Ignore for a moment rather this is right or wrong (it’s wrong) but ignore that. THIS is a textbook example of Soft Power. The thing the Trump administration tanked by gutting USAID. The west is still playing old world outdated politics from last century and China is going to leave us and our allies in the dust because of it.

You litterally just asked a community of deviants how comfortable we are with rope.

I think not everyone is out of the closet and we shouldn’t make anyone feel unwelcome. Also anyone you clock as “straight” could be one of those who fall under one of the letters or the + at the end of the acronym everyone leaves off in conversation. Which means they ESPECIALLY deserve not to feel alienated and shouldn’t have to justify their existence in a space that is “suppose” to be accepting of queer folks. So unless someone is being an obnoxious twat (in which case bounce 'em) we should mind our own damn business.

Oh and if you have a “straight” friend you want to bring or wants to come to a gay bar, all of my points still stand.

Favorite of all time. Exosquad. Mech armor, space warfare, synthetic humans, space pirates, insurgency, spies, politics, slavery and freedom from it, reproductive rights, clones and resurrection- yes this was all in a kid’s cartoon and it was awesome. That was two seasons. Sadly they canceled it before season 3 where they were hinting at ALIENS.

Most people haven’t read the constitution. Oh they’ll parrot the parts talking heads have taught them to parrot, but they haven’t read it. Which is ridiculous because it’s not a long document.

The easist/cheapest/safest thing to do would be to retain a lawyer to write those scary legalese letters FOR YOU. They’d be from a law firm, the cost per hour to send a letter actually isn’t as bad as you think, and retaining a lawyer is a nice thing to have as an activist in case something happens. A lot of lawyers don’t even charge for the initial consultation and you can call your state’s bar to get referrals if you aren’t sure what kind of lawyer you need.

Part of the problem is gas supply is artificially kept low so the gas companies can increase demand and charge more (eg they intentionally underproduce). Because of that when unpredictable shocks hit the system the prices fluctuate wildly. For example during the pandemic no one was driving and the price of gas dropped dramatically in response. Even going into the negative one beautiful day. The oil companies didn’t know this dumb ass war was coming and didn’t have the opportunity to adjust production in preparation. It takes time to adjust the supply line. Yes they like high prices, but if they let it get too high people start talking about gross things like bike infrastructure and trains. And countries experiencing energy blackouts start considering solar panels and battery banks from China. OPEC+ doesn’t like that. Add to that some oil production infrastructure has been blown up - permanently taking it out of the supply line. The shortages are going to exponentially build because there are backlogs and bidding wars. I’m honestly surprised the gas is still this cheap.

I don’t have a problem with smart devices. I’m a tech head. I LOVE GADGETS. My issues are that smart devices tattle on me to their corporate daddy without my knowledge or permission. My issues are if they aren’t online they don’t work. My issues are if their parent company goes out of business, or stops supporting the devices, or decides I’ve violated a TOS the device becomes a brick. My issues are a lot of smart devices are perfectly pointless and exist solely for the purpose of data harvesting. My issues are I don’t own my smart devices, I’m leasing them.

I migrated because I was frustrated with having to constantly fix problems caused by forced updates. I didn’t expect the benefit of my computer being WAY faster.

At this point I’m convinced it’s corporate gaslighting. They KNOW there wasn’t consistency because of franchisees, misprints, brand changes, inattentive advertising firms, mistranslations, knocknoffs, and different production lines hitting different specs. But do they own up to it? Nooooo. Apparently the collective society at large just “remembers” it wrong.

It’s a lack of trust in institutions on full display. Rather it was faked or not doesn’t matter, no one would put it past the antics of this administration and no one trusts the narrative or the investigators. It doesn’t matter who comes out or what they say. Once the trust is broken we’re cooked and every event will turn into conspiracy time.

No. Chatbots are machines built by billionaires with the agenda of making money. They litterally design these bots (even the therapeutic ones) to be sycophantic to the point they tell people anything to keep them chatting longer. To the point some of their users lose touch with reality. How many cases do we need of a chatbots helping a teenager plan and succeed at a suicide? Altruists did not design these machines. Even with a human therapist we have to watch for the landmines of their personal agendas. That’s a thousand times worse for machines that have no humanity, are capable of LIES, and have secret unwritten priorites written into their code by rich sociopathic creators. If facebook taught us anything it should be that if something is free on the internet it’s not because we are the customers.

Also DO NOT TELL ALL YOUR DEEPEST DARKEST SECRETS TO CHATBOTS! They aren’t required by any legal bodies to protect that information! OMFG

Speratism has been increasing everywhere on the right and the left. Rather that’s an intentional divide and control strategy or people organically getting sick of the systems around them - whose to say. I used to say nothing will come of it but then I watched the UK take themselves right out of the EU and found out Cambridge Analytica had a heavy hand in it.

Also 20% is a big number. That’s one in five people. Every fifth person. That’s a LOT. You only need 3.5% of the population to make a nonviolent policy change, 10% for a revolution against Great Britain. Even if that number stays at 20% my worry is some entity will organize that angry mass towards a goal.

Now, now there are a dozen of us. A dozen!

On its own in a vacuum, no. But that’s why propaganda is seeded across multiple sources over extended periods in places people are half checked out in mentally. It’s the same reason advertising works. That one advert won’t get you, but if you hear a jingle, see a commercial, a billboard, an ad, an endorsement, a logo at your favorite team’s sports park… Ever wonder why your favorite softdrink is your favorite softdrink?

These propagandistic channels only need to plant the seeds of an idea, regularly feed it, wait until people are convinced the idea is their own, then wait for a counter pushback. That’s when the propaganda really takes root. Just like with Q or flat earthers, they will dig in to defend themselves from anyone challenging them. Logic need not apply. Push back only makes their conviction stronger.

YOU don’t watch it. But I’ve watched in real time while videos like this appear on relative’s feeds while they doomscroll as they uncritically absorb everything that appears. Sometimes watching the same video two or five times because the damn app loops. And when I point out “you know that’s bullshit right?” The response is always some variation of: “I wasn’t paying attention to what it said I was just watching.” But they are absorbing it because days or weeks later they will parrot that same BS at me in a conversation.

Why do you think you’re chronically dehydrated? Is your urine brown? Have you been fainting? Do you have kidney stones? (I don’t actually want to know - please don’t share your personal health information on the internet - but if the answer to any of those questions is yes please see a doctor.) Otherwise if the answer to those questions is “no” you are likely getting more then enough hydration. It’s a myth that we need 8 glasses of water a day or need to be constantly drinking water to be “hydrated.” Just keep your water of choice available and drink when you are thirsty. You don’t need to (and shouldn’t) force yourself to drink beyond that. Our bodies are really good at self regulation and forcing more fluid into our system just equates to extra unnecessary trips to the bathroom. You don’t need to force yourself to “like” water. If it’s the only thing you have on hand to drink you’ll drink it when you get thirsty.

fa fa fa fa fa fa fa

GOD DAMN YOU

If a DOCTOR (key word) diagnosis you with cancer, then YES. Otherwise, no your time would be better spent doing something else. May I suggest a hobby? Perhaps building strawmen?

Whose money? Insurance is paid by a pool of people. That makes it a community resource and when a community members gets sick that resource should be allocated to taking care of them. People don’t pay insurance thinking “Gee I sure hope when I need coverage they deny me and direct my funds to the fatheads at the top of my insurance company.”

And the article being true/false/slop is irrelevant. Most Americans have experience with this fucked up system of ours that’s why it resonates.