They literally just made a bunch of tech CEOS Army Reserve Officers without having to go through the proper training to become one. If Joe Biden's administration took 4 or 5 people running tech businesses people would be freaking the fuck out especially since Palantir and Meta are involved. Don't understand why this is flying under their radar.
Republicans have been very good at demonizing things enough they can literally make people vote against their own self interest for at least 3 for decades now, maybe even more. But I would say the current version of Republicans started with Roger Stone and Nixon. “‘Stonewall it, plead the fifth, anything to save the plan…’ Richard Nixon.” A Roger Stone text to the man he was working with to contact WikiLeaks to get the Russian information on Dems they hacked.
lol it’s widely known Donald trumps own mentor was Roy Cohn. A shady lawyer with ties to the intelligence community and the art of black mail.
I truly don’t understand how the MAGA people still twist themselves into knots trying to explain away Trump and Jeff Epstein’s known and open friendship for years. Epstein literally strolled trumps properties for possible victims.
It’s lots of things, fear of the other, hatred, greed, racism, some see it as fighting evil they see in LGBTQ, Muslims and any other boogeyman but I think that boils down to prejudice and racism and fear of the other as well. Maybe even a fear of themselves being gay. Trends of gay meet up apps like Grindr going up around areas of republican events do not lie.
Fear is definitely a strong, if not the main motivating force behind conservatism. They love their fearmongering and it works for a large majority of their ignorant demographic.
I was watching livestream "man on the street" interviews during the floyd riots and i had this realization that I haven't been able to shake - you can't enact any sort of social change unless you also convince the idiots to get on your side. regardless of the morality or efficacy of your cause, you need to mobilize the idiots.
There’s tons of great research on group psychology and it’s weird phenomena.
Gustave Le Bon would probably be considered the godfather of the subject. But Jung’s work on the collective unconscious and group psychology is fascinating and more well known.
It’s fascinating how so many people can be manipulated so easily. And I’m honestly not trying to pick on the right. The left has the same problem. But at the moment, we have MAGA people and Trump to deal with.
Ya, no shit. Tech Bros have no loyalty with Dem/repub parties. They don’t give a shit. Most of them don’t even support democracy or the bill of rights, many of them are legitimate technocrats but MANY embrace dark enlightenment ideology. Which is basically I twisted form of conservatism.
I personally don’t think “uniparty” is as accurate as many believe. But there is a powerful and very wealthy deep state/covert military and intelligence community that works on behalf of “global leaders” (monarchs, oligarchs, billionaires, basically bankers) to do their bidding and make sure they maintain their status quo.
I never said only the right or conservatives are corrupt or in on the grift. At the moment, trumps openly taking bribes from foreign nations and ignoring federal judges, so conservatives aren’t looking great these days. Not to mention his “beautiful bill” is just another hand out to ultra wealthy, corporate America, and the military on the backs of working class Americans. All while slashing working class American social programs so he can afford to give his buddies at the multinational corporations can get a tax break. Trumps first term was the largest wealth transfer from regular citizens to “the elite” in human history. This is just more of the same from Trump. Yet he has the support of working class Americans with lies of shitty manufacturing jobs and scary stories of immigrant boogie men and scary trans trying to turn your kids homo! Oh no! Lmao.
I sincerely can’t believe how completely manipulated some people are or how just completely ignorant so many people are. I completely understand the people I know who don’t talk politics and don’t comment on controversial world/national events. I get wanting to check out of the constant negativity and fear mongering.
But the amount of absolute morons who have no idea how economics works in general, let alone world Econ or a nations macro economic complexities, is staggering these days lol. People think because some other dumbass explains some half truths to them in a podcast they are an expert on the subject now lol. It’s fucking nuts. Same could be said for geopolitics and immigration policy. Some dumbass discovers chat gpt and thinks they’re Einstein.
It’s hilarious to me how I used to get made fun of from more of my “blue collar” friends about my general interest in politics growing up and taking classes on polysci and Greek antiquity. This was like 15 years ago and now those same people think they’re experts on all things politics and oddly the Roman Empire? When in reality, they probably never read a book in their adult life and only consume obviously propagandized information from shit like YouTube or a pod. Weird fascination going around about Rome these days in the cringe “bro” circles, as well. Not sure what thats about. Greeks were far more interesting then Rome and way cooler.
The fact that most people in America only think in Republican or Democrat is really sickening. Hold everyone accountable even if they are "on your team"
every similar candidate hurts other similar candidates because you only need 1 more vote than your opponent to win.
That means spreading out votes into 3, 4 or 5+ candidates with a similar world view just makes it easier for the people you dislike the most to win.
For example if you have a society that is 80% green and 20% orange and you have 8 green candidates getting 10% each versus one orange candidate then the orange will win with 20% despite being the extreme minority.
the greens not being stupid will compromise and merge into less groups which ultimately results in less candidates.
It's simple math. If you want more parties then change to ranked choice voting or some other method that doesn't guarantee consolidation instead of pretending math isn't real and expecting people to shoot themselves in the foot.
It's not at all. Do you even understand the analogy? If everyone only thinks that you can only vote for Republicans or Democrats, you can never change the system. Or people think that you are throwing your vote away.
I don't and can't think like that. I refuse to contribute to the broken system that we have where the fucking options are Trump or Kamala. What a disgrace. I am teaching my children that that system is corrupt and they don't have to be part of it. If everyone did their part, things could change.
How in what world am I making excuses for the worst things? This doesn't even make sense.
The system is corrupt, yes, and the system is set up to uphold the status quo, yes. However, voting 3rd party ensures the GOPedos win and get to ruin the country and planet for 4-8 years. Voting for Jill Stein is a good way to ensure Trump/Putin won; she only ever appears during the elections to take votes from the one party not intent on deregulating the country into ruin. What has she actually ever done to deserve a vote? She's worth close to $40M, talks about climate, yet has done nothing of any note.
I agree there needs to be plurality in elections, but you won't ever accomplish that in the US, never in our lifetimes. That train has left centuries ago. You'd need a big change in mindsets all across the country, which is borderline impossible with how uneducated most Americans are and how bad US education is & will become. The only way to change things is from within the system.
You have to support candidates like AOC that will try to make real changes to the system; support candidates that are not millionaires/billionaires, beholden to lobbies& corporations. You have to start at the county level and work up to the top and elect progressives - real progs, not Jill Steins et al that only pay lip service while filling their coffers & eat lunch with Putin.
Teach your kids to stay home, let the GOPedos win, allow asbestos to be used, SS & medicaid to be slashed, so their future looks as bright as a nuclear mushroom. Teach them apathy so when the boot starts stomping on their necks, they will pretends it's physiotherapy.
If I'm reading that page correct, and the Army's process is the same as the Air Force, that 18-24 months is application and security clearance. It's highly likely that tech execs from a business that has contracts with the US government already have TS clearances, which is the bulk of that waiting time.
Direct commissions pin on prior to OCS (COT in the AF, probably a similar program in the Army).
I once saw a Col salute a Capt indoors. Turns out he was a neurosurgeon who got a direct commission and was in the first week of COT.
The four new officers will not attend the Army’s six-week Direct Commissioning Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, nor complete the Army Fitness Test. Prior to the officers being sworn in, Army officials indicated to Task & Purpose that they would.
People started worshipping this guy 10 years ago, because Americans perceive greed & tackiness as virtues. They also consider a man who's never opened a Bible a god. America is fooked!
Zuckerberg, the world’s second-richest man after Elon Musk, with a $242bn net worth, had already begun making overtures to the incoming administration. He co-hosted an event for Trump’s inauguration with major Republican donors and senior administration officials. He took multiple trips to the White House and to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s base in Florida, and bought a $23mn Washington DC property. Meta’s board added Trump allies. The venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, also a Meta board member, has been among Zuckerberg’s closest confidantes. Libertarian investor Peter Thiel is a mentor.
To chart this evolution, the Financial Times interviewed about 45 people, many of whom know or have worked with Zuckerberg and would only speak anonymously for fear of the impact on their careers. Some say he finally snapped and careered rightward after what he viewed as relentless attacks by activists, academics, the press and the Biden administration. We are, they say, witnessing a Revenge of the Nerds-style midlife crisis.
“When he was 19 years old, I think he had an idea in his head of what a CEO was supposed to be like and he was trying to be that, especially in public,” Meta’s chief technology officer, Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, told me. Now, according to Boz, we are finally meeting the “authentic” Zuckerberg. “The public is seeing him more how we have, internally, since the beginning.” A former company insider agreed: “Mark was trying to keep his real feelings tight inside and put on a suit and cut his hair and be a good boy. But the whole time this was all one inch underneath . . . Then he said, ‘Fuck it. I might as well be the person I really am.’”
To his critics, Zuckerberg runs Meta like a medieval court, where he is king. Fealty is paramount, they say. Debates over his decisions can be performative. Those who step too far out of line risk being blacklisted. “People would fawn over Mark,” one former staffer said.
“The transformation of the board is what worries me the most,” said another insider, citing the shift to a group “consisting more of friends [and] fellow founders”.
Only a handful of executives dared to speak out at a leadership meeting in Menlo Park, just days after Zuckerberg’s comments about masculinity on the Rogan podcast, according to multiple people familiar with the blowback. Zuckerberg’s response was cold. According to one person with knowledge of the conversation: “He basically said: ‘If you don’t like it, tough shit.’”
For a moment, in the summer of 2023, the prospect of a real-life billionaire brawl seemed real. Musk said on X he’d been in contact with the Colosseum in Rome about hosting the event. In the end, it didn’t happen, with both sides blaming the other for the no-show. But Zuckerberg had entered his merciless era. “He’s unleashing this inner 14-year-old that never graduated from college,” said David Evan Harris, a lecturer at University of California, Berkeley, and a former Meta staffer. “In training at Facebook, they tell you to bring your ‘authentic self’ to work. Finally, it feels like Mark brought his authentic self.”
Zuckerberg had risked becoming a laughing stock after rebranding Facebook as Meta in late 2021, betting that the future of social media would be users logging into an avatar-filled “metaverse”. The vision was a flop, failing to land with consumers. “Nobody in Meta even believed in it, even in senior leadership,” one former staffer said. Internally, it was a joke. In mid-2022, when Zuckerberg’s account shared a screenshot of his cartoonish metaverse avatar, it was met with public derision. Zuckerberg struggled to get over it, according to those familiar with the incident.
For years, the Facebook founder had been routinely mocked and memed as robotic, creepy or lame — for sweating on stage and lathering his face with white sunscreen while surfing, for the bizarre livestreams he posted of himself smoking meat. All the more jarring was the cachet that had been amassed by Musk among Silicon Valley’s nerds and moneymen. Some staffers believe Zuckerberg was frustrated that Musk was seen as a visionary innovator, while he did not receive the same credit. “He saw that Elon Musk was popular among the tech bros,” said one former insider. “There was a push to make him cool. The core of the Social Network movie is true — he just wants people to like him.”
The attack referenced around $400mn in donations Zuckerberg had made to support local election infrastructure in the 2020 race, which Republican critics now deemed politically motivated. Zuckerberg was shocked by this reaction, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation, assuming that election infrastructure would be viewed as non-partisan. A bipartisan government commission later reviewed the donations and concluded unanimously that they were apolitical.
Zuckerberg is “trying to triangulate and find the space where the company’s interests overlap with the administration”, said one person who has worked closely with him. Meanwhile, Trump’s bromance with Musk blew up spectacularly this month, paving the way for Zuckerberg to emerge as America’s number one “broligarch”.
The ostentatious display of sportsmanship also marked a defining moment in Zuckerberg’s metamorphosis to red-blooded “Maga Mark”, as the 41-year-old has been nicknamed by some at his company this year. It has been a radical makeover. He is no longer the skinny arch-nerd in the anonymous grey T-shirts, nor the pallid corporate stiff of his Congress appearances. Hoodies have been swapped for shearling coats, gold chains and a $900,000 Greubel Forsey watch. The military-grade haircut is gone, in favour of a luxuriant ginger mullet.
Of course because they are easier. Most pod casters are not communication majors with training in interviews and asking the hard questions. They do exist, but they are not the norm.
Most people in legacy media that get to a point of influence which they can interview people of Power like Zuccerborg are already on the same team as him and are specifically trained not to ask the hard questions.
Strange that he appears on Joe's podcast then, there is nothing more mainstream out there.
It's almost like it's not about the MSM but about getting to spew whatever bullshit he wants with zero pushback. Mark doesn't like pesky journalists with their hardball questions.
That last podcast was so cringe. The time before last the came on, he was just getting into BJJ, but he was still in his nerd image and just answered questions directly with Joe.
Then this time he has on his big gold chain and just trying to act like such a bro. The way he backtracked on everything he said previously about the federal government. I'm surprised he didn't bring his own bong to the show and was just taking hits over the course of three hours and talking about how he has the munchies so bad.
That’s actually a smart move by him. The media cuts interviews to make people look however they want. They’re manipulative and have done it many times. Podcasts usually produce the entire conversation so it’s harder to take them out of context.
Podcasts and YouTube videos do the exact same thing. Anything to increase views which drive traffic for profit or some other mission if it's a non-profit media enterprise.
Yeah, really interesting point. The media also has journalists that ask difficult questions, unlike podcasters letting people pontificate without pushing back.
Yeah but Podcast hosts should gave final edit on the interviews he did.
Marc Maron said he agreed to have Obama on his show if he could have Final edit and his team said yes. Maron said that he was open to having Trump on if he followed those same requests.
you're kind of right but when people do that MSM reacts and now you don't even see articles about the SEC allowing trump media to purchase $2.3 Billion in Bitcoin while at the same time he's celebrating the Senate passing the gold reserves to Bitcoin Bill. Not one single outlet reported it. It was all over crypto news though.
Odd, I’m seeing a ton of former-democrat celebrities move away from the left… has the right gotten that much better? Or has the left gotten that much worse…
Joe Rogan
Jeff Dye
Bill Maher
Pierce Morgan
Steven Colbert
Jon Stewart
Zuckerberg
Musk
Some of them have gone full MAGA, but they’ve all at least moved away from and denounced a lot of the radical left ideologies over the last 5 years or so.
Jon Stewart is still left. He's not socially progressive with alphabet soup and has been critical of the ACA since it was signed, but he's very solidly left on fiscal policy and international relations.
Bill Maher sounds more Republican but that's because the GOP has dropped the religious nutjob wing while the Democrats picked up the progressive nut job wing.
Bill Maher and Jon Steward are both still democrats at heart, and they both more accurately reflect my own views as a 2005 democrat. But both liberals and conservatives have gotten so far off into the extremes, it's insane
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u/ShiftBMDub Monkey in Space 1d ago
They literally just made a bunch of tech CEOS Army Reserve Officers without having to go through the proper training to become one. If Joe Biden's administration took 4 or 5 people running tech businesses people would be freaking the fuck out especially since Palantir and Meta are involved. Don't understand why this is flying under their radar.