Jean-Jacques Rousseau – a complicated and irritating man, but one of the enlightenment philosophers who helped justify the state’s authority. Nowadays, he’s mostly known for the social contract, which was his work that established a basis for a possibly legitimate government.
A lot of corporations are going to get bailed out; that’s because The Invisible Hand Of The Market(tm) must be handcuffed so it doesn’t slap anyone.
The story is told from the viewpoint of some vaguely unknown intelligent life-forms that live a few hundred light-years from where we do now.
I’m so disgusted by the way Americans will jump up and start waving flags as soon as “war” ideology is deployed. The “war on the coronavirus” just means that Trump’s bone spurs are going to act up again and he’ll have to spend his time being driven around in a golf cart until he feels better.
I’m becoming fascinated by the current moment in history: we are heading into a genuinely unknown situation and it feels like we’re paused on the edge of something, about to slip and go careening violently down into an abyss – or, perhaps, not.
We’re going to need a social signal for people who have developed immunity the hard way.
There is an article over at Salon regarding how the republicans could steal the 2020 election. Their argument (I agree with it) is that it’d be pretty easy to do and, since the republicans are now the party of “in for a dime, in for a dollar” it’s a fool’s game to expect them to play fair.
I had a depressing realization the other day: Bernie Sanders is not a threat to the system.
[Warning: Rant]
You cannot blame a virus for being what it is. Viruses (and bacteria) are too small and simple to have enough free will to take any responsibility for their actions.
My posting about the coronavirus and the cruise ship as a “terror movie” was not a suggestion for how to reenact an actual terror movie. [stderr]