I don’t talk as much about politics as I used to on this here site, but today I must.<\/p>\n\n\n
The Republican “Big, Beautiful Bill”<\/a> — aka, the budget reconciliation bill — amounts to civilizational suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’ve been thinking in terms of Sid Meier’s Civilization<\/em> games. The United States has basically been sitting a few turns away from a Culture victory for thirty years, we have lots of allies, trade is bringing us resources, our economy is strong\u2026 and in the span of a turn or two we’ve decided to go for a Military victory, we are shedding allies and other countries are wary, our trade is diminishing, our economy is being actively harmed by tariff and immigration policies and our cities are rioting. (Not actual rioting–it’s a thing that happens in Civ<\/em>. It means the people are unhappy.) We’ve gone all Leroy Jenkins in a game of Civ<\/em>, and gamers know<\/em> how it ended for Leroy Jenkins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, the United States was the<\/em> global hegemon, and everything that made it so has been set on fire by the current administration. The BBB is founded on cruelty and indifference, its thesis that life is not solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short enough<\/em>, and instead of investing in the people<\/em>, it lavishes the people’s money on the rich, the corporations, and the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If this passes — and I hope it does not — it will be a sad day in America and forever a dark stain in our history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Alligator Alcatraz” — effectively a concentration camp for deportations — opens today in the Florida Everglades<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n