Notices by Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ (arossp@mastodon.social)

Trump really has only two policies: mass deportations and tariffs. The first, grounded in hatred of immigrants, is evil and would tank the economy. The second, grounded in hatred of other countries, is stupid and would tank the economy.

@fu Everything's shifted forward in Colorado from what I grew up with. School starts middle of August and ends in May.

The kids went back to school today. It's so quiet. I'm marking the occasion by putting away my trusty sign until next summer.

The JD Vance selection is a gift to Democrats. He's the apotheosis of the kind of far-right reactionary social conservatism they've been warning Trumpism will seek to coercively force upon the country, and the kind of that is most repulsive to moderates and independents.

Is there a way to see a full list of who an account follows on #Mastodon? Most of the time if you click through to someone's following list, it's much shorter than the listed number, or entirely blank. This is terrible for finding good accounts to follow here, because one of the best tools to do that is to look through who interesting people are following.

This, from @jbouie, is exactly right. And what makes it worse is that the cultural values so many of these parents want to force upon schools are in fact bad and immoral and, to the extent they become more widely represented in our society, the lower and more vicious our society becomes. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/28/opinion/parents-rights-republicans-florida.html?unlocked_article_code=bJ_49bcVvUI_58WtG9TLPyBVR-D4ssqQ9bXTyhHytAtFaYiaj2hATf0GVVZZuhKqZ5P5d6POzOiAhigTPVibOgjMwnW2G4-loBvQh8J7lL8DMd12sDmHNGaAA7l6h7lsH9o-1Dq1xTwHOLyttVEblZAKlhS6AS5er2cBUk5zoZJfRg8KzyrwQiUFK8mmZ-WWdD5eXONkTnPOWn6_km8e0rP8ZF11W4kG7JMAQb1VZgXMrRoI3Jg0IpYbcsZtweZ9GgslP4BD8Ma6eN5xE5cr0JRfEiUXd5zPjh6DCiK80B5MmqPHWwKTicXtszXknKSnIOnYBZ1U8QcdRpOrDDJdIXMqz3D02aHbeV6QGQ&smid=url-share

@mjmurphyva I wrote this a year ago and, while it’s not specifically the “What went wrong with the LP” issue, it’s about the broader problems within the liberty movement, based on my experience of 15 years working in it. https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/toward-a-healthier-libertarian-movement

Why are so many on the far-right convinced the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce relationship is a psy-op, or otherwise artificial? Certain personality traits are over-represented among people attracted to far-right political beliefs. Notably being low-trust and having those characteristics we'd generally label anti-social. Thus when they see a genuine relationship, especially one with political features they dislike (liberalism, pro-vaccine), their personality draws them to viewing it with suspicion.

@tchambers @funkwhale @Castopod what would this offer over existing RSS tech?

In my first newsletter of the new year, I talk about why I'm actually cautiously optimistic about 2024. Read it here: https://aaronrosspowell.com/newsletter/a-new-year-and-a-new-home/

I've long hosted my essays and podcast on #Substack. But when Substack's management announced they wanted to run a Nazi bar, I started work on migrating. The domain still needs to update, and I have some format tweaking left to do on old essays and podcast episode pages, but otherwise the migration is complete. Check it out, sign up for my free newsletter, listen to ReImagining Liberty. And soon I'll get to delete the old Substack altogether. https://aaronrosspowellcom.wpcomstaging.com/

Substack's leadership is engaging in "normative sociology," which, Robert Nozick joked, is "the study of what the causes of problems ought to be." Nazi ideas are a problem and #Substack *wants* the solution to be platforming (and monetizing) those ideas, so Nazi ideas are exposed more broadly, and receive more criticism. Of course, the data and historical record are overwhelming that this isn't at all the solution, and only makes the problem worse, but Substack has an interest in ignoring that.

@fu https://mastodon.social/@arossp/110307421424312371

I really want Mastodon to be the next big thing, but it frankly has a culture problem that is going to kill its broader adoption. After quite a long time here, and a few days at Bluesky, the comparative experience looks like this:

Bluesky: "Everyone's posting about the latest weird inside joke, and I'm excited to post my weird twist on it!"

Mastodon: "Jokes offend me because I was born without a sense of humor. I demand that you wrap all levity in a content warning or I will FediBlock you."

Hi, guys. I've been quiet here because I've been playing around on #Bluesky (@aaronrosspowell.com), which is a lot of fun.

@Slathe The culture at Bluesky is a lot better and more fun. Mastodon tends to be dour, with an over-abundance of scolds. New users come away with a sense that the old users just wish they would go away, and if they won't go away, then they damn well better not violate, intentionally or unintentionally, any of the old guard's strict cultural norms. Bluesky feels like a bunch of people excited to have found each other.

@chaoddity @Slathe There's no one to trust. It's an open protocol. The worst that could happen is the existing Bluesky server does bad stuff, but AT Protocol make it easy (much easier than Mastodon) to move to another server, and take all your content and connections with you.

After a decade and half working in the liberty movement, I feel confident about two things: that a strong #libertarian movement is critical to the nation's freedom and wellbeing, and that the libertarian movement's half-century long strategy of positioning itself within the conservative coalition—the "fusionist project"—was a grave mistake. https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/toward-a-healthier-libertarian-movement

Uh, Scott, I don't think it's "liberal indoctrination" causing young people to want nothing to do with the GOP.

Performative toxic masculinity as cover for unarticulated impotence is the central cultural feature of men on the American far right.