But also - have you noticed that in just the last couple of years "spending money" no longer equates to "winning elections", like it did for decades?
People are just...not as gullible. Despite their best efforts, "the media is entirely corrupt" has crept into the subconscious of most Westerners.
In fact, hearing that a group is "spending billions" seems more likely to turn voters *against* their cause.
They should probably be saving that money for their inevitable Epstein trials.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/oct/16/billionaires-fight-california-prop-40
(I mean, the created the conditions for *everyone's* demise, but I digress)
Reading interviews with "disaffected Trump voters" and literally every one of them frames their entire support for Trump on how *they, personally* are doing or have benefited from Trump's policies. It's as though the rest of it - the gestapo disappearing people, the concentration camps, the unending wars, the destruction of alliances, the humiliation of the US military, the corruption - just doesn't exist.
2/
Neofascist Dems and Republicans spent 40 years convincing people that the only thing that mattered in elections was whether or not *they, personally* were better off than before, then spent the last 10 years freaking out that people will vote for someone like Trump as long as *they, personally* are better off then they were before.
They built a self-obsessed, individualistic culture to preclude the possibility of revolution, and by doing so created the conditions of their own demise.
RE: https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/117438341700524123
What could go wrong? followed quickly by Who could have seen that coming?
seems to be the phrase of the era
"Hope again" is the "Build Back Better", or "Be Best", of the UK.
"Unlocking...Working Class Inspiration" might the dumbest mission in the history of political missions.
Because, babes, your working class doesn't need to be "unlocked" or "inspired"; they need fucking healthcare, schools, food, shelter, and a wage that allows them to live rather than barely survive.
Fuck your inspiration. JFC.
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/andy-burnham-labour-party-thatcherism-reforms/
Apparently the FBI is:
"Monitoring social media for opposition to AI and potential extremist attacks on datacenters"
which makes me think there are 10,000 agents currently sitting on computers reading 100,000,000 posts about how fucked "AI" is and how people wish it would go away.
Excellent waste of time. No notes. Carry on.
Peep this:
"At the same time, as public sentiment over AI and its impacts on society and the environment has soured, agencies have sought to protect AI infrastructure."
Literally the rulers telling the people that they don't have any say in how shit is done. If you didn't want to abolish police before this era, you better want to now.
These mothefuckers spend *your* money to *oppress* you.
Stop hitting yourself, America.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2026/oct/14/ai-terror-plots-fbi-extremism
I've posted before that the difference between COVID brain damage and LLM psychosis/cognitive damage is almost impossible to disambiguate, because both have risen in society at essentially the same rate at the same time.
And now that we basically don't have a NOVID population to study against one with multiple infections, it's going to be hard to ever figure out which is contributing more to the sudden shifts we see in some people.
But, like - don't sleep on the COVID aspect.
If you're noticing that previously sharp, insightful, and thoughtful people you respected are suddenly, almost eerily, less-so, keep in mind that on average people have been getting COVID 1x+ a year for the last 5 years, and it's an irrefutable fact that every COVID infection, no matter the severity, causes brain damage. This can lead to focus and processing problems, emotional dysregulation, psychosis, and personality changes, esp with repeated, frequent infections.
This is a post about Linux.
This got a "JFC" because it combines the two "I'm a shitty corrupt child-rearing expert" hot takes: that "AI" is fine, and that remote learning harms kids.
Gotta say the last time I played that game was in 1995 and I *still* remember getting the "sporadic murders" notification and thinking "damn that's hardcore"
Good writing sticks around haha
There's this SNES game called "Utopia", about building and managing a colony on an alien world, and when you've ignored the "QOL (Quality Of Life)" metric long enough, you get a "sporadic murders!" notification.
I feel like the world under neofascism has reached the "sporadic murders" phase.
As that population rises up to reclaim their society, (usually the young people who have not been complicit for so long they do not know how to not be) as is their *right*, the neofascists turn to "less lethal" suppression force, sending police to destroy the city, blame the people, and try to trick everyone into giving them continued control.
IN the US, it's both Republicans and Democrats that do this, a fact that liberals and Dem partisans literally can't even hear without going redfaced.
2/
RE: https://assemblag.es/@inquiline/117429144412040882
The wildest part of reading this is how the Fake Democracy, Actual Police State playbook is the same everywhere neofascism has risen to power: a decadent and corrupt neofascist government, in power through fraud, political kettling, or a combination of both, has led to a broken society and a restless population.
1/
Sometimes I think about how the very same people who wouldn't mask to end a plague now wear masks all day to kidnap people. 🤔
You can get all the news you need from 404 media, The Sick Times, The Intercept, one or two others I can't think of this morning, and a ragtag collection of independent journalists who will take your money if you want to give it to them.
I read The Guardian to understand which narratives the ruling class is going with and how liberals feel about it.
That's it. That's my chosen media diet.
The reason gas taxes shift politics is bc it's not the responsibility of normal people to clean up after govts, corporations, and oligarchs. The tax is off-target; it should tax oil and gas corpos, lock prices, and guarantee gas station owners (who aren't corpos) make a small profit (2-3%)
Consumers should pay $4/gallon, oil companies should pay trillions.
If they close gas stations, they should be seized using eminent domain and reopened as State depots.