• 6 Posts
  • 182 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 29th, 2023

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  • If it makes you feel any better I’m lost as well since the points they made in their attempted speech is just incorrect.

    From 2000 through 2008, majorities ranging from 54% to 69% believed the federal government should ensure universal coverage in the U.S. (link)

    The rest is bizarre word ramblings, “he achieved something that nobody thought possible”, “his legacy will be dismantled”.

    It’s kinda interesting, like he’s specifically blaming you for hurting Obama’s reputation and the country at large… Not that people in charge should be held accountable or have some sort of standard for what they campaign for. I’m happy for the people who benefited from ACA, but plenty people still don’t and I imagine a lot of people don’t realize you are fined if you’re uninsured because of the act. Reminds me of being penalized for being homeless.

    In other words, unless the insurance premiums exceed 8 percent of your income, you’re a religious objector, a taxpayer with income below the tax-filing threshold, or a member of an Indian tribe, you’re required to have insurance. That is, unless you’d rather pay the penalty, which is enforced through the tax code system.

    It’s that same fucking shtick with the whole student loan debacle. Keep the current profit generating system in place and pass laws and subsidies to help prop it up and stay as lucrative as possible. Any actual awareness or targeting of the greed is completely swept under the rug, so it’s hard for me to get excited about this one step forward-two steps back bullshit. Especially when there’s already so many perfectly acceptable examples around the world to learn and develop functional systems from.



  • It’s just hyperbolic masculine capitalism being parroted. Live in the U.S. south and have dealt with many friends and their relatives who have said the same shit. I’ve been around long enough to see those same people completely fall apart when the lives at home just crumble because they’re too busy with work (illness, deaths in family, etc). They always eventually come to regret the decisions and times they’ve missed once they get in their later years.

    There’s nothing wrong with choosing to prioritize a work career in one’s life though, but hating on someone else’s choice is just ridiculous.




  • Cataphract@lemmy.mltoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldGolden Money Goat Loves You
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    26 days ago

    lol we’re getting into oxymoron territory with your use of “long and precise”. Again, you aren’t defining fascism and getting on multiple people about being wrong. It’s rather comedic at this point and you keep pointing to a 20minute video for a “definition”. You’re disputing terms while declaring someone needs to watch a whole video series instead of… defining or saying what constitutes fascism.

    If you can’t clearly state for everyone wtf you’re talking about specifically, I doubt the video helped at all and you’re just tripling down on trying to be snooty.


  • Cataphract@lemmy.mltoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldGolden Money Goat Loves You
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    26 days ago

    Ty, wasn’t trying to dispute correctness, just they never actually defined or tried to give a clear explanation (besides a 20min video not everyone is going to watch). As we’ve seen it’s a simple definition but even the video points out it’s more complicated because of how people are using it, highlighting just how important it is to make direct and concise declarations of what we’re talking about so there is no confusion.


  • Oh man, talk about a head fuck. Sending drugs/immigrants to Canada and guns/gangs to Mexico. We(usa) are rightly fucked as a society, over half of us probably feel a weird joy of being such a cluster fuck of a trailerpark neighbor. The shit we prop up, including narcissistic actions being praised, makes me glad that I’m seeing so many countries pushing back on importing more “American culture” and going by their own light.

    I think the “seriously fuck america” is a little much and vague. Even if immigrants and drugs from Mexico were previously perceived wrongly (at least in amplitude and hysteria), I never thought “fuck Mexico”. I think people are kinda forgetting that even if the coaches have changed, this is still America’s playbook. They’re not going to play unless they make us pay. We’ve been targeting smaller countries and doing the same bullshit with a clean smile to the world for decades. Look at the ACA, now everyone HAS to have insurance (doesn’t help affordability, and sometimes costs more), and they’ve tacked on a yearly fine if you don’t comply while basically allowing the government to subsidize the insurance ceos.

    We’re a publicly traded country now though instead of being privately cut-throat. Stock holders want their continued profits and they see bigger gains in bigger countries.


  • It’s kinda sad, I’ve been back and forth with online ordering actually being a “logistical god-send” for our chaotic consumerism. I mean think about it, one full delivery truck that can bring in a full neighborhoods worth of goods for the week/day versus every single car being driven to only transport a portion or less of a trunk (sometimes driving out for even one item).

    In a perfect “non-monopoly/Amazon couldn’t exist world” where everyone could plan ahead and have everything shipped, you could save on store/display costs (including environmental) and just have a smaller distribution center from semi-trucks to box trucks for local deliveries. Could even go from box truck to local end point distribution (biking,etc) so city spaces could go car-less. Keep the local farmers/co-op markets for socializing/freshest produce-shipping and bob’s your uncle.

    Instead we have the worlds most horrific amalgamation where you have underpaid people in fucking V8 trucks delivering a few bags of groceries someone has “door dashed” from the local grocery store or just a burger from a local joint so they don’t have to cook because they only have an hour of free time a day.


  • It’s so bad and cyclical while just being unavoidable in some areas. On the map, you’ll notice how heavily populated northern europe is compared to a lot of sparse areas which have less options. I’m in a relatively normal size town and there is one big box choice and maybe one defunct “local” store that’s barely getting by.

    I had to beg a guy in a corner shopping center “repair shop” for a small syringe of thermal paste when I ran out (I’m not fucking kidding, there’s just no electronics store anywhere nearby, losing Radioshack was fucking hard). Dude at the shop was the only reason I didn’t have to go online and wait a week (he wasn’t selling it, just had spare for his own use). My trades and hobbies make this a common occurrence throughout the week. Most places now are forced to sell on Amazon to remain competitive (Amazon dominates with shipping cost reduction alone for large items), finding a local or even nationally based company through search algorithms becomes harder and harder as they can’t pay to keep up with SEO bullshit. You can try to keep it all legit but with competitive monopolies everywhere you just eventually find out your favorite company no longer really exists.

    There are some suppliers I could shop with but each one is an hour drive in different directions and 80% of the time they’re ordering the same shit through the same companies I would be using if I went online. It works sometimes, but takes so much effort it becomes it’s own full-time job that no one has the ability to keep up with.


  • Cataphract@lemmy.mltoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldGolden Money Goat Loves You
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    26 days ago

    Good lord, you said nuh uh and linked a 20 minute video with no explanation. Congrats

    lazy transcript of intro copy/paste.

    fascism is a term i’ve heard thrown around since i was a kid but most of the time idiomatically fascist is what you called your type a passive-aggressive roommate stop being such a fascist deborah through osmosis i knew its literal meaning was among a cluster of related words authoritarianism totalitarianism white supremacy nationalism dictatorship but for much of my life if you pressed me to define any of these words i could have only said you know nazis hitler the gestapo you know nazis this colloquializing of fascism and its association with the cultural shorthand for pure evil makes it very hard to discuss as an ideology because even using the word fascism sounds both hyperbolic and like a punch below the belt to call a person group or idea fascist is to exaggerate for the purpose of dragging them this counter-intuitively prevents us from criticizing fascist groups even though most everyone agrees fascism is terrible because saying it you sound ridiculous you’re talking about indiana jones villains so i’m going to be using the word fascism kind of a lot in this video hoping that we can semantically satiate it just enough that it’s connotative meanings irreverent sarcasm and the envisioning of stormtroopers are dulled to the point that we can talk about fascism as a system of beliefs and as a mode of political organizing and about who practices it today our work necessitates a conversation about fascism specifically white fascism, fascism fascism fascism

    Is there like a direct point you’re trying to highlight for the class? It’s honestly weird seeing “White Fascism”, like… just the distinguishing ‘white’ term and making ‘white fascism’ seem more important than just regular ol ‘fascism’ makes this feel like a whole other level of racism/white superiority that blows my mind.


  • Cataphract@lemmy.mltoComic Strips@lemmy.world"Politics"
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    28 days ago

    I try to reply instead of downvoting, healthier for discourse and sometimes opens up new perspectives from others. I also try not to abandon conversations (though I have hundreds in my inbox I haven’t gotten to).

    I don’t appreciate the shift in trying to pin me with your own thoughts so probably best to end the chain, but I’ll still validate and not argue your experience because it is art (begrudgingly admitted) and you are human.


  • Cataphract@lemmy.mltoScience Memes@mander.xyzfuck this
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    28 days ago

    You do yourself and any potential ally a disservice when you spout negative bullshit like this. And it is bullshit because what you’re saying is nonsensical and fucking being upvoted (come on lemmy, we’re better than this).

    What do pro-Palestinian student protesters at US universities want?

    They are demanding that their schools, many with massive endowments, financially divest from Israel.

    What is the effective message of protesting at a university over Trump? People have been organizing protests, but what part are you demanding the students actually protest? Just… protest Trump in general? at the University? Protesting till he’s taken out of office or some action is performed?

    I honestly want to see the rest of the government make a choice of bowing or standing up to the would-be king before we call to send in the children. Let us know where everyone in the system stands because once Uni kids get involved with mass protesting… it’s gonna get dicey real fast.

    I really hope the unwarranted attacks that everyone is spewing at each other is statistically on the decline, it really needs to be shot down the instant it’s seen so we don’t have actual trolls and bots getting footholds.




  • Cataphract@lemmy.mltoComic Strips@lemmy.world"Politics"
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    29 days ago

    I’ll just blanket reply @Snowclone@lemmy.world and @nahostdeutschland@feddit.org here since it’s all basically the same response I’m getting with attempts at insults sprinkled in.

    I guess I’m reiterating, “This is a shit comic that does nothing for anyone but the creator getting rageclicks.” It’s the difference between Dane Cook or George Carlin stand up, punching up or punching down, etc. “656 anti trans bills” (please actually link useful facts snowclown 1,2) This comic didn’t bring up a single one of them, or their authors or their districts where efforts could be made to make progressive movements.

    but again, I’m critiquing the comic and it’s attempt at … being something? I suppose I feel it’s more harmful than helpful, helps incite more rage than awareness. It’s an absurd scenario in which a maga person looking at this “knows” they wouldn’t stab someone so they can shrug off the hyperbole (while still supporting politicians that undermine transrights). On the progressive side we just have bullshit political polarization.

    There’s deeper conversations and fundamentals to get into which can be debated but irregardless my only gripe is “it’s a lazy comic taking easy swings at low hanging fruit that just further muddies the water instead of progressing anything”. I think if you’re going to be faux-edgy, you should probably stay out of making such direct political statement cartoons.


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    30 days ago

    I think I can explain the bad taste the comic leaves in my mouth regarding politics (and generally a lot of the discussion). It’s not that everything isn’t politics, it’s that everything is being framed as “two-sided politics”, black/white, red/blue. An argument can be made that with “the system”(america), yes voting action can be viewed that way. But it’s subjugating the entire conversation 100% of the time.

    For instance, what policy is this comic critiquing and bringing awareness too? It feels like the lowest effort-bottom of the barrel attempt at a political cartoon for the clicks and ragebait. It’s not calling attention to any individuals or organizations involved, it’s a satirical stabbing for communities that are really hurting.


  • Here’s my dilemma:

    • Been without cell service since the pandemic (eventually stopped using the smart phone altogether)
    • All my digital needs are satisfied, devices and functionality in every room for every purpose I need
    • Have multiple forms of solid and satisfactory communication channels (don’t need a cell number)

    I’ve thought about buying a model I could jailbreak, but again it’s just to use a system that’s abusive. “Download our app!”, “Use our digital coupons!”, “Link your phone number!”, “Scan our code!”, “Let us track your location for your convenience!”.

    I’m really a niche subgroup though, I already need other devices while at work that a phone wouldn’t suffice for. I kinda see more people going this route though. If your transportation has a computer, then what’s the endpoint in carrying a phone? If your job requires digital devices, the phone is basically reduced to a large brick of a communication device. I see more and more equipment being specialized and having added communication aspects for more complicated machinery, cell phones are not going to keep up with it in a general sense.

    tldr: cell phones are just a fad with an abusive system that will die out one day and be remembered like rotary phones. They’re generally subpar for any specific task and are only a place holder till we figure out better systems.



  • I guess I’m just legitimately confused about how to feel about it all. Lemmy is free, signing up on an instance is free, people are posting/creating content for free, moderators are taking care of the space for free. No one’s locking in to get “fed” through the entire chain. The arguments about abandoned apps doesn’t really compute since plenty paid and advertising friendly apps go under/stop developing further as well (and the entire Lemmy eco-system is free so silly points of “capitalism better”). There’s also the crux of “Apps just replace a webpage”, they’re really not reinventing the wheel here.

    But, if people prefer paid apps, if the developers want to construct the apps in that manner, have at it. I do think spreading awareness of what apps are out there is important, and how they operate (this is YSK after all). I also wouldn’t spend time in my day coming into defend organizations that want to monetize on open source community projects either.