President Trump celebrated the news. “I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired,” he posted on Truth Social. “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.”

Whether overtly coordinated or not, this was the signal for Brendan Carr to approve the Skydance merger.

The article isn’t very clear, but the novelty here is that this is unprecedented hypertargeting to individual users. Instead of the current website partner, days-before-flight, and other general factors that affect everyone’s pricing mostly equally, think Uber’s pricing, where you are quoted $40 for a ride, and the person right next to you is quoted $25 for the exact same ride thanks to their dynamic data-driven (and ethics-free) pricing.

This opens the possibility that Delta will charge you more solely because the data Delta has been able to acquire for you suggests you’ll pay more. And that black-box AI system could base it on all sorts of nefarious reasons - e.g., your mother is dying in the hospital, increasing your desperation to get a flight to that location, which makes its way into the dynamic “motivation” index in the AI calculus, which doubles the price of your flight.

We’re not there yet, but when you see the sorts of things Uber does for reference, I feel it’s a clear path to airfare’s little corner of our coming dystopia.

Right, those things are true, but they still don’t explain this decision. It was the #1 talk show for what, 8 years? No sane network would just cancel it. They would revamp, cut costs. Every business would extract the value from the brand before tossing its lifeless corpse off the boat.

The most plausible explanation for this show being canceled at this moment is to appease Trump.

It was honestly just loose wording to refer to Trump’s administration - I agree it’s Stephen Miller and Bannon who are consciously acting “systematically.”

That said, Trump is a once-in-a-generation exemplar of sociopathic narcissism, and the techniques used track nicely to limit-pushing narcissistic manipulation, constantly gaslighting to control reality of his victims (I.e. everyone?). So I’d argue Trump is unconsciously systematic in his approach.

You are doing great and are appreciated.

This is part of how Trump’s flood the zone strategy causes people to give up and tune out. It’s not just that he called his own legitimate criminal investigations political corruption, it’s that he’s calling real political corruption legitimate.

Under Trump: Right is wrong (prosecuting insurrection), being good is bad (“woke”), friends are foes (Europe, Canada, Mexico), foes are friends (Putin), spending more is saving money (tariffs), anti-fascism is fascism (Antifa), and so on.

What Trump is doing is systematically disconnecting us from reality, because with no objective reference, he can dictate reality.

The very fact that this story isn’t surprising and will neither get significant or persistent coverage is proof we’re deep into this hypernormalization.

I don’t think I agree with this premise at all, unfortunately.

The article describes extraction or manufacturing as the sole ways to increase “actual wealth” (apart from government works) but it’s just sophistry to embed the author’s biases against the value of information and services. That’s because services and white collar jobs both (a) can represent intrinsic value, and (b) can both directly and indirectly be subject to international trade.

To explain, the author would define manufacturing a refrigerator as “actual wealth,” but the knowledge of how to do so as not “actual wealth,” even though the knowledge is equally a prerequisite for the refrigerator, and is a more valuable unit for trade with other nations or economic growth.

The conclusion about focusing on long term “wealth” creation is fine, but that premise isn’t necessary to get there and detracts from the credibility of the argument.

I think you’ve just coined 2025’s tagline.

Yup. They fired the Abrego attorney who had the temerity to admit to the court that his deportation was in error. It’s a liability to be honest.

I mean, New York is a close analog, and the relatively minor gerrymander in Democrats’ favor was struck down, which is a large part of why Republicans control the House.

So you’re right that Democrats tried, but also Democratic (and democratic) judges nullified the gerrymander.

I guess it’s classic that they gave up political victory to have the moral high ground. So might as well give them that much?

I think of this moment probably once a month and I don’t know how to make it stop.

I had to read the headline and source twice to believe this wasn’t the Onion.

What I’m saying is, while I feel for you as an individual human being who seem nice and reasonable, I lump you with the problem and I fully blame you for it as an American.

You don’t seem to understand that you certainly do not feel for me as an “individual human being who seem[s] nice and reasonable” if you think you have the right or moral ground to blame me for Trump because the people around me joined his cult - it’s the diametric opposite of acknowledging me as an individual.

You just seem to keep repeating “as a nation” as if that hand-waving abstraction somehow makes it sensible to blame every single person in America for Trump. Test your premise even a little. Are American children also responsible for Trump? What’s the principle? Do they somehow gain the original sin of being an “American” and therefore culpable for Trump at 18? Is that midnight Eastern Time or Pacific Time? How about people who lost the right to vote? How about Americans who naturalized after the election? Is it getting complicated yet?

Because that’s life, it’s complicated, and applying the label of “American” to two drastically different people doesn’t somehow waive your duty to engage in moral inquiry before you engage in moral condemnation.

Well, two ways this can go.

Option 1: Yes, well you are a [insert name of country you are from], and despite that [insert thing the worst person from that country is doing that neither of us likes], so we are also fed up with you.

Cool, by acting exactly as you, now we both hate each other because of things other people are doing, despite neither of us being directly responsible for the things we jointly oppose.

Option 2: You think a little more about this and maybe understand that not every American is part of the problem, and in fact we’re even more horrified than you because [looks around] we’re living in the hell that’s spoiling your nice view. And maybe you also realize it’s pretty counterproductive to abuse, threaten and isolate the very people who are in America now and who agree that Trump is a cancer on this world.

If you can take a moment to wean yourself off the high of righteous indignation, you’d see we who are trapped here with Trump are the ones most directly being abused by him.

So why exactly are you doing the same as Trump and abusing us too? Don’t you think you should also worry about the ethical implications of your own actions?

Go home and sacrifice his hand to the demon lord Anthraxus in exchange for more power?

Trump, but more likely one/some of his sycophants, explained how hard-line immigration enforcement could help in removing political opposition with the help of a corrupt and stacked Supreme Court

It’s definitely Stephen Miller. Zero doubt. He is the true believer in racist/white supremacy and the New York Times’ recent story had multiple anecdotes about the DOJ and DHS/ICE being directly controlled by him, while Bondi and Noem are only interested in making TV appearances.

Right but… you know 90 out of 100 Americans on Lemmy didn’t even vote for him and oppose him?

I kind of just read your message as: Hey, domestic abuse victim, you need to figure out your abusive spouse who you’re forced to live with pronto! Their abuse spills over and it’s making a mess everywhere.

Pretty sure many of them are LLMs by bot factories with an interest in the US tearing itself apart, and the prompt is, “Write a reply to {post}. Agree and amplify what is said, but make more racist and divisive.”

I really only notice that for your tongue.

The contest won’t be over who can imitate Trump the best. It’ll be who can use Trump as a martyr best. They all know Trump is the glue that holds their machine together.