Perhaps both. Holocaust denial & sympathy for fascists (namely Hitler) naturally aligns to cranky far-right, but post-truth contrarianism, e.g. NATO opposition & sympathy for fascists (namely Putin) aligns with cranky far-left. Polarisation is tending to make the cranky ends of the horseshoe fatter.

These (and there are a plethora like them in the TOL reader comments) don't seem bot-like, so worryingly, I'd believe it's the latter. There's no need for paying humans on 'troll farms' when you've trained your enemy to do your work for you.

A polarising comment, both propagandist and dismissive with an underlying sentiment ...

'Don't worry about the rise of fascism and the disinformation that accompanies it. Fascism is less dangerous than those who oppose us'.

And then an army of Times readers click 'LIKE'. 😞

It's a salient piece. The observation that post-truth contrarianism escaped from a cranky tankie zone into a far more dangerous one, namely new conservatism, is astute. Unfortunately, the Times's journalism is generally sympathetic to this new conservatism, & appeals to its readership, e.g. ...

Granted, Polymarket may simply reflect punters' wishful thinking, but I have a recollection that it has a better track record than political polling.

I think this, from an official British perspective, is the best summary to date:

I've been invited on Times Radio tonight at 11pm UK, when I'll be talking to host @darrylmorris.bsky.social about the bridge strikes in Ukraine and Chancellor Merz's visit.

Tune in if you're awake.

Yep, agreed, it's JRM doing a 'John Clees' (who turned out to be an actual fascist anyway) act, and missing the opportunity to turn the argument around. They're both noxious people, and neither of them are very bright.

Haha. I did. It's a short song, but qobuz has lots of versions; live & demos etc. Was a very loud & evocative 15 minutes :-)

Thankyou, Vlad. For me, your message here somehow dovetails beautifully into the #behope video you published a few days ago.

Jeepers I'm an old git. I was sitting on a newspaper for Slipknot at Reading Festival 2000 & whole weekend was < £100. Vividly remember a tornado-like dust funnel rising from mosh pit during wait and bleed. They're still asleep just now, but after my OH gets up, I'm going to play that really loud 🤪

I think the act of sewing tensions the fabric & makes it a bit squiffy, wheras a clamping bar evens out the fabric tension to where you want it. Mind you, my machine sewing skills aren't good, so your friend's work will be much better than mine !

I've never got a dowel rodded canvas to hang perfectly 'true', even when well weighted with dowel at bottom, & always ends up a wee bit uneven. The advantage to the (IKEA say) bar type hanger is that it clamps the material (paper, linen, canvas etc) wherever you want it so the hang can be adjusted.

LLM computation is what it is, macro-scale plagiarism is what it does. It's got no innate intelligence, but Trump & other middle-aged/elderly saddos can't suss the difference between it and their new sentient god. The stupidest people are in control of the money.