Yeah totally. Everything feels hopeless

Which, again, comes down to capitalism. When your rule of law belongs to the highest bidder, you end up Republican Lite at best.

I think the first step to getting the party back on track is to invest in getting the message out there. Have a network or three on the radio or TV, have news sites, etc that can explain what the ideas are and why they work and where they’ve actually done good things. Start talking about your ideas.

And when you do something TELL THE PEOPLE. It’s like the democrats almost want it to be top secret. I’ve had this conversation a few times with conservatives convinced there’s a conspiracy to poison Americans with additives in foods. Exhibit A is that a lot of things that are common in American food are not in European foods. So the government is obviously trying to kill us, population control and so on. No, the European Union is simply much more willing to ban poison from their foods than our FDA is. So this would be an excellent thing for democrats to be actually talking about and making the case for smart regulations to protect people. They’re generally MIA. And the same is true of other things. The infrastructure bill Biden passed is building lots of highways. Not one will have any sort of signage telling people that this is the infrastructure bill at work making roads better.

I genuinely don't know what the Dems want to do.

Kamala's climate change policy was some of the most baffling word salad I've ever had to read. It seemed like every week they shifted positions or compromised on something I figured was a core Dem value.

Doesn't matter either way cuz they lost in a landslide lol

Dawg, I feel you. I feel you bone deep.

But I was politically conscious for Mondale

Dukakis

Gore

And Kerry

And once we get through the circular firing squad we get to do it all over again

I think before investing on getting a message out, they should have one to begin with. I actively sought out what their platform is and as far as I can tell they don't have one

This is an interesting discussion. I've had an abiding hatred for Kurtzman & Orci for more than a decade but I actually kinda like the direction they dragged Star Trek. A buddy of mine storyboarded the first couple movies; it was abundantly clear that they were doing something completely new while also doing what they could to preserve enough canon to keep the nerds on board.

There's a tricky balance to strike there. On the one hand, Roddenberry & Co populated a pretty interesting universe that has lots of things to explore. On the other hand, it's been tromped through incautiously over the ages so you don't have enough internal consistency to explore it without tripping all over yourself unless you exercise some skill.

Star Trek has traditionally followed a nautical metaphor, which is interesting because Gene Roddenberry was a pilot. Star Wars splits the difference between aerial & nautical with fighters whizzing around everywhere (and bombers... smdh) but Star Trek, for whatever reason, rarely ventures beyond "runabout." That gives you a basic "ocean-going vibe" that, whenever Trek fucks with it, turns to shit. At the same time, one of Roddenberry's maxims was anything that happened during an episode had to be resolved by the end of the episode, returning the show to ground state and enabling the episodes to be watched in any order. Kurtzman's direction has been definitely not that which started out interesting but collapsed under its own weight after a couple seasons. There are only so many places to go if you stick with the nautical metaphor and without the nautical metaphor is it really Star Trek?

Get some young hungry directors, producers, and writers passionate about really great science fiction TV, and tell them to pitch me the next Trek as if nobody had ever heard of Star Trek, Starfleet, the Enterprise, or Kirk.

There was definitely an attempt at this. Kurzman and Orci were the it-girls of sci fi when JJ Abrams lens-flared the shit out of Star Trek in 2009. They blew up Vulcan and tied off the entire prior universe behind a time paradox just to shut up the convention-goers. But they also ignored Ron Moore & Naren Shankar, both of whom grew up on TNG and both of whom have done some stellar shit. Gene Roddenberry was a notorious pain in the ass to work with; I have no way of knowing this but I'll bet Eugene is definitely preserving enough canon that the Roddenberrys keep control of the show.

Set an entire series in the Ferengar. A series featuring the Marquis.

It's worth pointing out that Deep Space Nine was originally envisioned as a vehicle for Ro Laren, newly-promoted Maquis double agent, to operate as a bordertown sheriff out past the easy enforcement of Star Fleet. Unfortunately Gene Roddenberry couldn't keep his dick in his pants and Michelle Forbes noped the fuck out of working in the Star Trek universe until both Gene and his wife were safely dead so we got Hawk from Spencer For Hire instead.

Maybe and entirely Mirror Universe series set in a fascist Federation.

Fuckin' they did an entire goddamn season of this on Discovery and it was super-tedious.

Even the Klingon Empire could be somewhat interesting.

I definitely got the sense that there was a Klingon gambit in the first season of Discovery. Unfortunately the new Klingons were tedious, uninteresting shithead analogs for Islam, rather than the promising culture developed by Ron Moore and explored through a few movies.

But come up with a concept that isn’t “hey, look, we got the TNG crew out of retirement, please clap”

Star Trek is home to what, 5? 6? different concepts and I agree, what started out promising with Picard rapidly became Return to Gilligan's Island. Discovery is definitely an exploration of 'return to zero' writing. Prodigy was a new direction no matter how you slice it. Lower Decks has been almost entirely bereft of vintage characters.

or “Hey, we heard you guys like Harry Potter, but have you seen Star Trek: in school”.

The Starfleet Academy idea became Lower Decks, which knew exactly when it should quit. Clearly the team still loves that Starfleet Academy idea which, if it's done right, might be closer to Riverdale than Harry Potter. I'll withhold judgment as I have done since it first reared its head in 2009. I get the sense that they really want to make that one work which is why they keep shelving it whenever it gets dicey.

In short, start trying to figure out the interesting settings in your universe for great science fiction series, then make episodes that fully explore the concept and the settings.

Again, I feel like they're definitely trying to do this while also servicing the "we herd you leik Spock" contingent. Keep in mind that the median television viewer is sixty fucking five years old.

I think LotR was the first to have elves and hobbits and dwarves and orcs in the way that's instantly recognizable.

I agree that its a cozy story, and 1000% caste system, though imo LotR is a lot more thoughtful and I'd argue that the whole 'magic is fading and evil will eventually win but we'll fight while we can' tone makes it not all twee feel-good fluff.

Now I'm curious - what "modern takes" have you read?

I'm of the opinion that LoTR fucked up fantasy the same way Star Wars fucked up sci fi, but there are a few bright lights.

I didn't say it isn't thoughtful or as thoughtful, just that it doesn't flow as well. I think most people who aren't pretentious literary students would be pro Tom Bombadil's removal, and it doesn't take a lot of digging to find it's a remnant from the time Tolkien wasn't sure if LotR would be a full-on children's book or not. The book could easily lose about 50 pages of descriptions and scarcely anyone would care? I could go on, but to me at least, it's simultaneously polished and rough as hell.

EDIT/Addendum: Maybe to elaborate and add a bit of comparison with GEB (you CS folks love it): GEB waxes poetics about recursion for pretty much its entire body, comparing recursive changes of a structure to fugue and drawing parallels. I have no doubt that, just as SICP, it was mind-blowing at its time. But today? I learned about this shit in high school CS and middle school music classes, respectively. Putting it together is perhaps non-trivial, sure, but with the benefit of GEB doing a lot of the work, people who came after can do it all in a matter of 3 hour lecture. So a lot of their impact is just lost on me: I got it in a refined version before, so the progenitors feel clunky.

I also just finally read LotR after bouncing off it a few times. I had the opposite takeaway though, at least having played a lot of D&D but not having read a lot of fantasy novels, that - wow it was so much better and more thoughtful than the modern take.

Yeah totally - see what you mean about the Tom Bombadil & that. I like the prose now, but especially the first chapter is very long and academic and not exactly a page turner.

Re: GEB also haven't finished it despite starting but I totally agree with you there, nothing felt like 'mind blowing'. For LotR though, I went in expecting to not be that impressed since I had all the cultural osmosis already and had seen the movies etc and, for me at least, it had a different tone and character and earnestness that I think the modern versions lost at some point. (I do still love the movies though).

Recently read some Sherlock Holmes and did get that feeling though- everything was such a predictable trope, but I suppose at the time it was a lot more new

OK last comment, but I really think this article captures a lot of my frustrations with the party (maybe the median voter too idk)

But if they ran on packing the courts, being a 'dictator on day 1', green new deal, tough on monopolists , doing whatever needs to be done - basically everything Trump's promising to do but instead of for massively unpopular niche issues for stuff people actually like.

I genuinely don't care with what means they want to do it.

People say- Trump will destroy democracy! And all I can hear is that maybe he's going to actually do something. (The tragedy is that all of the somethings he's going to do are Bad) but imagine! If our side had 1/16th the gumption. It would be heaven on earth

I barely even trusted Kamala to have the political will to get Roe v Wayde passed tbh. The dems have been punting on that one for decades

I think LotR was the first to have elves and hobbits and dwarves and orcs in the way that's instantly recognizable.

And I would argue that counts for less than you think. One of the things I like about modern fantasy is the trope that Elves are assholes. Tolkien was basically at "look how cool this lost race of ubermensch are" while modern fantasy is basically "elves love the smell of their own farts."

I agree that its a cozy story, and 1000% caste system, though imo LotR is a lot more thoughtful and I'd argue that the whole 'magic is fading and evil will eventually win but we'll fight while we can' tone makes it not all twee feel-good fluff.

On the one hand, it's a bunch of children's books. On the other hand, it very clearly reflects Tolkien's understanding and trauma of The Great War. I think it's the duality that bugs me; by trying to be both it does neither well.

The thing about American fantasy of the era is the good guys and the bad guys were human. You couldn't hide your actions behind ethnic tension. America fought a war over slavery; the British didn't think it was worth fighting a war over genocide until it was on their doorstep.

Just Dungeon & Dragons and associates, plus of course the movies.

As well as vague awareness of like, video game plots & tropes.

What struck me the most was how LotR was very anti-war in a lot of ways which absolutely does not carry over.

I can completely agree it was like Star Wars, especially in that: Star Wars (4 at least) was good! It had an incredible aesthetic that I fell in love with instantly, the story is simple and nice, every line is iconic. But more Star Wars just isn't that interesting and it did seem like everyone was trying to make their own worse version for a while at least.

GEB waxes poetics about recursion for pretty much its entire body, comparing recursive changes of a structure to fugue and drawing parallels. I have no doubt that, just as SICP, it was mind-blowing at its time. But today? I learned about this shit in high school CS and middle school music classes, respectively. Putting it together is perhaps non-trivial, sure, but with the benefit of GEB doing a lot of the work, people who came after can do it all in a matter of 3 hour lecture.

"Cognition emerges from hidden neurological mechanisms" being the author's summaries of not only GEB (1979) but also Dawkin's The Selfish Gene (1976), I am fully ready to argue that GEB was an intellectual's retreat from Reagan. American culture was big on trite wordplay back then. It was largely insufferable.

Recently read some Sherlock Holmes and did get that feeling though- everything was such a predictable trope, but I suppose at the time it was a lot more new

I'm not sure, but it was certainly influential. That's why we see it as trite and need its retelling repackaged.

By the way, if you like British humor (humour?) with commentary on (among others) writers stealing and redoing things, I recommend Upstart Crow.

Yeah my enthusiasm for Bernie is more the symbolism of someone with at least passably good values in office. No pretense that he could get anything done. Which is another baffling thing about the Dems- if you're going to do literally nothing, why compromise all your values? Why have a stupid hedged weaksauce plan that you don't do instead of an exciting cool plan that you don't do.

Honestly the IRA passing at all was a shock to me, weaksauce as it was.

My only hope from the Trump admin is that the Dems exploit all the broken norms to 'fucking do something' but god knows they haven't ever in my lifetime, idk about yours but sounds like not then either.

At this point I kinda want to see America fall before I do, just for the schadenfreude

If there was a democrat candidate that seemed like they had any hope whatsoever of 'fucking doing something' they'd win every state.

Its so painful rooting for 'nothing will fundamentally change' Joe Biden, or worse his corporate hack VP

cgod. Hang in there, pal. Always rooting for you from afar.

I interviewed Beborn Beton Monday. Contrary to what everyone thinks, this song was inspired by The Cure, and is about the MeToo Movement.

I still think a democrat without strong ties to the Biden admin and running on a somewhat econimically leftish platform like Obama did would have worked out.

Kamala was republican-lite. There's no reason to vote for her instead of the real one. Anyone who was upset at the state of thing and wanted change was offended by her ties to the Biden admin and her "plan" being essentially nothing, her base was offended by her hard shift right, no republican would touch her with a 50 foot pole. I genuinely don't know who they were possibly trying to appeal to.

I think that's definitely a problem- another example: they won't even consider packing the courts. Its so frustrating rooting for a party who's platform is built on not being willing to get things done.

For this election though, I think the bigger problem was that they ran two pathetic candidates with a pathetic message and a pathetic campaign

I’ll be honest in saying that the fundamental problem is that democrats don’t understand power. They have this idea that you come up with policies and that people will thus hand them power. Republicans understand that power is the first order of business. If you don’t take power, your policies don’t matter. You want to help people? Cute. You aren’t even trying to take power, and when you do, you don’t use it to consolidate your power, you pretty much give it away.

Case in point was RBG. She knew it wasn’t a given that there would be a democrat in power when she retired, she didn’t quit when there was one. And thus Trump got a free SCOTUS pick. When it’s the GOP, they only resign when their party will pick their successor.

I think that unless you’re a minority or LGBT life isn’t going to change that much. Americans have seen far too many horror fantasies about WW2 or Soviet Union stuff or Shariah to really understand what life in those states is like. It’s not tanks, goose stepping and speeches nonstop. It’s normal life. Go look at video of China. It’s not horrible.

Totally agreed, I have friends who are directly affected afected and I'm very worried about them. Biggest hit to me personally as a cis white dude in america in a blue state will probably just be the rolling back of consumer protection and labor laws and a ton of bad juju. And of course in a few decades, all the species that go extinct from a complete lack of climate policy (not that Kamala was a whole lot better there tbh).

Imo a likely prediction of what's actually going to happen is that they achieve project 2025 completely and look the other way when red states put the thumb on the scales of future elections. Which for me is WAY BAD ENOUGH TO FREAK OUT RIGHT NOW!!! but not bad in the same way some people are making it out to be (ie. tanks in the streets military occupation - we are not WWII paris)

You've probably looked it over more than me @ Europe, but my Ukraine friend says the easiest way is to take a stint in Serbia or Kazakhstan and then transfer from there to Western Europe a few years later

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Godspeed