this just in sale of speedboat now illegal because they are drug

There’s definitely been some fallacious “appeals to popularity” from them. Like, someone will say that “I empathize with other human beings”, and they’ll snicker “Oh, buddy. You just outed yourself. The days are coming for people like you.” and the first person will just reply “WTF are you talking about? I don’t care if there are only 2 other people like me in the world, or if you’re threatening me, I’ll still hold to empathy.”

Those conversations worry them. Learning that they’re the minority, especially when the majority is not easily typecast as “illegal immigrants”, scares them.

Same. I never bought the “They control the government” reasoning, and I doubt MAGA does either. But the key bit is what they’re fighting over.

The fact that evil people have joined ICE to invade communities is due to their own evil - it’s not “because of” anything Trump said. He’s just a lump of flesh desperately trying to justify the abductions.

Basically, I’m suggesting we reduce how much we view his importance in the current chaos. If he suddenly decided ICE was bad for his image, he’d still be powerless to stop it. Look at how bad he is at pretending to care about Russian invasions.

Understood. I will not oppose Fa. I still, however, oppose Fascism.

We need to stop instantly panicking over “Donald Trump declares …” headlines. He can declare that pigeons are spies sent by Martian aliens. He has no qualifications to say so, nobody intelligent should be paying attention, his zealots will still follow his orders, and it doesn’t matter.

It at least makes me very happy how plausible it is for a completely independent artist to make games on Steam or Itch that are universally enjoyed. Sadly there is a current trend of “NSFW” games getting banned on those platforms…

I wanted to plug one game that had been particularly victimized. It was an “unreliable narrator” game where you played as a stalker obsessively trying to find the real name of his favorite pornstar. It was uncomfortable, artistic, thought-provoking, and immediately tripped the ban filters. I thought I bookmarked it but if someone else knows it a reminder would be awesome.

My understanding is that they also aim that way to reduce moving parts - since knobs, buttons, and switches are more likely to fail after 5000 uses. That, and they can update touchscreens to do whatever they want differently, like serve up ads.

I think there’s multiple ways it can happen. Sometimes, incoming cultures aim to be inviting and inclusive, and do what they can to become involved with the surrounding community. But other cultures really silo themselves and never speak to “the foreigners” - while continuing to take up more and more of the area. They speak their home language, don’t discuss the existing culture or even share their own. They don’t act like guests, just tenants - sometimes not realizing that thanks to refugee programs they’re often paying “guest rate”, not “tenant rate”.

However, that certainly isn’t always the case. I’d point to the Italian and Hispanic cultures in America as some that have become distinctly American. It’s harder for me to give examples of the “silos” since, by definition, you don’t see much of them; but sometimes during elections, church gatherings, or other census-related actions, you’re reminded they exist.

Whenever I hear about these town halls, I’m really unsure if it’s actually Trump voters turning up. Chances are, if the cult “won” they’re celebrating and believing every paper-thin lie, right up until they suffer direct personal consequence, not attending town halls with a list of questions and concerns.

I hear this a lot, but I don’t think it’s the gotcha people claim it is. Most genocide in the modern day tries to aim for economic strangling by eliminating/stealing what few opportunities exist for some populations. See, for instance, the IDF’s efforts to starve Gaza rather than shoot every single Palestinian. Or fascist America’s efforts to deny jobs (even the ones that are not in competition) to disabled or minorities.

I don’t see it as “I’ma move and get rich”, I see it as “I’ma move and not starve on the street”.

We definitely see a gross incentive where companies don’t want people to become citizens because it allows their labor to be cheaper.

I think back in Trump’s first term, he had one policy that I genuinely agreed with - that the H1B Visa program should have a very high minimum salary to it, returning it to its intended purpose of being used for rare, high-talent specialized positions. As it stands, HR will just invent overly specific criteria so that they can deny local citizens jobs, claim they can’t find anyone, and then hire cheap H1Bs - and threaten them with deportation anytime they complain.

Needless to say, because it was a good idea and anti-corp, Trump dropped it almost immediately.

Hollywood and the anime industry have done much the same - helping people around the world normalize the feeling of living in their home societies.

I’m from the bike/pedestrian-friendly community of /fuckcars. It’s a far whiter immigrant mentality, but I imagine trends like that wouldn’t have occurred if not for Dutch immigrants; or even American immigrants visiting the Netherlands, most specifically the Not Just Bikes channel.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2020/10/how-private-prisons-profit-from-forced-labor

It’s still kinda legal, just takes some extra steps and signatures, and a bribed judge - of which there are many.

That’s also setting aside people that are effectively slaves to low wages, unable to do anything but work with no chance for upward mobility.

I agree their censorship is too high in China, though, but I think it’s a result of siege theory.

Buddy, fuck right the hell off. The USA is not the only country with free media. Small countries do it too. Al Jazeera is quartered in Qatar, and is critical of both the USA and China. China enacts the Great Firewall because they’re power-hungry, not because they want to fucking stay safe, and they are not in any regard a third world country.

Split semantics on exact wording if you’d like. A better word might be “solely”. The Nazi party collected anyone of a variety of demographics they didn’t like, including foreigners, LGBT, physically/mentally disabled, scholars, etc.

I’ve seen images and footage put out by journalists. I’m just not bothered to re-locate them for the sake of a tankie.

The US brings up its own horrible events all the time.

I learned about The Trail of Tears, the era of segregation, and of the KKK in my history class in America. We make conscious efforts to be aware of and criticize our own faults - as well as those of other nations.

There is currently LOTS of criticism of the US government for its participation in the massacre in Palestine. Claiming otherwise is lying. China is relatively unique in that it has committed atrocities, and refuses to allow anyone in its own country to acknowledge them. Both countries have done bad things. One country recognizes those facts and attempts to learn from them.

Since the steps for Palestinian genocide started before Oct 7, and the IDF has been okay with killing their own hostages in high-yield strikes, not likely.

This is the bit that I’ve had a hard time with. And, to put it in less snide allegorical terms: Israel is in many ways the “invader”. They took land, took homes, that weren’t theirs. That invasion has been justified through massive harm to their people, and the need for a “safe space” they can call their own. But while that’s the in-person justification by individuals, the backroom justification used to ship the weapons is achieving a “Western presence” in the middle east.

Something the Jewish community might not get is: They’re not the only group that’s been targeted for hate throughout history. The holocaust didn’t even specifically target jews. We don’t get to make a “Transgender state”, or a “Black American state”, and especially not displace others for that. In some ways the world needs to accept that, whether by 10 miles or 100, we’ll still be neighbors on this planet and not totally unreachable. Set that distance, and it means you only get boiling points like 9/11 rather than shots fired in a neighborhood.