Harold and George Destroy the World
Many commenters use the “everyone is twelve now” lens to argue that contemporary politics, media, and even foreign policy are driven by emotionally stunted, narcissistic behavior rather than adult judgment or long‑term thinking. Examples range from the U.S. administration’s symbolic renaming of the Department of Defense to “Department of War” to social‑media‑amplified refusal to admit error, with parallels drawn to playground or toddler dynamics. Alongside this, people debate whether education and cultural output have genuinely declined or merely appear worse amid content overload and fragmentation, and whether our institutions are structurally selecting for performative “slopulism” over serious, competent leadership.
Infantilization of Politics and Power
- Many tie the essay’s “everyone is twelve” frame to current politics, especially US leadership and global authoritarian-populist trends.
- Observations of toddlers fighting over toys are compared to resource conflicts between states.
- Several argue there are “no grownups” in charge; others note some adults do try to layer restraint over childish impulses.
- Some see recent US behavior (Dept. of War branding, war rhetoric) as “Nero/Caligula” decline; others caution that civilizations have always had ups and downs.
Narcissism and Adult Psychology
- Commenters describe people who cannot admit being wrong, linking this to narcissistic personality patterns rooted in shame and rigid thinking.
- There is discussion of “overt,” “covert,” “malignant,” and “communal” narcissism, and how such traits become dangerous when paired with power and digital amplification.
- Some express compassion for narcissists as “broken,” while still seeing them as unfit for authority.
Media, Movies, and Cultural “Dumbing Down”
- Multiple threads compare “childish” blockbusters to more complex films, debating whether modern media is shallower than pre-2015 work.
- Some argue current movies and popular music are over-processed, risk-averse, and focus-grouped, losing subtlety and “care.”
- Others counter that survivor bias makes old media seem better, and that excellent, thought-provoking work still exists but is harder to discover amid volume and fragmentation.
- Specific films are defended or dismissed as either genuinely thoughtful or merely stylish “slop”; there is no consensus.
Education, Intelligence, and Idiocracy
- The film “Idiocracy” is used to discuss perceived educational decline, reliance on technology as a “cognitive crutch,” and cultural devaluation of learning.
- A long subthread debates IQ: heritability, test bias, predictive power, and whether talking about “stupid people breeding too much” is eugenic or just descriptive. Views are sharply divided.
- Several argue modern education overemphasizes or underemphasizes memorization; some praise spaced repetition and factual recall as foundational to real critical thinking.
Department of War / Defense and Foreign Policy
- The renaming of the Department of Defense to “Department of War,” plus new coin imagery, is read by many as juvenile chest‑beating and branding rather than substantive policy change.
- Others say “War” is more honest given US history of interventions, while critics stress that post‑WWII “Defense” naming at least gestured toward ideals of restraint.
- There is disagreement over whether recent moves (e.g., war with Iran) mark the “beginning of the end” of US hegemony or are another regional conflict in a longer arc.