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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • So do I, but this problem is much bigger than one man. He could not do what he’s doing without support from many rich donors and his party (which in turn relies on the support of the 30% of the country that reliably votes for them). Trump and many of his voters may be idiots but most of those other people are not, at least not in the intellectual sense of the word. They are making a calculated choice to enable fascism because they think it’s better for them personally than democracy. That belief and it’s associated threat to our country isn’t going away when Trump dies. In fact, it might get much worse if they can find someone who can advance that agenda without being a bumbling fool most of the time.






  • I’m conflicted about Joe Rogan, or at least the concept he had at the start. Clearly he’s fallen down the right-wing rabbit hole but the original intent he had of letting people defend their weird positions is a good one imo. One could argue that the reason the right-wing funnel exists is because there isn’t really space to talk about some of those things on the left.

    For example, it’s not crazy to ask questions about vaccines and how they work. However, when people do that those who are educated on the topic will largely assume ill intent by default and treat the people asking questions as if they’re stupid or malicious. There’s some good reasons for that but such an approach is pretty alienating for those who are genuinely seeking information. That leads at least a portion of those people to listen to more right leaning information because they feel like that is the only group taking them seriously.

    We need to do better at meeting people where they are instead of assuming they are trying to spread misinformation. Yes it’s true that all the information you need to develop an informed opinion about the vast majority of topics is available on the internet, but finding and understanding that information does take skills and time that not everyone has. In order to understand why a statement or belief is incorrect or misinformed you have to create a space in which it can be discussed without fear and shame driving people away.

    Based on the limited amount of his older podcasts that I’ve been exposed to, I do think that Joe genuinely tried to do that, he’s just not particularly well equipped to handle that kind of environment. Over time he fell victim to the same kind of radicalization that he was intending to subvert by letting people share their actual thoughts instead of assuming he already knew what they were going to say.








  • I don’t have time to read this currently but I will try to later. In the meantime, does anyone know how they are coercing access to these devices? I’ve done a fair amount of international travel and no one has ever asked about any of my devices, much less attempted to gain access to them. It’s my understanding that if you refuse them there’s no legal reason they could refuse you entry.

    Obviously, legality is of less concern to this administration but these people should have legal recourse, at least until the facade of civility is completely cast aside.