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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: October 24th, 2023

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  • I would sympathize with this one, honestly.

    I think we all (in the US at least) grew up with a very skewed and generalized / propagandized version of its history, one that’s specifically designed so we identify proudly with it. (I’d imagine most countries are similar on that last bit but idk)

    The more time goes on, the more atrocities come to light, the more insanely layered and nuanced and complicated it all is, it’s quite an overload with everything else we have to deal with as adults. (Especially when most of it is crap we can’t even do anything about.)

    The constant realizations that approach closer to the truth are often painful. Nobody likes realizing they were lied to so much in their formative years.

    Yeah, I too would like if my country was run by virtuous people trying their best, and if unknown badass action heroes stopped the bad guys, instead of living in an evil empire run by those bad guys, and if hard work actually meant something.


  • For real though I seriously wonder.

    Outside of the bigger cities I’ve lived it’s like, people are working fast food or gas stations and other service labor or like, really niche stuff like oil industry (yuck), or some other industrial or farming occupations.

    I know lots of people live in rural areas, dunno how many commute or how far, and I always was just like “Okay but what does everybody do?!”

    I wouldn’t mind living somewhere less dense-urban, but geeze, I feel like it’d be even harder to find a fit than in the city, and it feels like it’d be a trap where you couldn’t make enough to move away.

    I’d love to be wrong, assuming we’re not talking about the top 10% of programmers that have a lucrative telecommute contract via starlink or some crap lol.

    Like stuff an average person is capable of without requiring a ridiculous amount of luck or extremely niche in-demand education.



  • I get where you’re coming from, and I anticipated a response like this, but also there’s some realities I respectfully believe you’re at risk of over-generalizing.

    In the modern world armed forces are often positioned as a way out of poverty, or to a fulfilling career, because they’re one of the last jobs that will actually train you. (Especially if you can’t afford college.)

    I have my own opinion that swearing oaths to a state that can tell you “Go kill them or else” is a bad idea, but I can only control me.

    Regardless, a mixture of people join up: Many of which wanna just do their 4 years and leave. Most of which never see combat. Many of which do incredibly valuable work like weather monitoring! But also few really get a choice where they’re deployed.

    My point being: These are human beings killed. Those on the other sides are human beings killed. This is a net negative. For all we know, these U.S casualties were the base cooks. We don’t know if they ever aimed any weapon at another living soul. We don’t know who these people are.

    The kneejerk reaction is to say “They had it coming” because we don’t like what’s happening, but that thinking will swiftly rot our humanity.

    The puppetmasters that are pointing these human beings at each other for their own sick games are the ones that should be punished and destroyed. NONE of these people needed or deserved to die.

    War does not determine who is right — only who is left.

    –Bertrand Russell


  • . . .flip it off very intentionally.

    Heehee I’m kinda glad I’m not alone here. I walk my neighborhood and people install those STUPID cameras facing the sidewalk to catch EVERYONE walking by, that whistle at you, or say “you are being recorded!”

    I give it the finger without looking at it basically as a reflex now. I’ve never even flipped someone off in traffic, I’ve been told I have the patience of a saint.

    But surveillance capitalism and stupid paranoid suburbanites satisfying their nosy-neighbor compulsions is definitely a line.

    We’ve got those stupid towers all over the place here too. Construction sites, parking lots.

    Freaking absurd. I’m upset that it’s the best crime deterrent they can come up with, because I suppose skulky fellows lurking around dark parking lots aren’t preferable either.





  • I might have a lot of fun things that aren’t legal in California. Never thought my OS would be one, but here we are.

    If people went out of their way to learn a damn thing about computers, and all-consuming jobs didn’t force entire generations raised without parents, and maybe they didn’t let their 6 year olds on social media / online gaming / whatever unsupervised, maybe there’d be more backlash to the state and corporations trying to step in as parental figures.

    …Wish that wasn’t too friggin’ much to ask.

    Servers and data centers have zero business knowing anything about who’s behind my machine by default.





  • I figured Jesus would be the last person Trump would want to meet.

    6 “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

    Matthew 18:6

    Given this entire administration’s relationship to children, and their hijacking and warping of the Gospel and manipulation of naive belivers to create a doomsday death cult, I’d say we’re far overdue for millstones to go up in demand as much as RAM has.