Funny that the stereotypical cynic is an idealist who aged out of it. In my experience, the reverse is true. I was an extreme cynic as a teenager and then I noticed how profoundly limiting it was, and also that "cynics are cool and smart" was a message that was being constantly reinforced by corporate media for some reason.
#yes! cynicism reads as very juvenile to me#and yes prev often stemming from teen pain
Yeah, like I see black-pilled people on here and my default reaction isn't "oh, these must be world-weary old warriors who've lost their faith in humanity", it's "these people are in their 20s and need a hobby"
I also think that the present era has proven that authoritarian leaders don't actually want a population of wide-eyed idealists, they want a population of jaded assholes who are convinced that everyone is lying, any resistance is either a scam or doomed to failure, and nothing can ever get better.
I really just have to summarize Thomas's entire life:
He was in a committed relationship with a male swan named Henry for 18-24 years before a female swan named Henrietta showed up and mated with Henry.
Thomas was initially jealous of the pair and attacked them, breaking 2 of the 5 eggs Henrietta had laid. However, once the remaining eggs hatched, Thomas warmed up to them and helped raise them.
Henry couldn't fly because of an injured wing, so Thomas taught the cygnets how to fly.
When they needed to reduce the goose population in the pond where Thomas and the swans lived, they dyed Thomas's feathers red so he wouldn't be separated from Henry.
Henry, Henrietta, and Thomas remained in their happy throuple for years and raised 68 cygnets before Henry died in 2009. After Henry's death, Henrietta found another swan and flew away, leaving Thomas alone.
Thomas finally met and mated with a female goose in 2011 and had his own babies. However, another goose named George stole them and raised them himself.
As Thomas grew elderly and blind, he was relocated to a wildlife center where he raised orphaned cygnets.
His caretaker at the center described him as "pretty high maintenance."
Thomas died in 2018 at the age of around 40. He had a funeral that included a small coffin and a procession that was led by a bagpiper. He was buried under the stone where Henry was buried, the two finally reunited in death.
Before and after his death, Thomas has been celebrated as an icon of the LGBTQ+ community for obvious reasons.
Welp. Google's AI horseshit has arrived. And I'm not complying. They can pry my ID out of my cold dead hands. I will simply go elsewhere. Remember folks, DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR IDs. Do not comply. Resist, fight it, use other browsers or sources beyond youtube and google controlled services. Call them. Email them. Make noise. Fight back.
Here is an article from NPR about it (May 22, 2026):
Carolina Milanesi, an independent technology analyst, said Google is trying to make its cash cow business — search — richer and more personalized, and it will make shopping easier. But there is a risk that users may have fewer choices about what to click.
"Right now it's: I ask a question, I get a bunch of answers and I feel that I'm in control as to which answer I take, or if I'm looking for something, which product I'm going to end up buying. That is going to be less so going forward," she said.
Milanesi envisions AI-enabled search and agents proposing products to consumers — perhaps even those they have requested — but with less clarity or choice around where it's coming from.
"If you're going to say: 'I want a pair of Jordans, go find them,' you're not necessarily sure what steps have been taken and whether the AI has used a source or a store that was paid for and therefore came up in the search results," she said, "or if AI actually went and did their due diligence and picked the best for me as a customer."
And here's one from Time magazine (May 20, 2026):
While Google already has “AI Mode,” the company will now power the whole search bar through its new Gemini 3.5 Flash model.
Instead of the classic list of blue links, Google Search will now also generate a custom page with an AI-generated summary of what you’re searching about, which will then trigger a conversation with AI Mode on the main page, allowing users to ask follow-up questions—similar to the kind of layout you would see when opening ChatGPT.
And a little more from Time's article on how this may affect the websites that we are trying to search for:
When Google first started implementing AI-assisted results, news publishers warned of “catastrophic” impacts on the industry, much of which relies on Google search to drive users to their websites.
Last year, news websites saw significant traffic declines as chatbots increasingly replaced Google search as the primary way to find sites and ask questions.
Small businesses also noted drops in traffic to their sites from Google, which has traditionally delivered customers.
Lily Ray, vice president of SEO strategy & research at Amsive, a digital marketing agency, warned as early as last year that Google’s planned changes to search are “going to have a devastating impact on the Internet.”
“It will severely cut into the main source of revenue for most publishers and it will disincentivize content creators who rely on organic search traffic, which is millions of websites, maybe more,” she told Technology Magazine.
So, you know how occasionally you can trick Google assistant to give you a false answer to a question by posting it around a bunch and phrasing it as though it were true (like the post about the human nervous system being a parasitic organism)... Assume we did that with links. And we picked something (not Rick Astley's beloved hit song Never Gonna Give You Up, because the algorithm is probably trained specifically to avoid that and a few others) that we just phrased as clearly the solution to what we were looking for.
Say we made a bunch of posts across multiple sites where we were looking for a news website or social media site or type of article or most prominently a frequently purchased product, and say we then received many responses with the link to a small website about caring for your pet cat, and we all behaved as though that was the thing we were looking for... Do you think we could totally break this new version of Google?
Or would we have to have a cooperative website that includes a tremendous amount of unaffiliated metadata to fool the search bot? Because I'm sure we could find someone willing to cannibalize one page of their website to be a sacrifice for this. You could probably just do what people did with online resumes for a while and just have a bunch of 1pt font white text on white background keyword spam.
Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and
hey i don't know if anyone else here has heard about this but google is murdering the entire SEO market lolololol
if you use google search by default go change it now in your browser's settings. here are guides for how to do that with chrome, firefox, opera, and safari web browsers. as for which search engine i recommend you swap TO, i don't actually know if there's any that have 0 ai whatsoever but duckduckgo is generally very solid on all other fronts and is least likely to go batshit insane like google is here. in my opinion. use your best judgement and do some research though.
I will vote for any candidate who promises to go scorched fucking earth on every tech company. Break every single one of them up into companies based around a single product and then split those in thirds. Weaponize existing antitrust laws to the hilt and pass the most draconian versions of them ever seen on this planet. Nationalize google search specifically. Pass consumer privacy protections strict enough to kill the data harvesting industry for good. Make all of these fuckers go bankrupt for this rent-seeking shit
ENOUGH WITH THE PROTEIN MARKETING! PROTEIN POPCORN THIS PROTEIN WATER THAT NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS 50G OF PROTEIN OK. WHERE IS THE FIBER. WHERE IS IT. WHERE IS IT?????
This Native American Heritage Month I want to spread awareness for MMIWG2S crisis, the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirits.
This post has facts, resources to learn more, and includes links with ways to help, although I hope as you read more you realize how much spreading awareness could leave a huge impact as it would create even more help, protections, and resources.
Did you know that indigenous women, girls, and two spirits are murdered and go missing at such high rates that both the USA and Canada have declared it a crisis and epidemic?
In some places they are murdered, assaulted, and go missing at 10x the national average?
The statistics that prove it in the USA:
The National Congress of American Indians - Defending Sovereignty since 1944
And Canada:
Read more on the Assembly of First Nations website here.
May 5th is the National Day of Awareness for MMIWG2S in the USA. In Canada it falls on the same day and it's referred to as Red Dress Day.
Red is a sacred color to indigenous peoples. As such is the color we use to raise awareness for our women, girls, and two spirits that have come under harm.
We use both red dresses and a red handprint over the mouth to raise awareness. So if you see these symbols please pay them their proper respect. They are not to be used in cosplay or costumes nor are they to be mocked or appropriated.
You'll also find the phrase "No more stolen sisters" in discussions about MMIW. This is a phrase specifically intended to raise awareness and bring attention to the MMIWG2S crisis and it shouldn't be applied to anyone except indigenous women, girls, and two spirits.
Origin of the movement Missing and Murdered Women and Girls, why wear red, current legal challenges and future hopes. (May 5, 2020)
For Native and Indigenous communities, 'No More Stolen Sisters' calls attention to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
Along with all these facts I wanna ask you to look up infamous cases of MMIW. Look up Savanna Greywind and look up "Search the Landfill." And please check out this link that covers the legal "loophole" that allows tribal women to be assaulted without any hope for their non-native abusers being held accountable.
Let the horror that some native and first nations women go through fuel your desire to become an advocate for the MMIWG2S epidemic. Sit with us in solidarity and acknowledge the scope of the systemic injustices being done against us.
More reources on MMIWG2S, how the crisis is being handled by government, and how you can help:
WASHINGTON – Native American tribal leaders urged lawmakers to increase federal funding and implement national reporting systems to help sol
Red Dress Day 2025, held every May 5th, is a National Day of remembrance and activism honouring the lives of Missing and Murdered Indigenous
The Not Invisible Act Commission’s resource was historic for Native Americans. It’s now been scrubbed from federal websites
“We have no idea where she could be.”
List of resources from the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Natives Women that includes resources for women, LGBT and two spirit people, trafficking survivors, DV survivors, and of course resources specific to MMIWG2S.
If you have any questions please ask them, just be respectful and don't ask anything in bad faith.
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