Manuel Angulo

we're all mad here.
1729

[Dave W Plummer @davepl1968]

I want to convince you to read a book with a scary cover.

Everyone should read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, not because it is the last word on Nazis, but because it remains one of the most powerful demonstrations ever written of how civilization can fail while still believing itself to be civilized.

That is the terrifying genius of Shirer’s book.

It does not present the Third Reich as some meteor that struck Europe from outer space, nor does it comfort us with the childish notion that Germany was magically populated by millions of uniquely evil people.

It shows something far more useful, and therefore far more disturbing: a modern, educated, technically sophisticated nation can be captured by lies, grievance, bureaucracy, fear, opportunism, and the small daily surrender of moral judgment.

The machinery of barbarism does not require a population of monsters. It requires enough believers, enough cowards, enough careerists, enough cynics, and enough ordinary people who decide that keeping their heads down is safer than saying no.

One argument I’ve heard is that all humans contain engrams that encode for certain group behaviors. When a local resource or abundance runs out, you invade a neighbor and take theirs. Or worse, you identify a group within your own population as the source of the problem and attack yourself, like an autoimmune disease. But it happens repeatedly throughout history.

And the most important lesson is not that Hitler won Germany in a landslide. He did not.

The Nazis became the largest party, but they never won a free majority mandate. In July 1932 they won 37.3% of the vote; in November 1932 they fell to 33.1%; and even in March 1933, after Hitler was already chancellor and political violence had warped the field, they reached 43.9%, still short of a majority. That is the chilling part. A country does not need 90% of its people to vote for madness in order for madness to govern it. It needs a militant minority, a fractured opposition, institutional weakness, elite miscalculation, and a public exhausted enough to mistake brutality for order.

Shirer makes you understand that dictatorship doesn’t happen when people vote to abolish freedom. More often, it arrives wrapped in emergency powers, procedural legality, patriotic language, porous constitutions, and the promise that the unpleasant parts are “temporary”.

People do not wake up one morning and decide to live in a police state.

They accept one exception, then another. They tolerate one class of people being degraded because it is not yet them. They watch one newspaper silenced, one judge intimidated, one civil servant replaced, one neighbor denounced, and each time the mind performs its little act of self-preservation: surely this is not the REAL turning point; surely someone ELSE will stop it; surely it is better NOT to get involved.

That is why the book is not merely history. It is a “systems manual” for democratic collapse.

Shirer shows the inputs and outputs. Economic humiliation goes in. Conspiracy thinking comes out. Parliamentary paralysis goes in. The hunger for a strongman comes out. Propaganda goes in. Moral permission comes out. Career incentives go in. Obedience comes out. The horrifying thing is how much of it looks less like a thunderclap than like an old programming flowchart. Forms are stamped. Orders are routed. Promotions are granted. The trains run on time. Men like Asperger who would never personally murder a child learn to serve a system that does.
And that is the second great reason to read it: it destroys the comfortable distance between “them” and “us.”

Most people contain the engrams necessary to fall in line under the right pressure. That does not mean everyone is secretly a Nazi. It means human beings are exquisitely vulnerable to belonging, fear, status, obedience, resentment, and the narcotic-like relief of not having to think too hard when a leader offers a complete explanation for every pain or problem. Shirer forces the reader to confront evil not as a rare substance found only in supervillains, but as a set of ordinary human capacities intentionally reorganized by ideology and power.

The book also matters because Shirer wrote with the eye of a witness. He was nor a historian, he was a journalist. As someone with ASD, I don’t fall prey to books like “A People’s History of the United States” because they are, at their core, emotional tracts. Shirer’s book is not. It’s journalism. It’s like reading a newspaper of events written by someone who was there and who had time to think about them.

That’s because he had lived in Germany as a correspondent and watched the Nazi state harden around him. His great advantage is not academic distance but proximity. You feel the sequence of events as something unfolding in real time, not as a museum exhibit safely sealed behind glass. That gives the book its momentum. It reads less like a textbook than like a slow-motion systems crash, where every warning light is blinking and the operators keep insisting the reactor is fine.

Yes, modern historians have refined, corrected, and complicated parts of Shirer’s interpretation. They should. No serious reader should stop with one book, especially one first published before I was even born. But that is not a reason to avoid it. It is a reason to start there and then keep going. Shirer gives the reader the great brutal architecture of the thing: the rise, the consolidation, the war, the crimes, the delusions, the collapse. Later scholarship can add wiring, plumbing, and better load-bearing analysis.

Shirer gives you the building. And just when you start to feel comfortable there, he sets it on fire while you are still inside.

What makes the book indispensable is that it turns “never again” from a slogan into a diagnostic skill. After reading it, you become less impressed by uniforms, slogans, rallies, and certainty. You become more suspicious of people who explain every problem by pointing at a hated internal enemy. You recognize the danger of elites who think they can harness extremists for their own purposes. You notice when law becomes a weapon instead of a restraint. You understand that institutions do not defend themselves; PEOPLE defend them, or they become scenery.

And perhaps most importantly, you learn that moral catastrophe is usually incrementalbefore it is total.

The abyss does not always announce itself.

Sometimes it is approached by reasonable men making “practical compromises”, by citizens tired of chaos, by newspapers chasing access, by judges respecting technicalities, by businessmen preferring stability, by soldiers obeying oaths, and by neighbors deciding that silence is not approval exactly, just prudence.

That’s the part that scared me the most – wondering where the “pragmatic me” would yield to the “moral me”, and just how sure I was that it would.

That is why everyone should read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Not to congratulate themselves again for being unlike the people in it, but to understand how much like them we might become if the incentives, fears, and pressures were arranged badly enough. The book is essentially a warning against human weakness under industrialized conditions.

It teaches that civilization is not a possession. It is a behavior. It must be renewed, defended, and practiced, especially when doing so is extremely inconvenient. And if a thousand pages of Shirer leaves you with anything, it is this: the machine is built by people, staffed by people, obeyed by people, and stopped, when it is stopped at all, by people who finally decide not to fall in line.

One final “pragmatic” note – there’s a chapter or two on the elections that go through the returns in a lot of detail. That part is a bit of a slog – you have my permission to fast-forward. But the rest of it is incredible.

PS: I would have just written this as an episode if YouTube were amenable to creators working outside of their channel's comfort zone, but alas... no.

Amazon: https://t.co/ODNWm2U8s5

[Germania Rodriguez Poleo @iamGermania]

All the chavista dictatorship cares about is keeping full control. It’s why Diosdado Cabello had to go make a fool of himself preventing rescues in plain sight. It’s why the armed forces have been ordered to obstruct and not to help save survivors. Their focus now is to portray an image of authority over international rescue teams. Their evil has no limits.

[Caracas Chronicles @CaracasChron]

🫓 Giving cash is the most selfless act you can do right now from abroad.

There’s no photo op, no instagram reel, no self promotion post. It’s just between you, your bank account, and the beneficiary.

🙏 👇
https://t.co/NFxDpcq8zr

[Rodolfo Franco 🌎 @rodolfofrancoud]

Hola todos, les comparto una escena 3D navegable de Catia La Mar, La Guaira, Venezuela, donde se resaltan las edificaciones con daño notorio por el doble terremoto del 24 de junio. Es una visualización preparada a partir de una capa generada por Microsoft AI for Good Lab que han liberado a través de la plataforma Humanitarian Data Exchange, HDX, administrada por la Oficina de las Naciones Unidas para la Coordinación de Asuntos Humanitarios, OCHA.
Enlace: https://t.co/33soA1AZgb
Son 9128 de 30755 polígonos los clasificados con daño captado por satélite lo que representa un 29.7% de las construcciones de la ciudad. Tal como lo advierte la fuente original, es una aproximación preliminar desde análisis de escena satelital Vantor (antes MAXAR) que requiere verificación de campo para precisar los daños.
#catialamar #laguaira #sismo #venezuela #arcgispro

[Vicente Zavarce @metavarce]

We are now accepting international cards and ACH for disaster relief in Venezuela.

Huge thanks to @stripe and their amazing LATAM team for waiving their payment processing fees for the cause. Todos juntos 🇻🇪❤️‍🩹

[Vicente Zavarce @metavarce]

Únete: https://t.co/zzNGMmfbeG

[Emily Salvatore 🇻🇪 @EmilySalva57895]

se imaginan lo que pasaría si disolvemos las fuerzas armadas y nos quedamos sin ejército?

podría venir otro país y llevarse a nuestro presidente sin resistencia o peor aún, si ocurre un desastre natural no habría nadia que nos ayude

[Wismer mendoza @wismerM]

La Alerta de Google en Android salvaron muchas vidaaaas, sono realmente 10 segundos antes de todo.

[Gorayii  | Raicelys Gómez @Raicelys_Gomez]

En apoyo al pueblo venezolano 🚨🔔

eSIM para Venezuela. 3 días gratis con datos ilimitados.

Comparte para que llegue a quienes lo puedan necesitar.

https://t.co/S1PoHR50TT

[Eduardo Menoni @eduardomenoni]

🇻🇪 Un periodista graba testimonios devastadores de personas que han perdido sus familiares.

Fuerza Venezuela, la ayuda esta pronto en llegar. 🙏🏻

[Manuel Angulo @MDaC85]

@petrogustavo A llorar al lloradero bb

[La Sagrada Família @sagradafamilia]

Veiem per primera vegada la torre de Jesucrist il·luminada!
L'espectacle de llum iniciat des de la base fins a la il·luminació de la creu ha culminat amb una composició de llums guiats per drons, que han dibuixat la figura Gaudí i la frase «primer l'amor, després la tècnica».

[Orlando Avendaño @OrlvndoA]

Todas las encuestas daban ganador en primera vuelta a Iván Cepeda.

Todas.

La más generosa con Abelardo fue la de Atlas Intel, que algunos dijeron que inflaba artificialmente a Abelardo.

Pues se quedó corta.

Pasan Cepeda y Abelardo a segunda, con Abelardo impresionantemente liderando.

[Selva 🌳 @selva_marion]

[🚨 POR FAVOR AYÚDAME A DIFUNDIR — BUSCO UN ENSAYO CLÍNICO EN CUALQUIER PARTE DEL MUNDO 🌍]

Mi nombre es Selva Alvarez, tengo 35 años, vivo en Colombia y soy Científica de Datos 📊. Hoy no les escribo solo como una paciente con cáncer gástrico avanzado (Estadio IV) 🎗️, sino como alguien que acaba de encontrar un dato científico único en su propio cuerpo que podría cambiarlo todo 🧬.

Ayer, 21 de mayo de 2026, mi reporte de patología reveló algo extraordinario y muy escaso en el mundo: mi tumor dio POSITIVO para una proteína llamada CLAUDINA 18.2 🔬.

Para explicarlo de forma sencilla: la Claudina 18.2 es como una "cerradura" 🔐 muy rara que solo tienen algunos tumores en el mundo. La ciencia médica ya inventó una "llave" 🔑 exacta para esa cerradura (un medicamento avanzado llamado Zolbetuximab o Vyloy), que es capaz de atacar directamente las células enfermas sin destruir el resto del cuerpo 🎯.

El problema es que este medicamento no es comercial en Colombia 🇨🇴. Mi oncólogo me confirmó que mi única oportunidad real de acceder a esta "llave" es que una farmacéutica o un centro de investigación me reciba en un Ensayo Clínico Nacional o Internacional o en un programa de acceso expandido ✈️.

Al ser un perfil de paciente tan escaso y específico en el planeta, sé que hay laboratorios y científicos en el mundo buscando activamente a personas como yo para sus estudios de medicina de precisión 🩺.

Quiero que el mundo sepa que estoy lista 💪: mis órganos vitales (hígado y riñones) están completamente sanos, fuertes y funcionando a la perfección, listos para resistir el tratamiento 🫁. Tengo la juventud, la fuerza biológica y la determinación absoluta de pelear por mi vida y aportar a la ciencia 🦾.

Hago un llamado directo a la comunidad científica global (#OncoTwitter 🩺), a laboratorios como @AstellasUS 🏢, y a investigadores de cualquier país que lideren estudios sobre Claudina 18.2: Aquí hay una paciente joven con el biomarcador idóneo 📑.

Por favor, ayúdenme con un RT (compartir) 🔁. Un solo clic de ustedes puede hacer que este mensaje cruce fronteras y llegue al comité científico o a la farmacéutica que me pueda patrocinar 💌.

Mis mensajes directos (DM) están abiertos para enviar de inmediato mi historial médico, resultados de los marcadores, bloques de patología o cualquier cosa que se necesite 📤.

Colombia 🇨🇴 | Contacto: DM abierto 📩.
#GastricCancer #Zolbetuximab #ClinicalTrials #PrecisionMedicine #OncoTwitter #Claudina18 #CancerGastrico #EnsayosClinicos #MedicinaDePrecision #Vyloy

[endocrinorosero @endocrinorosero]

Volar con @LATAMAirlines es otro nivel, trato respetuoso, sillas totalmente cómodas, café de cortesía e internet en vuelo 🤩 nada q hacer
Conque solo pusieran una sala VIp en el muelle nacional y acaban con avianca

[UFO mania @maniaUFO]

For a few minutes each year, sunlight makes this Yosemite waterfall look like a river of fire.😍

[Manuel Angulo @MDaC85]

@Pedro_Torrijos Emergence...

[Latest in Cosmos @latestincosmos]

🚨: The James Webb Space Telescope has done it again—revealing a breathtaking structure now dubbed the “Cosmic Vine”: a string of 20 galaxies stretching across a staggering 13 million light-years!

What makes this discovery so shocking? This colossal formation dates back nearly 11 billion years, forming just 3 billion years after the Big Bang—a time when galaxies were thought to still be forming in isolated clumps. Instead, JWST captured a massive, organized structure linking galaxies together much earlier than expected.

[NASA Artemis @NASAArtemis]

Earthset.

The Artemis II crew captured this view of an Earthset on April 6, 2026, as they flew around the Moon. The image is reminiscent of the iconic Earthrise image taken by astronaut Bill Anders 58 years earlier as the Apollo 8 crew flew around the Moon.

[NASA @NASA]

We see our home planet as a whole, lit up in spectacular blues and browns. A green aurora even lights up the atmosphere. That's us, together, watching as our astronauts make their journey to the Moon.