FB has decided this is one of those images I need to see again and again and again, via various “unsolicited pix” groups that claim to be about this or that but really are just firehoses of rando-pandering surveillance probes. In this case, it always comes with a useless comment like “LOLZ” or some equivalent, the social media equivalent of explaining a joke by explaining there is a joke. Except there isn’t a joke: combinations of signs like this have been bog-standard across the US landscape for decades. None of which is very interesting, but what is interesting (imo): visual techniques for triggering crude reactions — some image that invites you to add 2+2, notes a contradiction, accuses someone of “hypocrisy,” etc — are ubiquitous on social media. And,not surprisingly, accusations of hypocrisy are on the same level as those anonymous bro-logic posts aimed at pointing out the “contradictions” of progressive policy, like “plants depend on decomposing animal matter so vegans are really carnivores!!!” or “electric vehicles still need to be charged so!!!” — lamprey-level cognition at best. So next time you feel the urge to point out that some politician said or did something “hypocritical,” maybe don’t. It’s not just passively dumb, it’s actively, infectiously stupid: people are inconsistent, change their minds, are self-serving, etc. These qualities are human. The assumptions that these qualities are somehow bad, and that evidence of them is necessarily damning — that isn’t ethics, it’s robotics.