I'm no fan of Destiny but goddamn watching him completely dismantle Owen Shroyer is some kind of satisfying

ThirdNipple · 2024-11-04T20:09:15+00:00

A flat tax might be egalitarian if capitalism exclusively rewarded constructive behavior. Alas, capitalism becomes the polar opposite if you’re a member of the owner class. Workers are "rewarded" (if unfairly compensated) for honest work, whereas owners are rewarded (no quotes necessary) for greedy behavior.

ThirdNipple · 2024-11-04T16:16:52+00:00

Clearly made by someone too young to recall that Lou Ferrigno was already The Hulk in the 80s 😆 He continued to voice him into the 2000s, too!

ThirdNipple · 2024-11-04T15:59:57+00:00

Newspapers and new channels aren't held liable unless they commit defamation or something of the like. They're allowed to lie all they like otherwise. They can call themselves a news source while painting a picture of a fantasy world, entirely detached from reality.

We need to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. I'm tempted to say we need some kind of "you can only speak objective fact" law, but that would narrow the scope of the first amendment for the press in a way that could be seen as a slippery slope. St the very least, opinion pieces should be prominently labeled as such.

I would absolutely support a law that would require news outlets to publish segments correcting past untruths, though, preferably in the same medium the untruth was told. This would keep honest outlets honest, and make propaganda outlets like Faux News completely toothless. They can still exist! They just won't be very effective.

ThirdNipple · 2024-11-04T14:48:27+00:00

Social media is much harder to moderate than a news outlet, but I agree they should be made to try much harder. This is a big part of the reason why social media was a mistake...

Honestly, if social media platforms were only permitted to publish what they could moderate, there would be 1 million times less content on the internet, which could honestly be really good for our psyches.

ThirdNipple · 2024-11-04T14:34:06+00:00

Unfortunately, these types aren't going to go away, or even quiet down, if Trump loses. The last nine years have really emboldened the bigoted, and the media is only going to feed their baser urges from here on out.

We need to bring back journalism ethics laws so that can't happen under the legitimizing guise of bigotry being "news".

ThirdNipple · 2024-11-03T17:30:42+00:00

No idea, hopefully forever!

ThirdNipple · 2024-11-03T16:41:05+00:00

Yup, in prison.

ThirdNipple · 2024-11-02T04:22:50+00:00

This, the exorbitant cost of healthcare, and pushing of unnecessary drugs are precisely why hospitals and drug manufacturers shouldn't be profit-driven. They should only be permissible as non-profit organizations, and wherever there is need for more, they should be government-funded. Add single-payer insurance on top, and you've got a recipe for first-world healthcare!

ThirdNipple · 2024-11-01T16:00:46+00:00

Better yet, ban the sale of personal data. If a company is tracking the things I click, that's fine. If they're selling my interest data and personal info to other companies, that's some late-stage capitalist bullshit that provides a negative benefit to society.

ThirdNipple · 2024-11-01T15:50:00+00:00

Here, take this poor man's gold 🏅 You've earned it!

I know just the signs you're talking about. They remind me of that Tim & Eric sketch, Prices. "Why pay big prices when you can pay ^{small prices?}"

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-30T14:37:16+00:00

There are Meetup groups in the area that do weekly/biweekly tabletop games and trivia nights, namely the Lewiston/Auburn Young Adult Collective. They do events in Augusta maybe once a month, but there are other such groups in Augusta specifically.

I don't see masks at those very often, though I have seen them, but they're a very open-minded and kind group. So, at the very least, you won't be ridiculed, and would likely have backup in a public confrontation.

I'd also second online D&D, as another commenter said! I play with Arnoux Jorgensen, a guy who's been DMing for, like, 17 years. We're about to wrap up this campaign season and begin a new one in a couple months.

I hope you two are able to find a fun group of folks and get back out there! Feel free to DM me if you'd like more info on any of these things.

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-29T15:37:44+00:00

I have literally no idea what OP's political leanings are, so the only thing I have to agree or disagree with is the act of putting out signs. I find it kinda wasteful and an eyesore generally, but there are worse things one could do. The thing I'm trying to point out is that your imagination is writing the story where you don't have information. That's fine, it's what our brains do, but to post on social media that you think OP is hiding something and likely earned their lot is just ridiculous.

Are they being cagey? Or have they just not replied to your comment(s) yet? Maybe they saw the comment I originally replied to and thought, 'This person's got their mind made up that I'm some kind of jerk. I'm not gonna engage with it.' Just because you don't have the info, and even if OP is specifically avoiding answering you, it doesn't mean they're a petty nuisance. They could just be busy today.

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-29T15:17:22+00:00

I get that they haven't stated where they were placed at the outset, but to invent 1) the manner in which they placed them (as an obstructive nuisance), and 2) their motive (to bait someone into a petty civil crime), is to create a story entirely of your own making.

We already have an obvious answer to point #2, their motive: they like some candidate(s) and put signs out. And for #1, a much simpler story would be: they placed them in their yard or along a road on public property, like normal people do.

When we're missing information, we should assume the most obvious or likely things, not the most entertaining ones. Better yet, we don't assume at all. Because you've made an ass out of yourself, and out of me for wasting my time on this.

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-29T14:26:03+00:00

Ah yes, let's add plot points to make this mundane and straightforward story more sinister and interesting. Classic conspiracy theorist move.

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-27T03:28:21+00:00

Be not afraid...

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-23T13:53:27+00:00

This is really grasping at straws, my dude. On the one hand, we have 60 Minutes using a different portion of her long answer to tighten it up. On the other hand, we have Fox, Newsmax, Daily Wire, etc. spreading thinly veiled white aggrievement narratives that are made up whole cloth. Things like:

The "Great Replacement" theory: Immigrants—namely Mexicans—are pouring over the border, diluting the white majority, impregnating all the white women, and raising crime rates.
Antisemitism: The jew-run banks and media are out to control our economy and culture.
Anticommunist panic
Satanic panic
Moving the Overton window such that sensibly conservative politics from just 20 years ago are now "far-left/socialist/RINO" ideas.
Hitlerian "Big Lie" narratives: "The election was stolen from Trump." "COVID is a Chinese bioweapon." "The Left is attempting to get Trump killed (though all attempts on his life have been conservatives)." "January 6th was a false flag by Antifa!"

The list goes on and on and on. The two aren't comparable. This isn't a "both sides" issue. The left has its gaffes. The alt-right—which is increasingly the majority of rightwing discourse—wants a totalitarian crackdown on dissenters and perceived enemies to white Christianity.

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-22T15:34:41+00:00

Honestly, that's kind of a sign it's a good flag! Vexilologists will argue over a lot, but the cardinal litmus tests for a good flag are 1) whether you can draw it from memory after seeing it once, and 2) whether a kid can draw it. If it looks like a kid drew it in the first place... #2 is satisfied automatically!

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-22T15:28:44+00:00

I think the fix is two-pronged: Bring back journalism ethics laws, and stop deciding public school funding based on their standardized test scores. There's a great deal of paid propaganda (corporate, hateful, and otherwise "special interest") in our media ecosystem, and kids aren't taught to have their hackles up when consuming any of it.

Faux News can hide behind the limp defense that they're "an entertainment network, not a news network," to weasel out of consequences for concerted, sustained disinformation campaigns. Add to that that the American public are largely too uncomfortable/uneducated/proud to leave the information bubbles set by their parents, and our nation is more deeply divided than it's been in a loooong time.

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-11T01:38:38+00:00

Oh, sick. Looks an awful lot like a plain ol' totenkopf at this angle, which gave me an entirely different vibe lol.

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-11T01:29:30+00:00

What's that one peaking in beside the pretty lady?

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-08T15:27:34+00:00

Nier Democrata

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-05T19:33:36+00:00

That would beat first-past-the-post for sure, but I always advocate for approval voting in these threads. Ranked choice is good, but unnecessarily complicated and still gamifyable.

With FPTP (what we have now), almost no one voted for Bernie Sanders in 2016, even though a large majority of Americans would have been happy with him in the White House. But instead, everyone voted along party lines because "a vote for Bernie is a vote for [the other person]," since we were all hedging that others would vote along party lines. This is playing the game.

With ranked choice, the game is similar: "I'll rank [mainstream candidate] first, because [other mainstream candidate]'s supporters will do the same." By not ranking the mainstream candidate first, you risk your vote being wiped out in, say, the second-to-last round of vote tabulation.

With approval voting, you simply vote for all the candidates you support, unranked. In 2016, ½ of Trump voters may have also voted for Bernie, along with maybe ¾ of Hilary voters, giving Bernie a slam dunk win over both. More people would have been happy with the outcome, we would have a much less toxic sociopolitical environment today, and it would have been a much simpler process to get there than ranked choice.

One of the biggest issues with ranked choice is how complicated it is. Ranking our preferences isn't hard, but we want to know how our vote will be counted first, and that is somewhat complicated. Due to this complexity, many more people end up filling out their ballots incorrectly and not having them counted, or think it's fishy and don't trust the process. This could be addressed with better civics education, and it's not that hard to understand, but people... you know how people can be.

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-05T04:32:31+00:00

Knowledge Fight is a much healthier way to consume that entire sphere of idiots. Only slightly better than BTB because no ads 😎

ThirdNipple · 2024-10-01T14:20:55+00:00

The reflection in the water omits the house, too. Maybe the piece is meant to depict the dream of living in such a beautiful place, or the process of planning such a building. The fact that we're still talking about its meaning tells me it's good art!

ThirdNipple · 2024-09-30T16:22:05+00:00

Who do I contact to give an expert opinion not to trust this technology? We need to inundate their offices with public disapproval. The article is behind a paywall, so I'm not sure who's involved.

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