Pure speculation:

Reality is complicated. Nuance is hard. Fascism dumbs it all down; things were better before, it’s their fault things are bad now, let’s fuck them up to make things good again.

Nihilistic opportunists love it because it’s easy to float to the top amidst a wave of tribalistic idiots. Tribalistic idiots desperately want it to be true; if the problems I face are secretly simple, it means I’m not actually dumb for not understanding what was going on before.

I first played this game at a really emotionally raw point in my life, and it was a real gut punch. $2.50 is a great price for it.

I’ve seen this before, but I have to wonder: has anyone actually tested it? Like sure, you can imagine what licking asphalt would feel like, but have you ever just done it to make sure your imagination is right?

Folks. Publicly traded companies will ALWAYS compare the expected value of breaking the law with compliance.

Say it costs $100 million to follow the law. Breaking it comes with a $300 million fine, but only a 20% chance of getting caught.

They compare a 100% chance of paying $100 million to a 20% chance of paying $300 million.

Average cost of following the law: $100 million

Average cost of breaking it: $60 million

If we’re gonna do capitalism (which I would rather we not, for the record!), we have to make that expected value calculation break in favor of following regulations. If it is cheaper to break the law than to follow it, you’re not just losing money by complying: you’re giving ground to your competition. Fines need to be massive. Infractions need to get caught and punished. Executives need to be held personally accountable. Corporations need to be dissolved. Fines cannot be just the cost of doing business.

Fuck that defeatist bullshit!

Of the top 10 largest protests in US history, two have happened this year, and they were both largely in response to Trump.

Movements are being built, organization is happening, people are pissed. Excuse us for not jumping straight to violence without a plan like the J6ers.

God. The “Americans Bad” circlejerk on Lemmy is so lame.

I think you’re exactly right.

A few years ago, we saw a huge amount of mobilization for George Floyd. People fighting cops and winning.

After that, we saw a submarine full of billionaires implode & people cheered.

Recently, a health insurance CEO was shot to death in the street, and people rallied around the shooter as a hero.

Trump has been a uniquely effective vehicle for the ownership class to launch bullshit distractions at a population of Americans who are showing signs of class consciousness. Keep 40 or 50% of people mad at trans people and immigrants and DEI, and the rest busy trying to minimize the damage being done. Motherfucker said Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs in a presidential debate, and people somehow still take him seriously.

But he’s not long for this world. Dennis Prager has all the charisma of a bad case of trench foot. Rupert Murdoch is ancient, we’re already down a Koch brother, everything Elon Musk touches turns to shit, and I’m crossing my fingers that all the HGH gives Peter Thiel a heart attack.

The ownership class has got to make hay while the sun shines. Things are primed to turn around on them quickly.

Any angry mobs a guy could join? Anyone about to drag the far-right nut jobs that control our government out into the street and [REDACTED]? Can we do that before the genocide this time?

CNBC financial news channel anchor Joe Kernen compared New York to Batman’s crime-riddled Gotham. “ They’re taking Wall Streeters and making them walk out onto the ice in the East River, And, and then they fall through. I mean there is a class warfare that’s going on.”

“Raising taxes on people who have more wealth than they could spend in a hundred lifetimes is the same as murder.”

I cannot empathize with anyone who says that shit with a straight face. You’ve either abandoned any principles you may have had to spew propaganda, or are so completely delusional that you actually believe it.

Republicans will ram through whatever shit they can whether it’s legal or not, and Democrats will trip over their own dicks and let the parliamentarian block them even when they have a majority.

I increasingly feel like voting for people is a bad system. I don’t want to pick someone to make all the decisions for me: just let me vote directly on the issue dammit. Tired of representatives lying to get elected or doing heel turns or chickening out.

If I make it to 50 I’m calling it a win.

He said one officer who dealt with a former door supervisor was not happy about going to the bar on his own.

“If an officer is not happy to visit then how do members of the public feel?” he told the hearing.

Regarding the incident with the DJ, he said “officers should not have to ask for a manager to deal with a situation”.

What fucking losers. These are the people who are (according to their own PR) supposed to risk their lives to protect the public. If the theme song to a children’s show and some light ribbing is all it takes to keep you away, fucking resign.

Jesus Christ, yes, I am a comfort hunter. You think I get up at the ass crack of dawn every day for fun? You think I want to push buttons on a computer all day because I’m just weirdly into it?

No! I do this shit because I have to!

Fucking hell. I’ve already accepted that I have to make your company money if I want to live in a house. For the love of all that is good in this world, PLEASE do not make me pretend to like it. I’m already weirded out that you’re so into it.

Disorganized list b/c I can’t be assed to format:

1. The follicles on your face will grow at different rates. Even if you’re going for length, trimming your beard to let the slower hairs catch up can give you a fuller and thicker beard. I will sometimes take some electric clippers and just trim back the faster growing hairs to give my beard a more defined shape.

2. Trim the sides & mustache occasionally. Imagine a line starting a half inch or so away from your face, starting where your hair ends & sideburns begin and going straight down to the ground. Trim the sides of your beard following that line, and trim your mustache to stop the hairs from getting in your mouth. A santa-esque beard is longer than it is wide, so you’ll probably need to shape it that way.

3. Your facial hair will probably wick moisture away from your skin. You’re already out ahead of this with the beard oil, which is great. I personally prefer using a beard butter, but anything that keeps the skin underneath moisturized is important. One time I shaved & it almost looked like my cheeks had been sunburned.

4. This one is personal preference, but I keep my neck mostly shaved. I draw a line starting two fingers above my Adam’s apple, and bring it up to the corners of my jaw. Everything below gets either shaved or at least hit with the clippers on the lowest guard. I also take my wife’s eyebrow razor and clean up the top of my cheeks, to straighten out the top of my beard. Totally optional, but makes it look cleaner IMO.

TL;DR Growing a beard =/= not shaving. Trim it to give it shape, shave neck & the top of your cheeks to give it lines, continue to moisturize / oil it.

Some kid in PA tried to do something last year.

I don’t know about you nerds but that skeleton is definitely part of me. I don’t live in it: I AM it.

Simple solution: make the moon farther away.

Representatives “punched” and “body-slammed” the ICE agents, she added.

LMAO. Super soldier democratic elected officials, defeating heavily militarized police units using unarmed combat. I believe it!

As usual, Republicans accuse Democrats of being much cooler than they really are.

Folks.

If you ever catch yourself describing how you want to torture someone to death, I want you to stop and take inventory of your priorities.

Look. I am not a pacifist. Some motherfuckers need to be removed from positions of power by any means necessary, up to and including violence.

That being said, should we not focus on restorative justice and rehabilitation? Why create unnecessary suffering in the process? The argument that things like the death penalty act as a deterrent doesn’t seem to be borne out in the evidence. What good is served by torturing someone, even if they’re the nastiest son of a bitch in existence?

It is important to make sure we don’t let killing for sport seep into our ideology. Using violence against people is not something we should take pleasure in, let alone fantasize about. History has given us plenty of examples to draw from here; once you make a policy out of sadism, the group of people you use violence against only grows.

Also, porn is fine in moderation (like everything else) and can be made totally consensually, you terminally online freaks.

I feel like there’s this explot in human psychology:

1. People are pretty bad at matching causes to effects.

2. Doing something novel / outside your usual routine can feel pretty good, regardless of what it is you’re doing.

Therefore: People who try weird diets, snake oils, or letting the sun shine on their asshole really do feel better afterwards, at least for a while. That must mean it works!

Hey folks, I’ve been asleep for the past few hundred years. Can’t wait to see how the profit motive has universally overlapped with providing the most utility to society! Such a neat little hack.

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Uh oh. Uhhhh… Oh no…