WatDabney

It's particularly cynically amusing when Trump and the Republicans apoarently go out of their way to grant themselves abuses of power directly reminiscent of the Nazis.

And still the people who most pride themselves on their patriotism line right up to cheer it on.

This is the era of the angry, stupid American. and their King Donald.

He probably meant to.

Broadly, yeah. I suspect that more or less what it boils down to is that the US, even before Trump, was and is so warped by greed and corruption and built around so many lies that it's effectively insane, and that's reflected in its political leadership.

This is the thing that most astonishes me about this timeline.

Even setting aside all the other issues - politics, ideology, constitutionality, the rule of law, integrity, whatever - Trump is so obviously a raving lunatic that I sincerely have no idea how anyone can possibly fail to see it. There's nothing at all aubtle or obscure about it - he's bludgeoningly obviously unhinged.

Do people actually not see that? How? Or do they see it and ignore it? Again, how?

if people are not taught media ecology and the menace of unreality / alternate reality thinking.

At least this is an improvement on condemning them for not automaticallyvalready knowing what it is or how to deal with it.

But you're srill neatly avoiding mention of the individual actors who are responsible for the social conditions in whic this menace thrives.

Confident, contented people don't buy snake oil - only unhappy, frightened, desperate people do.

So you're not faulting the overt and deliberate destruction of American integrity, liberty, democracy and justice, but the responses to that deliberate destruction?

So essentially victim-blaming on a national scale?

Imagine that - an office dedicated to countering foreign disinformation somehow ends up being accused of censoring conservative views.

That reminds me of when I saw a mouse in my kitchen, so I set a trap snd caught it, snd somehow that also stopped the ragged holes that were inexplicably appearing in food packages in the cupboards.

Just one of life's mysteries I guess...

Sorry Mike, but one of the good things that's come out of the internet is that it's made people far more aware of just how much of the value their labor creates goes to paying for the privileged lives of worthless shitheels like you.

A notable intrinsic dodge bonus.

Decent but not great healing, blessing, persuasion, rally, calm, etc.

More or less neitral disposition with virtually everyone, save only the most extreme pro- or anti-religious.

Surprisingly good hand-to-hand combat, but only under duress and/or drunk.

I don't simply "feel" like we are - I think it's an undeniable fact that we are.

Virtually everyone lives under one or another hierarchical system of control.

There are two main avenues of control - wealth and political authority - and they're inevitably interconnected, with individual systems set up broadly either so that wealth is rewarded with political authority or political authority is rewarded with wealth.

Individuals compete for positions in hierarchical systems of control, and those who constrain themselves - who have choices or courses of action they will not take due to morality, ethics, integrity, empathy or the like - are at a disadvantage to those who do not have such constraints - who will not alter their behavior to accord for morals, ethics, integrity, empathy or the like, and who therefore are willing to do absoluely whatever it takes to win.

So effectively, hierarchical systems reward and thus select for sociopathy/psychopathy.

That becomes a self-reinforcing loop over time too, as individuals who gain power undermine the aspects of the system that might check sociopathy/psychopathy - government ethics laws, checks and balances, investigative journalism, the right to criticize, etc.

So hierarchical systems tend to sociopathy/psychopathy, and ever more so over time.

So Trump and Musk et al aren't aberrations - they're just the most extreme manifestations of a system that's been heading inevitably toward them all along - a system that has been so warped by the actions of past sociopaths and psychopaths that it is, for all intents and purposes, insane.

So yes - we live in an insane asylum.

I don't disagree.

Still though, compared to Needing/Getting or Here It Goes Again or The One Moment or I Won't Let You Down...

I'm not trying to put down the video or anything - it's just that it struck me watching it that OK Go have sort of painted themselves into a corner. They've put out so many jaw-droppingly awesome videos that at this point, anything less than jaw-droppingly awesome is almost a disappointment.

It strikes me that they've spoiled us. If I had never seen another OK Go video, I would likely be very impressed by that, but by their standards, it was only pretty good.