2024-08-10


etc

  • The Rise of Neotoddlerism

    The ease with which dramatic behavior gets attention online has convinced many political activists that a better world doesn’t require years of patient work, only a sufficient quantity of drama. Many activists on both the Left and Right now hope to bring about their ideal world the same way a spoiled brat acquires a toy they’ve been denied: by being as loud and hysterical as possible. This is neotoddlerism: the view that utopia can be achieved by acting like a three-year old.

    It’s an ideology for an age of instant gratification, activism for the attention-deficit generation. Just as convenience culture has led us from hours-long films, to half-hour-long TV shows, to minutes-long YouTube videos, to seconds-long TikTok clips; so the same dumbing-down is happening to politics: the arduous process of discussion and debate is giving way to the instant hit of shocking outbursts and other viral moments. Instead of trying to produce the best arguments, neotoddlers try to produce the most outrageous video clips, which typically involves vandalism, desecration, or some other kind of public meltdown. Thus, they outrage others by embracing their own outrage and lashing out at the world. This surrender to their own impulses makes them first-order thinkers, meaning they consider immediate consequences but not consequences of consequences.

  • Plane crash in Brazil's São Paulo state kills all 62 on board

    Footage circulating on social media showed a plane descending vertically, spiralling as it fell. The plane was carrying 57 passengers and four crew. Local authorities said there were no survivors.

    Data from Flightradar24 shows that, immediately before the incident, it was cruising at around 17,000 feet, and about one hour and 20 minutes into the flight. Severe icing was reported in the air near the crash site, between 12,000 and 21,000 feet.

  • Are We Thinking Ourselves Sick?

    Eventually, I stopped reading about autism because I realized how neurotic it made me feel. It was up to me, and it’s up to all of us, to stop pathologizing our personalities as disorders, our quirks as maladies, and our problems as traumas. We must come to grips with the terrifying, ego-destroying realization that most of our problems are ordinary. We must realize that an entire industry is dedicated to convincing us otherwise and that we’d do ourselves a favor by avoiding it altogether.

Horseshit


Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

  • Ad industry initiative abruptly shuts down after lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X | Ars Technica

    On Tuesday, Musk's X Corp. sued the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) over what X claims is an illegal boycott spearheaded by a WFA initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). The WFA isn't disbanding but is halting GARM's activities, and the GARM member page now produces a 404 error. An archived version of the page from yesterday shows the initiative members, including X.

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

  • What do scientists tell us about boxing's gender row?

    ongoing and even among the experts who spend their professional lives working on it, there are differing interpretations on what the science tells us. “Just looking at the presence of a Y chromosome on its own does not answer the question of whether someone is male or female,” says Prof Alun Williams, who researches genetic factors related to sport performance at the Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport.

    The roadblock is in a gene required to generate external genitalia - which boys need in order to grow a penis. Anyone with the same condition as Caster Semenya has a mutation within that gene that stops it functioning normally. In the womb, they will develop a male anatomy until the final stage of growing a penis - and when they are not able to, then they’ll start developing a vulva and a clitoris. But they don’t develop female reproductive organs: they don’t have a cervix or a uterus. These people don’t have periods and they can’t get pregnant. Having sex with males can be difficult. Discovering you have this kind of genetic mutation can be a shock. “The most recent woman we diagnosed with having XY chromosomes was 33,” says Claus Højbjerg Gravholt - an endocrinology professor at Aarhus University who spent the past 30 years dealing with DSD. His patient came to see him because she had no idea why she couldn’t get pregnant. “We discovered she didn’t have a uterus, so she would never be able to have a baby. She was absolutely devastated.”

  • The Challenge of Building New Cities: Inside The Satmar Hassidic Takeover of Bloomingburg – Daniel Frank

    This is the story of how a community of Hassidic Jews, through subterfuge and electoral fraud, took over a small town in an attempt to make it their own

    In 2019, New York created its first new town in 38 years when Palm Tree (Kiryas Joel) seceded from the Town of Monroe, marking the long-term success of the 50-year Satmar takeover. Kiryas Joel is the poorest town in America — when visitors enter it, they are greeted by signs compelling all visitors to dress and act with modesty. The Satmar takeover was fueled with controversy, as they absorbed more and more land over time from the surrounding neighborhoods, commandeered public resources for their benefit, defunded public secular services, and redirected resources to solely benefit their needs. For instance, quite famously, in 2005, they took control of the East Ramapo school board, siphoning funds from public schools to their private religious institutions.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

TechSuck / Geek Bait

Economicon / Business / Finance

  • Maersk Orders LNG Ships and Takes a Detour on Its Green Goals

  • US Mortgage Rates Tumble to 6.55% in Biggest Drop in Two Years

  • Will there be 50B+ in student loan delinquencies in US?

    the 8th Circuit Court delivered another hurdle to the current administration’s plan to forgive $475 billion in student loans. It is becoming more apparent why the current administration is fighting so hard to win this battle. This is the most likely cause of the continued high consumer spending, which is keeping the economy out of a potential recession. Let’s expand on this.

    The average rate for Student Loan Delinquencies is 11.16 from 2012-2019. Of the $475B being proposed, that’s $53B per year in delinquencies being avoided. Since consumers are not required to pay these debts at the moment, they are able to pay off other balances and debts. Even with this help from the current administration, credit card delinquencies are still on the rise. Student Loans currently make up 9% (1.59T / 17.8T) of the overall Household Debt in Q2. Is the US economy resilient enough to withstand such a change in consumer spending should student loans return to previous levels?

Harris / TBA 2024 / Democrats Demonstrate "Our Democracy"

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp