I think it’s fair to say that when people are facing an existential threat they find it hard to criticize that which protects them. People should just be anti-genocide because leaders cannot be trusted all the time. But what are the chances that the Muslim citizens in Arab countries would protest if a genocide happens to their perceived enemies? Sometimes the best defense people have against authoritarianism is empathy, don’t let something happen to someone else that you don’t want happening to you.

Edit downvotes explain yourself? I am just being brigaded by extremists on every post.

White nationalists are just the same as white supremacists. If there are Jewish people who think Christian Nationalism will protect them, they’re forgetting that Nazis were and are very Christian.

Authoritarian leaders turn on their own people and supporters all the time, this has been proven time and again in history. Whatever America is now though, there is still hope in the judiciary and the constitution.

Western democracies are learning a hard lesson right now. You can’t let any one player get too big or too strong.

The best response to a quran burning free speech troll is to copy their free speech, burn a bible etc. who cares? It’s all nonsense anyways, and people need to get over it. There’s no need for violence or bloodshed

Oh snap, guess I am kitchen staff o7

There’s always next year

Depression and social media use is also a fatal combination, a lot of people online really shouldn’t be for their own sake.

You know, if people like Musk hate immigration so much then they should encourage investment and peace in other countries so that people don’t want to leave their home countries.

No one really wants to go to Europe etc., they’re either literally dying in poverty or being killed in their own countries.

Let’s be honest, the poor state of countries where these immigrants are coming from is the fault of decades of neoconservative policies of regional destabilization. The West needs to answers for its short-sighted thinking now, and they’re having a hard time understanding how this is a self created problem.

Well ours is the only species which can probe and understand why there is something instead of nothing. There may not be any intrinsic value in anything, but the act of discovery is meaningful.

Sorry you had to write all that just to get downvoted. But what I meant to convey was that by some cosmic accident a cognitively advanced animal appeared, one that can seek to understand fundamental truths about the universe and its reality.

I just hold that cosmic accident in high regard, and think we have a duty as stewards of things we can understand using skills, talents and properties innate to us as a species. This is part of the reason that I think every human life wasted and not supported to its full potential is a failure of society.

My favorite example is of how napalm was invented at Harvard. But yeah, I hate how napalm was used sigh

We have laws and we have democracy to establish them. Whatever happens in your dumbfukistant, in western Europe it’s unimaginable to be able to use violence and physical power to claim territory or food.

Haha, read any historical account of western civilization. The west has always been great about backstabbing its non-west allies, or even each other.

People are people, don’t fall for some us vs. them bullshit, you’re just being a tool for someone else. It’s also pretty funny to me that half the countries some Americans look down on have had more women presidents or prime ministers, lol.

And you can’t seriously say democracy is working as intended when we don’t have campaign finance reforms, and have citizens united in the U.S.? You’re literally living in a world where a billionaire bought a country’s presidential election outcome! What a joke.

it will get you laid but doesn’t do much good when a tiger comes around.

This is categorically false, sorry

If we think of intelligence as goal-directed and adaptive behavior, then natural selection will select for competitive traits, and so whatever ended up losing was less intelligent in some sense, even if it’s a single-cell organism.

All of our cognitive and social abilities break down when you get into large groups. We’re evolved to be able to work with extended family units where we have a reasonable ability to build personal relationships and trust networks among all of the people we interact with.

Our usual mechanisms for punishing betrayal through reputation damage and ostracism fall apart in an anonymous society. In more recent history we relied on societal institutions (democratic and judicial as well as private societies) and the media (newspapers, magazines, TV news) to cover some of this role but it was imperfect and only applied to the most infamous offenders.

Cool and agreed, but the original point holds up that greed and self-preservation always ruin things for groups of people trying to do anything together. Everything you mentioned is a symptom of corporate interests subverting democracies. Look, there’s nothing inherently wrong with corporations having an interest in their success, but govts. need to be able to curtail their worst tendencies because it makes sense to prioritize long-term benefits over short-term gains.

If people really give a fuck about monied interests and their control over democracies, then they should be pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy (like 250K or more per year) like it’s an existential crises. Because it is. Tbf, 250K is pretty normal in a HCOL, so higher taxes should take that into account.

Except the problem is that humans are cognitively advanced than other animals. We should be able to find some way to reason out our differences, otherwise we’re always going to be stuck in a dark cave of our own making. What’s the fucking point of humanity then?

The problem is that there aren’t effective ways to curtail sociopathic behaviors which come to the surface because of our current economic tool of choice. Tbh, it will not matter what economic tool we use because the greed problem and self-preservation problem will remain. It always does!

We should be working towards developing safeguards and mechanisms to protect humanitarian ideals, and to curtail sociopathic behaviors. I think a big part of this is that people should elect better leaders. If you’re forced to choose “lesser of two evils”, then there should be a mechanism to organize an effective write-in choice.

If someone then comes to kill you for making democratic choices, as happens in autocratic regimes, then self-defense is valid and justified.

Aw thanks cunt

This meme is great because the end part of the slogan is so versatile

lol anyone have the video?

We need this in America, I promise you more people will use the trains