• 2 Posts
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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: December 31st, 2023

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  • Also, his debates last time weren’t… ideal, but he at least remained awake during them!? Anyway, I’m with you: I understand someone wanting him to win, but how on earth can this be considered a done deal already?

    There is a time and a place to stop all questions and get to work. But we aren’t there yet!? And being ready to change one’s mind based on the most current set of facts is literally the hallmark of the Age of Enlightenment, as opposed to e.g. the divine right of rulers to continue for as long as they wish to?


  • Perhaps you missed the last almost 4 years where people were doing precisely that. There was this whole thing with Ron Desantis, and Nikki Haley, and the brainworms inside of JFK, Jr., etc. It didn’t work, and his base chose Trump, if not unanimously then close enough to it, and also far back enough in the past for such a call to not be relevant anymore. Plus conservatives are just different kinds of people - for them, power is not bestowed upon someone by We The People, but ripped out of the people’s hands by force of will. Might does make Right after all, in their playbook.

    But Dems are not choosing Biden. Also, no primaries are being held. So asking him to drop out is the last hope before holding your nose and voting for him anyway, hoping against hope that just like for Hillary, others do as well (although in that case… well, I’m sure this time will be different. Why am I sure? Bc… shut up, that’s why!:-P /s).



  • I for one have not read the original text of the actual ruling. To be clear, nor would I understand the legalese wording if I had.

    I think we are just waiting to be told how to feel about it, by people who actually know stuff. And they are probably afraid of getting killed (literally) at this point.

    Like Biden has known about the Supreme Court’s bent for awhile now, and the Heritage Foundation too, but what does he do about it all? I mean… did you see the last debate? Regardless of that, how does his excuse hold water that he was jet lagged from traveling, when that was literally weeks ago in the past? This is our white knight savior who we all look to in order to save us all, with no effort required on our parts, except maybe to go vote, not even as often as once a year?

    Similar to climate change, whatever is going to happen, I suspect it already has, possibly up to or more than a decade ago. And that’s about all I can guess at. Note that I’m not trying to be fatalistic, but if this attempt at realism appears similar to that, perhaps there’s a reason.




  • I have seen social media described as “microblogging”, but I don’t think that’s true. Or rather, actual blogs like on WordPress are one thing, but the more “conversation” style is something else entirely. Phrases such as “^This”, “I also choose this guy’s wife”, “and my axe” reveal that the true purpose of social media is emotional venting, rather than conveyance of information. For some people at least - and depending on moderation practices and abilities, and on communities setting up expectations, the level of discourse may be either higher or lower, but even so, foundationally, isn’t that what this place is for?

    After all, Wikipedia articles are one thing, essays and poetry are another, blogs are still another (with the level of effort being put into their crafting), and finally at the lowest end, social media is found where we just blurt out whatever we are thinking about at any given moment.

    Mind you, it can be done well - I have had people convince me of my privilege status & thus shepherd me into wokeness even on Facebook, which is not known for such - but even so, isn’t the true purpose of a thing what it mostly does? Like a vehicle isn’t a coffee holder, despite it being capable of that, as well as many other things.

    Some people’s thoughts are just more worth listening to than others. Hence why microblogging e.g. Twitter/X & Mastodon can aim at a higher end, as too can Reddit & Lemmy/K/Mbin (+ soon: Sublinks), but it seems rarely used for its maximum purpose and far more often for its emotive vomit aka “share every single one of our uncurated thoughts”. Case in point: my message right here, which unlike a “blog post” took me <5 minutes to create.:-P

    Btw, check out https://medium.com/@max.p.schlienger/the-cargo-cult-of-the-ennui-engine-890c541cebcb for an example of what I would consider a more worthwhile post. Sometimes, imho, it is okay to aim for more quality than quantity of posts, even if that seems antithetical to the goal of “social media” that aims instead to connect people together to just shoot the shit amongst ourselves.



  • It is, but presumably phrasing it as a question increases engagement (or was thought to) hence furthers the OP’s goal, in spite of the factual nature.

    i.e. the same reason that Trump was allowed to walk all over the “moderators” at the recent Presidential advertisement “debate”.

    You know, “journalism” as it seems to always be practiced these days. As in, chase the profits to the exclusion of all other considerations.

    Hrm, I wonder if my time spent on social media has made me more hostile to such predatory practices overall…








  • A large part of the confusion is that dinosaurs did not emerge from birds in the same way that humans did not evolve from Chimpanzees (nor monkeys) - but rather, both groups in those pairs evolved from a common ancestor (but different ones:-).

    Birds have feathers and for the most part fly, while alligators not so much. In attempting to simplify, e.g. Avians to “birds”, it causes confusion. Alligators also are not warm-blooded as birds are, not do they have beaks, all hallmarks of modern birds, but they do have four legs, long body with a tail, moveable eyelids - and don’t they have external ear openings as well? - all hallmarks of modern lizards.

    Scientists use precision language like “non-Avian theropod”, but those don’t map perfectly to common words like “birds”, which everyone knows are just government drones anyway:-P.