WatDabney @ WatDabney @fedia.io

Posts

0

Comments

161

Joined

1 yr. ago

Of course it won't, but they're incapable of thinking it through that clearly.

Hierarchical systems like capitalism effectively reward and thus select for psychopaths who are laser-focused on their short-term, shallow self-interest, since they have the fewest constraints on the choices they're willing to make. Anyone else might refrain from an otherwise effective course of action if they recognize that it's ultimately destructive or self-defeating or immoral or unethical, but the psychopaths who only think in the short term won't, so all other things being more or less equal, they have an advantage.

That's a lot of what we're seeing right now. Trump and Musk are making so much headway toward destroying the United States in large part because people are having a hard time working out how to even respond, since their actions are so corrupt and so destructive and so self-serving. They've jumped right past any ordinary notion of corrupt and self-serving and destructive to a brazen and egregious level that for many really is, in a simple, practical sense of the term, "unthinkable."

And yes - crushing the common people in order to maximize the wealth that can be extracted from them and the privilege granted to the wealthy few is self-defeating in the long term, since the common people are the ultimate source of that wealth. But that won't stop people like Musk and Trump, because they're quite simply neither sane nor rational enough to let it.

I liken it to people living in penthouses in apartment buildings cannibalizing the lower floors to expand their penthouses. Not only are the buildings eventually going to collapse under the weight of the penthouses, but they're actually hastening that by weakening the lower floors.

But Musk and Trump and the like just aren't equipped to see that, or to restrain themselves if they do. So that's not only what they will do, but what they are doing, right now, this minute.

By design.

The wealthy, led by Trump and Musk and Zuckerberg, among many others, have entered into open warfare against the common people.

Note this well - this isn't just rhetoric. He truly and sincerely believes that people should go to prison for the "crime" of criticising him.

The US is on the path to gulags and mass graves.

They say that as if destroying programs that benefit the common people and instituting policies that benefit the 1% are some sort of unexpected consequences rather than the exact and explicit point.

It's not an accident that I download epubs and read them on Moon+.

Amazon signaled clearly years ago that their goal wasn't to make a convenient ebook reader, but to create an entire proprietary e-reading system designed solely to extract as much money as possible for as little value as possible. And this is just another step in that ongoing process.

Broadly, it's because Musk and Trump are both psychopaths. That's the real foundation for everything else - the simple fact that we've allowed ourselves to be ruled by people who are obviously profoundly mentally ill.

As a direct consequence of their profound mental illness, they have no honor, no integrity, no principles, no morals, no ethics and no comcern for anyone or anything other than themselves.

So the only thing that could possibly stop them is force, and the federal courts have no way of applying that force.

Inevitably, all hierarchical organizations end up on the wrong side of history.

In hierarchies, people compete for position.

People with principles, morals, integrity and/or empathy will have choices that they simply will not make.

People without those things are not constrained. They can and will make whatever choices might benefit them, with no regard for the consequences to others.

So all other things being more or less equal, psychopaths actually have a competitive advantage in hierarchies, and hierarchies end up effectively rewarding and thus selecting for psychopathy.

If he was going to, he'd do it, then brag about it.

The fact that he went out of his way to proactively say he would means that he most certainly will not.

They're explicitly trying to get them killed.

And at some point they're going to succeed.

They didn't make that DEI accusation because they expected it to be true, so the fact that it's so patemtly false doesn't matter.

They made the accusation just because they're hateful, bigoted pieces of shit trying to appeal to other hateful, bigoted pieces of shit.

Truth means nothing. Hate and greed are the only things that matter to them.

"Dark times" is putting it mildly.

I expect they're going to be digging mass graves before this is all over, and Trump is going to be added to the list of worst mass murderers in history.

I wish I was kidding.

Very true.

I still think "class war" is the most accurate term for it though, and the fact that the working class isn't (yet) fighting it is just the biggest reason that the moneyed class is winning (so far).

Those who could do something about it won't.

Those who would do something about it can't.

It's class war. It's been class war all along.

That's why the courts and the legacy media and the bulk of the political establishment have been at the very least enabling him - because what he's in fact doing, and has been doing since the beginning, is working for the explicit benefit of himself and his moneyed class cronies, to the detriment of everyone else.

Yes.

And some people recognize that it's not a matter of if the world burns, but merely of when, and believe that sooner is less bad than later.

Sometimes accelerationism is the least bad option.

Accused of sexual assault

Isn't that a prerequisite for a position in the Trump autocracy?

For the most notable examples of which I'm aware, go back to the period surrounding the subprime mortgage debacle (which he defended), the real estate market collapse (which he insisted wasn't going to happen literally right up to the moment that it did) and the subsequent Wall Street bailouts (which he supported).

Krugman has been odd lately.

After spending decades slavishly carrying water for the moneyed class, he's been on a notable anti-Trump lately.

Which implies two possibilities - either he's finally developed some principles and integrity at this late date, which is unlikely, or the moneyed class support for Trump isn't quite as universal as the broligarch stranglehold on social media has made it appear...

There's a new game in town, and it's called "don't even pretend that ethics matter any more because they don't."

The only rule is that you have to let Trump and his cronies get away with anything.

The reward is that Trump's criminal "justice" system will let you get away with anything too.

And most of Washington is already playing.