Along with digital-detox trends (dumb devices that make humans smart) comes the latest move against lazy negligence: harsh public criticism of ignorance.

Tourists apparently can’t get enough of the Düsseldorf Kunstpalast museum’s quick wit and sharp critiques, as its “performances” are completely sold out.

In spite of the rudeness, or perhaps because of it, the twice-monthly “Grumpy Guide” tour has been a surprise hit, with each one since the launch in May sold out. Anyone looking to book a spot will have to wait until next year.

“I never insult visitors directly, based on their personality or their appearance, but I insult them as a group,” said Carl Brandi, 33, the performance artist who conceived of and performs as the aggressive Langelinck. “My contempt is directed at an inferred ignorance that may not even exist. But I try to make them feel as ignorant as possible.”

The Grumpy Guide phenomenon shows Germans are up for a challenge, even comfortable to be called out on their ignorance – they’re paying to be told they don’t know enough and can do better. Germany is giving a glimpse into a future generation of thinkers, unafraid of learning history, who care about personal integrity.

This is a huge contrast with current American political winds of “know-nothingism”, platformed rejection of expertise for pride in mass ignorance. The recent American regurgitation of nativism rebranded MAGA wouldn’t stand a chance in Germany:

Museumsführer Joseph Langelinck: „Sie haben das Erinnerungsvermögen einer Schmeißfliege!“

Translation: “You have the memory of a fly!”

This is a particularly biting insult, given Germany’s national commitment to science and staying “woke” (Vergangenheitsbewältigung) and never forgetting its own history.

Ihr Bratzen habt doch keine Ahnung!

Translation: “You brats have no idea!”

Compare and contrast:

A – Germany: People flock to experts telling them they’re ignorant, laugh at it, and dive into learning – remembering the 1930s when anti-intellectuals burned books and murdered experts.

This particular museum “lost” over 1,000 artworks during Nazism—the third worst-affected museum in Germany—and hosted the 1938 “Degenerate Music” exhibition to mock and destroy culture. Its collection was nearly eradicated by ignorance as complicity. Now it’s the venue where Germans pay to be challenged intellectually, to be called ignorant, and to dive into preservation and learning.

B – America: MAGA actively cultivates hostility toward experts, celebrates anti-intellectualism, and campaigns against “fancy education” – forgetting (or worse, admiring) these patterns in history.

Book banning in the US has surged in the past few years, fueled by conservative backlash…”What we’re seeing right now mirrors elements of different historical periods, but this has never all happened at once,” Jonathan Friedman, Sy Syms managing director for US free expression programs at PEN America, said. […] PEN America has tracked more than 10,000 public school book bans in the 2023-2024 school year alone.

Societies either learn from or repeat their worst moments.

Germany chose learning, and is enjoying the challenge. The same museum that lost its collection to anti-intellectual rage is now profiting from intellectual rigor. That’s not just irony—it’s proof of concept. Germany chose differently, and it’s working.

America, stuck in repeat, is in the doom spiral of fear-addled book banning and anti-intellectual rage.

Related: ACTS 17 preacher Peter Thiel’s company Palantir tells American kids to skip higher education and lower their aim; offering them a job if they can swallow four weeks of “Western Civilization” shock doctrine.

Politico has a detailed investigation of the “Young Republicans” in America, based on leaked chat messages like these.

Current reporting of a secret Republican platform (e.g. “invisible empire”) sounds very familiar to me, as a disinformation historian.

They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

How familiar? I present the canonical Ronald Reagan example.

The Young Republicans knew exactly what they were doing:

“If we ever had a leak of this chat we would be cooked fr fr” heart emoji

They understood the content was genuinely extreme, not actually funny.

The “joke” framing was explicitly strategic cover using information warfare tactics, camouflage.

The dangerous tell:

When something appears over 251 times in chats, with specific known violent hate symbols (1488), and includes detailed policy discussions interwoven with the “jokes,” it stops being humor and becomes domestic terrorist ideology with a thin comedic veneer.

The jester’s protection only works when everyone knows it’s performance. What happens when the jester starts believing their own act, and then acting on their beliefs?

Giunta wrote “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber” while actually running a political campaign. That means he made an articulated threat wrapped in historical genocide imagery, for use as an organizing tool.

JD Vance, the Vice President and known for being a “disciple” of the ACTS 17 (Nazism) extremist preacher Peter Thiel, has waded into the topic by deflecting from and minimizing Republican love of Hitler.

When the second-highest elected official provides cover for “I love Hitler” and gas chamber jokes by labeling it all as mere “college” banter, the performance has become a policy position. The trajectory has obvious historical precedents.

The hypocrisy about Nazism is stark:

Vance spent years characterizing campus speech as dangerous indoctrination requiring “aggressive attack,” even titling a 2021 speech “The Universities Are the Enemy.”

Vance specifically characterized universities as dangerous places that “indoctrinate students” with “political orthodoxy” and said they peddle “deceit and lies.” Vance quoted Richard Nixon’s line “The professors are the enemy” approvingly, stating there was “wisdom” in Nixon’s words.

Yet when Young Republican leaders – including government officials and state legislators – express explicit support for Hitler and make threats about gas chambers, Vance suddenly claims everyone should dismiss it because it is… wait for it… normal “college group chat”.

Apparently to the Vice President, discussing any opposition to Nazism on campus constitutes to him dangerous indoctrination worthy of “aggressive attack,” while those expressing extreme support for Hitler and threatening political opponents with execution by gas chamber are engaged in harmless college “humor.”

What’s the historical outcome when leadership actively protects, rather than condemns, organized imminent extremist violence in discourse?

• Weimar Germany (1920s-30s): Leadership initially dismissed Nazi rhetoric as fringe or protected it as “free speech”, enabling genocide
• Rwanda (early 1990s): Radio stations normalized dehumanizing language; political leadership either participated or stayed silent, enabling genocide
• Former Yugoslavia (1980s-90s): Nationalist leaders used historical grievances and ethnic dehumanization in “joking” contexts before committing genocide

American courts have long recognized that speech itself can constitute actionable harm when it incites imminent lawless action (Brandenburg v. Ohio), communicates true threats (Virginia v. Black), or inflicts injury by its very utterance (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire).

The Young Republicans’ messages are explicit threats against specific political targets, combined with organizing capacity and historical genocide imagery.

They very clearly meet the legal thresholds.

A San Bruno police officer pulls over a Waymo robotaxi during a DUI checkpoint. The vehicle has just made an illegal U-turn—seemingly fleeing law enforcement. The officer peers into the driver’s seat and finds it empty. He contacts Waymo’s remote operators. They chat. The Waymo drives away.

No citation issued.

The police department’s social media post jokes:

Our citation books don’t have a box for “robot.”

But there’s nothing funny about what just happened, because… history. We are now witnessing the rebirth of corporate immunity for murder, vehicular violence at scale.

In Phoenix, a Waymo drives into oncoming traffic, runs a red light, and “FREAKS OUT” before pulling over. Police dispatch notes:

UNABLE TO ISSUE CITATION TO COMPUTER.

In San Francisco, a cyclist is “doored” by a Waymo passenger exiting into a bike lane. She’s thrown into the air and slams into a second Waymo that has also pulled into the bike lane. Brain and spine injuries. The passengers leave. There’s a “gap in accountability” because no driver remains at the scene.

In Los Angeles, multiple Waymos obsessively return to park in front of the same family’s house for hours, like stalkers. Different vehicles, same two spots, always on their property line. “The Waymo is home!” their 10-year-old daughter announces.

In a parking lot, Waymos gather and honk at each other all night, waking residents at 4am. One resident reports being woken “more times in two weeks than combined over 20 years.”

A Waymo gets stuck in a roundabout and does 37 continuous laps.

Another traps a passenger inside, driving him in circles while he begs customer service to stop the car. “I can’t get out. Has this been hacked?”

Two empty Waymos crash into each other in a Phoenix airport parking lot in broad daylight.

And now, starting July 2026, California will allow police to issue “notices of noncompliance” to autonomous vehicle companies. But here’s the catch: the law doesn’t specify what happens when a company receives these notices. No penalties. No enforcement mechanism. No accountability.

In 1866, London police posted notices about traffic lights with two modes:

CAUTION: “all persons in charge of vehicles and horses are warned to pass the crossing with care, and due regard for the safety of foot passengers”

STOP: “vehicles and horses shall be stopped on each side of the crossing to allow passage of persons on foot”

The street lights were designed explicitly to stop vehicles for pedestrian safety. This was the foundational principle of traffic regulation.

Then American car manufacturers inverted it completely.

They invented “jaywalking”—a slur using “jay” (meaning rural fool or clown) to shame lower-class people for walking. They staged propaganda campaigns where clowns were repeatedly rammed by cars in public displays. They lobbied police to publicly humiliate pedestrians. They successfully privatized public streets, subordinating human life to vehicle flow.

The racist enforcement was immediate and deliberate. In Ferguson, 95% of arrests for fantasy crimes (let alone victims of vehicular homicide) were of Black people, as these laws always intended.

In 2017, a North Dakota legislator proposed giving drivers zero liability for killing pedestrians “obstructing traffic.” Months later, a white nationalist in Charlottesville murdered a woman with his car, claiming she was “obstructing” him.

Now we’re doing it again—but this time the vehicles have no drivers to cite, and the corporations claim they’re not “drivers” either.

Corporations ARE legal persons when it benefits them:

• First Amendment rights (Citizens United)
• Religious freedom claims
• Contract enforcement
• Property ownership

But corporations are NOT persons when it harms them:

• Can’t be cited for traffic violations
• No criminal liability for vehicle actions
• No “driver” present to hold accountable
• Software “bugs” treated as acts of God

This selective personhood is the perfect shield. When a Waymo breaks the law, nobody is responsible. When a Waymo injures someone, there’s a “gap in accountability.” When police try to enforce traffic laws, they’re told their “citation books don’t have a box for ‘robot.'”

Here’s what’s actually happening: Every time police encounter a Waymo violation, they’re documenting a software flaw that potentially affects the entire fleet.

When one Waymo illegally U-turns, thousands might have that flaw. When one Waymo can’t navigate a roundabout, thousands might get stuck. When one Waymo’s “Safe Exit system” doors a cyclist, thousands might injure people. When Waymos gather and honk, it’s a fleet-wide programming error.

These aren’t individual traffic violations. They’re bug reports for a commercial product deployed on public roads without adequate testing.

But unlike actual bug bounty programs where companies pay for vulnerability reports, police document dangerous behaviors and get… nothing. No enforcement power. No guarantee of fixes. No way to verify patches work. No accountability if the company ignores the problem.

The police are essentially providing free safety QA testing for a trillion-dollar corporation that has no legal obligation to act on their findings despite mounting deaths.

We’ve seen this exact playbook before.

From 2007-2014, Baghdad had over 1,000 checkpoints where Palantir’s algorithms flagged Iraqis as suspicious based on the color of their hat or the car they drove. U.S. Military Intelligence officers said:

If you doubt Palantir, you’re probably right.

The system was so broken that Iraqis carried fake IDs and learned religious songs not their own just to survive daily commutes. Communities faced years of algorithmic targeting and harassment. Then ISIS emerged in 2014—recruiting heavily from the very populations that had endured years of being falsely flagged as threats.

Palantir’s revenue grew from $250 million to $1.5 billion during this period. A for-profit terror generation engine or “self licking ISIS-cream cone” as I’ve explained before.

The critical question military commanders asked:

Who has control over Palantir’s deadly “Life Save or End” buttons?

The answer: Not the civilians whose lives were being destroyed by false targeting.

Who controls the “Life Save or End” button when a Waymo encounters a cyclist? A pedestrian? Another vehicle?

• Not the victims
• Not the police (can’t cite, can’t compel fixes)
• Not democratic oversight (internal company decisions)
• Not regulatory agencies (toothless “notices”)

Only the corporation. Behind closed doors. With no legal obligation to explain their choices.

When a Tesla, Waymo or Palantir algorithmic agent of death “veers” into a bike lane, who decided that was acceptable risk? When it illegally stops in a bike lane and doors a cyclist, causing brain injury, who decided that “Safe Exit system” was ready for deployment? When it drives into oncoming traffic, who approved that routing algorithm?

We don’t know. We can’t know. The code is proprietary. The decision-making is opaque. And the law says we can’t hold anyone accountable.

In 2016, Elon Musk promised loudly Tesla would end all cyclist deaths and publicly abused and mocked anyone who challenged him. Then Tesla vehicles repeatedly kept “veering” into bike lanes and in 2018 accelerated into and killed a man standing next to his bike.

Similarly in 2017, an ISIS-affiliated terrorist drove a truck down the Hudson River Bike Path, killing eight people. Federal investigators linked the terrorist to networks that Palantir’s algorithms had helped radicalize in Iraq. For some reason they didn’t link him to the white supremacist Twitter campaigns demanding pedestrians and cyclists be run over and killed.

Since then, Tesla “Autopilot” incidents involving cyclists have become epidemic. In Brooklyn, a Tesla traveling 50+ mph killed cyclist Allie Huggins in a hit-and-run. Days later, NYPD responded by ticketing cyclists in bike lanes.

This is the racist jaywalking playbook digitized: Police enforce against the vulnerable population, normalizing their elimination from public space—and training AI systems to see cyclists as violators to be punished with death rather than victims.

Musk now stockpiles what some call “Swasticars”—remotely controllable vehicles deployed in major cities, capable of receiving over-the-air updates that could alter their behavior fleet-wide, overnight, with zero public oversight.

If we don’t act, we’re building the legal infrastructure for algorithmic vehicular homicide with corporate immunity. Here’s what must happen:

Fleet-Wide Corporate Liability

When one autonomous vehicle commits a traffic violation due to software, the citation goes to the corporation multiplied by fleet size. If 1,000 vehicles have the dangerous flaw, that’s 1,000 citations at escalating penalty rates.

Dangerous violations (driving into oncoming traffic, hitting pedestrians/cyclists, reckless driving) trigger:

• Mandatory fleet grounding until fix is verified by independent auditors
• Public disclosure of the flaw and the fix
• Criminal liability for executives if patterns show willful negligence

Public Bug Bounty System

Every police encounter with an autonomous vehicle violation must:

• Trigger mandatory investigation within 48 hours
• Be logged in a public federal database
• Require company response explaining root cause and fix
• Include independent verification that fix works
• Result in financial penalties paid to police departments for their QA work

If companies fail to fix documented patterns within 90 days, their permits are suspended until compliance.

Restore the 1866 Principle

Traffic rules exist to stop vehicles for public safety, not to give vehicles—or their corporate owners—immunity from accountability.

The law must state explicitly:

• Corporations deploying autonomous vehicles are legally responsible for those vehicles’ actions
• “No human driver” is not a defense against criminal or civil liability
• Code must be auditable by regulators and available for discovery in injury cases
• Vehicles that cannot safely stop for pedestrians/cyclists cannot be deployed
• Human life takes precedence over vehicle throughput, period

When Waymo’s algorithms decide who lives and who gets “veered” (algorithmic death), who controls that button?

When Tesla’s systems target cyclists while police ticket the victims, who controls that button?

When corporations claim they’re persons for speech rights but not persons for traffic crimes, who controls that button?

Right now, the answer is: Nobody we elected. Nobody we can hold accountable. Nobody who faces consequences for being wrong.

Car manufacturers spent the extremist “America First” 1920s inventing racist “jaywalking” crime to privatize public streets and criminalize pedestrians. It worked so well that by 2017, who really blinked when a North Dakota legislator could propose zero liability for drivers who kill people with cars? By 2021, Orange County deputies shot a Black man to death while arguing whether he had simply walked on a road outside painted lines.

Now we’re handing that same power to algorithms—except this time there’s no driver to arrest, no corporation to cite, and no legal framework to stop fleet-wide deployment of dangerous systems.

Palantir taught us what happens when unaccountable algorithms target populations: you create the enemies you claim to fight, and profit from the violence.

Are we really going to let that same model loose on American streets?

Because when police say “our citation books don’t have a box for robot,” what they’re really saying is: We’ve lost the power to protect you from corporate violence.

That’s not a joke. That’s murder by legal design.

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The evidence is clear. The pattern is documented. The choice is ours: Restore accountability now, or watch autonomous vehicles follow the exact playbook by elites that turned jaywalking into a tool of intentional racist violence and Palantir checkpoints into an ISIS recruiting campaign to justify white nationalism. See the problem and the connection between them?

Who controls the button? Right now, nobody you can vote for, sue, or arrest. That has to change.

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Here’s how William Blake warned us of algorithmic dangers way back in 1794. His “London” poem basically indicts institutions of church and palace for being complicit in producing systemic widespread suffering:

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

Those “mind-forg’d manacles” mean algorithmic oppression by systems of control, which appear external but are human-created. A “charter’d street” was privatized public space, precedent for using power to enforce status-based criminality, such as Palantir checkpoints and jaywalking laws.