Anyone who bought a Trump phone will probably argue that this is actually a good thing.

“Thank you, Mr President, for letting me participate in your bettering of the country. I believe in your vision and can’t wait to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!! My data will help other countries understand what it is to BE AN AMERICAN! p.s. When is my share of the DOGE money coming? I know you didn’t mean to, but I lost my job and now eat roadkill. This was obviously a mistake and I know you’ll correct it now that you know about it. Call me and I’ll post my account number online for your people to transfer to”

It’s a natural consequence of our society which divides people into teams without any room for discourse in between. The team you’re on is always right 100% of the time, and the opposing team is full of utter and complete evil morons.

Isn’t he? There was an entire Hollywood movie in 2010 that grossed $224M about what an abhorrent person he is, and yet he’s still more successful than ever.

The world has shown that it may not love that he’s a shitty person, but it’s too apathetic to stop using his products and lining his pockets

He does check all the boxes for the American electorate

✅ Self interested - “A success story!”

✅ Blames poor people for their poverty - “Why don’t you just work harder?”

✅ Avoids paying taxes - “When I’m a billionaire, I won’t want to pay either!”

✅ Does not understand that revenue from tax dollars should be used to support social programs and government services that are not specifically profit generating (food programs, emergency preparedness, environmental conservation, mail to remote areas, etc) - “The government should be run like a business”

In my opinion, companies should be required to recycle and penalized if they don’t. This word salad of talking about how things are possible is meaningless if it isn’t done.

Another side of the issue is that recycling is not government mandated - companies can choose on their own to recycle, and this is costly. When we as a society expect companies to maximize profit, it can come as no surprise that they do not voluntarily pay to be ecologically responsible.

Yes that always irks me. We can have 15 “markers of a recession”, but as long as nobody says it’s name, it can’t be true. The media has the Voldemort approach to economics.

The stock market is a weird thing - prices seem to be tied to whether a company can make more this quarter than last quarter, and not tethered to whether a company makes a profit. I figure that they made record revenue and now need a strategy to make even more profit next quarter, which they hope to achieve by reducing expenses via layoffs.

I don’t like it, but the economy is more tethered to speculation than reality.

I can’t help but laugh when one of them gives a 5 minute interview about how disappointed they are in getting scammed, but ends it by saying it was the only voting option and they would never vote Democrat even now.

This is what society looks like when your vote can be expected and doesn’t need to be earned.

Bullshit factory is very apt. I was using it for an open book exam and it gave answers entirely skewed to the way the question was asked.

For example, if I asked “is X bacteria a pathogen in Y disease”, it would say yes, it was a very bad pathogen.

If I asked “what effects does X bacteria have in this body system”, it said it was a beneficial bacteria.

Never trust the AI summary, you have to fully read the studies.

Great to hear!

And to those who participated: keep going with your shopping boycott. Avoiding a purchase today isn’t meaningful if you just head out to Walmart or buy from Amazon tomorrow.

Choose stores whose values support yours, shop local, and do without when there is no alternative.

Lately, whenever anyone draws the obvious parallels to 1984, posters seem to jump to say that Orwell had unsavoury beliefs and therefore it negates any correct thing he ever said.

It’s such a weird world where we decide someone must be 100% correct by today’s standards or else everything they ever said must be complete bunk.

All of our historical heroes were assholes by today’s standards, and we will be assholes in the eyes of our descendants.

I’m not sure that’s true. In day to day life, I find the majority of people will accept whatever the media tells them to accept.

The normalization of AI in the past couple of years has been rapid. Even my 70 year old aunts are delighting at AI-photoshopping themselves into flowers and revealing outfits. Prospective employees hand in chatbot-created resumes and cover letters, masking the fact that their spelling and grammar is godawful.

The media will tell us to celebrate the end of overpaid actors and influencers, and many people will be pleased to see them knocked down a peg.

Margaret Atwood has penned so many novels that don’t feel as much fictional as predictive anymore. Even aspects of Oryx and Crake don’t feel crazy as we head towards greater genetic capability and a food shortage.

I’ve also recently been reading Brave New World as I kept hearing how it was ringing true lately. It was written in the 1920s long before genetics were understood, so the science is inaccurate and there are some fairly offensive scenes by today’s standards. However, the main message does seem relevant - I would not be surprised if we were headed towards a world of class-based eugenics with punishments for not following the cultural expectations.

What’s weird is that they claim so loudly to be Christian, yet they don’t exemplify any of the teachings of Jesus Christ like humility, mercy, caring for others, and avoidance of greed.

They made a whole “efficiency department” just to avoid paying a red cent to help the poor, the sick, or those affected by natural disasters. They have started faith based wars when tolerance is what their religion preaches.

These people have picked a few lines out of the bible as a front as they to try to steer the country in the direction that pays them the most money.

I might like to see some flowers in the centre, if I’m being particular…

But she needs a picture for her instagram - if she doesn’t post about it, it didn’t really happen!

Right? If they don’t want to improve working conditions, then they should be legally liable for the injuries that result

The “God Squad” is a panel of six high ranking federal officials on the Endangered Species Committee that has the ability to decide exemptions in the Endangered Species Act. It earned the name because the committee has the power to play God.

What a revolting nickname - it shows how little they truly care 🤢