I’m not so exorcised over the supposed end of democracy in this country caused by Trumpism because democracy had already ended a long while ago de facto.

Most objections to Trump stem from that he’s louche and uncouth and visibly unprincipled rather than any specific actions.

If this were not the case, pseudo-liberals would have been just as strenuously and vociferously objecting to many Obama actions that merited in their view nary a response.

We already lived in a neo-fascist pretend democracy. Trump just put an orange pouty face on it.

I know it’s not on offer, but if it were, I’d gladly cut my pay in half for universal health care, a $20 minimum wage, real unions having a say again, and UBI.

I know, I know: fairies and unicorns and princesses.

But the thing is, the 40-hour-work week, a minimum wage and Social Security all were at one time also fairies and unicorns and princesses.

Don’t believe that, read some goddamn history for once.

This reminds me of a bad experience I had with a pharmacist.

I was there filling a prescription for someone else. From the moment I showed up to get a prescription filled, the pharmacist was an arrogant dismissive prick. That I could let slide. It’s just how many people are.

But when I handed him my ID, that’s when things went south. He said, “This is a military ID. And you’re not in the military. I should confiscate this from you. In fact I think I just won’t give it back.” I was in the military, actually, but had just returned from a deployment where my hair was longer and I looked more unkempt than usual. How he thought pharmacists had the authority to confiscate anything from anyone remains a complete mystery to me.

He wasn’t joking, though. As I mentioned above: arrogant dismissive prick.

I said calmly, almost cheerily, “You’d be surprised how fast I can jump this counter and make you regret that course of action.”

He waited a moment to see if I would flinch or walk my statement back. I just stared at him. The moment passed and then he realized nothing good was going to occur. There’s a particular look that bullies get when they realize they are in over their heads. I’ve seen it many times. It’s confusion, fear and resentful anger all mixed up together. I saw it on the pharmacist’s face as he handed me back my ID.

“I was just joking,” he said. They usually say that.

“I wasn’t,” I replied. “Now either fill my prescription or not. I don’t care.”

He filled my prescription and didn’t say another word to me. Never went back there again, though.

Are all pharmacists such dickheads? All the ones I’ve met have been — but that was the worst I’ve ever experienced.

So much that people have told me didn’t matter at all has turned out to matter incredibly much over the years. These are all concerns that I’ve brought up in places and was either outright banned, dismissed, or laughed at for attempting to discuss:

1) Ownership of information — DRM, copyright, and related topics. Roundly told it was just a “nerd distraction” from the “real issues.” Turns out it will be an epoch-defining issue for this century.

2) Inequality and wealth consolidation. Was told by both Dems and Repubs during the late 90s and through the oughts that this was irrelevant, unchangeable, a “natural feature” of capitalism and most people didn’t care about it. Probably led to the election of Trump and more importantly worsening lives for millions.

3) More than a year before the election, noticed that Hillary Clinton was the most disliked major candidate ever (likely to be) nominated by the Democrats. Well, see above.

4) Was advocating focusing research on solar and renewables in the early 2000s. Was told that solar and renewables would never amount to anything, were technologically impossible, and were too expensive to ever use anywhere.

5) I’d long been worried about the fragility of the financial system. Was told that a meltdown of the stock markets and the financial system similar to the 1930s was completely impossible — we’d solved that. Then 2008 occurred.

There are many more reasons, but those five are some major reasons I don’t trust experts even if I do listen to them in an advisory capacity.

Too often, their input information is erroneous, their incentives skewed to pilfering your wallet, and their conclusions therefore tailored to doing just that.

Economics is the most delusional pseudoscience.

It’s certainly not sociology nor psychology. Those are actual sciences, just not well-grounded ones in some areas and with more con artists than they should have.

I single out economics as the most delusional because it is the only one that not only has bogus conclusions but essentially as part of its very process fakes its own input data. This is not a matter of fraud (in the traditional sense) nor the lack of knowledge about how the real world works, but the fact there are immense incentives for economics to have both bogus front-end suppositions and back-end conclusions.

Thus the sclerotic state of economics as a profession today. We’d have a better time with charlatans, honestly. A charlatan at least knows she’s selling rubbish, while a true believer in economics realizes no such thing and all the more harm is caused therefrom.

The first 10 on today’s playlist.

Space Exploration Isn’t Just About Science.

Yep. The whole point of space exploration is and should be boots on the fucking ground.

Sending robots to poke rocks is very cool, but ultimately pointless. It’s just preparatory.

I’m bewildered by people who are so small in spirit and lacking in passion to think that sending a robot to molest some Martian hematite is a substitute for Sunita Williams picking it up with her hands and looking at it with her eyes under pale Martian light.

I’m not for human exploration because it’s useful, nor because it’s good economics, nor because it is safe — I am for it because it is the opposite of all of these things.

The wider left’s play acting that cultural change via immigration is not a valid concern only loses and alienates people rather than wins them over.

Remember, it only takes a few percent of people in the US to swing elections completely.

Culture matters to people. Whether it should or should not, it just does. Having your neighborhood or your city transformed by newcomers nothing like you is not just a concern of cackling racists. Or even of white people.

I know this automatically makes me a horrible racist — and perhaps Hitler himself — in the Manichean monocolture of the puritan left, but communities and their construction and destruction is something that people are rightly concerned with.

Denying that this matters will not help you, or them, or immigrants, or the country.

James Franco would have a much cooler name if it were Frames Janco.

I know it seems very strange to many who aren’t Americans but in most American cities and rural areas, if you can’t scrounge up enough money for a car, that also means you can’t get or hold a job.

You see, the public transportation infrastructure outside of a very few major cities in the US is terrible to non-existent, and many employers if they discover you are using public transit simply will not hire you anyway.

Even if they do decide to hire you, using the paltry and pathetic public transit available just does not work.

For instance, I live about seven miles away from my office, in one of the densest areas in the state. It takes me about 15 minutes to drive to work. Taking public transit would cost me nearly three hours — one way. I could literally walk there faster, if the area had sidewalks. But it does not, like most of the US.

In this country, often one cannot get a job due to a lack of a car, and one cannot easily buy a car due to a lack of a job. And if your car breaks down and you cannot afford to repair it, you lose your job by default.

You can obviously see what a trap this leaves people in.

No, not a dystopia. Not a dystopia at all.

Must I point out the obvious?

I guess I must.

Even if Russia was somehow involved in hijacking the election and is in some mysterious way controlling Trump as he cavorts like some titian-tinted marionette under Putin’s string-pulling, do the Democrats think their Russian obsession is going to help win elections?

Will it change the fate of the country? Help the disadvantaged? Save the ACA? Save the EPA? Win in 2018? Win in 2020?

Nope, it’ll do none of these things.

Which is kind of the point, really, of obsessing over it.

We are so screwed.

This is mostly moronic.

But first, I do truly think everyone would be better off if they evaluated people less superficially.

At the same time, telling people they are wrong for liking or preferring certain features is never, ever, ever going to work. Just ever. It will only make the world worse. It won’t change anyone’s minds and it will only cause people to code their preferences differently, and to obfuscate them.

The problem is that there is no path from the current state (people have fairly-strong and nearly-unchangeable sexual and relationship preferences that are solidified pretty early in life) to the desired result (everyone should in principle and in practice be attracted to everyone else for some reason or other).

The list of women I would not date for various reasons (physical and other) is vast — it’s nearly 3.6 billion people. And that’s just women. There’s a list of men that’s just as long!

I am so evil that I would not date approximately 7.1 billion people no matter what. Damn. Get me my Loki headpiece.

Look, I understand. As one who was often in life considered not the ugly duckling but the ugly duckling’s shit stain, I know very well how it feels for people to just pass you over for something you can’t control and can’t change.

It’s hard and it sucks. But mandating it and shaming people into being attracted to you is…better? Somehow?

This as usual reminds me a lot of the ninny-filled MRA movement.

BTW, using s.e. smith’s framework, one of the most discriminatory features of the dating market is that the vast, vast majority of women will only date tall men.

Notice how little ever gets written about that. Hmm, wonder why that is?

Every time I am about to say something hilariously stupid, right before that I plan to say in sage, orphic tones, “Time for some game theory.”

The problem is knowing that you are going to say something hilariously stupid.

Ok, time for some game theory: if you invalidate the Chuch-Turing hypothesis, then one can calculate in advance all possible configurations of dumbassery in one’s world line, and then when a DA configuration approaches, one can unleash “time for some game theory.”

I game theoried all of that, fuck yeah!

Four reasons to drink beer with your breakfast.

Turns out my mom was a foodie hipster.

Why, she could imbibe as many as 18 beers with her breakfast. No, in fact, the beers were her breakfast. Double-hipster, then.

My mom was leading food trends, pioneering culinary and libatory adventures, all the way back in the late 1980s.

Oh no, wait — she was just a North Florida drunk. Never mind.

Do the Democrats now seriously believe that no Americans should ever meet with any Russian, even when it is part of both of their jobs?

How exactly is that supposed to work?