Many Bets, Won

Today marks the official end of a variety of bets made 4 years ago, which mostly continued from a rather larger batch of bets made 4 years before that.

To wit: Obama has survived his terms, uninjured by anyone wishing to harm his semi-black skin.

I should make some more bets today. People deliberately ingesting pretty transparent propaganda, and freaking out all over as a result, need to be taken advantage of.

Come on. Tell me what horrible things are about to happen. Put up or shut up.

Getting Their Outrage Fix

A lot of people match this pattern exactly:

1. They always, always, always vote for the same party.
2. The only question is in their own primary.
3. They watch the opposing party's convention - often more than a couple hours of it
4. ...going straight to the pundits who give them their talking points
5. ...so that they can fluff their feathers and How Dare They to the rest of their own echo chamber.
6. They are certain this makes some sort of difference, somewhere.

I find this crew to be deeply, abjectly pathetic.

The stupidity usually manifests in other areas of their lives, too. Once you see the pattern listed above, it becomes hard to miss.

Easy Predictions

It took me years, but I finally realized that the easy way to predict the outcome of elections is to assume that 65+% of America has neither thought nor rationality, but instead runs by reductionist memes, virtue signalling, and feelgoodery. The only time sanity breaks through is when the vote regards an issue rather than a trained monkey rabid squirrel feelgood politician, and one which gets to what people actually, actively believe in. Even then it's no guarantee, but a wild card.

Unfortunately, this means I know with about 80% certainty who the next U.S. President will be. God help us.

Things Noticed

It's funny how many people claim to have "leveling the playing field" as their goal when everything they do is about handicapping the players - which is the exact opposite.

A related observation cautions those who would war on reality to first have a close look at reality's nearly unbroken track record of winning, as well as its pitiless treatment of its more determined enemies.

Be Angry At The Sun

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante's feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.


(by Robinson Jeffers)

Surprise Skype

So, around 9 p.m. on Tuesday, I get an incoming Skype call. It's a group call, with George Orwell, Thomas Paine, Aldous Huxley, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexis de Tocqueville. I thought it was an odd group until I realized it was even more odd they'd need to Skype each other from where they are. Maybe it was just to ring me in, I don't know. Or Franklin; I didn't ask details.

It was an interesting conversation, which I suppose goes without saying. They wanted me to pass on a message, though, which is the main reason I mention the call here.

"We did try to warn you."

Apoliticality

I usually avoid political discussion, and when it comes up, I claim to strongly dislike politics. This is not strictly true, but is a matter of incomplete truth rather than untruth. The fact is that I loathe how people react to anything to do with polity, and I refuse to engage in what always, always devolves to either a circle-jerk of an echo chamber, open rancor, or supposed politeness with mental notes made not to trust the other in the future. It's disgusting. Open discussion and debate, with the understanding that someone else's approach might be valid even though different from one's own, is vanishingly rare. The notion that there might be something to learn from another, or - heaven forfend! - that a change in one's self might be beneficial, well that's just heresy.

Of course, the claim will be of one's open-mindedness. A stinky crock, that one.

Politics is a necessary and potentially constructive part of life with others. This, I embrace. But I'm still not discussing it with you.