33. Latin America is politically the most ridiculous continent
-
-
43. Politics is essentially a digital computer (as in support for people or policies is fundamentally 0/1), public political debate is meaningless, nuance kills agency, and the only way to influence it is to prepare new 0/1 options in private settings
Show this thread -
-
45. If, after thoughtful consideration, you still think a nation can be meaningfully analogized to a household, you're an authoritarian
Show this thread -
46. All interesting politics now takes place in groups <30 in size. Above that scale is all zombie egregores.
Show this thread -
-
48. States/provinces are the worst political unit, worse than both cities and nations
Show this thread -
49. All ideologies are the products of people resentful about either being unable to get into, or out of, dying cushy institutions, not values or ideals
Show this thread -
50. Politics in the EU is more primitive than in the US or Asia
Show this thread -
51. Climate change is not solvable through politics and will fall to industry
Show this thread -
52. There will be both left and right Neo-Puritanism on the national stage by 2035 and it will be tedious and awful
Show this thread -
53. All humor is reactionary and if you want to retain the right to laugh, the best thing you can do is pick the best era to be reactionary about, which is the 1980s
Show this thread -
54. Individualism is a cancer in the social organism that deserves to win
Show this thread -
55. Solidarity is a stupid tactic in a social media era because it makes you a dumber actor than algorithms acting on high-visibility social graph
Show this thread -
56. All good politics today starts with breaking ranks and being a scab
Show this thread -
-
58. Everybody should be able to vote in every election anywhere in the world, with their vote weighted in inverse proportion to their distance from the jurisdiction of the political office in question
Show this thread -
59. The externalities of the politics of localism at any scale are worse than the externalities of economic activity at a comparable scale
Show this thread -
60. Modern collectivism is just 20th political consumerism, not a manifestation of some ineffable essential social nature of Homo sapiens. It has more in common with shopping than primate ethology.
Show this thread -
-
62. The most deeply subversive political skill is learning to see what’s real about other people, 1 at a time, not what’s fake about them, 1000 at a time. Learning to see the fakeness at scale wins you elections, learning to see unscalable realness wins you history
Show this thread -
63. You can win elections and lose history, and vice versa, or win both, or lose both. Winning history matters much more than winning elections.
Show this thread -
64. Politics is always a choice between competing bets on the past masquerading as bets on the future, and you should bet on the weakest such bet
Show this thread -
65. Star Trek is the best political universe but most humans are either too smart or too stupid to live in it. Mostly the latter.
Show this thread -
66. The global political future is headed for Fireflyverse: globalized, aestheticized, romanticized, sanitized, sentimentalized post-civil-war American south with Chinese characteristics. Where stupid people will be sustainably miserable.
Show this thread -
67. The best politics aims for government by the mediocre, of the mediocre, for the mediocre
Show this thread -
Okay good place to hit pause. Act 3 within the next week. Suggestions for topics I haven’t yet touched welcome.
Show this thread -
68. Big-tent-leftist-causes approach to climate are a bad idea both pragmatically and ideologically. It's a surgical cause. [Gonna slow-walk my own thread as a sort of threadapalooza median-pace-setting mechanism, and and add an opinion for every dozen or so I see float by]
Show this thread -
69. Horseshoe theory is only applicable to hedgehogs and it is the primary hedgehog political derangement disease
Show this thread -
70. Politics is unduly influenced by those with the time/energy to call their representatives and/or show up for town halls and things. It is 80% You're Not Yelping and only 20% Doing Noble Civic Duty.* * Hot take based on video clips on twitter
Show this thread -
71. Dissensus is better than consensus, other things being equal
Show this thread - Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.