Yes. As a black man, America has produced a long very involved legacy of which I'm proud being my heritage.

Sure, it was absolutely founded on treating people like as sub-human, and there are people today that are trying to return me to that state, but fuck them as they've been fucked for the last century and a half. I'll be damned if I let them represent America.

That's not exactly wrong, but it's not the only reason. I've never been particularly interested LGBTQ+ issues, and Contrapoints's transition first was kinda like, "K, I'm glad I'm learning about this stuff, I guess, but I have other interests." After all, what drew me to both in the first place were their philosophical analyses and how they applied it to social issues. They were important to me for how they showed me how philosophy can be used, as opposed to DarkMatter5555 (I think that's his name. Also, add him to the list), who I also used to watch, but that dude never grew out of the same stale template of animating god and the angel and regurgitating the most basic atheistic ideas.

So, my purpose in watching them was to learn how to apply principles to reality with a little learning along the way. But when they started focusing in on their transition, I just dropped off.

Contrapoints and PhilosophyTube were two big ones. I'd still watch Carlos Maza if he produced anything, but he hasn't in like two years, so...I'll include him, too.

The "solutions" to this are called theodicy and are definitely a fascinating rabbit hole. They're all unsatisfying, but philosophically interesting

I'd probably fail

But like...that's the thing. They have to look for a credible case to remove their political opponents. In contrast, the reason to remove Trump is self-evident, even to Republicans.

laments the slow pace of new material in the communities.

Participation. We need more of it. Like...a lot more of it.

Lurkers shouldn't lurk, and people should give others the benefit of the doubt far more often than they ever did on Reddit, if they ever did at all. Make Lemmy a community where engagement is valuable and fun and actually useful.

This is the kind of thing I'd read as alarmist and extremely suspect.

Except it's very real. Coupled with their "Mandate for Leadership" (PDF), they will fuck shit up.

Here's a quote from The Heritage Foundation, who created helped put it all together:

In November 2016, American conservatives stood on the verge of greatness. The election of Donald Trump to the presidency was a triumph that offered the best chance to reverse the left’s incessant march of progress for its own sake. Many of the best accomplishments, though, happened only in the last year of the Trump administration, after our political appointees had finally figured out the policies and process of different agencies, and after the right personnel were finally in place.

Great. He gave away the game. At least 40% of Americans are going to get played. Giving up the game has no consequences. Ask freakin' Christopher Rufo if explaining his unreasonable strategy against critical race theory hurts him in anyway. Ask Steve Bannon. Ask Donald "Aspiring Dictator For A Day" Trump. Ask Steven Miller.

The game was given up a long time ago and we're still playin' it.

Maybe it's my interest in economics, but American life is so expensive in part because Americans are willing to spend a shit ton of money because they think they're supposed to. It's like we're all enamored with the idea that bigger and more is better just because someone said so. And then we complain about things being unaffordable like corporations aren't trying to fleece us for all we're worth.

Trump’s lawyers warned that if a president can be prosecuted for actions taken while in office “such prosecutions will recur and become increasingly common, ushering in destructive cycles of recrimination,” adding that “Without immunity from criminal prosecution, the Presidency as we know it will cease to exist.”

If Presidents commit crimes in office, they should be held accountable. And if the Presidency ceases to exist because of the justice of accountability, then let the office perish in injustice.

Republican talking points. All of them. Pick literally anything they say about guns or economics. Literally anything.

After 2016, anyone who believes in polls is a fool.

I got $5 betting Francis Howell Families has a common conservative donor with Moms For Liberty.

I like how they revoked an anti-racism:

The resolution, which made a pledge to “speak firmly against any racism, discrimination, and senseless violence against people regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or ability,” was removed from school buildings.

Francis Howell Families is a champion and benefactor for racism, discrimination, and especially senseless violence against everyone for any and every reason. If that weren't true, why would they revoke the resolution?

"You think it's accidental; I know it's Marxist planned and executed over a long period," he claimed. "Open border is not coincidental. The open border comes right out of Karl Marx. It comes right out of [communist activist] Saul Alinsky, who, by the way, Saul Alinsky and his acolytes taught Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton."

This shit? The insane musings of high profile Republicans.

"It's about time the masculine energy in this country is ascendant," he proclaimed. "I'm not defending what this kid allegedly did. I am defending young men holding up old glory, getting out there in the streets, and saying, we're not going to take this anymore."

So, what the hell is he defending then? What exactly about the incident exudes "masculine energy"?

She says it costs $2.2 million to feed them kids, with the federal government covering the other $2.2 million.

Let's set aside that Iowa has an FY24 spending budget of $8.5 billion, out of which $2.2 million is basically nothing....

Rather, let's make this a 🅲🆄🅻🆃🆄🆁🅴 🆆🅰🆁 🅸🆂🆂🆄🅴! Parental rights, right? That thing where parents can uncritically direct "the care, custody, and control of their minor children." It sanctifies the views of parents, elevating them over government intrusion. If a federal program provides $40 a month to each child in a low-income family to help with food costs via an EBT card, then, presumably, those parents are making the best choices for their children.

Right?

Not so! says Kim Reynolds. Low-income families are too stupid, she implies, not to give their kids nutritious foods when childhood obesity has become an epidemic. By not participating the federal program then, Reynolds is ostensibly protecting children. But really, her non-participation undermines sanctified parental choices in Iowa to provide for their kids.

And who is she to supersede parental rights? A Republican governor.

Yes! I've been on this journey!

Thomas Sowell's bibliography is easily the best starting place. Just pick something and have at it. As a prominent conservative economist, his books actually make good arguments. It takes actual effort to deconstruct his arguments and identify where he's wrong. He's widely and highly respected in conservative communities and tackles a lot of the common cultural war issues.

Then there's granddaddies Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek. Also economists, they were directly impacted by the Cold War, and make intellectual cases that capitalism is the only economic system that leads to real individual freedom. And they also try to prove why the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union and every lesser species of it undermines liberty. Hayek's Road to Serfdom and Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom are staples.

Castigated by modern conservatives because they're not serious about anything, sociology's Emile Durkheim is a cornerstone of the discipline. I've never read it, but his book *Suicide *concerns individuals within community and the institutions of it. He talks about a type of suicide derived from moral disorder and lack of clarity, anomic suicide.

One book that I found incredibly insightful was Yuval Levin's The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left. This book is genuinely fair to both sides, and it shows the historical roots of conservatism and its relation to the French Revolution, when the right and the left as political stances first became a thing.

Maybe instead of a fine, it'll any amount of jail time instead.

If you ever read "fifth circuit court of appeals", know that you're about to read some bullshit. Every bad decision the current Supreme Court has made started with the fifth circuit.

Texas' highest court ruled that the state law never required that the risk to a mother’s life be “imminent” when weighting whether they are eligible for an abortion. Because of this, the court wrote: “Ms. Zurawski’s agonizing wait to be ill ‘enough’ for induction, her development of sepsis, and her permanent physical injury are not the results the law commands,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

Oh, now that's interesting (in the dumbest way possible). Because the lawmakers who wrote the abortion law were ignorant fucks that wouldn't know a vagina from their own urethra, the near death experiences these women endured weren't caused by their attempt to adhere to the law?

That's just straight up malicious. If following the law puts your life at risk, then wtf is the point of following the law? Why shouldn't these women get an abortion if the choice is between abortion and jail or a very high likelihood of death?

Wtf does governing mean in Texas?

A body of corporations to regulate anything is not a body of regulation; it's a body of extraction constrained by managing public expectations.

Can you explain to me how this is a joke?

His audience laughed because they're dumb. But to me, this looks like the negging thing where you anticipate being called out for your insult and say "It's a joke. It's just a joke!"

But then you read on and it says Apple is allowing the kit to not be used in the EU only. Outside of the EU, presumably, Firefox will still have to use the Webkit or whatever. So, while Apple uses its own engine in both the EU and the US on its phones, Firefox will be able to use its own engine in the EU, too, but will have to continue using Webkit in the US and other markets outside of the EU.

I'm not sure what disingenuous about that.

...why would it be too late for you to date? People want companionship throughout their lives....

The Good Place.

That show is so good! But the ending fucked me up for like a week.

Also, how are you watching Xena? I used to love that show when I was a kid!

He will construct “freedom cities” filled with flying cars

Is that a joke?

I was listening to Know Your Enemy's recent podcast titled Why the Right Loves Foreign Dictators (would definitely recommend a listen), and I came to a realization:

American conservative beliefs are not based on reality. That seems obvious, especially to this crowd, but like, the conservative dispossession of reality-based beliefs goes deep. Their version of rationality is adherence to an ideology and that is how they interpret the beliefs of others.

In this case, it manifests as opposing the removal of lead water pipes in the honest belief that, regardless of their danger—which is speculative to this idiot—it's too expensive and "infringes" on rights. The value of lead pipe removal derives from whether its economically beneficial and its comportment with his idea of what infringes on rights, rather than on...you know...the scientifically proven damaging effects of lead.

Because he interprets the beliefs of others as perceived adherence to some ideology (which he almost certainly doesn't understand), he dismisses the solid scientific evidence as speculative. It's ideology vs ideology for him. Scientific claims are just another ideology.

To generalize, that's why the pro-life movement "helps" women, that's why be against welfare "supports" the nation, that's why supporting Putin "defends" liberty, and that's why voting for Trump makes America "great". It's not about real results, it's just pure ideological adherence from the bottom to the top. It's fitting that Trump is their messiah. He's the greatest bullshitter modern politics has ever seen.

the Republican previously worked as an attorney for the [Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly Alliance Defense Fund or ADF], a Christian advocacy group Posner described as having ambitions to "eviscerate the separation of church and state."

Fuck this dude. The ADF is a horrible organization.

This came out 2 days ago:

Koonin finds that daily record high temperatures have not increased over the past 100 years and daily record lows have become less common. This is directly at variance with media headlines.

Although wildfires made headlines this summer, global areas burned by wildfires have shown a downward, rather than an upward, trend. Tornado activity in the United States has declined since 1970.

The media covers climate change as though doomsday is approaching. Bad news sells, and well-funded organizations support the crisis message.

The conservative intellectuals are dedicated to destroying the planet for money. And, with conservative politicians, they have a whole platform for it, Project 2025.

Physical keyboards.

I remember reading an article like this. My main take away was that the effectiveness of right-wing attacks rely on centrist and center-left wing media to spread their message.

We've ended up in this weird asymmetric media situation where the right doesn't take anything from the left seriously but the left takes a lot of the right seriously. The left can't make a persuasive case to the right, but the right can make a persuasive case to the left. And so Christopher Rufo can spread his bullshit while the expertise of scientists in every discipline is rejected out of hand because it has any association with academia.

And what's the alternative?

It isn't. He's started his campaign with fascist rhetoric. He's just saying with the emotion of a deranged fool and not the balanced charisma he had before.

Edit: Nvm. I watched the actual video. He's still got that contemplative attitude. He was being interviewed, after all.

The 59-year-old Republican also said the various criminal cases being brought against Trump undermine the country’s democratic traditions.

This is how you know Republicans don't understand what democracy is, complete or otherwise. I mean, neither do Democrats, frankly, but...Republicans are by far the most ignorant demographic of voters.

Forever chemicals

Just stay away from all dating advice for men, be honest, learn to care about other people if you don't already, and you'll be fine.

I'm one of those that use it in my daily life.

The current top comment says it's "really good at filling in gaps, or rearranging things, or aggregating data or finding patterns."

So, I use Perplexity.ai like you would use Google. Except I don't have to deal with shitty ads and a bunch of filler content. It summarizes links for me, so I can more quickly understand whatever I'm searching for. However, I personally believe it's important to look directly at the sources once I get the summary, if only to verify the summary. So, in this instance, I find AI makes understanding a topic easier and faster than alternatives.

As a graduate student, I use ChatGPT extensively, but ethically. I'm not writing essays with it. I am, however, downloading lecture notes as PDFs and having ChatGPT rearrange that information into outline. Or I copy whole chapters from a book and have it do the same. Suddenly, my reading time is cut down by like 45 minutes because it takes me 15 minutes to get output that I just copy and paste into my notes, which I take digitally.

Honestly, using it like I do, it's pretty clear that AI is both as scary as it sounds in some instances and not, in others. The concern with disinformation during the 2024 election is a real concern. I could generate essays with it with whatever conclusions I wanted. In contrast, the concern that AI is scary smart and will take over the world is nonsense. It's not smart in any meaningful sense and doesn't have goals. Smart bombs are just dumb bombs with the ability to hone in better on the target, it's still has the mission of blowing shit up given to it by some person and inherent in its design. AI is the same way.

Yeah, we all remember Josh Hawley courageously staying like a real patriot.

Ahh good job, it's a good thing that Republicans can't govern. And this will be a good reminder so close to the election.

Yes that's him, the rape enabler