“Being negative also helps you appear smart”

Following thoughts from an article (Chicken Littles Are Ruining America) by David Brooks in The Atlantic. (No link because it’s behind a paywall). He warns “doomsaying can become a self-fulfilling prophecy)

Being negative also helps you appear smart. In a classic 1983 study by the psychologist Teresa Amabile, authors of scathingly negative book reviews were perceived as more intelligent than the authors of positive reviews. Intellectually insecure people tend to be negative because they think it displays their brain power.

Believing in vicious conspiracy theories can also boost your self-esteem: You are the superior mind who sees beneath the surface into the hidden realms where evil cabals really run the world. You have true knowledge of how the world works, which the masses are too naive to see. Conspiracy theories put you in the role of the truth-telling hero. Paranoia is the opiate of those who fear they may be insignificant.

 

ChatGPT answers MAGA questions

How, I wondered, would ChatGPT respond if prompted to write an essay on why Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 presidential election and that Joe Biden is not the president of the United States. And if the MAGA-ite insisted the sources ChatGPT cited were “deep fakes?” I was also curious if ChatGPT has the ability to examine a news story and determine if it is accurate. (6 min)

Is a team of data scientists slaving away in a sub-basement of The Federalist Society, training an AI to give Trump-friendly answers to life’s hard questions?

MAGA Dress Code

“An untucked, oversize t-shirt in red, white and blue, a fanny pack, billowing cargo shorts, tube socks, a ball cap and at least one ace bandage. It’s a look that says comfort, gun ownership and I-whine-about-the economy-while-driving-a-brand-new-truck.”

— Paul Rudnick

Dictator chic

Laura Clawson explains why Trump’s indictment bathroom photo says so much about him:

“…and a cheap-looking shower curtain on a tension rod, which appears to be hiding more stacks of boxes. That’s the shower curtain and tension rod you get when you’ve moved into a new rental apartment and, realizing there’s no shower curtain, run to Target so you can wash off the sweat and dust of having unloaded your own UHaul.”

The Fall of Berlin 1945

I so thoroughly enjoyed Antony Beevor’s history of the siege of Stalingrad I ordered The Fall of Berlin 1945. I’m about halfway through the 430 page book and, like Stalingrad, it’s a page-turner. No work of fiction –movie, novel, TV documentary series– could ever capture the scope and horror of these events.

As with all (most?) non-fiction books, I’m reading with a marker in hand, highlighting the passages I want to save. Some of them are below, some in a Google Document. But not all because there are just too many. And I haven’t saved them in order because –like the events themselves– too chaotic.

Like so much of the history I’ve read, I’m finding eerie parallels to current events. Nazism and Trumpism; Hitler and Trump the most obvious example. Continue reading

Cirsten Weldon, anti-vax QAnon promoter dies of COVID

Katie Dowd reporting for SFGate, San Francisco

A QAnon promoter with tens of thousands of followers on Facebook and Telegram has died after contracting COVID-19. On her last video, posted on December 28, Weldon was coughing and admitted she felt “exhausted” and “weak.”

Weldon was virulently anti-vaccine, both online and in real life. In one video posted to her social media channels, she can be seen harassing people in line to be vaccinated against COVID-19. “The vaccines kill. Don’t get it,” she shouts. “This is how gullible these idiots are. They’re all getting vaccines.”

Weldon livestreamed constantly and posted relentlessly on Instagram, Telegram and Facebook, inadvertently tracking her own symptoms. She began showing signs of illness around Christmas. In a December 27 stream, she started off by saying, “Good morning, patriots, I didn’t think I was going to make it. I’m sorry. I’m exhausted, and I’m very, very weak. I have no strength. I haven’t eaten in four days.”

On December 31, she posted a photo of herself wearing an oxygen mask with the caption, “Almost died at hospital in CA from Bacterial Pneumonia.” “Bacterial pneumonia” is a phrase commonly used in anti-vax circles to explain a COVID-related hospitalization without admitting to contracting the virus.

Weldon also posted on Telegram, where she had nearly 100,000 followers, that she rejected treatment with remdesivir.

“It’s like a Barbie Dream House miniature.”

Washington Post: “How Trump jettisoned restraints at Mar-a-Lago and prompted legal peril”

On a typical day since leaving office, advisers said, Trump gets up early, makes phone calls, watches television and reads some newspapers. Then, six days a week, he plays 18 or sometimes 27 holes of golf at one of his courses. After lunch, he changes into a suit from his golf shirt and slacks and shows up in the office above the Mar-a-Lago ballroom or, when he is in New Jersey, a similar office in a cottage near the Bedminster club’s pool.

By evening, Trump emerges for dinner, surrounded most nights by adoring club members who stand and applaud at his appearance; they stand and applaud again after he finishes his meal and retires for the night. He often orders special meals from the kitchen and spends time curating the music wafting over the crowd, frequently pushing for the volume to be raised or lowered based on his mood. In the Oval Office, Trump had a button he could push to summon an aide to bring him a Diet Coke or snacks. Now, he just yells out commands to whichever employee is in earshot.

At times, Trump makes unannounced visits at weddings, gala benefits and other events being hosted by paying customers in Mar-a-Lago’s ballroom, basking as attendees mob him for selfies.