A quotation from George Carlin
If you’ll scratch a cynic, you’ll find a disappointed idealist.
George Carlin (1937-2008) American comedian
Interview (2001-07) by Marc Cooper, The Progressive
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/carlin-george/53516/
#cynicism
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Hopefulness
Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position—it is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.
slip:4a1552.
Craig ConstantineCraig ConstantineCaution: Blogging. Randomly.
#Russia’s decades of constant promises that it has no plans to invade—while constantly invading—are just the surface of the extraordinary #cynicism of the Russian colonial model.
Denying it will invade is only one layer. Even while invading, Russia claims it isn’t, because the territory it has attacked is supposedly “Russia.” All the killing, they say, is merely an internal matter.
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north korea has elections too
obviously #usa #democracy is in peril, but that's no reason to capitulate prematurely out of #cynicism
voting is merely a realm of a larger battle
you participate because a #vote shifts the battle lines
"but i want perfection now so i'm not voting" like an airhead makes the struggle harder
you move in a direction, you don't stand on #toxicIdealism
it's not romantic, it's pragmatic
or, don't vote
now we're even more fucked
New Song! "The Price" — About that loudly uninformed, cynical guy who rants about politics but refuses to learn anything. Or all of those guys.
Half-Hearted Fanatic · The Price (Original Song) - Half-Hearted FanaticA song about the kind of guy who says “Look how much I don’t care — everybody look at me not caring.”
Monday, June 16, 2025
Russian strike targets Boeing office in Kyiv in deliberate attack on US business, FT reports — With no new US aid packages on the horizon, can Ukraine continue to fight Russia? — Ukrainian agents cause millions in damage during secret sabotage operation in Russia — ‘Spit in face’ — Zelensky condemns Russia’s mass attack, dismisses idea of Putin as peacemaker … and more
https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2025/06/monday-june-16-2025/
Ditch the Shields - Amanda Knox on JRE
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Götterdämmerung @Daojoan Had the pleasure of reading this. Especially the library metaphor. It's Borges' Library of Babel but via the anxiety-ridden soul of a millennial with carpal tunnel from doomscrolling.
The diagnosis is correct but the patient isn't ill. They adapted. What you describe isn't a malfunction of consciousness in the digital age. It is consciousness in the digital age. Welcome to the post-critical subject, the homo insincerus of late modernity.
#cynicism
#cynicalreason
> You can’t build a bridge out of suspicion. You can’t organize a movement out of shrugs. […] So we #doomscroll, share punchlines, and wait for collapse, hoping that maybe, when it all falls apart, the people who saw it coming will be spared the worst of the rubble. But #cynicism doesn’t protect you from #history. It only teaches you to predict it while it crushes you anyway.
MastodonJA Westenberg (@Daojoan@mastodon.social)Cynicism is what happens when belief becomes too dangerous to afford and too expensive to maintain.
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/cynicism-is-the-default-epistemology-of-people-with-too-much-information-and-too-little-power/
Being a cynic is so contemptibly easy. If you let yourself think that nothing you’re working on is ever going to make any difference, why bust your tail over it? Why care? If you’re a cynic, you don’t have to invest anything in your work. No effort, no pride, no compassion, no sense of excellence, nothing.
Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1973-01), “Pitfalls of Reporting in the Lone Star State,” Houston Journalism Review
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/ivins-molly/76537/\
If all the secrets of adulthood, including sex, illness and death, are opened to children; cynicism, apathy or arrogance replace curiosity for them, short-circuiting education and moral development.
-- Neil Postman (The Disappearance of Childhood)
#Wisdom #Quotes #NeilPostman #Apathy #Arrogance #Cynicism #Education #Television
#Photography #Panorama #Panopainting #Kayaks #Everglades #Florida
Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1739 ed.)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/franklin-benjamin/76…
My friends say that I’ve become less cynical with age. I tell them that they can thank Mastodon for that.
Mastodon is where I dump 99% of the cynicism that I hold about politics or anything else going on in the world.
Sunday, April 27 2025
Russia attacked Chornobyl Nuclear Plant in February, damaging confinement. Can it be fully restored? — US signals support for Europe’s peacekeeping coalition in Ukraine — Russia training to integrate motorcycles into summer offensive in Ukraine — Interpol investigates Russian company for human trafficking over African workers in Tatarstan drone factory … and more
https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2025/04/sunday-april-27-2025/
"Where there are two Signal chats with the same unauthorized information, there's often a third Signal chat with the same information. Plus a clear text message or mail in due time."
Ancient infosec proverb. 
Wondering about the timing of Microsoft Doubling Down On Windows 11 Enshittification. Does this mean they feel they've sabotaged/infiltrated the various Linux efforts enough that they are safe for now? I can't help thinking this is the case.
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It’s hard for me to understand the massive amount of public sector #CORRUPTION that Americans think is acceptable.
Why do so many people consider #bribery, #fraud, #selfdealing, #graft, and other #corrupt actions by the regime and its supporters to be okay? Is it just widespread #cynicism or something else?
Why are people not outraged anymore about the #dishonesty of public servants?
They would push us toward #cynicism. “There is a reason why current authoritarians, as they did in the mid-20th century, deliberately cultivate widespread cynicism with their indifference to reason and reality: it keeps the political field clear of challengers.”
—Lyndsey Stonebridge, “We are free to change the world: Hannah Arendt’s lessons in love and disobedience.”
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@gareth @Fragarach @kibcol1049 If you think these people who paid millions of dollars and burned all their social capital supporting Trump aren’t hedging their bets and profiting off options trading, which requires zero transfer of ownership, you’re going to be disappointed.
This shit is their whole grift, the only ones upset about it are regular people and ones that miss the trade queues for maximum profit. #cynicism