Sometimes it feels as if life around you has run amok, and you can’t spew snark, sarcasm, and profanity fast enough. You’re making connections between seeming disparaît events and ideas that you think if you could just set them up in a nice post, it would wow the critics — Did it suddenly just get cold in the room you’re reading this in? Because suddenly my breath is forming mist in front of me! Okay, ma! Okay! Nothing I write will wow anyone. Sheesh! I can’t escape her criticism even when it is from the great beyond — but there is no way that a part-time blogger full-time retiree can possibly keep up. So here we have the disparate connections post of what we swept up off the editor’s floor here at Ye Olde Blogge!
The Surveillance State
The Chinese Feel Save Under Big Brother’s Ever Watchful Eye
China hts over a billion cameras aimed at its citizens recording everything they do. Using facial recognition software, they can locate anyone in the country in eight minutes, using a picture of them. They have virtually no street crime except for pickpockets and other crimes that are difficult to see. Most Chinese people don’t see the problem. They like living without crime and can’t understand why we tolerate unsolved murders,, for example.
AI and the Coming #GOPDystopia
The one thing that massive computing power, AI processing, and hundreds of billions of dollars makes is for an incredible surveillance state just like they have in China. Anthropic bent the knee. They didn’t want their AI to be used for surveillance or weapons control, but under pressure from Hegseth and the DoD, they’re okay with it. We’re already passed the tipping point. All we need are the cameras and they’ll be able to make up any crime they want to silence any individual they want.
How Does Your Vote Connect to Your Daily Life?
One of the problems our democracy has had is that for too many citizens, they couldn’t connect their vote to changes in their lives. Apparently, the good white people of Louisiana never could connect the Republican state office holders to the conditions that created Cancer Alley or the continued poverty of the state in spite of the multitude of multinational corporations producing all kinds of noxious products there.
We live in a complex world with a complex government. It can take years for changes in government to be seen in the average person’s life. It’s why we keep voting in Republicans who will cut taxes for billionaires when it is well known to those who know it well that it will crash the economy.
Like I’ve always said, there’s a dark center to every silver lining. Our silver lining is that it is becoming increasingly clear to even the most casual of observer that there is a direct connection between what Trump and the Republican Congress is doing and the miserable lives that we’ve all been reduced to. It is clear that there is one rule and set of laws for the Epstein class and another for the rest of us. It is clear that it is Trump’s immigration policies that are causing atrocities to be committed and civil liberties violated by ICE. The only question is, will we vote like it and will those votes actually be counted?
Trump Dreams Too Small
A mercurial temperamental forgetful electorate sticks us with a mercurial temperamental forgetful wanna be dictator, and, of course, that SOB dreams small. Compare Trump’s vision of how long his grand influence will last with that of Hitler:
I tell you what, Republicans have to win this one. We’ll never lose a race. For 50 years, we won’t lose a race
Trump says Republicans will ‘never lose a race’ if Congress restricts voting
FIFTY YEARS! The mo’fo’ thinks fifty years is a long time and is so so proud of it. Pales in contrast to Hitler’s jactation of a thousand years reich.
See all those things connect, and it’s pretty funny when you juxtapose them like that. I especially like the fifty years compared to a thousand. Ha! I guess we’re just lucky Trump has dreams about as big as his hands.
Image Attribution
This image was found on Wiki Media Commons using a Creative Commons search.
The Psy of Life 