Former President Donald Trump is expected to surrender himself to the Fulton County jail at the end of next week – on Thursday or Friday, a senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the surrender told CNN.
Former President Donald Trump is expected to surrender himself to the Fulton County jail at the end of next week – on Thursday or Friday, a senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the surrender told CNN.
Can we all just stop for a second and appreciate what a crazy fucking time it is to be alive in this country?
Absolutely. And in so many way. I’m only in my 40s and I feel like I’m living in a vastly different world than the one I was born into.
The rate of change is unlike anything humans have ever had to cope with in our 2 million year history.
For almost all of human existence, there wasn’t even a CONCEPT of progress… no sense that humanity was going anywhere. Your life was virtually identical to that of your great great great grandfather, and would be the same experience had by your great great great grandchild.
I remember a world of rotary phones, small towns with personalities before chains homogenized the world. I remember how the United States had a whole different personality before 9-11. I remember when Republicans had actual plans for governing (OBAMA’S affordable care act was basically a clone of Bob Dole’s plan). I remember the world before the Internet, when malls were packed and buzzing, when shopping in stores felt magical and not like a ghost town.
I remember analog and even black and white TVs. I remember the first video games and PCs,b dial-up Internet, browsers before tabs were invented.
I remember when acid rain was there number one environmental concern, and how we actually accepted the science and made policy to fix it.
I remember the bugs.
I remember so many more bugs. The night alive with fireflies. Windshields plastered with splatters on the highway.
I remember paper maps! FM radio. Cassette adapters.
The world is so, so, so different. It changed so fast.
Republicans became a suicide cult.
The government stopped breaking up monopolies, and started bailing out too-big-to-fail banks.
The United States tortures people now. People never charged of a crimes were tortured at Guantanamo Bay.
I grew up in a home that my parents bought cheap. They had two cars. They took us on vacations every year. They saved up for retirement. My dad had a PhD. He did well.
I have a law degree. I will never own a home. I will never be able to afford even a single vacation. I will never be able to retire.
They rolled back Roe.
They staged an insurrection.
I’ve been working with GPT-4 night and day since it was released to the public. I’m 100 percent convinced that with a little supplementation, it is the first artificial GENERAL intelligence.
It can already create better writing and code than MOST of the human population.
Where will it be in 5 years? 10? 20?
It’s going to be smarter, funnier, more creative, more thoughtful than all of us. In our lifetime. WHY, then, are we even HERE at that point? Why do we even exist?
These were questions for science fiction. For the future.
It’s happening NOW. WE, of all humans in the span of history, are the ones who will see our species become obsolete.
So yeah. Let’s take moment to realize how cosmically, historically insane it is to live in this moment.
Amen. And love your first point about how way back, the average person did not have a concept of progress in their day-to-day life.
I guess that didn’t really start to blow up until Newton laid the laws of physics down (along with calculus - what a guy) to allow for drastic scientific development. Once we had steam engines and the Industrial Revolution…change has become almost commonplace now.
I too remember paper maps…always in the glove box.
Having to remember phone numbers.
Encyclopedias
No cell phone and no internet.
Poor Leibniz, totally forgotten by history. Can you imagine inventing friggin calculus and nobody notices or cares? lol
Bugs. Yeah. That still creeps me out.
It’s probably just the one of the first signs of ecological collapse due to climate change so nothing to worry about :(
Le sigh. Yup.
I was thinking about your comment and came back. I’m nearly 39 so a similar age.
First of all. What if you put your phone down, got off the internet and had a look around at your life and what is happening directly in your world. I’ll bet it’s not as chaotic as it feels when we see crazy headlines everywhere. You get up, chat with your family if you are lucky enough to live with someone, perhaps you go to work and interact with your coworkers or clients, hopefully the day isn’t too stressful. Come home, think about what you will have for dinner and hope it doesn’t make you too fat. Go to bed. You might squeeze in some time for hobbies, or visiting friends on the weekends.
Sure, housing is a massive problem right now, but financial bleakness isn’t new - imagine how it felt to live through the great depression? I’m in Australia, but a couple of years ago we had my son’s birthday at this nice lookout at the top of a hill. There was a plaque there that read that the road to the top of the hill was built by men during the depression in exchange for food to feed their families. The more kids you had the more hours you had to work. It was like 5 or more kids was a mandatory 12 hour day.
That would have felt bleak and like there was no way out.
Imagine getting caught up in world war 2? You would think the world had now really gone to shit. It was so traumatizing to the population here that every tiny town has a plaque of all the people who died from it. The names in the list are usually longer than the population of the town right now.
Then after the war, stuff like the threat of atomic war, nuclear winters and the entire earth dying because of a conflict escalation.
You described my childhood experience perfectly, but we might have just been very lucky and grew up in an optimistic decade full of rationality and scientific progress.
cant bone a robot. i don’t think it’ll be replacing us anytime soon
Not with that attitude
I’m confident Japan is working feverishly day and night to resolve this issue.
Preach!
I’m nearing 40 myself, I’m so depressed at what the future holds for my children.
For real. Can anyone say that they guessed this would actually be a headline 7 years ago?
I could’ve guessed a coup would happen as a result of his presidency and that he should be in prison yea. He’s a lifelong crook and criminal and we had suspicions of outside involvement in the 2016 election cycle from the instant the_donald blew up
He said ahead of the 2016 election that he wouldn’t accept the results if he lost.
Yeah, that was the moment I knew shit was gonna get weird.
He didn’t even accept that he won*.
*“Won” in America means “gamed the system the best” not “got the most votes.”
I’ll recognize it, but I’d rather not appreciate it. I’d appreciate it if half the country had never been infatuated with an historically proven con-man with delusions of grandeur. Legitimately one of the must frustrating realities for someone who believes in democracy to grapple with is that half the population MUST be less than average intelligence (and even some of greater intelligence will choose willful ignorance).
Appreciate has two different meanings.
to value or admire highly
understand (a situation) fully; recognize the full implications of.
It’s can be awkward because they are really divergent meanings with almost apposed connotations.
You’re correct. I was being intentionally obtuse to agree about the sentiment, but also further the lament. Kind of a “being funny to myself (and maybe no one else)” moment, but publicly expressed.
Watching from this side of the pond is entertaining in a sad kind of way.
Trump is a figurehead of something above and below him that is a serious danger to democracy.
The same ideology that pushed Trump is the same ideology that created Brexit and is trying to break the NHS.
We’re all in a very dangerous boat right now.
I’m having trouble locating a clip, but Patton Oswalt had a bit about a decade ago about the anomie the country felt when Nixon resigned and then got on TV and flew away in a helicopter.
I feel like Trump finally getting booked will be a similar feeling.
TILAW: AN·o·mie
noun: anomie; noun: anomy
In societies or individuals, a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values or from a lack of purpose or ideals.
“the theory that high-rise architecture leads to anomie in the residents”
Best definition I ever heard was the sociology professor that introduced me to the word.
This teacher, knowing her demographic of “Americans born in the late 80s/early 90s” simply defined it as:
“You know how you all felt on Sept 12th? That was anomie.”
Not sure if appreciate is the right word but yeah what a crazy decade.
Crazy if you like ultimate inequality and hate for all people especially homeless that can’t afford $3,000 in rent each month.
I’m halfway across the world and it’s been a crazy ride watching a country disgrace itself while also tearing itself to pieces.
It hasn’t been since 2016? Or 2001?
I feel like it all kinda went sideways starting around 2014ish (2016 certainly kicked it up a gear). Maybe I died then and it’s all some sort of 6th sense bullshit
It started when the Supreme Court handed the presidency to W despite him losing the election. Once that mask was fully off, so were all the rules.