Photuris

Well fuck

Nobody told me all this when I signed up. I was simply instructed to pick an instance, and I did.

Righteous!

A long time ago, I use to call myself “Libertarian.” Before you cringe too hard at this, this was long before MAGA, the Tea Party Republicans, all that. I just wanted weed to be legal (even though I don’t partake myself), no more foreign wars, and basically people to mind their own goddamned business most of the time and for the laws to be less convoluted but apply to everyone equally. Basic stuff for a younger mind. I don’t like busybodies and control-freakery.

My primary concern was in maximizing Freedom for the greatest number of people.

What changed my perspective, was learning and understanding the difference between Negative Liberty (freedom from) and Positive Liberty (freedom to).

And I then understood how a healthy Left and a healthy Right might in theory disagree when Positive Liberty and Negative Liberty are in conflict, even if they both actually really value Freedom (e.g., the freedom to own firearms responsibly vs. the freedom from fear of having one’s children murdered in middle school; Or, the freedom to drive anywhere on public, toll-free roads vs. the freedom from excessively high wheel taxes, or emissions standards that are burdensome on the working poor, or from imminent domain laws that take bits of your land to build roads on).

That understandjng had me, over time, shifting from Libertarian to Liberal. I became a normie Democrat.

Another shift has been happening lately, from Liberal to Progressive/Democratic Socialist, for largely the same reasons: my understanding of what Freedom (and by contrast, cooersion) means in practice is deepening (also, the rise of MAGA and the fecklessness and corruption of the Democratic Party has me a bit radicalized).

I still value Freedom, and I want it maximized for the greatest number of people as possible. I have changed my mind on what that means exactly and how we might get there.

The thing is, and I know this is just semantics, but these MAGA folks are not “conservatives” in the least. They are reactionaries.

I don’t see much “conserving” going on.

The actual, real conservatives these days are (love ‘em or hate ‘em) the centrist, status quo, moderate, neoliberal institutional Democrats, and the former Republicans (such as Liz Cheney and the Lincoln Project folks) who have joined them. They’re the ones attempting (albeit fecklessly) to conserve and preserve institutions (flawed though they may be), decorum, rule of law, the Constitution, things like that.

These MAGA types are actual Fascists, even though they balk when you call them that.

Here’s what Fascism is: a populist movement constructed around a palingenetic myth, with a vision of a glorious future, with the nation (and leader) at the center of this glorious rebirth. Palingenetic is a fancy word for “rebirth.” So a palingenetic myth is a compelling (to many) story about rebirthing and renewal.

So it goes something like this: “In the Past, We were once Great! The envy of the world!!! Everything was awesome! Alas, we have fallen. We are no longer Great, because of Them (immigrants, Jews, gays, progressives, Muslims, Communists, whomever blame sticks to). But We (the real ones) can be Great again! We can recover what was stolen from Us! The Nation takes primacy over the individual, and “law” is only valid so long as it’s not an impediment to Greatness. Rally around the Dear Leader, then, join the Movement, and let’s rebuilt/rebirth our Greatness together! Let’s kick some ass and be great AGAIN!!!”

That is Fascism, and that is what MAGA is.

When I watched Triumph of the Will many years ago, what I saw is being repeated, with American modifications and flavors, by MAGA today. Same shit, different day.

It is not “conservative” at all. That term is just a cover.

People are angry, and many people find the Fascist palingenetic myth to be compelling. Neolib Democrats have failed us, so rebellion against the status quo is at some level understandable.

We on the Left of center aren’t offering a compelling story or uniting vision of the future. We’re too busy nitpicking and policing language, virtue signaling, and woke scolding people. Calling someone “unhoused” vs. “homeless” does nothing to create a house for someone. Putting pronouns on our Twitter profiles does nothing to ensure fair and equal treatment under the law. Capitalizing the word Black does nothing to reverse systemic injustice. So yeah, we don’t have anything to offer as an alternative to either Fascism or status quo corporatism other than word policing. No wonder they hate us. I hate us too.

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I’ve always wanted to sail.

I feel guilty saying it, because I know I was in a privileged position, with a job that could be done remotely and living close to nature, but I fucking loved COVID lockdown. I can’t remember being so happy since childhood. Everything just slowed down, and I spent more time with my family.

I was on a work call the other day, listening to my peers complain about European work culture - “They just leave at 5:00 sharp, even if the project isn’t done! They’ll say ‘we’ll just pick it up in the morning and finish it then’ as if that’s good enough!” “You can’t contact them on weekends or vacations at all! They don’t even read and answer email!” “They take such long vacations! And just disappear! They won’t even take their work laptops with them or check in once! It’s so frustrating!”

I wanted to scream. Y’all realize we’re the crazy people, right?!

There’s only one way to deal with Nazis; and it’s not writing firmly-worded letters, or complaining on Twitter.

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If I were watching CBS programming, I’d boycott them.

Alas, I can’t boycott what I’m not already using, so, that sucks I guess.

Gods, we all need to bully this prick more.

We have lost our way

Wait, so why did it become valuable overnight?

Plus these fancy new machines can’t even wash a fucking blanket (unbalanced every time, no matter what I do).

Oh I’m an idiot. Good night!

The DNC is gonna work hard to destroy ranked choice voting, aren’t they?

1. Find something you really want to study and learn, that requires retaining a lot of facts

2. Download Anki

3. Download or build a flashcard deck for what you want to learn

4. Do your flashcards every day, and trust Anki to know what cards to show you, and when, and how often. It’s just a few minutes per day.

5. Spaced repetition just made you much smarter!

6. Repeat, forever, learning all the things.

Huh? No, corn definitely has sugar in it.

What I mean is, a portion of corn or corn products causes a WAY HIGHER glucose spike with me, than does an equivalently sized portion (by weight or volume) of white rice, beans, milk, or even chocolate cake cake. I don’t know why.