Objection

@Objection@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Facts and minds⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I hate the term. I think what you described is a perfectly valid way to approach conversations, but be prepared to have the term thrown at you and to be accused of bad faith, because a decent part of the internet decided it was because a webcomic said so.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Facts and minds⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Whenever I’ve tried to do this I get accused of “sealioning”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If every minority group came together under the same banner they would be the majority, and rights would be much easier to attain for everyone.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Usually you don’t go, “You forgot to respond to this” if you don’t actually have anything there you want the other person to respond to. If you do not know how to have a conversation with another person go learn how to do that and get back to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If every minority group came together under the same banner they would be the majority, and rights would be much easier to attain for everyone.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  What’s there to address? You’re just asserting what you personally like.

  The more the capitalists are able to gain power (through making a bunch of money), the more they’ll push the government to cut those social services and to remove regulations. The system you describe is viable only to the extent that the capitalists can be kept in check.

  Many existing socialist countries (Vietnam, China, etc) have implemented a market economy, as it’s necessary to participate in the global economy, and it can be useful for economic development, at least to a point.

  I’m not really sure what you want me to answer here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If every minority group came together under the same banner they would be the majority, and rights would be much easier to attain for everyone.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Ignoring the core principle of Capitalism, free markets, makes it impossible to actually talk about Capitalism in theory or in practice.

  The confusion comes from the fact that the word capitalism has two meanings. The original meaning, which the other person and myself are using, has nothing to do with free markets:

  1854, “condition of having capital;” from capital (n.1) + -ism. The meaning “political/economic system which encourages capitalists” is recorded from 1872 and originally was used disparagingly by socialists. The meaning “concentration of capital in the hands of a few; the power or influence of large capital” is from 1877.

  It was only later, in reaction to socialism, that capitalism began to take on this meaning you’re using, where it’s supposedly disconnected from class interests and is just about some abstract economic principle. But using the second definition, it’s impossible to talk about capitalism in practice because, as I said, such a system has never existed and will never exist.

  Your argument against can be used for every other economic system as well, so it becomes a matter of pros and cons which will never declare a clear winner and always demonstrate a mixed economy is best for everyone involved.

  Huh? Economic systems where the interests of capitalists are prioritized are best for the capitalists, economic systems where the interests of workers are prioritized are the best for workers. Also, aren’t you declaring a clear winner when you say you can, “always demonstrate a mixed economy is best for everyone involved?”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If every minority group came together under the same banner they would be the majority, and rights would be much easier to attain for everyone.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  They’re talking about capitalism in practice. In practice, economic policy is shaped less by ideology and more by they relative power of economic classes. When the rich have power, they get policies that favor themselves enacted, and vice versa. It’s only in theory that capitalism is about “free markets,” in practice, the rich support free markets if they alternative is something that’s more harmful to themselves (like taxes and nationalization) and oppose them when the alternative is beneficial to themselves (subsidies).

  “Free market capitalism” is a purely theoretical idea that has never existed, and will never exist, because someone’s always going to have enough power to get the government to intervene in the economy to promote their own interests. Generally, left-wing people talking about capitalism mean capitalism in practice, not the theoretical idea.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If every minority group came together under the same banner they would be the majority, and rights would be much easier to attain for everyone.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, the way we can show all minorities that we’re in this together, that we’ll stand by each other even when it’s unpopular and inconvenient, to stop the state from splitting off groups and trampling them underfoot… is to split off Palestinians and support candidates who want to trample them underfoot because standing up for them is too inconvenient.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If every minority group came together under the same banner they would be the majority, and rights would be much easier to attain for everyone.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Historically, you’re completely wrong.

  1. Hitler came to power with the support of capitalists (here meaning “people who own substantial capital” rather than “ideological supporters of capitalism”). They saw him as a way to maintain order against socialism and to break the power of unions. A similar story happened in Italy, and in other fascist countries.

  2. Many capitalists did in fact benefit from fascism. There’s some confusion about fascist economic policies, but you should know that the term “privatization” was first coined to describe the economic policy of Nazi Germany. When they nationalized companies, it was because they were minority owned, and often they were redistributed upwards to the capitalists.

  3. Labor rights suffered tremendously under fascism, with labor organizations exterminated, allowing capitalists to impose much worse conditions, lower pay, and longer hours on the workers, as well as using prisoners for slave labor. Any attempt to challenge these conditions would be considered treasonous, undermining the war effort.

  4. Even when their countries were defeated militarily, many capitalists got off scot-free. For example, the pharmaceutical company Bayer (which merged with Monsanto) was once a part of IG Farben, which manufactured Zyklon B for the gas chambers. After the war, Bayer rehired Nazis to high level positions, including for example Fritz ter Meer, who had been on IG Farben’s board of directors and became chairman of Bayer, despite being a convicted Nazi war criminal.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hypothesis: Modern retro-inspired indies are much more enjoyable than the retro games themselves⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Classic XCOM is really fun imo, but it does suffer from some quality of life issues. It’s possible to fix some of that with mods though and imo it still holds up. I’ve definitely put more time into the reboot of the series, but the original has a grittier feel, a bit more “open world,” where you’re gonna miss UFOs and you’re gonna have to cut and run sometimes, and there’s also a lot of exploits and tricks you have to figure out on your own (intended or otherwise).

  Xenonauts is a more direct remake and it’s good, more balanced and polished, but when I play it sometimes I just say, “I’d rather be playing old school XCOM.” Hard to put my finger on it, and it might just be that I already know the tricks for the original, or that the jankyness makes it fun. Xenonauts does hold up on it’s own but it’s hard not to compare the two.

  Generally games have gotten better but I’d say there’s a handful that have withstood the test of time (especially with basic UI improvements).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sealioning - a community for posting examples of sealioning and other forms of trolling on social networks⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The problem I’ve always had with the term is that you can’t really define a term by pointing to a comic and going like, “It’s like when someone does this sort of thing.” Like there’s a bunch of things the sea lion is doing, one is:

  pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence

  Like if you get a grudge against a user and constantly hound them in every thread about a topic they don’t want to discuss, that’s pretty rude (and if you do this offline like in the comic, it’s straight-up harassment). That’s bad regardless of what form it takes. Another is:

  maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity (“I’m just trying to have a debate”), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter

  “Feigning ignorance of the subject matter,” is also part of the Socratic Method, isn’t it? I don’t think it’s inherently bad to be like, “What specifically does this term mean, and why do you think this specific case meets the criteria?” If you believe something, you ought to be able to state things in clear terms, and that’s an important part of a healthy debate, it helps the other side to identify the point of disagreement where they disagree with your reasoning. Otherwise, how do you even go about having a productive conversation with someone you disagree with at all?

  In my opinion, even when these sorts of internet neologisms are dangerous even if they are addressing a legitimate thing, because once it’s out there, you can’t control who’s going to use it. For example, “mansplaining” was intended to refer to a specific type of thing where a man assumes he’s an expert on a subject and explains in a paternalistic way, while often being ignorant of the subject matter, like random guys on Twitter trying to lecture a female astronaut about how space works. But there are also people who use it/interpret it to mean, “Whenever a man explains something” - even if he is actually qualified to speak on the subject, which provokes a backlash (and obviously the problem is made worse by people trying to exacerbate the backlash, including through sockpuppets).

  The ambiguity of the term “sealioning” allows it to be used to shut down good faith questions and discussion, while leaving the accused without a lot of options to defend themself. “What do you mean by ‘sealioning?’ What specifically did I do or say that meets that definition, and why should that be grounds to dismiss what I’m saying, or to conclude I’m acting in bad faith?” is generally going to be met with, “That’s more sealioning.” If critically examining the concept of sealioining is sealioning, then I’m just inclined to dismiss the term entirely.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Death of the Student Essay—and the Future of Cognition⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s sad because for most people school is about the only time anybody cares enough about your thoughts to actually read an essay and respond to it intelligently.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The bizarre, dismal page you see if you open YouTube without an account.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I specifically disabled my watch history to get this. If I want to watch something, I’ll go to my subscriptions. Why would I want to interact with YouTube’s algorithm?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨So um, america just started another war in the middle east. We're going to need a shit ton more memes to americans from the nightmare they are enduring. Thanks in advance...⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  "What we need to do to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power, that is one of my highest priorities,” she added.

  Whitaker followed up, asking, “If Iran is building a nuclear weapon, would you take military action?”

  “I’m not going to talk about hypotheticals at this moment,” said the vice president.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: Non-violent protests are 2x likely to succeed and no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of the country population has ever failed⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think what they’re looking for in terms of methodology is what objective criteria they use to determine if a protest is violent or nonviolent, as well as what constitutes success or failure. These are not trivial questions, and there’s lots of debate surrounding virtually any given movement, so to make objective determinations about a large number of such movements raises the question of how they’re resolving all these questions and debates. Some might argue that such questions are inherently political and up to interpretation.

  As another user in this thread pointed out, it may be a case of confusing correlation with causation: if a movement is popular, it may be more likely to succeed and more likely to be considered nonviolent, as compared to a less popular movement employing the exact same tactics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: Non-violent protests are 2x likely to succeed and no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of the country population has ever failed⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The lack of distinction between strikes shutting down entire industries vs walking around for a bit with a witty sign is one of the many reasons the study is kind of silly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: Non-violent protests are 2x likely to succeed and no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of the country population has ever failed⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, but it’s complicated. I’ll use Iran’s long tradition of nonviolence as a case study.

  In the late 1800’s when the shah tried to sell out tobacco farmers to foreign exploitation, and virtually everyone in the country opposed it, resulting in a tobacco boycott. Virtually everyone in the country participated it, including members of the shah’s own harem, and religious leaders issued a fatwa condemning anyone who violated it. The shah was forced to cave to pressure and reversed the decision.

  This boycott movement helped for organization that would set the stage for later (largely peaceful) protests that led to the shah signing a constitution and establishing a democratic parliament. Unfortunately, he died shortly afterwards, and his son was much less cooperative, and called on foreign assistance to shell parliament, and successfully restored himself to power.

  During WWI, Iran was invaded by the Ottoman, British, and Russian Empires, and the country suffered greatly from disease, famine, and the Armenian genocide, leading to over 2 million civilian deaths during the period. The Qajar dynasty collapsed, as did the Ottoman and Russian Empires, allowing Britain to dominate the power vacuum. They supported the new Pahlavi dynasty into power, there was a parliament, but the shah generally appointed whoever the British told him to.

  At this point, oil had been discovered in Iran, and the Iranians were stuck with an awful, exploitative deal that the previous dynasty had signed, as part of their general policy of selling out every part of the country to foreign colonizers so the shah could have a bigger harem. This deal was substantially worse than the general deal the US offered (which was generally 50/50 between the country that owned the oil and the country that built the infrastructure to extract it). But the terms didn’t actually matter because the British violated them all the time, vastly underreporting how much oil they were extracting so that they paid virtually nothing, and the Iranians had zero oversight of their records. Britain relied on this oil to be one of the richest and most powerful nations on the planet, while the Iranians remained some of the poorest people in the world.

  For the next several decades, the Iranian people repeatedly asked Britain very nicely if they would possibly consider not stealing all their oil. And for those decades, the British completely stonewalled them, refused to consider any sorts of concessions whatsoever. Even with their own, hand-picked prime ministers, they still stonewalled them.

  Finally, in the 1950’s, and a peaceful democratic movement successfully pressured the shah to appoint a popular leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh, as prime minister - the shah finally became more afraid of popular discontent than he was of the British. Mosaddegh, after making attempts to negotiate, made a decision with overwhelming popular support, to nationalize the oil industry. This, however, led the British to impose a blockade, crippling the country’s economy.

  Mosaddegh was an idealist, and he believed the Americans would see his cause as just, connect it to their own revolution, and back him up against the British. At this point, most Iranians had neutral or positive views of the US, seeing them as well intentioned, if naive, not understanding how long the Iranians had been struggling against British colonialism. All of these perceptions were proven completely wrong, because, rather than backing them up, Eisenhower agreed to use the CIA to overthrow Mossadegh to protect BP’s profits and to ensure British cooperation with NATO and the Korean War. This was the first of the CIA’s coups of democratic governments.

  A stark example of this betrayal is that, the day before the coup, a US ambassador called Mossadegh and fed him a false story about how his supporters had been calling the embassy with death threats, and he was afraid he’d have to shut it down. Mossadegh - who had refused to crack down on (CIA funded) protests, or censor the (CIA controlled) press, or seek aid from the Soviets, or otherwise do anything to disrupt the infiltration out of concern for principles and respecting dissent -then issued as public statement calling for his supporters to cool it and stay off the streets. When his residence was attacked, no one was on the streets to come to his aid. He lived out the rest of his life under house arrest, while the shah used his absolute power to hunt down and exterminated the Iranian left - until he finally crossed the US and was himself overthrown by the current government.

  ---

  When the stakes were low (from a geopolitical perspective), like, some poor tobacco farmers trying to maintain their (still quite poor) lifestyle, nonviolence worked. When the stakes were higher, like, changing the whole structure of the government, nonviolence worked better than one might expect, but generally encountered violent resistance and counter-revolution and fell apart. When the stakes were very high, like, trying to get a world-spanning empire to stop stealing the resource it needed to dominate the world, nonviolence was not very effective at all.

  Being in Iran’s position, it really wouldn’t matter what they did to try to appease Westerners, so long as they assert control over their natural resources - so they don’t really bother. The goal of nonviolence is to be “in the right” but Iran’s history proves that you can be 100% “in the right” and still lose because foreigners don’t know/care about what’s being done to you, or are propagandized to side with the oppressor.

  This doesn’t necessarily apply to protests in the US, but it can. If you’re a nonthreatening old white lady and your goals are not too disruptive to the empire, then sure, do nonviolence. But if you’re someone who the news could villainize, who people will assume the worst of just because of your race or religion, then they’re probably going to characterize you as violent whether you are or not. And if your goals are something that would disrupt the ruling class’s hold on power, then understand that the only reason they aren’t gunning you down is that they aren’t afraid of you - the real dangerous part about nonviolence is that it can be effective, and if power is threatened it will respond with force.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re absolutely valid and not overreacting. Unfortunately, depending on where you live, you might not have many other options - but if you can look into other modes of transportation you should.

  Driving is dangerous, and not everyone is cut out for it. The great thing about public transit is that it’s much safer and less stressful, it doesn’t demand focus and attention - and that benefits drivers too, because it means fewer bad drivers will feel like they have to drive and it reduces traffic in general.

  It all comes down to what the alternative is. If your alternative to driving is relying on others to drive you places, it’ll reduce your independence or be expensive (if you use rideshares). But if the alternative is biking or taking a train, then by all means go for it. There’s lots of reasons cars suck, danger, stress, insurance, gas, traffic, pollution, lots of reasons to look into other options.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: Non-violent protests are 2x likely to succeed and no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of the country population has ever failed⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Interesting how the paper picks East Timor/Indonesia as a case study but makes no mention of the massacres of the nonviolent PKI and suspected communists, which the US was ambivalent, if not supportive about.

  Any serious study of resistance movements around the world will paint a very different picture, one in which nonviolence is frequently met with slaughter, and people turn to violence specifically because nonviolence failed.

  The fact of the matter is that people living in the imperial core cannot be well versed in the history of every country in the world (to the extent that we can even exert influence in the first place), and this allows the media to either ignore things like the massacres in Indonesia, or spin them in such a way to justify the preferred side through biased framing. The thing the paper cites as a major determining factor of success or failure is defections from security forces, but what if those security forces come from thousands of miles away?

  Trying to assert a universal principle on a tactical level regarding such broad categories is kind of silly in the first place. It’s too broad. You have to assess what you’re trying to accomplish and formulate a strategy to get there based on the particular situation you find yourself in.

  From “The Jakarta Method:”

  This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask:

  “Who was right?”

  In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?

  Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington.

  Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported—what the rich countries said, rather than what they did. That group was annihilated.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨More like a bacterial infection imo⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The wordplay is clever. Somebody’s big mad that people are blaming the British for something they did

  Image

  Might want to examine why people making fun of a blatantly evil empire offends you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨More like a bacterial infection imo⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you not understand that it’s a joke?

  Obviously we all know the paper is talking about the microorganism, but since the real cause of the famine wasn’t the microorganism but the British, it’s funny to act like the paper is insulting the British rather than talking about the microorganism.

  That’s the only way I can interpret your comment in any coherent way, that the joke just went completely over your head.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨More like a bacterial infection imo⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The British were responsible for those deaths while the Chinese were not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT 'got absolutely wrecked' by Atari 2600 in beginner's chess match — OpenAI's newest model bamboozled by 1970s logic⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I does not. Where?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT 'got absolutely wrecked' by Atari 2600 in beginner's chess match — OpenAI's newest model bamboozled by 1970s logic⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Tbf, the article should probably mention the fact that machine learning programs designed to play chess blow everything else out of the water.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨where are worker rights parades? why are we focusing on very limited issues?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank you, brainfart on my part.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨where are worker rights parades? why are we focusing on very limited issues?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  tl;dr Because that’s communism.

  Let’s look at the history of labor movements in the US.

  At first, yeah, you started with a pretty broad cross section of society (the Knights of Labor, for example), as well as some more radical elements. Then you had the Haymarket Affair, where people were protesting for an 8-hour work day, and the cops started killing protesters, and someone (possibly a provocateur) threw a bomb at the cops. The press went wild with it and it kicked off a red scare where many labor organizations kicked out and distanced themselves from Anarchists and Marxists.

  Fast forward to the Great Depression, and you’ve got a new wave of radicalization because people are seeing the failures of capitalism, and that led to the New Deal. There was another red scare as the US and USSR became rivals, and that served as “the stick,” while the New Deal policies served as “the carrot.” The labor movement once again distanced itself from the more radical elements on the promise of a cooperative government. All the communists, who were more concerned with a broad movement of solidarity, got kicked out of groups like the AFL-CIO, and the unions were considered acceptable because they were (at least to a degree) narrowly self-interested.

  These unions flourished in the 50’s, 60’s, and early 70’s, during this post-New Deal, Great Society era. They weren’t necessarily the most inclusive, but they worked well for their members. However, in the 70’s an economic phenomenon emerged that was termed, “Shrinkflation” - a period of high inflation and high unemployment at the same time. The Keynesian economic model (which had had a broad consensus up until that point) said that you deal with unemployment by having the government spend more money, and then when unemployment drops, you reduce spending to avoid inflation. It didn’t have a clear answer for what to do when both were high at once, that wasn’t really supposed to happen.

  The Carter administration made the decision to focus on inflation instead of unemployment, which screwed over the labor unions. But this was a broad bipartisan consensus among the Washington elites, and when Carter was replaced by Reagan, he did the same and pushed it further. Under this new paradigm of “supply side economics,” people’s identities as consumers was emphasized over their identity as workers. Even having purged radical elements and having become relatively toothless, unions were vilified and blamed for making goods expensive, and they didn’t really have the power to do much about it.

  Question of economics were increasingly moved outside of the realm of public accountability and influence, being left to “experts” and both parties having broad agreement about things, but we still had to vote over something, and so we had the emergence of the culture war. Around the 90’s you had some rather boring presidents and debates, because it was the height of “the end of history,” where there was this idea that all the big questions and conflicts had been resolved and it was just a question of little tweaks here and there.

  However, in the 2000’s, as it became clear that conditions were declining and the wealth gap was growing, there has been a new wave of radicalization, on both the right and the left, which started to really manifest in 2016. But it is very much in its infancy, without a lot of experience or strength. It’s been over 40 years since we had strong unions, and even longer since we had unions that believed in broad solidarity. Now, we’re fighting against entrenched anti-union and anti-worker policies, practices, and beliefs. And progress is being made, but it’s a long, uphill battle, and a lot of it is young people figuring things out from scratch.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Happy anniversary of the day absolutely nothing happened at nowhere square!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Funny how extreme poverty starts racing down as soon as China adopted capitalist market reforms.

  I wonder if there was any opposition to those reforms, like, maybe some kind of big protest right as they were being introduced 🤔

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Happy anniversary of the day absolutely nothing happened at nowhere square!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  When Kent State happened, surveys showed an overwhelming majority of Americans blamed the students for getting shot more than they blamed the guard for shooting them. There were all sorts of fake news stories going around on TV about how the protests were filled with outside agitators doing things like putting LSD in the water supply. It was only once the opportunity for a reaction was safely past that they said, “Oopsie, we made a mistake.” There have been many other cases where the government and media lied until it determined it was safe enough to tell the truth, including the justifications for several major wars.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"And my dick fucks your wife more than you do. What's your point?"⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “Oh, well this gun costs less than your watch, and yet: hand it over.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Four NYPD officers converged on one woman on a bike because she smiled at them, then detained her because she wasn't carrying ID.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Okay, so smiling is bad. What the fuck is the solution to not look suspicious to cops at this point?

  There’s an episode from the Twilight Zone reboot (S1E3, “Replay”) that plays with this idea in an interesting way. A black mother and son are at a diner with a police officer, and things happen and her son gets shot. But then she discovers that she has this magic camcorder that can rewind time, so she goes back to the diner and tries again, doing things differently. And this time he gets shot for a different reason. So she goes back, again and again, trying different approaches.

  It really captures the feeling of insecurity, of being damned if you do, damned if you don’t. And it’s sort of a metaphor for the different scenarios playing out in one’s head, of trying to think of how each action might be misinterpreted or go wrong.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The joy of quitting a shit job with an asshole boss⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This also happened to me once too. I was working at Amazon as a picker, and they unveiled a new tool that lets you put in electronically if you’re planning to leave. One morning, I put in that I was planning to leave in a month. Before lunch that same day, I was suddenly fired.