It isn’t the same. For one, the Supreme Court ruled only this year the the president has nearly king-like powers and immunity – which was only made possible because of the far-right justices he appointed (put forward by the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation, who are also behind Project 2025), and he’ll get to appoint two more, bringing the balance from 5-4 to 7-2. That will give him literally unchecked power, which he didn’t have last time.

Have you read Project 2025? If not, you should. They learned a lot from the limitations they faced in 2016, and have worked this whole time to make sure they will have free reign this time.

It isn’t about trump. He’s just the frontman for a larger fascist movement, who now have the House, Congress, Supreme Court, and have infiltrated the legislature at the state level. They will enact Project 2025 and all they need from trump are rubber stamps between rounds of golf.

The whole reason they chose him was because he’s practically illiterate and insanely easy to manipulate. He doesn’t need to do anything except put his signature on whatever shit they put in front of him. And they have a comprehensive plan to dismantle democracy this time.

Human waste products I can understand. But how many humans would you need to mulch to get enough blood for a building project? That’s one of the main fluids we usually want to stay inside our bodies.

Paying bills is for poor people. Rich people don’t need to do that. How would they stay rich?

And then there’s the problem that the only people who have the possible power to pass electoral reform belong to one of the two major parties, and it’s completely against the interest of those major parties to get rid of FPTP

This is generally true, but I’d say there’s a nonzero chance the Dems will be persuaded to support it – mostly because they’ve shown some support so far and because they don’t have a stranglehold on their base. The Republicans will fight it until their last breath, but the Dems are a coalition party held together by hopes and dreams, and they’ve been made to learn lately that they will lose if they don’t acknowledge progressives (this is part of why Walz was chosen – he’s the closest thing to a socialist they’ve chosen in recent memory). Without progressives, they will fail, and ditching FPTP would mean more engagement from a wide swathe of leftists, which would effectively shut out the far right. It’s in the best interest for the moderate left to be campaigning against the far left than the far right, and ditching FPTP would give them that.*.

e: *

It looks like @Kolanaki posted the source further down the thread: it’s the flute part from a piece in the Jungle Book.

And that’s the thing many people don’t seem to get: the US is not a 2 party system by design – there are actually many parties in the US, including Green, Libertarian, Constitution, Forward, No Labels, Working Families, Alliance, etc, many of which have been on the national ticket. Darrell Castle (Constitution Party) was on the presidential ballot in 2016, for example (I included him in a satirical anti-trump graphic I made in 2016).

The problem isn’t a lack of parties, but that the mathematics of FPTP means they literally can’t gain purchase. If you want 3rd parties to matter, instead of protest* voting or abstaining, start working towards replacing FPTP now for future elections. These conversations only seem to happen in autumn of an election year, which is far too late.

Put your effort into something like FairVote Action so we don’t have to deal with this nonsense forever.

e:*

I just searched for it a bit, but all the sources I could find (twitter, pinterest, BlueSky) also don’t say where it’s from, except that it’s a flute piece.

In case your wife wants to see more of these like I did, the oldest source I could find was Musical composition with threatening auras (29 photos).

<blink>intensifies<\blink>

The installers for every major software company riddled every single computer with adware. And you needed a compsci degree to get rid of it. Weren’t there lawsuits over that shit, that led to regulations? I remember that happening. It’s not like they were going to stop doing that of their own accord.

I’m to the point that if whatever I’m watching/doing pops an ad at me, I reflexively make a snap judgement on whether I want to continue watching/doing whatever it is. Often the answer is ‘no’ and I’ll just bail entirely.

This is peak cat.

I actually enjoy religious debate to a point (until it becomes circular).

Responses I’ve got usually settle on the fact my outlook and actions follow Jesus’s teachings, and that because I have morals – and god is the originator of morals – I clearly do follow god, even if I don’t want to admit it to myself.

Trying to tell people that ethics didn’t originate with their bible, and that obviously people had morals tens of thousands of years before Christianity even existed (because otherwise cooperative societies would not have formed) is something they can’t even fathom, it’s so far outside their worldview.

Some insist I must believe in god in order to reject him, and can’t understand when I point out they don’t have to believe in leprechauns in order to reject them.

For indoctrinated and devout Christians, there doesn’t seem to be a way to break through the fog. I’ve two friends who will begin shouting at me over this, though they’re perfectly reasonable the rest of the time. Years of this is exhausting, as you say, so now I’ve mostly stopped trying.

Upper management deserves everything it gets. Middle management is often underpaid and expected to do all the jobs of their own plus their superiors.

Some *organisational tasks will always be needed. Middle management does that plus fielding some amount of customer service, plus a lot of what upper management takes credit for.

The system is fucked, but we shouldn’t let the people doing barely anything to earn their yachts turn us against those grinding their own bones to glue the grind-house together.

(No, I’m not a middle-manager.)

One place to start is this article from the Stanford Encyclopaedia on Philosophy: Conservatism.

It’s a lengthy read, but enlightening.

One highlight from the summary:

Most commentators regard conservatism as a modern political philosophy, even though it exhibits the standpoint of paternalism or authority, rather than freedom. As John Gray writes, while liberalism is the dominant political theory of the modern age, conservatism, despite appealing to tradition, is also a response to the challenges of modernity. The roots of all three standpoints “may be traced back to the crises of seventeenth-century England, but [they] crystallised into definite traditions of thought and practice only [after] the French Revolution” (Gray 1995: 78)

I recommend reading the sources linked in that article, as well.

eta: It’s worth noting that societies worldwide often see a resurgence in conservatism in response to social change, crises, and civil rights movements, which are without fail a fear response to threats to the social hierarchy. We can see this in real time.

This has been studied, and the ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’ idea is actually wrong.

The real reason is because some people (especially conservatives, because it’s a core part of conservative ideology) believe that in order for society to work, a hierarchy must be maintained wherein the ‘deserving’ are at the top, and everyone else is in their rightful place. Any threat to the natural hierarchy will undo the societal order and bring chaos and carnage.

This is why Obama becoming president was such an affront – because his presence outside his ‘rightful place’ was an existential threat to the natural order.

This belief has its roots way back when feudalism began to fail and the moneyed classes needed to find a new way to retain their power – both capitalism and conservatism were born at that time, with ideologies shifting from birthright to ‘earned’ status, which enshrined the haves and have-nots into literally sacred structures of meritocracy and social darwinism, and colonialists specifically fostered strict adherence to the social order. It became ingrained culturally that adhering to your station, whatever it is, is crucial for society to function. That there’s honour in being a cog in the machine, and that not accepting your lot in life is a danger to everyone. (eta: this is mostly subconscious, but you can see it if you ask ‘why’ enough times of someone who idolises Musk, for example. You’ll eventually whittle them down to these themes.)

That’s a nutshell view of a complicated topic, but these people don’t believe they’ll strike gold one day. They believe people who are rich deserve to be treated as kings, for the same reason monarchist peasants did.

For most of my life, I was pretty quiet about being an atheist, and literally all of my friends were Christian; *they assumed I was too, and it was easier to let them. Eventually I stopped caring who knew, and finally told a few of my friends that I’m atheist. In every case, the response was ‘you can’t be atheist – you’re too nice’.

A couple of them flat-out refused to believe I’m atheist, telling me that I’m actually Christian, I just don’t go to church or pray, and that’s okay. Utterly refusing to accept I don’t believe in their god, and trying to convince me of all the reasons I’m acktuaaly a believer, even if I don’t think I am. It’s been confusing and maddening. Some of these conversations have gone on for more than a decade.

Many people will straight-up refuse to see anything that doesn’t conform to their worldview, and there’s not a thing you can say to break through it.

e: *

Are you me?

Maybe… oO
In an infinite universe, can we even be sure we exist at all?

On a more serious note, I dunno if you take yours off periodically to clean the gaps beneath it, but if you do, I highly recommend using a bit of that white plumber’s tape (I think it’s Teflon tape?) to wrap the threads when re-installing it. This prevents any leaks from that connection. I don’t trust my own abilities and this stops me from worrying about it.

Have you tried doing this? I have, for *nearly a year, on the more ‘advanced’ pro versions. Yes, it will apologise and try again – and it gets progressively worse over time. There’s been a marked degradation as it progresses, and all the models are worse now at maintaining context and not hallucinating than they were several months ago.

LLMs aren’t the kind of AI that can evaluate themselves and improve like you’re suggesting. Their logic just doesn’t work like that. A true AI will come from an entirely different type of model, not from LLMs.

e: time. Wow, where did this year go?

I couldn’t live without my $40 bidet. It was super easy to install (took about 10 minutes & my own clumsy DiY skills), and I get a nice nether-shower many times a day. The only drawback is how gross it now feels to use public facilities.