<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">It\u2019s not all bad.<div><br></div><div>Sometimes, over the fog of nonsense that crowds most of the broadcast channels, there are explainers who know what they are talking about and make useful observations.</div><div><br></div><div>I think I mentioned Sarah Taber some years ago as someone who comes well-reputed. I don\u2019t try to follow her (or anybody else) regularly, but this popped up on my feed, and sounds realistic:</div><div><div style="display: block;"><div style="-webkit-user-select: all; -webkit-user-drag: element; display: inline-block;" class="apple-rich-link" draggable="true" role="link" data-url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=badGHJLDpP8"><a style="border-radius:10px;font-family:-apple-system, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;display:block;-webkit-user-select:none;width:300px;user-select:none;-webkit-user-modify:read-only;user-modify:read-only;overflow:hidden;text-decoration:none;" class="lp-rich-link" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=badGHJLDpP8" dir="ltr" role="button" draggable="false" width="300"><table style="table-layout:fixed;border-collapse:collapse;width:300px;background-color:#A35C40;font-family:-apple-system, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="lp-rich-link-emailBaseTable" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="300"><tbody><tr><td vertical-align="center" align="center"><img style="width:300px;filter:brightness(0.97);height:225px;" width="300" height="225" draggable="false" class="lp-rich-link-mediaImage" alt="hqdefault.jpg" src="cid:C58461FF-02B7-420C-A3D9-C2BC540B0A43"></td></tr><tr><td vertical-align="center"><table bgcolor="#A35C40" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="300" style="table-layout:fixed;font-family:-apple-system, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;background-color:rgba(163, 92, 64, 1);-apple-color-filter:initial;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar"><tbody><tr><td style="padding:8px 0px 8px 0px;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStackItem"><div style="max-width:100%;margin:0px 16px 0px 16px;overflow:hidden;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStack"><div style="word-wrap:break-word;font-weight:500;font-size:12px;overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis;text-align:left;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStack-topCaption-leading"><a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=badGHJLDpP8" style="text-decoration: none" draggable="false"><font color="#FFFFFF" style="color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.847059);">Why Farmers Voted For Trump</font></a></div><div style="word-wrap:break-word;font-weight:400;font-size:11px;overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis;text-align:left;" class="lp-rich-link-captionBar-textStack-bottomCaption-leading"><a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=badGHJLDpP8" style="text-decoration: none" draggable="false"><font color="#FFFFFF" style="color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.54902);">youtube.com</font></a></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></a></div></div><div><br></div><div>For me, one useful little bit of clarity on who\u2019s out there, and how they are making their choices.</div><br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfMessage"><div></div><div>Eric</div><div><br></div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Oct 7, 2025, at 16:28, glen <gepropella@gmail.com> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div><div>I can't get the phrase "tone deaf" out of my head:<br><br>AmEx "There's nothing like platinum"<br>https://youtu.be/KjYyG4FgmPQ?si=XukUoeky00YT_cs5<br><br>Battlefield 6 Trailer<br>https://youtu.be/LqWVp3p-FPk?si=VCbhrJ1xdZBRl3ba<br><br>Andrew Tate Car Collection<br>https://youtu.be/DDSlF3iI2-s?si=pGAzZJfUCjbXiTD7<br><br>Maybe it's just me. But these things all seem wildly outside the zeitgeist. And that's in spite of my disgust, registered here, with people like Sabine Hossenfelder for her blatant shift to the grift or Lex Fridman's self-aggrandizing sycophancy (https://youtu.be/Z1Ua1hVRtdE?si=e5-SJeSPI11svpqV).<br><br>But I guess it's an obvious next step after the hustle culture we've forced ourselves into. Success is measured by your accumulation of status symbols, shame be damned. There are some glimmers, though. E.g.<br><br>ICE List<br>https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2ficelist.is%2f&c=E,1,QANFi6FQr9QcCSo11t5g_ffDhED7dVTWyJDjJB0ZjDcRFXHLSrNfrtF2jC6SpBxMoZnTdB6u9EWa3eHzFyqIpKFOrshXRcXWkYoD5-ZTdxWa&typo=1<br><br>The Reckoning<br>https://www.youtube.com/@PFthereckoning<br><br>DDoSecrets<br>https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fddosecrets.com%2f&c=E,1,pfIZjkK9sn_mYQUuM8ZrBmRVVRRIfxs7KJTHf0YPsAbLNbkHalceJ5qUElLk6XQ-6JA2wUOVMQbrnpqT6mKqr4hMoQVSBTHgnY3DeC0HPg4,&typo=1<br><br>The purpose, though, is not to decrement the status but to hone in on whatever "accountability" might mean now. How can we, each of us, understand what it means?<br><br><br>On 10/7/25 12:27 PM, Santafe wrote:<br><blockquote type="cite">Yeah. Nice.<br>I just got back in the country a few days ago, and got to experience the White-Nationalist ICE recruiting ads that I gather started fairly recently. Like recruiting ads for war criminals, or those who hope for the chance to be. I guess they are being run everywhere, as a quick google search shows local news reports from a bunch of cities in many states.<br>The impressive thing is how belligerently, flamboyantly trashy it all is. It's like, anything anybody ever considered low, degraded, or depraved, they scent-roll in, just to binge on their ressentiment. If I were trying to think of ways to mock somebody for being stupid and ugly, I would never have the imagination to put together the scripts they use.<br>It almost feels superfluous to spend time thinking about how to deal with the people in various offices, when they are ballasted by a sector of the public that thinks this is what they have wanted for so long and can finally have. Unless one could figure out how to rehabilitate that disease to any kind of state of health, it\u2019s very hard to see what, short of a heavy collapse that just clobbers the whole country, will thump them hard enough to push them back into whatever corner they came bursting out of, and let the rest of the public get coordinated enough to re-establish some agency over how the country operates. Not that the \u201crest of the public\u201d knows what to do; the status quo ante was the python squeeze that got us into this whole mess, and we can\u2019t be aspiring to go back to that. But something short of the whole country\u2019s pouring gasoline on itself and setting itself on fire would be nice.<br>I have thought, too, that americans are going to get to experience something that many of my Russian friends have known most or all their lives: how do you go about trying to be a good and decent person, in a country with a uniformly bad government (corrupt, cynical, and murderous with no mitigating benevolences toward anybody) that you don\u2019t see work for yourself to change?<br>Eric<br><blockquote type="cite">On Oct 7, 2025, at 14:48, glen <gepropella@gmail.com> wrote:<br><br>https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fweval.org%2fanalysis%2fsycophancy-probe%2fad51e9a522f01e98%2f2025-09-04T17-50-49-741Z&c=E,1,RyTKGFwr1wjARn9k5vTd-WC-XLWBsqDCtuIl7B4-zdfEGde94UyemTKPbutU21Znk5UHrObUvCB4noUNqNJfjZgpEjXEqVt8KlXtEncB9g,,&typo=1<br><br>If only we could find the political will to amend the Constitution with something like this. Or at least add it to Senate advice and consent.<br><br></blockquote></blockquote><br>-- <br>¡s\u0131\u0279\u018e \u05df\u0131\u0250H \u22a5 \u0250\u05df\u05df\u01dddo\u0279 \u01dd u\u01dd\u05df\u0183<br>\u1f45\u03c4\u03b5 oi \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c7\u03d1\u03c1\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03b4\u03ac\u03ba\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, \u1f10\u03b3\u1f70 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u1f35\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03ce\u03c3\u03c9.<br><br><br>.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..<br>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br>Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,76awjiMzMMEZabCJozwhNb5YbBlWe5RieBWTOHrMZwdeoOwGwxFlUaXnWK0tTTe0vEiyASeNb_4AF_R-EhXG4vQyi2VfDcKu7cr67ku3legP8DWA&typo=1<br>to (un)subscribe https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,bGBC0CeOb8pNOVhvcrCdb666q_Rhz4IChZO_nWhZoRT1qnRJFXncDryvW-0u-by6FvDlo5o1SDj9bdtrEAUdDd0r1LOqr445i6baWZBdJ7IukyvTSqvmkPMroG6e&typo=1<br>FRIAM-COMIC https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,bagGbocZk1XrDZg0pZZiY9Ep-bv--tx3jTFrxXZxF9BjOpiICYZdtdzruJLFI2C7ODlclwatE_jU6avIjOQPgWZLdNCcac75DlLFwQWbJdIUUJ4,&typo=1<br>archives: 5/2017 thru present https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,mKMuuswwUPlnsjU2-tCsWzhx0jC5utRhHLLH4Ow3nRr0p_Neoe4HRqlmJHp9gZcfxUb8pjW6Ec78kXjbcdxHQhxzTOPQ5VA-9YvCgMx0FJmgrLf2nF14qAsK&typo=1<br> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/<br></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>