very interesting to see on the backend once I start querying. Of course I’m going to see a deluge of normal people with real careers and real money look through all the drunken ranting I’ve done on this site.

But I know this novel is getting really, really good. And that’s all that matters.

Making Abstract Fears Concrete: Running Through Worse Case Biden Scenarios

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of my personality quirks is I like to make my many abstract fears concrete. As such, here are various absolute-worst-case-scenarios when it comes to Biden shuffling off this mortal coil.

  1. It happens after January 20th, 2025
    I don’t want it to happen at all, but if it DID happen, the best time for it happen for the country would be at some point during Biden’s second term. There is a specific set of events that would happen and after a proper amount of grief, the country could go back to tearing itself apart.
  2. It happens sooner rather than later
    If Biden shuffles off this mortal coil this late in the 2024 POTUS election cycle, then everything gets thrown up in the air. Chaos would descend upon the land. And, what’s worse, we STILL wouldn’t know if acting Speaker McHenry could become POTUS. And given how tense the country is, if there is some question as to if a Red Speaker of the House or a Blue Senate President Pro Temp was going to be POTUS, well, that’s a recipe for disaster. For that to happen, something really bad would have to happen, but the stakes would be so high that you know MAGA would figure out a way to force the issue one way or another.
  3. It happens later rather than sooner
    If such a horrible thing happens a lot later, but before, say, ballets are printed, then chaos would erupt. The key thing would be, such a horrible thing happening would make the 2024 Democratic Convention a sight to see because there would be a massive struggle over who the nominee would be.
  4. He lingers
    Another really bad scenario would be something happens such that the 25 Amendment has to be invoked. This horrible situation would also cause mass chaos because of how the country is tearing itself apart.
  5. It happens between Election Day and Certification Day
    The absolute worst situation would be Biden shuffles off this mortal coil between Election Day and Certification Day. It’s happened once — as part of the election of 1872 — and the solution they used, with the dearly departed’s Electoral votes being dispersed to the living candidates doesn’t seem like a viable option in the modern era. I just don’t know what to tell you in that situation. I don’t think it would cause a civil war, but it would definitely be a “Not great, Bob,” situation.