Depress_Mode
@Depress_Mode@lemmy.world
- Comment on Man, their reputation really has gone to shit 2 weeks ago:
It’s true, but intelligence and counterintelligence is kind of their whole thing, isn’t it? They’ve certainly had a long list of laughable fuckups, like their many failed assassination attempts on Castro, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Iran-Contra, etc., but they’ve also successfully toppled governments in South/Central America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Asia, etc. Apparently they’ve made at least 70 attempts at regime change since the end of the Cold War, according to Wikipedia. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the CIA as a non-threat, personally, especially if they’re going to be following the malevolent orders of a Trump loyalist. I fear the CIA will turn more inwardly to our own country and use their efforts against US citizens (more than usual, that is), specifically against those who would oppose a Trump regime.
We already saw FBI agents engaging in 60s-and-70s-style surveillance of BLM activists in 2020, where they and other feds went around in unmarked vans snatching random activists off the street and traded literal baseball cards they made about different individual activists for fun. Those feds were also sent in at the express direction of Trump. With that in mind, I have no doubts the CIA would do the same in heartbeat. I know they already conduct domestic surveillance operations, but I’d predict a substantial increase in that under the current administration, especially given the ways things have been going after only the first couple weeks with Trump demanding absolute fealty throughout the government and vilifying all opposition. It’s just frightening that Trump had a ready-made intelligence org that was so easily converted to his agenda and seems poised to be his personal secret police. I think that’s probably even scarier than the CIA of old. At least for right now, I might somehow prefer a CIA that says, “Sorry, Mr. President, but we don’t follow orders.”
- Comment on Man, their reputation really has gone to shit 2 weeks ago:
CIA, too. I thought they kind of did their own thing and kind of aren’t really beholden to the president. People think the CIA is such a rogue organization that some people have suggested they killed JFK because he sought to shrink the org and make them more accountable. Whether that’s true or not, apparently all it takes to completely take it over is just to change around some personnel, though.
Like, my head cannon is that the new leaders would be figureheads only and that there’d be someone secretly chosen to keep things running behind closed doors and pulling the real CIA strings to resist such changes (and maybe have an encore, pretty please?), but that’s based on nothing at all. I’m no fan of the CIA or anything, but I do fear what such a shadowy government org might do when wielded by Trump cronies even more than the stuff they usually get up to.
- Comment on You wouldn't even need to stop going to work! 3 weeks ago:
That’s true, but some utilities (such as water and electric) going under would probably be a bad thing if there wasn’t a plan to swoop in and nationalize them right away. Barring a full-on revolution where the people could seize these utilities for public ownership and operate it themselves (presumably for much cheaper), I don’t see that happening because the government would be likely to simply bail out a lot of the companies, or they’d be bought up and probably end up being consolidated by an even fewer number of people.
- Comment on Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of SCIENCE? 4 weeks ago:
No, this passage is describing the care they needed.
It doesn’t make any sense as an interpretation to jump right to death if you look at what the passage actually says. They died because they couldn’t clap their hands? They died because they or their caretakers didn’t smile enough (gladness of countenance)? They died because they didn’t get enough gentle encouragement from their caretakers (blandishments)?
This was from a list of fucked up things Frederick II did written by a guy who hated him. If the kids had died as a result of the experiment, surely it’d say so. It’s just saying the experiment was a a failure (labors were in vain) because of course they did not spontaneously start speaking Hebrew, Greek, Latin and instead had to rely on nonverbal communication.
If someone says “I can’t live without my phone,” they aren’t going to literally drop dead one day if they forget it at home.
If you have a source laying around for info on the kids’ deaths, I’d take it.
- Comment on Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of SCIENCE? 4 weeks ago:
It sounds to me it’s saying you had to do things like clap your hands to get their attention, gesture to communicate what you wanted them to do, and that you had to do so kindly and patiently or else they may not respond well. Alternatively, maybe it was the children who had to clap their hands and gesture, but then I’m not sure how they’d speak blandishments (kind, gentle encouragements, like “good job!”) to others.
- Comment on Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of SCIENCE? 4 weeks ago:
According to Wikipedia:
“The experiments were recorded by the monk Salimbene di Adam in his Chronicles, who was generally extremely negative about Fredrick II (portraying his calamities as parallel to the Biblical plagues in The Twelve Calamities of Emperor Frederick II) and wrote that Frederick encouraged ‘foster-mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the children, but in no ways to prattle or speak with them; for he would have learnt whether they would speak the Hebrew language (which he took to have been the first), or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perchance the tongue of their parents of whom they had been born. But he laboured in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures, and gladness of countenance, and blandishments.’”
- Comment on Fluffy WTF 4 weeks ago:
I’ve heard the shape of the head on the human penis might also be intended to scoop out other dude’s spunk so you have a better chance of passing on your own genes instead. Apparently cavewomen were just having trains run on them all the time, I guess.
- Comment on I'm just a 20 year old guy, AMA 1 month ago:
Forgetting how it works and having to relearn it again
- Comment on Has any country actually _solved_ the housing crisis? 2 months ago:
I suppose it depends on how you’d define “solved”. If we’re talking about basically eliminating homelessness, Cuba has done immense work in that regard. Say what you will about the Cuban government, but Cuba has a near-zero homeless population because the government has built a ton of housing and caps rent at 10% of individual income in that state-owned housing. Cuba is also a country with a tradition of multi-generational extended family homes, so there’s a greater chance that you’d be able to move in with a family member if you fell on hard times. Home ownership rate is around 85% compared to 65% in the US. All of this is nothing new, though, so it’s hard to say if it’s the answer to current issues of housing that’s largely driven by corporate greed, but it certainly sounds like it couldn’t hurt. Granted, I’ve seen people give examples of homes that are rather small and spartan, where the walls are made of bare cinderblock and generally aren’t very pretty, but that’s way better than being homeless even if some of the housing isn’t as nice as others. I’ve also examples of state-owned housing lived in by the same kinds of people, but are really quite nice as well. Whether the US government would ever do this, though, seems unlikely. Not at the scale we’d need and not for so cheap, anyway, especially not with Trump coming to office. I can’t really speak for the governments of other countries, however, and I’m no expert on Cuba either, so I could have gotten some things wrong. The US embargo to Cuba since the 90s also means that Cuba has had a more difficult time procuring building materials for the low-cost housing that’s helped so many, which has led to an increase in size and number for those extended family homes over the years.
- Comment on Why are kings almost always redheads? 2 months ago:
I’ve never noticed such a pattern myself and I’m not sure I’d agree that most kings are depicted as red-headed. What specific depictions are you talking about? Could you give us a list of examples? If you google “cartoon king”, you’ll find only a few redheads among dozens of brown or white-haired kings, which is what I’d expected to find.
- Comment on When you walk into /c/lemmyshitpost to introduce a daily meme series of every line of dialogue from The Room (2003) [Day 1] 2 months ago:
The basic rule is that if you can drop the name and the sentence still makes sense, use a comma.
You wouldn’t use a comma if you said something like “Jack went to work.”
- Comment on When you walk into /c/lemmyshitpost to introduce a daily meme series of every line of dialogue from The Room (2003) [Day 1] 2 months ago:
That’s a correct use of a comma. You often use commas when using a persons name. Isn’t that right, Grandwolf?
“Mom, have you seen my keys?”
“I’m off to the store, Sarah.”
“My best bud, Zach, is a geologist.”
- Comment on Drink the climate change away 2 months ago:
Say no to ecofascism, kids.
- Comment on Steal Her Look 2 months ago:
Also, despite what some mushroom books will say, it’s not the 🤮😵 kind of poison (except in rare cases)
It’s the 😵💫🤤 kind of poison
- Comment on Anon takes the horsepill 3 months ago:
I’m pretty sure it depends on the state and whether or not that state considers a horse to be a vehicle/device. Alabama, for example, I believe does not consider a horse to be either, while I think California does. There’s this story that sometimes gets submitted to TIL-type communities where a man from Louisiana was decided to be ineligible for a DUI charge after doing exactly that, but he was still given a court summons for “disturbing the peace by intoxication”.
- Comment on Jazz 3 months ago:
If this is how I hear about Quincy Jones dying, fuck you
- Comment on Please don't crash. Please don't crash. Please don't crash. 4 months ago:
People always freak out over this picture but it’s just a joke about motorcycles. Bumper stickers say “Yamaha” and “Look twice”, a common motorcycle-awareness safety slogan. “[MO]TORCYCLE” is written on the same sticker below, but you can’t really tell due to the low image quality
- Comment on Poop Knife 5 months ago:
I actually wondered the same thing while I was writing lol. Further research is clearly warranted 🧑🔬🔬
- Comment on Poop Knife 5 months ago:
In his 1953 autobiography, Danish explorer Peter Freuchen claimed that in 1926, he became trapped in a blizzard while running a dog team and was forced to take shelter under his sled for 30 hours while snow built up and froze around him. When he tried to emerge, he found he was entombed in ice and unable to break free with his hands alone. Thinking quickly, he took a shit right there, shaped the turd into a chisel, and allowed it to freeze solid. He then claims he was able to use his newly made tool to chip his way free and make it back to camp. Peter was the only witness to his supposed escape. The study mentions it’s based on an Inuit ethnographic account, however. Maybe Peter, having spent much time in the Arctic with Inuit peoples simply took the story for himself. With the runners of the study finding that they were unable to replicate such a technique, it lends credibility to the claim that story may have been fabricated.
- Comment on Come back to us, stripey dog 5 months ago:
Good thing we also have more thylacines than ever before, right?
- Comment on Come back to us, stripey dog 5 months ago:
Nah, son. Thylacines have, in a way, become cryptids since their extinction, complete with cheesy travel shows where some bogan tells you all about how they totally saw one time and they’re 100% sure it was a thylacine they barely saw from a distance running away through the tall grass after sunset. I’ve seen similar shows about Bigfoot, Nessie, Mothman, and others. They don’t exist anymore, making your chances of seeing one alive no more likely than seeing Bigfoot, which is the point I was making. Animals thought to be extinct being officially rediscovered is a pretty rare occurrence; I assure you it doesn’t happen “regularly”. It’s a big deal when it happens because it’s quite rare. Yes, I’m familiar with the stories of all the other extinct species you mentioned as well. The ivory-billed woodpecker is still considered by most ornithologists to be extinct, and the last widely accepted sighting of any individual was in 1987, despite some supposed (but not universally accepted or entirely conclusive) sightings every once in a while. In 2020, a guy working for Fish and Wildlife claimed to have ID’d one in video footage, but it must not have been very compelling because the very next year Fish and Wildlife proposed declaring it officially extinct. People claim to have sighted the ivory-billed woodpecker not infrequently, much like the thylacine. What is infrequent is any compelling evidence whatsoever, however.
- Comment on Come back to us, stripey dog 5 months ago:
There have been many sightings and footprints found of Bigfoot, too.
The last widely accepted sighting of a wild thylacine was in 1933, over a hundred years ago. Even if any tiny, isolated pockets had managed to escape extermination (which is unlikely on an island without much mountainous terrain or dense forest when everyone and their grandma was out hunting them for the bounty the government put on their tails), they’d be in big trouble owing to genetic drift by now. You always hear people say “I know what I saw,” but do they really? It makes me circle back to the Bigfoot thing.
- Comment on The US shouldn't have so many men 6 feet and over 6 months ago:
You’re right, my bad. My comment was directed at the actual OP, though, so you can rest assured the comment wasn’t for you
- Comment on The US shouldn't have so many men 6 feet and over 6 months ago:
“You see them everywhere.” That’s it? This opinion feels way too specific for that to be the only thing on your mind lol. Maybe at least some context? Are you from somewhere where people are less tall on average? Is there something you don’t like about tall people? Like the other guy said, give us a rant! Let’s hear where this is going.
- Comment on The US shouldn't have so many men 6 feet and over 6 months ago:
For real though, could you elaborate? Give us a few reasons why. Also, probably would have been a better post for the unpopular opinion community
- Comment on e l y t r a 6 months ago:
Me deciding which insect to use as an example for the wiki article picture 🤔
- Comment on Dashcam footage clears man of felony charge after showing constable injuring himself 9 months ago:
It sucks that they turned this into a story about how great mass surveillance is
- Comment on hell ya brother 11 months ago:
The only two extant monotremes in the whole world have similar anatomies? Shocking! You could make this same meme substituting any other monotreme characteristic, really.
- Comment on The History Channel, now in the fantasy section. 1 year ago:
When I was a kid, I definitely remember a more history-centric focus on the History Channel, although I remember even then (early 2000s) that they seemed to lean pretty heavily on WWII documentaries. It seemed every time I switched to the channel, one would be playing. It’s more or less been the way it is for the last decade or so, though.
- Comment on The History Channel, now in the fantasy section. 1 year ago:
Nah, it’s not much better during the day, either. HC runs either crackpot history/paranormal docs, reality shows, discussion about niche topics such as toys/modern architecture/etc., or war docs almost 24/7. In case anyone is wondering, here’s the next three days of programming scheduled for History Channel.
Saturday (Veterans Day):
12:03-1:06am - The UnXplained
1:06-3:04am - The Proof is Out There
3:04-4:01am - The UnXplained
4:01-7:00am - Paid Programming
7:00-1:00pm - WWII in HD
1:00-7:00pm - Vietnam in HD
7:00-8:00pm - Special, Variety Salute to Service 2023
8:00-10:03pm - Beyond the Battlefield
10:03-12:03am - Special, 761st Tank Battalion: The Original Black Panthers
Sunday
12:03-2:04am - Beyond the Battlefield
2:04-4:01am - Special, 761st Tank Battalion: The Original Black Panthers
4:01-7:00am - Paid Programming
7:00-3:00pm - Modern Marvels
3:00-12:03am - The Toys that Built America
Monday
12:03-4:01am - The Toys that Built America
4:01-7:00am - Paid Programming
7:00-12:00pm - History’s Greatest Mysteries
12:00-4:00pm - Ancient Aliens Special Presentation
4:00-9:00pm - Ancient Aliens
9:00-11:05pm - Ancient Aliens Special Presentation
11:05-12:03am - Ancient Aliens