Hyperreality

Yes, it is insane to go against unions in a country with a high degree of unionisation, where collective bargaining agreements are signed exactly because they prevent industrial unrest by ensuring the relationship between management and workers isn't adverserial.

I mean, I say it's insane, but let's be honest. Musk is yet another arrogant American CEO who didn't do his research on how things work in non-domestic markets. It's as much stupidity and arrogance, as it is insanity. Imagine thinking you somehow know better than companies like McDonalds (who did sign agreements with unions).

Musk seems like the kind of guy who thinks about the Roman Empire entirley too much. So it's surprising that he's never heard of the expression 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.'

In his 1995 essay "Ur-Fascism", cultural theorist Umberto Eco lists fourteen general properties of fascist ideology. ...

1. "Contempt for the weak", which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism

See also:

As Mr. Trump’s limo inched away from 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Hope Hicks, his not-yet-famous communications director, pointed at a group of fans running up Sixth Avenue in pursuit. “Look at these people,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s literally a little bit sad.” ... “Oh, he talked all the time about the people themselves being disgusting,” Ms. Troye told me in an interview on Friday. “It was clear immediately that he wanted nothing to do with them.”

And ignore what doesn't serve their agenda.

Cognitive dissonance + cherry picking.

Javier Milei's closest advisors are salivating because they're clones of the president's former dog Conan who died in 2017. According to Milei the ghost of Conan, named after Conan the Barbarian, advised Milei to become president during a conversation facilitated by a spirit medium.

Good luck Argentina. May the rest of us live in less interesting times.

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces have ties to the Saudis and Emeratis. Fought alongside them in Yemen. Received funding from the Saudis. Alongside Arab militias, they've also murdered plenty of non-Arabs.

Wrong race, wrong religion, doesn't serve strategic interests. So predictably no one's out protesting against this genocide.

Something to remember when you hear some(!!!) pro-Palestinians harp on about Western hypocrisy when it comes to Israel/Palestine and Russia/Ukraine.

Not that the hyprocrisy is the worst bit. That would be the genocide.

It's creepy to the indigenous people. A religious nutjob who is willing to knowingly infect you with unknown pathogens like a Typhoid Mary and potentially commit genocide because he wants to be God's messenger.

True sociopath.

Russia is preparing to provide Hezbollah or Iran with air defense capability. Not Wagner, but Russia.

Putin has publicly admitted that Wagner is fully funded by the Kremlin. Wagner is an extension of the Russian government. They no longer even pretend it isn't.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/10/26/what-the-2020-electorate-looks-like-by-party-race-and-ethnicity-age-education-and-religion/

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voting-patterns-in-the-2022-elections/

ublock origin.

Firefox allows you to install extensions on your phone.

You're welcome.

Which is presumably why some people hoard as much stuff as they possibly can.

There be an alternative that remove the need for physical media, arrr.