Some cousin or whatever the fuck was praising Musk and DOGE and my grandmas birthday party. I expected to hear that stuff but I still didn't enjoy it.
they are voting for tech-feudalism. they literally want to become serfs. they enjoy the master-slave relationship more than letting gay and black people occasionally feel good about themselves.SuperJail Warden wrote:
It is genuinely funny how much pain and suffering Americans are in store for. Haha funny because of how voters actually wanted this to happen.
There is going to be a massive retreat in social services for Americans. Things that people have taken for granted and always expected to be there will just disappear. Opportunities just snuffed out of existence.
The part that most cracks me up is the fact that all of this is happening because conservatives wanted the gays and the blacks to sit-down and shut up again. Trump and Elon are literally decimating the federal government to "root out" DEI and redirect money for a massive tax cut. Swaths of Americans are willing to take a massive reduction to their quality of life just to spite people like me. I don't know how to respond to that but just laugh.
The powerful messaging of the republican party at work. DEI is going to lower your (working class white people's) quality of life, so we will take action to reduce your quality of life and position it as getting rid of DEI. Oh and also the rich keep getting richer.SuperJail Warden wrote:
It is genuinely funny how much pain and suffering Americans are in store for. Haha funny because of how voters actually wanted this to happen.
There is going to be a massive retreat in social services for Americans. Things that people have taken for granted and always expected to be there will just disappear. Opportunities just snuffed out of existence.
The part that most cracks me up is the fact that all of this is happening because conservatives wanted the gays and the blacks to sit-down and shut up again. Trump and Elon are literally decimating the federal government to "root out" DEI and redirect money for a massive tax cut. Swaths of Americans are willing to take a massive reduction to their quality of life just to spite people like me. I don't know how to respond to that but just laugh.
Sucks to be you, but the upside is that the 100 trans people in youth sports won't be allowed to play them anymore.
the haters actually hope that the 100 trans people in youth sports and every other trans people will have their rug of access to treatment yoinked out from beneath them (causing a whole battery issues in the process). the veneer over it is of course that they just want to protect and heal trans people of the woke mind virus. for the phobic, making trans people suffer and be miserable while you're "helping them" is a nice bonus, and well worth sacrificing your self-interests if it means the libs cry.
i have a hard time believing the conservatives who act tunnel-visioned on other issues. i have a decent memory for conversations, and while a conservative is ranting about how it's was just about biden and the price of gas that drove his recent vote, i can recall a number of phobic stuff they've let slip in past convos. i do think a significant amount of this stuff is projecting. the harder a conservative man rants about the gays and the trans people and the drag queens, the more i suspect their secret shame is wearing lipstick when they're alone at home. it's 2025, todd, go paint your nails if it makes you happy.
i have a hard time believing the conservatives who act tunnel-visioned on other issues. i have a decent memory for conversations, and while a conservative is ranting about how it's was just about biden and the price of gas that drove his recent vote, i can recall a number of phobic stuff they've let slip in past convos. i do think a significant amount of this stuff is projecting. the harder a conservative man rants about the gays and the trans people and the drag queens, the more i suspect their secret shame is wearing lipstick when they're alone at home. it's 2025, todd, go paint your nails if it makes you happy.
Its funny how Americans are determined to vote themselves shittier and more expensive lives when dangled the carrot of 'muh taxes'
Healthcare is already a shit deal for americans - lower taxes but higher costs which overall are more expensive, plus shit availability, paperwork and the need to go to court to get the insurance company to pay up.
What else can they be conned into?
Reduced spending on road, rail, air travel essentials like filling potholes and emplying enough air traffic controllers?
Vaccination, education are no brainers to convert to user pays models where everyone wins overall.
Healthcare is already a shit deal for americans - lower taxes but higher costs which overall are more expensive, plus shit availability, paperwork and the need to go to court to get the insurance company to pay up.
What else can they be conned into?
Reduced spending on road, rail, air travel essentials like filling potholes and emplying enough air traffic controllers?
Vaccination, education are no brainers to convert to user pays models where everyone wins overall.
Fuck Israel
even liberal and enlightened americans are susceptible to brain rot though. it’s not just the patsies in the flyover states.
the crazy thinking in silicon valley circles is just another brand of very american credulousness and exceptionalism. there’s just something in the water over there. i mean, it sounds absolutely mad to even pay attention to this stuff. the paypal billionaire (thiel) who is materially funding so much of this weird online alt-right/tech-accelerationist/nazi-eugenicist moment literally believes in things like the antichrist and armageddon. all these crazy ideas are in the water somewhere. what started his supervillain arc? being outed as gay by gawker.com and the hollywood blogosphere. now edgy privileged hipsters in new york are converting to esoteric forms of catholicism and pro-natalism is somehow ‘cool’. weird white supremacist couples in connecticut with 10 kids are being paid to edit mouthpieces by thiel. i mean how fucking bizarre is this world we are all subject to?
then on matters like education, you’ve got things like the (very) late senator diane feinstein’s husband’s ed-tech company basically capturing the UC university system. he’s now some big cheese in the university administration and has pushed his AI learning crap out to like 3 of the world’s best public universities. all for profit. there’s a few other families at the very top of the republican party who derive all their wealth from these for-profit ed-tech scams too. this weird tech fetishism mixed with shyster capitalism.
it’s so much more than the little guy gladly voting to make his life worse. elite ideology is totally fucking nuts too. there’s a deeply cretinous and creepy aspect to the coastal elites. the liberal ivy’d WASPs and blueblood brahmins have taken their totemic beating in the populist era, but the MIT-stanford-Caltech types are seriously fucking weird too. just look at all the financial crime and cult-like shit with SBF (parents profs at stanford, MIT wunderkind). the thing is, they’re not just crooks: they genuinely label themselves as ‘effective altruists’ or ‘rationalists’ and deeply believe they are some sort of secular calvinist elect.
and i don’t even need to get into the musk thing with his dark enlightenment/vengeful white settler worldview. the guy wants to seed mars with his progeny and rule over a new human society like a sort of god-CEO with an AGI holy ghost. when he’s not picking fights with model practical-scientific experts (divers, astronauts), he’s using IVF to create broods of boys with names like windows XP-era worms and trojans. there is something deeply off-kilter in the top echelons of the new tech overlords.
the crazy thinking in silicon valley circles is just another brand of very american credulousness and exceptionalism. there’s just something in the water over there. i mean, it sounds absolutely mad to even pay attention to this stuff. the paypal billionaire (thiel) who is materially funding so much of this weird online alt-right/tech-accelerationist/nazi-eugenicist moment literally believes in things like the antichrist and armageddon. all these crazy ideas are in the water somewhere. what started his supervillain arc? being outed as gay by gawker.com and the hollywood blogosphere. now edgy privileged hipsters in new york are converting to esoteric forms of catholicism and pro-natalism is somehow ‘cool’. weird white supremacist couples in connecticut with 10 kids are being paid to edit mouthpieces by thiel. i mean how fucking bizarre is this world we are all subject to?
then on matters like education, you’ve got things like the (very) late senator diane feinstein’s husband’s ed-tech company basically capturing the UC university system. he’s now some big cheese in the university administration and has pushed his AI learning crap out to like 3 of the world’s best public universities. all for profit. there’s a few other families at the very top of the republican party who derive all their wealth from these for-profit ed-tech scams too. this weird tech fetishism mixed with shyster capitalism.
it’s so much more than the little guy gladly voting to make his life worse. elite ideology is totally fucking nuts too. there’s a deeply cretinous and creepy aspect to the coastal elites. the liberal ivy’d WASPs and blueblood brahmins have taken their totemic beating in the populist era, but the MIT-stanford-Caltech types are seriously fucking weird too. just look at all the financial crime and cult-like shit with SBF (parents profs at stanford, MIT wunderkind). the thing is, they’re not just crooks: they genuinely label themselves as ‘effective altruists’ or ‘rationalists’ and deeply believe they are some sort of secular calvinist elect.
and i don’t even need to get into the musk thing with his dark enlightenment/vengeful white settler worldview. the guy wants to seed mars with his progeny and rule over a new human society like a sort of god-CEO with an AGI holy ghost. when he’s not picking fights with model practical-scientific experts (divers, astronauts), he’s using IVF to create broods of boys with names like windows XP-era worms and trojans. there is something deeply off-kilter in the top echelons of the new tech overlords.
Last edited by uziq (2025-02-21 05:16:39)
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +647|4020
@Uzique
A far left podcast I used to listen to once made an argument that resonated with that went something like "Capitalism has so won that politics has degraded into consumerism. People don't believe political change is possible anymore. So political action is now done primarily through buying products and taking part in culture war social media posting."
Reddit is the last bastion of millennial liberalism it seems. The military and diplomacy subs are still against MAGA and all of that. The thing they seemed to have settled on is "Americans have had it easy for so long that they decided to blow their own country up out of boredom." Again, I think that fits with the earlier point. All of this Trump stuff seems fun until the economy crashes.
...
The elite couple are obviously social media influencers with a specific niche. The glasses and nerdy demeanor is meant to appeal to nerdy white guys who see having children as a status symbol. Musk is the same way with his own kids. They are status symbols. Tying down a slim nerdy white girl with kids has a certain appeal to it. Doubly so with widespread obesity, middle class decline, white demographic collapse, feminist social media influencing.
...
The kids as status symbols is such a misguided delusion. People want kids but have no idea the responsibility it entails. Guys want to make Instagram post with girls they knock up but don't want to put in the work to actually take care of them.
A far left podcast I used to listen to once made an argument that resonated with that went something like "Capitalism has so won that politics has degraded into consumerism. People don't believe political change is possible anymore. So political action is now done primarily through buying products and taking part in culture war social media posting."
Reddit is the last bastion of millennial liberalism it seems. The military and diplomacy subs are still against MAGA and all of that. The thing they seemed to have settled on is "Americans have had it easy for so long that they decided to blow their own country up out of boredom." Again, I think that fits with the earlier point. All of this Trump stuff seems fun until the economy crashes.
...
The elite couple are obviously social media influencers with a specific niche. The glasses and nerdy demeanor is meant to appeal to nerdy white guys who see having children as a status symbol. Musk is the same way with his own kids. They are status symbols. Tying down a slim nerdy white girl with kids has a certain appeal to it. Doubly so with widespread obesity, middle class decline, white demographic collapse, feminist social media influencing.
...
The kids as status symbols is such a misguided delusion. People want kids but have no idea the responsibility it entails. Guys want to make Instagram post with girls they knock up but don't want to put in the work to actually take care of them.
speaking of left-wing podcasts, i think hasan piker (of whom i think very rarely, and don't particularly rate, for the record) made some point recently that we are basically politically living in a moment downstream of the 2000s rehabilitation of the nerd. he was talking about the big bang show or something and made the point that all the culture back then was basically either making nerds seem cool again or at least loveable, as opposed to asocial/anti-social misfits and wallflowers.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JO13sYHjXSs
kind of gives you pause for thought now that bigtech, in the trump v2.0 era, have all adopted a stance and messaging that is basically akin to 'yeah, we're evil, deal with it'. i mean, nearly all of the shadiest companies in the world right now operating in that shadowy space between silicon valley, the intelligence world, and the defense industry, have adopted names from ... fucking lord of the rings. there's not only palantir, whose actual purpose despite a massive stock valuation is still opaque and who basically seem to be cambridge analytica back with a vengeance; but also anduril, an AI/autonomous drone warfare defense company; valar ventures, another mysterious funding vehicle with thiel at the helm; narya capital, basically the PAC founded by thiel to fund and push j.d. vance; i could go on ...
... it's fucking insane.
https://www.disconnect.blog/p/peter-thi … -companies
i will also say that this new generation of leaders are very illiterate. they are proudly philistine, especially compared to prior generations of scientists and engineers who would at least read in their spare time. instead, we have a very faddish type of TED talk intellectualism, where everyone cites the same few philosophers (without reading the primary source texts) and carries around a few select volumes like fashion accessories. ironically, one of those in the SF evil circles were are talking about is marcus aurelius's meditations. silicon valley workers have been bastardising stoicism for quite a few years now to dress up their venal and self-interested ideology.
https://www.philonomist.com/en/intervie … ld-us-yoga
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/ … alley-guru
it's very odd. dilbert is still complaining about snobby, effete, over-educated mandarins with their classics degrees, as if they still actually wield power ... while a bunch of tech bros working for tolkien companies and discussing roman stoicism at their get-togethers are gutting the state.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JO13sYHjXSs
kind of gives you pause for thought now that bigtech, in the trump v2.0 era, have all adopted a stance and messaging that is basically akin to 'yeah, we're evil, deal with it'. i mean, nearly all of the shadiest companies in the world right now operating in that shadowy space between silicon valley, the intelligence world, and the defense industry, have adopted names from ... fucking lord of the rings. there's not only palantir, whose actual purpose despite a massive stock valuation is still opaque and who basically seem to be cambridge analytica back with a vengeance; but also anduril, an AI/autonomous drone warfare defense company; valar ventures, another mysterious funding vehicle with thiel at the helm; narya capital, basically the PAC founded by thiel to fund and push j.d. vance; i could go on ...
... it's fucking insane.
https://www.disconnect.blog/p/peter-thi … -companies
i will also say that this new generation of leaders are very illiterate. they are proudly philistine, especially compared to prior generations of scientists and engineers who would at least read in their spare time. instead, we have a very faddish type of TED talk intellectualism, where everyone cites the same few philosophers (without reading the primary source texts) and carries around a few select volumes like fashion accessories. ironically, one of those in the SF evil circles were are talking about is marcus aurelius's meditations. silicon valley workers have been bastardising stoicism for quite a few years now to dress up their venal and self-interested ideology.
https://www.philonomist.com/en/intervie … ld-us-yoga
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/ … alley-guru
it's very odd. dilbert is still complaining about snobby, effete, over-educated mandarins with their classics degrees, as if they still actually wield power ... while a bunch of tech bros working for tolkien companies and discussing roman stoicism at their get-togethers are gutting the state.
Last edited by uziq (2025-02-21 08:11:01)
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +647|4020
The acceptance of nerd culture has only gone so far. Keep in mind that the guys who made it to the top of the tech economy pyramid increasingly adopt "jock" styling and behavior. Zuckerberg is a gym guy who to his credit had a nice glow up. Jeff Bezos started working out and got a bimbo girlfriend to parade around.
Musk tried to become that sort of mainstream cool but failed at it. He ended up in the Whitehouse but people still look at him like an autistic try hard. Not all of the tech guys can make the adjustment. Theil can't make that adjustment either since he is gay.
...
I think this circles back to what you mentioned before about the change in tech culture since we were in college. STEM was seen as a ticket to the the upper middle class. Now it is mostly H1Bs. We are at the point where finance guys living in LA/NYC are once again what people aspire to. Look at the guys above again. Their kids will be bankers and asset managers.
The middle Americans tech guys you see on social media making Roman references and trad culture stuff aren't the people at the very top of all of the social/economic pyramid. They have enough time and money to invest in some sub culture but they don't have the skills, money, time and freedom to have a glow up like Zuckerberg.
So they instead find solace in Roman and Imperial iconography that tells them they are the heirs to the legacy of militaristic brutes like Caesar and Napoleon. It makes them feel better than the hungry H1Bs around them but they still know they aren't the jocks. And that is why there is still so much anger. It is still incel thinking.
Musk tried to become that sort of mainstream cool but failed at it. He ended up in the Whitehouse but people still look at him like an autistic try hard. Not all of the tech guys can make the adjustment. Theil can't make that adjustment either since he is gay.
...
I think this circles back to what you mentioned before about the change in tech culture since we were in college. STEM was seen as a ticket to the the upper middle class. Now it is mostly H1Bs. We are at the point where finance guys living in LA/NYC are once again what people aspire to. Look at the guys above again. Their kids will be bankers and asset managers.
The middle Americans tech guys you see on social media making Roman references and trad culture stuff aren't the people at the very top of all of the social/economic pyramid. They have enough time and money to invest in some sub culture but they don't have the skills, money, time and freedom to have a glow up like Zuckerberg.
So they instead find solace in Roman and Imperial iconography that tells them they are the heirs to the legacy of militaristic brutes like Caesar and Napoleon. It makes them feel better than the hungry H1Bs around them but they still know they aren't the jocks. And that is why there is still so much anger. It is still incel thinking.
it is interesting that at some point there was a change in self-presentation, whether consciously or unconsciously imitative. i think zuckerberg in particular was clearly advised by some sort of PR outfit no doubt on his payroll to change his look a lot. the cold, clammy, slightly reptilian thing wasn't working too great for him, what with all the memes accusing him of being an alien planted in a human flesh-suit.
i will say, however, that there's still an apex elite in SV or tech circles who are on the same reading lists. the roman avatar guys are their useful rubes, sure, but i do think there's some very weird ideology being generated and consumed at the very top about this stuff.
which brings me onto dark enlightnment/NRx guys like moldbug/yarvin. speaking of glow-ups, the guy's own effort is really funny. he went from being 'IRC channel admin' to 'long-lost member of the strokes' for one of those recent fawning NYT writeups.
this is the guy who sounds an awful lot like dilbert when he says that 'democracy never works' (his own dad was a senior establishment figure, a diplomat with lots of ties to 'the cathedral', but he seldom talks about that side of his family), who advocates for leadership by a tiny oligarchic elite of tech CEOs. musk and his then-concubine grimes attended a birthday party for this weirdo.
i think this is really adroit analysis, which explains really well that strange mix of philistinism and proudful illiteracy mixed with the 'ornamental' or 'awsm' parts of classicism. they're basically network admins and IT managers sitting on X all day with castrated power fantasies. they're higher on the totem pole socioculturally than the H1B's that are making short shrift of their 'elite skilled labour' and 'super difficult, real degree' STEM education, but it's a precarious position. the citizens of the nerd imperium need their inferiors.So they instead find solace in Roman and Imperial iconography that tells them they are the heirs to the legacy of militaristic brutes like Caesar and Napoleon. It makes them feel better than the hungry H1Bs around them but they still know they aren't the jocks. And that is why there is still so much anger. It is still incel thinking.
i will say, however, that there's still an apex elite in SV or tech circles who are on the same reading lists. the roman avatar guys are their useful rubes, sure, but i do think there's some very weird ideology being generated and consumed at the very top about this stuff.
which brings me onto dark enlightnment/NRx guys like moldbug/yarvin. speaking of glow-ups, the guy's own effort is really funny. he went from being 'IRC channel admin' to 'long-lost member of the strokes' for one of those recent fawning NYT writeups.
this is the guy who sounds an awful lot like dilbert when he says that 'democracy never works' (his own dad was a senior establishment figure, a diplomat with lots of ties to 'the cathedral', but he seldom talks about that side of his family), who advocates for leadership by a tiny oligarchic elite of tech CEOs. musk and his then-concubine grimes attended a birthday party for this weirdo.
Yarvin has been described as a "neo-reactionary", "neo-monarchist" and "neo-feudalist" who "sees liberalism as creating a Matrix-like totalitarian system, and who wants to replace American democracy with a sort of techno-monarchy". He has defended the institution of slavery, and has suggested that certain races may be more naturally inclined toward servitude than others.
He advocates an American "monarch" dissolving elite academic institutions and media outlets within the first few months of their reign.
lol if dilbert hadn't already named himself after the creation of a cuckoo racist comic writer, he would literally be this guy."He advocates hierarchy, yet deeply resents cultural elites. His political vision is futuristic and libertarian, yet expressed in the language of monarchy and reaction. He is irreligious and socially liberal on many issues but angrily anti-progressive. He presents himself as a thinker searching for truth but admits to lying to his readers, saturating his arguments with jokes and irony. These tensions indicate broader fissures among the online Right."
Last edited by uziq (2025-02-21 09:25:58)
Last edited by uziq (2025-02-21 10:20:51)
mac has half a point about the enjockification of dweeb business celebs. but in the process of getting swole and undergoing facial masculinisation surgery, they seem to have overlooked that part where jocks are often a consummately-encouraging, positivity-radiating clique in school. i don't know what things were like for gen x (dilbert?), but the revenge of the nerds tropes are probably extremely dated. i have trouble believing that the jocks would be the first to go out of their way to give trans kids a hard time and socially destroy them online.
the social dynamo, high school football all-star with straight As who signed everyone's yearbook and who people generally have positive memories of—and a tech magnate with wage slaves, carefully-curated biceps, and fond dreams of eugenics-revival—are not the same.
it's time to start glorifying sports again instead of normalizing whatever the hell warhammer 40k is.
the social dynamo, high school football all-star with straight As who signed everyone's yearbook and who people generally have positive memories of—and a tech magnate with wage slaves, carefully-curated biceps, and fond dreams of eugenics-revival—are not the same.
it's time to start glorifying sports again instead of normalizing whatever the hell warhammer 40k is.
Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2025-02-21 11:42:12)
well-educated liberal arts elites stay above the fray. i'll take a philosophy major from smith or vassar over these absolutely deluded philosopher-kings from the bay area any day. there's something so damn crass and vulgar about the present zeitgeist. everything is absolutely shallow and ugly. the main actors are as two-dimensional as a character from a heinlein or azimov novel. which is perfectly in keeping with their ideology, because they are not interested very much in people at all.