miak

The October surprise I was hoping for!

Yankee here, and fully agree with what you said. Unfortunately, empathy seems to be an increasingly lost art in this country and it only seems to get worse as each side continues to dehumanized the other.

The freshest and most Hungary!

Did somebody say Miak?

Just make sure to wash the toner off after.

Sure, but when you need it I bet you’re damn sure glad you have it. It’s never a good feeling to be caught without your jellyfish launcher - don’t let that be you.

Heroes are remembered, but Tim Curry never dies.

I rip my Blu-rays and upload to my Plex server. Once that’s done, I can stream the movies to my phone via the Plex app. It’s super easy.

Cyrus The Virus. What a great 90s villain. Upvote for the Con Air reference.

War on Terror 2: Mariachi Madness

Can’t wait to buy a pizza on layaway!

If I really cared about making a statement, I’d put more effort into regularly heading into polls to write-in my choice. I still would not be voting for either of the major parties.

When all of the candidates on a ballot are going to actively work against my values, why would I vote for any of them? That said, I have written in choices before, but it’s a lot of work to do when literally no one will be taking notice of that vote.

I had no idea this was a known phenomenon. I had experienced this for a while some years ago. I tried to tell my doctor about explosions in my head while falling asleep, but she had no idea what it could be after ruling out seizures. Mine were like a really loud explosion with a bright flash of light. It was obvious it all took place in my head, but it always came with this sense that I had been hurt even though there was no physical pain after.

Interesting to know there’s a name for this. Thanks for sharing!

The Fashion of The Fuhrer sounds like a great musical.

Doesn’t this kind of assume humans are a central focus of the simulation? What if the universe is a simulation, but the rise of humans was an unintended result in the simulation. Maybe there is actually other civilizations elsewhere that are the actual focus, or just to get a look at the diversity of life that would form throughout the universe. Or, maybe life in the universe isn’t the focus at all and they just wanted to look at the evolution of galaxies and the like.

Or maybe I am misunderstanding your point. I kind of like the idea of being an unintended result of a simulation meant for other things though.

If you want to reach someone, the best way to do it is to be prepared to view things the way they do. If you can’t set aside your prejudice assumptions on the why/how they have come to their viewpoints and really empathize with them, you’re not likely to get far.

There have been studies that show otherwise. It’s been a very long time since I read about them, but was able to find this on a quick search: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/why-nonviolent-resistance-beats-violent-force-in-effecting-social-political-change/

I would have to disagree. States are just groups of people. They can hold all the rights that people hold, but cannot hold any rights people don’t hold (since those people cannot grant a right they themselves do not have).
I struggle to see how it can be deemed acceptable to tell a state they can’t leave because it may have a negative effect on the rest of the union. This is saying that once you join the union, you are a hostage of the union. Any negative effect this has on the rest of the union is not the responsibility of that state. If the union would benefit from continued use of infrastructure in the departing state, they can try to work out an agreement around that, or the union can figure out a way to fill the gaps left in infrastructure, but it makes no sense to hold the state hostage for the sake of saving the union from the hardship.

Right, so you can only leave if we say you can leave mentality, which is a kind of gang mentality. To say that a state that feels it’s membership in the union no longer aligns with its values (whether you agree with their reasoning or not) cannot choose on its own to leave in no way aligns with the values of freedom and autonomy.
If you want to advocate for such a system, fine, but it would be dishonest to then turn around and say that this system is one that values freedom.

At it’s most basic, freedom is the ability to say no and to disassociate with those you no longer wish to associate with.