Update on AMD drivers

 So, as it turns out, AMD has partially walked back their statement on drivers for RDNA1/2 cards. So, what does this mean? Time will tell, but this is my understanding of the situation. 

There are multiple levels of driver support. You got general support for cards to ensure they work properly, and then you got more specific driver optimizations aimed for new games. Historically, driver optimizations for specific games are only supported on the newer architectures, and then for older ones, whatever the performance is. 

Now, this, is why AMD users typicially make "fine wine" arguments. While Nvidia provides general support for longer, supporting cards as long as 8-10 years these days at times, and AMD supporting theirs for say, 6-8, game optimizations are different. Nvidia only seems to support architectures specifically for the newest ones. And AMD, at least relatively recently, would support game optimizations for longer. In the GCN architecture days, AMD would keep building on the same architecture leading to more unified game drivers for longer. So you'd have 8 year old GPUs like the HD 7000 series getting game optimizations well past their expiration date. Meanwhile, nvidia stopped supporting their kepler architecture (600/700) in this way when maxwell came out. Maxwell and pascal (900/1000) would get the same axe when the 2000 series dropped, and idk what nvidia is doing with their 2000 series onward with game specific optimizations but as we can see, nvidia tends to prioritize their newest 1-2 generations of cards while their older ones start to perform worse. Meanwhile, AMD cards would often age better because AMD would be providing game specific optimizations even on older cards, as long as the card was supported, it was supported. This is where the idea of "AMD finewine" came from. While pre HD 7000 series, AMD cards truly did age like milk since AMD likes to drop driver support on like 3-5 year old cards half the time, after that, AMD improved significantly, not just supporting older cards but giving them game specific optimizations, which caused them to outperform equivalent nvidia cards that they often competed against.

So when AMD is dropping specific optimizations targetted at specific older architectures, they're NOT abandoning the cards, and they'll probably run. We just aren't getting "finewine" any more. I can accept this compromise, as I primarily care about running games, and nvidia doesnt give "finewine" to their cards like AT ALL. Even if you got driver support spanning a decade, past the first 2 years, youre not getting the full optimized experience. It's just industry practice. Finewine is a bonus for AMD cards, but it's not really "expected", it's kind of a plus. And honestly, I can understand that RNDA isnt like GCN in that they arent iterating on the same thing 5 times here. Rather, RDNA versions diverge significantly from each other. RDNA1 is so old it cant even run modern games as it has no mesh shaders, DX12 ultimate support, or RT capabilities. RDNA2 is more modern, but I know there's a lot of AI stuff built into RDNA3 and onward where they're trying to catch up to Nvidia, and need AI acceleration to do that. So RDNA2 doesnt necessarily have the capabilities that RDNA3 and 4 have, and require different driver branches as a result. Different driver branches mean that they're not gonna give specific game optimizations to older cards. It's too much work and takes too much effort to do that. THat's why nvidia never did it. Every generation they're revolutionizing their GPU designs, whereas AMD was merely iterating on 2012 era designs until around 2019. And now RDNA1 is radically different than RDNA2, which is radically different than RDNA3, which is a whole different beast from RDNA4. 

As it stands, looking at modern benchmarks for RX 6000 series (RDNA2) cards, I could honestly see that RDNA2 performance was lagging behind RDNA3/4 cards and even nvidia cards like the 3060/4060. So honestly, Im not surprised theyre dropping it. It is older now by PC standards. And honestly, the new tech AMD is working on probably wont work with RDNA2. I know there was talk of a version of FSR4 for example which was tested on RDNA2 and leaked out, and it kinda sucked. Like it barely provided a performance uplift and was scratched as a result. So..old tech is old, old tech doesnt have ALL of the modern tech that AMD is working on. So they split the driver branches and older tech isnt getting the fine wine stuff but should still run games.

How do I feel about this? Well, Im ambivalent. The internet is still freaking out and acting like AMD is abandoning the 6000 series, despite them being sold along side 7000 series for most of their lifespans. I dont think thats the case, and I think my technical explanation for what happened sums up what's actually happened. I'm just glad to continue getting general driver support, which does ensure games WORK on modern games. Like, 6000 series isnt being abandoned. It's not gonna be like the old days where my last HD 5850 driver was the windows 10 driver and then any game past 2015 was a crapshoot and sometimes wouldnt work because there wasnt a driver for them. You'll get drivers to ensure games work. THey just arent gonna optimize for an older architecture incapable of supporting the modern features they're working on and they wanna focus on FSR4 and crap. Ideally, I would like to get game optimizations too, but I'm not really gonna expect it at this point if its impractical for AMD to provide it, as long as the games RUN acceptably, ya know? Still, I would've ideally liked to have seen support until 2027. Either way, no GPU ive owned has had extended finewine like people are expecting. I know AMD did provide it for a while for those GCN series cards, but RDNA has always been a different beast and I can see why they'd separate stuff into different branches similar to nvidia. 

Andrew Yang has lost the plot entirely

 So I just came across this gem on facebook from Andrew Yang:

I can’t ####ing believe they’re letting this shutdown go into the weekend given what’s at stake. Truly awful on BOTH sides.

Food stamps for tens of millions lapse this weekend. That doesn’t matter to these ###holes.

(censorship added by me)

 

This is where I will unapologetically break from Yang on everything and go full scorched earth (metaphorically speaking of course). 

 

Look, I get it, you don't like the democrats. I don't blame you. They're fricking worthless. They don't support UBI, they don't support medicare for all, they BARELY support a public option and dropped that idea the second it was politically convenient for them. They are a bunch of weak necked wimps. I get why you initially turned on them. They are scummy and they oppose good things. But...that doesn't mean we should be enlightened centrist here. The problem is that both parties suck, but let's contextualize that suckiness. At the absolute core, my ideology is very similar to what you proported in your 2020 campaign. Basic income, medicare for all (and yeah I did downgrade that to a public option for pragmatic reasons), and human centered capitalism. That's my jam. That's my thing. And my problem with the democrats is they don't support this crap. because too often they wanna compromise with the republicans and sell out left wing progressive principles to the right, who is, in my own mind, EVIL.

As someone who is arguably one of the original creators of human centered capitalism (I still mostly believe he got the idea from Scott Santens, and Scott Santens may have been influenced by me via reddit in this regard), let me be frank. The point of human centered capitalism was never to do this enlightened centrist both sides nonsense. The problem with the two party system is such. The right is evil, and because the left concedes the moral argument to the right, they become half evil. I know that basic income is "not left or right but forward", but let's contextualize that. That quote ALSO came from Scott Santens, who came up with it to demonstrate how basic income has had a unique ideological umbrella of supporters over the years ranging from Martin Luther King Jr and George McGovern on the left, and Milton Friedman and Richard Nixon on the right. However, let's be frank, this ideologically centrist tradition is contextualized in tbe shadow of the New Deal movement, where the left was for greater levels of government action, but often proposed such ideas in highly inefficient and piecemeal ways, and the right ended up reflecting those values, compromising with the left, and saying "well if we're gonna do this let's do it right", leading to them to back ideas like UBI as an alternative to the traditional welfare state.

In the modern political context from 1980 onward, the consensus has changed. The right has gone all in with trickle down economics, work ethic, and social darwinism, and now the left operates in the RIGHT'S shadow and compromises with them half way on everything. And in this context, basic income is no longer this ideologically centrist idea, it's a radically left wing one. Because that's how much the dialogue has changed since around 1970! And when I come at the ideas of UBI, medicare for all (or a public option), and human centered capitalism, I come at these ideas FROM THE LEFT. Andrew, in 2020, you were debatably as progressive as BERNIE SANDERS. You said once in your own book that you actually thought you were to the left of Sanders in a way because not even he would touch UBI. I understand the left/right continuum is more complicated than that, and we could debate in circles all day about whether a UBI centric human centered capitalist vision or a democratic socialist/new deal liberal vision is more "left" or more "progressive" (left wing infighting coming), but the point is, WE ARE THE LEFT. In the modern environment, politics is like driving a car. A really crappy car, but a car nevertheless. You go D if you wanna go forward, you go R if you wanna go backward. And yeah, the car sucks, it goes 15 miles an hour like its in a school zone even on the interstate, and yeah it's not going forward fast enough. And it won't even try. Because it still lives in that shadow of the right.

 

Human centered capitalism, at least how I designed it, was intended to be a secular humanist progressive alternative to the christian nationalist conservatism of the right. I believe that 2016 marked the start of a party realignment, one that the left should have very easily won, but is now losing because it cant get its crap together and wont fight the right. And the rejection of progressives, like you, and Bernie Sanders, were part of that. We are in this situation because the democrats shot themselves in the face MULTIPLE TIMES (metaphorically, of course) pushing lukewarm candidates like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris who weren't up to the task of clearly advocating for effective solutions to the country's socioeconomic problems, and instead proposed a bunch of band aid fixes they failed to even really pass AT BEST. 

Quite frankly, if we want to get out way out of this mess, we need the democrats to take the fight to the republicans. And the one time they do that, YOU'RE BASHING THEM FOR IT! Let's recontextualize this shutdown. It happened because the republicans decided to gut healthcare, throwing tens of millions off of medicaid and letting ACA subsidies expire which could QUADRUPLE HEALTHCARE PRICES! Democrats said this is unacceptable, and the government shut down came from that. And then the GOP decided to weaponize hunger and food in order to force the dems to capitulate. The shutdown amounts to "if you dont let us take away your healthcare, we'll take away your food too." They are EVIL, EVIL GHOULS. 

 

And let's be frank, universal basic income, universal healthcare, and human centered capitalism are an ANATHEMA to them. They are fundamentally and morally opposed to such things. They will NEVER support UBI. Because they believe people should work to earn every penny they get, while all income and wealth redistribution through social programs is unacceptable to them. They want to take us back to the gilded age. I get it, our current safety nets aren't perfect, but wasn't UBI and universal healthcare intended to MAKE THINGS BETTER? To improve on what we have? 

 

With that said, let's not "both sides" this crap. We need to rally around the democrats and support them through this shutdown, even if it is painful in the short term. Because in the long term, if we don't stop these guys, we'll lose anyway. They'll eventually gut SNAP anyway too. They WANT to do that. They dont WANT poor people to eat. They want them to suffer. I mean, the GOP is literally talking about CONCENTRATION CAMPS FOR HOMELESS PEOPLE. And you wanna both sides this crap, Andrew? Get the heck out of here. 

Really, Yang needs to figure out what side he's actually on, and to actually take a side here, because this enlightened centrism is just cringe and a capitulation of all values that he built his original political career around. This is not a both sides issue. Democrats suck for not being progressive (ie, "forward") enough. They dont suck when they do things. When they do things, we should rally around them and defend them. Only yang can get so cringe with the enlightened centrist crap he makes me turn around and actually defend the democrats. 

AMD screws over RDNA2 users

So....AMD has announced that they are no longer going to be supporting RDNA1/2 (RX 5000/6000 series) GPUs with game ready drivers, which a lot of techtubers are treating as a slap in the face to consumers. As someone with an RX 6000 series GPU (6650 XT), I'm not really sure what the full implications of this are, but I ain't really happy. 

AMD has always had kind of a bad history with supporting drivers. I remember I got burned early on with the HD 5850 and HD 6520g laptop IGP before. Back in the day, AMD would only support drivers for their GPUs for like 4-6 years before moving on to the next thing, while nvidia supported their cards for around 6-8. 

In the modern era, both brands were supported for longer. The HD 7000 series was supported for like 7-8 years for example. Nvidia started supporting their cards for 8-10. This is acceptable, given GPUs last longer these days. 

I know the RX 400/500 series got crap when AMD discontinued support around 2023, although in all fairness, that's around when those cards struggled to run games. I could also see justification for stopping support for the ill fated RDNA1 cards these days, but RDNA2? Really?

RDNA1 isnt really capable of running modern games. It has the same features as Nvidia 1000 series cards, which have been discontinued too. Ya know? they dont have ANY ray tracing abilities, DX12 ultimate, or mesh shaders, which are essential for modern games. But RDNA2 has ALL of those things. And not much has really happened since then in GPU development on the AMD side other than AI bullcrap. And all that AI is good for, to my knowledge, is better upscaling. We got FSR 2/3 on the 6000 series, we don't really NEED better upscaling. I mean it's nice to have, but it shouldnt be NECESSARY. if we wanna use a more dated form of FSR, let us. I'll take slightly blurrier graphics over not being able to run a game at all. As such, there's no NEED for this.  

What's even more of a slap in the face was RDNA2 cards have mostly been sold until very recently. I literally recommended the RX 6600 around $200ish until like 3-6 months ago or something when we got 1) The RTX 5050 for $250, 2) the RX 9060 XT 8 GB for $270, and 3) the RTX 5060 for $300. In the face of those, the RX 6600 for $220 started looking like a bad value. Especially as the stock finally ran out recently where now those cards aren't even cheap when available at all. 

I literally bought a RX 6650 XT 3 years ago, and I went AMD over nvidia explicitly due to price. Nvidia wanted like $340 for a fricking 3060, which was a joke, and AMD wanted $230 for a 6650 XT. It was a no brainer. And given people spent a lot more on cards, say, $350 for a RX 6700 XT, $450 for a RX 6800, $600 for a 6850 XT, etc., those guys got BURNED. People upgraded to those thinking they'd get years of driver support and VRAM would help them and now AMD is cutting driver support THIS early?

Even for me, I still planned to use my RX 6650 XT for like 2 more years. I planned an upgrade in 2027 when the RTX 6000 and RX 10000 series card would be out. I sure as heck dont wanna upgrade NOW over some BS software crap when sub $300 cards are only 50% better and still have 8 GB VRAM. And I aint buying more than a $300 card, I just ain't. So...AMD, get your crap together. This is ridiculous. I dont care if I get some fancy version of FSR4 or whatever on my RDNA2 GPU, but FFS at least support your software. The RDNA2 series is only FOUR YEARS OLD. It released in 2021. Those cards are still viable for gaming, they still support the latest APIs and have all the necessary features to run stuff. Again, I don't give a flying frick about stupid AI powered FSR4. If my experience is a little blurrier then so be it. I literally don't care. I just wanna run games, man. When a GPU gets in the second half of its expected life span, I stop caring what they look like as long as they run fluidly. 

So, yeah, don't burn us AMD. Really. I bought AMD because I wanted to make a statement about nvidia and their price gouging, they have like 90% of the GPU market and don't care about gamers and small time consumers any more. But, this is reminding me why I have such a bias against AMD products. Because they don't support their crap, they do age like milk, and I end up regretting it when I do purchase them. Really, what you're telling me at this point is to buy nvidia next time. They might be an evil monopoly, but at least they support their products. And let's face it, it's not 2022 any more. We're no longer at a point where it's $230 for a RX 6650 XT vs $340 for a RTX 3060. We're at a point where it's $270 for a RX 9060 XT vs $300 for a RTX 5060. If I had to buy now, I'd be going 5060 after hearing this. No question. 4 years of support is unacceptable. Especially when those were "current generation" for half that time, and still regularly sold until recently. Seriously, I know they slowly phased out the higher end 6000 series cards in like 2024 (so last year), but the 6600 was available until THIS YEAR. Heck, even my 2.9 year old 6650 XT is still under warranty for another month, that's how new it is. What the actual hell, AMD? 

Again, if you wanted to do this in like 2028 or whatever, fine, I kinda get it. Tech eventually moves on, but my card that's still technically under warranty no longer gets driver updates? What the actual fudge?  

EDIT: It's even worse when you realize just how much AMD was still selling 6000 series cards along side 7000 series cards, and until the 9000 series which launched this past summer, there was no shift in value from late 2022 on when I bought, meaning, if you wanted to spend $200-300ish on a GPU, your options were stuff like the RX 6600, the 6650 XT, or the 7600. The 7600 eventually replaced the 6650 XT, and by eventually, I mean, they were still sold next to each other for like a $20 difference until late in the 7000 series' life cycle.

The market only shifted to provide better value for those in the sub $300 segment like....3-5 months ago. And even then, for a while, the 6700 XT offered a niche between the 7600 ($250) and the 7700 XT ($400+) which was never truly filled.  The RX 6800 was offered along side the 7700 XT for like $400 for a while, etc. Really, all of these RX 6000 cards were literally offered along side their next gen counterparts for only a few dollars difference in price/performance. As such, it is disgraceful for AMD to then be like "we got your money, BYE!" I mean, if you go on steam hardware survey, more people got 6000 series cards than 7000 series cards, because they were LITERALLY better value for the most part. The 7600 was kinda awkwardly priced vs cards like the RX 6600, 6650 XT, and the RTX 3060/4060. The 7700 XT was awkward because it was like $400-450 and offered 6800 level performance with LESS VRAM. Again, they just never had a replacement for the $300-350ish 6700 XT unless you wanted a 7600 XT, which was just a 7600 with more VRAM. Really, it was a joke. The 7000 series was never really compelling vs the 6000 series. And it was sold along side the 6000 series for most of its lifespan. 

So yeah, it really seems REALLY DUMB and REALLY SCUMMY to cut off 6000 series NOW. If this is a scam to get me to upgrade to the 9000 series, uh, screw you AMD, I'd buy a 5060 first. And I dont exactly want to buy a 5060. That in itself isn't an amazing value. Only 50% more performance and STILL 8 GB RAM for $300?! Screw this market. 

I'm honestly getting to the point of just giving up on new gaming and becoming a retro gamer. This crap is ridiculous. I'm being priced out of gaming over here. Cant even buy a steam deck because GUESS WHAT, THAT WAS RDNA2 TOO! 

"How much are folks like Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ibram X. Kendi to blame for pushing Democrats to adopt unpopular identity politics that hurt us electorally?"

 I saw this question online and wanted to answer it here, as it is relevant to what got us to where we are.

Generally speaking, no, those activists are NOT responsible for the failures of the democratic party. The democratic party is responsible for the failures of the democratic party.

These were just weird hare brained activist sentiments until someone inside the democrats decided to mainstream them. And the person who is responsible is Hillary Clinton. It was HRC and her campaign that led to the rise of "woke" politics within the democratic party. The democrats elevated it because it offered a compelling counter narrative to Bernie Sanders and his democratic socialism. by arguing that Bernie and his voter base was "too white" and "too male", and "too privileged", the democrats found a way to attack him and his voters and unite a coalition of black activists, feminists, and LGBTQ+ people behind the democratic party. The democratic party itself didn't want to focus on economics. They wanted to discuss anything BUT the economic issues that plague us. So they elevated "woke" as a cudgel to browbeat people into line behind her. Keep in mind, in 2016, I was a "bernie bro", a college educated white male who actually understood actual ideas about how the economy worked and that made me bad or out of touch. And apparently I was "racist", "sexist", "privileged" and had to give up my core concerns on the altar of white male guilt and so called "electability" to endorse a centrist candidate who I had zero interest in and who didn't represent my politics. And that candidate lost to Donald Trump. 

  I noticed as early as Trump's first inauguration that "woke" was here to stay. It wasnt just a fad for the election. People were radicalized by it and were acting as if 2017 era Trump was as much of a threat as 2025 Trump is, claiming to be "anti fascist" and pushing their paradox of tolerance nonsense. The threat wasnt even apparent back then. Trump governed like a normal republican in his first term. Yeah, he was always this crazy in a way, BUT, he had an army of advisors who actually kept him in check. It wasn't until Trump lost in 2020 that he went off the rails and turned into the fascist he is today. Ever since then he got more authoritarian, dangerous, and started aligning himself with some very dark people. BUT...if we look at the rise of woke culture in the democratic party, it wasnt in response to trump's actual fascist shift. They were treating him as if he were a fascist back in 2017, and even back in 2015, when he came off as a relatively normal, if not rambunctious politician. 

From there, those guys just rose to prominence because of the zeitgeist that Clinton started. New atheism died, and "woke" replaced it. And everything became an insufferable hugbox on the left about race, gender, and sexuality and privilege, with BLM rising to prominance in 2020, and so much of the 2020 election cycle being dominated by race and gender. It was because of 2016. Clinton enabled those factions who were largely a bunch of terminally online weirdos before then, and by 2020, you couldnt NOT be woke in the democratic party and get anywhere. Bernie bent the knee. Yang didn't appeal to wokeism and was mostly ignored. And yeah. That's where this came from.

And while by 2024, the democrats started to distance themselves from this monster they created and just embrace full centrism, the stink of "woke" followed them, and this did contribute to the dems' loss.

Because let's face it, while this stuff played well within the democratic primary, it was deeply unpopular outside of it, and the core demographics it was intended to appeal to. Straight white male types were turned off massively by it, and if anything, many of them were driven to Trump, with some younger zoomers embracing a form of conservatism I would outright say is basically fascism or even nazism. Because 2016 created a contrast between Trump's brand of political incorrectness, and wokeness, with wokeness helping radicalize some to fascism. And now we DO got open fascists going around, who view "woke" as an existential enemy, and they're winning. We are losing...because of this stuff.

Basically the dems pushed a culture war they they couldnt win, because that brand of politics was inherently divisive and unpopular. I mean, sure, you gain an advantage with women, minorities, and LGBT, but then you lose support among whites, men, and straight people. And then you fail to even win over all of your target demographics consistently because eventually they realize all this crap is performative and the democrats dont actually do anything to make their lives better. And that's how we lost. The democrats couldnt even reliably turn out their own core demographics this strategy relied on, because they werent feeling the dems either. So this stuff appealed to no one.

But really, to go back to the question, is it Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ibram X Kendi  responsible for this situation? No. They were nobodies until the democrats decided to elevate those ideologies and sentiments to win elections around them. Just like they ignored bernie, they ignored yang, etc. they could have ignored those kinds of people. The democrats CHOSE to elevate them. As such, they're the ones truly responsible for it. You can be a thought leader behind ideas but if no one takes you seriously, you arent gonna get anywhere. Just like I dont get anywhere because no one takes human centered capitalism and UBI seriously except for literally like 2% of the democratic party. If the people in power wanted to elevate those ideas, or elevate bernie and AOC and their ideas tomorrow, they would suddenly win elections based on them. But instead, they chose to ignore them.

You know, I didnt write an article about this because I was too tired at the time, but I saw an article someone else wrote not long ago arguing that wokeness was basically a psy op created to distract the left from more traditional left wing ideas. This "new left" was actually a creature of the 1960s, and it was designed as an "anti communist" program, which drew people away from labor activism and class politics and toward social justice. And we kind of saw it in play in 2016. If anything, the combination of wokeness combined with accusations that everyone else was a russian plant was that playbook at work. Because that's what this stuff was originally designed to do. People feared that the Soviets would influence American politics and push some machurian candidate to destroy America from within, and that this threat would come from the left, since, obviously, the far left aligns with communism. And Clinton used that playbook to attack both Trump and Jill Stein in her election campaign, which was why the democrats were obsessed with Russia.

Sadly, in a sense, Clinton was right, the russians did play the dissatisfaction on the left, while elevating trump in their own way to try to destabilize the US, because let's face it, the understood that trump was stupid and erratic. Still, can you see where this stuff was coming from? "Wokeness" was a tool used by the democrats to beat back the more traditional progressive economic left in order to distract people with a bunch of culture war nonsense. We shouldnt blame the activists who came up with these ideas, we should blame the democrats for giving these guys so much of a platform that that ideology became so dominant within the party. Things didn't have to go that way. They were artificially pushed that way by the democrats to avoid giving the progressive economic left their much deserved time in the sun.  

So yeah, that's my stance on that. The dems elevated wokeism to pull people away from a more productive economic left, and everything that's happened since is basically "blowback", to use a CIA term.  

Can Kamala Harris please go away forever?

 So, with a recent interview she did, Kamala Harris is hinting at possibly running for president again. I've also been listening to 107 days, and she honestly doesn't seem to have a clue about why she lost. if anything, she sounds like Hillary Clinton again. 

Can she just...please go away? She lost, she should be a pariah at this point, but it seems like Joe Biden is the scapegoat that got the party into that mess. it's not like the entire democratic party or its brand are unpopular and out of step with the American people or anything, it's that Harris didn't have enough time to make up for Joe Biden's problems. 

*sigh*, do I have to trot this out again?

 These are my election predictions. Harris did a lot better than Biden did, but let's face it, she didn't pull it off. Why? Well, in retrospect, it's because she didn't offer anything different than Biden. She had all of this initial energy, but after it became clear we were just getting Joe Biden except as a black lady, people soured on her and Trump won. Harris deserved her own defeat. I don't deny that she did good all things considered, but I think what people really wanted was something that wasn't Joe Biden. Harris was basically Joe Biden, but offering to put republicans in her administration. 

Harris was actually more moderate and tasteless than Joe Biden. Her awesome healthcare plan from 2020? Gone. She didn't even support Joe Biden's public option. She had no real vision. She had an "opportunity economy" which just sounds like rebranded trickle down economics. She had band aid proposals. She didn't offer anything. She was just Joe Biden minus the cognitive decline. 

Since the election, it's become clear to me that actual left wing ideas aren't unpopular. Zohran Mamdani is an outright socialist who has darned near a 100% chance of becoming the next mayor of NYC (he's ahead by 17 points, which is well beyond the 99.9% threshold). People LOVE the guy. Bernie Sanders is still filling stadiums on his "stop oligarchy" tour and is passing the torch to AOC as his ideological successor. People LOVE bernie and AOC. LOVE. If anyone should be the 2028 nominee, it's probably AOC. I would like someone more aligned with my own ideology, but let's face it, AOC is the next best thing. Graham Platner is popular in Maine, even as he faces accusations of being both a communist and a Nazi. The thing is, people are tired of the status quo. That's why Clinton lost, that's why Harris lost. They are tired of choosing between neoliberal democrats who will do F all to make their lives better, and right wing populists who promise to make their lives better but fail. 

People voted for Trump in 2016 because he promised to bring back the jobs. They voted for him in 2024 because he promised to fix inflation. I'm not saying Trump can do those things. Trump himself is a demagogue and I do not believe that he has any satisfying answers for fixing the economy. In order to do that, you must go left. Either you must go to democratic socialism, which is just a rebrand of FDR's new deal liberalism, or you must go with something akin to my human centered capitalism. And sadly, my own ideology never got off the ground, so new deal liberalism it is, it seems. 

As such, I guess AOC 2028 is where I stand. I don't want Harris. Oh god no, don't give us Harris again. She's done. She should go away. I dont really want Gavin Newsom either. I like the anti trump energy he brings to the fight. He is pretty much a made for TV president and his trolling of trump, is, well, it's REALLY FRICKING FUNNY. But...substance wise? I think he's just another centrist democrat. He's not compelling to me.  And oh god no, please no Pete Buttigieg. He's about as interesting as dry wall. We need actual left populist solutions to our economic problems, or this cycle will just continue. The population will lose faith in the democrats again, and then we'll elect another psycho fascist guy. No more psycho fascists, no more centrist losers. Lets just please get a progressive for a change. 

Again, unless a better option presents themselves who is more aligned with my politics, I'm all in on AOC 2028. She's the new Bernie. She is the idea person. She is "it" for me. You'll need to run a UBI centric human centered capitalist to beat her in my mind. Otherwise, yeah, give me AOC. 

And yeah, that's where I stand on 2028. Of course, given the general election, I will just vote for whomever the dems put up. Again, as much as I'd like to be picky and protest vote, well...I ain't doing that with democracy under assault like it is. If we were dealing with more normal republicans who weren't an existential threat to democracy, I'd consider it. I mean, I dont like centrist dems. BUT....yeah....if we're dealing with literal fascists on the republican ticket and they arent screwing around, well...yeah. I'll vote for whomever. Even if it is kamala harris or pete buttigieg. Still. I believe that very few people actually want that, like that, and that such candidates don't have staying power. Even if they win, our country will still be under threat from a future republican fascist like JD Vance or any member of Trump's circus of horrors. As such, I believe the democrats need to do better. 

Am I out of touch on tbe Beasley thing?

 So I'm looking at how people are responding to it and a lot of people are just calling the boomers stupid while thinking that Beasley was super intelligent or whatever. Beasley was intelligent, but his understanding of things seemed puddle deep and he was just going by rote learning tbqh. He could cite stats but had little...well...wisdom or understanding.

 I admit the MAGA voters werent the smartest, but I could actually tolerate a lot of them. I mean, given we've been dealing with outright fascists as of late, these guys felt refreshingly like normal people. Sure they arent that intelligent, but that's where America is. Your typical voter is about as smart at politics as I was as like, a 16-18 year old. And Im serious on that. I feel like I could at least talk to these people and have a productive discussion assuming it didnt involve screaming over each other. Then again, i talk to my dad a lot who is in that age range, and he's rather intelligent. Arguably I talked my parents out of being trump supporters over the years. And while they dont fully agree with me on topics, ya know, I feel like I could at least have a convo with these people and find at least a little common ground. 

Again, if anything I dislike the charlie kirks and the luke beasleys of the world. Even if i agree with beasley on facts, i dont like that annoying pushy mentality. It seems like the goal of such people is to just talk over the other side and make them look stupid. And just because beasley is on "my side" doesnt mean that I liked him. I found him as obnoxious as charlie kirk. Just from a biden bro perspective instead of a conservative. 

Honestly, maybe it's the fact that I do talk to my parents but I find talking with older people easier than talking with younger people. yeah boomers can get arrogant and think they know everything, but the youngest of zoomers do too. And they seem to lack any and all life experience in doing so. Boomers might not be the most...informed people, but I could at least kinda get them. I mean, I feel like if you had someone who talked a bit slower and more honestly, maybe we could get a productive dialogue going there.

Then again, I'm a millennial who is kinda in between these two in a way. I have the college education so i understand beasley's perspective, but i also kinda understand the boomers somewhat. And it is a disconnect, again, feels vs reals to some degree. These guys lack a college education and formal training in a lot of topics and just go by emotions I get it. But at the same time, beasley just seemed to be some kid who could cite stats but didnt actually understand things. Idk. I just feel like a lot of the commentators are kinda harsh. I dont think beasley was that intelligent tbqh, and as I said, I would rather deal with THESE boomers than, say, some gen Z fascist who went down the alt right rabbit hole. Really, what I find scary are gen Zers who are like somehow 10x worse than the boomers because they intellectualized their racism, sexism, and fascist tendencies. Yeah the boomers are kinda ignorant at times, but this kind of ignorance can arguably be fixed if you talk to them for long enough. Ya know? Either way, I dont think this is just a boomer thing, i think that the median american voter sounds like these guys. Kinda stupid, but they perceive problems, some legitimate, some not so legitimate, and they are operating off of the intelligence level i had as a teenager on politics. I mean, at least these guys are just stupid, but brainwashed or insane, ya know? Those are the trumpers i find truly scary. Those are the ones i wont be able to find ANY common ground with and I could debate with until im blue in the face. Because those guys just have a fundamentally different moral view than me and that moral view is fricking evil.

Again, if I had a choice to go up against either these guys or the literal fascists medhi hassan was dealing with, I'd take 20 normie boomers over 20 psycho far rightists. Ya know? I feel like I could at least talk to SOME of these people.  

Discussing the newest Jubilee crapshow (1 liberal zoomer vs 20 trump supporting boomers)

 So, Jubilee had another debate, and this one was...well...a crapshow. It was like the Charlie Kirk one I discussed but in reverse. Luke Beasley is a fast talking zoomer who much like Kirk kept talking over his opponents, and his opponents were older Trump voters. It was a mess, and I'm starting to hate these. It had a similar dynamic to Kirk beating up on college kids, except it was this young guy beating up on a bunch of older people. 

Claim #1: MAGAnomics is terrible for the economy

So, we see the charlie kirk effect with this Beasley kid right out of the gate. I agree with the premise by the way, MAGAnomics is terrible for the economy. It's adding inflation and driving us into a recession for no fricking reason, but the first guy seemed fairly articulate and this kid just wouldn't let him talk! He was a business owner who seemed to understand international finance and was trying to talk about how China is screwing us and this guy just kept pushing leading questions and not letting the guy get his point in edge wise. And yeah, I actually agree with Beasley on paper here. I mean, I aint a fan of MAGA or their economic policies, but this guy seems like the biggest Biden bro ever where he's just citing economic statistics about jobs with little context. The boomers were old, but they do have economic experience and some seemed like genuinely intelligent people. I just would have liked to have seen some actual discussion that didn't turn into a crapshow here.

Claim #2: Trump is an authoritarian threat to democracy

 As we know, I agree with this one too. He is. Between January 6th, the erosion of voting rights, attempts to concentrate power in the executive branch, invading American cities to flex his might, and attempts to run again and possibly overturn the next election, Trump is dangerous. But these guys just didn't see it. 

One thing that irked me where the people who bought Trump's line about how "talking like this is why he's acting like that" and stuff like that. Again, my stance, if you dont wanna be treated like a fascist, dont do fascist things. I wasnt out here talking about Bush like this when he was in office. And the dems have been screaming about the radical left and antifa my entire life and have always dialed up the rhetoric. I wouldnt agree with the alarmism if I didnt believe it was legit.

Still, this is where Beasley did get castigated for talking over people and how we need to have a more civil discourse where we talk to each other, not over each other. I kind of agree. I certainly dont like Beasley's style of just talking over his opponents. TO be fair, Charlie Kirk, who is heralded as this standard of civil debate did literally that, and I discussed that just a week ago. 

 Anyway, on January 6th, I could understand why people wouldnt be on board with acting like that was an insurrection...if they didnt watch the congressional hearings. You can go back to 2021 in this blog and I was very skeptical initially of going after Trump for his speech. But after the prosecution actually made a case and presented it before congress and more facts came out, I warmed up to it. But that's kind of a disconnect. It's kinda like that "if those kids could read they'd be very upset" meme. A lot of trumpers just dont....follow data and facts. And they just dont see the threat. They kept talking about civil discourse and blah blah blah, but they just dont have very informed perspectives. Sorry, not sorry. Beasley was right, even if I didnt agree with his debate style.

 Claim #3: Trump supporters are not patriotic

 This is a claim I'm leery to back. I believe a lot of right wingers are patriotic in their own heads. And I saw that here. I believe a lot of the trump supporters who talked are very patriotic people in their own minds. And a lot of them tend to buy into the very nationalist idea of patriotism. They asked Beasley why he never joined the military, although when COVID came up, I really think we should've had a discussion about Trumpers refusing to mask up or get vaxxed for the good of the country. And that did come up. On that front, yes, Trump did operation warp speed and the vaccine wouldve released in 2021 regardless. Trump didnt wanna force it like Biden, but given this was a matter of public health, maybe he should have? I mean, I call myself a libertarian myself and my idea of freedom is you can swing your fist but if it ends at someone else's nose that's a problem. Likewise, if you cough on others and spread disease, that's also a problem. Sometimes patriotism is doing the right thing for the country. Right wingers talk a big game about the military, but again, they seem afraid of needles. Even though you get vaccinated in the military too. My dad has an interesting story about how he lost his shot card once and had to get ALL of his vaccines over again, including this massive needle that injected jelly into him and was super painful. But hey, as a civvie? Afraid of getting one tiny needle? Give me a break. And i dont even buy into the aesthetics of patriotism either, but COME ON.

Beyond that, there was discussion of the constitution, and blah blah blah. Beasley talked about how Trump was never in the military and he wasn't. A lot of trumpers had this cult of personality like he got shot for his country. He didnt get shot for his country. Someone took a shot at him while running for office, and yeah he had that bad### moment where he got up and pumped his fist up, but let's not glamorize it. Dude seemed scared crapless after that. 

And yeah, IIRC more talk of january 6th, and trumpers believed the protesters to be patriotic. I dont, I see them as criminals and as borderline traitors. They mightve thought they did what was right in their heads, but they were misled, by Trump. Like, sometimes these guys just seem in their own alternative realities and buy into a cult of personality around Trump. 

 Claim #4: Kamala Harris would have been a much better president

 She would have. And I'm not saying she'd be great, just adequate, but adequate, as in, 5/10 is better than terrible, or 1/10. And this is where I found the debate between both sides to be cringe. Beasley spoke a lot of numbers and facts like jobs and inflation, and he was right, but that stuff is very underwhelming. I believe we live in a second gilded age. Let;s talk about where the term gilded age comes from. It's like "golden age", ya know, where everything is wonderful, except instead of golden it's gilded. Basically, everything is right on the surface, but it's all rotten on the inside. Like it's actually crap, but it seems nice on the outside. When Beasley cites states, he's talking about the gilded parts, but ignoring the problems underneath. At the same time, the Trumpers are the opposite. They feel something is wrong, but they're feels over reals. They blamed Biden for crime, immigration, inflation, ya know, all the problems that were top voter priorities but honestly, it was feels over reals. Like, they talked about crime on the way to the studio where this was shot in California. Beasley pointed out crime was down statistically, but trumpers dont care about stats, they care about feels. He pointed out how illegal immigration didnt go up and the trumpers were like "but what about the 11 million people already here?" As a UBI supporter who counts illegal immigrants to know how many people to exclude from my UBI numbers, illegal immigrants in the US has remained rather flat for years and those guys were there back during the Obama administration when I first started counting. The numbers havent really changed. We dont have a massive crisis of illegals coming in. And when they do come, they're turned away. Again, feels over reals with these people. 

On economics. yes, inflation was up under biden. We recovered from COVID after all, btw, these guys were blaming Biden for shutting down the country when Trump was in office in 2020. Again, feels over reals. And yeah, i would agree that the stats arent convincing since, as weve been talking about on here, we're dealing with a situation where the middle class is in perpetual decline it seems. It's been declining since the 1970s, that's the real problem. We've seen the hollowing out of American living standards through the 80s onward, with 2008 being what I consider the breaking point for a lot of people. And now COVID is causing an inflationary surge and yeah. It sucks. Of course, these people are blaming Biden and acting like Trump brought prices down. He didnt. Biden did at the end of his term and now the tariffs are making things worse again and were seeing both higher prices and increased unemployment again. And yeah, I do admit Beasley's stats arent convincing. And quoting those stats at people didnt win people over in 2024. Because people know something is wrong, they don't know what. Which brings us to the counter claim from the Trumpers

Claim #5: The reason the left lost the election is because they dont understand the American people

 And yeah, I would concede this to the Trump voter. I mean, I dont like the left as it exists. I dont believe the left really cares what the American voter thinks. They are in an insular echo chamber and cite statistics and get lecturey and condescending, but they dont actually understand. They dont understand that just because the numbers are good doesnt mean people are doing well. And Beasley just missed that IMO.

At the same time, I cant agree with the Trumper either. Because she's a bit too feels over reals. She was going on about how we need a business person like Trump who understand what it's like to be president and buying into this cult of personality and no...no...

Here's the thing. You dont want a businessman as president. A businessman knows business, yes, but we need class consciousness here. We really do. A business owner's perspective is a bourgeois perspective. It's the perspective that focuses on increasing capital and increasing wealth for themselves. We have this idea in our society that if the wealthy do well, we do well, because the wealthy want to create jobs and the wealth will trickle down. The wealth doesnt trickle down, and it hasnt been trickling down, and I'll go even further, Trumpers might understand something is wrong with the economy, but they dont understand what. They dont understand that maybe a society in which we give all of the wealth to the already wealthy and expect them to "create jobs" and make the wealth "trickle down" is a terrible idea. Because it doesn't. I've been mentioning Fordism a lot, the idea that we need to have employees paid enough to buy the products that they make. We dont have that any more. Most consumption is done by the top 10% of income earners. And that's the common trend that unites the post 2008 recession economy and the post COVID economy. It's the K shaped recoveries. The wealthy come off better than ever, no one else does. 

But to solve this, we need PROGRESSIVE economics. I dont mean bidenomics. Bidenomics, obamanomics, clintonomics, those are all modified trickle down. Trickle down with a moderate keynesian bend. They too relied on the wealthy to "create jobs" and while liberal politics are arguably a bit better, the whole paradigm is fricking broken. Because instead of trickle down, we need trickle up. We need to give money to those at the bottom, the consumption creates the demand, the demand creates jobs, and then the jobs make the stuff. That's what we need. We need businesses to respond to consumer demand, not a top down trickle down system. But for a left wing system to work, we need to go MUCH FURTHER LEFT than we've been doing. We either need a Bernie Sanders approach, which goes back to FDR and his New Deal, with higher minimum wages, and universal healthcare, and free college/student debt forgiveness, and jobs guarantees, OR, we need a UBI and some of those things. Traditional liberals/leftists are more in the Bernie vein, my own politics are closer to yang and a bit newer, but I still believe that it's a viable model that has some advantages (and possibly some disadvantages) over the bernie approach. The bernie approach is more growth and jobs oriented, but my approach would solve poverty and put value in things other than work and the economy. They have tradeoffs, my own philosophy and the new deal liberal types can debate all day which is better, BUT, we need ONE OF THOSE TWO APPROACHES to the economy in order to make it work.

The problem with modern politics is BOTH SIDES are broken. The republicans have this populist thing going on where they act like Trump cares about them and he's a patriot and he sacrifices for his country, and beasley as this cool and calm headed "quant head" thing going on where you got some intelligent guy who cites random statistics, but those statistics dont necessarily tell the full story. 

Again, the entire paradigm of modern politics is broken, both sides talk around each other, and both just dont get it. They miss the point. I will agree Beasley's side is more right on facts, but that side also does miss that a lot of the people are suffering, and democrats dont seem to care. And that's why they keep losing to Donald Trump. 

Conclusion

Honestly, this debate had potential. I actually think at least some trumpers were quite intelligent, and quite human, and i think that this is where the population is. If you wonder where the median voter is with things, I think these guys did give some insight into the sauce that got Trump elected, while Beasley kinda did come off as out of touch. Now, to be fair, Beasley was right on most stuff. And the trump voters were more feels over reals and I really dont think they understand that yeah, trump's economics are actually terrible, and yeah, he is a danger to society, all that stuff is true and these guys dont see it. But at the same time, beasley just didnt see that maybe there's more to life than citing random stats at people and that being convincing. 

Part of the problem with america is we have an education problem and voters arent well informed. We see that here. Part of the problem is the democrats are just out of touch. We see that here too. And part of the problem is debates like this just lead to people trying to talk over each other, yeah, that's a problem too. But at the same time, part of the problem isnt just talking over each other and refusing to have civil discourse. We do have fascists within the trump movement. We saw them in the medhi hassan debate, which is why i started watching these. And those guys scare the crap out of me. These guys, far more normie vibe, not as scary, but they really just dont see how danferous and terrible trump is. I can admit, my own side sucks, harris and biden were out of line with the american people and their priorities. Sometimes those priorities were bunk. Like crime and immigration, lots of fear mongering whipped up by trump, not a lot of reality there. On the economy though, I do think there's far more wrong with the economy than the mainstream center left would admit, and the trumpers kinda are tapping into that. But at the same time, I think the trumpers are kinda stupid and arent articulating their concerns super well because well, they are kinda stupid.

And people dont like being called stupid, which is why the left has a problem reaching out to people, but idk how else to put it. They dont understand things properly. They lack education. They have dunning kruger syndrome. They're just flat out WRONG on stuff. And I get that maybe not everything to life boils down to stats, but stats are still better than just anecdotes. Still, you admittedly should have both. And that's what i try to offer here. I kinda try to bridge that gap. Ya know? Sometimes those feelings are legit. I live in a city with a lot of crime and i dont feel safe after all. I understand why some are worried about crime. Of course, the criminologist in me also understands such crime is also linked to poverty and that people just complain about crime endlessly even when stats change. The mind is a powerful thing though and people will sometimes believe the feels over reals though. 

Same with stats. Yeah, if you actually buy into the paradigm of economic growth and job creation and inflation and blah blah blah, yeah, Biden was the best conventional president you could have on the economy If you love trickle down economics, ie, economics where we give the money to the wealthy and expect it to trickle down, yeah, biden was solid in conventional terms. And much better than Trump, whose tariffs are screwing things up. But, and here's where those feels are valuable, the american people are struggling with the way the economy is, and there's good reasons for it. Stuff is getting more expensive, people feel like their living standards are declining...again....and they kind of are, but again, to fix it, you need a paradigm shift. Heck, even to RECOGNIZE THE PROBLEM and bring it into focus, you need a paradigm shift. And the trumpers...they operate in this conventional paradigm, but understand something isnt working, so they just go feels over reals. In reality, you need to reject the paradigm, and that involves moving LEFT. And not just to where the dems are, but TWICE as left as that. Because mainstream dems are just republican lites on economics. You need to get on board with the likes of bernie sanders, or andrew yang, and ya know, those kinds of ideas. You need big ideas to fix the economy, paradigm changing ideas. You aint gonna get that for trump. With trump, you get trickle down with tariffs, which is worse than Biden. And yeah, that's where I'm at with that.  

Discussing a revelation about the next gen Xbox I find interesting

 So...Microsoft won't stop shooting themselves in the foot lately. And I did want to discuss the $1200 rumor a bit more. It comes from the idea that Microsoft said their next gen console will be a "very premium, very high end curated experience." They also hinted that their thinking comes from their $1000 Xbox Rog Ally. *ugh*

So...I really have to ask, who wants this? Not many people who I know of. I kinda hate the current push of PC handhelds. They're all WAAAAAY too premium for me. The only one even remotely close to my price range is the steam deck (or the OG rog ally Z1 on sale, I saw that for $350 before), and even then, I went for a $200 razer edge over either of them because $200-250ish is...what I'm willing to pay for a handheld. It's what I can comfortably afford, while still buying actual GAMES I want. I can blow all my money on hardware, but if I do that, I can't buy games to play said hardware on. But I digress. 

Honestly, I hate these PC handhelds beyond that too. They remind me of the game gear. The game boy beat the game gear back in the day. Why? because while the game gear was also a "very premium very high end curated experience" for its time (COLOR AND GRAPHICS), the game boy outsold it. Why? Because it was a lot cheaper for one. And a lot more flexible for two. It was smaller, used less battery, had a better library arguably. It was the better handheld, despite being worse on paper. 

I think we're gonna have to relearn the lesson of the 80s and 90s that the equivalent of a $300+ handheld or a $1000+ console is NOT okay.  We did this back then in the experimental days of gaming. And the cheaper options won out every time. 

Even these premium handhelds, they've only sold like 6 million of them, which is like..nothing. And 4 million of those were steam decks. Why is the steam deck winning? because it's $400, not $800. That's why. It's simple supply and demand.

And, as we know from the other day and act man's video, game sales are lagging too. Most gamers only buy 1-2 games a year, in part because it's all we can afford. Most spending is driven by a small number of big spenders. And that's actually kind of the point. It's where the market is going, as hardware becomes more expensive, and more and more people are being pushed out of the market. 

But what if Microsoft's strategy is to adjust to this reality? What if they see the writing on the wall, know the middle class is dead, and they're trying to appeal specifically to that 4% of gamers doing the vast majority of the spending? Many of those guys are wealthy, arguably, not very price sensitive, and they'll spend TONS of money for a "premium experience", even if the masses won't. What if the gaming industry is abandoning us? And by us, I mean the middle class, the ACTUAL middle class. 

Many people discussing microsoft's strategy seem to be pointing to the so called "K shaped recovery", where the wealthy make up the vast majority of consumer spending, and the not wealthy....don't. It's a sign of the times. We've seen most of the wealth and income over the past 50 years go to the top 20% where the bottom 80% stagnated for the most part. Despite this idea that growth is a tide that raises all boats, much like a trump rally, the big boats are sinking the small ones. And a lot of that is concentrated not just in the top 20%, but the top 10%, 5%, even 1%. Now the top 10% make up half of all consumer spending. To be fair, the economy has always been skewed toward the top, but now it's even more so, and given I'm in, idk, either the 20-40% quintile or maybe the 40-60% one, well, let's face it, corporations don't give a flying FUDGE about someone like me. Oh, you're gonna spend $250 on a GPU? That's nice, this rich fricker wants to spend $2000 on an RTX 5090 to do RaY tRaCiNg!!!11! on our brand new $70 $80 game. Your dollars just aren't good enough any more! Screw you, have a nice life. Enjoy having nothing. 

...and this is why the American people are pissed. In 2016, people were pissed over the loss of status and jobs as their middle class factory jobs disappeared and were replaced by low wage service jobs. This is why Trump won. In 2024, even though the jobs were there, people were pissed as the price of everything went up, and people are facing even more setbacks as their living standards keep declining. It doesn't matter what side of the phillips curve you're on, the economy isn't working. Because all of the wealth and income is going to the top, while the bottom and middle are getting less and less. We've seen the mass erosion of relative living standards from the 1970s on, and every economic crisis since has made it worse. The wealthy come out better than ever. The stock market is up, unemployment is down, but at the end of the day, the masses are struggling more and more. Either our jobs aren't paying what they used to, but inflation is low, or inflation is high and jobs pay more but it's not keeping up with inflation. Either way, we're being crushed.  

And maybe microsoft, being the for profit business that they are, are looking at this and going "hey, let's raise prices to appeal to the premium segment who do most of the spending anyway." And because most people don't pay up anyway, well, screw them, we don't need them, we ONLY need the rich people.

Fordism is truly dead. The middle class was built on the idea of paying your workers enough money to consume with, you need to pay your workers so they can buy your cars, and now our system is the masses work to produce stuff that only the wealthy can afford to buy anyway. Rather than being participants in the economy who both work and consume, we just work and don't consume as much. The "American Dream" is dying. Younger generations don't believe in it any more. It never worked for us, and unless we have a paradigm shift, it never will. And given we shot ourselves in the foot by putting trump back into office, and he seems intent on becoming a dictator and turning us into one party rule, things may never get better. This might just be life now, and we might have screwed ourselves.  

How RFK Jr's run was a perfect example of an effective third party run

 So...I've been thinking about this, especially as I've been thinking of the states of the democrats and them hating on third partiers so much. part of this is coming up again because there's rumors of Kamala Harris being the nominee again and people being like OH GOD WHY. I mean, I've been listening to her book recently and she is insular AF and doesn't get it. She said, for example, in response to the free palestine protesters, she was just thinking "it's me or trump, do they want trump to win?" And I see that entitlement as part of the problem.

 Of course, when third parties come up, this is the dems' attitude. Shut up, vote for us, do you want republicans to win and say that third party runs never accomplish anything. Except, the left tends to misunderstand what third party runs are intended to accomplish. Most of them arent geared toward winning, sure. But they are geared toward bringing up grievances with the two options available. Most are centered around issues the mainstream parties are ignoring, as a way to bring awareness of those issues, and pressure the parties into acting on them. The ideal goal of them is actually to pressure the party closer to you into supporting your platform. Sure, they might not win, but if the issue goes on to be addressed by the two parties, the candidate in question can drop out and endorse them. As for whether the parties in question listen is up to them. The democrats have a mentality of generally being hostile to third parties, trying to ignore them, and attacking their supporters for not supporting them. But this is the wrong approach. Democracy is beholden to the voters, the politicians are supposed to make the voters happy, and when democrats refuse to budge on those issues, people shouldn't be surprised when those voters dont support them. Which is what happens, and why they keep losing. Harris in 2024 lost specifically because she lost around 6 million voters that Joe Biden had in 2020. While some of these guys may have gone over to Trump, Trump only gained 3 million over his 2020 vote count. Many of these voters stayed home or voted third party, because they didn't like the options.  

But...third parties aren't a threat only to the democrats, they can threaten republicans too. Libertarians are a constant thorn in the republican party's side, and RFK Jr.'s run took votes from both parties in theory. RFK Jr ran as a centrist populist who had some left views, some right views, but what really seemed to unite his audience were the fact that many of them were kinda cray cray. They didnt seem to have a coherent policy platform, but they did have some unique views. Like being anti vax, and kinda anti modern medicine in general. They bought into his cringey autism narratives, and yeah, he was a lightning rod for those kinds of people. And what did Trump do? Well, he probably offered him a cabinet position as secretary of health, and basically give him whatever he wanted to get him on his side. And now, Trump has that kind of crazy in his administration. 

I'm not saying this is a good thing mind you, but politically, it was a smart move by Trump. He was able to give RFK and his supporters what they wanted, integrating him into his own campaign, and integrating his supporters into his coalition. And yeah, that's how we got the guy who sounds like a ghoul and doesn't know what he's doing as secretary of health. 

The point of me bringing this up is to point out that, yes, third party runs can be effective. The whole point is to pressure one of the two parties into caring about your issues.  The democrats treat these guys with open hostility and have lost 2 of the previous 3 elections in part because of this (and won't shut the heck up about it despite doing F all to address the problem). The republicans saw RFK as a threat to their 2024 run so worked to bring him on board and win over his supporters. And arguably, this could be a factor that swung the election in his direction. It's hard to say. RFK kinda had both left and right wing supporters, both progressives and conservatives. But...either way, the republicans moved to remove the threat by giving it what it wanted, and the democrats are just like "but you BETTER vote for me", then act surprised when they lose.

Why am I dunking on dems again even though I admit that progressives probably should have bit the bullet on this one? Again, it's because I'm listening to harris's book, and honestly, she is NOT coming off well to me here. She literally had the same entitlement attitude that's often a problem, and I really do think that the contrast with trump kind of showed how the two approaches to third parties can shift elections. Trump worked to bring RFK on board, and Harris and the dems just screamed that voters should support them, even when they clearly hate them. 

And I really cant help but believe, even in this moment, with democracy literally under threat, that us being here is the dems' own fault. They played chicken with the voters too many times, pushing cringey unlikable candidates on people and acting entitled to their votes. Biden was insular himself. He genuinely believed he was doing a good job and refused to believe the american people hated him. And Harris, while she at least seemed somewhat aware of the problem, she did very little to address it. Part of it was the pressures of her own position, she couldnt run as an outsider AT ALL, and the people wanted an outsider. But part of it seemed to be that, yeah, because she was an insider, her position was molded by being on the inside, and her political instincts genuinely suck. 

Anyway, this is also relevant in the face of graham platner's popularity since a lot of centrist democrats seem genuinely horrified their attacks against him arent working, and that people aren't turned off because he used language that's unacceptable now but was acceptable 20 years ago, or that he had that nasty tattoo, or called himself a communist. If anything, some of those things seem to actually be endearing him to the voters. They dont WANT an insider. They dont WANT a corporate cookie cutter "safe" politician. They want an outsider who talks crude and has a perspective more in line with them. This whole experiment the dems have had over the past decade of shoving wokeism and this brand of bland corporate centrism down peoples' throats has backfired immensely. And we're kind of starting to see the facade of corporate centrism fade, as progressives are rising up and gaining power. The narratives that once dominated no longer do, and the peoples' expectations are shifting significantly. I'm not sure if democracy will survive to 2028, but if it does, that could be the earthquake realigning election we've been wanting, if the right candidate appears, with the right platform, and is capable not just of challenging trump, but the corporate establishment. We'll see what happens, but yeah. Either way, the democrats need to change if they wanna be relevant going forward. 

Discussing Bernie's comments about immigration

 So...Bernie has returned to the center on immigration. He's praised Trump on the topic, while saying Biden didn't get the job done. Now, I have mixed thoughts on this one too. First, I've never been "woke" on immigration. I also believe we are a nation with borders, the borders should be enforced, but I'm not gonna lie, Biden basically did secure the border. The republicans just kept acting like it was an issue because THEY wanted to be the ones to do it, and now they're doing psycho crap that reminds me of early nazi germany. And...for me, that's where I stand. I've never been a far left progressive on the border. I've always been a moderate, a centrist on this issue. And I did support Sanders in 2016 when he wasn't "woke" like clinton was. But let's be blunt. The right tried triangulating. Biden did keep the border secured mostly. He actually gave the republicans most of what they wanted. For me, the issue isn't whether to enforce our borders, it's HOW. Trump is all optics. He plays the tough guy like "I'm going to build a wall and make mexico pay for it" (even though his wall is nothing but a monument to racism and solves nothing, and mexico didn't pay for it), and now he's just rounding up people without due process. It's insane. We shouldnt praise trump or act like he did a better job than Biden on this.

Why is bernie saying this? because I think he understands the current zeitgeist that "woke" is dead, the dems dragged him through the mud in 2016 and 2020, forcing him left on social justice issues, and now that that stuff has been unquestionably unpopular, he's shifting back to the right and kinda agreeing with trump. Bold move cotton, let's see how this pays off.

 While I'd normally expect shrill cries from the social justice left over this, he isn't getting as much criticism as I would normally expect I think. Maybe woke really is dead. Good riddance. Either way, I'm ambivalent on these comments. Just because I ain't woke doesn't mean I'm a right winger on immigration. And I'm gonna keep it real, Biden gave the GOP like 85% of what they wanted and it STILL wasn't enough. Again, because Trump had to do it himself. HE had to be the one to solve the border crisis, not the democrats. Maybe Sanders simply recognizes that and is conceding the issue to Trump so he could focus on other stuff. It's smart, but I can't say I approve of that. My honest, objective opinion was Biden was adequate (even if not perceived so), Trump is a psychopath, and I'd rather not give into right wing framing more than we have to. And I say this as someone who has blasted the woke left all along for being too soft on the issue, and even got my fair share of criticism over the decade for not being on board with their ideas. 

 The left should concede the border issue somewhat to the right, it's just a debate of how much. I do believe the left should offer contrast with the right, especially in this age where what Trump is doing on the issue seems Hitleresque. We SHOULD be pushing back on Trump here. He's NOT doing a good job. He's a fricking psychopath and should be recognized as such. Even if we believe in strong borders and the like, the difference is the democrats try to do things more humanely and legally. Trump isn't, and that's the problem. And that's basically the difference between just being right wing on the issue and being a fascist. I can respect a right wing position on immigration, even if I dont fully agree with it. I can't agree with fascism. 

Discussing Graham Platner's military service

 So....Vaush mentioned some comments about Platner's military service on a live stream, and uh, yikes. Yeah, I was giving this guy a pass, but I kinda got issues with this. Okay, so the guy was asked before what american wars he would have volunteered to fight in, and he chose a lot of these really easy one sided imperialistic wars, many of which have aged badly because they were exactly the kinds of wars we didnt need to fight. Now, I dont really find him not wanting to fight in a hard war with mass death unjustifiable, I wouldnt wanna fight in the more brutal wars either. But come on, basically, he finds being what amounts to an occupier and not having to deal with a population that fights back "enjoyable?" Jesus. Like, if I were asked, I'd probably not wanna fight at all. And that's a fair perspective. I wouldnt wanna fight the big wars because they were meat grinders, and the small occupying wars still have a non zero chance of death, and many of them are dubious morally. 

Just...wtf? idk, he comes off as sociopathic here. Now, he's probably evolved a lot since those days if he ends up as a reddit communist going all ACAB on people, but yeah no, this doesn't endear me to him at all. He's still the "best" option given the alternatives are a republican and a neolib, but man, I wish we could have a better candidate than this. Still, even with these scandals, his polling is pretty good in the primary. I just wish we had someone who didnt have all of this crazy baggage.  

Discussing "Why Aren't People Buying Games Any More?"

 So, the Act Man came out with yet another banger of a video that sums up a lot of what I've been feeling lately about the video game industry. I've been kinda going full throttle here myself on this, ripping the industry for becoming increasingly apocalyptically expensive, and yeah, this video hits the spot so hard.

So, we've discussed my own consumption habits recently. I spend $200 a year on games. 9 games a year, on average, $22-23 a game, with widely variable costs per game, ranging from as low as like $2.50 on the low end, to maybe $52.50 (or 25% off a $70 game) on the high end. And apparently, this is a lot. Most gamers only buy 1-2 games a year on average, and apparently most spending is driven by a small number of hobbyists. Apparently I'm way above average here. And of course, hardware costs are high, despite this. And uh...I didnt think that the picture was this dire, but holy crap. 

Yeah. With me, my own spending is inversely proportional with how much I have to spend on hardware. If you make me buy new GPUs and stuff every few years just to game, that's less money Im spending on games. And nvidia is getting greedy AF and their making GPUs insanely expensive is gonna affect that. If you want people to pay for software, maybe dont make them pay a lot for hardware. Seriously, I'd rather game devs at this point NOT push graphics, but instead make games playable on like 10 year old systems, so I can just spend more on games. Again, it's not like games are progressing like they did in the past. At this point we're well past "peak gaming" as I call it where we're just putting insane financial constraints on people for no real tangible benefit. 

But beyond that, yeah, the economy is horrible. Even though it's great on paper, people can't afford to live. Everything is expensive. The new switch is $450, $500 with mariokart. The next gen PS6 might be as high as $800, the next gen xbox might be as high as $1200. Games cost $70, some wanna push that to $80, jobs pay $15 an hour while rent costs like $2000 a month, and then people are like, "gee, why arent people consuming?"

And yeah i guess with games, older games are an option, f2p is an option, and that does flesh out our options for games, meaning we spend more time on either cheap/free games, or buy 1-2 games a year and spend most of our time on those. Or we just enjoy our back catalogs and crap. 

But yeah. None of this is working for people. These corporate stooges are trying to suck as much money out of people while giving them nothing back. People forget that to have a functioning consumerist economy, people need money to consume. You need to pay people, so they can buy products. But with everyone squeezing people for everything they're worth, while paying them as little as possible, nothing is working. And a lot of people just check out of the consumerist cycle where they end up playing decade old games still being updated, or f2p games, and yeah, they stop consuming. Even the switch 2's sales might be driven by this wealthy minority who can afford everything, because let's face it, our economy has 20% of people making 50% of the income, so they're living the dream at least on paper (dont ask them about how many hours they spend at the office or how little time they actually have for gaming), but for the rest of us, we're struggling to keep up. And that's where I keep saying gaming is going at this rate. After it becoming increasingly accessible from the 80s through the 2010s, now they're squeezing us and going on about how we should be willing to pay because that's what stuff cost in the 90s. Except...that's how the 90s were for most of us. We didnt buy tons of games. Consoles were cheapish, much cheaper than today tbqh, and games were prohibitively expensive. We bought like 4-6 games a year if we were lucky, and rarely at full price. Thankfully prices dropped fast back then. They dont now. Another decision fuelled by corporate greed. Companies dont like to lower prices ever, so they stay high longer. 

And yeah. I just wanted to post this because I feel vindicated if anything by these statistics. Sometimes i wonder if I'm the one who is out of touch here, but then I remember basic economics and see stats like this and it's like "no, I'm just on the curve here." Game developers, and well, the owners of capitalism, are gonna have to realize, if they want this system to work and they want us to consume, they gotta make stuff affordable. $1200 xboxes and $80 games are a no go. That's economic suicide. And while yes, a small portion of people will pay it, the vast majority won't. PS, redditors, you're that minority. You know who you are, the ones who spend thousands on your PC, and then buy every $70 game when it comes out, and then dunk on everyone else for being poor? You're not the rule, you're the exception. I'm closer to the median than you guys are. 

Did my obsession with tech drive me to my current worldview?

 So, after thinking about Yang's complaints about phones leading to radicalization and other potential social problems, I wanted to reflect a bit on how technology has affected my life.

 Honestly, I consider myself an early adopter of what's going on with gen Z. I was a millennial who basically has always been "addicted" to tech, even before it was in style. back then, we called these people "nerds." Ya know, introverts who didnt like going out, and who when they did, always had some sort of tech with them to keep them occupied. But did this obsession of mine drive me to my current politics?

In a way. I've always been lost "in my own world." I never really liked interacting with the "real world." Even when I was a kid, I spent a lot of time playing video games, reading books, etc. We didnt have one device that could do it all back then, but I would cycle through such things. I never really was attracted to social stuff, especially as I got older. I used to be made fun of in middle school since I was more interested in playing sega dreamcast games than in dating. In high school, I withdrew into the internet, talking to girls my own age that way, while not being interested in many in the real world. While I felt physical attraction there, I just found most girls to be boring. Because most girls dont want you to be spending your time playing video games, but monopolizing your time, and making you do offline stuff. Like going, dare I say, "outside" with them. To do what? Boring stuff. The same stuff my parents did like shopping when I'd rather withdraw into my own world.  

And as I got older, I never really desired the same thing many people did my age. Many started becoming interested in working and driving and I never got into that stuff. Why should I wanna spend my time working so I could pay for a car I'd only use to drive to work? And let's talk about this in terms of recent discussions on work, consumption, and capitalism. While my introverted approach is still based somewhat in consumerism. You gotta pay for the tech, the internet, and the media you consume, but it's relatively cheap. Meanwhile, "going outside" so to speak has always been expensive. Eating out costs several times what it costs to eat home. And honestly? I never got shopping for the sake of shopping. I just wanna buy what I do and go home. It's one of the reasons I ended up withdrawing. My parents always took me shopping as a kid and I hated it a lot of the time. We'd be out all day going from store to store, and most of them were boring. And I guess that's how life "outside" is in this capitalist society. No real "third places" that are worth engaging in, just places to consume, and for others to work. So that that others to consume. And as we get older, we force people to get jobs serving those who have more money and want to consume. And we call this "life." Idk, it never appealed to me. 

You can see where my views are going with this. So, as I got older, I never really wanted to work, the recession hit, I couldnt get an actual useful job using my degree in my area, and I basically gave up. I spent most of my time online, either playing video games, or on social media, and a lot of time researching the problems with the economy, until I finally saw through it. We dont have to do this. Like, we act like we do. But we don't. We got way more resources than people need to survive. And in the recession, we had a problem with people finding jobs. And oh god, why would we want to create more work, so we can just go back to this cycle? I never got into "the cycle" so to speak. I never bought into it mostly. Again, autistic introvert. If anything, i view life in "the cycle" to be hellish. It's entirely UNstimulating to me. It's not intellectually stimulating. It's not emotionally stimulating. It doesn't spark joy. If anything, it does the opposite. 

Maybe that's what tech is doing to capitalism for some. Although i dont think it's doing it for most. As we saw, back during COVID, when given the choice between a slower paced life with less work and consumption, many people rejected it. They WANT that loop. Even worse, they want everyone else to participate so THEY can consume more. They literally are okay with making people work just to produce goods and services that they wanna consume. And it sickens me to some extent. I guess if you took away my internet and electricity I'd feel similarly, but still, I resent that people are expected to get jobs doing crap like food service just so people can buy overpriced food and drinks. Or producing the endless mountains of junk that we dont really need and ends in a landfill some day. Again, if people wanna do that stuff, all the power to them, but I resent being forced to participate, especially on the work side. 

But younger generations, they DO think more like me. They're drinking less, having sex less, and are angry and phone addicted. But in a way, it's capitalism that's driving this. As some say, why should I wanna go out and drink $15 draft beers I can't afford? Consumerism is kinda eating itself because it forgot that what made it possible in the first place was Fordism. You need to give workers a good enough life to want to go out and consume. But zoomers these days cant get good jobs, they can't live a traditional consumerist lifestyle, and maybe they seek cheap entertainment online instead. And as things become less affordable in the 2020s, they're getting angrier over that too. because it's like "great, you're making our last refuge unaffordable." 

So...yeah, the more I think about this, the more it's capitalism, stupid. Now, we can get a situation, if no one works and people wanna consume, where inflation happens. We kinda saw a little of that in 2021, right after COVID reopened. of course, the excess consumption came from all the extraverts and normies wanting to go out and CONSOOM by going to restaurants and hotels and stuff, those places not being able to get enough workers. And then every corporation ever just used it as an excuse to jack up prices. And now we're in round 2 as tariff mcorangeface puts insane tariffs on all foreign goods and then the companies are like "WELL, TIME TO RAISE PRICES AGAIN!" 

idk, the more I think about this, the more I think about it within the realm of capitalism. I've never been someone who really bought fully into the consumption loop. Deep down, I've ALWAYS sought freedom. I've always kinda been the type who wanted to work less and live more modestly. And in the internet era it's cheaper than ever until corporations ruin that too. I never really bought into "the loop" so to speak. The loop bored me. it didnt bring me joy. I didnt want to work hard so i could make tons of money and never have time to enjoy any of it. I've always wanted more work life balance, work as little as possible so I could have the most time to live as I wanted. Ya know?

If anything, isnt the internet, cheap gadgets, and tons of software and other media just kind of evidence of us...peaking in society? I mean, even consumerism is getting to a point of being so efficient that people have access to virtually all human knowledge, tons of media, books, video games, etc., all at once, where even that is hitting the point basic necessities were getting to 100 years ago the last time we talked about working less? It's only crap related to the service economy that remains expensive. And while, admittedly, a lot of people love consuming that stuff, the way I see it, Id rather just....use phone and live in the online world consuming knowledge, memes, and tons of media. 

I mean, we're at a point where once again, capitalism is just reaching a crisis point where it's just so efficient that we need to create new ways to keep the system going as it always did.

And this is where I come back to me vs Yang. While me and Yang have similar solutions to this problem, we have opposing perspectives. He still kinda lives in that analog world due to his age and background where he wants to live in the real world, consuming in that world, working in that world, and kinda freaking out when younger generations or the "drop outs" so to speak dont want to. Like he talked about that in the war on normal people too. Young men who spend most of their time on the computer and playing video games and giving up on the outside world.

And to go back to all of this, Yang points out that a lot of us become unhappy. But why do we become unhappy? Yang blames the tech, he blames the dropping out. He thinks that the answer is to get people onto "the cycle" or the life script. Ya know, work, consume, work, consume. 

Me, I kinda have the opposite perspective. I embrace this world. And when I think about my own sadness in relation to this, it's mostly due to a world that doesnt let me live as I want. Again, it's capitalism itself trying to force me into this cycle I dont wanna be in. It's capitalism telling me that this is the way you SHOULD live my life, having a hard incentive structure centered around it, and punishing those who don't conform. When people isolate themselves, they lose romantic opportunities, because those opportunities are largely tied to that work/consume cycle. They lose a lot of social status and are treated as pariahs and weird loses. They lose economically, not having the experience to get a job, needing a job to get experience, and the jobs that exist not paying. And then because the cycle tends to value your self worth on how much you work and can then consume, yeah, people who dont buy into that tend to suffer. Because our entire society is centered around working and consuming. 

So...when Yang points out how phones are our little "sad rectangles" or whatever, are they really? Or are we just coping with a really unhealthy society? I view it as anomie within sociology. A mismatch of our values and where we are in society. When people fail to live up to society's values, they start being depressed and crap and develop all kinds of mental and emotional issues. There are two possible answers to this. Either, we can force people to live according to the values in hopes that it makes them happy. Sometimes it does, although sometimes it just makes us deeply depressed as well as we can't live an authentic life. When I think about older generations and their unhealthy relationship with alcohol and cigarettes, I see coping mechanisms for a life that wasn't really worth living. Or, maybe we should change our norms to actually center around us. And THAT, is the human centered capitalist way. Maybe we should normalize excessive phone usage, and not wanting to consume and work all the time. Maybe we should have a cultural revolution where we actually question whether our current society sparks joy or not. I dont expect everyone to see eye to eye with me or agree with me, but given our society is supposed to value freedom and pluralism, it should allow us to pursue both. if anything, that's what UBI and human centered capitalism deliver. It allows everyone to get what they want. You wanna work and consume, work and consume, and live that traditional lifestyle, go right ahead, we're not stopping you. Maybe things will be more expensive since you cant boss the rest of us around any more and make us serve you, subsidizing your lifestyles through our poverty and exploitation, but if that's the price of freedom, so be it. We just wanna be allowed to live as we want too. And if that included doomscrolling tiktok for like 12 hours a day, so be it (not that I would use tiktok, but you get the idea).  

Discussing Andrew Yang's new crusade against phones

 Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, what am I going to do with you? He went on breaking points where he basically encouraged people to use phones less and called for banning them in schools. And...uh....I find this to be mostly cringey. 

Look, we live in phone world now. Our phones do everything these days. Yes yes yes, we can afford to doom scroll less. But honestly? Telling people to "put the phone down?" Cringe. Mega cringe. Like, oh, you can read a book. Yeah. I can do that...on my phone. I can socialize...on my phone. This is an artifact of Andrew's Age. He's like 10 years older than me, gen X, and the last generation before the digital divide. As such, sometimes he sounds like a luddite on topics like phones, or video games, etc. Despise being a pro UBI human centered capitalist, he sounds almost like a luddite at times, fearing how tech will upend existing social structures, and in this case he thinks the solution is using the tech less. Meanwhile, I'm a bt younger, im disillusioned on say, those traditional social structures, and I like tech. Heck, before smart phones were a thing, I always brought like a game boy or a book wherever i went when I had to go out, and I say, HAD TO, because my parents dragged me around wherever they went and they liked to go shopping like ALL WEEKEND. If anything, those devices were my little island of sanity through all that. I never understood the whole point of like "living in the moment", its awfully boring, isnt it? And these days, phones can do everything. I CAN read books on a phone. Hell, I've read HIS books on my phone (well, tablet, which is a big phone). Im typing this on my tablet. I can game on my tablet. Watch TV on my tablet. Play video games on my tablet. Chat with friends on it. And of course, doom scroll social media. And even that can be productive because I literally came across a lot of my best ideas like secular humanism and UBI through...reddit and the like. I know i crap on graham platner for being a reddit communist, but that isn't to say that reddit cant be useful in helping one inform their political perspective.

And oh, on polarization, because Yang brought THAT up again. Ya know, given my rough ideological association with Yang, but taking it in a different direction, I gotta break with him here too. he seems to treat political polarization as a both sides thing pushed by social media. I admit, algorithms are a problem with polarization, as is the fractured reddit environment where every subreddit devolves into its own respective echo chamber, but honestly, I dont blame the internet that much for this stuff. Here's why.

First of all, IT'S THE GOP, STUPID! (meant in the "it's the economy stupid" kinda way). Like we keep treating polarization as a both sides thing. But what's primarily driving polarization as I see it is the GOP. It's the side that's going full fash. They got this extremist worldview driven by religion, and they wanna force it on people. And you know what? For a while there, the internet was the cure. I remember 10 years ago before 2016 we were lamenting our parents being sucked into the fox news echo chamber, and then there was rush limbaugh, the rise of conservative radio, etc. These ideas have been festering in this country for about as long as I've been alive. Reagan killed the fairness doctrine and since around 1988ish, the country has been polarizing ever since (I go by 1988 since that's when rush limbaugh started doing his thing). 

And while yes, left wing polarization is a thing (looking at you, graham platner, again), honestly? Yang's own ideas originated from a combination of academia and internet activism. Hell, human centered capitalism IS a polarization against the right. My own version of those ideas I came up with explicitly to fight the right and their BS worldview. I didnt come up with these ideas to make nice with the right. No, they're fundamentally opposed to their brand of christian nationalism and hard line trickle down economics BS. And if you want them enacted, you gotta fight an ENTIRE WORLDVIEW. Youre not gonna get there through compromise. That's what the dems have been doing and its just led to the right becoming more and more extreme and illiberal. If you wanna beat the right, you gotta fight the right. Anything else is capitulation. And these ideas, the ones he ran on in 2020 are my idea of how to do so. I start out with a secular basis of morality based in enlightenment values, and build up from there. My views on work, UBI, etc., is explicitly to counter right wing trickle down economics. 

And yeah. Idk, gosh, Yang frustrates me sometimes. Like, he kinda gets it, but then he goes off and does cringey things. THis is also why a lot of the left doesnt take human centered capitalism seriously. When Yang is the face of it, he ends up just turning into a moderate who abandons that stuff and then the online left dunks on him for lacking any convictions at all. And I cant disagree with them.

And, wanna know what's driving left wing polarization like you get on reddit? The economy not working, and the dems and powers at be doing F all about it. When our choices are between christofascists and these super moderate libs who wont stand for anything and are actively hostile to those left of them, including social democrats, human centered capitalist, democratic socialists, you end up with these people "reading theory", doubling down and going full on "bourgeois democracy is a sham." And thats why the dems, for the life of them, cant motivate people to stop the trump threat. Because all they've offered is this soulless brand of corporate neoliberalism and tell us it's that or trump, and people stop giving a crap and stop voting. Again, human centered capitalisms should be an antidote. It's a vision that works within our current system to solve the biggest issues with the economy from a humanist left wing perspective that gives contrast to the right. I dont wanna play footsie with the right, or meet them half way. No. I wanna oppose them. But I want to do it productively and from within the existing capitalist, liberal democratic framework. If theres anything about left wing polarization that frustrates me, it's this. The actual social democratic left is nowhere to be found. Everyone is either a socialist a la platner or a craplib a la mills. Like there's no healthy middle ground. And this happens as a result of the political forces that exist. 

Quite frankly, all the internet did was remove the veil behind our politics. It removed the cave so to speak. It gave people access to information that they never had before. Before the internet, you got your views from the news and that was it. Most people werent as informed or educated on politics like many people online are now. THe information was just less accessible. When we talk about throwing away our phones and going back to some kind of shared idea of what america is, whose idea of america is it? Not mine, and I doubt it's yang's either. Because that entire political establishment is rotten to the core. And people dont understand that. No one likes soulless centrism. I'm sorry, they dont. The left realizes it doesnt fix our issues and is discussing new ideas, sometimes things like socialism, but also things like UBI, which Yang ran on. And the right has been radicalizing for a generation and building their own media infrastructure to keep people there. And it isnt just online. They did it offline too. They had radio programs, tv channels, the internet is a new frontier for them. It's new for us all. And people fear that maybe it's polarizing us and making us miserable, but that's just how life is now. And I dont think it's even a bad thing. I actually see it as a good thing, even if i recognize that the algorithms that feed us content have to go (they're the real problem).

As for teens in school and phones. I'm agnostic here. Look, I'm in my late 30s, I havent been to school (as in, K-12) in almost 20 years. Back then, electronics were banned. We used actual notebooks and textbooks. Phones and computers were a distraction. Sure, we had homework where we had to type papers, that started in middle school and got mainstream in high school. But other than that, classrooms were time to put the phone away and pay attention.

Nowadays...idk. I dont have kids. I dont want kids. I dont go to school myself. I know A LOT has changed since then. You got zoom during the pandemic. I know they give students laptops and tablets now. And with technology that can do everything, you introduce new challenges. The tech can be used responsibly to help learning. Transcribing a whiteboard full of notes can be made 100x easier just by taking a picture of it. Powerpoints for school can be distributed online, there was even a tool called "blackboard" which we used in college for that. Papers can be submitted online too. You can read your textbooks on a phone or computer. You can use that stuff to study. But you can also use that stuff to distract people too. I cant tell you, when I wanna write my book sometimes, I end up just doomscrolling social media instead. You can chat with friends, open up a video game, and the next thing you know, its night and its time to go to bed and you didnt do what you had to. So do I have an answer here? No. Again, I'm not a parent OR a kid in this digital age. But I also aint gonna impose my outdated perspective on a younger generation that does things differently, seeing things as a problem simply because i dont relate to it, and wanting to go back to how things were. Yang seems to have a bit of this anti tech streak when it comes to social media and kids that kinds irks me. It reminds me of like, jack thompson wanting to ban GTA 20 years ago. And I cant help but cringe just based on him embodying a similar vibe to that. I feel like every generation freaks out about how the kids arent like they were when THEY grew up and they fear that it's the downfall of civilization or something. THen the next generation turns out fine and it was all old man yelling at cloud. So idk. Again, I remain agnostic on that which I know little to nothing about. I can see where the concern is coming from, and I do think if I had to give a position I'd probably support banning phones during class hours at least unless there's a valid reason to engage with them. Again, simply because in class you should be learning and phones, while they can be useful, can be a distraction. But do I support lower phone use on the whole in society? Not really. We live in phone world now. Deal with it. Youre old man yelling at cloud if youre against it in my book. 

And yeah, that's where I stand on that.