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@helgaseensomeshit
one of the most challenging skills i've had to learn as an adult is the art of figuring out whether i'm proportionally annoyed with someone or just tired and overstimulated and looking for reasons to be pissed off
congratulations to the only post i've ever had breach 100k notes without any real discourse or fighting, just a lot of people wearily going, oh, god, same
Just started Join or Die on Netflix [based on the book Bowling Alone] and this such a timely documentary because people have got to get off the internet and start rejoining their local communities. Your feeling of loneliness and isolation is 100% because you've made the internet your whole world and warped your sense of community.
Can the internet have communities? Sure. But there is something about being in commune with your neighbors that is vitally important to your mental, physical, and social well-being. You need to have social interaction with people older than you. You need to have social interaction with people younger than you. You need to have social interaction with people who speak differently than you do. You need to have social interaction with people who see the world differently than you do. And you need to have it in person because you need to be faced with this reality in order to grow and change.
And even worse, by not being in person, you convince your reality is one where you are the Main Character and that Only You Have the Answers. That your communities are filled with terribly people with "bad opinions." When in reality, those "Grandpa Clubs" like Rotary or Kiwanis or Lions or Freemasons are raising money for a new playground for little kids or buying new books for the school library or working with sister clubs in Nicaragua to bring materials for improved water access for remote village.
But these very concrete actions are not the only important part of these clubs. You create friendships and partnerships. People who do care about you and are actually there for you. I am giving a kidney in January and the two clubs I am in have made it clear if I need ANYTHING at all during recovery to call them. They'll drive me to the store, help me with laundry, come sit with me if the cabin fever gets to be too much. THAT is mutual aid! THAT is what improves the lives of others!
Are most of them populated by older folks? Sure! Because they're holding the line as long as they can until the younger generations step up. And they want you to! They want these wonderful organizations that cater to community, to hobbies, to interests to survive because we deserve to have places where we can geek out about hat pins with fellow collectors or enthusiasts. We should have a place where we can go ride a train with other train lovers. We have to have a place where people who want a healthy, safe community can work together to make that happen.
The solution to terminal Main Character Syndrome is getting outside and being with other people. Only then do you really live in the world. Go join Rotary. Become a museum member. Buy that train ticket. Geek out with an antiques group. If you can find these people online, then that same internet can help you find them offline, too.
Ok so can someone explain to me how cryptocurrency pollutes? Like what crazy calculations are they running that they need enough brainpower to significantly effect things? Like I’m assuming what’s causing the pollution is increased electricity consumption but… how does sending lil pretend money tokens back and forth or whatever cause so much pollution?
Also, what the fuck is “mining”? How d'you mine… like bitcoin is not a naturally occurring resource, and I assume that you can’t just make it, cause that would make it instantly worthless… help?
So you get “coins” as a reward for performing the cryptographic calculations necessary to update the public ledger which is the blockchain. This is, by design, an increasingly complex and resource intensive process to slow down the collection of (intentionally finite) coins.
So every transaction with bitcoins requires the ledger to be updated with the current ownership of every already existing bitcoin, which also requires encrypting and decrypting a bunch of information and sharing it across the public ledger. So every transaction made with bitcoins increases the energy requirements of updating the ledger making it harder and harder to complete the latest version and get the coin which is a reward for doing that work.
There’s a lot I don’t fully understand myself but the long and short of it is that the actual value of any crypto currency is pretty much just what people agree on, except instead of a fiat currency where a government says it’s worth something and a mint that makes physical currency, there’s a bunch of nerds who agree that solving certain math problems is worth rewarding.
Feeling like adding on for a bit of context, I know it’s kind of hard to understand how mining for really any kind of crypto is hard to imagine, but seeing what a bitcoin mining facility looks like for the first time really helped me realize just how energy intensive it is.
See all these warehouses? They’re quite literally filled to the brim with specialized computers that do nothing but mine, each one filled with thousands of these computers, just row after row of this:
So all the power consumption winds up adding up like crazy.
Yep, that’s why cryptocurrency and NFTs are considered major contributors to pollution – because the energy needs of all those computers doing the calculation are equivalent to a medium sized country. Currently, crypto consumes more energy than Argentina.
Guess what’s inside a lot of mining rigs? Gowan, guess.
Graphics cards!
Lots and lots of these puppies side by side, spinning their little fans as fast as they can go because as it turns out: GPUs are perfect for doing the calculations required for mining cryptocurrency.
Which means amateur miners buy a lot of these things.
So many, in fact, that there is now (May 2021) a world-wide shortage of NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards and building a new gaming rig is damn near impossible because of the shortage.
OR you can pay a ridiculously inflated price by GPU scalpers on eBay.
Seriously. Places that sell GPUs impose quantity limits because if they don’t… some crypto asshole will buy out their entire stock in one go.
But the “good” news is that the professional miners (like the Bitmain site up there, in the photos) use dedicated ASIC mining rigs which don’t use consumer GPUs. But (bad news) they DO use the same sort of chips that NVIDIA & AMD rely on to make their products, which just starves the supply pipeline at a different point.
Bottom line: not only does cryptocurrency mining consume terawatts of electricity, it also consumes megatons of computer hardware. Which is expensive to produce (in resource terms, like rare metals, petroleum, water, electricity, paper) and will, someday, require even MORE resources to recycle. Or else it ends up in a landfill.
Note that current dedicated mining rigs are so highly specialized they are useless for anything other than mining. They cannot be easily repurposed to (say) sequence DNA or fold proteins for miracle cures.
What a waste.
was anyone gonna tell me that some nerds peepee poopoo “currency” is the reason why graphics cards are sold out everywhere or was i supposed to find that out from comments under a screenshot from twitter user whoreganic cop puncher explaining how bitcoin is just an artificially complicated math problem
Also I’ve read be very wary about buying used graphic cards cause there’s a chance it’s one that’s mostly heavily used from one of these bastards. These thing are very heavily used so a used one sold by one of these guys would be on its last leg of life from being on 24/7
Make sure there’s a return policy just be very careful if you’re buying used.
To be more fair than Crypto miners deserve, they’re only one of the factors driving the current chip shortage.
The other issues are both related to the pandemic. The first one is that manufacturing of a many things, especially cars, slowed down quite a bit until recently when the factories reopened. But so many reopened at the same time and went full blast that the demand far outstripped the supply, a supply already reduced by the shutdown of those factories.
The other bottleneck is literal mining. Computer chips rely on silicon and various metals, especially gold and copper to conduct electricity to do their work. In normal times this means that crypto’s environmental impact is even higher than just the energy requirements. But in the meantime the mines and refineries that provide the raw materials were also shut down in many cases due to the pandemic, squeezing the supply further.
Mining shutdowns have also caused a huge shortage of ammunition in the US (brass bullet casings need copper). Which means for anybody wanting to buy consumer electronics of a reasonable complexity you’re competing against both ends of the libertarian spectrum, the crypto techies and the gun nuts.
Really glad someone brought this home to actual mining, and I want to show you what the mines look like:
These are silica mines, necessary for making ALL things requiring silicon, among other things.
These are rare-earth mineral mines.
Both are required for the manufacture of computer technologies. Both requre excavating huge amounts of earth, decimating all life in that area and more often than not, ruining land that is supposed to be stewarded by indigenous people.
They’re very, very bad for the environment.
This is where the ‘online’ world comes from. It’s not another place. Every transaction, every pixel comes from the ground.
So yeah, crypto mining is definitely deceptive. That ‘value’ isn’t coming from nowhere. It’s ripped from the earth.
Just picture it. Imagine what all this computing power could be used for. The energy expense of a 45 million inhabitants country spent on chip board heat. Imagine the scientific calculations. Picture a world where all this computing power goes into solving poverty and resource allocation. Imagine a world where profit doesn’t come first.
Imagine a world where we didn’t use all that computing power and LEFT THOSE MINERALS IN THE EARTH. Imagine a world where all those pictures of mineral mines were forest again. Imagine a world were the CO2 emission from computers & internet usage went down instead of up. Like, I really don’t think the answer is ‘imagine is we destroyed the planet for a better reason’.
The thing is, we could almost certainly do *both*. We could do some impressive things with even part of the computer power being wasted on this shit, AND we could still leave a bunch of those minerals in the earth. It doesn’t always have to be just one or the other (in fact, most often it doesn’t have to be just one or the other), there are ways to use tech and avoid destroying the planet.
This is the absolute best way this could have ended.
During a breathless rant on Steve Bannon’s War Room from the InfoWars studio, Jones called the news of The Onion’s acquisition “ridiculous,” referred to U.S. regulators as “imperial troops,” and insisted that the auction rules had been changed at the last minute by the “deep state.”
...
In the run-up to the auction, Jones had appeared to be under the impression that “good guys” on the right would buy the fringe network, though he did not reveal who they were. Several groups expressed interest in InfoWars assets, including a coalition of liberal and anti-disinformation watchdog groups, according to The Daily Beast, as well as some of Jones’s own supporters, like Donald Trump ally Roger Stone.
The Onion’s monumental media scoop was made in partnership with the families of Sandy Hook victims, whom Jones owes at least $85 million after he lost a $1.5 billion case for claiming that the massacre, which claimed the lives of 20 first graders and six adults, was a hoax.
Today we celebrate a new addition to the Global Tetrahedron LLC family of brands. And let me say, I really do see it as a family. Much like
Published: November 14, 2024
Today we celebrate a new addition to the Global Tetrahedron LLC family of brands. And let me say, I really do see it as a family. Much like family members, our brands are abstract nodes of wealth, interchangeable assets for their patriarch to absorb and discard according to the opaque whims of the market. And just like family members, our brands regard one another with mutual suspicion and malice.
All told, the decision to acquire InfoWars was an easy one for the Global Tetrahedron executive board.
Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic “panic” and growing steadily ever since, InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses. With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal. They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but can’t even put a man on the Moon.
Through it all, InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of society—values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron.
No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already-forgotten name) and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.
Make no mistake: This is a coup for our company and a well-deserved victory for multinational elites the world over.
What’s next for InfoWars remains a live issue. The excess funds initially allocated for the purchase will be reinvested into our philanthropic efforts that include business school scholarships for promising cult leaders, a charity that donates elections to at-risk third world dictators, and a new pro bono program pairing orphans with stable factory jobs at no cost to the factories.
As for the vitamins and supplements, we are halting their sale immediately. Utilitarian logic dictates that if we can extend even one CEO’s life by 10 minutes, diluting these miracle elixirs for public consumption is an unethical waste. Instead, we plan to collect the entire stock of the InfoWars warehouses into a large vat and boil the contents down into a single candy bar–sized omnivitamin that one executive (I will not name names) may eat in order to increase his power and perhaps become immortal.
All will be revealed in due time. For now, let’s enjoy this win and toast to the continued consolidation of power and capital.
Bryce P. Tetraeder, Global Tetrahedron CEO
I can't believe I allowed myself to believe that a man could be an ally.
So for the record here he is making fun of the very idea that rape jokes could ever be a problem. All that energy put into a video, hiring actors, directing them, editing etc etc... so he can make fun of women not wanting their tragedy to be treated by men like it's a joke. He's a rapist.
I want to be very clear that I'm not arguing with you in any way. You are right that rape jokes are a problem. I didn't know about this video. My whole life has become a thing where I look at something or someone and then later find out that it wasn't what I thought it was. At this point, all I can say is, "well that's a shame", and idk what else because it always ends up more disappointing than I thought. This is the reason why I don't really use the term ally in my personal life, because I find that it's not really helpful. Someone can be an ally about some things and then totally shock you when they aren't about other things. I try to hope for the best, but I also try to be realistic in expectations so that if/when I'm disappointed it doesn't affect me as much emotionally. What a shame though.
However, I think this video is more complicated than that, and I love analyzing things, so don't mind me. Looking at the video and his response to someone in the comments, it looks to me that the main point of this video was to point out that at the end of the day jokes are not the same as violent acts in any circumstance and it can be harmful to treat them as the same. It's not good to conflate them because it doesn't help survivors of violence. The woman who is upset at the rape joke, Jennifer, says "I never thought it would happen to me", in the same way that a caricature of a real rape survivor might, in complete seriousness. "Sensitive Jim" says he lost his wife in a horrible rape joke incident and then cries. He tearfully tells Jennifer that she is not alone in this. At the end, the unnamed woman comes in looking for the actual survivors group and Jennifer gets mad at her and yells at her "there are people in here with real problems". And then, quite literally, everyone claps. No one is self aware enough in this scene.
I feel like there are several jokes and commentaries. One of them could be that the idea of rape jokes being a problem is a joke, but I think there is a more clearly identifiable theme here, of about how tone deaf they all seem. A man who lost his wife makes it all about himself, and conflates his experience with Jennifer's, who even in the narrative of this video still has experienced something more direct than him (he didn't experience the rape joke that killed his wife). I feel like the main commentary being made though is not that it's silly for rape survivors to not like rape jokes but that it's silly for people who are not rape survivors to act like jokes are the exact same as rape, and that therefore you have experienced violence as severe as rape if you hear a rape joke or if your wife heard a rape joke. This is not the same as simply not liking those kinds of jokes. I think it's making fun of people who are tone deaf and a little self centered in that way, when they hear about real and violent things that happen, and then want some way to make it about themselves even if they haven't experienced anything like that. I don't think the joke is that he's making fun of "women not wanting their tragedy to be treated by men like it's a joke", because within this narrative the only tragedy that the people in this survivors group have experienced is a joke. The doctor, theoretically, would have experienced more tragedy in his 10 years of reconstructing victims, but even he is not a rape survivor. It's such an nonsensical concept that after 10 years of reconstructing victims, he says he can finally do good work at the rape joke survivor group. So nonsensical that it has to be comical. None of them are rape survivors because they weren't in that room, and you know they aren't because they all approvingly clapped at Jennifer yelling at and diminishing the needs of the actual survivor.
But at the same time, nothing exists in a vacuum. Jokes aren't always just jokes, and just because I took this video that way doesn't mean others will. Joke is not just about how it was intended but also how it was received. In most cases, it seems like jokes do give some sort of permission for others to behave in certain ways. If not, jokes still do make light of and diminish some kinds of things, and I don't think that's always good. But at the same time, conflating real and violent acts with jokes kind of does the same kind of diminishing, and we shouldn't do that either for the same reason. I'm not a fan of accusing someone of rape if there's no evidence, on the basis of a joke, for the reason that that is also a form of diminishment. So while jokes technically are not the same as violent acts, jokes are still part of the same power structure that even makes rape something possible and excusable for men, something jokable. Just because something is on a different level in the power structure doesn't make it necessarily better or excusable for the way it contributes, but, it is still ultimately not the same as things more serious than it.
But is this video's main joke about rape, or is the joke about the people who are self-congratulatory for every little action that they do but have such little self-awareness that they can't identify when they actively hurt someone else (such as real survivors)? I think the main, intended joke is at the expense of self centered, bleeding heart types of performative "activists", who take everyone's problems for themselves, like too much. To the point where real people/survivors are not even involved in their own groups anymore and get yelled at for trying to involved in their own groups. After Jennifer yells at the woman, the counselor hugs her and praises her and kind of gropes her and sniffs her hair. A lot of these performative activists are honestly hiding something behind the performance, and I think that was a bit of a dig at those types too, who see these kinds of things as opportunities for their own questionable motives.
When British people first voted for Brexit I honestly believed in all of the excuses: that some of the votes were protest votes against Cameron, coming from stupid people who didn't understand that they would not be able to vote to go back to the EU; that most people were remainers but they were apathetic abstainers who had stayed home; etc etc...
And then the same people voted for Boris Johnson, which is both voting for Brexit and for fascism. It became clear that fascism and isolationism simply is at the heart of the UK.
And now it's the same thing with Americans voting for Trump after all he's said and done throughout the years, and even though Kamala Harris was one of the best candidates the Democratic party has ever put out. This was the result of both Republicans being Nazis and Democrats (of both sexes) refusing to show up for a woman or for women in general. This has been an eye-opening experience.
The Environmental Protection Agency just finalized one of the Biden administration’s only outstanding climate rules, aimed at cracking down
The Environmental Protection Agency just finalized one of the Biden administration’s only outstanding climate rules, aimed at cracking down on leaks of methane — a potent planet-warming gas with an outsized impact on the climate.
The rule, proposed nearly a year ago, was mandated by the Inflation Reduction Act, which could make it more difficult for the second Trump administration to dismantle.
The new rule charges high-emitting oil and gas producers a fee for wasting methane above a certain threshold by venting or flaring it into the atmosphere instead of capturing it. The methane fee will be charged by the federal government until the companies fix the leaks.
This fee was paired with financial incentives for oil and gas companies to fix leaky pipelines or infrastructure.
Methane is an odorless and invisible gas that has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. Methane is the main component of the gas that heats our homes and powers our stoves, and it’s one of the main byproducts of oil and gas drilling.
It’s also dramatically warming the planet. An international body of scientists has concluded that the concentration of methane in the atmosphere is higher now than any time in at least 800,000 years. It’s responsible for as much as a third of the global warming the planet has experienced so far, according to the EPA.
The rule could prove tricky for the incoming Trump administration to overturn because the program was included in Biden’s climate law, which passed Congress in 2022. Undoing it would take another act of Congress; while not impossible if Republicans take the House of Representatives, it could be an uphill climb and take longer than if the Trump administration were acting on its own.
“EPA has been engaging with industry, states, and communities to reduce methane emissions so that natural gas ultimately makes it to consumers as usable fuel instead of as a harmful greenhouse gas,” EPA administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.
According to the EPA, this rule alone would prevent 1.2 million metric tons of methane from polluting the atmosphere – the equivalent of taking nearly 8 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year.
One more thing before I go bury myself in a pile of blankets:
To everyone who voted Democrat for the first time, every former trump supporter who voted for Harris, everyone who voted for the first time, every Republican who did not want this result and voted for Harris, thank you.
I got a text from my cousin who has voted third party for decades who voted for a Democrat for the first time yesterday.
My aunt who voted for trump in 2016 and who's husband is a proud MAGA sent me a Snapchat late last night saying she is one of the women who secretly voted for Harris.
A former friend from college who used to be deep in the Republican party posted on Facebook yesterday that he voted for Harris.
I know you aren't the only ones.
I see that you tried.
Even though we lost, I think it's important to remember that we put out a very strong, good, and meaningful effort—don't forget that, because they would like to claim that it wasn't. It was. We got a lot of new people who saw the meaning in this election and chose to vote for Kamala Harris within that context. And even if we're all very different in daily life, we were on the same team when it mattered most. That can be challenging to do sometimes, but this is one of the important things that they will talk about in the history books in the future. They are claiming that it was a landslide; factually it is not. 70 million and still counting voted for Kamala Harris. Absolutely all of those votes—all of those people behind those votes—mattered before we knew the results, and they still matter even now. Don't let this loss undermine all of the meaning in this. Don't let any of their sore winning behavior take that meaning away from you.
Incumbents everywhere are doing poorly. America just proved it’s not exceptional.
Uniform swings call for uniform explanations. And the most plausible one, given global context, is anti-incumbency.
“The central plot lines of the [2024 election] are already clear, and not that dissimilar from four years ago,” the political scientist John Sides writes at Good Authority. “In 2020, an unpopular incumbent lost reelection. In 2024, an unpopular incumbent’s party lost reelection.”
Such an explanation makes more sense than a pure focus on ideology. In fact, the global context suggests that a Republican president likely would have also performed poorly if they were in office. While some right-wing insurgents have performed well in the past two years, most notably Javier Milei in Argentina, right-wing incumbents have often underperformed — with ruling conservative parties in Britain, India, and Poland all suffering notable setbacks.
If we are indeed seeing America fall in line with the global pattern, it clarifies some of what just happened. But it also raises a new, difficult question: Why are people so dissatisfied with their governments at this particular point in time?
One credible answer is inflation. Countries around the world experienced rising prices after the Covid-19 pandemic and attendant global supply chain disruptions, and voters hate inflation. Even though the inflation rate has gone down in quite a few places, including the United States, prices remain much higher than they were prior to the pandemic. People remember the low prices they’ve lost, and they are hurting — hurting enough that they see an otherwise-booming economy as a failure.
As much sense as the inflation story makes, it remains an unproven one. We’ll need a lot more evidence, including detailed data on the US election that isn’t available yet, to be sure whether it’s right.
But we can be fairly confident, given reams of polling data showing Americans were dissatisfied with the country’s direction, that a desire for a change in leadership played at least some role in Trump’s return to power — part of a global trend away from stability and toward upheaval, however chaotic or even dangerous it will prove to be.
Spreading nihilism and cynicism on other people’s posts and into other people’s DMs right now is just fucking annoying. We’re all upset but don’t be surprised if no one has patience for you trying to bring people down further
Not to be like that but we as people can always choose how to react to something, and I'll never believe that choosing conspiracy, speculation, nihilism, cynicism, and any form of doomerism is helpful or healthy. Maybe for like a day or a few, I know we're all humans, but you gotta stop that at some point and accept reality. Choosing acceptance isn't about liking or condoning what happened, it's about you! Keeping you here in reality so you can be open to facts and evidence, and accurate observations of situations, which are the only ways you can realistically find effective solutions.
Guys, we're not going to engage in conspiracy theories, okay? Yes, there were psyops pushing for Trump and trying to fracture the Left. I've been telling you for years that anti-leftist psyops are ongoing; there will be psyops in 2026 and 2028.
Yes, there were bomb threats made to voting centers from Russian origins.
Polling places in Democratic-leaning areas of five swing states received bomb threats that officials said likely came from Russia.
No, there is not a discrepancy in the millions. No, there is not a vast conspiracy that, if revealed, could overturn the election result. No, a recount will not reveal enough discrepancies to change the result; Trump won by enough of a margin in multiple states that a few issues, which are common in most elections of this size, would change the result.
The election was, in fact, legitimate. Trump legitimately won. I wish to God that weren't so, but it is.
a recount will not reveal enough discrepancies to change the result
No seriously because I keep seeing people here and on Reddit saying demand recount and that something is sus with the numbers and that there's evidence of this and that but? There isn't. There is no substantive or credible evidence that this isn't the legitimate result. You need to accept that because anything else isn't helping. To me, it feels like a sad way cope. You can't imagine that that many people voted for him and not Kamala so it has to be fake? When you don't get the result you want, you demand a recount all while throwing everyone under the bus and telling us all we deserve it? No, I'm sorry that is the exact conspiracy minded, illogical, and reactive thinking that makes MAGA what they are. Don't be like that or else you'll fail each other more than we already did. No, do not give up and decide that if they can be like that, so can you. That makes you them and that makes the whole situation worse for us but better for them. When they want you to be like them, you need to be better than them.
Kamala Harris has said that accepting results is a fundamental part of American democracy and I agree with her. I believe we are better than Donald's way of leading and responding to losing elections, which is cry fraud for the end of time and give permission to his followers to start reactive and violent insurrections.
I think a lot of people are saying these things because they just aren't ready to accept that the majority of people did not want to vote for a woman. Because that is a lot more complicated, that includes even ourselves. Yes, that likely includes some of those democrats who chose not vote. The problem is clearly a lot bigger and more all encompassing than election fraud. Accepting this result means that we choose to accept what there is clear, obvious, and credible evidence for---increasing far-right radicalization in this country, christian nationalism, a failing education system that does not teach you how to think and how the government works, a lack of critical thinking and analysis skills, racism, and misogyny. These things feel a lot worse and are more difficult to address than simply the election was stolen. But this is where the evidence actually is and you cannot ignore that for some fantasy that maybe it just wasn't counted right. I know it's human nature to always seek the answer that feels more simple and more comforting, but you can't do that at your own expense and at the expense of others. You need to be in reality to address the problems of reality. And refusing to engage with reality is as good as dismissing the problems and all its agents entirely.
This is not to say that there has not been interference in our elections by many entities, for a while. But my friends, when the American public was given the chance to tell us all what's on their minds through their vote, whether they voted for Donald or someone else or did not vote at all, it came together as one collective voice that spoke of some things pretty loudly and clearly. This time the most important call is coming from inside the house and you have to pick it up or else it wont get better. You cannot ignore this in good conscience and expect it to be fixed somehow.
Do you think it doesn't matter when you do it? Do you think you're some nobody who can play with conspiracies because hey, you're not any official person, what does it matter whether you play conspiracy games or not? No, it matters that much if you personally and repeatedly choose conspiracy and fantasy thinking over reality, directly in the face of all reality and all credible evidence, because now you are part of that evidence that something is wrong with the way we think and react.
um ok let's see, how do I explain this. Rather than feeling like I've been punched in the gut, or slapped in the face by the country this election, I feel like I'm being stuck with millions of toothpicks all over my body and I' can't stop it. And all I'm saying is that the most recent toothpicks have been today when the news has decided that now is the time that they all want to talk about Project 2025 like it's a serious thing that has meaning finally, and the final final toothpick is the one where newsweek seems to have decided that of all the things that Project 2025 could do, it's the banning of porn that deserves the headline. Not, idk, RFK Jr. and the FDA---as in that anti-vax psycho and the FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION. Or like the real reason why they want to do that. They don't want to ban porn because they're hot feminists who recognize the exploit that porn is, and the escalating behaviors that it's associated with, and the direct correlation to sexual violence because of that: no, it's because they hate LGBT people, mostly trans people, and they want to literally change definitions of what "porn" means so that they can punish us all. Oh my god? Why didn't you say that newsweek? Fuck you all, honestly.
The Real Targets of Project 2025’s War on Porn:
"Though Project 2025 does not define “pornography,” their concern clearly extends beyond porn itself. Pornography, according to the Mandate, is responsible for the “normalization” of non-normative gender expression and identity among young people—what the right often calls “gender ideology.” Pornography could be anything that contributes to that purported normalization. “Pornography,” Roberts continues, is “manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children.” And how should it be outlawed? “The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.” Project 2025 is not targeting “pornography” as something that’s harmful to children per se, but rather redefining anything concerning sexuality and gender that they say is harmful to children as pornography."
I'm feeling insane. What do you mean "they admit they're going to do what they said they'd do"? What. do. you. mean. you assholes? the plan that was laid out in a whole thing that you could read, that plenty of people online had summarized for you to save you time? The plan that they made and said are going to do since they made it, they're going to do it. Is that what you mean???? Why don't you listen to them when they look you directly in the eyeballs and say in clear language what exactly they want to do? Why did you not believe them? What reality are we in??
My friends, let's not kill ourselves, let's not move to another country
Let's all move to the swing states and vote there next time
I keep seeing people say there's a difference of something like 15 million votes for the popular vote for kamala compared to biden in 2020. I can't fathom how it's possible. Either Trump was right about 2020 fraud or something is wrong in this election. There is no way 15 million people didn't vote who voted last time????
Trump wasn't right about 2020, and yes there are many ways that a lot of people didn't vote who voted last time.
The Republicans have been enacting (unfortunately perfectly legal) methods of voter suppression. Additionally, it's way easier to get people to vote against Trump when he's fresh in their minds than when he's a memory. Folks forgot how bad things were, and don't realize how bad things can get. That's just the truth of it.
Honestly this reminds me very much of what happened in 2004. Only, y'know, worse.
There isn't fowl play. Reality just sucks sometimes.
I think people underestimate how deeply, deeply sexist Americans are.
Biden was a man. Kamala was a woman. 15 million is the number of voters who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a woman. Its that simple.
Here are some thoughts I've been having, things that I think based on what I've seen in life so far but have no statistic or evidence to pull up right now. Just ideas I'm throwing around to try to figure it out, wondering what other people think:
Yes, the misogyny.
Yes, the racism.
In 2020, there were a lot of things set up that made it temporarily easier for people to vote, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Donald is wrong and lying to you when he claims there was fraud in 2020. There was no fraud, there was a pandemic and measure put in place to make voting more accessible in certain places---which increased turnout. I'm not totally sure, but I believe that those methods were in fact temporary and did not last. Regardless, those measures made it so that enough people at that time could turn out to vote in some way.
Also in 2020, there was the aforementioned deadly pandemic. It was unpredictable and it had the power to affect everyone equally with no discrimination, and it was new. It was under no one's control---but by November of that year we all explicitly saw Donald and friends mismanage the situation to deadly effect. COVID affected everyone, personally, not necessarily by infection---but personally nonetheless. Enough people were not happy with Donald and friends handling of the situation. People knew others who died, or who survived but were beginning to suffer from long COVID, and we all saw the body bags. Enough people knew that you could not ignore the situation away. The first vaccinations started happening in December, so during November, we did not know for sure if or when any vaccine would be available. This was one singular issue that was nationwide, nonpartisan, and non-political until Donald made it political. Enough people didn't like that and they had an easier way to vote.
Many pro-life people are women. Perhaps more than I originally thought, maybe not, but maybe just enough.
Many men are pro-choice, but not enough, clearly.
Many immigrants and children of immigrants do not like other immigrants. Many others don't care about politics at all. Many of them are sensitive to communism and take any accusation of communism as completely serious and run with it, regardless if that accusation is factually true or not. For enough of them, they got theirs, they made it, their family is all good, and that's what matters most.
When Donald or the comic or whoever makes racist "jokes", for many of his supporters---even those of color---it truly is just a joke and nothing deeper. I've seen some of them on YouTube and elsewhere say as much. Donald is truly a funny person to them and that is just comedy to them. So, for enough people, "jokes" are just jokes and they didn't matter.
You clearly cannot bank on any group being the monolith that will win this for us. I think we knew this already, but I didn't expect the results to be like this. So I guess I need to touch grass because I don't know what else to do. I guess I'm the one who was out of ouch with reality. Feels sad.
Many people are not interested in politics as something to do, but only as something to watch and react to and talk about, but not in any substantive depth. It's something to socialize about when it happens and then not think about much after. It seems like a show for enough people, and I suppose you could say that Donald does provide more of a show.
As for the consequences of that show, for enough people, the problems of others don't really matter to them. They are the main character of their own life, after all. For enough people, it's hard to ask them to care about others they way they would their own family or friends---it's harder to ask them to do something about it, like vote. It sucks but I think that might be reality.
Many people aside from that, are not interested in politics at all.
The media loves Donald and because of that , he loves them, as much as he says otherwise. Constantly being in the news maybe desensitizes us to him, perhaps familiarizes him to us and people like familiar. It certainly lowers the bar and sets a new, lower standard of behavior and expectation, for enough people. The media sanewashing of him certainly helped him, regardless of reason why. So long as he doesn't, on day one, first thing, round up us dissidents in a camp and do who knows what, people and the media will say we were all being dramatic and that he isn't that bad. The media helped him. The media wanted him to win. Either that, or republicans control the media more than I thought.
Either way, many people's trust in media is totally broken now, either because of how they sanewashed Donald or because they were his fans anyway and believed everything he said about the media hating him. Media literacy skills are struggling and traditional news outlets do not care about that and others can't make enough money being rational and truthful. This puts people at even greater risk of finding seriously and potentially dangerous fringe news media to consume. The risk that poses to society...the rapid downward spiral that could potentially happen just because of that alone...I don't even know what to say.
Did people really hate sending aid to Ukraine that much? More than I thought, maybe.
In a way, Biden gave up the incumbent advantage when he stepped out of the race. I suppose we don't know for sure, but he probably would've lost still.
But there was no one better to replace him then Kamala Harris. She had everything going right for her, a well-educated, articulated, prosecutor to go against the felon. For many people, she didn't have the baggage that Hillary Clinton had. And her campaign was very strong. I don't think it could've been better, but maybe I'm wrong, but I think that Biden would've lost worse.
But, then again, some people in one of my favorite subreddits were saying that Kamala Harris reminded them of Bernie Sander's run, with big online energy and support and huge rallies---ultimately to little effect. I didn't realize that till they said that.
But also, extremely the misogyny. For enough people, she is a woman and that's it.
More than enough men would vote for a rapist than a woman.
Maybe more women than I thought would do the same.
There are not enough LGBTQ people to sway most areas. Not that we are a monolith either, but if we were, there wouldn't be enough. I know this because I was reading something that said that LGBTQ voters in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina could have a more significant role to swing them. It seems that Donald has won all 4 of those.
The groups that Democrats play to, often marginalized people/minorities---taken individually, like as I was saying for us LGBTQ people, do not have enough numbers or influence alone, even if we all voted the same way. We need every one of those groups to vote in high numbers, to make up for where the others can't make it up themselves. But if that doesn't happen, if the party isn't truly in unity with itself, then I guess it doesn't work out for us.
Taking all the groups that Democrats play to together as one Democratic voting bloc, it was not enough. But is that because there are actually more Republicans than I thought or because not enough Democrats voted?
I didn't think that any protest vote would amount to significantly affect the result. But I also didn't think that he would win after all these years. So maybe it did, maybe not. I don't know anymore, guess I never did.
Is it truly about revenge? Donald and his fans wanted revenge for Biden and 2020 for whatever they did to them. Is it really that simple?
So far, for me, it seems that voter turnout is one of the primary reasons that stand out to me, that explains both why Biden won in 2020 and why Kamala lost in 2024
But by voter turnout, I don't know what I mean by that because voter turnout in numbers is close to what is was in 2020.
I guess Obama's win was an anomaly and not a sign.
