Yeah, seriously, the whole thing with generalizations in the face of suggested individual action is just so silly. We all know we need to hold billionaires/corporations accountable for their bullshit, energy subsides for fucking oil need to go away like yesterday, citizens United needs to be overturned by legislation, members of congress taking bribes from plastic and energy companies and making legislative decisions as a result need to straight up go to prison, etc. But wtf is the normal, everyday person actually gonna do about it? Call their representatives that may or may not listen because they’re a partisan hack? Good one.

The cliché of getting involved locally is the correct course of action. It’s not throwing molotovs in DC, it’s getting to know your local farmers and getting food from them instead of shipped around the globe five times at some supermarket owned by a giant corporation. Get more trees planted in your neighborhood. Start some butterfly sanctuaries. Start a movement to ban egregiously wasteful lawns in your municipality. Get a coalition of people who pay attention and can mob city hall if/when the city council tries to pull some bullshit deals about yet another fucking data center. Establish better water conservation with your neighbors. This is what the actual, real, legitimate revolution looks like. It doesn’t start with “AND I TOOK OUT MY GUN AT THE GUBMINT!”, it starts with “My neighbors and I started our own little kinda country. ¯_(ツ)_/¯”

Yeah, I think I generally agree with you in the end, but I think it’s at least worth mentioning that he would effectively be asking other members of the military to get themselves court martialed as well. On top of that, he’d be unintentionally asking to set a precedence of the military getting involved in politics. So my initial reaction is to agree with you and say he should have called on others in the military to join him, because it is indeed that dire, but he may be right to refrain from optically encouraging others to cross the Rubicon.

Either way, I think you bring up a good point in the identification of Trump as a domestic enemy that those in the armed forces swear an oath to defend the constitution from. I wonder if that was his way of attempting to walk that line carefully. Definitely not an easy decision to make in any capacity.

Yeah, he’s 100% correct, but we very much so do not want the military to mix into the political scene. I would pick an example from Rome, but uhhh… I think all 2100 years of Roman history will do. So where I strongly believe he should be court martialed for this, I also strongly believe he’s justified in his actions. His protest is the right move, and I think generating outrage that his protest is necessary is also the right move.

pls bro just $100 billion more and we’ll have agi srsly bro, gen ai can do it, bro just give us more data, bro, and we’ll get the singularly, promis gen ai will git gud soon, just listen, bro, pls

It’s interesting that they use the word responsible, since I would agree with one definition, but strongly disagree with another. Pretty apt analogy of this administration, a living logical fallacy and psychological phenomenon!

A truly bigly covfefe economy.

BUT LOOK AT ALL THE JOBS WE’VE CREATED FOR AI. YOU GUYS. THE AI. LOOK AT IT. HOLY SHIT, WE’VE THROWN SO MUCH MONEY AT IT, PLEASE LOOK.

Tbf, in a vacuum, alcohol consumption isn’t all that bad. However, given the levels of consumption, the historical significance, the cultural ties, and insane normalization of binge drinking, yeah, this shit’s a fucking problem. Among the preventable risks listed, I think alcohol is absolutely going to be the most stubborn problem, as at least tobacco usage has a growing stigma around it. And I think another big problem with how stubborn alcohol as a problem will be versus smoking is that smoking is bad for you if you do it at all. Alcohol isn’t necessarily that bad having a drink or two on occasion, but, considering the state of things, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a little more health stigma around alcohol than there is now.

I find it important to dogpile and emphasize your point on the importance of organizing. I hope my echoing your message makes it louder to everyone.

The second amendment doesn’t mean shit if you don’t get some fucking friends and organize. Dropped some feds trying to unlawfully break into your home because you have the right to defend yourself in your own home? Neat, you’re a target now. Have a support network of people? You can relocate quickly, you have places to hide while the initial heat dies down, you have greater access to acquisition of legal council, you have help with cleanup, you have that many more voices to speak out on your behalf for media coverage and legal defense, you have more places to reliably keep your pets and kids safe, and if/when it really comes down to it, you have more guns to point toward your oppressors with multiplied efficiency. People tend to neglect to consider what to do in the aftermath in these situations, and the answer, like literally every other political scenario, is to have some fucking friends in the first place.

Guns or no, the most important thing is always to have a community. There is not a single scenario where gun ownership is more important than securing and cultivating a community. Guns, much like food, water, shelter, other tools, cars, medical supplies, etc is just one of the words that come after “community and”. For any political movement or even just plain survival, community is NOT optional. Go make some fucking friends. Go network. Go organize. It has been and always will be step one.

Speaking in a more meta-context, this is exactly it in the political world. In playing politics, you gotta play the political game. There are plenty of things to criticize the dems for, but man do most people in semi-recent history tend to oversimplify things. It’s just not as simple as throwing a filibuster at ‘the other side’ every now and then, you’ve gotta consider political capital, optics, legal maneuvers, precedence, etc. If you run up on the congressional floor and decide to filibuster all on your own with no support, you’re just a jackass wasting everyone’s time, likely harming your own cause in the process. Politics isn’t speeches back and forth with some money thrown around, it’s about building and wisely wielding social power. That includes knowing how to build solidarity with others in other constituencies.

Oh, your English is great and legitimately feels natural, because I think you’ve communicated your point quite well. I can’t really dispute much of anything without sounding like I fundamentally agree with you, but I do have a seemingly small/semantic distinction that I think is important; I don’t think America’s primary core issue has been education or overbearing religious douchebaggery, but this weird extreme epistemological weight given to every individual’s opinion. It’s similar to the bullshit fuzzy philosophy the nazis would use to justify their ideology by insisting everyone should respect their deeply held beliefs. While I don’t think your assessment is perfectly accurate, I do very much believe it shows you’re paying way more attention than the average American.

It really is just simplistic bullshit that seems to trip them up, isn’t it? As a passionate lover of philosophy, I’ve come to a pretty good understanding of the sheer magnitude of what it takes to be considered an “expert” in any subject. And, hoo boy, my radical commitment to what is true has only served to illustrate to myself how much I lack in understanding… pretty much anything. I’m not one of those jackholes who do that smarmy-ass “I know nothing”, so I’ll admit that I understand a hell of a lot more than the average person in political theory and general pragmatic governance. So it’s both infuriating and baffling to me how often the average ‘right-winger’ decisively demonstrates how little they understand any political subject they have no business holding such a strong and certain opinion on. And really, that also applies for most people willing to talk politics in America. Like, how the fuck are people’s opinions so fucking strong for how shallow their position is???

Right, climate change, the thing that boomers caused and definitely not these huge corporations perpetuating a system making humanity dependent on fossil fuels. It was a generation defined by generally common experiences and not some dickheads on the boards of fossil fuel corporations covering up and then spinning up a disinformation campaign against the overwhelming evidence of anthropogenic climate change. No war but class war; know your enemy.