TimmyDeanSausage

Only if you ask them for donations at every gathering

I used to game with a veteran who broke his back during his last tour. He could still get around, but had enough problems that he was on disability and spent most of his time gaming. He was also a huge Trump supporter who constantly talked about “welfare queens” and immigrants destroying the country… He also sold things online and didn’t report his income from that so he could keep his disability. A perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black, and I still wouldn’t take his disability away if it meant other people that rely on theirs also had theirs taken.

Those are two great points, and I completely agree with both of em. The 2A thing, in the US, is just one of many tools the billionaire class has used in their propaganda machine to push the Overton window the way they have around the world.

I completely understand were you’re coming from. I grew up in an incredibly disfunctional/abusive household and left at 15. I’ve been pretty much completely self-reliant since then. I was mostly self reliant before that. My parents idea of raising children was occasionally popping in to feed us or beat us (sometimes literally) into submission. I don’t need any external input to come to my own non-shitty conclusions on things because I’ve always had to think for myself.

However, I was also extremely lucky to find some good male role models in early adulthood that completely changed a lot of my life, mostly by exposing me to new ideas, skill sets, and opportunities. I think, while you and I have been shaped by hardships in a way that makes us mentally resilient enough to feel like we don’t need that mentorship, most young men don’t have that and they’re really floundering without guidance. I also think that this ultimately stems from homophobic tensions drilled into men of the last few generations that told us that platonic close relationships and brotherly affection between men is unacceptable.

So, while I agree that right wing ideology isn’t the default for young men who lack positive guidance, it’s a completely understandable outcome when the only available guidance they have, in a world that leaves young people with so many important/big questions, is a highly curated machine designed to lure them into a downward spiral towards far right/ fascist ideology.

The 2A crowd brought us fascism by voting for literally anyone who told them they could keep their AR’s. Now we have fascism-lite with our government disappearing people unlawfully with plain-clothed goon squads, and the 2A crowd is on the side of the fascists. In other words, they were the ones screaming about the importance of the people being able to protect themselves from the government, for decades, and now that we’re in a situation were people actually need to do that, they’re on the sidelines cheering on the authoritarian government. A lot of people like me aren’t surprised at all.

I think that’s likely all it was. But, I also think it’s a little too convenient that Trump is done with Elon now that the dirty work has been done to line up manufactured support for their billionaire tax break bill. At risk of getting a little conspiratorial, it’s possible Trumps team actually planned to use Elon to do all the worst damage so they could cut him loose, after the fact, then blame him for the worst of the fallout.

Bigger than that, I think Musk finally realized that Trump only holds up his end of deals as long as it’s advantageous for him. The rest of us have known that for as long as we’ve known Trump, but hey, being a totally legit super genius has its downsides, right? Anyways, Trump promised him a buffet of corruption, then got cold feet when he saw musks appetite. Even more than that, they’re two self-appointed kings of their own worlds, both with the emotional intelligence/maturity of a very traumatized teenager. With their levels of obvious insecurity, their arrangement was never going to work. I’m just glad their break up is as juicy as I thought it would be. :)

I think you’re completely right, and I also think they’re work-shopping ways to make their live service concept work. In other words, mature gamers wholly rejected live service money grab games as a concept, and the corporations have decided that instead of accepting that and moving on, they’re going to try to jam as many slightly tweaked iterations down our throats as they can until something sticks. IMO, this is the product of companies being run by golden parachute hopping capitalist predators.

That’s kinda what I was saying… lol. They’ve been really focused on indoctrinating young men for decades. They know they’re going to lose a certain amount of them, because their policies are deeply unpopular, so they’re banking on being able to get enough people while they’re young, then keep the wool pulled over their eyes.

This. They’ve been honing their propaganda aimed at the youth for a couple decades now. It got me when I was 18 and, tbh, I don’t know if I would’ve broken out of it if I wasn’t gay. The “don’t tread on me” part of the propanda was really what sucked me in, then I saw how hard they fought against people like me having the same rights as them and realized they were full of shit. Young people today are going through the same thing, but with even more sophisticated propaganda to initially hook them.

This will be the legacy of the boomers. They lucked into massive wealth, closed the door behind them, and made sure we had to pry the reigns of societal control from their cold, dead hands. I feel for all the boomers that never escaped poverty and will still be dragged through history with the greediest generation on record to date.

Totally agree.

We already have some very promising seeming sodium based batteries that are much more environmentally friendly. Afaik, the capital class hasn’t been funding it as well as they should because it’s unclear if the tech will ever reach the same level of energy density per dollar as the current stuff. In other words, I don’t think the problem is the tech. The problem is the owners of the private sector energy companies are more interested in sustainable short term profit than what’s best for society, long term.

I think we just need to keep expanding battery farms. 3+ phase power definitely generates more heat, but that’s an issue that’s been solved many times in our traditional power supply systems.

Good. Glad you actually voted. A lot of people parroting the ideology you’re parroting didn’t vote, thus implicitly voting for Trump. The dems lost because of a number of strategic failings but, I agree, not outright condemning the genocide in Gaza was one of them. We can blame the DNC for that, and blame the abstainers for not putting up a fight against fascism at the same time.

If that’s your take-away from the points I raised, then I don’t know what to tell you.

By voting for Trump, you have insured the Palestinians are much worse off. At least with Harris there would’ve been a possibility of the US eventually condemning the genocide. Now we have the Trump admin cheering it on. So, how did voting the way you did help the Palestinian people?

I blame the DNC for constantly shooting themselves in both feet, especially when it comes to their insistence on running sham primaries. I blame the neoliberals in both parties for creating the propaganda and legal bribery industries that shifted the Overton window so far right in this country. I blame voters like you, for not being able to see the forest for the trees when the options we’re given are more neoliberalism, or blatant fascism. You chose now, of all times, to put your foot down with the DNC, because that’s what the bandwagon was doing. Now you think your rage at the system justifies a decision, that you made, that helped bring us outright fascism. Meanwhile, minorities like me get to sit here wondering why so many leftists were willing to sacrifice us on the alter of idealogical purity. If you were actually concerned about Palestinians, you would’ve voted for the option that had potential to ease their suffering. In other words, there would’ve been far more political pressure on Harris to do something about the genocide. Instead, we got Trump talking about “wiping it clean” for new development. If you want to continue to justify implicitly voting for Trump, by abstaining, then please explain how Trump is better for Palestine than Harris. That was your primary motivation for not voting after all, right?

How so?

How do you feel about motorcycles?

They are receiving plenty of blame. In the mean time, we get to watch Trump destroy our country, cheer on the genocide in Gaza, and openly flirt with invading our allies. All thanks to the morons that bought into propaganda telling them not to vote.