As you might remember, it used to be called “information superhighway.” As it turns out, not only does it make information flow faster from A to B, it also divides people that lie to either side of the road, in a metaphorical sense.
Required reading See especially figure 3b. TLDR: Increased information access and increased connections lead to more echo chambers.
In a very traditional Afghan restaurant I used to frequent, if you ordered something really spicy, they’d bring you these small mint drops afterwards to chew on, no extra charge. Worked very well for me.
I will have you.
Excerpts from a short piece, called “Back to the Wall,” by a famous writer; abridged:
The individual soul is under attack…
Ten years ago it may have been inconceivable that the great sweet “cassaba melon” as it was called of “American Century” prosperity was really a great psychic hoax a mirage of electronic mass-hypnosis…
The choice given - or CHOSEN? by us between an oldfashioned politician…, which is to say conservative, and an outright Authoritarian rightwinger? We never had a choice between middle and left, we were always stuck between middle and right. Finally it becomes too much to fight. But the stakes are too great to lose…
To live in a country which supposedly dominates the entire planet and to be responsible for the outrages of ones Own country! Woe to the Germans silent under Hitler woe to the Americans silent now.
Not a matter of Policy, rational discourse etc.
Things no longer merely out of proportion, things are UNREAL. Manipulating the unreal from centers of power - how can the soul endure?
Movie blather, news broadcast blather … social blather of a totally maladjusted tribe engaged in struggle to retain power-dominance and control over an entire planet (nay an entire solar system!)
He also mentions a “synchronistic putch.” The writer is called Allen Ginsberg and this piece was published 1966.
Which is to say, the Overton window has been shifting for a long time and Nazism has never been truly defeated, only forced to hibernate. And certainly not just in the US. At least that’s my pessimistic conclusion at this point.
That’s Žižek’s dream. “You gotta go out and revolt, but one day, I hope we’ll find the big magic button and the whole system comes crashing down at once” or something like that.
I remember this type of discussions and the exact same arguments on Reddit, or was it Digg, way back when. Classic rock then was Phish or Grateful Dead.
Well, as a result, I’ve never gotten into these two particular bands, but I did start listening to music that’s like 10 or 20 years older than the stuff I grew up with. In fact, only recently, I’ve gotten a record player and some vinyl records. Works great for lo-fi rock which is imperfect by design.
“I am a fox,” said the fox.
“Please - tame me!”
This photo became the notorious cover image of Dinosaur Jr.'s Green Mind, as us older folks well remember.
You might take the Q&A with Frank Lloyd Wright as a counterexample (abridged, emphasis mine):
Q: Do you think that you are at any less rebellious, less of a radical in your art and life than you were a quarter of a century ago, Mr. Wright?
A: Rather more so. Only more quiet about it. Warren McArthur, a very good friend of mine, once said to me, “Frank, hear, you don’t have to paint your shirt front red and stand out in the street and holler about this,” and I began to think it over and I think he’s right.
If it is right and if it is good and it is sound, it’ll defend YOU if you give it a chance.
Lloyd Lewis came to me once when I was rolling the reporters downhill in a kerosene barrel to get rid of them. “Frank,” he said, “these boys have to live. Don’t you understand that you’re bringing all this down on yourself just because you haven’t got the wit to be kind to them and to see that they’re sent out here to get something and if they don’t get it, they may get fired.”
He said: “It takes all kinds, Frank, to make a world.”
And so I began to give. Here I am, giving again.
~~
Bear in mind that in this interview, he is looking back on a life full of accomplishments, and had to overcome strong headwinds at times. The other snippets on the page linked above can give you an idea of this as well.
Empower the White, Christian, Sexually Aggressive/Frustrated Misogynists.
Only as much and for as long as he deems necessary. Should they become a liability after getting him elected into power, they’d be dealt with swiftly. Remember Henry Hill in “GoodFellas”?
If you’re part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they’re going to kill you, doesn’t happen that way. There weren’t any arguments or curses like in the movies. See, your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who’ve cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time that you’re at your weakest and most in need of their help.
Her expression says “I hope I won’t bump into the photographer who asked to take a shot of me, because with the sun setting low in my back, I can’t see shit as I’m walking down the stairs.”
Maybe get them a few hovercrafts.
Don’t know much about history… Don’t know much palaeontology…
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From the other side of the pond, I find it very worrying and, indeed, disconnected from reality that Americans on Lemmy discuss the body odor or groping or even raping connected to one man that could and, given the chance, absolutely will completely unhinge their entire country at once.
You might think it smug, but many people all over the world have experienced a tyranny, or are currently experiencing it. There is no second warning, nor will there be a deadline; one day, the disappearings just start, and they will become increasingly random. You will not be in control of the process anymore.
Or, in the words of Andrew Mack, albeit about the failed Vietnam War: “The American experience [is] in no sense unique, except to Americans.”
I understand people need to vent, but what I would really hope to see would be discussions on how easy, or how difficult, it is to uproot one’s live and emigrate; how to go about getting a visa, or asylum, or a job in a different country; how long it takes to become fluent in a foreign language; or how long it would take Canada to close its borders once huge waves of refugees set in.
Today’s “too alarmist” is tomorrow’s “wasn’t alarmist enough.”
/offmychest
“Business bad? Fuck you, pay me.
Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me.
Place got hit by lightning, huh? Fuck you, pay me.”
Counterexample: The European Parliament. IMHO, it looks like 4 right-wing groups, 2 left-wing ones and 2 centrist ones. While the exact positioning could be argued over, the right wing is quite certainly more fragmented than the left is.
'Member that song “74-75” by The Connells? That was a big hit in the Nineties.
We’re now at 31 years after the release of this single and 49 years after the class of 1975 graduated.