Category Archives: Culture

These posts will deal with Copyright and other cultural topics

DOGE is a disaster

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As we’re now a month into the Trump administration, we’re seeing the fruition of Project 2025 dreams. Elon Musk is taking both a figurative and literal chainsaw to the federal government.

This half trillionaire man-child has come into the government and acted as if Trump and Musk have a mandate to make dramatic changes to the US Government. That, instead of winning with a small majority, they assume they won by a landslide. They didn’t. Most Americans do not want what Elon is selling to us.

The Fork in the Road email was likely illegal, for a number of reason. As outlined by Legal Eagle in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/PT848djz4jA?si=fjj-uv3pU-vxjBRK

The firings are likely to cause mini recessions across the US as large number of people are suddenly unemployed. All in the name of reducing the size of the federal government. However, the job cuts have been done in such a sloppy way that many agencies are trying to rehire people they’ve fired.

This will make us less safe. We are firing flight controllers, which will negatively impact small and regional airports the most, but will lead to issues at our main hubs too. The goal, of course is privatization. That’s been a clear goal of republicans for decades. Privatizing an organization like the FAA is not a good idea. A consistent overarching regulatory regime is good for our airlines. It’s also unclear how Musk/Trump would privatize the FAA. Would they fracture it by state, would they just make it a single company.

How would states respond? Would some of them decide they need to have some sort of statewide institution to address the gap left by the FAA? Would we see significant deviations between the west coast and the south?

Piecemeal regulation like this causes issues with car manufacturers. As they are basically being driven by the most stringent regulations, mostly California. Would Boeing and Airbus find themselves under a similar sort of policy regime? Would Trump then try to kill the state’s ability to do this? Which they’ve tried to roll back California’s regulatory regime around emissions.

Many of these changes are illegal too. As Legal Eagle explains above. We need to take the legality of these issues seriously. We are a country of rule of law, even if the history of that application has been rather uneven.

We are the most powerful nation in the world and we have always had countries looking to the US to emulate our behavior. DOGE is certainly going to be emulated in other countries with dictators. We will see then, that the US media will broadly report how despotic those leaders are. We need to apply that mirror to ourselves.

DOGE is part of a dictatorship. Trump is in the middle of a bureaucratic coup. We need to fight it however we can. Call your Senators, Representatives, both Federal and State. Donate to organizations dedicated to fighting this. If you can, protest.

You aren’t impotent right now. You can fight back.

Book Review: The Myth of American Idealism

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I just wrapped up the Myth of American Idealism: How US Foreign Policy Endangers the World, by Noam Chomsky and Nathan Robinson. It’s been a while since I read a book by Chomsky. I heard about this one through an interview with Sam Seder of the Majority Report and Nathan Robinson a few days ago (mid Feb 2025). This book is apparently hot off the presses. Despite that they weren’t able to adequately discuss the Israeli invasion of Gaza, only the history leading up to it. It seems they finished that section just days before the October 7th attack.

As always Chomsky offers an interesting counter view to the mainstream press and often the view American historians. I think these views are important, as they can provide clear eyed discussions on what the US is doing at home and abroad. I think as Americans we need that. We need someone to pick us up and put us in the position of the outsider. We need to look at what our country does with the same critical lens our Press analyzes our national enemies.

Much of this book was relatively new to me. Or rather, I was aware of the events happening or that they had happened, but not to the extend described. Chomsky and Robinson constrain their review of US history to, mostly, the past 50 years, so shortly after Vietnam. However, to understand the US post Vietnam, you need to understand the Vietnam war and to understand that you need to go back at least to World War II.

As I said in my short the other day, History didn’t start on October 7th. Decisions made by one President influence and constrain the available options for the next President. Regardless of party, there is more often a likelihood of the next President will continue existing US policies. There are a variety of reasons for this, which is outlined in the book, including that even if the specific action was illegal, it’s already been done, so it’s unlikely to lead to repercussions. If the action is stopped, it may lead to a constraint on Presidential power and that would be unacceptable for the US President.

One thing that I had always wondered, since I was a teenager, is why the US sphere of direct influence, the countries in the western hemisphere are in such horrible states. This book answers it. It is US policy for these countries to be in the states they are. We have overthrown or supported the overthrow of a majority of South American countries. We have supported militaries and far right groups that support US business interests. We do not support New Deal based politics in the global south. Because that may mean providing more for the people of that country and less to the United States.

Chomsky and Robinson highlight cases in Nicaragua, Chile, Guatemala, Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, and more. They describe in specific details what intervention we did. What sort of regime we supported, which includes Pinochet, which made me nauseous to read. Hell, we supported the Khmer Rouge until it wasn’t politically convenient any longer. The Khmer Rouge. Just despicable.

We, Americans, mostly White Americans, need to look at these choices head on. We need to understand what our country is doing in our name. We need to say, “No. I do not want to bomb those countries. No I do not support demanding 50% of mineral rights from Ukraine.”

Many US leaders do not want us to feel shame in our history. They do not want us to feel shame, because that shame will lead to anger and anger will lead to action. I do not feel shame over what the US has done. I feel angry. I never supported these actions. I never wanted the state to do these things. I protested against them. We should be angry. The US is a destabilizing force in the world. We need to reckon with that and make a decision on what we should do about that. We should be angry. Be Angry. Do something.

Note: Some links will be affiliate likes to Bookshop.org

Trump will not give up power

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The Trump administration has only been in power for four days so far and it is clear he will not give up power after his term is over. Why do I think this?

First, he floated the idea of running for a third term during his campaign. He floated it more recently before his inauguration. Now, a member of the House of Representatives, Rep Ogles, has actually filed an amendment to the Constitution to amend the 22nd amendment to change the term limits from two terms to three terms. The US has had a norm for Presidents serving more than two terms since Washington. FDR broke this norm and was elected to four terms. After his death the Constitution was amended to ensure no other President held the office more than two terms. This amendment should not be changed. It should not be changed for Trump.

Regardless, the door is open for Trump to disregard the 22nd Amendment. With the Republicans onboard for Trump to run again and to stay in office another term, because of his “bold” “Leadership”, Trump will use this as pretext to stay in office.

I cannot stress enough, this would be simply inexcusable for a Democrat to do. They would be castigate about this unendingly in the press. However, this is treated as a serious proposition rather than an unadulterated power grab.

Trump has already start the process to disregard other Constitutional Amendments. He is attacking the Birthright Citizenship, which is the 14th Amendment. We implemented the 14th amendment because of Slavery. After the Civil War, we implemented this so all the previously enslaved people were considered full citizens, as they should have been. Trump is attacking this amendment in an effort to go after immigrants, but this will continue with other US citizens. He will have the power to decide who is and who is not a citizen. Trump will claim his political enemies are not citizens.

Trump has effectively ignored portions of the 14th Amendment already, which prevents traitors from holding office. He has already pardoned the 1,500 traitors who stormed the Capitol. These 1,500 traitors were loyal to Trump while they were in prison. These people are still loyal to Trump. These people will continue supporting Trump. They will support Trump in staying in office. We should expect another insurrection in four years, if Trump isn’t allowed to stay in office.

This is NOT a reason for allowing Trump to stay in office by abandoning the 22nd Amendment. This is not a reason to fold up shop and just let Trump stay in power. These are all warning signs that we should listen to, so we can plan to prevent Trump from staying in power. We need to assume there will not be a peaceful transition of power at the end of this Presidency. We should assume there will be an armed mob attacking our voting apparatus. We should assume there will be voting intimidation. We should assume, there will be more stop the steal attacks.

Trump has an openly declared Nazi in his administration. Elon Musk, literally gave a Sieg Heil salute, at least twice, during his speech at the inauguration. He is a Nazi. Trump must be assumed to like Musk’s political stances. Trump is a racist old man with a racist Nazi sympathizer Co-President. He will try to stay in power. Musk may try to assume power if Trump dies in office. Musk cannot be President, because he’s an immigrant, but if Trump has shredded the Constitution to the point that we’ve destroyed the 14th and 22nd Amendment.

Unity and Enshittification

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Last week, I wrote about Enshittification, which is a great lead into for what just happened with Unity. Unity is a game development engine. It’s a very popular platform and a number of universities use it as part of their game development degrees. Popular YouTuber Mark Brown, of GameMakersToolKit uses Unity in his series exploring novice game development.

Which is rather unfortunate, because Unity has gone and decided to retroactively add a way to claw back value from game developers. They announced it on 9/12, it is a Run Time Fee for every new install of a game. It might not sound like a lot, $0.20 (at the lowest end) for an install, however, if you are a low priced game, because it’s a small game, that could be 1/5 of your revenue. Add in Steam’s 30% fee, you’re already at 50% of your revenue chewed up in fees. The other challenging part of this fee, is that it would apply to every computer an end user installs the game on.

I have a Steam Deck, a laptop, and a Gaming PC. If I installed a $0.99 game on all three systems, the company that developed by game would have lost 10 cents on my purchase. That’s untenable for game developers. It’s not a survivable product strategy. Game devs and publishers would need to charge at least $2.00 for every game to ensure they made money. Which might kill the viability for that game.

In a related cash grab eX-Twitter is contemplating charging a fee for every user on the platform. No matter how much you use the site, it’s now a subscription price. The benefit of that product was always the free association and random interactions on the platform. Another way it’s been enshittified has been the significant growth of Nazi users.

Companies that dramatically change the terms of use, will drive customers away. They will push companies from the platform or potential companies away. The Developers of Terraria, didn’t even use the engine, have elected to fund two Open Source development engines as a result.

I think it’s important for technology companies to take a long look at what the users are saying in response to Twitter, Unity, Google (and it’s Google Graveyard), and Telecom companies. End Users, the life blood of any platform, avoid these companies and their products as much as they. They do not want to be exploited. It’s toxic.

The executive class do like these schemes as they push up the “value” of their products to the stock market. However, this is ultimately at the expense of their long term revenue and value to customers. Working with your customers, both immediate and end customers, will drive value for your business in the long run. Trust lost is lost value. Don’t enshittify your products.

How I deal with – just Google It

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So, I watched the video above and it’s about something I’ve struggled with for a while. Over the past 8 or so years, around the Trayvon Martin shooting, I’ve been doing work on understanding racism in the US. My own history with racism and why we are where we are as a society. It’s been a lot of soul searching and growing as a person. My education has gone through fits and starts over the years and some of the reason behind that has been getting the “Just google it response.” Now, I typically didn’t ask the question myself. I’d see an interesting tweet or retweet on Twitter and want to know more. Often, there’d be a question and the response was do your own research.

During the Black Lives Matter protest, I found this troubling. I wanted to read more anti-racism books, but I didn’t know a good source or which books were the most recommended or well regarded. For example, Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to Be an Anti-Racist was getting rave reviews in the media. However, when I looked at the point of view of some of the Black people (mostly Black women) I follow, they were not happy with the book.

So, how do, we move past this? Well, my approach was to get broader perspectives. Follow more people. Follow them for a longer period off time. Those folks will likely provide recommendations to sources that you can read. Furthermore, it provides you the opportunity to decide how much this matters to you. If the topic, really matters to you, then you will spend the time to follow them, read their thoughts on that topic and other topics and learn through listening to them over time. Just getting one or two questions answered right then and there really won’t stick, so if you want to learn about a topic like Black History or LGBTQ+ topics, then you need to invest time and energy through continual engagement.

By engagement, I don’t meant that you should always talk to the people you’re following. Sometimes, this may lead to more negative interactions because you’re well meaning but ignorant. You may need to build a basis of understanding before you can really have a serious conversation. You may also need to deal with your own (mis)understanding of history and how that applies to you personally. Many white people have family histories that tie directly to Black pain and suffering. You may know that you had slave holders in your past or people that fought for the Confederacy. Those are things you need to reconcile with before you can meaningfully engage with Black History and Racism as a topic. If you don’t, then you will simply get blocked and rejected because you don’t know enough to know how ignorant you are.

So, in my opinion, the best approach is to continual to learn through watching and following (but not in a creepy way). You will learn a lot. You will get book recommendations. When you ask specific questions, acknowledge the work you’re asking them to do and request books they recommend so you are learning from a trusted source. Then make sure you thank whoever you asked to do this labor. If they wrote a book that meaningfully impacted you, support the author by helping educate other people about the book.