Optimistic Stoic. musician, electronics, computers, construction, builder, occasional McGyver. People watcher; amazing species. What will become of them?
288 followers 272 following 2,613 posts
view profile on Bluesky
just saw our sandwich accordion friend this weekend who showed me a book he had bought, and just now had the brilliant idea to see if you're here in name. If you're not the irish string picker, delete my comment and carry on. I'm the tall one with four strings.
2/ Definitions are extremely easy to tear down for much the same reason that dictionary definitions are incomplete. #1 very hard to use completely unrelated words to define ( circular, tautological ) #2 any lack of precision can be attacked to "prove" the definition completely false. ( gotcha! )
I recently stumbled across a thread where the OP was asking for a definition of "working class." I think the "can you define X" challenge is a rhetorical trick intended to destroy meaning itself. I mean,asking for a working definition to help find common ground is one thing, but as a challenge 🤔🙄
went looking for ownership changes.. but seems the MacArthur Family Foundation still owns it. always wonder how these things work. Why organizations change that way.
The Index was my favorite part of course.. bite sized.
just had some tonight, from favorite Asian restaurant. My favorite, but I adore most all kinds of brocolli.
Harpers too? I have an aging liberal intellectual who still pays for the Atlantic. I've given up on getting him to see the establishment bias. But if Harpers has been bought out too.. 😕
For those unwilling to subscribe.. Yahoo www.yahoo.com/news/article...
Feh.. do politics or politics will do you. That's what I figure.. I've been blocked by far the most by what appear to be angry leftists who are beating up moderate Democrats.. for me persistently saying the tent needs to be big to win so why not accept some imperfection. Now I avoid angry threads
Liberal democracy is the most astonishing, awe-inspiring thing, i can barely believe we managed to create it, let alone cultivate, evolve and grow it for so long. It's worth fighting with every ounce of our being to keep alive.
Not a fan of the "intellectual property" concept.. for number of fundamental reasons, But since that's where we are.. here's a smarter use than most.
Vance didn't drink any Kool aid. He's an unethical bullshit machine.
For being free despite all he's done
Well Blue sky isn't dying in any way that affects my reason for being here
Schrodinger's deadline.
Floride in the water causes Communism /s
Fair enough.. you clearly know what you're doing. For myself, I've learned to avoid this.. what they're calling "tone policing" My approach is radical simplicity, and it only works when people aren't pissed at me. ("pro tip" is just me being cheeky. I don't actually get paid for this 😏)
Not that it matters bigly, but him saying he has "the right" rather than the power.. stands out to me.
Yes that As well as the fact that to start doing any of that would have required a degree of focused effort that he can't muster. Any more..
TACO, when people stand their ground.
Pro tip; no matter how reasonable the approach, very angry people are generally unreceptive to suggestions that they adjust their rhetorical tone.
Pro tip; no matter how reasonable the approach, very angry people are generally unreceptive to suggestions that they adjust their rhetorical tone.
Plain talk is the best first approach. Speaking in polysyllabic academese is perceived as intellectual virtue signalling and turns off many people
If this is political analysis that ignores/breaks the worn out left/right model it might be useful. Cause that model needs to be put out to pasture
Well yeah.. a strong message can cut through. But if it's over the top people can dismiss what the message warns against because that something isn't as bad or extreme as the message was. No polemic can cover all the bases. I got taught 1984 in HS. Nightmares. Now feels like doom porn.
Or else their real objective is to split and demoralize Democratic voters. Hard to tell. I know a few purity progressives in real life, as well as practical progressives..
This discourse.. oofda. The "Left Wing vs Right Wing" model of politics is over 200 years old and comes from a different country. Ah, never mind. Carry on.
I think that "learned helplessness" is not so much learned as default obedience. Russia is a nation with a thousand year history of teaching the peasants they are worthless. The lesson has fully soaked in. The USA is not Russia. May not be quick to pushback,but we're used to having our say
Feel like most of my time online is fighting doomerism. Wondering how much are sockpuppet influencers
I guess the Democrats really are the "mommy party" cause everyone feels comfortable beating them up.
Well, it's Alberta Despite the natural beauty, the Alabama of Canada
1984 is too easy to dismiss as cartoonish and unrealistic. In my opinion. Cause that's how it hit me in high school. I don't think there's any better way to teach people of the ugly side of authoritarianism than recent hard experience.
Had to translate. 🙂 The /s at the end of my comment was a sarcasm tag..I was being sarcastic. I think the word was first made popular by Karl Marx.. an Englishman.
Public perception seems to be evolving, as things become more extreme.. and as a new generation sees a harsher future
For the past 30 years I've talked w all kinds of people about the extremely wealthy. Amazing most normals will strongly reject the suggestion that the xtreme rich want to control society. Preferring to think the rich just want more yachts. That might be changing, at last.
Talking w people about extreme wealth for decades.. Amazing most will strongly reject the truth that the xtreme rich want to control society. Preferring to think the rich just want more yachts.
Well yeah, but Johnson would be full of shit even w/o Christianity. Christianity gives him more to work with.
Yeah, it's all good..just don't let her control interest rates.
And yet money is central to all human activity in the modern world. Companies that enjoy the liability protections of the corporate charter should not be allowed in politics at all. At all. And soak the rich. That's how to get money out politics.
Sounds over the top but a lot of them feel exactly that way.
It's commie talk! /s
The brilliant people are working on new ways to extract more user data to sell. The web pages are made by cheap overseas coders.
Makes you wonder..if critical questions can be simply satisfied by asking AI, what is knowledge and experience really worth? I know, it's the ability to apply to real world situations. So why not add some of those questions to the interview?
Progress!
Trolling. "Flood the Zone." New name, same game.
While comedy songs about food are pretty easy to write, cause food is funny for some reason.. As usual, Lehrer has some totally unexpected twists!
Man, that stuff is really dangerous! Melts the brain.
2/ I mean, I'm not moralizing here.. I enjoy that stuff too. It feels good, right? To see that baddie with a bloody hole in his head. Gets your heart racing, then justice.. messy violent justice!! But I'm a stable adult. To a kid with mental troubles, this is like something to aspire to, right?
uh.. I guess yeah.. if I were going to say it simple; It should be impossible for a teenager to buy an assault rifle. But see, I was watching The Equalizer clips, some Nobody clips, and just now some Boardwalk Empire.. John Wick. A lot of good guys just killing their way to a fix. Glorious! 😕
Your acerbic comment is on-target. ( sincerely, I've always found "Pro Life" to be one of the most bullshit phrases ever devised. )
Not going to link, but was able to find a free pdf copy via Google. It's also on the Internet Archive.. I guess this says a lot about human loneliness. As well as how naive the Turing Test was... oh well, can't blame Turing, how was he to know?
First; we DO have way too many guns. But I think the bigger problem is our current culture of violent retribution as solution. It's everywhere from music, film, TV, fiction.. and now from the President's mouth. Even the "good guys" are retribution killing. Anti-heros are actually not good heros.
I would like to suggest a different approach. First; we DO have way too many guns. But I think the bigger problem is our current culture of violent retribution as solution. It's everywhere from music, film, TV, fiction.. and now from the President. Even "good guys" are retribution killing.
@ moebius-strip is exactly why the block button exists. observe his feed and responses and you should agree.
Loved the Element. Willis and Oldman.. Has a Heavy Metal mag feel to it..
I enjoyed special effects more when they were rare.
In truth I think pride is a piss poor substitute for self respect. And I saw plenty of ugly stuff there..
You're not saying what you're trying to mean. Everyone's feeling "matter," if you're trying to understand people. If you want to say you hate the white working class, say so. I'm not claiming any special status for the people I grew up around.
Over the past 40-50 years it's all been up up up.. on the average.
Trump wants to screw around with the foundations of US money system.. grab the controls of the Federal Reserve Bank. This is like pulling the pilot out of the cockpit and replacing him with a hyperactive three-year old.
oh there are still independent business owners and free agents and stuff. I know a few independent construction people.. I guess one could call them working class.
but a lot of it was a state of mind. Notice I'm talking past tense. I just lived in those days.. lately it's like everyone below the executive suite is a wage slave.
Not entirely. Strong unions helped create it.. Long haul truckers had some real independence.
You might make a case that working class people were still being exploited, and yeah there's truth to that. "Take this job and shove it!" - very popular song 50 years ago. But there was a *lot* more true independence. There really was.
you mean feelings? Why yes, I suppose it is. Feelings matter.
thought more.. No. A call center worker is not. Hardly anyone is these days.. the pride of being working class is disappearing. For a bunch of reasons. What they're calling "late stage capitalism" is a big part. Makes the exploitation undeniable. "Working class" people at least *felt* alive
"Trans Ideology" is bullshit that allows them to pretend they're fighting a radical movement. As usual, they convince themselves first, the better to sell the bullshit.
Thought some more. I grew up undeniably "worker class" Factory workers, small farmers, truck drivers. No one made much. But had an independent attitude and pride in having earned "honest money." Call center people I've known don't have that. Hagiography? Pride. But that was 50 yrs ago.
That's not the idea, that's the claim. The idea is to close down websites that criticize *them*
Just did. Only 25, but any amount helps. Wikipedia is an easy call.. I never have doubts about their value.
Wikipedia has credibility. "Comer was accused of physical and mental abuse by Marilyn Thomas, a woman he dated while attending Western Kentucky University in 1993" " In 2020, Comer was criticized for stock trading ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic" en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C...
Yeah.. It's hard to make a crisp definition. Combo of independence, physicality, independence, status, income.. Mostly status and income I guess. But a high earning electrician is working class. Truth is, it's a political phrase
Hiding behind the common attitude that politics is a trivial game. I would like to think the current admin's fustercluck would teach people, but people don't learn that well. The next generation, on the other hand..
cards.
It's pretty obvious to people who do physical labor for money. why do you want the term to be meaningless?
not to defend the guy at all.. but is there a strong and clear partisan mail-in voting tilt? If there is and it's rural Republicans..
👇👇
Yes it is. I don't have words for how wrong it is
Looks like it.. This American does not approve.
Their only superpower; obscene wealth, now rendered impotent by societal collapse. If only they truly were the brilliant geniuses their sycophants praised them as.
A refresher course in Alaska, lots of private unsecured phone coaching sessions..
I'm sure Stephen Miller has a long list..
They're Catholics. According to evangelicals and Baptists, Catholics aren't Christian.
And America is at the forefron.. Wait, what's that? Trump got reelected? Oh snap..
As I understand RSA and PKI, I did a little reading. Blockchain would be great for social media trusted networks. Imagine social media without sockpuppets
He is the crypto president. Completely incomprehensible.
We don't need the guard, certainly not from another state.
Just getting rid of Republicans is not enough.
The House was ready. I'm talking the Senate. Dems didn't have 60.
And not enough votes to get Senate cloture
oh, I'll definitely be tuned in for that "hoist on his petard" moment, should it come. I see the Federalist Six as Doctor Frankenstein. Their beast is out of their control.
Coming to think much the same kind of thing. I have preferences that lean progressive, but am very much a "lesser of two evils is better" voter. Purity progressives seem to have *no* idea how small their numbers really are, believing numbers from easy-answer polls. Of *course* I want a pony.
yeah, it's a real commitment.
Can't believe it took so long for someone to make this obvious suggestion! 👍
not blaming the Guard for this.. to be clear. it's just that the disrespect is coming from a Republican president.
I believe he has.. Some will never be turned, but the enthusiasm will cool..
I know an otherwise smart and not especially religious single GenX woman who voted Trump and when I asked why, she angry-muttered something about women using abortion for birth control.
I know an otherwise smart and not especially religious single GenX woman who voted Trump and when I asked why, she angry-muttered something about women using abortion for birth control. So Mike's story rings true w me.
"Despite claims to the contrary, ideological currents unfortunately follow power far more than the converse." This. Most claim to be independent thinkers cause it's our highest ideal. But in truth most follow the crowd, and the crowd follows power.
Most definitely.