Lemmy and BlueSky (primarily Lemmy).

BlueSky’s mobile app is such a clone of twitter, transitioning is nearly seamless for the average user. I tried mastodon at first, but it felt pretty rocky and different (and I’m rather techy).

Between BlueSky and Voyager for Lemmy (I was an Apollo user on Reddit), my user experience hasn’t changed at all – except for the pleasant lack of bots and Nazis on both platforms.

It isn’t the same. For one, the Supreme Court ruled only this year the the president has nearly king-like powers and immunity – which was only made possible because of the far-right justices he appointed (put forward by the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation, who are also behind Project 2025), and he’ll get to appoint two more, bringing the balance from 5-4 to 7-2. That will give him literally unchecked power, which he didn’t have last time.

Have you read Project 2025? If not, you should. They learned a lot from the limitations they faced in 2016, and have worked this whole time to make sure they will have free reign this time.

It isn’t about trump. He’s just the frontman for a larger fascist movement, who now have the House, Congress, Supreme Court, and have infiltrated the legislature at the state level. They will enact Project 2025 and all they need from trump are rubber stamps between rounds of golf.

The whole reason they chose him was because he’s practically illiterate and insanely easy to manipulate. He doesn’t need to do anything except put his signature on whatever shit they put in front of him. And they have a comprehensive plan to dismantle democracy this time.

<blink>intensifies<\blink>

The installers for every major software company riddled every single computer with adware. And you needed a compsci degree to get rid of it. Weren’t there lawsuits over that shit, that led to regulations? I remember that happening. It’s not like they were going to stop doing that of their own accord.

I’m to the point that if whatever I’m watching/doing pops an ad at me, I reflexively make a snap judgement on whether I want to continue watching/doing whatever it is. Often the answer is ‘no’ and I’ll just bail entirely.

But they’re so cute!.🥺

No, see, that’s how they GET YOU!

One place to start is this article from the Stanford Encyclopaedia on Philosophy: Conservatism.

It’s a lengthy read, but enlightening.

One highlight from the summary:

Most commentators regard conservatism as a modern political philosophy, even though it exhibits the standpoint of paternalism or authority, rather than freedom. As John Gray writes, while liberalism is the dominant political theory of the modern age, conservatism, despite appealing to tradition, is also a response to the challenges of modernity. The roots of all three standpoints “may be traced back to the crises of seventeenth-century England, but [they] crystallised into definite traditions of thought and practice only [after] the French Revolution” (Gray 1995: 78)

I recommend reading the sources linked in that article, as well.

eta: It’s worth noting that societies worldwide often see a resurgence in conservatism in response to social change, crises, and civil rights movements, which are without fail a fear response to threats to the social hierarchy. We can see this in real time.

The King of Unforced Errors strikes again.

e: oh shit, it got me. Didn’t see the community, and this is so trump. Ha. I ate the onion.

This has been studied, and the ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’ idea is actually wrong.

The real reason is because some people (especially conservatives, because it’s a core part of conservative ideology) believe that in order for society to work, a hierarchy must be maintained wherein the ‘deserving’ are at the top, and everyone else is in their rightful place. Any threat to the natural hierarchy will undo the societal order and bring chaos and carnage.

This is why Obama becoming president was such an affront – because his presence outside his ‘rightful place’ was an existential threat to the natural order.

This belief has its roots way back when feudalism began to fail and the moneyed classes needed to find a new way to retain their power – both capitalism and conservatism were born at that time, with ideologies shifting from birthright to ‘earned’ status, which enshrined the haves and have-nots into literally sacred structures of meritocracy and social darwinism, and colonialists specifically fostered strict adherence to the social order. It became ingrained culturally that adhering to your station, whatever it is, is crucial for society to function. That there’s honour in being a cog in the machine, and that not accepting your lot in life is a danger to everyone. (eta: this is mostly subconscious, but you can see it if you ask ‘why’ enough times of someone who idolises Musk, for example. You’ll eventually whittle them down to these themes.)

That’s a nutshell view of a complicated topic, but these people don’t believe they’ll strike gold one day. They believe people who are rich deserve to be treated as kings, for the same reason monarchist peasants did.

Oh no. Now we’ll never hear from FlyingSquid again. RIP, fiend, we’ll mis

• Fresh piranha about 2/3 down & under the duvet – an unusual surprise for your partner.
• Piranha in the coffee mug - a classic.
• Replace a coworker’s mouse with a live piranha (timing is important – don’t want the poor thing to suffocate, have a bowl of water handy).

The possibilities are endless.

Piranhas have dozens of uses. Food, bait, aesthetics/decor, pranks, weapons of surprise, scissors, evil lairs…

DROP TABLE 01;

There’s a difference between the people who have served and the insane asylum they were subjected to. There are plenty of things that meat factory does to people that shouldn’t be replicated in society, and this is the least of them.

Dicks and chicks. Like the band.

deleted by creator

Where d I got karma???

What did they say? This place has gone to shit.

5/7 with rice.