And another day of journalism failing miserably, creating an alternative autocratic society, the US economy doing well yet Americans not thinking so, deepfake scams, mismatched libidos, and reclassifying marijuana comes to a close:
"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid. " — Benjamin Franklin
Journalism fails miserably at explaining what is really happening to America. What we call the Republican Party is barely a political party in any sense of the word but a dangerous antisocial movement that has embraced many of the tenets of fascism, from calls for violence to its dehumanizing of “others” — from desperate refugees at the border to transgender youth. There is, in reality, no 2024 primary because this movement embraced its infallible stongman in Trump eight years ago. And there is no “Trump scandal” because — for them — each new crime or sexual assault is merely another indictment of the messenger, the arrogrant elites from whom their contempt is the No. 1 issue. These foot soldiers stopped believing in “democracy” a long time ago — no matter how big an Orwellian sign Fox News erects…These are the stakes: dueling visions for America — not Democratic or Republican, with parades and red, white, and blue balloons, but brutal fascism or flawed democracy…We need the media to see 2024 not as a traditional election but as an effort to mobilize a mass movement that would undo democracy and splatter America with more blood like what was shed Saturday in Jacksonville. We need to understand that if the next 15 months remain the worst covered election in U.S. history, that it might also be the last.
How Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Andreessen—Four Billionaire Techno-Oligarchs—Are Creating an Alternate, Autocratic Reality. I call them the Technocrats, in recognition of the influence of the technocracy movement, founded in the 1930s by Elon Musk’s grandfather, Joshua Haldeman. The Technocrats make up a kind of interlocking directorate of Silicon Valley, each investing in or sitting on the boards of the others’ companies. Their vast digital domain controls your personal information; affects how billions of people live, work, and love; and sows online chaos, inciting mob violence and sparking runs on stocks. These four men have long been regarded as technologically progressive heroes, but they are actually part of a broader antidemocratic, authoritarian turn within the tech world, deeply invested in preserving the status quo and in keeping their market-leadership positions or near-monopolies—and their multi-billion-dollar fortunes secure from higher taxes. (“Competition is for suckers,” Thiel once posited.)…I use the term techno-determinism to describe the path the Technocrats have dictated for our country because they have sold, and we have bought into, the idea that they are going to deliver us a bright future. The future they are now selling us, however—crypto fortunes, the merger of the human and the computer via AI, the prospect of spending our lives in the Metaverse or on Mars—is a lie. To quote Snyder once more, Donald Trump has shown that he “was lying not so much to deny the truth as to invite people into an alternative reality.” Such sleight-of-hand applies here as well. The alternative reality that these men are focused on is a world of technodeterminism, one in which AI may eventually do all the real work and a large number of humans may be rendered useless to society…Anyone who thinks this is some kind of dystopian fantasy should visit Amazon’s research-and-development facility to see the future of whole warehouses operated by five humans and 5,000 robots.
If the U.S. economy is doing well, why do so many Americans say it's terrible? The unemployment rate stands at 3.5%, as low as it has been since the 1960s. Over the last year, the U.S. economy has added an average of 312,000 jobs every month. Despite predictions of a recession, economic growth has been 2.0% or higher in the last four quarters. Inflation, while still elevated, is down to 3.2%. As a result, real wages have increased slightly over the last year. But an August survey by Quinnipiac University found that 71% of Americans describe the economy as "not so good" or "poor." (Just 3% say the economy is excellent.) Further, despite slowing inflation and consistent job growth, a majority of Americans say the economy is getting worse. (Just 20% say the economy is improving.)…One factor in Americans' pessimistic view of the economy is partisanship…In other words, regardless of economic conditions, more and more people will describe the economy as poor because they oppose the current president…But only 45% of Americans describe themselves as Republican or Republican-leaning, according to Gallup, so partisanship does not account for all the negative sentiment about the economy. Another piece to the puzzle is that millions of Americans are mired in low-paying jobs, struggling to make ends meet, and watching the fruits of their labor get funneled to wealthy CEOs and investors. This dynamic is captured in a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). The IPS report, Executive Excess 2023, analyzes the 100 large public corporations with the lowest wages in 2022. The IPS report found that at these corporations, a group that includes many of the nation's largest employers, "CEO pay averaged $15.3 million and median worker pay averaged $31,672." That's a ratio of 603 to 1…In the 1980s, perceptions of the economy were much more positive even though, by several objective measures, the economy was worse than it is today. In 1989, however, the average corporate CEO-to-worker pay ratio was 44-to-1.
House conservatives flirt with shutdown: ‘So be it’. A handful of hard-line Republicans are brushing off — or even embracing — the possibility of a shutdown, arguing that bringing the government to a screeching halt is more acceptable than allowing the country to continue on its current spending trajectory.
How Hurricane Idalia went from Category 1 to Category 4 overnight. Warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico helped fuel Hurricane Idalia’s rapid intensification hours before it made landfall, a phenomenon that experts say will likely occur more often in a warming world.
Sen. Mitch McConnell appears to freeze again at a Kentucky event. The Republican leader was silent for more than 30 seconds after being asked if he will run for re-election. He froze at a news conference in July.
This Texas town has about 250 people. It has 50 sworn police officers. KHOU 11 Investigates discovered more than half of the cops in the Coffee City Police Department had been suspended, demoted or fired from their previous jobs. -- This is just crazy. WTF?
Amazon CEO tells employees to return to the office or their days may be numbered. Jassy’s message reflects Amazon’s continued pressure on US office staff to comply with a policy requiring them to report to a physical office at least three days a week.
Deepfake scams have arrived: Fake videos spread on Facebook, TikTok and Youtube. Long feared, the deepfake scam has finally arrived on social media. Fake videos of celebrities hawking phony services have begun to gain some traction on major social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok and YouTube...Experts warn that such videos are no longer the most cutting-edge version of such scams. And they warned that scammers are using real-time deepfake programs to mimic celebrities on video calls with potential victims...Deepfakes — videos that use artificial intelligence to create believable but fake depictions of real people — have become significantly more common online in recent months. The unchecked rise of deepfakes has led some experts to warn that the first “deepfake election“ will arrive next year, when a substantial number of voters will see political disinformation videos online and not be able to tell with certainty whether they’re real. The technology has become far more accessible to everyday users. Apps that can create moderately convincing deepfakes, often in real time, are available to anyone with a computer or a smartphone...The videos also hint at the increasingly lucrative world of internet scams.
Latinos who are religiously unaffiliated continue to grow. The share of Latinos who say they are religiously unaffiliated grew last year, while the share of those who are Catholic continued to slide. — Leave the pews.
One partner wants sex. The other does not. What to do about mismatched libidos. In general, Donaghue says that “the amount of sexual desire that a person is comfortable expressing can be impacted by gender and sexual orientation,” noting, “Everyone is socialized away from their authentic sexuality by their gender, with all its rules and expectations — such as what is socially acceptable sexually for a woman, a mother or a wife. Fold in homophobia and how that polices what behaviors someone will feel comfortable requesting or engaging in, and one can easily see how all of this negatively impacts libido within a relationship.”
HHS official calls for reclassifying marijuana as a lower-risk drug in letter sent to DEA. Marijuana is currently classified as a Schedule I controlled substance, meant for the most dangerous substances, including heroin and LSD.
Live worm plucked from woman’s brain in Australia, a world first. An MRI scan revealed what doctors initially thought was a tumor, but when the woman underwent a biopsy in June 2022, the doctors were stunned...Yet there it was on the right frontal lobe of the patient's brain: not cancer but a live parasitic worm, about 80 millimeters (3 inches) long and 1 millimeter in diameter.
RIP Arleen Sorkin. She was 67.
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
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