I started reading Umair Haque because I thought what he was saying about changing capitalism might be useful. I also follow him on Twitter, but since then, I’ve been disappointed because his tweets are mostly meaningless bullshit. Here is an example: “The next decade in 2 sentences. The answer to the Great Stagnation isn’t more lameness and bogosity. Choose awesomeness.” We’ll get out of this recession by being less lame and more awesome? This reminds me of How I Met Your Mother. Barney declares, “Whenever I start feeling sick, I just stop being sick and be awesome instead.” Of course, the germs don’t care about this proclamation.

Now, if someone says “being awesome” means taking medicine, that makes it even more obvious that the phrase “being awesome” is meaningless. The phrase is so amorphous that it can express any concept. It’s like in Politics and the English Language when Orwell says no one will define democracy so they can have their own private definition.

[more later]