The perpetual advice to Democrats is that moving rightward will solve all their problems. But look where the party is at the moment: already embracing Republican affect and policies, yet still losing.
Yeah I get depressed when I see the news or politicians mention AI, as if it will solve every problem. I think LLMs can genuinely be useful but we should be realistic about them.
You mentioned Mamdani. I think what’s interesting about him is that he is polling well - he could win the election, even with his big ideas. So maybe there is an appetite for big ideas from the left. Which I guess is why there have been quite a few people interested in Your Party (but yes, whether they can stop bickering and function together is yet to be seen).
I think what’s interesting about him is that he is polling well - he could win the election, even with his big ideas.
He’s captured a moment within the city when every single other person running sucks enormous amounts of ass. I suspect he’d get flattened by a '00s era Bloomberg or a '90s era Giuliani. But the political scene in NYC has been hollowed out. Running for office is a thankless task. Governing is an even more thankless task. Getting a job selling bitcoins to public pensions and high frequency trading tickets to the next Taylor Swift concert via some weird wholesaler app is significantly more lucrative.
Guys like Adams, Sliwa, Cuomo, and Mamdani are what’s left after you’ve stripped state and local politics of anything except the cheapest form of bribery and the most naive form of ideological optimism.
I think I’ll take naive optimism these days. It seems better than doom, gloom, and billionaires trying to own everything, while charging you more and more for essential goods and services.
Yeah I get depressed when I see the news or politicians mention AI, as if it will solve every problem. I think LLMs can genuinely be useful but we should be realistic about them.
You mentioned Mamdani. I think what’s interesting about him is that he is polling well - he could win the election, even with his big ideas. So maybe there is an appetite for big ideas from the left. Which I guess is why there have been quite a few people interested in Your Party (but yes, whether they can stop bickering and function together is yet to be seen).
He’s captured a moment within the city when every single other person running sucks enormous amounts of ass. I suspect he’d get flattened by a '00s era Bloomberg or a '90s era Giuliani. But the political scene in NYC has been hollowed out. Running for office is a thankless task. Governing is an even more thankless task. Getting a job selling bitcoins to public pensions and high frequency trading tickets to the next Taylor Swift concert via some weird wholesaler app is significantly more lucrative.
Guys like Adams, Sliwa, Cuomo, and Mamdani are what’s left after you’ve stripped state and local politics of anything except the cheapest form of bribery and the most naive form of ideological optimism.
I think I’ll take naive optimism these days. It seems better than doom, gloom, and billionaires trying to own everything, while charging you more and more for essential goods and services.