It’s a nice gesture. But so long as we keep not holding Trump, his administration, or the UDoJ to account for breaking laws whenever it suits them, it’s security theater. At the very least it’s not hurting the voting process and may hold some immediate benefits in getting more participation.

Another day working as a Chuck E. Anesthcheesiologist

There are no Gods. Only me.

I agree. What RFK Jr. and the whole federal admin is doing is fucked up, making shit worse, and destroying faith in policies that once protected us (at least somewhat).

And I’m confused by the general reactions I’m getting like they read “RFK JR. did nothing wrong” or something rather than the actual words I typed.

We do want more attention to these issues. I am not telling people to tune out or anyone to stop posting about it. My final message was only have some discernment for when the media is trying to make you feel a certain way. We really have to figure out how to actually talk about the issues at hand instead of raging about every single bait post dangled in front of us.

Hey gang. Quick reminder from recent history:

There was a train derailment incident that was so bad it got US national attention. Spilled a bunch of chemicals into a sensitive area where people live and it polluted a nearby river system.

For months after that story, the media ran more and more derailment stories. Because public outrage about the issue was popular enough that they could keep highlighting ongoing derailments and keep getting clicks and views. Everyone thought it was some new problem we weren’t addressing or that someone caused.

The reality wasn’t that derailments were suddenly some big new problem we needed to fix. Nothing new was happening to cause them. America’s train systems have had this problem for ages. The news just never thought to report on them with as much significance before because the public didn’t seem to care. Only when it affected an area where people live.

I know some of what the Trump administration has done is particularly egregious. I’m not defending them one bit. Nearly every recall we’ve had with meat and produce has some tie to recent food safety deregulation. Now, however, we have to be careful not to fall into recency bias. We have food recalls all the damn time.

This tofu contamination recall is incredibly small. There are seemingly no ties to administration changes in food and drug safety. What the media, and social media, are doing by highlighting more of these events is making the problem seem bigger and more dastardly than it is. They want the eyeballs on them for calling it out, no matter how well or poorly it fits into the narrative. And some of them want you to be scared to buy food.

Take the issue seriously, but also have some discernment.

OMG exactly. I remember my StarCraft Brood War and WarCraft III CD keys from when I was a teen. Who were my favorite teachers names in the same timeframe? Could maybe tell you exactly one.

My memory is strange. It locks in really hard on numbers and conversations. Like I have a great working history of talks I’ve had with individual people. And I can remember credit card numbers or how much money is in my bank account without checking. Plus I can mentally convert temperature, do quick maths and percentages, etc…

But nouns? Names of people places and things slip away like there’s no place to hold them. I’ve even forgotten friend and family names sometimes. I know I know the name, and if given enough time I’ll be able to recall it. Sometimes it makes reading books and watching media really annoying. Because I know who I’m talking about or remembering. I remember their face and the dialogue. But I can’t recall the character’s name.

My best friend remembers very little. Only exactly what he wants to remember. And often he just has a bunch of banked trivia he can pull out of his brain at any given moment. It’s wild sometimes, like, he won’t remember my girlfriend’s name, but he’ll remember exactly which Simpson’s episode number and title Homer said, “You can’t keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once and move on.”

So our conversations are funny sometimes, where he retells me a personal story he’s told me dozens, maybe hundreds of times, and I’m counting like ah yes this is the 3rd or this is the 55th time you’ve asked me that. Used to stop him all the time but I think it makes conversations awkward or annoying. So I let him yap even though I know the story. Sometimes I mentally mark what’s changed about the retelling since last time for fun.

I’ve remembered his appointments and obligations more often than he does, cuz he’ll tell me, “I have to be here on this day” and then it’ll be that day, and the appointment is approaching, but we’re still talking, and I’ll say “Don’t you have this thing to go to in like an hour?” “… shiiiit bye”

When I say he was a monster,

When I set fire to his name,

It does not matter where you hear it from,

Whether truth or lies, gets said all the same.

Yeah I also don’t know that this even works to begin with.

Becoming besties with right-wing leaning individuals has not worked for me. Push came to shove during COVID and I lost a couple of friends to MAGA and antivaxx movements, who I’d known for over a decade.

The weirdest thing was that they knew I was trans, they were close friends of mine, and what pushed them out of our friend group had nothing to do with me. But you can bet that when they left, they also threw in a slew of transphobic comments before the door could hit them on the way out.

These people have a hatred that talk-no-jutsu just won’t erase.

I’m tired of seeing people talk about the worst people all day long. I see people I really don’t give a fuck about all damn day long, and upon learning even a little bit about them, wonder why the fuck anybody even cares to keep bringing them up. Even the jokes are a hate ritual.

He doesn’t matter. He never mattered. Whatever he does with his life is none of my business and I really don’t give a fuck what happens to him. So why do I have to see him against my will on a regular basis?

Actions

People have to prove they can change. Just saying you’re changed isn’t enough. And if people don’t want to be judged by the stupid shit they’ve said, maybe they shouldn’t have said the stupid shit. We live in a country where politicians make promises they never deliver on. It’s terrible optics to flip.

Idk Pete. Democrats seem incapable of bringing justice to people who fuck with kids.

Are they gonna get their positions back? Or some kind of compensation? If not that’s a pretty shit apology

The word AI is a marketing tool. It’s just like calling beef “100% grass fed.” It’s there to give you buy-in that it’s using something new and potentially good for you. When the reality is a lot more murky. If at any point the cattle ate grass, they call it grass fed. Nevermind that for six months out of the year they’re fed corn instead. But legally, they can call it grass fed and put the label on there to deceive you. AI works the same way, and so do many other buzzwords. It’s all marketing. It’s always been marketing.

I get what you’re trying to say. But the image OP displayed is actually propaganda. I get the feeling a lot of people don’t know what propaganda means and think it’s only something a government does to make you a gungho patriot.

If the argument, info, message, whatever form of communication being delivered to you, is designed to appeal to your emotions, or sway your opinion, even if it contains some mote of truth, it’s propaganda. Smokey the Bear is propaganda. To guilt you into not starting forest fires. It’s for a decent cause, but it’s no less a mascot designed to alter the behaviour of the populace.

Reading comprehension has taken a total nosedive, or men in these comments are willfully misinterpreting very clear language because they can’t stand the idea of being compared to dangerous men.

We know not all men are dangerous. We don’t know which men are dangerous. And by the time we find out there isn’t much we can do about it.

That’s the takeaway.

Half the comments: BASICALLY SAYING ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS

My best friend is a man. He’s a wonderful person. I love all the men I’ve chosen to be in my life. I’ve identified them as safe. I, too, don’t want them to be pre-categorized as potential monsters. But it doesn’t matter what I want. Enough men violence or sexually harass women that the gamble is too risky.

And here’s the scariest part.

Over half of homicides committed against women come from intimate partners and family members.

Like, even when we find men we think we trust, it’s still no better than a coin flip that one day they might violently hurt us, rape us, or kill us.

Put your stupid pride aside for a fucking second and address that there is a problem when how violence against women is normalized and dismissed. Even now in this very thread.

It doesn’t mean men can’t be harmed in return. I know plenty of abusive women exist out there. That does not negate a single part of this argument. It’s another problem, and one we should also take seriously and address.

We should ALL be on team: All Of This Sucks And We Should Do Something About It

CW: suicide and depression

Two years ago, I was suffering from the worst depression I’ve ever had. It’s chronic. I am often suicidal. But the feelings still range in grey, almost never the far extremes. I’m like a battery constantly bouncing between 10% and 50% charged.

But some time in the summer, it was at 1-5%. I was barely hanging on. Some days I nearly broke and I actively started looking for ways to off myself.

Thankfully, I’d worked on building an action plan for the different stages of severity in my depression. One of the actions I was obligated (to myself) to do was ask for help. But even in my 30s, I never really learned how. I’d almost rather chew my arm off than ask someone to help me, with anything. And even if I really needed help I never know how to ask for it, or know what I need.

After some meditation, I realized I just wanted comforting words from people who cared. So I sent a message to my friend group, told them what I was going through, and asked them to send me kind words in private, but like obviously how they truly feel, not just to stroke my ego. Be honest, be funny, if you care send me anything.

Crying just typing this out. The messages I received in reply… were everything. I got way more than I expected. Friends celebrated having me in their life. They called me funny names, like female goth Garfield. Some surprised me; one of my friends expressed that she thought I was so cool from the day she met me. My best friend’s was one of the best, it was just one line.

He said, “Happy you decided to let others be the kind of friend you would and have been for them.”

Our friends weren’t always curmudgeonly or stoic or anything, but in the aftermath of my request, people changed. Everyone started being much nicer to one another. We patched up old wounds. I’d say what happened was my friends started caring more for each other. It’s disgustingly cute. It melts my heart. My friends are the greatest people in the world. I’m furious that some people exist without friends like these. You deserve it as much as I do.

I know people really want to enjoy these games and I wish them luck. But…

I have thousands of other games I can play that don’t have invasive DRM. Enough I might never need to purchase another game in my lifetime if I felt like it. And I’m happy being away from Windows and their bullshit. It’s hardly even a sacrifice. But good luck to the hacker crackers.

Friend of mine refuses to cuss. She makes up childish ones in their place.

One day we were playing League of Legends and she fucked something up then said: “Son of a biscuit bean-dip mother-frito!!!” I’d never say it in place of a good “oh fuck me, then” but I will never forget it for as long as I live.