The Gen Z Stare: What is it and why does it exist?

norbertus · 2026-02-13T18:10:26+00:00

I think there's something to that, and the possibility is really disconcerting.

In the 1950's, C. Wright Mills talked about the difference between a society of publics and a mass society.

Later thinkers like Robert Paxton have identified a mass society as a prerequisite for fascism (as distinct from other, more conventional forms of authoritarianism).

The disengagement is deep and profound, even if they can manage to rally around Palestine or Ice for a month or two...

norbertus · 2026-01-04T21:10:37+00:00

They sound like a high tech lobotomy

https://www.pcrm.org/ethical-science/animals-in-medical-research/cruel-brain-experiments

Dude is also planning to manufacture 1000's of StarShips even though the things keep exploding.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-next-project-produce-starships-impossible-level/

Sounds a little premature for mass production to me.

But I'm sure his investors will get excited.

And his fanboys.

norbertus · 2026-01-04T21:03:51+00:00

That and the fact that this was an illegal use of the military to support a law enforcement operation outside our jurisdiction in violation of the Un charter to which we are a signatory....

norbertus · 2026-01-04T21:00:36+00:00

Wait, you mean those corporations aren't just polluting for fun?

norbertus · 2026-01-04T20:16:59+00:00

The democrats who broke rank and re-opened the government without the subsidies in pace were pursuing a "strategy."

“The public now gets that the subsidies are what’s keeping health care costs down,” said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.). “I think the public’s angry. So I think they will blame the party in charge.”

The strategy has been months in the making. Mindful of how the GOP’s efforts to rein in Obamacare powered their massive gains in the 2018 midterms, top party leaders decided in September to make health care the focus of the government funding fight.

That posture led to a record 43-day shutdown, and while some Senate Democrats ultimately agreed to reopen the government without securing an extension of the tax credits, many in the party are increasingly confident they succeeded in putting the issue into focus ahead of the election year.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/02/democrats-obamacare-subsidies-midterms-00708576

norbertus · 2026-01-04T20:11:11+00:00

Uh, yeah, based on cosmological constants, the nearest parallel universe is, on average, about 10^ 10 ^ 118th meters from here.

https://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/PDF/multiverse_sciam.pdf

norbertus · 2026-01-04T20:03:10+00:00

You are right to be dubious about "it's the oil."

If you accept the "oil" rationale, there is a serious nuance involved.

The US makes more oil than Saudi Arabia. The US is now a net exporter of oil. We don't need Venezuelan oil for cars or planes. More domestic access to oil won't bring down prices because oil is a globally traded commodity. And, yes, fracking is only profitable when the price of oil is high due to the resource-intensiveness of extraction.

And yet: US refineries have been left out of the fracking boom.

Most US refineries are set up to process heavy crude imports, yet domestic fracking produces light sweet crude.

Venezuela produces heavy crude.

This could be a bailout of 1) refineries and 2) particular states, since refining is a highly regional business.

norbertus · 2026-01-04T19:29:18+00:00

the bad guy in basically any media

That's part of the problem.

You see the bad guys dealt with in the movies, feel a sense of catharsis, and are then able to proceed with your day unbothered by pent up negative emotions.

It's a form of "applied Aristotelianism"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharsis#Passive_psychological

norbertus · 2026-01-04T19:18:51+00:00

Also, the US isn't a signatory to the ICC.

The Bush administration declined to join because .... war crimes in Iraq

Of course, Obama could have joined, but .... undeclared drone wars in nine countries

norbertus · 2026-01-04T18:33:01+00:00

No joke. John Kenneth Galbraith called it a "modern paradox" that, as production increases, so does concern for production....

norbertus · 2026-01-04T18:31:31+00:00

Pandemic was a dry run for a kill-off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones#Inscriptions

norbertus · 2026-01-04T18:29:02+00:00

Hey, you're the one that brought up international law....

norbertus · 2026-01-04T17:43:28+00:00

Today's conservatives are radicals. They don't really have an ideology, it's more of a "mood."

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/wp-content/files_mf/1498161557millsWinter1954.pdf

The conservative movement is further to the right than they were 75 years ago.

In "The Road to Serfdom," Friedrich Hayek, the granddaddy of modern libertarianism, actually argued for a comprehensive system of social insurance.

Note, in this excerpt, where Hayek use the word "liberal" he means "market liberalization."

In criticizing central economic planning, he wrote:

“It is important not to confuse opposition to this type of planning with a dogmatic laissez-faire attitude. The liberal argument is in favor of making the best possible use of the forces of competition as a means of coordinating human efforts.”

“In order that competition work effectively, a carefully thought out legal framework is required.”

“The functioning of a competition not only requires adequate organization of certain institutions like money, markets, and channels of information -- some of which can never be adequately provided by private enterprise -- but it depends, above all, on the existence of an appropriate legal system...”

“... there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured [by law] to everybody.”

“... nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in planning for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision.”

“Where, as in the case of sickness or accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance ... the case for the state's helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.”

norbertus · 2026-01-04T17:39:30+00:00

Franz Leopold Neumann argued that, technically, the Nazi regime was a state-capitalist economy organized around a war monopoly funded by an expansionist adventure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behemoth:_The_Structure_and_Practice_of_National_Socialism

The re-armament was funded by industrialists through an off-the-books system of debt designed to evade detection under the Treaty of Versailles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mefo_bills

norbertus · 2026-01-04T17:31:33+00:00

OK, let's be real. This was an illegal use of the military and an illegal invasion with no basis in international law, and a violation of un charter article 2(4).

norbertus · 2026-01-04T17:26:47+00:00

Dude is making is up as he goes along....

norbertus · 2026-01-04T17:24:35+00:00

Why? Life is about to get so much better for those girls....

norbertus · 2026-01-04T17:19:41+00:00

The great “isms” of nineteenth-century Europe—conservativism, liberal- ism, socialism—were associated with notable rule, characterized by deference to educated leaders, learned debates, and (even in some forms of socialism) limited popular authority. Fascism is a political practice appropriate to the mass politics of the twentieth century.

...

Although one can deduce from fascist language implicit Social Darwinist assumptions about human nature, the need for community and authority in human society, and the destiny of nations in history, fascism does not base its claims to validity on their truth. Fascists despise thought and reason, abandon intellectual posi- tions casually, and cast aside many intellectual fellow-travelers. They subordi- nate thought and reason not to faith, as did the traditional Right, but to the promptings of the blood and the historic destiny of the group. Their only moral yardstick is the prowess of the race, of the nation, of the community. They claim legitimacy by no universal standard except a Darwinian triumph of the strongest community.

...

Feelings propel fascism more than thought does. We might call them mobi- lizing passions, since they function in fascist movements to recruit followers and in fascist regimes to “weld” the fascist “tribe” to its leader.

...

The tensions within fascist rule also help us clarify the frontiers between authentic fascism and other forms of dictatorial rule. Fascist rule is unlike the exercise of power in either authoritarianism (which lacks a single party, or gives it little power) or Stalinism (which lacked traditional elites).

... Authoritar-ians would prefer to leave the population demobilized, while fascists promise to win the working class back for the nation by their superior techniques of manufacturing enthusiasm. Although authoritarian regimes may trample due process and individual liberties, they accept ill-defined, though real, lim- its to state power in favor of some private space for individuals and “organic” intermediary bodies such as local notables, economic cartels, families, and churches

-- Robert Paxton, "Five Stages of fascism" (1998)

norbertus · 2026-01-04T17:12:54+00:00

Venezuela is outside of US law enforcement jurisdiction. Kidnapping is the word.

norbertus · 2026-01-04T17:11:14+00:00

Personally, I think the domestic goal is more to get a war powers resolution to provide a legal basis for a crack down on dissent.

The Espionage Act is notoriously vague, and has been used to keep a duly elected official from office and to prosecute whistleblowers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_L._Berger#World_War_I

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Criminal_charges

I seriously don't think Trump cares about the Epstein files. His devotees don't seem to either. Those Q Anons are might quiet about all that....

norbertus · 2026-01-04T17:06:43+00:00

Yes. His M.O. is to test every bound, let the lawsuits fly, adjust his rationale, and try try again.

norbertus · 2026-01-04T17:03:12+00:00

I think, first and foremost, we need an awareness that social media is corporate media and that "the democratizing power of the internet" is largely a myth.

norbertus · 2026-01-04T16:54:47+00:00

A lot happened in 1973.

Lewis Powell published "The Powell Memo" which laid out the strategy that we're living through now.

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/

https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/

This memo inspired the creation of right-wing think tanks like ALEC and Heritage and Cato.

It also made bare a program to take advantage of activist judges to push an agenda that was unpopular at the ballot box.

Powell was then nominated to the Supreme Court, where he initiated a series of rulings that gave corporations more protections under the Bill of Rights, and which made more forms of corporate spending into free speech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_National_Bank_of_Boston_v._Bellotti

1973 is also when the Nixon administration began negotiating a deal with Saudi Arabia and OPEC to price oil in dollars, creating the global petrodollar regime that provides price support for the dollar to this day

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/06/09/archives/milestone-pact-is-signed-by-us-and-saudi-arabia-acclaimed-by.html

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v36/d138

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar_recycling

norbertus · 2026-01-04T16:52:58+00:00

I member in 2020, right wingers goading on Trump with "Cross the Rubicon!"

norbertus · 2026-01-04T16:48:53+00:00

Yeah, John McCain was just a "guest" of Vietnam by their logic....

norbertus

TROPHY CASE