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I’ve been having hassle being motivated to submit of late. It’s not author’s block; I’ve by no means been topic to that. Neither is it a need of subjects. I simply tossed a submit concept, shredding a Monetary Occasions train in propaganda masquerading as a “Huge Learn” on the Ukraine battle, to a different author, who rapidly took it up. Equally, there’s a lot incorrect in regards to the recently-published Nationwide Safety Technique that it has elicited a boatload of commentary, with solely a restricted quantity of overlap in critiques.1 Or how in regards to the ridiculous Trump/Bessent concept {that a} pep speak from them will get shoppers to disregard the price range stresses they really feel each day?
However I noticed that the basis of my resistance to writing was a deeper emotional response: revulsion. Revulsion on the wanton destructiveness of our soi-disant betters, who’re smashing lives and establishments and international locations out of entitlement, hubris, laziness, and incompetence. I grew up on the tail finish of the period the place most communities have been led in massive measure by native elites, WASP-y males who resisted letting others into their golf equipment. However nonetheless, they typically accepted the thought of noblesse oblige: that they wanted to maintain up appearances of legitimacy, which meant taking some curiosity within the welfare of the societies wherein they lived, and looking out like they deserved the mantle of management (as in no seen dishonest on playing cards or of their enterprise/private affairs).
Many within the crosshairs of as we speak’s grossly derelict management don’t have luxurious of getting disgust as their strongest emotional response. They typically report concern, anger, and despair at every part from the lack of jobs to important advantages like healthcare and drugs to threats to non-public security from ICE raids to within the UK incarceration for assist for Palestine, or a gnawing sense of impending doom on many fronts, from local weather change to AI consuming all of the jawbs to Social Safety and different nations’ pension techniques being on the chopping block. And for many who have felt revulsion, above all on the genocide in Gaza, there have been some retailers for motion even when they’ve to this point had restricted impact, particularly protests and supporting BDS.
However what’s disturbing is the underlying, pervasive nihilism within the reckless disregard for the well-being of populations and establishments. Trump’s Nationwide Safety screed prattles on about ushering in a golden age (for him, maybe) and seeing “to stay the world’s most scientifically and technologically superior and modern nation” after launching an ideological battle on universities, slashing science funding, and actively driving out international college students and lecturers. This isn’t consuming America’s seed corn; it’s setting a bonfire to it. You’ll be able to’t blame this stage of stupidity on late-stage capitalism; it’s breaking issues as a result of he and his lot can and assume they may present the previous guard a factor or two. Sure they’re, however not in the best way they inform themselves. If issues have been figuring out all that nicely for the elites, would they want as many panic rooms? Bunkers in far-away locations? And allow us to not overlook that extremely unequal societies impose a lifespan price even on these on the high.
On the opposite aspect of the pond, leaders like Keir Starmer and Freidrich Merz are wrecking their social orders by doubling down on militarization and de-industrialization quite than surrender their deep private commitments to Venture Ukraine. President Johnson had the decency to not search a second time period when he realized voters had turned towards him over his assist for the battle in Vietnam. They may even have ju-jitsued Trump by not solely following his lead in making an attempt to finish the Ukraine battle however going one additional: “If we’re going to normalize relations with Russia, why do we have to spend 5% of our GDPs on protection? Wouldn’t 2% to three% suffice?” As a substitute, we’re subjected to Ursula von der Leyen defying not simply Euroclear and the Belgian authorities, but in addition the ECB and the IMF in making an attempt to seize frozen Russian property….which might solely allow a restricted prolongation of the battle but would severely injury Europe’s standing as a secure place to do enterprise and certain the worth of the euro.
I think those that have had related reactions to mine have totally different triggers. As an illustration, the interviewees on Choose Napolitano skew to these with navy and intel expertise. Many appeared to recoil on the Hegseth-Trump making an attempt to evoke the film Patton in speeches each gave at Quantico to an unprecedented assemblage of generals and flag officers, the place the aim gave the impression to be to rant about DEI and niceties like observing trendy norms and guidelines for conducting battle. That response in that cohort appears to have intensified over the Administration blowing up boats of Venezuelan fisherman to compensate for its impotence in assassinating or in any other case eradicating President Maduro. As an illustration:
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) mentioned the video of the September 2 strike on an alleged narco boat is “one of the troubling issues” he’s seen throughout his time in public service.
READ MORE: https://t.co/M6F0E97ikh #hegseth #venezuela #boatstrike #information #politics pic.twitter.com/Oi6x2WYjA3
— The Nationwide Desk (@TND) December 5, 2025
Now to La Grande Bouffe, a 1973 movie which achieved its intention of being completely revolting. It reveals 4 well-off males who determined to kill themselves by overeating and the way they went about it.2 I need to confess to by no means having seen the movie3 however evaluations give an concept of how gross the film was (the trailer opts for being wry). First from Wikipedia:
The movie tells the story of 4 pals who collect in a villa for the weekend, with the specific goal of consuming themselves to loss of life..
The primary protagonist is Ugo, proprietor and chef of a restaurant, “The Biscuit Soup”. The second is Philippe, a considerably necessary Justice of the Peace who nonetheless lives together with his childhood nanny, Nicole, who’s overprotective of him to the purpose of making an attempt to stop him from having relationships with different girls, and who fulfills her personal sexual wants with him. The third character is Marcello, an Alitalia pilot and womaniser. The fourth and remaining predominant character is Michel, who’s an effeminate tv producer. The 4 come collectively by automobile to the superbly furnished however unused villa owned by Philippe. There they discover the outdated caretaker, Hector, who has innocently ready every part for the nice feast….
The primary to die is Marcello, after being enraged together with his personal impotence; he goes to the bathroom and causes the sanitary pipes to blow up….He turns into exasperated, and realizing the futility of the farce, decides to go away the home at night time throughout a snow storm, within the outdated Bugatti that he had repaired earlier within the day with nice delight. His pals discover him the subsequent morning, frozen to loss of life within the driving seat…
After Marcello comes Michel…Already affected by indigestion and crammed to capability with meals (he can’t even elevate his legs practising dance, his favorite pastime), he suffers an assault of bowel actions whereas enjoying the piano. Amid flatulence and worse, he’s lastly in a position to let all of it go, and collapses on the terrace…
Ugo prepares an infinite dish created from three various kinds of liver pâté within the form of the Dome of Les Invalides, which he serves to the remaining diners, Philippe and Andrea, within the kitchen in view of the 2 useless pals… Philippe and Andrea can’t carry themselves to eat it. Philippe goes off to mattress, leaving Andrea to maintain Ugo firm throughout his decided effort to eat the whole pâté. A while later, she later calls Philippe again downstairs to assist her cease his buddy from stuffing himself to loss of life. They can not dissuade Ugo, and find yourself attending to him on the kitchen desk, the one feeding him, the opposite masturbating him till he orgasms and dies on the identical time….
The final to die is the diabetic Philippe, on the bench below the lime-tree of Boileau and into the arms of Andrea, after consuming a pudding she has made formed like a pair of breasts.
And from Wies Sanders in 50 years La Grande Bouffe:
The movie La Grande Bouffe is a cynical indictment of the unexpected unfavourable penalties of the Trente Glorieuses, a interval with out battle, but in addition with out custom or which means. Within the movie, 4 extremely educated, wealthy white males eat themselves to loss of life. They don’t do way more than that and so they do it with out obvious causes or a preconceived goal. It merely arises from a decadent boredom that naturally accelerates and might solely be stopped by loss of life. Free of norms and traditions, the 4 males seem unable to deal with the ensuing meaninglessness. Boundless hedonism might initially appear to be heaven, however in actuality seems to be hell.
It was a high-grossing movie in France and did certainly deeply offend many:
And actress Andréa Ferréol says: “For months, restaurateurs instructed us that they refused to serve us. One night I used to be at an Italian restaurant with a buddy. A number of clients stood up and the person came to visit and mentioned, “Because you’re right here, ma’am, I’m leaving!”” It’s not stunning: the movie reveals many taboos: waste, extra, shit, vomit, boredom, nudity and whores.
I supposed the rationale for connecting my having hit disgust overload to La Grand Bouffe is of informational force-feeding, like a duck being noodled, and that it’s getting worse. I’m not alone in seeing the Administration’s offenses turning into extra frequent and intense. Sections from a brand new must-read piece by Andrew Coyne, Donald Trump – and American democracy – is getting exponentially worse, within the Globe and Mail (hat tip Dr. Kevin):
Some extent I’ve tried to make over the past yr or so is that Donald Trump can solely worsen: that nonetheless corrupt or incompetent or dictatorial or treasonous or insane he might seem at any given second, it should inevitably come to be seen as a relative golden age beside what’s to return.
There’s a cause for this. It’s that he can solely stir the media and institution outrage on which each he and his supporters thrive if he behaves even worse than we’re accustomed to him behaving. It’s not sufficient to say or do some appalling factor, even when it might have ended the profession of any earlier politician. He does that, fairly actually, a number of occasions a day. Somewhat, he should exceed expectations of his grotesquerie. His critics’ dilemma – tips on how to maintain outrage within the face of the fixed, numbing, normalizing stream of objectively outrageous conduct – can also be, in a method, his….
What I had not anticipated was the second by-product. After a time, that’s, folks come to count on, not simply unhealthy behaviour, however steadily worsening behaviour. So to maintain feeding his outrage habit, Mr. Trump’s behaviour not solely has to maintain getting worse, however to take action at an ever accelerating fee. And, I suppose, the speed of acceleration should additionally enhance, and the speed of acceleration of the speed of acceleration, and so forth. We’re in a sort of hyperinflation of presidential derangement, an exponential curve asymptotically approaching Nero.
Contra La Grande Bouffe, our narcissistic misleadership class members would by no means got down to kill themselves. However their orgiastic love of energy, unbounded by any deep sense of goal or duty, is producing related outcomes for his or her rule, their data, and their nations. How can they, as an example, have did not subdue Russia and never exhibit any curiosity in getting info as to why their schemes haven’t labored? How can they nonetheless be counting on Ukraine propaganda? Hadn’t the thriller of Putin and Russia unbowed elicited some doubt and ensuing sanity-checking?
Admittedly, one cause is the best way that exact same narcissism has produced deep embubblement, that they’ve surrounded themselves with toadies who gained’t inform them that it’s painfully apparent that they’re amateurs, method out of their depth. Think about this wince in feedback from Aurelien in regards to the then 28-point peace plan:
And I simply should say that each time I have a look at this listing I’m astonished by how amateurish it’s. It’s not merely that the US is making an attempt to commit different nations, and worldwide organisations, to issues, however a lot of the factors are political commitments which can be reversed at any time, and a few issues are merely incorrect: there’s no query of Ukraine signing the NPT, it did that in 1993. And a “safety assure” for Ukraine could be meaningless until it have been backed by navy drive, which is the one factor the West doesn’t have. The entire thing is so unprofessional, it hurts.
And to show to a very totally different kind of lack of actuality amongst those that ought to know higher, take into account AI. I had mistakenly considered it as a mere fairness mania, which implies it may produce a critical financial downdraft however not a monetary disaster. However the truth that main gamers are utilizing off-balance sheet autos to borrow adjustments the image fully. A meltdown or Japan-style deflation/zombification are all too attainable. And the US doesn’t start to have Japan’s stage of social cohesion.
It could appear unduly finance-fixated to be involved in regards to the stage of capital destruction, however once more, the Nice Despair, Japan, and the long-term penalties of the bank-sparing response to 2008 (particularly, the continued nice enhance in inequality) present these unwinds hurt (just about) all of society. And if the AI touts are literally confirmed right, we are able to look ahead to the AI-induced dislocation of excessive unemployment among the many educated.
Ed Zitron supplies a very good evaluate of his intensive writings on how the AI hype, notably its economics, don’t start so as to add up.
One notably necessary tidbit, that most of the chips bought are apparently being warehoused. And GPUs are on a deliberate one-year growth cycle, with possibly 3 years of use. They’re losing property. At 24:25.
Newsweek: What occurs if what occurs when the music stops?
Zitron: Effectively, there are a couple of issues. So, to start with, there there’s this stat that got here out. I believe it’s reaffirmed by a professor as nicely the place it was AI capex and spend on information facilities accounted for extra of GDP development within the first half of this yr than all shopper spending mixed. That’s unbelievable as a result of our whole economic system relies on shopper spending which is what’s crazier although is Nvidia claimed a couple of month in the past that they’ve shipped 6 million Blackwell GPUs. That’s the most recent technology. Now I went and did the maths on this. It’s about 6 GW to 12 GW of IT load, which simply means energy. We haven’t constructed that many information facilities. We haven’t even constructed 1 / 4 of that. So, not solely is the most important firm on the inventory market solely getting there due to promoting GPUs, however I’m suspicious as as to if these GPUs have gone wherever, whether or not these GPUs are they’re not in information facilities. The information facilities don’t exist. The ability doesn’t exist, however the bodily information facilities don’t both. So 6 million of those bloody issues holding up our markets, they’re sitting in warehouses.
And at 48:05:
Zitron: However a extremely easy factor is when there’s sufficient cash and a very good justification of one thing, you don’t have to love get the runes and the spells out. You don’t should get a shaman. You don’t want a wizard to conjure the cash up and create some obtuse debt car. If it if this was the long run, why isn’t it in your steadiness sheet, mate? And the reply is Meta makes no cash from AI. Zip. All of them it does is…
Newsweek: They generate income from adverts identical to they’ve been for no matter 10 years.
Zitron: They’re claiming, oh, we’ve seen 5% enhance from generative AI adverts. Bull, I’m sorry. Present me precise numeric like cash. Cash. Present me the cash. And so they by no means will. They by no means will. They modified how they met Meta modified I believe late final yr from how they measure energetic customers. It’s like each day energetic folks now. They moved the round.
Newsweek: It’s like how Netflix does it with just like the watching hours or all of them transfer. It’s all faux.
Zitron: It’s. And however on high of this, it’s all faux however used to purchase as a result of all these firms Microsoft, Meta, Google, they was once superior as a result of superior financially, I assume, as a result of their money movement was simply there and so they didn’t sink tons of of billions of {dollars} into GPU. They weren’t asset heavy. Now they’re asset heavy companies. Software program is supposed to proliferate endlessly…And now they’re simply connected to a bunch of GPUs. They Microsoft owns tons of of hundreds of outdated technology GPUs. There’s a factor referred to as an impairment. When one thing loses its worth, it’s a must to mark it down. A type of is coming for all of them cuz all of them personal A100 GPUs, H100 GPUs, those that got here out in 2020 and 2021. >> And people are simply principally paper weights now. >> Effectively, they nonetheless work. They nonetheless work, however not for like not for lengthy. And in addition, in the event that they nonetheless work method behind the brand new ones, it there’s it’s not likely clear why anybody’s doing something.
A confirming tidbit:
That is the AI revolution in a nutshell:
– Solely ~10% of the dedicated information heart construct outs are literally underway
– Round financing is getting used to fabricate demand
– Knowledge facilities are already ready years for grid entry
– Gasoline turbine order books are past manufacturing… pic.twitter.com/gAY59fLWHd— Lukas Ekwueme (@ekwufinance) December 5, 2025
As you understand, the foregoing is simply a tiny subset of the official sadism and stupidity. ICE raids. Crypto grifting. Indifference to the baked-in well being prepare wreck in 2026 on account of premium will increase. Tariff-induced price will increase wrecking small companies. Trump’s ongoing petty vengefulness.
So I perceive why a few of you’re feeling the necessity to take information breaks. However keep in mind, if we don’t preserve watching and make what noise we are able to, issues worsen at an excellent sooner fee. Trump for all his bunkering nonetheless apparently cares about polls, so noticing and amplifying proof of his Administration’s incompetence and corruption does have an effect.
So resort to your most well-liked treatment, be it a stiff drink, train, meditation, or binge watching cat movies, and metal your nerves.
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1 Amusingly, the paperwork lists Cambodia and Thailand as the primary of the spots the place Trump asserts that he “negotiated peace”. From the Bangkok Publish PM guarantees ‘essential navy response’ to Cambodian assaults, adopted by the breaking story within the Nikkei: Thai navy launches airstrikes on Cambodia as cross-border clashes erupt
2 Solely three succeeded; one froze to loss of life.
3 It didn’t make it to the artwork home theater in Yellow Springs, the place I frequently went with my debate group buddies in highschool.
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