Pretty easy decision.
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I previously read that the screaming dude in the MI protest inside was a known white nationalist from CA. I can’t find the link right now and can’t remember where I saw it. Arguing with someone who works at Mayo who said all their temperatures were taken so no laws broken! All good y’all!
Sorry, faeries dont come back to life by clapping, but from crying clowns.
This is HNH /Wirelessbro, right?
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America just seems to have an unmatched number of people who are fully committed to living in a fantasy world and their entire project in life is to attempt to prevent the intrusion of any ideas which might necessitate any mental discomfort or introspection at all. This runs through the culture imo. Germans have to open history books and read about how 80 years ago they were the worst country in the world. One of the founding myths of Australia is Gallipoli, which is all about how Australia was a pawn of world powers getting chucked into the meat grinder and the story is just about courage, mateship and stoicism in the face of a doom beyond our control. What are the American stories like that? Slavery is a thing which was heroically ended by Lincoln. Ditto Civil Rights, the emphasis is on the eventual American victory over itself.
Same thing with American Protestantism, once accurately summarized by Felix on Chapo as “If you’re white… dude, you rock. Just keep doing what you’re doing”. The difference with, like, Catholic monks whipping themselves in monasteries is striking. Faith is to be observed not by self-criticism, looking within, instead the classical American expression of faith is giving money to people on TV.
Trump is the final boss of this, a living avatar of this philosophy that one need never apologise, never accept that things might be complicated or messy, and never tolerate for even a second that self-criticism or introspection might be warranted. The reason that guy was in tears on TV because he couldn’t go to Lowe’s or whatever has nothing to do with what he wanted to buy. What’s in jeopardy is the entire worldview. That’s what I think the answer is to the bolded above. It’s like the reason all libertarians are climate change skeptics, because climate change would necessitate collective action and the perfect gleaming edifice of their philosophy can’t tolerate even one counterexample.
Edit: The Right in Australia are the same with climate change, like since Australia depends so much on commodity exports, the answer has to be that it’s fine, we can keep doing it, and so that’s the answer they come up with. The Trumpian phenomenon is the generalization of this to, like, everything. The conclusion is always “this is not a thing which requires me to self-criticize or change my behaviour” and you work backwards to get to that. Coronavirus is therefore a hoax, or overblown, or something that can’t be avoided anyway, or whatever premise du jour will get you to the conclusion.
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The outrage over having to wear masks is the real tell that this is a psychological phenomenon, right? Not even a symbolic concession to behaviour modification can be tolerated. It demonstrates that this is not “cmon we gotta restart the economy, we’re losing money”, the battle is taking place at more of an abstract worldview level than that.
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Yeah for sure. It’s pervasive and systematic mistrust of government and media. Which I understand as media and government have been pretty bad for a long time but it kind of sucks since they’re probably mostly right this time.
Spot on. I spend a fair amount of time reading travel hacking blogs, and for the past month there has been an obnoxious guy going around commenting on all of the big blogs about how he’s [non-essentially] flying every week and really enjoying it because the planes are empty, the security lines are short, and hotel and airline staff are THRILLED to see him (sure, bud). Anyway, cut to a few days ago when the major US airlines started announcing that they will require passengers to wear masks and this guys starts whining that having to wear a mask isn’t cool because it makes him feel unsafe and as if the plane is contaminated. He DGAF if the plane is actually contaminated, he just didn’t want to be reminded that it might be.
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What confounds me when I try to think about what you do about it is that the “You don’t have to give a shit about anything ever” is accomplished not by like “you don’t have to care if 500K people die of COVID-19” but rather “you are not required to entertain any talk of consequences at all”. The arguments always take that form, like coronavirus is either a hoax or it’s inevitable, and in either case, there’s just no need to argue questions of cause and effect. That’s the appeal of Trump himself, like traditionally when accused of something people either have to deny it or admit it and try to plead some sort of mitigation or rehabilitation, but Trump just rejects the premise that he is even required to grapple with the question.
Seems awfully hard to craft a political message to deal with that. The pitch “actually you are required to think about things and consider consequences” doesn’t seem appealing.
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20 years of right-wing media feeback loop. Something makes you feel bad? Go to Rush Limbaugh who tells you, “Folks, it’s really just that simple.” Now you feel better.
After a couple decades their brains and their hivemind have been completely rewired. They don’t even have to investigate to try to convince themselves anymore. They know from rote experience that the simple solution, to keep doing whatever they want, will always be there for any problem.
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It’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.
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Good posts ChrisV.
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Lightfoot has reached the Italian Mayor phase:
https://twitter.com/chicagosmayor/status/1256761226811650048?s=19
https://twitter.com/royalpratt/status/1256695976418557954?s=19
Nothin, don’t mean nothing hon if it ain’t free
that kid got her with a savage NO U tho
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I’ve posted about this before, but my parents are on the far end of Boomerdom and they grew up poor and have vivid memories of a time when they lost childhood friends from polio.And then there’s measles. rubella, all that crazy shit. It was basically a mortal lock that your kids would be exposed to measles so you just rolled the dice and hoped they would survive it.
I feel like if you lost childhood friends to these diseases, you are not fucking around with this anti-vaxx bullshit. The anti-vaxx idiocy is a luxury of the younger boomers who never had to care about infectious diseases.
I agree it’s hard. The best chance imo is the “we’re all in this together” line that Obama used successfully. And then you hope people consider consequences one level down on their own. Because yeah, explicitly pointing it out just results in agitation and defensiveness and rejecting the premise.
To piggyback on your excellent posts above… if I could summarize the problem with America in one word, I might go with “entitled”.
Growing up in America, you learn two things at a very young age: (1) individual freedom is paramount above all else and (2) America is the best at everything. You are bombarded with stories and routines that drive those points home. Those two lessons are going to get you to entitlement real quick.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard “IT’S A FREE COUNTRY!” blurted out by some little brat to justify bad behavior – taking another kid’s toy or saying something mean or defying a parent’s instruction or whatever. Thousands of times, probably. It’s crude and stupid, sure, but you can see that even little kids have internalized the idea that in America you should be able to do whatever you want without consequence or thought. That attitude is basically the same thing we are seeing from grown adults right now. Oh, you want me to wear a mask? To quote Eric Cartman: whatever, I do what I want.
That’s the worldview.
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Postscript: You guys, measles is some crazy evil shit. In the Western world, we’ve managed to chase it away, but it is the most infectious disease imaginable, it is like a thing from a sci-fi-movie. If you cough in the frozen food aisle, everyone who walks through there for the next two hours might get infected. It’s insane. The good news is that we can end it now, the bad news is that we aren’t ever going to end it because who fucking cares about those Africans. We could eradicate measles if we really wanted to, but fuck it, where’s the profit in that.
Why measles deaths are surging — and coronavirus could make it worse
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01011-6
In poor countries, measles is a killer, especially in combination with malnutrition and vitamin A deficiency. Estimates are uncertain, but the death rate in developing countries hovers around 3–6%, and it can spike as high as 30% in the worst outbreaks, according to the WHO. Its victims often die of complications including pneumonia or diarrhoea and dehydration. Those who recover can be left with permanent disabilities, including blindness, hearing loss and brain damage. The virus also impairs the immune system for months or years after infection, creating “immune amnesia” that leaves children vulnerable to other infections.
The virus is so contagious that few unvaccinated people who come into contact with it are spared its effects. Scientists define infectiousness using the ‘reproduction number’ — how many people, on average, would be infected by a single person with the virus, in a population that has no immunity. For Ebola, that number is estimated at 1.5–2.5. The new coronavirus terrifying the world seems to be somewhere between 2 and 3. Measles tops the charts with a reproduction number of 12–18, which makes it the most contagious virus known. You don’t need to be in the same room as an infected person to catch the virus — it is spread by respiratory droplets that can linger in the air for hours.
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