In my day we didn’t have YouTube. Our online videos were drawn in Macromedia Flash. They were mindless and half of our jokes were just about traumatizing our friends with shock sites like rotten.

I honestly have no clue what Gay Luigi is, but I do remember Scarface Mario. Really, I think I’m too old to get any of those references.

Basically all big tech companies have three letter removed in their upper ranks. They’re all compromised and you should treat them as such.

There aren’t even 400 openings in my field in my whole state, I’d be doomed if that were the case for me. That sounds so frustrating. I finally got an offer after sending in probably 25 applications over the last six months and that was already frustrating enough. Too few companies will let you know they’ve decided to go with other applicants.

Sports, more specifically in my opinion, American football, is a tool in the belt of the empire to divide the people and increase support for jingoism and dichotomized world views.

Excerpts from Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky interviewed by various interviewers

Now there are other media too whose basic social role is quite different: it's diversion. There's the real mass media-the kinds that are aimed at, you know, Joe Six Pack — that kind. The purpose of those media is just to dull people's brains.

This is an oversimplification, but for the eighty percent or whatever they are, the main thing is to divert them. To get them to watch National Football League. And to worry about "Mother With Child With Six Heads," or whatever you pick up on the supermarket stands and so on. Or look at astrology. Or get involved in fundamentalist stuff or something or other. Just get them away. Get them away from things that matter. And for that it's important to reduce their capacity to think.

Take, say, sports — that's another crucial example of the indoctrination system, in my view. For one thing because it — you know, it offers people something to pay attention to that's of no importance. [audience laughs] That keeps them from worrying about — [applause] keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might have some idea of doing something about. And in fact it's striking to see the intelligence that's used by ordinary people in [discussions of] sports [as opposed to political and social issues]. I mean, you listen to radio stations where people call in — they have the most exotic information [more laughter] and understanding about all kind of arcane issues. And the press undoubtedly does a lot with this.

You know, I remember in high school, already I was pretty old. I suddenly asked myself at one point, why do I care if my high school team wins the football game? [laughter] I mean, I don't know anybody on the team, you know? [audience roars] I mean, they have nothing to do with me, I mean, why I am cheering for my team? It doesn't mean any — it doesn't make sense.

But the point is, it does make sense: it's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements — in fact, it's training in irrational jingoism. That's also a feature of competitive sports. I think if you look closely at these things, I think, typically, they do have functions, and that's why energy is devoted to supporting them and creating a basis for them and advertisers are willing to pay for them and so on.

For real though, fuck every bank that’s never been robbed.

Real “I DONT AUTHORIZE FACEBOOK TO USE MY IMAGES.” Energy.

/r/collapse used to be mostly left leaning, if a bit lib and doomer sometimes. At some point, it got an influx of right wing reactionaries, and it was pretty much over then. They used to heavily police eugenicist rhetoric, and it mostly served as a climate change space that wasn’t just techno hopium about how carbon capture and nuclear power were going to save the world.

Where I am a hike has to be in the mountains, anything else just wouldn’t sound right. But, maybe that’s a product of growing up by a huge mountain range that people frequently traverse recreationally. Hike to me implies a large change in elevation. Hiking up, hiking back down, etc.

Island is to Brave New World what Dune is to Enders Game.

Not everyone only works on weekdays. I frequently do 6 or 7 day weeks, though thankfully the weekend shifts are usually relatively short. I have flex schedule, so when I have to help out my family during the week, I come in on the weekends to make up the time, and since I have young brothers I help care for, I often have to cut days during the week short, whether to pick up a brother from school or take them to a sport, etc.

I love cyclists, but not sport cyclers. Every weekend hundreds of them drive their cars to my rural neighborhood, take up all the sides of the roads with their cars, and then take up the entire road riding in packs of dozens of them while ignoring all road laws and getting mad at you if you try to pass them. Makes my work commute oh so much more fun.

https://www.npr.org/2024/06/01/nx-s1-4983063/in-mexicos-election-social-programs-could-be-a-deciding-factor-for-voters

Some gems from the story:

PERALTA: Denise Dresser is a political scientist and a pro-democracy activist. She sees something more sinister, and she's been traveling the country issuing dire warnings. Not long ago, Mexico was known as the perfect dictatorship.

PERALTA: Yes, Morena has instituted new social programs, but, she says, they are also consolidating power.

They’re making life better for nearly everyone, but at what cost?

NPR ran a story yesterday saying that AMLO is dangerous and is moving the country towards dictatorship 🙄

I have a Mao shirt my wife bought me in China and a Mao sticker and a Mao pin. And she got me an og Little Red Book. But it’s not like Mao sold it to her.

My conspiracy theory that has no conspiracy is that since a ton of humans have toxoplasmosis, it affects humans too and that’s why people get so rabid over their love for cats. Don’t get me wrong, kitties are cute, but they’re not the end all be all of animals like some people make them seem, and they’re not uniquely cute. I like birds more than cats, personally.

Hawks try to eat my chickens often, but my rooster has stopped them before even when they’ve had one in their talons. This is true, but in relation to the allegory, I’d say the rooster represents the vanguard, standing up against the hawks and preventing them from taking away the chickens. Before it reaches that point, the chickens work together to keep an eye out for threats, staying vigilant and warning each other of impending danger. The chickens are the masses, and they have a duty to each other to prevent the intrusion of the hawks, but even the most vigilant will miss some signs of danger, and that is where the rooster vanguard steps in to fight back against the imperialists. We need community, solidarity, vigilance, and vanguardism all in tandem.

wtf is that website and why does everyone have a company name next to their screen name?

I woke up this morning with a bad hangover, and my penis was missing again

Thanks, I might check it out while I still have a subscription. Russian is a language I want to learn also.