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highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
Thu Jan 8, 2026, 04:55 PM Yesterday

I never imagined, 60,000 posts ago, that our country would be in so much trouble today.

We certainly had challenges, back in 2004. We had a lot of incompetent - and in some cases evil - people in office. There were lots of reasons why we Democrats looked for likeminded people online, and I was very happy to find DU among the liberal websites.

I'm even more grateful that it's still here. My thanks to EarlG and to everyone here for keeping this site going.

I still believe we'll survive the challenges, even though they're worse now. I doubt any of us would have believed in 2004 that Trump could ever be elected president, let alone be elected a second time after losing an election, orchestrating an attack on the US Capitol, and being impeached twice. I doubt any of us in 2004 would have imagined the rise of social media being so harmful. Or the development of AI creating the monstrosity that is generative AI. It's a safe bet that if anyone could go back in time to 2004 and tell the science fiction writers at the worldcon that in a couple of decades the most-hyped tech would be hallucinating AI trained on stolen intellectual property, with those AI models never trustworthy but still being forced into government and education and every part of society, they'd laugh and think the messenger from the future had to be drunker than anyone else at the convention. They'd REALLY think that if told that Donald Trump was elected president in 2024, for a SECOND time, despite being impeached twice and attempting to block the transfer of power.

Our world seemed saner, in 2004.

There we were, now here we are
All this confusion, nothing’s the same to me


Those are Oasis lyrics, some of the lyrics to Columbia, one of the tracks on their first album. If you've read very many of my posts here since last summer, you've seen a lot about Oasis and their reunion tour, and the amazing reviews and articles about the tour, which from July through November was one of the few bright spots in a year of mostly overwhelmingly bad news.

I hadn't planned to mention that song or any other, but those lyrics came to mind while I was writing this.

We're a long way from where we were. A long way from where we need to be. And at times now it seems like everything is confusion - chaos swirling around the despicable wannabe dictator in the White House.

But we will get through this. And for those on this board, DU will be part of that survival. I'm not sure exactly what will be necessary to save our country, or those our country is currently a threat to because of the malign administration and its enablers and supporters. There is undeniable confusion these days - not about the goal, but how to get there from here, given how evil many of our opponents are.

I'm hoping that by the time I need to post another of these milestone posts we'll have seen much brighter days, with the second Trump admin crumbling under the backlash it deserves from US citizens and the world.


38 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
I never imagined, 60,000 posts ago, that our country would be in so much trouble today. (Original Post) highplainsdem Yesterday OP
Congrats on 60K! SheltieLover Yesterday #1
Thanks, Sheltie! highplainsdem Yesterday #9
Way to go 60,000K. applegrove Yesterday #2
Thank you! And oh, how I love those smilies, especially the highplainsdem Yesterday #10
Congrats!! dalton99a Yesterday #3
Thanks! And yes, Confused and Nauseous would probably describe most of us these days. highplainsdem Yesterday #11
Beautiful post! Thank you so much for writing and sharing! BoycottTwitter Yesterday #4
Thanks! And yes, we definitely need a plan for recovering/repairing our democracy and society. highplainsdem Yesterday #12
Congratulations on 60,000 posts! I've enjoyed livetohike Yesterday #5
Thanks! I'm glad you liked the Oasis posts. That was a very significant tour for rock music. I saw so highplainsdem 12 hrs ago #13
Congrats on a posting milestone! Moostache Yesterday #6
Thank you! And I agree that Cameron did a great job warning of a possible AI dystopia. Fortunately highplainsdem 12 hrs ago #15
Thank you! sheshe2 Yesterday #7
Thanks, sheshe2! I nearly breezed past 60,000 yesterday without even noticing, since the tablet I use highplainsdem 11 hrs ago #20
" But we WILL get there..." sheshe2 11 hrs ago #21
Remember the Bush/Cheney years? PJMcK Yesterday #8
Oh, yes. And we thought they were a nightmare at the time. But we never imagined how much worse highplainsdem 12 hrs ago #16
Congratulations 👏🎉 MustLoveBeagles 12 hrs ago #14
Thanks! I'm hoping that someday - not too far off - we can all celebrate milestones on days when we're seeing highplainsdem 12 hrs ago #17
I hope so too 🤞 MustLoveBeagles 12 hrs ago #18
Wow! 60 K! Hugin 12 hrs ago #19
Thanks, Hugin! highplainsdem 3 hrs ago #28
Congrats malaise 11 hrs ago #22
Thank you, malaise! highplainsdem 3 hrs ago #29
The Bush Administration helped to lay the foundation for Trump DSandra 11 hrs ago #23
In some ways, yes. But Trump and his enablers are both more irrational and more extreme, and adding highplainsdem 3 hrs ago #30
I saw one piece of really good news on the AI front jfz9580m 10 hrs ago #24
I'd like to see all responsible for training LLMs illegally, on stolen intellectual property, prosecuted. highplainsdem 2 hrs ago #31
Well I definitely agree highplainsdem jfz9580m 29 min ago #38
Congratulations on 60,000 posts LetMyPeopleVote 9 hrs ago #25
Thanks! I'll never come close to your contributions to DU, though. Over 175,000 posts, as of today. Wow! highplainsdem 2 hrs ago #32
Congratulations on 60,000 underpants 9 hrs ago #26
Thanks, underpants! I missed that Colbert monologue, but I can understand him saying that - mindboggling highplainsdem 2 hrs ago #33
💐🍸⭐ quaint 9 hrs ago #27
Thank you! That's so cute. And the cute rats partying there reminded me that one of the tech highplainsdem 2 hrs ago #35
If you had told me 15 years ago.. Initech 2 hrs ago #34
Trump and MAGA and the AI bros. Mustn't forget them...though you probably had at least some of highplainsdem 2 hrs ago #36
Don't forget the Saudis and Elon Musk, either. Initech 2 hrs ago #37

BoycottTwitter

(93 posts)
4. Beautiful post! Thank you so much for writing and sharing!
Thu Jan 8, 2026, 05:03 PM
Yesterday

I believe we'll get through this too but we must be strong and determined!

What we must do is keep going on the offense against Republicans and Trump. Stay focused on protecting the integrity and fairness of the elections and winning the midterm. Try to stop Trump's most horrible and irreversible impulses. Be prepared for what we'll do when we take back the house and senate. What project 2025 showed us is that having a plan in place ahead of time and executing on it with determination could accomplish a lot of bad. But imagine this: what if we had our own plan that's designed to do good instead of bad and we move fast on it while staying united and focused. We could do so much with even weak margins in the house and senate.

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
12. Thanks! And yes, we definitely need a plan for recovering/repairing our democracy and society.
Thu Jan 8, 2026, 08:02 PM
Yesterday

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
13. Thanks! I'm glad you liked the Oasis posts. That was a very significant tour for rock music. I saw so
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 10:36 AM
12 hrs ago

many articles pointing out that it would mean renewed popularity for guitar rock, and also inspire a lot of people to form bands. A change that's really needed after too many years of the charts being dominated by solo pop artists.

Live music is also the perfect antidote to the soulless, meaningless, anti-human slop that is AI music.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-features/oasis-gallaghers-met-life-concert-1236358264/

Oasis Just Glitched the Algorithm
Unruly, undigital, and fiercely communal — the Gallagher Bros.' U.S. swing is everything our techno-entertainment world isn't. Which is exactly why we need them.

By Steven Zeitchik
September 1, 2025 7:57am

-snip-

What may not have come up as often in those reviews is what the band is doing beneath the surface — what was coming across subtextually even in lesser-known hits like “Little By Little” and “Acquiesce” and “Whatever” — and, more important, the sense of possibility that subtext was evoking. This was a deeply human experience at a time, with its seething algorithmic outrage and a dawning AI, when we seem in danger of losing that humanity.

-snip-


That was one of many great reads about the tour.


Moostache

(10,983 posts)
6. Congrats on a posting milestone!
Thu Jan 8, 2026, 05:10 PM
Yesterday

That is fantastic!

James Cameron sort of predicted the AI scenarios we're living back in 1983's "The Terminator"... but even he never envisioned a human disaster like Trump or the toxic combination of anti-social media, propaganda and 'influencers'.

We're in a mess that can't be resolved easily now. We have a storm on the horizon for sure. But it remains a comfort to see any long-time poster staying active and in the fight too!

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
15. Thank you! And I agree that Cameron did a great job warning of a possible AI dystopia. Fortunately
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 11:11 AM
12 hrs ago

AI development isn't at that level yet. It's incredibly stupid for anyone to even be trying to develop AI that can outsmart humans. But we do already have too much horribly flawed generative AI being used in lots of places it doesn't belong. And given all the ways generative Ai can go off the rails, the attempts to develop humanoid robots with genAI brains is batshit crazy. Yet we have AI bros babbling about the joys of a near future with billions of robots.

Elon Musk: 10 billion humanoid robots by 2040 at $20K-$25K each
https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-10-billion-humanoid-robots-by-2040-20k-25k-each-2024-10-29/

You're right that Trump's a human disaster. Social media combined with AI is very harmful, too. It's a mess we never wanted, and that many of us might be tempted to completely tune out. And both Trump and the tech lords would like us to either fall for their insane propaganda, or at least let ourselves be distracted from how harmful genAI is by their genAI toys spitting out text, images, video and music, and as chatbots telling us how talented and perceptive we are, so we'll get more and more ensnared in their AI spider's web.

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
20. Thanks, sheshe2! I nearly breezed past 60,000 yesterday without even noticing, since the tablet I use
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 12:03 PM
11 hrs ago

most of the time on DU doesn't show post count when held vertically, the way I usually hold it, with the fingers of my left hand slid through a velcro strap/stand on the back. But then I saw 2naSalit's great message about hitting 100,000 posts

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220920336

and I decided to check my own profile and was surprised to see how close I was getting to 60,000. Still wasn't sure I'd say anything about the milestone, but as I posted a few more messages here about current events, I couldn't stop thinking about how far we are from where we want to be, where we'd expected our country to be.

But we WILL get there...

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
16. Oh, yes. And we thought they were a nightmare at the time. But we never imagined how much worse
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 11:14 AM
12 hrs ago

nightmares could get with the Trump kleptocracy and the craziest tech lords.

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
17. Thanks! I'm hoping that someday - not too far off - we can all celebrate milestones on days when we're seeing
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 11:17 AM
12 hrs ago

Democratic and progressive victories both here and around the world.

DSandra

(1,697 posts)
23. The Bush Administration helped to lay the foundation for Trump
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 12:24 PM
11 hrs ago

The Bush Administration defied the first and fourth amendments (Patriot Act, revenge on Joe Wilson), got the news media to unquestionably support the Iraq war effort till the occupation phase, and via the tenets of fascism, they were fascist. They fell apart after Katrina and when the Dems retook power in 2007. I lived through the 2000s being fearful of their implementation of fascism.

But I knew when we got Obama that it was only a matter of time till Republicans would attempt to put fascism back in, and a full dictatorship to boot. They needed to finish the project that started with the Bush Administration of toppling the constitution. I as a millennial could not bank on a long term future in America as a result.

And here we are with Trump 2.0...

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
30. In some ways, yes. But Trump and his enablers are both more irrational and more extreme, and adding
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 08:27 PM
3 hrs ago

AI bros to the mix makes it even more dangerous. And they're benefiting from (and the rest of us are being hurt by) nearly two decades more of RW media brainwashing and social media disinformation.

jfz9580m

(16,581 posts)
24. I saw one piece of really good news on the AI front
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 12:38 PM
10 hrs ago

The only prominent AI scientist I truly trust, Yan Lecun, has finally left Facebook. I only saw this day before yesterday and I was very pleased:

https://www.businessinsider.com/yann-lecun-alexandr-wang-criticism-inexperienced-meta-ai-future-2026-1

AI pioneer Yann LeCun isn't sold on Mark Zuckerberg's $14 billion bet on Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old Scale AI cofounder recruited to lead Meta's Superintelligence Labs.

In a new interview with the Financial Times, LeCun, who was Meta's chief AI scientist before announcing in November that he was leaving to form his own startup, said Wang was "inexperienced" and didn't fully understand AI researchers.

"He learns fast, he knows what he doesn't know . . . There's no experience with research or how you practice research, how you do it. Or what would be attractive or repulsive to a researcher," LeCun said.


I would trust Yan Lecun as a scientist on all levels minus Zuckerberg/Alexandr Wang etc. He is the type of researcher I would trust with my data or home, much like this MIT Prof Ryan Williams (wrt algorithms). That is in stark contrast to how I feel about 99.999% of EECS majors in AI/big data etc.

I have a very low level of trust wrt CS overall as a field. Most of the field will only learn after some researchers and their flunkies face criminal harassment and criminal misconduct/malpractice charges imho.

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
31. I'd like to see all responsible for training LLMs illegally, on stolen intellectual property, prosecuted.
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 08:51 PM
2 hrs ago

Including the top scientists as well as the top execs at AI companies, if they approved using stolen IP for training data. It was always theft of the world's knowledge and culture.

That said, I have no idea how much Yann Lecun was involved in that theft.

Zuckerberg should certainly be prosecuted.

jfz9580m

(16,581 posts)
38. Well I definitely agree highplainsdem
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 11:04 PM
29 min ago

However, Prof Lecun is one of the very few people who potentially has my support. I have never had to think strategically and I dislike it. It is for warriors and heroes, not frumpy catladies finally exasperated to the point of saying that “Okay cut this shit out. I am taking targeted legal action deliberately, but with support.”

And my guess is rabble like me have to make some concessions to the elite and I chose Lecun as someone who is a model for an ai scientist I can forgive because he is not an opportunistic coward or grifter (all the money and influence in the world won’t work with awake rabble with deeply democratic instincts). I am a leftist, feminist etc.

But I never claimed to be a victim or misunderstood. But I can work in my field only when I don’t have to agree with group decisions I will always consider garbage because they fucked me over.

I never went on to anyone else’s turf grabbing what is not nailed down and then tried to disgracefully justify it. Nor did I refuse to take my lumps. But if I try my best, that doesn’t mean you get to do whatever scrambling about constantly whining about new data that came in etc. You have to adapt and learn like some sort of person who is not a greasy, Machiavellian grifter.

This is one of the worst pieces of plunder I have ever seen.

And this is the type of brainless behavior I cannot excoriate enough, but more importantly point out that this won’t work..predicting your way with half-baked models to a serene perfect harmony is nonsensical..The nightmare that is trying to think like this. It is myopic and has no understanding of why one does anything. This is lack of selfawareness and of impulse control:

https://ca.rollingstone.com/politics/more-tech-and-venture-capital-execs-are-coming-out-as-maga-believers/

It takes a point in time as the only that exists. And these technologies can enable that and herd and tune. But that thing that seems to matter so damn much to this type..being on the right side of griftery I mean history..That is a fundamentally flawed way to think. You can keep the real lessons without in an accelerating nightmare failing still to get what matters to you and why.

That woman Stepfanie Tyler or Jessica Krause..these are the confused, grifty types..one day it is dems and Hillary Clinton..the next it is Trump. This is stupid. I have been self cannibalizing (i.e. mine and my mom and dad’s) resources for 14.5 years because I am not a parasite and this must end.
I didn’t mind leaving the US not out of Si Valley’s grifty fake meritocracy, but anger at failure by the left to comprehend what diversity really is. Briahna Joy Gray is a real anti-racist. Race2dinner and Beverly D’Angelo are hollow grifters. When you confuse the animal brain it leads to nazis like Musk and Thiel manipulating people better with their spooks or kayfabe counter spooks.


You have to have a sense of self..I did but ..well it is an unpopular one..which is not very fair..I do try to be nice except if you encroach into my home, devices or street. At that point I lose all sense of humor.

As for what you said about culture, what I notice with these people across the board who fall for this shit-they can hijack narratives about colonialism and imperialism as I see industrialists and politicians of all stripes try here, to posit culture as this superficial thing that is all surface-religion, dress etc while caving to or embracing the worst types of actual colonialism..the kind that is extorting you into surrendering your home or street using a permacrisis. I saw this start in 2009 is my earliest estimate. It is Google and Facebook and now the neo nazis of Musk Palantir..Locally Reliance group and Tata and various small creepy companies.

This will not end well. It will end in a draw best case or mutually assured destruction. I won’t surrender my home to some vaguely fascistic and unexplained shit or accept bogus excuses.
I accept the limits of growth and so should they.

I am not a walking llm, but a specific unique human with unique experiences not a goddamn collective identity. My knowledge is superficial and that is as disgraceful as the rest of it..But I am not stupid or asleep at the wheel.

DUer CrispyQ had a graphic from indivisible I really liked. I don’t have weapons or persuasion. I am not glamorous or brilliant. But I am not anyone’s pawn on a long enough timescale and I like how Lecun defines intelligence..There were reasons for the things I did or do. Sometimes I am wrong. Sometimes I am right. And even that is subjective of course. But I maintain that what I support is less unkind, cruel, grifty, thoughtless, wasteful, stressful, sleazy or best case kinda douchey than these guys with no concepts of the limits to growth or why anything works as it does. This shallow prediction bs is for morons on gambling sites..lol..every now and then something fits.

I have no idea if this is a Comrade Ogilvy invented by people with generally terrible ideas as a test of critical thinking.. ;-/. probably not..I look at some of these guys-Melvin Vopson, Bobby Azarian, Sabine Hossenfelder, Hashem Al-Ghaili, Derek Muller and Alex Stamos etc and go “okay that looks like a confusing strategy or legitimate insanity or stupidity if real. This is a hellscape and ..”

I am not a fan of stuff like that as opposed to less contempt for and faith in your fellow humans. But rarely..hmmmm..And unfairness is just a losing “strategy”.. that too with the levels of surveillance these idiots thought was a good idea..No exit for you either you morons..These are not forward thinking people..You can’t intelligently design a future where your greasy rears need a billionaire bunker.
Even lame white collar people you thought could be bullied change. I did.

I can only “predict” what irks fellow rabble trying to do the decent thing not indecent rabble. If I wanted to accept Nope strategies, i would go to only Yasha Levine or Evgenia Kovda as there is a deep humanism and solidarity with your fellow humans there and that is the best bet for a less war-like future.


But back to this possible Comrade Ogilvy, I liked his take on neural darwinism:
https://www.peterputnam.org/


I am resigned to feeling stupid wrt reality. But I try to be forgiving of human nature. Therefore, I cannot agree that mockery (that too of people who are strugglng while you embolden billionaires and politicians) works and doesn’t worsen human behavior on average.
I mock pseudo elites and their flunkies (ie Musk/Zuck/All of Google except maybe like 3 low level employees who I would support).

Levine has a sense of humor, but there is a deep humanism I respond to. Whereas this scrambling to be on the right side of some mob’s present view, no.

My larger virtue signalling free point is that finally when things go to shit thanks to more and more inane solutionism, one day it comes for my home and street and small and strained real world network minus various unacceptable “we” candidates. The “Gift of Fear”. I decide who is “we” not tech oligarchs or politicians.


I liked this:
“It’s easy to say someone is wrong. The hard part is figuring out why they are right. Everyone is right. Everyone has some central insight, hard won by the consistency-making mechanism of the brain, built of past experiences, cast as motor predictions, a pattern that repeats, sustains itself in chaos. Our job is to look for it like gold, soft it into our own nervous systems, reconcile the resulting contradiction, becoming something new.”

Even the creeps are a learning experience provided it results in better honed Me Too cases that end the rot. You learn how they confuse the head of the average bro, who should really grasp that women don’t want the bros or the chads. Women want to be left alone much like men. And no -advertising conned you. Women are rarely horny and will not have sex with you or the Chads. True of most women. Some women like to breed. Some don’t. Get a hobby and stop backing creeps who destroy our rights. Its really annoying. I didn’t want to ruin an anotherwise less lousy rant but this constant drumbeat of Creep Rights!!! Feminists are not your enemies dudes. Musk is..yeesh. Even you have a mom you morons ;-/.
All this alarming oligarchy and technofascism and an incessant bro whine on top..

Everything i say or do is aimed at one thing only..peace and quiet in my home. I cannot function connected to this worthless, unscientific, undemocratic greedy nuisance. So mobs bleeding into reality..this cannot happen. But if it does, this is not a movie or a game. Cut this shit out and go back to fundamentals..why anything works instead of always pulling this shit. It gets old. I saw a needlesely rancorous argument between three people all of whom I like-Matt Stoller, Alec Karakatsanis and Briahna Joy Gray and my conclusion was that Google should be broken up and held accountable and Pichai probably charged. Don’t side with Nazis Pichai. Same goes for Nadella, Zuckerberg and Wang. And don’t side with misogynists if you are Lucy Guo or Priscilla Chan.

But that will change..The Stoller-Karakatsanis conflict..those are all decent people. Real leftists get over time faster than any manipulators that superficial culture wars distract from reality and don’t go for slogans and catchphrases over a deeper understanding. Or that is my hope.


This is not academic for me. It is my whole life and when, how and why I agree or disagree.

Sorry highplainsdem, but though that was a confusing ramble (Trump’s weaves have competition!) it represents my frustration with the way these sledgehammer this way-that way methods, with 200000 fucking microcultures and..
Sigh…life eh ;-/…

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
32. Thanks! I'll never come close to your contributions to DU, though. Over 175,000 posts, as of today. Wow!
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 08:58 PM
2 hrs ago

underpants

(194,947 posts)
26. Congratulations on 60,000
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 02:05 PM
9 hrs ago

Yes this country is getting bizarrer and bizarrer by the day.

Colbert did a bit in his monologue this week looking back at George W. Bush. He turned his head towards the on-screen graphic and said “I never thought I’d say this but, I miss you”.

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
33. Thanks, underpants! I missed that Colbert monologue, but I can understand him saying that - mindboggling
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 09:00 PM
2 hrs ago

as it would have been before Trump.

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
35. Thank you! That's so cute. And the cute rats partying there reminded me that one of the tech
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 09:08 PM
2 hrs ago

journalists and AI critics I often post about here, Gil Duran, has pet rats he posts about:

This is how we spent the day. Bouts of sleeping and doing nothing. Now going to my favorite theater and see the new Wagner Moura film.

Jimi and Bernie

Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) 2026-01-09T02:45:49.219Z

Initech

(107,458 posts)
34. If you had told me 15 years ago..
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 09:08 PM
2 hrs ago

That we would be ruled by not just Donald Trump, but an ultra corrupt and completely psychotic cabal of James Bond level supervillains, I would have said that I don't believe you.

But here we are. The republicans have been ruled by dangerous propaganda for so long that they completely snapped and lost their minds. And here we are.

Yes we will get through this nightmare and hopefully this country will be stronger and we regulate Trump and MAGA to the dumpster of history where they belong.

highplainsdem

(60,043 posts)
36. Trump and MAGA and the AI bros. Mustn't forget them...though you probably had at least some of
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 09:17 PM
2 hrs ago

them in mind, and especially Musk, for that "ultra corrupt and completely psychotic cabal of James Bond level supervillains."

We saw the danger of Christian nationalists before we realized just how treacherous Silicon Valley could be.

Initech

(107,458 posts)
37. Don't forget the Saudis and Elon Musk, either.
Fri Jan 9, 2026, 09:25 PM
2 hrs ago

If that Paramount merger goes through, the bad guys will get control of our media and will be able to control us in ways we can't even imagine.

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