I hope that you are incorrect, but fear that you are closer to correct than not, sadly.

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I have a similar, albeit slightly less doomer, view currently. Focus on the safety and good of your community and loved ones, and remember that nothing is guaranteed to us. Do the necessary good steps like voting and protesting, but don’t be naïve enough to think that’s the whole of necessary action or a magic bullet to solve the problems. Do the good, but focus on the real workable action in your direct sphere of influence. Cheers.

People keep saying this, but WHO?

Who are you talking about?

Who is this “somebody” you keep talking about showing up to save us?

Look, nobody is coming to save us, and asking somebody else to risk harm on your behalf is selfish.

If we object, it isn’t on somebody else to show up and save us, it’s on us.

If you aren’t willing to make the moves yourself, who the fuck are you to ask somebody else to.

Nobody is coming to save us, folks. It’s either us, me and you, or it’s nobody.

This seems to apply to a number of speech impediments, as “rhotacism” is the term for people with difficulty saying R sounds and apparently “stutter” is a particularly difficult word for people with stutters.

I would have pre-ordered Civ7, but then they announced it has Denuvo so now instead of pre-ordering I’m just not going to buy it at all.

Fuck denuvo and fuck corporations who think their customers should just bend over and accept whatever bullshit they offer for the “privilege” of playing their game.

There is so much good indie gaming content these days, we don’t need these abusive mega-corp games.

Star Trek is and always has been deeply and inherently political

Yeah I didn’t mean loaded here negatively, I just meant imbued with meaning. Bury the lead and these people can agree with some very leftist shit because the things they’re actually mad about are legit: they’re mad that they’re working more for less value, their community is suffering while elites feed off the fat of the land, and that everyone they know is one medical situation away from falling into complete financial ruin. The problem is that they’re unfortunately stupid and not just stupid, but a specific kind of stupid that entire corporate thinktank charlatans have devoted their career to knowing how to deceive and manipulate into thinking stupid as shit conclusions like it’s the poor brown fieldworker who is somehow making them poor. It sucks and it makes me sad because these people are legitimately being preyed on but at the same time through this process they come out the other side as absolute monsters, and we don’t get anywhere abiding monsters… I dunno man. I know we all know this shit already and i’m preaching to the choir, it’s just depressing. Fuck.

Have you ever talked to any of them on a specifically issue-based level without using loaded terminology? Because that’s the crazy thing, a lot of them have truly clued in to real problems in the world, the issue is just that instead of reaching the logical and right conclusions they have been led astray to false conclusions by charlatans.

I’m not saying go out and try to convert these folks because let’s be real, a lot of them are just simply too far gone into hatred rhetoric. But at the same time I think a lot of them actually are secret communists deep down, they’re just don’t realize they’ve been manipulated by conmen

Yeah I’m 84 and absolutely think of myself as a 90s kid. I mean, I have zero memories of 80s.

I choose to watch dubbed with sub captions. You often get two different translation attempts that way and I think between the two i occasionally pick some some nuance i may have missed had I only received the sub or dub translation alone.

After almost 30 years of anime and foreign content watching, I have consumed tons of content subbed and tons of content dubbed, and still regularly watches subbed content for huge amounts of no-dub content out there, and have concluded that dub + sub is the overall best experience for me by far.

That being said. I don’t personally care how any other person consumes their content. If you want subs, that’s cool. If you want dubs, that’s cool too. But I’m sorry, all you anti-dub folks, you are not cooler, better, or smarter for listening to voices in a language you don’t understand. It’s a preference. It’s fine to prefer subs, but it genuinely does not make you or your experience superior.

Edit: typo

Television and movies have conditioned people to believe that things have a way of just working out. I’m not kidding, I’m serious. This is a huge problem. People believe that nothing truly terrible can happen to them, and that when danger presents some force, god, America, luck, whatever, is going to swoop in and save them.

I truly believe the American people believe this. Imo step 1 in saving America is convincing Americans that nobody is coming to save us, WE have to do the work and save ourselves. Until they put to rest the childish idea of an outside savior, they’re trapped.

Come on, surely some of the blame for the death of journalism must fall on such publications for how they unsanctimously desecrate the corpse.

If people aren’t reading your garbage ad-filled and data-harvesting article surely some of the blame falls on the presentation, no?

I think about this all the time when it comes to Trump’s social media posts (which seem to be the majority of his communication).

Trump ain’t writing those. Those are carefully crafted to sound like stupid and ignorant Trump, but they’re obviously not him as his social media posts are clearer and more nefarious.

Like I think Trump is an evil bastard and terrible in countless ways, but I genuinely don’t think he knows what is going on and is himself just a Stooge of something bigger. I really don’t think he’s behind almost any of his social media posts these days.

Blocked and reported, troll.

Genuine ignorant childish behavior.

Big man can speak up to whine but can’t put in the work to read a couple paragraphs.

Legitimately pathetic.

Show me where I discouraged you for any genuine efforts towards betterment, for any severity or speed. I’ll wait.

Yes, this is literally what DEI program at least stifle, as now you can’t just stack the deck with all your cronies. And yes, there will still be nepo-babies, but 60% nepo-baby crony executives is still an improvement over 90-100%. Life isn’t all or nothing, it’s frustratingly incremental.

Let’s establish some frameworks here.

First, I want to clarify that I am not “fighting for DEI.” Instead, I am dismissing the narrative that frames the current situation as a conflict between DEI and merit. This perspective is not only misleading but also fundamentally incorrect.

It’s important to recognize that the existence of one initiative does not preclude the existence of others. For example, free school lunch programs do not conflict with disaster relief efforts. Similarly, DEI initiatives do not conflict with other movements aimed at creating a more merit-based system.

In terms of my personal opinion, if pressed, I would find it challenging to label DEI as simply a “good” thing, likely for reasons similar to your own. Life is complex and nuanced, and we rarely encounter straightforward solutions. However, I do see DEI as a significantly “better” approach, which brings me to why others might “fight for DEI” as you say.

Life is inherently complicated and often an uphill battle. When starting in the muck, seeking a solution that keeps your boots clean is unrealistic. While we may desire perfect solutions and easily identify them, implementing those solutions is a different challenge. The powers that be often resist change because they benefit from the status quo. Therefore, when pursuing progress, we sometimes need to consider compromise for the sake of achieving meaningful impact.

So, we are not discussing merit versus DEI; we are comparing the status quo to DEI. In this comparison, DEI represents greater opportunities for a lot of individuals who have been unfairly excluded. Yes, this does not solve the greater problem nor does it address it in an equally or means-based way and yes this potentially introduces additional disparties; these things are true. DEI does not solve social inequity nor does it suddenly represent a “fair” system. But it pretty objectively is an improvement on the deep cronyism and gatekeeping of the existing status quo. It’s not good, and it’s not fair. But it’s BETTER, and it’s MORE FAIR.

We may not be reaching the summit of the mountain with DEI, but we are certainly elevating our position.

I hope this provides some clarity. However, you may find a more passionate advocate for DEI can offer a more satisfying answer.

Sweet pickle relish armpit play btw, since I know you’re all wondering.