@rbreich What’s really bizarre about all this is that “strong” is just about the last word I’d associate with Trump. His rhetoric is basic, repetitive, and devoid of substance. His aggressive posturing is that of an overgrown boy shaking down the neighbourhood kids for candy. Any American would want to elect such a weak and evil man into office is an even weaker person.
@arstechnica TIL there are people opposed to the pasteurisation of milk. I can’t imagine why anyone would possibly drink raw milk unless they’re particularly masochistic and enjoy being miserably sick.
@rbreich He is definitely a lot more brazen with his corruption and criminal behaviour this time around. If only the rule of law applied to the con-artist parroting puppet gangster playboy scum-on-top.
@rbreich Well, that’s capitalism working as intended. Poverty and inequality of wealth is not a mistake of the system, but by design. What would it even mean to be wealthy unless countless others were poor? There’s no fixing this without changing the entire system.
@arstechnica Unpopular opinion: I think it’s good that nukes are once again allowed in space. Since the ban, all nuclear technology has been banned in space, leading to a stagnation in the development of nuclear thermal rockets and reactors in space.
Also, what were we thinking banning nukes in space? We can’t even do that on Earth and we live on it! How hubristic must humanity be to think we can ban the universe, but not Earth, from having nukes?
@rbreich I’m much more worried about the latter. China has its own TikTok (Douyin) to worry about and Western social media websites openly admit that they sell all our data.
I could not find any evidence that Huawei devices spy on people, but I have loads and loads of evidence that Apple’s iPhones do. Both are manufactured in China, yet Huawei is singled out as “the bad guys”. What gives?
4 years ago today, Dr. Fauci contradicted Trump's claim that Covid would magically go away before the fall. After that, Fauci was sidelined from public briefings & barred from speaking to press.
During the greatest national crisis of our time, all Trump cared about was his ego
@rbreich This wasn’t even the first time this happened. The previous generation may remember Dr Fauci being ignored by Reagan during the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the 1980s. He’s a bigger man than I for not plotting to kill the President (both of them) in retaliation for all the people they let die.
@arstechnica The number I’ve used for years to represent the “worse case” scenario is six degrees, as in “by the end of this century, average global temperatures will have risen by six degrees since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution”. I call it the worst case because it’s where we’d be if we did nothing about climate change.
I did not take into account that people would actively make it worse. It is now a distinct possibility that all civilisation would collapse this century.
@rbreich The problem is lack of redistribution, even on a small scale, as well as an absolute, rock-solid, unshakeable faith in supply-side economics. If the 1% suddenly, magically, decided to pay their taxes, it would be enough to lift everyone on Earth out of poverty.
John Gartner is a psychologist who, as founder of Duty To Warn, has raised the alarm about Trump's declining mental fitness. This week, we had the honor of interviewing him for a disturbing conversation about why he’s more worried than ever that the media and the public are missing all the blaring red signs that Trump is slipping rapidly into dementia. https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/john-gartner-trump-cognitive-decline
News flash: If you outlaw abortions, dictate what educators can teach in schools, and stop people from voting, you're not the party of "limited government."
@rbreich And also the continued support of capital punishment, mass incarceration, and the spiralling military budget.
The US military is constantly expanding, not to counter any potential threats or even ease logistical challenges, but purely to meet the needs of the expanding military. There are over 750 military installations worldwide, which is not only a terrible waste of money, but also a massive contributor to climate change.
