More proof that narcissist Donald Trump is a narcissist:
Itβs a hallmark of NPD to first dramatically underreact (βcoronavirus is a Democratic hoax!β) and then suddenly dramatically overreact (threatening military-enforced quarantine of NYC). Donald Trump narcissist-in-chief is followed by fellow egomaniacs who see themselves in him β and see themselves getting away with murder no matter what they do. Theyβre the kings of word salad.
The Artist vs. the Fundamentalist is an ancient tale, told throughout history. Whereas the artist is creative, often whimsical, and stimulated by diversity, the fundamentalist is unimaginative, strict, and preferential to monoculture.
Many other dichotomies mirror this pair, from fluid to rigid, from passionate to wooden, from fun to drab and a multitude of others.
The former seeks self-expression and collaboration; the latter, conformity and hierarchy. Artists go in search of harmony; fundamentalists crave conflict.
A dichotomy along similar lines is between the artistic loner, and the fundamentalist thinking and conformity of the tribe. This narrative also evokes themes of belonging versus rejection, creativity vs. conformity, strange vs. familiar, insanity vs. sanity, and many others.
These concepts are two very different conceptions of the Good Life, and I know that for me β Iβm solidly in the artist camp. Iβm all about generativity, about synthesis, and about making something new.
But is everyone? Not so much. Especially now or, perhaps β as with the coronavirus outbreak β having been here long before and in larger numbers than we knew at the time.
see also:
| metaphor | meaning | notes |
| pick your brain | I need to gather information that you have | |
| mental space | a way to describe how much of your thoughts are occupied by a specific topic, event, person, etc. | |
| in the back of my mind | stored for usage later | |
| out of my mind | temporarily unable to think clearly; often, drunk, stoned, high, etc. |  |
| lose my mind | go crazy; generally in a more permanent sense than βout of my mindβ | |
| mind meld | to be completely in sync with someone else on an idea, plan, concept, etc. without having to communicate very extensively or at all | |
| brainless | of low intelligence; stupid; without thought | |
| on my mind | Iβm thinking about you |
see also: Shoshanna Zuboff (who wrote the seminal work on surveillance capitalism), Don Norman, Dystopia vs. Utopia Book List: A Fight to the Finish, surveillance capitalism dictionary
Some takeaways:
Example:
The machine learning algorithms can classify people into two buckets, βlikely to buy tickets to Vegasβ and βunlikely toβ based on exposure to lots and lots of data patterns. Problem being, itβs a black box and no one β not even the computer scientists β know how it works or what itβs doing exactly.
So the AI may have discovered that bipolar individuals just about to go into mania are more susceptible to buying tickets to Vegas β and that is the segment of the population they are targeting: a vulnerable set of people prone to overspending and gambling addictions. The ethical implications of unleashing this on the world β and routinely using and optimizing it relentlessly β are staggering.
βYouβre never hardcore enough for YouTubeβ β YouTube gives you content recommendations that are increasingly polarized and polarizing, because it turns out that preying on your reptilian brain makes you keep clicking around in the YouTube hamster wheel.
The amorality of AI β βalgorithms donβt care if theyβre selling shoes, or politics.β Our social, political, and cultural flows are being organized by these persuasion architectures β organized for profit; not for the collective good, not for public interests, not subject to our political will anymore. These powerful surveillance capitalism tools are running mostly unchecked, with little oversight and with few people minding the ethics of the stores of essentially a cadre of Silicon Valley billionaires.
Intent doesnβt matter β good intentions arenβt enough; itβs the structure and business models that matter. Facebook isnβt a half trillion dollar con: its value is in its highly effective persuasion power, which is highly troubling and concerning in a supposedly democratic society. Mark Zuckerberg may even ultimately mean well (β¦debatable), but it doesnβt excuse the railroading over numerous obviously negative externalities resulting from the unchecked power of Facebook in not only the U.S., but in countries around the world including highly volatile domains.
Extremism benefits demagogues β Oppressive regimes both come to power by and benefit from political extremism; from whipping up citizens into a frenzy, often against each other as much as against perceived external or internal enemies. Our data and attention are now for sale to the highest bidding authoritarians and demagogues around the world β enabling them to use AI against us in election after election and PR campaign after PR campaign. We gave foreign dictators even greater powers to influence and persuade us in ways that benefit them at the expense of our own self-interest.
When usability pioneers have All the Feels about the nature of our creeping technological dystopia, how we got here, and what we might need to do to right the ship, itβs wise to pay attention. Don Normanβs preaching resonated with my choir, and theyβve asked me to sing a summary song of our people in bulleted list format:
Is it all bleak, Don?! His answer is clear: βyes, maybe, no.β He demurs on positing a definitive answer to all of these issues, but he doesnβt really mince words about a βhunchβ that it may in fact involve burning it all down and starting over again.
Pointing to evolution, Norman notes that we cannot eke radical innovation out of incremental changes β and that when radical change does happen it is often imposed unexpectedly from the outside in the form of catastrophic events. Perhaps if we canβt manage to Marie Kondo our way to a more joyful internet, weβll have to pray for Armageddon soonβ¦?! 
This list casts a wide net in enumerating the various principals of interest to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. electionβ¦ and beyond. The Russia scandal has continued to unspool throughout the Trump presidency, including the real estate magnateβs first impeachment over his extortion of Ukraine, and his second impeachment over the armed insurrection he incited following his failed re-election bid. It continues to this day.
Plus, donβt miss the RussiaGate Lexicon β and please note these are both works in progress and being updated as new details emerge about the Russia scandal, the Trump family criminal organization, and Putinβs revanchist influence in American politics.
In the 1930s and 40s we had the New Deal (thanks, FDR!). In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, setting legal limits on the maximum number of hours worked and the minimum wages allowed. Child labor was outlawed, and union laws allowed collective bargaining β resulting in much-needed wage growth and improved conditions for workers.
Republicans fought it then, claiming it was an essentially socialist program, and an economic enemy to business and growth. However, it was the very opposite of that β the war and post-war years were ones of productivity and prosperity, widely and broadly. A strong middle class was formed, changing the life and culture of America forever. The very image of the 1950s Average Family with a white picket fence (emphasis on the white) and 2.5 children the right-wing seems to have nostalgia for was made possible by massive government investments into the US economy and labor force β investments which paid off handsomely and broadly for all, with the notable exception (once againβ¦ sort of a theme around hereβ¦) of Black Americans, who were largely carved out of the GI bill and given the meagre leavings of the superior education and housing benefits doled out to white veterans.
In the mid-1970s this growth engine finally began to falter, and since the 80s, weβve instead had the Raw Deal. An ever-escalating version of a Libertarianβs wet dream: deregulation of numerous industries including finance (leading to the housing crash of 2007-8) and energy (leading to the Enron scandal, where traders joked about frying grandmas in CA for fat bonuses), a steadily less progressive tax system (down from a whopping 94% in 1944 down to 28% under Reagan), and endless waves of cuts to social programs that had been designed to level the opportunity playing field after centuries of explicit discrimination.
The thing is, when people feel hopeful, they work harder.
When there is hopelessness, there is less urgency to work hard to maintain the conditions and systems that make one feel so hopeless. If you know the game is rigged, how futile does it seem to keep playing?
Libertarians lament about the size of the pie, which is as good a modern version of βlet them eat cakeβ while the plebes swill McDβs and pay through the nose for health care as any.
Anger is the defining emotion of the internet.
Itβs designed to whip you up into a frenzy in order to foment cheap pageviews. Its interest is in you becoming a histrionic attention whore, such that you suck in as much clandestinely stolen user data to your platform of choice as possible. Turns out, conflict gets attention.
Anger is also notably the βloopholeβ emotion β itβs the invisible one men get to have, while claiming for generations upon generations that βwomen are too emotional to be entrustedβ with leadership or anything meaningful, really. Meanwhile male anger and aggression have killed hundreds of millions and wreaked destruction upon the earth many times over, as fragile masculinity is repeatably and predictably triggered over any little old thing.
A neat trick.
A story.
A lie.
We need to bring the fire down from the mountain. We are not on that project β we are still on the opposite project: keeping the wizards behind the curtain.
Too many of the wizards are male, and are busying themselves in playing petty economic and status zero-sum power games instead of recognizing the context they are in β we are all in β as an infinite game in which the enlargement of the participant group to include and, not just reluctantly tolerate, but to avidly welcome women in to the club will massively benefit all the players.
Then there are the white wizards who create pseudoscientific rationalizations for wasting time obsessing over 18th century racial animus as a massive distraction from having to do the work of creating anything useful or contributing any value to the world. Theyβve taken their centuries of evolutionary advantage and painstakingly developed economic pie to split hairs over who ought to be denied a few of the crumbs, as a cheap method of papering over the deep well of collective insecurity and ego fragility precipitated by a lack of meaningful individuation and their failure to create anything useful or contribute any value to the world.
We could be playing this game together. Instead, we furtively dart about in Platoβs Cave imagining we are still living in a world of scarcity, rather than leveling ourselves up to behold the vision of the new world of abundance we have the capacity to create.
Not Ready Player One.
This was economist Thomas Schellingβs insight way back in 1969 β just one of many examples of βunknown knowledgeβ that exists in the world today. His Spatial Segregation Model takes a few simple premises and shows that a set of quite tolerant people, who genuinely prefer to live in a diverse neighborhood in terms of race, income, and other factors, nevertheless end up self-segregating into clusters of like individuals β as follows:
We set up a fairly dense environment with a low preference for similarity β people are quite tolerant and are only looking to have 30% of their near neighbors be similar to them:
But when we run the simulation, we end up with an equilibrium state where individuals are surrounded by 75.2% similar neighbors:
If we run the spatial segregation model with a 50% preference for similar neighbors, the outcome is even more stark: the agents achieve equilibrium at a whopping 87.7% similarity:
Continue reading Even a slight preference for homophily results in excessive segregation
| Equality | Supremacy |
| opportunity | gatekeepers |
| democracy | autocracy |
| diversity | monoculture |
| rule of law | fealty |
| entrepreneurship | feudalism |
| accountability | corruption |
| Golden Rule | persecution |
| freedom | oppression |
| fairness | arbitrariness |
| inclusiveness | xenophobia |
| progressive | conservative |
| legal customs | physical force |
| creative | rent-seeking |
| novelty | status quo |
| favors challengers | favors incumbents |
| meritocracy | aristocracy |
| holocracy | hierarchy |
| consensus | dictatorship |
| consent | tyranny |
| diplomacy | violence |
| curiosity | fear |
| tolerance | intolerance |
| flexibility | rigidity |
| multi-faceted | single-mindedness |
| organic | bureaucratic |
| emergent | controlling |
| radial | top-down |
| deliberate | rash |
| careful | reckless |
| self-actualized | insecure |
| logical reasoning | magical thinking |
| universal | tribal |
| comprehensive | dismissive |
| caretaking | militaristic |
| community | gated community |
| independence | conformity |
Sometimes being a progressive means fighting for the equal rights of our enemies. Rights are not lost because someone is disliked, or disagrees with us.
At least, not in a democracy. You will find this view under fascism. You will also find this view under the umbrella of the American right wing. Be wary.
Power is the crushing sensation delivered from somewhere vaguely Above. It is obtuse; inscrutable. Ever-shifting and mercurial. Confounding. Contradicting. Nakedly self-interested. Confident. Conscienceless. Faceless. Meaningless. A black hole sucking everything in. A black boot in every face. A blackness. A contradiction; a cognitive dissonance. The bitter taste on one's tongue. The gnawing fear. Capriciousness. Corruption. Hypocrisy. Paranoia. Bombastic grasping. A slap in the face. An endless arms race. A shallow grave. A cold stare. A trap.
Racism is a shortcut for small minds. Itβs a cheat for lazy people who donβt want to do the work of being discerning about people.
It is insecurity and fear of The Other. Itβs ready-made scapegoats and easy answers. A made up story to channel oneβs anger into. Deflection away from oneβs own faults and flaws. Denial of responsibility. Worldview myopia. Reductionism at its worst. Shallow; vapid. Unseemly.
The stuff of weak minds.
β¦just sayinβ.