Even metaphorically, clowns are more sad than funny.

With his usual flair for brutal honesty and cutting language, Matt Taibbi writes about following the Republican clown car of primary campaigns over in Iowa to see what’s really going on. Though he may not have uncovered much we didn’t already know, he is able to distill the things that are driving us toward doomsday like few others can. See these few paragraphs near the piece’s conclusion:

Politics used to be a simple, predictable con. Every four years, the money men in D.C. teamed up with party hacks to throw their weight behind whatever half-bright fraud of a candidate proved most adept at snowing the population into buying a warmed-over version of the same crappy policies they’ve always bought.

…

There’s no hidden platform behind the shallow facade. With Trump, the facade is the whole deal. If old-school policy hucksters like Christie can’t find a way to beat a media master like Trump at the ratings game, they will soon die out.

In a perverse way, Trump has restored a more pure democracy to this process. He’s taken the Beltway thinkfluencers out of the game and turned the presidency into a pure high-school-style popularity contest conducted entirely in the media. Everything we do is a consumer choice now, from picking our shoes to an online streaming platform to a presidential nominee.

He may be right; our obsession with outsized characters over policies and substance could still possibly lead to the most embarrassing candidate ever fielded by a major party. And what if he somehow won?

If we elected a truly unqualified, dangerously confrontational president (whether Trump 2016 or a theoretical, even worse candidate), what’s the worst that could happen?

Would it really be the end of America, or would checks and balances keep us from disaster?

Would he make it through a full term or would the public stop the charade?

We’re not even talking full hive-mind assimilation or anything.

Rick and Morty practically deserves its own section on this site; every episode raises a deep existential question or moral dilemma then skewers it mercilessly through insane sci-fi comedy.

A recent episode in particular dealt with a hive-mind called “Unity”, which assimilated all the individuals on a planet, where they lived peacefully and prosperously. The kids, thinking they were liberators, freed some of the assimilated… who then went on to spark a race war. Tricky stuff.

In light of the current racial violence plaguing the country, it’s tough not to wonder if a little reprogramming would be helpful enough to make it worth the obvious violation. So:

Scientists discover a foolproof way to brainwash/reprogram the minds of every American to eliminate racism. It’s painless and has no other side effects. To make all our lives easier, they want to make this mandatory, as long as it passes as a ballot measure in the next election.

Would you vote for this measure?

Would you feel like you were giving up some meaningful freedom by doing so?

If for, how would you convince those resistant? If against, how do you defend your side?

What could be better than smoking and chatting in a diner with a brilliant author?

Reading David Foster Wallace tends to be a transformative experience, the way a lot of his fans describe it. Myself included. As if someone more deeply thoughtful than yourself is reaching into your brain and rewiring it as you read, reconfiguring your thought process in order for you to be able keep up with his. You feel smarter while reading him, like you’re experiencing what it’s like to engage that intensely with big ideas. It’s a gift he has, not just writing cleverly or stylishly or densely (which he does), but doing all that in a way that is both incisive and powerful but generous to the reader. And it’s hard for anyone who’s ever written or tried to communicate their own big ideas not to be be jealous of that kind of talent and intellect.

The End of the Tour, the film that depicts journalist/writer David Lipsky’s days shadowing the man who could be this generation’s brightest new writer, tackles a lot of ‘big idea’-type subjects. Both directly, in the conversations the two characters have over their travels (and this film is almost exclusively two guys talking; about celebrity, ambition, authenticity, art, addiction, depression, junk food, etc), and indirectly, through the dynamic between them.

He’s a semi-established, aspiring-to-greatness talent still reaching for acclaim. Wallace has been crowned a genius in his own time, and is now left to deal with the weight of that. Wallace warns him that all that admiration “isn’t real”, admits that he isn’t capable of fully enjoying it. Being praised to such an extent doesn’t mean he’s arrived anywhere, or given him any sense of completion or satisfaction. Meanwhile Lipsky still feels awed in his presence, compelled to get inside his mind, to crack the code on what makes him such a singular talent. He wants to be near that brilliance. He can’t help but envy it.

After all the digressive conversations and empty calories, both are left seemingly unsatisfied. There’s a tangible sense of melancholy to the film, of no one having the answers, of a search without a solution. It’s beautiful, it’s energizing, but not without its harsh truths to face up to.

If achieving fame means being equally or possibly more miserable than you are now, is it worth the suffering to make your mark on the world, to be known and admired?

Is being happy and unknown the better goal, focusing on personal fulfillment instead of achieving greatness and renown?

If everyone chose happiness over greatness, what would we be giving up? Are tortured geniuses necessary for progress?

Do heavy Tinder users have the least, or the most, need for a site like this?

The recent Vanity Fair article on the way Tinder is changing dating — or possibly even destroying it, depending on your reading — seems to be taking the internet by storm this week.

One way to read it is that no one cares about relationships at all anymore. It’s just convenient, on-demand sex with acceptably attractive partners, and this is how young people live now. Another is that this generation is going to lose all understanding of how relationships work because of their glut of options for sexual partners.

One thing the article doesn’t seem to address is how the existence of Tinder is changing how people behave in order to do better on Tinder. Are they all obsessed with skin care in ways we weren’t before? Driven harder than ever to have gym-hardened bodies so they get swiped more often when their appearance is their only opportunity to impress? Do they spend hours faking smiles for practice selfies? Become nearly-professional photographers in their quest for the best-lit, perfectly framed headshots?

The image-first style of these apps, and the superficiality and judgment that comes with them, is barely mentioned at all in the article, but that’s what interested me (as someone who has never used Tinder). So.

What would an app with the opposite priorities of Tinder look like?

How would it work? Would you use it if you were single? If not, who would?

Would those people be having as much sex? Better dates? More relationships?

Other than “you’re fatter”.

Running into former coworkers you haven’t seen in years, changing jobs or cities after extended periods of routine and complacency, those miserable years when a high school reunion rolls around to remind you of your mortality — there are these rare instances where you’re faced with thinking about how much you’ve changed, whether intentionally or without even realizing. A mini version of this happens around New Years every year, but widen the scale and it gets a little weird and frightening. Or impressive and exciting! I guess that depends on you.

How would people have described you 10 years ago, and how is that different from how they might describe you today?

What would be different if the person describing you, then or now, is someone that knows you well versus someone who just met you?

Which qualities do you wish you still had from the past? Which are you glad to have gained or lost since?