Most people have a very surface level understanding of various political issues. There’s only so many hours in a day, and people choose to use them in different ways. I can’t really blame them for that. I also can’t blame them for the fact that we’re probably one of the most heavily propagandized peoples on earth, with Fox and the right wing news networks being the crowning jewel of such. I can see how it’d be easy to take your infotainment of Jesse Waters smugly “owning” Nancy Pelosi over some stupid fucking bullshit she said or did without ever hearing a real dissenting voice and just stop there. I can’t agree with it, but a lot of the normies I know have made it clear to me that I’m a special case in that regard.

Brainwashing. Trying to understand the Palestine- Israel situation was something I casually worked at, off and on, for twelve years, which is 1000x more effort than most Americans put into it. I’d get about six hours into trying to untangle the propaganda and get what I felt was an accurate portrayal of the truth using what I felt were high factuality, unbiased sources and just get nowhere. I got as far as understanding that Israel is an authoritarian police/ethnostate, but I never had so clear of a picture of the situation as I do now. Israel has removed all doubt for me that they’re proudly undertaking a project of genocide.

Alpha Centauri system. I’d keep spending money until we got a working fusion reactor and Alcubierre Drive, open source the designs, and go check that shit out.

Oh shit, maybe I’m just banned lmao

Yeah, I also have a strong [left] libertarian bent, and I appreciate that .ee admins trust me to block servers I don’t want to see for myself. I think the only two that .ee has defederated from are lemmygrad and exploding heads (Nazis).

I don’t think so. In 2016, while the DNC kept their thumb on the scale for Clinton, the RNC saw voters actually turning out for Trump and let them do it. I remember getting the vibe that they weren’t happy with it, that they really preferred Jeb Bush or some other long standing party man, but at least when their voters spoke up, the Republicans didn’t try to fight them. The shrugged and went, “well, alright”.

Had they put their thumb on the scale for a boring establishment candidate like Jeb or Kasich, it seems to me that Hillary’s chances would have been much better if only for the fact that a lot of unexcited Republicans would have stayed home on election night. I’ve never voted for a Republican, I’ve been hearing “it’s the most important election ever, you’re just going to have to compromise and try to get what you want next time” since 2012. I’ve reliably turned out and voted for the democrats in every election except 2020 [Voted for Jorgensen. Relax, I’m in California, I knew the state would go for Biden, I was just hoping to try and get another party a seat at the table by giving them a bigger slice of the popular vote]. I’m tired of voting for the lesser evil, boss. I’m ready to vote FOR something again.

Nope, sorry, I just saw a politico article about Newsom agreeing with Charlie Kirk on trans people in sports that basically boiled down to “FINALLY! SOMEONE understands that this is the most critical topic in America today, and for Democrats to win, they need to become republicans!”

The democrats aren’t leading us anywhere. They’re not going to save us. They have no vision besides being dollar store republicans and wondering why Republican voters keep choosing Republicans over them.

So, it’s all down to federation, essentially. If an instance allows its users to act in bad faith (lemmygrad, exploding heads, etc), then typically people will ask their instance admin to defederate from them or else move to a server that will. And if you can’t find a server you like? Great news! Just pull down the source code and start your own!

And how’s that working out?

I think it’s completely nuts that after the last 20 years and especially the last 12 years, Democrats still seem to think that compromising with the right will flip republicans voters. Gavin, my guy, they think you’re literally the reincarnation of Stalin. You could gargle Trump’s nuts and they’d still hate you

Idk, man, kind of a sus one

Speaking as a Californian, unfortunately, he probably is.

Fellas, is instantly vaporizing 60,000 people gay?

Okay, what violence did the pro-palestine movement spread, exactly?

I can accept that some buildings got torched and property values temporarily reduced during the George Floyd protests, but when I hear violence, I think harm against flesh and blood, which the police did much, much more of. I can’t think of many instances where the protestors did that.

What violence and chaos has the radical left spread in the last decade, pray tell

I did vote for Hillary, for all the good it did.

I mean, I don’t put too much stock in that because there’s a bandwagon effect to voting. If people perceived that Hillary or Biden is already the winner, as the media portrayed, then folks are more likely to vote for them. I think a fair election would have seen 2020’s primary looking much more like the 2016 Republican primary, where it was hardly a foregone conclusion that Trump would win.

Best use of AI I’ve seen to date

Nah, miss me with that shit. The way super delegates were set up in the ‘16 primary was total crap, I remember that the media had basically called it for Hillary on almost day 1 of the primary season because every superdelegate announced (before their state primary!) that they were going for Hillary. I think that the HRC campaign really thought they were going to fold in all of the Bernie voters’ votes, money, and energy.

Well, no, not of fabricating ballots. I said I think they had a thumb on the scales, that neither race was fair, not that the votes were fake. So, it’s more like I’m accusing them of giving their candidate of choice significant advantages over the others, which is not something you could call a fair race.