Hey there. Just letting you know that in general trans people and their allies absolutely do not want to be the center of public attention like this. They didn’t ask for it.

You’re right, there’s no good reason everyone should be so completely focused on them as a group. But that wasn’t their choice. That was the choice Nazis made when the first books they banned were about gender and sexuality.

That was the choice Nazis made when they spent the last decade and the foreseeable future demonizing and discriminating against transgender people.

Not because they asked for it. Not because they deserve it. But because they are the easiest target. Small in numbers. Complex by nature. Difficult to understand for the uninformed and the disinformed. “Different.”

They don’t consider themselves the center of the universe. Bigots do. Bigots have decided that transgender issues should be the thing everyone cares about right now. If you want to blame anyone, blame them.

Not enough attention is given to the literal arms race we find ourselves in. Most big tech buzz is all “yay innovation!” Or “oh no, jobs!”

Don’t get me wrong, the impact AI will have on pretty much every industry shouldn’t be underestimated, and people are and will lose their jobs.

But information is power. Sun Tzu knew this a long time ago. The AI arms race won’t just change job markets - it will change global markets, public opinion, warfare, everything.

The ability to mass produce seemingly reliable information in moments - and the consequent inability to trust or source information in a world flooded by it…

I can’t find the words to express how dangerous it is. The long-term consequences are going to be on par with - and terribly codependent with - the consequences of the industrial revolution.

Anarchism uses democracy and consensus to make decisions

Genuine question: Is that not a democracy?

But where is the place where I can get a message like that and trust it as it is the norm in that social network? McLuhan said “The Medium is the Message”

I’m not sure this is possible on the internet in general. Even in the early days of facebook people were forced to grow suspicious of their old acquaintances reaching out to say hi only to be hit with some “be your own boss!” MLM schtick, and that was when you could be fairly confident the sender was a real person that you actually have known for some time. Not to mention how suspicious we all are of some of the “living my best life!” type of humble-brag posts that are really just sad people playing pretend.

Add a layer of anonymity and I’m just not sure genuine trust could ever be possible. Try to take away anonymity and you wander into the quagmire that is personal privacy and still can’t avoid the possibility of scams and compromised accounts.

I think that the Internet as a Medium simply cannot do what we have been trying to force it to do for years - serve as a good “third place” for socialization. Do people make friends here? Absolutely. But people make friends in the ICU, doesn’t mean we should install a bar there.

Contrary to the circles we reside in, most of the US despises any act of “socialism”. It’s ingrained in the culture after 50 years of waging a cold war against an entity that was associated with everything on the left because of propaganda.

America’s mainstream opinions on “socialism” were not caused by America’s history of arms races, thermonuclear development, and proxy wars across the globe, nor do they persist because of it. Many Americans have experienced a rapid and shocking shift in opinion toward Russia - the great red enemy of the cold war. This is still happening despite Russia making no major political reforms in recent history, no significant revolution in government, and actively trying to reclaim soviet territories.

If this was possible within a single generation, it also should be possible for public perception to change on socialism. There is no need or purpose to wait for people to die - their ideas live on.

No, decades after the cold war ended, the cause of the hatred of socialism in this country persists for one simple reason: Americans have become convinced through a tremendous amount of propaganda that Government is bad.

Not just America’s government as an entity - we could all find some common ground there if it were that simple. No institution in particular, not the Administration, the federal or state legislatures, or the town halls, or the mayor of the small village who’s really just doing it as a part-time gig - no, all of these are but parts of the greater problem - Government itself is seen as bad.

Not the flashy boots on the throats of “radicals”, not the ICE agents storming the hospitals - that’s not governing, that’s just violence. No, what’s “bad” are the mundane, boring, tedious things the Government does because someone has to.

There is this wild knee-jerk reaction to governance itself that dates back to good ol’ Reaganism of course.

“The most terrifying words are… I’m from the federal government, and I’m here to help.” (Reagan, 1986, paraphrased)

Spoken by the man specifically in charge of the federal government.

America was supposed to have been founded for the people, by the people, and with the people in mind. But now the people believe not only that the government isn’t here for them - it can’t be.

They believe we shouldn’t try to make things better through governance because governing can’t be good. it’s always “inefficient”, it’s always “stealing your hard-earned money”. To them it’s million dollar pens in space, and spraying cat piss on drunk rats, and paying for hormones and birth control and school “litter boxes” - in short, to many Americans, any money the Government spends is by definition theft and waste, especially if it’s hard to understand.

Changing their minds on socialism involves first changing their minds on the government. Not the capital A capital G American Government, but the nature and purpose of governance itself.

But on the bright side, I believe our opportunities to change those minds are only growing from this moment. The hateful idealogies, the demagogues, the simple answers - they’re all a net negative on society. But the fact remains that the government is being challenged and ripped apart both internally and externally. Institutions are crumbling as we speak, traditions are being broken, and precedents are being set and shredded left and right.

People have the opportunity to realize that government itself is malleable, and that if it can be changed for the worse so quickly and horribly, then it can also be changed for the better. We have the chance to convince them that we as a society can take all of this power and use it for our personal and collective good, if only the right minds and the right ideas take root.

Thank you!

These overreactions are reminding me of the J6ers, though.

Ah, yes. Truly a classic. “The people angry about the blanket pardoning of all the violent insurrectionists are just as bad as the violent insurrectionists!”

Lol.

But, the beautiful thing about hitting rock bottom is that the only way to go from there is up. All of that to say that maybe (yes, I’m being optimistic) Trump is what this country needs to hit rock bottom, do some self reflection, and pull ourselves back up to a better place. The biggest takeaway I learned way back when is that no matter how bad things get, the world keeps spinning

These are unfortunately contradictory ideas. It sounds like you had a positive journey in the end, but there are many individuals - especially people struggling with addiction - who will tell you that there is no rock bottom. The world does keep on spinning. And as long as you are alive, you can go lower. There is no point where you go so low that you hit bedrock and the world stops spinning.

Plenty of people think they hit rock bottom and later discover that what they thought of as their lowest point eventually became a time they now think of as “the good days”.

There is nothing inevitable or guaranteed about hitting rock bottom and climbing your way back up. It is hard work, and it sounds like you know that personally. Whatever comes next will be a terrible struggle for all of us, and there is no guarantee of success. But we do have to try anyway.

That’s very interesting. Do you know where I could learn more about that decision? I tried searching but its 2025 and any phrases I could think of just returned websites offering nearly identical collections of flag emojis…

As much as theists would claim that their morals were handed down from divinity, ultimately an athiest would understand those morals to be originally handed down from humans, and therefore humanistic.

Doesn’t mean they’re good morals of course, especially when corrupted by motives of power, but bad morals can be handed down by secular sources as well. The point being that theistic origins do not necessarily mean the morals themselves are flawed.

In any case, fundamentally the ethics of AA’s 12 steps are technically theistic in origin and nomenclature but humanistic in nature, in that they appear to really dig down into the psychology of humans in a way that deviates significantly from their christian roots.

According to Mercadante, however, the AA concept of powerlessness over alcohol departs significantly from Oxford Group belief. In AA, the bondage of an addictive disease cannot be cured, and the Oxford Group stressed the possibility of complete victory over sin.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Alcoholics_Anonymous

The original christian prayer group believed that through God, addiction could be cured. AA has maintained from the beginning that addiction cannot be cured - a recovering alcoholic is and always will be a recovering alcoholic. Faith in God alone will not deliver salvation because addiction is not sin, it is illness, and should be treated by more than just prayer.

It could be more complex than that. It could be an average number of vampires preying on an evolutionary disadvantage - hospitality. Vampires cannot cross a threshold uninvited, but Italians are famous for welcoming everyone and their mothers to dinner. It was a recipe for disaster until they found the holy bulb.

Ever wonder why Italy has crosses in every home? Why the Vatican formed there? Could it have been a long and storied history of the rise and fall of romans and religions? No. Vampires.

It was more obvious when they all had big bellies, but have you ever noticed that the Pope sitting in his white outfit and hat looks like unpeeled garlic?

Personally, I think both theories can be true. It is hard to corroborate dates for our records. Immortal bodies that burn away in sunlight pose some archaeological challenges.

But consider this:

What if Italy had a significantly higher number of vampires than normal? Before they learned the secrets of Allium, and faith, and a big wooden spoon always close at hand.

2075. A world where fast and foreign foods dot the Italian countryside. Faith has been abandoned, crosses discarded. Their traditions are forgotten. But their traditions have not forgotten them.

Only one grandmother remembers the past. Cross on the mantel. Big wooden spoon. Garlic in the sauce. One big dinner, every week. Everyone’s invited.

Coming soon to a theater near you:

Nonna: No Blood Before Supper

They want to use military planes because they can hide the cost of this program in the “whoops it’s too big to audit” defense budget. The cost of civilian contractors would be publically disclosed.

This person’s outright sadistic blindness or trolling aside, anyone reading this comment with good faith and not immediately having an aneurysm should remember that the once and current president once said, and I quote:

I like taking guns away early. Take the guns first, go through due process second.

I don’t believe I have treated you with hostility, but please forgive me if I have.

But I must ask - does “not voting” discredit the illusion of democracy? To who? How?

Do you think there is a meaningful number of people who currently believe the statement “American democracy is working” but would cease to believe that when faced with voter turnout statistics?

Not voting is absolutely both a symptom and a cause. How do you think we got here, if not by voting for the people who won the elections for the past century, and by not voting for the people who lost the elections?

Voting won’t fix the ruin that is the neo liberal project and the debt its forced us into.

Again, almost everyone knows that. For most “radicalized” people that are actually doing things, voting is openly acknowledged as a stalling tactic designed to give us more time to do what must be done for real change.

What exactly will not voting do? Who will face the consequences of not voting? Who will be helped? Who will be harmed? Do you honestly think the wealthy will be harmed by you not voting?

I never said that, nor did I ever think that. But you have made clear that this discussion is unwanted, and I will respect that and say no more on it. Farewell.

Did you? To me? Where?

Please don’t feel that the best thing you can do is shut up! You deserve a voice in the matter, even if it is much harder for you to use it the way others can use theirs.

Besides, not everyone can always be or even needs to always be the person who spreads the message. We need people to help figure out what the problems and solutions are just as much as we need people to share those problems and solutions with the world.

It is usually a necessary evil that we have marketers to sell the things that wouldn’t exist without the engineers to produce them.

I already told you what I didn’t agree with and why I didn’t agree with it several times

I didn’t and still don’t see any explanations for why you disagree, other than “being athiest” which I do not believe is sufficient explanation in and of itself. There are plenty of athiests who find reasons to agree or disagree on this topic beyond that single belief.

I apologize if my approach seems insistent that you need to agree with me. I only wanted to explore the topic further, and am happy to discontinue that if the desire is not reciprocated. Farewell.