Probably Regularly Wrong About Things

Just making this so that my poor mutuals don't have to see any discourse content that I find interesting and want to save for later or comment on. Always down to talk about interesting topics, though I'm not an expert on much.

[afurioushawk]

[inlowearthorbit]

"less housed brethren" good fucking lord

[thahxa]

the american economy is actually very simple. there are two types of goods

type one is the type that can be put on a 40-foot container and made elsewhere. these goods cost zero dollars

type two is the type that needs to be made locally. these cost one infinity dollars. if it requires permitting it costs two infinity dollars

everything else can be derived from this

[afurioushawk]

Barring divine intervention (the only thing that will turn this race), the "I told you so's" on election night will be heard from space.

[markovchaingang]

look when i advocated for "total puppy genocide" i just meant that responsible owners should get their dogs spayed an neutered. i don't know why you assumed i wanted to kill all puppies or anything

[mariacallous]

I will say that while I think Jefferies could have been a bit firmer and more resolute in his comments, he also kept putting it back on Chevalier to answer for and handle.

I can also understand (I don't know that "accept" would be the right word) not wanting to downtalk any race in the effort to get to a House majority.

But I also think both he and Aguilar (where was Katherine Clark?) were a little too "we're a big tent! disagreements are normal and going to be normal!"

[mariacallous]

[mariacallous]

[mariacallous]

[mariacallous]

[mariacallous]

[mariacallous]

[mariacallous]

[afurioushawk]

I hope Democrats are paying attention to the Scott Wiener situation: no amount of capitulating to the left will ever get their support. Even if you do everything, they'll just say you did it under pressure. Kick them to the curb before they drag the entire party down to hell.

[afurioushawk]

[princess-of-phyresis]

they're selling anti-ai slogans on sweatshop-produced t-shirts. i don't need to write the poem for you to get it do i

[afurioushawk]

It's because DNSA liked 9/11 and want it to happen again.

[afurioushawk]

[frogeyedape]

if your main position is "i don't know how you people can support harm reduction. as for me, i'm for harm abolition. no i don't have a plan. no actually i mostly just bitch at people advocating for harm reduction as a way of making myself look pure" your opinions on political strategy are irrelevant and you yourself are beneath contempt you need to examine your beliefs, your need to feel righteous, your actual impact on the world, and how you can go about making an impact that aligns with your beliefs.

If you really believe harm is bad, and eliminating harm is a worthy goal, you have to start with small steps: eliminate a small harm, not all harms all at once. Reduce a great harm a little, perhaps by helping one individual impacted by that harm, and then another individual, and another... You cannot tackle all harm at once; you must take smaller bites. Set this reality against your need to feel right & correct & pure & perfect. Reducing some harm instead of all harm is not failure! You are not a failure! You may fail now and again, but failing once or twice or ten thousand times doesn't change the fact that you can still try again and succeed! You are not a failure even when you fail to reach your impossible goal of perfection.

You may not be able to complete the work of eliminating harm. But you can do your part to work toward that goal, reducing harm where you can. Your work layered with all the work of everyone who came before you, everyone who works beside you, and everyone who picks up the work when you set it down--all this work layered into making things besmal--that's a goal both possible and worth fighting for.

[regularlywrong]

I'm sure someone else has already posted this elsewhere, but Robert Caro put it extremely well in The Power Broker:

"[Al Smith] had no patience for reformers who didn’t understand the importance of practical politics in getting things done, who refused to compromise, who insisted on having the bill as it was written, who raged loudly at injustice who fought single-mindedly for an unattainable ideal. Their pigheadedness had the effect of dragging to political destruction politicians to listened to them, of ruining careers men had taken years to build. He had seen it happen. And more important, what was the inevitable result of their efforts?

Since they refused to compromise and operate within the political framework - the only framework with which their proposals could become reality - the laws they proposed were never enacted, and therefore at the end of their effort the people they wanted to help, the people who he knew so well needed help, hadn’t been helped at all. If anything, they had been hurt; the stirring up of hard feelings and bitterness delayed less dramatic but still useful reforms that might have been enacted. When the reformers were finished with all their hollering and were back in their comfortable homes, the widows of the Fourth Ward would still be forced to give up their children before they could get charity. What good was courage if its only effect was to hurt those you were trying to help? "

[mariacallous]