I’ve actually heard others in government say similar things. People show up in DC with Imposters Syndrome, and they start looking for those who know what they’re doing, until they finally realize that NOBODY comes to DC prepared, EVERYBODY is flying by the seat of their pants, and NOBODY really knows what they are doing.
“Conspiracy theory” was a term invented by the CIA to discredit critics.
That’s a conspiracy theory
Are there any morons who actually believe this propaganda? US politicians have their own designated AIPAC handler.
of course he would fly to ASIA for his “usual recreational purposes”
That’s how everything works. Nobody really knows what they’re doing. At best you get someone that kinda knows what they’re doing.
But then you have people who have no idea what they’re doing, but sound like they know what they’re doing. They’re the ones that screw everything up.
The problem is that government is filled with total dipshits who have no idea what they are doing, but fully believe they do. Totally incompetent, but totally confident.
Sounds a bit like what happens when you get thrust into parenthood. That you and everyone else are really just making it all up as you go along is something that will become apparent when you become a parent.
Holy shit yes. That moment when they just let you leave and you suddenly realize that you are responsible for a baby but that you aren’t suddenly imbued with knowing All The Parent Things is humbling and terrifying.
“and then I exploited that fact rather than helping people” I guess went unspoken
In the words of Pratchett…
… he realized he was wondering if the attack on Goriff’s shop had been organized by the same people, and whether those same people had set fire to the embassy. And then he realized why he was thinking like this. It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.
And I’d be remiss if I did not add Adams to the fray:
The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem. And so this is the situation we find: a succession of Galactic Presidents who so much enjoy the fun and palaver of being in power that they very rarely notice that they’re not. And somewhere in the shadows behind them—who? Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?
I mean, isn’t it so simple to believe that things are run by the greys, and that all we have to do is trade sufficient fetal tissue to them and then we can solve our technological problems, or isn’t it comforting to believe that the Jews are behind everything, or the Communist Party, or the Catholic Church, or the Mason’s. […] I believe that the truth of the matter is far more terrifying, that the real truth that dare not speak itself, is that no one is in control, absolutely no one. You know, you don’t understand Monica, you don’t understand Netanyahu- it’s because No. Body. Is in control.
- Terrence McKenna on conspiritorial thinking
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Yup, there is no they. I still can’t believe the caliber of people running very important things. All the dipshits you went to high school with are now responsible for the continuation of human civilization.
Doesn’t change anything that he figured this out too. Woopty freakin doo.
The worst part is all the really capable people I went to high school with are like math teachers and nurses and scientists.
Well, key take-home is that he realized exactly what was going on, had the position and opportunity to take advantage of that knowledge and…did… Well. It wasn’t great. Kind of a mind boggling waste of a life when you think about it. Perfect timing and huge ambition to create a pile of shit.
Because smart people are interested in just about anything besides managing other people, because being the boss sucks unless you have that thing wrong with you that assholes who like power do.
Nobody knows what they’re doing.
This sounds like total bullshit. Money runs the world. There’s plenty of “they” with money.
“They” fund the campaigns and trust their candidates to do the “right” thing when they get into power.
woosh
Those people with money are just as dumb, ignorant, petty, uncultured, and childish as the rest of us. They just have money.
The they we’re talking about is the imaginary Council of Incredibly Smart People running the infrastructure and architecture of our civilization. Turns out they’re dumbasses too.
They don’t have to be smart, but they are deciding how things go in closed-door meetings. Committees, ranking members, power. This “I went to the House and shucks it was all freshmen senators like me” schtick isn’t working. You go onto the hill and you’ll definitely find long-term politicians who are serving specific interests above all others, and that agenda is either thinly-veiled and widely known or secretive, but it’s one of the possibilities of how history will go down, sure. Look at Mitch McConnell. He’s a fucking “they.” All those conniving pricks are, and there are multiple organizations that run backchannels and cook up agendas. Project 2025. There’s a “they” agenda.
But Zuckerberg shoots goats with a crossbow and serves it cold and raw to his guests.
You’re not suggesting he’s a childish, uncultured and spoiled, emotionally stunted manchild who shouldn’t have the slightest bit of influence on anything past the petrified sock under his bed, are you?
I mean Zuck and Musk are pretty much the poster children. No, they should absolutely not have the power they have.
The other possibility is that plenty of analysts, historians, cultural advisors, etc know exactly how things work and what’s going on but he doesn’t listen to them because they’re ‘little people’.
Yep, they tend to not listen to them because they listen to their PR people, polls etc., more. It’s sad, but after years of trying to see politics in its full complexity I’m coming back to “politicians are the problem”. At least those that win elections. How can we turn that ship around?
Maybe we should have talent agents that campaign for candidates. Winning a campaign is a whole skillset that tells us very little how well a person can actually govern.
I think a more interesting political system would be a random lottery. Make it a burden. Take a vote at the end of a term to decide if the office holder should be executed.
No need for punishment, but I like this system a lot. Terms would have to be longer though.
random lottery
Like sortition? Not the worst system.
I think that might work well at a local or state level, and have the population vote them to national office if they represent them well and are willing. I don’t think we want some of my neighbors legislating. At least not the guy I saw ripping off a can of galaxy gas on his front porch.
That dead piece of shit was never invited to anything that ever functioned
rot in piss
I’m sure he’d loathe the comparison but this reminded me of an Alan Moore quote
This hurts because when I was really young and learning about all the terrible things in human history I was comforted by the idea of a “they” that had learned from our past and that’s why all these horrific things won’t happen again.
See and for me I don’t find that frightening at all. Embrace the chaos.
it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy
Lmao. Ever heard of AIPAC?
No. What is it?
Way to miss the point. All those things he mentioned could exist, and it wouldn’t matter because they’d all have conflicting priorities and directions they want to go in resulting in effectively the same basic situation as if they didn’t exist.
Oh so just wrong then
The people who are in positions of power would love for the fiction that we are all rudderless to take hold.
The world isn’t rudderless, in fact its the opposite. There are so many rudder that they run into each other constantly and get in each other’s way. Occasionally you can get a group of people to aim them in roughly the same direction for a little while, but they inevitably decide their direction is better than yours. If you’re lucky they’re on the outside edge of the group.
… and the billionaires keep kicking things and flipping random switches to try to wrench the world into their favored shape, and the rest of us are trapped on this ship with them.
Most people give the government way too much credit when it comes to competency.
The government is not just politicians though. Actually, elected representatives are the tip of the iceberg and are in general responsible for the public debates around legislative direction , not for running the country. When you apply for a passport, request a permit for building a plant, apply for aid or for a research grant, apply for a visa, fly a plane, develop a military weapon system, market a new drug, a new car, go to a national park, pay or not pay taxes etc., it’s never elected politicians who do the work. There are tens of thousands of competent and dedicated people who spent their lives in the service of the public, despite the common trope that government jobs are cushy places for lazy losers. The “swamp” that MAGA hates so much, because it embodies (or used to embody) America much more than a reality tv star elected for president.
I would say that, paradoxically, the opposite is true as well.
And it’s exactly the kind of thinking that got us here in the first place
You’re not wrong, but I’m still amazed that the it’s possible for me to mail a letter from Los Angeles and have it arrive in Berlin in less than a month.
