Those people are embarrassing. They’re probably the same people that say like “Dracula is just a story about a guy who bites people shut up about all this politics and feminism”.
Education is difficult and, in the US are least, under funded.
Just ban private jets.
There are so many things we could just stop doing, but they make rich assholes unhappy. That’s true for like all of humanity, but the scale is global now instead of just “the peasants are eating dirt”
Though now I’m thinking of a story where someone infiltrates their way into being the pilot for a rich asshole, and then jumps out and lets the billionaire blow up in the crash. Noting that down for my near-future dystopia tabletop rpg.
Capitalism. The people making decisions aren’t the people doing the work. The people keeping the profits (and thus the power) aren’t the people doing the work.
I’m confident that a lot of the stuff that’s unpopular in games was put there because some ghoul thought it would be profitable, and the actual workers didn’t want to do it.
Yeah. I wouldn’t bring it up as a non sequitur but it’s pretty important.
Why don’t we use this surveillance to nail the big companies that are polluting to the wall? (Because we are ruled by the worst among us.)
Sadly, no. Two ancient laptops (circa 2004, 2008) and a 20-something inch crt with no HDMI.
I have several old but working electronics and I literally haven’t been able to give them away for free. They’re probably going to end up in the eWaste trash. I don’t know if that leads to anything being reclaimed, but probably not.
I read enough French that I didn’t notice at first, but then I was like “wait that said ride for 2 arrêtes…”, and chuckled.
Interesting. I really need one that does public transit.
Funny how this one has random snippets of French in the UI.
If we can get the tech bros and the anti-vaxxers to destroy each other , that might be a big win
We’re a stupid country rules by assholes and morons.
You just know if someone tried to make a serious push for it, all the fox news types would go into a frenzy. It’d be an easy way to whip up their idiot base.
I’m more of a case by case basis for mapping. Most of the time, I’m not running a maze where mapping will reveal interesting information (eg: these lengths don’t add up - maybe there’s a secret passage).
One time in recent memory where I did run something like that, I had the players map it and it was super effective.
I remember back in like 2012 I had a white woman coworker with one. A native speaker in the office quietly told her it translated to like “old hag”, and a week later she had it redone to be a rose instead of a language she couldn’t read.
I feel like stupid is consistent. Someone who is stupid will wear these glasses, and also act like the manager in this story.
Because they’re blood soaked assholes who would be facing very uncomfortable consequences if there was justice in the world.
I don’t know. I think some things are important. Someone who loves live music and goes to see something a few nights a week would probably be happier with someone else who, all other things equal, had a similar interest. If you’re looking to pair people up in ways that won’t work long term, because you’re a company of ghouls looking to make money, then matching the music lover with the music disliker is better for your business. With enough data points, you can probably make some confident predictions.
Hinge also isn’t making you pick from dichotomies. You enter free text for most of it, and pick as many from a list as you like for others.
One time at work someone had the idea of “let’s all swap our favorite playlists”. No one was happy. I got some like top of the charts rap that’s not my jam. The product lady got my sludgy doom metal and I don’t think she made it through one track. I think the mega kpop fan just refused to participate.
Would this entire conversation (and I appreciate you taking the time without being too prickly) gone a clearer route if my initial post had been something like “The dominant political ideology of the US, which I want to call conservatism because that’s what the US republican party calls it, but is arguably liberalism (and not the propagandized “freedom and prosperity for all” version), is built upon hierarchy. The capitalist class lives by a different set of rules, and sometimes bestow a lesser form of that to others- eg: white supremacy, patriarchy. People are not equal, in this view.”
Or maybe it would have slammed into this:
These ideas are not contradictory if you accept my thesis that the underlying concept is the preservation of hierarchy.
Which no one who studies the field accepts.
Well I guess I’ll have to go get my PhD then! Heh.
But, to review, what I was responding to was this
People in power (and unfortunately most people not in power also) think that there is a “fair” order to things. Those deserving will be successful, and the undeserving will not (and should not and must not) get anything.
And I think that idea of a “fair” order, with some on top, some under them, and a lot on the bottom is endemic in… what I would have called conservative thought but after all this I guess I’d now call liberal. Or maybe “right wing” is a parent category?
They think liberal means left-wing. Socialist. Communism
They don’t. They’re not idiots. They’re playing the population for fools. They know that they’re fans of Adam Smith and John Locke, and they know that both of them were Liberal. They hire staffers from Harvard. Most of them are lawyers who studied this stuff. They know what they’re doing. They’re pandering and confusing. Deliberately. Because it gives them the power to manipulate.
Point of order. The “they” in my sentence was referring to what I called street level republicans. Guys with maga hats who don’t read non-fiction and certainly don’t know who John Locke was. Not the people running the show. The capitalist class and high ranking officials may be more in line with your description there.
The only reason they were expanded to include things peasants cared about was to get the peasant to fight on the side of Liberals
A recurring theme highlighted in people’s history.
I swear you’ll see things in Locke that you’ll realize are totally batshit, like the idea that if a virgin forest is inhabited by indigenous humans who forage for food, they don’t own it, but if I personally chop down a tree, sell it for money, then hire 2 people to chop down more trees, sell them, and then pay an army to chop down all the trees, now I and I alone own all of that land and it’s within my right to kill anyone who would trespass that land AND ALSO the purpose of government is to provide a police force that will kill people for me because I couldn’t POSSIBLY ever personally defend all of the land that I would be able to own…
Yes, that does sound batshit.
American conservatives are Liberals.
This is one of those things that’s technically correct but in colloquial conversation causes much confusion. No street level republican will cause themselves a liberal. They think liberal means left-wing. Socialist. Communism. Abolition of the old systems and ushering in a new one without states, castes, or private property to stratify people into their different levels. Hierarchy, if you will.
Are there any major players in US politics you would identify as conservative? The democratic party is also primarily concerned with private property and markets, with some lip service paid to civil rights and labor. It’s less anti-science and anti-intellectual, at least.
Note how on the one hand you think Conservatism is about protecting the monarchy and on the other hand you think American Republicans are conservatives despite their focus on private property, profits, corporate profits, and tax loopholes for the rich. You can’t hold both of these views if you actually engage with the ideas.
These ideas are not contradictory if you accept my thesis that the underlying concept is the preservation of hierarchy. The details are less important. The idea is that there are some people who are on top, who rule, who have different rules applied to them. A republican senator can take a month of paid sick leave, because he’s Important, but a regular laborer cannot do such a thing. Sometimes it’s nobility. Sometimes it’s just the capitalist ownership class. But there’s also the lower levels, that are similar in a way. That’s where you get whites dominant over everyone else. Men above women.
I identify as a Communist - I believe in the abolition of private property, in decolonization and anti-imperialism, in active repression of reactionary forces, and the subsequent century or more of conscious, deliberate adaptation and planning that will be required to reshape human society as it purges itself of the last 600 years of EuroCentric hegemony and eventually creates the conditions for humanity to process its collective traumas and hopefully come out the other side into a sustainable community that can work together for several thousand years to reintegrate with the ecosystem and once again become healthy participants in the web of life
So we actually agree on all of that, perhaps barring some minutia and details.
Just read John Locke and Edmund Burke. They’re good starting points.
I’ll submit this suggestion to my book club. (No, I’m serious. We just read Zinn’s people’s history. Don’t laugh.)
I was just thinking about how that seems to be a theme. Art has a message. People don’t pick it up.
Like, if you’ll pardon a genre change, the protagonists of final fantasy 7 are literal eco terrorists who blow up an allegory for an oil plant. How many of those fans love the game and didn’t give a single thought to environmentalism? Barret would disapprove