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It's Been 2,448 Years Since Donald Trump Took Office (Trump-induced time dilation)
From Mother Jones. This was published a few days ago, but I missed it then, saw their tweet about it minutes ago:
Link to tweet
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/01/trump-induced-time-dilation/
From the first moments of the Trump administration, many Americans began to feel that time had slowed down. This phenomenon had already been noticed during the seemingly interminable 597-day presidential campaign. But the past year has magnified this effect and provided sustained observations of a phenomenon that might be described as Trump-Induced Time Dilation: the 45th president’s ability to alter temporal perceptions; more specifically, his unnatural knack for making time slow to an excruciating crawl.
Just 17 days after inauguration day, John Oliver noted that the past weeks had felt “like 114 years.” A few days later, a writer for India’s Economic Times stated that “It has only been three weeks of Donald Trump as president but seems more like three years.” After 100 days, a USA Today reader issued a typical gripe: “One hundred days? Feels like 100 years.” Six months in, a guy on Twitter said “It feels like 10 years already.”
In late December, the New York Times quoted New York Attorney General Schneiderman’s lament that “it feels like this year has been a hundred years long.” (It also “feels like it shot by,” he added; suggesting further warping of space-time.) Just the other day, Greg Barker, the maker of a new documentary about ancient American history told the Toronto Star that it “feels like 10,000 years” since Trump took office.
There are scientific explanations for why people are experiencing Trump-Induced Time Dilation. Yet there is no agreement on just how much the president has inhibited the flow of normal time. A CNN.com commentator wrote that “100 days with Trump feels like two years with any other commander in chief.” Time seemed to be moving even more slowly to the Vulture.com writer who said the first two weeks of the new administration had felt like five years.
In Oliver’s perception, 17 Trump days seemed like 41,610 normal days, meaning that the president had made time unfold more 2,400 times slower. In Barker’s view, 364 days of Trump was the equivalent of 3.65 million normal days, or more than 10,000 years.
-snip-
Greg Barker’s glacially slow Trump year recalls the watery planet of Interstellar, where the gravitational pull of a nearby black hole dilates time to the point where one hour on the planet elapses in the same time as seven Earth years. So far, no one has suggested that Trump can stretch time to such a fantastic extent. But if he does gain this ability, we have a long 183,960 years ahead of us.
Just 17 days after inauguration day, John Oliver noted that the past weeks had felt “like 114 years.” A few days later, a writer for India’s Economic Times stated that “It has only been three weeks of Donald Trump as president but seems more like three years.” After 100 days, a USA Today reader issued a typical gripe: “One hundred days? Feels like 100 years.” Six months in, a guy on Twitter said “It feels like 10 years already.”
In late December, the New York Times quoted New York Attorney General Schneiderman’s lament that “it feels like this year has been a hundred years long.” (It also “feels like it shot by,” he added; suggesting further warping of space-time.) Just the other day, Greg Barker, the maker of a new documentary about ancient American history told the Toronto Star that it “feels like 10,000 years” since Trump took office.
There are scientific explanations for why people are experiencing Trump-Induced Time Dilation. Yet there is no agreement on just how much the president has inhibited the flow of normal time. A CNN.com commentator wrote that “100 days with Trump feels like two years with any other commander in chief.” Time seemed to be moving even more slowly to the Vulture.com writer who said the first two weeks of the new administration had felt like five years.
In Oliver’s perception, 17 Trump days seemed like 41,610 normal days, meaning that the president had made time unfold more 2,400 times slower. In Barker’s view, 364 days of Trump was the equivalent of 3.65 million normal days, or more than 10,000 years.
-snip-
Greg Barker’s glacially slow Trump year recalls the watery planet of Interstellar, where the gravitational pull of a nearby black hole dilates time to the point where one hour on the planet elapses in the same time as seven Earth years. So far, no one has suggested that Trump can stretch time to such a fantastic extent. But if he does gain this ability, we have a long 183,960 years ahead of us.
That Mother Jones article links to this one, from Vox last summer, giving the scientific explanation for the time dilation:
The strange reason Donald Trump’s presidency feels like an eternity
https://www.vox.com/2017/6/12/15781752/donald-trump-eternity-time-perception
Since the inauguration, there’s been a nonstop avalanche of news: The ongoing FBI investigation into Russia’s influence on our elections, votes to repeal Obamacare, James Comey’s firing and explosive testimony, revelations that Donald Trump Jr. actually took a meeting with a Russian affiliate to get dirt on Hillary Clinton, and on and on. Remember that time Trump shared classified information with the Russian ambassador in the Oval Office? That was two months ago.
And here’s a hypothesis, grounded in psychological theory: The sheer amount of news generated by the Trump administration is warping our perception of time, making it seem like a long trod through thick mud.
Why?
The simple explanation: It’s a trick of our memories. The more important things we can remember in a given time period, the more we assume a greater amount of time has passed.
“In general, it seems that passage-of-time judgments are strongly affected by the number and ‘intensity’ of ‘events’ that have occurred in a time period,” John Wearden, a psychologist and author of The Psychology of Time Perception, says in an email. “You'd tend to say that the last few months seemed to last a long time if lots had happened, and to be faster if not much had.”
And it’s not just any memories that make us feel like more time has passed; it’s the more troubling, unusual, and emotionally charged ones that do.
“Yes, jam-packed cycles of important (and problematic) news alter our perception of time,” says Michael Flaherty, a psychology professor at Eckerd College in Florida. Especially if they tug on negative emotions.
And here’s a hypothesis, grounded in psychological theory: The sheer amount of news generated by the Trump administration is warping our perception of time, making it seem like a long trod through thick mud.
Why?
The simple explanation: It’s a trick of our memories. The more important things we can remember in a given time period, the more we assume a greater amount of time has passed.
“In general, it seems that passage-of-time judgments are strongly affected by the number and ‘intensity’ of ‘events’ that have occurred in a time period,” John Wearden, a psychologist and author of The Psychology of Time Perception, says in an email. “You'd tend to say that the last few months seemed to last a long time if lots had happened, and to be faster if not much had.”
And it’s not just any memories that make us feel like more time has passed; it’s the more troubling, unusual, and emotionally charged ones that do.
“Yes, jam-packed cycles of important (and problematic) news alter our perception of time,” says Michael Flaherty, a psychology professor at Eckerd College in Florida. Especially if they tug on negative emotions.
And here I thought when I posted that "Time Warp" clip from Rocky Horror last night that it was appropriate just because it showed how much Stephen Miller looks like Riff Raff...
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210133727
