By skyforbes 
In this post:
- The government is inept and TikTok is the big pink highlighter on government stupidity.
- Bits & Pieces: interesting news you may have missed.
- Good News & Nonsense.
- This week’s podcasts.
- Finally, new music: Labmrini Girls and more.
(I said I would try not to have really long posts. I’m failing.)
America’s Awesome, but our government is an absolute goat rope. The nonsense that has been the US Government on TikTok is remarkable. There is lot being said and written on TikTok — some of that below. Above all else, this entire four (+) year mess is an incredible example of why we shouldn’t look to any leader or party with too much power or expect them to be able to solve the problems in our lives.
Some will recall 2004 Presidential candidate John Kerry getting mercilessly mocked for his supposed Iraq War flip-flop, as then-President Bush panned him for being “for it before he was against it.” Donald Trump’s flip-flop is much more real, and absurd. He was completely “against TikTok before he was for it.” Many will recall his outrage in June 2020 when TikTok users and K-pop fans claimed that they helped sabotage a Trump rally with false registrations. The next month, after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo publicly floated the idea of banning TikTok, Trump quickly confirmed it was a possibility (see CBC link, below). But, fast-forward to January 2025, Trump is TikTok’s savior, and like many other politicians who have warned us how dangerous TikTok is, he has a TikTok account (which has nearly 15 million followers).
And that’s the issue. Aside from very non-specific warnings about the national security threat from TikTok, no one has been able to clearly articulate why a ban is appropriate or necessary. Below is Senator Mark Warner, one of the ban’s loudest voices and former Chairman, now Vice-Chairman, of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on TikTok:
“Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments about whether the ownership of TikTok needs to change because of national security reasons. Many of you know my position on this issue. I think there is a lot of great creativity on TikTok, I also know people make their living as social influencers, I think that’s great. But I’ve been concerned, literally for years, that because TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese firm, and every company — based upon Chinese law — has to be first and foremost loyal to the Communist Party of China, not to their shareholders or customers, that TikTok has posed a national security concern.”
The above is fair and true, and a personal security issue and something to think about. That its a national security threat is entirely unclear and has certainly not been demonstrated in any serious way. As Newsweek reported, “The legislation banning TikTok last year was a bipartisan effort. The House vote in April was 360–58, with 186 Republicans and 174 Democrats favoring the law. The Senate vote in April was 79–18, with 46 Democrats and 31 Republicans voting in favor.” Trump was for the Ban. Biden was for the Ban. Congress was for the ban. The Supreme Court upheld the ban. Biden won’t enforce the ban. Trump is now against the ban. Some in Congress are calling for Americans to join TikTokas an act of civil disobedience. This is absolute JV football — political chicanery at its finest.
The complete mess — the lack of any actual clear reason for the ban, the disruption to business, creators, and users, the hours and resources spent as Congress and the Court debated this ban, the media time dedicated to covering this story (for four years!), and so much more — the absolute buffoonery of it all — are a poignant reminder that Congress is a clown show, and why we shouldn’t trust any leader or either party (any party) with too much power or expect them to solve the problems in our lives. That should be the biggest lesson of all of this. Our government is inept, stop looking to them to “fix” things.
Read more:
- Warnings of Skynet-Ultron-AI Doom!
- “We are ourselves creating our own successors… We are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical (organization); we are daily giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race.”
- Does this sound like a modern-day warning about AI getting ready to ruin everything and enslave everyone? It’s actually a warning from 1863. ArsTechnica writes, “On June 13, 1863, a letter published in The Press newspaper of Christchurch warned about the potential dangers of mechanical evolution and called for the destruction of machines, foreshadowing the development of what we now call artificial intelligence-and the backlash against it from people who fear it may threaten humanity with extinction. It presented what may be the first published argument for stopping technological progress to prevent machines from dominating humanity. Titled ‘Darwin among the Machines’ …The author of the letter, Samuel Butler, submitted it under the pseudonym Cellarius, but later came to publicly embrace his position. The letter drew direct parallels between Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and the rapid development of machinery, suggesting that machines could evolve consciousness and eventually supplant humans as Earth’s dominant species.”
- A Glowing Metal Ring Crashed to Earth. No One Knows Where It Came From;
- The 1,100-pound mystery object landed in Kenya at the end of December. Experts are still baffled. WIRED reports, “It has been more than a week since reports first emerged about a ‘glowing ring of metal’ that fell from the sky and crashed near a remote village in Kenya. According to the Kenya Space Agency, the object weighed 1,100 pounds and had a diameter of more than 8 feet when measured after it landed on December 30. A couple of days later, the space agency confidently reported that the object was a piece of space debris, saying it was a ring that separated from a rocket. ‘Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they reenter the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans,’ the space agency told The New York Times.” If I die from a piece of space junk crashing into me, man I’ll be pissed.
- “Simple Not Easy.” Longevity-Obsessed Tech Millionaire Discontinues De-Aging Drug Out of Concerns That It Aged Him. Many want to live longer, and healthier, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But those who seek the fountain of youth in drugs and technology will be disappointed. Gizmodo writes, “Bryan Johnson has long been obsessed with ‘de-aging’ himself. The 46-year-old multimillionaire, who made his money by founding various tech companies, has spent years of his life and millions of dollars trying to get his body to resemble that of a teenager. His wellness regimen includes taking 54 different supplements every day for breakfast. Those pills are ostensibly helping him to extend his lifespan and, as he has put it, ‘break the world record in age reversal.’ In recent months, however, Johnson quit taking at least one of those supplements for fear that, instead of de-aging him, it was actually ‘accelerating’ his aging.” We’re all getting older, we’ll all “get old”,” and we’re all going to die. But by eating well, avoiding excessive use of the things that kill us, and regularly exercising, we can live longer, and better. Like one of the Arnold Schwarzenegger Pump Club t-shirts that I like to wear says, it’s “ simple, not easy.”
- Putin designates an online meme as a “terrorist organization.” 🇷🇺 Russia Labels Ukrainian Meme ‘Terrorist Organization.’ The Moscow Times reports that “Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) designated the ‘Belgorod People’s Republic,’ a fictional entity born as an online meme, as a ‘terrorist organization,’ Russian media reported Tuesday. The ‘Belgorod People’s Republic’ meme began circulating on Ukrainian social media in reaction to incursions by armed groups into southwestern Russia’s Belgorod region after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The name parodies the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics in eastern Ukraine, which were established by pro-Russian rebels in 2014. Moscow recognized these territories as independent ahead of the full-scale invasion and later claimed to annex them.
- Breaking! Marjorie Taylor Greene remains a colossal idiot.Marjorie Taylor Greene Launches Unhinged Call for Officials to Manipulate the Weather to Stop L.A. Wildfires. Via The Daily Beast: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has made it abundantly clear that she didn’t study atmospheric sciences in college, launching an unhinged suggestion that officials could end the Los Angeles wildfires by manipulating the weather. ‘Why don’t they use geoengineering like cloud seeding to bring rain down on the wildfires in California?’ the Republican asked Sunday in a post on X. ‘They know how to do it.’ …Joe Biden called Greene’s antics ‘so stupid,’ while one of Greene’s GOP colleagues in the House said anyone who shares her views ‘needs to have their head examined.’” ICYMI, from January 2021: Marjorie Taylor Greene Spread Bonkers Conspiracy That Laser Beam From Space Caused CA Wildfire. Ms. Greene was reelected in November with 64.4% of the vote in Georgia’s District 14. Thank you to the 243,446 northwest Georgia voters who sent her to Congress for a third term.
- Breaking! Elon Musk is full of shit!Why Is Elon Musk Beefing With a Twitch Streamer?The ever-petty, no-need-to-follow-his-own-rules, largely-full-of-shit Elon Musk is mad because he got called out for almost certainly lying about his video game successes. As Gizmodo reports, “Elon Musk-the world’s richest man, chief of multiple companies, a man with the ear of the President who will take power next week-is getting big-mad online about video games. The billionaire unfollowed Twitch streamer Asmongold, removed the bluecheck from his X account, and leaked private DMs to the public after Asmongold called Musk out for lying about his prowess in the video game Path of Exile 2… (Asmongold) called bullshit on Musk in a Twitch stream that was cut and uploaded to YouTube… ‘The question: did Elon Musk play this account to level 97? The answer is very simple. No. Unequivocally, without a doubt, if Elon Musk can prove that he played this account to 97, I will stream on X starting the day that he proves it for an entire year straight, every single stream that I do,’ Asmongold said.” Many suspect Musk paid someone to play on his behalf and then lied about it. That’s amazingly pathetic. He’s the richest man in the world, and yet still a pitiful, pathetic man.
Men of a Certain X Commonwealth Classical Liberal Podcast Gate 15
I haven’t had much new music to get me excited in recent weeks, but as we move past the holidays, new music is starting to come back out, and there’s some good stuff.
Lambrini Girls are pretty wild and their new album, “ Who Let The Dogs Out,” is thirty minutes of screaming female British punk rock screaming “challenge” to everything and everyone. Lots of explicit lyrics. Tipper Gore would lose her PMRC-loving mind if she heard a couple of British lesbians screaming this many curse words. Below, Lambrini Girls, “God’s Country.”
From Megadeth to Warrant, a lot of bands had fun poking at Tipper Gore and the PMRC over the years.
Originally published at https://andyjabbour.substack.com.