Uriel238 [all pronouns]

I use my context menu key as the chording key to control any keyboard macro profiles, so that I can terminate, reload, summon for editing or summon a help file as needed.

There are VPNs that operate in stealth mode so they don’t look like VPN traffic as they’re being used.

Still illegal, but not detectable. No riskier than being a political activist antagonistic to the state.

I thought phrenology was still a science at the time of the German Reich, only made defunct later. Now I have my doubts.

Social darwinism was disproven in the 1900s and supply-side economics died in the 19th century so it’s not like pseudoscience does not spring up like weeds when rich people want to sponsor it.

In the US, internet piracy is not a crime, but a civil infraction. And yes, our media overlords have been trying to make it a crime for decades.

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Copyright maximalists pretty consistently are glad to pirate stuff that isn’t theirs when it is suddenly expedient to do so.

As with when the studios and labels push for legal anti-piracy measures, I call shenanigans.

This is not our first rodeo: when a ten-year-old girl downloads the latest release in her favorite literary series because she’s too poor, and we no longer support our libraries to have current selections, no-one is going to want to prosecute the little girl who wants to read.

Well, maybe some billionaires might, but the media would have a field day with it.

Regicide.

A feline queen reigns over my apartment complex. It’s a fair regime.

The seas of purple / red / gold juxtaposed really does put into perspective the contrived sycophancy and camaraderie that comes with spectator sports. Artificial unity for its own sake, rather than for a common principle or a common goal.

It’s community with artificial colors and flavoring.

This all could backfire on the advertisers hard, especially with some well-placed counter-advertising.

I’m pretty sure (not absolutely) this has appeared in court and even click-wrap licenses, where one clicks to agree to a license with a higher word count than King Lear are not valid due to the end user high administrative burden (reading 20K+ words in the middle of a software install).

There was a period in the 1980s where end users automatically were assumed to agree to licensing, but also licenses were extremely lenient and allowed unlimited use by the licensee without any data access rights by the providing company. 21st century licenses are much more complicated and encroach a lot more on end-user privacy.

It doesn’t take AI analytics to figure out I’m as far left as they get and come pre-radicalized. I’m the ANTIFA overlord they’re looking for.

I’ve practically invited them to breach my door.

No, this is a line of reasoning that leads to something different than what we got, which could be authoritarianism, or could be a better democracy… or we could try sortition, eliminating the role of the politician, entirely.

This was established in the Federalist Papers, that democracy works when the constituent a) knows their personal best interests and b) votes accordingly. In fact much of the post Southern Strategy GOP movement towards authoritarianist domination of the federal theater has been focused on getting constituents to vote against their own best interests, whether in favor of vibes or towards single issues (e.g. abortion access, gun control) or based on cultural pressure (liberalism = communism).

There are many directions we can go to make the system more democratic, many of which include moving away from FPTP elections (which promote a two party system, making third parties untenable) but we’ve also had some success in actually educating the constituency and instilling in them a sense of duty to do their civic homework and know what they’re voting for.

If people didn’t respond to these, then Trump would have won in November 2024 by a much wider margin than fractions of percents spread across several battleground states, and he wouldn’t have needed the support of the EC and gerrymandering to give the illusion of a mandate. The GOP and its vibes-based voting system is propped up by a trillion-dollar propaganda machine to keep Americans uninformed and believing in the Joe Rogan way of life.

If that’s the best that democracy can do, I will be the first to dispose of it for something better. But I believe democracy can absolutely do better.

Helen Cox Richardson advises general strikes cause division among the organized groups striking (possibly in what terms as appropriate to relent), that targeted boycotts seem to prove more effective in the United States.

I can’t be sure, having never seen general strikes manifest or boycotts that lasted. Boycotts also rule out those of us who live in poverty who can’t afford to have opinions. Or as Marge Simpson put it We can’t afford to shop at any store that has a philosophy. We just need a TV.

So boycotts are revolution by the petite bourgeoisie, rather than by the third estate, which is why France still contends with capitalism and authoritarian drift.

I, personally, don’t know the right answer, or the most effective strategy against the current regime. I’d argue both are good methods, but maybe we should look for third and fourth fronts of attack.

The warnings were there when the George W. Bush administration was doing all the things. We should have learned then never again to vote Republican, but we did. Twice. For the same monster both times.

We need to be having a sober conversation as to why and how that happened, given democracy doesn’t work when people vote based on vibes or propaganda feels.

I think the demolition of the White House is particularly poetic. It also shows us what our federal government is willing to let the regime do without input from the commonwealth.

The No Kings numbers was a warning, a bellwether. Let’s see if they’re able to pick up on what it means.

Nothing AI can’t fix (badly).

When my dog, Fester, was a puppy, he was chewing power cords and I am still surprised and grateful he never harmed himself in the process, at least not that warranted care.

He’s more constrained to his own toys and chewables now, but for a while nothing was safe. He has the epithet Fester The Destroyer for having chewed through over $1K of shoes in a week. His grand total it significantly higher.

Alexandrite doesn’t allow image downloading so I don’t know how to provide pet tax.

Here we go. Jackie on the right; Fester (The Destroyer) on the left.

And this is how you get a positive crackpot index.

Though I’ve known legit physicists and engineers take pride in [their] >0 CI.

This is the purpose of patient-doctor privilege, since it is beneficial to the community that people come to be treated (say for STIs even if they were transmitted during unlawful action, say, sex with underaged persons) It’s the doc’s job to treat patients regardless of parental consent.

We’ve been in an oligarchy for a while, according to an Oxford study of US history and the policy voting behaviors of elected representatives. It’s only gotten spicy since Reagan, when the Republican party decided it had enough power to take all the cake (and is trying to do so).

The Federalists tried this before, which caused the party to die out and the Democratic Republicans to split. (Source: Helen Cox Richardson) It’ll be exciting to see how this all plays out.

It’s allegedly a documentary, not fiction. It should make sense from beginning to end.

Sounds like you feel the need to defend Kurzgesagt for sentimental reasons, and since they’re presenting themselves as a source for accurate information, that just won’t do.