She also has an MEd, which is a Master’s in Education. I think people like the one you’re replying to skim her Wiki and read it as Med, as in Medical, which is hilarious.

Middle ground on social issues: “Separate but equal”

I think the French saying is a response to rising Fascism. If Fascism is taking power in your society and you do not directly and explicitly oppose it, then you are at the very least going to be tacitly supporting it. By definition, centrism cannot fight Fascism, because it will always “both sides” the problem, which ultimately only benefits the Fascists. This is what we are seeing now in the US with the Democrats. The only realistic opposition to Fascism in this scenario is Leftism.

I already don’t like my phone having a microphone

A phone without a microphone. A phone… without a microphone… is not a phone.

Can I ask what you use a phone for?

This was over 10 years ago, but it popped into my head as soon as I saw this thread. Over 1,600 rent-to-own stores were found by the FTC to have spyware installed on laptops that enabled the stores to access the webcams. The spyware also included keyloggers.

I would bet money that this type of shit still happens.

I care so little about either one that it’s hard to say. I guess I’d go with the phone since I use it more often. I can always walk, ride a bike, or take public transit to go shopping. The next best thing for long distance communication is… Send a raven? Smoke signals? Yeah I’ll take the phone.

Totally off topic, but Maggie is just awesome. If you aren’t familiar with her, I suggest doing a deep dive into her video essays on cinema and pop culture. Here’s a link to her site. Also, there’s a really interesting episode of Behind the Bastards with her as a guest, talking about being a descendant of notorious cannibalistic child killer Albert Fish.

I have nothing to add on the actual topic though.

“Lick my boots or I will not consider you for a job.”

Reeks of insecurity.

Every UBI study shows how successful the idea is, but it’s ultimately a bad system, because all it will ever be is another form of Capitalism. What makes UBI successful is that people no longer have to struggle (as much) to pay rent and feed themselves while pursuing more worthy endeavors. If you read between the lines of every UBI success story, you find that money is just a middle man, an unnecessary toll booth between people and progress.

The real solution here is to guarantee a standard of living to people that includes housing, food, education and healthcare, without involving the exchange of money at all, because as long as these things are commodified, Capitalism will always find a way to provide as little of them as possible while charging as much as possible for them.

I don’t really celebrate holidays. But it’s Sunday, and I usually get together with some family and friends for dinner on Sunday, so we are doing that. Nothing big, just a basic cookout.

I grew up loving The X-Files, so conspiracy stuff was always interesting to me. I never bought into any of it, but it used to be fun.

I blame reality TV for our current state. They took what was probably one of the best tropes in sci-fi, started talking about it in documentary form, and a whole generation of brainless fucking idiots took it way too seriously, ruining it for the rest of us. Shows like Ancient Aliens took the whole “just asking questions” tactic to insane levels, and it bled over into politics and social issues, providing cover for people to “question” if wildfires may have been started by Jewish space lasers. It’s so infuriating.

Not really. It’s weird. You kinda have to be familiar with the ranch that raises the beef, and the ones that don’t use a ton of chemicals also don’t advertise to the public. It’s basically only available to small town folks who are “in the know” and boutique restaurants. This has been my experience, anyway. One of my exes comes from a cattle rancher family, so my sample size is tiny. Other people may have other experiences.

Argentinian beef is top tier. While we do have some great beef in the US, it’s all from smaller ranchers that most people don’t have access to, and it still doesn’t compare to Argentina.

It depends on where it comes from in the US. You’re spot on when it comes to basically anything sold in a grocery store. But we have some great cattle that produces great beef. You have to go to high end butchers for it though. Or buy it directly from the ranchers and butcher it yourself.

As soon as I read your comment I saw it as “jaw breakers”. So yeah, I guess that’s a good thing.

Marxist banking parasites

Because for some reason, he’s afraid to say “Jew bankers”.

And oil drums full of HGH that ballooned his torso like mister Creosote from Monty Python.

This is exactly what Ted Bundy did when his first love dumped him.

He fell for a woman called Diane Edwards while in college, and they dated for about a year. She was everything he thought a woman should be; beautiful, smart, successful, and from a well-off family. She dumped him because she saw him as “pitifully weak”. Psychologists believe, and Bundy himself all but confirmed, that this was the catalyst that would fuel his homicidal rage towards women. It’s also believed that Diane heavily influenced the type of women he killed; young white college students with brown hair parted in the middle. He began killing women the same year Diane dumped him.

Five years later he was married and living a double life as a serial killer. During this time, he sought out and reconnected with Diane behind his wife’s back, and Diane was impressed with his transformation. He was on the cusp of a successful legal and political career, and he seemed a lot more masculine and sure of himself. She was smitten and wanted to pursue the relationship. They even got as far as discussing marriage. That’s when Bundy dumped her and cut off all contact with her, getting his “corrective experience” moment, which clearly did nothing to heal the trauma of rejection that spurred one of the most terrifying episodes of serial murder in history.

Elon Musk doesn’t need to beat the bullies to get closure. He needs therapy. Or rather, he needed therapy, and he needed it many years ago. At this point, he’s in his “dumping Diane” phase, where he’s already hurt so many people and he’s so far gone that no amount of therapy would help him. He’s already too addicted to the monster he’s become to ever want to heal himself. His need to have these corrective experiences, like Bundy with Diane, is strictly to feed the monster’s ego.

One of the first comments in that thread is encouraging them to ditch Reddit and join Lemmy. Good stuff.