The Prospect of Autocracy is Not Autocracy

A Portuguese friend called America a stinking hell because we're suffering a couple thousand measles cases per year.

I pointed out that In the 1950s, before vaccine, there were over 500,000 cases per year. And the US at that moment seemed like heaven.

"Yes, but these cases now are needless!" added my friend, helpfully bringing me up to date on the awfulness of RFKJR etc., of which I was well aware.

I noted that that even this awful awfulness is still vastly less awful than the weight of 500,000 cases per year of measles back when the US seemed like heaven. A few thousand cases per year would have made 1955 Americans drop to their knees in gratitude.

But, yes, of course the stupidity and awfulness are deeply galling, and must be fought against. it's a problem to work on. But problem solving requires rationality, and we've lost all perspective. In the recent past, we were blessed to transform into spoiled princesses increasingly vexed by smaller and smaller mattress peas. And in our vexation, we are far more aggrieved and furious than any of our ancestors, who lie in their graves wagging their heads with disdain over our profound lack of appreciation for the impossible utopia in which we live....even with RFK doing horrendous things.

There are always horrendous things, but our demented reaction to them has created a vicious circle. In fact, the route to power for a RFKJR is a constituency of wealthy, comfortable, blessed people driven to dementia by the fury and grievance that inevitably accompany bored privilege. That's what fuels crazy stuff like anti-vax, which, in turn, stokes further rage. And, no, it's not a MAGA thing. My progressive, highly-educated niece refused to vaccinate her kids because she was angry and aggrieved at so-called medical authorities, etc.

Let me dare to utter the obvious truth: the prospect of autocracy is not autocracy. And the sober, non-delightful business of repelling the prospect of autocracy does not make us enslaved tormented ghouls. This push-back is something we should have been engaged in ALL ALONG. We dropped vigilance due to vast complacency from our vast blessings. We figured "participation" meant playing with our damned phones all day. The necessity to look up from those phones is an indignation that makes people frame themselves as storming the beach at Normandy against a hail of machine gun fire.

You are living in paradise. This right now is the safest, funnest, freest, most comfortable and healthy (even with the measles) moment any generation has ever enjoyed on this planet. It is a freaking miracle that we get to live at this peak, even with the lingering suboptimalities so deeply offending our asymptopic sense of entitlement.

The only unpleasantness is coming from everyone dementedly framing themselves in Hell. The only thing we have to rage about is rage itself. That's the dynamic. It's not some certain bad person or group. It's broader than that.

My explanation for the lack of evidence of advanced life in the galaxy is that an idyllic level of wealth, comfort and technological ease makes life forms predisposed to struggle light their hair on fire and go ape shit crazy. Spoiled princesses increasingly vexed by smaller and smaller mattress peas AND WIELDING FLAME-THROWERS. That's how it all ends, pardon the spoiler.

All you need to do is reframe. It starts with you, right here, right now. That's how the center holds.


I didn't move to Portugal to escape the hell. I moved here to escape the priveleged aristocratic ninnies conjuring an imaginary hell by conceiving of themselves as being damned with nothing left to lose.

Shmucky Heroism

Shamelessness is the shmuck version of heroism.