It’s not exactly my genre of music but i like it anyway.
It does feel like chaotic times are ahead. At some point, the republicans will do something so vile that people will say “No”, and when that happens there will be violence.
I don’t want a civil war. I don’t want unrest. But I do want every republican and their enablers removed from power, and the billionaires stripped of their wealth. I don’t know how to get from here to there.
The damage will last for decades.
The republicans should be stopped.
Everyone saying “they can evacuate” clearly doesn’t remember how bad the covid response was.
There will be anti-space conspiracy theorists. The ownership class would demand people continue working until the last possible minute (and beyond). It would be politicized, because some people are unbelievably stupid, cruel, and selfish, and enough people are so stupid they’ll buy in.
Now, if we could make the meteor fall on a location occupied solely by the people who don’t believe in science…
Anyone who seriously proposes privatizing the US postal service should be removed from power. They’re either trying to harm the US, or are too stupid to be trusted with anything more dangerous than a paper towel.
I don’t think we should be posting such pornographic fictions in this community.
The average person is a heady cocktail of stupid and ignorant. We all are, to one degree or another.
I feel like one of the problems is we’ve let “everyone is entitled to their opinion” mutate into “everyone is entitled to their own facts”. We just kind of let anti-vaxxers walk around like it’s no big deal. We let people wear maga hats and don’t treat it like a clear and present danger or the threat that it is. We’re too polite about this shit.
If someone walked up to you and was like “I’m gonna shoot you dead later” while holding a gun and a map to your house, you probably wouldn’t be like “Cool I respect your opinion.”
I mean, some people would. Some people are pacifists, and I guess they’d just get in a death camp politely.
This is a good point. Seeing other people get onto the street can motivate people who weren’t feeling enthusiastic.
But I do worry that protests will fizzle out and be, as you say, an ending point. Maybe they won’t be.
“a peaceful movement”. Ok. Unilaterally disarming seems like a dubious move to me.
I don’t think protests where you just stand around and chant are especially effective. Maybe in 1950 when seeing people get firehosed was shocking, but the world is different today. Media is captured by the wealthy and most people don’t care.
I’m glad you liked the comic.
I read the tweet as saying “Actually learning about history, the good and the bad, is better than avoiding it to whitewash (pun intended) slavers and spare their feelings”
How did you read it?
This also reminds me of a separate post I saw about how social media, and tweets especially, is a really bad format for communicating. The length constraints and incentivizing being clever don’t make for fertile ground for ideas. Most people aren’t going to read an essay, sadly.
I also can’t imagine someone getting offended about people mentioning the Tulsa Race Massacre or the fact that the founding fathers held slaves.
Actual racists aren’t going to be offended by those historical facts, they just might argue that they were justifiable in some way. Which is obviously super fucked up, but it’s not like racist people are going to deny the fact that slavery happened or that black people got massacred by white people in history. They literally get off on that shit.
Many racists definitely do get offended by those facts. It’s because they’re coming at it from an emotional place, and the historical facts make them feel bad. Instead of dealing with that, they lash out. Not all racists are intentional about their racism.
I link this a lot, but it’s worth a read https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
Which is why the tweet seems so strange to me. Black people getting enslaved and massacred and persecuted? That slaps? I fucking hope not.
That wasn’t the intent of the tweet and that is a bizarre misreading of it.
If billionaires were smart they would go along with this kind of non violent plan. The longer they resist, the more likely people will try more aggressive solutions.
Then you’re a fool, but I hope if it came down to it you wouldn’t go peacefully to a death camp. Maybe it’s too much to hope that you’d step up for your neighbors.
I’m reminded of the abyssal words in Elden Ring’s expansion. There are signs that tell you “Don’t let them see you!” and “You have to hide and run!”. You find an area with some tall grass and some creepy eye-monsters. And sure enough, if they see you they come running at you. They’ll knock you over, grab you, and explode your head.
Clearly you’re supposed to sneak by them.
But…
You can also parry their attack, and then just kill them.
Or just fucking book it and run past them, but that’s way harder.
It was a hypothetical scenario to demonstrate cases where violence is appropriate.
You wrote:
Advocating for violence, regardless of reason, is sick.
In other words, there is no reason whatsoever, in your mind, where violence is appropriate. I gave an argument where violence would be appropriate. Do you disagree? Stay on topic.
Clearly false.
A man is threatening to shoot everyone inside a school. Are you not going to advocate force be used to stop him?
A far right group has risen to power in a nation. They are moving people into extermination camps. Are you not okay with fighting back?
Ten people are stranded on an island. One man has all the food and water, enough so everyone can survive until help arrives. He won’t share. Should the other 9 die of starvation, or take the supplies by force to share them more equally?
Defending the violent is also advocating for violence. It’s just against many powerless people, and more indirect.
There are people who are responsible for rendering our only world uninhabitable. By refusing to even entertain the idea that they could be stopped by force, you are advocating for continued, global violence. It’s less personal than a CEO being shot in the street, but it is violence nonetheless.
Belief is social. They believe what their social group does. We all do this to some extent. Some part of the brain still feels like if we reject the social group’s belief, we’ll die alone in the woods. Going with the group feels good.
You can probably change minds if they see you as in-group, but it won’t last if the rest of their in-group has contradictory ideas.
Getting people off Facebook and other hellscapes might help.
I’m not sure what you mean. There aren’t really a lot of “quests” in gw2.
There’s the main story, which is a green marker on your map. That’s always there (unless you turn it off or finish it)
There’s orange markers for nearby events. That’s like “zombies are attacking! Save the town!” or “help these kids pick apples” or whatever. They’re just things that happen in the world and, to a limited degree, change the world state. Like an area might be full of toxic vines until an event finishes successfully, or a merchant might only sell items after his mission succeeds.
There’s red markers, which are basically the same as orange, except they tend to be world events and not local.
And then there are collections, which are kind of like quests. They’re not super advertised. They’re kind of of “get these achievements for a special reward”. Sometimes NPCs will give you one- like “go find all my favorite fish” or whatever. They’re optional, but sometimes fun and sometimes have good rewards. Like if you finish the one where you get most of the achievements for one chunk of the game, you get a max-stats accessory that all your characters can share.
Anyway. Long reply. Nothing is really beamed into your head, no.
You’re probably right. Dark days ahead.
But I hold out a little hope that people will fight back