A fantastic book covering the American political system, is “Democracy Inc” by Sheldon S. Wolin, which wrote about how the system is constructed to give the semblance of democratic participation but, is in fact, what he terms a “managed democracy”, in which the levers of the democratic processes are manipulated to a minute degree. He wrote this book in ~2006, I believe, which just goes to show how long this horse and pony show has been going on for (probably FAR longer).

I can’t stand having more than maybe 5-6 tabs open. As the poster above stated, it just gives me anxiety to have random tabs open. I get disoriented trying to figure out what my focus is in a sea of tabs.

Yes, I appreciate that Bernie moved me further left than I was already. Although, if I had more political consciousness before Bernie arrived on the scene, that shift would have happened irregardless. I dropped out of politics for about a good decade (after being disillusioned with Obama’s first term) and he got me back thinking that a real progressive had a shot.

But after the last ten years, it’s quite evident that the progressive wing of the Dems are merely a pressure release valve, same that the Dems are for the Republicans. It just keeps people endlessly mired within the constraints of a system that will not move leftward no matter the consequences of not doing so.

After reading enough Marxist literature, it’s clear Marx was right, and that only a revolution ending in the dismantling of the current system and installation of a worker’s controlled one, will create any meaningful and lasting change for the working classes.

“If we the voters can kick this football, then the Dems will move left”

That guy looks like a real life Mac from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, giving off mad Mac vibes too.

Well, in these parts we ride bears to and from places. They’re like big, furry tractors :D

I live about 15 miles outside of a small town (~20k) in a trailer park on the side of a mountain. Been here 6 months and it is AMAZING. Super quiet at night, can see the stars and it has a great view of the adjacent mountains nearby.

It’ll most likely be awhile, but the plan is to save for a small piece of property with a similar rural location. In my teens and twenties, I used to think that I’d live in the big city, but as I got into my late 30s I couldn’t stand being in the city much. I don’t mind being able to visit occasionally, but city life just isn’t for me anymore. Too big, busy and noisy. Give me a nice, peaceful spot where I can read and enjoy nature quietly.

It might be different for other distros, but for me on MX Linux, I just click on the .deb and it opens a shell with a root prompt and installs the file automatically. Easy peasy.

It’s amazing to me that you could read that quote, and your take, unironically, is exactly the sentiment that Arendt was warning about.

Honestly I think that this isn’t in inherent to the modern world, in earlier ages it “they” was probably attributed to gods and what not. “Why does lightning spark fires in the fields”: “They (the Gods) are probably angry at our insolence”. Fast forward to the present where religion and the supernatural have less hold on human thinking and that type of idea is shifted to a nameless, faceless “they”, orchestrating and manipulating events in secret.

For a fun look at this occurrence, read James Tynion’s fantastic Department of Truth comic that deals with the truth and popular American conspiracy theories.

including your allegedly heinous example of bonding with a widow because you also lost your SO! Can you imagine?! Humans bonding over a common experience?

I used that example, because I am a widow myself. My fiance passed a few years ago. I don’t mean to imply people do this out of malice, just that they try to “make you feel better” by relating to your grief, but unfortunately grief doesn’t work like that. When I am grieving, more than anything I’m just looking for someone to listen and understand, not try and tell me “it’s normal” or “this happens to everyone, don’t feel so bad”, because as genuine and heartfelt that sentiment is it is not helpful. I’m not immune to it either, I met a man on the bus who’d lost his daughter, and my first reaction was to mention my fiance rather than listen and let him let it out. I realized what I was doing and reflected about it later, I saw how he reacted and how sharing that type of pain doesn’t mitigate it, what you really want is to talk to someone without comparing tragedy. There is a time and place for that, but not in those moments of grief and pain.

Yes, I mentioned that explicitly in my comment, did you read all of it? I never said that it was okay for that type of thing to happen to men, and that we should talk about it. And just like with letting women have the floor, we should allow men to have it when the convo is centered on that issue. I don’t see what the issue with giving each issue their own time and space is, we need to have focus if we’re talking about two very different, yet similar scenarios, in order to have some kind of real way to find a solution proper to both.

Of course everyone has varying experiences, I’m not trying to flatten that fact. When I say “typical” I’m refering to the fact that these types of incidents are more prevailent as an experience by women under the subjegation of a patriarchical culture that gives males a disproportionate amount pf privilege and status in such a society. I myself mentioned in my original post that it isn’t right for this to happen to men any more than women, but I think it’s disingenuous to claim these are equivalent experiences. I mentioned minorities and prejudice, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to state that racism against white people, while it does exist, is a much different thing then what is experienced by minorities. Trying to create a false dichotomy equating male’s experience of sexual harrassment with women’s undermines the severity of the problem by trying to act like it’s a gender neutral issue, it isn’t. We can address both, but it would be wrong to conflate both as the same, we can draw parallels and definitely see lessons from each’s perspective, but we can’t paint both with a broad brush if we want to address what is the core issue with both.

I’ve seen the worst from both sides. Everyone with either a testicle or an ovary can sit right the fuck down.

But that’s just it, right? Your experience is an outlier in the typical male experience. I myself have never experienced those kinds of things, but I am sorry you have.

The problem is, that women experience these types of things far more than men do. It is wrong that it happens to males as well, but that type of sentiment (hey, guys have it bad too!) is exactly why the slogans “All Lives Matter” versus “Black Lives Matter” is a huge deflection on a problematic issue.

Sure, all lives matter, but when there is a disproportionate amount of black people having actions happen that put their lives in danger, re-framing the argument only serves to obscure that reality even further.

I think it’s important to realize there is a time and place for grievance, and when it is someone trying to relate their struggle, it isn’t helpful to mention “well yeah, I have it bad too”. Imagine saying that to a widower: “you lost your wife? I lost my husband and my son!” Comparing burdens does nothing to address the suffering of another, and it doesn’t bring to light the scope of the issue when it is a group that experiences more adversity than another.

The fact of the matter is, we live in a male-dominated society, and as such we experience a much, much different reality than women do. Same with minority ethnic groups. And to marginalize those already marginalized groups even further by bringing up our (very real at times) struggles feels like a slight to them.

I do believe that there is a very real need to talk about toxic attitudes held towards things that happen towards men, which is important because it is mainly due to our status, these issues are all too often swept under the rug or minimized because those things “don’t happen to men”. That is wrong, and is a very real problem.

Ugh, so true. The insidious nature of Steam is the fact that they’re basically a PC gaming business monopoly, but they’re benign compared to other corporations, so gamers tend to turn a blind eye to that fact, or find various grasping ways to convince themselves otherwise (there’s still Epic and GOG! etc). The fact that 80%+ of PC game sales are through Steam doesn’t seem to faze or disturb them, when it most definitely should. What happens when Steam drops the facade? I imagine it won’t be long before Steam turns into the badguy.

Do what? Remind me of the babe

In 2001, at 16 years old, I snagged a brand new Dreamcast with five or six games for dirt cheap from a local game store. The DC had already been discontinued at that point, the PS2 was about to launch or just did, and retailers were just offloading the Dreamcast merch. Shenmue was one of those games, and was the game I ended up spending the most time with. There really just wasn’t anything like it, it was this epic action story of loss and revenge with this sprawling open world with all kinds of sidequests, mini-games and interesting NPCs to explore. The most painful thing for me at the time was the damn cliffhanger at the end, and I never ended up getting a chance to play Shenmue 2 (I think it only made it’s way stateside on Xbox). It was definitely a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime experience. There were flaws, to be sure, but they were easily overlooked due to the expansive, ambitious nature of the game.

When big Tech, especially the biggest video platform in the world, does something like this it is relevant to tech. The better question is, if you do support lgbtq+ people, why the public freakout about mentioning a far reaching tech policy, by one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) tech company in the world, on a tech sub?

nazis and fascists, without ever knowing what those words even mean

I am Jack’s complete lack of self awareness

Sure, if your issue is that it’s okay for corporations to remove protections for hate speech towards marginalized groups, then yes, go get bent. This kind of false equivalence between normalizing hate and ostraciszing progressives for speaking out against oppression is EXACTLY what we’re fighting against. What in the hell is the ‘rhetoric’ do you disagree with? Having empathy for lgbtq+ people? Jesus. If so, this is definitely not the place for you.