[FRIAM] The broken American Dream

Mon Apr 21 12:11:55 EDT 2025

Douthat equates the absence of reproduction as culling. I’m not sure natalists even recognize their own rhetoric. In large code projects, it is common to drop code that has outlived its usefulness. Like humans dropped the upper body strength of chimpanzees. It all takes energy to maintain. 

At some point, probably through some bottleneck of technology, cultural processes, even species like ours, will fall away and be replaced with more efficient ones. That’s fine. Perhaps MAGA is just a sign this is around the corner. 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of glen <gepropella at gmail.com>
Date: Monday, April 21, 2025 at 8:52 AM
To: friam at redfish.com <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The broken American Dream 

The *new* "race" will happen (is already happening). But it won't be master. And it won't be a race. And the ordinary won't be culled or disappeared.

I didn't (would never) vote for anyone as obviously chaotic/high-conflict as Trump. It's patently absurd to *vote* for something so anti-voting, so anti-bureaucracy. And although I contain multitudes, I can't bring myself to be that self-contradictory.

However, I've been aligned with the "We don't need no water; Let the m0th3rfvck3r burn; Burn m0th3rfvck3r; Burn" attitude for a long time ... since I was a kid, though I can't pinpoint any inflection points. That sentiment isn't an indicator for voting patterns. I posit that the overwhelming majority of people are very good at compartmentalizing. It's the foundation of all the accusations of hypocrisy.

As for particular attempts like medica[re|id], sometimes the only way out is through. To actively kill it would be immoral. So you try to make it work. But *if* you fail, you try again. It would be reasonable to claim it has already failed. So we might be at risk of confusing loss-cutting with sabotage. Those who want us to cut our losses and apply resources to something promising can be temporarily allied with the saboteurs. It's akin to pundits arguing whether or not we're already in a Constitutional crisis.

On 4/20/25 11:25 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Maybe one idea in this essay makes any sense.
> 
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/opinion/extinction-technology-culture.html <https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/opinion/extinction-technology-culture.html> <https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/opinion/extinction-technology-culture.html <https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/opinion/extinction-technology-culture.html>>
> 
> 
> “Or to simply embrace the culling of the common person, the disappearance of the ordinary, the emptying of provinces and hinterlands — on the theory that some new master race of human-A.I. hybrids stand to inherit anyway.”
> 
> *From: *Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net>
> *Date: *Sunday, April 20, 2025 at 10:50 PM
> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] The broken American Dream
> 
> Marcus, your reply makes me wonder if you have voted for the orange guy in the White House. If yes, would you do it again? Here from Europe it looks as if the orange menace leaves a trail of destruction on his way between the Golf Club in West Palm Beach and Washington and back. To use a meteorological metaphor for Nick: the guy who is wearing orange makeup acts like a tornado out of control that destroys everything in his path - the economy, the retirement savings, and the last remains of the American dream.
> 
> 
> 
> -J.
> 
> 
> 
> -------- Original message --------
> 
> From: Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com>
> 
> Date: 4/20/25 6:58 PM (GMT+01:00)
> 
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
> 
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The broken American Dream
> 
> It seems to me to be a little more scale free than that. I just paid my quarterly taxes. The thing that bothers me is not that it a significant cost, but that it is not a responsible spending plan. I am pouring money into a Medicare program that is becoming insolvent and creating increasing deficit spending. It seems to me that if my taxes are 5% higher, that’s fine if it fixes the problem. But many won’t step up to that 5%, so my reaction to those people is: Let’s let this thing fail. Private insurance it is. I am now much more inclined to aggressively write off business expenses than see my productivity go a losing enterprise. I am sick of cheap people.
> 
> *From: *Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net>
> *Date: *Sunday, April 20, 2025 at 7:47 AM
> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject: *[FRIAM] The broken American Dream
> 
> Stephen Marche's article about the state of America leaves me with the impression that the only thing that all Americans still have in common is the feeling that the country is broken. Stephen writes:
> 
> "The country clubs are rife with men and women, in incredible luxury, complaining bitterly about the state of the country. The richest and most powerful, the Americans who have won, who have everything, are still not happy, and why? Their answer is that the American dream must be broken."
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/20/american-dream-trump-canada <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/20/american-dream-trump-canada>
> 
-- 
¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ
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