The JFK Jr. job application test

I've seen some weird stuff in my life, but JFK Jr has go to be in the top 3% of lifetime weirdness achievement. He has posted a job application test that anyone can take online. The instructions basically were, don't cheat! 

I took the 90 minute test in about 20. Not a single question asked about public health, infectious disease, health care or anything remotely related to relevant academic training or expertise. The whole thing was a bizarre deep dive into personality plus some stuff I have no clue about. Presumably, if one "passes" this abnormal test, there will be some actual relevant substance to the job application process. At least, one can hope for that.

Slate writes:

I Took the Test RFK Jr. Is Using to Determine 

Who Should Work at His Health Department

We are extremely doomed.

Donald Trump has promised to allow Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “go wild” in his new role as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The environmental lawyer, anti-vax conspiracist, and brain-worm survivor chartered an oddly shaped coalition of COVID denialists and almond moms in his path to the White House, all of which was successfully marbled into the Trump platform during the waning months in the campaign. .... Among other things, Kennedy would like to know if you’ve ever experienced clairvoyance.

The whole assessment, which was first reported by Puck and was confirmed to be real by the Trump transition team, is available for anyone to take. Unlike more concrete examinations of one’s fitness to serve in a public health regime—like, for instance, any tangible background in medicine or health policy—the test reveals itself to be a free-associative chimera of IQ-ish logic puzzles and the sort of discredited Myers-Briggs queries you used to take in Computer Lab. It would be a hilarious prank if its intentions weren’t seemingly dead serious.

The whole thing reeked of neo-psychological quackery, in the Gladwell tradition, where the vast gradient of human experience can be neatly organized into, like, three smooth categories.

And yet, after that first round of personality disentangling, RFK’s assessment gets much more specific, and, somehow, even more bizarre. The quiz presented me with a lengthy list of strange personal insecurities, and asked me to highlight the five that I identified with most. That sounds straightforward enough, but the available choices coalesced into a majorly unwell person. One reads, “I tend to have unstable and intense personal relationships, where I alternate between extremes of idealizing and devaluing another.” Another adds, “I don’t have that much interest in having sexual experiences with another person,” which I choose to interpret as a smart bit of incel coalition management. Speaking for myself, I was self-aware enough to check off “I require excessive admiration,” but I made sure to leave out “I don’t feel much empathy for others” to ensure that the next regime doesn’t peg me as a sociopath. (This is also where the question about “having clairvoyance” surfaces, but honestly, compared to the other options, it might be among the least distressing of the bunch.)

And just like that, the test was over. I was presented no score or evaluation, just a terse “thank you” and the end of the line. I suppose I must live with the fact that the government now possesses a record of my darkest inclinations—an RFK-ified survey of my morality—but I don’t get the sense that he’s gotten any better sense of whether I’m a fit or not for Health and Human Services. Maybe that shouldn’t be too surprising, because when journalist Timothy Burke dug into who, exactly, is responsible for this deeply strange audit, he learned that the publishing company is called ExamCorp. ExamCorp’s president? None other than Jordan Peterson, the psychologist turned right-wing gadfly.

I know we’ve all grown numb to the outrageous stupidity of this political climate, but I don’t think we can hammer this point home hard enough. Robert F. Kennedy—a guy who dumped a bear carcass in Central Park—is set to take on a paramount role in the health policy of this country. Helping him round out his staff? Peterson, who is closer to the levers of power than ever before. What a horrific timeline. This carnival of MAGA grift will continue to blob out until it blocks out the sun. It can, and will, get worse from here. Hey, maybe I am clairvoyant after all. (emphases added)

Yup, we're extremely doomed.

I think I flunked the test!

Huh? Wot? 😕

MAGA lies; Opinion: Congressional Dems are MAGA enablers

MAGA lies are coming coming fast, furious and shamelessly blatant. Some examples:

Tommy Tuberville said he has ‘paid close to a million dollars in Social Security.’ That’s impossible -- “Here’s the sad truth: the American people don’t have any confidence that they will see all the money they paid into Social Security over the years,” he said on Wednesday. -- Comment: His lies are a direct attack on Social Security and its alleged out-of-control cost. The only reason that people might not get back their SS payments is because originally Republicans, but now MAGA, have attacked and undermined the SS program for decades. They have tried their best to break SS so they can then claim it is broken and use that as an excuse to get rid of it. The goal is kleptocratic authoritarian. MAGA wants to shift power from the people and government to private interests who will gain that power and use it to fleece the hell out of people, leaving many of them destitute in retirement.

Trump lied about food prices. Now he says it's too 'hard' to bring down costs. There's not much a president can do to wrestle food prices down. Did you think Democrats just wanted to lose the election so they chose not to push the magic 'lower grocery prices' button? -- Comment: It was obvious during the election that when DJT claimed he would lower food prices that he could not do that. Now he admits he can't do it. It was obvious then and still is. But his admission of the lie won't faze most MAGA elites or his supporters, at least now for and probably in the next year or two. Maybe later it will sink in on some of the rank and file that food prices have not come down. But even then, most will probably either forget about this, or just blame the Dems if inflation still bothers them.

Time Undercuts Trump Interview With 2,300-Word Fact Check -- The magazine took aim at its honoree’s statements about immigration, vaccines, and gender transition. -- In addition to undercutting Trump’s claim about the number of undocumented immigrants currently in the United States, Time questioned his assertion that he “fixed” the border crisis after he was elected in 2016. Another eyebrow-raising remark Trump made came during a discussion of vaccines [MAGA's anti-vaccine crackpottery]. “The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible,” Trump said. “If you look at things that are happening, there’s something causing it.” 

Surprise! Key Witness Reveals He Lied About Biden Corruption -- Alexander Smirnov admitted he fabricated the conspiracy that Joe Biden and his son Hunter had made millions from a Ukrainian energy company -- Comment: Smirnov had been pegged as a liar back in 2020, but DJT and MAGA used his false testimony anyway to slander and try to impeach Joe Biden. The pressure on DJT and MAGA to lie and even fabricate evidence against people and entities they hate is intense and only getting stronger. Just like DJT and MAGA laid the groundwork to attack the 2024 election if Harris had won, they now need to lay the groundwork to (i) undermine what is left of political opposition, and (ii) blame anyone or anything but themselves as responsible for failures going forward. In my firm opinion, people who think that DJT and MAGA are not deep, cynical strategic thinkers like this are almost certainly horrifically mistaken. 

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Enabling MAGA: Time to play chicken?

An interesting opinion The Hill published criticizes what Dems have done to help MAGA get away with its own gross incompetence, deep corruption and severe damage to society and government: 

If Johnson wants to do something that’s good for America, shouldn’t Democrats lend him their support regardless of whether his own caucus backs him or not? Shouldn’t Democrats act responsibly even when Republicans won’t? Surprisingly, there’s a correct answer here. And it comes from the field of addiction recovery.

For the last two years, Democrats have thought they were acting in the country’s best interests by helping Republicans govern. They have not been. They meant well, but they have actually been protecting voters from the consequences of Republican dysfunction and enabling bad Republican behavior.

Republican politicians are now addicted to drama, outrage and “owning the libs.” When you shield addicts from the consequences of their actions, you’re not doing them any favors. All you are doing is enabling their addiction.

The country won’t be on the road to recovery until it is allowed to experience those consequences. If that means giving free rein to the collection of clowns with flamethrowers that now passes for the Republican Party, so be it. Democrats should resist the urge to intervene when the inevitable happens and they set themselves on fire.  

For the next two years, Democrats have no responsibility to govern. They should focus on politics instead and take a longer view of the country’s best interests. If, for example, House Democrats had allowed Republican dysfunction to shut down the government in September, they almost certainly would have won a House majority in November. A few weeks of furloughed workers and shuttered national parks would have been a small price to pay for an effective check against Donald Trump’s plans for an American autocracy. Democrats should be practicing tough love and allowing Republicans to inflict pain on themselves, even if that also inflicts some pain on the country.

This isn’t to say they should let Trump permanently wreck America just to teach his voters a lesson — an approach advocated by some angry progressives. If there is an issue that could do irreversible damage to America’s future, then Democrats should be prepared to step in.

Politics as usual is dead. In the age of MAGA, congressional Democrats are resistance fighters, and resistance fighters are often called on to make difficult and distressing choices. Trump has a lot of things planned for America — foolish things, dangerous things, things he often promised but that many of his voters don’t want and never believed he would do. Democrats should not be enabling him by spending their political capital to make all this a little more bearable.

Now that is an interesting perspective. Clowns with flamethrowers, that's an interesting way to see MAGA. However, vicious, morally depraved, authoritarian clowns with flamethrowers is more precise. After all, we don't want to slander regular clowns with flamethrowers, do we?

Comparing the kleptocratic authoritarian threat of MAGA with the Democratic Party threat

I have been sharply criticized for criticizing MAGA and its authoritarianism while ignoring rising authoritarianism in among Democratic Party elites, their tactics and their policies. The opposing point of view strikes me as coming close to seeing near-equivalence between the two kinds of threat. It is true that special interest money as significantly corrupted both parties. Nonetheless, I do not yet see near-equivalence in terms of democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties, tactics or long-term goals. 

Am I wrong? Maybe so. It is time to check it out. 

1. After receiving the criticisms, I started to look specifically for evidence of Dem Party authoritarianism and corruption being reported in the MSM. I don't find much, but that has been criticized as the MSM being mollycoddling and complicit with the Dems. I have not turned to MAGA media because it is so fracking vulgar, offensive and packed with lies and slanders. So me on my own has not come up with much, but I'll keep looking because I am a realist. I may have a major blind spot for rising centrist-liberal kleptocratic authoritarianism. 

2. Is there another way to try to get at the issue of who is worse and by how much are the two different, if any at all? Sure, Perplexity. For context, I think that, given its power and express intent, I believe that the threat of kleptocratic authoritarianism from MAGA is about 20-fold worse and far more urgent. 

Q1: I am getting some criticism of my focus on the rise of radical right authoritarianism and MAGA, while ignoring rising authoritarianism in the Democratic Party, e.g., related to infringing civil liberties related to pro-Palestine protests. Can you assess the lines of evidence that support concern for Dem Party authoritarianism and does that approximately equal the breadth and depth of MAGA authoritarianism?

A1: The concern over authoritarian tendencies within the Democratic Party, particularly in relation to pro-Palestine protests, has been highlighted by several recent events and policies: .... (long answer) .... While there are valid concerns about authoritarian tendencies within the Democratic Party, particularly in how it handles dissent and free speech related to pro-Palestine protests, these actions do not appear to match the breadth and depth of MAGA's authoritarian strategies. MAGA's approach is more comprehensive, aiming at a fundamental restructuring of government to favor a particular ideology, whereas the Democratic Party's actions, while concerning, seem more ad hoc and less about systemic change.

Q2: If one tried to quantify and qualify MAGA authoritarian threat as a hypothetical value called X, would the quality and quality of Dem Party threat be about 0.1 X, or more or less than that?

A2: .... (long answer) .... 
Breadth and Depth: MAGA's authoritarianism is characterized by a comprehensive, proactive strategy aimed at long-term power consolidation across all branches of government. The Democratic Party's actions, while concerning, appear more ad hoc and less systematic, focusing on specific issues like speech control and support for Israel.

Quantification: Given the systematic nature of MAGA's strategy and the breadth of their actions, if we assign MAGA's authoritarian threat a value of X, the Democratic Party's authoritarian tendencies might be quantified as approximately 0.1X to 0.2X. This estimation accounts for the reactive nature of Democratic actions, their focus on specific issues rather than a broad systemic overhaul, and the lack of a comprehensive, long-term strategy akin to MAGA's.

So, my personal estimate that MAGA is ~20X more a kleptocratic authoritarian threat that the Dem Party is. That's in the ballpark of what passes for "judgment" by Perplexity. Perplexity sees MAGA as ~5X to ~10X a bigger threat. 

Of course, AI does not have human judgment as we know it. AI is limited to data. By contrast humans have data, ignorance, biases, judgment, context assessment, tribe loyalty, self-esteem, variable cognitive ability, and all the other cognitive, social and moral baggage that makes humans human. 

Humans and their big piles of baggage

3. Is there another way to assess the threat? Maybe. A contender that comes to mind is to look at some crude, objective measure or another. What crude objective measure? Body count? Sure, why not. Let's do body count on a few prominent events. What prominent events? How about war? Wars can reflect some or a lot of nationalist kleptocratic authoritarianism.

A. Vietnam was an unprovoked, unnecessary war. Americans were lied to about a false need to attack Vietnam to prevent the Commie dominoes from falling or other related dark free speech bullshit from our government. It was entered into conducted with majority bipartisan support. According to Google AI, American deaths were about 58,000 US military and ~2 million Vietnamese military and civilian. However, estimates seem to be all over the place. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties

We can say the body count was high. Can we attribute it at least partly to kleptocratic authoritarianism? Maybe. Perplexity indicates it is a possible factor. Since that war was mostly bipartisan, it seems to be a wash on whether The Dem or Repub Party was more kleptocratic authoritarian.

B. Iraq, was an unprovoked, unnecessary war. Americans were lied to about a false need to attack Iraq to punish Al Qaeda, to keep WMD from being used and other related dark free speech bullshit. That war was entered into conducted with majority bipartisan support. Since that war was mostly bipartisan, it seems to be a wash on whether The Dem or Repub Party was more kleptocratic authoritarian. Again, there is an argument to be made for American authoritarianism driving the war. There were lots of deaths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

C. Israel's war in Gaza has been bloody. That bloodfest is cited by my critics as an example of horrific authoritarianism by the Dem Party and Joe Biden in particular. At the start of that war, support for American military aid to Israel was overwhelmingly bipartisan. Now, the bipartisanship has eroded some, with some Dems opposing more military aid without a ceasefire. Since there is no realistic prospect of a ceasefire, that opposition is meaningless in terms of political impact. The war there fits the legal definition of Genocide, but most Americans seem to reject that, arguing Israel is just acting in justifiable self defense. Perplexity comments on the body count:

As of December 3, 2024, over 44,502 Palestinians have been reported killed in the Gaza Strip, with an additional 737 Palestinian deaths in the West Bank 1 4. The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) has confirmed the identities of 34,344 individual Palestinians, with 60% of these not being men of fighting age 1. The majority of casualties in Gaza are civilians, with 70% of the verified fatalities being women and children 1. The total number of Palestinian deaths, including those from indirect causes like starvation and lack of medical care, is estimated to be much higher, with a conservative estimate suggesting at least 62,413 deaths in Gaza from starvation alone. .... Combining the figures, the total number of deaths in the conflict stands at over 46,000, with 44,502 Palestinian and 1,706 Israeli fatalities.

If DJT was president when Hamas attacked Israel, it is very likely his policy would have been at least as bad as Biden and Dem policy has been. In my opinion, it would have been significantly worse.

In the US, Biden and local law enforcement, with bipartisan support from congress and the GOP generally has violated the civil liberties of pro-Palestine protesters. This is the basis my critics argue use to attack Dem elites and Biden as authoritarian more or less on a par with The Repubs. 

I do not see it that way. I see MAGA, which is now the face of the Republican Party, as a far greater and more urgent authoritarian threat than the Dems. In all the Dem acts of authoritarianism, the Repubs have been fully complicit. Worse for Palestine, DJT indicates that he wants Israel to do what it needs to do to deal with the Palestinian threat. If Biden is X bad for innocent Palestinians, including letting them starve to death, DJT will be at least as bad, probably worse. So once again, it looks like a wash when it comes to this particular body count analysis. 

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So, is it unreasonable to attack mostly MAGA authoritarianism while letting Dems off the hook for their transgressions? Some posts here have extensively criticized Biden and the Dems for their blind, brutal pro-Israel policy and trampling of American protesters' civil liberties. What is being left out of content posted here that is authoritarian and/or kleptocratic that (i) the Dems are responsible for, and (ii) amounts to a threat more or less on a par with the MAGA threat, e.g., maybe about half or one-fourth as bad? 

So, who rules the world?

 Adult content warning, so you have been warned. But if you want to know who rules the world, click on this link:

https://www.straight.com/music/trumps-election-win-living-rent-free-in-your-head-even-though-youre-canadian-you-are-not-alone#

Just the same, here are a few snippets to wet your curiosity:

by Mike Usinger

I’m not an American. But I might as well be, because the fact that Donald Trump will be America’s president for the next four years is currently all-consuming. By that, we’re not talking mildly troubling, genuinely concerning, or low-key awful—but instead fucking traumatizingly horrific. It’s been a steady diet of Zoloft and Jack Daniel’s ever since all the colour drained from Rachel Maddow’s face on MSNBC on election night.

First, there are upsides to his victory.

All of us on the planet are going to be guaranteed four years of outright hilarity from the man dubbed America’s Hitler. Thanks to both his electoral college and popular vote wins, he’s again been given the green light to act batshit crazy on every level: staring at the sun during solar eclipses; calling homegrown Nazis “good people”; pushing bleach injections as a pandemic cure; and allowing his grimacing “foook Chreeesmass” mail-order wife to turn the White House into a Halloween-like nightmare.

But what if you actually believe the world should be a decent place for everyone—instead of just Republicans, who wants to sit there with a bowl of popcorn while Trump and his red-hat brigade harass and deport thousands of immigrants, most of whom’s crime will be that they aren’t white?

Seriously: who wants to watch reproductive rights continue to vanish across US states, giving celebrated couchfucker JD Vance a raging erection as America starts to look like The Handmaid’s Tale?

Ultimately, this election ended up being about the economy—the fact that a carton of eggs costs more today than it did five years ago. And that was enough to reinstall America’s Hitler. MAGA is one hell of a drug. 

The States we once knew has disappeared, the red MAGA-cap hordes too blind to understand that the Mango Messiah and his me-first-and-the-gimme-gimmes crew doesn’t give a shit, and never has, about the people it pretends to be fighting for.

Ok ok, so, where is the punchline you might be asking. It's this................. Trump's victory proves something:

Let’s start with a song. 

While the charts and record sales might suggest otherwise, “Common People” isn’t Pulp and singer Jarvis Cocker's greatest song, even though it’s certainly the best known. Superior in every way is the rarities and B-sides track known as “(Cunts Are Still) Running the World”, the title of which is pretty much self-explanatory.

And that’s what’s so upsetting about Trump’s runaway win. To watch him and his shit-eating-grin crime family trot onto the stage in Florida in the early hours of Tuesday morning sent a clear-cut message that cunts are indeed still ruling the world.