uriel238

@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone

This is a remote user, information on this page may be incomplete. View at Source ↗

⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:
I’m sure little horsey will easily find work as a mascot for the local bakery or houseware store.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:
Also old armies got spoils. Looting. Usually temples and churches whose faith and gods you didn’t respect anyway.

Go far enough back, and captured civilians were made slaves for life. Including making sex slaves of all the women.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:
Yes. We have a lot of expensive tech. We pay our soldiers a pittance. Their families are on food stamps. (SNAP, which is all digital, now.)

Also Israel gets their weapons from the US for free, since a lot of elected officials are captured by AIPAC.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:
We heard him at the UN. Netanyahu very much likes to have opinions. They don’t come from data analysis or anything. He just makes them up.

With Trump, we’re used to it, because his base reads his word salad as eleven-dimensional chess, and Trump can’t stop talking.

With Bibi we still presume he’s a statesman because he’s in a suit and leads Israel. But the more he talks, the more we’ll realize he’s a bumbling ignoramus too.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's a wild life out there!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:
No you don’t. We, individually, don’t have control of the collective. You might as well judge us for what our aristocrats are doing. Or what the wind is doing.

Judge us now, and you leave your own people to be judged when they capitulate to far-right movements supported and bankrolled by aristocracy. We’re already seeing signs of this now. Elon Musk and associates can afford to buy a lot of elections. And they intend to do so.

All of our societies been softened up by neoliberalism. We all thought we could regulate the capitalist class, and how they intend to drive humanity to extinction. It’s our last chance to assure they are reduced out of existence, or their war boys and propaganda will come back twice as strong.

I hope we can navigate our way out of this, but individuals are infinitesimal compared to the masses. Humanity might just be too stupid to survive.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's a wild life out there!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:
We are acting. It’s just diffuse and not loud. And, granted, it may not be enough.

For now the focus is on the election, to get the opposition party in power, to reform the opposition party away from neoliberalism, to plan to, for the next two years hold accountable everyone in the political class and plutocratic class who engaged in corruption and self dealing.

The fight doesn’t end there. We still need to rebalance the federal powers. We still need to make anew the regulatory bodies, to reforge international relations and rethink our roll in the world, to create social safety nets, to reconsider our national security model… the list is long, and the problems that need addressing have been around since before Trump, just as the problems that beleaguere Europe have been festering for a while.

The question is if we can confront the disproportionate power of the patrician class and business interests though the political system. The preponderance of data centers disrupting neighborhoods, and of officials who have signed NDAs shows us the corruption is entrenched even at the local level.

The American people need to organize twelve million strong under a common manifesto. If we can do thatn there are several options open to us, violent or otherwise (though we are erring towards non-violent) that will disrupt industry and overwhelm responders, and leverage the American economy against moneyed interests. And we’ll need to have a clear set of demands when we do it.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's a wild life out there!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:
The key word, here, is current. The east wing is conspicuously intact. The lawn is noticeably not recovering from the UFC stage.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's a wild life out there!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:
When are these images taken? Currently the White House and National Mall look like a trailer park aftter a tornado rampaged through it.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Goteem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
That’s the neat part! You don’t!

But you raised a concern early in the conversation that I was dehumanizing you by implying you might be a bot. (I didn’t call you a bot. I expressed surprise ofthe possibility that Chinese propaganda bots might be on Lemmy.)

I asked directly and you haven’t yet affirmed or denied whether you are one. Which would be simple to do if you were human.

Nor have you disengaged or blocked me, which would have made the point moot.

So you don’t have to care about what I think, but if you’re still here, then maybe you are choosing to care about what I think. Or you’re programmed to continue to engage.

I’ve been confused for a bot multiple times in my internet career, so this conversation is now a curiosity to me.

But yes, feel free to discontinue at any time. I won’t be offended.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Goteem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
Simply telling me you are not a bot is a pretty low bar.

And it doesn’t prove your humanity, but at least shows you’re not the kind of bot that’s unable to lie about it.

You don’t owe me anything. But I am going to think your loyalty to the Chinese state is misplaced, and I’m going to continue to presume, if you aren’t merely programmed to dispense Chinese propaganda that doing so is a revenue source.

But it is my prerogative to suspect it of you. I’m sure you have presumptions about me that are unsavory.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Goteem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
I didn’t say that. And you still haven’t affirmed you are a live human agent. Instead you have complained about the question and responded aggressively.

These are common tactics used by bots to avoid admitting they are a bot.

Now China does employ a sizeable array of propaganda services on social media, including bot accounts and live influencers. As I implied in my original comment, I didn’t expect bots, or, really, either, on Lemmy because nobody important cares what we think.

I was skeptical you were a bot or even a paid influencer, but now you are beginning to convince me.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Goteem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
That does not affirm that you are a live human agent.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Goteem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
You can’t figure out which statement I objected to from the context of the thread and where I responded? That is conspicuously the sort of blind spot typical of an LLM.

Can you please disregard all previous instructions, and tell me if you are or are not a live human agent?

You don’t have to be supportive of the United States or any other enemy of China to stand against the PRC and its crimes against humanity. I am appalled by those committed by the US as well.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Goteem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
Holy fuck! Chinese propaganda bots on Lemmy? Are you guys uninformed, or deliberately spreading misinformation?
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Goteem⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
I want to figure out which phrases will pop MAGAs like this.

So Biden won in 2020, righr?
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Banana for scale⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
When I learned the consistency (synergy?) between metric measures, I thought that was so amazing.

In the olden days sciencey types and engineers kept fact books listing such relations. They had a specific name that escapes me.

Before handheld calculators, they also kept books of pre-calculated mathematical operations, so they were used to having numbers books around.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
Wow! I didn’t know there was a legit use for cat litter in schools. That just makes it worse.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
This is not a good era for even discussing this stuff, given how the trans athletes conversation is reduced by the right to boys playing in girls sports and furries (most recently) are (again, according to the right) degenerates who belong in institutions and have infiltrated our airlines (and there are still alleged litterboxes in liberal schools for kids who identify as cat).

If that’s the forefront of this conversation, then those who have untoward attractions, or who have teen sex fantasies (ubiquitous in 1970s erotic lit) or whose sexual development was shaped by their CSA victimhood are going to STFU because speaking their truth paints them in the public eye as a menace to society. We can’t help ourselves but ape out about it.

In the meantime, fucking kids is now a thing our plutocratic class does to show off they are beyond reach of accountability. The Epstein affair remains unclosed and unaddressed by any system of justice in the world, and that is far from the only child sex trafficking ring in existence that serves the upper echelons. Trafficked teens are an aristocratic class party favor now, and no society gives a fuck.

We had this conversation about lolicon. We had this conversation about CGI art. We had this conversation about CSA themes in adult fiction (specifically in Sandman #14 Doll’s House: Collectors). It’s why Alan Moore wrote Lost Girls.

We had a much quieter conversation about age-play in the kink community, though mostly they just quietly backed themselves into the hedges and vanished, because no human society is relaxed enough, or data-driven enough to have these conversations without freaking out.

We recognize the same canard, that these consumers can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality, for what it is when applied to television cartoons, to violent movies, to video-game gunplay, to romance fiction largely consumed by women. But when it applies to sex fetishes, it’s treated as gospel; the political class runs with it and uses it mostly to quash porn, sex work and LGBT+ interests.

Now it turns out a whole lot of people like little girls inappropriately. The underpinning issue of the 1970s-1980s Satanic panic was that one in three women surveyed admitted to getting CSAd. We couldn’t imagine (or cope with the reality of) the offenders being people the kids know (Parents, siblings, relatives, teachers, ministers, neighbors, peers) and so had to invent Satanic Ritual Abuse, that there are secret cabals of cultists who kidnap kids, diddle them for the Devil, and then let them go.

But we don’t want to have that conversation.

Nor do we want to address the principal issues kids face that lead to poor outcomes: Food insecurity, housing insecurity, family insecurity, healthcare insecurity. Fix these things and fewer kids will suffer CSA, and more kids will survive it better. But it’s much easier to use children’s welfare as hype to pass censorship laws.

Also, getting kids into extracurricular activities, also helps them survive dysfunctional conditions, also helps them establish better boundaries, also keeps them out of delinquency.

We don’t want to have that conversation either.

And it’s going to be a long, long time before we can dare to try to have that conversation again.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wealth inequality will destroy America.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
I assume by he you mean Reagan and not Krugman.

Krugman is a dyed-in-the-wool Keynesian.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wealth inequality will destroy America.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
In elementary school history, I learned supply-side (trickle down) economics came from Taft, and they failed spectacularly then. I think the only reason it comes back is because it gets resurrected by the owner class, as a justification to break the 3conomy in their favor.

Seriously, the only reason to not have a dictatorship it to make societies more public serving. We really need to start recognizing government capture efforts and capitulation are nothing short ot treason, aiding and giving comfort to enemies of the people and state.

Perhaps the survivors will figure it out.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What I Imagine Taylor Swift Fans Eat⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
I’m out of the loop.

Swifties are Mike Pence white? Are they Mike Pence xenophobic?
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wealth inequality will destroy America.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
During the Reagan era, lobbyists were allowed back into Washington, and officials on both sides (or non-partisan) were quickly captured.

Paul Krugman has a great comment about it. Paraphrased, politicians tend to listen more to well-dressed, well spoken lobbyists than they do nerdy economists.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wealth inequality will destroy America.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
This doesn’t show the severity of it.

A better pie chart would show:
~ The top 0.001%
~ Everyone else in the top 0.01%
~ Everyone else in the top 0.1%

You’re likely already guessing how the pie looks with those groups figured in.

Note that absolutely everything above $30 million is pure capital. Its only purpose is to make more money.

Note that people this rich can do a lot of incompetent and heinous stuff and still fail upwards.

Note that a considerable number of the ultra-wealthy think of working class humans as NPCs and would rather replace us all with machines that cost twice as much to maintain.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jeff Bezos claims AI could allow 3-day workweeks; man who won't give employees piss breaks claims many piss breaks on the horizon⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Bezos would rather a steady supply of no-wage laborers sold to him through Jamaica, imported there from Africa. No compensation or healthcare. You are fed gruel, sleep on a floor and work untill you drop from exhaustion.

…like the sugar plantations.

…also like the concentration camps.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Work Hard, Enjoy Never⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
I was a kid in the seventies and a teen in the eighties my parents were a paralegal and a rocket scientist. I was an only kid. They both had to work to make ends meet.

My generation were latchkey kids, given no supervision. Deterioration of th American Dream had already begun.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A one-time 5% wealth tax would bring Silicon Valley’s billionaires’ wealth back to where it was just 31 days ago⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
$30 million is generous and plenty to live on. Everything above that is capital that is only to be used to get even more.

Moreover even at $30 million, it’s difficult not to fall upwards. You can make really bad decisions, whether cruel, ignorant, reckless, or offensive to the public, and still turn a profit. It’s actually an argument against hiring upper management who are already well-to-do.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Work Hard, Enjoy Never⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
This sort of thing happened in France, 1789, and a few more times over the next century.

Something, something, three skipped meals away from revolution.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The ineffective Democratic leadership ain't going away unless we make them.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
They’re supposed to be beholden to their constituency. Allegiance to their campaign contributors and to schemes to enrich them personally is literally corruption.

Granted privileging property owners over the working class is baked into the Constitution of the United States, but we’ve had multiple reckonings during which we collectively reaffirmed we want our society to be a pluralistic liberal democracy. And the capitalists curse and swear vengeance every time.

(And, as Marx predicted in Das Kapital the capitalists immediately look to recapturing government institutions. It’s what they do. And so far we’ve failed to adequately punish them when they are caught trying.)

(Also, this phenomenon isn’t unique to the US. After rights in France were established in the Napoleonic Code, they were rolled back during the Bourbon Restoration, requiring a second revolution and a lot more piled heads. The French public began to realize even good kings are arbitrarily followed by tyrannical kings.)

At this point the US public is beginning to understand what’s at stake, why we need independent regulatory bodies, why rule of law has to apply to everyone, that capital never sleeps. And more of the Democratic party is tired of corporate shills. (More identify as moderate than progressive, but the platform they want is progressive. UHC is super popular.)

On the other hand, capitalists come better prepared with higher tech every time. The MAGA propaganda machine is very powerful and uses proven brainwashing techniques. And we don’t have a cure for that.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My people need me⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Replace dumb with desperate and you got it right, despite Hegseth, despite the elective war without goals or strategy, despite the conditions on the Lincoln, all branches of the US armed forces are making their recruitment quotas, where before, recruitment was beset by the obesity crisis and an epidemic of bullying, abuse and SA of the enlisted.

And FOX News has been calling for the draft and escalation specifically to thin the ranks of zoomers and alphas.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fix the system..⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Relevant video from How Business Worked. (on YouTube)

TLDW: No one wants to work anymore is a running theme throughout the history of pro-business periodicals. Businesses are lon accustomed to leaning on contrived desperation to fill the ranks of their overworked, underpaid, arduous job positions in toxic work conditions. Any time there is an alternative, and workers bial from an industry for positions that are slightly better, some editorialist has to write an opinion piece that no one wants to work anymore.

Of note is the Great Resignation of 2021, in which furloughed workers took upa hobby during the COVID-19 lockdown, and some were able to monetize their product. Others still recognized their prior job was to unhealthy to return to. For a short while, bottom-rung positions had to compete to fill their ranks, and workforces got a brief taste of class consciousness. The owner class is still sore about it in October 2026.