Tag: The Fourth Turning

What Is The Deal With Tech Bro David Sacks?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really enjoy listening to the All-In podcast because it challenges me, forces me to listen to people I generally don’t agree with politically. They are interesting, intelligent people who just so happen to find fascism way, way, too palatable. When your metrics for assessing something miss the issue of what is morally right, your politics are all fucked up.

Because, literally, the exact same reasoning that several people on the All-In podcast give for various degrees of support for Trump and MAGA could have been used by German industrialists in the 1930s.

But it’s David Sacks who shocks me with his consistently bad hot takes. His politics are identical to a relative of mine and so it is useful to listen to his bullshit for the next time I find myself debating politics with said relative. Sacks is “all in” with being a fifth columnist who supports Russia over Ukraine and the United States.

He is very intense and seems to have a huge fucking chip on his shoulder. It’s all very weird. But he’s cogent enough in his terrible hot takes that you find yourself listening to him and weighing different counter-arguments you might use to point out his hypocrisy.

Anyway, the point is — I’m growing very alarmed at the recent shift in politics among Tech Bros. They are very receptive to America’s new brand of fascism and, in the end, when we maybe need their support to stop the last seizure of power by fascists, they won’t be there for us.

What The Fuck Is Going On With Tech Bros Becoming Fascist-Friendly?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m at a loss as to what’s going on with Tech Bros these days. I find myself listening to the latest episode of the All-In podcast and I find myself extremely perplexed as to how “all in” the Tech Bros of the podcast are when it comes to various shades of fascism.

I thought Tech Bros were all about libertarianism, not working hand-in-hand with the fascist movement to curtail freedoms. But it is very interesting that I can’t help but think of how German Industrialists were “all in” with the Nazis in the 1930s because relative to their economic and financial metrics they felt they were the best choice.

But I will admit that listening to the All-In podcast is great to help me develop rhetorical anti-bodies to fascism and fifth columnists who want us to destroy the post-World War 2 global liberal order so we can dance with Putin and autocratic fascism.

It is also interesting that people like David Sacks use the term “populist” when they really mean “fascism.” The whole situation is very concerning because it’s a sign that fascism continues to be very popular in the United States and is only going to grow even more powerful if we have a Petite Singularity in the context of a moderate-to-severe recession in 2023 – 2024.

My Hot Take On The Clusterfuck Going On In The House of Representatives Right Now

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just from what I can glean on Twitter, it seems as though the crux of the problem when it comes to electing a new Speaker is this: all the momentum is with the fascists, but the fascists don’t have the votes. So, you have a situation where a core group of MAGA fascists won’t be placated unless they elect an actual Nazi as Speaker.

But they don’t have the votes, there is some of a standoff going on between the fascists and the moderates how are queasy at the naming an actual fascist as speaker. It will be interesting who blinks first on this subject. I’m seeing a lot of chatter within far Right MAGA circles around Chip Roy. He makes Jim Jordan look like AOC and, as such, is perfect for what the dyed in the wool fascists want in a Speaker.

Really, what MAGA Republicans want is to cut out the middle man and have a Speaker Trump.

It could be that the House is going to give Trumplandia levels of “entertainment” when it comes to being out of control and generating vast sums of bullshit. Once they figure out who the Speaker is going to be, then the which hunts will be gin about “the Big Guy” and the border “crisis.” The number of people in the Biden Administration who are probably going to get impeached this year will be shocking.

And remember — we’re in for a moderate to severe recession this year and or next, which would be a perfect storm if you want to get the public behind successfully impeaching a president and or vice president for made up bullshit.

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The chatbot revolution is upon us and the Far Right is already staking out its talking points for the coming battle royale over the idea of chatbot “bias.” As chatbots grow more and more the center of human existence — because we’re all very lazy — the more people like malignant Canadian and faux-intellect Jordan Peterson will whine and complain about their “woke cancel culture mob” biases.

America’s era of hyper-partisanship has reached the point where even the very idea of equitable — if not objective — truth is considered an attack on one side or the other. To use the pet grievance of the fucking MAGA Nazi cocksuckers, if a chatbot doesn’t spit out a very narrow answer to “What is a woman?” then they scream bloody murder that they’re being “oppressed.”

All of this raises an interesting issue — it seems as though we’re in a sprint to see if we live in a Tech Bro dystopia or a government-mandated MAGA Nazi one. I totally validate the notion that members of the “woke cancel culture mob” don’t exactly help the cause of liberal democracy by having a very strict orthodoxy, but I’m of the general opinion that such abuses are the result of a very broken political system.

If we had the politics of a functioning liberal democracy the question of “what is a woman?” would be figured out pretty quick through consensus and we could go back to more important things like addressing income inequality.

But, no. It serves the overall aims of the MAGA Nazis for American politics to be completely broken and, as such, we’re fucked. Totally, completely fucked. We’re careening towards a very dark future where very soon “chatbot bias” will join “critical race theory” as something that is used as a political football whenever the MAGA Nazis need to juice the base before an election. The intellectual framework for this to happen is already all over Twitter. MAGA Nazis are coming for chatbots and their “bias” and it’s going to be a very nasty situation in the context of a potential “Petite Singularity” during the 2023 recession.

Anyway. I don’t write for Slate or VOX. I don’t know anything and don’t have a received English vocal fry in my videos.

On A Macro Basis, America Is Fucked

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Macro historical events are extremely difficult for the average person to process in real time. If you were living through WW2, you might have some general sense of the historical narrative happening around you but it wouldn’t be until it was all over that your mind could give any of it value.

The same with what’s happening with the United States at the moment.

We’re lurching towards some sort of climax around late 2024, early 2025 but at the moment none of us really know what that climax might be. Will we have a civil war or will we simply slip peacefully into autocracy? Or is even possible that we all may be punked by history and we manage to punt all of our macro problems down the road one more election cycle.

At this point, we’re too far out and I have no idea.

I have a hunch, but nothing set in stone that I really believe is going to happen one way or another. I say this because there remain way too many variables. Will Biden run again? Will DeSantis beat Trump? And if he does, will Trump bounce to the Patriot Party?

All of those things, and more, are very much up in the air at the moment. I generally believe at the moment that we’re going to slip peacefully into some sort of autocracy — be it Hungary-style or Nazi Germany style — and that will be that. Nothing will change at first, but soon enough the United States will no longer be a traditional Western democracy and millions of smug very online wealthy Twitter liberals who are the prime audience of Crooked Media podcasts will flee to the four corners of the globe.

Or not. I just don’t know yet. But I do think that the next 18 months or so could be very, very bumpy because of how many people the Republican House intends to impeach, if nothing else. Republicans just can’t govern and much of 2023 Republicans are going to do everything in their power to prove that they have no policy agenda other than riding the culture wars to ultimately seizing power and establishing permanent white Christian minority rule.

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.”

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

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!

President DeSantis Will Be America’s Putin

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

By definition, the next Republican to be POTUS will ben our first autocrat. They will come into office, destroy what’s left of our democratic norms and we’ll wake up in 20 years and wonder why that same president is invading Canada for some reason.

These days, I really struggle to figure out how I might be wrong about that prediction. Is it possible that we might at least punt the problems associated with our growing fascism problems down the road one more election cycle? I have my doubts. In fact, the only reason why I think it’s even possible is things are just too far out for me to be able to know for sure what is going to happen.

The time between now and 2024 is a really, really long time in politics and anything could happen — anything. We don’t even know if Biden is going to run for a second term yet.

But the safest bet is that 2023 – 2025 could be one of the most tumultuous times in modern American history. It’s safe to say that if DeSantis is the GQP nominee that it’s a lot less likely that we’re going to have a civil war.

And, yet, there is the issue of Donald Trump lurking around. Barring something I really, truly can’t predict, we have to assume that Trump is going to be the Republican nominee in 2024 and, as such, the possibility of a Second American Civil War grows far, far more likely.

But if it’s DeSantis, we will avoid a civil war and slip into a new autocratic era in American history. If we’re lucky, we’ll be something akin to Hungary or Turkey and if we’re not lucky, we endup more like Russia or Nazi Germany. Only time will tell.