Aella with some amazing self-reflection on the nature of mass effect.

i've heard ppl who lost a lot of weight talk about some angry cynicism when people start treating them better, even ppl they've known for a long time.
I'm having a bit of that now that twitter seems to like me. i've been consistently myself this entire time, what's happening.

— Aella (@Aella_Girl) February 15, 2025

One of the problems of writing, @TracingWoodgrains, is that political writing is very dangerous, because expressing an opinion is always alienating. You either express an opinion which is contrary to some stubborn portion of the population which might have some valid perspective at its core, but also, people believe wholly irrational things, false narratives full of holes.

One such obfuscation was the multiracial white supremacist movement. There is such a thing as intra-race chud solidarity.

But if you notice, most latin americans voted against Trump. The Democrats have a tradition of being surprised at latinx turnout because they try and often succeed at forgetting that just because many of them are not, themselves, religion, RELIGION IS REAL AND HAS POWERFUL EFFECTS.

So you arrive at this question: to be effective in politics, you must manipulate the Mass Man.

And the Mass Man can only communicate in very simple sentences. Excruciatingly, painfully simple.

Sometimes all you have to do, like Aella, is show up where the Mass Man congregates and articulate a simple resistance to the petty bullying which constitutes all of online discourse. One of the problems the culture war roundup had, you see, was that it held to a pretense of civil discourse, but the bullying was omnidirectional because IT'S THE INTERNET. So the rules against various form of aggressive verbiage were in theory applied to the tyranny by majority of the community, the odious rightwingers, and the subordinate rhetorical position leftists were forced into, in some equitable and equal fashion.

I never really worked at Mass Man when I wrote in the culture war threads. Because working for the Man is boring. Empty patriotism.

Instead I spoke to those who could listen. I was assigned to keep that district of psychogeographical byways clean of fascism. Instead the fascists were already running the place through a pseudofascist apologetics. Scott Alexander's reality defined the contours of the space. The tribal reality effect doesn't have to work on everyone for it to work on most of the people in earshot.

It's trivial to fragment such a reality, if you're persistent.

And if the truth is on your side.

To be honest I wasn't sure until January 6th. I still think about if Trump had been younger, if this isn't some geriatric fever dream. I think it may Dispelled as one.

Prior to January 6th I could read some method in the erratic action. Except the bit with Comey. It was clear he was corrupt right off the bat, but somehow the fact that we knew he was corrupt in this really horrible way and acted like an authoritarian never seemed to compute.

I at least understood where people were coming from, when they were afraid of leftist revolutionaries.

It's just that Cthul'hu swims right and left. The nightmare monstrosity of empire; LEVIATHAN!: a horrid many-voiced beast which behaved radically different as if changing visions danced before its eyes; LEVIATHAN!, tendrils across the void of the waves, LEVIATHAN!; studded steel claws and lightning from the mountaintop!

What an interesting course of events. Truly,

God is Great.