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- Issue 46 - The Nerd Reich's Victory
The political order that will come out of this event will last for the rest of our lifetimes.
Welcome to issue 46, which was deliberately withheld out of superstition so that issue 47 would not be the post-election issue. More proof that following superstitions doesn’t work. Although did you know that the incoming POTUS is not the 47th because it was already the 45th, and grammatically they will always be the 45th, even if they get to reign again after Mr. 46.
Seriously though, how ya doin? How ya holdin up?
Table of Contents
What’s Next
Well, the Nerd Reich won. What does that mean? What comes next? Oy vei.
No doubt there’s no turning back. We woke up yesterday morning and recognized that a range of possible future timelines were no longer accessible. An effective collective response to climate change? Nope. A successful prevention of the impending H5N1 pandemic? Nope. A short circuit of the encroaching AI authoritarianism? Nope.
The electoral result was a product of our broken narratives, and the narratives that will arise in the wake of this moment will be even more surreal, conspiratorial, and arguably disempowering.
Hope, democracy, and freedom are not dead, but the predators are salivating, organized, and emboldened. Yet here’s the thing. Authoritarianism doesn’t work. It inherently fails to deliver on what it promises. Similarly freedom is immortal, and democracy is a virus. It can mutate, adapt, and evolve. What democracy needs is a willing host. A body upon which to thrive and an ecosystem in which it can flourish. We should focus on that moving forward.
Looking for Blame
In the wake of the election results, a lot of people who are legitimately afraid and hurt, were eagerly looking for someone to blame. Blaming Biden, blaming the Harris campaign, blaming the Dems for effectively ignoring the atrocities in Gaza, blaming people who didn’t vote, blaming the algorithms, blaming liberals, blaming third party supporters, blaming the media.
Our own prejudices might lure us into blaming pollsters, or the news media, or the culture of smugness that permeates politics, yet these, like many others we wish to blame, are just patsies. No blame should go to the by-standers, the victims, or the losers. Responsibilities lies with the victors, whether Peter Thiel or Vladdy Putin.
Yet let’s not miss the most obvious and yet subtle dynamic of this election. The party that lost focused their strategy on traditional political mobilizing, organizing, and communicating. They relied upon their traditional political machine of canvassers, volunteers, and polling. The victors on the other hand eschewed contemporary campaigning and focused almost exclusively on attention and narrative (i.e. conspiracy). Mr Musk in Pennsylvania was their most significant on the ground operation. Lame arguments that suggest that what happens on X/Twitter is not real are no longer credible. The virtual is real. The Nerd Reich is in power thanks to the Internet.
Alternatively, if you really want to blame something, we suggest White Supermacy.
@crutches_and_spice #stitch with @5hahem not to mention ive been telling EVERYONE these implications since 2020.
The Looming Legitimacy Crisis
What does this mean for the Future of Authority? We wrote the following before the election, but the argument that legitimate authority is crumbling stands.
Canada Bans TikTok?
Amidst the wild post-election news cycle, the clowns running the Canadian federal government decided to drop the news that they were banning TikTok. Not the app, but the company’s offices and operations.
The timing was suspect not just because they wanted to bury it in a busy news cycle, but because it was done for reasons of national security, which means the US told them to do it. Is this in advance of a North American ban of the app itself? Or is this Canada acknowledging that they can’t ban the app, but they can target the Canadians who work for the company?
While the company is going to fight this decision, it also raises the question of whether remote work is an option? Could they operate without an office and work remotely, or are they expected to get out of the country? In not actually banning the app, the government is still letting Canadians use it. Where’s the line here?
Another example of really stupid policy from a government that has been consistently ignorant of how the Internet works. This is why we argue an ecosystem approach is essential in the Internet era.
China Hacks Canada
Although is it a coincidence that this Canadian ban on TikTok comes only a week or so after the release of a government report that discloses that China has thoroughly and pervasively hacked all levels of the Canadian government? 👀
Trying to Explain Climate Chaos
There’s a lot of people who are facing a harsher reality and harder life post-election, especially trans people, immigrants, and women. Yet let’s take a playful moment to think of the climate scientists, and the near impossible job they face trying to translate their work for the (increasingly ignorant) public.
@that1blackguy786 Shout out to climate scientists uuh my country just made it harder to do your job....my fault #fyp #joke
Railway Solar Panels
Regardless of climate denial, expect solar panels to continue to appear in all sorts of unexpected yet self-evident places. Like on train tracks:
What Exactly is Powerful AI?
Zach Bryan is the Smallest Man
We monitor all sorts of ecosystems, especially those surrounding the cultural industries, and another election day story was the release of the Zach Bryan dis track called “Smallest Man”. If you don’t know who Zach Bryan is, you probably have decent taste in music. He’s an American pop-country musician who has been riding a growing wave of success and popularity.
For the past year, Zach has been dating Brianna LaPaglia, an influencer who works for Dave Portnoy’s Barstool Empire. The couple recently broke up, and like many social media relationships, it got messy, fast. Cheating, jealousy, pettiness, etc.
Brianna is part of the Barstool podcast BFFs with Portnoy and another influencer Josh Richards. Dave Portnoy, if you have never heard of him, is a growing character in the American cultural ecosystem. As the founder of Barstool, he sold it for $400 million, and earlier this year bought it back for a $1. He’s a smart, mouthy, scrappy, right wing New Yorker who relishes a good fight and has the media smarts to profit from it.
In response to Brianna being done dirty by Zach, Dave decided, both as a friend, and as a social media baron, that he and Josh would release a dis track to call Zach out. They released this song/video on election day, and it instantly blew up, until it was banned a few hours later. Struck with a copyright notice, even though it was a new and original song.
While everyone knew that it was Zach who had his label Warner Music remove the song, it was unclear why. Barstool reissued the song, removing what they thought was the offending part, only to have the song struck down once again.
Ultimately what was Warner’s reason/justification? They had signed Josh Richards to a contract four years ago, which he was still under, and that gave them the power to block anything he is involved with. So the song remains illicit, circulated on TikTok and elsewhere, but blocked anywhere copyright is effectively enforced. Wild eh?
If this is the kind of tea you dig, definitely dive in to learn more.
@stoolpresidente Another twist in the smallest man diss track saga #davesversion
We’re In This Together
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George implores you!
@jessehirsh George shares his kid goat perspective
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