Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Sima Tuna]

The Patriot Act was the start. We can trace most of the heinous shit our government has been doing back to it. All Trump is doing now is turning our own disastrous foreign policy back on our own citizens. Treating them the way the US has always treated people without the good fortune of American citizenship.

With the unlawful deportation of green card holders to slave labor camps, the way is officially open for the same actions to be used against natural-born citizens as well. There is barely a difference between the two groups. We have already seen green card holders tortured without due process and shipped out of the country. Against judicial orders, no less. A judge specifically tells Trump, "turn those planes around and bring those people back here." And his response? "Lol no."

We are beyond fucked right now. And at this point, I think we will remain fucked until such time as a military base somewhere collectively decides to secede against Trump.

Incidentally, I would like to mention again that I have always been pro 2nd Amendment and I recommend now as a good time to argue against me. Remember that the Black Panthers were pro 2A as well. Just because Fudds like guns doesn't mean you shouldn't own one. An armed populace at least has a better chance in open revolt than an unarmed populace. "But the army has tanks and jets" yeah but they can't really use them. That kind of indiscriminate slaughter against your own populace is equivalent to kneecapping yourself. The citizenry is where the army draws its supplies and manpower from. This is why citizens with small arms remain relevant no matter how advanced technology becomes.

In a world without threat of tyranny (or large predators attacking people who live in the country,) by all means, ban guns. We clearly don't live in that kind of world. The peaceful mechanisms to resist fascism have broken down in this country. The Democrats lack the will or desire to do anything. Judges' orders are disregarded entirely. Peaceful protestors are having their degrees revoked. Green card holders are deported to slave camps. The alien enemies act (which was used to intern japanese-american citizens) is being invoked by Trump despite no war. This shit is already dire as fuck.

[orange808]

Incidentally, I would like to mention again that I have always been pro 2nd Amendment and I recommend now as a good time to argue against me.

First of all, they can literally explode you with a fucking flying robot. What are going to do with your little pop gun?

There's too many guns, you say? Who's side are they on? The militias wanted the guns to overthrow the government and tear up the Constitution. Gun humpers are itching to fulfill a crazy suicide hero fantasy. You and me are not. There's no army of rational people. Being normal isn't a call to action. Furthermore, your one little gun won't get you anywhere.

That leads me to your next idea: the military. Hate to break it to you, but there's no help coming.

Military bases aren't going to rise up against their hero. It's a cult. Police and military love Trump. Those people eat this shit up and they've wanted to destroy America for decades.

By the way, people join because they honestly crave the opportunity to get in a gun fight. Do you? You really think they're like you?

There's no military or militia riding in on a white horse. Shooting a police officer and getting shot full of holes won't solve anything. The second amendment isn't doing a thing and this proves I was always right.

[BulletMagnet]

With the unlawful deportation of green card holders to slave labor camps, the way is officially open for the same actions to be used against natural-born citizens as well.

Oh, that's been the case for awhile now, Marco Rubio explicitly said so back in February.

Moreover, one of Trump's day-one executive orders demands a report within 90 days regarding whether he ought to use the border as pretense to declare martial law via the Insurrection Act - keep an eye on your news feed come April 20th.

By the by, ICE says that if it can't find any criminal record related to you, they'll be taking that as evidence that you must be a threat, since you're obviously hiding something.

Also, the Commerce department warns that if your Social Security checks stop showing up and you call in to complain, it's going to assume it's because you're committing fraud.

Meanwhile, to pretend Trump's tax cuts aren't the fiscal disaster they are, the GOP Congress is considering simply pretending all other existing spending doesn't exist.

Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

[BryanM]

First of all, they can literally explode you with a fucking flying robot. What are going to do with your little pop gun?

Furthermore, your one little gun won't get you anywhere.

The fact they can liquefy a person with a $100,000 drone strike didn't do much to help Steve Scalise, Brian Thompson, or Donald Trump.

Thom Tillis deciding to share some of his death threats with the world sure was.... a choice.

[orange808]

First of all, they can literally explode you with a fucking flying robot. What are going to do with your little pop gun?

Furthermore, your one little gun won't get you anywhere.

The fact they can liquefy a person with a $100,000 drone strike didn't do much to help Steve Scalise, Brian Thompson, or Donald Trump.

Thom Tillis deciding to share some of his death threats with the world sure was.... a choice.

First of all, the implication is abhorrent.

As a reminder, I can't name (even) one time in history that an entire organized movement in a powerful nation state was muted and deposed by a lone act of violence--and we would need to write a book to explain all the reasons why. MAGA is the American establishment now.

The second amendment still isn't doing shit, besides making it extremely easy for average Americans to kill one another. There's no trained and organised militia of normal average people waiting to step in and defend democracy from an authoritarian takeover.

What are you suggesting, anyway?

Let's try an imperfect example of a prolonged "stealthy" civil war that went down alongside a "functional" government. Did The Troubles change anything? It killed plenty of people. But, what changed? Making martyrs of important people will seed more anger (and deeper grudges), but the establishment won't stop. How does that help? Another thing, the police are going to side with right wing vigilantes and many will be actual MAGA clan/cult members themselves. Living in that scenerio, your murder wouldn't even be investigated.

The only way to curb this is the government itself--and MAGA controls it. We're fucked.

[BryanM]

What are you suggesting, anyway?

I'm not prescribing anything. This is the doom thread where we make observations about the on-going apocalypse and some people find comfort with having people with functioning eyes around, and a couple know-it-alls can feel a drop of an unwarranted sense of power from understanding things. The most important thing here is to make sure fresh links to Neuro-sama's performance of When The World Caves In are always available. (Make sure to watch that at least once a month.)

The observation that there's always violence when actual changes happen is not novel. Civil rights, women's suffrage, the New Deal... all of these featured oodles of violence. There was a sitting governor in the 1930's that literally said 'shoot bankers'.

To pretend these weren't factors in the concessions we received is exactly the kind of learned-helplessness mind-grooming we're told to believe cradle to grave, like we're some kind of easily programmable LLM's. Like how they never talk about MLK's policy positions on the war or economics. He was just a warm fuzzy harmless fluffball that everybody loved, right?

Like I always say, things are going to get worse before they get worse. They're not going to let us vote in AOC and then all the gas chambers will just fly away on their own.

God I really hope they don't really break out the gas chambers. Selling people into slavery aside, anyone have a link to that one lady that says a bullet is cheaper than deportation, and she shoots a dummy in the head? Did I hallucinate all that?

There's so many things I can't tell what's real and what's not anymore. Jesus fuck.

[orange808]

I'm not prescribing anything.

I think you might be.

Well, let's be clear. If so, it's all a job for someone else, no? You'll still be quite comfortable, very much alive, and (so very) NOT helpless when other people throw their lives away doing whatever you're suggesting?

I still don't follow.

The observation that there's always violence when actual changes happen is not novel. Civil rights, women's suffrage, the New Deal... all of these featured oodles of violence. There was a sitting governor in the 1930's that literally said 'shoot bankers'.

Doesn't make any of it right, though.

Like how they never talk about MLK's policy positions on the war or economics. He was just a warm fuzzy harmless fluffball that everybody loved, right?

But, did he say "shoot bankers"?

[BryanM]

You'll still be quite comfortable, very much alive, and (so very) NOT helpless when other people throw their lives away doing whatever you're suggesting?

No, you and I are huge cucks who will be very very VERY dead in the gas chambers, while the chad revolutionary eats berries and shits bears in the Canadian wilderness.

Doesn't make any of it right, though.

Some people think John Brown is cool and based. Others think Robert Lee is cool and based. Agnosticism is a concession to those with a 'divine mandate' to do as much violence as they wish. There's no such thing as a world without violence.

Elon Musk killed tens of thousands of people prematurely through policy. Only comfort blanket people with bags on their head believes the real world is My Little Pony.

But, did he say "shoot bankers"?

The black panthers and Malcolm X scared the hell out of people. So did even someone as gentle as MLK.

Spoiler

Selling people into slavery = Cool and based
Touching a wealthy guy's money slightly = The most horrible, gruesome violence ever enacted upon the most innocent of angels

Such is the way of things.

[orange808]

The black panthers and Malcolm X scared the hell out of people. So did even someone as gentle as MLK.

Of course they did. The right finally had some names and faces to pair with their fear mongering message--and they had television to broadcast it from coast to coast.

I know MLK was a person and he wasn't going to be perfectly diplomatic 24/7/365, but credit where it's due. He knew the right needed red meat for their base and he gave them very little.

[BryanM]

4o does seem to have a greater level of understanding... Which is intuitive; if your latent space contains different domains of inputs, you can get closer to your target outputs within your environment. One thing that's always haunted me is the idea that we don't actually deal with a lot of domains - the external inputs are obvious: vision, touch, hearing, smell. The only complex internal input might just be memory.

NVidia's news release today that claims they have a photonic switch that can link over a million GPU's does reassure those who feel we're on course for a tech apocalypse. 100,000 GB200's is already human scale probably; 1,000,000 instances of the GB200's successor card in four to six years would ~40x that.... If 'god computers' are possible to build, we'll almost certainly have the physical substrate to train them on soon.

Good times, really really wish Kamala Harris was president during this important period of history. Blade Runner seems much nicer to live in than Elon's planetary breeding ranch. Well, I have faith that the sicko will make everyone wear perverted cosplay outfits suitable for hookers, and he'll allow me to have big boobs....

.... look at me, already coping and bargaining. .... shit, I'm already at the stage of acceptance, aren't I? Shit. Shit shit shit shiiiiiit....

.....

In more temporally immediate matters, I really liked this How Comedy Became a Dystopian Imperial Hell World video. This comment:

"I watched Joe on Fear Factor and Trump on the Apprentice back in the early 2000s. It barely took 10-15 years for these guys to go from reality TV trash to the rulers of the world. I think that says a lot more about the U.S. than about them as people."

He knew the right needed red meat for their base and he gave them very little.

They killed people for riding in a bus together.

Simply being alive and not being a slave is too much for them.

[BulletMagnet]

And just in case any of our resident cum-garglers are tempted to whine "they took it down and said it was posted in error" ( ffs), they're confiscating people's phones at airports, checking them for content critical of the administration, and denying entry to the country if they find any. And this goes for US citizens too.

This is Fascist shit, and if you attempt to defend it then so are you.

[Sima Tuna]

ICE have become the brownshirts.

Selling people into slavery = Cool and based
Touching a wealthy guy's money slightly = The most horrible, gruesome violence ever enacted upon the most innocent of angels

The donor class are really desperate to see Luigi get a death penalty.

[BulletMagnet]

Oh, and by the way, Trump has also declared that when he shreds regulations he doesn't even need to inform the peasants.

And if you're on Social Security and want to have any idea what's going on? Better have a Xwitter account.

Also, the book burnings continue.

[Sima Tuna]

Ah, good. I was hoping the Trump Administration could innovate some new and exciting ways to treat everyday working people poorly. Not knowing whether or not your check is coming until you sign up for X is definitely the current year brain rot I never expected.

[BryanM]

Recent events bring to mind how much Mischief was worried about a Trump-installed supreme court ushering in a thousand years of darkness... And how I'd always be like 'Eh, the supreme court doesn't seem to be all-powerful, historically.' And now we have the irony of all of Trump's appointees agreeing that you're not allowed to send people to concentration camps without at least a semblance of due process.

I hate being right about everything... when it's been so fucking bleak... if I wasn't a know-it-all asshole, I'd downright loathe it... why was my accelerationist assumption that pain was the only way anything would ever get better have to be right... I remember the Something Awful gif and everything...

My honest opinion is the Elon Musk breeding planet future has a less than 2% chance of manifesting... but the chance of the elites carving the planet up into private fiefdoms and each of them ruling their land like a god isn't nearly as improbable as I'd like it to be. I think there's a 12 to 20% of an Elon Musk breeding state...

Here's an old appropriate youtube skit for the moment:

Billionaire can't relate to his Millionaire friends.

The donor class are really desperate to see Luigi get a death penalty.

I don't quite understand why that guy chose to be caught if he really did it. Maybe he thinks there's some increased value in martyrdom and having the case and issue televised... I think that's wrong, but hell who knows... maybe he's right...

Shades of the execution of John Brown, where they had an entire army regiment, a canon, and a backup canon to kill one old man. Took the classy step of making sure the noose was made out of slave-grown cotton and all.

Maybe they'll let one of the victim's relatives push the button. Or they could all take turns pushing the button. Why the fuck not, right? On the scale of the upcoming shit coming down the pipeline, that's just peachy peanuts.

[BulletMagnet]

And now we have the irony of all of Trump's appointees agreeing that you're not allowed to send people to concentration camps without at least a semblance of due process.

Too bad for us that they deliberately gave away any power they might have had over the executive branch, just as Congress did, and to all appearances are equally blase about it, since now they can "take the high road" and "remain above the fray" as much as they want knowing that it affects absolutely nothing as their fellow authoritarians lay waste to the country and the world.

[orange808]

How's your stonks, resident hillzbots? Still think Bernie was too much of a sacrifice?

Remember not to ask for empathy if you were against Bernie. I won't lift a finger. I wouldn't even give a hillzbot CPR. I don't have to do anything for you. Republicans didn't vote in the primaries.

With all this finger pointing and crisis, you might think you've broken us with your bullshit "unity" message. (The old lesser evil shit, where you shame us for voting for own agenda.) I assure you that lefties know your blame, neoliberals (you were part of this); we'll remember what you did to Bernie--back when there was still time to do something. We aren't bonding. If we get out of this mess, we're going to pay you back, too.

[BryanM]

I'm in 100% agreement of your contempt for those people Orange, but I don't have it left in me to share your desire for revenge.

"The Bernie people are in a cult"... yeah, a life cult. It's normal for people to have a little hope for a change, since the trajectory has always been ran by a death cult. What makes me really furious is reading the 'Kamala doesn't owe anybody nuthin' comments. Like we owe HER our very lives.

The exact antithesis of the Bernie culture. Everytime he'd hold a rally people would start chanting his name, and he'd get really ultra super pissed about it, shake his head and wag his Bernie-finger and say "No!!! Not me, you fuck nuggets! Us!" And everyone would go silent for a minute, before squeezing their eyes shut, flailing their arms about, and foaming at the mouth shouting "Ahhhhhh! bernie bernie bernie bernie!"

Every. Single. Time.

Friendly reminder Kamala is leading in the Democratic primary polls for the 2028 primary. If you want to continue to hold onto the fantasy there will still be elections then. (Why the fuck would we still have elections???) Like I keep repeating, if you want to pray for salvation look toward the machine god. Otherwise just try to ignore the doom if you're not a freak that finds comfort in it.

The recent Biden speech was depressing (I really thought the whole thing was going to be grandpa telling a story about how things were when he was a kid for awhile there. It's depressing to see what a shell he's become of what he used to be - he used to be really good at the whole charisma thing.), but at least it was something I guess. I wouldn't turn away a cat's paw by this point.

.....

The thread's video essay of choice still continues to Jacob Geller's Art in the Pre-Apocalypse. I'll continue to post it until everyone here reports in that they've watched it in full.

I remember how there was a brief window where Matt Christman was advocating for a 'grill pill' attitude where you just ignore everything and grill. That feels increasingly morally reprehensible these days... At what threshold is violence justified, is it after the gas chambers arrive? There will still be tons of people saying it wouldn't be acceptable, even then....

Some happy final quotes from some celebrities:

"I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done."

[BulletMagnet]

Speaking of Bernie, he - or, of you want to be very generous to him, his security staff - pulled a Kamala at a recent rally; it seems the situation has officially regressed from "unless a miracle occurs Palestine is fucked" to "even if a miracle does occur Palestine is still fucked."

Off to the side, has he ever explained his vote - along with every other Senate Democrat - to confirm Marco Rubio, who is currently taking the lead in snatching people off the street and spiriting them away to blacksites without due process? I've attempted to Google it to no avail, but feel like I must be must be missing something; I mean, someone must have at least asked him about it at some point. Right?

[Sima Tuna]

The problem is many Americans are just unilaterally pro-Israel no matter what Israel does or what any of the facts are. These Americans believe that Israel has a divine right by god to inhabit all of the lands of the middle east. This misinformed view comes from a propaganda document known as the Bible, which frequently makes historical claims that have no grounding in fact and ignores all of the pre-literature history of human habitations in that part of the world.

Anyway, because pro-Israel Americans believe God has given the middle east to Israel, they do not care what horrific abominations, human genocides, rapes, tortures etc Israel commits in pursuit of this goal. They do not care if Israel deliberately bombs hospitals or executes journalists before shoveling them into mass graves. They don't care about the legality of stealing land or illegally settling in zones which had previously been established in treaties and official documents. They don't care about peaceful cohabitation because they do not want Israel to have to share space with any other group (let alone Muslims.)

Now, having said all that, what always happens is someone argues in bad faith "oh well then you must support hamas." No. It's because I do not support terrorists that I hate what Israel is doing. Because the constant atrocities committed by Israel against their neighbors forms the greatest recruitment ad for terrorist organizations that one can imagine. Terrorism is an idea. When the idea is fed with fear and atrocities then it grows more powerful. Israel's proposed solution to this is to literally massacre every man, woman and child in the middle east who is not Israeli and then steal their land. That plan will technically work, in the same way that Hitler killing every Jew in Europe technically would have worked if he had completed it. But it is so impossibly monstrous that I cannot understand why anyone would believe it's an ideal solution to the problem of terrorism.

There are people in Israel who can be reasonable, and there are people in the Middle East who can be reasonable. If these groups were allowed to have power and allowed to work things out, it is just possible that perhaps, maybe, a peaceful coexistence could be achieved. Someday. And terrorism would still exist, but at least maybe, if most people in the Middle East had decent jobs, good livings, food and clean water, basic health care etc... Maybe we would see less terrorists. It's a lot harder to sell the 47 virgins to somebody who has a pretty great real life right now.

[BulletMagnet]

The problem is many Americans are just unilaterally pro-Israel no matter what Israel does or what any of the facts are.

That is what is is, but the fact that not only the establishment AIPAC drones but supposed "outliers" can't even bring themselves to let people so much as display a banner is disgusting, especially as stuff like this continues to be buried by most of the media.

Off to the side, Trump's head counterterrorism maven warns that if you dare say there should due process for the people being vanished without trial, you may be joining them.

Oh, and three quarters of Republicans have no problem with Daddy acting like the other branches don't exist when they become inconvenient.

[BryanM]

Off to the side, has he ever explained his vote - along with every other Senate Democrat - to confirm Marco Rubio, who is currently taking the lead in snatching people off the street and spiriting them away to blacksites without due process? I've attempted to Google it to no avail, but feel like I must be must be missing something; I mean, someone must have at least asked him about it at some point. Right?

It's a matter of norms and decorum. You lost the election, so you're supposed to accept it and still keep the government running. This vote was held on inauguration day remember, a few days before it was 100% absolutely clear this time around the administration was going to dismantle the United States.

Who would you prefer to be fourth in line to be president, that they would have nominated? Steve Bannon? Marjorie Taylor Greene? The alternatives are anywhere on the spectrum from some podcast boomer that rants about trans people constantly, to a rapist billionaire who has people chained up in his basement.

They could have put anyone into that seat. Rubio at least is qualified for the job, on paper. I know in practice there isn't really any material difference, a dog obeys its master, but still..

Oh, and three quarters of Republicans have no problem with Daddy acting like the other branches don't exist when they become inconvenient.

Just another example of humans being incredibly, incredibly stupid. Many of us don't actually believe or understand anything beyond the bare minimum for survival. Where you get completely opposite responses depending on how you phrase a question.

Of course I'm with you on understanding they value cruelty more highly than the rule of law, just like we would value making the world less shit to live in than the rule of law. Terminal values are what matter, not these things we say just because we were trained to say them like we were LLM's.

As I always say, a poll is a scanner darkly and its accuracy is only as good as how solid and clear a question is. "Who you gonna vote for" is more accurate than "Would you stop voting for Trump if he personally murdered your mother with a dull butcher's knife?" (67% might say no, but only 15% would actually follow through on it if it happened to them. It's like a video game 'boycott', as fucking stupid as that is...)

I really can't wait for the machines to purge this sinful flesh.

[orange808]

Still discussing the Middle East without acknowledging Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Shias, and Sunnis?

Why bother?

[BulletMagnet]

Who would you prefer to be fourth in line to be president, that they would have nominated?

As you yourself acknowledge, Trump isn't going to nominate anyone for any position in his government whose breath doesn't utterly reek of jackboot polish; the least the Dems could attempt to do is not be outright complicit when it comes to force-feeding Fascism to the country.

Moreover, as awful as it is to see actions (and inactions) like that coming from a worse-than-useless corporatist like Schumer, seeing it from Bernie hits different in the worst possible way, much like AOC's vote to break up the railroad workers' strike. Which, as it happens, I'm also having trouble finding any evidence that anyone ever asked her to explain that - is my Google-fu really that weak, or is the media truly that horrifically incurious?

[orange808]

Oh, we all know what happens to people that try to reasonably explain anything or stand up for anything.

"...only threw big gails of stupid laughter..."

Trump is president of the United States. You keep pushing back and saying I'm wrong about people. The evidence doesn't support your argument. Trump is president and he commands a cult of millions. (I still love the genuine malice in the clip, because it's missing from the rest of the film.)

Are you coming around, yet?

I don't know why a few votes didn't go the right way. I do know that pushing for smart solutions only draws big gails of stupid laughter from the idiots walking the streets.

Guilty!

[BulletMagnet]

Guess what's next on the chopping block?

[Sima Tuna]

I love the internet archive. Only makes sense they'd try to destroy that too.

I hear rumors that ICE is detaining citizens now as well.

[BryanM]

I was tediously translating a Korean webnovel with Bard with 150 chapters to go, when the website got taken down and Google long ago removed the 'view cached page' feature. Gotta love the enshittification of the internet. I keep telling ya we had it too good for too long.

Firefox also decided to randomly disable uBlock and NoScript and won't let me simply press a 're-enable' button. Why? Fuck me, is why. Really love not having any power or control over anything.

Which, as it happens, I'm also having trouble finding any evidence that anyone ever asked her to explain that - is my Google-fu really that weak, or is the media truly that horrifically incurious?

The first result I got was a Jacobin page where she claims it's what the union leadership wanted, where the article goes on to note it was not what the leadership wanted. But that she might have been confused due to poor communication/having too much stuff to keep track of.

There is always the simple possibility that she's kind of shitty. Like they always say, if they were all that dangerous to capital, why are they allowed to have even a single minute of time on TV.

Ah well. Everyone's gonna be replaced by a robot in like ten years anyway. Don't Look Up applies to lots of different things.

[BulletMagnet]

The first result I got was a Jacobin page where she claims it's what the union leadership wanted, where the article goes on to note it was not what the leadership wanted.

Presumably nobody's ever followed up and asked her to explain that - such behavior would just be plain rude, wouldn't it?

I hear rumors that ICE is detaining citizens now as well.

Seeing as Trump told Bukele that he was eager to start sending him "home-growns" next, I can all but guarantee they're more than rumors.

[orange808]

Firefox also decided to randomly disable uBlock and NoScript and won't let me simply press a 're-enable' button. Why? Fuck me, is why. Really love not having any power or control over anything.

Give Librewolf a look. I won't lie to you and tell you it's a panacea, but mainline Firefox has devolved into badware. Librewolf is less bad.