ajuuiomml
2yr ago
The victory I wanted was for everyone else to not care, too. Instead, I got LGBTQ2A+ climbing night at the local gym, corporations under the auspices of straight white women plastering rainbows on every surface, and “we believe love is love and kindness is everything” along with casual discussions on the internet of the moral imperative to punch my face.
We replaced homophobia with political enmity, not indifference. To me, the pride flag feels sorta akin to the confederate flag. Its not exactly a symbol of hate or exclusion for most of the people flying it, but it sure feels that way on this side of things.
Ukraine is not an ally of the US. We have entered no treaty as such and have no obligations. We have shipped them armaments to the tune of 100-250 billion dollars out of mutual interest. If the US is attacked by Canada today, tomorrow, or ten years from now, Ukraine is not sending troops, arms, or aid. Ukraine is not entitled to our money.
Russia is a hostile nation, a rogue state, and our geopolitical adversary, but it is not our enemy. We are not at war with Russia and owning Putin is not our goal.
Our actual European allies, NATO or otherwise, are not entitled to our money on behalf of the defense of Ukraine. If Europe wants to indefinitely fund a stalemate, go for it, but fund it too well and risk a nuclear war. Just because we have crossed 5 red lines with no consequence doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
To recap my main thesis again, none of this makes any sense unless you incorporate the ideological component that needs Palestinians to remain stuck where they are, playing their role as the downtrodden in this grand theatrical production, all to ensure the jihadi casus belli against the Jews is maintained.
How many civil wars did Palestinians cause in neighboring countries in that time period? Egypt just couped the Muslim Brotherhood. Jordan fought a civil war against the PLO who wouldn’t stop attacking Israel and their king was assassinated by a Palestinian. The histories of Lebanon and Syria aren’t much different. No one will take the Palestinians because they will use their newfound freedom to once again attack Israel, either pulling their new benefactor into direct conflict with Israel or kicking off another messy regional/civil war.
Seriously, why would any country let alone a neighbor agree to extend citizenship again when every previous time ended in blood. At best, you get to support a bunch of impoverished, uneducated refugees whose greatest hopes and dreams rests upon the literal genocide of your nuclear armed neighbor.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
The problem with our Covid response was the urban/rural divide. Policies for the one don’t work for and aren’t wanted by the other. Unfortunately, that bifurcation closely corresponds to our political parties. It also didn’t help that the public health administration is seemingly tightly aligned with the Democratic Party. Covid functioned more like a mass shooting in the realm of the Culture War.
Accountability literally anywhere in government would be great…
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
Yeah, I provisionally voted this way although I am a citizen. It’s not just a problem for citizenship, but also identity in general. You can show up and claim to be anyone with no proof beyond a signature. I believe they only count those ballots for runoffs, but still it’s absurd.
Ca has implemented a system that is structurally incapable of catching voter fraud. It does not catch voter fraud. Ca claims the lack of convictions for fraud means none exists!
It is willfully bad epistemology.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
I think you'd be insane to not just fire anybody who joins a union on the spot.
This is explicitly illegal in the US and would land you in deep shit.
Why does the employer not simply fire the people doing the organizing?
That is illegal.
Sure you can all vote to make a starbucks union, but...I just won't hire anybody in your union.
I suspect this is also illegal in Michigan.
I don’t believe this good. I do believe that Libraries and Museums are institutions nearly entirely dominated by progressive Progressives and outright antagonistic to any conservative ideology, Drag Queen Story Hour and all.
I’d much rather have seen reform, but courts and Resist makes that harder than padlocks for some reason. I’d try anyway, but it’s not up to me, and barring that, I’d instead work to shift the funds to the States directly for disbursement. Total ideological capture by the enemy is a giant beacon to those already in the business of fucking shit up.
ajuuiomml
7mo ago
Protectionism in Argentina is off the charts. Maybe it doesn’t register as such by their standards.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
I’m reminded of the sidebar content or /r/antiwork which was truly shocking when I first read it:
Liberals say we should end employment discrimination. I say we should end employment. Conservatives support right-to-work laws. Following Karl Marx’s wayward son-in-law Paul Lafargue I support the right to be lazy. Leftists favor full employment. Like the surrealists—except that I’m not kidding—I favor full unemployment. Trotskyists agitate for permanent revolution. I agitate for permanent revelry.
Such a society is incompatible with one that has things like housing, running water, electricity, heating, plumbing, medicine, any form of transportation or sufficient food to keep its population of 300 million from starving. It would also not have any computers or software so turn the dial back to the 40s before your trip to the Middle Ages. It would be incapable of trade to get any of these things. It would be incapable of producing even art, because that too takes a huge amount of work. Committing to the is plan is commitment to genocide in a Great Leap Forward sort of way.
Beyond genocide, and outright impossibility, it strikes me that the author had all the aspirations of a 13 year old. A world of frivolity is not a utopia. A world with no responsibility is a world devoid of purpose.
I remain unclear how anyone engages with this writing seriously.
ajuuiomml
2yr ago
Mass shootings are a culture bound
mental disorder/meme in my book - chiefly spread via popular media. To end mass shootings, we must therefore target the meme. We stop them by not talking about them anymore. Stop showcasing people crying on TV. Stop discussing the shooters and their motivations. Stop the endless parade of sadness. Stop talking about common sense gun control and people taking your guns. Stop reporting on twitterers murdering other twitterers by twittering. Stop the X year memorials. Stop the everyone everywhere needs 3000% more mental healthcare or elsing. Stop the victimization porn. Stop the outrage porn. Just stop it all.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
Lesbian marriages have the highest divorce rates so it goes. Also, their stated reasons for divorce are just the same. I’m not sure about gay men.
The US-Canada trade war is off on off on off! Retaliatory 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum that is. The rest are still on.
"This cannot continue," Trump wrote. "The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. The artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear, and we will have the safest and most beautiful Nation anywhere in the World," he added.
“And your brilliant anthem, 'O Canada,' will continue to play, but now representing a GREAT and POWERFUL STATE within the greatest Nation that the World has ever seen!"
Even if Canada agreed to become a US state, Congress wouldn’t go for it because it would permanently cede every national election to the Democratic Party. Surely someone has told Trump!? Disregarding statehood as the {only way to stop this}, I’m guessing steel factories take longer than 4 years to build. An agent of chaos indeed!
So, what is the off ramp? The US annexes Canada and changes its name to Canada? Border state republicans take away Trump’s toys tariffs until he can play nicely? Global depression? Or the continuation of flip flopping tariffs to placate boredom?
Ukraine is not a member of NATO and is not entitled to the protection of the US nor is Europe entitled to dollars to do so. If an actual ally is attacked, article 5 it. If Europe wants to defend Ukraine and poke the most nuclear armed bear in the world, have at it. If Russia uses tactical nukes or glasses Kiev, let’s not pretend that at France or Germany would respond in kind, either. It would be suicide.
In my estimate, veganism is a form of deliberate cultural imperialism, centered in practice on moralizing, whose central claim is the fungibility of food and the elevation of basic necessity over any other concern…
For most of humanity, the meaning of food is culture, tradition, religion, and history. How do we practice those things or engage with external ones as a vegan? How would you break bread without the bread?
Veganism places no value on the personal or the past. It doesn’t particularly care that cuisines have meaning and value in and of themselves. How do I eat the food of my people as a vegan? How do I celebrate with them? What do we do when we gather? Veganism demands I eat foreign crops that can’t possibly be grown here which can only be prepared in ways authentic to no one.
If the ethical treatment of animals is a concern we can now engage, let’s do so. The unhealthy American diet is an eminent problem, so let’s make it better. Homogenizing the strongest component of culture world wide into beans is not a good solution.
ajuuiomml
2yr ago
while men generally seem uninterested in female protagonists
How do you put a female protagonist in a story for men, who occupies a traditional male role? You need a woman who embodies honor/courage/valor/stoicism/risk taking in the face of immediate personal danger and you also need a damn good reason why it’s a woman doing the job.
We don’t see this in modern fiction (targeting men) because the characters are pretty universally terribly written. I imagine it’s at least partially due to the authors being outright inimical to the role and it’s requirements (except as a vehicle for empowerment) and their would be audience alike.
It’s not impressive or engaging when woman does classic man thing better than all of the doubting men, overcoming the inevitably evil male antagonist, but that seems to be the only plot now. I’ll point out it’s the opposite of empowering, too.
Give me more Ripley! She isn’t a paragon of female empowerment who breaks the glass ceiling through a newly learned sense of self worth and boss bitch power. (Disregarding the allegory of the horror of childbirth…) she deliberately faces down a terrifyingly gruesome death to protect a girl from the same because everyone else is already dead.
I’d gladly watch more (T1/2) Sarah Connors, Buffy, Scully, or even Margot Hanson for a contemporary reference.
ajuuiomml
2yr ago
If The Church is any consideration, universalism is not a draw. The liberal branches are dying and the conservative ones are expanding. In my estimate, you can’t organize people around a belief in nothing in particular, nor can any religion exist which asks nothing of its parishioners. How do you evangelize when you don’t have the Truth and everyone else’s truth is just as valid?
The left and the right have conflicting myths about the reason for the country - a city on a hill versus original sin. We can replace those myths with another, but not with Political Unitarianism.
A message via polling & committee is not a viable path to victory. Democrats need an actual leader with charisma and conviction, truly alien since Obama. In the ongoing Year of the Trump, the salient messages have been “resist”, “not Trump”, “woke” to a lesser extent, and “mumbling” at the moment. Somehow, I came out of the SotU shit show with a more favorable view of Trump even though I vehemently dislike every one of his policy positions or how he is implementing them. Democrats somehow came away looking even more effete. Resist: for a Congressperson to hold a placard or coordinate attire for an opposition speech.
I would go for accountability, the general acceptance of reality, and a clear, positive message for the future of the country. This bold proposal would require the Democratic Party to both run a primary and respect the outcome so it’s unlikely.
Generally, the ruling makes sense to me: neither Congress nor the States may criminalize the presidency itself. Acts such as firing generals or political officers at the agencies are protected and are not subject to review. Acts further away from the core are subject to commensurately more scrutiny. Just the same, the States may not criminalize the act of ruling against them in court and then arrest judges. Assassinating uncooperative judges is not a core function of the office and would be subject to review.
Clearly we need some balance here. A narrow ruling would result in opposing states’ AGs bringing endless criminal charges against the sitting president, effectively making the office subservient to the states.
The peaceful transfer of power will only exist as long as we don’t prosecute our political rivals as such. If the penalty for holding office is jail, may as well just hold onto it for as long as possible.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
There are hundreds of applications per tenure track position - departments do not and will not hire out conservatives. Adjuncts are in no position to demand reform and this wouldn’t be it, anyway. The problem goes back to grad school and allowed research topics/positions…
The problem is worsening. We see increasing adoption of actual litmus tests (mandatory diversity statements) in which conservative positions are considered tantamount to hate speech.
How exactly would you have conservatives engage or reform this system?
ajuuiomml
2yr ago
You have the wrong culprit. It isn’t because of the studios or data per se. The problem is international revenue as a percentage of the total. Asia pacific alone is like 2x the domestic market. Big studios make movies that are accessible/salient to China, India, the US, and maybe to a lesser extent, Europe. The largest common denominator is MCU, which doesn’t really have gay people, dialog, romance, or Taiwan. Both the problems and solutions are violence. Why doesn’t Thor solve homelessness or Wakanda fix fentanyl? Because neither exist of course, just like actual injuries from all of that play fighting.
Maybe with the reemergence of revanchist Russia, we can make movies were they are the baddies again. Rambo, volume 8, back in the USSR!
ajuuiomml
3mo ago
Yes, our expectation should be a global recession/depression with lots of international supply chain snafus. The market is currently saying surely Trump isn’t that reckless
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
The only study I know of for auditing voting was done by the NYPD in which case every fraudulent vote was successful except for one. The officer claimed to be the son of a poll worker who was in jail at the time! I believe the elections department worked to make such audits illegal in response. I can not find a link.
ajuuiomml
2yr ago
I didn’t watch the video - it’s hard for me to take the topic and it’s high priests seriously; AI safety is a reformulated Pacal’s wager.
Even if you believe otherwise, there are maybe one or two universes at most in which we could solve the coordination problem of stopping everyone from networking a bunch of commodity hardware and employing 30 engineers to throw publicly available data sets at it using known algos. A not too wealthy person could solo fund the entire thing to say nothing of criminal syndicates, corporations or nation states. This one is not going back in the bag when everyone involved has every incentive to do the opposite.
NPR very clearly has a mission of political advocacy. The angle on literally every single story is “how does it affect people of color/women/minorities”. Frequently, resulting in bizarre, inappropriate, or completely uninformative segments.
This is the segment when I turned off marketplace for good - which advocates for “prioritizing black women” via the “black women best” framework. In the whole segment, no policy position or course of action is actually advanced - at all. Very little evidence is offered to suggest that prioritizing black women will actually benefit everyone (trickle up) or that any interventions would be cost effective. The guest even goes as far as to suggest nothing at all will work:
…with the only proscription being:
The segment is so off putting that I come away taking the position opposite than it advanced even though I agree it’s not great that black women have a higher unemployment rate.
https://www.marketplace.org/2020/09/01/why-centering-black-women-in-the-economy-could-benefit-everyone/
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