themeatbridge

I tried to get into his music, but then he told me to stop and I did.

I think you should reframe the thinking. All corporations are profit driven, and exploiting a devoted fanbase is very profitable. Innovation, customer service, commitment to quality, these are things that cam build loyalty, but capitalism demands growth. If you run out of ideas or saturate the market, the only way to grow profits is to cut costs. Customer service and commitment to quality might be the last things to go, but they will go eventually.

Came here to say, one is his name, the other is not.

Bats on the floor are obviously Rats, because the bottom of the B is obscured by the puddle they’re standing on.

Gotcha. Sorry to have wasted my time talking with you.

Ok but in the meantime, can we all agree to vote for the person who isn’t a convicted felon? And a rapist? And a racist? And a fascist? And a xenophobe? And an insurrectionist? And like twelve other things that should disqualify him from office? Surely we can agree that, in the absence of overthrowing of the most powerful government in history, that at the very least we should do what we can to keep Donald Trump out of the driver’s seat?

So you just want to overthrow the government? I’m not saying I’m opposed to it, but I’d want to know what your plan is for if you actually mobilize a resistance.

But it isn’t wrong. I’d like it to be wrong, and I can appreciate wanting to shift the Overton window, but that’s not where we are and it won’t change before November.

There are more single issue voters in America that support Israel and won’t support Harris if she wavers than there are single issue voters in America who will start supporting her if she threatens to withdraw US support of Israel. That’s the reality of the world we live in. If she changes her position on Israel, she will definitely lose the election, just as De La Cruz and Stein and West will lose the election.

The margin of error is already razor thin, and it’s never been more important for America to run up the score. Winning isn’t going to be enough. Harris needs to make the legal challenges and ballot shenanigans look frivolous and absurd.

You want to convince me to support a third-party candidate, first we need to put Trump in prison, then we need to roll out Star Voting, and then we need some third-party alternatives that aren’t obvious Russian assets.

Do you legitimately believe Claudia De La Crúz is propped up by Republicans? The Reps and Dems collaborated on kicking them off the ballot in some states.

The Republicans want RFK off the ballots, and the Dems want De La Cruz, Stein, and West off the ballots. I’m not maintaining a delusion that this isn’t a game. Both sides are propping up the third party candidates that hurt their opponents.

But yes, I legitimately believe Claudia De La Cruz is propped up by Republicans, because they are doing it out in the open. Look at Georgia, where the Republican Secretary of State overruled the courts and kept independent candidates on the ballot after RFK voluntarily withdrew.

https://atlantaciviccircle.org/2024/08/29/georgia-secretary-state-overrules-judge-third-party-presidential-candidates-stein-kennedy-cruz-west/

I agree we need to push the Dems forward, because capitalism will always resist progress.

Harris and Trump are not anywhere close on foreign policy. Harris does support Israel, and Israel is engaged in a genocide. I’m not disputing that. But That’s the only overlap between Harris and Trump, and Trump is proactively supporting the genocide, whereas Harris at least pays lipservice to the goal of ending the violence.

I can understand why that makes it impossible for you to support Harris. I cannot understand why you are unable to see the difference between Harris and Trump. You may not like Harris’ position, but if you hate that, Trump’s position is objectively worse. Opposing both of them, refusing to take a side, refusing to cast a vote, these are all the choices that take you out of the equation. Your vote literally won’t count.

Harris is not going to change her stance on Israel before the election. After the election, she may evolve on the issue if she continues to face pressure. Maybe, maybe not. But there will be the possibility to make the argument. Right now, the Dems have decided that supporting Israel gains them more votes than it loses, and they can live with that.

And this is where the third party arguments fall off the rails. Where has Jill Stein been the last four years? De La Cruz, to her credit, has been organizing protests and fundraising, but with little actual effect. Change happens slowly, with dilligence and dedication. It requires thoughtful, strategic effort, and doesn’t happen in a single election cycle. It doesn’t happen at the highest level, in a fptp race between two people vying for the chief executive office. You have to win hearts and minds, install progressives at every level of government, convince donors that it is in their best corporate interest to oppose genocide.

The world is a horrible place, and you can be part of the solution or part of the precipitate. You make your choice and you live with the consequences. We plant the trees that will shade our grandchildren, or you can stamp your foot and pout because the trees aren’t providing shade now. But you make a choice either way. Are you helping, or not?

All candidates propped up by Republicans to siphon votes from Harris. We have a shitty system, but the way it works is Harris or Trump or abstain because you don’t care.

I don’t have a problem with people voting for a third party as long as they admit they are good with Trump winning. It’s great to see socialists and greens showing up at the polls and voting for progressive candidates at every level. I just can’t stand the naivety of a third-party voter thinking they are going to teach Harris a thing or two.

This isn’t Bush v Gore where it was two centrist oligarchs battling it out to be more pro-business. The is President Donald J Trump Part II, this time with more fascism and executive immunity. If you lived through the first term and think, “yeah, I don’t care if that guy comes back,” then I don’t know how to even relate as a human. Harris ain’t perfect, but she must win.

It’s mind boggling that pro-Palestinian voters would support Trump. I understand opposing Biden and Harris supporting Israel, but Trump will be unquestionably worse for Palestinians.

Because as big as space is, time is bigger. Humans have existed for only the most recent nanosecond, and we’re only just figuring out how to leave this rock. We’re either going to figure out intergalactic space travel, or we might just obliterate ourselves and kill all life on the planet.

Crossing paths with another intergalactic species would be like if two different people each threw a grain of sand into the air in any desert or beach on earth at some point in the last 10,000 years, and the two grains of sand collide.

If we do find intelligent life out there, it will probably be because we have developed some intergalactic broadcast signal, and whatever comes for us might share their star maps or they might just be looking for a snack. Either way, it would take them thousands of years to hear our signal and get to us.

For the same reason GMT became the standard: Somebody has to make the clocks. Space is pretty big, but if I had to bet money, I would wager that the first intergalactic travelers would start here, where the people are, and they would start with here as their point of reference.

I’m not entirely sure, because I’ve never gotten the hang of Twitter. But reading between the lines, I think this is the sequence of events:

Libertarian twit tweets a death threat against Harris.

Libertarian twit is reminded of the rules (and common decency) and removes the offending tweet.

Libertarian twit passive aggressively tweets about having removed the tweet they twote, invoking the promises of free speech to imply that Leon was censoring their tweets and trampling on their freedoms.

Leon responds to the complaint with the tweet the twit twote, simultaneously demonstrating that the twit is a twat and amplifying the message.

It’s a reference to spam callers. For a few years, right around when everyone was realizing they shouldn’t answer the phone for unknown callers, it was really common to get calls that, if you picked up, would play a pre-recorded message along the lines of “Hello! We’ve been trying to get in touch with you regarding your car’s extended warranty. You may be entitled to money and blowjobs, and if your warranty expires, your hair will fall out and your car will be repossessed. To speak to a representative, press 1. Por habla Esperanto, marqué νούμερο 二.”

If you pressed 1, you would ostensibly be connected to a high-pressure sales rep trying to sell you a worthless maintenance contract. Nobody is really certain, though, because despite hundreds of millions of people receiving twelve of these calls each day, not one person every stayed on the line longer than “regarding…” In fact, my memory on the end of that message might be a fabrication, because I don’t think I ever heard it.

You seem really upset about something that shouldn’t affect you in any way.

The answer is that you’re thinking about this too much. It’s pop music, designed to be fun and catchy, with a hook and a fun dance routine. It’s performed by pretty people who can sing and dance in a manner that is aesthetically and musically entertaining.

Why do they all look and sound the same? Why does every fast food restaurant have a similar burger and french fry combo? It’s because that’s what sells, and this isn’t art. It’s a product designed to be sold.

I dunno man, if you are a girl wouldn’t you a dude that, yeah, he’s attractive but also that looks manly? That can physically protect you? And that does not has a doll face?..

This just comes off as thinly veiled insecurity. There are a lot of people in the world, and attraction is a spectrum. People like what they like, and there’s probably someone out there who likes you for you. You don’t need a doll face, nor do you need to look manly or be physically imposing. Most people don’t need protection in their day to day lives. People want support, companionship, partnership, compatibility, and entertainment. Be fun and loving, and be yourself, and just leave the outdated gender stereotypes behind. You’re not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, nor do you need to be (unless you’re trying to land a job in a KPop band).

Strong agree on the dark side of the industry. That’s the danger with turning performers themselves into a commodity. It’s bad enough manufacturing commercial music as a product, but turning the talent into a product is dehumanizing in a way that leads to terrifying exploitation.

But as consumers, we’re all really good at compartmentalizing the exploitation from the enjoyment we receive from it. If you think the pop music industry is bad, wait until you learn about fast fashion, or cheap technology, or luxury travel, or abundant meat, or out-of-season produce, or inexpensive energy, or pretty much anything you pay to enjoy. There’s a lot of money involved in hiding the suffering.

I got my SoundBlaster from my uncle who upgraded, and I think it was a Gravis. But that was like 30 years ago, so I might be wrong.

No, but I’m a dad. My last gaming rig had a SoundBlaster card.

I have a PS5 and have never heard of this game. Why are you so keen to talk about it?

I think they should watch it again and again, then, because that’s the behavioral object lesson of the film. Everybody is the hero in their own story. When he has his moment of clarity, and says to himself, “I’m the bad guy?” it ought to be a wake up call to all the chodes who were cheering him on.

You’re supposed to relate to DFENSE and see him as the protagonist. You’re supposed to feel the same revulsion he experiences when he meets an actual Nazi who thinks he’s an ally. You’re supposed to feel the rush of excitement and power he gets finding a duffel bag of automatic firearms. You’re supposed to feel the cathartic release of shooting up a fast food restaurant when the minimum wage worker smugly follows a pointlessly strict menu policy.

And then you’re supposed to feel it all come falling down when he realizes that he cannot get his life back. He cannot restore his relationship with his wife or daughter. He cannot escape the consequences of his choices and his own lack of control. He did everything they told him to, but they lied to him, and now his job, his family, they are gone, and the cruel world doesn’t give a shit. He is “not economically viable” anymore, so he has been cast off.

He thinks he has nothing left to lose. He’s wrong. He thinks he has fallen down, and is on the rise. That sensation that feels like flying, it’s because he’s jumped off a cliff. And we’re all supposed to feel the landing with him.