I really thought about this last year, took the class and everything. In the end I decided not to get one. My reasoning is this: Having a gun and not a lot of experience in what to do with it is like playing a board game for life-and-death stakes that you have never played before.
Maybe I will regret at some point in the future, but I had trouble coming up with scenarios where I wound up thinking "Thank God I pulled my gun out, now all my problems are resolved."
It is a wonderful project, I got a little rush of nostalgia just from the mention of GW-BASIC.
Make sure you research what the "right way" is to approach some of the difficult problems you will run into; you will learn more that way instead of needing to struggle with figuring out how to pick out where the end of the current loop is or whatever. It will be more enjoyable and manageable I think, and also you will level up your skill.
I do think you should leave the emojis out of the summary, people will think you had ChatGPT write the description lol.
Good luck! It sounds like an endeavor. It will probably not get some wide adoption, as you mention there are plenty of these tools already, but that is not the reason to do it.
Claims deep concern about bigotry against Muslims
Writes a whole massive editorial about this pretty fascinating candidate with some very salient features to his candidacy and what it means for the city and politics as a whole, but focuses wholly and exclusively on him being Muslim and specifically how Jews relate to Muslims like him
Waits 6 whole paragraphs before bringing up October 7th
Never change NYT
I mean, they are very bad people. Like almost all of them.
A friend of a friend of mine worked in government (for a Democrat as it turns out), and she said that they're way worse than you think. Just on a personal level these horrifying caricatures of what a human should be, makes you want to take a shower after interacting with them type of thing. I don't think it's universally that way; I do think there are some people in Washington who are trying to do the right thing, but I cannot imagine that you can exist in an environment that corrupt and not have it do some level of damage to you (and drive away the people who are not cool with that level of evil). And the people who are comfortable successful creatures within that environment I think are pretty universally bad.
There is also this upsetting factor that I think a lot of the American voting populace are fine with that. Like I feel like if you tried to primary DWS by painting her as the objective monster that she is and what she did to the country, people would be fine with it and you'd go down in flames. Maybe things are changing now as the young progressives furious about their situation are getting involved in politics, but I think all of the old guard is unapologetically horrible and that's not likely to change for as long as they are the old guard.
Hey, that reminds me: Once we survive the current crisis and move the Democrats somewhere in the vicinity of a left-wing party or replace them, let's primary the fuck out of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I'm sort of irritated that she still has a job.
So I've said this before, and this is actually a perfect example: The tell for these people is how lazy the argument is.
This dude doesn't actually believe that this Reddit discussion about Punisher skulls under this particular picture is proof that Platner knew he had a Nazi tattoo. He doesn't even seem to be trying very hard to make you believe it. He's just... kind of "marking time," it seems like. Making words go together in the vague shape of an argument, with a lot of confident aggressive energy and leading to the conclusion that puts "Platner" and "Nazi" vaguely into the same landscape, and then moving on.
I have talked with people before who I disagree with (obviously) and even on Lemmy some people who I really strongly disagree with. Usually it's fine, we just talk. But the particular bizarro-world conversational flow of something like this exchange is very unique to a particular type of Lemmy interaction, and it always comes in conjunction with some very specific political messaging.
Yeah. I mean I do feel like it's good if there is some vigorous pushback against the nonsense. I am honestly heartened and encouraged by how the Lemmy immune system against bad-faith bullshit seems to be getting stronger since last year. I was honestly really unhappy about how these narratives seemed to dominate when I first joined, it has been getting better.
Like a few days ago, there was a "Nazi tattoo" story, and all the first 1-2 dozen comments were applying some kind of skepticism to it or asking questions. The bullshit brigade arrived soon after that, and the comments section immediately devolved into something about like what we're seeing surrounding us now, but I definitely think political Lemmy at this point has a certain level of bullshit-meter activated.
(I feel like seeing the exact same tide of people swearing that there wasn't much difference between Trump and Kamala, and they were going to save Palestine by refusing to vote for Democrats, and then the bloody aftermath we're living through now, might have had a certain amount to do with it honestly. Of course, I am sure it will go through its next evolution at some point, I feel like just deliberately disrupting the comments with hostility and angry noise may start to take over more and more soon if bullshit keeps not working, but that's just one random guess.)
I mean, yeah, I agree with pretty much all of that. And it's obviously a little bit of a success for the bullshit brigade that we're even talking about this question instead of the question "Is Graham Platner a Nazi?" to which the answer is resoundingly no.
I am honestly pretty surprised by how vigorously they are active in this comments thread. I kind of knew they felt strongly about it... it's also notable to me how the people swearing that it's a Nazi symbol and he's a Nazi for wearing it, are not arguing with the people swearing that it's not a Nazi symbol and it's all a Democratic plot to paint him as a Nazi but it's all lies. They're arguing, but not with each other.
Check out the exchange where I ask for details of the "confirmation," it's fucking wild lol
"He OBVIOUSLY knew, for fuck's sake he was commenting under this picture showing the exact same symbol on the SS uniforms!" I'm only very slightly exaggerating. Try to find the symbol, it actually is there...
He also uses the seldom seen turbo fallacy "little did you know that by responding to my argument you have SAID EXACTLY WHAT I SAID YOU'D SAY AND SO I WIN!" It's so fuckin' bizarre... in fairness I knew these dudes would be here as soon as I saw the post topic and knew we'd be talking about some bullshit, but honestly I am surprised by the nature and ferocity of it.
Okay, I found one comment:
When I was in Ramadi in ‘06 as a Marine grunt, the SEAL platoon we worked closely with for the deployment all had the Punisher skull spray painted on their armor carriers.
There’s no question it’s far more prevalent on all the dumbass Grunt Style and Nine Line shirts these days, but the teams definitely adopted it for a while.
That, in your mind, is confirmation that he knew his own tattoo was an SS tattoo?
I do see the context. I see people talking about skulls and crossbones on a lot of different military decorations and how it's not necessarily an indication of something bad even though the Nazis also had skulls and crossbones, because it's just badass stuff that military people like to put on their gear for obvious reasons.
I mean, if he had scrolled up to where people were talking about 'totenkopf' up in a different place, and replied to that saying "oh btw I have one of those on my chest, I zoomed in to this picture and verified that the skull and crossbones on the right lapel of the guy on the left is the same as my tattoo," it would mean that he was aware that his own tattoo was a totenkopf which is an SS symbol. That still wouldn't mean he was a Nazi (or counterbalance the abundance of not-Nazi views he expressed during this big window we have to his private communication), but it would at least be backing for this somewhat different thing which you are now trying to claim.
What am I looking at here? Which user is Platner and when did he say it was a Nazi tattoo?
Cuomo is literally a sex abuser and establishment democrats can’t get enough of him.
It's not that they like Cuomo. It's that they hate Mamdani because he represents an actual threat to the wealth of their friends. They just have to cling to Cuomo because he's the only way they can fight Mamdani; stumping for the Republican instead will get them in trouble and give the game away.
Confirmed he understood that it was an SS tattoo 5 years ago (in the reddit posts that jacobin dot com clearly read)
Which post?
I mean, it's from "the bad people." There are plenty of "the bad people" in both the Republican and Democratic party, and also a lot of them outside of the US trying to influence the US election at this point. They are, broadly speaking, all in allegiance with each other. They periodically switch parties (from Dem -> Repub) when things get too unbearable on one side of the aisle, they periodically impersonate progressives to get elected (Sinema). Kicking them out of Washington is one of the most critical reforms that must be undertaken even if we manage to survive the present crisis. Unfortunately, it's not that easy.
To me, the fact that they are swinging so hard against Platner is the strongest indication I have seen so far that he is the real deal.
I am greatly enjoying in real time the mass migration of a certain population of Lemmy commentators from:
How DARE this evil Nazi man have this Nazi tattoo! Well I for one, will never vote for him.
To, three days later:
How DARE the establishment Democrats try to smear this honorable progressive by pretending he has a Nazi tattoo! Well I for one, will never vote for them.
(Yes, I know, different elements of the same population can have contrasting views. I get it. At the same time... where were all you guys who are now convinced this is is all a Democratic hit job, three days ago when we were trying to defend this good man from this particular Democratic hit job? Thought you cared about truth in politics.)
In fairness, it is very precisely and exactly the Nazi rendering of the death's head from the SS uniforms. I don't think it's a "Nazi tattoo" any more than some Hindu temples with backwards swastikas on them are now retroactively covered in "Nazi symbols." I completely believe his explanation, among other reasons because some of his private communication has been exposed and literally 0% of it is Nazi and a lot of it is violently anti-Nazi. But their argument that it's a Nazi symbol is technically accurate, I think.
I think it is far more likely that Trump has been pissing off Russia, and that's why all his puppets in congress have all of a sudden started talking about what a bad idea Trump is, and the Epstein files. She doesn't give a shit about things as far as I can tell.
There are quite a few honestly. Team Fortress and DayZ are obvious examples, I also quite liked Natural Selection.
The one thing that this whole analysis is missing is this: There is a ton of work to do. The oceans are dying. The planet is boiling. The garbage is stacking up, endless and endless. There are crimes big and small going undiscovered, or un-processed and dealt with in a trustworthy fashion if they are discovered. There are wars, there are dangerous materials that need to be removed from the soil and the rivers, and the policies need to be set up and enforced to stop their cousins from replacing them within the year. WE'RE NOT FUCKING DONE. This illusion is wholly wrong that capitalism has created, that it is fine to drive the car off the cliff as long as we keep paying salaries and dividends up until the moment of impact comes
Yes, we've gotten more efficient and powerful in our ability to translate a human into an effective change in conditions at the earth's surface. But the problems have gotten bigger, too, and more urgent to the point that they threaten our entire species. Just because we can now keep growing the food and doing layout for the advertisements with only 15 hours a week, doesn't mean that's all we need to fucking do.
I mean, after a certain point, yes. Solzhenitsyn talked about it, also I think some of the founding fathers had things to say about it. In our current situation, absolutely the fuck not. For one thing, it'll get you killed obviously, for another thing, it'll give them the pretext they're looking for to start with all kinds of shit to all kinds of people that they can't get away with right now. They are praying for something like this to happen. That's why they play up anything which looks vaguely like it into something it isn't.
Every day that goes by where ICE is the illegal mother fuckers and the people of the country are the innocents, is another day they lose a little more backing of the courts, the military, the city police, all kinds of stuff like that which is their pathway to power. I know it sounds like I'm just backing down from fighting back... all I am trying to say is that starting gunfights with the secret police is about like starting a fistfight with your abusive spouse: You're not wrong. But also, you're not going to win through that method.
Here is some extensive information about what does work after quite a lot of research: https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/126900/8008_FDTD.pdf