EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 5919
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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LightSpectra
United States3417 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States24419 Posts
On August 21 2026 22:31 Simberto wrote: I agree. Social media is a cancer on society. It is addictive and influences people to be the worst possible version of themselves. Is social media really that bad in itself? Would it still be so toxic without capitalism? Fascism/Nazism aren't an individual consumerist lifestyle choice or reaction to social media or even economic conditions in themselves. It's actually a sort of cannibalistic racial capitalism trying to preserve itself during a terminal crisis. They emerge/gain power when capitalist structures face deep structural collapse. They use state power, extreme nationalism, and violence to violently reorganize society and protect the property of specific "elites". | ||
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oBlade
United States6635 Posts
On August 21 2026 22:40 LightSpectra wrote: There's a lot of discourse about how economic downturns directly leads people to fascism or other extremist ideologies, but that hasn't actually played out in history. There have been 30 or so recessions and depressions in United States history and while it's true that Know Nothings and Teabaggers arose after some of them, there were also plenty of similarly-sized extremist groups that arose during prosperous times, and almost all of them petered out without receiving significant political power the way MAGA did. It can't be a coincidence that everyone owning a smartphone with social media coincided with the meteoric rise of far-right movements across the world and it can't simply be explained by material conditions. Conversely, it takes an extraordinary amount of phone time to convince yourself that the equivalent of 90s Democrats, minus the opposition to gay marriage, are far-right. | ||
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Billyboy
2613 Posts
On August 22 2026 00:39 GreenHorizons wrote: Is social media really that bad in itself? Would it still be so toxic without capitalism? Fascism/Nazism aren't an individual consumerist lifestyle choice or reaction to social media or even economic conditions in themselves. It's actually a sort of cannibalistic racial capitalism trying to preserve itself during a terminal crisis. They emerge when capitalist structures face deep structural collapse. They use state power, extreme nationalism, and violence to violently reorganize society and protect the property of specific "elites". It would not be bad without self interested people, which you seem to think is caused by “capitalism “ and solved by “ socialism”. But in China social media is just as bad and dangerous as it is in the west. Just it it is controlled directly by the government instead of by rich guys who but the government. China has eliminated the middleman. China also has more flock cameras per capita than the USA, which you seem to be very concerned by. Which is wild when you consider China’s population. It’s double or triple per capita depending on the source, which is wild to me. | ||
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Jankisa
Croatia1846 Posts
https://www.garbageday.email/p/here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet To me, the thing that keeps bringing all these psychopaths together is their love of money and complete disdain they feel for "regular people". They think they are a different species, and by them I include folks like Orban, Milei, Nethyanahu, Putin, Xi, Modi, Musk, Zuck, Bezos, MBS, Erdogan and of course Trump. I definitely wouldn't include people like long time career politicians who might be compromised by them but aren't actual psychopaths obsessed with domination and shaping the world to fit their needs. There is a huge gulf between these two categories, that's why I'm a big fan of shitting on all of the above people relentlessly while pulling my punches against bureaucrats like most EU politicians or Democrats. | ||
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Jankisa
Croatia1846 Posts
On August 22 2026 00:40 oBlade wrote: Conversely, it takes an extraordinary amount of phone time to convince yourself that the equivalent of 90s Democrats, minus the opposition to gay marriage, are far-right. How much of phone time took for you to decide to live in a fantasy land where you aren't able to accept reality? Who won the 2020 presidential elections? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24419 Posts
On August 22 2026 01:03 Jankisa wrote: I think this phenomenon has been pretty well documented, as always, the worse people in the world jumped on all of these trends, while GH likes to use "Epstein class" as a branding term that includes everyone from Tucker Carlson to Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer, I think it really describes a real cadre of fucked up individuals who have had their fingers in a lot of this,+ Show Spoiler + I posted this article here before but I think it bares repeating because it's great and very relevant to this discussion and even this forum: https://www.garbageday.email/p/here-s-how-epstein-broke-the-internet To me, the thing that keeps bringing all these psychopaths together is their love of money and complete disdain they feel for "regular people". They think they are a different species, and by them I include folks like Orban, Milei, Nethyanahu, Putin, Xi, Modi, Musk, Zuck, Bezos, MBS, Erdogan and of course Trump. I definitely wouldn't include people like long time career politicians who might be compromised by them but aren't actual psychopaths obsessed with domination and shaping the world to fit their needs. There is a huge gulf between these two categories, You say that like you'd exclude Chuck "Of course, we say [Palestine is] our land, the Torah says it, but they don't believe in the Torah. So that's the reason there is not peace. They invent other reasons..." Schumer? | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22675 Posts
On August 22 2026 00:39 GreenHorizons wrote: social media wants you to be engaged with it, so it feeds you the thing it thinks you want to see thereby creating ego chambers. Is social media really that bad in itself? Would it still be so toxic without capitalism? Fascism/Nazism aren't an individual consumerist lifestyle choice or reaction to social media or even economic conditions in themselves. It's actually a sort of cannibalistic racial capitalism trying to preserve itself during a terminal crisis. They emerge/gain power when capitalist structures face deep structural collapse. They use state power, extreme nationalism, and violence to violently reorganize society and protect the property of specific "elites". And that is before we get into the way our mind reacts to instant quick fire dopamine access which leads to addiction. Capitalism doesn't make it toxic, the money being earned with it isn't the main issue. Its the instant gratification. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22675 Posts
On August 21 2026 22:40 LightSpectra wrote: Both can be true no?There's a lot of discourse about how economic downturns directly leads people to fascism or other extremist ideologies, but that hasn't actually played out in history. There have been 30 or so recessions and depressions in United States history and while it's true that Know Nothings and Teabaggers arose after some of them, there were also plenty of similarly-sized extremist groups that arose during prosperous times, and almost all of them petered out without receiving significant political power the way MAGA did. It can't be a coincidence that everyone owning a smartphone with social media coincided with the meteoric rise of far-right movements across the world and it can't simply be explained by material conditions. Economic downturn leads people to find reasons for blame, which is easily latched onto by extremist ideologies, and its never been easier to beam those ideologies into peoples brains then since the rise of social media. Its always been there, its just never been this easy to spread around to hundreds of millions of people at the push of a button. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24419 Posts
On August 22 2026 01:21 Gorsameth wrote: social media wants you to be engaged with it, so it feeds you the thing it thinks you want to see thereby creating ego chambers. And that is before we get into the way our mind reacts to instant quick fire dopamine access which leads to addiction. Capitalism doesn't make it toxic, the money being earned with it isn't the main issue. Its the instant gratification. Whether social media or gaming, the instant gratification mechanic is designed as an incentive to keep you engaged to see more ads (buy subscriptions, cosmetics, gochas, etc) for profit. If social media was a utility (like for people to share updates/scheduling of friends and family activities) it wouldn't need or really benefit from that mechanic. It'd be like a water company trying to trick you into using more water without a profit incentive. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States3417 Posts
On August 22 2026 01:24 Gorsameth wrote: Both can be true no? Economic downturn leads people to find reasons for blame, which is easily latched onto by extremist ideologies, and its never been easier to beam those ideologies into peoples brains then since the rise of social media. Its always been there, its just never been this easy to spread around to hundreds of millions of people at the push of a button. Yet since algorithmic social media, the extremist ideologies are always racialist or xenophobic in nature, the things most beneficial to the Epstein class. There hasn't been an explosive growth of left-wing extremism like Leninists or Jacobins (as much as Republicans want to cry otherwise), even though historically they were at least equally if not moreso likely to pop up during economic downturns. | ||
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Billyboy
2613 Posts
On August 22 2026 01:35 GreenHorizons wrote: Whether social media or gaming, the instant gratification mechanic is designed as an incentive to keep you engaged to see more ads (buy subscriptions, cosmetics, gochas, etc) for profit. If social media was a utility (like for people to share updates/scheduling of friends and family activities) it wouldn't need or really benefit from that mechanic. It'd be like a water company trying to trick you into using more water without a profit incentive. You have flip flopped on this a few times, but in your version of socialism is there multiple vendors of clothes competing for you business? And do you think that they will not want to grow more to employ more people, keep their own job, and just be competitive with others? Like when I play beer league or pick up I’m going my hardest regardless of pay. I’m thinking a coop with equality through a factory still wants to have their product be the best and sell the most so they can all share from the most? Or in your version are we all wearing the exact same thing, most utilitarian and everyone gets the same stuff? | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18478 Posts
On August 22 2026 01:35 GreenHorizons wrote: Whether social media or gaming, the instant gratification mechanic is designed as an incentive to keep you engaged to see more ads (buy subscriptions, cosmetics, gochas, etc) for profit. If social media was a utility (like for people to share updates/scheduling of friends and family activities) it wouldn't need or really benefit from that mechanic. It'd be like a water company trying to trick you into using more water without a profit incentive. I don't think profit is necessary to have engagement be the goal. Obviously right now, profit is the goal. But if it weren't ads, maybe it'd be engagement to keep the masses docile. I know that in your utopian society there is no need to distract malcontents, but historically there have always been malcontents and I don't see any reason why socialism would ensure everybody suddenly agrees with the way they're ruled. Wouldn't you rather distract the oBlades of your new world with doomscrolling cat videos than give them time to organise a fascist revolution in your socialist utopia? And isn't cat videos a much more humane way of keeping them from making trouble than the stasi? | ||
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Jankisa
Croatia1846 Posts
On August 22 2026 01:20 GreenHorizons wrote: You say that like you'd exclude Chuck "Of course, we say [Palestine is] our land, the Torah says it, but they don't believe in the Torah. So that's the reason there is not peace. They invent other reasons..." Schumer? Because I don't have a hysterical, black and white view of the world, the guy, to me, seems like a generic, boring, politician, yes, one who has been bought and paid for, but also very much sincerely believes in the Zionist cause, he's a weird guy who in any other political system would be center right but because of how the Overton window sits in USA he's somehow the Senate leader for the only ostensibly left party. I really don't get how you can bunch him in with the crowd I listed above, they share very, very little from a psychological point of view. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24419 Posts
On August 22 2026 01:52 Acrofales wrote: I don't think profit is necessary to have engagement be the goal. Obviously right now, profit is the goal. But if it weren't ads, maybe it'd be engagement to keep the masses docile. I know that in your utopian society there is no need to distract malcontents, but historically there have always been malcontents and I don't see any reason why socialism would ensure everybody suddenly agrees with the way they're ruled. Wouldn't you rather distract the oBlades of your new world with doomscrolling cat videos than give them time to organise a fascist revolution in your socialist utopia? And isn't cat videos a much more humane way of keeping them from making trouble than the stasi? I try not to fantasize generally. Though I would really love a media (book, tv, movie, etc) to do more world building around a non-dystopian future to help people explore their imaginations of what that could realistically look like among each other. But if we're imagining we've already transformed into a socialist society, malcontents wouldn't have the material conditions to generate the sort of mass movement necessary to overthrow it. It takes an unimaginable amount of resources and genocidal/murderous slaughter to maintain the status quo. Socialism is in part about reallocating those resources in ways to inhibit rather than incentivize the worst aspects of human nature like capitalism fundamentally requires. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22675 Posts
On August 22 2026 01:35 GreenHorizons wrote: So you propose a system where there is no competition, you get payed your salary by the company/state regardless of how good or bad your product is. Money just exists and is given to you?Whether social media or gaming, the instant gratification mechanic is designed as an incentive to keep you engaged to see more ads (buy subscriptions, cosmetics, gochas, etc) for profit. If social media was a utility (like for people to share updates/scheduling of friends and family activities) it wouldn't need or really benefit from that mechanic. It'd be like a water company trying to trick you into using more water without a profit incentive. Because so long as performance matters, so long as healthy competition exists, which is imo rather crucial for progress in any field, then 'engagement' will matter for social media. yes capitalism pushes things to undesirable extremes and leads Meta to attempt to build an addictive social media platform, but the underlying basis of 'give the customer what they want' isn't tied to capitalism itself. And instagram filling your eyeballs with cat pics is desirable by the consumer. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24419 Posts
On August 22 2026 01:53 Jankisa wrote: I really don't get how you can bunch him in with the crowd I listed above, they share very, very little from a psychological point of view. I see the leader of the party that ostensibly opposes fascism openly supporting a genocidal fascist campaign against Palestinians because they don't believe his magic book gave Palestine to Israelis with Trump level reasoning as quite inarguably part of a "cadre of fucked up individuals who have had their fingers in a lot of this" That said, politicians are generally, now more than ever (at least in our lives), just lackeys for their Epstein Class donors. Trump has done more than people realize to undermine what little leverage politicians had to bring "pork" home to secure reelections. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States3417 Posts
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dyhb
United States830 Posts
On August 22 2026 01:40 LightSpectra wrote: the things most beneficial to the Epstein class. On August 22 2026 01:03 Jankisa wrote:GH likes to use "Epstein class" as a branding term that includes everyone from Tucker Carlson to Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer On August 22 2026 02:18 GreenHorizons wrote:their Epstein Class donors. This is just a more bizarre pejorative for the 1%, or globalists, or anybody both rich and donors to political campaigns? The only exclusions appear to be the non-rich and rich people that the speaker likes. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17992 Posts
On August 22 2026 02:18 GreenHorizons wrote: That said, politicians are generally, now more than ever (at least in our lives), just lackeys for their Epstein Class donors. Trump has done more than people realize to undermine what little leverage politicians had to bring "pork" home to secure reelections. that's why the best individual strat is to never be loyal to any one single nation. seeing as we're in the US Politics thread.. the best approach is that of former baseball star Russell Martin. He is a "world citizen". He can live in Canada, France or the USA. Multiple options is the optimal path. Making yourself eligible to work and live in multiple countries is a big PITA. However, it is the best approach. The governor of Minnesota clears 60K a year after expenses if he is honest in his affairs. @1:10 "I was serving as governor for $60,000 a year". At this point the system is built to create corruption. No wonder Minnesota is corrupt. React to this reality accordingly. | ||
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