MSC

Bingo! What do you think my contextualism was born of? We live in a world of different tinted windows now. Although my studies took me much further afield than just wikipedia, free libraries like project Gutenberg helped me read any classic I wanted, the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy and Internet EP are fabulous resources, crash courses with structured curriculums and repeats of that same course as a keyword library for the studies mentioned in the previously mentioned resources. It's not perfect and human memory being what it is, I don't think anyone makes it through education (in the broad sense, formal or informal) without having gaps or weak areas, but when absent typical options you have to make do with what you have. Not that it did me any good in the end, arrogant jackass trying to predict an election months in advance and not even having the decency to be right. That's me.

Don't know why it won't let me delete the quote box as I rethought my response to geordief. Problems with Android phone probably. So this just in; Republicans are going to maintain control of the house. So that's Senate, house, Whitehouse and supreme Court in complete control of Trump's Republican party. No checks and even on issues the supreme Court has or will rebuke or try to muzzle Trump over, they've eroded their own public trust and support that Trump is likely to take advantage of that to completely ignore the supreme courts rulings on things and if his plans for Schedule 8 employees comes to fruition... I know things were pretty dystopian before Trump but welcome to the new dystopia.

Additionally to B; applied consumer psychology, in hardware and software design made to cultivate addiction and dependency. It's not just how much more is our there but how much more people are consuming and how much they have started to rely on and solidify their attachments to some sources of information over others.

Uhhhhh so many errors reading that back to myself and was too busy to edit quick enough. Profit, power and/or sex was the thing I messed up before I went on to Nick Fuentes... That guy certainly isn't doing what he does for sex though because it's a losing strategy to be king incel. Unless he's aiming for some extreme dictatorship where women are forced to be with a husband after a certain age.

Wanted to address this last night but was really tired, which I expect to be for the next four years. As for the information pipelines; it's less than they have become eroded but have been hijacked and also multiplied exponentially over the years, not just of new pipelines but reservoirs and filters of varying levels of pollution. Information does the rounds through this clusterfuck of piping and bad faith hijackers, that would make any plumber quit working on fixing that project and bring it all down and start from scratch. Take any given subject, calculate how many true things can possibly be said about that subject and compare that to how many untrue things you could say about it. Lies and falsehoods are insidious not in that sometimes they can be told rather convincingly told, but falsehoods outnumber truth and facts. Truth and facts are limited by the reality that is, whether lies and falsehoods are limited by human imagination. Not to mention that the most insidious kind of lies are the ones that twist and bend truth and facts, turning them against those ideals at times. We also need to recognize our own place in this information system as filters and reservoirs in our own right. Sorry to stretch the metaphor so much but the pipeline is really more like a web built by a bunch of spiders high on acid at this point. Everyone has a megaphone, so all we hear is white noise and are in a near constant state of information overload. Add in AI bots and info generators and it's going to get even worse. The Internet itself is, at this point Jung's collective consciousness technologically enabled, it is a grand repository of all human knowledge, true, but that is just a small part of what it really is. It's the digital mental imprint of our species, the good, the bad and the ugly. I don't mean to sound so dour or dramatic. This is just what comes to mind when I think about your question independent of this election bs. I do hate to admit it but I agree with Zap here. I work with Trump supporters, working class people are not lazy and they aren't bad people either. We need to be more mindful of the power of cult influence that makes it's followers, dangerous but also victims. They have good reasons for lashing out, they are just brainwashed into picking the wrong people to lash out at. The real problem are the snake heads that fuel it all through lies, truth warping, bullying and manipulation. Usually for profit, power and/or. The Nick Fuentes and Donald Trumps of the world. Look at Trump's own upbringing. Clearly his father learned from his Sith master well, because that's the sort of dynamic I see in Trump's upbringing and in the MAGA cult and you can see it in scientology. The biggest liars, backstabbers, bullies, brutes and manipulators are what rises to the top and competition does not stop at foe but spills over into competing with your own camp in a constant game of one up on whoever you can trample on to climb up. The problem isn't that these people are lazy, far from it. They are criminally and immorally sophisticated and should not be underestimated. The result of this election make that clear as day and it's as clear as day who is running the show, the mega rich. It's always money fought for and money rules. In a hyper capitalistic monopoly economy, the only true economic power is buying power and the richest men in the world got behind Donald Trump and Donald Trump still has a day of reckoning coming, either due to health problems or JD Vance or some other evil entity to completely take over and use every opportunity Trump gave them to solidify and iron grip on everything.

The people who wish this can start by getting rid of all their devices and cutting off their access to all news sources. I'd rather they be completely uninformed than ill informed. If they do watch any news it has to be reruns of news from the fifties. Let them live their fantasy while the rest of the world moves on and leaves them behind!

Oh 100% you know for a fact the moment blame can fall to Trump, all of a sudden they'll talk about how economic policy can take time to really have an impact so it was Biden fault. It's such an unfair double standard; if it's Biden or any Democrats policies, hardship is immediate, if it's Trump policies the hardship was caused by the previous guy. Ridiculous!

That will be very difficult because it's hard to ignore the president of the United States and some would say dangerous to do so, no matter what that is. I do hear you though, I'm still processing everything.

I think maybe something we lack, being as inclined to study nature thoughtfully as we are, is an experiential gap where we kind of are unaware of how much of a hole that can fill within a person the impact that has on what motivates them, that would normally be occupied by escapism. They say ignorance is bliss but I think it's more accurate to say that the ignorant seek bliss. If you're smart enough to derive some satisfaction by confronting, accepting and pragmatically making use of an uncomfortable truth, you'll never understand the people who live for the bliss of believing a comfortable lie. What this means, is that honestly the majority of the time people engage with these devices, they aren't engaging to access the wellspring of human knowledge and become informed, they are bored and trying to escape reality, playing games, listening to emotionally engaging influencers speaking simply about simple things. Fun. These devices are being used as toys, not tools. Then companies make tools of us through the toys.

Trump rarely ever spoke about his policies, Democrats spoke about their policies until they were blue in the face. Enhanced child tax credits, federal legalisation of marijuana, help paying down deposits for American families and an increase in house building across the United States. Did anybody here, ever once see any news headline that was anything like "Harris promises X" because I didn't? I had to wake through stories to get her policy's but they were there. What the hell happened to reporting? Not once was a policy itself made a headline as far as I could see. I'm beginning to realize as well that I must have been blindsided by my own algorithms. It's scary that even with conscious effort to aggregate trustable sources of information the bias these things build up in you doesn't stop. I thought as well that by keeping tabs on certain alt right sources I'd at least know what they were thinking. Maybe Biden just shouldn't have dropped out.

@MigL Got any land for sale up there? Not even joking at this point. Need to get my daughter the hell out of this place, my step sons step mother is probably going to be deported now too.

It's Ukraine and Palestine I feel really bad for. I mean Palestine were going to get fucked either way but Ukraine might as well be called Russia now as Trump is going to throw them under the Russians tank, bus, jeep, the whole convoy. Based on how it looks there isn't even any shot of a legal challenge or a recount that could sway the result in a meaningful way.

What is the point of democracy when so many people believe stupidity and will actively vote against their own interests repeatedly? This country didn't deserve Kamala Harris as president if it can continually choose that orange fuck. Electoral college or not how TF did this happen?

Yeah but I'll still be able to say "told you so", that's what matters, as I lay dying thanks to INow. I just really hope she wins with enough of a lead that disputing the results will be as difficult as possible for team Trump.

And I am now dead, ribs cracked, lungs failed. I hope you're happy. On a side note; if Harris wins I entirely expect each and every one of you to go back to my OP and 1+ that mf! 1- if she loses of course. Maybe banish me for all eternity at that point for daring to hope!

YELL AT THEM LOUDER! THEY CAN'T HEAR YOU FROM CANADA YET! I'm still lighting a small bonfire tonight and I figure if I just make a small effigy out of sticks and twigs nobody will notice, totally just a Guy Fawkes thing, ignore the orange wig it's fake news! No need to ask who you voted for! Trump obviously am I right? Or had hell not frozen over yet? I think that's a potentially good sign, but there are some pretty anti-abortion women out there too so it's not so cut and dry.

Nick Fuentes denounced MAGA as a cult?! He's not wrong, but holocaust deniers, neo-nazis and incels are their own cult. Pot calling the kettle black. Did y'all know Nick Fuentes was my neighbor for a year from summer 2022-2023 when I lived in Berwyn Illinois and that we didn't even realize it was Nick Fuentes living there until journalists slipped details and contact info under our door? City of Berwyn has been trying to get him evicted. Ngl there were a few times where I really had to resist the urge to hop the fence and kick his ass. Only good thing I'll say about him is that he's a quiet neighbor and he'd give my stepson his ball back if it went into his yard. If anyone wants to know where to mail the poop, hit me up I have his address or you can look it up online because he has been heavily doxxed. Honestly though Nick Fuentes wouldn't care about MAGA being a cult if it fully aligned with his extremist views. The saddest thing about all of this to me is that Harris could be the first American woman to become president of the United States but she won't be the first American woman to be the head of state of a country. Janet Jagan was the President of Guyana at one point in time. A close friend of mine used to be really into Elon Musk but I haven't spoken to him about Musk at all these last four years. Very curious to know what he thinks now.

Actually it may be more indicative of the sincere lack of attacks on mail in voting as that was last elections Republican Boogeyman. This time around it's illegal aliens voting as the new false cry of foul. It also doesn't take into account the support Harris has amongst those voting demographics themselves smaller than Trump it may be. Now being a registered Republican means you could fall into any one of a number of camps, for example Harris managed to secure support amongst a lot of Nikki Haley supporters.

As for the abortion debate, I really believe the majority of the debates hyperfocuses on restrictions of the act and not the issues and choices around it. There are modalities of Pro-choice and Pro-life that are compatible with each other that focus on the more organic influences of the economy and policy on abortion rates as a whole. Now when I talk about abortion rates, there are two types. Medical statistics and ghost statistics. One is the rate you see because it came from a licensed provider, one is the rate you don't see because it happened underground and was unregulated and therefore dangerous. One policy that is a sure fire way for the ghost rate to balloon out of control, is banning abortions. While I'd predict that the rates of both would reduce when such effective policy is in place that it reduces the oversized burden on women and families when it comes to raising children in the first place. Maybe, just maybe less women would be inclined to get abortions if it was affordable to raise kids, have a career and the ability to also save or buy a house, to leave something behind for their children when they are gone. Hell even just more effective housing building strategies and putting new builds on the market could have a small impact on those rates. I've got a funny feeling a fair few of those other methods being utilized have some blindspots. Especially when it comes to likely and unlikely voters.

Short aside; do y'all think it might be a too politically charged environment in the USA right now for me to burn a Guy effigy on the 5th? Normally I would, but I feel like on an election year someone might think the effigy is of some American politician and take offense?

I've been saying this for years. I'm all for freedom of speech but since when does freedom of speech imply you have a right to a megaphone with the potential to reach millions to billions of people. Can you imagine what life would be like today if Stalin or Hitler had access to a communication device so powerful they could speak directly to people at the push of a button wherever they are? Right now the only upside is that it is an even playing field in that most of us with access to a phone and a stable Internet connection have this power, but that really just adds to the chaos and forums such as ours are very lonely islands of reason, rationality and objective concern. At first I was thinking "oh shouldn't this be in the political humor thread." Until I realized it's not funny, it's terrifying. Ian Brown might be a total shithead now but this song speaks to me a lot because of all this and election day being so near.

It's really a problem if rhetoric and rhetorical style. It's hard to boil down all scientific facts to something simple and punchy enough that the common man responds positively to. Also that Democrats are more in the way of trying to gain votes of independents and Republicans by convincing them that the candidates have the right values, rather than intelligently appealing to the values those voters already possess.

The silver lining here being that a good portion of those males with misogynistic tendencies are disorganized and uneducated and are as likely to miss voting day due to being drunk, hungover, at work or unable to find the documents they need to register. In a close race, the few that are probabilistically likely to end up not voting, could make all the difference in some places. Not to mention the damage Trump's own election security rhetoric has done to the confidence of his own voters in the process. I wonder how many will be thinking "What's the point in voting when the Democrats are going to cheat anyway?" A good example being immigration; so many people believe falsehoods about immigration that the Democrats have no choice but to get tougher on it and propagate some of these falsehoods themselves or they will lose the election. Trumpism hasn't just caused the moral bar for Republicans to drop, but Democrats too. It scares me a little to think that if enough people start believing more of this nonsense, not just in terms of immigration, we'll see a fast moral decline across the candidates political spectrums as winning campaigns have to become more and more morally dubious.

That makes sense; I did want to give it the benefit of the doubt and read it more charitably but also kind of slid into almost OT territory but your point at Including the quote is definitely relevant to Trumpism.

How I felt like reacting when I found out most of my new coworkers are Trump supporters... Because yes, they are Orcs.