Random Rant Thread

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The concept that you explained at the end is actually one of the fundamental premises of much of postmodernism. It's in many ways a revolt against the "modern" philosophies that assume, without clear evidence, the agricultural model was the fundamental starting point of the civilization.

However, if you idolize too much the imagined "pre-agricultural" world of nomads interacting with each other freely and productively, you tend to lean toward some form of libertarianism, and usually end up whole-heartedly embracing capitalism, a highly idealized, fantastical form of it such as anarcho-capitalism. That's why many of the self-proclaimed "postmodernists" became Reaganite conservatives.

Graeber fiercely criticized postmodernism and talked a lot of shit about Foucault and others - which alienated a LOT of his colleagues - but that doesn't change the fact that people like him and American leftist intellectuals in general who are in their 50s/60s now came from that ethos, and are the ones who possessed enough self-discipline and stayed on the leftist lane.

Yes, it's sad that he passed away so young. He had many enemies on the American left, but was an animating character in the movement, and knew how to communicate with the general public particularly on the concept of inequality. He contributed significantly to the leftward shift of the young Americans who would've otherwise been either apolitical or dime-a-dozen liberal.
 
His magnum opus Debt: The First 500 Years is a very interesting book despite - or precisely because of its many flaws. Many people in academia make fun of that book for its "inaccuracies" and "telling a good story at the expense of facts" but I think it's definitely worth reading.

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So, Proud Boys were coming to Portland to hold a massive rally, the media told us.

Looks massive all right:

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According to the polls, Biden's lead vs. Trump among women is twice as big as Clinton's vs. Trump in 2016.

Democrats ought to think hard about that. I'm not just talking about Hillary Clinton's flaws. It says something about both her AND American women in general, about whom I think they have flawed assumptions.

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It's basically Baywatch reruns.

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I think one of the things about SARS-CoV-2 that haven't been conclusively proven yet but are pretty clear now is that the transmission pattern is not linear.

What that means is that a large-scale infection occurs mostly through random multiple superspreading events, and is usually not a result of the accumulation of numerous one-to-one transmissions. The transmission chart/graph would look very jumpy and nonlinear.

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This man really is nothing without the Republican party machine, but lives in the delusion that he owns the party or something.

What a moron. He's lost many votes for himself, and what's worse, for Republican Senate candidates too with this single tweet.

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I never dismissed the herd immunity crowd outright (except for the crazy ones), not least because herd immunity, one way or another, is probably how this pandemic will come to an end eventually. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with discussing how we will get there.

But I think I've reached a point where I can no longer tolerate most of them. I'll start calling those people "herders" with utmost disrespect.

Because it's clear to me now that they either 1) don't know what they are talking about; 2) think our society is a SimCity.

It took me months to reach that point. I'd like to discuss herd immunity a lot more as a matter of fact. I'm disappointed that I can't.

But it can't be helped since those people aren't worth discussing the topic with. None of the experts that I respect are herders, and there's clearly a reason for that.

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A long-hauler that I know passed away yesterday. Suicide. She was mildly depressed to begin with, and this disease on top of it was too much for her after all.

She got Covid-19 in March. It was only mild. But even after testing negative, the symptoms persisted. They dragged on and on and on and on.

Then, all of a sudden, she got fine around the end of July. Not 100% fine, but 80% good. She was happy for three weeks.

But the aches, mental fog and fatigue came back in August. Back to square one. And she couldn't take it anymore.

She was 34. She won't be counted as a Covid-19 death.

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The fecklessness of Democrats is unreal.

The Republican Party is beyond redemption; The Democratic Party is beyond pathetic.

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Imagine what the US media would be saying if this were footage from China. Or Iran. Or Russia.

"AUTHORITARIAN THUG REGIME!"

"SAVE THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS FROM BRUTAL DICTATORSHIP!"

...most likely.

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The anti-mask "false sense of security" brigade still haven't presented any actual study to back up their claim, FYI. At least I'm not aware of any. I've been waiting, but no sign of any study coming.

Remember the anti-seatbelt-mandate "seatbelt would lead to more reckless driving" brigade? It's identical reasoning, and that one also failed to produce any convincing studies.

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Don't trust anyone who speaks of herd immunity as if it were as scientifically established as General Relativity.

We don't know much about it yet. Epidemiology is NOT a well-established science.

Far too many "experts" pretend that it is. I don't mean to shit on the field, but my Bullshit-O-Meter has been in red zone so frequently because of those people that I had to say it.

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I've been saying all along that it isn't fascism or authoritarianism or racism but *tribalism* that will undermine America.

Because that's the final product of a society where everything is dumbed down to simple fiction. And this process cannot be stopped once it's in motion.

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I'm extremely happy to inform you that I'm the winner of "How much income tax Trump paid in 2016" contest among friends!

I put my money on $800, and turned out to be the closest to the actual figure ($750). Genius. The other ones weren't even close. I bet it wasn't $0 either (for technical reasons), probably the popular, safe bet.

I didn't think it was going to be actually revealed this way, though.

And all the participants (8) agreed to ACTUALLY pay me, lol. It's going to be ACTUALLY a lot of money, and I surely won't declare it.

I gotta say this, though: My assumption was that Trump was ethically among the worst of those super-rich people (people from the NY real estate/private equity world in the 1980s really are the worst), and hence $800. Most super-rich people do pay much, much, much more income taxes than that.

$750. Trump didn't even give a shit. In the real estate world, you are indeed a "sucker" if you pay any taxes at all. That makes Trump in 2016 a "$750 sucker" in fact.

You can pretend to be a super-rich person while being actually insolvent. That's what the US economy is all about. You are indeed a sucker if you are NOT insolvent. You actually work for a living? Actually paying back your debt through *work*!? Hahaha, sucker.

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Yes, as you and me already knew all along, Trump is literally a criminal like so many other super-wealthy criminals, but is probably not going to lose too many votes over this. Trump supporters are used to stupid pretzel logic to justify everything for their Dear Leader. "Wow, surprise, Donald hires an accountant!" is probably the standard response.

And like I said, "not losing votes over this" isn't enough for him. It is for Biden, but not for him.

So we're back to the same place, and there aren't many days left for Trump.

Democrats are already making ads based on this, though. Trump gave them the easiest ads to make.

As always AOC leads the way to show how to frame it:

Now, it's up to Trump, how he reacts to this line of attacks. And even if he can deal with them, there's the "He's a failed businessman, ha, ha, ha!" attack coming too.

I doubt he will be able to handle that one well. Even he knows Michael Milken's definition of "successful business" doesn't work with Americans outside the real estate/private equity world. Obviously he can't say, "I only exaggerated my losses so that I didn't have to pay any taxes, hahaha, who's the clever one now?" Of course all Americans know how it works, but saying that in public is just another thing entirely.

Hell, these papers show that he's sucked all these years even inside that world.