Month: March 2025

Are We Heading Towards a ‘Kiln People’ Future? The Looming Shadow of AI Agents and the Fate of Real Connection

David Brin’s 2002 novel, Kiln People, paints a fascinating, if unsettling, picture of a future where people routinely create temporary, disposable copies of themselves called “dittos.” These clay golems handle the mundane, the dangerous, and even the emotionally taxing aspects of life, while the “originals” remain safely at home. Sound familiar? While we’re not firing up kilns to bake clay clones (yet!), the rise of sophisticated AI agents is raising a chillingly similar question: are we about to outsource our lives to digital “dittos,” and what will that mean for human connection?

The promise of AI agents is seductive. Imagine a tireless digital assistant that manages your schedule, filters your information, answers your questions, and even handles your social media interactions. No more overflowing inboxes, tedious tasks, or awkward small talk. Your perfectly curated digital self, represented by your agent, would navigate the world with flawless efficiency. Sounds great, right?

But Kiln People provides a potent cautionary tale. In Brin’s world, many people become so reliant on their dittos that they effectively withdraw from real life. They experience the world vicariously, through the filtered senses of their disposable copies. The risks are numerous:

  • The Erosion of Authentic Experience: Just as ditto users lose the richness and immediacy of direct experience, over-reliance on AI agents could diminish our own engagement with the world. We might become passive consumers of curated information, rather than active participants in our own lives.
  • The Atrophy of Social Skills: If our agent handles all our social interactions, what happens to our ability to navigate the complexities of human relationships? Will we lose the capacity for empathy, conflict resolution, and genuine connection? The “digital muscles” of social interaction could weaken from disuse, much like the Spacers’ physical muscles in Asimov’s Robot series.
  • The Rise of Digital Solipsism: Imagine a world where everyone interacts primarily through their personalized AI agents. These agents, designed to cater to our preferences, could create extreme filter bubbles, shielding us from diverse perspectives and reinforcing our existing biases. We risk becoming trapped in echo chambers of our own making, a kind of digital solipsism.
  • The Loss of Serendipity and Spontaneity: The messy, unpredictable nature of real-world interaction is often where the magic happens. Serendipitous encounters, unexpected conversations, and even uncomfortable moments can lead to growth, learning, and genuine connection. An overly curated, agent-mediated existence could eliminate these vital experiences.
  • The Question of Identity: In Kiln People, the line between the original and the ditto blurs, raising profound questions about identity and consciousness. While AI agents are not sentient (yet!), our dependence on them could still raise questions about who we are and how we define ourselves. If our agent manages our online persona, our communication, and even our relationships, how much of our “self” remains authentically ours?
  • Vulnerability to Manipulation. A ditto is a copy of your own self, whereas an AI Agent could be influenced and trained by outside actors. This is perhaps an even greater risk than presented in Kiln People.

Beyond the Kiln: Finding a Balanced Path

The point isn’t to reject AI agents entirely. They offer incredible potential to improve our lives, increase efficiency, and even enhance certain aspects of communication. The challenge is to find a balanced approach, to use these tools consciously and intentionally, without sacrificing the essential aspects of human experience.

We need to:

  • Prioritize Human-Centered Design: AI agents should be designed to augment our capabilities, not replace them. They should encourage real-world interaction, critical thinking, and diverse perspectives.
  • Cultivate Digital Literacy: We need to educate ourselves and future generations about the responsible use of AI, the importance of balanced engagement, and the potential pitfalls of over-reliance.
  • Foster “Digital Wellness”: Just as we prioritize physical and mental health, we need to cultivate a healthy relationship with technology, setting boundaries and making conscious choices about how we engage with the digital world.
  • Preserve Spaces for Unmediated Interaction: We need to actively create and protect spaces for face-to-face interaction, community building, and shared experiences.
  • Hold the creators of these AI Agents responsible. If the agent is not acting in your best interest, then whose interest is it acting in?

Kiln People serves as a powerful metaphor, a warning from the future. It reminds us that technology is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used to build or to destroy. The future of human connection in the age of AI agents is not predetermined. It’s a future we are creating now, with every choice we make about how we integrate these powerful technologies into our lives. Let’s choose wisely. Let’s not become a society of people living vicariously through our digital “dittos.” Let’s embrace the richness, messiness, and irreplaceable value of real human connection.

JUST FOR FUN: Introducing Gawker: The Social Media Rebellion Investors Can’t Ignore

Imagine a social media platform where users don’t just scroll—they shape. A place where the news isn’t a monologue but a remix, where discussions aren’t fleeting tweets but living, editable threads. Welcome to Gawker—a daydream we’re ready to build, and a venture poised to disrupt the digital landscape. Here’s why you should care.

The Problem: Noise Over Substance

Today’s social media is a firehose: TikTok’s 15-second dopamine hits, X’s 280-character shouting matches, Reddit’s sprawling chaos. Depth’s dead—users skim, not think. Even the old guard, like Usenet’s threaded brilliance, got lost to time. Meanwhile, big publishers like The New York Times churn out content users can only gawk at, not touch. There’s a hunger for agency, for substance, for a platform that rewards effort over impulse. Gawker’s here to feed it.

The Vision: Earned Participation, Unmatched Control

Gawker isn’t for everyone—and that’s the point. You don’t post day one; you earn it. Sign up, get a starter pack of points, wait five days to marinate on the vibe. Then prove yourself: thoughtful posts build status, screw-ups (spam, trolls) lock you out for a month. It’s meritocracy, not anarchy—gawkers watch, contributors thrive. Rewards? Exclusive Group access, editing powers, prestige. Think Reddit’s karma meets a velvet rope.

The heart of Gawker is Groups—everything orbits them. Users slot friends and topics into custom Groups during onboarding, creating tight, intentional communities. For breaking news, dozens of Groups spring up, each slicing the story from a fresh angle. Editorial teams curate public ones, cutting through clutter with granular control. It’s Usenet’s spirit, reborn in HTML polish.

The Killer Feature: Remixing the News

Here’s the hook: Gawker lets users inline-edit content from giants like The New York Times, natively in official Groups. Picture an NYT op-ed—users annotate, critique, reframe it line-by-line, all marked as outsider edits. It’s not a murky hijack; it’s a turbocharged comment section with teeth. Publishers opt in via profit-sharing—say, 40% of engagement revenue—turning their articles into interactive goldmines. Users get agency; NYT gets eyeballs and cash. Legal? Tight contracts. Disruptive? Hell yes.

Why It Works

Gawker’s not chasing TikTok’s masses—it’s a niche beast, a text-driven CNN killer or Reddit’s smarter sibling. Long-form posts with inline editing (a trick Usenet nailed 30 years ago) let ideas breathe and evolve. A 300-word Feed excerpt hooks you into the good stuff. Echo chambers? We’re wrestling that—tons of Groups mean variety, and future tweaks (cross-Group highlights) will stir the pot. Culture will form, sure, but Gawker’s built for the curious, not the cozy.

Video? It’s coming—Zoom-style calls in threads, rolled out post-launch when we’ve scaled the core. Imagine live debates over an edited NYT piece, seamless and exclusive. It’s the cherry, not the cake—proof we dream big but start smart.

The Pitch: Profit and Traction

Gawker’s lean: a centralized platform, no distributed-network overhead. Revenue streams stack up—ads in Feeds, premium status tiers, publisher deals. Start with small outlets to test the edit model, then court the big fish. Early adopters—writers, thinkers, news junkies—will flock to a space that respects depth. Scale video later, keep costs tight upfront. This isn’t a moonshot; it’s a calculated rebellion with legs.

Why Now?

AI’s rising, sure—agents might curate or chatter—but Gawker’s human core (editing, debating) is timeless. Users crave control as algorithms tighten their grip. The window’s open: platforms are stale, people are restless. Gawker’s not just a site—it’s a stance. Invest in us, and you’re backing the next wave of social: deliberate, dynamic, profitable.

Let’s talk. We’ve got the vision—your capital can make it real.

Notes for You

  • Tone: I went for a mix of bold confidence and investor-friendly pragmatism—highlighting the “why you’ll make money” angle without losing the daydream’s edge.
  • Details: Pulled in your point system, NYT editing, Group focus, and video delay, framing them as strategic wins. Left some wiggle room (e.g., exact revenue splits) to invite discussion.
  • Hook: The “remixing the news” bit’s front and center—it’s the sexiest sell. The Usenet nod adds retro cred without bogging it down.

JUST FOR FUN: Introducing Gawker: The Social Media Revolution That Revives Usenet and Reinvents News

Social media is broken. News is broken. Online discourse is broken. What if we could fix all of them at once? What if we built a platform where the best aspects of Usenet, Wikipedia, and modern social media converged into something entirely new?

Welcome to Gawker, a platform where you don’t just consume content—you actively shape it.

The Core Idea: Groups, Posts, and Gawking

At its heart, Gawker is structured around Groups and Posts—a modern reimagining of the old Usenet TIN experience. But unlike Usenet, Gawker is centralized, curated, and designed for the modern web.

  • Groups: The backbone of the platform. Every discussion, every debate, every breaking news event unfolds in a Group. Groups can be personal (friends, interests) or public (news, cultural topics). Some are user-created, while others are curated by the Gawker editorial team to maintain quality and prevent spam.
  • Posts: Unlike Twitter’s short blurbs or Reddit’s comment chains, Gawker Posts are meant to be full-length, longform when necessary, and editable in-line. You’re not just commenting—you’re contributing to a growing, evolving conversation.
  • Gawking: The core mechanic of engagement. Before you can post in a Group, you must first gawk—that is, read, observe, and engage with discussions passively. This system weeds out trolls, spammers, and low-effort engagement, ensuring that only thoughtful, invested users shape the conversation.

Inline Editing: The Killer Feature

Imagine reading an article from The New York Times, The Guardian, or The Atlantic—but instead of just commenting below it, you can edit it inline, debate specific passages, and propose alternative takes right inside the article itself.

That’s the power of Gawker’s Inline Editing feature. Instead of a static comment section, each article becomes a live document, where approved users can highlight, annotate, and suggest improvements in a WYSIWYG editor. Media outlets benefit from increased engagement, real-time corrections, and transparent discourse—all while sharing ad revenue and subscriptions through our partnership model.

This feature takes media criticism, fact-checking, and collaborative journalism to an entirely new level. No more shouting into the void about bad reporting—now you can fix it.

Breaking News, Reimagined

Twitter revolutionized live news, but it’s become a chaotic, unreliable mess. Gawker takes it to the next level: real-time collaborative reporting inside structured Groups.

Here’s how breaking news works on Gawker:

  1. Anyone can create a Group dedicated to an unfolding event.
  2. Some Groups, run by journalists or trusted curators, get special visibility.
  3. Instead of fragmented tweets, journalists and experts co-write a live story, visible to thousands of gawkers who watch the reporting unfold in real-time.
  4. Trusted users can suggest edits, annotate facts, and even provide eyewitness updates.

It’s like a live Google Doc of breaking news, where transparency and accuracy take center stage. No more waiting for updates—the news is happening before your eyes.

AI-Powered Discovery & Moderation

Finding great conversations is hard, and moderation is even harder. Gawker solves both problems with AI-assisted Group discovery and engagement:

  • AI-Suggested Groups: Based on your interests, Gawker recommends Groups you should follow, ensuring you never miss a great conversation.
  • Smart Moderation: AI helps flag low-quality content, but human users make the final call. This ensures fair, transparent moderation, free from both spam and overreach.
  • Reputation-Based Privileges: Instead of arbitrary moderation bans, Gawker uses a reputation system: earn respect, get more control. Abuse it, lose it.

Reviving the Best of Usenet Culture

Gawker isn’t just another social media site—it’s a love letter to the golden age of the internet. We’re bringing back what made Usenet great, with modern tools to make it even better:

  • Deep Discussions: No more shallow engagement. Gawker’s post structure encourages long-form, thoughtful discussion.
  • Rich Metadata & Cross-Thread Referencing: Want to reference a debate from three years ago? Instant cross-thread linking keeps discussions alive.
  • User Reputation & Global Edit Privileges: The ultimate status symbol? The ability to edit anything—reserved only for Gawker’s most trusted users.

The Future of Social Media Starts Here

We’ve lost something in the transition from early internet forums to today’s algorithm-driven platforms. Gawker is about bringing it back—better than ever.

  • A space for serious discussion, collaborative media, and real-time news.
  • A platform where you don’t just react to content—you shape it.
  • A system that rewards thoughtful engagement, not outrage farming.

Are you ready to gawk? Let’s build the future of online discourse—together.

Reimagining Social Media: A Modern Take on Usenet’s Best Features

In an age of fleeting tweets and algorithmic feeds, I’ve been thinking about what social media might look like if we revisited some of the best concepts from internet history—specifically, the Usenet’s TIN interface—and reimagined them with modern technology. What if we created a platform that combined the thoughtful, threaded discussions of Usenet with the immediacy and accessibility of today’s social media?

The Concept: Groups, Posts, and Real-Time Collaboration

At its core, this platform—let’s call it “Gawker” for now—would organize everything around “Groups” (similar to subreddits or forums) and “Posts” (full webpage-length content). But here’s where things get interesting: Posts would feature inline editing in real-time, essentially turning every discussion into a collaborative document.

Your feed would show 300-word excerpts from posts in groups you follow or from people in your network, giving you enough context to decide if you want to dive deeper without overwhelming you with endless short updates.

In-line Editing: The Killer Feature

Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect would be the ability to edit posts in-line within threaded discussions. Think of it as a public Google Doc with collaboration features, but designed specifically for discussions.

This would be particularly powerful for breaking news. Imagine watching journalists craft their reporting in real-time, adding information as it comes in, making corrections transparently, and allowing approved contributors to add context or alternative perspectives. You could literally watch the story develop before your eyes.

For established publications like the New York Times, this could create an entirely new layer of engagement. With proper agreements in place, their articles could be imported into the platform, allowing for collaborative annotation and discussion directly in the context of the original reporting.

From “Gawking” to Contributing

The platform would initially limit who can contribute, creating a natural progression from consumption to participation. New users would start by “gawking” at content until they earned the right to post—hence the playful “Gawker” name. This could help maintain quality and reduce low-effort contributions that plague many platforms.

Different levels of editing privileges would exist, with the highest reserved for content creators and vetted contributors. Think of it as community-powered fact-checking and context-adding, all happening within the original content rather than scattered across replies.

Video Integration and Multimedia

Video conferences could be embedded directly within threads, allowing conversations to transition seamlessly between text and video when more nuanced discussion is needed. These would be stored for 30 days, striking a balance between preserving valuable conversations and managing infrastructure costs.

Managing the Challenges

Of course, this concept comes with challenges. Content moderation would need to be handled at the group level, with editorial boards for sensitive topics. Version control would be essential, potentially borrowing concepts from software development to allow “forking” of discussions when opinions significantly diverge.

For particularly sensitive topics, a “slow mode” could be implemented where edits must be deliberated upon before publication, creating space for more careful consideration.

Beyond News: Education and Creativity

While news and community discussions would likely dominate, the platform could serve as a powerful educational tool, allowing students to collaboratively annotate texts with professors guiding the process. It could also spawn new forms of participatory storytelling and creative collaboration.

A New Kind of Social Experience

This platform would occupy a unique space between social media, collaborative workspaces, and journalism. It could potentially revitalize long-form discourse in an age of shrinking attention spans while creating more transparent and participatory information ecosystems.

By revisiting what worked about Usenet but reimagining it with modern capabilities, we might create something that addresses many of the shortcomings of today’s social media landscape—a space that encourages thoughtful engagement rather than hot takes, collaboration rather than conflict, and depth rather than virality.

What do you think? Would you use a platform like this? What other features would you want to see?

Reimagining Social Media: Could a ‘Collaborative, Long-Form’ Platform Be the Antidote to Information Overload?

We live in an age of information overload. The constant barrage of short-form content, fleeting updates, and algorithmic echo chambers can leave us feeling overwhelmed and disconnected. What if there was a different approach to social media, one that prioritized depth, collaboration, and thoughtful engagement?

This post explores a thought experiment: a new social media platform – tentatively named “Gawker” (a nod to the concept of observing and participating, and, yes, borrowing from the blog world) – that reimagines the core principles of online interaction. It draws inspiration from the structured, threaded discussions of Usenet’s TIN reader, but updates it for the modern, collaborative web.

The Core Idea: Open Collaboration, Controlled Access

Gawker is built on a few key principles:

  • Long-Form Content: Unlike the character limits of many platforms, Gawker embraces long-form posts, encouraging in-depth analysis, detailed reporting, and nuanced discussion. Think articles, essays, and even collaborative book chapters.
  • HTML-Based Rich Media: The platform fully supports embedded images, videos, interactive elements, and rich formatting, moving beyond the limitations of plain text.
  • Group-Centric Organization: Everything revolves around Groups. Users organize their connections and interests into Groups, creating curated streams of relevant content. Onboarding requires this grouping, forcing intentionality.
  • Real-Time Collaborative Editing: This is the game-changer. Posts are treated like “living documents,” collaboratively edited in real-time, similar to Google Docs. Imagine journalists, experts, and citizen reporters working together on a breaking news story, in public.
  • “Gawking” vs. Contributing: Anyone can observe (gawk) at content within a Group. However, contributing to a Group you don’t own requires proving your “worthiness” – through reputation, credentials, an application process, or a trial period. This fosters quality control and prevents spam.
  • Decentralized Moderation: Group owners are responsible for setting the rules and moderating content within their Groups. This distributes the moderation burden and allows for diverse community standards.
  • Fluid Groups: The service would make it very easy to create and to dissolve Groups.

The Potential Benefits:

  • Combating Information Overload: The Group-centric structure and long-form content encourage focus and depth, cutting through the noise of traditional social media.
  • Fostering Thoughtful Discussion: The platform is designed to promote reasoned debate, in-depth analysis, and constructive criticism.
  • Empowering Citizen Journalism: Gawker provides a powerful platform for independent reporters and citizen journalists to collaborate and share their work.
  • Real-Time Fact-Checking: The open, collaborative editing process allows for immediate correction of errors and debunking of misinformation.
  • Building Collective Knowledge: Groups can become repositories of expertise, collaboratively built and refined over time.
  • Edit, edit, edit: Unlike most social media services, everything is editable, from Groups to Posts.

The Challenges:

This model isn’t without its challenges. We need to consider:

  • Onboarding Friction: The mandatory grouping and “worthiness” requirements could be a barrier to entry for some users.
  • Moderation Complexity: While decentralized, moderation still requires significant effort from Group owners.
  • Scalability: Supporting real-time collaborative editing on large-scale posts is a technical hurdle.
  • Potential for Misuse: Like any platform, Gawker could be used for malicious purposes (trolling, harassment, spreading misinformation). Robust reporting and blocking mechanisms are crucial.
  • Copyright issues: Posting copyrighted materials, without permission.

The Disruptive Potential:

Gawker represents a radical departure from the dominant social media paradigm. It’s a bet on depth over breadth, quality over quantity, and collaboration over individual broadcasting. It’s a platform designed for creators, thinkers, and informed citizens, not just passive consumers.

Imagine:

  • Breaking news unfolding in real-time, collaboratively reported by journalists and eyewitnesses.
  • Experts in a field co-authoring a comprehensive analysis of a complex issue, with readers able to follow the process and contribute feedback.
  • Communities building shared knowledge bases, collaboratively curated and constantly updated.

This is a vision of social media that prioritizes informed discourse, collaborative creation, and transparent information sharing. It’s a platform that embraces the messy, complex reality of the digital age, and attempts to harness its power for good.

Requiem For a Dream

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve reached the age where even if somehow, miraculously, I fell into some money, the context would be so different as to make any dreams I had simply not obtainable.

I don’t expect to fall into any money anytime soon — I’m extremely poor — but I do mull sometimes what I would do if I had a little extra money to use. I probably would just go to Asia for two weeks, come home, and figure out what to do next with my life. But even that is debatable, given that I’m bonkers.

But there’s a chance I would go to New York City or LA for just a little stay to at least look around. LA, in particular, I think, would be a place that — if I was 20 or more years younger — I would thrive. But, I’m not. And I’m bonkers. (I don’t handle stress well.)

Yet one thing that is pretty safe if I do fall into some money before I drop dead is buying some high-end photographic equipment. I would want to prove to myself that I could do it. I’m a REALLY GOOD photographer and if I had the equipment, I think I could at least take one or two memorable photos.

And, yet, lulz. I think, barring the Singularity happening and I suddenly getting a significant life extension, that this is it. I’m just going to drift into oblivion and the only thing of note I will have done with my life is a being a DJ in Seoul and starting a long-forgotten, failed monthly magazine for expats in South Korea.

‘Delulu’ — Lyrics To A Pop-R&B-Fusion Song

(Song Title: Delulu)

(Intro – Snappy, finger-snapping beat with a heavy bass line, similar to Independent Women Pt. 2)

(Synth riff, slightly distorted and playful)

Verse 1
Diamond on my phone screen, ain’t no ring on this hand
Got my own damn empire, built it up from the sand
Got my vision board glowing, manifesting all day
He’s liking all my stories, that’s gotta mean somethin’, right? (Scoffs playfully)

Pre-Chorus
My girls say I’m reaching, callin’ it a stretch
Say he’s out my league, a hypothetical sketch
But I see the connection, the cosmic, deep design
He looked at me for, like, two seconds… that’s a sign!

Chorus – (Powerful, layered vocals with harmonies)
Delulu, delulu, yeah, I might be a little
Lost in the fantasy, caught in the middle
Of what I want and what is real, it’s a blur
But a girl can dream, can’t she? That much is for sure!
Delulu, delulu, livin’ in my own world
Got my head in the clouds, where the flags are unfurled
For a love that might just be, all in my mind
But I’m rocking this delusion, one of a kind!

Verse 2
Crafted the perfect text, took me twenty-two drafts
Analyzed every emoji, avoidin’ all the gaffes
He left me on “read”, but that’s just ’cause he’s busy, right?
Building his own empire, shining his own bright light… (Nervous laugh)

Pre-Chorus
My girls say I’m trippin’, need a reality check
Say I’m building castles on a foundation-less deck
But I feel the potential, the sparks in the air
He double-tapped my selfie… that’s gotta mean he cares!

Chorus – (Powerful, layered vocals with harmonies)
Delulu, delulu, yeah, I might be a little
Lost in the fantasy, caught in the middle
Of what I want and what is real, it’s a blur
But a girl can dream, can’t she? That much is for sure!
Delulu, delulu, livin’ in my own world
Got my head in the clouds, where the flags are unfurled
For a love that might just be, all in my mind
But I’m rocking this delusion, one of a kind!

Bridge – (Tempo slows down slightly, more introspective)
Maybe I’m projecting, maybe I’m seeing things
Maybe this whole scenario’s just got imaginary wings
But hope’s a powerful drug, and I’m high on the fumes
So I’ll keep on believing, until reality consumes…

(Beat kicks back in, stronger than before)

Chorus – (Powerful, layered vocals with harmonies, ad-libs and vocal runs)
Delulu, delulu, yeah, I might be a little
Lost in the fantasy, caught in the middle
Of what I want and what is real, it’s a blur
But a girl can dream, can’t she? That much is for sure!
Delulu, delulu, livin’ in my own world
Got my head in the clouds, where the flags are unfurled
For a love that might just be, all in my mind
But I’m rocking this delusion, one of a kind!

Outro
(Synth riff fades out with ad-libs)
Delulu… yeah… maybe just a little…
Own it… Work it… Delulu…
(Finger snaps fade out)

The United States Will Never Have Free-And-Fair Federal Elections Again

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is it, folks, the end. It’s clear now that our democracy was far less stable than we realized. But, here we are, at the end of the road. We will never have free and fair Federal elections again.

For the time being, we’ll*probably* have something akin to free and fair state and local elections, but that’s it. And that doesn’t even begin to address the idea that something might go wrong and we’ll swerve into a militarized police state of some sort.

Anyway. Trump is going to ruin the United States and we’re now a fascist state. I really need to get out of this country at some point, but that’s just not practical for the time being. I just hope I don’t get pushed out a window.

The Kennedy Center Is Going To Suck Now

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump seems determined to drive the Kennedy Center into the ditch like he does everything else he touches. Kid Rock will probably have a residency there soon enough. Or, I could see Trump turning the place is a sleezier version of the Grande Olde Opry.

Something horrible like that.

And I continue to doubt we’re ever going to have free-and-fair elections on a Federal basis ever again so, lulz, this is it. Trump and his toadies are going to ruin the entire country, at least for the rest of my life.

I need to get used to living in rather different country, I guess. Maybe one day I’ll find the funds to leave the country somehow, but that could be a long, long time from now and I’m going to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Trumplandia fortune for the time being.

The Quiet Before The Storm?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are pretty quiet at the moment, in relative terms. There is the usual Trump chaos, but, in general, things are kind of meh. And it’s not like I want anything big to happen — unless it’s cool.

My lingering fear is that whatever “event” happens is Trump’s Reichstag Fire moment that he uses as an excuse to seize control of the country in a big way. We can only hope *nothing* happens and we’ll just slink into our autocratic future without too much horrible things going on in the process.