FriendOfDeSoto

You can consider yourself anything you like. Time is relative. I’m older than you and would say 24 is young. A nineteen year old might look at you as an antique. The trick is to know your audience. Don’t openly call yourself young if you’re among the elders in the room.

I think the simplest answer is that we humans can hold two contradictory opinions at the same time. There are people who can support free speech and then censor books willy nilly. There are people who believe strongly in a religion but brazenly violate its rules of conduct on the regular. There are people who know homophobia is wrong but still are homophobic. And if this man has the hots for you at the same time this may be his way of squaring that circle.

I don’t know you. I don’t know him. Insert heaps of salt here. This doesn’t sound like a good friendship to pursue.

Party manifestos are dreamy wishlists for a parliament, in which they have the absolute majority. Merz’s CDU tories did not win one. He’ll need to form a coalition. Most likely outcome is one with the SPD social democrats. Coalition talks have a way of grinding these wishlists down. And they take time. So keep a watchful eye but it’s too early to despair.

I’m not surprised why big companies no matter what morals they claim(ed) to follow still do business like nothing happened. As long as they can strive for profits and shareholder value they will. Big business is the last place one should look for any sort of backbone.

I’m also surprised why there hasn’t been more of an impact on the stock market. I wouldn’t have expected an immediate drop of 50% or some catastrophic decrease like that. That’s because a lot of the incredibly smart economic policies from stable genius will take time to cut into bottom lines. First prices continue to go up for US consumers, spending will go down, unemployment numbers will go up, and then possibly a recession. Which he will blame on Greenland, I suppose.

Stock markets are legal gambling. As long as the gamblers still have hope they will play. Most will play without hope as well. And Trump 45 was good for them so hope is still very much alive.

At the same time, chainsaw wielding deregulation will help businesses in the US. It may not be great for consumers or the environment but tax breaks are great if you can get them. Melon Usk is not bulldozing any sort of oversight for his business interests or the IRS for no reason.

As for uprooting security alliances I think we will see a move away from US manufactured defense goods pretty soon, maybe starting next year. Europe will concentrate on its own industry more than ever. Even if they don’t find a common position to take in regards to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they will all look to increase spending locally rather than transatlantically, having hopefully learned that reliance on Washington is futile.

Defense contacts are harder to get rid of than a Tesla though, these things take even longer to show up on Wall Street. I mention Tesla though because numbers came out recently in France and Germany that showed a dramatic drop in new car registrations. I think this development on the micro level will eventually reach macro proportions as well. I am personally waiting for pitchforks being sharpened in Usk’s boardrooms because his doge antics and political statements cut into their bonuses.

Statistics can be interpreted differently. The following numbers are all rounded back of the envelope math: approximately 77 million people voted for Trump. About 74 million for Harris. Combined they are about 151 million and they represent about 64% of all people who could’ve cast a ballot. So 100% is about 236 million people eligible to vote. So 236m-151m=85 million didn’t bother. You could add this to either total for the candidates and say the majority didn’t vote for the opponent. Because not casting their ballot for whatever reason can also be seen as voicing an opinion. It’s a bit of statistical gymnastics if you want to make a point, albeit not a good one.

Making the vote mandatory is a philosophical question. In Australia it is mandatory. But in most countries that have elections that deserve to be called that it is not. If you interpret freedom to mean you’re also free not to go and vote you cannot make it mandatory. I agree with you that everyone who is eligible should go and vote. But I also believe the choice should be up to the individual. So we should find ways to motivate eligible voters to make use of their (fixed typo) right. With regards to children I’m not sure it’s a great idea. If they’re very young they may just double the tally that their parents add to. In Europe, some countries lowered the age in some elections to 16, which I think is okay. But I wouldn’t go lower than that.

I think people have complained about casting choices forever. The first female Hamlet must have gotten some negative press as well. I believe the pattern you see is based on two factors:

1. We all carry a media device with us. We are quick to respond and post stuff publicly and in return we get to read other people’s thoughts. What would’ve taken a couple of weeks to spread to enough people to make a dent in any poll in the age of newspapers can take a day or so now. So the speed has picked up. Also, the stuff our media devices serve us depend to varying extents on the use of algorithms. We know that especially in the realm of social media, user engagement is strongest with stuff that riles us up. So the old algo serves us more of that. Algorithms distort the picture. Things are labeled as viral when they are viewed by thousands of people - on a planet of 7 billion or thereabouts. Storms on the internet tend to be teacup size most of the time. The internet gives us a distorted picture where a small number of people can pretend to be a significant portion of society. And that doesn’t mean the Illuminati control this sinisterly; it can just be a few d-heads who think alike that start stirring the teacup. But PR agencies exist to make use of this as well.
2. Politics and society are not on a linear trajectory to paradise. While overall we’re better off as a species than 1,000 years ago, the way stuff moves is often 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. One could say, the US (as one example of many countries today) has just taken two steps back. A political movement that we thought was done for after we have all seen where it can lead is back: right-wing populism. It is a backlash to well intentioned political decisions with regard to equality, the eradication of racism, allowing women autonomy over their own bodies, etc. A lot of people had differing opinions about these things but social norms had confined them to family gatherings and the pub where they could voice them but not much more than that. Now they can voice them online as well and find many other dissenters they wouldn’t have found as easily just 30 years ago. And because they feel like a majority (see 1)) or a significant portion at the very least they become more outspoken. Saying the quiet parts out loud. So talking badly about people of another ethnicity, women, etc. is en vogue again. So any opportunity for that is good enough.

So Star Wars is casting a non-binary person to lead a new show? “Fans are outraged!” The new 007 is a black woman? “Fans are up in arms!” These have become predictable reactions that gain traction in for-profit media that also needs us to engage so they can sell ads. So is this a pattern? Yes. Is it new though? I don’t think so. It’s just accelerated, amplified, fueled by politics, and more often than not a storm in a teacup.

Before I finish this essay, I would like to point out two examples that popped into my head that go against the grain. Scarlet Johansson’s casting in Ghost in the Shell caused a stir. And about a decade earlier Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan from Star Trek was also met with criticism.