Thanks to everyone who chimed in on yesterday’s post about how to save U.S. biomedical research. (Well, almost everyone. I think the usual “let people [and research] in red states die” suspects will be taking big swigs of their own medicine, whether they know it or not.)
For lots of reasons, mobilizing public opinion on this is probably the only way to make an impact here. Much appreciation to those who shared their stories and suggested ways to move forward.
***
Moving forward is on my mind a lot lately. I think maybe a good first step, for me, anyway, is to try to resist taking smug pleasure in the leopards-eating-faces dynamic.
This is difficult for me because taking smug pleasure when those who Fuck Around encounter the Find Out phase is, well, pleasurable. And it seems like a harmless byproduct of a situation I didn’t personally create and in fact put effort into preventing.
But maybe it’s not so harmless? One of the worst people alive, Elon Musk, said, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”
I believe the opposite is true, that the fundamental strength of humanity is empathy. And for me, anyway, taking satisfaction in the leopards vs. faces dynamic corrodes my capacity for empathy. So I’m going to try not to do that. I will fail! But I will try.
***
This newish resolution was sorely tested this morning when I opened today’s edition of the Miami Herald. Top headline: âCruel decisionâ: Thousands of Venezuelans left in legal limbo after Supreme Court ruling.
Related frontpage stories: “Supreme Court decision on TPS stuns South Florida, leaves Venezuelan families in fear.” Also:Â âDeeply disappointedâ: Miami lawmakers in D.C. react to court decision on Venezuelan TPS.
In a rare display of bipartisanship, Democratic and Republican members of South Floridaâs congressional delegation pushed back against a Supreme Court decision Monday that would allow the Trump administration to revoke temporary protections against deportations for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants. In her most open criticism of efforts to deport legal migrants, Republican U.S. Rep. MarĂa Elvira Salazar of Miami, who is advocating for an immigration reform bill, said she was âdeeply disappointedâ with the decision…
The Supreme Court decision complicates the political scenario for the Republican congressional delegation from Miami, which has tried to quietly lobby administration officials to soften some of its immigration policies behind the scenes but have resisted calling them out publicly.
Salazar (R-FL) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) cosponsored a bill to grant temporary protections to the 600K Venezuelans currently here, but it’s going nowhere. Florida’s Republican reps, who have actual agency since their party controls the House, could refuse to back the GOP budget bill until Trump stops deporting immigrants who haven’t committed crimes with no due process, but that seems unlikely.
So, as with the Trump/GOP-led war on science, it comes down to us, the ordinary citizens. It always does.
***
Programming note: I’m playing hooky tomorrow to go to an afternoon baseball game with my sister and then float around in a pool afterward, sipping handcrafted margaritas. That is her birthday wish.
It occurred to me recently that so much of our lives have revolved around baseball and swimming. That’s not a bad thing!
Open thread.
ETA: TPM’s Josh Marshall wrote a follow-up post about saving U.S. biomedical research. Here’s a gift link.
On The Road – robtrim – A terrace in France
Baud
I think it’s more about allocating empathy rather than losing empathy.
ETA: We’ve been showing empathy to people who hate us since at least 2009. It has gotten us to minority status.
Baud
Of course, like the prodigal son, anyone who wants our empathy is free to see the light and come back to the home of decent people and fight our fight with us.
Professor Bigfoot
As I consider them to have declared themselves to be mortal enemies to me and mine, I’m afraid I have no empathy for them; and I live for the schadenfreude inherent in watching their faces get eaten.
Fuck ’em, every li’l las’ one of ’em.
Soprano2
I don’t think it’s necessary to have empathy for people who are getting what they campaiged on and voted for. FFOTUS’s intentions toward immigrants were clear before he was elected. Sometimes the only way people can learn is the hard way. I’ll save my empathy for the people who are being negatively affected by what he’s doing who didn’t ask for it.
Speaking of FAFO, I read an article about Patel and Boingino saying they don’t seem to be finding evidence of the FBI conspiracies they spent 4 years pushing, and MAGA world is getting restless for the “proof” they’ve been told is there. đ€Łđ€Łđ€Łđ€Łđ€Ł Couldn’t happen to two more deserving people.
bjacques
And considering Trump did very well among Venezuelan-American voters who thought he would only go after the “bad’uns”, well…
I’m gonna scratch that Schadenfreude at least a little but try to move on.
Baud
@Soprano2:
There’s some trolling of Trump on Reddit with respect to release of the Epstein files.
Professor Bigfoot
Open thread, eh? I missed out on last night’s thread about Uncle Joe (god love him!) and his diagnosis.
I have an appointment with my urologist later this morning. Based on PSA numbers, I had a biopsy done and found absolutely bupkis; then a year or two later another high PSA number (and not crazy, like 3.2 or so) and having had a biopsy once, went with an MRI and again, found bupkis.
Last PSA was last week, it had dropped to (I think) 2.8 or something like that, and his message to me was, “good news, your PSA is normal!” (I inserted “normal for ME”)
After the biopsy he told me that one major sign that prostate cancer wasn’t going to kill me was that my biopsy came back completely clear. “I’m not saying you won’t GET it, but it almost certainly won’t KILL you.”
Oh, as long as I’m on medical shit– yesterday’s cardio class was about cholesterol, and how one’s “total cholesterol” should be under 200.
TC in my last cholesterol test in 2023 was 148!! Talk about shit hitting you out of a clear blue sky!
This is a side effect of getting older, too, isn’t it? Sitting around talking about our ailments? :^D
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
Congrats on the numbers!
Baud
With respect to the Elon Musk quote, he’s wrong as usual. Western Civilization advanced by expanding empathy to its own people (had more difficulty with empathy for outsiders).
The problem with empathy is when bad actors and powerful people believe they are entitled to it from the people they oppress.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: But see, to have had excellent cholesterol numbers my entire freakin’ life and then to get atherosclerosis ANYWAY?!!
“The fundamental perversity of the Universe” is on full display.
TONYG
@Professor Bigfoot: As for the Schadenfreud question, I separate policy from emotion. Â As a matter of policy I support access to nutrition, medical care, emergency services, etc. for everybody, EVEN FOR THOSE STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLES WHOSE SUPPORT FOR TRUMP IS DEPRIVING ALL OF US OF THOSE BENEFITS. Â So, sure, those benefits should be available to all Americans. Â But I will never stop despising those people for their willful stupidity and their toxic hatred. Â As a practical measure, help them, but, on an emotional level, fuck them. Â Personal anecdote: Back in January I found myself (long story) in eastern Tennessee. Â Real, dirt-poor rural poverty over there. Â One of the only thriving businesses was a “Trump Superstore”, selling ugly crap glorifying the Great Leader. Â So, sure, I’d like to see those people be able to climb out of their poverty. Â But, in the meantime, FUCK THOSE STUPID ASSHOLES.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Didn’t Margaret Mead say the first sign of civilization was a healed broken bone?
Musk and his crew are, at best, uncivilized barbarians.
More likely, simply inhuman.Â
Professor Bigfoot
@TONYG: Exactly.
Like the time I came across an old white man on the ground who couldn’t get up by himself– one look and I KNEW he was a trumper, but I helped his old ass up anyway.
I suppose in the abstract I can enjoy their suffering; but as a human being I cannot simply stand by and watch it happen.
Goddammit.
caphilldcne
I didnât read the biomed thread yesterday as I was speaking with Hill staff about our disastrous HIV cuts to prevention, treatment and research. For anyone inclined to write their member of Congress and tell them to vote against the FY26 budget, hereâs a good fact sheet you can share: https://www.aamc.org/media/83356/download
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
An updated sign of civilization is the measles vaccine.
Western Civilization is currently on a downward trajectory precisely because so many of its people have become reactionary right wingers.
Reminds me a little about how Islamic civilization went from leading the world in science and culture to becoming increasingly focused on the religious dogma.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
In fairness, I think a lot of Trumpers are probably gracious one on one too. As I like to say, they outsource their hate.
Betty Cracker
I’m trying to take less pleasure in schadenfreude because FOR ME, it’s corrosive. That’s a personal thing. Absolutely no judgment on what anyone else does with that emotion, even if I did have standing from which to hold such judgment, which I emphatically do not.Â
@caphilldcne: Excellent fact sheet â thank you! The state breakdown is especially helpful for calls to reps.
NotMax
Riffing off Sunday’s Medium Cool about LPs –
Hey kids! It’s the sound of tomorrow today. (Must be true; says so right on the jacket.)
:)
stinger
Betty Cracker, thanks for standing up for residents of “red” states. Some of them voted for Biden and Harris. Some of them think Medicaid for All would be a really good thing, and care about medical research and pollution and climate change and education and veterans and trans rights. And those who didn’t and don’t, are still human beings.
It’s like being willing to stand on the Israel side of the Gaza line and happily wave bye-bye to millions of people. Basking in privilege.
(Also, why biomedical research, in the “versus disease cure” debate?)
MagdaInBlack
Chicago-land weather whine: Friday it was 90 and we had a dust storm. Today it is 56 and raining and the condo maintenance switched the heat to A/C….as of Friday.
That’s all, have a good day out there. I’ll be vicariously floating in that pool with you, Betty.
Baud
Also, unenforceable. Trump would go back to his ways once the bill passed.
p.a.
I think rust is the only thing holding me together.
Other topic: tRump has looked very low energy in recent speeches/blurbs on Russia’s war against Ukraine. Â I can see his (tiny, squeaky) gears turning: goddamnit, this is close to being work. Â When can I get back to golf and accepting gifts!
Professor Bigfoot
History definitely rhymes, doesnât it? Whoah.
Professor Bigfoot
@Betty Cracker: One gives grace for the sake of oneâs own soul. đđŸ
TONYG
@TONYG: As for empathy … I’m all in favor of empathy for people who do not hate me and are not trying to destroy me. Â That is NOT the case for those assholes.
Professor Bigfoot
@stinger: I too am a resident of one of those red states, and I still canât stand the motherfuckers.
Iâm already going to suffer thanks to the choices of the racist imbeciles, so Iâm going to enjoy watching them suffer, too.
Thereâs not a damned thing we can do, because not enough Americans* voted against the felonious rapist.
I get to look around at the stupid white supremacist twatwaffles every time I leave my fucking house.
ETAâ fuck, I donât even have to leave my house, I have TWO fucking Trumpers that live right across the street from me, the nazi-ass gombeens.
Jeffro
@Baud: “allocate your empathy wisely” is not a bad rule of thumb
Lacuna-Synecdoche
Miami Herald via Betty Cracker @ Top:
Maybe Salazar and other Republicans could try expressing disappointment, not just with the Supreme Court, but also with the administration making the policy and defending it in court.
Barbara
If you think longevity just leads to too many people living off your nickel, taking steps to eliminate lifesaving cancer treatment is one way to reduce the alleged burden. There is a hardy streak of social Darwinism in many wealthy right-wing people.
New Deal democrat
@Baud:
Progress can be measured two ways: (1) good things happen, and/or (2) bad things that used to happen, donât happen any more.
The problem with #2 is that progress is that *nothing* happens, so that people come to believe that the protection is a wasted cost, so they abandon it. And then the bad thing starts happening again.
For thousands of years, material progress has always attracted immigrants, whether wanted, unwanted, or outright invaders looking for booty. And in turn, large scale immigration has alway sparked a backlash. Heck, 200 years ago in the Foundersâ generation the complaint was about all the German immigrants who would never fit in!
Indeed the common grievance across virtually all the right wing movements in the West now is the big wave of immigration from one place or another.
Western civilization has done pretty well for itself in the past 500 years. But too many people have forgotten that things like due process and the Rule of Law were put in place so that bad things donât happen, and so now they want to tear the protections down.
Lacuna-Synecdoche
@Soprano2:
Linky?
Spanky
Some good news from the courts, via Wired:
More, of course, at the link.
Gvg
Experience has led me to hypothesize that many people canât learn until they see it and experience harm. So I am grimly waiting it out. I say hypothesize because I am not sure enough of them are going to learn even then, and there are still exit ramps where we might avoid seeing the full inescapable bad results of things like tariffs, cuts in medical research, cuts to government services, SS, Medicare and Medicaid, plus all the deportations without legal process.
i heard a bit of right wing radio confidently saying âwe can see that Trumps economic policies are workingâ just 2 days ago and wondered then realized quite a few of them probably still believe that. The real disasters have not arrived. The shelves are not empty, the prices arenât a lot higher yet. Trump has weakened just enough that mostly it is still just the future. And that only if you know enough history and economics.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:Â â
No, the problem is when people only feel empathy for those they regard as being in their tribe.
We were warned about this a couple of millennia back: “if you love only those who love you, what reward can you expect? Surely the tax-gatherers do as much as that.” But it seems to be all too deeply embedded in human nature: “all of my folks hate all of your folks, it’s American as apple pie.”
In a way, that’s the underlying fight that Democrats have been waging (intermittently) since the 1960s: to widen the scope of people who aren’t ‘othered.’ Blacks, gays, women who want to be more than just an adjunct to a man, Latinos, Native Americans, and lately, trans, nonbinary, and other queer persons. Republicans, OTOH, are a coalition of those who want to put some or all of those groups back in the ‘other’ box.
At this point, from a sheer realpolitik view, let alone any ethical POV, it’s too late for the Democratic Party to go back: we need too many voters from these groups and their allies. I won’t say everybody in the party is comfortable with all these groups, and there’s definitely a contingent that still wants white men running things, but at least the intramural fight has moved on from ‘who is a person’ to ‘which people get to be in the room where it happens.’ But they’re fighting a rearguard action at best: Hakeem Jeffries and AOC and Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg are already in the room, and Nancy Pelosi pretty much owned the room for years.
This is who we are: the party of inclusion. And that’s who they are: the party of exclusion. A lot of people are fundamentally on the side of exclusion, and that’s the challenge facing us: to win in that environment, without going back.
catclub
@Professor Bigfoot: alternatively I have relatively high cholesterol but my arteries are clear.
(I like the coronary calcium scan which I get a great==low risk, score on.)
Spanky
@Gvg: No, it’s going to take a while. I’m thinking it’ll be a year or so for things to unwind enough that at least some of them will start to get a clue that they’ve been had.
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: Many have observed that the popular “wellness” ideology RFK Jr. exemplifies is a kind of consumerist version of eugenicism: people are inherently healthy or unhealthy because of some combination of their genes and their life choices, and conventional medicine is just sort of a crutch to try to paper over those distinctions–it’s more “natural” to just let nature take its course. The Nazis called disabled people “useless eaters”, a pure drain on society–RFK Jr.’s rhetoric on autistic people is similar.
catclub
yes, asking and answering the question:”Who is my neighbor?”
Salty Sam
Thank you for this Betty. Â Iâve been struggling along the same lines, with quality-of-life suffering, and your reminder is a gentle course correction.
I have also put myself in a news blackout again. Â The media masturbation over Joeâs cancer just put me over the edge.
Spanky
@Spanky: Speaking of unwinding, anyone else notice that avian flu seems to have completely dropped off the radar?
billcoop4
My College Dungeons & Dragons group (all 61-64 and still playing via Zoom 2x/week (nerds!)) refer to this phenomenon as the “Organ Recital”.
BC
catclub
@Spanky:Â â
 
These people are not quick learners. IN 2017 Trump appointed a Cabinet that was almost exclusively billionaires, and they got no clue from that. 8 years later they still have no clue that he was not elected to serve the little guy.
Tony Jay
@Betty Cracker:
Thatâs wise, but you donât want to run the risk of letting your schadenfreuding muscles atrophy. Once they go itâs a chore building them back up. How about you just pick out one or two special cases of exceptional arseholeism and take occasional sips of bitter pleasure in their specific misfortunes?
Moderation in all things, just like Buddha said. ,Â
catclub
Could be good news. Could be Trump shutting down all public communication from the CDC. He did that in 2020 as much as he could. It was one of the first things he did this year.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Tribalism is human nature; how the tribes get defined is culturally determined. Much ink has been spilled about the “paradox of tolerance”, which is simply that liberalism tries to define itself as the tribe that is against tribalism but that’s inherently contradictory. One way to keep it from being too contradictory is to always keep the door open. But that does require suppressing some basic human feelings.
catclub
No, he told the hotdog vendor, ‘Make me one with everything.”
rusty
I think I’m just read to give up on some people. This morning I saw a comment from a college friend that the whole problem was Harris didn’t give anyone a reason to vote for her. (From someone plenty bright to know better).  Somehow it’s all the Democrats fault, never the Republicans. I also got fed on my news feed headlines from the NYT and WP editorial pages slamming Democrats because Biden has cancer. There is something so deeply broken in our press and in our culture that we need to overcome. My home state NH just passed universal school vouchers. We are already dead last in what we give per public school student, and there is no money to fund vouchers without cutting that substantially. It will wreck public education in the state.  The whole country seems on a path of self destruction. I’ll keep voting in every election, calling my elected officials, showing up for prayer vigils and protests, and giving what little I can for candidates, but at some point the rest of the country has to decide they actually want a decent place.
catclub
Does it make me a bad person to call the English royalty a waste of air?
Spanky
@catclub:
My money’s on the latter.
catclub
@rusty:Â â
Somebody is already planning on charging two school districts ( or more!) for enrolling their child, and asking for a kickback from both. Heck , who even needs a kid, just a SSN. The money follows enrollment.
Baud
@rusty:
This right here. The first step IMHO is to stop accepting others’ invitations to blame ourselves.
catclub
@rusty:Â â
 
or so you thought.
Spanky
@catclub: Well, it could make you Irish or Indian, actually, and probably a few other cultures that the English pillaged.
Betty Cracker
@Gvg: “Grimly waiting it out” is a good way to put it. As someone at ground zero in the education-culture wars here in FL, you have a lot of experience with that, I imagine.
I do wonder how much propaganda can paper over real harms. Example: conversations I’ve had with Repub relatives provide anecdata that backs up what polling tells us about the draconian cuts to medical research — the majority of right-wingers don’t support it and currently perceive it as a harm.
Can a combination of right-wing propaganda and tribalism paper that over? I wish I knew, but I don’t think party politics is the solution here (it has its place, but it’s limited). Direct action by citizens may be able to move the needle.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyoneđđđ
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t think there’s a paradox in not being welcoming to people who want to oppress other people.
Matt McIrvin
@Spanky: Here’s a news story about it:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/20/health/bird-flu-cases-us
Flu is seasonal and it’s likely that cases are simply down for that reason. But some researchers suspect that some combination of government cuts and fear of mass deportations is hampering detection. A lot is unknown.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: Many thousands of Americans went to their deaths from COVID fervently denying that they had it, because their ideology would not allow that to be the case. That suggests to me that there’s a core who will simply never change their minds even when the evidence is physically killing them.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Looking at the attempts to remove fluoride from drinking water and maybe even ban the drug used to supplement well water. It occurs to me that most people are too young to remember what dental health was like before fluoride. They never routinely had 4 or 5 cavities every time they went to the dentist as a kid. They think their teeth are solid because they brush routinely.
Dorothy A. Winsor
May 20, 2025
4 months down
44 to go
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Removing fluoride from drinking water WHILE loosening restrictions on pollution in drinking water, that’s what gets me.
To me this is the conspiracy mindset in a nutshell: focus on supposed conspiracies to intentionally poison people while ignoring things that are known to actually be poisoning people.
schrodingers_cat
@catclub: No. Especially when you realize the stolen riches that they are sitting on and that they have been the symbol of the misery caused by the British Empire around the world. A gift that keeps giving. See for example Palestine-Israel and India and Pakistan today.
schrodingers_cat
I did not read Josh Marshall yesterday. I am well aware of the gutting of science, not just biomedical research without reading TPM. I am not as enamored by him as many BJers are. Immigrant hater John Judis has had a home at TPM for as long as I can remember.
As for biomedical research, many of the people actually doing the research are immigrants/longterm visa holders. Yeah your hated H1-B holders are among the non-native born doing this research.
International students and scholars shoulder a lot of the burden of America’s research prowess. But yes continuing spitting in our collective faces and then lecture us about empathy.
Professor Bigfoot
@catclub: <chortle> ainât genetics a straight trip?! LOL
The vagaries of the human genome go so much farther than the few traits used to define ârace,â and when we really get down in the reeds⊠mine is good cholesterol but still genetically small arteries so they get clogged anyway; and (envy!) I bet yours are great enormous pipes fit for a proper steamship, eh? LOL
Good on ya, the deck is always stacked against us and the Universe is always out to get us.
Soprano2
@Lacuna-Synecdoche: I read it on my phone, but I found it here. It also looks like they’re all mad because these two said Epstein killed himself in prison. LOL
lowtechcyclist
@stinger:Â â
Reminds me of the XKCD 2020 election map, where the mouseover text reminds us that there were more Biden voters in Texas than in New York, etc.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: I agree there is a core that is immovable, probably on any issue. But I think there’s an opportunity to create a backlash to some of the unpopular stuff, e.g., cuts to medical research, and maybe get them to back off. It’s happened before.
Professor Bigfoot
@billcoop4: thank you, I laughed so loud Mrs. B wondered wtf from the next room! âOrgan Recitalâ đ
zhena gogolia
@rusty: Yeah, it’s very depressing.
Professor Bigfoot
@Tony Jay: I find the occasional foray into the âLeopards eating Facesâ subreddit now and again to be quite roborative.
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: Iâd prefer to think of it as defining our âtribeâ as humans. Earthers, Terrans, the jumped up monkeys of Sol III.
(with the advent of modern global communications, I imagine I see the possibility of a future human tribe, one world, one people⊠but then the cynic in me slaps that shit downâŠ)
schrodingers_cat
@rusty: White people don’t like it that others they deem inferior are catching up and at times surpassing them. They want a system where others can’t compete. Just like the good old days.
And yes there are pick-mes like Ramaswamy in every demographic who think that they will be the exception.
lowtechcyclist
@catclub:Â â
Sounds like a question some lawyer would ask. ;-)
Soprano2
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It seems that we have a lot of cycles like this. I’ve heard people say that fluoride is toxic. Well, so is chlorine in the right quantity, but when it’s used in small quantities to make water safe to drink it’s fine.
rusty
@Baud: I’m not blaming myself, us or Democrats in general. If someone can’t figure out from the last couple of elections where the parties and candidates stand, then that is completely on them. Our normative American, press, business and more cultures advantage men, whites, the straight and the upper class in various ways small and large. As a country we were, ever so slowly moving away from that, but the current situation is a hard snap back. It will be a long slog to get back to where we were even half a year ago.
Professor Bigfoot
At some point Americans* have to decide that theyâre willing to share the bounty of this country with people who are not straight, white, or Christian. Their pathological need to have someone to control and dominate are why we canât have nice things.
rusty
@catclub: I expect that every wealthy family with a lake cottage or a ski condo in NH, that sends their kids to private schools, will take advantage of the state for a voucher. The numbers will even worse than anticipated.
Baud
@rusty:
I didn’t think you were blaming ourselves. But whether we should is too often a subject of debate among libs. I don’t like it. I find it weak and off-putting.
Another Scott
@Baud: Dunno.
I think most Americans are good people. But they have too many things going on and mostly don’t want to be bothered, want to be left alone, and want to get on with the things that they want to do. They don’t think about politics and government unless they have to. Most people they interact with are mostly kinda like them even if different by appearance – similar ages, similar incomes, similar types of backgrounds.
They get uncomfortable when they are exposed to things and ideas that make them think differently or act differently.
By default, they assume that others that claim to be in their tribe really are in their tribe, and that any criticism or claims of hypocrisy are sour grapes or lies or…
Some of it is human nature, some of it is laziness, some of it is thousands or millions of years of group-enforced conformity.
So you get things like people being disgusted and angry and fearful of the unhoused guy sleeping on the steps of their office building, but also donating hundreds of dollars every year to charities X, Y, Z.
People are complicated. They can be kind to outsiders; they can be horrible to family members. But mostly they compartmentalize a lot to try to not have to think clearly about stuff.
A big problem is that we’re all marinating in a bunch of stuff that is horrible for self-government because too many media and “tech” firms have found that it’s the best (or only) way they can make the mountains of money that the MotUs demand.
In Happy Gumdrop Fairy-Tale Land, people don’t spend hours on-line and aren’t bombarded by things that rile them up all day. We, of course, don’t live there…
What’s the answer?
1) Making life less stressful. Having fewer people stressed out about income and costs and having more of them see a brighter future.
2) Punishing white collar crime.
3) A fair tax system that raises enough money for all the work that needs to be done.
4) Living Biden’s mantra of “Respect”. For other people in general, for skills, for careful thought, for the importance of work that doesn’t enrich MotUs.
5) Etc.
So, yeah, empathy is an important thing, even monsters usually have it, and how it is divided up matters a lot, but …
[/soap-box]
Best wishes,
Scott.
Hoodie
I’d say empathy may be misplaced where the people in question have made pretty clear that they don’t want it. Empathy lies in respecting the other person’s point of view, not in trying to do something they don’t want or, more likely, think they don’t need, assuming they’re not clinically insane and incapable of making choices. Politics tends to go off the rails when it gets away from just plain old competition among interests.  Dems might be better off just taking care of the needs of their coalition and not trying to help people who make pretty clear they don’t want their help. That doesn’t necessarily mean you cut off aid to red states, but maybe it means you structure aid to help urban voters in red states, or that you focus aid to rural populations (e.g., the Black Belt) that are not being served by their state governments. Quit trying to make people happy who apparently never will be, but be willing to work with them when it’s prudent to do so and aligns with the interests of your constituents.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: Maybe dechlorinating water is next! I don’t need my water free of E. coli, I have an immune system!
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Makes me wonder why they have touched circumcision yet.
suzanne
This is an interesting idea. Most people conceive of empathy as taking on the same feelings of another, and that’s probably what you’re talking about. (It’s also what makes you a nice person.)
There’s another kind of empathy, though….. cognitive empathy. AKA empathic accuracy. This is a skill, and in the past few years, I’ve been specifically trying to get better at it. It’s key to the act of “bringing people along”, explaining things, persuading, building a case.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: Chlorine gas is poisonous to inhale for humans but sodium chloride which is common salt is a staple in cooking. There seems to be an astounding lack of knowledge of basic science and math behind many of these conspiracy theories.
Hoodie
@Soprano2: This is one aspect of the fluoride nonsense that cracks me up. Those two elements have very similar properties.
Spanky
@Matt McIrvin:
(Insert AP photo of RFKjr reclining in a pool of e coli-infested water in Rock Creek on Mother’s Day)
We’re already there.
Hoodie
@schrodingers_cat: Brings back memories of an old Al Franken SNL skit on those stupid chemical industry adds, i.e., “H2O is a chemical, too.”  Franken’s line was something like “don’t worry, have a big glass of H2SO4!”
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Oh, that’s a whole thing across the political spectrum (and I get the impression it’s a question requiring nuance, which modern politics doesn’t do).
Hoodie
@Baud: Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room left on the internet for that. One of the unfortunate side effects of the decreasing cost of electronic data storage.
schrodingers_cat
@Hoodie: And we are lectured to have empathy towards these doofuses (doofusi?). T’s election shows how stupidity has been elevated to a virtue, where watching a YT video or listening to a podcast makes one as smart as someone who has spent a life time studying these things.
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Sigh.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Wouldn’t it be doofi?
RevRick
@Baud:Â @Professor Bigfoot: Anne LaMott, in her book Hallelujah Anyway , talks about how difficult it is to extend mercy. She begins by referencing the passage in the prophet Micah: What does the Lord require of us but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God?
Mercy, she notes, does not mean forgetting, nor does it mean not holding oneâs self or others to accountability. Mercy does not mean reconciliation, which is completely separate. Mercy does not mean returning to a toxic relationship. Rather mercy means letting go of the inner hurt. It is fundamentally restoring empathy for oneself. It is not letting the damage done by parents, by others, or by oneâs own rotten behavior define who we are.
Jeffro
I think I’ve seen that noted here and there as, “when you don’t know anything, EVERYTHING is a conspiracy theory!”
so true
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Definitely, sounds funnier. I will let BJ Paninis decide.
Panini- Not the sandwich, the Sanskrit grammarian.
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: The current President and more than half of his cabinet are case studies of this phenomena.
Coming back to the topic of the post I am not a fan the Leopards eating faces formulation because the leopards are devouring those did not vote for them also and that gives me no pleasure.
I just try to ignore these people the best I can. There is only so much stupid I can take in a day.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: RFK Jr. sure seems to believe that!
rusty
@RevRick: Thank you for this. I was having a discussion recently about reconciliation, accountability and forgiveness, you have put it better than I did at the time. The idea of them restoring your own empathy is not something I had considered, but it is actually central.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That because Trump when full surrender monkey on the tarrifs, so they are telling themselves that brilliant strategic thinking on Trump’s part, not that it was Trump finally stopped shooting himself in the dick.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: A lot of science probably seems like magic to people who don’t understand it, thus the conspiracy theories.
Matt McIrvin
@Gvg: If you hit people with a hammer and then stop doing it for a while, they’ll feel better.
Trump’s economic policy has this pattern where he does or threatens to do something that causes a lot of damage, then when there’s pushback, he backs off a little (calling it a temporary reprieve), people feel better and the stock market goes up a bit. They can choose to believe whether he really means the part about how the hammer will come down again after the 90-day Trump Unit.
But that capricious quality actually works to make some people like him more when he eases off. It’s like living with an abusive spouse, or like playing the slots.
brendancalling
I donât think having empathy is a weakness, but Iâm a lot like my mom wasâIOW, there are limits and conditions.
Specifically, if I did something that caused me harm after my mom had warned me about what might happen if I did that thing, my mom had ZERO empathy.
Same thing with me as a teacher. I have a kid who has a terrible home life. I have empathy for her, and check in with her often. If sheâs having a bad day, Iâll give her a lot of wiggle room for not getting work done on time, extensions, etc. But if she cuts class or screws around when Iâm teachingâthings she KNOWS are not OK, and which she has control overâI have no empathy. A kid who hasnât worked all year and now wants to âget my grade upâ is another example. Sorry kid, that train left the station three weeks ago. Itâs too lateânext time do better. Sorry, not sorry.
I feel the same way about Trump voters. 2016âok, Iâll give some of yâall a mulligan. 2024? Oh hell no. Thereâs no excuse. None. The most I can offer is âIâm sorry you got what you wanted.â
Geminid
This morning’s Politico Playbook tells me Trump should be haranguing House Republicans about the budget bill right now, at a caucus meeting scheduled for 9am. Mike Johnson hopes the Rules Committee can vote out a rule by 1am tonight that will set up a floor vote tomorrow.
Also, Rep. Lauren Underwood announced she would not enter the primary to replace Dick Durbin, and stay in the Chicagoland House seat she flipped in 2018.
And Colorado State Rep. Shannon Bird is entering the primary race to challenge Republican 8th CD Rep. Gabe Evans. Bird joins State Rep. Manny Rutinol and former U.SÂ Rep. Yadiel Caraveo in the Democratic field. Caraveo won the new district in 2022 and then lost to Evans last year in a fairly close race.
Soprano2
FFOTUS is a classic abuser. I think it’s why some people like him, they recognize their abuser in him and think it’s another chance to “get it right”. I also think it’s why some of them honestly believe FFOTUS cares about “people like me”, when it’s obvious to most of the rest of us that he doesn’t care about anyone except himself.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Singular: Paninus.
Hoodie
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: True, but the price hikes haven’t hit yet.  30% is still a lot. The magnitude of the effect will be somewhat dependent on how good Walmart, Apple, the Chinese, etc., are at evading that, and the possibility that Trump will fold even more.  That 20% fentanyl kicker for the Chinese is certainly likely to go next; Trump will simply declare the problem solved.
Jeffro
Yup. And the stock market doesn’t quite make it back up to where it was (much less grow)…and folks keep pulling back their spending…and businesses retrench…the slow, downward trump ratcheting effect.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Barbara:Â â
It’s not confined to just the right. I hear it all the time from white, self professed progressives using other words as a dog whistle to describe “crime”, particularly when their comments pertain to the homeless.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:Â â
Caraveo did an interview with local teevee journalist Kyle Clark (and he’s really good) a few weeks back and her mealy-mouthed contortionate explanation of some of her immigration votes were not only painful but embarrassing.
Rutinol is damned energetic and has lined up a slew of local endorsements across a broad cross section of Dems.
Bird identifies too much with our glibertarian, tech bro outgoing governor.
Betty Cracker
@suzanne: Interesting distinction â thanks!
The example I had in mind this morning is a right-wing Venezuelan American I know who is currently freaking out because Trumpâs deportation spree might send an out of status relative back to almost certain death in their country of origin.
Iâd rather my first thought be more along the lines of âhow can we stop this?â instead of âHaha, FAFO, you dumb sow!â
Iâve seen bitterness turn people into rage zombies who derail every discussion and alienate every potential ally, and I donât want to be that miserable person. So thereâs selfishness involved too, an element along with hope for practical applications.
prostratedragon
More mysterious than “groceries:” water-based cooking.
catclub
and dogs have it better than many people.â
eta fixed any to many
Melancholy Jaques
Democratic supporters of Trump’s crypto coin bill are either fucking stupid or corrupt. There is no reason to support anything Trump does ever, but giving the thumbs up on the scam of the century is just too much.
Hoodie
@Jeffro: My one fear is that Trump is aiming for a status quo where we have a permanent 10% tariff across the board. This will not be high enough to bring any significant manufacturing back to the US and thus turns it effectively into a highly regressive 10% sales tax, directly for imported goods and by implication because US mfrs will price based on the tariffs. It won’t make much of a dent in Chinese sales because we’re only around 10-12 % of their export market and their sales won’t be that negatively affected. It will take a bite out of GDP, but not enough to kill the economy.
Betty Cracker
@Melancholy Jaques: Warner, Gillibrand, Alsobrooks and Gallego. Anyone else? Â I donât get it either.
WTFGhost
I think it’s a wise decision to make.
There’s a balancing point, of course. Watching people receive consequences for bad actions is supposed to feel good, on some level. I also got a heck of a laugh from two people on social media complaining about vaccines and social distancing, who were also complaining of signs of lost taste and smell since Covid hit – “even food has gotten lousy since Covid came along!” and such – but I also recognized that it’s *horrible* to lose those senses.
That’s where the balance tips – when you stop imagining the basic humanity of the people you are laughing at, when you aren’t really thinking of what your words mean, to real people.
Barbara
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I honestly can’t say I have heard this particular trope from anyone I agree with politically. Whatever. The hard thing to capture is that your choices in life do matter — it matters whether you smoke or you don’t. It matters whether you do well in school or you don’t, and so on.
But your choices don’t necessarily matter more than the things that are out of your control — your schools are underfunded and you don’t have enough to eat to keep your concentration on school work. Or you can’t afford healthy food or it’s too far to a grocery store where you could find more of it at a lower price.
The problem with so much of the “healthy mom” influencers is that they are pretending that they can control things that they can’t through choices that have only a tangential if any effect on the things they are most afraid of. And the confounding reality is that so many positives have their own unexpected downside. E.g., we have reduced infections through antibiotics and sanitation only to find that our more sterile environment probably contributes to a rise in allergies and possibly some autoimmune disorders. Yet, most people don’t want to go backwards on these sorts of things.
I don’t have the energy to debate this anymore, but pretending that you can control what you can’t is stupid.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
16 Dems.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-advances-major-crypto-regulation-bill-bipartisan-vote-rcna207809
ETA
brendancalling
@Professor Bigfoot: Yup, thatâs how it goes. A pill with breakfast, a pill before bed, Metamucil 2-3 times a day (âit helps you go to the toilet. If you donât use it, youâll get cancer and dieâ) for fiber/cholesterol/blood sugar). Which reminds me: my triglycerides are back to normal since I quit drinking after⊠geez, about 46 years. July 2 will be six months. Iâm sure something else will come along to kill me thoughâŠ
Jackie
@Betty Cracker: Iâm going off topic a moment because I saw somewhere that registered Republicans now outrank Democrats in Miami-Dade County? Has Florida truly jumped the shark into a solid deep red state?
Belafon
@Soprano2: Science requires effort to understand.
tobie
@Betty Cracker: In the abstract a lot of us think when we hear of Trump voters being hurt by his policies, “FAFO,” but when you’re actually confronted with suffering, it’s a different story altogether. Seeing fear in someone’s eyes or anguish on their face makes the news very personal.
suzanne
@catclub: Dogs have evolved to reflect our feelings back to us. It’s incredibly bonding.
If you think about persuasion, it’s actually a multi-step process. One of those steps, one of the techniques, is doing that same thing, reflecting back, matching the vibe. I have watched videos of Bill Clinton meeting people, that man could do it absolutely effortlessly.
Raven
@Jackie: You can’t go off topic in an open thread.
Barbara
@tobie: Yes, certainly, and I am always willing to find common ground if someone’s interests align with mine. However, it is never far from my mind that many people who will be hurt by Trump voted for him in spite of or even because of his promise to harm people — they were perfectly fine with inflicting harm so long as the harm was confined to others. I don’t care how fearful they are now, that willingness to hurt others will always count against them.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: I feel empathy for the relative who is in danger. I can see you’re in a hard spot, because it would be hard for me to feel empathy for someone who voted for FFOTUS and then got upset when one of their relatives who is here in a somewhat perilous status is going to be deported. It was so clear that he wanted to deport pretty much anyone who wasn’t white and isn’t from a country he likes, I don’t know how anyone could have missed that. They told themselves a lot of fantasies.
Jeffro
@Hoodie: exactly
and all the while, trumpov can keep threatening sky-high tariffs on anything he doesn’t like, and/or any business or industry that he wants to collect protection money from, and/or any business or industry that dares to support his opponents, etc etc.
(to say nothing of using tariff threats to manipulate markets and make even more illicit $$$)
schrodingers_cat
Can you elucidate the difference between a rage zombie and beloved frontpager/commenter writing a righteous rant.
The way I read it is its only acceptable for some people to express their frustration not all. I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.
frosty
Yes, yes it is. I’m visiting my brother and my oldest friend (1st grade!) in June and I’m hoping we only spend one day on the subject.â
Jackie
@Matt McIrvin:
I recall one of FFOTUSâs nephews (?) has a disabled son, who upon asking FFOTUS for financial assistance for medical bills was told âwhy donât you just let him die?â (paraphrasing)
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: Of all the things that Trump promised, deporting undocumented aliens is one thing that he most definitely has more power over than just about anything else he promised, like lowering prices. Like I said, I will not spurn any ally willing to work with me on common goals, but come on, what did he have to do to make this person aware of the consequences — promise to deport her family member by name?
tobie
@Barbara: 2024 was definitely a revealing election. Trump made no bones about what he wanted to do with immigration, social programs, consumer protections, and foreign policy, and his voters either didn’t care or thought they wouldn’t be affected by his policies or relished in the pain he was going to bring to everyone they hated. I keep my distance from Trump voters but I don’t relish in their suffering when confronted with it.
My neighbor is a smug, self-satisfied contractor who is so in the tank for Trump and Musk that he bought a cybertruck after the election to celebrate the victory. I don’t have much to do with him any longer because his political beliefs are abhorrent to me. I just learned that his 38-year-old son committed suicide and he’s in anguish about this. I may not want to be friends with him but it’s hard to hold a grudge when seeing how distraught he is.
Jackie
@catclub:
Iâll go with the second answer.
Layer8Problem
@Raven:Â And yet they do all the time.
//
Miss Bianca
@Hoodie: to me, empathy is part of that “tolerance is a social contract” philosophy that makes hay out of the so-called “Tolerance Paradox”.
No, I don’t have to tolerate your intolerance; and while I may have some empathy for you if you’re a dumbshit reaping the consequences of your dumbshittery, I reserve the right to point and laugh even as your dumbshittery drags *me* down into the mire along with you.
WTFGhost
@Professor Bigfoot: Yes. I’m glad to be old enough that I’m finally allowed to complain.
@schrodingers_cat: Well, some days, I find myself getting too involved in threads, and, due to the need for herbal remedies to keep me functional, I find myself getting ridiculous. On days like that, I recognize I’m not the pleasant companion to the community that my high-tened state suggests I am, so I try to tone it down.
On the other hand, one of the things that sometimes delights people about me is how I sometimes draw absolutely ridiculous verbal pictures. A political canvasser drew out of me “…okay, it’s just, I wouldn’t vote for a Republican, unless the job was licking dog snot off the sidewalk,” in a deadpan voice. You really get to see people’s poker faces at work when your brain pulls one of those out from its depths.
It’s the same thing for raging during a rant; just because you might rage for a day or two, but then realize you’re becoming a rage zombie, doesn’t mean you’re engaging in relationship-damaging bad behavior, especially if you know how to fight fairly, and keep arguments sufficiently civil.
That is one thing good – this is a community, and, like a family, small amounts of bad behavior can be ignored (flamed, perhaps, but not in subsequent threads, generally), with the assumption that someone’s having a bad day/week/etc..
But who you want to be still matters; and creating a defense in depth to keep one’s self from being, or becoming, asshole-ish, is laudable. IMHO, of course.
(From USENet, IMHO is “in my humble opinion.”)
Jackie
@Geminid: And I saw this this morning:
This made me happy; I was sad when she chose to not rerun for mayor. Whatâs your take on this?
Barbara
@tobie: As a general rule, I don’t celebrate anyone’s pain (or death). I will say that I am glad when a person I particularly loathe no longer has power over me.  I think there aren’t many things that are capable of causing more anguish than the suicide of a loved one, especially a child. It probably feels like being struck by lightning, and yet, there is likely a whole life story that built towards this final event. So sad.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Lewis Carroll wrote an essay, Some Popular Fallacies About Vivisection. A key point he raises is the demoralizing effect on the operators:
[a small excerpt, there’s much more and worse.]
I am no saint and I admit to the occasional feeling of schadenfreude. I am not proud of it.
Baud
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Fine. You’ve convinced me not to vivisect Trump supporters.
Another Scott
@TONYG: OTOH, you made me look at Tennessee’s November voting results by county.
Totals:
47 – 1,966,865
Harris-Walz – 1,056,265
Picking an eastern border county at random:
Greene:
47 – 25,586
Harris-Walz – 5,145
Yeah, it’s not close, but there are still a lot of Democrats even in the reddest areas. As we know.
And, of course, the future would be different if the state boundaries were different (from 2016):
Best wishes,
Scott.
Lily
@schrodingers_cat: boundaries make a difference
Jackie
@Raven:
True lol! Just using my good manners out of reflexive habit! :-D
schrodingers_cat
@Lily: ??
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This guy
Maybe you can replace the actors with AI Trump?
WTFGhost
@suzanne: Technically, if you feel the same as another person, what you feel is “sympathy,” like “sympathetic vibrations” match frequency. Empathy is understanding what another person feels, without necessarily feeling it. (Also: IMHO, it’s “empathic” not “empathetic.” Like “inflammable,” empathetic might be correct, but it’s the wrong word – there’s nothing pathetic about being empathic.)
Caring *is* a skill, and it’s one you can develop, and it can feel awfully good, to boot.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Baud: I live to serve.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: I donât think I have become a rage zombie even though I am plenty pissed off and make no bones about it.
Pie is good, though I prefer cake.
(after the meet-up we made a quick trip to Mozartâs European bakery and one slice of chocolate torte and ermagherdâŠđđ€€)
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: I’m finding the schadenfreude buffet personally corrosive, and I don’t think I said or implied that it’s unacceptable for others to “express their frustration.” (See #17.) I don’t know where you’re getting that.Â
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Melancholy Jaques:
Like BCrack said in #116, I don’t get it and any (D) in the House or Senate that supports crypto needs to be hounded, ridiculed and primaried into oblivion.
Of course Gallego had his recent get-together with such noted liberals like Andreesen and MattY so his support of this falls in line with his aims.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: I too like cake better.
Old School
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I saw the non-woke season at the Kennedy Center includes Moulin Rouge, Chicago, and Mrs. Doubtfire.
suzanne
@WTFGhost: The point is, tho, that cognitive empathy isn’t necessarily caring. It’s understanding. (Which can be a step to caring, don’t get me wrong.)
It’s more akin to theory of mind.
Jackie
@Old School: THAT made me LOL when I read about that! đ€Ł
ShadeTail
One huge problem with the “let red-state people die” bullshit is, plenty of people there are on our side. They just can’t or won’t leave for some reason. And do you think that they would be spared? Do you think that the consequences of trumpy crap will surgically target just the Trump supporters?
It’s easy to over-simplify the situation and ignore the real consequences of letting stuff like this happen. Smart people (and decent people, for that matter) don’t do that. We’re fighting for our country, not our political party.
Bupalos
The internet is destroying empathy. It’s a place where everyone becomes a 2 dimensional caricature, and spending our lives here makes unrealistic caricatures of our fellow humans seem real. It’s hard to have empathy for a cartoon. Restricting empathy starts to look like a virtue in this flattened world – or redefining empathy as a scarce coin that is to be parsimoniously spent on the deserving.
I think there’s a reason polarization took off and our politics went fully off the rails right about the time the smartphones landed. My hope is that we’ll figure out how to digest this brain-changing technology and get back to the business of humanization, rather than it’s opposite. I appreciate this post in that vein.
Omnes Omnibus
@ShadeTail:Â â
Also, how are we going the punish the 40-49% of Trump voters in blue states?
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: I think the rhetoric about “illegals” involved some deception that you genuinely needed to be paying attention to see through. Many immigrants who came in legally actually do resent the undocumented (or some subset of them) as somehow being line-jumpers, and arguing that point with them may not be productive… but what they didn’t understand is that when a MAGA says “illegals” they don’t really mean that– they basically mean everyone who’s brown or speaks a language they don’t like. There have been many incidents of the administration or individual ICE agents just deciding to make someone an “illegal” on the spot. *They* are the ones who decide!
I was warning people about this in advance, but it was something that was easy not to hear.
catclub
@WTFGhost:Â â
Omar in The Wire: “Do you feel me bro?”
TONYG
@Another Scott: Yes, that makes sense. Â Political/cultural affiliations never cleanly break along state lines (or even county lines). Â (My “blue” state of New Jersey has always had a lot of right-wing zealots, long before Trump. Â I can remember a lot of George Wallace bumper stickers in New Jersey when I was a kid in 1968.). Â I don’t know how unique the America focus on “red” and “blue” states is (I think that it has a lot to do with the anti-majoritarian aspects of our “system” — i.e. the Electoral College and the Senate). Â In any event, my “philosophy” is that I should try to help people who need help — even if we despise each other’s ideologies. Â But I can still feel angry at them after I help them. Â It ain’t that simple.
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin: Especially when “crossing the border” has been made to mean unlawful when the law clearly states otherwise.
Baud
@ShadeTail:
We’re not letting anyone die. The voters gave people who are not us the power to make that decision. It’s out of our hands.
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Good luck hounding, ridiculing and primarying Angela Alsobrooks into oblivion. Senator Alsobrooks won’t be up for reelection until 2030, but she could win a primary next year if she had to, easily.
Geminid
@TONYG: I’m curious: have you decided who you want for Governor yet? New Jersey’s primary is two weeks from today.
Bupalos
@ShadeTail:Â In my state of Ohio which is now treated in spaces like this as one of these deep red sacrifice zones, you line up 20 people and 11 supported Trump and 9 supported harris. You’re 1 person in 20 walking across the line from it being even.
For Clinton or Obama 2 presidents ago you could just about flip that. That’s the reality behind the unreality of “red states” and “blue states.” And I’lll tell you what happened, that 1 in 20 that walked across to Trump. Their kid died of opioids and they lost their minds.
Now “don’t hurt the 9 just because we’d like to see the 11 hurt” is an argument that should have some purchase here. But I’d hope we could also still hear our loss of humanity, and suggest maybe 1 or 2 of the other 11 has some redeeming quality or human potential? Or maybe we could even go full Socrates/Jesus/MLK here and suggest that harming enemies isn’t actually good for us, our souls, our natures, our politics– what have you. That we’re indirectly harming ourselves. That they became our enemies because they were harmed.
TONYG
@TONYG: And … more broadly … one of the few things that I learned during forty years of working in I.T. is that “people are complicated”. Â Co-workers were, by definition, people who I did not choose to be with who, nevertheless, I ended up spending many hours a week with. Â I quickly learned that many of them had political and other opinions that I fond repulsive — but who were nevertheless superficially intelligent and superficially pleasant in the context of work. Â Things are not simple!
WTFGhost
@suzanne: Yes, and you’re right, it is possible to avoid caring – as the next thread points out, imagination is needed for caring. For me, you’re right, it’s weird to imagine being able to catalog emotions and tick boxes (“suddenly happy people – they’ll probably go and find other people to talk to, before getting back to work.”) about behaviors, without a real connection.
I know it’s possible; but it’s still weird to imagine. “You mean, without even a … you know, just a quick dip in the emotional pool?”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
Sure, no doubt about that.
But it doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be sharply and loudly pounded for supporting *anything* pertaining to crypto.
It begs the question, why the support? Follow the money? Her background from PG County doesn’t suggest much bro-ness from a policy perspective so again, why support this?
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: Just spitballing here. What if we had a big Pharmaceutical giant push out a bunch of bogus “pseudo-addiction” research and free sample magic pain pills to the doctors there?
Or we could give their kids terrible educational experiences. Cut their music programs, have only kids that can pay play sports… it could all be determined by their local tax base too so if they’ve lost employment in the last 20 years or so, they won’t be able to support the educational infrastructure. Then what you do is make sure there’s sufficient inequality that they can’t really think about relocating to another district.
You could even mix these solutions, where the kids with terrible educational experiences have easier access to the “non-addictive” pills!
Unprecedented I know, but just crazy enough to work!
Matt McIrvin
@Belafon: The R talking point is that liberals have arbitrarily redefined all “illegals” as “asylum seekers” as a dirty trick to get them in, but, as Matthew Yglesias of all people has pointed out, the truth is really more the opposite.
Unfortunately, this is not a phenomenon unique to the US. Indeed, the UK and Australia were bigger into it than we were at one point. Sending refugees to inhumane prison camps in another country is a whole big thing.
But the phenomenon of people with valid green cards or student visas becoming “illegals” because they advocated for Palestinians or had a tattoo, that’s an escalation, and it really underscores how empty the “we only hate ILLEGAL immigration” line really is.
Jeffro
well, we kind of punish them just by existing and living our lives and not being miserable like them, right? =)
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Maybe Alsobrooks has said why she supported the bill. Easy enough to look up if you are really interested.
mrmoshpotato
Go Rays!
Anyway
Singular: Panino =)
KrackenJack
Way late to a thread as usual. But I wanted to recommend a book that relates to the some of the topics in this post. Upgrade by Blake Crouch The core of the story is that gene manipulation is treated as terrorism after an ecological catastrophe, but someone is upgrading individuals involuntarily to massively increase their intelligence, strength and speed.
RaflW
It’s totally abhorrent that people who want a safe and effective vaccine, one that they may have already received 2 or 3 or 6 times with few side effects — and well-within-norms general population complications — cannot have that safe and effective vaccine if they are under 65.
As it happens, I’d imagine that a smart doctor can find a pre-existing condition that would allow many under 65s who want a Covid shot a path to get it. But that adds cost and hassle and delay, and some may not have any qualifying condition, or have a very tightly rule-following practitioner, or not have a regular doc.
It just fucking sucks. But like the thread yesterday, I actually think this Covid booster thing is a wedge and can be use. Even for people who might personally not be getting Covid shots any more, this IS government intruding into our care and into our doctorâpatient relationship. Use that assault on our freedom of choice.
currants
Thanks for this, BC. Really appreciate this post.
Nancy
@catclub:
My cholestrol is high over all but my good cholestrol is higher than the other kind.
This means I don’t have to take statins just keep doing whatever it is I’ve been doing that fosters good cholestrol. No red meat, lots of omega threes maybe.
As we become wiser (my way of saying older) many prescriptions land on us. I celebrate having one less to take. Prof. Bigfoot is right. I talk about health a lot.