My honest thoughts on Christianity these days

 So...with all of the talk of Dero Goi, and the fundamentalist christian worldview being one head of the project 2025 fascist hydra, I did want to discuss Christianity a bit. I also want to discuss this because, well, I had an argument with someone recently in which I bashed Christianity and the guy took offense to it because he was a christian, and he thought I was lying or dishonest and just being mean or something. No, I wasn't. 

Honestly? I have a strong, visceral, dislike of the religion. I just do. I am an ex christian. I have religious trauma from my days as a Christian. And in the modern political context, I think christianity is much of what's wrong with society. I admit, it's more complex than just christianity. There are other worldviews and ideologies in these, but Christianity is what justifies and drives this evil conservative ideology for the masses. MAGA is driven in large part by religious fundamentalist Christians. The entire worldview is driving a lot of ignorance in our society. It leads to climate change denial under the logic that "god would never make a world that we could destroy" (literal quote/paraphrase from rush limbaugh). It leads to culture wars where the right wants to flood our educational system with religion. The right wants to undo the entire social revolution from the 1960s onward, in large part...because of religion. Because those "secular, liberal activist" judges on SCOTUS "took god out of schools." The current conservative, activist supreme court is a muti generational goal of the republican party. They want to undo abortion, and gay marriage, and separation of church and state. They dont want us to have nice things and freedoms. They want us to live according to their laws and to spend all of our days serving their dictator of a god. 

In economics. Christianity intersects specifically with economics. Much of the beliefs behind modern capitalism are repackaged christianity. We have the idea that humans are lazy and evil and need to be told what to do with their lives all the time, so we need to beat this protestant work ethic into people to make them productive. These people dont think that humans have the wherewithal to live life without being told what to do by some "benevolent authoritarian" like a boss, and that we would fall into sin if we didn't. And this is in large part why our society is so obsessed with jobs and work, even in an age where that stuff is going to become increasingly not needed by society. 

Religion is, as Karl Marx put it, the opium of the masses. It is the justification for a bunch of bad crap in our society. It keeps people dumbed down and stops them from questioning things while the rich and powerful plunder society for their own benefit and at our expense. And religion is, once again, behind the justification of these views. The christian work ethic underlies meritocracy and the right of property; the wealthy "earned" their wealth through their hard work and we are wrong for questioning it, for wanting a new system, or for wanting to redistribute wealth. WE are the bad guys. WE are the ones lacking virtue. WE are the ones who are supposed to change, to adapt to this system. 

We are wasting our lives by serving religion, and religiously inspired principles. It should be noted, I'm not against all spirituality. I have my own very personal spiritual views. I'm also not even as opposed to all Christians. There are different strains of christianity and I mostly was focusing on religious fundamentalist common in a certain strain of modern protestant christianity. Still, I don't really think ANY christianity is worth believing it. I think there are far better belief systems than adopting the views of some ascetic jew from 2000 years ago and worshipping him as the son of god who died for our sins...whatever that means (since many of these other camps dont accept the weird scapegoat blood sacrifice logic of fundamentalist christianity). And honestly? Even if other brands christianity aren't as harmful as modern fundamentalist protestant christianity, i still see harm there and dont see it as worth following. 

Like, some moderate christians wont like me saying this, but I do see it as a spectrum. And I do think moderate christians are just that...they're moderates. They adopt some aspects of chrstianity, but then they dont tend to adopt the more extreme elements...and I dont see a point in following that stuff....because I see it as a compromise with reality. Why should you adapt half of this one philosophical system and its worldview, while rejecting the other half? Fundamentalism kinda got to me where its like "either your hot or youre cold, but if you're lukewarm I'll spit you out of your mouth." I see liberal christianity, or moderate christianity, as lukewarm. it's all over the place. Like, I tend to have a mostly naturalist approach to the world and philosophy, and any spirituality i get has to come through that in some way. If God cannot communicate on those terms, well...they're not worth believing in. And trust me, if "god" wants to speak to you...they'll find a way. Trust me. You might not be able to prove it to others, but you'll know, and you'll find yourself wondering if you're crazy and questioning your entire concept of reality. 

That said, why should we accept christianity? For most people, its merely baby's first belief system. It's microsoft edge to my firefox with like 10 extensions installed and customized to my liking. It's what people are raised in, but I dont find it very philosophically appealing. I mean, if god exists, and again, I do have a concept there, it's gonna work monumentally different than this belief system written by ancient peoples who lived thousands of years ago. I look at it the way I look at the ancient greeks and their religions, except people actually take those stories literally today. And they do so in causing much harm on society.

Which is where the big hatred of it comes from for me. The fact is, I believe that if we didn't have Christianity as a guiding force for our society, society may very well be better. I won't guarantee that, because let's face it, Ive kind of outgrown the whole "religion is the core problem with everything in society" from my new atheist days. I kind of realize that ideological brainrot exists all over the political spectrum. That stupid people exist and often arent even religious. So again, it's not the entire problem. As I said, it's one head of a multiheaded hydra that we're dealing with these days. it's a very potent one, and I believe it's the one that justifies a lot of this bad stuff to the masses. Like, Dero Goi's 1984 video had everyone with VR headsets on....RELIGION IS THE HEADSET. It's how the masses view society. It's the matrix, it's plato's cave (hence this sub's name). It contains justification for why the world is as it is, it is the blinder that keeps people dumb and submissive. And I really do think if people took that headset off, that the world would be a better place. Would it solve all problems? No. Again, the hydra is multi headed at this point. But without the blinders most people currently have, if people were forced to suddenly reevaluate things like I did, perhaps they would reach conclusions like I did.

There's a reason evangelical christianity is one of the most right wing factions in the US, while the nonreligious are some of the most left wing ones, with the moderate christians being moderates...in the middle....on the whole. 

And again, none of this is to really mean any disrespect to any moderate christians in my life. If you have/had a place in my life, I do respect you on some level. I might not agree with you. I might express my views when discussion come up push comes to shove. I'm not gonna apologize for my views, as they're what i legitimately believe, and if you find it offensive, well, tough. But again, I am a nuanced person who recognizes that people can be unique, defy the overall trend or whatever, and have unique views that dont fit in any predetermined box. I would argue that statistically and on the whole with trends i am correct in how I view the problem. It's just that such people are outliers. And you know what? I LIKE outliers like that. I dont agree with them on everything, but we probably agree on more than we don't despite the obvious worldview difference. 

So yeah. I just wanted to make that clear. 

So what will we never know?

 So..I came across this disturbing interview where Elon was interviewed by Tucker Carlson and his kid was there. You know, Elon's kid, the one who emasculated the president right to his face live on national television. I've tried to track down the full version of this, but I've had trouble finding it. Apparently elon has been scrubbing it from where he can. 

Anyway, in this one, his kid started saying strange crap...AGAIN. First he says his dad owns spaceX and that they can do whatever they want. Not that bad in and of itself. But then Elon is asked whether Trump will win the election and it starts getting CRYPTO. The kid is 100% confident trump will win and keeps repeating "and they will never know." Uh....what will we never know? Anyway, Elon starts going into stuff about how the polling data out of PA and blah blah blah and the kid just repeats "AND THEY WILL NEVER KNOW!" And then Elon just...ends the interview right there. 

So...what will we never know? The reason I bring this up is because on inauguration day, Trump also had strange comments about how Elon knew about the voting machines in PA or something and credited him with the win. And there's been a conspiracy theory floating about where Elon used starlink to manipulate the machines.

So far, this is unsubstantiated and is purely conspiracy theory, and I do wanna point out, i dont wanna lean into election denialism. I think that can be dangerous as trump himself pointed out to us by engaging in it himself and encouraging a mob to attack the capitol. And for the record, I believe that the results are credible enough that there's no reason to lean into fraud, I fully believe Trump could have won the election legitimately, and that there wasn't even any NEED for it to win. The national trend, and the polling, which I had been following all election cycle, was so consistent with the peoples' preference for Trump, that yeah, I don't believe that Trump NEEDED to engage in fraud to win. Also, the democrats' internal polling was WAY worse than public polling, so yeah. All the evidence tells me that trump is a winner and a winner legitimately.

HOWEVER, I'm also seeing multiple points of evidence that suggests that Elon MAY have been involved in some funny business here. Had we had a credible democracy NOT under assault by this guy, we would probably start seeing probes into this to see if there's anything to these allegations. 

However, with project 2025 filling the bureaucracy with loyalists, and him trying to impeach any judge who rules against him, and even doxing the judge's own daughter, this will never happen.

 Makes you wonder why he's digging around the social security administration and the IRS for everyone's data. Dude is gonna use that to blackmail anyone who goes against him.

Guys, this is a coup. These guys are literally pulling a hitler 1933 on us. And we're not doing jack crap to stop it. This is BAD. This is REALLY BAD. Our democracy is literally under assault by this guy, and we dont know how deep this rabbit hole goes. 

So....Dero Goi's art mightve been more triggering than I thought...

 So...as I said yeaterday, I checked out a lot of Dero Goi's solo work since he went all nuts and fundie christian. And it did give me some insight into the right wing mindset. And it was triggering. I mean, in some ways, I actually have religious trauma syndrome from Christianity. And being exposed to that worldview again....is kinda bringing back flashbacks. 

Why do I bring this up? Because here's the thing. I kinda can get into these peoples' heads and understand them. When I dissect this right wing art, I mean, to the uninitiated, it just sounds crazy, but Im familiar with their underlying worldview, and I'm kind of connecting some dots and making some disturbing connections that relate to our current political environment.

Honestly, Ill say it. The situation we are in is worse than I thought. We might be witnessing the destruction of the modern left and backsliding into right wing extremism as a society. I know Dero is german, but these attitudes are INSANELY common in the US. And if these works are indicative of how a lot of people think, we are in trouble. 

I think COVID broke everyone's brains. The lockdowns and all of the guidance the left has engaged in has led to a right wing resurgeance. Just as the 2008 recession drove us left, the 2020 COVID thing is driving us back to the right. 

People dont trust experts. They dont trust science. THey dont trust vaccines, and masks, and medical guidance. THey think it's literally 1984, as Dero has made perfectly clear. And this stuff is leaning into a lot of religious extremism too. ANd let me tell you something about these extremists. They have a MASSIVE persecution complex. Like if you look into dero's recent videos, one is called Saturday and is about him being in front of a judge being judged and he's basically like, think what you want of me while pushing bible verses. Like, these guys, are radicals. Like, the thing about christianity. It was literally forged in the face of intense persecution. The romans used to feed these people to lions. The bible has a lot of really encouraging books and verses that suggest you should be willing to die for the faith. They wont take up arms against you per se, but they will joyfully, gleefully, accept whatever persecution you throw at them. 

And the left...in the past decade, has gone itself in this weird illiberal direction. We keep trying to police what these people can say and believe. We do it to stop their ideology from sprading,, but because these guys have this persecution complex, they dont care, they literally are that extreme. You can't just trying to regulate what they say by cracking down on fake news. You cant tell them they;re bigots for opposing LGBT+. They will double, triple, and quadruple down.

And the left, since the 2016 election, has been shifting toward trying to control what people say and think. For these guys, that's LITERALLY 1984. Once again, hence the video. Like from our perspective we're trying to stop dangerous extremist ideologies but for them, we're the thought police trying to control what they think, and they will fight you like they're resisting tyranny in response. And because everything for the right is culture war, a war between worldviews, they will happily endure whatever they throw at you.

And in this modern age, it seems like the left's war on misinformation and "hate" is just leading to the right winning. Like Ive known this for a while, I pointed out trevor's axiom as early as back in 2016 and how the left are really unpopular and hit the wrong notes. But yeah. heres the thing. I listen to people on the right once in a while. I try to listen to what they think. We ask them if they're regretting trump, they'll say, "why do we regret trump? he's doing what we voted for". They LIKE this guy. They LIKE him cutting government. They like his war on "woke" and "DEI". THey LIKE him deporting immigrants. They LIKE him allowing COVID skepticism and denialism. 

And that's the thing. Keep in mind the biggest third party challenge this past election cycle. It as RFK. The COVID denial guy, the anti vaccine guy, the "we live in a society that makes everyone sick and stuff being natural is better" guy. People LIKE him. And going back to dero's videos...I was getting some of that in his 1984 video. How big brother government is making people get sick by taking the vaccine and how we need to go back to nature...which...also includes....the bible? Yeah. But yeah, you see how this covid skepticism movement is starting to merge with the biblical crazies? Like, it is. We're seeing a realignment, but it's a realignment from HELL. On the one side are the experts who know what they're doing and try to control what people think and say, and on the other are all the stupid people acting like they're persecuted for the former group trying to crack down on their delusions.

What's the answer to this? Well, I don't have a full answer. Ultimately, we DO need to fight them in a culture war manner similar to them. I dont think we should concede to them, to meet them half way. Thats the worst thing we can do. I dont wanna be them, no one on the left does. We need an alternative vision.

But what we have to do, we have to drop the wokeness, for one. Those guys wanna persecute anyone who expresses any form of "hatred or bigotry" and that involves homophobia and transphobia that exists within christianity. And again, if we die on this hill, the right will die on theirs, because persecution complex. And they will win. Because they are more popular than we are. Trying to force cultural supremacy vs censorship isn't gonna work. The same applies with combatting anti vax nonsense. We cannot win the culture war by brute force. We have to win the hearts and minds of people.

I've known this for a while. Because again, I used to be a right winger. Hell, it's why the new atheist movement was always for freedom of speech and thought. The last thing we wanted to do was to trigger these guys stupid persecution complexes. Because they thrive on fighting imaginary enemies. If we give them a REASON to think they're being persecuted, which wokeness and various wars on misinformation do, we're gonna lose! And we ARE losing! WE ARE LOSING THE CULTURE WAR! It''s not that our ideas are bad. It's that our strategy sucks. We need to regroup and retool. We need to invent a new left, or go back to an old one. Maybe a combination of the two. We need to respect their rights and liberties, the last thing we should do is to make them feel persecuted as it just makes them even stronger. And we need to fight on our own terms.

It's as I always said it, whoever comes off as authoritarian loses these wars. During the obama years, the religious right were starting to look full on crazy and their worldview was starting to collapse. But because the left keeps fumbling the ball, now WE look crazy and unhinged. I keep saying it, ditch the wokeness, embrace libertarianism. We're in a chinese finger trap. The more you fight it, the worse it gets. You kinda gotta relax it a bit, not panic, and then it will come off. 

And as someone who wishes nothing more than for the right's worldview to enter the dustbin of history, we DO need to fight them. But we need to fight them on our terms, and make our arguments for our own views. We gotta convince the public that THEYRE the crazy authoritarians and that they're the ones out of touch. We do that by letting them come off as crazy. So let them lead the assault on the culture war and mess it up. We just need to sit back and say we want everyone to be able to do what they want and what persecution are you talking about and you;re the crazy ones who wanna force your views on everyone. THAT'S how we win. 

The left IS the right side of history, make no mistake. But in a democracy, we need to reach people somewhat on their terms. We need to isolate the these people and make them come off as the fringe extremists they are. But to do that, we need the public on our side. And our current strategy is backfiring majorly. 

Um....you do realize religion is part of "the matrix" right?

Okay, so I ended up finding something about Dero Goi and his descent into right wing christian extremism in recent years. Well, I decided to look up what he was up to musically. I always liked oomph somewhat, but his extremism caused him to break up with the band and go his own way. I found out he did some solo stuff, and came across this music video called "1984", which tries to portray society in a dystopian fashion where everyone has to obey. Now, I've previously likened modern society and its belief system as "the matrix", an illusory reality (similar to "Plato's Cave") in which most people just blindly go with the flow and don't realize how brainwashed they really are. I kinda touched on this today with my rant about being intelligent in a society where...most aren't. 

Dero has the same idea here, but his dystopia is a bit different. He sees a society where people have to "consume" and "obey" and the like, but he approaches it from the right. Given his political trajectory, I think he buys into a lot of delusions about the COVID thing being a dystopian coup to control people, and how being asked to *checks notes* wear masks and not work for a year is the equivalent of...well....1984. 

He also seems to portray religion as the solution to the problem, with christian themes underlying it, and the little girl at the end being in a field holding a bible. Kinda makes me wanna throw up as it gives me RFK supporter vibes, you know, right wing and thinking big pharma and society bad and "natural" stuff good? yeah. 

Anyway. I'll bite. 

Look, given my own ideological journey, and how i CAME FROM religion and left it...trust me when I say it, religion isn't the solution to everything. Religion IS the matrix. It is the belief system that keeps people dumbed down. It's, as Karl Marx would say, the opium of the masses. What dulls their pain and makes them complicit in the face of great injustice, as many would prefer to overlook the obvious problems with this world to get people focused on the next. Leaving religion actually FREED me. And is the basis of my own modern ideology, including my views on capitalism and consumerism. I admit, that stuff is like a prison, BUT...let's face it, it isn't religion that is the solution to that. if anything, christian extremism of the kind that dero is involved in is one of the greatest sources of evil in modern western industrial society today. It drives people to the same batcrap insane ideology that goi is promoting here. 

Look, I'm gonna be real with you. Vaccines are not about control. They are not some mark of the beast or something. They are literally scientific breakthroughs which prevent diseases. The reason society pushed them was so people wouldnt get as sick from covid and could return to work. Our society is work obsessed. As much as the right acted like us trying to stop people working was some dystopian communist plot (as the literal anti work guy I can assure you that it wasn't), really, the ONLY reason they allowed us to stop temporarily was because YEAH, the disease really was that bad. THese weird persecution fantasies the right comes up with are pure delusion. I'm not going to deny that there are powerful forces that keep society the way it is, and that some elements of modern society are evil, BUT....let's face it, the evil comes from the same wealthy elites who afterwards wanted to send people back to work, and are trying to claw back work from home schemes. They're the same people who were saying in 2020 when sane people closed everything down that we shouldnt be afraid of sacrificing the elderly and the sick for the sake of the economy. THOSE are the real evil psychopaths. And those guys wield religion as a tool to brainwash, quite frankly, ignorant people, into their worldview. 

The likes of dero goi are NOT enlightened. They are insane. They dont seem to realize that they are the ones plugged into the matrix with the VR headsets on, not us. It's baffling to see how right wingers view the world sometimes, but as an ex right winger, i also kinda understand it. it is kind of interesting, if only for opposition researtch, and i dont think these weird beliefs are that uncommon. If anything, I think they're one of the reasons the dems lost in 2024. A lot of people are actually convinced that the experts who believe in vaccines, in masks, in shutdowns, that we're the bad guys. We're not. We're literally just following the science. You know, that thing you guys reject because you're religious nutjobs. I know it was a long time ago now, like 20 years, but uh....i learned about vaccines...in CHRISTIAN school back then. And now people dont even believe in that crap. We're becoming idiocracy. It's baffling to me. It was bad back then but we've gotten so much dumber since then. It baffles me. 

EDIT: And now I'm onto "Clickbait", which is about tiktok. IN one part of the song he says "idiocracy is real."

Look, I'm not gonna say tiktok is good and great, but it's not as harmful as people act like it is. It's just entertainment. And when it meets politics, a lot of tiktok is informative. Like a lot of the free palestine people got their views from tiktok and saw actual news events unfold in real time involving the IDF massacuring civilians. And while we can question the chinese ownership and associated algorithms pushing content for selective outrage, let's be honest, it's like old people ALWAYS crap on young peoples' media, no matter what it is. 20 years ago, it was harry potter being demonic, pokemon cards teaching evolution, and violent video games corrupting the youth, and myspace and facebook having the same effects that tiktok has today.

Before that it was all that dumb tv dumbing down gen X. And rock music dumbing down the boomers. it's a tale as old as time. You get older than say, 45-50 and suddenly youre so out of touch with the youth that you crap on their media. 

And sadly, a lot of this stuff seems to come most from religious extremists. And here's why. They are literally in an ideological, cultural, and information war with the world. They literally think they are fighting satan himself with attacking this crap. if they had their way, we would only be allowed christian sources of media that explicitly promote that view. They literally think anything else is delusion and a mental trick by satan that has been played on the world. I'm NOT kidding. I WAS indoctrinated into this stuff at one point. I LEFT it. These guys are NUTS and delusional. They are the deceived telling everyone else that they're really the deceived ones. Again, this is crazy crap. I'm not kidding, I'm not making it up. These people actually believe this stuff. These are the guys who will say the dinosaur bones were put there by satan.  And yes, some Christians really believe that. Not all of them. I really dont wanna act like ALL christians are insane. They're not. But the fundies absolutely are. Dero Goi is in those traditions now, and his work is pushing this extremist worldview.

The curse of intelligence and the temptation of doing away with democracy

 So, I watched this video today about the curses of being highly intelligent, and yeah, this is my life in a nutshell. And it kinda sucks, being governed by people who are my intellectual inferiors. I mean, we basically elected trump because half the country is too dumb to see through his grift, although, admittedly Harris was kind of a turd too. Still, at least she was competent...

Honestly, some men, like me, just want to see the world learn. We want people to become more intelligent and well informed on issues. Democracy, to actually function properly, needs its participants to know what the frick they are doing with their votes. American voters have no idea, they elected Trump, despite obvious warnings of how dangerous he was. I could explain away 2016, but in 2020 I started worrying after seeing how close he came to winning, and in 2024, I'm terrified by the state of democracy. We literally have wheatley in charge...again. After putting glados in charge...again. After wheatley got elected the first time. After glados was kicked out the first time. 

Heck it goes back further. George W. Bush was also extremely dumb by the standards of the time, although infinitely preferable to the current administration. It's like we're living in the movie idiocracy. And people really are that dumb that they keep electing these guys over and over again. 

Again, ideally, the answer is education. If people were more informed, had a higher baseline of intelligence, then the democrats would basically become the bare minimum and then the real adults in the room can finally talk. But it seems unclear if we'll ever reach this point. I feel cursed, like I stick out like a sore thumb in this society. I know so much more than your average person, at least on political affairs (I'm pretty dumb on a lot of other subjects), and I just keep watching them make the same mistakes over and over again.

 It's no wonder the intelligent class of society that's actually in charge has this mentality that "well the people are dumb and that's why I have to be in charge." It's a tempting proposition. We all think it, us intelligent thinkers of politics. I even have my own fricking ideal economic vision if I were in charge. But, at the same time, we gotta resist this temptation.

I mean, in a way, we're living through that moment right now. Despite much of the trump administration, including trump himself, being sycophantic morons who toe the line and are dangerously unqualified for their jobs, you also got megalomanial  masterminds like elon musk in charge. Musk is, a lot like me. High IQ, pretty well informed, at least on subjects related to his expertise, think he knows how to run the country better than everyone else and that he's a mastermind...but really, and this is where you gotta follow me on this one, just because someone is generally smart doesn't mean they're informed ON POLITICS, nor do they necessarily have good ethics. Like I kinda try do a philosopher king thing, and despite talking a lot about issues, i dont wanna be in charge, because i know i would screw it up. part of it really is being in a democracy with separation of powers and knowing I can't do what i wanna do how I wanna do it, but I also know that power is a corrupting influence. And that's kind of a problem. Those who should rule...often dont want to because they know their limitations, while we get governed by overconfident blowhards who dont know what they're doing but think they know everything. 

And Elon Musk? He's using his power FOR EVIL. He's cutting "government waste" as he sees it, sometimes not knowing what he's cutting (see: him randomly laying off the people overseeing our nukes, only to realize, OH CRAP WE NEED THOSE PEOPLE!). He's doing the republican "cut all government" thing and doing it with sociopathic efficiency. He's literally governing the government like he would a corporation, and using the top down authority of a corporation to do it. Heck, we all know my stances on corporate rule. CEOs are functionally tyrants, and people are functionally their slaves. Even if they can, in theory, walk away, most won't because of the economic relationships involved and how most peoples' state of "being there" is based on NEED. Of course, if you notice, my answer to this ins't "socialism", in part because, quite frankly, I dont trust the masses on anything, rather, I support a form of individual independence where every worker has the freedom as the power to say no. Instead of having to rely on others, i want individuals to be able to make their own calls, and this is my answer, as an intelligent person, the way to solve economic tyranny. I dont trust the rule by many much more than i trust the rule of the few or the one. I dont want to be ruled. So I assert a system of economic rights to give me my freedom and autonomy. 

In some ways this mirrors the constitutional government with separation of powers and rights that we have. Our founders did kind of have elitist tendencies for better or for worse and did seek to put checks on pure democracy. We have the bill of rights that we have to ensure that government oversteps bounds, understanding that liberty should not be abridged simply because the masses will it. Of course, this has been corrupted, with the elites using such functions to exert control over elections and in practice, our government is an oligarchy that is more receptive to political donors and money than the people. 

And that is probably the greatest evil of our time. You see, if you dont let the masses govern, you end up with oligarchies or autocracies instead. America is an oligarchy. It is the rule by the few, and the indirect rule by the rich (although it's more direct with the trump administration). The people don't matter much. it's the wealthy. They control the political parties, and they control the media infrastructure to control the narratives. They keep the people in various information bubbles to keep them dumb and uninformed, and when a smart person like me stands up to them, nothing happens because we're a minority, and no one cares what we think. 

But in a way, before we get delusions of "If i were in charge again"...well...that's how the billionaire class thinks, and they DO think they're superior than everyone else. That their ideas are better, that they're smarter, that they're morally better due to their work ethic, and that they EARNED their right to rule. And that's the worst part. Like, a lot of what I argue against, like being forced to work, the protestant work ethic, meritocracy, etc., it's a massive ego boost to the wealthy. They have this idea of entitlement, as they adopt the morals of the society that they created to justify their wealth and power, and they believe they are the superiors and that everyone else is just too dumb and lazy and that they're only fit to be beasts of burden or whatever, while THEYRE the smart ones.

And heck, if you go further, with the dark enlightenment a la elon musk, they think that democracy is just an inconvenience. That checks and balances are inefficient. And that they are just such fricking geniuses and no one else will ever understand. So they try to break the democracy we have so they can rule directly.

In a lot of ways, i think that elon musk, the dark enlightenment, and a lot of the ego that these guys have should put a pause on these delusions for the rest of us "smart people". Because we're not a ton better. I mean, we think we are, and as I say it I'm totally thinking "nah, I AM better", but really, what justifies me being better? Well, the fact that I come from a different social standing with different socialization factors that dont make me an entitled sociopathic d-bag. However, despite that, let's face it, if i had power, others, including many smart people, would have issues with my governance. And at the end of the day, I really come back around to the whole "yeah this is why checks and balances, rights, and democracy exist". They're guardrails against tyranny. And the will of the people, as flawed as the people are, just ends up being the lesser evil.

And this is something I really keep coming around to. Everyone imagines that if THEY were in charge the world would be perfect, but each of our visions are different, they all have pros and cons, and many of us, dont even know what we're talking about in the first place. Like with me, at least im high enough on the dunning kruger spectrum to actually recognize the limitations of my own expertise and intelligence, and while i'd love to implement UBI and humanistic capitalism....well...let's face it, do i even have administrative experience? not really. Do i wanna deal with mundane administrative matters that an actual president has to deal with? Not really. Nor do I wanna pull a musk and say "we dont need all that" and try to fire them all to meet some insane ideal of "small government." So yeah. 

Honestly, here's the thing, and this is where our founders were smart. They understood the very obvious problems with people just having unchecked power. They saw the problems with the likes of "factions." Their entire political system was designed to limit any individual's power and to distribute it across all three branches of government. And while, right now, that system is facing a stress test like it has never endured in the entire 250 years of its existence, I still support the system and hope it holds. Because let's face it. This system is the best we got. And it's GOOD it is as constraining as it is, it is only because of that, that maybe, hopefully, we'll survive this horrible, horrible administration. 

Here's the thing. People are dumb, but a constitutional republic/democracy is still the best system that has ever been tried, for better or for worse. It maintains some level of stability. It stops us from just getting taken over. And while right now we kinda gotta be afraid because trump's faction, the republican party, controls ALL THREE branches of government, it doesn't do so by overwhelming margins. Still, the damage that trump can do to it is substantial, and that's why i've been squirming through this entire thing. Like, it's baffling that for all the guardrails we have, all of them have failed to contain this guy. And part of me has to blame the democrats for being so complacent and incompetent. We should've worked harder and moved faster to prosecute the guy post january 6th.

 But...that's the thing, of everything i said, our system DOES have one GLARING oversight that's responsible for this entire mess, and that is the fact that the politicians are all beholden to those with money. And the billionaires control everything from behind the scenes. They control the republicans, they control the democrats. They control the media. And if anything, we need MORE checks and balances, against the wealthy and their ability to influence people and subvert democracy's rule. We need to overturn citizen's united. We need to publicly fund elections. We need to remove the corrupting influence of capital from our democracy. I'm not necessarily opposed to people having money, but in our system, when money is speech, some people have a bullhorn while others have virtually no voice. I'm just a mere feudal serf on wealthy corporations' servers like reddit and blogger. I exist on virtual property that THEY own. And while I can bring my ideas into the real world, I need money to actually do this meaningfully, and I have none. So, here's the screaming into the void I guess.

Yeah, I know this is depressing, but this is what I actually think about these things right now. 

Honestly though, we need more democracy, and more checks and balances, and not less. And heck, maybe if we had that, we could improve our education system so people wouldn't be so fricking dumb in the first place. 

Once again debunking the "paradox of tolerance"

 It's that time again. With the re-election of the orange one and reddit going nuts banning anyone on the right, and even some on the left who don't believe in their BS, we're seeing this justified by the so called "paradox of tolerance." As we know, it comes down to the idea that "in order for tolerance to work, we can't tolerate the intolerant." This is normally used by people who espouse "woke" ideology to ban anyone that dares openly disagree with them, as they're not exactly open to nuance. 

I've written an article on this before, but I kinda went on one of my tangents and made it way too long, so I want a more succinct article here.

My core argument against this idea comes down to what tolerance actually is. Tolerance means to "tolerate." It doesn't mean you have to like stuff, it just means you have to tolerate it. To allow it to exist. And to let them do their own thing until they harm others. WHEN, and ONLY when, beliefs start making their way into harmful behaviors, do we act to restrict such actions. As the saying goes, your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of someone else's nose. 

As I see it, the left HAS to tolerate "nazis." It doesn't mean they have to like them, but they should TOLERATE them. However, when nazis start organizing to take away others' rights, THAT's the swinging the fist at someone else's nose. You shouldnt tolerate Nazis actually banning the behaviors of others or taking away their rights or killing them.

At the same time, nazis (and everyone else) has to tolerate you. You're free to hate nazis, and blast them online, whatever, but the line stops when you take away THEIR rights. And this is why I end up coming down on the woke harder than actual nazis sometimes.

It doesn't matter what side throws the first blow, any side that tries to actively subvert or take away the rights of others and force their ideology on them is automatically in the wrong, period. In our free speech rights, people have a right to be a nazi, but they dont have a right to act on nazi beliefs. Woke people have a right to be woke, but they can't force their beliefs on others. 

The reason the paradox of tolerance is wrong is because it gives the woke a justification to preemptively go after anyone they deem to be a nazi. And in practice, it's anyone who disagrees with them. Including me, even though I'm attempting to be impartial here. But because I don't actively support their stuff, I'm sympathizing with the enemy in their eyes, even if I'm just trying to stop them from taking away others' rights before the proper lines have been crossed. 

You can't do that, you can't just take away the rights of anyone you disagree with until they take action to take the rights of others away. That makes YOU the aggressor, and YOU the bad guy. 

Do you understand what I'm saying?

To give another example I often use, let's take religion. If anything religion is good because it intersects with this whole idea as many christians are "christofascists" in "woke" peoples' views. In our country, we have two clauses in the constitution with religion. We have the establishment clause, which is intended to keep a wall of separation of church and state, and the free exercise clause, which gives people the right to practice their religion. 

You cant stop people from being Christian. You can't stop christians from disliking homosexuality. However, when they wanna make homosexuality illegal under their religious views, they can kindly F off. You see the difference? Believe what you want, but you can't ACT on it in ways that go against the law or others' rights. 

The problem with the "woke" is that they ARE literally intolerant. They don't tolerate opposing views. They are the kinds of people who would try to ban any sentiment that goes against their ideology, because they believe that it goes against "tolerance." 

But...they're the ones not tolerating stuff. As long as a christian is like "well I think homosexuality is a sin but that doesn't mean that I can just make the behavior illegal", that's fine. Trying to make the behavior illegal in line with their religion? NOT fine. See the difference? Apply it to nazis. Apply it to any group you deem hateful. Tolerance involves tolerating that which you don't like. Including views of people who are authoritarian or hateful ###holes. And under those rules, you yourself are protected from the intolerance of others. 

The problem with this "paradox of tolerance" is it leads to a lot of illiberalism and turning sentiments that in and of themselves aren't harmful, as long as aren't acted on, into a thought crime. 

Having views is protected under our legal framework. Acting on them is not. You gotta tolerate people with bad views. You can draw the line at them acting on them.

If a fascist tries to take away someone's rights, go ham on them (in legal ways of course), I don't care. You just can't stop them from having bad views. You know? You gotta tolerate each other's crappy views. That's what tolerance is, and it applies to anyone with horrible views. But as long as their behavior isnt harming others, then they are protected from other weirdo authoritarians who wanna push their way of doing things on people. You know?

This is what liberal tolerance is all about. It's a liberal legal concept. It's intended to maximize our freedom and stop would be bad actors from infringing on our rights and our liberties. The actual paradox of tolerance, IMO, is the idea that those who claim to be the most tolerant aren't tolerant at all. They wanna punish anyone for speaking out of line and expressing wrong think. That is illiberal and authoritarian. They are the ones violating the concept of tolerance in doing that. 

Again, youre free to whatever views you want, it's ACTING on those views that is bad.

Trump tells us what era of America was actually "great"

 So, Trump has finally told us what era of America he's thinking of when he talks about "making America great again." And boy, this is a doozy. 

You know, I can sympathize somewhat with a MAGA voter who longs for the new deal era, without realizing it's left wing policies that made it great. I mean, get a job out of high school, feed an entire family on it, life is easy, life is simple, no having to worry about unemployment or where your next paycheck is coming from, just economic security. I know that's idealized, but that's what I think a lot of people miss about American society. Life is more complicated now, it's hard. We're always at risk of losing our jobs, half of us live paycheck to paycheck and can't even afford a $500 emergency, people dont feel confident in their finances. They're stressed, they're unhappy, they're overworked and underpaid. And they long to return to simplicity.

If that's you, become a leftie. We want life to be like that. I want life to be like that. I have policies to make America like that. So do other progressives. We dont always agree, but generally speaking we understand that the laissez faire economic system is causing all of these problems and want to fix it.

But Trump...does not. For you see, his ideal era of American history was....*drumroll*.....1870-1913. You heard it right, the GILDED AGE. The age where all of the problems with modern American capitalism were amplified many times over because there were no regulations. Workplaces were unsafe. People worked long hours for wages they couldn't live on, and then paid what little they had to landlords who ate it all up, and the working class were slaves. We had kids losing fingers and arms to machines. We had them going down into the mines. But because we didn't have income taxes, we had tariffs, and became we had this weird lebenstraum style imperialism thing going on, Trump thinks that was "great." And of course, the lack of regulations and taxes helped his rich buddies.

Trumpers, regret your vote yet? I ain't saying the other lady was great, but she would've been way better than this.

Either way, I struggle to at least have sympathy for remaining trump voters. If you STILL like trump despite the sheer incompetence, Christian nationalism, and literal longing for the LITERAL FRICKING GILDED AGE, you are lost. Your moral compass is fundamentally broken. You are at best ignorant, and at worst evil. That's how I see it.

This second term of trump is turning into the epitome of evil for me. Fascist anti democratic tendencies, christian nationalism, gilded age economics, raw imperialism, a descent into a possible illiberal techno feudalism. It's insane. It's truly fricking insane. 

This administration is evil. I will just say it. They are EVIL! EVIL!!!!!!! If you like this stuff, you are lost. You are at best stupid, and at worst, your moral compass is fundamentally broken. That's all I'm gonna say.