@cstross it’s gonna be hard, with his minted coins and his signature of currency bills. But I sister has a mortal fear of being erased

@mkoek Your fear is not misplaced.

It occurred to me this morning that it has now been over a decade in which we have all been forced to hear something about Donald Trump every fucking day - often many times a day.

There are people in journalism who have no experience of a world in which we actually covered many different topics in a day.

I feel like I've been mentally force fed McDonalds for ten years non-stop.

I would like it to be over before I die, please.

@emc2 Exactly this...

If there's a problem, then it lies with the institutions who exclude. Not the excluded.

I'm disgusted by the Olympic committee ruling.

Not because I don't think hormones matter.

Not because I don't think chromosomes can matter.

But because there's is not a fucking sports event in the world that is worth the erasure of a person's personhood.

Not one.

Fuck those people and PE angst.

Very disappointed with this podcast - inaccurate and both-sidesism.
Yes, the US has absolutely seen 10,000 person detention camps before. Ask Japanese Americans, ask Native Americans https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/radio-atlantic/id1258635512?i=1000757475591

Why yes, I do need to spruce up my plants a bit #Cats #CatsOfMastodon

@paulk me too!

My courtyard is like a seasonal sun dial. By the end of March, the earth’s inclination allows the sun to reach the entire back wall. I always know where to find my cats after the ides #Cats #CatsOfMastodon

Jacques enjoying the arrival of the sun in the courtyard #Cats #CatsOfMastodon

Too many people to reply to while I'm prepping lunch, but I just wanted to say to all of you that I'm so glad to be able to have these intelligent, insightful, and nuanced conversations with you. And to read your replies to each other.

It makes me happy and hopeful.

@MBtrueb I am quoting from the article.

I have no sage remedy.

@wilpercy @SCampbell Yes, it really is!

@SCampbell did you listen to his audio version?

It's actually quite amazing listening to him polish up the essay as he reads it.

I honestly think that might have been the most coherent, clarity-laden essay on the state of the world as it really is that I've read.

I highly recommend reading it.

"There will come a point, I think, where it no longer becomes possible to escape the brute force of reality. When that point comes, the herd-instinct of the markets will work against Trump in a particularly painful way. But for the time being, we seem to be stuck in this strange mirage, in which perfectly rational people project their sense of reason onto a madman, so that living in the world feels more palatable."

"We have been presented with a world of madness, a world in which rules no longer operate and reason no longer has dominion over instinct. It is run according to the shifting demands of one utterly banal and vicious old man, who thinks nothing of human lives or of elementary decency, and pursues only his own advantage, as perceived through the shattered mirror of his mind.

"Then there is the other Taco problem. This takes place when he wants to chicken out but is unable to. This is probably the most dangerous possible scenario. It’s the one we’re in right now.

Trump cannot chicken out of Iran because he is not the only actor participating in it.

The markets have largely swallowed the fundamental underlying Trump idiocy, which is that he is the only pertinent person in world affairs. Plainly he believes this, but he is wrong.

And, for the writers out there, if you have the time, listen to the author's read version, where he actually talks about his self-edits aloud. It's a rather excellent live lesson in editing a tight, coherent essay.

"The frequency of his mad outbursts should make us all more frightened, but in fact it has the opposite effect. If Barack Obama had come out during his time as president and said that he was going to invade Greenland, the markets would have lost their shit in a biblical way. It would have been considered so shocking that the reaction would have been historic. The collapse of everything."