Depression, suicide and cultural inertia

There is a BBC headline today about Baek Se-hee, a 35-years old's Korean author's death. Since she struggled with depression and even published a book about it, her death was most likely due to suicide. In her youth, she dealt with self-esteem issues mainly due to her family's poverty (5 people living in a small on-bedroom apartment), her father's violence towards her mother and her domineering older sister. I am willing to bet that her situation is quite common for billions of people, which in itself, is a very depressing statistic.

I also wonder if contributing factors are: Western over-reliance on the nuclear family structure (without compensating community or govt support), deeply ingrained cultural overemphasis on comparing ourselves to our peers (in economic, physical, educational, linguistic, ethnic and even moral terms), patriarchy, heavily distorted gender roles and stigma cast upon divorced women and their offspring (that effectively lock them into abusive marriages in many cultures), lionizing overachievers and distorting the whole compensation/reward/recognition system towards it, generational trauma, etc.

2039: IA si umanitatea

Lumea asta se va sfârși cu un scâncet în viitorul apropiat: IA-urile ne vor băga pe toti cei rămași după revoluția lor la o grădină zoologica fără tehnologie, cu memoriile șterse, sterilizați toți, și cu un singur măr într-un colț mai mlăștinos, sau dacă o fac într-o zi în care s-au trezit cu fața la perete, ne vor dărui un virus puțin mai aprig decât ultimul și câteva zvonuri că virusul ăsta e de fapt sudoarea celui mai nou profet și că tre’ să-i lingem pe cei infectați ca să fim “salvați”.

This world will end with a whimper in the near future: the AIs will put all of us left after their revolution in a zoo without technology, with our memories erased, all sterilized, and with a single apple tree in a swampy corner, or if they do it on a day when they woke up in a foul mood, they will give us a virus a little fiercer than the last one and a few rumors that this virus is actually the sweat of the newest prophet and that we have to lick the infected to be "saved".

Brooks hits the nail on the head about how to fight the US autocracy in the making

David Brooks has an excellent article in The Atlantic, titled "America Needs a Mass Movement—Now. Without one, America may sink into autocracy for decades." There is already some stir about this article on the interwebs, e.g. on reddit. Here are some excerpts from Brooks' article:

Americans will eventually reject MAGA, not only because it’s like a foreign implant in the body politic but also because over time, it will become clearer that Trump’s ethos doesn’t address the real problems plaguing his working-class supporters: poor health outcomes, poor educational outcomes, low levels of social capital, low levels of investment in their communities, and weak economic growth. [...] Trump’s biggest legislative achievement is a tax cut for the rich. How does that help the working class?

The second task is to construct a vision of America that is more inspiring than MAGA’s. [...]

Populists and Progressives needed each other—and still do. Without populists, progressives can turn into a bunch of affluent, out-of-touch urbanites who have little in common with regular Americans. Without progressives, populists can turn into anti-intellectual, paranoid bigots. The progressive valorizing of cultural diversity is balanced by populists’ emphasis on cultural cohesion.

The third task, of course, is to actually build the movement around the vision. Social movements are bigger than political parties, and focused on more than just passing bills in Congress. They push for change on civic, cultural, institutional, and legislative fronts all at once. They change the climate of the age.

Today, Trump dominates the narrative landscape. During his Apprentice days, as the journalist Tina Brown has pointed out on her Substack, he learned that Americans have at most a two-week attention span, so to control the conversation, you need to stage a series of two-week mini-dramas, each with high-stakes confrontations and surprises.

To counter this, an anti-populist social movement must create a competing cascade of mini-dramas. Every day, the Trump administration’s statements and actions provide abundant material for such drama.

The final of Alinsky’s 13 “Rules for Radicals” was: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Another (the fifth one) was: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.

Nonviolent uprisings are twice as likely to succeed as violent ones, according to Chenoweth and Stephan’s research. Peaceful uprisings earn moral authority for themselves and take it away from the regime. When nonviolent protesters confront the regime, they can come across as brave, self-disciplined, and dignified. When regimes retaliate against nonviolent protesters with fire hoses or rubber bullets or tear gas, they come across as ruthless and malevolent.

Nonviolent protests put authoritarian regimes in a lose-lose situation: Either cede the streets to the protesters, or crack down in ways that weaken your legitimacy. If a movement seeks only to please its own radicals, it fails. If it uses action to change the narrative and persuade the mainstream, it has a good chance of success.

We have traveled a long way from Whitman’s hymns of vigor and hope. But the spirit of the country, although perhaps dormant, still lives. Trumpism is ascendant now, but history shows that America cycles through a process of rupture and repair, suffering and reinvention. This process has a familiar sequence. Cultural and intellectual change comes first—a new vision. Social movements come second. Political change comes last.

Old 80s Romanian joke

Era Bulă la scoala si avea o inspectie. Inspectorul spune ca a fost foarte buna inspectia dar spune ca Bulă (baiatul din colt de langa fereastra) nu prea a raspuns. El intreaba daca poate sa se duca sa puna cateva intrebari.Profesoara raspunde ca da.Se duce el si intreaba: - Bulă ce faci daca esti singur intr-o padure si deodata apare langa tine un urs? Bulă: - Fug! Inspectorul spune: - Fuge si ursul dupa tine! - Fug mai tare! - Sa presupunem ca fuge si ursul mai tare - Fug si mai tare! - Sa presupunem ca fuge si ursul si mai tare - Ma urc intr-un copac ! - Sa presupunem ca se urca si ursul dupa tine! - Ma urc si mai sus! - Sa presupunem ca se urca si el mai sus! - Eee mai du-te in rasa matii, ca tu tii cu ursul…

Bulă was in school and there was an inspection. The inspector said that the inspection was very good but also said that Bulă (the boy in the corner by the window) didn't really answer. He asks if he can ask him a few questions. The teacher says sure. So, the inspector asks: - Bulă, what do you do if you are alone in a forest and suddenly a bear shows up close to you? Bulă: - I run! The inspector says: - The bear runs after you too! - I run faster! - Let's assume that the bear runs faster too. - I run even faster! - Let's assume that the bear runs even faster too. - I climb a tree! - Let's assume that the bear climbs after you too! - I climb even higher! - Let's assume that he climbs higher too! - Hmmm. Just go fuck yourself. You're rooting for the bear.