Meditations On Moloch | Scott Alexander, 2014
filed under “sees the problem, not the solution”
We will break our back lifting Moloch to Heaven, but unless something changes it will be his victory and not ours.
A simple theory of the stock market | Steve Randy Waldman, 2024
On why “a policy apparatus evolves to stabilize whatever conventional, smart, politically enfranchised people do” and ways the state seems to exist to deliver on expectations of the ingroup.
Why I Use The F Word (And You Should Too) | Dr. William Horne, 2022
We have a fascism problem. Solving it requires that we correctly identify this problem and the dangers it creates.
The Doctrine of Fascism | Benito Mussolinim, 1932
“oh boo hoo, what’s fascism, it’s just an empty signifier” sit down, shut up, here it is spelled out for you since your education dropped the ball. It’s not chained to history, it’s not an economic movement, it’s a distinct authoritarian, hard-right endeavour. “Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State. …individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within the State.”
The Economics of Slavery in the Ante Bellum South: Another Comment | John E. Moes, 1960
southern American slavery was so cruel it was actively harmful to even the slaveowners, even compared to other systems of slavery, because they were so viciously racist
They Know How Journalism Works! They’re Just Against It! | Alex Pareene, 2022
This new right fundamentally doesn’t want “newsgathering” to happen. They want a chaotic information stream of unverifiable bullshit and context collapse and propaganda. Their backers, the people behind the whole project, are philosophically and materially opposed to the idea that true things should be uncovered and verified and disseminated publicly about, well, them, and their projects.
… “preaching to the people that want the choir sent to camps”
Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop | Anonymous, 2020
This article written from the point of view of an ex-cop explains the systematic issues that encourage abusive behavior among police officers and how the structural corruption makes questions about the motives of individual officers less relevant than they would like you to believe.
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant | David Graeber, 2013
America’s Criminal Justice System Is Rotten to the Core | Clark Neily, 2020
An excellent piece by Clark Neily of the CATO institute summarizing how astonishingly corrupt America’s justice system is. Geared towards people who haven’t yet grasped the scope of the problem, and have a vague, unfounded trust in law-enforcement institutions. See also Prosecutorial Fallibility and Accountability, 2017
This is the Awful Voice Inside My Head | Charlie Warzel, 2021
How a far-right think tank made everything "woke" | Amanda Marcotte, 2023
The Economy Killed Millennials, Not Vice Versa | Derek Thompson, 2018
On the myth of the millenial’s effect on the economy, and the reality that “Millennials are less well off than members of earlier generations when they were young, with lower earnings, fewer assets, and less wealth.” and that “the economy has not only blocked their path to attaining [the american dream] but punished them for trying to”
How Corporate Tyranny Works | Chris Hedges, 2020
An in-depth article about Steven Donziger, an environmental attorney who has been harassed, demonized, and even criminally prosecuted at the demands of Chevron after he won a major against them in 2011. An incredible look at how wealthy corporations can make themselves unaccountable with legal thuggery.
Why is the idea of ‘gender’ provoking backlash the world over? | Judith Butler, 2021
A look at nationalism, anti-intellectualism, and censorship in social spaces, focusing on the pushback against “gender studies”. Makes a case positioning “anti-gender movements” as explicitly socially conservative authoritarianism.
“what are police for, and who should be policed?” | Jane Coaston, 2020
An excellent twitter thread about policing mentality and how people identify themselves as members of different groups. It’s short, read it.
Our Broken Justice System | Clark Neily, 2019
An overview of the fundamental issues with the American criminal justice system, especially focusing on the problems caused by replacing jury trials with plea bargaining.
Conspiracy: Theory and Practice | Edward Snowden, 2021
On public conspiracies and the difference between conspiracy practices and conspiracy theories.
Surveillance Kills Freedom By Killing Experimentation | Bruce Schneier, 2018
People change their behavior when they live their lives under surveillance. They are less likely to speak freely and act individually. They self-censor. They become conformist. This is obviously true for government surveillance, but is true for corporate surveillance as well. We simply aren’t as willing to be our individual selves when others are watching.
What if Performance Advertising is Just an Analytics Scam? | Rand Fishkin, 2021
A brief explanation on how modern advertising and analytics is mostly a scam based on logical fallacy, despite advertising’s enormous social toll. (Advertising powers Google and Facebook, of course, the only companies with enough tendrils in internet infrastructure to provide attribution.)
How The Supreme Court Pretends To Be Reasonable | Nathan J. Robinson, 2018
People … will reject any suggestion that the five conservatives were just construing the law in a way that would hurt unions. Why aren’t you dealing with his Actual Arguments? Why are you assuming, unprovably, that he is operating in bad faith?
So I want to carefully show why a lot of Supreme Court jurisprudence is a sham, and how the justices smuggle their values and preferences into their reasoning.
A Nation of Christians Is Not Necessarily a Christian Nation | David French, 2022
Here’s a challenging reality: America has become more just (and thus closer to the ideals one expects of a Christian nation) as white Protestant power has waned.
The Libertarian Case for Abortion | Briahna Joy Gray, 2022
The Age of Social Media Is Ending | Ian Bogost, 2022
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/07/why-conservatives-hate-the-government-but-love-the-cops/
The Punishment Bureaucracy: How to Think About “Criminal Justice Reform” | Alec Karakatsanis, 2019
You Can’t Trust Amazon When It Feels Threatened | Corey Quinn, 2021
Ur-Fascism | Umberto Eco, 1995
…in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.
