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"they invented a philosophy — a 'science' they called it — under which greed is reason. then they wondered why things didn't work out."

look at least if we have a warlord called “hagsex” the aesthetic will be something other than cyberpunk.

“never go on Lox News. it’ll only be a total schmear job.”

in retrospect, there were a variety of problems emerging (i’d center inequality and “financial innovation” more than housing, but am happy to include housing). but even knowing the pressure points and contradictions, i had faith in our institutions to address problems, at that time.

yeah. the decline of newspapers, emergence of new media, definitely meant we were going to become something other than we were. at the time i imagined something more like butterfly from caterpillar. but i imagined wrong.

i think its we gen x ers who have picked up red hats disproportionately. without our generation, it’d be president harris.

for a substantial fraction of us, institutions basically seemed to work, were fair, would bring most of us stability and at least a degree of prosperity. that fraction seemed to be enlarging, becoming more inclusive, not shrinking. those institutions seemed to be improving, not declining.

Got seduced by a literal fox? Human universals.

i’m not sure that makes me feel less old ;)

i almost envy gen z, gen alpha. the only world they’ve ever known is broken, corrupt. most times and places are. they can grasp for the reins, move forward. people my age are, one way are another, lost. grief, guilt, nostalgia. we knew a better world. we had our hand in breaking it.

what fraction of yourself is now at the mercy of waves made by madmen playing in the surf of what once was our civic life?

it's not having workable options for necessary goods that renders it truly .

a piece with a sadly perfect ending.

A very good account of why "tech" (meaning not developers or tech workers, but high-level tech executives and VCs) and the US Democratic Party are undergoing an acrimonious divorce. by @himself.bsky.social www.programmablemutter.com/p/why-did-si... ht @ryanlcooper.com

i don't know how to do polls on BlueSky, so i just posted this as a question here. but on Mastodon it was a poll. my 'hood on Mastodon is an idiosyncratic and far from random sample, but still. kind of wow.

now we know why it’s not psycheanalysis i guess.

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As Nancy Pelosi famously explained (and then, because the algorithm is tuned to the most juvenile irony, watched her explanation of misinformation converted to misinformation) www.reuters.com/article/worl...