Joined the Mayqueeze.

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • The origin of left and right come from the French revolution. In the first assembly, the pro-monarchists were sitting on the right and the “let’s try something different” folks sat on the left. So strictly speaking, the US political spectrum was entirely on the left (until a narcissist was elected and wouldn’t mind being crowned king).

    What’s in a label? The problem is the lack of debate. This team think that makes every idea from the other side stupid by default. A parliamentary system will fail when people stop talking to each other.

    And socialism is really only a red rag with a yellow hammer and a sickle in the US. It’s your cold war hangover. Socialists or social democrats exist in most democracies.


  • Per your definition, the effects of loyalty are always per se negative. I don’t doubt that in many situations this is true. I don’t think it’s always true. And a lot of it has to do with how we socialize. We need strong bonds. On a purely rational level, I’d be inclined to agree with you. We aren’t very rational though.

    If my hypothetical friend, out of the blue, got drunk, got behind the wheel, and ran somebody over, many people might turn away. If I stayed by their side, helped them arrange themselves in this new life of guilt, helped them make restitutions, and kept them from sliding into isolation and depression, my loyalty could be seen as a force for good in a bad situation. I could still donate to cover the victim’s medical costs or funeral. There are bonds that keep us together even when we effed up.

    Now, if I had willfully ignored all signs of alcohol abuse before, I think I’d be back on your page. So what I’m saying is we can create scenarios of loyalty with good outcomes. So the categorical dismissal as something negative isn’t true.


  • How would you feel about the fact that they made the Jim Carrey movie and put it where you could see it?

    I don’t think the Morisetteian irony of watching a movie that’s equally fucked up in its premise as you found out your life is would move the needle much. The rug would’ve been pulled out from under you and this wouldn’t cause more than a wry bored smile a couple of weeks later when the shock has subsided a bit.


  • It’s a stressful situation, a funeral. It seems insurmountable before it happens and once it gets going it becomes mostly manageable. I get why you don’t want the stress and all the family dynamics and the religious top layer.

    That being said: yes, you are unreasonable. If you like going to funerals, there is something wrong with you. Nobody likes it. For much the same reasons as yours. That’s the baseline.

    Think of it as a game and try to avoid talking to all the family members you don’t like. And since it will be your father’s funeral, you have the perfect excuse to have a thousand mile stare and be monosyllabic. And then you treat yourself when it’s over.

    There is no need to make your father sad now. Tell him you’ll attend. Because it matters to him. Even if you have no intention to show up, which you should though. He’ll either come back to haunt you from the afterlife (slim chance) or the only people who will maintain a grudge are your living relatives. That’s the bed you’ll be making for yourself and you can avoid a whole lot of additional shit in the future by investing half a day and attend the goddamn funeral.




  • In a way this might be explained away with changing expectations by the audience or it’s a way to grab audience attention. I think it also depends which media you consume and how that’s funded. I think public broadcasters like the BBC are less likely to add music to their proper news segments than CBS because they don’t need to sell commercials for pharmaceuticals with an unending list of side effects. In my European view, American news at least since CNN became a thing has always had an emphasis on form over function with more pretty people reading the news, sound effects, animated graphics, breaking news alerts, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of that has filtered through elsewhere as well.

    Music on news is nothing new though. I remember Enya infused VTs of collapsing World Trade Centers and videos of the tsunami and exploding nuclear reactors in line with some trip hop beat. And I remember people getting mad about that back then as well.


  • If you can’t (or won’t) cut down on having firearms freely available, and if you cannot (or will not) do more on the mental health side of prevention, and you have already invented bullet proof whiteboards, doors like battlefield tanks, and implemented a system of metal detector entry checks and maybe deployed an armed guard, then this is an almost good idea. It’s the blinking light in the window and an alarm system sticker on the window that may deter a thief but for school shootings.

    I’m not sure about pepper spray. Is a blind shooter unloading their AR-15 magazine an improvement over a fully sighted one? Why aren’t they equipping them with tranquilizer darts? Cross promotion potential for zoos as well.

    What are the odds that we get coordinated school attacks and we find out one part-time student at the control center can’t fly 5 drones in 5 different high schools at the same time?





  • Album ≠ album. There are certainly ones worthy of listening to them as a whole. But there are plenty of albums that are just utter garbage too. The war on the single by record companies in the 90s produced a number of albums that were at best a couple of okay singles plus 8-10 pure fillers. Name another Chumbawamba song, you can’t without googling.

    In a way we are reverting back to the 1950s where the single reigned supreme and albums were an afterthought. Now the single song does better than an album again. Some musicians release every streamlined Spotify curated 2 minute song as a “single.” Since most of it is done digitally only why not?

    Dogma is useless.







  • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websitetoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlShould I vote?
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    27 days ago

    Voting is better than not voting in my opinion. That being said, this is a topic I would not throw to the internet to help you decide. The way you have written your post you’re opening yourself up to a lot of partisan replies from the good people of both sides that will probably not aid massively in your decision making process.