Month: April 2023

None Dare Call It Treason: What Was Malignant Ding-Dong Trump’s Motive With His Classified Documents Obstruction of Justice?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. We continue to learn that the Federal government has growing evidence that ding-dong Trump was actively working to hide documents from them when they realized he had stolen them.

Now, the conventional wisdom at the moment is that it was pure vanity — Trump thought it was cool to have top secret documents and he was too stupid to care about how badly he was breaking the law.

But if there is one thing equal to how stupid Trump is, or his sense of self-preservation…it’s his greed. As such, I’m not prepared to dismiss the idea that idiot Trump realized the potential value of the classified documents he stole and he had some sense, in the back of his mind, that maybe he might be able to profit from them in some way.

This is, of course, pure speculation on my part, but I’m just not prepared to let that idiot off the hook so easy. Trump is so fucking stupid and is graded on such a fucking curve by people who should now better that it definitely makes you wonder what all his doughface defends would say if we finally, finally caught him doing a big boy crime: treason.

But, lulz, who knows with Trump. It definitely, at the moment, seems as though that idiot is going to force the issue of civil war or autocracy in 2024 and single handedly put America at the bring of collapse.

If Anyone Can Get People Into AR / VR Headsets, It’s Apple

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about the tragic early demise of Steve Jobs is we never got a “real” smart TV from Apple and of the people who could convince millions of people to wear VR / AR goggles in public — he was it. So, finally, Apple apparently may be on the cusp of releasing it’s on AR / VR goggles.

All things being equal, Apple should begin to work on transitioning its entire user base to using such goggles instead having an iPhone combined with a laptop / desktop. Everything SHOULD go through the googles to the point that your entire life would revolve around them, especially the AR part of it all.

And, yet.

People still just aren’t prepared to walk around in public wearing AR / VR goggles because they would fear they looked like idiots. But, again, the only company I can imagine that might be able to pull such a feat off is Apple. They have a sense of style that all the other computer companies lack.

What’s even more interesting is we could one day soon see not just AR / VR goggles…but AI powered AR / VR goggles. Now THAT would be pretty cool, I have to say. Convincing millions of people to wear such goggles would be the basis of a few trillion dollar service industry.

Well, That’s Alarming

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Jesus Christ. I was on Tik-Tok today and I saw something truly shocking: Nazi propaganda. And it wasn’t diluted either, it was pure cut Nazi propaganda that you would have seen on Tik-Tok if it existed in 1930s Germany.

What I saw — which does not bear describing — was so bad that it gave me that eerie feeling you get when you see something really horrible and realize, “Well, you don’t see that very often, now do you?”

Anyway, I suppose it was inevitable that such a thing would happen. Tik-Tok is already a cesspool of disinformation, it was inevitable that fucking Nazis would get involved, huh.

As we careen towards the 2024 election, we’re going to have to worry about political deep fakes and really weird disinformation on social media. I dunno. I’m growing more and more alarmed that Something Bad is going to happen in late 2024, early 2025.

What that Something Bad thing might be, I still don’t know.

Of Being ‘Professional’ On Social Media For Literary Agents

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Yikes. I saw a literary agent on Twitter stress in no-uncertain terms that not only do literary agents look at people’s social media output…but they expect aspiring novelists to conduct themselves in a “professional” manner.

OH MY FUCKING GOD AM I IN TROUBLE.

I’m a kook, a drunk crank even, on social media. I am generally cordial and well meaning, but I am known to get really drunk and rant in a very “unprofessional” manner about how much I fucking hate MAGA. Or I retweet pictures of hot chicks. Or say “fuck” a lot.

I just can’t help who I am on that front. I long ago realized that the “professional” conduct life isn’t for me. I wear my heart on my sleeve and if something bothers me, you’re going to know about it one way or another. I suppose there are things I can do to “mitigate” this particular situation, but the Internet never forgets so any attempt to obscure my general wide-open nature on social media will only be so successful.

I don’t even know what being “professional” on social media even means. What’s the point of being on “social” media, if you can’t be “social” in how you use it.

All I can conclude is, in the end, “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

Joe Manchin For POTUS? (Uh, No)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have to admit that given that America is a center-Right nation with center-Left aspirations that all things being equal a Joe Manchin presidency would potentially punt the civil war or autocracy question down the road as much as eight years.

And, yet, in real terms, any attempt on his part to become president will only exacerbate the very forces he would halt if he was president. In theory, a President Manchin would be just the type of person who would please neither side and yet also sort of be able to bridge the political divide in a way that the country would avoid the existential crisis that is careening towards it.

So, lulz, there is a real chance that Manchin will throw the election to ding-dong Trump if he runs against Biden in some way. I say yet again that we have to take seriously the idea that not since the election of 1860 has America faced such an existential crisis.

I honestly don’t know which way things will go.

Maybe I’m Not A Drunk, I’m Just Thought Provoking

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because of a quirk of my life, I generally don’t have a lot of people to talk to. But, on occasion, I do a little bar hopping. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become a lot more self-conscious about how I come across to other people and repeatedly during my bar hopping of late the bartender seemed…alarmed…by what we were talking about.

Or something. Something was going on and I struggle to figure out what it is.

I first thought that their reaction to my drunk ranting was…that I’m a drunk and I need to cool it with how much booze I drink. While that may still be the case, it’s beginning to dawn on me that it’s not that I was drunk that is the problem, but rather I was ranting in a really thought provoking manner.

While I’m well aware that every drunk thinks they’re the funniest person in room, I wonder if maybe I REALLY need to move to a proper city. You know, the type that has a subway. I can’t help that when I have a bit of tipple I find myself musing in a very aggressive, public manner about really thought provoking things.

That’s just my nature.

Alas, however, I’m officially an Old, so even if I manage to write a breakoout first novel…lulz. It’s just not going to be the fun it might otherwise be. Or, at least, the context will be different. Instead of being 24, or 33 with newfound wealth and success that affords me to be “bi-costal” and be a smug liberal looking down on the Poors of middle America on a Red Eye….I’ll just be old.

Age is an immutable fact of life.

Mike Pence & His Republican Ilk As ‘Doughfaces’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

According to the book, “The Field of Blood,” in the antebellum Congress, using the term “doughface” on someone might get you punched. The term refered to a Northern Democrat who sucked up to Slave Power for the sake of national unity.

The term comes from a children’s game where you were a “dough face” in an effort to scare people.

Anyway, I think we should use the term “doughface” to describe people like Mike Pence who are willing to absolutely prostrate themselves at the altar of mailigant ding-dong Donald Trump.

Of course, no one listens to me. If they did, we would be using the term “Vichy Republicans” to refer to these type of people already. I will note, however, that reading The Field of Blood reminds me of how similar today’s politics are to those of the antebellum world.

It’s somewhat eerie. I think it comes from how America is careening towards an existential choice of autocracy or civil war in late 2024, early 2025 and, as such, form follows function.

Any National Divorce Would Be Extremely…Messy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though a lot of Americans have some sort of National Divorce on the brain. They come up with all these different maps that imagine how, exactly, such a “divorce” would actually happen. Here’s the latest one that I’ve found on Twitter.

The problem with this map is it is way too sanguine about a lot of things. There are two main elements to a National Divorce that aren’t really talked about that much. One is, by definition, millions of people would be displaced because their politics didn’t fit their state’s general political inclinations.

The second is Red States are pretty much contiguous, while Blue States aren’t. So, unless some sort of United States of Canada can come into existence to connect all the Blue States, there’s a good chance there will be a massive fucking war to build some sort of land bridge between Oregon and Minnesota and another between Michigan and the Northeast states.

I still have serious doubts that any sort of National Divorce will happen. In fact, at the moment, it definitely seems as though Trump, unto himself, pretty much is going to determine which way things go.

AGI & The End Of Everything

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing I don’t think we’re thinking enough about is how we’re careening towards a future where there pretty much isn’t anything for humanity to do other than smoke a bowl while playing video games.

Should we get anywhere near to Artificial General Intelligence, there simply may not be any tasks left for humans to do. And given how angry, unhappy and bitter humans become when they don’t have work to distract them, this could make the entire world very, very unstable.

The whole notion of “prompt engineer” is extremely short sighted. It’s the type of job that we think will exist to make ourselves feel better. But if we reach a “Her” like future….why would there be a need for prompt engineers? Your AGI digital assistant would know you so well that it might even be able to preemptly answer your question before you ask it.

So, it seems to me that it’s at least possible that the real danger of AGI isn’t AGI, it’s restless humans. And it could be that any attempt to regulate AGI is moot because if America doesn’t let AGI do this or that thing, some other country will so we’ll feel a competitive demand to not regulate.

It’s very possible that we may see the rise of some sort of Neo-Luddite movement that….grows violent in some way. Implementing a UBI would only go so far. Human nature is such that for every 1 person who writes the Great American Novel with all the time a UBI affords, there will be a 100 Type-A people who will want to burn everything to the ground because they can’t make $1 billion.

Anyway, the point is — we have to take some of the darker possibilities of the AGI revolution more seriously.

Day 1: Second Draft Cornerstone

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s April 1st and I’ve completed a solid reworked first scene for the second draft. I’ve given the novel a “soft” opening, rather than anything all that dramatic.

My dream title for my first novel.

My heroine is…unique. She’s really interesting and provocative. She’s very much if you fused Lisbeth Salander and Mare of Easttown and had her be a journalist.

I’m a little nervous about how believable she is as a character. At the moment, my need for her to be really unique is bumping up against my fear that she’s just a little too out there for anyone to believe she would be able to do the things I want / need her to do.

I continue to do this in a vacuum, which slows my progress down. And I haven’t been reading as much as I need to. Though, I have admit that I did some reading and all that happened was I felt some existential angst about the beginning of the novel based on some of the things I read and found myself reworking the nature of the first chapter’s scenes AGAIN.

My next goal is to see how fast I can work my way through the remainder of the first chapter. I’ve extensively re-imagined the first chapter yet again. But I do feel that things are going to go a lot faster once I get out of the first chapter. I’ve finally figured out some basic relationships that I feel make the overall story a lot stronger.