Addressing the narrative that working class people like work requirements

 So, I had some snivelly third way neoliberal go "WELL ACKSHULLY PROGRESSIVE POLICY DOESNT POLL WELL AND WE COULD'VE HAD THE CHILD TAX CREDIT IF WE COMPROMISED WITH MANCHIN AND ROMNEY ON A WORK REQUIREMENT AND WORKING CLASS VOTERS LIKE WORK REQUIREMENTS", while citing some poorly sourced twitter thread from a vox journalist for evidence of this. 

It took me a bit track down the journalist's blog, read several articles on the child tax credit, and find polling data that suggests this and surprise surprise, it's from right wing sources.

Like, literally conservative polls from conservative pollsters. Sure, they address a wide spread of voters, but honestly, those pollsters could've also been fishing for narratives. Anyway, here's a focus group study on this and I wanted to address this.

You can tell from the word cloud at the top that this is gonna be a fun one. WORK is the top word by a large margin in the word cloud. And yes, the entire thing is gonna preach the religion of work a lot. 

But, having once been in this religion of work, and being raised in a middle class family who was anti welfare, I feel at least somewhat qualified to wade through this mess. 

FAIRNESS: A “hand up” for those working, no “handouts” for those that aren’t
The single word spoken most often across all three sessions was “work,” pointing to both its rhetorical importance
and real source of meaning and stability for the families we talked to. Most of the participants could name
families that were struggling and needed help but placed a heavy preference on benefits being “fair” and
conditioned on participation in the labor force. The idea of universal cash benefits for parents was not received
positively by most participants.

This was most pronounced among non college educated people polled. Now, why is this significant? because to be honest, i probably wouldnt have found my way out of the cult of work without the critical thinking that bestows a college degree. I know that despite being pro working class, i also crap on the working class a lot for pro work sentiments, but really, it's a problem with them. They've been so brainwashed into this religion of work, that they just center their whole lives around it. They dont understand how life could exist without work, and they feel resentful toward those who don't work, so they kinda wanna drag everyone down with them, and force them all to work.

This is why im not super impressed by some forms of traditional working class populism. Because a lot of it just amounts to making work one's entire identity and then using this toxic culture to bully and coerce everyone else into working and being just as miserable as they are, while taking pride in their status as a worker.

No, you're a slave. And you're just trying to drag us all down into slavery. Don't take pride in this crap, and I'm sorry, but I have active disdain toward anyone who preaches these values.

Even then, the facade quickly falls apart under contradictory ideas. Becuase it always does.

 On Child Tax Credits:
• “Some people are working and doing their best, but they’re working at, like, McDonald’s, you know?
They’re still low-income…but not making a crapload of money.”
• “I think that a lot of people that don’t work and get the benefit, it’s a little unfair…It’s going to just
allow them to abuse it, not have to work.”
• “Is it going to have any kind of positive long-term effects on poverty or generational
poverty?…$250-300 a month isn’t enough to transform your life.”

So these are three separate quotes, but second one. "A little unfair"...a little unfair...how? because you have to work? What if you got it too and didn't have to work? Still unfair?

And then the third quote directly contradicts the second. Either it's enough to change your life where you dont wanna work, or it doesn't. Which is it? (hint, they're right, it's not enough to meaningfully reduce work incentive, these people are just talking out of some uneducated sense of fairness based in resentment politics).

• On Making Ends Meet:
• “I think the middle class is struggling more than the lower class, because the lower class has so many
more opportunities for programs, than the working [or] middle class.”
• “I think it takes two financially to hold a household together…I do believe that the man should feel
responsible for the family, [but the] cost of living is so high that it does take two incomes to make it
happen.”
• “[As a working mom,] I would love not to work. I think my kids would [too]. I noticed that when I’m
home more from not working, they thrive.”
• “[In] the skilled trades, there’s a huge deficit of workers and millions of vacancies across the country.
No one ever really talks about that…I think there’s this romance surrounding college.”

And here we go. More contradictory attitudes. 

First of all. Totally agree on the first one. And that is the source of resentment politics. The middle doesnt benefit from government programs. So they become anti government programs, seeing the government make poor peoples' lives "easy" while they don't get anything, and feel like they have to work for everything.

Again, as someone raised in a household with this kind of thinking, this is literally the source of resentment politics. "I work so hard why do they get stuff for free, i would rather have lower taxes, yay ronald reagan!" 

This is how support for reagan started. Splitting the middle and the bottom. Splitting the whites from the blacks. Men from the women, and so on and so forth. 

But then you have like the other statements. How yeah, you have two incomes to do what one used to do 40 years ago. Gee, did you ever think it's because businesses dont wanna pay people to work? Why do you glorify work? Do you not realize that work is the source of all problems here?

And then you have the third statement. Oh, I would love not to work. YES. SO TAKE THE MONEY, AND DON'T WORK. "NO, NO HANDOUTS, ONLY WORK, CHILDCARE INSTEAD" (a common theme that came up).

Seriously people, I wanna help you, stop fighting your own interests.

Yes, theres deficits in skilled trades. Ya know, theres a reason for that. My dad was in the trades. The work is physically brutal, like, literally backbreaking. LITERALLY. Back breaking. People dont wanna do it. And they shouldnt be forced to do it until employers make the jobs pay appropriately and have adequate safety standards. but businesses dont want they, they want slaves, and your work happy mindsets are literally simping for that. 

Romance surrounding college. Yeah. because for many of us, it was seen as a ticket to a nice cushy job where we don't HAVE to break our backs. 

People dont wanna work crappy jobs like that. And we should stop glorifying that, and trying to coerce people into that. Markets should be voluntary. 

Moving on:

One phrase came up, multiple times, in each of the three groups, when working-class parents would talk about
what they saw as the benefits available to the poor and the lack of a safety net for the middle-class: “You’re
damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” Work hard, many parents felt, and you’re rewarded by being ineligible
for government assistance, but at the same time, your take-home pay is not enough to cover the ever-escalating
cost of living (which participants most often defined by mentioning housing, groceries, and gas.)

Again. "I work so hard, why should anyone else get crap for free". Middle class people are brainwashed by reaganomics to complain about poor people on welfare, not understanding that the problem with their lives is actually the system. And I'm trying to fix the system, by making programs universal. 

Seriously, get out of the way, I'm trying to help you.

One Ohio mom did the focus group session via video chat from the hotel her family had been living in after they
had lost their house. She reported that their income was too high to qualify for their county’s affordable housing
program, but not enough to stably afford their own place. Her take? “It’s like you’re damned if you do and you’re
damned if you don’t nowadays.”

YES, and this is why we should have universal programs.

A major source of tension among the participants was the heavy emphasis placed on work while also recognizing
the need to take care of less-well-off families’ needs. Most of the participants could name families that were
struggling and needed help but placed a heavy preference on benefits being “fair” and conditioned on participation
in the labor force. One Ohio mom said that a national child care system was “definitely a great idea, as far as
putting money into the system to make [work] more available, versus handing out the money to people.”
On the whole, the idea of unconditional cash benefits for parents was received unfavorably, with multiple
participants expressing concern that parents couldn’t be trusted to spend the money on child-related items and
that the benefit would seem “unearned."

Seriously people, stop fighting your own fricking interests here.

Families wanted the option of taking advantage of some benefit programs without giving up on work, and prized
optionality in the delivery of in-kind and tax programs. In the EITC and CTC discussions, for example, parents generally
preferred being given the choice between delivery of monthly benefit payments or annual lump sums. When talking about
child care plans, there was a general consensus in favor of voucher-type plans that would allow them to find a provider
themselves, rather than expanding Head Start or extending the public education model down to early childhood.
Some participants knew people who had been directly impacted by marriage penalties in the tax code or had faced
those penalties themselves. In the words of one Georgia mom, it was unfair to have “to choose between marrying
a man she loves or losing the benefits that she has.”

Seriously, you realize why these programs dont work for you and have such nonsense penalties attached to them is because weirdo do gooders like you put those conditions in place to ensure only those who "deserved" them get them. I get it. You feel resentment toward not getting anything yourselves. So let's make a system that works for everyone. These contradictory attitudes are annoying.

Throughout this report, the individual vignettes from our interviews are complimented by a national survey on family
policy conducted by American Compass, a conservative economic policy think tank. The American Compass/YouGov
“Home Building” survey, fielded in January 2021, offers insights on family policy and attitudes from a representative
sample of 2,000 U.S. adults aged 18–50, including 1,174 respondents who reported being a parent or guardian.

Again, keep in mind, these are republicans doing these surveys. And for some reason neoliberals think this is a massive "own" against progressives. Like the answer is to compromise MORE. No, it's to try to break through to these people and make them realize that the problems are due to their contradictory atttiudes toward welfare. 

Also, despite preferring work requirements, i dont see any people really pushing for hard work requirements. people just have contradictory attitudes and these republican buttholes seem to be framing what they say in ways to push certain narratives. 

Disagreement centered around the question of whether a child benefit should be tied to work, as in the Rubio-
Lee plan, or universal, as in the Biden administration’s proposal. While many parents acknowledged the expenses
that come along with having children, there was far from unanimity about whether the child benefits would be a
worthwhile idea. There was an irreconcilable tension in acknowledging the benefit that monthly payments would
have for families like theirs, while also wanting to put constraints on how the payments were structured or given
to avoid waste or abuse

Yes, and this is the core fundamental contradiction that exists in your typical American work worshipper's psyche. Oh gee, I would benefit, but can we really have it not tied to WORK?!

Again, yall know my views on this. F work. F work requirements. And I'd rather not compromise with this cultish obsession with the idea. We would aim to create a society without as much dependence on work. 

I think that they should provide that [benefit] whether the person has a job or not…In
families where the parent or two are going back to college, that’s just like a job too. So
regardless of whether you work or not, you should be able to get that help, that extra
supplemental income for your kids.”

So peoples' views are nuanced, and yes, this is why work requirements suck. What counts as a job or not?

I mean, i'm trying to become an author, do I have a job or dont I? Having work requirements really comes down to pigeon holing people into a certain idea of what work looks like. If I care for my family like I have on and off with family members being sick or injured, does that make me employed or not? Because I've literally done that. Is trying to write a book a job or not? Because I've been at least trying that. It's one of the reasons I havent been posting here as much post election.

Overall, participants in the Georgia session, which was comprised of black parents, were more likely to favor the
idea of universal child benefits than the other two groups. This jibes with findings from the American Compass
survey, which found black parents more likely than white or Hispanic ones to express a preference for universal
child benefits over other forms of federal assistance to families

Based.

8Working-Class Americans’ Views on Family Policy
A Texas mom agreed with the idea that a strict work requirement would leave out parents who were most in
need: “Some people are working and doing their best, but they’re working at, like, McDonald’s, you know? They’re
still low-income…not making a crapload of money.” People with disabilities, another participant chimed in, are
often working part-time, and wouldn’t make enough to qualify for a full payment if there was a work requirement
associated with the benefit

Yeah again, work requirements are too black and white. I mean, I'm likely autistic, but im not diagnosed and dont qualify for being disabled. So just getting disability is hard since the system is largely restrictive with who counts. Never mind like insane amounts of autistic people are unemployed. 

Then I have a friend who lived off of disability. But then they risked losing it if they worked too much. And yeah it's hot mess. Universal programs are good, conditional ones suck and puill the rug out from under you. And then middle class people complain they dont get free money and have to work. So, let's give them free money, so none of us have to complain about other people not working.

Other participants also noted a certain logic in providing a benefit for single parents while requiring one of two
parents to work to receive child benefits. “If you are a two-person household, and one of you is capable of working
and doing something to provide for your family, you should do that,” an Ohio mother in her early 40s said

...why?

“There being an incentive to that one parent needs to work, I think I agree with that, because it would maybe help
control the use of it,” said another Ohio mom with two kids. But at the same time, she worried that more checks
would lead to more avenues for government to interfere in people’s lives. “For me personally, I would feel like the
government would be able to implement more control, by giving that money to people,” she said

Uh, unfounded fear. We already have a coercive system in which the government has control over people. It's called conditional welfare.

More discussion, particularly in the Texas focus group, centered around the child benefits as an unearned handout to
parents who weren’t working. “Some people will be responsible with it, and the other people will just live off of it,”
one male participant in Texas said. “I think that a lot of people that don’t work and get the benefit, it’s a little unfair,”
said another Ohio participant in her mid-40s. “It’s going to just … allow them to abuse it, not have to work

If you're getting it too, what's so bad about that?

Either way, CTC is so small it wont discourage work. You cant live off that.

An Ohio mom with three kids noted that, under the ARP, she will “receive $750 [per month.] That would
about pay for rent, if I was to receive it.” But with her very next sentence, she highlighted the tension on display
throughout the session, with parents in the self-described working-class feeling that those not working have more
benefits available to them, but not necessarily wanting those benefit programs for themselves. She continued:
“I don’t know that it is something that’s needed. They just gave us stimulus money, there
are programs out there…and I don’t really see if the middle class is where [the checks]
really need to go. I don’t know that it’s necessary.”

Okay, people complain about not getting money, and then complain when we do give them money.

Contradictory fricking people.

A working mom from Ohio said that she’d consider it “a handout. There’s really no incentive, other than have
babies.” A Texas mom in her late 30s sounded a similar note: “$300-400 dollars a month, that would [be] really
beneficial…But at the same time, it could also coddle people that don’t want to work that are playing the system.
So, like, what’s the fine print?”
“I do feel like it’s a form of welfare,” an Ohio mom agreed. “That money would be better spent from the
government for working incentives…[or] to offer more affordable child care.”
In Texas, one participant mentioned knowing “a couple of people have had more kids to cheat the system.”
Another woman in that group talked about her niece, who had her first child at age 13. “Who has the babies now?
My parents. My parents are the ones raising [them,] because she couldn’t take care of them.

Ya know what? I give up on these people.

You all wanna live in the hellhole we call modern america, fricking go for it. Complain about your lives. Complain about hard people work. Complain about how you dont get anything. But then complain about the people who wanna fix it because you think it would somehow be unfair TO YOU to have someone not working. Because that would be horrible, wouldn't it? A utopia where...we dont have to work any more. The horror. 

Anyway, keep in mind, this was a survey done by a right wing group. And they literally looked for like, "working class without a college degree" people. Ya know, the people who I'm trying to help, but their contradictory attitudes keep getting in the way.

You guys really need to shed this work ethic crap. And you need to get over your stupid little contradictory ethics with all of the shoulds. This crap is why our system is so broken in the first place, then you complain about it bring broken, and yeah.

Anyway, does this change my mind? No. I understand that my ideas are a tough sell to people, but...I honestly think I understand capitalism better than they do. Because I have studied the issues. i do understand the problems, and as you can see, i'm running around in circles trying to debunk all of this contradictory nonsense. 

My vision is simple. Everyone gets a UBI, everyone chooses whether to work or not. Because the UBI isnt gonna be overly generous, people will mostly still work. Some won't, but that's okay. Because we should move away from work anyway. 

And honestly, im not really willing to compromise with regressive fricking people like joe manchin, or mitt romney, or joe working man whose mind is so dull from a life of manual labor they literally arent thinking straight when they go to the polls. 

It's a lot like the matrix quote:

“The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.

That's how I feel about these people. I want to help these guys. My interested are adjacent to these guys. It's like they won't let people help them because their mindsets are so dependent on that system that they are fighting to protect it. And they're pushing these broken and contradictory politics.

At the same time, I do believe that people want change in this country, even if they dont know what that change is. I dont expect to change everyone's minds, but if we can flip enough people and let my ideas stand on their own two feet for rational people to evaluate, I think the strength of them will prevail.

Either way, I have no interest in compromising my vision neither with neoliberals, nor with regressive working class conservatives. You want that weird regressive contradictory BS? Keep voting for trump, see how that works out for you. Hint: it won't. Because I understand the problems of society and how to fix them, and you don't, and trump doesn't. He's not gonna save you. 

I'll just keep moving forward.

Why people would buy intel in 2024

 So, this is a non politics post, but I've been having some disputes with the rabid AMD fanboys on reddit (who in light of my recent discussion on shilling, I wouldnt be surprised are astroturfers to some degree), and given the toxic moderation culture on reddit stops me from being able to push back against them there, I'm doing my rant here.

So...yeah. AMD fanboys have been an issue with reddit for a while. Not sure they're shills or just enthusiasts, but yeah, they've been annoying for A WHILE. I kinda get it, like 12 years ago AMD collapsed due to bulldozer and then were basically cast to the CPU wilderness for five years. Intel stagnated during that time, leading to them just releasing the same product year after year +10% performance. The previous time I bought a CPU, I ended up going for a 7700k, the last quad core. I was kinda salty about it given coffee lake bumped things up to 6 core CPUs not long after and my flagship CPU was reduced to functionally an i5, and within 3 years, an i3. At the same time, wanna know what I didn't buy? Ryzen. Because the gaming performance was kind of bad. Zen 1 was, despite its obvious successes in the productivity space, in the gaming space, it was another bulldozer moment with them having inferior cores with high latency, leading to intel having massive single thread leads. They were kinda competitive against the 7600k at the time, given their alternative was a 6 core 12 thread r5 1600, but i literally overspent simply because I knew both CPU architectures would age like milk, and age poorly they did. Within 3 years both were bottom of the barrel sub $100 budget chips for the poorest of consumers. 

The chips that lasted were intel's coffee lake CPUs, which had ryzen like productivity performance, while having crazy gaming performance. And for a while, intel was ahead, but eventually things evened out by 2020, and intel even came ahead. Then in 2021, intel struck back, releasing alder lake or their 12th gen that finally got them off of 14nm. But then AMD struck back again with X3D, as their 5000 architecture finally worked out the kinks that made their CPUs bad at gaming. At first, these chips were expensive, but in the next couple years performance has largely stagnated and chips have gotten cheap. However, long story short, AMD was on with something with X3D and took the gaming crown with the 7800X3D about 1.5 years ago. Intel just has no answer for it, and it's a dominant gaming chip for high end gamers.

In the past year, intel has suffered several...fiascos. I was considering writing an article about intel's 13th and 14th gen disaster and how their CPUs were frying themselves, but i never got around to it. But yeah, they had major engineering problems and just launched the chips anyway, only to create the grounds for what could have been a class action lawsuit for a faulty product. But they eventually "fixed" it and extended the warranty. And then they released their disastrous intel core ultra 200 series, where they developed an entirely new architecture with all of the flaws of early ryzen and more. It's being called their bulldozer moment. They're not wrong, either that or zen 1 without the appeal of "moar coars". 

Meanwhile AMD released their Zen 5 architecture, which has been mocked as being called "Zen 5%" because it only offered a 5% performance gain over their predecessor. X3D chips come later, and to prepare, AMD phased out their 7800X3D causing it to rise in price, given it had unparalleled gaming performance. But then the 9800X3D actually ended up being good, and now it's WAY above and beyond everything and everyone on reddit is singing its praises like it's literally jesus christ. It's just a CPU people, chill out. And it has an eye watering $480 price tag. Yeah if you're mr moneybags over here who wants the best performance to go along with their 4090, be my guest, but I've always been a more midrange buyer. I actually upgraded to an alder lake 12900k a year ago and find it to be quite a good deal for the money. I spent $400 for an entire bundle at microcenter, and $200 for the CPU itself. 

But...the AMD crowd on reddit has to constantly crap on LITERALLY EVERYTHING intel. Gamersnexus released a video about how the 12th gen intel CPUs are holding up three whole years later, and some idiot started going on about how no one should ever buy these chips because OMG ISN'T AMD SO GREAT? NEVER BUY INTEL and how you can get a 5700X3D instead. Not denying the 5700X3D is a good product, but COME ON MAN, THIS IS GETTING OBNOXIOUS. Yes, AMD makes good products now, but let's be honest, there are still reasons to buy intel. And I kind of want to discuss why someone would buy intel.

So why buy intel? Well, I'll start off by saying this. You should always buy what the best value is for YOU. I dont believe in loyalty to a hardware brand, and while I have my preferences, I'm not opposed to switching things up. Historically, I will admit I have a bias against AMD, but mostly because, well, they make crap products sometimes, and I often have had inferior experience from them. They're better now, and I'm currently rocking an AMD GPU given Nvidia is using their dominant market position to price gouge people in the GPU market, but the CPU market is actually hella competitive, with both brands actually being good. Like, there is largely competition in the CPU space, and unlike the intel dominated era of 10 years ago, both brands are kinda offering compelling value.

I admit, intel is having their issues at the moment, and even I'm reluctant to recommend some of their chips, or even a lot of them, but at the same time, I honestly think they're killing it in the budget and midrange segments. 

Like, sub $100? The i3 12100-14100 CPUs are actually pretty decent. And AMD doesnt have an answer here other than to sell their really old 6 core chips with poor single thread gaming performance here. Meanwhile these i3s are powerful quads that generally blow them away. AMD kinda got arrogant as they ended up taking the lead, they WERE the budget friendly brand for like sub mid range CPUs, but they basically abandoned it and now sell old 6 core chips from 5+ years ago instead. 

$100-150? Well, the 5600x and 12400 go back and forth, but I've been seeing great deals on the 12400f for like $110. And that's an amazing value for the money. AMD's equivalent is still like $130+.

Around $160ish, you got the 5700x vs 12600k, kinda on par with each other. 

$200ish, the 5700X3D is solid, but the 12700k is kind of compelling, and now you can even get a 13600k for the money at times. Now, 13th series is one of those "these CPUs fry themselves" CPUs, but that problem is supposedly fixed, so....not a bad option? Arguably on par or better than a 5700X3D. Depends on the game though. 

And yeah you got AM5, but eh...AM5 is kind of an expensive platform itself, and you get weaker CPUs for the money. They'll make the 7600x, their entry level option, like $200, i would say its a less compelling value than even their older 5700X3D given its a 6 core and who would buy a 6 core in 2024 if you can get like a 12-14 core intel chip instead? Not like the single thread is that much different. Honestly, 12th gen i7s and 13th gen i5s have value more similar to the 7700x or something which is like $270. And for $270, you can get a 12900k, ie, the best intel chip that didnt fry itself and the one i bought due to microcenter deals (where I got it for $200ish). Or a 13700k. Both are closer to like a 7900x in terms of performance, given intel's e cores are each worth like half a full core. 

Ya know? I mean, intel's kinda killing it in value.

Also, what really tipped ME toward intel. When I was buying, microcenter had AMD bundles too and looking at reviews, lots of people were having issues with memory stability and XMP. Hell, I even considered dropping an extra $100 on a fricking 7800X3D at the time. BUT...living 1.5 hours away, I didn't wanna invest in a platform i might have to make a trek to return to the store, i just wanted something that worked, so...I bought the intel platform instead. And it worked. And because microcenter made the 12900k their best value bundle, and i wasnt willing to spend an extra $150+ to get 13th/14th gen, I just stuck to 12th gen. In some ways my stinginess and obsession with the best price/performance saved me from getting the one that fried itself (the 13700k/14700k) and instead getting the stable one. But yeah.That's why I bought intel.

Anyway, at $300...you can get like a 13700k or like a 9700x. And the X3D chips are now...$450+. And yeah, they're the best, but they're also competing with an i9 14900k pricing wise. Not exactly budget friendly. Even the bundles are more expensive. Microcenter had a $500 7800X3D bundle, now it's $600, and the 9800X3D one is almost $700. 

And yeah, it's the best. Dont get me wrong. Nothing can touch it. But holy crap that's expensive.

Honestly, i get it, the X3D chips are amazing, and unparalleled in performance, but they're also...quite paralleled in value. 

Most new chips this year are overpriced. I didnt recommend core ultra for a reason, it's a hot mess, performance is parallel to the 13th/14th gen CPUs, and they cost like 50% more. And outside of AMD's amazing X3D technology, you can kinda get good deals from 5000/7000/9000 series from AMD and 12th-14th gens on intel.

Honestly. Just buy what works best for you. There is no right answer. AMD is a fine option. if I were buying off of newegg or amazon, 5700X3D is a fine CPU for the price, and it comes with cheap platform costs. AM5 outside of X3D, eh i dont think it offers amazing value right now. On the flip side, the intel chips give you a lot more CPU but the 13th and 14th gen chips are also quite...volatile. That issue is supposedly fixed btw, but...i understand peoples reluctance.

Still, 12th gen chips seem to dominate the budget and lower midrange market atm. And they're a perfectly fine option. Idk why people WOULDNT consider them an option. It's just that all the people who literally worship AMD keep pushing people toward AMD because they're quite evangelical with their suggestions. 

Like really, remember how people called apple a "religion" before? AMD fanboys are literally the same way. It's like they can't shut up about AMD products. Ever. 

Ironically its the opposite with graphics cards. Despite crapping on AMD fanboys in the CPU space, I bought an AMD GPU last time. Why? Because again, nvidia is just out of touch with the market and using their brand to overcharge people. And most people go along with it. $300+ 60 cards? Yep, welcome to the new normal. Get the same performance from AMD for $200? Yes please. And that's the thing. I'm not even anti AMD. If they make a good product, I'll buy it. Hell, I would've likely gone the 7800X3D route if not for the pervasive negative reviews on the microcenter bundle i was considering. I actually wouldved like to have bought a 7800X3D instead. BUT....their platform didnt have all their problems worked out, and I chose stability. And then because I'm a cheap MFer I ended up avoiding the instability with intel's newer CPUs by pure luck. 

But yeah. Again. To me, it's just value. Generally speaking, as a budget friendly guy, I probably would recommend AMD GPUs given Nvidia overcharges like crazy and intel GPUs are so experimental i wouldnt wanna touch one with a ten foot pole, and I think AMD dominates the sub $500-700 market in value. I dont care what anyone says. AMD makes good products at a good price there.

BUt in the CPU market, I'd only overwhelmingly recommend AMD if considering a 7800X3D or 9800X3D. MAYBE a 5700X3D given how cheap platform costs are, but even then, a 13600k or something is also an option. And sub $200? Im kinda intel all the way right now. So yeah. Again, value. And again, do your research and figure out what product you actually wanna buy. Dont treat hardware companies like cults. They just want your money, and you should just want a functional, well performing product. It's all transactional. Buy what suits you. I got a 12900k and I think I got an amazing deal. F the intel haters.

So...shilling on reddit is alive and well apparently...

 So...I had an interesting discussion tonight on reddit in which we were talking about why harris lost, and they basically pointed out how the harris campaign grossly misspent funds on things like celebrities to raise their appeal. This convo eventually turned to a discussion about shilling on reddit itself, with this article being linked to me. Yes yes, I know the federalist is right wing, but it actually does expose the extent to which the democrats work to astroturf reddit. 

Now, I'm going to say this. None of this surprises me. Reddit has turned into a craphole over the past decade with all of the astroturfing going on, and I believe that this started in at least 2016. I went over correct the record at the time and how the culture of reddit seemed to change overnight, and it never really changed back. Like, originally, in 2016, reddit was very pro bernie but i would come across these accounts that really seemed to be artificially boosting clinton, and a lot of these guys are why i developed the hatred and disdain toward the democrats i have in the first place. Because those guys ended up ruining reddit by astroturfing for clinton and literally bullying users like me into voting for her. And a lot of reddit changed for the worse starting in 2016. 

Honestly? I never really changed though. As I keep testifying, my views have changed surprisingly little throughout the years, and honestly, it's because i started developing an adversarial perspective toward these kinds of shills and crap posters. But...reddit itself was changed by them. I quickly found myself banned for calling out weirdos like this and it really did seem like the mods were in on it too on a lot of mainstream liberal subs. This is also why leftist subs left, formed their own corners of reddit, and started banning anyone who was pro dem at all. And yeah. Honestly, it's one of the reasons im so politically homeless. Because most subs any more are either all in the tank with democratic party propaganda, or they're outright leftist. The right maintains its own small echo chambers, but regularly get banned because reddit's TOS started cracking down on things like transphobia, which drove a lot of the right off of reddit since they seemed willing to die on that hill. Not to mention the election denialism. 

And yeah. I kinda suspected that through 2020 and 2024, this stuff kept happening, but this article really shows how expansive the conspiracy is, and how astroturfed reddit is. Old timey regulars like myself know better to avoid the mainstream subs like the literal plague, but yeah, the culture radically changed online post 2016. And it's one of the reasons the dems seem to lose. No one likes this stuff. These guys alienate genuine posters with actual genuine opinions, and end up displacing them from their favorite communities. We end up getting this toxic community where we end up arguing with the blue no matter who cult types, and yeah, it's one of the things that's shaped my politics into who I am. Despite not changing my core convictions, my opinion of the democratic party is quite negative now, and it does not surprise me at all to see the democrats just ignore whatever lessons they need to learn and instead of using their army of shills to actually just...gauge the atmosphere and what people are actually saying and course correct, they think the answer is to just keep spamming whatever BS they wanna push down everyone's throats.

Remember, for these guys, the democratic party cant fail, it can only be failed, and while post election you start seeing more genuine posters come out of hiding and call this stuff out as their army of shills takes a vacation, I really don't expect the dems to change their opinions much. Again, because the party cant fail, it can only be failed, and they'll just keep lecturing us rather than listening to what we think.

Reviewing four months of blog posts: my autopsy on Kamala Harris's campaign

 So....this is gonna be more my personal opinions and train of thought, but I decided to go through all of my old posts about Harris's campaign as they were happening, and this is what I think happened.

When Harris took over the campaign, she was popular because she was new, she was different. We really DID have a honeymoon period where people on the left were energized and hopeful. Me, I was a but more discerning and even handed, but even I bought into the hype somewhat. Still, I understood one simple reality, she could either run as a populist progressive, or she could run as a milquetoast centrist. And I really judged her on what path she took. While some initial moves like picking tim walz seemed good, ultimately, she ended up going the milquetoast centrist route.

I think the democrats have a triangulation problem. They need to keep their interests happy on the left, but also in the center. And while Harris was new, she was schrodinger's candidate. She was all things to all people. The center saw a centrist, the left saw a progressive, and ultimately, the box had to be opened, and she had to put it in stone what she was and what we were getting. It seemed like democratic strategists were trying to avoid doing this, and I even criticized them for suggesting that the voters were wrong for daring to demand policy from her, it seems like they wanted to ride that pure vibes based wave forever, but ultimately, she had to come out with a platform, and people would base their views of her on that platform.

So the box was opened and we got "centrist." Harris ran a very milquetoast campaign that dropped a lot of Biden's progressive policies like a public option, and for me...she became repulsive immediately. She leaned into this opportunity economy framing to appeal to the work loving moderates, and given my own ideology...I just...automatically began hating her for it. And then the convention happened, I noted it felt like 2016 again with a lot of leaning into identity politics and her actual economic platform being lacking, and yeah, my enthusiasm was killed.

Still, the public seemed to react positively at first, and through september she remained on a high. She had her one and only debate with trump and it went so badly for trump he refused to have another one. he understood that his appeal came down to the less the voters saw of him in contrast with harris, the better, and much like with the primaries, he chickened out and hid in his basement. And as he did that, his approval went up. Then Vance had a pretty decent debate with Walz and didn't appear as unhinged as democrats were making him out to be (and while walz didn't do badly, he didn't come off as strong as vance) and yeah, it seemed like when that happened, the energy started reversing.

October was a very cringey month for Harris. She started doing more interviews and town halls, and said a bunch of cringey things indicating that she would be virtually no different than Biden. She leaned into the whole "republicans in her cabinet" framing, she campaigned with liz cheney, and she just....didn't resonate.

That's the thing with Harris, if she could be everything to everyone and exist in the state of superposition she started in, where the vibes and energy were high, she probably wouldve won. She had immense energy at first. But then the honeymoon period wore off, that new car smell became that sickening "old car smell" again, and voters just...didn't buy into her or her vision. 

Honestly, I think the democratic brand sucks, and I think that her campaign ended up sucking. Once she committed to the centrist route on policy and promised to be just another four years of joe biden, it was over. The voters rejected her, and I think the polling data backed that up.

With me, my own personal opinion didnt line up ENTIRELY with polls, but I seemed to sour on her about a month before the public did. 

Honestly, I think it really came down to the fact that democrats still act like it's 1992, and the party and its culture are in their own heads. And they just seem to know how to kill a good party. It wasn't harris per se, at least for me, it was the whole brand. The stuff she did that was cringey and didnt resonate wasnt for voters like me, it was for moderate republicans fleeing the republican party. And they didn't vote. And the voter base didnt bite, and yeah. 

Honestly, I think the dems need to stop running to the center. They need to embrace progressive populism and stop trying to cater to this imaginary ex republican voter that doesn't exist. I AM a literal ex republican, and what I want is someone further left than anyone we've run, at least on economics. Because there is no one with stronger faith than one of the converted, and I am one of the converted. 

Drop the loser identity crap, embrace populism. Basically channel your inner bernie sanders and go to town. Stop trying to appeal to donors. yes yes yes, you get tons of money, but votes win elections, money just influences how you can reach the voters. Remember when Sanders was dominating with small dollar donors in the primary? That's what voter enthusiasm looks like. Maybe Harris's brand of politics is what pleases the donors, but what the donors isnt popular. because we live in a populist era of politics and people want something completely separate from what the voters want. Democrats can either adapt to that reality or keep losing elections.

Reminder, you can't force people to care

 So, this is a battle I've staked out before, and it's a hill I will "die on" metaphorically. Liberals, leftists, anything in between, you can't force people to care. So many people on the left are responding to the election by getting self righteous about "checking your privilege" or going on about how people who voted trump are evil because stopping racism/sexism/insert phobia here aren't deal breakers or whatever, and uh....congrats on missing the point. 

Look, I'm being REALLY aggressive now because I've kinda been holding this crap in all election cycle, but post election, I'm gonna come out and say it. STFU, your self righteousness is why we lost. I'm so sick and tired of the social justice bull#### and all the shaming our side does. it's all we've been doing for EIGHT PLUS YEARS NOW, and look at where it got us. 2 losses and a milquetoast win that led to our second loss four years later.

If you want people to vote for you, you gotta materially improve their lives. lecturing and condescending to people about your morality just shows how fricking out of touch you are. No one fricking cares about this crap, and this election proves it. And you know what? Part of me is glad no one cares, because I'm sick and tired of this social justice taking over the left. Seriously, it's time for you guys to go away and give the reins back to someone who knows what they're doing, because you sure AF don't.

Seriously, improve peoples' lives, it's that simple. it's BAFFLING how out of touch the left has gotten over the past 8 years since Bernie's original run. And a lot of it is this insular ideological crap and the social justice cult of caring nonsense. You guys have lost touch with people, and the people responded by kicking you to the curb come election day. I can't say I like trump winning. heck, I'm just as terrified about trump as the rest of you, quite frankly, but at the same time, I can't help but say that I told you so from the beginning. This crap is toxic, stop doing it. The left needs a new ethos based on populism and actually focusing on issues that motivate them to vote. Not this insular social justice nonsense. 

Really, "you can't force people to care" isn't even just a self righteous rant of mine against you guys, it's literal reality. People aren't going to go out of the way and care about specific issue just because you try to bully or shame them to. You end up just driving people away from you. All this lecturing about how the bad "isms" arent deal breakers and blah blah blah privilege just reeks of "are we out of touch? no, it is the voters who are wrong." No, YOU are wrong. 

Now, that doesnt mean I agree with the voters. But in 2016, I saw trump winning as a cry for help, and I can't help but interpret 2024 the same way. There is something seriously going on with america for them to elect this clown faced fascist again. Yes, a lot of voters are stupid, but a lot of voters have been perpetually dissatisfied with the economy since the great recession, and a lot of voters have been dissatisfied with the republican party. Take it from me. The only thing stopping me from joining these people is im too smart and educated to elect a fricking fascist. But the problem is, most arent too smart and educated to do that. heck, they just proved they will do that, again.

It's like the 1930s, the last time we were here. The way to stop fascism is to materially improve the lives of the people, where they don't WANT to elect psychos like trump. I really do think that trump is a cry for help, a brick through the window again, and we need to LISTEN, not  condescend about how the metrics say the economy is fine and the voters are stupid and look at how moral I am. Stfu, no one cares about your morality. If they did, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. 

You can't force people to care about your crap. You gotta meet voters where they are. We on the left have forgotten that. And we better relearn it or we will keep losing again and again until we get the message.

So why do I insist the democratic party is "woke" when Harris largely avoided wokeness in her campaign?

 So...this is a nice gotcha I see that keeps coming up. Some people will say that the democratic party is too woke, but then the democrats explicitly avoided all associations with wokeness this election cycle, knowing it's unpopular, so why do people keep insisting it's too woke, why do we do that? isnt it one or the other?

Well, to be fair, in my case, I've been explicitly doing my own autopsy on the democrats since 2016. I was thinking of implementing it with my book idea, but I'm SO verbose on the subject I could literally write a book just on all of that. 

But to summarize, one of the things the democrats did wrong in 2016 WAS wokeness. Wokeness was mostly a terminally online thing pre 2016. I mean, when I came over to the left, it was pretty new. You had elevatorgate in the atheist community, you had atheism+. And then a couple years later you had gamergate. But in all of these situations, it WAS mostly just a terminally online thing. And it was kind of easy to avoid if you wanted to avoid it. It didn't become ubiquitous until the 2016 election cycle.

Let's think about 2016 for a minute. What was Clinton's strategy. "For every working class voter blah blah blah you know the thing." Basically, screw working class voters in the rust belt, she had this grand idea for a coalition based on upper class suburbanites and identity groups that benefit from wokeism. So Women, minorities, the LGBT+ community, etc. She leaned HARD into it. She literally demonized bernie supporters as "bernie bros" and lambasted us for being privileged. her supporters would constantly lecture us about how we dont get black people, and how we're sexist, and blah blah blah. And then they acted surprised when a lot of us eventually found our way over to trump. I didn't, because i was innoculated against the GOP's BS, but I do understand why, going from 2016 to 2024, we're seeing the rise of the "bro" demographic going to trump, because if democrats showed us anything, it's that we weren't welcome in the democratic party. You act hostile to entire groups of people based on their identity, and they...won't vote for you. Imagine that. 

In 2020, the democrats still leaned into this stuff. BLM was a thing, and there's still backlash from democrats like Biden and Harris shifting left on issues like defund the police that many critics and skeptics of harris still brought up even now. The thing is, she pivoted left to those guys in 2020, and now she's seen as a flip flopper where people don't know what she thought. But yeah. In 2020, the social justice people gained so much power, literally everyone was forced to pay fealty to them and their concerns. bernie pivoted hard left too, after his identity blind message flopped in 2016 specifically because of the above, and I've heard critics of bernie who used to be supporters say the same thing, "he became woke." Again, this doesn't matter to me much. As long as "wokeness" doesnt get in the way of my own concerns, im not necessarily as hostile as I often am. I'm hostile to those guys primarily because they DO get in my way and they ARE pushy, evangelical, and toxic toward people who don't like their stuff. And they are polarizing. And I do think a lot of that independent appeal bernie had in 2016 was lost in 2020.

In the Yang Gang, Yang himself didn't lean into that. And look at where that got him in 2020. he got 2% of the population, because in 2020, democratic voters wanted the woke crap. And they would punish anyone who didn't pander to it. 

In 2021, when Yang ran in his mayoral campaign, he also didn't lean hard into the woke stuff. And if anything I saw some interesting dynamics there that seem relevant in 2024. I saw a lot of asian americans love yang for being asian, and themselves push obnoxious asian identity politics, but they also seemed to resent the black identity politics that adams was using, and because blacks outnumber asians in NYC, adams won and yang didn't. The dynamic between blacks and asians is worth noting because I've heard someone say in recent days post election that there's a similar dynamics between Latinos and blacks as far as idpol goes. And how the Latinos resent being treated like crap because they don't rank as highly in woke suffering olympics as black people do. I've heard latinos online SAY this sort of stuff in doing their own autopsies for why trump won. And that's why latinos are turning on the democratic party. Because they themselves resent wokeness. They hate the suffering olympics dynamics where they themselves are treated as second class citizens simply for not being as oppressed as other races, and they also hate the white policing over the "latinx" crap. Imagine the movement against cultural appropriation basically telling people how to properly speak their own language. You can see why these guys are like "will you people f off already?"

And in 2024, let's be real. Yes, the biden-harris campaign did tone it down. BUT, this stuff is still ubiquitous in left wing social circles, and it's kinda unavoidable. If you mention not being totally in the tank for harris online, you were often met with OMG DONT YOU CARE ABOUT THE WOMEN AND THE MINORITIES AND THE LGBTQIABCXYZ AND BLAH BLAH BLAH, and again, it's insufferable. Yes, harris dialed it down herself, but this stuff is still this common glue holding the left together and that ethics system has become the left's guiding light to the point that people will question your ideological credentials if you DONT toe the line on this stuff.

I mean just look at how badly the left is treating Ana Kasperian at times. I'm not saying she doesn't deserve some flak sometimes (yes, Ana, Trump IS a fascist, you are WRONG), but honestly? A lot of her "leaving the left" seems to have come from this insufferable ethos of wokeism in TYT's communities, causing her own fan base to eat her alive over comments related to the whole "birthing persons" nonsense and the whole being raped by a homeless person thing. I mean, the left has this toxic culture of social policing and even if the campaign itself toned it down, it's clear the left has a huge "wokeism" problem even now. It's a cultural problem. They dont have to even lean into it any more for it to be a liability, just it existing seems to be an issue.

And to be fair, the campaign did kind of lean into it at times too unknowingly. They went ALL IN with the abortion narrative and even were making cringey ads about men "voting for their wives and daughters" and those cringey ads about women not voting with their trump loving husbands in the voting booth. I've heard people (mostly trumpers) saying democrats dont know how to cater to men, and while sometimes i think they exaggerate the issues, sometimes they do seem to have this hello fellow kids vibe toward men where they...just dont understand men.

I'm not saying they should lean into toxic masculinity either, and quite frankly, I hate a lot of the right wing mentalities toward masculinity and being a man, I dont personally relate to that stuff despite having the right equipment, but it does seem obvious that a decade of wokeness has lost a lot of goodwill with demographics like men, latinos, etc., and this all came around.

Harris herself tried to lean away from wokeness, but I dont think she could truly escape the ideological legacy it has left on the democratic party or its culture, and that stuff is still very alive and well in 2024. If anything, the chickens are finally coming home to roost and i think it's clear, YES, WE HAVE A WOKENESS PROBLEM. I really really do. And it's gonna be hard to fix. Because how do you convince an entire segment of the country that doesnt wanna listen that they're wrong and alienating people, you don't. Honestly, I think wokeness went mainstream as part of a psy op by the clinton campaign to unite the democratic base behind social issues. But it was such a paradigm shift and the propaganda was so successful the left has lost their way and doesn't even know how to talk to people any more. Because their entire ideology has been rewritten around this ideology. And I myself butt heads constantly on the left as someone who is an "older" leftie with an "older" ideology (secular humanism). Like, I'm a pre 2016 progressive at this point. Someone whose views were cut from a different cloth and doesn't share the current left's value system. And honestly, I kind of understand why the modern democratic party is so offputting. Because we HAVE been realigning, and I can say it, we have been going the wrong way. 2024 confirmed this for me, and between my own preconceptions and listening to people, which, if anything, seems to be confirming my preconceptions, we made some huge mistakes, and we're just...realigning wrong. 2016 was a realigning year or at least the beginning of a realignment. It's now 8 years later, and it seems like much of the country has gone in one direction, others have gone the other, and here I am, largely having kept my pre 2016 views intact and I'm just freaking out at the state of things. The democrats have screwed up HARD, and again, maybe I'm biased, but I feel like everything I've been fearing for years about the direction of this country in general has been coming true.

I'm not even sure if we could even run a bernie 2016 campaign and be successful at this point. The left doesnt seem to want that any more as they are so fixated on insular cultural issues while being economically centrist, and the people who used to be "my people" are all becoming trumpers. Because they shifted the other way in reaction to this toxic democratic party culture, and they seem to have drank the trump kool aid. 

It's saddening to me. All of this was unnecessary. The democrats screwed up and caused all of this. And we might suffer for an entire generation because of the original sins of 2016. I wish I had better news, and was more optimistic, but that's how I feel about this.

Donald Trump's little shop of horrors (so far)

 So...Trump's cabinet is shaping up to be....something else. 

We got Marco Rubio as secretary of state. That one isn't that bad. Still, dude is anti Ukraine and SUPER pro Israel. Still this is the relatively sane one, which says a lot...

We got Matt Gaetz for Attorney general. yeah. The same one that imploded the republican party in congress temporarily last year by forcing Kevin McCarthy, which ultimately led to us getting Ned Flanders...uh...I mean Mike Johnson. The dude has also come under investigation for sex trafficking before, including involving minors. And now he's basically the face of justice in this country. What, the actual hell. 

Tulsi Gabbard is the director of national intelligence. I guess all that grifting and selling out the left paid off for her. Ya know, Tulsi, I dont like the democratic party either, but at least I don't sell out to the right. I liked you when you were an anti establishment leftie, but as a republican, you're dead to me. SELL OUT!

RFK Jr as director of health and human services. I mean, WHAT?! The anti vaxxer? The dude with LITERAL brainworms? And now he wants to gut the FDA where the rest of us get brainworms too? Holy crap, this is scary...

Pete Hegseth is the secretary of defense. I didn't even know who this guy is, but apparently he's a host on Fox and Friends or something. You know the news show. He's also going viral for denying germs exist, claiming that if you can't see them, they're not real. He also was in an axe throwing competition on the show and has worse aim than Dick Cheney.... This guy is in charge of our national security. What the hell...

Susie Wiles is chief of staff. Who is that? A former campaign manager. Spoils system at its finest.

We got Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom are jokes, heading the new "Department of Government Efficiency", or DOGE....and....NO IM NOT MAKING UP. I SWEAR I AM NOT MAKING THIS CRAP UP. Anyway, apparently this organization that was clearly named after a LITERAL INTERNET MEME and is the second worst government acronym I've ever seen implemented behind "FAP" (aka Nixon's basic income plan) is designed to figure out what other programs need cutting. You know how the right always talks about wanting to cut government agencies without knowing what they do and you get idiots saying "LET'S GET RID OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY" without knowing what it does? That's what these guys' job is. To find out what it is to cut, and to cut it. And apparently it's off to a good start, having two leaders for some reason, an example of efficiency that reminds me of something the Soviets would do in their quest for "full employment." 

Kristi Noem is in charge of homeland security. Gee thanks. I feel about as safe as one of her dogs...

Oh, and to go full circle back to Israel, MIKE HUCKABEE is our new ambassador there. You know, the fundamentalist Christian? Probably believes in the end times? And is a die hard zionist who cares nothing for the lives of Palestinians? Yeah, that Mike huckabee. Congrats, free palestine kiddies, you played yourself. Not that it matters, trump would've won anyway. 

But yeah. It's almost like Trump is assembling a real Legion of Doom or League of Villains, or League of evil over here. Ya know, one of those super hero things and all of the bad guys get the gang together to take out the super hero? That's about where America is at right now. 

Why is trump doing this? Is he really this stupid? To some extent, yes, but at the same time, he's awarding positions for loyalty. You see, last time trump was in, his staff acted like handlers. They "handled" him. They kept him on track and made sure he didnt screw up. In a sense his own cabinet was a check and balance on him. He had actual experts who knew how to do their jobs and they would push back against his childish impulses. Hence why he went through cabinet members like Diddy goes through lube. They kept quitting on him and he kept having to get new ones in. And now he's just appointing people he knows will be loyal, and appeasing the base, ya know, appealing to anti vaxxers and anti regulation people on health and human services, instead of having that darned Dr. Fauci with his facts and masks and vaccines. He's going psychotic on being pro Israel while selling out Ukraine. He's appealing to small government weirdos with his suggested cuts to government services and this new "DOGE" department. Basically, he's surrounding himself by yes men and loyalists who he can control and who will do his bidding.

This is actually scary. The reason I was willing to take a chance on trump winning last time was because i knew our institutions could contain him. But the guy's learning how to avoid containment. And now we just gave him the house, the senate, the presidency, and scotus was already in his pocket. And now he's doing project 2025 crap, imposing his will on the bureaucracy.

So...this guy is a wannabe tyrant with no checks and balances...which makes him a just a tyrant. This is like the rise of hitler. This is like Scar taking over Pride Rock in the Lion King. This is BAD. We are in the worst timeline. Trump was already the worst president ever for me simply due to the january 6th crap. Now he's gonna have near absolute power and knows how to break democracy and bend it to his whim. I wish I could be more optimistic, but this aint 2016 any more. Aint fun and games and "hahaha look at this idiot". This is SCARY. If you wanted to know why I voted for Harris despite clearly still despising the democrats, this is why. Better corporate aristocrats over this crap. This could literally be the end of American democracy....