#less

The poet Juvenal wrote that the people of ancient Rome were bribed with bread and circuses to accept the end of democracy and the establishment of the dictatorship known as the Roman Empire. The tried-and-true playbook to accustom people to autocracy is to meet their material needs while channeling their attention towards activities that substitute for self-determination. Donald Trump is trying to accomplish something more unusual: he aims to preside over the destruction of the last vestiges of the social safety net and the impoverishment of the middle class while buying off his support base with entertainment alone. His administration has not bolstered the economy but further destabilized it, as if intentionally rendering people more precarious, desperate, and exploitable. In return for this, we are supposed to content ourselves with watching the violent reality television gameshow of his presidency. Less bread, more circuses. https://crimethinc.com/turningtide#less-bread-more-circuses

A thing I've only just realised about #less:

When you press '/' to search forward, or '?' to search backward, and enter a regex, two changes of state occur:

1. The regex is remembered, so that 'n' or 'N' will search for the same thing again.
2. The direction is remembered, so that 'n' searches in the same direction again, and 'N' searches in the opposite direction.

I've only just noticed that #2 happens at the instant of pressing / or ?, not at the instant of pressing Return. Because it takes effect even if you change your mind and cancel the attempt to input a new search regex:

• enter "?foo", which searches backward for /foo/ • press 'n', which searches backward for /foo/ again • press '/', which prompts for a forward-search string • press Backspace, which cancels that prompt • now pressing 'n' searches forward for /foo/

I think this must be why I sometimes get confused about which direction I'm searching in. But also, wow, it's taken me decades to notice. I think it must be because when I start and then cancel a prompt like that, I don't consciously remember doing it at all – I expected so strongly that it would be a no-op that I forget it immediately!