@Priestess The systems of Christianity are infected with supremacism and antagonism.

I remember watching a popular TV preacher (I don't remember who, and I don't care) saying awful things about people in the congregation. Those folks were vocally celebrating!

There is some kind of psychology experiment in masochism at work here; the deeper the cut, the more they crave it!

Of course, if insiders believe they deserve abuse, what they believe outsiders deserve is exponentially worse.

@Priestess Does he seriously think that everyone will fall for his science-is-magic gambit?

Or is he finding that they do already?

It's so weird when would-be leaders run their understanding of the reality through the least helpful religious/superstitious filters.

It's even weirder when other people fall for it because it was declared with gravitas, and so put fools in positions of power. I sure hope that doesn't happen here.

@Museek Thank you for sharing this -- this is such a gift!

Not only as inspiration, but as a way to inspire others.

@WordsmithFL The more I read about his Mars ambitions, the more implausible it sounds, and the more reckless he sounds for pursuing them so unilaterally.

I'm trying to choose my words carefully.

@WordsmithFL He has done everything he can to antagonise his customer base. Perhaps he thought he could take them for granted, and in the act of antagonising them win over a new customer base?

Yet like in rather a lot of other examples in his recent history, it didn't turn out how he thought it would.

It seems like his arrogance is driving, and it's an impressively bad navigator.

The more online security we deploy in our world, the more vulnerable we become.

#RandomThoughts

Obviously, the Democratic Party needs a platform and talking points. And there's much to talk about, with a strong track record to boot.

But this is the political stage that has been set by TFG. He antagonises, insults, blusters -- he escalates every conflict.

No need to get on his level. No need to get worked up. Just keep acknowledging that he is the moral centre (I prefer this spelling) of the Republican Party, and move on.

He would be crushed by his own game.

@politics
@poeticjustice

#politics

Moving forward, the democrats don't need a single celebrity-level personality.

They need one message: "Donald Trump is the moral center of the Republican Party."

At this point, that doesn't need further evidence or explanation. It's not an attack ad. It's a simple fact.

A lot of US voters do not like that fact.

@ToruOkada The politician who benefits the most from all of this is TFG.

However, you're right that billionaires love this for a whole different reason -- chaos and deregulation mean they can do anything with legal and political impunity.

(While, ironically, regular folks are bound up with new laws that defy reason.)

What is freed up by recent Supreme Court decisions, and the prospect of putting the loosest cannon back in the world's most powerful office is *profoundly* disturbing.

#politics

It's bizarre to me that the rhetoric that seems to be winning over a large sector of the US electorate is prospective government officials declaring that government is the enemy.

How does the hollow hypocrisy of this never connect?

How does installing gov't officials who are opposed to governing make any sense?

There is a massive rise in chaos with the conservative approach to law-making. They're fostering instability everywhere. Who does volatlity serve?

Only TFG.

#politics

I just saw a question about the Acolyte on Threads.

I had 100% forgotten that was a thing that exists that I started watching.

Is it just me, or is that whole show really that forgettable?

One important, often overlooked, measure of an organisation is what it does in the absence of extrensic motivation.

This can be nearly impossible to determine from the outside, but to me, it is a crucial piece to examine from the inside.

What do we do with our time and resources when there is a lull? What motivates us internally? What would we do regardless of whether there are clients or contracts?

Conversely, what feels like too much work? What is stultified with internal resistance?

@kel In my house, it's the cookie phantom.

@feloneouscat I appreciate your whole thread.

An off-topic-yet-historical aside: the design of the mic in the pic is a lot older than I thought. I thought they started making it in the 50s, but a quick search tells me that it goes all the way back to 1939!

I use a current-gen version of that same design, so I thought that was interesting. 🙂

@AskTheDevil Yes, this is a key point -- how can we ever know that we're seeing outside of the grift?

We're wrapped up in so many interlocking circles of construct, some of it wilfully dishonest.

The blatant, unchecked immorality of too many leaders within all sectors informs us there is no refuge anywhere.

Your point about (presumed) dependence is *huge*!

I'm enough of an optimist to believe that credibility can be built. But it won't be by doggedly perpetuating whatever it is we have now.

@LlamaMountainStudioArts Ultimately, if corporations want us to believe that global warming is a hoax because having to face it will negatively affect their bottom line, there are innumerable avenues available to them, and lots of leaders eager to help, for the right price.

And when a lie hits sufficient traction, good people propagate it in good faith, for decades.

Waking up to the levels of complicity in a thing of this scale is staggering.

@LlamaMountainStudioArts You're now resonating with the broader point I'm making.

Who is responsible for corporate greed?

Who do you trust to reel it in?

Corporations exercise many different kinds of leadership. Media companies lead culture with the stories they tell. Banks lead the economy with the financial decisions they make. Corporations of all kinds influence politics with the money they invest.

There are good reasons to not trust them, yet they have incalculable amounts of power.

@LlamaMountainStudioArts Yes, literally everywhere I look I see people strongly expressing their lack of trust.

So you asked for examples: how do people feel about the economy in general, and inflation specifically?

Do the majority of people think that inflation is a credible, necessary reality, or are people mostly feeling taken advantage of?

Who do people think is responsible for it? Who do they think is ready, willing and able to fix it?

@LlamaMountainStudioArts You don't agree that there is a vague, growing sense of mistrust in our world?

I see it everywhere!

Dave Matthews Band has this line: "Tell me everything will be taken care of by those qualified to take care of it all."

It's simultaeously a plea for reassurance that we can trust the powers that be, and an implicit acknowledgement that everyone's out of their depth.

Literally, everywhere i look, credibility is in crisis.

@LlamaMountainStudioArts I'm keeping it open intentionally.

If you'd like to propose an "it" to talk about, I'm open.

I'm talking about this as a phenomenon. How have we arrived at a place where our leaders and our entire systems (eg media, gov't, corporations) are so untrustworthy?

How have we arrived at a place where observable data is denied?

If it helps give context, I'm currently reading Unaccountability Machine and Age of Insecurity, two books talking about this from different angles.