this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2025
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Since I don't like dehumanizing people or ascribing morality to them unnecessarily, I've ended up drawn to thinking of liberalism as a sort of political hypoxia. I'm specifically thinking of this old video of this fellow named Michael experiencing hypoxia for an experiment: he cannot say what eight minus three equals, nor can he fit shapes into a toddler's shape sorter toy, nor does he stop playing with the toy when firmly and repeatedly told by a supervisor that he will die if he does not immediately put his mask back on. Michael was in that moment "drunk, euphoric and overconfident": he sincerely believed he was a math genius, and he was wholly unaware of his impending death within ten seconds, had the mask not been forced back on him in time.
So, somehow, we are all in a low-oxygen environment, but only a few of us have managed to secure masks...
The mask only partially being a metaphor.
Edit: Oh, so is the hypoxia, kids.
... I really like this metaphor.