Imagine that - an office dedicated to countering foreign disinformation somehow ends up being accused of censoring conservative views.

That reminds me of when I saw a mouse in my kitchen, so I set a trap snd caught it, snd somehow that also stopped the ragged holes that were inexplicably appearing in food packages in the cupboards.

Just one of life’s mysteries I guess…

Sorry Mike, but one of the good things that’s come out of the internet is that it’s made people far more aware of just how much of the value their labor creates goes to paying for the privileged lives of worthless shitheels like you.

A notable intrinsic dodge bonus.

Decent but not great healing, blessing, persuasion, rally, calm, etc.

More or less neitral disposition with virtually everyone, save only the most extreme pro- or anti-religious.

Surprisingly good hand-to-hand combat, but only under duress and/or drunk.

I don’t simply “feel” like we are - I think it’s an undeniable fact that we are.

Virtually everyone lives under one or another hierarchical system of control.

There are two main avenues of control - wealth and political authority - and they’re inevitably interconnected, with individual systems set up broadly either so that wealth is rewarded with political authority or political authority is rewarded with wealth.

Individuals compete for positions in hierarchical systems of control, and those who constrain themselves - who have choices or courses of action they will not take due to morality, ethics, integrity, empathy or the like - are at a disadvantage to those who do not have such constraints - who will not alter their behavior to accord for morals, ethics, integrity, empathy or the like, and who therefore are willing to do absoluely whatever it takes to win.

So effectively, hierarchical systems reward and thus select for sociopathy/psychopathy.

That becomes a self-reinforcing loop over time too, as individuals who gain power undermine the aspects of the system that might check sociopathy/psychopathy - government ethics laws, checks and balances, investigative journalism, the right to criticize, etc.

So hierarchical systems tend to sociopathy/psychopathy, and ever more so over time.

So Trump and Musk et al aren’t aberrations - they’re just the most extreme manifestations of a system that’s been heading inevitably toward them all along - a system that has been so warped by the actions of past sociopaths and psychopaths that it is, for all intents and purposes, insane.

So yes - we live in an insane asylum.

I don’t disagree.

Still though, compared to Needing/Getting or Here It Goes Again or The One Moment or I Won’t Let You Down…

I’m not trying to put down the video or anything - it’s just that it struck me watching it that OK Go have sort of painted themselves into a corner. They’ve put out so many jaw-droppingly awesome videos that at this point, anything less than jaw-droppingly awesome is almost a disappointment.

It strikes me that they’ve spoiled us. If I had never seen another OK Go video, I would likely be very impressed by that, but by their standards, it was only pretty good.

yUgh. That sounds even worse. You have my sympathy.

It’s a weird thing about this era. In the past, I would’ve tried to argue with them about their views, but at this point, it’s effectively impossible, since we don’t even share a reality. They live in a world in which, for instance, Kamala Harris is a DEI hire who got appointed as the candidate by Biden, who’ in turn is still working for the Obamas, and she lost because she’s a socialist.

Where do you even start with something like that?

If only Congress had a few more people with his integrity and courage and commitment.

I have two brothers who are variations on the theme.

I’m the oldest and middle brother is a longtime conspiracy theorist who’s on the anti-vaxx, deep state fringe (and at least pleasantly is notably not a bigot) and youngest is an IT guy and a stock,-standard tech “libertarian” who rages about wokeism and free speech and idolizes Musk and is about every kind of bigot imaginable.

So I spend holidays mostly hiding in the study, surfing the web and trying to ignore the bits of mansplained propaganda wafting down the hall…

Probably.

Years ago, I was actually opposed to it myself (it was generally considered under the umbrella of Affirmative Action then) mostly because I saw it as a species of tokenism - a way to create the illusion of inclusion and diversity without the spirit of the thing.

But then I was confronted with a very compelling argument that basically held that it should be supported regardless of potential flaws because its long-term merits would oitweigh those flaws - it would condition people to see minorities in the workplace, and even in positions of power, as a common and unremarkable thing, and it would allow for new generations who would grow up already in that world because of their parents 'employment. Effectively, it wasn’t for the current generations, for whom it would necessarily be at least somewhat problematic, but for future generations.

That’s been my position ever since.

Somewhere along the way though - about the same time that “woke” became a pejorative, I started seeing a new rush of opposition to what was now known as DEI.

And the thing is that I never once saw a considered argument against it. All I saw was the new generation of overt racists - the people who fed exclusively on /pol/ and stormfront and AM talk radio and white supremacist podcasts - sneeringly referring to every minority in any notable position as a “DEI hire.”

But yes - maybe those who oppose it sincerely and with good intentions are out there and I just don’t see them.

I actually paused over that one myself, but while it is technically possible that someone could oppose DEI with the best of intentions, with the sincere belief that it’s an ineffective or even counter-productive strategy, I just think it’s orders of magnitude more likely that they oppose it because they’re racist filth.

But yeah - that’s one that I’d likely want to follow up on before a final decision.

And I’m one of them. There’s absolutely no way I would or even could ever date some loathsome piece of shit who opposes trans rights, supports Trump, defends the Capitol attack, opposes DEI, wants abortion banned or wants gender roles legislated.

If anything, I’m disappointed that there aren’t more of us.

Any day now he’s going to announce that the new tariff on China is eleventy bajillion percent. And no takesies backsies.

It’s those roughly squared off, dirty, slushy heaps of packed snow that were plowed out of the way after the snowfall and are the only thing left after the rest of the snow has melted.

stop killing Palestinian babies = antisemitism

∴

semitism = killing Palestinian babies

By design.

And the 1% are going to ride it out in their purpose-built private enclaves, then buy the world at disaster auction prices and make themslves into feudal lords.

Cunning would-he tyrants don’t go to people and say, “Give me this power so that I can hurt you.” They go to people and say, “Give me this power so that I can hurt the people you hate.”

The US has a number of institutional failures that need to be addressed if it’s to have any hope of surviving and the Trump presidency is not only not going to address them, but has for all intents and purposes taken it as its mandate to specifically focus on exacerbating them.

It’s dealing with wealth inequality by increasing it. It’s dealing with political corruption by institutionalizing it. It’s dealing with fragile and ineffective public health, public education and social service systems by breaking them. It’s dealing with rapacious corporations by eliminating constraints on them. It’s dealing with climate change by encouraging it. It’s dealing with diminished international stature by alienating literally everyone. It’s dealing with the threat of economic collapse by destroying international markets. It’s dealing with the threat of social unrest by fanning the flames of bigotry and hatred. And on and on.

It’s essentially the equivalent of a cancer patient taking up smoking. In a house lined with asbestos and uranium.

And at that point, it really doesn’t matter who wants to save them or how much they want it.

I would’ve likely been better off with a broader term - something like “the wealthy and empowered few” - particularly since the subject at hand concerns the United States, in which the line between private wealth and power and political power grows more vague and hazy day by day.

But yes - ultimately I conclude government, since government is the entity that has established the legal fiction of corporations, that has acted to protect the private wealth by which the political influence to establish things like a predatory health insurance system can exist and has utterly failed to do one of the few things that is a mandate for a government from the start - to protect citizens from harm brought by others and/or to punish those who bring it.

Or to be more precise, if the government had done its job of protecting Americans from a destructive and predatory health insurance system (as opposed to literally mandating it), Luigi’s vigilantism likely wouldn’t have occurred in the first place, and certainly wouldn’t have had so much support if it had.

But since they didn’t do their job, it happened, and if they continue to not do their job (as it appears they’re determined), then it will happen again, and worse.

Who said anything about “being shitty humans?”

I’m talking about a very specific dynamic - a civilization in which there is widespread citizen discontent and whether the government acts to alleviate that discontent legitimately or merely acts to divert or stifle it.

The former allows for solutions so allows for recovery. The latter leaves the problems to rot and fester, and is a death sentence.