Kansas Crimson

Overlander wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 8:23 pm So, Las Vegas least productive suicide bomber was also a US Citizen, and a former military serviceman.

The real victims here are all of those Right Wing zealots….so assured that they already knew the evil doers were foreigners.

All of those poor GOP politicians who immediately blamed Biden and his border policies.

I guess egg on face is a better look that spray on orange face…

I remain fascinated by the intraparty MAGA–DOGE fight. The MAGA position seems to be:

1. Elite college-grad Americans are bad because they’re woke or whatever.

2. The Forgotten Men of MAGA are every bit as smart and capable as those fancy elites with their precious “degrees.”

The DOGE position is:

3. Tech companies need more engineers than America colleges can produce.

4. Therefore the government needs to open the throttle on the H-1B visa program so they can import more foreign engineers to work in Big Tech.

Because I care, I have come up with the solution. Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, and Peter Thiel can just hire the Forgotten Men of MAGA!

On January 19, Trump will hold a “victory rally” in Washington. I assume that tens of thousands of patriots will attend. Why not have it double as a recruiting event for Tesla/Twitter/SpaceX, a16z, and Palantir?

I am not a professional head-hunter, but why couldn’t these folks do the jobs as well as someone from India? Just because they don’t have a degree from some woke “elite” college doesn’t make them stupid. This is America! And there’s nothing the American worker can’t learn and master in no time flat.

Obviously, I’m kidding. The problem here is that the actual positions of MAGA and DOGE are different from what they say in public. They are, roughly:

1. MAGA: We hate elite college grads because they’re woke, or successful, or whatever.

2. MAGA: We deserve to get all the same stuff those elites have, even if we don’t go to college, or live in an urban area.

3. MAGA: What really gets us going are super-rich guys who hate elite college grads as much as we do. We get to live vicariously through them. Fantasizing about having power like they do makes us feel less impotent and aggrieved.

4. DOGE: The hippies I see on Twitter and who live near me in Palo Alto are super annoying. I hate them.

5. DOGE: Why do the worker bees at my company want to get paid so much? Don’t they realize how lucky they are to get to work for me? I’m inventing the future and they get to watch. Also, I find it annoying that these NPCs will leave my Super Awesome Company for some other gig just because it pays more. That’s disloyal to The Future.

6. DOGE: I would like to import engineers through H-1B because I can pay them less (which lets me put more resources into inventing The Future) and they can’t leave me for another job (thus wasting the time I have invested in them).

7. DOGE: Why no, I have never met a guy named Cletus from Alabama who has a high school education and a Confederate flag bumper sticker on his truck. I have no idea what such a person might be like.

8. DOGE: Just theoretically, would I hire Cletus to work at my company?

Oh sure. Right after I invite him to be my guest at one of Steve Jurvetson’s sex parties. The whole point of $100 billion is never having to talk to Cletus. I just want the people I have to talk to in my daily life to be less annoyingly woke. I don’t want to interact with the actual masses.

This coalition might look tenuous, but I think it’s going to be fairly durable.

The DOGE elites view the the MAGA base with disdain, but that’s okay because the two groups share a common enemy: They both hate normal, middle-class, college-educated professionals. Shared hatred is a stronger bond than shared affinity.

But the other thing is that the MAGA base is authoritarian-curious. They want a strongman. And the DOGE elites aspire to be strongmen themselves. These masters’ of the universe don’t want pluralism—they want a friendly autocracy that rigs the system in ways they prefer. So while Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon might chafe at Elon Musk’s disdain, Cletus won’t.

Cletus loves Daddy Trump. So he’ll tolerate knowing that Daddy Elon looks down on him.

BiggDick wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 11:35 am guess this can go here, too?

MICHHAWK wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 12:58 pm or. match retirement age with life expectancy.

Overlander wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 1:44 pm

MICHHAWK wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 12:58 pm or. match retirement age with life expectancy.

Work til you die?

Overlander wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 1:44 pm

MICHHAWK wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 12:58 pm or. match retirement age with life expectancy.

Work til you die?

japhy wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 1:58 pm

Overlander wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 1:44 pm

MICHHAWK wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 12:58 pm or. match retirement age with life expectancy.

Work til you die?

Oh hell no, but 90+% of the population continuing to work so that I can retire early, pay lower taxes AND I get better returns on my investments....well, if that's what the rubes want.

Who am I to deny them that freedom?

japhy wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 1:58 pm

Overlander wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 1:44 pm

MICHHAWK wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 12:58 pm or. match retirement age with life expectancy.

Work til you die?

Oh hell no, but 90+% of the population continuing to work so that I can retire early, pay lower taxes AND I get better returns on my investments....well, if that's what the rubes want.

Who am I to deny them that freedom?

Overlander wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 2:14 pm

japhy wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 1:58 pm

Overlander wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 1:44 pm

Work til you die?

Oh hell no, but 90+% of the population continuing to work so that I can retire early, pay lower taxes AND I get better returns on my investments....well, if that's what the rubes want.

Who am I to deny them that freedom?

I hear ya there.
I want Psych to get 4 jobs....