Our train has already left the station. Dig a hole and stick your head as deep into the earth as you’d like. We are living through the climate catastrophe, and extreme change is going to come whether you’re ready for it or not.

For many, this is a time of petrification. As the terror of our present and past is revealed, we are struck by the herculean scope of our problems. …

I spent most of my day today rummaging through the depths of google search, trying to find out more about the governance of medieval communes in northern Europe. It was about as riveting as it sounds. I was hoping to find historical examples of alternative forms of society, only to discover that the Dutch 400 years ago had pretty much the same ideology as the United States has now. An aristocratic society with republican features, based on freedom of religion and free trade.

The Dutch Republic, founded in 1581, was peculiar for the time. A small federation of seven decentralized…

I am incredibly skeptical we’d be better off with more power in the hands of a country like China, whose closest ally is North Korea.

That’s something I wrote in response to far-left youtuber BadEmpanada’s unfortunate prediction that the Taliban would refrain from taking over the government after the US left Afghanistan. Later, he backtracked and said it was just proof that the government had no legitimacy. I wrote an admittedly better article in response. Weeks later, he posted a video where he literally just salutes Stalin for five minutes straight. …

On the left, we’re used to seeing capitalism as an impersonal machine pursuing profits over all other considerations, including morality and survival. At its most extreme, powerful individuals and corporations have no real agency, as their actions ought to be understood solely within the context of accumulating more power for themselves. When a company brands itself as pro-environment or pro-black lives matter, it shouldn’t be understood as a genuine ethical position, but an act of recuperation: hijacking genuine social movements for the sake of appealing to a demographic and maximizing profitability.

The libertarian right also sees the free market as…

Colorado’s Republican Party is currently considering abolishing their primary system, meaning that all candidates up for election would be chosen by the party convention and not by popular vote. Today, in the Denver Post, there was an opinion piece by Seth Masket where he basically frames this as a negative, but for all the wrong reasons.

According to Masket, leaving the nomination process up to party leaders usually results in more moderate candidates who have a better chance of winning the general election. …

A few hours after I posted my article criticizing BadEmpanada’s unfortunate predictions for the reconquest of Afghanistan, he posted another video backtracking his prediction and explaining why he was really right all along. Apparently, he had put too much faith in the perceived legitimacy of the US-backed government, and the people of Afghanistan let the puppet state crumble basically without a fight. He was never wrong that the Taliban was incapable of winning militarily, because there was no military conflict. The people just decided that the Taliban was a better representative for their interests.

I have no more ability to…

Three months before the fall of Kabul, BadEmpanada made a video about Afghanistan. He thought it was complete nonsense to say that withdrawing from Afghanistan would eventually lead to its reconquest by the Taliban. After all, there were barely any American troops in the country anyway, and the government forces far outnumbered the Taliban, who had gone to the negotiating table in good faith and arrived at an agreement that gave them a role in the future government. Anybody saying differently was just a stooge for United States imperialism.

Obviously, this video is regrettable. The Taliban didn’t attack American troops…

I just fucked your bitch in some Gucci Flip Flops

I can think of no better thesis statement for trap music than this. It contains most of the major themes you need to understand over a decade of lyrical tradition. Commodity fetishism, instrumentalization of women, celebration of domination and hierarchies based on wealth all wrapped up in a neat little package. It’s really a bizarre phenomenon: you’re getting cuckolded and marketed to all while dancing. …