There are a lot of people that do not have an internal monologue going, and thus do not ever really do introspection unless prompted. This isn’t just a chud phenomena, liberals and leftist do it to (though leftists far less ime, as to become a leftist in the U.S. usually requires a lot of introspection). They don’t move on because it doesn’t occur to them that they should move on. Hell at this point they are probably more focused on the drama around the media than the media itself. They are consuming more media about media, than primary media.

It’s because Americans have been trained to think fascism is spectacular (a myth pushed by fascists themselves) so the mundane nature of everyday fascism doesn’t really affect them.

Oh god, I am getting old, has it been that long already?

The first two seasons are fine, pretty cute even. However, the author is at a point now where they don’t want to make any of the shippers unhappy, so it is stuck in a perpetual ‘will they, won’t they’ holding pattern between the main guy and the two main girls (though I always shipped the main guy with another dude, if you know you know), at least when I stopped reading it about two or so year.

Maybe it has changed? It was certainly a vibe at the time.

Also you are wildly misreading the series imo if you think the main dude is a ‘door mat’. He is almost preternaturally good at the vibe check. It’s not ‘unreasonable’ to despise it, though, just a little too intense feeling to mostly forgettable media, outside of the art style, which is still great imo.

Yeah, Im sure that basing trends off of a couple years of economic data as opposed to a literal decade of trends has never backfired.

As well, yeah, they have stopped building so many houses, but as others have said, GDP is a bullshit number anyways.

D&D now barely qualifies as math. There isn’t even any division. That said, really good at getting people to understand statistics.

Look, I get you. I just think you are making the classic blunder of assuming people are literally born prone to being angry at the new neighbor.

What I am saying is that they are not, it is an enculturated behavior, that is again, rewarded and enforced through your life in this society. All culture, including right-wing culture, is learned and shared behavior, it just seems ‘more natural’ because it is what is rewarded in this society, and most people’s are far more interested in material outcomes than anything else. That is why that person went back to believing in shit, a single day of conversation is not going to change years of learned and reinforced behavior. Otherwise talk therapists would literally be miracle workers. It takes conscious effort for some people in this society to be leftwing. Some people just are like that. Again, facts may be a shield, but they are a weak shield, they may provide solace and comfort, but they do not provide a way to power or effective negotiation with it.

You can have facts, but obsession with facts shouldn’t define you, imo focusing instead on rewarding good social behavior around you, being open to communication and trustworthy is worth more than any single fact you can offer someone. We don’t fight anti-social behavior with facts, we fight it with demonstrating the real rewards, both mentally and emotionally, of pro-social behavior. I don’t know if this is revolutionary behavior, but I do think that, and patience helps a lot.

You are wildly over-estimating the role that things like ‘appeals to emotion’ have on the right. Most people I know who are on the left are on the left because of their emotional investment into concepts such as ‘justice’. The reason the right is in control is because the controllers of the means of production monetarily rewards right-wing (including right-wing liberal obviously) behaviors and ideology. The problem is fundamentally more complex than ‘fact-checking’, ‘ceding ground’ and ‘appeals to emotion’. Thinking that these ideological methods and arguments are the base or basis for revolution is part of the liberal ideology that we swim in on a regular basis. Not that I have a better solution at this point, mind, just that I know that these things very much do not matter in the long run.

Fair enough.

They work their asses off, but not in the same way a line worker will literally work their ass off. There is a huge fucking difference, especially since finance and engineering people usually get compensated at some point (even if it isn’t within the yearly pay cycle).

What are you even on about?

Don’t tone police me when I haven’t even used a single rude word or tone outside of one (fucking) used in the exact same context you used it in. It’s at worst disingenuous and at best assuming bad faith.

I don’t care if you don’t find it funny, humor is highly subjective. I only posted because you explained the joke wrong.

You’re still not going to find it funny, because the joke has been explained, but you are completely missing the point. It’s because it’s the former neoliberal prime minister of Japan (who was assassinated) talking about fucking (which he only did like once) and promoting nationalist natalism in a country that is very much not fucking. Any old random Japanese dude would be not funny. It has to be Shinzo Abe.

Look just cause Adam had a big black son with Dasha doesn’t mean he took any money from Peter Thiel.

I’ve never thought Red Scare was funny, because they weren’t big enough losers. They were just ‘hot girls’ pretending to be losers. The amount of actual irony there was limited from the jump.

That being said, I have always been an advocate that Cumtown was, for a very long time (basically 2016-2020) literally one of the last bastions of actually creative funny comedy. I know this because even now other comedians and influencers are constantly ripping (or unknowingly copying) off their more creative bits years after they first did it, though usually watering down the bit in the process.

I don’t think that is the case anymore, other than the occasional very funny interview, but TAFS is at best ripping off Eric Andre or Between Two Ferns in longer form at this point.

That said, I’ve never personally leaned into heavy irony for my comedy. It just isn’t natural for me. But I have always advocated for it as being really fucking funny to listen to. Especially if you are depressed and working on a factory line.

Well, as the song goes, the models will have children, we’ll get a divorce, find some more models, everything must run it’s course.

Providing maximum profit for minimum services!

Not even a juicer. A small juice bag refrigerator.

This isn’t even the argument though, usually the freedom people assume that capitalism assumes people are good which is why it allows their ‘unregulated activity’.

The problem is that capitalism doesn’t actually have a consistent moral argument. It alters depending on context because as the Disco Elysium quote goes to it is about control. Not a specific argument.

Sure, but I’ve also known several Chinese exchange students who went to school in the U.S. because the Chinese universities were too competitive. I would guess while there will be some level of politics in the future coming from U.S. educated Chinese people, it really depends on how this international relationship continues to shift in the future. Imo, the vast majority of Chinese politics will be coming from inside the house, but doing consulting work in China between U.S. and Chinese firms will continue to be incredibly lucrative for the foreseeable future. That is where I would bet most of these students will end up. They may do politics after that, but at that level, international capital is at their fingertips, which is far more tempting than politics.

Yes, given that the U.S. is China’s largest reading partner and they are 'in theory’s supposed to be keeping good relations going forward (in keeping with current Chinese policy), it is not uncommon for leaders to send their kids to U.S. upper echelon schools, since almost every other world leader does the same. It’s basically a ‘get to know you’ for the future financial and political elite. Even if it is doubtful that Xi’s daughter will have anything to do with governing China in the future, it has it’s advantages in just having something in common around the negotiation table, given that most of this is totally ‘vibes-based’ diplomacy anyways.