RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive478
Don’t know what to put on Wikipedia and what to keep for myself[edit]
Hello, and sorry for my English. Essentially, I'm studying a fairly niche subject linked to ethno-history of the pre-columbian Americas, and I just feel saddened by the amount of bull**** on Wikipedia on something I have a genuine passion for. So I can't resist to change Wikipedia's damaging and sometimes 19th/early 20th century views on things which have so much more complexity than Wikipedians think. Recently, for example, I changed the Wikipedia article on the Muisca raft to add new doubt on it being associated with the El Dorado ceremony, and to add the regional context (the emerging Pasca chiefdom between ~ 1200-1400). But I feel like this might not benefit me for my studies. After all, if I spend time editing wikipedia instead of writing my thesis (and with the same amount of precision), I might be accused of copying Wikipedia passages I wrote myself. Mentioning this or that debate between this or that academic that is also mentioned on Wikipedia in similar terms (considering I am at the origin of said Wikipedia passage) might ruin my chances. What do you think I should do? Should I just wait and let Wikipedia develop it's content on its own? I just feel like Wikipedia relies on a handful of interested people for niche topics, and I would be one of the keys Wikipedia needs to have somewhat decent articles on my domain. On the other hand, editing Wikipedia helps me memorise a lot. 2A01:E0A:A84:5C70:C856:2320:2F7C:FA75 (talk) 22:49, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
- There is more to the Wikiverse than Wikipedia, Rationalwiki and Conservapedia - so there many be other wikis which would be appropriate for you; there are also other websites where you can submit essays and other material, which might be a better route for you.
- Both Wikipedia and academic studies require sources for what is stated rather than 'mere opinions', so you may have to collect sources first.
- Have a discussion with your tutor about how to proceed, and whether your thesis could or should have a section on the way your particular topics appear on WP (and how different language versions of Wikipedia cover them - some of the relatively small language Wikipedia sets, particularly those languages which exist mainly outside the Americas may have limited or no coverage). Anna Livia (talk) 23:27, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
- You can always start your own wiki with fandom or miraheze. 2600:387:15:3C12:0:0:0:B (talk) 01:27, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
- @Anna Livia, @2600:387:15:3C12:0:0:0:B I (obviously) do always cite my sources. On the one hand, I feel a burning passion for my subject and want to improve Wikipedia's coverage of it. On the other hand, all my research/reading on others' research (I am well aware that I shouldn't make my own promotion nor am I qualified yet to cite myself as a source) will ultimately get summarised in the introduction of a wikipedia article. Everything which might show my deep commitment to the subject might just come off as copying from wikipedia (I often have a tendency to treat pre-columbian entities equally to ancient European ones, and you can clearly recognise my writing style anyway). I have a tendency to feel obligated to inform people reading wikipedia on the real academic debates behind a statement, and the actual political context of pre-columbian times in certain regions which academics have reconstructed after long ethno-historical (a mix of archeology, anthropology [incl. ethnology, sociology etc.], and history, as well as linguistics and occasionally even mathematics and economics) work. But in the end only 100 or less people (maximum 500) will view the page in the last 30 days (see the english Wikipedia page “Colla Kingdom” that I largely rewrote). But among those ~ 100 people might be the members of my Jury (considering how niche some things tend be and how small the world of research is). 2A01:E0A:A84:5C70:649A:143F:4039:1688 (talk) 10:06, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
- Now, WP was not much of an issue when I was at Uni but I believe the advice we were issued then holds true; in that the best way to avoid it is to commit all of your prep/research notes to a notebook with numbered/dated pages [electronic versons exist now], said notes are anal, to ensure each draft is saved with a timestamp [and a archive copy kept] and to keep your tutor solidly in the loop of what you're exactly studying and how. So if some shitty LLM does a false positive, you have the evidence to show and your tutor should be able to back you up on that [for example, if a physical notebook, show periodically so they can at least vouch to it's genuine existence and you didn't say, leave a few pages helpfully blank in the middle of it]. Which makes me wonder; haven't you done the anti-plagerism talk yet?
- @Anna Livia, @2600:387:15:3C12:0:0:0:B I (obviously) do always cite my sources. On the one hand, I feel a burning passion for my subject and want to improve Wikipedia's coverage of it. On the other hand, all my research/reading on others' research (I am well aware that I shouldn't make my own promotion nor am I qualified yet to cite myself as a source) will ultimately get summarised in the introduction of a wikipedia article. Everything which might show my deep commitment to the subject might just come off as copying from wikipedia (I often have a tendency to treat pre-columbian entities equally to ancient European ones, and you can clearly recognise my writing style anyway). I have a tendency to feel obligated to inform people reading wikipedia on the real academic debates behind a statement, and the actual political context of pre-columbian times in certain regions which academics have reconstructed after long ethno-historical (a mix of archeology, anthropology [incl. ethnology, sociology etc.], and history, as well as linguistics and occasionally even mathematics and economics) work. But in the end only 100 or less people (maximum 500) will view the page in the last 30 days (see the english Wikipedia page “Colla Kingdom” that I largely rewrote). But among those ~ 100 people might be the members of my Jury (considering how niche some things tend be and how small the world of research is). 2A01:E0A:A84:5C70:649A:143F:4039:1688 (talk) 10:06, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
- If I were you [only a layperson] I would not touch the relevant WP articles until I am fairly sure that I won't need to do any more work on that particular topic. That leave [for example] the page on the 'El Dorado ceremony' until your paper on it has been submitted, checked, marked and returned. Then, and only then work on the offending WP page(s) if you so wish. You are right in that nichy topics often get little expert attention, often leading to the situation where some entries are clearly outdated. I am a fan of tagging such pages with 'obsolete article', which I think you could do now with no risk.
- But yeah, have a chat with your tutor or supervisor or whatever. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:36, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
- I would say that KarmaPolice nailed it.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 10:58, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
- But yeah, have a chat with your tutor or supervisor or whatever. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:36, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for every participant's advice. I decided to follow it, but, as I'm not able to let go of these Wikipedia pages, I posted a message on the Wikipedia Teahouse detailing my concerns and a group of sources as an easy entry for Wikipedia editors with the time and energy to read them and improve the entries on the Muisca chiefdoms. Kind regards, 2A01:E0A:A84:5C70:70A3:687E:CA13:B8F8 (talk) 22:26, 27 May 2025 (UTC)
Big Beautiful No Taxes Bill query[edit]
Specifically, no taxes on overtime. I am fully in support of not taxing tips (as most tips have gone electronic and can't be ignored) and not taxing overtime, hard work deserves full credit. What I'm confused about is the mechanisms by which these tax-free exemptions can be obtained. I just started a new job with the looming threat/promise of overtime in peak season. And everyone there who has worked more than a couple years is all excited about the idea of no tax on overtime, so I'm sure overtime is in my future.
The problem I have is, I looked at it, have asked, and from a bunch of different answers, my best guess is a person would have to create and submit a new W-4 with an extra withholding specifically for overtime pay, and then keep their books very well so that when tax day comes they can file their federal exemption specifically for the exact amount that has been withheld for overtime.
What I can't get a straight answer about is, is this withholding active on all paychecks, leaving me responsible to guess my yearly overtime pay? As I understand, filing a withholding is a 'Take the money home today and figure it out on your taxes at the end of the year' kinda deal, while overtime is a 'happens when it happens' scenario. And then who's to say if my state also adopts similar tax codes, so I could get wrecked at the end of the year for pay I expected to receive and for whatever reason did not, and/or for pay I withheld that is taxed later by the state, or worse, by the federal government because I calculated my shit wrong.
It's all promised on the tax filing end, which leaves the responsibility and nuance up to the individual, which is standard American bureaucracy. All media reporting on this is surface level. I mean, I don't care what the average extra take home 'COULD' look like, I want to know how I could even secure those dollars in the first place, because despite what it sounds like, it's not just gonna show up on my paycheck, you know?Torrent (talk) 06:44, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
- Not an accountant or even American, but I would guess if this went through [which is an if] you're roughly correct - it's all down to you to find out your employer's OT policies, work out by the hour how much of your work was OT and then have all that documentation on-hand for filing so you can then reclaim the extra tax paid at the end of the year.
- In reality; this means the average hourly worker [who is usually on very modest earnings] will by the end of the year be able to claim $200-$1000 a year back [I have not yet met a per-hour worker who didn't do a bit of OT, if nothing else to earn enough cash to actually live on or to cover a particular bill]. Let's not forget for some folks this will make their tax returns just complicated enough to require a professional filer to do, which shall swallow at least $200 in fees. More risky is that few hundred bucks pushes your household over the threshold for various assistance programmes such as public housing, SNAP etc which can quite literally 'give with one hand and take with another'. In some situations, you might be left worse off by that extra $200 because you've got [for example] long-term medical issues requiring prescriptions, you fall out of the eligibility and there's no taper [leaving you to foot those costs yourself].
- In short; this is fairly shit, and as it came from the Orange One unsurprisingly so. The billing of this as 'rewarding people who work hard' makes the implicit suggestion the folks who don't do OT are not hard workers [what about all those salaried workers, eh? They all lazy?]. It's in the same vein that praises folks who never use any sick days and is a happy-clappy wage-slave who always does what their corp overlord extorts them to do.
- If you wished to genuinely reward 'hard workers' then you could make OT pay of 1.5x legally mandatory.
- If you wished to genuinely ensure working stiffs 'kept more of their own money' you could increase the 0% tax threshold and/or lower the 12% rate [just dropping it by 1% would give our $30k workers another $200 yearly].
- If you wished to genuinely 'make work pay' you'd increase the federal minimum wage to at least $12.50 p/h.
- If you wished to genuinely just shove $200/$300 into each stiff's wallet, you could re-instate the IRS 'Direct File' system which would allow said stiffs to file their taxes correctly for free.
- KarmaPolice (talk) 11:17, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
- So, the thing is, the "no tax on overtime" bill (like tips) as far as I know is an additional federal income tax above-the-line deduction. So, to me, this is a relatively shit political stunt. You need to earn enough money to actually pay for federal income tax in order for this to be of a benefit. As previous Republican obfuscation tried to sell in the past (I'm looking at you, Mitt Romney), only 53-60% of the American population pay federal income tax presently when all current deductions are said and done. Some frequent-hourly frequent-overtime occupations are relatively high paying, but tipped occupations usually aren't. Now, these households often *do* pay some tax... payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare (FICA). The new bills do not affect that at all.
- Because these new taxes do *not* change withholding tables as of yet, as a result (for your typical employer situation in the US where a certain amount is automatically withheld), my guess is that the net effect will be a higher refund for middle income workers who happen to work a lot of overtime. It's not a tax break for the super-rich for once, so that's good. Pity that this comes on top of super-regressive taxes like Trump's tariffs and benefit cuts to SNAP / Medicaid / etc.. Most models I see (like this one) indicate that, when everything is said and done, if you aren't making around $40K-$50K a year or so, you're going to be screwed over. The ones that make out like a bandit are those who earn $100K and up, especially your really high earners.
- (This assumes that this tax bill actually survives, of course. "There are bond market rumbles" so who knows...) BobJohnson (talk) 15:15, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
- There's a part of me which questions a) how many of our low-waged/tipped workers [ie the remit of this question] actually have that many deductions and b) how many of them actually manage to get said deductions. Knowing how poor people do shit, I can see a lot of them going down the 'bung $25 to cousin Tommy, he's okay at this kind of thing' / 'Lionel Hutz down by the Dollar Tree will do it for $49.95' routes which might be sufficient to not get audited but not the most 'minimised' return you could file. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:53, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
- I suspect no tax on tips is a plutocratic scam to starve the government and make employees jump through more hoops: I'll pay you the minimum wage to work for me but I'll give you tips based on performance that can be highly lucrative. It's hard to conceive of any other reason that the GOP would get behind this. Bongolian (talk) 07:25, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
- Shifting payment from wages to tips is great for the bosses:
- They can pay far less for the time they actually require the worker to be available, since the tips only kick in when an actual sale/purchase/service is conducted, unlike a wage, which has to be paid no matter if there are any customers/business or not (this is also why the “independent contractor” BS is great for bosses, because it too means no pay if there’s no business, despite the workers, excuse me, “contractors” having to be available, yet not being compensated for their time).
- I suspect no tax on tips is a plutocratic scam to starve the government and make employees jump through more hoops: I'll pay you the minimum wage to work for me but I'll give you tips based on performance that can be highly lucrative. It's hard to conceive of any other reason that the GOP would get behind this. Bongolian (talk) 07:25, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
- There's a part of me which questions a) how many of our low-waged/tipped workers [ie the remit of this question] actually have that many deductions and b) how many of them actually manage to get said deductions. Knowing how poor people do shit, I can see a lot of them going down the 'bung $25 to cousin Tommy, he's okay at this kind of thing' / 'Lionel Hutz down by the Dollar Tree will do it for $49.95' routes which might be sufficient to not get audited but not the most 'minimised' return you could file. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:53, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
- It’s probably also far easier to bully workers who are dependent on tips and my guess is that it’s also a lot easier to fuck with tips than with wages, if you want to punish workers without risking a law suit. And, of course, it directly transfers a significant business cost directly from the boss to the customer. Oh, and if there are employer contributions to pensions, taxes, insurance etc. that are based on wages (say, calculated as a certain percentage of the wage), shifting worker compensation towards tips also reduces such employer contributions. ScepticWombat (talk) 17:03, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- 'Commission dependent' occupations [think salespeople as well as serving staff etc] are great for the bosses because it allows said boss to blame the worker for lack of income 'because if they were good enough they'd get enough tips' ['rewarding hard workers' etc]. But as Wombat notes, you can't get those if there is insufficient customers in the first place or the products you're hawking are shit. In fact, a decent % [perhaps an alarming level in America] of said jobs are not 'real jobs' in the respect it's usually low/unstable earnings which is difficult to genuinely 'live off'. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:23, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- Thankfully my job isn't commission dependent, it has an interesting incentive pay, and cynically I must believe it is screwing us in favor of the company in the long run. There is a standard level of work to be done, calculated in an annoying and esoteric 'Time per task' kind of way. So you earn extra per hour for meeting your time on task, which, right now with tariffs and shipping shortages, means we are clearing the work and not getting our promised 40 hours a week. The shorted hours are called 'voluntary time off' but you can't refuse the voluntary time off or your numbers tank and you're up for dismissal.
- 'Commission dependent' occupations [think salespeople as well as serving staff etc] are great for the bosses because it allows said boss to blame the worker for lack of income 'because if they were good enough they'd get enough tips' ['rewarding hard workers' etc]. But as Wombat notes, you can't get those if there is insufficient customers in the first place or the products you're hawking are shit. In fact, a decent % [perhaps an alarming level in America] of said jobs are not 'real jobs' in the respect it's usually low/unstable earnings which is difficult to genuinely 'live off'. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:23, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- It’s probably also far easier to bully workers who are dependent on tips and my guess is that it’s also a lot easier to fuck with tips than with wages, if you want to punish workers without risking a law suit. And, of course, it directly transfers a significant business cost directly from the boss to the customer. Oh, and if there are employer contributions to pensions, taxes, insurance etc. that are based on wages (say, calculated as a certain percentage of the wage), shifting worker compensation towards tips also reduces such employer contributions. ScepticWombat (talk) 17:03, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- The other thing is, everybody there is trying to score their highest time on task, and while the work starts out divided across the warehouse, eventually everyone is chasing the same personal incentive. So if my incentive pays out the equivalent of two and a half hours extra worth of pay for myself for the week, but everyone is actually shorted 6-10 hours on the week, I'm working against myself and every other person who also gets shorted hours. It would take the cooperation and understanding of everyone working to know how to calculate the workload and stretch it to be a full day every day, which isn't gonna happen. So, instead, it's kinda every man/woman/child/maniac for themself until the work is gone, which in my opinion creates an incentive to do sloppy, sometimes dangerous work. People aren't putting themselves in danger much, but they are ignoring dangerous shit or leaving dangerous shit in their wake.
- Ultimately, benefits are good if I could afford having them come out of my paycheck, America. Voluntary time off can be offset using vacation hours, which are pretty well accrued from what I can tell. Problem is, while I DO accrue vacation hours in my first 6 mo's, I am not allowed to spend them until I have completed 6 mo's. So, I can't really afford medical benefits yet. On the plus side I am getting along with everybody, and despite having no experience with driving equipment before I started the job I am putting up numbers. I also get a training bonus to my incentive pay, so I put up a 104% on Wednesday, which counts as about a 120% which is good for about an extra $1.40 per hour for the six hours worked. It averages out weekly, so my other scores this week will bring it down, but apparently it's supposed to take months to score an 80% on the regular. I like the job, base pay should be livable but I'm down to dollars a month with all this VTO. I do want to keep it, I just wish the full time job I was hired for gave me 40 hours a week. Torrent (talk) 08:29, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
- Here is something I drew up https://imgur.com/a/cLFdwbV/ which is the most efficient path I've found to clear half a zone. it makes more sense if you work the job, but those are aisles to pull orders from. I'm calling it stitching. There are areas for staging products that will go on the shelves, indicated by circles, and it can eat up time trying to navigate those safely, especially for a new driver like me. So I just drive in a way that I can absolutely bomb in and out of the rows without leaving orders behind. This path has worked out for me in a way that has other people scratching their heads about how I'm pulling a zone as fast as I am while also looking like the slowest driver on the floor when I have to take time to do high skill maneuvers safely, so in my free time I have drawn a map, because this is the kind of thing I can't help doing. And in doing so I think I've solved a problem I was having. Lowe's didn't want me for 4 dollars less an hour, rubes. Torrent (talk) 12:25, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
- Ultimately, benefits are good if I could afford having them come out of my paycheck, America. Voluntary time off can be offset using vacation hours, which are pretty well accrued from what I can tell. Problem is, while I DO accrue vacation hours in my first 6 mo's, I am not allowed to spend them until I have completed 6 mo's. So, I can't really afford medical benefits yet. On the plus side I am getting along with everybody, and despite having no experience with driving equipment before I started the job I am putting up numbers. I also get a training bonus to my incentive pay, so I put up a 104% on Wednesday, which counts as about a 120% which is good for about an extra $1.40 per hour for the six hours worked. It averages out weekly, so my other scores this week will bring it down, but apparently it's supposed to take months to score an 80% on the regular. I like the job, base pay should be livable but I'm down to dollars a month with all this VTO. I do want to keep it, I just wish the full time job I was hired for gave me 40 hours a week. Torrent (talk) 08:29, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
Editing Chores[edit]
About eight pages have nbsp
in the text visible to visitors (fragments of broken markup). Is there a way to fix those as a batch? Just one page had &nbps;
and I fixed it.Polydamas (talk) 04:39, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
- Questions like this can go in RationalWiki:Technical support, @Polydamas. But, no, because Extension:ReplaceText is not installed locally, the only way to do this is with a external bot. Duncan from Teflpedia (talk) 13:40, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
Will our life be safe from climate change?[edit]
Will life get better with climate change getting worse and the world falling apart? Koafox (talk) 16:16, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- Probably not. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 16:32, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- ): ): ): ): Koafox (talk) 16:39, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- How will hurricane season do over the years. 2600:387:F:D10:0:0:0:7 (talk)
- Will life get better for most people because of climate change? No. Now, if you're asking if life will keep improving in general for most human beings despite climate change, then most, if not all predictions I know say yes, but long term forecasts are not the most reliable thing in the world (despite being better than nothing). GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 20:17, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- There are a few other factors that I believe that can also do a lot of harm to humanity soon. The first one is war. While they have become less common today, the chance of a nuclear war is always there, especially considering how people like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi control most of the nuclear weapons in the world. The second one is a demographic collapse. While I'm probably less pessimistic than most people in my profession about this last one, it does scare me, especially considering how I still intend to be here in 2100. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 20:23, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- I agree that war (presumably nuclear war) is a constant threat to civilization - but its's a different kind of threat. It is avoidable - or at least it has been so far.
- With climate change we can be pretty sure that it is going to happen (or rather, continue to get worse). For all the firm pledges and hand-wringing the situation worsens every year. I think its a "tragedy of the commons" situation.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 07:38, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
- There are a few other factors that I believe that can also do a lot of harm to humanity soon. The first one is war. While they have become less common today, the chance of a nuclear war is always there, especially considering how people like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi control most of the nuclear weapons in the world. The second one is a demographic collapse. While I'm probably less pessimistic than most people in my profession about this last one, it does scare me, especially considering how I still intend to be here in 2100. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 20:23, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- Will life get better for most people because of climate change? No. Now, if you're asking if life will keep improving in general for most human beings despite climate change, then most, if not all predictions I know say yes, but long term forecasts are not the most reliable thing in the world (despite being better than nothing). GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 20:17, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- Climate change is not the only environmental threat we have to reckon with. There's also the broader ongoing campaign of ecocide that we're waging on this planet. The future predictions of ecologists tend to be pretty pessimistic. Antares (talk) 21:54, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- Timothy Snyder gives a broad perspective on this is the book he wrote last year, On Freedom. The fossil fuel plutocrats (Koch specifically in the US, but also Putin and various Middle East autocrats) have a vested interest to burn up all the carbon that they can get their hands on. In doing so, they remove freedom from everyone else. At some point very soon the world will reach a tipping point of no return for climate change. Snyder also draws on his earlier book, On Tyranny, that contrasts the two ideologies of the 'politics of eternity' (totalitarian systems), and the 'politics of inevitability' that came out a Western viewpoint of the Soviet Union's collapse. The latter posits that things will always improve, and that unrestrained capitalism will bring about democracy in the world. This was clearly disproven by Putin's rise to power. The upshot is that people have to actively work to make things better, they won't get better by the 'magic of the marketplace' or any other wishful thinking. Bongolian (talk) 22:22, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- On an interesting coincidence, last week I re-read The Commanding Heights. While the book has some interesting takes, and does relatively good as a narrative story of the last decades of the 20th centuty, it's indeed pretty laughable how the authors actually thought that Russia was going to be a democracy under Putin, and how Globalization was a given. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 23:21, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- @Bongolian I personally prefer Malm's book. Even where I disagree with it, it makes a good case for a broader approach to addressing climate change and its section on climate pessimism in particular is very good in my opinion. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 22:15, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
- On an interesting coincidence, last week I re-read The Commanding Heights. While the book has some interesting takes, and does relatively good as a narrative story of the last decades of the 20th centuty, it's indeed pretty laughable how the authors actually thought that Russia was going to be a democracy under Putin, and how Globalization was a given. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 23:21, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- Timothy Snyder gives a broad perspective on this is the book he wrote last year, On Freedom. The fossil fuel plutocrats (Koch specifically in the US, but also Putin and various Middle East autocrats) have a vested interest to burn up all the carbon that they can get their hands on. In doing so, they remove freedom from everyone else. At some point very soon the world will reach a tipping point of no return for climate change. Snyder also draws on his earlier book, On Tyranny, that contrasts the two ideologies of the 'politics of eternity' (totalitarian systems), and the 'politics of inevitability' that came out a Western viewpoint of the Soviet Union's collapse. The latter posits that things will always improve, and that unrestrained capitalism will bring about democracy in the world. This was clearly disproven by Putin's rise to power. The upshot is that people have to actively work to make things better, they won't get better by the 'magic of the marketplace' or any other wishful thinking. Bongolian (talk) 22:22, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
Got banned from FB, hope that the appeal works, will now have to use this to talk to rational people.[edit]
Either that, or I may turn my Gab account (that I will not name) into the only liberal on Gab. But I will only do the Gab thing if I manage to get 666 followers on the dang site, which may as well be curing cancer using a sock and a dream. (Note: I do not agree with the insane wharrgarbl said on Gab, I just find it funny that there's more than 10 active people on it.) ResurrectingDeadLinks (talk) 23:01, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- Being banned on Facebook or Twitter or Gab should be a badge of honor. Bongolian (talk) 23:28, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- You can get auto-banned on facebook 97% of the time if you don’t provide a phone number. 2600:387:15:3C1A:0:0:0:3 (talk) 20:06, 31 May 2025 (UTC)
- I have (and will) never make a Twitter account. If Gab suspends me for being rational, I can probably just make another account until torba and friends give up. And let me tell ya, I don't know of any suspended Gab/Crab accounts. FB accounts do get deleted a lot though. Maybe include quotes from the Gab comment section in their article? ResurrectingDeadLinks (talk) 23:38, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
- OK, I'll ask. Why did Facebook expel you?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 07:43, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
- I've noticed a pathway for my use of social media that follows the enshittification process of the corporation behind the media:
- Hey, this is useful and maybe even fun.
- This is getting awful.
- This is still fun for trolling.
- This is not even fun for trolling. I'm gone.
- Twitler and Facebook are now at stage four. The Washington Post is at stage three (it qualifies as social media for the comments sections). Gab and other far-right media started out at stage four. Bongolian (talk) 17:56, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
- I've noticed a pathway for my use of social media that follows the enshittification process of the corporation behind the media:
- OK, I'll ask. Why did Facebook expel you?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 07:43, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
- i never thought i'd say this, but i miss the old facebook (pre-2012). we were all stupid and immature back then, but i'd trade that for the shithole we have today. facebook and its subsidiaries (instagram and twitter copycat threads) have become far-right cesspools, with climate change denial and outright racism being the norm. The G (talk) 17:46, 31 May 2025 (UTC)
- I actually thought Facebook was pretty okay for a while too. I left in 2017. Even then, it wasn't quite the cesspool it is now, but the algorithmic bullshit controlling the feeds got to the point where it was no longer worth it.
- I never was a fan of Twitter, but I do feel like that Bluesky's sort of become the inheritor of "early 2010s Twitter vibe". And not just in a political way TBH. Like Facebook, Musk.Twitter has gone out of their way to force you to see the things they want you to see... what with hard sign-in walls and black box corporate controlled algorithmic sorting of feeds. Both also have gone out of their way to make the platform developer unfriendly, to discourage unofficial clients and other things like archiving and outside researcher analytics. Bluesky is far more developer-friendly (though they need to work on their docs :p) and less polluted by algorithms... for now. BobJohnson (talk) 18:03, 31 May 2025 (UTC)
- Twitter has an auto-ban system for a bunch of common things, regardless of context, similar to filters. It's not too difficult to accidentally trip over one of them. CorruptUser 02:24, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
RW is back on Kiwix![edit]
https://library.kiwix.org/#lang=&q=rationalwiki
the archiving bug appears fixed at their end, so yay! - David Gerard (talk) 11:42, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
- What’s KiwiX? SomeAutisticAce (talk) 20:07, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
- KiwiX has free Kiwix software and free downloads of public domain or Creative Commons data so that people can use the internet when they have no access or when they only have state-censored access. Besides RationalWiki, they have various other wiki projects, including Wikipedia, computer coding manuals, Project Gutenberg, various TED Talks, and iFixit's tech repair instructions. Main page: https://kiwix.org/ Download libraries: https://library.kiwix.org/ Bongolian (talk) 21:25, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
- What’s KiwiX? SomeAutisticAce (talk) 20:07, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
Great job Israel[edit]
You did a wonderful job by polluting the planet with your genocidal war. --Trans Fem Agenda 17:37, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
- I imagine that the footprint is also awful for Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine. Bongolian (talk) 17:57, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
- Who knows what pollutants were released by Russia's genocidal war against Ukraine. --Trans Fem Agenda 18:51, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
- Mostly Carbon, maybe some lead, probably some trace radiation from depleted uranium rounds. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 13:23, 31 May 2025 (UTC)
- The primary concern with depleted uranium is ordinary heavy metal toxicity. It might pose a mild radiation risk to soldiers who inhale it directly when it strikes a target. Christopher (talk) 14:28, 31 May 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah my understanding is that depleted uranium ammunition has trace radiation, but mostly on the grade of a cellphone or similar low threshold radiation. You'd have to expose yourself to a lot of it to get radiation poisoning from it. That being said, it is a pollutant, so that's why I added it to the list. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 16:52, 31 May 2025 (UTC)
- Depleted uranium (AKA U238) is really dense which gives it a number of military applications. As others have stated, it's not particularly radioactive. As I understand it the main health issues (apart from being hit with a DU round) stem from the inhalation of DU dust after the use of the munitions. It's not the sort of thing you want in your lungs.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 05:22, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Honestly, worrying about the longterm health effects of DU munitions is kinda like being in the jaws of an alligator and being afraid of an infection. Yeah, it might be a concern, but it's not the highest priority. We probably shouldn't routinely use DU for training, but during wars getting the war finished ASAP will save far more lives than worrying about the types of munitions used.
- Except landmines. Fuck landmines. CorruptUser 16:58, 12 June 2025 (UTC)
- I don’t think the effectiveness argument in favour of DU ammunition holds up. It’s not like DU ammunition does a job that no other type of AP ammunition can do. It’s simply cheaper than the alternatives, but for the potential long term downsides it really doesn’t seem worth it. But of course, those militaries that do use DU tend to do so on other people’s land or on very isolated practice ranges, so they don’t really have to care much about those long term effects… ScepticWombat (talk) 15:20, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
- Depleted uranium (AKA U238) is really dense which gives it a number of military applications. As others have stated, it's not particularly radioactive. As I understand it the main health issues (apart from being hit with a DU round) stem from the inhalation of DU dust after the use of the munitions. It's not the sort of thing you want in your lungs.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 05:22, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah my understanding is that depleted uranium ammunition has trace radiation, but mostly on the grade of a cellphone or similar low threshold radiation. You'd have to expose yourself to a lot of it to get radiation poisoning from it. That being said, it is a pollutant, so that's why I added it to the list. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 16:52, 31 May 2025 (UTC)
- The primary concern with depleted uranium is ordinary heavy metal toxicity. It might pose a mild radiation risk to soldiers who inhale it directly when it strikes a target. Christopher (talk) 14:28, 31 May 2025 (UTC)
- Mostly Carbon, maybe some lead, probably some trace radiation from depleted uranium rounds. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 13:23, 31 May 2025 (UTC)
- Who knows what pollutants were released by Russia's genocidal war against Ukraine. --Trans Fem Agenda 18:51, 30 May 2025 (UTC)
Bias correction[edit]
Ok so, i'm making a guide on italian politics for a friend of mine. Now, i'm fully aware of my own political biases (italian center-right/right), but i want to make sure that said biases don't seep through the discourse. Apart from being aware about them, how may i make sure that whatever description about whatever politician i'm talking about is correct and unbiased?
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N A Z U N A -H I W A T A S H I-
I'll burn ya!TheAlePower (talk) 20:18, 1 June 2025 (UTC)
- If you want attempts and non-biased descriptions, then why are you asking here rathern than looking at Wikipedia? Bongolian (talk) 01:20, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- Because this is a place that focuses on rational talk, and i actually do want to state my opinions after stating the objective facts. My concern is that the former will poison the latter.
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N A Z U N A -H I W A T A S H I-
I'll burn ya!TheAlePower (talk) 20:39, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- So that comes back to what is bias? Is it possible to eliminate entirely? Probably not. Wikipedia struggled for a while with its strict neutrality policy, which eventually was made subservient to facts (and therefore scientific evidence) See Neutral point of view#NPOV on Wikipedia. One of the founders of WP editors, Larry Sanger fled after this and created Citizendium. So is there an unbiased view to write about fascist tendencies, for example with Berlusconi or Meloni? Bongolian (talk) 21:07, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- I'm aware of citizendum (and of its somewhat turbulent and pseudosciencey crash dive), and honestly it might be a good idea to stick to the basic facts as most as possible and try to warn the listener that some opinions might be mixed in. On an unrelated and possibly off-topic note, it's indeed kinda hard to write in an unbiased way about Mussolini and Meloni. The woman herself said that "there is no space for grumpy old fascists in my party (Brothers of Italy)", and then a journalist infiltrates the youth wing and finds out that they promote nazi salutes and praise Mussolini. Almost as funny/depressing as Salvini's hate boner for anything that moves and doesn't speak italian.
- So that comes back to what is bias? Is it possible to eliminate entirely? Probably not. Wikipedia struggled for a while with its strict neutrality policy, which eventually was made subservient to facts (and therefore scientific evidence) See Neutral point of view#NPOV on Wikipedia. One of the founders of WP editors, Larry Sanger fled after this and created Citizendium. So is there an unbiased view to write about fascist tendencies, for example with Berlusconi or Meloni? Bongolian (talk) 21:07, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
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I'll burn ya!TheAlePower (talk) 19:35, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
Homphobia and racism[edit]
That's something I've been thinking for a while. Even in places like Russia they don't officially hate non-whites. It's not that they don't, but that would be considered fucked up even for their standards. That's also truth to Trump, AFD and similar groups. . However, most of these groups are usually far more open about how they hate queer people. Religion aside, is there any reason why open homophobia/transphobia is more normalized than open racism? GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 18:45, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- I think religion is certainly the major factor, but there are probably others as well:
- The movement against racial discrimination is much more "advanced" than the queer movement. The latter only really started gaining mainstream traction in the past few decades AFAIK, while the former was already influential long before that (eg. Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement). Important to remind that decades ago people like Biden were saying shit like this.
- It's a common notion that being non-white is something you're born with and can't really change. Meanwhile, there are still a lot of people who believe you can "turn gay/trans" by external influences and that you can somehow "change back".
- I think being queer generally messes with traditional cultural norms much more than being non-white. Particularly, notions about racial superiority seem much less entrenched in society than conservative gender roles (though I'm not certain why, exactly). Being queer inherently challenges the latter. ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 19:13, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- Oh, to add: people often associate being queer with other sex-related stances or identities. There's a non-negligible amount of people who think pedophiles and zoophiles run rampant in the queer community, or that having sexual relationships with children/animals would inevitably become normalized eventually through some sort of "slippery slope". I don't think something as scandalous exists when it comes to being non-white. ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 19:20, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- First off, Russians traditionally have nothing against 'black people' because it's never been 'an issue' there. Instead, they have strong feelings against 'Tatars' and 'Caucasians' - peoples of Mongol ethnic origin and hailing from the Caucasus respectively - the latter [Armenians, Georgians etc] are commonly referred to as 'blacks' by racist Russians. Similar can be said about the UK; anti-black and anti-Asian sentiment only shot up after they began to arrive by the boatload after WW2. So it can be said that all of the examples have racism, just that it's cut in different ways.
- For the homo/transphobia, my money is down to the Abrahamic religions. It's very cis/het in scope and with firm gender roles and it's been a kind of social iron lung around which European/Mid-Eastern societies have formed around over millennia. That is the very essence of 'tradition' and 'normality'; shit we follow because it's always been this way and millions of dead ancestors can't be wrong. And due to a series of historical quirks [from the Islamic conquests to the European colonialisations] said 'traditions' have been imported/imposed on everyone else on the planet. For example, a lot of the anti-LGBT laws being used in places like India and Kenya dated back to their time as British colonies. Continue our relative cultural dominance re: media this helps to reinforce said views of 'normality'. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:31, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- Gee specified "religion aside" in his original comment. ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 19:39, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, though it's a bit like asking, "Gravity aside, why do massive bodies attract each other?".Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 06:34, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, but in this case I'm more talking of the legacy of such religions than religion itself. I think one of the biggest mistakes sane America has made is to see the Religious Right through a religious lens when all the evidence shows us that it is primarily a flag of identity and thus, of identity politics. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:32, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- From an American perspective: I'm of the opinion that time is the big key factor here. The 1950s / 1960s (70+ years ago!) civil rights movement opened many people's eyes to just how shitty racists treat other humans for no good reason, and that there was even bits of progress before then. Progress has waxed and waned since then, but I don't think anyone can say America 2025 is as racist as America 1950. A *lot* of progress has been made (even though more needs to be done).
- Now... I still think the Trump / GOP are racist (or at least parrot such for the rubes), but these days, you have to "code" the racism with subtexts. Like "anti-immigration" or "law and order" or "welfare queen" or other shit like that. Basically, open racism is a social faux pas. At least in many social circles.
- By comparison, LGBTQ rights movements really haven't been around for as long, at least in any significant strength. In many Western nations, homosexuality was flat out considered criminal behavior during the civil rights movement period! Most European nations decriminalized homosexuality by the 1960s or 1970s, but several American states still were clinging to these laws by the time Lawrence v. Texas struck down homosexuality criminalization laws in 2003. The Wikipedia article on LGBTQ movements
seems to indicate that it was only in the 1970s when things started getting more organized.
- Society takes time to change. From my viewpoint, America was far more homophobic in the 1980s than it is now. On issues like "gay marriage", the opponents now are the middling minority (Gallup has gay marriage support at 68% in 2025; in 1996 it was 68% against.) To some extent, I think being an open homophobe also is a social faux pas these days in a lot of circles. I can't think of a time where Trump was *directly* homophobic (towards the "LG" part of the "LGBTQ" that is), like other politicians of the past actually were. But he has been able to code homophobia using things like "religious liberty", a strategy similar to what they do with racism.
- The "new thing" for the racists is transphobia. Now here is where the GOP can be disgustingly directly phobic. Such will probably look stupid, too, in a few decades or so. BobJohnson (talk) 19:45, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- It's not a universal pattern. AfD frequently points out the homophobia of muslim societies, and has a lesbian co-leader. One survey found that they were the most popular party among gay men, although I'd take that with a grain of salt [1]. As far as I can tell they're more consistently anti-trans. Christopher (talk) 20:24, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- That was a self-selecting poll on Grindr and only 28% said they'd vote AfD, so there's 72% who wouldn't. But there's the little issue that while officially parties like the AfD, Reform UK and so on do their best to not look anti gay/lesbian the majority of said gays/lesbians notice that there shall be zero increase of rights for them under their watch and more importantly, all the 'phobes appear to like those parties [judge a man by the company he keeps and all that]. I also suspect generation might have something to do with it; older cohorts remembering when they were the hated Other [and it doesn't have to be that old; in the UK consent equality only came in 2000, the evil Section 28 was only repealed in 2003, civil partnerships allowed in 2005 and most of the final disbarments in the 10s] and well, we're not gonna fucking forget that. And we fucking can't forget that because the anti-Trans shite has the exactly the same stink as what we saw back then.
- It's not a universal pattern. AfD frequently points out the homophobia of muslim societies, and has a lesbian co-leader. One survey found that they were the most popular party among gay men, although I'd take that with a grain of salt [1]. As far as I can tell they're more consistently anti-trans. Christopher (talk) 20:24, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- Gee specified "religion aside" in his original comment. ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 19:39, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- For the homo/transphobia, my money is down to the Abrahamic religions. It's very cis/het in scope and with firm gender roles and it's been a kind of social iron lung around which European/Mid-Eastern societies have formed around over millennia. That is the very essence of 'tradition' and 'normality'; shit we follow because it's always been this way and millions of dead ancestors can't be wrong. And due to a series of historical quirks [from the Islamic conquests to the European colonialisations] said 'traditions' have been imported/imposed on everyone else on the planet. For example, a lot of the anti-LGBT laws being used in places like India and Kenya dated back to their time as British colonies. Continue our relative cultural dominance re: media this helps to reinforce said views of 'normality'. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:31, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- But if you're in your early 20s and not clued up on your 'community's' history, the stink might not ring alarm bells, so you think they're okay. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:55, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- To be pedantic, it was a poll on "Romeo", an app similar to Grindr popular in Germany. It bears repeating that 28% was the largest single number - obviously the majority are going to oppose any one party, that's just how it works in Germany. I did see another poll with much smaller numbers that I'm more inclined to believe.
- Of course they aren't explicitly and consistently pro-LGBT, but they do sometimes make an effort not to seem homophobic, trying to court the gay vote, and there are plenty of people in the party who are at least ambivalent. It's not a priority in the same way immigration is. Unlike Reform UK with Zia Yusuf, I can't see AfD with a Muslim in a role anywhere near as senior as Alice Weidel. Christopher (talk) 22:37, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- Said poll also had the Greens sitting on 20%, which is even more out of whack for any of the age breakdowns. I've also been unable to find other polling to confirm this [though I am not looked that hard], so I am tempted to discount said poll as a freak. Anyway, the existence of a few token minorities within the party leadership is not evidence alone that the mass of the party is supportive [or just non-hostile] of said minority. Now, I do not possess much of an insight into the German psyche but I'm going to go on the belief that just like American LGBTs were not convinced by Caitlyn Jenner's support for Trump last time round and British ethnic minorities were not that convinced by the presence of Patel/Sunak/Badenoch in the upper rank of the Conservative Party, a lot of German LGBTs aren't going to be persuaded by the existence of Weidel at the top of the AfD. In fact, I bet quite a lot of them get fucked off with the obvious doublethink and crimestop which people like Weidel have to live with on a daily basis; the deliberate non-computing of the fact that AfD support for 'traditional families' and 'a Christian ethos' is directly in contradiction with being a lesbian with adopted children, or the deliberate non-noticing to the swirls of casual [and not so casual] homophobia which are in the AfD supporter base, activists and elected politicians.
- But if you're in your early 20s and not clued up on your 'community's' history, the stink might not ring alarm bells, so you think they're okay. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:55, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- While I personally don't doubt Weidel's sincerity [or most of the other examples above], my political cynicism says they're being used. Just like Patel et al almost literally said 'it can't be racist because I'm not white' and she was tolerated by racist Tories because she was an ideological meat-shield for their xenophobic policies, similar to how TERF lesbians like Bindel are wheeled out to attack trans people with reheated homophobic lines she will personally remember from the 1980s. In fact, I suspect such folks are more useful in convincing the secondary audience - in Patel's case she didn't convince many minorities, but did work on a subsection of whites who were aware they didn't want to be seen as racists. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:49, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Homophobia and transphobia strongly predict one another so what we can say about one we might be able to say about another. "Religiosity was associated with anti-transgender prejudice in Western (but not non-Western) countries, but this was completely accounted for by anti-gay attitudes." From another paper: "Although a great deal of research suggests that religious beliefs relate to transgender prejudice, there are also additional findings that suggest the association between the two variables is weak". They give the examples that Jewish and Black Protestant people, even if religious, have lower transprejudice scores than other religious people; the researchers find "religious fundamentalism" is a stronger predictor. They also found a link to sexist or traditional gender role beliefs, and to attitudes of right-wing authoritarianism
or social dominance orientation.
LGBT people being rarer than non-white people might also give them a lower contact hypothesis
advantage, though other factors might swamp that out, not sure.
- In sum, one of the strongest reasons behind what you're looking at is probably because LGBT people almost necessarily "violate gender role norms" in some way or another while non-white people don't necessarily, although that was a type of stereotype that's been applied in the past before. In the Russian context, there's a lot of sexism (domestic violence is basically legal in Russia). It was also a political consideration in Russia because LGBT was seen as associated with Western liberalism and so they portrayed it as an imperialist infringement on Russian culture despite it really being in-born for many people. To see an equivalent without so much of the religious fundamentalism component, we might look at mainland China which largely holds the same anti-Western views but without strict adherence to homophobic religion, so while homophobia is still present it expresses differently. Chillpilled (talk) 09:45, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Part of this is also the fascist playbook to build a totalitarian state without further opposition: Trans people (estimated at 1% in the US) make a relatively easy target. At least until very recently, many people have never met an openly trans person (I never did until I moved to California). Hitler went for trans people first, then he began picking off other targets, Jews, SDA, gay people, Roma, ethnic Slavs and others. The order of attack probably doesn't matter much once the majority of the population accepts official persecution of the first minority. Also, don't forget Clarence Thomas wants to revisit Lawrence v. Texas (gay sex) and Obergefell v. Hodges (gay marriage).[2]
- Also, anti-Black bigotry is not something that suddenly went away despite GOP claims to the contrary ("post-racism", claimed for example by racist Lou Dobbs[3]). The GOP antipathy towards African Americans has been constant since the Southern Strategy, usually couched in non-racial terminology:
- Mass incarceration, which uncoincidentally disproportionately affects Blacks, and directly biases elections: federal prisons are disproportionately located in rural (GOP) areas, but Blacks primarily live in urban areas. Even though the prisoners mostly can't vote, their bodies still count for the census and for redistricting. Prisoners and released felons can't vote in many jurisdictions.
- Gerrymandering, primarily GOP, primarily because they couldn't win otherwise
- Voter suppression, also exclusively a GOP tactic because they couldn't win otherwise
- Trying to end birthright citizenship by trump's decree. The Fourteenth Amendment is how African Americans get the vote in the US. — Unsigned, by: Bongolian / talk / contribs
- Well, the quintessential RWA personality type does generally speaking believe in a hierarchical society which is divided into leaders and followers, expects each to 'know their place' and 'authority knows best', is deeply suspicious of difference, invariably views any new development as a threat, has a tendency to see things in a binary fashion and as a result generally has a very pessimistic view of future developments [be it technological, political or societal]. The crime trans people commit here is introducing the idea that sex and gender are different and that one can change gender. That's new, so it is Bad by default. This definition of 'new' is always personal, but from personal experience a good place to start is looking at the world of their youth [say between 10 and 15] and thinking of all the developments past that.
- Also, anti-Black bigotry is not something that suddenly went away despite GOP claims to the contrary ("post-racism", claimed for example by racist Lou Dobbs[3]). The GOP antipathy towards African Americans has been constant since the Southern Strategy, usually couched in non-racial terminology:
- Part of this is also the fascist playbook to build a totalitarian state without further opposition: Trans people (estimated at 1% in the US) make a relatively easy target. At least until very recently, many people have never met an openly trans person (I never did until I moved to California). Hitler went for trans people first, then he began picking off other targets, Jews, SDA, gay people, Roma, ethnic Slavs and others. The order of attack probably doesn't matter much once the majority of the population accepts official persecution of the first minority. Also, don't forget Clarence Thomas wants to revisit Lawrence v. Texas (gay sex) and Obergefell v. Hodges (gay marriage).[2]
- I personally view 'intolerance of dissent' to be the key attribute here. That they simply do not trust/like people who look different to them, act different to them or think different to them. It's why so many of them get angry when faced by someone with a contrary view, even if they have no actual skin in the game - the mere presence of 'dissent' offends them. Sure, this trait exists in all parts of the political spectrum [and the non-political] but it's much heavier in the right wing.
- The other defect of the RWA personality type is that they're wide open to political affinity fraud; that if our con-artist can successfully convince the RWAs that a) 'they are one of them' and b) 'I am your superior' you can then lead them down roads that alone most of our RWAs wouldn't have even contemplated. Even worse [for a healthy society] is that once they have taken the demagogue as 'one of us' they will then unquestionly defend them in the way a 'good follower' should, regardless to how shit or stupid said leader is. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:07, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
- I imagine that what you refer to as a differential between racism and sexual orientation is probably an artifact of statistics. There are few Black people in China and the Chinese are generally not interested in seeing them in their media. This can be seen in the advertising Disney has done with movies involving Black stars: their blackness is deemphasized, e.g., Black Panther's face is masked in Chinese posters. The LBGT+ community is relatively tiny everywhere. People are less used to the awkwardness of minority status. Zatoichi (talk) 20:45, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- The average Russian has no regular contact with Black/Brown people, wasn't raised by people who suffered any sort of grievance involving Black/Brown people, come from towns with neither unhealed wounds nor sources of shame involving Black/Brown people, the government has never encouraged the demonization of Black/Brown people (in fact the opposite; they used racism as a propaganda tool against the US), so why would Russia be racist? They'd probably distrust a random Black person out of xenophobia, but not moreso than a random Frenchman.
- Homosexuals are much more familiar boogeymen, on the other hand. CorruptUser 17:43, 8 June 2025 (UTC)
- I really shouldn't have to point out, to grown ass adults with functional internet connections no less, that "racism" does not exclusively refer to discrimination against dark skinned people. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 18:22, 8 June 2025 (UTC)
Trump on Biden[edit]
Not being trained in such matters but would Trump's claims be an example of Capgras delusion? Anna Livia (talk) 23:44, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- Strictly speaking those weren't Trump's claims, but Trump retweeting (re-Xing?) the claims of others. He's got that dodge if pressed. Kencolt (talk) 00:39, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, Trump retweeted a claim from a very weird "user" on Truth Social who was making a lot of other bizarre posts that reminded me of QAnon (but now with United States Space Force
logo). (It also is a very spammy account with zillions of non sequitur hashtags per post and multiple repeats. Looks like some degree of "bot shit" to me?)
- Who knows what the motivation of the bot is. But Trump's always had a habit of liking every conspiracy theory that has come his way as long as said conspiracy theory flatters him. My "armchair quarterbacking thought" is that Trump's motivation here is egocentricity and the general need to feel superior to others. Part of the psychology of being a bully, in other words. BobJohnson (talk) 00:46, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- I suppose the thought process might be "Well, I don't believe this, but there's a hyuge number of idiots that believe in me who will believe it, so why not pass this along?" If nothing else, the Trumpster knows his audience. Kencolt (talk) 01:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Many of the online newspaper 'headline and first sentences' give the impression that it was Trump's own idea (as many might think, using some of his previous statements as 'justification for the assumption'). The 'Paul is dead' meme might fall into this category, whatever it is.' Any other examples? Anna Livia (talk) 09:37, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- I suppose the thought process might be "Well, I don't believe this, but there's a hyuge number of idiots that believe in me who will believe it, so why not pass this along?" If nothing else, the Trumpster knows his audience. Kencolt (talk) 01:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, Trump retweeted a claim from a very weird "user" on Truth Social who was making a lot of other bizarre posts that reminded me of QAnon (but now with United States Space Force
Crying fascists[edit]
What is it about these fascist bullies crying in public:
- Chris Cantwell, "The Crying Nazi" (Unite the Right)
- Elon Musk[4]
- Mencius Moldbug[5]
They actively enjoy hurting other people but cry when they get a pinprick. Bongolian (talk) 04:40, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
- Don't forget Jordan Peterson. Antares (talk) 04:42, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
- One of the reasons why, if one has the means, you metaphorically (or occasionally not) "punch back" at bullies is exactly because of this: deep down, they are very often weak wimps who will chicken out at the slightest hint of trouble. BobJohnson (talk) 11:22, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
- I blame parents for this. Too many good-willed softies who give advice to kids on 'how the world should be' rather than 'how the world actually is'. We've all been to school; how many of us know of cases of bullying where 'telling teacher' actually bloody worked? It's about as fucking useful as a country appealing to the UN for help during an invasion. Politics is similar in this complete refusal to accept reality; we get taught that it should be some polite, respectful and calm discussion where 'we all work together' and compromise etc. Well, screw that. Politics is a blood sport, war without violence [no prizes for guessing the two persons who said that]. I see an opening, you'll find my blade in there pronto. This is why fascists and authoritarians win more often than they should; evil triumphs because 'liberals' are dumb - in this case, making up a load of 'rules of conduct' and following them while their opponents don't give a fuck. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:11, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
- So, I actually did grow up in a fairly softie 'don't stoop' 'don't make a stink' 'do what is right and it will work out' kinda household, the difference was when my parents stood up for me and when they were like 'you're on your own with this one.' But also I was pushed a lot. I tried wrestling in the 5th grade. Turns out every other wrestler at that age had been the younger brother of a wrestler since birth and had a field day with my skinny body. I learned quick that hurt people hurt people for real. I mean wrestling will never be a job, sportsmanship is apparently sneaking punches at the other guy's face and stupid painful holds. I learned to sprawl, which is a very good technique in wrestling but can't keep you out of the banana splits forever. So, wrestling wasn't for me. But I learned a few things, and couldn't be physically bullied in middle school, and then chose to take that to stand up for other kids in high school who were being bullied, and to break up dumb drunk wrestling matches in my early 20s before they caused damage. I fought against the Keystone XL Pipeline, that was Obama with Clinton as secretary of state. I spent time reading through the BS that Transcanada was selling, because 1, landowners in my state didn't want to sell their land, and 2, TransCanada and the state department were literally breaking laws to try and get it going. So, was it easier to fight a liberal establishment? Probably, it was landowner rights versus corporate pressure. Trump never got it going. I'm not saying I'm actively in big politics, and I don't care when somebody expresses dumb politics casually, but I really don't like when people punch down. 'I'm fine with gays but I really don't like this trans stuff' and I don't know the person? I say 'It has literally never affected me, so I don't care if someone is trans' and sneak in 'hey, if I get a pronoun wrong, I'm not the devil. Doesn't hurt me to call anyone whatever they like, I'll try to get it right next time.' which literally has never happened to anyone I throw that line to, but if I can change the conversation in their shower argument, it's incremental. The ugliest thing I've ever seen is people calling conservatism, specifically Catholic conversion 'punk.' There are a lot of sells that people fall for, and I wish it was their fault, but people were saying 'no child left behind' was gonna make kids stupid back when I was in middle school. The plus side, if you're not an asshole, very simple conversations make a lot of sense to my 'not left behind' generation. I don't think they love the idea of a billionaire using money to make passive income. They just mostly have never heard of it that way. Torrent (talk) 07:53, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
- I blame parents for this. Too many good-willed softies who give advice to kids on 'how the world should be' rather than 'how the world actually is'. We've all been to school; how many of us know of cases of bullying where 'telling teacher' actually bloody worked? It's about as fucking useful as a country appealing to the UN for help during an invasion. Politics is similar in this complete refusal to accept reality; we get taught that it should be some polite, respectful and calm discussion where 'we all work together' and compromise etc. Well, screw that. Politics is a blood sport, war without violence [no prizes for guessing the two persons who said that]. I see an opening, you'll find my blade in there pronto. This is why fascists and authoritarians win more often than they should; evil triumphs because 'liberals' are dumb - in this case, making up a load of 'rules of conduct' and following them while their opponents don't give a fuck. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:11, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
- One of the reasons why, if one has the means, you metaphorically (or occasionally not) "punch back" at bullies is exactly because of this: deep down, they are very often weak wimps who will chicken out at the slightest hint of trouble. BobJohnson (talk) 11:22, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
Here is another piece of my current project. I am introducing a secondary main character.[edit]
“”It was a cold day in March ten years ago. Rain poured over Detroit. It was a completely dreary day. Jenna Abbas was preparing for a concert. She would be singing at the Fox Theatre. Jenna’s stage name Persian Girl was a major hit among younger audiences. She was inspiring to transgender youth. As a trans woman Jenna was not afraid of transphobes nor would she give into boycotts by religious people. She was as tough as they come.
Hours before the concert at Fox Theatre Jenna was putting on her makeup. She did not bother hiring makeup artists. When it came to makeup Jenna believed in doing her own work. In her trailer Jenna listened to the radio. Despite being a pop singer she was a big fan of classic rock music. As she was working on her makeup Jenna heard the music cut out. There were three beeps followed by one long beep. It was the Emergency Alert System. An automated voice followed, “This is a Civil Danger Warning issued at the request of the United States government. Attack warning red. A nuclear missile has been fired at the mainland United States. This nuclear missile is projected to hit the Detroit Metropolitan Area. Authorities confirm that the missile was launched by the Russian Federation. All persons living in Detroit must seek immediate shelter below ground. Place as much space between you and the outside world. Stay away from windows. Gather enough food, clean drinking water and medical supplies to last for fourteen days. Do not leave your shelter for fourteen days or until an all clear is given. Repeat, this is an attack warning. Attack warning red. Attack warning red. Seek immediate shelter”. Once the automated voice stopped there were three beeps. Suddenly the air raid siren began. Jenna was terrified. She got out of her trailer and rushed towards the Fox Theatre. It took about a minute to get inside. The building was completely empty except for a few sound engineers. One of the engineers told Jenna, “We have to get to the basement. Follow me”. Jenna and the sound engineers rushed downstairs. The air raid sirens got louder. At this point Jenna was absolutely terrified. That was when Jenna woke up in her bed. She had dreamed about the nuclear attack that destroyed Detroit. It was early in the morning. Right now Jenna had to get ready for her job at South Mercy High School. Today was another day. Jenna went downstairs to the kitchen and poured herself some cereal. She listened to the radio as she ate. The DJ on the radio said, “Good morning everyone. This is Greg the Conqueror in the morning. You are listening to 104.3 WRSX classic rock. We will begin with some news before we get to Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing”. Jenna ate her cereal as the man spoke. Greg the Conqueror said, “Our first piece of news is coming out of the Republic of Macedonia. The capital city of Skopje has been placed under quarantine. There have been reports of a disease outbreak. The government officials in Macedonia have said that this disease turns people into homicidal cannibals. Crazy huh? I was not honestly expecting that but these are the reports we are receiving and passing on to you. Reports that have been verified as completely as possible in this situation. It is happening”. Jenna turned off the radio. She hated bad news. At this moment Jenna was focusing on teaching her class. After breakfast Jenna changed into work clothing. She stepped outside and went to her car. Rain began to pour. Jenna got into her car then started it. She pulled out of the drive. While on the road Jenna listened to the radio. It was the station she always listened to but there was no music. It was news. The radio host Greg the conqueror said, “We are getting reports out of occupied Crimea of outbreaks of violence. The cause of the violence is unknown. The Russian government has largely been silent on the matter. This correlates to the violence in Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Kosovo. It is believed that this is related to the quarantine of Skopje”. Jenna changed the station to an easy listening broadcast. However it was more news. The radio DJ Lucky Lester said, “The violence in eastern Europe is not politically or racially motivated. This corresponds to an apparent infection in the region. Details are sketchy right now. People in eastern Europe are being encouraged to remain indoors. Medical authorities at the CDC believe that the violence and the infection are related. However this is not confirmed. A meeting at the World Health Organization will begin in the next few hours. We will now switch from the doom and gloom to So In Love by Kai Warner”. At least the music started. Jenna quietly listened to the music as she drove. The bad news wore on her. She knew that something big was coming deep down but she repressed that sinking feeling. The music was soothing but that sinking feeling did not abade. It got much worse. Before she went to the high school Jenna stopped at the gas station to fill the tank and get a drink. At the Shell Gas Station there was a large number of people there. That was normal though. South Mercy was a big city. Jenna sighed. She needed gas but she would be late if she stayed. A few cars drove off which allowed her to get to a pump. Jenna put the nozzle into the gas tank and began pumping. It took a minute before the tank was filled. When she was done Jenna went inside to pay for the gas and get her drink. Inside the gas Jenna immediately went to the drink cooler. She grabbed a can of Red Bull energy drink and went to the counter. While Jenna waited in line she heard the news from a TV behind the counter. A reporter said, “I am reporting live here in Kherson city in Ukraine where there has been extreme acts of violence taking place. We had to take refuge in Hotel Kherson due to the violence. I think that we are safe for now but I cannot say for sure if the building will be safe for very long. People have been banging on the front doors. There are unconfirmed reports of the Ukrainian Armed Forces blocking access in and out of the city. I won’t lie, I am terrified. Ukrainian President Poroshenko has announced that several cities have been placed under quarantine. The occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and Autonomous Republic of Crimea have confirmed cases of violence”. The reporter was cut off and the feed switched to the news desk. Jenna reached the front counter to pay for her gas and drink. She told the clerk, “Things are getting crazy in Europe”. The clerk raised an eyebrow and responded, “Yeah I know. My brother in Bulgaria has told me about it. Now your total comes to $15.50”. Jenna pulled out her credit card to pay for it. Once she paid the total she left in her car. Jenna drove back on to the road and went to the high school. |
I am having both an intersex trans character and an AMAB trans character. They will cross paths and become a group of apocalypse survivors. --Trans Fem Agenda 20:30, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
- Lame. 71.208.106.111 (talk) 05:36, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
- The name 'Jenna' appears too many times; it is probably best not to mention 'well known brands' (for various reasons), and too much background detail - readers may get bored.
- Consider joining various story writing discussion groups, and look at stories on various sites (AO3 might be useful - though this story is probably not within its remit). Anna Livia (talk) 18:48, 8 June 2025 (UTC)
- I do relate to hearing the same Journey song on a classic rock radio station every fucking hour. The only thing worse is 'Piano Man,' It's 2025, Classic rock stations can afford to play some deeper cuts already. Being said, 'Don't Stop Believing' is actually a uniquely darkly funny thing for this character to hear after waking up from a fantasy pop star dream if it makes her sick or doesn't encourage her anymore. Reality versus dream versus everything sold. I'm not sure if you intended it that way, but it's pretty sparse so far, so my headcanon went to how annoyed I feel when I hear the same bs on classic rock radio. If that's not what intended, it's not what you intended. It would be better to explain why you chose to have the song play.
I mean, it's a fact of classic rock stations that it will play, so I'm now aware that you know how a classic rock radio station kinda works, but don't miss an opportunity to use that to further develop the character. Your EBS paragraph is very detailed and easy to read, and I know you know I know why. But the whole thing is fact after fact, which simultaneously opens a world for interpretation for the reader and closes any intention you might have. This character has a lack of agency in a very relateable way. She must eat, she must listen to whatever is on the radio, she must get gas for her car. She is also trans and dreams of pop stardom with nobody's help. Does she hate the way people all hqve to line up at the gas pump or does she get it? Does she feel anything negative or positive from the interaction with the gas station attendant, are they a fairly constant fixture in each others' daily grind, or is he just another robot that says '$15.50'. There must be a driving reason she wants to casually tell him what she heard is going on in Europe in that moment, but I don't believe there is one. Torrent (talk) 05:36, 9 June 2025 (UTC)
- I think that I will do some rewriting on Jenna's character. --Trans Fem Agenda 13:56, 11 June 2025 (UTC)
- one panel, poorly drawn you don't have to rewrite the character necessarily, but the if you do, you have to write expressively. I am not good at drawing, I threw this together for you. I had to add some color because I was afraid some of my scratch would be unintelligible, and because I am not a great artist it didn't really help and needs some explaining. The final panel squeezes in heartbreak at paying for an energy drink and gas while knowing the bank account (upper left) is pennies, lower left is supposed to be an empty fridge, upper right is her dream and lower right is her bed. It's physically broken by the card she's handing over. If I was a better artist, this wouldn't have taken me as long and it would be less confusing in the final panel. I also chose to make Jenna at least 6 feet tall, or at least in her perspective, as noted by the thing almost all gas stations have to identify the heights of robbers and thieves or general ne'erdowells. I put the eyes in because I think Jenna would be sensitive to the gaze of others. I'm not a great artist so I'm not offended if you can't tell my intention with eye shape and pupil focal points, but I did try to make each pair of eyes it's own character. Torrent (talk) 09:50, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
- I also drew the check engine light, in the first panel, because it is kinda funny to think of a person telling their car they care when it is about to run out of gas. Being said, it's not like my check engine light hasn't been on for 6 years. Write what you know. Torrent (talk) 11:41, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
- one panel, poorly drawn you don't have to rewrite the character necessarily, but the if you do, you have to write expressively. I am not good at drawing, I threw this together for you. I had to add some color because I was afraid some of my scratch would be unintelligible, and because I am not a great artist it didn't really help and needs some explaining. The final panel squeezes in heartbreak at paying for an energy drink and gas while knowing the bank account (upper left) is pennies, lower left is supposed to be an empty fridge, upper right is her dream and lower right is her bed. It's physically broken by the card she's handing over. If I was a better artist, this wouldn't have taken me as long and it would be less confusing in the final panel. I also chose to make Jenna at least 6 feet tall, or at least in her perspective, as noted by the thing almost all gas stations have to identify the heights of robbers and thieves or general ne'erdowells. I put the eyes in because I think Jenna would be sensitive to the gaze of others. I'm not a great artist so I'm not offended if you can't tell my intention with eye shape and pupil focal points, but I did try to make each pair of eyes it's own character. Torrent (talk) 09:50, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
Popcorn time![edit]
Welp, Musk is now claiming that the reason the Epstein files were never released is because Trump is in them. If not true, that's libel, but they'd need to be released to prove libel. If true, well, not too surprising to be honest. It really feels like I'm watching my neighbors with the obviously unhealthy marriage, and Musk just called the cops on his husband Trump with a story about abusing the kids and no one is sure if it's real or not, but holy crap you two, get a divorce! CorruptUser 19:27, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- Trump threatened to smash the sports car, and Elon responded by saying he'll smash it himself CorruptUser 20:16, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- Two rich, privileged men almost equally divorced from reality slinging insults. It certainly is popcorn time.20:26, 5 June 2025 (UTC)Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)"
- It's almost certainly true that he's "in them" in the sense his name probably comes up at least once. I don't think he's made a libelous statement in that regard. (But as always, and obligatorily, I am not a lawyer.) The allegation that this is the reason they haven't been released might actually be the riskier claim. Chillpilled (talk) 20:51, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- So how big a ball of wool after the cat or cats have got to it will 48 have to disentangle - Europe will be treating the US as an unreliable ally, Canada and Mexico will have built walls, businesses will have found new trading routes, and the MAGAists will be annoyed that the promised bigly beautiful land swimming with crypto and the rest of it is replaced by tariff-hiked prices, and the global reach of American universities has been curtailed, while businesses have gone into quiet mode. (Simplifying.) And are the rats (Whether or not chatty) leaving the sinking ship? Anna Livia (talk) 23:31, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
Now Bannon asks for Musk to be deported. I wonder if this will affect Trump's support for white refugees from South Africa? That was almost certainly a Musk idea.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 06:25, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
- I doubt Trump is seriously implicated in the Epstein files, you'd think that would have come out during the Biden administration. He may be mentioned. Christopher (talk) 15:43, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
- I personally took Musk's accusation as seriously as his "Twitter files" bullshit. (Plus, Musk loves to whip out the "pedo card" anytime he is feuding. It's well beyond the "boy who cried wolf" point and now moving towards the Joseph McCarthy "have you no sense of decency?" level.)
- It's very clear that Trump was in the same "social scene" that Epstein was and that Trump knew of Epstein. But this is true of a lot of other people (including Elon Musk himself, who was photographed with Epstein partner-in-crime Ghislaine Maxwell once). I don't see any evidence that it went further than that.
- The main thing this might pierce (well, likely not, but here's hoping) is the cult of those QAnon weirdos who were both quick to play bullshit "pedo" accusations on their "political enemies" and simultaneously worship at the alter of Trump. Yeah, about that... (Forget the Epstein stuff, just revisit what happened when Trump owned some beauty pageants...) BobJohnson (talk) 16:15, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
- The photo of Musk with Maxwell is clearly less troubling than the Trump-Epstein photos. The only known photo of Maxwell & Musk was in 2014 with Maxwell slightly behind Musk, years after Epstein's 2008 Florida conviction, and presumably in the post-pimping era of Epstein-Maxwell. The Trump-Epstein photos however were in 1992 and clearly show them conversing in some of them. Bongolian (talk) 02:50, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
- It should be interesting to see how it plays out. On the one hand the MAGA crowd get excited about what they believe to the government hiding information and they get really worked up over alleged pedophilia rings which include government officials and the rich and the famous. So in theory this should be red meat for them.
- On the other hand, when Trump boasted about assaulting sexually women in the "Access Hollywood" tape the response was, "Yaa, well, he does that sort of stuff, cut him some slack."Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 20:15, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
- Once again, I think folks are missing the real point/issue here. In that there is [I think] significant risk that this rift becomes permanent, deep and vicious. Just think; psychologically they are pretty similar to each other, and as this includes 'being massive dick-swinging arrogant arseholes with very thin skins, a huge mouth, a tendency to hold grudges and an expectation they can do whatever the fuck they like' - they could end up shunting each other into positions they can't climb down from. In some ways, they're a father-son duo minus the genetic relationship. And just like any ambitious son with a doddering father - the son thinks the father is an outdated has-been who needs to realise the shift in power while the father thinks the son is an arrogant little oik who needs to put in his place.
- Ultimately, Trump is capable of utterly destroying Musk. But to do so would be such an blatant and illegal manner it might be Trump's undoing. Not only would Musk be able to 'get some good licks in' as he went down but it's also quite possible it would scare witless the entire super-rich class. Not out of any love for the Boor but out of a sudden realisation that they were also at risk from the Orange Autocrat's revenge. Assuming that this isn't just a bit of dead cat crap or a spat that blows over by the weekend, they could quite possibly end up goading each other into a position where they end up ruining each other. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:43, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
- The "tech bro" alliance with the Christian/white nationalist fascists was always tenuous; many observers before now thought that a blow-up between the two was a "when" thing, not an "if". This is the second major "Internet popcorn drama" in several months between the two cultures (with the H1B bruhaha drama being only a few months ago). I do wonder if this episode makes some of the Thiel-type "tech bros" reconsider this recent support of oligarchy and fascism. I don't have high hopes for people like Thiel who are have been invested in this philosophy for decade, but perhaps more recent hanger-ons (like the Ycombinator leadership) will "wake up".
- Already, there is a good lesson here as well about the "government=bad" true believers that fight long and hard to make sure the government does nothing and private business does everything. Right now, you now have a situation where a Popcorn Drama has the possibility of torching all the crap the US government has siphoned off to Musk's companies, some of which actually might be extremely relevant in things like "national security". It's possible that things like "the one remaining US link to the International Space Station" and "critical satellite launch capability" teeter in the balance of this stupid feud. Way to go, privatization dorks!
- Honestly, the super-rich class (those with functioning brain cells, not the rich dimwit twits of the GOP) already are a bit nervous about the "toddler-named budget bill"... you can look at the bond and currency markets as a tell. The debt path the US is on is likely unsustainable, particularly since the madness of the GOP makes the United States less safe and stable. And this on top of the random tariffs, which creates something biz people really hate -- "uncertainty". I don't blame Elon for being mad about the bill. (Though of course Musk's solutions are shit; I wouldn't be surprised if his DOGE wrecking ball bullshit actually costs the US government way more than they saved in the end.) IMHO any sensible path out will involve raising taxes above all. (Maybe some other reforms too, but US safety nets run pretty lean already.) BobJohnson (talk) 00:52, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
- Ultimately, Trump is capable of utterly destroying Musk. But to do so would be such an blatant and illegal manner it might be Trump's undoing. Not only would Musk be able to 'get some good licks in' as he went down but it's also quite possible it would scare witless the entire super-rich class. Not out of any love for the Boor but out of a sudden realisation that they were also at risk from the Orange Autocrat's revenge. Assuming that this isn't just a bit of dead cat crap or a spat that blows over by the weekend, they could quite possibly end up goading each other into a position where they end up ruining each other. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:43, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
There is a pathway for Trump to severely damage Musk that is likely be legal. There was a WaPo report in 2024. Musk "worked illegally in the United States as he launched his entrepreneurial career after ditching a graduate studies program in California, according to former business associates, court records and company documents obtained by The Washington Post."[6] That was at a time when he had a student visa and did not have the right to work in the US. The WaPo report stated that when he applied for US citizenship, he would have been asked if he had ever worked illegally in the US. If he had told the truth, it would have been highly likely that his citizenship request would have been denied. If he lied, it would have been fraud and legal grounds for revoking his citizenship. He apparently still has Canadian and South African citizenship, and if so he couldn't argue that depriving him of US citizenship would make him stateless. "To paraphrase the obnoxious and misleading public service announcements of the secretary of Homeland Security: Leave now, and maybe you’ll be able to come back again in the future"—Bill Ong Hing, a professor and associate dean at the University of San Francisco School of Law.[7] Bongolian (talk) 03:06, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
- It would be the funniest fucking shit in the world if Trump deported Elon. Antares (talk) 10:24, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
- Being deported wouldn't hugely hurt Musk. His power-base, wealth etc will remain [though he would have to do WFH for Tesla etc, but he's never been bothered when seen to be a hypocrite in the past]. What's more, it's very likely he could wrap it up with a ton of appeals while remaining in-country, finally ending up in front of a judge who shall either dismiss or hand out a loose-change [for them] fine. That's the way America works for the super-rich. Normally.
- But if in this new MAGA America, the Boor cannot find a white shoe to defend him [Trump has vowed to destroy any lawyer firm which 'defends enemies' and has extorted ~$50m IOUs for future services from them], if the Administration unilaterally cancels Musk contracts for no decent reason and appeals are dismissed immediately, if they order Tesla etc to fire Musk and they comply after the company is attacked with a horde of Federal agencies, they successfully bully the banks and funds to pull the plug on xAI so Twitter runs out of cash and is put in a fire-sale for the debts and lastly, they make up charges of Musk's personal wealth being 'proceeds of crime' [or whatever Americans call it] and his own assets get frozen and unable to be unlocked. What message does that send to the super-rich? That you are no longer safe. That like in Russia and China, your continued survival hinges on your ability to bend knee to the throne and kiss the Orange One's ring. And don't fucking tell me 'that cannot happen here'. Dictatorships are built over time, they're not pop-up tents. In more general terms, an 'extralegal fight' like I've laid out before very well might be the final nail in outsider investor confidence in the USA - the key part being 'America respects all the rights of private capital and the rich' and to break Musk will require the breaking of those maxims in a very public manner.
- Which is why I think there's some courtiers in both camps trying to engineer some form of truce. That they're smart enough to realise that such a fight - if it went down to the wire - would seriously damage both. But the issue is that it would be a truce. A rickety rapprochement which would snap in no short order, due to the reasons I've outlined above. It's the classic example of a clash between an 'overmighty subject' and a monarch. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:07, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
- Elon Musk deleted his posts about Epstein/Trump last night (still discoverable here). I think this feud is fizzling out fast. But Trump doesn't forget something like this. Even if they reconcile to an extent, which isn't guaranteed, I think the trust is broken severely. Musk has stopped firing on him, and Trump is "more sad than angry at Musk". Musk's dad Errol texted him telling him to "make sure this fizzles out". What's more likely than anything to reignite it at the moment, in my view, is if Trump decides to drop some insulting comment about Musk that he'll be too prideful to avoid responding in turn to. The Atlantic posted an article about the feud, from which I'll highlight two excerpts: Trump aides called Musk a druggie, and the writer speculates that Musk taking credit for the 2024 election outcome may have actually been more offensive to Trump than insinuating he raped kids. Chillpilled (talk) 11:52, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
- Which is why I think there's some courtiers in both camps trying to engineer some form of truce. That they're smart enough to realise that such a fight - if it went down to the wire - would seriously damage both. But the issue is that it would be a truce. A rickety rapprochement which would snap in no short order, due to the reasons I've outlined above. It's the classic example of a clash between an 'overmighty subject' and a monarch. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:07, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
As a side note, Alex Jones has infuriated the MAGA horde by demanding Trump respond to Elon's Epstein Files accusation. Antares (talk) 11:50, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
- There's a parallel here with Putin's rise to power. The post-Soviet oligarchs polled Russians about their fictional heroes. A consistent one was from a popular TV show about a KGB agent in Germany at the end of WWII, bringing down the Nazis. Hoping to find someone they could control, the oligarchs searched for someone that they could portray as being similar to the fictional protagonist of the TV show. They found Putin, an obscure KGB officer who was a desk jockey. His obscurity was probably an asset at the time, since they could portray him however they liked. At some point after Putin's fraudulent election victories, the oligarchs had buyer's remorse since Putin was now the top oligarch, the capo di tutti capi in Mafia parlance, with the wheels of government firmly in his grip. Some of the oligarchs were even getting imprisoned, having their assets seized, or fleeing in exile. Bongolian (talk) 16:57, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
- Sorta.
- After the collapse of the USSR, a bunch of young 'Western-minded' ideologies and budding businesspeople teamed up to bring Western-style capitalist democracy to Russia. They generally speaking, failed. SoL fell for years, the country fell apart, crime was rampant and our businesspeople became the oligarchs who realised that theft of natural resources or off the state was the way to make money, not painstakingly rebuilding old tank plants in the Urals or other 'productive' entrepreneurial activity. This hugely discredited both our Reformers and Oligarchs in the eyes of both the Big Public but also the old nomenklatura [army officers, spies, apparatchiks etc] who'd lost much power/wealth/status from the capitalist revolution. The death knell was in 1998 - when a severe economic crisis robbed them of their remaining credence of being 'good with the economy' when most of the Russian middle class lost their shirts.
- Yeltsin was a canny drunk and had always see-sawed between the reformers and the nomenklatura for his own gain - and now he pulled hard towards the nomenklatura, following public opinion. But insiders knew Yeltsin's health was now fragile and might lose the 2000 election. So they started to look for a successor, in which Yeltsin 'tried out' possibles [must be loyal, clever, cunning and willing to protect Yeltin's faction from future retribution] by appointing them Prime Minister. He tried out three others before selecting Putin and liking what he saw, allowed him to become 'acting president' and then won the election. The 'oligarchs' as a rule had nothing to do with this selection; though at this point Putin was such a nonentity they could manipulate.
- But in Putin's mind, they were the 'overmighty subjects' which were to be brought to heel. The 'offer' he gave them was simple; surrender some of your wealth, all of your political pretensions and bow to the Throne - or else. Most bowed. Most of the minority quietly packed their bags. A few headstrong types decided to fight, and lost - their empires demolished in a vaguely quasi-legal manner. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:51, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
- @KarmaPolice, My statement was based on memory from having read Timothy Snyder's book The Road to Unfreedom. What he actually said was "The wealthy few around Yeltsin, christened the 'oligarchs,' wished to manage democracy in his favor and theirs." (page 43) and 3 paragraphs later regarding Yeltsin's deterioration, "A successor was needed who would allow Yeltsin's family (in both the normal sense of his relatives and in the Russian sense of friendly oligarchs) to stay alive and maintain their wealth. 'Operation Successor,' as the challenge was known in the Kremlin, had two stages: finding a new man who was not a known associate of Yeltsin, and then inventing a fake problem that he could appear to absolve." (page 44) The following paragraph then describes the plan to find someone to fit the mold of the fictional KBG agent matching the TV show Moments of Spring. Bongolian (talk) 00:49, 11 June 2025 (UTC)
- But in Putin's mind, they were the 'overmighty subjects' which were to be brought to heel. The 'offer' he gave them was simple; surrender some of your wealth, all of your political pretensions and bow to the Throne - or else. Most bowed. Most of the minority quietly packed their bags. A few headstrong types decided to fight, and lost - their empires demolished in a vaguely quasi-legal manner. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:51, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
Possible invasion of Moldova?[edit]
10,000 Russian troops are being sent to Transnistria. Invasion plot or dick waving? --Trans Fem Agenda 13:19, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
- Strap-on waving. At best they can send 10,000 people minus their kit because neither Ukraine or Romania will allow them to import their gear with them. I think the word 'seeks' is the important bit. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:26, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
- All mouth no trews?
- Also 'weapon of offer of automatic non-presence in Russian army and a (relatively) better economy'? Anna Livia (talk) 13:04, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
That time an incel fundie gamer made a game to "PWN" the LGBTQ+ community...[edit]
And ended up getting his crap banned, because he also put AI CSAM in it. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 13:31, 6 June 2025 (UTC)
- Got something that isn't a link to some ragebait anti-woke site? Paul S (talk) 22:47, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
- I haven't honestly heard of this guy. From what I can tell, you wouldn't have heard of him unless you are one of those "woke derangement syndrome" gamers who gets EXTREMELY ANGRY when, say, a female with any sort of agency appears in any game.
- Anyways, based on a couple of Reddits [8][9] this guy put in some scenes of CSAM (including reportedly a scene of 10 year old strippers, of which one was modeled off his own daughter) in his latest shit anti-woke "game". "It's Reddit" so take with a grain of salt, but it's believable to a degree; no matter how much some whine about being censored, gaming platforms don't really tend to mass ban you like this merely for being "anti-woke". BobJohnson (talk) 15:44, 8 June 2025 (UTC)
- He ended up ranting and denying about it on Twitter. His braindead fundie audience (yeah, he's christian) are constantly shifting the blame to those who see CP in it, because, for some reason, this must mean they are the real pedos. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 09:15, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
Y'all Are Never Gonna Believe This, But...[edit]
I have started smoking cigarettes again. I went out for one just an hour ago, and some guy was standing, staring at his phone. He didn't notice me at all, so I paid attention to him. He was a little wobbly, and when he finally looked up, he saw me. He asked if I could call him an uber, I said no, he said he could venmo or cash app me the cost, I said honestly I don't use those. He asked me if I could drive him to a... Posh suburb, because he was trying to get home. I remarked he must be lost if he's trying to get there, but no, since I've been drinking. He said ok, thanks, and then started to stumble off. So I stopped him, asked if he needed help downloading the app or some shit. He had it downloaded but had no idea where he was, so I helped him get an uber nearby, and walked him to it. It was kinda funny, the 'use my location' didn't work at all, but it was close. He put the driver on speakerphone and I was able to talk him into a spot less than a quarter mile away and walked the guy there until he saw the hazard lights on his driver's car. The whole time, I just kept telling him 'you're making the smart move, don't drive when you're drunk.' He kept thanking me and I kept telling him, 'I don't really give a shit". If I hadn't been so focused on getting him to his Uber, I might have remembered to tell him I've seen a kid lying dead in the street from a drunk driving collision. But I'm here posting about being punk as shit, I can't let a drunk kid wander aimless 20 miles from home. He made a good decision, Iunno why people find me in these small crises, but I told him 'I been where you're at and I wish somebody had helped me out, I'm serious, driving drunk is big dumb, I'm helping you because you're doing the right thing.' If it gets through to him by the morning, cool. But I did safely walk him to his uber, so he's not gonna spend the night asleep in somebody's lawn. The dude literally said to the uber driver over the phone 'OK, I will approach your vehicle and say my name is...' So like, baby's first time away from home. But it's like, I been in so many situations where I think to myself 'I need an adult' and look around and realize 'oh... The adult is me.'. I can't claim to be punk as shit and shrug off helping out a drunk kid who might do something dumber than get an uber back home. Torrent (talk) 10:21, 7 June 2025 (UTC)