Sociologist Theodor Adorno created the “F scale” in a 1950 seminal work entitled The Authoritarian Personality, in order to rank the level of predilection to fascism in an individual, which became desirable both during and shortly after World War II. According to Adorno and his cohort, the defining authoritarian personality traits of the Platonic fascist […]
Magical Thinking abounds in late-stage capitalism Magical thinking is a form of purely imaginative cognition exhibited in childhood, in which children pretend that they will be able to get whatever they wish for without regard for the actual realities of the world. Not limited to children, magical thinking is a common trait exhibited by the […]
In contrast to the cult of personality, the rule of law is a moral force. It’s an ethical tour de force that’s been hard-fought and won in democracies around the world beginning with the French Revolution. And it’s still going on today — everywhere citizens are struggling to achieve political power and equality. When justice […]
This past week we had a serious, unironic “debate” about whether or not senicide is a reasonable “plan” for handling the coronavirus crisis. This under the pretense that the other course of action — following the advice of medical professionals and epidemiologists to stay home and socially distance ourselves to curb the spread of covid-19 […]
Extremism is a mentality; a black and white worldview. It’s a willingness to go too far to meet one’s objectives — to violate moral boundaries in pursuit of one’s aims. A political extremist is an individual or group adhering to ideologies that are far removed from the mainstream beliefs of society. These ideologies often promote […]
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, it’s wise to pay attention. Don Norman’s preaching resonated with my choir, and they’ve asked me to sing a summary song of our people in […]
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 — resulting in much-needed wage growth and improved conditions […]
Is it possible the Condorcet jury theorem provides not just a mathematical basis for democracy and the justice system, but a model predictor of one’s political persuasion as well? If you’re an optimist, you have no trouble believing that p > 1/2. You give people the benefit of the doubt that they will try their […]
According to Libertarian beliefs, the government should be as minimal as possible so as not to interfere with the workings of business. But how do you then prevent monopoly capitalism under a minimalist Night Watchman State? The answer is: you don’t — which is “working as intended” to a libertarian. Both because their contempt for […]
Did Russia hack the 2016 US election? Most certainly. The FBI, CIA, and entire intelligence community is in agreement on this point. Russian information warfare has been infamous the world over for decades — with a recent flare up starting with the Brexit vote as an obvious canary in a larger coalmine, and extending to […]
Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey are a particularly toxic breed of billionaire welfare queen, who outwardly revile government with every chance they get while having both sucked at its teat to make their fortunes, and currently making a luxe living on taxpayer largesse. Thiel’s Paypal and Facebook-induced riches rode the coattails of the DARPA-created internet, […]
While we wring our hands in the United States over whether or not such a strategy is even conceivable, the erstwhile President of Russia has been running this playbook out in the open in Ukraine and Eastern Europe for some time. With help from Propagandist-in-Chief Vladislav Surkov, Putin has leveraged the open secrets about the […]
Considering your thought patterns and style of interacting with the world, which set of personality traits seems to characterize you more: Internalizer Externalizer Believe it’s up to you to change things Expect others to do it for you Mentally active; love to learn things Impulsive and reactive; take action before thinking about things, to blow […]
Before we dive into the perils of issue policing, I have to say that it’s heartening to see so many new faces and hear many new voices who may in the past have not explicitly considered themselves “activists,” or who have felt a greater call to stand up against a political administration whose ideologies show every […]
There’s something those of us in marginalized groups know instinctively, having lived lives long in opposition to a dizzying continuum of Absurd Moral Authority: from outright violence, to secretive “technical” manipulations of statutes designed to erode or remove rights, to vague and carefully unstated “wink wink nudge nudge” moments from individuals of authority who had […]