Friday links! Doing it wrong edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 1 Comment

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XYlJqf4dLI

I’m no internetrician, but I think Megyn Kelly’s declaration that both Jesus and Santa are white was our most quickly-disseminated viral video yet. She said it Wednesday night, and I saw it on Facebook before noon. Maybe it’s because it was seasonal and Megyn Kelly is pretty, as marketeers would have you believe. Or maybe it’s because in this moment, Fox wildly underestimated the sophistication of its audience. “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he’s white” is a claim too simultaneously petty and absurd for anyone to swallow. Also, Jesus was a Mediterranean Jew, but whatever—the point is that our massive architectures of social and political control are surprisingly bad at controlling us. Today is Friday, and the most powerful people on Earth are doing it wrong. Won’t you revel in their incompetence with me?

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Friday links! Securitocracy edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
NSA headquarters, which does not look arrogant or evil at all

NSA headquarters, which does not look arrogant or evil at all

Imagine that you are a wealthy member of one of the two parties that control the richest nation in the history of the world, or you run one of the corporations that made it rich, or you’re one of the people who work for those corporations or political parties to feed your family. America is doing great, but everyone also seems to agree that it is doing worse lately and is possibly about to stop doing great forever. Meanwhile, religious hillbillies on the other side of Earth have vowed to come here and randomly explode, plus an unknown but growing number of Americans have less incentive to support the status quo because present conditions benefit you much more than them. You are winning this game, but the game is almost over. If you were such a person, you might understandably organize your politics and your worldview around one central question: how can I keep anything from changing? What you need is security—order-maintaining, threat-identifying, future-avoiding security. Today is Friday, and anything different is necessarily bad for us. Won’t you arrest the progress of history with me?

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Friday links! Comeuppance edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 1 Comment
White supremacist Craig Cobb, who recently learned he is 14% black

White supremacist Craig Cobb, who recently learned he is 14% black

“Virtue is its own reward,” says the man who does not want to reward you for anything. It’s the consolation prize of aphorisms, implying not even that things will get better later, but that you should be more grateful for the injustice underway now. No wonder virtue is unpopular. Stupidity, on the other hand—along with arrogance, bigotry and old-fashioned bossiness—is going like hotcakes. Fortunately, the converse of our old saw is true: stupidity is its own punishment. Today is Friday, and those who deny the facts on the ground inevitably will be corrected. It happens to all of us. Won’t you enjoy your comeuppance with me?

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Friday links: Not trying to scare you edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 6 Comments
I'm not trying to scare you, but Joe the Plumber is still pretty famous.

I’m not trying to scare you, but Joe the Plumber is still pretty famous.

I’m not trying to scare you, but it’s worse than people know. Put together all of the problems you can think of: that, by definition, is the realm of the known, and how things are is worse than all of that put together. I’m not trying to scare you, but the sum total of all the bad things in the world, plus your imagine, almost certainly underestimates how bad things really are due to the limiting factor of awareness. Right now, people you don’t even know about are doing bad things in secret. I’m not trying to scare you, but however scared you might be at this moment is almost certainly insufficiently scared, although we just don’t know. Today is Friday, and every shadow teems with grues. Won’t you stumble around in the dark with me?

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Friday links! Bounds of realism edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
Trevor Goodchild confronts some dilemma or another in the "Thanatophobia" episode of Aeon Flux.

Trevor Goodchild confronts some dilemma or another in the “Thanatophobia” episode of Aeon Flux.

This country used to be well written, but I worry that we’ve jumped the shark. The soft-authoritarian security state plotline was interesting when we started it in the early part of the millennium, but it was the characters that made it. I liked watching everyone struggle with their new identities, whether they were willing to sacrifice freedom for security, and the hating/becoming hipsters B plot was fun. Lately, though, I feel like we’ve transgressed the bounds of psychological realism. “America” is becoming another sci-fi melodrama, with the principal characters veering off into behavior that just isn’t believable. Today is Friday, and what started as national character has become caricature. Won’t you turn a critical eye with me?

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