I just saw a clip of a very wealthy elderly business man (you'd recognise his name if I said it) talking with wistful regret about all the money-making opportunities he missed.

There is someone who has entirely lost touch with reality -- to the rich money is a game, and to everyone else it's a matter of life and death.

@Charles_Hawtrey That was the beginning of this particular shock.

I have great difficulty comprehending just that fact on its own.

I continue to have great difficulty comprehending how an entire country cannot see that this was an abject disaster. Indeed a significant proportion of the county wants it to happen again.

It's breath-taking.

@Tattoomonkey29 This was a truly shocking chapter of history that revealed so much of what had been hidden for so long.

@Kinnison It really seems bizarre to me that there is so much responsibility given to the governor role, and yet a person like her can be elevated to winning candidate.

Also "trashed her dem opponent in the debates" paints a meaningful picture -- the might-makes-right drive is so strong in the US.

Wait, I gotta make sure I have this straight. Kristi Noem is an actual governor?

Of a whole actual state?!

How?!

She's been doing a bunch of things in a desperate attempt to get attention. Now that it's working, I doubt this is going the way she had conjured in her imagination.

#politics

@feloneouscat She's also done herself no favours here with a throwaway joke referencing the children under her care as a children's pastor.

With everything she says, she keeps opening new arenas worth serious investigation.

She's perfect for TFG's bumbling, aggressive authoritarianism, which means she's a danger to everyone and everything else.

#politics

There is a significant ongoing cultural debate about whether identity is an individualist thing or a collectivist thing.

It's both. There is not an either/or binary, rather there is a both/and interplay.

The remaining question then is what is the mix? How is that decided?

The answer is "It depends." It is complicated -- different people are feel need for either more differentiation or more integration.

But just recognising that the binary is a lie is a good place to start.

The internet has opened up whole new vistas of opportunities for people to seek and find vulnerable, authentic human connection.

It has also opened up a mindboggling array of hollow, simplistic and platitude-laced pandering.

Meh.

You win some.

You lose some.

@thewebrecluse And the people who can comfortably live in denial (including minimising, eg "it's not that bad" or "lighten up, these are just jokes") about this are *not* helping anything!

The "not all men" folks are out in force with this bear-vs-man thing.

But also...I have to believe that some people are, as they say where I used to live, catching a wake-up.

Innumerable times per day on social media:

"Who says [insert something that nobody ever says]?"

@White_Rabbit That's a great name for it!

I've witnessed a phenomenon many times in my life, where people look at another country and call out something utopian or dystopian about it, and totally miss that whatever they're noticing is also true about their own country.

I say country, but this happens in nearly any in-group/out-group dynamic.

It's far beyond "greener grass" wistfulness. It's a heightened awareness of the other -- from the posture of the presumptive moral arbiter -- accompanied by a diminished awareness of the self.

@Beanc @PussyFootingAround Fixating on the outside influence is a very strange play for the country which is collecting this same data from, and exerting the same influence(s) in countless other nations.

Almost all US entities are influenced by their govt too. If (for example) agitprop is a problem, then it is a problem no matter who's doing it.

I have zero skin in the TikTok game. But using govt overreach to "fend off govt overreach" is something we should all be concerned about.

@PussyFootingAround @Beanc It's a strong punitive measure for a hypothetical. And yes, whatever they're accusing TikTok of is being done by all the other giant corporate social media platforms too, with all the same (potential) abuses. It's stark hypocrisy.

I don't know how the US govt can get away with meddling with a foreign company providing a product that is so popular with its own population.

And on a social level, all of this has given license for a lot of anti-China propaganda/paranoia.

@Beanc This really blows my mind.

@estherschindler Considering that this rule means that all existing noncompetes will be non-enforceable, that is quite the disruption!

According to the article, NDAs are still enforceable, so that causes a weird mix of factors.

I mean, I think this move is an important step for the valuing employees over institutions, but it doesn't fix everything.

I recently saw a sentiment that I will paraphrase here as "Always outraged, never ashamed."

It's a profound problem, and is the exclusive domain of the self-unaware.

Synthetic outrage can fuel a movement, but it will not last as long as the harm it causes.

@LnzyHou Self-awareness (or self-reflection) is not regarded as a virtue by a significant proportion of the population.

Unwillingness or inability to contemplate one's own self means that nothing else even has a chance.

“There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.”
― Marshall McLuhan

I remember when I was about 30-35 feeling pretty despondent because I didn't want to be a grumpy old person, and those were the only examples I was exposed to.

It was about then when I met someone who had built a whole community of eager, curious artists, thinkers and dreamers.

It changed my whole perspective. I realised I could choose what kind of person I want to be as I age.

As I get older and look around though, it's entirely apparent that a whole lot of people aren't on the same journey.