MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2025
These are the persons we've chosen: We'll start with a callback to Hotep Jesus. As we noted on Saturday, he's someone the Fox News Channel pays to people one of its "cable news" programs.
To our eye, Hotep Jesus is a smiling, genial presence when he appears on the primetime Gutfeld! "cable news" program.
On the other hand, he apparently believes that Africans built boats and sailed to the Americas long before Columbus. He apparently believes that the people we think of as "native Americans" were actually the descendants of those early African sailors.
As we noted on Saturday, the apparent beliefs continue along from there. But so it goes on the Gutfeld! show, where undisguised misogyny rules the roost and group propaganda is constant.
(This happens each night on the Fox News Channel without a word from Blue America's major news organs. The New York Times has a "comedy critic," but he will never be asked to report the way D-list comedians and other flyweights are used on this primetime "news" program.)
When he appears on the Gutfeld! show, Hotep Jesus becomes one of the principals within our prevailing news culture. For today, let's quickly consider a few other persons who have helped shape the perilous journalistic / academic / intellectual state we Americans find ourselves in.
We'll try to touch an array of bases. We'll end with Elon Musk.
Willard Van Orman Quine
At this point, we'll journey to the mountaintop of high academia. The leading authority on Professor Quine—a good, decent person—starts its lengthy profile as shown:
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century." He was the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard University from 1956 to 1978.
Quine was a teacher of logic and set theory. He was famous for his position that first-order logic is the only kind worthy of the name, and developed his own system of mathematics and set theory, known as New Foundations. In the philosophy of mathematics, he and his Harvard colleague Hilary Putnam developed the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument, an argument for the reality of mathematical entities....[Professor Quine] developed an influential naturalized epistemology that tried to provide "an improved scientific explanation of how we have developed elaborate scientific theories on the basis of meager sensory input."
And so on, at length, from there.
Friend, how about it? Do you believe in "the reality of mathematical entities?" Possibly more to the point, do you have any idea what some such claim might even mean?
Full disclosure! Long ago and far away, we took Deductive Logic from Professor Quine. In that same street-fighting year, we also took Philosophy of Science from Professor Putnam.
Each of these men was a good, decent person. Each was considered an academic giant.
As the leading authority notes, Professor Quine's most famous book was, and is, Word and Object. Once again, the leading authority speaks:
Word and Object
Word and Object is a 1960 work by the philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine, in which the author expands upon the line of thought of his earlier writings in From a Logical Point of View (1953), and reformulates some of his earlier arguments, such as his attack in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" on the analytic–synthetic distinction. The thought experiment of radical translation and the accompanying notion of indeterminacy of translation are original to Word and Object, which is Quine's most famous book.
Quine emphasizes his naturalism, the doctrine that philosophy should be pursued as part of natural science. He argues in favor of naturalizing epistemology, physicalism as against phenomenalism and mind-body dualism, and extensionality as against intensionality.
The thumbnail continues from there. You may not know what the bulk of that overview means. Perhaps to help you understand why, here are the first two paragraphs of this famous book's Preface:
Preface
Language is a social art. In acquiring it we have to depend entirely on intersubjectively acquired cues as to what to say and when. Hence there is no justification for collating linguistic meanings, unless in terms of men's dispositions to respond overtly to socially observable stimulations. An effect of recognizing this limitation is that the enterprise of translation is found to be involved in a certain systematic indeterminacy; and his is the main theme of Chapter II.
The indeterminacy of translation invests even the question what object to construe a term as true of. Studies of the semantics of reference consequently turn out to mke sense only when directed upon substantially our language, from within. But we do remain free to reflect, thus parochially, on the development and structure of our own referential apparatus, and this I do in ensuing chapters. In so doing one encounters various anomalies and conflicts that are implicit in this apparatus (Chapter IV), and is moved to adopt remedies in the spirit of modern logic (Chapters V and VI). Clarity also is perhaps gained on what we do when we impute existence, and what considerations may best guide such decisions; thus Chapter VII.
According to that passage, Professor Quine believed "there is no justification for collating linguistic meanings, unless in terms of men's dispositions to respond overtly to socially observable stimulations," and other things besides.
The fact that he is said to have believed such things may help explain why you've never heard of Professor Quine, or of any influence his work ever had on our now-broken national discourse.
Professor Quine was one of the past century's most celebrated logicians. Unlike Hotep Jesus, he worked at the highest end of mainstream academic authority.
Having said that, we'll ask you this, if only for today:
We'll ask you if any of his somewhat abstruse formulations represent an actual improvement on the work of Hotep Jesus.
For today, we'll leave this section with this: If this is the kind of help the society gets from its greatest logicians, is it really surprising that this flailing nation's ship of state seems to be running aground?
Books about the Biden years:
We've cited the work of a leading hotep, and the work of a leading logician. Now, we move to a pair of forthcoming books by mainstream journalists—books about certain events of the past four years.
These books make certain allegations about persons in the political realm. The books also seem to imply certain things about the work of persons in the field of mainstream journalism.
What happened in the past four years—in the years which led to the election of Candidate Trump last fall? Tapper and Thompson were first out of the gate concerning one possible answer. From CNN, here's a quick overview of their forthcoming book:
New book on Biden by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson reports a ‘cover-up’ about his decline
The day after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios correspondent Alex Thompson decided to co-author a book about what had led the Democratic party to defeat, with a focus on former President Joe Biden.
The deeply sourced reporters found what they call a “cover-up” of the former president’s “serious decline.”
The resulting book, titled “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” is coming out on May 20. The book’s publisher, Penguin Press, announced the project on Wednesday.
“What you will learn makes President Biden’s decision to run for reelection seem shockingly narcissistic, self-delusional, and reckless—a desperate bet that went bust—and part of a larger act of extended public deception that has few precedents,” Penguin said in a press release.
Biden, “his family, and his senior aides were so convinced that only he could beat Trump again, they lied to themselves, allies, and the public about his condition and limitations,” the press release stated.
CNN's thumbnail continues from there. Is it possible that this welter of claims made in this book are actually true? Below, you see the start of a report from The Guardian about a second forthcoming book, this one by Allen and Parnas:
Democrats staged ‘hush-hush talks’ in 2023 for Biden to withdraw from race, says book
New book Fight also reports Harris aides ‘strategized around the possibility that Biden might die in office’
Democratic officials staged “hush-hush talks” to plan for Joe Biden’s withdrawal as the party’s presidential nominee as early as 2023, says a new book.
Citing two unnamed sources, authors Jonathan Allen’s and Amie Parnes’s account adds another twist to the torturous saga over the then president’s age and fitness that was not resolved until a disastrous debate against Donald Trump precipitated his exit in July 2024.
More startlingly still, the book also reports that aides to Kamala Harris, the vice-president who assumed the nomination then lost to Trump, “strategized around the possibility that Biden might die in office”.
Such planning was led by Jamal Simmons, Harris’s White House communications director, Parnes and Allen report, and went as far as the drawing up of a “death-pool roster” of federal judges who might swear Harris in.
Could such claims be true? Yes, they certainly could be.
At any rate, there are now two books which advance such claims. These claims ask us to ponder the work of many important persons within the Democratic Party. Inevitably, the claims might also suggest that we might ponder the working of persons within the mainstream press.
Is it possible that some such persons were involved in "a cover-up" of President Biden's alleged condition? That accusation is constantly made on the Fox News Channel. Could it possibly be that this accusation has merit?
We've now mentioned the work of a person from the hotep subculture—a person who plays a role in "cable news." We've cited the work of a very major academic—a professor of logic, no less.
We've asked about various persons within the Democratic Party and within the mainstream press. Quickly, let's cite another person who is now playing a major role in shaping the current American discourse, such as that swamp creature is.
Elon Musk
For today, we'll refer to last Friday's edition of the Fox News Channel's Special Report, in which Elon Musk (and seven associates) were subjected to something resembling an interview by Bret Baier.
(To watch the full program, click here.)
Full disclosure! Elon Musk is widely described as the world's richest person. As for Baier, was he once the owner of the Washington area's most expensive estate?
To this day, we can't explain this (wholly undiscussed) report in The Washingtonian. It appeared in October 2023:
Fox News’s Bret Baier Lists DC Home for $32 Million—a Potential Record
If it goes for the listing price, it'll be the most expensive DC sale of all time.
A potentially record-setting DC home has just gone on the market: Fox News’s Bret Baier and his wife, Amy, are listing their French chateau-style Berkley home for $31.9 million, reports The Wall Street Journal. If it goes for asking price, it’ll be the most expensive residential sale in DC history. The listing agent is Daniel Heider of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty.
The 16,250-square-foot estate was completed last year and sits on 1.47 acres, with five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and two half-baths. Other touches include a custom bar in the living room with a floor-to-ceiling wine display; a primary suite with two primary baths and heated floors; a home gym; a cinema; a spa; a two-story, indoor sports court; and a golf simulator. Throughout the gated property, you’ll also find a paved motor court with a fountain, tiered gardens, a 56-foot-long heated pool, a chipping and putting green, and two three-car garages.
There's nothing automatically wrong with owning DC's most expensive estate—and as The Washingtonian reported last December, when Baier finally unloaded the place, it sold for only $25 million.
For the record, look who bought it:
Bret Baier’s DC House Sells for Record $25 Million—in Cash
Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary pick, buys the Foxhall estate as team Trump rolls into town.
The Trump bump has begun, at least when it comes to the area real-estate market. Howard Lutnick, the Cantor Fitzgerald CEO and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, has purchased the Foxhall house formerly owned by Fox News anchor Bret Baier and his wife, Amy, for $25 million, in an all-cash transaction. Which makes it the most expensive residential sale in DC history, topping the $24 million Robert Allbritton paid for the Bowie-Sevier house in Georgetown in 2007. The listing agent for the Foxhall house, Daniel Heider of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, told Washingtonian that he couldn’t comment on the purchase.
As members of the new administration start descending on DC, the ultra-luxury real estate market is poised for a surge in activity. Trump’s cabinet picks have a total net worth in excess of $14 billion—a number that rises to $450 billion if you include government efficiency co-czar Elon Musk and other advisers who will not require Senate confirmation.
Baier let the property go for a reduced purchase price. By common agreement among all parties, reports like these in The Washingtonian generate zero discussion or comment.
Why in the world would Bret Baier have been living in the Washington area's most palatial crib? We have no idea; and nothing is automatically wrong with some such circumstance.
That said, on last Friday's Special Report, Baier devoted the entire program to a series of exchanges with Elon Musk and seven of his associates. Baier's second question, and Musk's answer, went exactly like this:
BAIER (3/28/25): For you, what's the most astonishing thing you've found out in this process?
MUSK: The sheer amount of waste and fraud in the government. It is astonishing. It’s mind-blowing. Just—we routinely encounter waste of a billion dollars or more. Casually.
You know, for example, like the simple survey that was—literally, a ten-question survey. You could do it with SurveyMonkey—it would cost about $10,000. The government was being charged almost a billion dollars for that.
BAIER: For just a survey?
MUSK: A billion dollars for a simple online survey, "Do you like the National Park?" And then, there appeared to be no feedback loop for what would be done with that survey. So the survey would just go into nothing. It was like insane.
Let's understand what Musk said.
Baier tossed a lazy softball at Musk. Musk then claimed that the federal government had paid "a billion dollars for a simple online survey" that should have cost something like $10,000.
Initially, Musk said that the government was being charged "almost a billion dollars" for the simple survey. Moments later, one of his aides said the precise figure was $830 million.
Over the weekend, persons all over the Fox News Channel treated these representations as gospel. That said, how much confidence do you have in the various things Musk says?
What kinds of persons simply assume that statements like these are accurate? Whatever the answer might be, persons like that crawl all over the Fox News Channel, echoing each other's statements morning, noon and night. The widespread absence of fact-checking suggests their presence elsewhere.
These are the persons who shape our badly failing discourse. We leave you today with a question:
Were we humans—persons like us—actually built for this work?
Tomorrow: CBS News and its fact check
Later this week: Eventually, we'll even mention the type of person who arrested Anne Frank, just 15 years old.
Such persons are found in every human population. At long last, is it time for us to start reporting basic facts about who we actually are?
Somerby's brain has atrophied to the point he's now listening to things Right-wingers say.
ReplyDeleteSad.
"That said, how much confidence do you have in the various things Musk says?"
ReplyDeleteMore than in anything any Democrat says, ever.
A messiah complex, also known as a savior complex, is a psychological state where someone believes they are destined to save others or the world.
Delete"Musk: Wisconsin Supreme Court race ‘might decide the future of America and Western Civilization’"
Musk doesn't believe he is destined but obliged to dedicate his wealth and energy to defeating the fascist left, in America known as Democrats.
DeleteMusk is building a compound in TX to house his 14+ children. These techbros are busily donating sperm to increase the white population using their superior genes. Talk about hubris!
DeleteMusk is the greatest American since the late Micah X. Johnson.
DeleteFascism, the historian Robert O. Paxton writes in his authoritative history, must create an overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions.
DeleteMusk: "If we don't solve the deficit, there won't be money for medical care, there won't be money for social security ... it's gotta be solved or there's no medical care, there's no social security, there's no nothing....It's not optional ... that's why I'm here."
"Fascism, the historian Robert O. Paxton writes in his authoritative history, must create an overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions."
DeleteElon is coming for your Social Security! He's shutting down the phones! Elect Democrats who will fight against DOGE and restore all wasteful and fraudulent spending!
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Delete"must create an overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions" Gotta be a real dip shit not to be able to figure out "the crisis" could be solved by taxing the billionaires buying the government to eliminate taxes on their vast holdings. Leave our poor billionaires alone! That's why I am here, dipshits.
DeleteCorrect, the greatest time of economic and societal progress was in the aftermath of the New Deal and a top marginal tax rate in the 70-90% range. If we return to those policies, society will improve.
DeleteInvasion of the zombies from outer space reminds me of Musk.
DeleteMusk said he would cut the X payroll by 90% and he did. Democrats screamed that X was finished and would not function without its useless, censorious HR and "safety" staff. He kept essential tech staff and fired the rest who filled expensive and useless roles.
ReplyDeleteAs of last week, X recovered all of the $44B Musk paid for Twitter and it was overpriced then.
Fuck X. It is a nazi sewer.
DeleteTwitter called and wants its NY Post ban over the Hunter laptop story back. Also the bans of users who advised propagandists who were fired from dead legacy media to learn to code. Embarrassing.
Delete"Ban"! Bwahahaha!!!
Delete"As of last week, X recovered all of the $44B Musk paid for Twitter"
DeleteBut the sale price was $33 billion.
Musk took X private, similar to what happened with Toys R Us.
DeleteX is about $15 billion in debt, owing about $1 billion each year to pay off the debt, which is significantly more than its revenues. Musk has also failed to bring in significant new investment.
X is currently valued at $9 billion (and dropping), since Musk took over he caused the company to lose about 80% of its value.
Musk and Trump are both terrible at business, even though they both started with huge inheritances, they key thing they inherited that helped them the most was the ability to dispense with any sense of integrity. They are both snake oil salesmen, with their success completely dependent on their skills to con others.
Currently, the best way Musk contributes to our economy/society is through short selling TSLA, you can make good money short selling TSLA, otherwise, avoid Musk at all costs unless you don't mind getting your pockets picked.
Elon Musk is a smart businessman and Elon Musk's xAI is not going to pay full price to buy X from Elon Musk.
Delete@11:58 is envious of Elon Musk's self-made success. He was having parties at $5 entry fees to make it through college and used his talents, instincts, and intelligence to become the most successful entrepreneur in history all motivated by the betterment of humanity. No wonder Democrats are pea green with resentful envy.
DeleteI haven't seen this kind of over the top envy, since Republican men all got starry-eyed over the photo of Hunter Biden's penis.
DeleteWhy would anybody be envious of Musk, the guy you needed a penile implant (but it was botched), hair implants, has herpes, has been sued many times for sexual harassment and mistreatment of his employees, is tanking all his businesses by supporting fascists, bought the US president, and is corrupt to the core. Who would be jealous of that nasty mess?
DeleteI generally don’t comment on people’s looks, but, damn, Musk is one ugly son of a bitch.
DeleteYou would be jealous and resentful because you'll never sleep with someone who looks like Amber Heard or any of his many conquests, or start a company much less start the seven most consequential companies in the world.
DeleteWe should note that Heard went on to date a woman after her time with Musk, so we can only guess how it must have been in the sack. At any rate, Heard is a big proponent of LGBTQ rights, so I don’t think she has much in common with Musk. Poor Elon.
DeleteHeard was pitching for both teams way before Musk. Elon is cute as he can be.
DeleteWord is that Elon donates sperm for IVF. He doesn’t sleep with women.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:35pm, good genes… I once saw a photo of Musk and Heard embracing in a swimming pool. No test tubes were involved.
DeletePoliticians commonly use inaccurate numbers to help spend more money. E.g. California’s High Speed Rail is now estimated to cost a multiple of its original estimate. Musk uses inaccurate numbers to spend less money.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of support for the pols’ approach — from people getting the money. There is a lot of opposition to Musk’s approach — from people who will get less money from the government.
The California high-speed rail project, initially estimated at $33 billion and planned for completion by 2020, now faces a projected cost of $88 to $128 billion, with no single segment completed and no clear completion date.
DeleteShouldn't have waited so long to invest in high-speed rail.
DeleteAnyone who has ridden trains in Europe will understand the importance of this project. The point is not the cost but the benefits to be obtained by connecting our state in a quick and easy means of transportation.
DeleteGiven that our own rail system was initially built on the backs of immigrants (cheap labor), many from Ireland and China, of course the costs have risen.
I get it that David in Cal doesn't believe in global warming, but as weather changes make air travel more dangerous, having reliable trains will be essential to maintain commerce and travel by individuals. Planes cannot take off when it is too hot and turbulance and storms will disrupt air travel schedules increasingly as the planet warms. So I consider the bullet train an important step in the right direction. Republicans often seem to be a bit short-sighted when their only concern is to cut their own taxes.
Let China invest in the USA, if it's so important to them.
DeleteWait to Dickhead in Cal hears how much taxpayer money it is going to cost to send Elon the Nazi to Mars. LOL
Delete@10:42 Global warming will not make flying more dangerous; flying will become less dangerous. Most weather-related airline crashes are caused by cold weather -- ice and snow -- not warm weather.
DeleteA bullet train might or might not be a good idea in the 21st century. But, that doesn't justify the CA high speed rail project because that project will never be completed. CA has a very expensive bullet train project, but we won't ever have an actual working bullet train.
12:11 that is one the dumbest things I have ever read here.
Delete"CA has a very expensive bullet train project, but we won't ever have an actual working bullet train."
DeleteSocial Security won't be there for you, if you put grifters in charge of it.
Also, your house won't be there if you have a pyromaniac house sit it.
@12:24 - The bearer of bad news may be met with negative reactions, even though s/he is not responsible for the bad news itself. Many of us prefer to live in a dream world where the government will always have an infinite, unlimited amount of money. We don't like being awakened out of our pleasant dream.
DeleteE.g., Musk's warning that Social Security is not financially safe, pointing out that it's a Ponzi scheme. People who care about preserving SS should be grateful for his warning. It should encourage fixing the problem before it's too late. Instead, people who don't even understand what a Ponzi scheme is ridicule and blame Musk.
David in Cal,
DeleteWho doesn't remember Right-wing assholes giving Colin Kaepernick shit for not respecting a wasteful, corrupt nation?
Musk has had nothing whatsoever to add of substance to any discussion of SS except the lie that it is a Ponzi scheme, which DiC swallows wholeheartedly despite easy access to its definition on the internet.
Deleteyou're such a dishonest little cunt, David. Fuck you. Democrats have no problem with real solutions, not fucking lying about it.
DeleteMusk is a genius. He'll know which day is the best for the Department of Defense's bake sale.
DeleteSS is not going bankrupt as Musk and his cult following propagandize. There will be a shortfall in which roughly 85% of current payments will be made, which will be highly damaging to many seniors, but bone fide economists, not republicans propagandists, state that this can be remedied with adjustments, facts that anyone with a computer can access. A Ponzi scheme is a fraud in which investors are led to believe that they are getting returns on their money which are profitable when they are in fact being paid by new investors pyramid style. If you cannot distinguish Bernie Maddow from the social security administration you are officially a Musk cultist.
DeleteMusk will surely find the lowest cost service provider to remove the gin bottles from Hegseth’s office.
DeleteSpeaking of people who don't understand what a Ponzi scheme is, here's the definition:
Delete"a fraud in which belief in the success of a nonexistent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors."
'Non-existent enterprise.'
So a Ponzi scheme is a fraud since there is no underlying enterprise as a source of revenue--hence no way to make the scheme viable.
But underlying SS are current payroll taxes. So SS's problems are easily fixable via some combination of fractional tax increases and/or fractional benefit reductions.
So to call it a Ponzi scheme is at best dishonest and at worst a lie.
Sorry for repeating much of what 1:12 already said.
Delete
DeleteSocial Security program is an enterprise.
This enterprise has been collecting money from the working class, in a totally regressive way (the rich pay nothing).
This enterprise has been collecting much more money than was necessary in order to pay "benefits". The extra money, collected in a regressive way, went to subsidize the general, slightly progressive, tax fund, making the general tax fund also regressive. By now, the Social Security enterprise has subsidized the general tax fund by about $3 trillion.
Soon, the Social Security tax will not be collecting enough money to pay the "benefits". But no one expects it to get any of that $3 trillion back from the general tax fund. No, no one expects that. "Benefits" will be cut, and that's the best case scenario.
So, Soros-bot named "Hector", how is it not a Ponzi scheme?
1:55 Soros bot Hector already explained dip shit.
Delete1:55 Dumbass, it’s been explained over and over.
DeleteIf I get 1,000 dollars monthly from SS when the shortfall occurs I will get roughly 850. This is difficult math for Trump/ Musk cultists
DeleteThe 85% is only the middle assessment, if the economy does well, as Biden left it, SS will be funded even more fully.
DeleteBut even at 85%, by that time, those SS benefits will be higher than current benefits, in real dollars.
Merely raising the cut off for paying SS taxes, so that the rich pay a fair share, will insure full payment of SS in perpetuity.
Global warming does not mean it will be hotter everywhere all the time. In fact global warming may well trigger another Ice Age, but it certainly will cause more extreme weather events.
David and the other trolls are ignorant beyond belief, they don't believe their own nonsense or care about the issues in any way, they just want to try to trigger and own the libs, feeding their emotional distress resulting from an undying urge for dominance.
Delete"But even at 85%, by that time, those SS benefits will be higher than current benefits, in real dollars."
That's dumb. Are you retarded?
Apparently you don’t understand what the commenter is saying, 3:23.
DeleteRachel Maddow has a $10 million penthouse in Manhattan and a $5 million farmhouse in MA and she isn't known to be a sharp and long-term investor like Baier is.
ReplyDeleteShe has a $25 million annual salary compared to Baier's $20 million annual salary.
Tucker Carlson was being paid $27 million before he was fired.
DeleteWhat is your point 10:30?
Delete10:30 is nullifying the "jealousy" argument. Maddow is rich but we don't go on and on about how terrible she is, like we do with Musk, so the complaints against Musk are unrelated directly to his wealth, and more about his corruption.
DeleteMaddow is a pauper compared to Musk and she has never produced anything worthwhile in her life. Not one thing enviable. Wealth is only one of the reasons these losers envy Musk.
Delete3:28: you’re the only one here talking about “envying” musk. That’s apparently how you feel. No one else has expressed that. There are those who understand that being a wealthy businessman doesn’t preclude you being a jerk.
DeleteMao's envy for Soros has no limits.
DeleteWhat's envy got to do with it? According to Elon, if you oppose him it's because you're a 'fraudster.'
DeleteMaddow has written several history books. That is an accomplishment and contribution to society.
DeleteHere is a roundup of the very clever anti-Musk advertising campaign in London (the Swasticar):
ReplyDeletehttps://digbysblog.net/2025/03/30/reichy-rich-is-not-feeling-loved/
Hotep Jesus is continuing the early efforts by Malcolm X and others to retrieve the long-disappeared history of Africa's contributions to world history. Some of it is right and some is not, but the disappearance and minimization of African contributions by white historians is a fact, and our current right wing efforts to "disappear" black history in American textbooks is just more of the same.
ReplyDeleteThis article at Alternet is fascinating:
https://www.alternet.org/bronze-age-morocco/
It is about the discovery of a 4000 year old settlement in Morocco in a place that was thought to be unoccupied. This is far more interesting than ancient Troy and Homer's made up stories about white civilizations that have so obsessed Somerby. This is an actual discovery about people that were thought not to exist, like those ships that did travel the world during time periods way before Columbus. We know from artifacts left here that such journeys occurred and black authors in the 1920s transmitted that info to blacks in America in order to restore their pride in their own people, whose history had been abandoned and rewritten with slavery.
Somerby is ignorant when he mocks that aspect of Hotep Jesus's beliefs, although I don't believe the current theory about indigenous people is that they came from Africa, this is no more off base than what Mormons believe. Malcolm X got his history from W.E.B. Dubois and subsequent historians of Africa changed their attitudes with the influx of black and African historians rediscovering their own civilizations and cultures that were suppressed and diminished by white historians prior to the 1960s. For example:
"In the early 1960s, the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper proclaimed that precolonial black Africa had no history. In 1969 he repeated his contention by putting the label 'unhistoric' on the whole of the African continent."
"African history is often overlooked due to a combination of factors, including Eurocentric biases in historical narratives, colonial education systems, and the legacy of slavery and colonialism, which have led to a focus on European history and a downplaying of African achievements and contributions. "
Hotep Jesus has a point that came from legitimate sources. It is mixed in with some bunk but Somerby's response to him is not to sort out what might be valid but to dismiss it all.
Somerby is only mentioning Hotep Jesus for race-baiting purposes. That is too bad, given that the history of Africa and the impact of colonialism on beliefs about Africa is a fascinating subject.
I didn’t know Africa was inhabited four thousand years ago. Thanks for this hot tip.
DeleteThat’s older than sacred Troy.
DeletePeter Navarro, ex-convict, is telling the country tariffs are "tax cuts". What manner of people are these men?
ReplyDeleteMichael Waltz has been outed as following a gay porn star on social media.
DeleteMike Johnson may have been on Grindr.
Republicans crashed Grindr twice during the week of their convention last year.
A Republican congressman recently beat up his girlfriend in DC, and the DC police were investigating the case until the DC Attorney, appointed by Trump, halted the investigation.
On and on....
Republicans are a sad lot of lost souls, suffering from childhood abuse and self-repression to the point of becoming monsters (basically the theme of most horror movies).
ReplyDelete"Elon Musk is widely described as the world's richest person."
It's not really all that important, Bob Somerby, that Elon Musk is the world's richest person. Anyone can be world's richest person. You can, I can. It's just a question of having enough money and assets.
What's important, Bob Somerby, is that Elon Musk is a self-made world's richest person. Capeesh?
Musk is going down, like every clown who goes into business with the failed real estate investor from Queens.
Delete"Musk is going down" is the new "Trump is going down." Musk is the wealthiest and also most important figure on earth and Trump is in his second, soon to be third presidential term.
DeleteTrump's fatal mistake will be not dis-arming the public before gutting Social Security.
Delete
ReplyDelete"Over the weekend, persons all over the Fox News Channel treated these representations as gospel. That said, how much confidence do you have in the various things Musk says?"
Personally, I have almost a billion times more confidence in the various things Musk says than in anything any Democrat says.
And I don't think I am alone in feeling this way. it's a common sentiment.
Musk: “All of our (DOGE) actions are maximally transparent. In fact, I don’t think there’s been, I don’t know of a case where an organization’s been more transparent than the DOGE organization."
Delete“DOGE has made it increasingly challenging to fact check its assertions after it removed federal identification numbers in its website’s source code that could help outsiders identify specifically what grants and contracts the agency is referring to.
That makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to know the vendors the government has contracted with and whether the government is actually saving the amount of money DOGE is claiming it has.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/despite-musks-claims-the-trump-administrations-spending-is-on-pace-to-surpass-bidens-levels-19cdf24c
Membership in the Trump cult includes membership in the Musk cult at no extra charge.
Delete
DeleteNo matter what Elon Musk does, Soros-bots will always be bitching and moaning about it. No way for Elon Musk to satisfy Soros-bots. And that's good.
Seems a bit cult-like when musk fluffers declare that musk can never be wrong about anything.
DeleteIf Musk wanted to satisfy Soros-bots, he could start by not being such a fashy liar.
DeleteMusk is trustworthy to advance humanity, Soros is trustworthy to get your daughter raped by a violent criminal released by an evil Soros prosecutor.
DeleteNice try, 2:02.
DeleteTrump told me your daughter was a dog, and no one would fuck her, on a bet.
Remember that time the stupid musk truck was so tough it could take a bullet, and that putz threw a steel ball at it and the glass shattered? Musk can never be wrong about anything.
DeleteRemember how Musk's rockets keep exploding and how Teslas keep getting recalls.
DeleteMusk is about as useful to society as his herpes infection.
I remember the truck incident and everyone including Musk thought it was funny. Back to the drawing board and problem was solved.
DeleteWhat does George Soros have to do with whether Musk is lying about being transparent?
DeleteSomerby knocks Quine, who is definitely still important in cognitive science, linguistics, philosophy and logic. Hillary Putnam is important to my own work in reference, memory and categorization.
ReplyDeleteThere are many scientific facts and theories that remain unknown to the majority of people, especially those who didn't attend college but also those (like Somerby) who did but didn't pay attention or value what they were learning. That doesn't mean any of that knowledge is bogus or unimportant. At the cutting edge, the things that people are working with as ideas and theories would be even more foreign to nearly all others outside their domains of inquiry.
When Somerby knocks such learning, he consigns humanity to the dark ages, when no one knew about anything and life as nasty, brutish and short. We can go back to those times, if Somerby prefers.
To some extent, the AI approaches now in use emerged from earlier work in cognitive science that attempted to understand how humans process meaning and organize experience of the world. That is Quine and Putnam and all the people who addressed the problems raised by Wittgenstein (which seems to be where Somerby got stuck). We wouldn't have the current iteration of AI without such philosophers. Cognitive science as a discipline is the intersection between computer science, philosophy, psychology, mathematics, linguistics, and neuroscience. It is interdisciplinary and benefits from being informed by diverse approaches to how humans think, and yes, communicate.
Somerby is being an asshole as he throws around these names only to disparage them (by his tone and by claiming that no one knows or cares about them any more when that is far from true). Somerby seems to get off on knocking scientists and thinkers with real accomplishments. That is pathetic and obviously an attempt to wrestle with his own lack of achievement now that he is in old age and unlikely to do anything important with his own life. There is damage done when adults do this, because our entire culture and our nation's prosperity all depend on further progress in science, including the philosophy of science, ideas about knowledge and how people think. Somerby is the worst kind of luddite, an ignorant and nasty one with personal problems to work through.
Interesting, well said.
DeleteAI developers don't know a thing about Quine and will never need to. This reads like a wasteful government employee trying to justify a useless position.
DeleteCrazy Corby in the house. Hey dumb fuck, these are just projections. Do you realize that?
DeleteCorby,/Perry/fucked up crazy bitch
DeleteThis shit fits you perfect:
“ignorant and nasty one with personal problems to work through.”
You’re projecting.
DeleteCorby is retarded, that's all. Let her be.
12:24,
DeleteDe-fund the police, indeed.
Meteorologists…who needs ‘em.
DeleteSame with child cancer research.
Delete12:31: wow. Really persuasive the way you dealt with the points raised by the original commenter…
DeleteAI is garbage.
DeleteThere is sometimes a pattern where areas of thought that were originally useful get developed to the point where they leave reality and become just intellectual exercises. The philosophy of Plato and Aristotle was useful. It led to clearer thinking and better decisions. But, as Bob points out, people like Quine extended philosophical ideas beyond usefulness.
ReplyDeleteSimilar thing happened in mathematics. Early math was based on real things: circles, triangles, counting 1,2,3, etc. But, the math I spent years studying involved mathematical objects with no possible correlation to reality: different levels of infinity, non-measurable sets, etc. Elegant theory but of no practical use.
Same thing happened in physics with string theory. Elegant theory but no possible way to relate to the real world. A waste of effort.
How about art? Art was once old Dutch masterpieces and Rodin's magnificent sculptures. Now art is painting a soup can or taping a banana to the wall.
Religion used to be about enlightenment, now it's just an excuse for bigotry.
DeleteNow Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
DeleteYour children have waited to see
The morning will come
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me
What about kids wandering onto your lawn? Why can't they stay off?
DeleteOh I see, so you are the arbiter of what is or will be useful. Thanks. The scientific community will surely be consulting you about this.
DeleteComputer science is based on enumeration of countably infinite sets. Sets that are beyond countable infinity cannot be enumerated, which represents a class of problems that computers cannot solve.
DeleteThere are algebraic structures that enable private/public key encryption, which, of course, powers the internet. This reductionist thinking on what is useful and what is not leads to a society based on ignorance, which is what where our overlords are pushing us.
Were Gregor Mendel's experiments that showed the discrete nature of inheritance? Not so much at the time, given that they were not full accepted for about 60 years. All advanced technology that we use today at one point was useless research.
Ilya - you make some good points. Research that seems useless may turn out to be useful.
DeleteStill, we don’t have the resources to do all the research conceivable. Someone must decide which research to support.
DiC, there has always been a mechanism for deciding which research to support.
DeleteStill, we don’t have the resources to do all the research conceivable.
DeleteNo one ever said we did, asshole. It certainly aint up to Elon the Nazi to decide, you fucking fascist.
It's up to the American people to decide and we selected the most proven resource, Elon Musk.
DeleteBullshit.
DeleteThe American people elected Trump, because they wanted a President who's dream is to fuck his own daughter, not so Musk could do research.
2:00 come on with that stupid stuff. You telling me big balls was on the ballot? You got no balls..
DeleteIf Musk were really so smart and honest about what he is doing, they wouldn't be hiding him behind doing softball interviews by maga worshippers. He is messing with every part of our government, created and approved by all three branches of our federal government without any vetting and judge after judge has slapped him with TRO's or orders to undo what he illegally did. What the fuck is going on here? Kudlow kindly asked him what we will be seeing his report and Musk just brushed him off saying in so many words, I aint doing any fucking report. I am just doing. What the hell kind of transparency is that?
DeleteHe wasn't hired to litigate but to slash waste and fraud. All of the TRO's will be reversed and most already have been. You can't expect government leeches and thieves to give taxpayers back their money without a fight.
DeleteYes, those meteorologists sucking at the government teat, expecting to be paid for their “expertise” in scientific modeling and forecasting of weather. What leeches. And don’t get me started about all those fired veterans who thought that risking their lives for their country was anything more than being suckers. What leeches.
DeleteLet businesses enforce their own contracts.
DeleteAs you read 3:24, you understand the kind of bullshit we are being fed.
DeleteNobody fucking hired this asshole, maggot. This is a massive fucking okey-doke Trump is pulling with this bullshit about not being accountable.
Trump was elected for his bigotry, not for giving corporations and the rich tax breaks.
Delete"government leeches and thieves"
DeleteDude, get with the MAGA terminology. Anyone who opposes Musk is a 'fraudster.'
String theory isn’t elegant, isn’t testable, and isn’t useful.
DeleteHe wasn't hired to litigate
DeleteI am not asking him to litigate, maggot asshole. I am demanding he report fully and promptly to my elected representatives what the actual fuck he is doing. No more pussy ass mumbling interviews with Joe Rogan and Larry Kudlow. We want to see this motherfucking genius crumble under cross-examination from my US senators. Of course the chickenshit coward can't do that, can he? Superman my ass.
1:35 Someone does decide that: scientists. Not plutocrats*.If you think that we are supporting all research possible, explain why only 1 in 5 RO1 grants gets funded. You can't be this dense.
Delete* of course in the case of RFK Jr, pet projects get funded that are redundant to studies already done, but you won't see Musk objecting to that ridiculous waste.
Somerby: Other than thinly veiled racism, sexism, and xenophobia, I got nothing.
ReplyDeleteEveryone else with two or more brain cells: We know!
Really benefitted from reading your post. Fact-filled, full of insight.
Delete12:20 on the nose, too much so for our more sensitive folks.
DeleteActually no sensitivity, just don't see who benefits from reading such a tired, trite comment.
DeleteTruth doesn’t have to be entertaining to have value.
Deleteyeah, right. Such profound truth. Your post translates to: I don't like Somerby.
DeleteLooks like Gavin Newsom isn’t a real liberal either. He criticized the Democratic Party. And we all know that criticizing the Democratic. Party is not allowed. Newsom is merely repeating, right wing memes. The Democratic Party does not have faults. They are beyond criticism. Let’s banish this Putin lover from the party so AOC can win in 2028.
ReplyDeleteNewsom is a brilliant Democratic pol. I criticize the Democratic party every day. What the fuck are you smoking?
DeleteIf the NY Times can be called liberal, why can't you call Somerby or Pager U liberal?
DeleteAssuming Newsom wants to run, Newsom’s “strategy”, if you can call it that, isn’t likely to appeal to any voters. It’s more likely to push them away. Who wants to vote for someone saying “yeah my party kind of sucks.” What he should be doing is finding a message that works and gives people a reason to vote for Democrats. It’s ok to analyze the problems, but you don’t run on a platform of “we suck.” While Newsom is hobnobbing with rich entitled assholes like Maher, there are Democrats winning elections right now.
Delete“ Who wants to vote for someone saying “yeah my party kind of sucks.””
DeleteI do! Because it would be finally someone in a leadership position being honest about how badly our party has sucked for so long. I’ve had enough of the culture of fear and punishment for being honest.
It is not a winning strategy.
DeleteAnybody is better than Trump/Vance/Musk.
DeleteTrue, 3:07. I do wish that people like Newsom would offer robust defenses of social security and Medicare and go after Trump and musk’s and the GOP’s recklessness. Stand and fight for something positive, don’t go around trashing the party. Heaven knows there’s already enough of that everywhere.
DeleteI do wish that people like Newsom would offer robust defenses of social security and Medicare
DeleteHe is quite capable of doing that and I have seen him do it in the past.
Our party doesn’t suck. We nearly won.
DeleteAnonymouse 1:37pm, I attributed fear and loathing when it comes to dissent on the highly militant anonymouse operative types in your party. I didn’t know it was widespread.
DeleteIt is fully widespread and the reason we can only “nearly win” against an obvious charlatan like Trump.
DeleteIf Harris had been a white male, she would have won.
DeleteSounds very disordered, as Bob would say.
DeleteCecelia, I fear you, but I don’t loathe you.
DeleteI loathe her, but I don’t fear her.
DeleteI guess I’m covered then. I don’t identify with either emotion, but I guess someone has to. Might as well be anonymices.
DeleteI neither fear nor loathe you.
DeleteI both fear and loathe her.
Delete“If this is the kind of help the society gets from its greatest logicians, is it really surprising that this flailing nation's ship of state seems to be running aground?”
ReplyDeleteQuine never wielded the kind of power musk has, nor did he seek to be a ubiquitous media presence like Musk.
I find it odd to complain about Quine, as if he had some special duty to “help society” in some way that Somerby fails to specify. There are many academicians and researchers who go about their business largely outside the public view. It isn’t even clear what political persuasion Quine leaned towards; according to Wikipedia, he was a conservative. Being a “logician” doesn’t confer any special duty, and Quine was, I believe, concerned with formal logic, which relates more to mathematics and set theory than ordinary discourse.
I also am not one to assume that because I don’t currently understand a particular idea or theory, that means the idea or theory is wrong or stupid. It suggests that I perhaps ought to spend more time thinking about what the man said rather than dismissing it and making a joke of it. YMMV.
"as if he (Quine) had some special duty to “help society” in some way that Somerby fails to specify."
DeleteI think in the past he has. He wants philosophers to be public intellectuals who help to clarify public discourse.
It seems rather like ancient Greece.
Duh, is that what you think? You just restated Somerby’s complaint. “Being a public intellectual.” What does that mean? Why must he be? In what specific way is “ being a public intellectual“ helpful to society? William f Buckley was a public intellectual, and a giant prick.
DeleteQuine wrote books. What more does Somerby expect?
DeleteQuine died in 2000. Somerby’s expectations may be unrealistic.
DeleteBy now everyone knows that Musk's claims are designed to confuse and bamboozle us. He claims big savings, but when it comes to backing those claims up, there's nothing. This goes for the alleged $1Bil survey. The default assumption: it's bonk.
ReplyDeleteWhat remains a mystery is how many people accept Musk's claims, sans any evidence or documentation. I don't know whether it's willful ignorance; whether it's Musk Delusion Syndrome; or whether we have become so overwhelmed with bogus information on social media that we've lost ability to be skeptical of outrageous claims.
Famously, Carl Sagan suggested: "An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof." No proof apparently is needed for Musk groupies. Why is that?
There's no doubt that a lot of wasteful spending has been eliminated. Go to
Deletehttps://duckduckgo.com/?q=examples+of+wasteful+spending&atb=v426-1&ia=web
and read about them for yourself. Yes, Ilya is right that the amount is uncertain. There's every reason to think that a lot more wasteful spending will be cut, although who knows whether Musk will reach his goal of $1 trillion?
We Musk supporters are thrilled to see large amounts of waste and fraud eliminated. What's not to like?
"What's not to like?"
DeleteThe fascism
When are you going to pay attention?
Like the overwhelming majority of Right-wingers, David in Cal voted for Trump because Trump promised to keep the photo of Hunter Biden's penis online.
DeleteAs you can see, trolls like DiC have no interest in honest discourse. All concerns and critiques are simply ignored. He comes here to rub our noses in the end of democracy. When we get power back we will return the favor.
DeleteWasteful, you say? If it was appropriated by congress, then by definition it's not wasteful. Certain research grants that may seem wasteful -- well, see my post above about scientific research. Research on Gila monster venom is what gave us Ozempic.
DeleteAgain, no one knows what Musk is doing. But there's little doubt that most of his claims don't stand up to scrutiny. Furthermore, Musk wantonly conflates "fraud", "waste", and "I-wouldn't-spend-money-on-that".
“ If it was appropriated by congress, then by definition it's not wasteful.”
DeleteThat is the dumbest comment I’ve ever seen on this website.
That's how our government works: congress, elected by voters, appropriates funds for various projects. Live and learn, kid.
DeleteIt is too bad the framers of our Constitution didn't consult with Elon the Nazi. He seems powerfully upset with the role Federal Judges play.
DeleteOn the other hand, Willard Van Orman Quine’s nephew Robert Quine, was an outstanding guitarist — until he died of a heroin overdose. He was a voidoid.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hell_and_the_Voidoids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Quine