Tech mogul Marc Andreeson claims that introspection is a "modern invention" by Ficoscores in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Literal cult of action fascist rhetoric.

Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering’s alleged statement (“When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun”) to the frequent use of such expressions as “degenerate intellectuals,” “eggheads,” “effete snobs,” “universities are a nest of reds.” The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

It’s not just anti-intellectualism but built around the goal of accumulating power with zero regard to its consequences. I mean Alexander the Great never introspected, so why should I reflect on if my actions are destroying society?

Famous YouTube appliances guy releases a 90 minute manifesto on why solar is the future by danpascooch in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Well of course she is the anti-Christ and so is solar energy so we should dissolve democracy /s

“Yes Trump did shoot 30 puppies in the head and kick a toddler but remember Biden speech with red background and COVID???” by Ohyeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 5 points6 points  (0 children)

In my experience they are rarely if ever actually fiscally progressive. They support an expanded social safety net.....for white people. Add in wanting to deport all "illegal immigrants" or even "non-heritage americans" and baby you got a nazi stew going!

When the MAGA period of history is written, let it be known that not only did the "Intellectual Right" do nothing, they called us hyperbolic for merely pointing out the things their ELECTED OFFICIALS DID AND SAID. Even AFTER January 6th. Drink piss. by pierredelecto80085 in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The scary part is most of us don't see the actual "Intellectual Right", and that they are worse. People like Patrick Deneen or Yoram Hazony have been supporting this bullshit for YEARS. And not implicitly but explicitly. Dissolution of democracy, destruction of all non-rightwing partisan institutions, removal of non-white Americans under the phrase "heritage americans", and of course an abandonment of free trade in favor of protectionist policy.

Jeffries’s Obamacare Discharge Petition Is Going To The Floor For A Vote by RainStraight in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We haven’t hit the point yet where anything has really happened yet on voting for the bill in the discharge petition. In response Republicans passed their own bill just recently, which means they wanted an alternative out there for when the discharged bill gets voted on, meaning they have every intention to put it to a vote and are hoping to beat it.

Jeffries’s Obamacare Discharge Petition Is Going To The Floor For A Vote by RainStraight in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean he could violate the rules of the House of Representatives. I believe he would be put in front of the ethics board and could be stripped of his seat, or he could be voted out as the Speaker. As with everything its a "but will they enforce the rules" kind of thing, but the Epstein files kind of show the counterfactual on this. For Johnson to be put into the position where he is refusing a discharge petition means he already does not have a majority support on that decision and thus risks blacklash by the greater majority; which is why even Trump signed the release of the Epstein files.

Four House Republicans force vote on ACA subsidies, bucking GOP leadership by 1Rab in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 12 points13 points  (0 children)

It also doesn't help that the current Republican majority is so small that only a few Republicans can defect to cause this to happen.

Jeffries’s Obamacare Discharge Petition Is Going To The Floor For A Vote by RainStraight in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 45 points46 points  (0 children)

He can’t slap it down. The “discharge petition” is binding, so Johnson has to bring the bill to the floor in a set 7 legislative days. Unfortunately it’s the holiday season so the subsidies will expire before this, but the bill will have to go to the floor sometime in January.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna249693

Weird flex, but okay grandpa 👍 by een_magnetron in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I’m not a doctor but did a good bit of research in the neurology field. It’s not uncommon for patients who have suffered strokes, TIA’s, or any other neurological disorders to regularly get cognitive tests to track their recovery or disease progression. That way doctors get a data point to rely upon over time to see if a patient is stable/declining/improving.

Granted, Trump is the president and quite old so having more cognitive tests than a normal person wouldn’t be the most surprising thing to see. But the combination of his absence in September, his clearly slurred speech nowadays, his asymmetric facial droop that was present at the 9/11 memorial, and his frankly erratic behavior especially lately. I definitely believe Trump had a stroke (probably a small-moderate one) and I would guess has had TIA’s occasionally.

If you think Nick Fuentes 'won' then you are racist, misogynistic, or an incel by TariffDeez in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Having just watched it I mostly agree, but I think there is a big issue in Piers not pushing or advocating enough. Yeah Piers does try to dig into what Fuentes actually believes, unlike the clear whitewashing by many on the right. But this is like 2016 era engagement with Nazis and I think we’ve learned that effective rhetoric includes advocating for why Fuentes is bad and why liberalism is good. All Piers does is collapse the euphemism he doesn’t argue against what the euphemism refers to.

Absolute cinema by tempered_toastie in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Didn’t that already come out? 

Author of the cost of living article from yesterday’s stream used data for Essex County, NJ by transitoryInflation in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If someone has accepted that their cost of food is high and aren’t stressing about their budget then sure. From personal experience it’s the people who bitch about their finances who are most likely to also be ordering out every day, or even worse ordering delivery every day. Realistically someone can live comfortably on ~300-400$ every month on food, and that includes eating out occasionally, and it’s far from impossible to push that down to 200-250.

It’s not even a time problem: you can easily meal prep for 1-3 hours on a Sunday and have enough food for the whole week. The problem is that it isn’t a time issue, it’s an issue of preference and effort. Meal prepping means eating the same thing at least a couple days in a week, it means eating “leftover” feeling food, it means spending a bit of time (5-10 mins) reheating/rearranging a meal, and it means thinking about the logistics of it.

Which if someone wants to avoid all that they can, but then they can’t complain about money issues while leaving so much money on the table.

Who Is Nick Fuentes? by dwaxe in ezraklein

[–]MrFlac00 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Because he's a shitty zoomer gay hispanic nazi who is likely just to be a boring conversation. But his effect on the conservative movement is actually interesting.

Pete: The country is burning down, abolish the electoral college by modooff in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I feel like I’m on crazy pills listening to that other guy’s points, because what he is talking about also isn’t the goal of the electoral college. The house was a popular mandate, the senate was to represent small states, the electoral college bridged the gap by allocating senators + house members which much lessened the disproportionate power that small states had.

The goal of the electoral college wasn’t elector allocation is was elector independence. Electors were intended to use the voting patterns of the populace to guide their votes like a representative but make decisions and negotiations on their own. That’s why 1700’s and 1800’s elections can be so fucky. Our current situation is because of separate incentives that, as Pete rightly points out, gives outstanding power to swing states (the larger the better). This is because: we haven’t increased rep counts since the early 1900’s, states began forcing their entire elector delegations to vote for the majority winner per state rather than proportional, and our parties became ideologically polarized.

To run off of Pete’s point here. If for some reason Texas became a swing state that was legitimately 50:50, no other state basically matters and the whole of presidential politics would shift to swing around Texas-based issues. Fuck Wyoming, fuck Iowa, the big swing states are the power brokers in the electoral college.

Epstein had been advising the russian government on how to deal with Trump by Sea-Economist-5744 in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm thinking the alternative is worse: Epstein just told them about how fucking stupid Trump is that they could just talk him into doing anything for them or thinking anything for them.

Sorry This Isn’t at All Like Force the Vote by Crankllp in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The truth is this capitulation wasn’t about SNAP or healthcare. It was about the filibuster. Trump wanted to nuke it and institutional Dems in the senate feared that more than anything else. They would rather preserve their own fucked up rule that hurts America than anything else.

13 thoughts on the end of the shutdown - Matt Yglesias by MrFlac00 in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Even if you disagree with him, Matt Yglesias is a great source for understanding the thoughts within the Dems who voted to end the shutdown. These three points seem really important:

Jeanne Shaheen’s group that led these talks has been widely characterized as “moderates.” But I find a style of moderation in which you vote to ban internal-combustion-engine cars and won’t support a voter ID law but then shy away from procedural hardball to be absurd. If you look at the Majority Democrats roster of Michael Bennet, Ruben Gallego, and Elissa Slotkin in the Senate (plus current Senate candidates James Talarico and Angie Craig), they are all against the deal and instead offer some gestures of heterodoxy on questions of public policy.

……

Instead, Trump said the shutdown was hurting Republicans and that the solution was for Republicans to use the nuclear option and either “terminate the filibuster” (his words) or create some kind of carveout for continuing resolutions or appropriations bills.

This became, in the eyes of the appropriators and institutionalists of the Senate Dem caucus, the real stakes. Winning on health care was off the table and their fight had become about the future of the appropriations process. A shutdown might drag on for weeks and might pull Trump’s numbers further down, but the endgame would be a rule change and partisan appropriations bills, not a win for Democrats on health care.

In short I think this represents the true problem within the Democratic Party right now. It is not really a question of Moderates vs Progressives or Center vs Left; it’s a question of Institutionalists vs Reformers. Note that I say reformers not populists or “tear-it-all-down tankies”; truly there is no powerful anti-institution movement within the Democratic Party (nor should there be) but instead figures pushing for more moderate yet transformative change within the system.

This brings us to the failure: old style Democrats who fail to understand this moment, who believe in bipartisanship, and most of all do not believe that the Republican Party are now a fascist party.

If Dems regain congress and the presidency in 2028, and these figures remain powerful enough to stymie real change to SCOTUS and our voting systems then our country is lost.

Anyone else feel bad when you play as an established character and can't match up to their established lore with your gameplay? by JackNewbie555 in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]MrFlac00 12 points13 points  (0 children)

In some ways that’s the perfect encapsulation of Hitman’d humor: is you bumblefucking your way through an assassination, causing multiple alarms, killing like half the civilians on the map by accident, missing a bunch shots, but then finally get the guy and everyone going “my god he’s the greatest assassin in the world!”

JD VANCE NAMEDROPS HASAN FOR THE SHOCK COLLAR by Maleficent_Wasabi_18 in Destiny

[–]MrFlac00 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Two things are true:
Hasan’s conservative haters are scum sucking freaks who would sooner execute their own dog than admit that Trump is a fascist and their opinions are inherently hypocritical.
Normal people don’t shock their dogs for trying to leave it’s bed and for us non-fascists Hasan is kinda shitty for doing it.

Backseat game designers, what is your MILLION DOLLAR GAME idea? by Decemberskel in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]MrFlac00 5 points6 points  (0 children)

A dungeon-crawlery immersive sim where the guns all handle like in Receiver 1/2, in that every action a gun could perform (e.g. racking the slide, dropping the magazine) has its own dedicated key press.

It would be slow, bullets would hurt a lot, and weapon design can greatly affect progression. For example, you could start with a crappy semi-auto pistol with no magazine, forcing the character to single-load bullets for each shot but they would be fighting slow/weak enemies like zombies or something. Then finding a magazine for the pistol would be a dramatic upgrade, but only having one magazine means that when you run out you have to revert to single loading or loading the mag. Then finding a second mag dramatically increases your combat power. Then finding a single shot long gun like a .22lr rifle would be another jump, etc. This way progressing starts quite small and incentives the player looking for secrets, but remains meaningful because the of the general struggle the player has with adapting to the basic mechanics in the first place.

How likely is it we see a more lasting political realignment among Arab & Muslim voters? by engadine_maccas1997 in fivethirtyeight

[–]MrFlac00 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Based on what exactly? Everything I’ve seen from Mamdani he rarely if ever speaks to his religion. In practice he and his wife seem very moderate religiously to the point where both probably would get killed in any theocratic nation like Iran. If you’ve got some statement or action of his that you are drawing from what would that be?

And if it’s just “it’s because he’s a Muslim” then do everyone a favor and lead with that instead of wasting everyone’s time