MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
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User ID: 58
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
1yr ago
Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
The data is either incomplete or wrongly, often willfully wrongly interpreted. I’m literally one of those people he’s talking about; Despite posting in this rarefied little forum full of PMC types, I’m roughly working class in lifestyle and lifetime earning capability.
Instead of going to get an advanced degree, I worked for a living and got married and started a family. I’m an extremely skilled worker with an extremely strong resume, and I’ve been working 40-60 hours a week for the last 15 odd years at decent and respectable enterprises. By all accounts I shouldn’t have to struggle this hard just to keep my head above water.
All I have to do is take a look at my refrigerator to tell you you’re wrong. From 2016 to 2020, if I had friends over I’d always have something special for entertaining; olives, cheeses, charcuterie, pate, maybe some nice liquor or craft beer, high quality meat, a wide variety of fresh fruits, maybe some fun desserts like sorbet or crème brûlée. You name it, it wasn’t extravagant but I always had something I could put together to entertain a few guests.
And that was all on one income, which was a good income but not spectacular by any means. And I managed to save a good amount of money. I could afford to take my wife out to a nice dinner in occasion, we could go on very modest vacations without worrying about it too much.
All that shit is gone now, my family had spaghetti for dinner twice last week. It’s brown bag lunch for me. I don’t keep liquor in the house anymore, too expensive. We’ve basically stopped eating beef because it’s too expensive. For the first time in my entire life I’ve been late on payments on a semi regular basis; I’m quite financially literate but there’s only so much you can do.
And that’s all with my wife working again.
What that people touting these great economic numbers don’t understand is that all the pain and hardship doesn’t end the second the numbers start to get better, the effects of economic stress have long tails that bleed into everything. Just because the earthquake stopped and the house is still standing doesn’t mean it is not still in the process of falling over.
I’m making more money than I ever had but my lifestyle has been severely downgraded since 2020, probably permanently, of which nearly none of the blame can be reasonably laid at the feet of Donald Trump or the republican party.
I live in a deep blue state, in a blue area. And every working class person I know hates the government and the Biden administration. What’s more interesting is my social circle is incredibly diverse.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
8mo ago
There was a very simple way to head Trump off at the pass; say you’re going to do something about illegal immigration, which is wildly unpopular with the body politic, and then fucking do it.
That’s it. That’s the whole game. That would have stopped Trump because he would have never developed his constituency, which wasn’t invented by him but simply ignored by both parties.
There was electoral gold in the streets just waiting to be picked up but a prospiracy driven primarily by rank class hatred blocked it. All it took was one defector.
Say there are two people. They both meet a guy who is 6’9” (2.05m) tall.
Person A says: “He’s the tallest person I’ve ever seen! Huge guy! At least 7’0” (2.13m) tall!”
Person B says: “He was probably above average height. I’ve seen taller. People before.”
Person A’s answer is a lie. The guy they saw wasn’t quite as tall as they said and it’s probable that they’ve watched a basketball game or a film and have seen a person who is taller than that before.
Person B’s answer is technically correct. They’ve probably seen basketball on TV, they’ve seen extremely tall people before. And the guy they saw was certainly taller than average.
But Person B’s answer is basically dishonest. The guy they saw was indeed extremely tall! They failed to convey that, all while being technically correct.
And Person A’s answer, while a lie, managed to be more accurate and honest assessment of the subject at hand. It was a much better answer if you wanted to know something about the subject.
Given a choice between them, I’d much rather deal with a person A, a liar who is directionally correct, than person B, a person that maybe rarely lies but also rarely conveys any useful information.
Person B’s answer is worse than useless; if taken seriously you would probably come to a conclusion further from the truth than Person A’s answer.
This is a rather simple and direct example but there’s ample situations like this on the real world. There really are a lot of Person B’s in the world, and once you see them you start seeing them everywhere.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
5mo ago
One of the recurring elements of the resistance to Trump is that those decrying Trump and his supporters as a fascist don’t understand they are engaged in a self fulfilling prophecy.
I don’t think Trump and his supports are fascist, I generally think that fascism is not a live political force of any real consequence in the USA. I think people who throw the term around loosely almost always don’t understand what fascism actually is, and why it arose.
I cannot think of a better way to actually facilitate the birth of a real American homegrown fascism than killing or jailing Trump and successfully using extralegal methods to suppress the maga movement and stifle their (very popular) core political agenda.
It’s as if these people are trying to do a Weimar Republic speed run. If they got what they wanted, they’d likely also subsequently get what they are afraid of and what they deserve.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
1yr ago
Eight years later, the “crackhead taxi driver” analogy still holds.
Imagine you have a destination in mind. You hail an Uber, 4.9 stars, great vehicle, clean. You tell them where you want to go and they look at you like you have three heads. And after realizing you’re serious, they flat out refuse to take you there. No matter how much you beg or attempt to reason with them or bribe them.
So you call up a Lyft. 4.6 stars, nice vehicle. Same outcome, first they think you’re joking, then you’re crazy, and finally an idiot.
On and on it goes. Seven vehicles later, you hail an unlicensed taxi cab. The driver opens the door, it smells like piss inside. There are empty beer cans and takeout containers strewn around the vehicle. You tell him where you want to go, the driver looks at you for a minute with his cigarette still in his mouth and says “Fuck it, let’s go. Hop in.”
If you’re a Trump supporter, hearing that you just jump in. So far it’s you’re only shot to get where you’re going, it’s getting late and you’re getting desperate.
Honestly? Don’t blame anyone who chose that way. With the benefit of hindsight, I think they were absolutely right.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
10mo ago
On an semi-anecdotal note, this might tank support for Harris amongst Latinos, which was already weakening.
I’m hearing the word “Venezuela” a lot bandied about in TikTok & Instagram when taking about the rule of the Democratic Party, and none of it is flattering. Rather, it is dripping with absolute dread and seething hatred.
Unlike the college freshman types (both literally and in spirit), most 1st gen Latinos have extensive direct experience with left populism and this type of shameless vote buying and looting of the treasury. And contrary to what some segment of the anti-immigrant crowd likes to say, those amongst the immigrants that go through the bother and expense of naturalization very much do not want their adopted homeland to resemble the country they escaped.
I used to get a lot of pushback from my Latino part of my social circle for my open support of Trump, but not anymore. I’ve witnessed almost all of the blue-leaning Latinos slowly flip in the last eight years to at least tacit support for Trump. And I’m not in any way a bubble; my own family is a mixture of Amerikaner with some ADOS sprinkled through it. And my Latino family connections are very geographically widespread. I was even shocked to hear one of my friends, a very feminist coded Latina from New York, say she’s voting for Trump. Four years ago my views upset her deeply, but the reality of our situation has sunk in.
Although I personally am very in favor of heavily restricting immigration, it clearly comes with many benefits; one of which is a rich and varied experience with the many possible failure states in which a society can find itself. Much how people with direct experience of the Soviet Union are overrepresented in the vocal part of the anti-woke movement, so too it seems that 1st gen Latinos are populating the opposition to this profligate left economic populism.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
29d ago
Easily one of the most important and immediately impactful business decisions of my lifetime.
I’m amazed at people’s ability to forget how bad things were in 2020 / 2021 on the internet.
I suppose it’s easy to forget the constant fear /r/TheMotte was living under for years if you were always willing to jump ship to /r/TheSchism or some other wasteland full of doe-eyed quokkas ever willing to castrate themselves to placate the eye of Sauron
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
3mo ago
This is an obvious tactic, it even has a recognized name if I remember. “Washington monument syndrome”, from the act of closing a high visibility and popular attraction to affect maximum outrage.
High level bureaucrats get to where they get by knowing how to play the game and defend their turf. Cutting their budgets is a direct threat to their power, so instead of trimming the fat they immediately cut into muscle and bone to cause maximum observable negative effects.
If you’re a librarian, instead of cutting unpopular programs or reorganizing for a leaner institution you cut staff hours at the front desk, maximizing wait times, then blame it on the mean old politicians who just hate children and reading. Same thing with national parks, I rolled my eyes when I saw they cut that locksmith and shut down the bathrooms, it was so transparently designed to be maximally disruptive and silly.
But this is just politics 101, its easy to see if you’ve ever interacted with any of these people.
Sinecures for the politically connected? Untouched. Programs and initiatives that play to the party faithful of radical activists? Reshuffled, renamed, hidden from view.
Beloved symbols that are popular with a huge swathe of the public? Tragically closed, so sad, so avoidable if mean old republicans and townies just learned their place.
Utterly predictable.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
5mo ago
”Folks, the bourgeois, they're no good everyone is saying it. All these workers, very handsome workers come up to me and say, Comrade Trump there is a specter haunting Europe, and you know what, they're right. These bourgeois are very nasty people very very rude and very unfair to the workers. They are stealing our surplus value and no one is doing anything about it. The proletariat comes up to me everyday and says, Comrade Trump will you lead the revolution? And I gotta turn to them and say, Look the instruments of capitalism will be used to bring about its destruction believe me you gotta trust me on this one. The means of production, obama never wanted to seize them. Well guess what? I'm seizing them. Landlords? They're done for folks. Everyone told me they said, Comrade Trump you won't be the vanguard of the revolution and they would laugh, the media laughed the democrats laughed, guess whose laughing now?"
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
10mo ago
My wife is from Latin America but also has a Spanish passport, and we’ve debated on and off again about moving to Spain with our family if things truly got out of hand in the USA.
I take her point into consideration but my response always boils down to “If the USA turns to shit, there’s nowhere really to retreat to.”
My children are American. Hopefully my children’s children will be American, and their children, and so on and so forth.
Although battles may be fought elsewhere, the war for the future is here, and nowhere else.
What would even be the point of running?
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
1yr ago
Master and Commander is so effortlessly high quality it makes me weep remembering it was basically an “average” excellent movie that we simply took for granted that we would be treated to up to a dozen times a year for like basically 15 years between 1993 - 2008.
It’s also, hilariously, completely bereft of female dialogue. I find it to be a very funny coincidence but frog twitter and their world see it as a sign akin to a burning bush.
It’s fucking rad, A+ would recommend.
I had two small children with special education needs entering the education system right as the lockdowns started, and I’m more or less working class without the resources for private education and therapy, so naturally as the lockdowns went on I was filled with white hot nuclear rage at those responsible for them.
You ever seen a toddler do speech therapy with a mask on with masked adults?
Trust me when I say it’s one of the most frustrating, pointless exercises you could witness. Especially when it’s your kid.
That and the fact that my industry was completely devastated by the lockdowns as it was all in person work.
And I live in a heavily blue state.
So me and mine were absolutely the type of people sacrificed at the altar so that overweight, CNN addicted middle age office workers could have the perception of safety.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
2yr ago
Hyup. That’s pretty standard from the US legacy media.
Good news is that these types of outlets are absolutely getting their lunch eaten by alternatives and will likely die out as the boomers die out.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
2yr ago
In terms of severity, it’s somewhere in the ballpark of simultaneously being lobotomized and becoming a jihadist.
It’s not just the potential sterilization & being unable to achieve an orgasm for life, it’s also being a lifelong patient, and thusly a financial supporter, for “big pharma”, an industrial complex that is very politically powerful and I find have proven themselves to be extremely dangerous.
They are also often a supporter for a memeplex that is fundamentally hateful towards what I and many others would consider to be healthy, normal behavior and social dynamics.
So not only is a transitioned person deeply alienated towards their own physical body, they are often radicalized against their friends and neighbors who knew them beforehand.
I had a close friend who transitioned during university, in the early 2000s before trans issues became more mainstream. We are both of an age & class where we were some of the earliest people to be “extremely online”. I spent a lot of time lurking in trans friendly spaces, and honestly the right-wing outrage machine might be even underselling how intensely hateful the rhetoric is in those places towards their “enemies”, real or perceived.
At the time I was a supporter but I felt myself being so turned off by the whole “trans communist” schtick that I unconsciously distanced myself from them and I’m likely to never speak to this person again. At the time I didn’t think much of it but with the benefit of hindsight a lot of things sort of fell into place for me.
I have children in public school in a mega blue area, so I have real skin in the game. I can confirm even in elementary school they are already being exposed to this stuff, if I wasn’t so poor I’d put them in private school.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
9mo ago
This is one of those things that absolutely infuriates me as a numerate parent.
There’s strong evidence that child seats are much safer for very young children, but my understanding is there’s virtually no statistically significant increase in safety after children reach a certain size, like around 3 years old.
Quite literally at least a generation of third children were never born because of this spurious legislation and regulatory nonsense.
While my wife and I only have two children, we would have likely wanted a third even if we met and married just a year before we did. And getting a larger car would have been prohibitively expensive, even a used one.
I think the link between status and fertility as often is discussed here is a valid one, and the concept of ‘cultural inflation’ has vast explanatory power to mend the massive gap between our greatly increased wealth and our cratering fertility; you’re simply expected to buy a lot more shit and do a lot more expensive things to not be considered “low status”, and I think avoiding low status is much more paramount and painful than achieving high status for the vast majority of people.
The sort of benign neglect that many high functioning millennials / gen x / boomers got from their parents is simply no longer acceptable to society.
A married couple with noble hearts and the love and affection of their kin and community with still be considered a piece of garbage if they roll up in a beater station wagon with four kids with hand me down clothes and bologna sandwiches in brown bags.
I feel like there used to be a place for people who were humble but respected and respectable, I don’t think it’s false nostalgia to perceive that we no longer really have that option, ironically it’s been swept away partially by the huge growth in wealth.
My wife and I are extremely disagreeable & nonconformist types but even we are affected by this kind of intense material snobbery that our unbelievably wealthy society has produced. Collectively we have gone all in on K-Strategy and basically gutted the vast middle ground of family lifestyle that the majority of the world has occupied up until literally maybe a generation ago.
Sure, but two things were abundantly clear even to the political novice; trump wanted the vaccines approved asap and trump wanted the lockdowns lifted as soon as the vaccine became available to let the economy recover, even if it was just to save his own political skin.
If the CARES act was the only major spending bill related to COVID and we got more or less back to business as usual by fall 2020, it would have caused an inflationary period but the damage would have been limited and mitigated by a quick recovery.
There’s a big difference between taking 2000mg of Tylenol and taking 4000mg of Tylenol and four shots of whiskey.
The vast, disparate effects of what you might call the “lockdown political culture” deepened and accelerated this inflationary pressure by absolutely skull-fucking normal supply and demand. And that shit was 1000% on the heads of democrats.
All inflation is just too much money chasing too little goods. The absolutely psychotic extended lockdowns and the hair trigger response we had throughout the administrative state, which was in open rebellion against the Trump administration, caused a ton of problems both on the supply side and the demand side.
I saw this personally as I was privy to the cost increase in my industry which were largely a result of all these collective policies on both the federal level, and on the state and local level, all of which are heavily blue.
So my intuition is that trump might be responsible for like 15% of the inflation surrounding COVID, tops. And the super tight labor market that we had pre-COVID more than makes up for that, and the Trump administration can take at least partial credit for that.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
7mo ago
r/neoliberal on suicide watch rn.
I know, reddit. But they are so confident that she’s a Russian agent. What’s the deal with that? Is it just normal radlib demoralized Russia hysteria? It seems deeper than that.
On a related note; I’ve been on Reddit a lot in the last week, mostly out of morbid curiosity. I had stayed away for probably 12-18 months, and it’s terrible. A much worse echo chamber than I remember, and it was incredibly bad before. Good god.
I think it’s possible that you are underestimating how utterly shameless these people are.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
1yr ago
I guess they called for a culture war, and no one showed up.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
4mo ago
This is exactly why “you can just do things.” Is such a powerful meme / rallying cry at the moment. It’s funny but also 100% true; you can just do things.
Agency is back, baby.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
9mo ago
This is absolutely incredible. It’s like a small scale version of what happened to Japan after the second atomic bomb went off.
Allow me to explain; the first atomic bomb going off could have been seen as a one off, or an experiment, or as a luck break from the perspective of the Japanese.
The second one sent a clear message; we have more and we can keep doing this as long as we like.
It really was that second one that sent Japan into capitulation mode.
Now this is not as extreme as atomic bombs of course but the paranoia and fear from this following the pager attack has to be off the charts extreme. There’s absolutely no way of knowing if this is it, or they have something more in stored.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
2yr ago
I’m also quite baffled at the assumption that the burden of proof is on omnivores to defend their diet.
It’s honestly incredibly arrogant. there’s so much stacked against it I think it takes a very fanatical type of person to have that level of hubris.
I mean, just off the top of my head:
1.) Humans are omnivores. That’s how our bodies and brains evolved, and that’s the type of diet that interfaces most completely with us.
2.) Not everyone is a utilitarian, in fact I’d be amazed if even 10% of the population subscribe to beliefs that can be considered fully utilitarian. Outside of that belief system, suffering is often complicated to define and also is often considered morally neutral without greater context.
3.) Even if you are a utilitarian, the state of Nature most animals, including ancestral humans, existed in is incredibly rough and brutal and full of pain and suffering. It’s not a given that domesticated animals, even ones with very sad & short lives, would be better off without human intervention. Or that ending animal domestication will lower total suffering in the world. It’s not even close to a given. There’s a sanitized “Disney channel” version of animals’ lives that I feel that animal lovers sort of unconsciously project on a low level, but the truth is staggeringly cruel.
I could go on and on for hours about this. This is one of the few subjects I’ll likely never budge an inch on, I fully understand the other side of this issue and particularly the instinct not cause unneeded pain and suffering.
But whenever I hear hardcore vegans, which is to say any vegan at all, talk about this all I can think is “This ain’t it, chief”.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
1yr ago
In general, it seems apparent that leftists typically believe whole swathes of all possible political ideologies are either overt fascists, crypto-fascists, fascists in training or fascists in denial.
Understanding this explains a tremendous amount of their behavior & speech.
It’s also additionally amusing because these same people make fun of their republican uncle for saying something like “single payer is communist.” They do the same thing except even worse because it’s even less accurate.
The idea that a beltway libertarian or classical liberal is a fascist but just doesn’t know it yet is so absurd on its face that’s it’s laughable. But it’s a common belief on the hard left.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
7mo ago
I’m not sure if this was your intention but it legit made me laugh.
I don’t know much about Canadian politics but as an outsider, I think I came to that realization with that viral video clip of the two MPs going at it a while back.
One, a conservative, asked a very simple question; “How much does the average house in the Ottowa area cost?”.
The other, a liberal I assume, simply replied with a random accomplishment of the liberal government, completely ignoring the line of questioning.
The conservative asked the same question, and the liberal breathlessly did it again, just blurting out some non-sequitor factoid about the supposed accomplishments of the liberal government.
This went on and on for maybe like ten minutes straight, like literally 25 times.
It was so incredibly baldly dishonest I almost admired it.
Edit: Found it.
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