@ATXJane @Maude This needs to be shown up as a moral choice. This is the framing on the right -- no matter what, forced birth is a foregone moral conclusion.

So it needs to be made increasingly obvious: their whole sense of morality has derailed.

Of course, yes, it would be great if they also gained a sense of compassion and reason (as well as a modicum of humility) along the way. But that's secondary to being clear and consistent about their moral deficiency.

The aftertaste on a carrot cake and lemon meringue pie combination is...an experience.

A classified ad for a random art piece reads "If you are interesting, buy it."

I guess this is how I get to decide...

@Gladari About point 5, if the US is a country founded on law and order, then every single person he appointed to anything, any person he hired to position, should all be feeling a certain way about their roles.

They are all tainted by being associated with a convicted criminal.

They should all voluntarily step down, but of course there isn't nearly the integrity in the country at the moment for that to happen.

@kel If there was a way to make him answer for the blatant hypocrisy of his smug, pompous "everything's the president's responsibility" attitude when Obama was in office, and then "I don't take responsibility" attitude when he was given his shot to govern.

That's the thing for me. I mean, of course, it's all of it. It's the crossing of *every single* moral line there is. But the core for me is his wilful, smarmy, cavalier hypocrisy that has done incalculable harm to good-faith democracy.

@ExecutiveFunction404 I keep being surprised by how willing they are to defy all of their own logic and conventions for TFG, but surely this bold strong-arm tactic will finally trigger their "don't tread on me" rebel spirit.

Right?

Please could I be right about this?

For once?!

@stueytheround Ha ha! That's what I'm thinking!

Is there a way to make $50 from pictures of sandwiches these days?

I just bought a new 64GB SD card for $5. And I just bought a handful of sandwich supplies at the grocery for $50.

We live in a weird time.

@feloneouscat I just watched Atlas tonight. It was a little predictable, but certainly entertaining, and Jennifer Lopez carried the role well.

@feloneouscat This the weirdest thing ever. How could a tech giant whose entire reputation is staked on data integrity make such a colossal misstep?

This is a manifestation of some of the world's greatest fears about AI. It's not even an AI plot. It's AI recklessness.

The world is already in a cataclysmic credibility crisis. This is *not* what we needed.

Whether it is tied to religion or not is an individual matter, but collectively the right is engaged in a culture war.

The right is reacting against a equitable, inclusive society -- indeed, they are calling that a far-left agenda. Notably, "far-left" in this context is a boogeyman-buzzword.

This should be consistently recognised: there is not a both sides to this -- it is one side trying exert dominance.

Both sides are scared, but only one side is actually scary.

#politics
#religion

@q00w2 Oh yeah, Top Gun Maverick was that mentality on steroids: "Don't think. Just do."

This is changing in several serialised stories, where people's humanity is being explored, and "talking about it" has lost a lot of its stigma.

This probably has a *something* to do with storytellers' own changing comfort level with therapy. 🙂

But, y'know, there is still a lot of the old "just tough it out on your own" mindset running freely through our culture(s).

I use the "big flip" to describe the way people's emotional momentum, or their internal drive to be right, is more important to their self-image than their human connection or credibility.

Whatever is used to reach them just becomes another "part of the problem," hence the flip.

A lot of people have been conditioned to believe that self-awareness is a weakness. They become caricatures of themselves, and end up supporting a bunch of things they don't actually value or even believe in.

"A snake, am I? Perhaps you'd like to see how snake-like I can be." -- I find myself thinking about this line from the Aladdin cartoon pretty often recently.

It is part of what I call the "big flip" -- the phenomenon where an accusation "permits" someone to be even more like the accusation than they were already.

A different kind of "big flip" is where Person A points out Person B's prejudice, and rather than Person B processing their prejudice, they simply expand it to include Person A, too.

@stueytheround I've watched this phenomenon over and over: men shape themselves to precisely match whatever danger is being flagged, and then launch a poor-me campaign.

It's just bizarre!

I regularly find myself wondering if it's part of a whole coordinated bot attack...and just when I've nearly convinced myself that it is, then I see this in real life, with real live people, who I know.

Every day on the Internet:

Women: Here are some traits that make men dangerous. Here's why you should avoid them.

Men: How dare you?! I mean, I've made all those traits my whole identity -- are you saying that women should avoid me?!

@AlphaCentauri @chevalier26 "Your poor vehicle sounds like it's in really bad shape. Would you like the number for a decent mechanic?"

I'm currently to a local band play live jazz, and some dude (I feel pretty safe making a gender guess here) just ripped by on an unnecessarily loud motorcycle -- the kind where they swap out mufflers for megaphones.

Everyone here laughed at him.

I would like him to know that -- we all think you're ridiculous! So, hey, if you know him, can you tell him for me?

Are you wired the way I am?

When I see marketing advice like "be bossy" (use more direct, immediate language instead of invitational language), it heightens my sensitivity to the demand pressure in all advertising, gives me to the tools to resist it.

Following marketing/advertising accounts on social media is a good way to gain insights into the subtle war for attention that is being waged against all of us.