It finally answers the question, “Why do all those people vote for this pedophile?”

(moved to an edit in my OP)

I only read the quote that was posted, which didn’t actually criticize the regime or anything. Sounds pretty tame to me.

Conan thinking: “Let’s see now, how can I make a giant party that’s nothing but a mutual admiration society for a bunch of rich people seem somehow OK to do while people are suffering all over in a world that’s falling apart because our country just started WWIII but it doesn’t affect us because did I mention we’re all rich as hell and just spent 150 grand each on our outfits that we’ll wear only this once?” sigh "I suppose I have to say something because the poors are watching and we want them to keep watching our movies to escape from their dismal lives for a while.*

*clears throat* “Let us celebrate — not because we think all is well — but because we work and hope for better”

“Yeah, that sounds good”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-oscars-cost-10-million-110200586.html

edit: Yall downvoters love those multi-millionaires, huh? What do you find admirable about them? That they’re prettier than the tech-bro nerdy kind of rich? That they only make hundreds of millions instead of billions, only own a couple mansions and just the one private jet?

Do you seriously believe the next step won’t be requiring certification by a private third party verification setup? Which you’ll have to pay for, probably as an annual fee.

This has nothing to do with “protecting children”. The goal of the Broligarchs is to end general purpose computers that individuals own and have personal control of. They want total control and ownership of everything and to divide the market up amongst themselves. All computing devices must be locked down so they can rent them out to us for a never-ending income of recurring payments of money, information, ad revenue, and dissemination of propaganda to control future elections and keep lawmakers in their pockets and laws implementing their plans.

Yes, they did. I was responding to Jax, reread their comments.

Hey downvote if you want, but I just felt it should be pointed out that everyone should be on guard when using these things, even if you’re not lonely and even if you do have a good support system. Some of the victims did have close friends and family who saw warning signs and tried to help them. Yes, some of them started using the chatbots because they were lonely, but others started using them just for the usual things like designing a plan for increasing housing, or helping them with their business, and they still got sucked in.

Of course, but that doesn’t contradict what I just said. Anyone can be susceptible to this psychological manipulation tool regardless of if they are lonely or not. This can’t be waved away by blaming it on loneliness. The blame lies on the companies that know how to capture and hold people’s attention and reel them in, not on the victims.

Appearances can be deceiving. From what I’ve read, Talarico seems the more progressive of the two. If he wins, we’ll find out–the system is entrenched and hard to buck for anyone, until enough more progressive members are there to form a coalition with some power.

But I have no doubt that no matter what, he’ll be vastly better than if the R wins. I’m much more worried about Platner turning out to be a Fetterman/Sinema than I am about Talarico.

I also recognize that being lonely is what opens them up to believing in something like this.

Come on, this is so overly simplistic. There are plenty of lonely people who don’t get sucked in and plenty of people with friends and family around them who do-not being lonely is no protection. I read about another one on Lemmy today, a man with a wife and friends, who still got sucked into delusion.

Sure, there may be cases where loneliness is a contributing factor to wanting to use a chatbot, but to say that lonely people are somehow less capable of distinguishing reality from fantasy or more susceptible to succumbing to psychological manipulation is wrong and could give a false sense of security to the “non-lonely”.

After all, everyone thinks they’re immune to falling for scams or frauds until they find out they aren’t. Or that they don’t fall for propaganda or get manipulated “the algorithm” on social media. Chatbots are very similar. An algorithm designed to keep people hooked and paying to spend more time using the ‘service’.

Very true.

They’re kind of vague about it but it sounds to me like you’d have to have some stuff posted online under your real name for it to find and match to. So if you’ve only ever posted things under various pseudonyms in social media, etc. it could match those up to each other, but not to your real identity.

Yeah, I almost typed “(rhetorical question)” there but I figured it was obvious.

Shah Alam had been in the Erie county holding center for the past year, after being arrested by Buffalo police in 2025 on charges of assault, trespassing and possession of a weapon. The arrest stemmed from an incident in which Shah Alam got lost while on a walk and ended up on the porch of a woman’s home. He had been using a curtain rod as a walking stick, according to his attorney. The woman called the police, and when Shah Alam did not follow police commands to drop his curtain rod, they tasered and beat him, his attorney said. He was released on bail, and then transferred to border patrol custody. Border patrol agents then dropped him off at a Tim Hortons about five miles from his home. Neither his attorney nor his family were notified of his release.

Holy shit! Will there be any kind of accountability for this at all?!

charges of assault, trespassing and possession of a weapon.

Sounds bad? Translation: Assault = cops beat him for being disabled/unable to follow instructions; Trespassing = Finding his way to someone’s porch after getting lost and needing help; Possession of a “weapon” = holding a curtain rod he was using as a navigation cane.

As long as his mother doesn’t turn him in he’s safe.

Wish Mastodon had like a default “what’s hot” or “Discover” feed. Really helps find people to follow as well.

You mean like Mastodon’s “Trending” and “Discover” feeds?

The suggested 9.5 percent increase would affect more than three million single-family homes, co-ops and condos and over 100,000 commercial buildings, Mr. Mamdani said as he delivered his preliminary spending plan.

The mayor acknowledged that his proposal would not merely force the wealthy to pay more taxes, but would also be a “tax on working- and middle-class New Yorkers,” and stressed that this was not his first choice.

Welp.

Agreed, everyone should read it all and watch the videos. Warning: prepare yourself first.

Maybe that’s why they usually have the detention center in the same building as the training center. Human shields.

Yeah but the owner already got the message from protestors and the fact that the City passed an ordinance to prohibit non-municipal detention facilities the very same day they found out ICE was looking at buying it. The owner succumbed to the pressure and withdrew from the sale, saying they weren’t aware who the buyer was (and there’s a decent chance they didn’t know until it became news since DHS has been sneaky about covering their tracks). A realtor in the area that had been helping them look for properties has also gotten huge backlash, but I haven’t heard whether they dropped them as client. (I live not far from KC so I’ve been aware of the news on this)