I had seen a post from Kris Straub - whom I call Krasp - about… Well, I'll just embed it.

new stage discovered beyond end-stage capitalism

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— Kris Straub (كريس) (@krisstraub.com) June 12, 2026 at 9:36 AM

I'm conversant in terms like Late-Stage Capitalism, but I'm always compelled to consider the source. It doesn't surprise me that people who hate capitalism came up with spooky scary no-no words about it. I just summoned my eldest daughter Samantha, because they are in college and typically have a lot to say about capital c Capitalism, and I asked them to help me understand what people mean by the term. They said, "Late-Stage Capitalism is what Liberals call it when Capitalism operates as it is designed to."

I am a super big fan of this kid. Well, not "kid" I guess. They're twenty. But I sang to them in their mother's belly, and they recognized the song when they were born, so there will always be some fraction of me who stands crystallized in that moment. When I was younger, "Liberal" was the sort of epithet that an ultra-right radio host caricature would leverage against the left broadly. To hear it weaponized by leftists against people who aren't left enough is the sort of thing that makes one feel as though they've missed their cultural bus stop.

I do get it, though. You'd be a fool not to, at this late hour. It's ridiculous, what we are being asked to believe. The only thing to say, really is that weaponizing the collection of Pokemon constitutes an escalation so psychotic that I had no choice but to make my best friend draw it.

(CW)TB out.