jakelafort

Now that The Orange One is in office, he just doesn’t give a fuck. Honor fallen soldiers? Not when the golf course is beckoning. (BTW, he seems to think that everyone plays golf.)

TheEncogitationer wrote:
And, of course, the part of Donald Trump’s brain that pauses between thought and speech and speech and action doesn’t work at all.

This is spot on, of course. But I’m worried, in spite of the obvious harm of Project 2025 (“P2025”) as it is executed, that perhaps irrepairable harm is the goal of wannabee oligarchs. Or, may…[Read more]

This is published by David McWilliams in an Irish broadsheet on Jan 4th 2025:

A country can threaten tariffs and talk tough when it is owed money. When it owes money, that’s a different story.

We are heading into a trade war. That’s what the United States wants and that’s what the world will get.

In 2025 it will become increasingly obvio…[Read more]

@PopeBeanie

There are other ways.

He might withdraw days before the middle of his term, continuing to rule through his veep and then seek a second term again in the next election, which I think may be perfectly legal.

He might elect a proxy (Don Jr.?) to stand in for him while he rather blatantly is the true President, also probably…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
A psychiatrist explains why Trump wanting a third term (and by extenstion of his logic, to never leave office) was inevitable from the start.

He also says that the 12th and 22nd amendments together prohibit a president from becoming a president a third time, but I saw an explanation, I forget from who, saying Trump might be able to…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
The tariff thing might be a way to gain control of taxation from congress for king tRump. Add tariffs as a tax, cause recession so billionares can buy up stocks, then be the hero calling for sweeping income tax reductions, stock market bounces back. Rich get richer.

There’s a strong argument that the new oligarchy can treat this…[Read more]

While the judge did the right thing in dismissing charges with prejudice, I’m sure prosecutors holding charges in abeyance to extort someone’s cooperation is pretty much standard practice, though I suspect most often it’s done to get an underling to rat on a more important target.

A psychiatrist explains why Trump wanting a third term (and by extenstion of his logic, to never leave office) was inevitable from the start. And, amazingly, it has nothing to do with facing prison after leaving office.

Is this, or is it not outright corruption of our courts, legal establishment, and politicians in power? This explanation is from a Democratic senator.

14-1/2 minutes long

Yay, Rand Paul! I’d forgotten about him for a while.

1-1/4 minutes long

Playing with words here, but I feel there’s a kind of fundamentalish link between my consciousness and rules of the universe, or even the life around me. My consciousness is my brain operating, fine tuned to adapt to the world and life in it. I see that as a kind of “fundamental link”.

But that doesn’t automatically lead to the conclusion that…[Read more]

I will start by saying that I would be in the Sean Carroll camp on this. One foot might cross over to the Christof Koch side at times, but only to hear him out and to think upon his ideas. I have a lot of respect for Koch and was fortunate to attend a few of his lectures over the years. But my instinct has been to step back into Camp Carroll and…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
What if Consciousness is Fundamental?

Sean Carroll also has a recent podcast with Christof Koch on this topic. When I heard Koch expressing support for panpsychism, it sadly felt like a nod to woo-woo. Fortunately, Sean kindly dissented. As much as I respect Koch, IMO, his view struck me as simply “reasoning” that…[Read more]

The video with Jason Stanley on Amanpour referred to a Guardian article on the topic of how the Trump admin wants to define university policies and practices. As Enco notes, they can do this when they have powers of the purse. (Yo MAGA, the left may have set the scene, but you made governmental interference inevitable.)

Excerpt from the…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Is it just me or is AI art deliberately formulaic and creepy?

LLMs and AI algorithms are designed by humans, and source data gathered from the internet that humans created and maintain. I.e. that’s where any formulae and creepiness would be originally coming from, with a dose of whatever unexpected weirdness might come…[Read more]