Exactly. That’s a big operation that would leave a big very visible footprint.

Fun fact: in chapter nineteen of the Second Treatise, John Locke writes that when the legislative power is usurped from that body in which the People have placed it, and exercised instead by a person or body not authorized to do so by the People, government is dissolved

this is John von Neumann, among other things of Manhattan Project fame, explaining that beyond some critical point he expects "automata" to become more complex with each generation.

"artificial intelligence" has not been coined yet. the idea of exponential growth here is older than the term is.

Did the campaign intentionally drop the weird bit?

Yes, this is a consequence learning in first-past-the-post elections. In such a system you learn that your 1st choice will never win, so to keep from losing to people you really hate you make a party with people you merely dislike. After a few rounds of this there are only two viable parties.

An apt warning from William Carlos Williams poem "The Orchestra", which I have in mind because I am listening to Steve Reich's "The Desert Music" which borrows from this poem.

SAY TO THEM:

Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to realize his wishes. Now that he can realize them, he must either change them or perish.

These are the same kind of weasels who would’ve called George Washington & America’s revolutionaries “terrorists.” They spend their days sucking up to King Trump & demonizing peaceful protest just as some in America sought to appease King George III. 

Looking forward to No Kings Day.

Many people point out, correctly, that believing the absurd things Trump says serves as a loyalty test, but it also serves as encouragement to turn off your mind and simply become a child again, and in the nostalgia poisoned minds of so many people, there is nothing they long to do more than that.

Many people point out, correctly, that believing the absurd things Trump says serves as a loyalty test, but it also serves as encouragement to turn off your mind and simply become a child again, and in the nostalgia poisoned minds of so many people, there is nothing they long to do more than that.

well, what is "a million" but some words that denote something fuzzy just out of the sphere of your attention or understanding? A hundred, a million. These are just versions of "some", and anything is possible, after all, because the world is magic. What does daddy say about it?

You dimly understand that other children exist, but your mind does not engage in scale or numbers, and they are sort of unreal to you in any case. Other children are certainly not real in the way you are. And if someone says that someone has hired a million people over the weekend to put on a show.

And you trust daddy even if what daddy is saying is fantastical. When daddy tells you that Santa visits all the children at night, comes down the chimney, leaves them presents and drinks their milk and cookies, you believe it because you have the solipsistic and innumerate mind of a child.

I think that this is a big appeal of Trumpism. It allows, even demands, that you adopt the mentality of a child. To be a Trump supporter is to regress to being eight years old, and Trump is your daddy whose reasons are inscrutable but whom you trust because trusting daddy is what a child does.

The idea that someone could hire 100 thousand people, to say nothing of a million, to engage in protest is the sort of thing only a child could believe. 100? Sure. 1000? Possible. 100,000? You are a mental child.

Damn, this sucks. This is a jewel in the crown of US achievement.

I really hate people who value having one more beer this year over a mission to Europa or wherever. Such people seem unworthy of living in modern civilization.

I overheard my wife watching a video where a guy was grilling his parents and he asked them”Are you pro authoritarian” and I chimed in, as a joke, “Depends on whether I am the one wearing the boot”

This is, though, probably the most common view that people have in earnest.

"philosophy" seems too big. I think The Minds Eye is a good popular book to gently introduce people to the philosophy of mind, for example, but that's just one tiny slice of philosophy and will give you no sense of the rest.

I don't know where people get this idea that people should only have what they strictly need (who needs anything, really? Do you *need* life?). It's such an utterly grey and nihilistic view of the world that I find it difficult to believe anyone truly believes it, but many claim to.

In housing discourse I find it amazing how many people reject the idea that it's OK for a teacher, say, to aspire to get a house with one more bedroom than she already has. Like that's an OK thing for a person to want and that society should be oriented toward making that a possibility for her.