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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • Yeah, right after the election, we all had a few days of reckoning with ourselves in realizing what we allowed to happen, and realizing that maybe the US really is just like this. And then a whole bunch of people, turned their own guilt around on trans people, and people who were against funding a genocide, and the concept of “woke,” blamed them for the loss, and convinced themselves that they aren’t responsible for what happens now.

    And to Americans, I know that there are limits to what we can do when Trump has majority support of every branch of our Government, and we’re rightfully scared of what they’ll try to do to dissenters. I know how strong the temptation is to sit back and smugly watch the FAFO roll in. But we also need to be loudly rejecting this whenever we can, otherwise we’re going to normalize it for a generation. I know it’s gonna be difficult. I have some family members who are in the cult, and I don’t know if I can talk them out of it. But sitting around waiting for my parents and grandparents to wake up on their own, or pass away isn’t a good plan either.



  • I do agree that Trump managed to destroy the image of the US in a few months, he’s not actually the sole reason. It’s the ~33% of the population that voted for him again that really destroyed the image of the US.

    The world has known for a while that Americans are dumb, but the fact that we not only let him run for president again, but let him get elected again is the real loss of trust. We (in the broad sense, probably not any of us actually in this thread) voted for a felon, and as far as anyone can tell democratically elected a man who had already made us the laughing stock of the world in the past. They graciously forgave us once, and then not only did we not change, we doubled down on crazy. We’re a democracy, we’re all also a bit responsible for the destruction of our reputation by allowing this to happen and continue. Even those of us who have never voted for Trump.





  • Relatively few musicians are counting dollar bills. Publishers are, Spotify and the tech-bros who have inserted themselves between musicians and their fans are. But the musicians writing protest music are busking on TikTok in the evenings after working day jobs to afford rent. I hate to recommend a sinking ship, but unironically, if you are looking for music about the current moment, it’s on TikTok. Some of it makes it’s way to other platforms, but the average person won’t find it because music discovery on the mainstream music platforms is curated by corporations who are out to make money for the big record labels.




  • JD Vance and Mike Johnson are strong deterrents to that though. Because both are equally dangerous as Trump in their own ways, and at least a tiny bit more competent. Vance would be more pro-oligarch than Trump, and Johnson would be more Christian Nationalist/Handmaid’s Tale. If anything Trump’s erratic nature keeps those factions off balance because he’s so self-serving.




  • Around the world, countries voted for change last year, not just America. Not necessarily good change, but people were unhappy and didn’t like the way things were. When Biden dropped out, there was massive excitement that maybe Kamala would offer good change, but eventually she promised more of the same.

    I’m not saying sexism wasn’t a factor, it was. But it wasn’t the only factor. And Trump’s margin of victory wasn’t so large that we should just write off all women because Trump won against two women who allowed him to be the “change” candidate.


  • It’s been that way for a while, Gen Z boys aren’t the first to fall for it. 10 years ago it was gamergate, and before that there was talk radio like Rush Limbaugh rambling on about “feminazis.”

    That’s been “conservatives” best recruitment tool for years. And it generally works up until the boys realize they’re serious about the “no masturbation” rule. Although by that point they’ve generally already got them hooked on other propaganda.




  • But put her against one of the big boys and there was absolutely no match

    So not going by weight at all then.

    Look, I get that there are limits on how many teams you can feasibly have, but there are also plenty of smaller dudes who never play sports because they’d also get mauled. It’s also not a huge mental leap to think that maybe some coaches/administrators might deliberately try to get the girls to give up and be “out of their hair.” Not saying that happened in your anecdote, it may have genuinely been a well-meaning attempt at inclusivity by everyone involved. But it’s also not super relevant if there wasn’t also an attempt to balance it by weight - something that has already been shown to lower injury rates and severity for existing players if we would do it.


  • Comparatively underdeveloped brains? Testicles precariously placed for maximum injury? I’ll give you that members of the female gender commonly have looser/stretchier skin and potentially lower muscle density.

    But also the girls I grew up with, grew faster and were taller than the boys at the same age. Eventually we caught up, but there was a period in there where playing sports against the girls my age gave them an advantage. Maybe 200,000+ years of human evolution already mostly solved this problem, and it’s not actually about protecting children, but being an asshole to trans kids.



  • Kamala Harris’s 60 minutes interview had 5.7 million live viewers, and as of today, 3.8 million views on YouTube. Making approximately 9.5 million views total.

    Spotify doesn’t release their numbers, but just on YouTube, Donald Trump’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s 3-hour podcast got over 26 million views in the first 24 hours (and today is sitting at 55 million views).

    Even if CBS was somehow unfair, it doesn’t matter. Trump got a massive viewership advantage going on Rogan, but because he’s a fossil, doesn’t see it that way, because he still thinks broadcast TV is mainstream media. It’s not. Joe Rogan is mainstream media at this point.