Clinton is not wrong. Only those of us that actually care about politics as a means to do something about social problems care about policy. The overwhelming majority of us those care about politics as a spectacle, a variation of edu-tainment with the social dynamics of team sports. And in that framework, message that distract from the team as us or the opposition as them are of no value.

Looks like Zoids…so, yes.

As someone who doesn’t use the /s and regularly gets downvoted as a result, I’m less interested in your downvote and more interested in why anyone upvotes.

For example, if we’re discussing American healthcare and you’re arguing for universal healthcare because it makes sense, I’m likely to respond sarcastically with “But that’s socialism! In America, we’d rather pay and arm and a leg to die from preventable diseases than just secure healthcare! That’s true patriotism!”

Now, if you were to take that at face value, I’m curious as to who you think would genuinely argue for excessive payments to die from preventable diseases so blatantly. Literally no one does that. That’s not giving credence to an exaggerated position because it’s not an actual position anybody would take. But your reaction is beside the point, because I’m not interested in you.

I’m interested in the people who agree with my sarcastic position, often by tamping down the hyperbole, because they’re unreasonable. These are people I’m trying to catch with my vinegar honey pot. It might giving credence to their views long enough for them to respond positively to me, but after that…it’s all mudslinging. And if someone says they oppose universal healthcare because it’s socialist, well then I get to have being extremely sarcastic with them while you get downvote me.

The current Lt. Governor of North Carolina is black and worse than Trump. Idk about the sexual assault stuff, but he’s still an absolute piece of shit.

Every answer so far is wrong.

It can be used for good purposes, though I’m not sure if characterize creating a personalized Jarvis as good per se. But, more broadly, capitalist inventions do not need to be used only by capitalists for capital ends.

There’s a few ways in practice.

1. Court decisions are binding broadly. The conservative capture of the Supreme Court is political genius, honestly. They tend to have the final say regarding policy.

2. Federal agency rules are also broadly binding. EPA rules that limit greenhouse gas emissions, for example, apply everywhere in the country.

3. State legislatures are often less polarized, which facilitates a more productive legislature.

4. State agencies, like a state environmental department, mirrors its federal counterpart but is more localized.

5. Non-state organizations can get things done, though their interests are often limited and not necessarily in the interests of the broad public as state and federal institutions are.

6. International institutions can ‘set the tone’. They may not have any power to actually do anything within a specific jurisdiction, but people within those jurisdictions can draw policy inspiration from international organizations and try for something locally binding.

I don’t use /s at all. I eschewed it a few years ago.

Some views deserve to be ridiculed, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to invite people to do.

Oh really?! Tone isn’t conveyed in text and you can’t detect literal sarcasm unless it’s broadcast like a beacon from someone’s warped piehole? Like a ship at sea in the calmest waters, you can’t find your way home without a lighthouse?

No article, it’s a video

I have a shikibuton and a very expensive mattress. I vastly prefer my shikibuton and sleeping on the floor. It tends to be cooler as you say, and my cat comes and lays right next to me sometimes rather than on me. Plus the floor is more supportive than the mattress without being overbearing.

Thanks, I hate it

It’s just a fact of life, ya know.

Oh c’mon! I thought I still had at least a decade

Exactly

What’s particularly strange about it is that it doesn’t really serve any purpose for a vast majority of people aside from a government-approved official statement that someone finds their in-laws unbearable.

That’s a pretty good purpose. Everybody can save face by taking part in bureaucracy. That sounds like I’m being facetious, but I’m serious. Think about the alternative: avoiding them awkwardly all the time or telling them to screw themselves directly, which will engender negative feelings. At least with the bureaucracy, the sentiment gets filtered through a impartial, uncaring medium.

Anecdotally, this was my experience as a student when I tried to use AI to summarize and outline textbook content. The result says almost always incomplete such that I’d have to have already read the chapter to include what the model missed.

The Federalist is a bottom of the barrel website. They lie and distort everything they talk about.

I think this misunderstands free speech in principle rather than as interpreted by law or colloquially.

Classical liberal philosophers, like Locke, Mill, and Dewey, understood that deliberation required broad perspectives to handle sufficiently. Understanding and solving problems required a debate about their nature and their solutions for society to choose well. Free speech was instrumental in solving problems in principle.

But a modern understanding of it is basically license. It’s like calling freedom both the opportunity to live your life on your terms and shoot black people on your doorstep because you’re afraid of them. And then someone comes along and asks, “Do you think people should the freedom to defend themselves from intruders?”

Free speech, similarly, nowadays is just conflated with pure lies and obfuscation. It’s about creating unreal problems and redirecting social energy into some ineffective bullshit.

Thus, it’s not a contradiction to say that Americans support free speech and that some people need to have their platform taken away. Productive free speech would be improved by a reduction in unproductive and destructive speech done freely.

My wife on the other hand has a name that is constantly butchered (or, at least was when we lived in Ohio) and it’s a relief for her to hear her name pronounced correctly.

Ewww no. Fuck balance. Go hard when you can, mitigate losses when you can’t.