This is just the beginning…
In an era of 24 hour news cycles and carefully curated algorithms, it can be overwhelming just to exist in the modern world. Never mind trying to make any real, affective change. What should you do when see another massacre in Sudan, an extrajudicial killing of “alleged drug traffickers” off the coast of Venezuela, or a peaceful protestor getting curb-stomped by the very law enforcement claiming they’re there to protect? Honestly though, what can you do?
I’ve been asking myself this every day as I doomscroll through Reddit, Instagram, and Bluesky. Slowly reinforcing their owner’s data analytics providing ever-more curated content designed to engage. No, designed to enrage. You know the feeling of sitting on the toilet during your state-mandated 10 minute break hoping to get away from the world only to be sucked into another atrocity, another corruption scandal, another powerful figure fucking kids and being transferred to a quite area to escape the news cycle and Lady Justice at the same time.
But again I ask, “what can you do”? If there were no consequences, if there were no restrictions and you had all the money in the world… what would you do? Would you spend that money on lobbyists to ensure your multinational gets another tax break or reduce worker protections? Would you build a doomsday bunker to hole-up during the coming apocalypse? Would you tweak your news feed to show you even more reasons to crawl back in bed?
I’ve painted a bleak picture because like you, I find myself asking how we got here and more importantly, how we escape. That’s how I ended up here, at the gates of despair, scrolling one more time in hopes of finding some cure for the cancer that modern society has become. Some soluble fiber for the enshitification that our techlords have covered us in.
The Maliciously Moderate logo, showing an elephant and donkey battling each other, was chosen as a representation of America itself. Two warring factions fighting for dominance with little regard for how those they represent are effected. As the saying goes “when elephants fight, the grass is trampled.” Their brazen disregard and naked attempts at power and money come at the expense of all Americans and those that choose to visit our beautiful lands.
Over the coming weeks, months, and years I’ll endeavor to not only identify where we went wrong but provide a path forward. Afterall, it’s easy to describe want went wrong (food and shelter is too expensive, violence and drugs on the streets, foreign and domestic wars, medicine that’s so expensive you have to choose between a life saving pill and dying from the ensuing poverty or skipping the charade and head to the early exit).