Can we all just stop for a second and appreciate what a crazy fucking time it is to be alive in this country?
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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Absolutely. And in so many way. I'm only in my 40s and I feel like I'm living in a vastly different world than the one I was born into.
The rate of change is unlike anything humans have ever had to cope with in our 2 million year history.
For almost all of human existence, there wasn't even a CONCEPT of progress... no sense that humanity was going anywhere. Your life was virtually identical to that of your great great great grandfather, and would be the same experience had by your great great great grandchild.
I remember a world of rotary phones, small towns with personalities before chains homogenized the world. I remember how the United States had a whole different personality before 9-11. I remember when Republicans had actual plans for governing (OBAMA'S affordable care act was basically a clone of Bob Dole's plan). I remember the world before the Internet, when malls were packed and buzzing, when shopping in stores felt magical and not like a ghost town.
I remember analog and even black and white TVs. I remember the first video games and PCs,b dial-up Internet, browsers before tabs were invented.
I remember when acid rain was there number one environmental concern, and how we actually accepted the science and made policy to fix it.
I remember the bugs.
I remember so many more bugs. The night alive with fireflies. Windshields plastered with splatters on the highway.
I remember paper maps! FM radio. Cassette adapters.
The world is so, so, so different. It changed so fast.
Republicans became a suicide cult.
The government stopped breaking up monopolies, and started bailing out too-big-to-fail banks.
The United States tortures people now. People never charged of a crimes were tortured at Guantanamo Bay.
I grew up in a home that my parents bought cheap. They had two cars. They took us on vacations every year. They saved up for retirement. My dad had a PhD. He did well.
I have a law degree. I will never own a home. I will never be able to afford even a single vacation. I will never be able to retire.
They rolled back Roe.
They staged an insurrection.
I've been working with GPT-4 night and day since it was released to the public. I'm 100 percent convinced that with a little supplementation, it is the first artificial GENERAL intelligence.
It can already create better writing and code than MOST of the human population.
Where will it be in 5 years? 10? 20?
It's going to be smarter, funnier, more creative, more thoughtful than all of us. In our lifetime. WHY, then, are we even HERE at that point? Why do we even exist?
These were questions for science fiction. For the future.
It's happening NOW. WE, of all humans in the span of history, are the ones who will see our species become obsolete.
So yeah. Let's take moment to realize how cosmically, historically insane it is to live in this moment.
Amen. And love your first point about how way back, the average person did not have a concept of progress in their day-to-day life.
I guess that didn’t really start to blow up until Newton laid the laws of physics down (along with calculus - what a guy) to allow for drastic scientific development. Once we had steam engines and the Industrial Revolution…change has become almost commonplace now.
I too remember paper maps…always in the glove box.
Having to remember phone numbers.
Encyclopedias
No cell phone and no internet.
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Bugs. Yeah. That still creeps me out.
It's probably just the one of the first signs of ecological collapse due to climate change so nothing to worry about :(
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I was thinking about your comment and came back. I'm nearly 39 so a similar age.
First of all. What if you put your phone down, got off the internet and had a look around at your life and what is happening directly in your world. I'll bet it's not as chaotic as it feels when we see crazy headlines everywhere. You get up, chat with your family if you are lucky enough to live with someone, perhaps you go to work and interact with your coworkers or clients, hopefully the day isn't too stressful. Come home, think about what you will have for dinner and hope it doesn't make you too fat. Go to bed. You might squeeze in some time for hobbies, or visiting friends on the weekends.
Sure, housing is a massive problem right now, but financial bleakness isn't new - imagine how it felt to live through the great depression? I'm in Australia, but a couple of years ago we had my son's birthday at this nice lookout at the top of a hill. There was a plaque there that read that the road to the top of the hill was built by men during the depression in exchange for food to feed their families. The more kids you had the more hours you had to work. It was like 5 or more kids was a mandatory 12 hour day.
That would have felt bleak and like there was no way out.
Imagine getting caught up in world war 2? You would think the world had now really gone to shit. It was so traumatizing to the population here that every tiny town has a plaque of all the people who died from it. The names in the list are usually longer than the population of the town right now.
Then after the war, stuff like the threat of atomic war, nuclear winters and the entire earth dying because of a conflict escalation.
You described my childhood experience perfectly, but we might have just been very lucky and grew up in an optimistic decade full of rationality and scientific progress.
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I’ll recognize it, but I’d rather not appreciate it. I’d appreciate it if half the country had never been infatuated with an historically proven con-man with delusions of grandeur. Legitimately one of the must frustrating realities for someone who believes in democracy to grapple with is that half the population MUST be less than average intelligence (and even some of greater intelligence will choose willful ignorance).
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For real. Can anyone say that they guessed this would actually be a headline 7 years ago?
I could’ve guessed a coup would happen as a result of his presidency and that he should be in prison yea. He’s a lifelong crook and criminal and we had suspicions of outside involvement in the 2016 election cycle from the instant the_donald blew up
He said ahead of the 2016 election that he wouldn't accept the results if he lost.
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Watching from this side of the pond is entertaining in a sad kind of way.
Trump is a figurehead of something above and below him that is a serious danger to democracy.
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This timeline can't get any weirder
WHY WOULD YOU PUT THIS THOUGHT INTO THE UNIVERSE AS A CHALLENGE
If we're going though planet scale catastrohpic events, at least sprinkle some comedy in there haha
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I'm having trouble locating a clip, but Patton Oswalt had a bit about a decade ago about the anomie the country felt when Nixon resigned and then got on TV and flew away in a helicopter.
I feel like Trump finally getting booked will be a similar feeling.
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I'll believe it when I see it, but god damn is that a sexy headline.
I swear to god if I have another BBQ where I invite everyone, hire caterers and get a custom cake and this fucking turd slips out of his jail cell again I'm gonna flip my shit.
Yeah don't have a BBQ. He will have a bond agreement in place before surrendering so likely he will bond out immediately.
If you read a headline that he got convicted in court and sentenced to prison time, then schedule the BBQ
he's going to "surrender to jail" because that's what this step of the process is called. he's not actually going to be locked up
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Yo can I come to the BBQ? I can bring drinks or something.
What does surrender mean? Will he actually spend any time in a cell?
No. He’ll be arrested, fingerprinted, photographed, and released.
Wait, do I understand correctly that he has to drop in to jail now (to register himself?) and then he's free for another 6 months before the hearings commence?
Yup.
It’ll probably be years before he’s actually in prison, and then it’ll probably be “house arrest” because secret service doesn’t want to just cut bait.
They really should cut bait. Protecting a traitor is a worse look than the traitor getting shanked in jail
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Yea, but the trial wont start in 6 months. Legal analysts are saying it will be 2-3 years before the trial starts, because the prosecutor is trying all 19 people at once, they each get to make their own motions and requests to delay and all the legal procedural stuff that happens before a trial, but 19 times, and each one has to be heard by the judge and ruled on.
It’s believed his federal cases will be tried and ruled on before the jury is even seated in this Georgia case.
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Well that's disappointing. I understand why this is not the headline. Not click-baity enough.
this guy is definitely fleeing the country
He can't. He's minded by Secret Service agents
Wasn't there a rumor making the rounds that the Secret Service is actually permeated by right-wing sympathizers? To the extent that they conveniently erased all archived text/digital communications between agents back in Jan 6? Story here
Given that backdrop I wouldn't be surprised if they will be complicit in his escape.
Whenever a conservative bitches about The Deep State I roll my eyes. It has been around for decades and it's on their side. There's a reason Biden changed his security detail.
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They're gonna find him stuck halfway through his bathroom window on the 24th
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Fleecing*
Oh wait both fit...
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he's going to be "processed" then released on bail.
everything about his criminal proceedings have been basically the truck hitting bollard gif
https://67.media.tumblr.com/13cab760bc3b62c6408034017db27846/tumblr_o96e4q9rNV1qezukdo1_1280.gif
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Trump:
Look I've consulted with our medical doctors, and they're going to check it, and these doctors, they're the best in the business you know? Huuuuuge. Hugest doctors that have ever doctored, best we've ever seen. Ever. And these are good doctors with tremendous skills. They've been studying this new thing that - and I'm not sure if you have heard of this as it's groundbreaking, tremendous stuff, this knowledge that we have. But they've been talking to this Theranos doctor. At least I think she's a doctor, she has this doctor team and I think she has the knowledge of a doctor. So anyway this doctor has a huge voice, deepest I've ever heard, the kind of voice that gets things done. And so I says to this doctor, supposing you brought this Theranos inside the body. Which you can do, either through the skin or in some other way, and she says she can't bring Theranos into the body because it's a huge building or whatever because I wasn't really listening to the details, but she has some things she's gonna test. And this Theranos stuff she does with her other doctors, it's the best stuff to help stop prison you know? And she says, she's done something similar in order to keep out of prison, something she researched with her team to bring a baby inside the body to stay out of prison. Supposing that could happen for me, or for anyone who doesn't want prison, you know? Are we gonna look into that, if I can bring a baby inside my body? She says she's gonna test that too. Sounds interesting. And then I see conspiracy and Truth, my version of truth, the best there ever was, and I heard that it knocks out things like prison in a minute. One minute, it's crazy! Absolutely crazy. Is there a way we can do something llike that? Supposing we can inject truth inside the body, by injection or almost like a cleaning? To keep me out of prison. And she says we're gonna look into that, too. And these aren't rumors you know, this is the real stuff right here. Maybe you can, maybe you can't? And again I say maybe you can, maybe you can't because I'm not a doctor. But I'm like a person who has a good... uh, you know what. I think it's a great thing to look at. And look, I'm the former president and you guys are fake news.
All right, you convinced me, I'm putting "Trump pregnant" on my 2024 bingo card.
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Trump expected to surrender
See, this is where you're a bit mistaken...
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Is that one of those rich people jails, where you are basically in a vacation?
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I'll believe it when I see it but boy howdy, do I want to see it!
He'll die of old age before setting foot in an actual cell.
I hope to be wrong but I doubt it.
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I can't wait to see his actual height and weight. This lop of dumps mugshot is gonna be hilarious
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He’s definitely gonna try to skip town. Either that or he’s gonna just ignore it until cops physically drag his Cheeto ass there.
I’ll make popcorn for that day.
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