Discussing the Piers Morgan Jubilee Debate

 Dear God why do I do this to myself? Well, it's sunday and there's barely anything else on. That's why. 

Anyway, Piers Morgan had a debate 20 "woke liberals." It was cringe. Very cringe. Mainly on Piers Morgan's side. Like...when you make me agree with explicitly "woke" people this much, you're doing something wrong. 

So...Piers was basically portraying himself as what liberals were before the left went bad. Hey, that's my line. And I agreed with the woke people 80% of the time on this one. Piers, you're basically a conservative. No, literally. Let's see why as I tackle the questions:

Claim #1: Masculinity has never been toxic

So, this started out a dumpster fire from the very first question. I'll agree that sometimes the concept of "toxic masculinity" goes too far, like, sometimes we just demonize guys for...acting like guys. BUT....yeah, it's a real concept. Men are expected to conform to traditional gender roles like being a provider, they are expected to bottle up emotions. They are gaslit by this toxic idea of what "masculinity" is and what traits they're intended to follow. And a few people mentioned that and stoicism, and he was like "what's wrong with stoicism?" Uh...the fact that rather than address the problems with systems we try to gaslight people into believing the problem with them and that they need more resilience? But in Piers' mind, resilience is good. Yeah. People should be more resilient. 

And that's what I think is a huge difference between the right and the left. The right focuses on perfecting the individual, of the idea that the system isn't the problem, people are the problem, and people should be bullied into conforming to systems, systems shouldn't change to support individuals. For me, a "human centered capitalist", institutions are human creations, and we can change them to support human needs. So ergo, Piers is a conservative on this issue. Even if he's a "liberal", much like I discussed yesterday, he merely reflects a more moderate and nuanced version of conservative values. 

And yeah. Just a side note, which is why im passionate on this discussion in particular, I'm going to be blunt. A huge reason why we still have to work our lives away is toxic masculinity. We have this idea that we have to "be a man", and that if you dont wanna spend your life working it away, you're not "manly" enough or "a real man" whatever that means. Efforts to reduce working hours led to the idea that spending time with your wives is too "womanly", don't you wanna be at work all the time doing MAN things? Ugh. No. F this. F you if this is your argument. I don't wanna "be a man." Call me effeminate, girlish, childish, all you want, I don't care. Screw you and the horse you rode in on.

Claim #2: Woke ideology is anti-liberal and fascistic

I mean, in a way it is. But not for the reasons piers mentions. A lot of woke people are illiberal. We see it with "metoo" for example. If a woman makes a claim, you HAVE to believe the claim or you're a bad person. They believe the legal system protects rapists. They believe anyone merely accused of rape or a sex crime should be cancelled, even if utterly deranged and diabolical people make up weird claims and incite random hate mobs. I mean, see what happened to Till Lindemann on that one. It's mob justice versus the rule of law. Innocent until proven guilty vs guilty until proven innocent. And the same with cancel culture. It's just mob justice. And mob justice is very illiberal. 

Still, this topic got derailed pretty quickly. There was a discussion on DOGE with Piers believing that it was a good thing. he insisted that we lost the 2024 election because of trans issues when it was one of the lowest priorities Americans had. And this dude is OBSESSED with trans women in sports. Ugh. He was going on about how the Charlie Kirk assassin was woke and killed him because he was supposed to be a fascist. Uh....that shooter seemed...all over the place. Just not a very mentally stable person in general. But yeah he's going around acting like the left wants to kill people they disagree with. It's nuts. Again, he sounds like a right winger to me. He's a right winger, whether he admits it or not.

Claim #3: Gender neutral pronouns are pointless

Here he starts going on about how there are 74 pronouns including "astropronouns" and weird crap like that, and yeah, I admit that that stuff is weird, but let's face it, "they/them" is wierd? Really? The one liberal even pointed out how we refer to people by neutral pronouns all of the time. And we do. This isn't even controversial. "They dropped off the amazon package" today. You dont know if it's a man or woman so you say they.

Then he was bashing the LGBTQIA2S+ thing. Yeah. I kinda admit he has a point here. I remember it started out as LGB in the 90s. Then LGBT. Then LGBTQ. Then LGBTQIA. And now they're adding a "2S" for "two spirit". It does get ridiculous. Like, i admit, piers has a point in the extremes. Astropronouns are weird. Furries are weird, and he was literally ranting about furries at one point for some reason. And an acronym that is getting larger than most full words is ridiculous. Acronyms work best when kept to like 3-4 characters. Maybe 5, but beyond that, yeah. Just add a "+" and be done with it. 

Anyway to go back to pronouns I do wanna touch on this one. Pronouns are mostly fine. I admit some trans people can get a little too overreactive if you misgender by accident, but to be fair some people are just jerks who will misgender you even if you ask them nicely like 100 times. And Piers is one of these people.

I'll break it down. Gender dysphoria is a mental disorder according to the DSMV. I know some people will resent me referring to it as a "disorder" and not an identity, but uh...shut up for a second, lefties. I'm trying to frame this in a way people understand. So...it's a disorder. People have very STRONG feelings like they arent happy with their gender and wanna be something else. And these feelings are so profoundly strong that these guys have super high suicide rates. However, there is a solution. If you treat the person like their preferred gender, and call them the right pronouns, it makes them feel better about their lives. So...just do it? Please? You're kind of a butthole if you don't. That's how you treat this specific mental illness. This weird conservative boomer mentality of arguing with them and telling them they have to be treated as their birth gender is ridiculous. And I get it, piers is this old school "liberal", basically a conservative by modern standards, more "classical liberal" than actually liberal. And yeah. 

Does Piers have a point on the most extreme stuff? Yeah. But at the same time, the woke has a much larger point to make regarding inclusivity I think.

Claim #4: Cancel culture is real and a serious threat to free-speech

So...I actually would agree in principle. I admit, it's not the state doing it mostly (although some countries do criminalize "hate speech" and can get rather extreme about what's considered "hate speech", including the UK), but I kinda addressed this in point 2. It's illiberal mob justice. I'd argue the right is a far larger threat to free speech, but the "woke mob" does get out of hand at times. And while I will agree with the left, people refusing to buy products they don't want to buy isn't something we can regulate, I mean, it IS freedom after all, let's face it, the organized campaigns to "cancel" individuals do have an effect that are clearly intended to punish people for certain behavior. 

I admit, it's not as bad as like open fascism or whatever, or the trump administration, or the right in general in recent years, it's kind of the implicit coercion of capitalism that they operate through, but still, it is scummy IMO and I like to reserve that only for the worst offenders. 

Liberal Claim: Woke politics are a distraction from our common enemy, the billionaire class

And this is where Piers really goes mask off on being a right winger. 

So...I agree with the premise. And I've long been a critic of democrats for ignoring class issues to promote "wokeism." And I admit, the conservatives making such a big deal out of culture issues is more important. And Piers generally agreed with it...until the discussion got deeper. 

Piers started going on about trans women in sports and how would you feel if your daughter was an olympic athlete who got screwed by a trans woman, because "that's her livelihood." But gee....if we addressed the class politics, it wouldn't matter. As the liberal arguing with him mentioned, that's why we should try to improve the conditions of the working class. But then Piers started going on about how we need meritocracy and shouldnt strive for mediocrity and blah blah blah. 

So..we need massive income inequality, and the masses to suffer....because they need to "earn" a living, and we need to inspire people to greatness. It's just unfair if that one person who happens to achieve "greatness" gets it taken away from them over the trans women in sports issue. 

This is deranged, completely and utterly deranged. And this is where I'm full on F piers morgan. YOU ARE A CONSERVATIVE! Seriously, this whole debate, he's agreed with the right like 90% of the time, full stop. His idea of liberalism is free speech and rule of law, which guess what, any pre 2016 conservative supports too. Really. the fact that he cares more about some olympic athletes, but not improving the conditions of the entire working class, sickens me. In 2024, we had 592 athletes go to the Olympics. Whereas we got like 150 million people in the labor force right now. Again, only a conservative could have such a messed up set of priorities here.

Even if I am willing to be nuanced and admit that in some cases, Piers might have a point, because let's face it, i aint gonna die on the hill of some 20-80 issue where I'm on the unpopular 20% side of it, and i recognize the other 80% has good points, the fact that he cares more about this than working class issues really shows he deranged this guy is.

And then he starts going on about participation trophies like any conservative boomer. Like, what the hell, man.

Conclusion

I never had a high opinion of Piers Morgan. I mean, he's a CNN commentator, and CNN is a VERY centrist network with a very corporatist version of liberalism. But after this, I really think that Piers is a full blown right winger. He's obsessed with trans issues, culture war nonsense, and he very obviously doesn't give a flying fudge about the working class, which is one of my big purity tests for liberals. Again, remember what I said about how a lot of moderate libs are just ideological conservatives but they round off some of the sharp edges of the ideology a bit. Here, he doesn't even do that. He's some rich celebrity who makes his money by rage baiting lefties and making people fight on his show, and who, when confronted with literal working class issues, shows he doesn't care about the working class.

Again, you're a right winger piers. "Old school liberal" my ###. You literally have more in common with fricking Archie Bunker than you do with me. 

Why do so many liberals seem to have no coherent worldview?

 So...this has been bothering me lately. And I guess what's really triggering me to write this is between that recent jubilee debate with Tim Miller being such a weak debater, and now Cenk seemingly getting his butt handed to him by his nephew (IMO), I really feel like it's time to approach this topic. What do liberals believe, why do they believe it, and do they believe anything at all?

For me, worldview is everything. When I was a teenager, I had to read "Understanding the Times" for 11th grade religion class. We learned about the importance of worldview, why it matters, and how to think coherently. I mean, in retrospect it was hardcore christian indoctrination, but they had a point. They were selling a worldview and contrasting themselves with mainstream society, and that's the root of a lot of our political differences even today. The reason Tim Miller did so poorly is because he was arguing against people who have this Christian worldview, whereas  the conservatives he was arguing with might have been kinda cray cray, but ideologically, they had their ducks in a row. Cenk Uygur. I normally like Cenk. He's a progressive, he normally seems to stand for more than most libs do, but even then his discussion skills here were weak. It was all platitudes with no real systemic analysis. I know Cenk has been kinda iffy among the modern left, for failure to embrace certain purity standards (I'll get to that in a bit, that's ALSO a worldview thing), but normally I expect Cenk and TYT to have SOME standards. It's almost like a lot of libs barely believe anything at all...

Getting "those" libs out of the way

So...before we get started, let's discuss the establishment and centrist libs. As I've indicated time and time again, yeah no, I really do believe they stand for nothing. They want jobs in politics, and don't care what they do, so they end up with this wishy washy worldview. Centrists stand for nothing. Their entire existence is based on compromise, and meeting the right half way. Like, literally. When your entire worldview is driven by "political pragmatism", centrism, and meeting in the middle, you get this weird tepid version of the right's worldview. This is why a lot of more ideologically charged folks consider libs to be moderate right wingers. Because they basically embrace the same core moral convictions as the right, it's just that they water them down a bit. What do they water them down with? Arguably whatever other worldview is convenient at the time, but they dont believe in anything. Which is why many of them are flip floppers in politics and constantly shift their views.

But this is their core weakness. Because they run into the "uncanny valley of suck" problem. They end up compromising so much with the right, they end up alienating their own side, while at the same time, they don't win over the right, because they lack any sense of moral clarity or cohesion. It's just weird platittudes over a softer version of the conservative worldview, and the conservatives have no interest in what the right is selling.

So what...is the liberal worldview?

Well, that's the thing. The left doesn't have a singular coherent worldview any more. When I read understanding the times, I would have classified the MAIN liberal worldview to be secular humanism, but even then a lot of liberals are christian and just have milder versions of that christian worldview mixed with other worldviews, which is the problem. This is also one of the reasons that any time a non white person gains a certain prestige among democrats, like Obama or Zohran Mamdani, they freak out, because they recognize that someone who isn't white and nominally christian isn't part of the ideological club. Not only are they liberal, but they become whatever mix of worldviews that they want to impose on the left at any time. Like "Obama is an atheist communist islamist", even though those are three completely different worldviews in understanding the times. Either way, part of the reason POC freak out white christians so much is because not only are they left wing, but many of them don't share even the ideological background that a lot of whites in society have. It's like the mask comes off and they realize they just aren't dealing with some weird watered down version of the christian worldview any more, but something else.

When I read understanding the times in high school, it had 3 different competing worldviews at the time, although rereading it, there are 5, and "the left" is a multi headed hydra of all of them. To break them down:

Secular humanism- the chief ideological arch rival of christianity, and probably what I consider the pure form of modern liberalism. If liberalism is to have an ethos, it's this one. Basically its a rejection of the christian god, and the christian worldview, and an embracement of a mix of progressive libertarianism on social issues (so pro choice, pro lgbt+, etc.), economics tends to be a bit mixed, but I'd say social democracy and mixed economies are their things, rejecting both capitalist purism and socialism, but having some mix of the two. And yeah. Generally, a lot of mainstream liberal beliefs come out of a more secular tradition that directly conflicts with the fundamentalist christian tradition. And traditionally, the ideological spectrum of America is a tug of war between these two worldviews. This was also common when I was younger online. You had the conservative christians debating the liberal atheists, and that seemed to represent the ideological spectrum for much of my teenage and young adult life. 

..which is why, when I left religion, I immersed myself in this secular humanist worldview, and still champion it to this day. 

However, for modern lefties, even secular humanism is flawed and mild. Another group, the "postmodernists" will rip it for being somewhat "racist", even if secularists, more often than not, have elements of postmodernism in their worldview. And we know how "leftists" who embrace varying levels of the marxist-leninist worldview tend to bash liberals for their lack of moral purity as well. 

As a humanist, I'm fine with integrating some aspects of these other worldviews into my own, but like with everything else, I'm fine with nuance. I recognize embracing any worldview too tightly can lead to fundamentalism, and among fundamentalists, humanists are the most chill. They're your typical r/atheism edgelord, whereas religious ones are theocrats, marxists turn into tankies, postmodernists turn into SJWs, etc. So let's discuss the others next.

Marxism-Leninism- This is the old left. The one based on Marx. You know, class consciousness, alienation, labor theory of value, dialectical materialism, all that jazz. One might dislike "leninism" mixed with it as they dont see the communists of russia as the purest form, but a lot of christians also say that about the fundies, so...I'm rolling with it. But basically the leninist version of "Marxist fundamentalism." At the time I read understanding the times, it was considered relatively defunct given it was the mid 2000s, before current politics and post cold war, but yeah, marxism has risen again. 

However, thankfully, the modern form common in america isn't totally crazy. Old school marxist-leninists are basically what "tankies" are and considered crazy even by most leftists. Most have distanced themselves from conventional leftism and instead seek "democratic socialism." This was common with the rise of bernie sanders, and is now championed by the likes of AOC and Zohran Mamdani. I have a lot in common with these guys, but tend to interpret marx far less dogmatically, dont tend to really care much for "socialism" in general, and I just...go in my own humanist direction with it. But, policy wise, I gotta respect a lot of leftists, often more than a lot of liberals. Because AT LEAST THEY FRICKING STAND FOR SOMETHING! Seriously, they have their ideas. They have their problem definition, they have their solutions, and while I will disagree with them ideologically at times, and on specific policy prescriptions, I can at least respect a coherent worldview. Ya know? Given the choice between tepid liberalism and inoffensive democratic socialism (since, again, and this is VERY IMPORTANT, but most demsocs distance themselves from tankies and tend to embrace something more akin to "what liberalism should actually be". Seriously, most modern ones are socdems and new deal liberals, and a lot of modern liberal thought is still influenced by them. With Bernie Sanders being the standard bearer of the modern iteration of the ideology, we see another vision of what the left "should" be. Even if my views are akin to "human centered capitalism" based on a less dogmatic "humanist" approach to politics.

Postmodernism- Ugh...SJWs. Yeah. Basically SJWs. When the right screams about "wokeism", they mean these guys. But yeah, according to understanding the times, this brand of left originated in the halls of academia, and is basically obsessed with what we call "social justice." Another common name the right throws around is "cultural marxism", which does fit it given it's basically the ideas of marx and class conflict, but applied to race, gender, and sexuality. Basically mainstream society represents the views of straight white males, who are privileged, and the main conflict in society is not based on class, but over social justice groups.

Among leftists, postmodernism is basically an extension of conflict theory applied to social groups. Among liberals, it's often used as a convenient distraction from class and economic issues, and serves as a replacement of it. It was speculated that this "New Left" rose to prominence as a CIA op to distract people from class conflict in society, and to create a new detoothed left that was both economically conservative relatively speaking, but also socially liberal. Of course, being the humanist with some conflict oriented theory integrated into my own worldview, I saw through this stuff immediately, but it didnt stop the democrats from cynically using it to redirect the left toward unpopular social causes, which has just driven further divides in society, leading to the revival of fascism in America as a backlash to it. 

And again, much like with marxism, I wanna recognize that these guys do have a point, like, the ideas are valid. But this stuff just isn't a HUGE part of my ideological DNA. I didn't fall for "the op" so to speak and still retain the majority of my pre 2016 views as a result. Although given the rise of fascism I have had to bury the hatchet somewhat with these guys since, well, cat's out of the bag, we "blowbacked" ourselves as a society, and the christian worldview has morphed into something worse. I'll address that later. Before I do though, I want to address the other 2 worldviews. 

The other two worldviews are far less political and far more religious. They could have intersection with religion, but they typically don't.

Islam- Yeah, Islam is its own worldview, similar to christianity. And in its extremist forms, is just as, if not more dangerous than Christianity. However, at least in America, most muslims are more Cenk Uygur or Zohran Mamdani than....that....it's almost like many people have a deeper commitment to separation of church and state and that almost no one wants to implement sharia law on us! Trust me, if they did, I'd be opposed to that. But Muslims are such a small minority in the US they're literally not a threat. And they tend to adapt to our culture very well. Doesnt stop the right from freaking out about them.

I also do wanna bring some attention to conflicts between the humanist worldview and the postmodernist one in approaching the subject to islam. Humanists are critical of religion, and can be very scathing critics of islam, but given we tolerate those with religious views as long as they dont shove them in our faces, we're not gonna be too aggressive for the most part. But a lot of old school atheists, especially after 9/11, were very scathing critics of the religion. Postmodernists see this as "racist", seeing conflict along racial lines, and between the white european majority and the religion of a racial minority. This leads to a lot of interesting contradictions within liberalism where people ask why we're so harsh on christians but give islam a pass despite its social regressivism. As a humanist, I fully recognize that islam can be very socially regressive, and i despise it for that reason. but I despise it like I do christianity. I make it about the ideas, not the people, and i also recognize nuance like, GEE MOST AMERICA MUSLIMS HAVE LITTLE TO NOT INTEREST IN IMPOSING SHARIA ON US, CAN WE MOVE ON NOW?! Seriously, it kinda is punching down. The postmodernists have a point. Not saying we can't criticize the worldview and belief system, we absolutely should. But unless people are gonna be fundamentalist about it, just let them live their lives, is that so hard?!

Cosmic humanism- So these are your new agers, crystal ladies, tarot and astrology enthusiasts, etc. However, they rarely intersect with modern politics. There are a couple examples. Marianne Williamson was one of these guys. Ya know, strong spirituality infused with progressivism. And given I'm not...ahem...FULLY secular any more, yeah, my views align with these guys most closely on spiritual issues. Basically, they believe that God is like the source of all, that we are all part of god, that the universe is part of god. A lot of them believe in more woo wooey stuff, whereas I still embrace a level of skepticism toward some spirituality. But I believe that synchronicities happen, and some of them are too weird to ignore. I generally believe there is life after death, and some reincarnation loop. That our loved ones are normally our spiritual friends (not always though, the "soul group" thing can be complicated). I even believe that I'm here to spread certain spiritual messages and that my own spiritual journey out of christianity and into atheism was to give me the ideological grounding for my current worldview, and despite believing in some spirituality, I'm still mostly culturally atheistic and that's fine, because if anything it makes my message stronger when I can argue for it on its own merits rather than from a sense of godly authority. 

But yeah, those two worldviews, not as influential in politics directly. Modern left wing politics is a mix of secular humanism, marxism, and postmodernism. my own views are humanist with leftist and postmodernist elements. 

This can vary from a lot of mainstream liberals, who sadly still embrace a largely conservative and christian perspective, just mixed with these other elements. It's a spectrum, and it's complicated. 

What about fascism?

 I found it weird fascism was never covered in understanding the times, and did believe it to be its own strain of politics distinct from christianity, but I'm not sure about that. If anything, fascism is just a more extreme version of the conservative worldview. While fundies will say "well they were socialists" because they had the term "national socialist" in their names in the 1930s-1940s, eh...they really weren't. Rather, they represent another form of extremist conservatism.

Socially, they're VERY conservative, but tend to use religion more cynically. Everything is about like...a strong state, and they adopt socially conservative views to basically encourage high rates of reproduction and population growth. They may also believe in racial purity, and the idea that others are "not like us." They often intersect with religion a lot on issues, although kinda like the difference between humanism and say marxism, they kinda represent different branches of it. For christians, god is their ultimate authority, whereas fascists tend to put their trust in some human. Although that human can be said to be a representative of god. We see this with all the "GOD CHOSE TRUMP!" stuff, and I know in grad school when studying some of this stuff we watched videos of like, hitler coming from the sky and getting off of an airplane and it made him look all divine. That's nazi propaganda for you (we knew it was propaganda, that was the point, we were literally studying propaganda type stuff). And yeah, in a way....christian nationalism is kind of the useful idiot for fascism. It really is. Like, fundamentalist christianity is kind of use as a justification for fascist perspectives, which makes the alliance we're seeing between christian nationalists and fascists as fairly natural, and maybe even inevitable. They DO have similar goals, even if their ideologies are different. But again, it's kinda like the relationship between secular humanism and marxism. The right often criticizes atheism for "killing millions" when it was the marxist leninists who did that. They enforced state atheism since they recognized religion offered a different competing worldview, and that if anything, religion suppressed class consciousness. So atheism became a tool of this other, more radical and authoritarian ideology. The same is true with the relationship between fundamentalist christianity and fascism. Christianity is becoming part of the ideological justification for fascism. This is why Trump is directing his law enforcement to keep an eye on anyone who has anti christian or leftist views of ANY of these ideologies. Because they wanna use religion to further their own ideological goals. Religion has always been the justification of injustice for the masses. This is one thing marxists had a point about. It is the opium of the masses. Why worry about the injustices of this life when you'll be rewarded in the next? 

I'm not saying christianity and fascism have an ironclad relationship. it doesn't. Christians have gone to the camps in prior fascist regimes for speaking out against the injustices of the fascists. And while conservative christianity represents the "fundamentalist" extreme of the religion, well, there are moderate christians out there who mix their views with other worldviews. I've been friends with christian democratic socialists before, for example. And a lot of mainstream christian liberals have at least some elements of humanism in there like, not believing that the world is 6000 years old, but it does seem like sometimes those brands of christianity seem like people trying to regularly compromise their beliefs with reality. Like, again, it leads to a complicated mess. 

So...with that said, where do liberals stand?

 Well, liberals represent a spectrum of beliefs ranging from milder versions of christian worldviews mixed with secularism, to mixing secularism with marxism and postmodernism, or alternatively christianity mixed with marxism and postmodernism. But it's generally a cluster of those 4 ideologies.

I would say "the left" is most purely represented by marxism-leninism on economics and postmodernism and secular humanism on social issues, although it is a spectrum.

Even I tend to fail the purity tests of those left of me, because I'm NOT a "socialist" or "leftist".  

With that said, liberalism isnt intended to be a pure worldview, but a nuanced one between left and right. 

I would say, however, secular humanism is the most pure and the highest expression of the ideology in the modern age. If Christianity represents the right, then secularism should represent the left. That's how I view politics. That's my own political lens. 

I kinda view "leftist" lenses as kinda their own thing. i think embracing those worldviews in an extreme form is harmful, but that those worldviews do offer SOME value at the same time. hence why I've integrated some aspects of those belief systems into my views too. BUT...the ideological basis of my larger worldview IS secular humanism. That's the metaphysical backdrop of my politics, and the other worldviews operate within that paradigm. 

Of course, liberals and leftists tend to vary in how much they embrace any of these worldviews. Which is why so much infighting exists. Leftists hate me because I'm not pure enough. Remember how they reacted to human centered capitalism? Because they hate all capitalism and see even my views as some sort of untenable compromise even if, in my own perspective it's coherent AF. Because they're ideological leftists before anything else, whereas im a secularist before anything else. 

But then a lot of libs aren't even that. And it's sad to see. Like, okay, I can respect someone who has a different competing worldview to mine who I disagree with, even if I do disagree with them and trash them on this blog in the heat of the moment. But I also tend to have that "i like stuff hot or cold, if you're lukewarm I'll spit you out of my mouth" ethos to my worldview. Christians used that verse to encourage more ideological purity on their side, pointing out that those who were like half christian and half something else were "double minded" and "unstable in all their ways." Well...that's what a lot of libs are. A lot of mainstream libs are actually those double minded christians who don't have any coherent ideological worldview. And they always embrace what i consider "right wing" values, while then walking them back and compromising them with reality. Which pisses off the fundies, it pisses me off, it pisses leftists all, and that's why everyone hates them. It's the uncanny valley of suck as I call it. Just this weird brand of tepid centrism that doesn't stand for anything. 

Like...we should stand for things. Have an ethos, have a coherent values system. Im not saying we have to represent any or all of these worldviews perfectly. BUT...we should at least stand for something. Which is why I'll respect "leftists" like bernie sanders, or AOC, or hasan piker, even if i do have sincere ideological disagreements with them, over these weird centrists who speak in platitudes and dont seem to know wtf they're doing or saying. It's like, pick a side, figure out what you stand for, crap or get off the pot. On this blog, i represent my worldview. It might not be for everyone, but you gotta say, I stand for what I believe in and struggle to advance my own vision for the world on it. I just expect that from other people and tend to look down on those who don't even seem to know wtf they stand for, and yet seem to have opinions on everything. Like...you're NPCs with dunning kruger effect if you do that. Really. That's how I see you. You think you know what you're doing. You have no idea what you're doing. Hit the books. Read something. Figure out what you actually believe in. And yeah, that's all I have to say on that.  

Discussing some of the guts of my housing plan, 2025 edition

 So, I discussed my housing plan previously, but given I just spent the last few weeks revamping it, I wanted to sketch out some details of where I'm at with it.

 The basic premise

 So, the idea is what I now call "universal basic housing." The idea is to build a lot of small apartments and microhomes in order to increase the supply of housing, thus alleviating the current housing shortage, creating a surplus of low income housing where the market fails to even address housing for those people, and to make the wealthy landowners pay for it with a land value tax. 

The exact nature of the homes is to be debated, but the premise is small and basic. I know Christian Fernandez who did a guest article when this blog was new emphasized microhomes. These are good for one or two people, but families will likely need larger accommodations. The average microhome is around $67,000 and fits probably 1-2 people. You can build larger ones for more, but they might cost more. How much is debatable. I've seen homes with multiple bedrooms for $30k on amazon but then I've seen tiny 10x10 foot cubes for $60,000 and likely only fit one. So costs are variable.

It should also be noted that microhomes are cheap not just because of their small size but also the fact that they use prefabricated parts that can be manufactured and constructed quickly. However, this won't work in larger cities where density is key and we'll likely need apartment high rises. Based on some googling, the typical price of an apartment built by HUD is around $232,000. That seems very expensive, but housing is expensive, and even microhomes are a lot more expensive than when Christian did his article like 10 years ago. He was thinking $30,000 for a home, and now it's $67,000, and possibly more. 

But yeah, we build tons of these houses and apartments all over the country, in dense urban areas they might be high rises, in smaller cities, maybe rowhomes, in more suburban and rural areas I could see communities of microhomes. We charge rent aimed at the basic income level of income. So if 1 person makes $1,333 a month on basic income, we might charge $450 for rent for a small home for 1. From there, maybe $150 more for each additional person, or $300 for each additional 2 people or something. After all, it might vary. A model that fits 1 might also fit 2 with the right specifications, a model aimed at 4 might fit 3, a model aimed at 6 might fit 5, etc. So yeah, maybe 1-2 people, $450, 3-4 people, $750, 5-6 people, $1050, etc. These homes exist on a rent to own basis. You might pay rent every month, but if you live in a home for 10 years, it's yours and you won't have to pay, although you might still have property taxes, utilities, etc. However, you must actually live in the home to be eligible for it, as we don't want landlords or house flippers to get a hold of them, and if you sell it, the new owners must also live in the home or sell it back to the state. 

The LVT

Again, we pay for it with an LVT. However, normal home owners are exempt from it, just like in my original article, it's primarily aimed at landlords and other for profit entities. Homeowners may be subjected to taxes if they own an excessive amount of land, but that would basically be, take the median home value, and make that the threshold for LAND value. So the median home value is around $400,000, with land being 25-33% of one's home value, so homes are exempt up to $1.2-1.6 million or so. That should exclude most homeowners from this tax. 

As for how much it will draw. Well, from what I can tell, the total private land value is around $21 trillion, although that's from 2015 and by now it's likely higher. Around 60% of the land is owned by for profit entities, so that gives us a tax base of $12.6 trillion. 5% is the rental value of land and probably the maximum tax I'd find acceptable, and that brings in $630 billion a year. However, we might only tax 1-2% instead to be less aggressive, and that would bring in $126 billion, or $252 billion respectively. Let's go with the 2% estimate here.

Putting it all together

So, how many units of housing can we build? Well, with $252 billion, we can build either 1.1 million normal HUD housing units, or around 3.8 million microhomes a year. Of course, if the microhomes are aimed at families and larger, they might cost more than your typical unit, which seems aimed at 1-2 people and are popular among retirees. Let's assume 1.5x the cost, or $100,000 on average for microhomes. If we spend $232,000 per unit on half of the units, and $100,000 on the other half, we will get $166,000 per housing unit on average. This is about 1.5 million homes per year. Over ten years, that's 15 million homes. Assuming each home serves 2.5 people on average, or the average household size in the US, that's 37.5 million people housed by this program in ten years. 

 And that's not even including the fact that people will be paying rent toward these homes or buying them outright, which might offset some of the costs. If a single person pays $450 a month on rent over ten years, that's $54,000. At 2.5 people per housing unit on average, let's assume $600 is the average rental price. That's $72,000. So if the average unit is $166,000, yeah, the government is selling them at a loss, that's affordable housing for you. However, it would recoup about 40% of the costs, which means we'd have an additional $100 billion per year to play around with. A lot of this money could go to maintenance and things like that while under the rental period, but whatever is left could allow us to build even more homes. So the numbers might work out even better than they do on paper. 

Conclusion

All in all, the idea is sound. We build tons of homes, charge rent akin to a basic income amount of income for them, and flood the housing market full of them. If demand is too high since the prices are so low (as much of the cost of these units is subsidized by LVT), then we can initially restrict the units to low income people. However, I would like to open up this program to EVERYONE in the long term. I believe it could provide a path to affordable housing and even home ownership  for many. And let's face it, these homes won't be too attractive. They'll be small and relatively basic. Again, most of them seem to work best for 1-2 people, although larger units will be available for families. Hence why I tend to believe that they'll be more expensive than projected. I'm kind of assuming the worst case scenario in terms of housing costs here. Still, the point is, not everyone will want to live in them. They're small, there isnt a lot of space. Various family members will likely drive each other nuts in such close proximity of each other. Relative privacy from each other will be limited (think what it's like to be in a hotel room with your family on vacation). So there are drawbacks. But at the same time, that's how we ensure everyone can have affordable housing. The smaller the units, the cheaper they'll be. The current issue with housing is affordability. To make affordable housing, we make small basic incomes and flood the market for them. This minimizes per unit cost and ensures we house as many people as cost effectively as possible. And yeah, there's tradeoffs. But that's my public option for housing. 

 If one doesn't like it, there's still the private market, where you can pay $1500-2000 a month these days for a basic apartment or home. It's crazy what people have to pay for housing. But again, that's the other side of the coin. Housing is a commodity in the private market, not a human right, and the homes are luxurious, but expensive. You guys want affordable housing or not? That's my pitch for achieving it. There's gonna be drawbacks. Pick your poison. $450 a month to live in the equivalent of a hotel room or trailer (or $750ish for a family option), or $1500+ to live somewhere fancier. Again, the government would literally be selling the things at a loss. So...yeah. It's an idea at least. 

Discussing "Cenksgiving 2025"

 Now THIS is the way thanksgiving dinner political discussions should be! A spirited discussion on housing right after I finish my chapter on housing in my book! So yeah, Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker had a political discussion for thanksgiving (for those who don't know, they're related), with much of it discussing Zohran Mamdani and housing. Given how immediate the idea is in my mind given my own research, I thought I'd give my opinions on it.

A lot of this debate with your typical liberal vs leftist back and forth, with me being a bit in between the two. In this debate I'd say I leaned closer to Hasan, but I still would say I'm in between the two. So...they discussed a few things, but I mostly wanna talk about their debate around Zohran Mamdani and his video on red vienna. I recently reacted to this video for myself, and it helped springboard me back into the housing debate for my book, and since it's fresh in my mind, I'd give my own views. 

Again, in between the two, although closer to Hasan. Why? because Hasan actually thinks systematically, breaks things down, and proposes actual steps toward solving problems. While I'd agree with Cenk this model goes a bit too far and is a bit TOO far left for me, I still gotta respect the initative. Meanwhile, Cenk seemed a bit more out of his depth, thinking in terms of "well yeah we need housing for everyone but we need to do it with the private market." Okay, but HOW? HOW do we do this, Cenk, what's YOUR policy prescription. And a lot of liberals who talk like this seem a bit mealy mouthed on it. They speak in platitudes about "yeah we want affordable housing" but when someone proposes something to their left, they're often like "no, not like that, without thinking about what it means." 

So...my own stance. Yes, we need a housing program. I think the red vienna model here is interesting and my own approach is somewhat the same in the sense that we need the government to build more housing, but I would agree that the vienna model is flawed and goes a bit far. It's great for renters, but makes home ownership hard. Given my own values of encouraging economic independence within capitalism, I'm not really on board with that. I also am under the impression that it worked in large part because Vienna hasn't had a lot of population growth over the past century and while that is changing in recent years due to immigration, Europeans, including Austrians are becoming increasingly anti immigrant in response to this. And I know this is true in Vienna as well, where they fear immigrants coming in and taking up a lot of the housing without giving back to society. It's a valid concern, which is why, I'm so moderate on immigration. 

I also don't necessarily want the government to run the majority of the housing market. Or even worse, to abolish markets. I dont think we need to have another discussion on how bad the USSR's housing policy was and how replacing the market led to repression and restricting freedom of movement to some degree, and it seems like even socialists understand we still need a market, just administered by the state, but still. I kinda am with Cenk that public housing should be aimed mostly at the poor, with a private market for everyone else. Actually, I would go so far to say that my housing program can be adapted to the middle if we wanted it, but given the standards the middle class would have with housing, and how building units like that would scale cost wise, eh...I'm not sure that would fix the housing market much. 

What we really need is a form of "universal basic housing" aimed primarily at the poor, where the government, much like with the vienna model, buys up land and builds housing on it, but again, the model is kinda basic. Like, I'm talking microhomes and micro apartments that are 10x10 feet, or maybe 20x20 feet. Point is, they're typically below 500 square feet. In dense urban areas they might be apartments, whereas in less dense areas we might have neighborhoods full of microhomes. They're not gonna be large luxurious accommodations. of course, that's the issue with housing in part. A lot of people want to not just live alone, but live alone in large accommodations, and quite frankly, people can't fit in these dense urban areas with their inefficient use of land. In some cases, even with maximum density like NYC, you STILL dont have enough room for people. What should we turn into hong kong or kowloon where you basically have a little hole in the wall you can barely move around in? It's ridiculous. Like, even the homes I imagine are significantly larger than that, and trust me, they're not that large. 

Either way, we need to keep this in mind, while supply and demand is a big issue, the for profit industry just isn't incentivized to provide housing for lower income people. AT ALL. They don't care. The direction the market is going in is toward making all housing expensive AF and pricing people out of the market where they all gotta pile in on top of each other where you got several poor people working just to make rent. It's not working. The market IS NOT WORKING. I mean, it's working for the wealthy, but it's not working for normal people. 

So...the government does need to step in and provide housing for the lower income side of the spectrum. It's just a matter of how. I'd agree with Cenk, maybe luxury apartments for the middle class is a bit too much. I imagine much cheaper construction in order to minimize costs and maximize productive output, with people paying say, 1/3 of their UBI ($450 for an individual, $600-900 for a family) toward a smaller apartment. I can even imagine a rent to own program, where people rent these units for 10 years and then own it outright after making enough qualifying payments. This would ensure a path to home ownership for all, even if it is like some tiny microhome or apartment. 

And yeah. Cenk seemed open to it, but still seemed to think the private market would somehow solve the problem. It's not, dude, not without a lot of incentives and carrots and sticks. Like, my own housing program would be paid for by a land value tax targeted at for profit entities, which would disincentivize them from holding into a lot of property, and if they do, they're encouraged to make efficient usage of it. We also need to discourage stuff like house flipping, which is a scourge to affordability in the modern market. 

I mean, I know im somewhat uncharitable to Cenk here, I just understand that yeah, we need a system where we build affordable housing on a mass scale. Bernie Sanders, who Cenk loves, is also for this; he also wanted to build millions of units across the country as well. Not sure how the specifics of his plan would work out, but yeah. Build build build. It's the primary solution. We do need some "socialism" here, although I would say it's closer to a "public option" than literal socialism. I'm more like "let's have a public alternative because the private ones aren't doing it." I do try to make them inclusive to all, but first and foremost, targeted toward the bottom half of the spectrum. 

In philosophical terms, I can't just help but think more closely to hasan though. When discussing politics, we need to have a defined idea of what the problem is, and then we need to come up with concrete steps to solve it. Cenk seemed to avoid committing to specific policy solutions, which reminds me of a very "liberal" thing to do. A lot of platitudes and virtue signals, but little actual substantive action. Hasan, like it or not, he had a plan, he had ideas for how to do things. We can disagree with those things. I know i disagree with hasan/mamdani/red vienna on the details, but hey, at least they have a defined approach to solving the issue.

So yeah, that's my impression on that. Either way, I just like to see two related political commentators arguing over substantive policy on thanksgiving. Beats your typical arguing with your maga uncle most people seem to dread. If we had more discussions like this, maybe we can actually solve problems, even if we're not all on the same page. 

Discussing 20 zoomer conservatives vs 1 millennial liberal

 Jubilee just dropped another debate, and god, this one is a dumpster fire. This one had tim miller, a liberal milennial I've never heard of, debating 20 zoomer conservatives. All in all, I don't think Miller did a good job, and the zoomers kinda tore him apart. This is in part because he overreached and tried to push controversial liberal positions on issues that I personally would have avoided, and in part because he just didn't argue well and the zoomers had it more together.

Claim #1: ICE has become a fascist institution and it should be abolished in its current form 

 This led to a lot of controversy, and I'm not sure he defended it well. I would agree with the premise, but I would have advised people to learn from history, and to study the early days of Hitler here. Hitler didnt start out with gas chambers, he started with deportations and the like. And ICE's behavior is somewhat similar to gestapo in the early days of the third reich. It's important to note that we ARE talking the early days. Like 1933-1935ish. The later years were far worse, but again, it was a slow escalation. 

Still, this guy didn't argue well at all. I forget exactly what his definition of fascism was but it differed from mine. Keep in mind not all authoritarians are fascists. Although Trump does align with fascism as I've previously discussed. 

And yeah, the zoomers were arguing about how ICE is just keeping us safe, and saying we should deport illegals. Which...I actually agree with in theory. What bothers me about ICE isn't the fact that immigration enforcement exists, it's the extent of their power. He did argue a few points on this like how militarized they are, how big their budgets are (bigger than Israel's entire military), and how they should show leniency in some cases, and I do agree. But yeah, I dont think he argued successfully that they should be abolished. 

I'm not entirely sure I'd argue that. Like you could make that argument, pointing out they were only created in 2003 and at this point they act like a literal gestapo, but at the same time, reform, keeping them within rule of law would probably work. I think the real problem is the current leadership, it's trump and his ilk. It's Kristi Noem. Stephen Miller. Those people. Still, given that the wrong people can get in and use such an apparatus in that way is problematic. But even if we didn't have ICE, they could just as easily use another agency. 

So yeah, I'm mixed. 

Either way, I've made my perspective on immigration clear in the past. I'm not opposed to immigration enforcement and I kinda think both the right and the left tend to make decent points on it in theory (although the left is probably closer to where I'm at right now). I just really have issues with the way Trump is engaging in law enforcement here, and that his actions are unlawful and inhumane. And that he is being cruel for the sake of cruelty, because that's how the right thinks. 

Claim #2: It is not worth the cost of gun deaths every year to have the Second Amendment

So, this is where this debate really crapped the bed. He made a claim, but didn't really back it up. Like, it was a virtue signal, something should be done about gun violence, but then he was really unclear on what policies he was for after being poked and prodded. I hate to say it but the conservatives seemed to have it more together here. 

With me, I'd argue we should be for the second amendment, but be for some gun laws geared at keeping guns out of the wrong hands. A moderate position like that would have been a lot more defensible, because this guy didn't even seem pro second amendment.

However, I will say this is where the debate got cringe and we started encountering the Christian worldview entering discussion. Seriously, these gen Z conservatives are fricking Jesus freaks here. They remind me of when I was their age, which is why i feel comfortable crapping on them. I grew out of that stuff, but I'm unsure if these guys would. At least they're not the literal nazis of the other debate, but still, I really have trouble finding common ground with these people.

Like, they'd say stuff like humans are inherently evil. That's an explicitly christian assumption. One of them doubled down on it saying that what people needed was Jesus. They went on about the breakdown of the family unit and how people growing up without fathers is a problem. This is a common conservative trope going back to the 1960s. Everything was fine until we allowed people to not live in nuclear families, according to them. Like we should just force that model of family units on everyone.

Ugh. I mean, i hate this. But, that's how right wingers think, and I can at least respect the philosophical consistency some of these people had. I mean, I hope they find their way out of this worldview like I did, but many of them probably won't. But yeah, this is what we gotta understand when arguing with conservatives, we're arguing against an entirely different philosophical worldview and at the center of that worldview is the christian god, the bible, and jesus. 

Claim #3: The Trump Administration is an attack on American values 

And then it got worse...

Really. I don't think this guy understands wtf he's doing. He's going into this debate not understanding he's arguing against an opposing worldview with different values, and these guys are going to claim their values are the REAL American values.

Like, this guy is like "yeah, democracy, rule of law, etc." And these guys start arguing about how those are CHRISTIAN values, that they come from God (even thought the natural rights theory god was deistic in nature), and basically putting him on the defensive. This is where I gotta once again give the conservatives credit. I might disagree with them morally, but they're tearing this guy apart. Because they understand worldviews, and this guy...doesn't. So he just keeps walking into these discussions unprepared. 

Look, if we wanna fight this christian worldview, you gotta argue from an explicitly secular worldview. Hell, I'm not sure I'd say "American" values, because, well, that means different things to different people. For the left, these values are largely secular. For the right, they're christian. Existentially, you're walking into a trap of debating on your opponent's terms. So unless you're like me where you literally recreate these values secularly and argue about them being a good idea from a structural functionalist standpoint, you're gonna end up being eaten alive by these guys. And idk, I just don't feel like he did a good job. And the whole time I was just thinking of how I'd argue and push back against them better than these guys would. 

Honestly, he's just making claims he can't defend and being torn apart by the conservatives.

If I were going to reframe this, I'd argue in favor of liberal enlightenment values, which I see as fundamentally opposed to the authoritarianism of the christian worldview (and all religious worldviews). Still, the conservative mind is going to try to claim that stuff as christian, even if it really isn't. 

Claim #4: The reddest states are governed worse than the bluest states

He walked into a rake again! Really, I get what he's going for, claiming that liberal states are more together on the economy, safety nets, GDP, and that conservatives dont know wtf they're doing, but here's the thing, as one conservative put it, they know what they voted for and they LIKE that crap. And while we on the left might think they're rolling around in crap and voting against their interests, again, as long as we disagree on worldview, we're not gonna agree on ANYTHING. 

Like, that's why politics are so messed up. We can't agree on anything because over the past 40 years, we've had these religious nutcases build up an entirely alternative worldview from us, with different values, and different perspectives. We can't agree on ANYTHING. This is why, when I left religion, I was so anti religion for a while, and to some extent still am. Because...as long as these people still have this Christian worldview guiding their thinking, their view of reality is gonna be hopelessly distorted. And we're gonna be arguing with a wall. This is why, in that work I'm trying to write, in the first chapter, I attempt to address worldviews FIRST. I explicitly REJECT the Christian worldview, and argue for a secular humanist worldview instead. I dont make all the philosophical arguments as that could require an entire book itself and quite frankly, resources on that already exist, but yeah. You gotta attack their worldview before you can have any ability to impact them on values. Becuase otherwise their values are gonna be fundamentalist christian ones, and you're gonna be dealing with all of these distortions. 

If anything, the red/blue state thing is a massive distraction. Because these guys started going on about blue state abortion laws, and how bad the cities are, and blah blah blah. And yeah...cities have problems. It doesn't mean blue leadership is bad. It's just that when you have higher concentrations of people, you get more crime, poverty, etc. People vote blue because of the problems in those cities, and conservative values will NOT improve blue areas. You could argue liberal values would improve red areas because safety nets, but yeah, they'll disagree.

If anything, this is where the right went on about how conservatives do a better job "creating jobs." I would actually disagree. I dont think trickle down economics leads to better job growth. If anything, a more bottom up demand side approach is better for job creation in the long term. All supply side trickle down economics does is concentrate the wealth at the top. 

Beyond that, I think job creation is beside the point. The blue areas have the best jobs and the most GDP. This isn't really due to conservative or liberal policies, both sides will lead to roughly the same job growth. It's just that cities are where opportunities are located in job centric economies. So everyone goes to cities. And then concentrating tons of people in one place cause more problems, and everything snowballs from there. Despite living in a small city and being a lib, I actually aint a big city kinda person. I dislike big cities. I think that they're cesspits of poverty and crime kinda like conservatives do, but simply think the problem is concentrating large numbers of people in one place, which introduces a lot of dysfunction into the system. But in terms of jobs, they are better. Again, it's just the nature of the modern economy. 

Which is why i think the red/blue state point is beside the point. Yeah, I'd agree that blue state governance is better since red states oppose safety nets and push all kinds of weird christian regulations that end up backfiring like abstinance only education, but again, try convincing one of these christians that. You can't. Because it's a worldview issue. If anything one lady kept going on about fricking abortion being so bad and red states being better on governing that stuff because they like restrictive abortion laws. Again, these people just have a fundamentally different worldview and unless you address that worldview head on, you're not gonna go anywhere with these people.

Gen-Z Conservative Claim: From the moment of conception abortion is a grave moral evil

Yeah. These gen Z conservatives being Jesus freaks makes them OBSESSED with abortion. And idk, miller did an okay job, but with me, I would've probably gone full bore in doubling down on humanism. Because from a humanist perspective, no, it's not. Abortion is a debate between the life of the fetus and the choice of the parents, specifically the mother. For pro lifers, they believe the value of the fetus is more important because "it's human life." For pro choicers, the choice, bodily autonomy, and freedom of the parents is more important. And where you stand comes down to worldview. While the Bible actually does lean pro choice in my view because of the whole abortion potion thing, life at first breath, the fetus being property in the hebrew law, etc., the worldview emphasizes the whole soul thing. And they believe life begins at conception, and that the soul is just as attached to that body in early pregnancy as any born human. Meanwhile, as a secularist, trying to build a distinct moral framework based on secularism, I'm going to emphasize things like fetal viability, sentience, and nerve system connections that allow for the ability to feel pain. All of these things dont occur until the second half of the pregnancy, between 22-28 weeks or so. I would probably put the cutoff around 24. Only reason I oppose even that is because pro lifers will use ANY opening to push crazy laws banning people who really should have access to medical interventions later than that from getting them. Because these people can't govern worth a crap. But again, they DON'T CARE! These people don't care! Because they're religious nuts! You can't actually reason with them or appeal to similar values because their entire value system comes from the Bible or their interpretation of it (given the Bible is, again, pro choice IMO). 

And then this guy is going on about how OMG LIKE 1/3 OF ALL ZOOMERS DIED TO ABORTION. Like, this is a generational crisis. The same is true of millennials. The same is true of gen Xers. And you know what? I'm fine with it. because before a certain stage of fetal development, I don't value fetal life. I just don't. I value the concerns of born people infinitely more than I value the concerns of zygotes, or even 8 week old fetuses, or 15 week old ones. Really, fetuses don't have moral relevance for me until post 20 weeks at minimum, with that critical window being 22-28 for me. Again, if I had to draw a line, I'd do so at 24 weeks. So...basically, I was fine with the Roe-Casey framework. 

Again, I just don't see any common ground with these people. 

Conclusion

So...overall takeaways. This guy went into this debate underprepared, ended up fighting on cultural issues where I'm relatively moderate and got picked apart by conservatives who were far more intelligent than him (even if i fundamentally disagree with them). And then the debate veered into fundamentalist christianity and the conservative Christian worldview, and this guy just never seemed to recognize that he was dealing with people with a fundamentally different moral perspective. So he did a rather poor job in debating. 

Again, you gotta understand how these people think if you wanna debate them. And this guy doesn't. And I feel like between making sloppy points he couldn't defend and just running into more philosophically coherent people than him, he just did a bad job. It was cringe.  

Discussing Nick Fuentes "compromise"

 So, Nick Fuentes has offered a compromise between the right and the left, arguing if we give up on immigration and social issues, they'll give up on economics and create a grand alliance that wins over "90%" of voters. This is a tempting compromise for me on paper, I've offered similar compromises from the left in the past. But...I'm going to have to decline here. 

 Why? Well...have you actually SEEN Nick Fuentes lately? Have you seen MAGA lately on immigration? Nick Fuentes is a NAZI, and the Trump administration has immigration policies reminiscent of 1930s era Nazi Germany, complete with LITERAL CONCENTRATION CAMPS! No. I'm not interested in compromising with people who are THAT far gone. Especially because we've BEEN compromising. Biden compromised to the center on immigration. His 2024 initiative was even center right. He gave them almost everything they wanted. We're not "open borders", F no. I mean, yeah those nuts exist on the radical woke left, but they're not a majority, even among democrats. They're just a bunch of weirdos who are on the wrong side of like an 85-15 issue. No one takes them seriously, not even us. The mainstream of the democratic party is pro border control, and recognizes that we need to have borders to have a nation. 

But...none of that was good enough for these guys even a year ago, and now, we're seeing what they're really about. These guys are pushing great replacement theory. They're literally going as heavy handed as they are because they ARE white nationalists, who want the US to be a white ethnostate. And they just wanna deport and get rid of all the brown people. Which is why we're seeing such heavy handed policies under the Trump administration. Literal concentration camps. People like Laura Loomer making jokes about the alligators in florida having 65 million meals, referencing the latino population in this country. These guys are sick freaks. Let's be honest. They're PSYCHO.

And that's the future of the republican party. Again, there's no good guys in the MAGA civil war, and I dont even WANNA take a side. The establishment sucks and is corrupt and I'm SOMEWHAT sympathetic to the populist arguments against that segment of the right, even as a leftie, but have you SEEN these guys? They're like an angry and unruly mob. They are literally driving us to fascism, and while Trump is only like a proto fascist by my own estimation, as the guy is too boorish to have the sophisticated ideology to make him an out and out fascist...people like Fuentes have that sophistication. As such, I don't wanna touch those guys with a ten foot pole. I really don't. I want NOTHING to do with that wing of the republican party. 

Again, I can compromise on immigration. I myself am a centrist on it and am considered pretty right wing by democratic standards. But push comes to shove, I care about human rights, and civil rights. I care about the constitution, due process, and rule of law. There's nothing wrong with deporting illegal immigrants, but we must do it HUMANELY and LEGALLY, which Trump is not doing. 

Hell, I'm starting to think that moving right on immigration isn't getting us anything. It didn't get us anything when Biden did it last year. Apparently the Danish social democratic party that has been lambasted by the left for its explicitly anti immigrant stances ain't doing well either. This crap isn't getting us any closer to universal healthcare, or free college, or UBI. So really, why should we compromise? If this stuff did get us electoral success, I would consider it, assuming we kept it within certain boundaries of humanity and legality (like Biden did), but again, they just beat us over the head and scream that we're for open borders anyway, and then people believe them, so what is this doing us?

And that's the thing. The immigration crisis that helped propel Trump to the white house the second time was largely fabricated. There was no real crisis. And yes, there were a lot of border crossings, those crossings were documented because border control stopped those people and sent them packing. People weren't flooding into our country in record numbers, they weren't contributing to the cost of living crisis, and one can go back and and compare the number of illegal immigrants in this article to my earliest basic income plans (I keep track so I can exclude those people from getting UBI) and notice that the numbers cited in the above BBC article are no different, because the actual number has been stagnant for years now. 

Like, again, where is this weird idea that we're pro open borders coming from? WE'RE NOT! 

So...when Fuentes comes in here with his grand compromise, he can screw off for all I care. This is lucy with the football. We've been compromising all along but it hasn't been enough for these people because these people are outright fascists. There is no compromise with them. And honestly? Im not even sure that they would be for economically progressive ideas if we let them be. They dont have the worldview for that. Because again, there's a lot more happening under the Trump administration than just nazi like immigration policies. They got a coalition full of white nationalists, christian nationalist. Nick Fuentes himself was the "your body my choice" guy calling for the end of abortion and women's rights. The guy himself calls for a catholic dictatorship. He likes Hitler, he likes Stalin. He's a whack. There's no compromising with this guy. 

Honestly? If anything, people like Nick Fuentes are making me more sympathetic to the woke people! And I hate those guys. Because they've long since opposed my economically progressive inclinations and insisted on forcing us into running elections based mainly on these cringey socially leftist positions that are unpopular with the country. And as you guys know, who have been following this blog since 2016, I've been an opponent of that all along. And I would have happily made this compromise of "giving up" on immigration for advancing my social policies. Because 10 years ago, giving up on immigration didn't mean going full fascist. The alt right was new back then, and it was unclear how fricking insane they were. And I thought if we gave some compromises on issues back then, we could have that coalition Fuentes speaks of now. I didnt want the woke people getting control of the narrative because they WOULD kill the left electorally, and inflame the right. 

But...2016 happened. And 9 years out of it, the end result is clear. The cat is out of the bag. The right has morphed into fascists, the left are woke, but starting to come out of it,  but right now, we kinda need that woke ethos to push back against the fascists. Because again, when I call these guys fascists, I mean it LITERALLY. I cited my own article above, so let's post the MW definition again:

a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition

  Sounds like an accurate representation of Nick Fuentes' ideology to me. 

 There will be no compromise with those people. They can't be trusted. If you do it they'll stab you in the back, just like they always do. Populist, progressive, anti establishment left and the fascists have little in common. That is my answer.  

So holding onto electronic devices for a long time is apparently a bad thing now...

 This is one of those contradictions in capitalism that clearly get under my skin and irks the everloving crap out of me, but CNBC is crying over how "Americans are holding into devices longer than ever and it's costing the economy." OH NOES, NOT THE ECONOMY! DON'T YOU WANNA CONSOOM? PLEASE CONSOOM, SO BUSINESSES CAN MAKE MONEY, AND THE JOB CREATORS CAN MAKE JOBS MAKING DEVICES FOR YOU TO CONSOOM! It's stupid and I want to address this from my standpoint, both as a tech bro type, and as a human centered capitalist.

So, first, let's discuss economic theory. This idea makes sense in a consumerist economy and aligns with research I've done on this stuff as of late. 100 years ago we could've shifted in the direction of working less, but the powers that be didn't want that because they feared what the masses would do if they actually had free time and the economy wasn't at the center of their lives. People might not buy things, and businesses might have less opportunities to make money. We can't have that! From a work perspective, people might decide that capitalism and the consumerist and workaholic lives we need aren't worth it, we can't have that either! So instead, we imposed a form of "plato's cave" on people where life is a massive rat race of work and consumption with no real purpose. We believe work is our purpose, but that's a bunch of nonsense. Our purpose is whatever we want it to be. Life is a sandbox and instead we're forced to play monopoly on the losing side, just struggling to always keep our heads above water. It's BS, let me tell you. 

But yeah, basically, buying fewer devices is bad because businesses make less money. And that's bad, because they won't produce as many jobs. And we can't have that! 

But, has anyone asked us what we think? Of course, the policy makers don't care what we little people think, they just care what their billionaire donors think. They took over the political system, we have two parties which amount to coke or pepsi (although coke is basically becoming rather toxic lately), and it's just a matter of what flavor of corporate rule you want. Neither wants to liberate us from this cycle, they just debate about who does a better job with "creating jobs" and managing the system and all that jazz. 

But, I dont care what those rich guys think so I'm gonna give my opinion anyway. So...human centered capitalism. Rather than it being based around job creation and trickle down economics, I believe in trickle UP economics. I believe in giving money to the people and people making the decisions about what is good for them. If people want a product, they'll buy it. If they don't, they won't. The economy exists to serve us, not we the economy. That's how it should work in theory. We love to frame capitalism as freedom of choice, but the second we peasants use our "freedom" in ways the elites dont like, all of the sudden we're bad for it. "Why aren't you consooming? why aren't you working? You're killing the economy!" F your economy. no, really, F it. I don't care about your profit margins. Corporations exist to serve the people by providing goods and services, if we dont have use for your goods and services, well, too bad! Amazing how these guys cope and seethe when the same logic they apply to us peasants suddenly applies to them and they have to find a new way to be useful to people. 

Or...we can just do planned obsolescence, which is their answer to this. So, planned obsolescence. Common in many industries today, especially common in computing. The premise is simple. Why make a product so good people never wanna buy it again when we can milk people and make them buy products every few years because they break? Or are otherwise obsolete? We used to hear about how bad in the 1960s boomers had these appliances that lasted 30-40 years. I remember growing up with my parents having these old 60s/70s era devices well into the 90s, with them only breaking in the 2000s. Now we gotta rebuy stuff every 10 years or so. Why? because they make them cheaper. Oh, it broke, gee, that's too bad, well you can buy a new one for only $999! And that's how they get you. And that's why Americans struggle to keep their heads above water. The system isnt designed for most americans to get ahead. if people start to "win" at capitalism, it means they have enough money and a comfortable enough living standard to never have to work again! We can't have that. So we make things so that they break, so you gotta to out and buy new thing. 

Now, computing. Computing historically has been very consumption heavy. Obsolescence is built into the business model. In the past, it was mostly necessary. From the 70s through the 2010s, computers advanced at such a fast rate that anything you buy now will be obsolete by this time next year. And then games, applications, etc., start requiring more power. So after 2-6 years you'd have to buy something new again. 

And for a while it was actually worth it. Like game consoles. Back in the 90s and 2000s graphics evolved at such a rapid pace you'd see progress as it happens. Every year the games looked grander, more realistic. Well, this started slowing down in the 2010s as we started hitting various stages of stagnation. Intel hit a wall, AMD fell apart on CPUs, and 2011 era parts lasted well into 2017 as a result with little progress. GPUs are doing this as well in the modern era. Nvidia is still progressing, but new products are more and more expensive. And they're trying to extract more profit out of people. And because of disproportionate demand from people like crypto buyers in the late 2010s and early 2020s, AI data centers as of late, and just, the top 20% having more money than everyone else combined and wielding that money in the consumer economy, well, prices are high, and people don't wanna consume. Then consider general inflation with everything else rising the cost of living, and now trump's tariffs screwing everything up. 

Gee, why don't people wanna spend?! A few years ago it was "no one wants to work any more" and now it's "no one wants to consume any more!" It's like, we're a battered spouse being gaslit by an abusive partner asking us why we aren't doing XYZ, when quite frankly, it's not even worth it any more. Said partner isn't giving us anything, isn't putting in the effort, is making our lives a living hell, and then asking why we aren't engaging in reciprocity with them. They're GASLIGHTING us. They're saying the problem is us, when it's really them. They've underpaid us for years, our living standards have declined, and then they raised the prices of everything and wonder why we aren't spending. Gee, maybe because WE CAN'T?!

Also, as someone who is financially tight, I don't really WANT TO buy new stuff. I kind of look at doing so with dread. At this point, we're buying new phones that do exactly the same thing our old ones do, just a little better. The tech is mature enough where many of us dont have a true need for more power. And what's really driving us to upgrade is the planned obsolescence. And let's be frank, I HATE replacing devices because of planned obsolescence. Again, back in the 90s and 2000s, and in the mobile space in the 2010s, it felt like there was more innovation. New products were genuinely better than older ones. Nowadays, it's like, yeah, this 3 year old phone or tablet would still be adequate but now the android version is out of date and no longer getting updates, or apple is LITERALLY SLOWING IT DOWN INTENTIONALLY,  the battery life is half what it started at because lithium ion degrades, or the device goes dead from age. These things aren't designed to last very long, and they're basically designed to make us upgrade every few years. I know I'm upgrading my family's tablets this year. They're 5 years old, which is an eternity in mobile device terms. My mom's died. Mine and my dad's are still working, but for how long will they still work? It's actually strange how long they've held on since normally wear and tear forces device upgrades every 3 years or so. But yeah, we dont wanna be caught out with our devices dying so we're upgrading while we can afford it. 

It's similar with computers. Like, there used to be a genuine incentive to upgrade. More power. Games look so much better than they did 3-5 years ago, the old system can't run new ones well, so we need a new one to upgrade. But nowadays, it's like we're upgrading just for random BS like ray tracing and other things that dont really contribute to the experience. And me personally? I dont LIKE to upgrade all of the time. It isnt worth it given how slow actual progress is. Since the 2010s I've just wanted to run my devices as long as possible. Eventually upgrading is worth it but it takes a huge amount of time, and what mostly drives me to upgrade is, again, obsolescence. And it's getting more and more expensive, the benefits are less and less, and I feel like i'm just throwing out all of this money to keep doing what i always did, with BS artificial segmentation to keep me buying to make some rich person rich. Quite frankly, I think we've peaked with progress, and can afford to slow down. Stuff isn't getting appreciably better, as long as what we have works, it works, and did I mention I really hate putting money out on upgrades that feel unnecessary but are necessary simply because of consumerism? Like, I dont wanna upgrade just to give a rich guy money. That's rent seeking behavior, and I resent it. My own economic model is intended to increase individual independence, and being forced to shell out money for new stuff we dont need due to reasons that feel BS and artificial just forces us in a cycle of dependence. Hell, this whole system is a massive cycle of dependence. Again, this whole system is intended to feel like a race you can never really win. We always talk about "getting ahead", but the system is literally designed to stop us from doing that. Because if you "win" at capitalism, that means you're in a position where you can stop working, and stop consuming, and quite frankly, THEY (the nebulous they, but you know who I mean, the wealthy class) don't want that. They want you to keep working your lives away, and then spend your tokens at the company store. And that's life in this system as it is. Forever. 

And that's why, when people decide they're fine with older devices, that's such a crisis for this system. Because the model is "no, you throw away your old perfectly working device and buy a new perfectly working device." Or they sabotage your device to make sure they dont remain perfectly working for long, to force you to shell out for new upgrades. Point is, they dont want people buying devices once every 5-10 years when they can make you upgrade every 2-3. And honestly, that's probably what they'll do to fix this. MORE planned obsolescence. More battery degradation, or other faults in the device causing them to randomly die after an expected lifespan. More software upgrades that older devices don't get, making upgrading mandatory. Because again, if you actually "get ahead" and are happy with your current devices, then you won't buy new stuff. And companies might not make as much money. And we can't have that, now can we? 

So...black ops 7 is actually terrible

 So...I actually watched one of my favorite game streamers' video on black ops 7 and it was...genuinely awful. My god, who thought this was a good idea? It's like they took everything wrong with black ops 3, dialed it up to a 10, made it the whole game, and then added cringey "modern gaming^TM" elements like always online and forced coop to it. Like...who thought this was a good idea? Holy crap. No wonder this is getting destroyed. After watching this i dont even think im gonna play the campaign if i buy this, I mostly play multiplayer.

Heck, BO7 was so bad said streamer then went back to playing BO3, im assuing because everyone was making the same comparison i was, and he was like, compared to BO7, this is a masterpiece! And looking at his video, it was. Yeah, I hated the acid trip parts that made up the last...idk, 25-33% of the game, but up to that point it wasn't that bad. It just got REALLY weird toward the end. It was enough to sour me on the game, and my opinion of COD campaigns just declined from there, IW was mid. WWII was even worse than BO3 due to the game play changes IMO. MW19 was good, but most 2020s era COD campaigns have just been awful, and here it's like they basically took BO3 and dialed up its worst aspects by a factor of 10. 

 Honestly, watching BO3 now makes me somewhat nostalgic for it. I might hate the PS4/XB1 era COD multiplayer games with a passion, but most of the campaigns aren't THAT bad. I actually hate most of the modern ones even more for the simple reason that they just changed the game play radically. Yeah, maybe going through waves of generic soldiers is repetitive, but man it was fun, and they had some really good campaigns back in the day. These days everything has to be so overly complicated and then black ops games turn into massive drug trips (BO6 was the same way, honestly). Honestly, they just aren't fun any more.

I mean, if I were to really rank the COD "eras" roughly by console generation, here's how I would do it.

Campaigns

Gen 7 (COD2-Black Ops 2)

Gen 8 (Ghosts-BO4)

Gen 9 (MW19-BO7)

Gen 6 (COD1, Big Red One)

So....that 360/PS3 generation really put out banger after banger. Outside of COD3, I think they all were solid games, and most from COD4 on have aged well. BO2 is a bit overrated and where we start going into that "future" era of COD, but it still stands among the greats.

The PS4/XB1 generation also had good campaigns, at least at first. I liked Ghosts. I liked AW. BO3 kinda sucked but compared to what they do now...oh man...it's being renovated. IW was also okay. WWII I didn't like but yeah that's when I started really souring on them. And then BO4 didn't have one. And yes, I know MW19 was technically gen 8, but Im counting it with gen 9 since that's where we get into the "modern" era of the series, with MW19 being the clear delineation whether we like it or not. And yeah, at this point, I feel like, at least campaign wise, we didn't realize how good we had it. 

MW19 marked the start of the new era, and that was good, and Black Ops Cold War was good, but they got mid to bad after that. Vanguard was forgettable. MWII started forcing stealth sections with greater aggression and doing this "no you play how WE tell you to!" thing. MWIII was more of the same. BO6 wasn't awful but it wasn't really great either. And BO7...yeah, I don't even wanna play that one it looks so bad. 

But the originals from the PS2/Xbox era...haven't aged well. COD1 felt dated even by like, 2007ish. I know it started the series, but the lack of recharging health and how rare healthpacks are are just...no. 

At the same time, how do I feel about multiplayer?

Multiplayer

Gen 9

Gen 7

Gen 8

Here, I'll say it. Controversial opinion for a lot of the old timers who are nostalgic of those core 360/PS3 era games, but yeah no...the modern games are mostly better. We got more content, more weapons, the games actually handle well. Yeah, you can feel nostalgic for old maps, but new games brought back the best of the old maps, so yeah. MW19 particularly stood out to me. That was was SOOOO good. Definitely the best COD EVER IMO MP wise. But yeah, the newer CODs are actually good in a lot of ways. We just suffer franchise fatigue from them doing the same thing every year....which they did back then too.

Gen 7 games...yeah. I know a lot of people get nostalgic for them, but from a tech perspective they werent that good. They were P2P, they lagged hard, although they still had relatively solid game play. Some of the OGs were more janky than others, and on PC they're a total mess these days. I know someone once told me not even to play them since people can hack your PC that way, so yikes. But yeah, they're no longer good. They were even questionable at the time which is why COD tended to always struggle with PC audiences. People would rather just play battlefield, especially from 2010ish onward. Those games were so much better than the COD ones. Because, again, back then the franchise STILL had the tendency to milk things while not innovating much and letting their games go to hell over time. This ain't new. They've ALWAYS done this. It's just that PC gamers knew it back then whole console gamers tend to get rose colored glasses over them. Especially ones younger than me. Ya know, the whole "muh childhood" types. Meanwhile I was an adult in this era and had a more grounded perspective on them. 

Gen 8 were the worst. Like, really, this was just...a terrible era to be a COD fan. Ghosts was awful, AW was awful, BO3 was mid, IW was somewhere between mid and awful, WWII was mid, and BO4 was...better but still kinda mid. If we count MW19 here, that was the only saving grace of this whole gen, but given it culturally fits more with the modern era, yeah, I count it with the modern era. But all these games were terrible. Especially on PC, and they died after a couple years. Yeah. These just...weren't good. 

And Gen 6, did that even have MP? Maybe but i never played those MP so...I wouldnt know.

Anyway, different opinions there.

I won't do zombies since i never played zombies much as it's not my cup of tea, but to combined the campaign and the multiplayer, here's how they rank:

Gen 7- 1st+2nd (1.5)

Gen 9- 3rd+1st (2)

Gen 8- 2nd+3rd (2.5)

Here, we get gen 7 being the best, gen 8 being the worst, and gen 9 having a mixed reputation, delivering an excellent multiplayer and poor single player experience. 

Of course, this is assuming campaign and multiplayer are 50/50. If we assume 25/75, which I think is more fair since idk about you, but I spent FAR more time on multiplayer than on single player:

Gen 9- 1.5

Gen 7- 1.75

Gen 8- 2.75

Yeah, now gen 9's multiplayer advantage has it edging out gen 7. Both are very solid though. And gen 8 is just...bad. But yeah it depends what you're into.

Either way, I don't plan on playing BO7's campaign. Even if I did, I'd play it once and likely never touch it again like I have for the last 4 CODs or so. But yeah, Im skipping it. If I buy BO7 it's primarily for the multiplayer, which...despite franchise fatigue, was still decent based on the beta. Remember how I am among those who only buy a handful of games and focus on what gives me the most play time. COD MP delivers on that front.  

WTF is happening?

 So...there's two news stories I want to touch on tonight that are kinda making me go wtf. Like, these are two things that I didn't expect. 

First was the Mamdani-Trump meeting. Now, I expected this to go badly. As in, I expected Mamdani to meet with Trump, Trump to try to bully Mamdani, it to not work, and then Trump to be furious and go on an angry bender on truthsocial about it. Instead, they're getting along like they're best friends now. Wtf? it's weird. What exactly...happened? Is...Mamdani "Bubba" if you know what I mean? I have to ask. It's weird. I rarely see Trump so happy and cordial. 

One commenter on a post about it pointed out something that Steve Bannon said in regard to this stuff though a few weeks ago when he was first elected. he said, "game respects game", and that Trump might respect Mamdani because they're both anti establishment outsiders trying to fight against the establishment from opposite ends of the spectrum. As I said, I think trying to form any alliance with MAGA is dangerous, even if I am anti establishment. We ARE on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have little in common with MAGA outside of being "anti establishment", and my issue with the establishment is they're too conservative. The establishment of the democratic party is half evil because they're half conservative. That doesn't mean that MAGA is better, from my perspective they're fully evil. Still, Mamdani clearly has 100 speech skill here and it's amazing how good he is at persuasion here. I really just have to wonder...wtf happened? 

So...that's that. The second story...MTG is gonna resign. Well...that's sudden. It's weird. MTG has been in a weird spot since the whole MAGA civil war thing. Trump turned on her because she stood her ground on the epstein thing. She got some death threats, and suddenly she's like super pro 'civility". Like, after years of being the cackling...I wont way the word antagonizing AOC and seemingly cheering on the protesters, it's like the past week or two has suddenly gotten "too real" for her and she's shaken up so bad she wants to resign.

But I do have to wonder if that's all there is to it. Vaush said today it's like someone is coaching her, and I kind of have to agree. Like, her words dont seem hers. They seem like they're written by someone else for her to say, and it just comes off as fake as hell. I have to wonder if some shadowy group offered her a lifeline somewhere after Trump turned on her and if this is truly the last we'll see of her. She might be priming herself for some future run on something, or maybe she'll join a think tank or start a podcast. Who knows? Either way this is jarring.

If we take it at face value she could just be saying she's tired of politics and after Trump razed her career to the ground, she's basically just trying to save face. She mentioned not wanting to drag her district through the embarrassment of a primary challenge, and then have to support trump after trump turned on her. So maybe she just deciding to end it here and retire. Maybe there isn't a deeper meaning. It just seems awfully sudden and feels very jarring. I really have to wonder if there's more to this we're not seeing.

I just wanted to report on those two things.  

Why is Black Ops 7 getting such bad fan reception?

 So, everywhere I go, I see Black Ops 7 being dunked on for being infamously bad. I admit, I haven't played it myself yet since, due to previous discussions about the cost of games and habits, it should be obvious I wait for sales, and it's currently $70, but yeah. As a long time fan of COD and online shooters in general, I do have some opinions on it based on past trends. 

 So...first, everyone's dunking on the campaign. I havent played the campaign, but based on the infamous screenshot that gets passed around, it reminds me of black ops 3, which is, IMO, among the worst COD campaigns of all time. Mainly because it was an acid trip. The end ended up being really weird, and it looked a lot like the kind of thing they're doing with this. Quite frankly, the black ops campaigns do this a lot, especially the latter ones. Entire missions are basically drug fueled hallucinations and they're not really fun to play. And it looks like BO7 is doing THAT trope again. Except this being another distant future one ended up making the whole thing worse. It's just...less relatable. Again, like BO3. (EDIT: i have watched a let's play of black ops 7 and it has indeed doubled down on being a massive acid trip. Dear God, who thought this was a good idea?! The lets player i watched also has a BO3 campaign play through and insists BO3 is a masterpiece compared to this, thats how bad it is!) This brings me to the second point. 

People don't seem to like future CODs much. Sad to say, but that's just reality. Remember the mid 2010s? From Ghosts through Infinite warfare, the CODs just became increasingly unpopular. Part of this was due to the fact that by this time, the games seemed to just decline in quality. They sucked. Really, the series didn't evolve into the PS4/XB1 era well. At all. The model felt dated, as it hadnt been updated in 10 years (see future points I make in this article). And idk, it's like when there's a setting change, the fatigue sets in. People seem to love the "modern warfare" style CODs most, while hating setting changes, especially ones set in the future. Once you get away from the relatable setting, it's like the rose colored glasses fall away and people dont like them. 

I remember the last time this happened, when infinite warfare released. It was the third hyper futuristic game in a row and people were like NO MORE, THIS SUCKS. Back then, between 2014 and 2016, the series felt like it was trying to rip off titanfall so bad and it just failed at it. And IW was considered historically unpopular. Was it really that bad? No. As I see it, the negative reaction to IW was more a combination of the series clearly stagnating and doing the same thing every year, and battlefield just upstaging it. Both of which are points I will address themselves later in this article since history is repeating itself. 

But yeah, to some extent, simply changing the setting is a positive thing. COD WWII in 2017 wasn't any better than the last 4 CODs IMO but it was treated better simply for being "boots on the ground." People like "boots on the ground." They dont like the future, or this advanced movement crap. 

With that said, there's a few different points that draw a parallel to IW, but first I wanna address the advanced movement thing. A lot of people dont like the advanced movement. It's cancer. Even BO6 had this and it wasn't super popular. I almost didnt buy BO6 because of it. It just wasn't fun. Like, there's this attempt in the modern era to make games more hardcore for streamer audiences, either from going in a hyper realistic direction with more recoil to guns to make it harder, or have more movement. Both have their cons, and both kinda suck, if you're like me and you just want a normal shooter, but yeah, COD has been going in this direction for a while of appealing to esports streamer types who like "skill ceilings" and advanced movement is one way to make a gap between the pros and everyone else. So the pros do this twitchy crap of abusing the movement mechanics, and casuals literally get dunked on. And again, it's not fun. Especially when the game's biggest competition is going in the opposite direction.

So...the last time we were here was IW in 2016. Let me show you what the vibe was that year. Notice anything? Yeah. The fact was, COD was upstaged by battlefield. It had to compete against BF1, and BF1 crushed it. And what's the big game of the block this year that seems to be dethroning call of duty? Battlefield 6. Everyone wants battlefield this year, and in this era where everything is expensive AF and people only buy 1-2 games a year, this year, people are making battlefield "that game." I'm probably gonna get both by christmas honestly, but yeah. The fact is, it's 2016 again. The games industry is releasing one banger after another, this is actually the one year this generation i can say they're really killing it, this is the modern 2007 or 2016 type year IMO, and the COD game just...isn't standing out. Battlefield took the crown this year, gg no re. 

Now, for reference, I did try the beta of BO7 AND BF6 this year, and while I clearly favor BF6 myself as well, BO7 ain't bad. But....it does feel like a reskin of BO6. The maps didnt seem interesting, the game seemed kinda average. With the BF beta I was hooked every second of the beta weekends. With the COD one...I was like, meh, let me fit an hour in at night. Ya know? It just wasn't that interesting. 

And that's kind of how IW felt, except IW was WORSE. Because it WAS in that era of COD just...being genuinely bad. Here, since then, COD did clean up their act a bit, while BF made many missteps. BF5 kinda sucked, 2042 if you ask the community was the worst thing ever, and BF6 is kind of the "return to form" game. COD had this moment during battlefield's more recent "dark" period. MW19 was a revolutionized game. And it did set the bar, and cement COD as THE franchise to play in the modern era. 

But....COD has other problems, and these likely contribute to what I call "franchise fatigue". COD releases games EVERY YEAR. They're the FIFA of FPSes. This is good given...let's face it, I haven't had a ton of decent new games to play since...2021 now, wow, has it really been 4 years? Time flies, but yeah. The last really decent year for multiplayer shooters was 2021 where we had halo infinite, bf2042, and cod vanguard, and tbqh people hated on all 3 of those. Halo started strong but fell off from lack of support in its early years. BF2042 was just mired in controversy after controversy and was a hot mess. And vanguard was....hated by the community for some reason. I dont get it myself. It felt better than black ops cold war. It was like MW19 but a WWII game. But again, remember what i said about setting? It's like once you get away from the modern era, the fatigue around the franchise becomes more noticeable and people dunk on it more. So...vanguard, not a terrible game, but it got done dirty. Then we had MWII and MWIII, MWII felt mediocre AF to me, MWIII felt good but mainly because it remade MW2 2009's maps. It really only was popular due to nostalgia of the good old days IMO. BO6 was meh, and now with the futuristic setting of BO7, people are like NO MORE, THIS SUCKS!

I think this actually speaks of a deeper problem though. COD IS the FIFA of games. They tend to put out one game a year, every year. They got 3 studios, which all do them slightly differently and makes the series feel all over quality wise (quite frankly, IW games feel best as of late, treyarch games feel worst, BO7 is treyarch). But here's the thing. If we really look back, was MW19 kind of a one hit wonder? I would argue yeah. BOCW was mediocre. Vanguard wasn't bad but the fan base took it bad because WWII IMO. MWII and MWIII were mediocre. BO6 felt like cancer with the omni movement, not gonna lie, and BO7 is BO6 with a futuristic skin basically. Honestly? I kind of wish COD would pull it back a bit. While in a way I gotta commend the yearly releases as many years there just isn't much else out there i wanna play, when something like a battlefield comes out, the COD game looks particularly anemic. The series just tends to fall into long spells of creative bankruptcy where they put out slop every year that gets worse and worse until the fan base just says NO MORE. I kind of wish they WOULD have a more 2-3 year cadence for games. But that would make them less money, so they tend to go yearly to milk people for it.

But seriously, when there IS a good COD game, I feel like it should go on multiple years. like MW19 was so good to me, I didnt even want BOCW to come out. And playing it, it did feel like a downgrade in every way. And if i were to go back to any of those CODs at this point, it would be MW19 all day every day. Heck, Im kinda tempted to drop BO6 since it's no longer the new thing and try MW19 again. Simply because it was that good in its own way. 

And that's the thing. When your business model is to continuously pump out content of dubious quality for constant profit, eventually the fan base is gonna reject it and tell them they gotta step up their game. Activision gets very complacent with COD. They always have, quite frankly. And that's also where battlefield does better for the most part. Sure, they've made some missteps with recent games too, but historically, BF games perform more consistently because the developers take years to make them, they're made better as a result, and they really put their heart and soul into them. They're genuinely good games. Not just mediocre content slop. In some ways, COD focuses on quantity over quality and while that makes them money, eventually the fans just lose interest. 

Again, this is not to say that battlefield is perfect either. The past decade is kind of "the decade of humiliation" for them. Battlefield hardline (which got ripped because it itself was "content slop" and felt like BF4 DLC), BF5, BF2042, they made mistake after mistake, with only BF1 and to a lesser extent BF5 being beloved by the community, and a lot of BF5's reputation being revised by the fact that BF2042 bombed so hard. BF6 is the first game since BF4 or BF1 to really unite the fan base in relative adoration for it. Will THAT be a one hit wonder, a "MW19" moment for them? Maybe, we'll have to see what happens next. But again, the fact that BF is having this moment is also why COD is having theirs. The two are competing with each other, and battlefield has that magic right now, and COD does not. So again. I think going back to 2016 and watching this sums up all you need to know about the BF6 vs BO7 controversy.