In private, some Republicans are saying it would be better if Trump loses the next election.
From a non-partisan standpoint, we're cutting it really close. Most alarm lights that haven't had masking tape put over them by the government are screaming imminent stagflationary depression, maybe one of the worst in American History, and everyone with eyes and basic math skills can see the looming sovereign debt crisis. Nobody wants to be holding this hot potato because whoever is in power at that time is almost certainly going to preside over a disaster and there's nothing to be done about it.
From a totally non-partisan standpoint, Kamala Harris is a terrible candidate for President. She speaks to the American Public like they're 4 year olds, her record as Vice President is basically free real estate for the Republicans, she was the least liked vice president in US history, her only primary campaign was the weakest of all the Democrats on stage with her dropping out first, There are better people within the Democratic party to run, but they didn't and they aren't -- instead they installed Kamala more or less by fiat. I think part of the reason for that is they're not stupid and they know full well winning the next election is a phyrric victory, and whoever is president during that term is effectively ending their political career so might as well let the weakest candidate either lose and end her career or win and end her career. In so doing, they keep their powder dry for the next viable election cycle.
Notwithstanding concerns that Trump will try to crown himself dictator (concerns that I think the conservative response to January 6th prove unfounded -- conservatives want to conserve the constitution and violating that would not go over well), he's only got one term left as president, and he's getting quite old so this is probably his last kick at the can so regardless of whether the party wants to win or not, he clearly does. He seems to be going all-in on a big tent strategy this time, which is why he's brought former democrats like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard into the fold and adopted compromise positions on wedge issues such as abortion. Personally, as long as he retains his core identity and brand, I think it's a winning strategy, insofar as such a thing can exist.
From a non-partisan standpoint, we're cutting it really close. Most alarm lights that haven't had masking tape put over them by the government are screaming imminent stagflationary depression, maybe one of the worst in American History, and everyone with eyes and basic math skills can see the looming sovereign debt crisis. Nobody wants to be holding this hot potato because whoever is in power at that time is almost certainly going to preside over a disaster and there's nothing to be done about it.
From a totally non-partisan standpoint, Kamala Harris is a terrible candidate for President. She speaks to the American Public like they're 4 year olds, her record as Vice President is basically free real estate for the Republicans, she was the least liked vice president in US history, her only primary campaign was the weakest of all the Democrats on stage with her dropping out first, There are better people within the Democratic party to run, but they didn't and they aren't -- instead they installed Kamala more or less by fiat. I think part of the reason for that is they're not stupid and they know full well winning the next election is a phyrric victory, and whoever is president during that term is effectively ending their political career so might as well let the weakest candidate either lose and end her career or win and end her career. In so doing, they keep their powder dry for the next viable election cycle.
Notwithstanding concerns that Trump will try to crown himself dictator (concerns that I think the conservative response to January 6th prove unfounded -- conservatives want to conserve the constitution and violating that would not go over well), he's only got one term left as president, and he's getting quite old so this is probably his last kick at the can so regardless of whether the party wants to win or not, he clearly does. He seems to be going all-in on a big tent strategy this time, which is why he's brought former democrats like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard into the fold and adopted compromise positions on wedge issues such as abortion. Personally, as long as he retains his core identity and brand, I think it's a winning strategy, insofar as such a thing can exist.
I've been playing solitaire lately and one thing I find fascinating is that the game has many iterations that are unwinnable, for example if you've got too many reds or too many blacks or non-consecutive cards. And you can screw up your game and make it unwinnable as well. So many times, part of the game is knowing when it's time to hit the reset button because the game can no longer be won. It sounds simple, but sometimes just as you're about to reset you see the next move. So there's an element of uncertainty as to whether it's really time to reset, and there's an element of having faith in yourself if you think a run can be salvaged.
I just saw data that 99% of employee contributions from Fox News and Wall Street journal parent company news corp go to Democrats.
Controlled opposition much?
Controlled opposition much?
Huh, no but after looking into it that's really something else. The nih published study showing it does make people have a lower heart rate was interesting in particular.
In the US for works created after January 1 1978, it's life of the author plus 70 years. For works for hire, it's 95 years.
I was thinking in the shower about the idea of a "fidelity floor".
Ever listened to music from the 1940s? It doesn't quite sound right. On the other hand, starting around the late 1950s, sound recordings got increasingly high fidelity to the point that you could slap an old audio recording on a new MP3 and the audio might be out of date but it sounds just fine.
Same with film. Early early film looks like crap, but very quickly it became good enough, and today a remastered version of Snow White can be sold on the market. If you think about it, that movie is old enough to be a great grandfather, but the masters can create media that's just fine.
Even the Internet has something like this. Early early video was really poor since it had to be playable or downloadable on a 56k modem or less, but I pretty routinely watch videos from 10 years ago, and if they're a decently recorded 480p, that's good enough for my eyes.
This even occurs with video games. The Atari 2600 might not really be something a kid would play today, but SNES games are at a level that kids may be fully OK playing a final fantasy or a Super Mario World. GOG has an entire business model on selling games that are decades old because they're just fine.
The reason to think about this idea is copyright law. Early books did degrade over time, and early recordings did too. But as forms of media hit a fidelity floor, they become timeless. That timelessness is beneficial in a work of media, but if you give a company a virtually unlimited monopoly on that work, then some conglomerate can own an increasing amount of our cultural history, and I think there's something important in that fact we need to think about. If your great great grandmother sang a song from Snow White and you integrated that song over generations, doesn't it seem odd that you might die of old age before the public owns that song?
To an extent I think it's a great argument for creative commons or for dedicating works to the public domain (something I've written into the legal page of The Graysonian Ethic, releasing it to the public domain or licensing it as Creative Commons Zero 15 years after first publication), letting someone own that much of our culture isn't healthy from a societal standpoint.
Ever listened to music from the 1940s? It doesn't quite sound right. On the other hand, starting around the late 1950s, sound recordings got increasingly high fidelity to the point that you could slap an old audio recording on a new MP3 and the audio might be out of date but it sounds just fine.
Same with film. Early early film looks like crap, but very quickly it became good enough, and today a remastered version of Snow White can be sold on the market. If you think about it, that movie is old enough to be a great grandfather, but the masters can create media that's just fine.
Even the Internet has something like this. Early early video was really poor since it had to be playable or downloadable on a 56k modem or less, but I pretty routinely watch videos from 10 years ago, and if they're a decently recorded 480p, that's good enough for my eyes.
This even occurs with video games. The Atari 2600 might not really be something a kid would play today, but SNES games are at a level that kids may be fully OK playing a final fantasy or a Super Mario World. GOG has an entire business model on selling games that are decades old because they're just fine.
The reason to think about this idea is copyright law. Early books did degrade over time, and early recordings did too. But as forms of media hit a fidelity floor, they become timeless. That timelessness is beneficial in a work of media, but if you give a company a virtually unlimited monopoly on that work, then some conglomerate can own an increasing amount of our cultural history, and I think there's something important in that fact we need to think about. If your great great grandmother sang a song from Snow White and you integrated that song over generations, doesn't it seem odd that you might die of old age before the public owns that song?
To an extent I think it's a great argument for creative commons or for dedicating works to the public domain (something I've written into the legal page of The Graysonian Ethic, releasing it to the public domain or licensing it as Creative Commons Zero 15 years after first publication), letting someone own that much of our culture isn't healthy from a societal standpoint.
If you were to ask me where someone could put their money to best retain its value in the near future, I think it'd be gold. I'm not talking about growth, there's still an outsized role for other financial implements in that regard, I'm just talking about wealth preservation.
Lots of people chose real estate, but I have a feeling that's a supercycle that's almost over.
Basic economics still exist, and with the upcoming population collapse, and the boomers all getting to that age where they start dying en masse, and many people suggesting we've already seen the lowest mortgage rates of our lifetimes in 2020, you're going to have a lot fewer people chasing a lot more supply with a lot less buying power and so eventually those prices are going to collapse on their own. By contrast, if you have a Spanish gold coin from 500 years ago, it is still highly valuable and is likely to continue to be.
Gold only needs to exist and will remain in its current form effectively forever. A house requires maintenance, annual tax payments, insurance, in many parts of the world you absolutely must pay for heating or your house will be destroyed. It takes a lot of money to own a home. Yes, you can rent them out, but if the same supercycle applies, it's possible rents will go sideways for a long while or even substantially down, meaning you have an asset you expected to profit from that could not just be losing value but actively costing you money every month.
Some people would then point out that net immigration will help recover the lost population, but to that I have 2 counter-points. First, the west is quickly fading as the "land of opportunity" so even at this moment many migrants make it to the west and realize it's expensive to live and taxes are insanely high so they return home and I don't see that getting better. Right now, there are houses in the Greater Toronto Area which have 25 migrants living in an unfinished basement. I've heard people say "Oh, that's just their culture" but the fact is it isn't -- India for example may have large families, but they don't have 25 strangers living in the same room and paying 1000 a month for the privilege. Second, many of the places we're net importing people from have their own issues. Many of the countries we presently net migrate people from are facing shrinking populations themselves, so it isn't like they have unlimited people to pick from. In a world that isn't like today, it's likely that other examples such as Africa which are facing some of the highest growth rates will actually have big problems maintaining those because a lot of that money is coming from western investment and so if the west has fewer people investing less money there won't be as much money to fund growth as there is right now.
Now some people might go "use stocks or bonds", but reality is that over history, 99.9% of stocks went bust. Huge names from the past such as E. F. Hutton, Eatons, AMC, and many more simply disappeared after being unable to keep up in a changing world market. For growth you need to go to the market, but for long term wealth preservation, you need something you can be sure will continue to exist. As for bonds, they have an expiration date as a matter of their function, and in addition many entities that issue bonds no longer exist. If you buy corporate bonds from the above companies you won't be getting your money back for example, and many countries have had big changes that mean you can't always rely on them -- 100 years ago many south american countries looked like they would be rivals to the US for example, but eventually defaulted on their debts. The US may therefore be considered a safe jurisdiction, but with a massively growing debt it's highly likely a sovereign debt crisis is just around the corner. That doesn't mean you shouldn't invest in these things, but rather that you need to be cognizant that for wealth preservation, both stock and bond markets mean taking on substantial risk.
Lots of people chose real estate, but I have a feeling that's a supercycle that's almost over.
Basic economics still exist, and with the upcoming population collapse, and the boomers all getting to that age where they start dying en masse, and many people suggesting we've already seen the lowest mortgage rates of our lifetimes in 2020, you're going to have a lot fewer people chasing a lot more supply with a lot less buying power and so eventually those prices are going to collapse on their own. By contrast, if you have a Spanish gold coin from 500 years ago, it is still highly valuable and is likely to continue to be.
Gold only needs to exist and will remain in its current form effectively forever. A house requires maintenance, annual tax payments, insurance, in many parts of the world you absolutely must pay for heating or your house will be destroyed. It takes a lot of money to own a home. Yes, you can rent them out, but if the same supercycle applies, it's possible rents will go sideways for a long while or even substantially down, meaning you have an asset you expected to profit from that could not just be losing value but actively costing you money every month.
Some people would then point out that net immigration will help recover the lost population, but to that I have 2 counter-points. First, the west is quickly fading as the "land of opportunity" so even at this moment many migrants make it to the west and realize it's expensive to live and taxes are insanely high so they return home and I don't see that getting better. Right now, there are houses in the Greater Toronto Area which have 25 migrants living in an unfinished basement. I've heard people say "Oh, that's just their culture" but the fact is it isn't -- India for example may have large families, but they don't have 25 strangers living in the same room and paying 1000 a month for the privilege. Second, many of the places we're net importing people from have their own issues. Many of the countries we presently net migrate people from are facing shrinking populations themselves, so it isn't like they have unlimited people to pick from. In a world that isn't like today, it's likely that other examples such as Africa which are facing some of the highest growth rates will actually have big problems maintaining those because a lot of that money is coming from western investment and so if the west has fewer people investing less money there won't be as much money to fund growth as there is right now.
Now some people might go "use stocks or bonds", but reality is that over history, 99.9% of stocks went bust. Huge names from the past such as E. F. Hutton, Eatons, AMC, and many more simply disappeared after being unable to keep up in a changing world market. For growth you need to go to the market, but for long term wealth preservation, you need something you can be sure will continue to exist. As for bonds, they have an expiration date as a matter of their function, and in addition many entities that issue bonds no longer exist. If you buy corporate bonds from the above companies you won't be getting your money back for example, and many countries have had big changes that mean you can't always rely on them -- 100 years ago many south american countries looked like they would be rivals to the US for example, but eventually defaulted on their debts. The US may therefore be considered a safe jurisdiction, but with a massively growing debt it's highly likely a sovereign debt crisis is just around the corner. That doesn't mean you shouldn't invest in these things, but rather that you need to be cognizant that for wealth preservation, both stock and bond markets mean taking on substantial risk.
Absolutely true. It's been really strange seeing the massive shifts just in the past 5 years. It's like.... major parts of ideologies just suddenly change completely.
Thinking about it, I wonder if part of the reason we're not having kids is that we're often stuck in an extended childhood, and the reason for that is western society took our collective wisdom and threw it away.
We used to know marriage was something worth striving for, but then we threw it away because marriage is bad since you can get hurt in a divorce.
We used to know having kids was something worth striving for, but we threw it away because they're expensive and the world is going to end in a million years and life is suffering.
We used to know community was something worth striving for, but we threw it away because you might not like the people in your community and they might judge you.
In order to destroy this wisdom, and some of it is self-evident wisdom, you have to throw up hard barriers. You can't just forget it, you need to reject it. Postmodern western civilization did reject all these things and much more. It's no wonder that the whole of our lives exist in the pop culture era, and future generations are having to re-learn the wisdom that was self-evident only a few generations ago.
Our bodies and minds are evolved solely to help us survive and replicate, and we have rejected many of the instincts because we're supposedly enlightened and far past that, but in its place many people have left essentially nothing, and the truth has always been that if you're a nihilist, there's no reason not to just lay flat and let the world reclaim you into dust, and many people are doing exactly that with their lives.
I've learned that this rejection is wrong in my life. I didn't think I'd ever have any of the things that matter. I didn't think I'd find a wife. I didn't think I'd own a home. I didn't think I'd have a child. And I thought when I was young that I wouldn't want any of those things anyway. But I was wrong and learning I was wrong has been delightful.
Being married filled a hole in my heart I never knew I had, and people will scoff and go "Oh what a loser he needs a woman to feel complete", but I do and I'm unashamed of that. My wife is my partner and thank God for her coming into my life. Having a son has filled my life with meaning and purpose in a way I simply didn't have just a few years ago -- I looked around and thought "Oh, I'll be paid off on my house, and then I can retire, and then I can die" and what a sad thing that was. Again, some people will scoff and go "Oh what a loser he needs a child to feel complete", but I do and I'm unashamed of that. In my growing son I see myself, and I see my wife, and I see someone else who is neither of us but has grown in the culture we've created for him into a smart, hilarious, clever, interesting little guy. I won't say owning a home has filled a hole in my heart, but there's something primal about having a spot that isn't the place you stay, it's yours. I rented for a long time, and you are always aware of the fact that you are in a place that belongs to someone else that you are borrowing (for money), and it does change the way you act. What else has been lost in the postmodern generations? What might we never recover fully?
And rejecting these things as things that might make you happy in life is I think part of the reason we're unhappier than ever despite being richer in many ways, and also why we're looking at such low birth rates.
We used to know marriage was something worth striving for, but then we threw it away because marriage is bad since you can get hurt in a divorce.
We used to know having kids was something worth striving for, but we threw it away because they're expensive and the world is going to end in a million years and life is suffering.
We used to know community was something worth striving for, but we threw it away because you might not like the people in your community and they might judge you.
In order to destroy this wisdom, and some of it is self-evident wisdom, you have to throw up hard barriers. You can't just forget it, you need to reject it. Postmodern western civilization did reject all these things and much more. It's no wonder that the whole of our lives exist in the pop culture era, and future generations are having to re-learn the wisdom that was self-evident only a few generations ago.
Our bodies and minds are evolved solely to help us survive and replicate, and we have rejected many of the instincts because we're supposedly enlightened and far past that, but in its place many people have left essentially nothing, and the truth has always been that if you're a nihilist, there's no reason not to just lay flat and let the world reclaim you into dust, and many people are doing exactly that with their lives.
I've learned that this rejection is wrong in my life. I didn't think I'd ever have any of the things that matter. I didn't think I'd find a wife. I didn't think I'd own a home. I didn't think I'd have a child. And I thought when I was young that I wouldn't want any of those things anyway. But I was wrong and learning I was wrong has been delightful.
Being married filled a hole in my heart I never knew I had, and people will scoff and go "Oh what a loser he needs a woman to feel complete", but I do and I'm unashamed of that. My wife is my partner and thank God for her coming into my life. Having a son has filled my life with meaning and purpose in a way I simply didn't have just a few years ago -- I looked around and thought "Oh, I'll be paid off on my house, and then I can retire, and then I can die" and what a sad thing that was. Again, some people will scoff and go "Oh what a loser he needs a child to feel complete", but I do and I'm unashamed of that. In my growing son I see myself, and I see my wife, and I see someone else who is neither of us but has grown in the culture we've created for him into a smart, hilarious, clever, interesting little guy. I won't say owning a home has filled a hole in my heart, but there's something primal about having a spot that isn't the place you stay, it's yours. I rented for a long time, and you are always aware of the fact that you are in a place that belongs to someone else that you are borrowing (for money), and it does change the way you act. What else has been lost in the postmodern generations? What might we never recover fully?
And rejecting these things as things that might make you happy in life is I think part of the reason we're unhappier than ever despite being richer in many ways, and also why we're looking at such low birth rates.
Some people are confused as to how anti-vax sentiment can be considered progressive, since the dominant narrative has been that anti-vax is a right wing idea.
That only happened very recently. Prior to the pandemic, the largest constituency of anti-vaxxers were progressive women who were worried about the effects of vaccines on their children since they're drugs produced by big pharma who have several blockbuster examples of selling things that turned out to be horrible such as thalidomide. It appeals to the anti-corporate sector of progressivism, and there would be an element where instead of using big pharma chemicals they'd prefer to use more naturalistic methods to stay healthy such as diet, exercise, and herbal supplements.
There's data to back up the idea that anti-vaxxing is more of a left-wing idea, and that's the fact that many breakthrough cases of preventable diseases such as measles and mumps are in states such as California which have a lot more adherence to progressive ideology.
The right wing version of anti-vaxxing is actually a misnomer since it's typically only the one set of vaccines they're concerned about, and most right wing "anti-vaxxers" will fully vaccinate their kids except for the one. In reality it's more just linguistic propaganda being used to try to shame people into doing what they're told.
It's a simple logical argument: "Some As are B, which does not imply all As are B" some vaccines are effective and useful, but not all are. And some vaccines are particularly useful for some people at some times, but not as useful generally -- If you're bitten by a rabid dog, a rabies vaccine will save your life, but typically we don't blanket vaccinate people for rabies because the exposure to rabies is very low (most people will never be at risk), and the vaccine is highly effective after the initial bite if it's given quickly enough. Like many things, it's a decision relying on personal circumstances as well as blanket categorizations.
Some people go "But doctors said it was ok!" but doctors also prescribed thalidomide to pregnant women so let's chill out and accept that it's ok for people to use their brains and think for themselves even if they come to conclusions we don't agree with.
It is a first principle of medical interventions that every medical intervention has the potential to cause harm. Even something with no active medical ingredient such as sugar pill has recorded side effects due to placebo effect, and once you start injecting manufactured substances into the body the risk increases considerably. Therefore it's sensible to be careful about choosing medical interventions whose benefits outweigh the risks. That's true whatever your political ideology.
That only happened very recently. Prior to the pandemic, the largest constituency of anti-vaxxers were progressive women who were worried about the effects of vaccines on their children since they're drugs produced by big pharma who have several blockbuster examples of selling things that turned out to be horrible such as thalidomide. It appeals to the anti-corporate sector of progressivism, and there would be an element where instead of using big pharma chemicals they'd prefer to use more naturalistic methods to stay healthy such as diet, exercise, and herbal supplements.
There's data to back up the idea that anti-vaxxing is more of a left-wing idea, and that's the fact that many breakthrough cases of preventable diseases such as measles and mumps are in states such as California which have a lot more adherence to progressive ideology.
The right wing version of anti-vaxxing is actually a misnomer since it's typically only the one set of vaccines they're concerned about, and most right wing "anti-vaxxers" will fully vaccinate their kids except for the one. In reality it's more just linguistic propaganda being used to try to shame people into doing what they're told.
It's a simple logical argument: "Some As are B, which does not imply all As are B" some vaccines are effective and useful, but not all are. And some vaccines are particularly useful for some people at some times, but not as useful generally -- If you're bitten by a rabid dog, a rabies vaccine will save your life, but typically we don't blanket vaccinate people for rabies because the exposure to rabies is very low (most people will never be at risk), and the vaccine is highly effective after the initial bite if it's given quickly enough. Like many things, it's a decision relying on personal circumstances as well as blanket categorizations.
Some people go "But doctors said it was ok!" but doctors also prescribed thalidomide to pregnant women so let's chill out and accept that it's ok for people to use their brains and think for themselves even if they come to conclusions we don't agree with.
It is a first principle of medical interventions that every medical intervention has the potential to cause harm. Even something with no active medical ingredient such as sugar pill has recorded side effects due to placebo effect, and once you start injecting manufactured substances into the body the risk increases considerably. Therefore it's sensible to be careful about choosing medical interventions whose benefits outweigh the risks. That's true whatever your political ideology.
His positive legacy will be that. The negative is I think he'll be even more hated than his dad. I don't think his kids will be able to become prime minister using his name.
One thing that the film Idiocracy got wrong is that the only form of idiocy is not populistic and anti-intellectual. You can also absolutely have a form of idiocy that is elitist and pseudo-intellectual.
In my view, yes one faction would be watching "ow my balls", but another person would be watching an equally vapid TV show called "let's laugh at the people watching ow my balls". Wow it might have a veneer of intellectualism, in reality it would simply be another form of petty dumb entertainment.
One form of idiocy may be convinced by "Brawndo has what plants crave", but another group may be chanting "scientists and philosophers all agree Brawndo is what plants crave!" Even though they know nothing about science or philosophy.
You shouldn't pick between the two sides because they are both wrong, and both idiocies appeal to baser emotions. Most people know that populism appeals to a desire for simplicity in the world, well elitism appeals to the desire to be able to look down on someone who isn't you. Both forms of idiocy demand conformance to a standard that matches their worldview.
Because at the moment that's the narrative, people may believe that populist idiocy leads to the erosion of democratic values and the spread of misinformation while elitist idiocy creates social divisions and hinders progress. In reality, all forms of idiocy do all of the above. The fact that a falsehood is being spread by people pretending to be smarter than everyone else doesn't make it a truth, it's still just as much a falsehood. The fact that an elitist wants to corrupt democracy because they look down on the people watching "ow my balls" instead of those watching "watching people watch ow my balls, how stupid are these people?" doesn't mean democracy is magically intact. Just because someone is doing something that will regress or otherwise harm society doesn't mean it's not so just because it's a populist doing it, and dividing up people into different classes of people divides society whether your contention is that the populists are the "good guys" or the elitists.
While populism or elitism have representations in idiocy, that doesn't mean that these ideologies are inherently idiotic or that they can't have very meaningful and engaging representations. There are in fact sophisticated arguments for both, and within both. The key isn't the form of idiocy, rather it's the fact that idiocy can have a thousand faces, and using the presentation of one form of idiocy as a heuristic for detecting all forms of idiocy is not accurate.
Ironically, the idea of using the film "Idiocracy" as a heuristic for idiocy is a form of idiocy. You'll see people unthinkingly chant "That's just like the movie Idiocracy!" as if that actually means anything. This only serves as further evidence of my point, that idiocy takes many forms, and there's no ideology you can follow to be inherently immune to it. The key for people who are not physically idiots due to environmental, biological, or developmental factors (who can be forgiven for their infirmities) is to avoid being ideologically idiotic by thinking for oneself -- Critically think, consider the consequences of your thoughts, understand and accept that whatever you choose to believe will not be wholly correct or wholly just or wholly moral. You might end up wrong about something, but at least you came by your conclusions honestly, and if you're not being an idiot and you're wrong, then there's a good chance you will change your mind eventually.
In my view, yes one faction would be watching "ow my balls", but another person would be watching an equally vapid TV show called "let's laugh at the people watching ow my balls". Wow it might have a veneer of intellectualism, in reality it would simply be another form of petty dumb entertainment.
One form of idiocy may be convinced by "Brawndo has what plants crave", but another group may be chanting "scientists and philosophers all agree Brawndo is what plants crave!" Even though they know nothing about science or philosophy.
You shouldn't pick between the two sides because they are both wrong, and both idiocies appeal to baser emotions. Most people know that populism appeals to a desire for simplicity in the world, well elitism appeals to the desire to be able to look down on someone who isn't you. Both forms of idiocy demand conformance to a standard that matches their worldview.
Because at the moment that's the narrative, people may believe that populist idiocy leads to the erosion of democratic values and the spread of misinformation while elitist idiocy creates social divisions and hinders progress. In reality, all forms of idiocy do all of the above. The fact that a falsehood is being spread by people pretending to be smarter than everyone else doesn't make it a truth, it's still just as much a falsehood. The fact that an elitist wants to corrupt democracy because they look down on the people watching "ow my balls" instead of those watching "watching people watch ow my balls, how stupid are these people?" doesn't mean democracy is magically intact. Just because someone is doing something that will regress or otherwise harm society doesn't mean it's not so just because it's a populist doing it, and dividing up people into different classes of people divides society whether your contention is that the populists are the "good guys" or the elitists.
While populism or elitism have representations in idiocy, that doesn't mean that these ideologies are inherently idiotic or that they can't have very meaningful and engaging representations. There are in fact sophisticated arguments for both, and within both. The key isn't the form of idiocy, rather it's the fact that idiocy can have a thousand faces, and using the presentation of one form of idiocy as a heuristic for detecting all forms of idiocy is not accurate.
Ironically, the idea of using the film "Idiocracy" as a heuristic for idiocy is a form of idiocy. You'll see people unthinkingly chant "That's just like the movie Idiocracy!" as if that actually means anything. This only serves as further evidence of my point, that idiocy takes many forms, and there's no ideology you can follow to be inherently immune to it. The key for people who are not physically idiots due to environmental, biological, or developmental factors (who can be forgiven for their infirmities) is to avoid being ideologically idiotic by thinking for oneself -- Critically think, consider the consequences of your thoughts, understand and accept that whatever you choose to believe will not be wholly correct or wholly just or wholly moral. You might end up wrong about something, but at least you came by your conclusions honestly, and if you're not being an idiot and you're wrong, then there's a good chance you will change your mind eventually.