#the trump fever was insane

[goldyke]

Just saw a post claiming that Charedi Orthodox Jews rarely vote and when they do they’re single issue voters which is frankly absolute fucking bullshit.

Pick up any of the big Charedi newspapers and you’ll figure out quickly just how political and staunchly conservative they are

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT GOING BANKRUPT

TCinLA

Just as Republicans are too fucking dumb to figure out that the raising the debt ceiling is about paying for things already done, and not about incurring new debt for new programs, they also fail to understand that Social Security is not welfare. It’s not an “entitlement.” It’s a “return on investment” made by working people throughout their working lives, to provide retirement income so we don’t have massive poverty among the elderly as was the case before 1935.

Both of sets of facts seem simple, but when you have to qualify for membership in the party by flunking the IQ test low enough to be below ambient room temperature, it may be too complex for those who failed reading comprehension in junior high to understand.

Every ten years or so, we have to suit up to defend Social Security from its Republican foes, who have been dead-set on destroying it since it first became law in 1935. You hjave to give them credit for persistence

Given the feral pre-adolescents who were elected to the House Republican caucus, this will be an ongoing fight for the next two year. And if the country is insane enough to reinstall Trump in the White House with a Senate and House majority, it will be the fight of fights for another four years.

Republicans always talk about the system being a “ponzi scheme” like Ron Dumber-that-Shit Johnson has been calling it; they talk about it being “insolvent” and headed for “bankruptcy.” Just to be clear, none of that is true. This is just scare talk designed to convince people that big cuts to the program are necessary and inevitable. It’s simply not true.

It doesn’t help that the over-educated, overpaid, under-intelligent, otherwise-unemployable trust fund babies of the DC Press Corpse either cannot or will not see through the flimflam of Republicans’ schemes to cut or dismantle Social Security.

We can thank Marjorie Traitor Goon and the rest of the feral kindergarten kids and their ridiculous antics at the State of the Union Speech for being such a public embarrassment that the event forced some of the MSM to do some fact-checking on what Biden had to say about Social Security and the Republican fever dream to kill it, and whattya know? They found out Biden was right. Not only that, but they have said so publicly, proving the truth of the old saw that even a blind pig can find a truffle.

Republican claim again and again that in X years, Social Security will become “insolvent.” Not true! Being generous to them as one is supposed to be when dealing with the mentally challenged, it’s possible to say that at best, it’s a totally misleading way to describe how the federal government pays for things.

Social Security and Medicare are funded by a payroll tax of approximately 15% on wage and salary income up to a statutory cap, which currently stands at $160,200. That tax is split between the employer and the employee (unless you are self employed, in which case you pay the whole thing). That tax funds both programs. A few generations ago, Congress increased the amount of tax to build a surplus in order to pay for the benefits going to the boomers. That’s the “trust fund.” Gubbermint Accounting and allowed Social Security to “lend” that the surplus funds to the rest of the federal government by purchasing government bonds. At current expenditure rates, the Trust Fund will run out of bonds to cash in the mid-2030s, according to current estimates.

This is when Social Security supposedly becomes “insolvent.”

That, however, is a meaningless term. The law says that the federal government has to pay its promised benefits and if they can’t all be paid by payroll taxes, the balance can and will be paid out of general revenues. This was the assumption about what would eventually happen back when the program was founded almost a century ago.

However, that doesn’t make the topic a non-issue. At the current level of taxation and expenditure, there will be a funding gap, but it’s not “insolvent.” This is just a budgetary issue to be resolved. It’s not “insolvent.” That’s just scare talk. Now, how can the funding gap be resolved? The remainder can be paid out of general revenue - the payments for income, corporate, capital gains and other taxes not tied to any specific program.

Alternatively, the payroll rate could simply be raised, but this is a bad idea both politically and economically, since the payroll tax is really regressive. An employee pays about 7.5% on the first dollar of income to $160,200. No deductions. Every dollar. In fact the employees are actually also paying the employer’s 78.5% because that’s money that goes to the cost of employing people that would otherwise go to the employee. Low- and middle-income workers who make less than the cap are paying a flat tax of 15% on every dollar they make.

The simpler and more equitable solution is just to raise the cap.

You can raise the income cap from $160k to say $200k or $250k. More equitably, you could leave it at $160k then have it kick back in at $500k, which would put most of the burden on very high income earners.

This of course is anathema to the feral pre-schoolers.

Republicans want to leave the rate where it is and start cutting benefits. That, however, is a question of societal values more than a question of economic. Income inequality is key on every front, as a matter of equity, since rising income inequality has been responsible for weakening Social Security financing. It’s simple: as more income is pushed into the higher tax brackets,that additional income has been removed from the Social Security tax base.

Republicans claim what they want do do is “strengthen” Social Security, and of course they will never kill it. And if you believe that, you should definitely go invest in cryptocurrency as a safe harbor for your hard-earned money.

South Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds Rounds said on CNN State Of The Union: “I kind of look at security the way I would at the Department of Defense and our defense spending. We’re never going to not fund defense.” He said that after admitting that Republicans want to fund Social Security year to year, which open the door every year to killing the program.

Technically, what Rounds was suggested wasn’t cuts themselves, but the first step to cuts. If Republicans ever get the Senate majority back, they want to make funding Social Security a regular program that must be voted on. Republicans want kill Social Security through privatization and cuts, and they are telling anybody who listen that the goal is to harm the program. When he first ran for the Senate in 2010 Mike Lee told supporters: “It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it.”

Guess what happens after Republicans decide not to fund Social Security?

The program will die.

It’s not just that they have in favor of cutting or phasing out Social Security and Medicare for decades. They now demand that President Biden agree not to say this is what their policy is. Despite the fact Republicans have been demanding cuts and a phase out for decades and will continue to do so after the current burst of media attention abates, Biden must stop telling voters about this because Republicans have agreed to deny what their policy is.

Of course, the funny thing is how many Republicans can’t help restating their demand for cuts even while denying their demands for cuts. And they do it on camera!

There are so many examples of this it’s hard to know where to start. It’s a target-rich environment.

But here’ a few:

RonJohn denies President Biden’s claim Republicans want to cut Social Security. But immediately after saying this, he called Social Security a “legalized Ponzi scheme” and said Congress should no longer automatically pay Social Security benefits each year but rather decide each year whether to pay them and how much the benefit should be. “That doesn’t mean putting on the chopping block. That doesn’t mean cutting Social Security. But it does mean prioritizing lower priority spending.”

Majority Leader Steve “David Duke without the baggage” Scalise also denies President Biden’s claims that Republicans want to cut Social Security. But even while insisting the President was lying he endorsed yet more cuts. “We want to strengthen Social Security by ending a lot of those government checks to people staying at home rather than going to work.” He wants to put a “work requirement” on a retirement plan.

Senator Rick Scott proposed sunsetting every federal program, including Social Security and Medicare, after five years. He back that up after being called out on it by not only President biden but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, which led to him saying on Friday in an op-ed that he certainly didn’t mean ending Social Security, Medicare, veteran’s benefits, or defense spending. It must have finally gotten through to him that pushing this is not the road to re-election as a senator representing the state with the highest percentage of voters being people who live in Social Security and use Medicare, not in 2024.

So what are the options? For years, the Republican policy of choice was converting Social Security into a 401k-like system of private accounts. Jurate’s 401k retirement was all Disney stock, which dropped in value 45% between December 2021 and November 2022, when Bob Iger came back and got rid of the genius he put in as CEO when he left two years ago. Since Iger’s return, the stock has gone back up 7%. Do you want to make year to year projections of how you can life and what you can do, based on the performance of the average moron sitting in the CEO’s corner office of whatever corporation your retirement has been invested in by a government directed by politicians for sale to the highest corporate bidder?

A 401k places all the risk on the individual rather than socializing the risk, which is the heart of what social insurance is. Social Security is a form of social insurance.

That’s typical Republican “Southernomics”: socialize risk and privatize profit.

In modern thinking, ideally you want to retire with three things: Social Security, savings in a 401k or other tax deferred system and a pension. Few people have pensions these days, so it mostly comes down to one and two. (There’s also the option I took: “What is this ‘retirement’ you speak of?”)

The other approach Republicans propose is to leave the structure as it is and reduce the benefits.

The usual Republican proposal is simply to increase the age of eligibility, which has some surface logic since people live longer than they did when Social Security was first created. It’s still a cut, since fewer years of eligibility means fewer total dollars you receive.

Another proposal, which Obama was dumb enough to chase after in search of his “grand bargain” with people who wanted him dead, back in 2011, is to change the formula that determines the annual increases which allow security benefits to keep up with the cost of living. There is some real debate about whether the current cost of living formula - “chained CPI” - is the most “accurate” way to calculate cost of living and purchasing power.

I think anyone reading this who is on Social Security now will agree with me that “chained CPI” (Consumer Price Index) does absolutely nothing about keeping Social Security benefits up with actual price increases for the things seniors actually buy - none of which are on the list of what is considered CPI, by the way.

The third broad category is “means testing.” Advocates of this idea like to point out that everyone would agree that Bill Gates doesn’t need his Social Security check, that this protects the people who really need it while saving a lot of money. This changes the perception of the program into something more like welfare, reducing support for it. Preserving broad based political support for the program is crucial to maintaining it. — as purely economic.

In practice of course, it has to apply to a lot more people than just Bill Gates, otherwise you’re not saving any money. It likely reserves the program for people who have no private savings or means of support and would be literally destitute or starving without their monthly check. That’s not how most people see Social Security. Ideally, it’s part of a mix of income sources that allow people to live comfortably if not lavishly during their retirement years. Regardless, a cut is a cut.

Fortunately, the White House is ignoring the Republican demands to stop accusing them of seeking cuts to Social Security and Medicare; President Biden has been doubling down on his attack on the feral bedwetters.

Republicans are convinced that finding alternative ways to reduce or end Social Security is a winner for next year’s campaign.

Current beneficiaries aren’t safe in GOP plans either. No cuts for anyone over, say, 55 fails to deal with the fact that Social Security is an inter-generational compact. If younger workers are told they will get lower benefits for the same tax contribution, support for current beneficiaries weakens. How do you feel about working the next 35 years at the current tax rate to support current beneficiaries when your own benefits will be cut dramatically?

Republicans are way too late trying to go the John Kerry route - “I was against it before I was for it” - and that will work as well for them as it did for him. Democrats should “beat them bloody” with every video of them saying what they really think, used in every campaign commercial. Mke them dread turning their TVs on.

The road to victory in 2024 is to remember that older voters are the most reliable voters and make sure they know in their bones what the Republican threat is.

If you want to save Social Security, elect Democratic majorities next year to pass a raise in the income cap, such as that proposed by eithe Senator Elisabeth Warren, whose planned increase would keep the current cap and then kick in at over $400,000, which is President Biden’s “red line” in his promise not to raise taxes on anyone with income under that level.

TCinLA

[worldofwardcraft]

The forever president.

August 1, 2024

For years, Donald Trump, the twice-impeached indicted seditionist, convicted fraudster and adjudicated rapist, has publicly fantasized about serving three — or possibly more — terms in the White House. For example, in a speech to Republican donors at Mar-a-Lago in 2018, Trump rhapsodized over China's President Xi Jinping:

He’s now president for life. President for life. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.

Then, in 2019, he daydreamed about remaining president “at least for 10 or 14 years.” And took to Twitter to claim that his supporters “would demand that I stay longer” than two terms in office. And here's the wannabe monarch at a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in August 2020 during his failed reelection campaign:

We are going to win four more years, and then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years.

Incidentally, what Trump has repeatedly referred to as “spying” was actually an FBI counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 election. The day after the above rally, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a report that found Russia really had interfered in the election with the express goal of helping Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton.

Now, he's back floating the same insane fever dream of a third term if he wins in November. At the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in May, Trump told his audience of gun nuts, “You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?”

But Trump isn't the only one who's willing to defy the 22nd Amendment's constraint that "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice." Earlier this year, The American Conservative, a right-wing magazine, published a widely circulated article arguing that this Amendment “is an arbitrary restraint on presidents who serve nonconsecutive terms — and on democracy itself.” It ended by advocating for “Trump 2028!”

So does Trump want to be the nation's permanent president? Here's what he said the other week to a religious group at a Turning Point Action event in Florida: “Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore.” Trump bootlickers like Senator Tom Cotton claim he's just joking. But he's talked about the idea so often, it's hard not to believe he's deadly serious about turning the presidency into a lifetime position.

[stellarvulpes]

This past few months has felt like one, really long fever dream full of bad news.

Shit’s insane here in the US, and I really am terrified of what happens if Trump does get elected this year. I’m worried that the events today just put more positive light on trump for those already right leaning and I can only hope for some sort of good news soon. It just keeps getting worse and worse the closer we get to election month it seems but I very much need something to have some sense of hope for the future, because I keep feeling like shit’s just fucked. That won’t stop me from voting, though, because it feels like that’s all I can even do to defend my rights to simply exist.

With that, I’m going to bed, I just fear after today I’m going to have some messed up dreams

[hyypnotix-writes]

Basically this insane guy went into a mosque and shot a lot of people. Jacinda Ardern became famous after that with this photo of her hugging a women after it. New Zealand politics is relatively tame, American politics seems like a fever dream

American politics is definitely ..something

at least it’s a bit quieter over there without Trump being in charge 🙃

[legionnaireslover]

That's what makes Gator so loathsome. Aeltri and Mstoxictea really believe in the bullshit. As a result they can't disguise their delusions. They shout at people and try to bully them into submission.

But Gator is different. She's like Trump.

She concocts absolute ludicrous conspiracy theories (usually inspired from the fetid, fevered mind of Aeltri) and posts them like BIG announcements on her blog. That ignites her little clan. They (nowadays it's just Mstoxictea) pick up her "ball" and usually run with it to the extreme end of the spectrum. Then Gator sits back and if there's any real flack for her insanity inspired "theories", she then just pulls a "I didn't say THAT!". She did it with the so-called "Sophie Twitter account". She was ALL in on the "That's HER!" and then her minions went full throttle on that but when it became painfully obvious it wasn't Sophie, Gator started with "Well, I never said it was positively her BUT it's someone who works for her!"

It's a game to her. It gets her attention.

It's cruel and it's COWARDLY. Shame on her!

No wonder Patty can't find a job. Imagine being an accountant and not being able to count. The "6th knuckle" is just the palm of her hand. All you need to see it is to hold your hands the way Sophie does in the picture. Maybe one of Patty's Medblrs could explain it to her. Though, I fear they all flunked their basic anatomy class.

I guess that Patty and her cult members are focusing on her hand because the "lumps" on Sophie's face don't appear in this picture.

Imagine wasting 9 years of your life denying that a stranger's marriage and kids are fake. How miserable can the sQeptics be?

[missmentelle]

Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things

If you’ve been paying attention for the last couple of years, you might have noticed that the world has a bit of a misinformation problem. 

The problem isn’t just with the recent election conspiracies, either. The last couple of years has brought us the rise (and occasionally fall) of misinformation-based movements like:

Sandy Hook conspiracies

Gamergate

Pizzagate

The MRA/incel/MGTOW movements

anti-vaxxers

flat-earthers

the birther movement

the Illuminati 

climate change denial

Spygate

Holocaust denial 

COVID-19 denial 

5G panic 

QAnon 

But why do people believe this stuff?

It would be easy - too easy - to say that people fall for this stuff because they’re stupid. We all want to believe that smart people like us are immune from being taken in by deranged conspiracies. But it’s just not that simple. People from all walks of life are going down these rabbit holes - people with degrees and professional careers and rich lives have fallen for these theories, leaving their loved ones baffled. Decades-long relationships have splintered this year, as the number of people flocking to these conspiracies out of nowhere reaches a fever pitch. 

So why do smart people start believing some incredibly stupid things? It’s because:

Our brains are built to identify patterns. 

Our brains fucking love puzzles and patterns. This is a well-known phenomenon called apophenia, and at one point, it was probably helpful for our survival - the prehistoric human who noticed patterns in things like animal migration, plant life cycles and the movement of the stars was probably a lot more likely to survive than the human who couldn’t figure out how to use natural clues to navigate or find food. 

The problem, though, is that we can’t really turn this off. Even when we’re presented with completely random data, we’ll see patterns. We see patterns in everything, even when there’s no pattern there. This is why people see Jesus in a burnt piece of toast or get superstitious about hockey playoffs or insist on always playing at a certain slot machine - our brains look for patterns in the constant barrage of random information in our daily lives, and insist that those patterns are really there, even when they’re completely imagined. 

A lot of conspiracy theories have their roots in people making connections between things that aren’t really connected. The belief that “vaccines cause autism” was bolstered by the fact that the first recognizable symptoms of autism happen to appear at roughly the same time that children receive one of their rounds of childhood immunizations - the two things are completely unconnected, but our brains have a hard time letting go of the pattern they see there. Likewise, many people were quick to latch on to the fact that early maps of COVID infections were extremely similar to maps of 5G coverage -  the fact that there’s a reasonable explanation for this (major cities are more likely to have both high COVID cases AND 5G networks) doesn’t change the fact that our brains just really, really want to see a connection there. 

Our brains love proportionality. 

Specifically, our brains like effects to be directly proportional to their causes - in other words, we like it when big events have big causes, and small causes only lead to small events. It’s uncomfortable for us when the reverse is true. And so anytime we feel like a “big” event (celebrity death, global pandemic, your precious child is diagnosed with autism) has a small or unsatisfying cause (car accident, pandemics just sort of happen every few decades, people just get autism sometimes), we sometimes feel the need to start looking around for the bigger, more sinister, “true” cause of that event. 

Consider, for instance, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot four times by a Turkish member of a known Italian paramilitary secret society who’d recently escaped from prison - on the surface, it seems like the sort of thing conspiracy theorists salivate over, seeing how it was an actual multinational conspiracy. But they never had much interest in the assassination attempt. Why? Because the Pope didn’t die. He recovered from his injuries and went right back to Pope-ing. The event didn’t have a serious outcome, and so people are content with the idea that one extremist carried it out. The death of Princess Diana, however, has been fertile ground for conspiracy theories; even though a woman dying in a car accident is less weird than a man being shot four times by a paid political assassin, her death has attracted more conspiracy theories because it had a bigger outcome. A princess dying in a car accident doesn’t feel big enough. It’s unsatisfying. We want such a monumentous moment in history to have a bigger, more interesting cause. 

These theories prey on pre-existing fear and anger. 

Are you a terrified new parent who wants the best for their child and feels anxious about having them injected with a substance you don’t totally understand? Congrats, you’re a prime target for the anti-vaccine movement. Are you a young white male who doesn’t like seeing more and more games aimed at women and minorities, and is worried that “your” gaming culture is being stolen from you? You might have been very interested in something called Gamergate. Are you a right-wing white person who worries that “your” country and way of life is being stolen by immigrants, non-Christians and coastal liberals? You’re going to love the “all left-wingers are Satantic pedo baby-eaters” messaging of QAnon. 

Misinformation and conspiracy theories are often aimed strategically at the anxieties and fears that people are already experiencing. No one likes being told that their fears are insane or irrational; it’s not hard to see why people gravitate towards communities that say “yes, you were right all along, and everyone who told you that you were nuts to be worried about this is just a dumb sheep. We believe you, and we have evidence that you were right along, right here.” Fear is a powerful motivator, and you can make people believe and do some pretty extreme things if you just keep telling them “yes, that thing you’re afraid of is true, but also it’s way worse than you could have ever imagined.”

Real information is often complicated, hard to understand, and inherently unsatisfying. 

The information that comes from the scientific community is often very frustrating for a layperson; we want science to have hard-and-fast answers, but it doesn’t. The closest you get to a straight answer is often “it depends” or “we don’t know, but we think X might be likely”. Understanding the results of a scientific study with any confidence requires knowing about sampling practices, error types, effect sizes, confidence intervals and publishing biases. Even asking a simple question like “is X bad for my child” will usually get you a complicated, uncertain answer - in most cases, it really just depends. Not understanding complex topics makes people afraid - it makes it hard to trust that they’re being given the right information, and that they’re making the right choices. 

Conspiracy theories and misinformation, on the other hand, are often simple, and they are certain. Vaccines bad. Natural things good. 5G bad. Organic food good. The reason girls won’t date you isn’t a complex combination of your social skills, hygiene, appearance, projected values, personal circumstances, degree of extroversion, luck and life phase - girls won’t date you because feminism is bad, and if we got rid of feminism you’d have a girlfriend. The reason Donald Trump was an unpopular president wasn’t a complex combination of his public bigotry, lack of decorum, lack of qualifications, open incompetence, nepotism, corruption, loss of soft power, refusal to uphold the basic responsibilities of his position or his constant lying - they hated him because he was fighting a secret sex cult and they’re all in it. 

Instead of making you feel stupid because you’re overwhelmed with complex information, expert opinions and uncertain advice, conspiracy theories make you feel smart - smarter, in fact, than everyone who doesn’t believe in them. And that’s a powerful thing for people living in a credential-heavy world. 

Many conspiracy theories are unfalsifiable. 

It is very difficult to prove a negative. If I tell you, for instance, that there’s no such thing as a purple swan, it would be very difficult for me to actually prove that to you - I could spend the rest of my life photographing swans and looking for swans and talking to people who know a lot about swans, and yet the slim possibility would still exist that there was a purple swan out there somewhere that I just hadn’t found yet. That’s why, in most circumstances, the burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim - if you tell me that purple swans exist, we should continue to assume that they don’t until you actually produce a purple swan. 

Conspiracy theories, however, are built so that it’s nearly impossible to “prove” them wrong. Is there any proof that the world’s top-ranking politicians and celebrities are all in a giant child sex trafficking cult? No. But can you prove that they aren’t in a child sex-trafficking cult? No, not really. Even if I, again, spent the rest of my life investigating celebrities and following celebrities and talking to people who know celebrities, I still couldn’t definitely prove that this cult doesn’t exist - there’s always a chance that the specific celebrities I’ve investigated just aren’t in the cult (but other ones are!) or that they’re hiding evidence of the cult even better than we think. Lack of evidence for a conspiracy theory is always treated as more evidence for the theory - we can’t find anything because this goes even higher up than we think! They’re even more sophisticated at hiding this than we thought! People deeply entrenched in these theories don’t even realize that they are stuck in a circular loop where everything seems to prove their theory right - they just see a mountain of “evidence” for their side. 

Our brains are very attached to information that we “learned” by ourselves.

Learning accurate information is not a particularly interactive or exciting experience. An expert or reliable source just presents the information to you in its entirety, you read or watch the information, and that’s the end of it. You can look for more information or look for clarification of something, but it’s a one-way street - the information is just laid out for you, you take what you need, end of story. 

Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, almost never show their hand all at once. They drop little breadcrumbs of information that slowly lead you where they want you to go. This is why conspiracy theorists are forever telling you to “do your research” - they know that if they tell you everything at once, you won’t believe them. Instead, they want you to indoctrinate yourself slowly over time, by taking the little hints they give you and running off to find or invent evidence that matches that clue. If I tell you that celebrities often wear symbols that identify them as part of a cult and that you should “do your research” about it, you can absolutely find evidence that substantiates my claim - there are literally millions of photos of celebrities out there, and anyone who looks hard enough is guaranteed to find common shapes, poses and themes that might just mean something (they don’t - eyes and triangles are incredibly common design elements, and if I took enough pictures of you, I could also “prove” that you also clearly display symbols that signal you’re in the cult). 

The fact that you “found” the evidence on your own, however, makes it more meaningful to you. We trust ourselves, and we trust that the patterns we uncover by ourselves are true. It doesn’t feel like you’re being fed misinformation - it feels like you’ve discovered an important truth that “they” didn’t want you to find, and you’ll hang onto that for dear life. 

Older people have not learned to be media-literate in a digital world. 

Fifty years ago, not just anyone could access popular media. All of this stuff had a huge barrier to entry - if you wanted to be on TV or be in the papers or have a radio show, you had to be a professional affiliated with a major media brand. Consumers didn’t have easy access to niche communities or alternative information - your sources of information were basically your local paper, the nightly news, and your morning radio show, and they all more or less agreed on the same set of facts. For decades, if it looked official and it appeared in print, you could probably trust that it was true. 

Of course, we live in a very different world today - today, any asshole can accumulate an audience of millions, even if they have no credentials and nothing they say is actually true (like “The Food Babe”, a blogger with no credentials in medicine, nutrition, health sciences, biology or chemistry who peddles health misinformation to the 3 million people who visit her blog every month). It’s very tough for older people (and some younger people) to get their heads around the fact that it’s very easy to create an “official-looking” news source, and that they can’t necessarily trust everything they find on the internet. When you combine that with a tendency toward “clickbait headlines” that often misrepresent the information in the article, you have a generation struggling to determine who they can trust in a media landscape that doesn’t at all resemble the media landscape they once knew. 

These beliefs become a part of someone’s identity. 

A person doesn’t tell you that they believe in anti-vaxx information - they tell you that they ARE an anti-vaxxer. Likewise, people will tell you that they ARE a flat-earther, a birther, or a Gamergater. By design, these beliefs are not meant to be something you have a casual relationship with, like your opinion of pizza toppings or how much you trust local weather forecasts - they are meant to form a core part of your identity. 

And once something becomes a core part of your identity, trying to make you stop believing it becomes almost impossible. Once we’ve formed an initial impression of something, facts just don’t change our minds. If you identify as an antivaxxer and I present evidence that disproves your beliefs, in your mind, I’m not correcting inaccurate information - I am launching a very personal attack against a core part of who you are. In fact, the more evidence I present, the more you will burrow down into your antivaxx beliefs, more confident than ever that you are right. Admitting that you are wrong about something that is important to you is painful, and your brain would prefer to simply deflect conflicting information rather than subject you to that pain.

We can see this at work with something called the confirmation bias. Simply put, once we believe something, our brains hold on to all evidence that that belief is true, and ignore evidence that it’s false. If I show you 100 articles that disprove your pet theory and 3 articles that confirm it, you’ll cling to those 3 articles and forget about the rest. Even if I show you nothing but articles that disprove your theory, you’ll likely go through them and pick out any ambiguous or conflicting information as evidence for “your side”, even if the conclusion of the article shows that you are wrong - our brains simply care about feeling right more than they care about what is actually true.  

There is a strong community aspect to these theories. 

There is no one quite as supportive or as understanding as a conspiracy theorist - provided, of course, that you believe in the same conspiracy theories that they do. People who start looking into these conspiracy theories are told that they aren’t crazy, and that their fears are totally valid. They’re told that the people in their lives who doubted them were just brainwashed sheep, but that they’ve finally found a community of people who get where they’re coming from. Whenever they report back to the group with the “evidence” they’ve found or the new elaborations on the conspiracy theory that they’ve been thinking of (“what if it’s even worse than we thought??”), they are given praise for their valuable contributions. These conspiracy groups often become important parts of people’s social networks - they can spend hours every day talking with like-minded people from these communities and sharing their ideas. 

Of course, the flipside of this is that anyone who starts to doubt or move away from the conspiracy immediately loses that community and social support. People who have broken away from antivaxx and QAnon often say that the hardest part of leaving was losing the community and friendships they’d built - not necessarily giving up on the theory itself. Many people are rejected by their real-life friends and family once they start to get entrenched in conspiracy theories; the friendships they build online in the course of researching these theories often become the only social supports they have left, and losing those supports means having no one to turn to at all. This is by design - the threat of losing your community has kept people trapped in abusive religious sects and cults for as long as those things have existed. 

[sineala]

Did you write a winter iron story? Did I imagine this in a fever dream? I can’t seem to find it on AO3. I was wondering if maybe the private collection error might’ve happened to it?

I did in fact write a Winteriron story! It's Tony Stark and the Mysterious Marksman, an ~18k story set in Marvel Noir, for the 2017 Cap RBB for Wren's art. As far as I know, the private collection error hasn't happened to it -- the only collection it's in is the RBB collection, which is public.

(Also, I've been told that the private collection error doesn't happen anymore? I can't personally attest to this, but I think what I heard is that you will now be notified if a collection your fic is in goes private.)

I am also currently writing a Winteriron story for last year's Marvel Trumps Hate. It's a canon-divergent AU set in 1966 where I've smashed together the actual events of Avengers and Tales of Suspense at that time with the events of Winter Soldier: The Bitter March, a 2014 miniseries in which the Winter Soldier gets his memory back on a 1966 mission and nearly gets away from his handlers. So it's an AU where he does get away, makes it to the States, and would like to defect to the West and join the Avengers (at the time, the Kooky Quartet). It's very Cold War.

So it's Bucky/Tony, featuring double identity porn, because Bucky has Done Some Bad Things and thinks it would be better if everyone thought he was dead, so he just walks around masked, as the Winter Soldier. No one knows who he really is. And of course no one knows Tony is Iron Man. And definitely no one is going to find out either of those things ever. Of course not.

Highlights of my WIP so far include: Tony repainting the star on Bucky's arm as a bonding experience, a party in which the Winter Soldier gets to meet Rick Jones and no one has any idea why the Winter Soldier is so very weird about this guy, and Steve in the background of this story quietly having a nervous breakdown because he's pretty sure the Winter Soldier is Bucky and he's also pretty sure Bucky is dead so he thinks he must be going insane. Also I think I gave all the best lines in this story to Clint.

Because I have no chill, it is currently 60,000 words and I am almost to the beginning of the identity reveals and Terrible Secrets. I thought I was going to finish it this month but that clearly isn't happening. But soon! Hopefully next month!

(Note to MCU fans: In 616, the Winter Soldier did not kill Tony's parents. Bucky has been forced to do a lot of things that he would prefer that no one else ever find out, but that's not one of the things he did. That's not where this is going. He has a different Terrible Secret.)

[isoldmysoultojonahclemence]

Fighting Abilities of the Ikerev Suitors

I’ve wondered about this for a while, but the Ikerev suitors seem to have different levels of fighting ability. So I thought it would be fun to make an estimation based on their main routes, Jonah’s third birthday event, Luka’s Kiss the Bride event story, and the Clash in Cradle event stories. Unfortunately, this is only going to be about the soldiers in the Red and Black armies.

Now, I want to make something clear before we go into it. First of all, this is an ESTIMATION. I’m making my best guesses here, so it might not exactly be canonically accurate. If you think that something’s off, feel free to message me about it. Second of all, just because a suitor might rank pretty low on this list doens’t mean that they’re weak. I believe that all the suitors in Ikerev are incredibly strong, be it physical or mental strength. So fighting ability does not and will never determine their true strength.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

First of all, let’s examine the Red Army. Kyle is obviously going to be at the bottom. He’s super smart and genuinely cares about his patients and fellow officers, but physical strength just isn’t his thing. We know that Edgar was Zero’s teacher, but Edgar himself stated that Zero is stronger than him, and it’s proven in both their main routes as well. Zero and Jonah seem to be equal in fighting ability, since they couldn’t figure out who won or lost in Jonah’s Phantom Thief birthday story. Jonah is a lot weaker than Lancelot, which can be seen by how Lancelot defeated him in his main route even when he had a fever. So I believe the order of strength in the Red Army, from worst to best, looks like this:

Kyle < Edgar < Zero = Jonah < Lancelot

The Black Army is based on strength, so the order of fighting abilty should be pretty clear. However, Sirius and Seth are the anomalies, since they’re both a lot stronger than they let on. For Sirius, it’s said that he could’ve been King but turned it down because he felt he couldn’t bear the burden. Also, in his Ever After introduction page, it’s said that he’s possibly the best at fighting. So I would say that Sirius is stronger than everyone else in the Black Army. Ray and Fenrir appear to be at about the same fighting ability, since they seem to draw often when they fight. However, as Ray is King and Fenrir is Ace, I’m going to place Ray a teensy tiny little bit above Fenrir. In Luka’s Kiss the Bride event story, Ray initially defeated Luka at a duel, but after Luka got together with MC, he managed to win against Ray. So again, I would place Luka at just a teensy bit below Ray. And since Ray and Fenrir are kinda same, Fenrir would also be ever so slightly better at fighting than Luka. As for Seth, even Sirius said that he’d lose if he let his guard down around Seth, and Seth is described to be insanely physically strong, and always beats Fenrir at arm wrestling. So I believe the order of strength in the Black Army, from worst to best, looks like this:

Luka ≤ Fenrir ≤ Ray < Seth < Sirius 

So let’s talk about the two armies together. It’s already stated above that Sirius is strongest, so he trumps everyone else. The Kings seem to have equal fighting ability, since MC said that she wasn’t sure if one of them could even beat the other. It appears to be the same case for the Jack and the Aces as well. Kyle is canonically the weakest officer, so he’s going to be last. So the final list would look like this: 

Kyle < Edgar = Luka < Jonah = Zero = Fenrir < Lancelot = Ray < Seth < Sirius

[pixiedoodlein]

Baby has a fever 😬 yesterday he had a minor rash on sole of his foot, it doesn't look like any pictures of covid rash I've seen and does look like hand foot mouth, but who could he possibly have gotten that from? He hasn't been around any kids besides M, and she is fine. He hasn't been around any people besides our family. The first few days of us being here I went to grocery stores (with the kids) but when I realized that mask compliance is shit in Oklahoma I stopped that and opted for delivery. A week ago we went to one empty playground, and Monday we went to the zoo (right when they opened, not crowded, only outdoor stuff). A goes to work, and while the job site is awful on masks (as in the person responsible for safety doesn't even wear one), the giant, totally and completely separate area he is working in is only him and 3 people from his company, who are all very serious about masks. I sanitize constantly. But we're in maskless Oklahoma with a 20% positivity rate, and covid is everywhere. As soon as I realized he had a fever today I immediately tried to get us tested. The health department website makes you answer a ton of irrelevant questions, only to say no appontments available. I tried every urgent care and was able to get an appointment for one person to be tested tomorrow and another person on Sunday. This is some random out of network questionable urgent care place, who even knows if they're using FDA-approved tests, but I was desperate. After 2 hours on hold with the university (which provides free, legit testing, a block from our house), I was finally able to get little guy and I drive through tests this afternoon. Results should be available in 24-48 hours. I am really worried about him, sick babies are so sad and scary. Luckily there is instacart here, so I'm getting Motrin delivered, because Tylenol isn't cutting it (fever is still 102.5, dropped to 100 after Tylenol, then back up an hour later). I would never really do it, I know this would be insane horrific Trump-level public health behavior, but the thought definitely did cross my mind to buy a plane ticket and bring my sick maskless baby home to New York. I would never really do that. But I definitely miss our lovely pediatrician who knows us and adores him and tests kids no prob in her office, NY where it's easy to get a rapid test, where hospitals aren't full and people believe covid is real and wear masks. For what it's worth, A says I'm working myself up (I was convinced I had covid shortness of breath, because I was having an anxiety attack during the two hours on hold to make an appointment) and baby will be fine tomorrow.

[workersolidarity]

Just have to post this John Oliver segment on Coronavirus in Jails and Prisons.

As someone who saw Coronavirus spreading throughout a jail I sat in for defending myself against a psychotic entitled rich white guy who literally shoved me out of the way with his truck for walking down a closed road and then attacked me after I yelled at him for basically risking my life so he get three houses down faster.

I sat in jail for a week in early March when the Trump Administration was only just acknowledging cases of Covid-19 in the US, and watched the disease spreading wildly around the jail while jail staff denied it was happening and refused to let inmates see a doctor.

The constantly lied brazenly about symptoms of Covid, telling everybody it wasn't possible to be infected without a fever even as we were watching on TV as Dr. Fauci said the exact opposite. When we pointed this out to the jail nurse she got angry and told us that "absolutely under no circumstances are any inmates going to be allowed to see a doctor".

This was in MARCH people. Dozens have since died in Jefferson Parish Jail in Louisiana since. With most deaths being ignored and chalked up to "Natural Causes" and without autopsy, quickly burying the bodies in a potters grave sometimes without even contacting their next of kin.

Think about that. Think how many deaths and sick inmates have been ignored and covered up.

Most of these inmates are in jail for minor crimes awaiting trial because they can't afford to post bail.

Even in cases of violence, take a closer look at the details of their situstions and what you'll see in most cases is a poorer person or black and brown person who was struck or assaulted by a white person with money and police and prosecutors ignoring the circumstances of the case and only pressing charges and convicting the poorer or darker skinned person with a violent crime.

The idea that we should give non-violent offenders only a chance to avoid prison while letting the rest rot in these death traps called prisons is insane.

Not only will only a small portion of prisoners be given the opportunity to avoid incarceration, but a vast majority of people who simply committed the crime of defending themselves while black or poor will continue to suffer this sickening injustice system.

Don't buy into the bullshit about so-called "violent" offenders deserving incarceration while others don't. That's just the language of the oppressors warping a well meaning movement for change.

It's complete garbage. The entire injustice system needs to be scrapped from top to bottom. All inmates who are not an immediate danger to themselves or others need to be released IMMEDIATELY.

Oh yeah. And FUCK THE SYSTEM, FUCK THE POLICE, FUCK CAPITALISM, AND FUCK WHITE SUPREMACY IN ALL ITS MANIFESTATIONS!!!

[destielredacted]

ok but looking back at a month ago... i still can't believe what an insane weekend that was it literally feels unreal... the unhinged euphoria of destiel going canon mixed with the emotional fever pitch of the us election... putin resigning, trump getting voted out, four seasons total landscaping, 2013 Tumblr superwholock renaissance........ what a fever dream

[hiccanna-tidbits]

The RotBTD Gang As November 5, 2020 Insanities

Rapunzel: Destiel becoming canon after 12 years, Georgia going blue for the first time since the 90s, Four Seasons Landscaping getting a call that Donald Trump wants to have an emergency press conference at their facility and just rolling with it

Merida: Trump tweeting "STOP THE COUNT!", going to Super Hell for being gay, the crematorium across the street from Four Seasons Landscaping

Hiccup: Rumors of Sherlock Season 5, Groundhog Day election from a fever dream, Nevada counting votes at roughly the speed of a tortoise for enigmatic reasons

Jack: That one person on Twitter making vampire memes about Trump's "STOP THE COUNT!" tweet, rumors that Putin is stepping down because of Destiel, the sex shop also across the street from Four Seasons Landscaping, a global pandemic casually ravaging the populace in the background

[philosophicusabicus]

Diaries in the Loony Bin

The Loony Bin is a group of individuals who could be called “friends”, but maybe that’s too suggestive. At any rate, this group has a diverse set of opinions on politics and sports, with voices across the political spectrum and through many sports. The intersection of politics and sports, in contemporary society, is met with disdain; however, the members of the Loony Bin seek to make it an acceptable space of discourse. Every week, when the asylum isn’t particularly chaotic (there can be no promises as to consistency of date), an entry will be posted, documenting the developments of thought and culture within these walls. Where many see lunacy as a vice, it is seen as a virtue here. The diary herein is will capture all of the voices of this group, but it will use only one narrator, striking many different chords and tones. Topics will change with rapidity, so be always on edge. Though, nothing will get too toxic, as most topics will be treated rather lightly, aiming at parody. We’re in the Loony Bin after all.

Entry #1:

Where saner minds prevail in the Loony Bin, there is the same old chatter about Brady; about how the Bucs will repeat; about the prospects of Tampa’s young roster. But, in the deeper corners of the Loony establishment, there are whispers of a new team in town — a team in the same conference which has been biding its time of late. The St. Louis R… Los Angeles Rams. This team has the defense of a Trump supporter pressed about another investigation; and they have Stafford now, who can be a completely average version of himself and still be better than Goff. They made the playoffs last year with the latter under the gun: by trusted and tried Loony bin logic, there is no world where they don’t fare better this year.

Alas, as we approach the eve of the NBA Finals, we would be remiss not to reflect on the curious outcomes of the playoffs we have just witnessed. The Suns are on the cusp of their first finals in 28 years, walking over a series of teams who were hobbled to their bones. 1st round against LAL, practically no AD. 2nd round against Denver, no Murray. 3rd round against LAC, no Kawhi.

Is anyone else seeing a curious trend here?

This is like the string of upsets that led to the election of Biden in 2020 — think Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona, among others. Speaking of Biden, nobody can say they’re overly happy with what he’s accomplished in his term so far, but then again many are still aboard the “anything is better than Trump” bandwagon. So that mass is just easy to please.

I have a story to relate. A guard patrolling the halls on a foggy evening last month overheard in a ward unit a patient on a delirious soliloquy. Ranting and raving was usual for this patient deep into the night, but this rave, this was different. “Trump’s rhetoric.. his mannerisms.. his behavior.. it is unfit for the Presidency. Nothing need be pinned on him from a legal standpoint for it to follow that he does not meet the standards of the Chief Representative of the United States. If you were to quantify the number of immoral exhibits he has demonstrated, however insignificant, they would add up to a hefty sum: a demeaning and vicious personality. A personality unfit for such a high position. If we have to pick political poison, let’s pick the lesser of the poisons.” The guard began to hear an uncorking of caps, a sloshing of potions, and a loud thump of a corpse, crashing to the floor.

There was a rampant disease going around the property, from hall to hall, greensward to greensward. Its many and various symptoms included: involuntary association with Big Tech, amnesia about mortgage loans and student debt; anxiety related to pressures of the labor and financial markets; headache and fever regarding quality of romantic life; and a strong preoccupation with taking selfies.

The Bin was in lockdown and every non-faculty member had to isolate in their respective wards. Hence, if the patients were to communicate to each other, a new way medium had to be contrived: they call it “Loonygram”.

As I understand it, though admittedly I understand it very little, one performs some kind of slippery action to facilitate the correspondence between users. From what I have gathered though, it has little chance of success without being a certified maniac. Many prefer the pleasure they derive from their own babbling monologues.

While a doctor was trying to rationalize his patient one day he got carried away on a sermon of his own: “Why the fuss over kneeling anyway? Just because some action affronts a symbol you respect, doesn’t mean the intention was to disrespect that symbol. Differentiating actions and their outcomes from intentions goes a long way out there. There was no intent to disrespect what that American symbolism; that was just a byproduct of an effort trying to gain respect for another symbol: social equality”

The patient, strapped to their chair looks helplessly up at the doctor and asks “So… that helps me in here how?”.

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t. Look, it aint all rational out there either, if you catch my drift”.

The patient scrunched his eyes circumspectly at the doctor before his attention was drawn to a fly buzzing on the adjacent wall.

These are curious times within these walls. An episode occurred on the Loony grounds one morning in which one patient wandered over to another, unprovoked, and yelled “my team is winning it all this year!”. The other patient, startled, replied “w..who is your team?” “w..what sport is this even?”

“I am at liberty to express myself; I have the first amendment behind me after all!” cried the provocative patient.

“Indeed, you do. But only where it doesn’t infringe on the freedoms of others” observed the second patient.

“And at what point is that?” jeered the first patient.

“Frankly, I’m not altogether sure. But let’s come to this decision mutually before you spam me with your raptures about the Yankees. Your favorite team is the Yankees, ya?

“How could you possibly.. know?”

“I saw you in the cafeteria last October, forking your pork chops like a feral animal; not long after Gleyber struck out for the 5th time that night either; I saw it in your eyes.”

How that altercation ended remains to be seen, since I merely borrowed it from the journal of another author, who has been missing ever since.

In other rumors, it is with great pain and sympathy that I report an exorcism which took place some time ago in the health dormitory on the fifth floor, all dust and eerie. The patient was being consumed by the demons of his loyalty to the Cowboys.

The pastor on hand, tending to his duties as exorcist, was on the verge of performing his most solemn task, when the possessed man said, as he foamed at the mouth “Elliot… Elliot”

“Excuse me? Elliot? What… Elliot’s going to be the most overrated running back in the league? I’m with you there” laughed the pastor, stuffing a hankerchief in the man’s mouth to muffle his screams.

“Dak. Dak. Dak. Back”

“Dak or not, there is a constant with the Cowboys. At the end of every regular season, they’re barely scratching playoffs.” applying the shock therapy he was taught in his vocational school.

“D..depth a..and.. youth.. a..at receiver” coughs the patient as he loses consciousness for the final time.

“Death and youth make a believer? That’s some sound philosophy my man. You’re impressionable when you’re young so that makes sense, and you live with more respect and appreciation for life as you get old and nearer to death. Truly well spoken”

“This one is one of the better cases, Mary” the doctor says as his assistant walks through the doors.

Tensions are up to a fever pitch these days. Just yesterday, two psychiatrists were shoving each other over whether the condition of the patients is binary or not.

“Their conditions are binary!? That is a very limiting way to view things. If the patient does not want to identify their condition as “sick”, and feels like they want to be labeled ‘sort of sick I suppose’, then the more power to them.”

“No, that is infeasible. If we do not have a clear threshold for their condition, then how can we administer their treatments? At what point? It would be arbitrary.”

“There is no essence of “sickness”; you can’t just define it in any terms you want, just so that it aids your goals; besides, they’re not really sick, sort of.” The insane man, lying on the bed for the entire course of the conversation, just looked blankly and confusedly at his doctors, thinking “so the stories you hear on the outside are true, these people really are Loony huh?”

Some disturbance is happening on the floor below me now, so I must close this entry and I will write another day…

[abcd-adventures]

The last few days, I have been doing yard work during B’s naps, but today I just can’t. I can’t even find the energy to do a yoga video. My entire body just feels leaden. I am tired, overwhelmed, and just. . .heavy. So, I am not doing anything productive during my brief windows of B-free time. Being unproductive is better than having a breakdown, right? Grad school starts next week, and I am trying to push that thought out of my mind at the moment because if I think about it now I will wonder HOW AM I GOING TO DO THIS. I realize, intellectually, how ridiculous that is because plenty of people have done it with far more challenging circumstances than mine, but we can’t always help our feelings.

B had an awful reaction to his MMR vaccine--103.5 fever, rash, intense irritability. The fever and rash have dissipated, but the irritability is still there, and he has just been a bear. The husband has, of course, been having an insane work week, but yesterday I told him that he needs to be out the door by 5pm on the dot because I could. not. do. it. anymore. B only wanted to be carried yesterday or he would scream his head off, and after hauling around a 26+ pound baby all day, my arms, back and mostly my brain were screaming. Then, it rained and the husband detected a roof leak in the garage which he felt the need to discuss in detail with me while talking about the potential damage, cost, etc. I GET IT. I will call a roofer. I will do what needs to be done, but I got irrationally angry at him because I just wanted SILENCE. I needed to shut my brain off, not talk about one more stressful thing. Yesterday was a mess.

Then, I broke my social media policy of not posting anything besides family stuff and posted something in support of BLM and my SIL, who is a prison guard and Trump supporter. . .despite being college educated in psychology. . .wanted to message me about it. Endlessly. I don’t post things like that on social media, not because I don’t feel strongly about them, but because I think social media is not a place of intelligent dialogue, and while I’m willing to have a discussion about anything, I prefer to do it face-to-face where I can gauge the response and tailor my comments in real time. It’s hard to sum up my feelings in a little comment because any time I even start to think about any issue it spirals because no issue is completely black and white. Even if I firmly stand on one side, I can understand aspects of the other side because ALL issues can appear to start in one place, but then you start thinking of the causes and complications and pretty soon you’re looking at an entire web and that’s something that needs to be broken down and looked at thoroughly and no one’s going to be doing that while they rage-post on Facebook. I tend to have a favorable view of humanity in general, but that depends on me considering individual people. People behave their mostly ghastly when they are in groups, but I can usually find something redeeming if I get them alone. And, when you’re talking to someone one-on-one and you can convince them you’re not there to judge, they can usually drop the performance and you can maybe get somewhere (even if it’s not far). That does NOT happen on social media. And, it doesn’t happen enough in just real life. And, that is definitely part of what is making me feel so tired. . .

[thefloatingstone]

you can't just NOT tell us what caligula did

Oh ho ho ho HO!!!

*cracks knuckles*

My dear sweet innocent anon…

Here’s an incomplete list of things the real Caligula did (because the movie made some of it up… but a lot of it not…). I’m writing it as a basic list because writing it out in detail might actually kill me. It also doesn’t help that since Rome destroyed most of the evidence of Caligula’s reign we have very little documentation on Caligula apart from a few sources, and many of the finer details are argued on whether they’re true or not.

Caligula was Roman Emperor from 37AD to 41AD (You will notice that is only 4 years. During these four years he;

Possibly killed his adoptive grandfather Tibirius to become emperor (we are not sure but there was some suspicion)

Nullified Tibirius’ own grandson from Tibirius’ will on the grounds of insanity.

The first 7 months of him as emperor were actually very good so not much to report there. He was popular and made moves to make himself popular with both the people and the military After falling ill (or possibly poisoned) all of this changed

he started to kill off or exile those who were close to him or anyone he saw as a threatfor any reason

He started to kill or have people executed who said anything negative about his appearance

had his cousin and adopted son Tiberius Gemellus executed, enraging his and Caligula’s joint grandmother who then either committed suicide or was also killed by Caligula

He had his father-in-law Marcus Junius Silanus and his brother-in-law Marcus Lepidus executed as well (again. For little to no reason.)

His uncle Claudius was spared only because Caligula preferred to keep him as a laughing stock.

Is said to have had an incestuous relationship with his favourite sister Julia Drusilla. (Drusilla died at age 38 from a fever)

had his other two sisters, Livilla and Agrippina the Younger, exiled. Caligula was supposedly having an incestuous relationship with both of them as well

Started executing people without trials

Forced the Praetorian prefect, Macro, to commit suicide

Spent so much of Rome’s money on his own extravagance that Rome fell into financial crisis

began falsely accusing, fining and even killing individuals for the purpose of seizing their estates to spend on himself

Started taxing lawsuits, weddings, and prostitution

Started auctioning the lives of Gladiators during shows

Wills that left items to Tiberius were reinterpreted to leave the items instead to Caligula to further his spending on himself

in the first year of Caligula’s reign, he squandered 2.7 billion sesterces that Tiberius had amassed

grain imports were disrupted because Caligula re-purposed grain boats for a pontoon bridge, resulting in a famine

Ok I’m gonna have to elaborate on this because this is some insane shit and this was where the crazy REALLY starts getting out of control. More so than incest and executing people for no reason;

In 39, Caligula performed a spectacular stunt by ordering a temporary floating bridge to be built using ships as pontoons, stretching for over two miles from the resort of Baiae to the neighbouring port of Puteoli. Caligula, who could not swim, then proceeded to ride his favourite horse Incitatus across, wearing the breastplate of Alexander the Great. This act was in defiance of a prediction by Tiberius’s soothsayer Thrasyllus of Mendes that Caligula had “no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae”.

(imagine being that full of spite and THAT big of a Chad)

anyway, moving on;

He also had 2 insanely large ships constructed to himself during this same time. During the famine and financial crisis.

Decided numerous senators were not trustworthy and had them executed

Forced the senators he did not execute to weight on him and run beside his chariot to humiliate them

marched his troops to the northern shoreline of Gaul as a prelude to the invasion of Britain but then ordered them to collect seashells, which he called the spoils of the conquered ocean.

Declared war on Poseidon and marched his troops to the beach where he ordered them to throw their spears and stab the water

began appearing in public dressed as various gods such as Hercules, Mercury, Venus and Apollo.(Imagine if Trump started showing up in public dressed as Jesus Christ)

began referring to himself as a god when meeting with politicians 

Had himself be referred to as “Jupiter” in several public documents

had 3 temples built where people could worship HIM

Had a different temple which was dedicated to gods be dedicated to him instead. (Imagine if Trump said the Notre Dame is now a place to worship him instead)

would present himself as a god to the public 

had the heads removed from various statues of gods located across Rome and replaced them with his own.

was represented as a sun god on Egyptian coins 

took things a step further and had those in Rome, including senators, worship him as a tangible, living god. 

ordered the erection of a statue of himself in the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem

The Temple of Jerusalem was then transformed into a temple for Caligula, and it was called the Temple of Illustrious Gaius the New Jupiter. 

Slept with other mens’ wives and bragged about it publicly

Would kill people for mere amusement

Once, at some games he was attending, he was said to have ordered his guards to throw an entire section of the audience into the arena during the intermission to be eaten by the animals because there were no prisoners to be used and he was bored

Prostituted his sisters out to other men

Would send troops on nonsensical missions apparently for his own amusement just to waste their time

Turned his palace into a brothel

Planned or at least promised to make his horse Incitatus into a consulate in the senate

DID actually appoint his horse as a priest

Built his horse its own house and a carved marble manger to eat out of

Planned to move to Egypt to be worshipped as a living god

Displayed his 4th wife Milonia Caesonianaked to his friends on several occasions

Taxed the Roman people when his daughter was born to fund her education and dowry

there’s this little extract from Suetonius which idk how to put in a bullet point

“after the birth of his daughter, complaining of his poverty, and the burdens to which he was subjected, not only as an emperor, but a father, he made a general collection for her maintenance and fortune. He likewise gave public notice, that he would receive new-year’s gifts on the calends of January following; and accordingly stood in the vestibule of his house, to clutch the presents which people of all ranks threw down before him by handfuls and lapfuls. At last, being seized with an invincible desire of feeling money, taking off his slippers, he repeatedly walked over great heaps of gold coin spread upon the spacious floor, and then laying himself down, rolled his whole body in gold over and over again.”

Caligula was assassinated in 41AD at the age of 28 by getting repeatedly stabbed.

Here are some direct quotes from him;

Would that the Roman people had but one neck!

Let them hate me, so long as they fear me

I have the right to do anything to anybody

Having punished one person for another, by mistaking his name, he said, “he deserved it just as much.”

And this which is not a quote by the real person but from the film, and despite it not being a real quote I think it’s excellent stuff

I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man, and therefore I am a god.

(feel free to correct any mistakes on my facts in this post by reblogging but do me a favor and don’t @ me in my inbox about how stupid I am for saying x or y.)

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