Fair. But while I also tend to think Trump is a sui generis political personality, his rise also taught me (traumatized me?) into wariness about assumptions around the prospects of evil whackadoodle strivers.

It's infuriating. But I think the core communication problem is most non-MAGA already see the admin's corruption, and MAGA will accept full state ownership because they know Trump won't use it for any "socialist" priorities — like helping people in any way.

Disturbed by the lack of comments noting that these are truly beautiful cats.

Driving an hour to work in rural Texas am driving an hour to work through rush hour on the Baltimore or Capital beltways are entirely different experiences.

I spent 5 years in my early 20s as a commercial electrician and hearing Back in Black 10 million times from the dry wall guys' shitty DeWalt radio just absolutely killed any chance of AC/DC being anything but torture for me.

I have the Brother L2305, as all I need is cost effective black and white printing without HP (evil ppl; their families should be ashamed of them) style surveillance bullshit and I love it. Initial Wifi setup was annoying, but otherwise a printer that just works. Two years and one cartridge change.

And of course, the depressing thing is that social media has also made it very clear that a disturbing number of adults in their 40s, 50s and older also use this sort of reasoning from naive first principles and never grow out of it. QAnon, MAGA, etc. It's a key behind so much of conspiracy thinking

... but social media's nature means these ideas get taken up by political actors where applicable (Fox, et al seizing on something wild some 17-year-old lefty tweeted), and by finding traction in the discourse, may create a sort of epistemic shroud making it harder for young, bright people to learn

Now? After time to mature and considering recent, uh, data, I think you really want that artifice around humans holding an office and serving a role. It legitimizes the office, not the person. No one wants to get sentenced to prison by somebody in sweatpants, speaking in text speak & hitting a vape

Tangential comment: As a young adult, I found the formality, costume, and ritual of the bench and many public offices silly — aggrandizing artifice meant to reinforce an imposed social hierarchy & hide our mutually equal human existence.../

This movie somehow gets funnier upon every viewing .