UnderpantsWeevil
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
- Comment on JD Vance’s team had water level of Ohio river raised for family’s boating trip 12 hours ago:
The majority of Americans who bothered to show up want this.
The majority of Americans who were enfranchised and bothered to show up and weren’t so turned off by the ongoing genocide that they could choke down another vote for a dim-witted would-be technocrat.
A plurality decided they didn’t care either way
In Texas, the state legislature imposed a host of reforms to the election process that made lines longer, registration more difficult, and kicked more people off the rolls. The sitting liberal Attorney General didn’t do shit to stop them.
Consequently, voter participation in the state plunged a full 6% from 2020 to 2024.
This is, presumably, because over 1M people just got a case of the lazies.
- Comment on JD Vance’s team had water level of Ohio river raised for family’s boating trip 12 hours ago:
It’s interesting that this regime is already behaving as if the dictatorship it clearly aspires to has already been established.
Unitary Executive Theory has been on the table since Nixon. To say “we’re not already living in a dictatorship”, you really need to squeeze your eyes shut, stay perfectly in your lane, and not ask why we have the largest prison population on earth.
I therefore assume that the establishment of a dictatorship à la Russia is already so far advanced that it won’t be prevented
Well, obviously, the Russians are naturally predisposed to being ruled with an iron fist, because they have bad genes. Once the American people have been cleansed of the social rot, we’re going to see the kind of Liberty and Freedom that our Founding Fathers could only dream of.
Or, at least, that’s what Steven Miller and Steve Bannon and the last half dozen Joe Rogan guests have told me.
- Comment on JD Vance’s team had water level of Ohio river raised for family’s boating trip 12 hours ago:
Guy who doesn’t believe in climate change once again pulling the big “Cover Up The Consequences of Climate Change” lever so he doesn’t have to personally look at the consequences of his public policy.
- Comment on Anon crunches some numbers 14 hours ago:
Technology grows exponentially.
There’s a compounding effect to advances in different fields. But I would posit it’s not exponential, but sigmoid.
Early in the study of a scientific field, discoveries are slow and difficult. But as the benefits of research are industrialized, you see a critical mass of research and human labor invested in applied sciences. You see a surge in development up until you hit a point of diminishing returns. Then the benefits of research diminish and the cost of maintaining the libraries of information and education grow beyond the perceived benefit of further academic work. Investments slow and labor product diminishes over time. Existing infrastructure cements itself as the norm and improvements become more expensive to impose. Finally, the advances in technology plateau for a period of time.
Eventually, you hit on another breakthrough and there’s a new surge in investment and novel infrastructure, until that well of new useful information is exhausted.
Periods of rapid and transformative growth may look meager and unimpressive in hindsight simply because you are standing on the shoulders of giants. But can anyone seriously argue that the steam engine (17th century) was less significant than the nuclear power plant (20th century), when a nuclear power plant has - at its core - a very high efficiency steam engine? We don’t seem to recognize 300 years of internal combustion as a period of relative technological stagnation.
- Comment on Charging to tour rental properties... 1 day ago:
What does Nanjing have to do with a comment about Mao?
The fact that you have to ask…
- Comment on Charging to tour rental properties... 1 day ago:
Sort of a “Cobra Problem” of rental agencies, wherein they have an economic incentive to show you a few duds before they get you anywhere near some place you’d want to live in.
Incidentally, this is already a strategy rental agencies. Exhausting your client in a run-around means they’re more likely to settle on a mediocre choice than hold out for something better. Stapling a price tag on every new visit means further disincentivizing them to keep looking after you’ve showed them a bunch of lemons.
- Comment on Charging to tour rental properties... 1 day ago:
In a region near me the rental market is 99.3% full.
I hear that from every landlord in every market, whether the economy is booming or shrinking and people are coming or going.
I have never been quoted an occupancy rate less than 90%. I’ve been in buildings under construction and heard “Yes, we’ve already leased most of our units! You’re getting the last ones! So lucky!”
- Comment on Charging to tour rental properties... 1 day ago:
It’s weird to see people pile on Mao for a massive regional famine but blink right past the Rape of Nanjing.
Extra surreal when you know how many millions Chang-Kei Shek butchered before he was forced off the mainland.
Even more so when you consider the explosion in wealth and prosperity enjoyed by a country that ended the 1940s with 400M people and entered the 2000s with 1.3B
This, as Western nations have engineered famines from Haiti to Libya to Gaza to Afghanistan.
- Comment on Charging to tour rental properties... 1 day ago:
- Comment on Charging to tour rental properties... 1 day ago:
Is anybody actually going to pay this?
I’m sure someone will. It’s a relatively small amount of money compared to, say, rent itself. And if you think you’re getting some material benefit from the service, you could be gulled into it.
I’m more curious to see if this becomes “normal”. Like, if a cartel of rental agencies all decide they’re not getting enough in referrals and need to juice their profits directly from the customer, then this pops up everywhere.
- Comment on Houston Pastor convicted in $3.6M fraud case returns to Church after prison release. "It's such a blessing to have our visionary pastor back at church. We are so excited." 1 day ago:
You’d have to ask the remaining parishioners. Unfortunately, the modern state of American journalism is to pack a fist full of soundbites in between walls of ads and call it a day.
For all I know, the church has exactly three congregants left - per the included photo - and an anonymously sourced (WHY ARE YOU ANONYMOUSLY SOURCING THIS QUOTE?!) one of them is just blandly “Yeah, we’re glad he’s back”.
I will say that this guy is close personal friends with Emanuel Cleaver, the cousin of two prominent Black Panthers. So if they’re disproportionately skeptical of a federal prosecution of one of their leading congregants… idk, maybe there’s something ABC13 - a news channel owned and operated by wealthy Houston conservatives and a Florida-Based media mega-corp with some pretty seedy histories of its own - isn’t including in its coverage.
But “I can’t believe a congregation of Black Houstonians would question in the infallibility of the US justice system” is, itself, an expression of blind faith that you might want to explore.
- Comment on So glad I suck dick 1 day ago:
I’ve been around the block a few times and I’m afraid I have to report that nerd love transcends sexual orientation.
- Comment on Houston Pastor convicted in $3.6M fraud case returns to Church after prison release. "It's such a blessing to have our visionary pastor back at church. We are so excited." 1 day ago:
That is where the blindness of the congregation comes in.
You’re dealing with a survivorship bias. Anyone who saw the fraud and was disgusted by the minister’s actions has left already.
- Comment on Houston Pastor convicted in $3.6M fraud case returns to Church after prison release. "It's such a blessing to have our visionary pastor back at church. We are so excited." 1 day ago:
There’s only so much time in a day and so much “Do Your Own Research” anyone is going to have the background or the social connections to interrogate.
If anything, the folks who tell themselves “I would never fall for this” are the most popular targets for affinity scams.
- Comment on So glad I suck dick 1 day ago:
Becoming gay to avoid drama is a bit like climbing on board the Titanic to avoid drowning.
- Comment on Funny 1 day ago:
offensive
- Comment on Funny 2 days ago:
It’s the second part you’ll struggle with. Any ex-Mormon can tell you the details.
- Comment on Funny 2 days ago:
The Steven Crowder Defense is a classic
the most offensive lines (and this is where trans people might want to stop reading) in the episode come from Garrison herself, when she becomes incensed that she can’t get her period or get pregnant. “This would mean I’m not really a woman. I’m just a guy with a mutilated penis,” Garrison says. “You made me into a freak.”
Really comedy gold
- Comment on Funny 2 days ago:
Following the episode where you point out how stupid a religion’s premise is
While shamelessly glazing its members. Gary, the Mormon counterpart to the South Park gang is Twilight Vampire levels of perfect at everything. The punchline of the whole episode is that the dogma of the religion doesn’t matter, because the practitioners are these perfect, charming, innocent people. And you’re all kinda assholes for bringing up their religion to begin with.
Like, that’s the joke. The final beat of the episode is laughing at you, the audience, for thinking Mormons aren’t cool.
- Comment on Funny 2 days ago:
If you think South Park or the creators have ever praised Mormonism
They straight up literally have. Repeatedly and frequently. Matt and Trey having Cartoon God explicitly state that he’s only letting Mormons into Heaven is about as much glowing praise as a cartoon about Satan having anal sex with Saddam Hussein and Donald Trump can churn out.
Put up against Britney Spears blowing her own head of with a shotgun and George Clooney asphyxiating on the smug farts of his electric car, and it really stands out.
The Book of Mormon
A stage play that collaborated with the Mormon Church to prostelatyze.
Throw a few dick jokes into Shen Yun and its still propaganda. This is a story of Mormon Missionaries going abroad and helping a bunch of backwards primitive Africans find entitlement through (a comic reinterpretation of) the Mormon faith.
Rudyard Kipling could hardly have done worse.
- Comment on Funny 2 days ago:
This amounts to the way that I look at my dog.
Sure. But then you still love your dog. And if you’re writing love letters to your dog in your televised comedy, that sticks out. Especially when the other half of your episodes involve cartoonishly shoving firecrackers up your neighbor’s cat’s asshole.
- Comment on Funny 2 days ago:
If you think the musical skewers Mormons, though, think again. Parker and Stone do challenge the literal credibility of the story of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But the Mormons they write about come across as lovable and optimistic.
“I don’t think anybody would want to see a two-hour-long Mormon-bashing, and we wouldn’t want to see that either,” Parker tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “We love the goofiness of Mormon stories. Some of them are incredulous, and we loved almost all the Mormons that we had ever met. So this was sort of this conundrum that we like to talk about — we think what they believe is really, really ridiculous, and yet they seem like pretty happy people.”
…
Along with critical acclaim, the musical has received largely positive feedback from Mormons who have seen the show, Parker says.
"The official church response was something along the lines of ‘The Book of Mormon the musical might entertain you for a night, but the Book of Mormon,’ — the book as scripture — ‘will change your life through Jesus,’ " Stone says. “Which we actually completely agree with. The Mormon church’s response to this musical is almost like our Q.E.D. at the end of it. That’s a cool, American response to a ribbing — a big musical that’s done in their name.”
“Before the church responded, a lot of people would ask us, ‘Are you afraid of what the church would say?’ And Trey and I were like, ‘They’re going to be cool.’ And they were like, ‘No, they’re not. There are going to be protests.’ And we were like, ‘Nope, they’re going to be cool.’ We weren’t that surprised by the church’s response. We had faith in them.”
- Comment on Funny 2 days ago:
What really fucking sucks is realizing South Park’s creators seem to believe this unironically.
- Comment on Anon learns a new spell 3 days ago:
This is just Harry Dresden novels
- Comment on Anon learns a new spell 3 days ago:
Broke: Guy with a wand
Woke: Guy with a gun
Bespoke: Guy with an ACME industrial magnet to reflect all the bullets back at the people firing them
- Comment on Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe signed off on legislation repealing paid sick leave provision 3 days ago:
Not just one guy. It was a legislative majority in both houses.
- Comment on Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe signed off on legislation repealing paid sick leave provision 3 days ago:
It was too hard to give the voters what 58% voted for
Obviously, the voters didn’t really understand what they’d voted for and they needed the brave, brilliant, business-friendly leaders in the state capital to reverse it for them.
Incidentally, all these assholes will coast to victory in the 2026 election season, because the opposition party will be too afraid of alienating mega-donors to make “Guaranteed Paid Sick Leave” the centerpiece of their campaign.
- Comment on Anon did philosophy 3 days ago:
How many monopoly bills would it take for a gas station to fill up my 7 gallon tank?
- Comment on Thinheritance 3 days ago:
I don’t think people can raise kids as well today as they could 40 years ago because the world is falling apart
I mean, I can’t imagine telling a survivor of the Great Depression “Yeah, sure, have six kids. Now’s the time. Because in a century we’re going to have cheap energy and enormous food surpluses and highly advanced industrial machinery and we won’t be book-ended between World Wars or have a smallpox or syphillus or polio epidemic.”
Like, sure, fuck capitalism. But we’ve had capitalism for 400 years.
- Comment on Why doesn't the US build a bridge here to connect Alaska to the mainland? Are they stupid? 3 days ago:
Canada is where all the illegals live
