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Welcome, BoN
This is a place for general chit-chat about virtually anything that doesn't fit anywhere else.
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Pointless poll

Is 'America' a country or a continent?

Continent

57

Vote

Landmass

15

Vote

Continent where the United States of America (Anglo-Saxon oligarchy) are situated

15

Vote

A very dangerous continent, according to the US state department's travel advice (reliable).

10

Vote

Why can't Americans get a real name?

31

Vote

Gringo country

4

Vote

Yankee country

19

Vote

Ami country

2

Vote

'Ricains country

1

Vote

Arrogant tourists

14

Vote

Is 'Europe' a real continent?

Yes

85

Vote

No

54

Vote

Who's the wanker in the black?

a referee

6

Vote

a clergyman

4

Vote

a police officer

4

Vote

a traffic warden

1

Vote

Satan

5

Vote

Dracula

17

Vote

Batman

4

Vote

Zorro

2

Vote

Keir Starmer in a black suit

6

Vote

Elon Musk in a black baseball cap

72

Vote

Donald Trump in the black suit he couldn't be bothered to wear to the Pope's funeral

5

Vote

It's the end of the world as we know it. Do you feel fine?

Yes

192

Vote

No

456

Vote

My enemy is...

Pigeons

20

Vote

Geese

126

Vote

Ducks

8

Vote

Corvids

25

Vote

Gulls

47

Vote

Starlings

14

Vote

Owls

5

Vote

Parakeets

5

Vote

Hawks

6

Vote

Cliff Racers

71

Vote

Zubat

93

Vote

Has KarmaPolice been watching The Birds?

144

Vote

To do list

A fundie school worthy of an article

https://trinitysouthwest.com/

This unaccredited Christian College boasts an Archeology program. It is apparently located at a strip mall in New Mexico. --Trans Fem Agenda 17:46, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

It looks like a scam operation, like Trump University. But unlike TU, at TSU the victims will probably never come forward to protest as their motives would not have been venal. The WP article probably has most the readily available information. Their Linked-in profile claims 11-50 employees. AI search result: less than 25. Very likely less than 11. For contrast an AP investigation found TU had at least 107 employees. I wonder if TSU is still at the "who cares" stage of existence. Their "executive dean" is alleged to be conducting archeological research in Jordan. The "University" may be a scam to finance his "research." Zatoichi (talk) 23:23, 20 September 2025 (UTC)
There is a similar fundie school that boasts an Archeology program- Veritas International University. Unlike Trinity Southwest University, VIU is accredited by TRACS. It is also worthy of an article. --Trans Fem Agenda 12:49, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
Or maybe don't make more crappy stubs on missional but non-noteworthy topics. 143.223.148.64 (talk) 15:05, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
This may be worthy of a paragraph in the Fundie school article, but it doesn't look like it is worthy of a dedicated article. I've already started merging several other stubby similar articles into the Fundie school page since they've been sitting around for ten years or more with no substantial improvement. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 21:42, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
Remember there was a troll years ago obsessed with fundie colleges? Coincidence? Troll 143.223.148.64 (talk) 22:35, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

To be honest, this guy’s obsession with campus rape at fundamentalist schools is creepy. 96.71.114.113 (talk) 15:35, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Most of the fundie school articles talk about rape. It is not just me who included it. If I was obsessed with rape then I would frequently talk about it; which I don't. --Trans Fem Agenda 18:00, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

AfD starting to get a serious advantage over CDU/CSU in Germany…

That'll teach the German "middle" (classical right) a lesson on how not to treat plurality of opinions. The political culture there has moved so much rightward that it's probably to the right of most of the Anglo-Saxon world (except the USA). In France, our PM is literally being forced to go back on some points of the authoritarian neo-liberal Bayrou budget (while keeping and distracting from the most brutal parts), while in Germany, which doesn't have half of the French social state (not even a really universal public insurance), they too debate on the "sustainability of the social state" (after spending a ridiculous amount of money on the military to warmonger). New world (talk) 10:38, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

I see it as part of the job of the 'mainstream right' to always question core 'mainstream left' assumptions, like the size/shape of the welfare state. Just like it is the job of them to question back the ideas that capitalism is always good and the elevation of finance over everything else. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:17, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
Love being in the generation who came of age during the resurgence of 20th century far right authoritarianism in every country simultaneously. This time it looks like it can't be stopped.OrangeFlavorAid (talk) 11:58, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
One interesting wrinkle from a Europe perspective is that there seems to be an emergence of a "softer hard right" in some quarters which maintains the xenophobic policies and "traditional values" shit of the populist right, but is softer on the whole burn-the-institutions-to-the-ground thing you saw with the hard right in Europe in the 1990s, and is a wee bit less dogmatic, a wee bit more practical, and a wee bit less full on authoritarian. Giorgia Meloni is a great example of this sort of figurehead.
My impression from this Economist article is that the AfD is still in the burn-to-the-ground stage. The Economist thus believes that this limits the AfD's popularity to where it has always done well -- namely, the former communist bloc and poorer and/or more rural areas. We'll see if The Economist view is right, I suppose. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 16:07, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
Eh, with National Rally it's mostly just pretend, they adopted the exact opposite strategy to what the US-Republican Party adopted: they try to be the most "mainstream" looking politicians ever, but they sort of fail at that when looking at their electorate and speeches. I honestly don't know what happened exactly in Italy, but so far the projects National Rally has been able to pass (immigration law voted with macronists in 2023 and severely undermining the century old right of soil for acquiring citizenship, to the benefit of the right of blood) have not been very "moderate". The AfD has been moving in the opposite direction (so much that National Rally "distanced" themselves from the AfD as a PR stunt to attract "moderate far-right" voters). Höcke is starting to take control of the party through various intrigues, and it's scary. But it's not like the "moderate" parts of the party are better—they are basically ultra-liberals who want to do a Milei on Germany. New world (talk) 16:21, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

Not yet. They are currently tied in the polls: https://dawum.de/Bundestag/#Umfrageverlauf Äxl (talk) 07:22, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

There are so many problems with the current immigration system in most Euro countries that I can sympathize with the people voting for AfD, Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, etc etc. It's not the right thing, but I understand it. Almost none of the people ordered to deport from the EU actually get deported because the Euro Human Rights Commission prevents it. There are migrants that really do just get free housing and benefits while not working, ever. There's a massive gender imbalance in the migrants that have come. Women are getting harassed at rates not seen 20 years ago.
The thing is, all of these problems are fixable with only a few reforms, they've been fixable for decades, but none of the parties have the will do it. So yeah, I understand why some Euros would be attracted to the "no immigrants at all" parties. CorruptUser 21:43, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
The problems are being exaggerated, @CorruptUser, and sending back criminals is definitely not the method. They are now in the country and you can't just decide to send them away. The truth: defending the popular classes today means defending the immigrants ("defending immigration" means absolutely nothing, it's a natural process which shouldn't be "debated"). They are the new popular classes, it is obvious that crime rates are in the majority linked to this fact: Immigrants might statistically commit more crimes in some countries, but that is because of their socio-economic status. These people had to leave because of things they don't control: if you want to talk about "fixable" problems, fine, but those problems concern Western Europe's foreign policy (preventing immigration by assuring better living conditions worldwide), not internal affairs. The only legitimate "problem" with the European handling of immigration would be what countries take what people. Merkel's way of playing humanist was ridiculous, as Germany didn't have the necessary equipment to handle the amount of people coming into the country. The solution: instead of harassing the Greeks, how about forcing all those little fascos in Eastern Europe and our deer Mister Valls in France to take their fair share so that every country of the European Union participates in the humanist effort. New world (talk) 12:08, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
That there are people who think "you can't just decide to send them away" is exactly why a lot of people want far stricter rules and vetting of migrants in the first place... CorruptUser 16:11, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Why is it that centrists always rush to "understand the right" but only chastise and rebuke the left? Antares (talk) 07:06, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
Because everyone already understands the Left CorruptUser 16:35, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
This is why definitions are important: "understanding" the right when you're right (or "centrist") is fine but nonsensical, understanding the left (including radical) is fine, understanding the far-right (extrême-droite) absolutely isn't. Extremism is the fundamental rejection of the republican principles (laicity, democracy, indivisibility, and social politics), which only the revolutionary (far-)left and communatarian (far-)right do. The latter two are therefore extremist (and figures of the radical left aren't). Hence, establishing an equivalency between, to take the example of the USA, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump is completely ludicrous and dangerous for the Republic. New world (talk) 10:24, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

New book written by correspondent of centre-right Figaro journal reveals Macron wanted National Rally to win the 2024 elections

Wally Bordas, a correspondent of the traditional right-wing (occasionally far-right now too since 2024) journal Le Figaro, usually considered the right-wing equivalent of the centre-left Le Monde, claims that Macron's plan in 2024 was for the National Rally to come to power… He literally made phone calls to the National Rally to help them against La France Insoumise… Apparently, the very light "blocking" situation since 2022 (no absolute majority thanks to the leftist alliance coming second, but a fairly implicit alliance between macronists and the classical right LR) and the subsequent situation at the European elections pushed Macron to try let National Rally govern to show that they only bring chaos. All of this from a centre-right to occasionally far-right/National Rally-friendly journal… here it is. The situation very clearly resembles that of Hindenburg in the 1930s… The left alliance stopped these plans from happening though, and now Macron is in a real blocking situation as long as he doesn't do compromise. He tried with the far-right, but now he considers them unreliable and wants to give concessions to the left (but, hey, naming a leftist PM like you do in a coalition where the left has more representation isn't in his agenda apparently). New world (talk) 21:21, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

Compare and contrast

George Orwell - 'War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength'

Donald Trump [1]

What would Orwell say of the Donald? Anna Livia (talk) 18:40, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Its the Rapture today

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/rapture-happening-tomorrow-pastor-claims-180138800.html

So today is the Rapture. How many idiots believe this? --Trans Fem Agenda 10:40, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

This has been the cause of some serious psychological torment on my mind over the last month. Patty Pat 14:59, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
Really weird how a rando South African "preacher" that I literally cannot find any spec of Internet history on leapt out of nowhere to become the latest poprapture craze. From what I can tell, the source of the video is a reasonably long running "CENTTWINZ.TV" YouTube channel, run by two South African Internet influencer / preacher / minor actress types, that gets modest, but not huge, views. Adding to the weirdness is that my first impression is that this YouTube channel is not the typical hellfire damnation Jesus most Rapture "prophecies" comes from, and more like an Oprah Winfrey-ish lifestyle / touchy-feely oriented thing. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 15:24, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
Is this the right place to make a rapture/raptor joke? Koafox (talk) 17:43, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
The crapture is the day-after event when one realizes that one was shat upon by a false prophet. Bongolian (talk) 18:03, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
Maybe the rapture did happen but only a handful of people were worthy. And there are always as few people who disappear on and given day. So how could one test for raptured or disappeared?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:04, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
Crappo. My last day on earth, what did I do? Clearing the large clothing repairs/alterations pile, cleaning leather goods for winter and then spending £75 on tiles for the bathroom... KarmaPolice (talk) 19:11, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
You did more than me. I just played Dragon Quest 3 and read stuff. If the world was going to end, screw being productive. Kencolt (talk) 11:27, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
Just imagine he benefits if it did happen - the USA could become a civilised country again - you could have affordable health care, minority rights, and just a general benefit from having fewer arses-holes around!! 19:50 UTC on 23rd right now - leaving it to the last minute I guess..... Aloysius the Gaul (talk)
Since it's South Africa, the big thing brought up in the OG video was there would be no World Cup 2026 due to, y'know, the tribulation and all. Ohnoez!
South Africa's GMT+2 though, so from my point of view, this "prediction" needs to happen in about an hour and change.
(Dear future prophet scam artists: for greater success, *always* put your doomsday predictions far past when you die, because you can milk it for all it is worth with you are alive, and never have egg on your face when the prediction fails, as they all do. Bonus points if you fuzzy up the language your "visions of the future" to the point where it can predict everything and nothing.) 47.197.76.134 (talk) 20:54, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
I am seeing plenty of memes on social media. If the Rapture is real, can I get free stuff from people who ascended to heaven? --Trans Fem Agenda 21:23, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
Yes and no. It's all about how many do ascend to heaven. If it's only a few, chances are the 'ascendees' will be simply treated as dead and stuff distributed accordingly. And the normal machinery of govt etc will continue to function. However, if 'too many' people vanish but also 'not enough', you'll face the spectre of an orgy of 'taking' because the machinery has split apart but there's still too many folks about. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:43, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
Heads up heathens! YOU can help out with the rapture. Act NOW!Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 05:50, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
It's been awhile since I read Revelation, but wasn't the folks left behind meant to suffer through oceans of shit, due to it being the End Of Time®? In that case, euthanising them might be the kindest of options... KarmaPolice (talk) 08:39, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
Can't remember. But even so - "We will come round and take care of your pets after the rapture" is probably an easier sell than, "We will come round and kill your pets after the rapture"!Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 10:34, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
And you can be much more smug when they come and ask for them back.... Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 22:40, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
As the RW Rapture article points out, the Biblical justification for the fundie "dispensational premillennialism" Rapture is actually very shaky. The justification for this bullshit isn't even found in Revelations (of which I personally side with the scholars who see it as code for Roman time events, but never mind that), it's based of of a small snippet of 1 Thessalonians. My half-joke/half-truth about this la-te-da is that it's a bunch of malarky John Nelson Darby came up with after severely injuring himself falling off a horse.
Generally, I see Rapture obsession as a sign of supercilious idiocy, that you are somehow a chosen one, and certainly not those gosh darn evil Other who will suffer when The Time Comes for their... otherness, I guess. Now, the Bible has numerous versus tut-tutting the self-righteous. But never mind those inconvenient verses in modern Christianity, eh? 47.197.76.134 (talk) 15:02, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
I find it perplexing that so many rationalists ridicule such phenomena as this rapture-type syndrome, when it is clearly dependent upon a group of mentally unstable individuals. Fascism, for example, unempathetic as it usually may be, is solidly sane compared to the belief in Rapture theology. That is to say, making fun of crazy people makes me uncomforable. Sorry...Zatoichi (talk) 17:17, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
I certainly don't equate religious belief with insanity and I think it's insulting to do so. I equate religious belief with with indoctrination. Having said that, any weird belief - from fascism to flat-earthism to homeopathy - is worthy of ridicule.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 07:20, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
There is also a lot of overlap between these weird beliefs that is itself worthy of examination (and ridicule). Antares (talk) 11:31, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
Sure, if you have one objectively weird belief like "the Earth is 6,000 years old" then, in order to defend that belief, you need a lot of subsequent nonsense beliefs. But it's still not an indication that people are "mentally unstable". That would be like equating "wrong" or "misinformed" with "mental instability".Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 12:10, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you here. Antares (talk) 12:14, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
OK, I think maybe I wasn't quite sure of your point. Good to see that we are of the same mind. :-)Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 12:17, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
Nah. On the receiving end, yes it is true that there's some crazy people who believe in Rapture theology. But there's also relatively sane people who believe this shit simply because they are self-righteous assholes.
On the "preachers" who spout Rapture theology, there's also some kooks, but also plenty of opportunists, charlatans, and con artists.
Trumpist style fascism is all about giving self-righteous rubes the validation the want, that They are the Right Kind of Us, and the World's Sins are the fault of the Other. And simultaneously drain the rubes' bank account.
A lot of "fundie phenomenon" is frankly the same. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 18:35, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Remember (to borrow from 'other sources') that 'the Mark of the Beast' reads 'Not fit for consumption.' Anna Livia (talk) 18:20, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree that there are con artists who convince people to give up their worldly possessions. The people who believe it are the victims. It is not relatively sane to believe that I will be lifted from the world and saved while everyone else is left behind. That's like the top end of a serious manic depressive condition. But oh well, I didn't say not to laugh at them. It just seems vain and pointless to do so. These people can't be talked out of being loopy. Zatoichi (talk) 20:13, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
What is strange is, according to a ton of doctrine, the rapture would take, like, nobody who is begging to be taken in the rapture, because that's such a selfish desire and would end all evangelizing. 'We gotta save everyone until Tuesday when we all get to finally fuck off forever, grr, Mondays are the worst' like, don't you enjoy being alive? The absolute eagerness to speed run this life and get to heaven is fuckin culty. I won't even deny the fucking idea, maybe the rapture happened, but guess what, you weren't taken up to heaven, because your yappin ass 'It's gonna be me and not a lot of you' smug assholes didn't deserve to go either. Torrent (talk) 11:24, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Am I in a manic phase?

I received the diagnosis of you know what by the name of this subsection on Monday. Apparently, all of what I had seen as a linear development was actually cyclical, and all I did in response to the psychiatrist's comments was laugh and say "Yeah that's it", without any doubt whatsoever. Next, while taking public transportation, I thought "Oh god, what an idiot, he's really stupid, and I thought I had to be scared of him…". I see him bc of what appears to be a previous manic Pease march last year. But then, I thought "even though this is complete bullshit, can I use it to my advantage by staying up late at night and working at that time and having the day for?". Maybe my psychiatrists identification of my currently state and its cause wasn't so bad after all. But then, the next day, I suddenly realised that since Saturday the last week everything I was legit thinking or doing or thinking was fine to do was completely insane. Now, bc I'm starting to do craze things on social media and telling lies to everyone I'm starting to see ppl who saw my manic phase last year and who apparently remember it. I hoped I could separate forever from it but now I'm being bullied bc of it. I did really unforgivable stuff but… ugh whatever I'm not gonna try you get it right. And I'm trying to stop but I realise almost everything I think right now is bullshit EXCEPT for the fact that I "know" that deeeep inside me, and that I sort of but not really as its bullshit but ey might comment on social media on it have a cause for all of this. I know I should be seeing my psych (I wanted an extra late meeting from him bc I felt sooo happy and good and everything) but I still don't really believe its not bullshit and the internet is there for posting bullshit. Anyway this is 100% serious I don't like other social media I'm not really anonymous there I can only ask this here as I don't trust others. I also start thinking the entire world is talking abt me and what I did. Pls I know medical advice is not allowed but I AM NOT GOING TO GET MEDICAL ADVICE FROM A PROFESSIONAL NOW and that's just what it is. 2A01:E0A:A84:5C70:B190:D3EC:ECB:73C0 (talk) 17:27, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Are you asking if your entry in the Saloon Bar looks like the rambling of a person in a manic state? If so, yeah, kind of. I mean, not necessarily, but there's not a whole lot that makes me think, 'Nope, definitely not manic'. But here's something to consider. I've always been prone to pretty bad migraines, ones that can take days or even a week sometimes to get over. Usually that means lying in a dark room in agony, but lately I haven't been getting the excruciating head pain part of the migraine. I still get all the lead-up symptoms that usually precede a headache, like visual strobing, and food tasting really good. They call these 'body migraines', but when I get them I behave in strange ways as my thinking is impaired. And since I'm not stuck in a dark room in terrible pain when these body migraines happen, I'm doing all kinds of things that are not part of my normal routine. My point is, I could easily see myself getting diagnosed as having a 'manic episode' if I were to present to psychiatric professional while in the midst of a body migraine. It is possible that you might have a physical, rather than psychological, impetus for your behavior. It may not be a body migraine, but there are other conditions that can mimic manic behavior, like blood-sugar spiking and plunging from undiagnosed diabetes. If you think your psyche-professional's diagnosis is inaccurate, you could be right. 2A0C:5700:3133:1705:BE24:11FF:FED1:B9D9 (talk) 09:07, 26 September 2025 (UTC)
I received a diagnosis of b. diss. (I literally avoid saying or writing it now lol) and I think what my psych called a "mild version of m. phase" or hypom. might be going away after a week of pretty much ruining everything but I don't know if I its gone tomorrow. Basically I know something's wrong but I just don't know much more and I still don't believe and yet believe in that stupid diagnosis I swear I'm normal most times but now I'm super irritated and paranoid and yet sort of high and happy. I literally did three white nights and what really strikes me is that the diagnosis might potentially be right but I don't know if this thinking the diagnosis is right is also just the "phase" or not. I'll have to sleep over it and hopefully tomorrow everything will be back to normal. I did something really really really really really really really (and etc.) horrible last year and I my behaviour has driven (as already said) some witnesses to bully me to a point where I feel like I don't know what to do with the accusations and yet I don’t care and it's super weird. I don't know if I really have it or not and I might wake up tomorrow fine again and forget. I mean he also told me that I was not very severe and that I would be able to do self-control by not talking to others but that didn't work out crazy for now and while I'm starting to feel better I still have this weird thing I don't know. Maybe it's just bullshit (I still don't fully believe in it). I won't tell this to anyone as I don't want any problems and I have been effectively dealing with this for some time now. What really strikes me now is just the fact that my previous actions last year will continue to haunt me unless I change places. I was fired and completely separated for some time from my previous social environment but now I came back and it's just so frustrating seeing the looks from colleagues. I did something really awkward and horrible and I don't know if it can have any physical cause as it lasted 3 months. 2A01:E0A:A84:5C70:3486:2959:E25:D1ED (talk) 19:07, 26 September 2025 (UTC)
Playing the armchair psychologist is often dangerous, I don't think this is the right place to ask these questions. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 19:11, 26 September 2025 (UTC)
Being psychotic isn't a diagnosis that you're evil or violent. But you can be tiring. I could tell you to relax, but that wouldn't work. I'm impressed you are trying to accept other viewpoints, perspective is the most important thing. Torrent (talk)
Not a joke or a phoney story, an old friend of mine was relapsing into alcoholism this past weekend. I told him all I planned to do was clean my apartment. So he came over and we cleaned my apartment, he gave me all the beer he had bought in his relapse, helped me clean up my apartment, and we reminisced and told stories of new grievances. I did, 100℅ ask him if it was okay to drink in front of him, because sobriety is hard and if he needed me to, I would have been sober too, no problem. I had La Croix seltzers that I told him to drink freely, because those kinda supplant beers for me when it's time to quit. But he helped me fix my vacuum, we had a good time talking about old times, and maybe some time as big strong men who get emotionally overwhelmed, alleged, there's no proof that either of us have emotions. We saw each other in respect and gratitude. I mean, works for me, my one bedroom apartment is gonna pass inspection like I never lived in it, works for my buddy because he wanted to do anything but drink. And he knows I fully respect that, I have never been a guy who says stupid shit like 'you don't drink?' It's my favorite hobby but I'm not great about it never being a problem, and I know how hard it must be to give up. Long story short, it might take some time for me to carve out some space for us to communicate in real time, but if you're taking it,whatever it might be, hard, maybe it could be a thing you could talk to me about. and instead of just talking about it, we could do something to start, and then find time to talk. You're never gonna believe this, but I make friends pretty easily. The trick is to listen to people, maybe you're on the tail end of a crack up. I'm in your corner, I'm a little buried these days, but I CAN find some time for you. Just, let's work it out together. I have plenty of friends with diagnoses and plenty of friends without. I probably need one myself, but believe me when I say you're not too crazy to be my friend. I honestly think you are a good person. Torrent (talk) 09:29, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
I will settle with forgetting forever (hopefully nothing happens again). It's bullshit anyway and that psych is pure evil to just mess around with my content way of doing like that. 2A01:E0A:A84:5C70:4119:342:6835:1D0E (talk) 19:03, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Template:Otherlang

I created this new template to be added to articles with versions in other languages, to automate the creation of wikitables for the links. I wanted some feedback and to ask permission before editing RW:Languages and adding this template to multiple pages across the wiki. Also, do I need to ask permission for these kinds of things ? Avionfoudingue (talk) 04:19, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

France recognises Palestine

Macron's long process of campaigning for the recognition of a state of Palestine has finally come to an end, but it remains a ridiculous attempt to save face after the disaster (of which we will learn the amplitude) in Gaza has happened already, as former foreign minister Dominique de Villepin (the one who vehemently opposed the Irak war during his mandate) has put it. It's certainly a step in the right direction, but a clear position would have been to denounce the risk of instrumentalisation by the far-right Netanyahou government since October 2023. The HAMAS was indirectly supported by LIKUD (which was opposed to FATAH and sabotaged it). The October 2023 attacks were known and tolerated by the secret services and many leading LIKUD members, there is absolutely zero excuse for the inaction of Europe. (And Germany's position just makes me want the abolition of the German foreign ministry—they are the US-American voice of Europe and at the same time the head of the EU, they are very clearly restrained by historical guilt as well, even Macron's France as the EU's centre would be better than the German government. Mitterrand was right being opposed to German reunification in 1990, the country needed more time and was not reliable because of its subordination to Russia and the USA). New world (talk) 11:17, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Diplomatic relationships between Israel and most Western nations used to run rather deeply. It takes a bit of time to unwind this stuff. I think a better way to look at Benjamin Netanyahu's horrific actions is that he's pretty much torpedoing Israel's former deep relationship with... almost everyone in the West. The recent symbolic recognitions of Palestine certainly show this. Who does he have left these days?
From my perspective, the more striking question is Israel's future with their current deepest ally, America. Trump and the Boomer-era Republicans may still be a Netanyahu ass-kisser, but when half of Republicans under 50 have an unfavorable view of Israel, kiss-ups are no longer guaranteed in the future, methinks. (A couple decades ago, Democrats also used to also universally be pro-AIPAC style Israel. Netanyahu's 15 years of bullshit torpedoed that, too, first among the youth and now among almost everyone on the "left".)
Macron and his French government I think started halting arms shipments to Israel in 2024, so I don't think this recent Palestinian recognition is the first step for his government. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 16:39, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
Depends on what nations you are talking about… Mitterrand was for a Palestinian state in the 1980s. It was a long journey for French officials and secretly arm shipments continued for some time after Macron's declarations. However, things like accusing everything and nothing of antisemitism (while also, let's not forget, planning for the National Rally, a party founded by Waffen-SS and holocaust deniers, to take power) as well as forbidding pro-Palestinian demonstrations weren't really a clear positioning. New world (talk) 16:50, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Petro and Trump

I don't know if you've been following, but Gustavo Petro's actions have only increased my respect for him, and I would like to see any European leader doing similarly (but could you imagine this? I can't in regards to most European governments). Macron did good, but he could have done way better. New world (talk) 16:47, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I would say that Spain's Pedro Sanchez is probably the most notable anti-Trump in Europe.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 06:12, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
Petro is just doing typical things for a left-wing populist leader. He is good at recognizing the genocide in Palestine, but also he likes regimes like Venezuela's. Fortunately he seems progressive on social issues, but wait till he gets better relations with Russia. We had a similar leader in Greece (Tsipras) but he quickly watered-down to a more centrist governance when he found out it isn't easy to just rebel against EU. Sanchez of Spain is the only current European leader who tries very hard to be an actual "Socialist" (not counting wacky leftist leaders such as Slovakia or Belarus)Alexk (talk) 08:03, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
He is possibly also one of the strongest pro-Ukraine voices in Europe. It's the Spanish far right (as usual) who want to cozy up to both Putin and Trump.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 10:49, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

My observation as an anarchist

As an anarchist who is vehemely opposed to democracy, I am tired of people who are hypocritically claiming they’re for democracy and fighting for democracy, then in the same breath, they support an authoritarian regime overseas. We should be opposed to all forms of fascism, not just American fascism. Being opposed to all facets of authoritarianism and totalitarianism should be a basic need for everyone. After all, every totalitarian regime has failed every time it was tried and implemented. 2607:FB90:3916:8EEC:9C72:514A:4213:CF30 (talk) 01:52, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

It seems paradoxical that you oppose authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, while vehemely opposing democracy. Maybe, as an anarchist, you oppose "Liberal Democracy" in favour of a "Direct Democracy". Ironically, the totalitarian regimes and their supporters are mostly those who preach Socialism/Communism as a way to a direct democracy, therefore propagating against the Western/Urban-class/Liberal democracies.
Or maybe you support a more chaotic concept of "Anarchy". I really doubt that it would work better than Democracy, which in turn STRUGGLES to be regulated, let alone working deregulated.
Here's one thing: EVERY form of government comes and goes. In modern days, Social Democracy has been the best-working system in many ways, yet it's in crisis and decline.
Every other attempt to progressify Democracy (namely Socialism) has indeed failed every time it has been tried and implemented. Neo-liberal/Ancap and other pseudo-economic reforms are a failure too. Far-Right/Fascists are at least "more honest" in that they work through an authoritarian regime. But their ideas aren't just "dystopic": They are deadly to human life. Alexk (talk) 07:47, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
Yes. The IP editor is rather pushing at an open door when they vehemently maintain that we should oppose fascism. I doubt that any regular editor here would hold an opposing view. However the criticism of totalitarian regimes based on the fact that every one of them has failed is not convincing - on a long enough timescale every regime fails whether it is totalitarian or not.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 08:03, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
What's entertaining is that a lot of anarchism is just an attempt to sketch a genuinely democratic society in which everyday people are not alienated from the systems that run their life because those systems are all directly and participatory in some way horizontalist way. Also I'd dispute that "Socialism has failed every time it has been tried and implemented"; there are many dark moments and junctures in the history of Socialism true but also a huge amount of progress and success. Those of us in the West just don't tend to get exposed to much of it because of the cold-war and its enduring legacy on both our media and academia - speaking as a UK resident who had family grow up in both the GDR and the USSR. Tikitime2 (talk) 18:50, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
There actually was one (mostly) Anarcho-Syndicalist country that managed to basically build itself from pre-industrialization into a regional powerhouse, but the conditions for that were so utterly bizarre that it's unlikely to ever be repeated. More importantly, they also had Democracy and after putting up with their parents shit for too long, the kids voted for Welfare-Capitalism instead, which is why you probably haven't heard that story...CorruptUser 21:34, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
Ah yes, that most anarchist of endeavors: establishing a settler colony with the backing of British (and eventually American) imperialists. Antares (talk) 23:36, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
You're ignoring the 100k who came during the end of Ottoman era, and the whole thing where the British basically declared pseudo-war on them CorruptUser 04:26, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Bob's comment on coop page

As a BoN I don't have the ability to post on the coop page but I feel like stating my opinion in response to Bob's claim that the right of an RW user to delete anything on their own talk page should not be absolute. I think it should be absolute, there is no reason that anyone, including mods and other miscellaneous administrative strongmen should have the right to invade someone's talk page. If I had the right to delete the shit from my talk page I would probably still be logging in with my account. Note that I am not saying I should have the right to post anything to my talk page, I'm saying I should have the right to delete anything from my talk page, with no justification required. Just one BoN's opinion. 2A0B:F4C2:2:0:0:0:0:33 (talk) 10:51, 29 September 2025 (UTC) An exception would be perma-banned users, since their talk pages would be unusable anyway. 2A0B:F4C2:2:0:0:0:0:33 (talk) 11:02, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

pinkerite removing comments from their own talk is a non issue. it's not comment refactoring, comment moving, etc. it's just deleting. there is no issue there. but just trout for replacing them with insults. that's the crux, and i hope that's the last we see pinkerite pull that move. To (talk) 15:25, 29 September 2025 (UTC)
I'm the BoN who posted the comment you replied to. Your first sentence conflicts with the content of Bob's concern. I feel confident in saying that because Bob communicates in clear, direct language, and I think that I do, too. Conversely, I am unable to decipher the meaning of your comment beyond the first sentence. And I have no interest in debating Pinkerite's actions which are only tangential, and otherwise irrelevant to the issue I addressed. 2A0D:BBC7:0:0:F816:3EFF:FE65:992F (talk) 06:09, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
Given that my name keeps being bandied about in this I feel that I should make the following observation. One of the reasons that the Coop and AITM exist is to prevent problems metastasizing over the wiki. Comments about the situation should be kept in those forums. Any random citizen of the internet who has suddenly developed an interest in the intricacies of our Community Standards or voting systems might well consider creating an account to contribute. They would then be in a position to propose changes on the CS page as well.
Any more comment on this case should be in the Coop.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 07:50, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
i'm sorry but I just cannot understand what is so hard to decipher about trout. and you also disagreed with "the content of Bob's concern". I was just agreeing and than getting into the other half of the thing. the relevance is the fact you brought up the coop case. if you didnt want to talk about it all you could have registered To (talk) 11:51, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
There's nothing hard to decipher about any single word, there is something hard to decipher about a series of words presented in a manner somewhere between prose and point form. I don't know what "comment refactoring" entails. Is that some kind of mathematical operation? Also, I disagree that registering would clarify what I wanted to talk about, nor would I agree that my point required any more clarity than I provided. 2A04:52C0:128:C6E7:50EF:CAFE:BABE:1337 (talk) 10:03, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Book Recommendations for Scepticism and Critical Thinking

Ben Goldacre, of Bad Science, fame has probably influenced me the most in terms of how I look at science journalism and "woo". It got me thinking, what other books might Rationalwikians point to as part of a hypothetical quasi-missional reading list? Tikitime2 (talk) 19:40, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

I honestly thought that we had a recommended reading list, but I can't seem to find it. The absolute classic in the field is Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World". Although it's a bid dated now the principles he lays out are still good. "The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe" (book) was an attempt to produce something similar but more up-to-date a few years ago.
If you are not put off by his current social/political stances then Dawkins wrote some good stuff a few years ago.
If we don't actually have a list of recommended books it might be a good idea for us to create one, as I have seen this question before.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 06:03, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
It's at RW:Bookshelf. Chillpilled (talk) 07:08, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks! I thought we had it somewhere!Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 08:20, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Elon Musk is making Grokipedia?

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1972992095859433671

Apparently Elon Musk is making Grokipedia, a weird wikipedia clone. Is it just gonna be Conservapedia except slightly more moderate? - From DoppelTaken, the free oppeltaken 20:03, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

From here: [2]
"To create Grokipedia, Musk plans on tapping xAI's Grok chatbot (which he also created as an alternative to another technology he didn't like, ChatGPT). Grok has been trained on web data, including public tweets. In a podcast earlier this month, Musk suggested that Grok is smart enough not only to replicate the work of human community volunteers who maintain and update Wikipedia, but also to account for any bias or inaccuracies."
I actually see the hilarity potential being *much* greater than Conservapedia here. AI is well known for it's bullshit "hallucinations" factor before one even factors in Elon Musk's love of hooligan knucklehead politics that is probably inspiring this project. Grok was reportedly trained on Twitter tweets, which makes me suspicious (though I've never used Grok specifically, maybe I'm wrong, but Twitter seems like the last thing I'd want to train an AI on...) Based on reports from DOGE, there sure seems to be a lot of young whippersnapper "vibe coders" in the Twitter-sphere these days... who are the basically the new equivalent of script kiddies, they think that they are THE hot shit for being able to talk to a chatbot and have it spit out code. Whee...
So the potential is quite high for some hilarious hallucinations and other shenanigans to come out of this. Like all attempts to challenge Wikipedia because "wah! I hate the purported politics!", it will probably have plenty of pages on Political Outrages of the Day, written very badly (in AI slop style!) It will also have absolutely shitty pages (if they have them at all) on anything remotely academic... y'know, the science / math / history / philosophy / etc. type stuff. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 20:55, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
Remember when Elon was going to make his own political party? I'll believe it when I see it. CorruptUser 21:45, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
I did wonder about that. Do you think he got a horse's head in his bed from the Orange One? Anyway, Conservapedia failed for roughly the same reasons all the other WP attempts failed; it was unable to hit critical mass due to a lack of resources [human, financial or technical]. The Boer could - by merely throwing the equivalent of his 'change found in the couch' at it - make a very slickly-produced affair with colossal amounts of 'content' very quickly. I can also see a market for such a product too; as in producing a more 'interesting'/'readable' version of WP which utterly coincidently, is also a mouthpiece for the Boer's views and pet projects. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:54, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
A Wikipedia clone produced by an AI biased towards the nonsense on twitter? My first thought was that the idea was hilarious. But that mixture of twitter fantasy bolstered by AI hallucinations will simply add to the enshittification of the internet and hasten AI model collapse. So maybe not so funny.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 08:38, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Well, said 'AI model collapse' will be down to a general 'death of the web' - which in this case is a particularly pernicious edition of the 'free rider problem' and a self-fulfilling prophecy. I am feeling the 'enshittification' quite acutely now; the most recent experience was just last week when doing 'window shopping' [aka going through image results] for a particular bit of furniture and said results seemed overly-infested by AI mockups [and let's remember the toupee fallacy is in effect here]. Which is a bit shit on the basis I was looking for real bits of furniture to actually purchase. Yay, yet another door-slam of a bit of the web that can't be relied on now. Fuck, what's left? I would have said video but even there the wave of slop seems to be hitting that too.
Which raises the question; what next? There comes a point where everyone ends up saying 'fuck it, I give up' - particular sites, tasks, tech and whatnot. I've come to the conclusion that the next iteration of not just web use but computer use in general is going to be LLM-based. That within a decade either locally-run or cloud LLMs will replace the point/click GUIs which have been the norm since the early 90s. That instead of hitting up the Google or whatever for the answer, you hit up your 'GPT4All' which won't just look online, but also check locally-stored information [which for some folks, will be considerable]. And part of the service it provides will be to filter out the slop web content as much as possible; that [in my earlier example] my GPT will get why I'm looking for shelving units and instantly filter out options which aren't available in my country, unsuitable for my needs, incorrect sizing or not real and then offer me a curated, filtered results sheet. That it might even get my aesthetic tastes and price-range in advance. And it'll know I would prefer to exhaust all other options before trying Amazon. And if it has to be Amazon, put 'fulfilled by Amazon' at the bottom of the list. It does mean that this new era of web will be massively different; because it will cease to be one made for human eyes but for LLM ones instead.
Which raises the question; how many LLMs apart from Grok take shit posted on social media [esp X] as being gospel? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:42, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
I would suspect a vast amount of social media posting is AI generated.
But that is not the only pernicious effect of AI on the web. Old fashioned indexing web crawlers could chew up a part of website's bandwidth - but AI crawlers are in danger of bringing sites down with their data sucking and training activities.
Furthermore, at least with the earlier bots, you had the advantage that your site would show up in search results indexed and ranked. But with the vastly more aggressive AI bots the opposite is the case. They take your data, probably add something imaginary, and they present it to the user who then doesn't even need to visit your site. It's all cost and no benefit to the data provider.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 14:36, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
No need to worry that much about model collapse, for there's more stuff to happen the next few years. Strain in the form of a lack of return on investments is building up, with a gradual increase in media reporting which is beginning to take the idea of a bubble seriously (but still only as a "maybe"). Current pricing for all this LLM "AI" stuff -- not counting purely locally ran things -- is way below what's needed to make a profit, and will people actually use it if it costs 10 x more? Then the big money spent on infrastructure (both server halls and, increasingly, the need for more electrical power) is slated to increase exponentially too, with not too large a margin before that runs out and it all comes crashing down.
Personally, I think it's fun to see the worst ideas on display proudly and boldly, by the biggest businesses, in the time leading up to the bubble popping. Except when it hurts innocent parties of course. I don't think a junk wiki will do much harm, it will just become part of the repertoire of slop answers served up to all those who don't look for better stuff (and by now, all who don't look for better stuff are asking to be B.S.'d by algorithms until they go nuts).
Also KarmaPolice, the type of prompt interface for computing you envision in which LLMs somehow filter out all the junk and truly give you what you want seems rather unlikely to be built by any major business. Putting aside for now that it seems almost magical in its abilities compared to those of LLMs as of now. Because, of course, it runs contrary to what big businesses spend money promoting and gaining market share for, namely things that promote sloppy corporate platforms to the max. Expect a very aggressive strategy of predatory pricing, hostile takeovers, and more, targeting any business which tries to offer such solutions to customers. But it will be largely moot in the next "AI winter" I think, when something new (unknown now) is built on the ruins of the old web. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 18:21, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
We agree to agree on doubting that most 'AI' stuff will actually be able to make it pay; one of the certains of a bubble is that many Serious People™ shall expend much ink on explaining to us how This Time It Will Be Different, using logically dubious reasoning. But on more solid evidence; all the playing about with various LLMs I've done has convinced me that while they're capable of reducing the number of say, content creators from ten to five, they're going to be incapable of reducing them to zero. Through in the real 'market costs' for this... well, it's quite possible humans prove to be cheaper in many situations.
Will the forces of AI slop-makers attempt to kill off any AI slop-filterers? Sure. But I suspect they ultimately will fail; esp as I predict 'AI-OS' is marching down the lane regardless of personal opinion. I don't think the filters will become 'standard features' anytime soon, more something akin to adblockers or browser plugins are now. Anyway, tell me of this coming 'AI winter'? Will I need to stock up on tinned chickpeas and retreat to my cousin's house up in the Brecon Beacons? KarmaPolice (talk) 23:13, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Well, I don't think you're the kind of guy who depends on AI investor money for a living, so I'd say the AI winter largely means your life simply doesn't change so much. Maybe you'll eventually hear of the plight of a few starving former AI tech millionaires though.
But we can expect that media reporting and general talk in society will change. Suddenly the term "AI" will become less popular, as most people no longer believe that the singularity is near, and it reminds too much of the recent cascade of failed businesses. People will become specific once more about what they mean, such as LLMs, other machine learning areas, and other things that may now also be called "AI". (Reversing how, with the present "AI craze" and the hope that superintelligence would grow from chatbots, general discourse as of 2024 became sloppy and vague, ceasing to be specific about what technology is talked about and just saying "AI" everywhere. Something similar happened decades ago. Machine learning became popular to talk about, in fact, when AI was generally seen as discredited.) --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 18:15, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
I think AI has changed social media in a similar manner that email changed junkmail - that the 'cost barriers' have fallen to near nil. That say, a decade ago if you wanted to pump out clickbait, scams and/or propaganda you had to pay a human being somewhere to produce the shite; now AI can whip it up to an 'acceptable' quality in about a minute for about $50 a month.
And the 'data-scrape and no clicks' model is why I described it as a free rider/self fulfilling prophecy territory; that not only is it freeloading off created content, but also swiping the clicks that used to pay [via ads] for said content. And as ever, American crapitalism is winning this business model; in that the big firms [like the media syndicates] have enough heft to lawfare Big Tech into having a profit-split model while the small firms [or individuals] are just fucked over with impunity. Which then kills them, which means the AI is losing it's own knowledge-base [esp for nichey topics, unlikely to be covered by the major outfits]. Or [perhaps worse] causes them to become enshittified themselves in an attempt to cut costs to remain viable [which then becomes an AI doom loop]. 'Insult to injury' territory being entered if it's also seriously clogging up your bandwidth [which you have to pay for].
As for the future... well, I think there's going to be two real options. That either our GPT makes us view an ad or three before delivering up our web results and/or we allow websites to introduce microstransation paywalls. In that [purely as an example], each hard query the LLM does we get charged a penny. Otherwise, there's going to be almost nil decent content left at all. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:49, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
In the future I see a whole series of over-hyped AI financial bubbles bursting and a lot of people losing money.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 08:35, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

France is experiencing Trumpian rejection of justice

Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to 5 years of prison (as a VIP, obviously). This is historical, and, contrary to some foreign newspapers sayings, not ordinary: next to Pétain and Louis XVI, he will be one of the rare French heads of state to really see prison. The left-wing journal Mediapart (which would deserve an article on here, btw), which is also known for other affairs (notably Benalla concerning Macron) revealed his various infractions and has been continuously investigating the case. Beyond the details of the actual legal investigation, what really is striking is the French media's response: editorialists, "philosophers", renowned journalists, they all deplore "poor Sarkozy's" prison sentence (while the magistrates are receiving violent threats because they are doing their job). This shift might mean going one step closer to Trumpist understandings of justice. Some editorialists are talking about a "leftist justice system", rigged against the right and far-right. Sarkozy himself has used this explanation, and it has been alleged as proof that the prosecutor supposedly liked Mediapart's twitter posts. Hopefully, opinion polls won't show the same trend among the French people, as this would not be good news for 2027. New world (talk) 12:20, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Out of interest, what exactly is the line they're peddling? That Sarkozy was innocent or something?
But the 'mild rewriting' of current events to suit political narratives isn't new. Here in Blighty, we have the majority of the [rightist] media repeating Toad's whines about basically, being called out by PM Starmer [at fucking last!]. Apparently, he's 'introducing the hostile rhetoric from the US', which Farage himself then blew apart by literally using American terms like 'antifa' in his whine, that they're 'threatening violence' which again, is fucking rich when he was JAQ'ing off and peddling lies during actual fucking riots and then decided to hug a literal racist who went to prison for inciting violence only two weeks ago on a big fucking stage. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:59, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
@KarmaPolice It's more a mix of the traditional talk about how our poor friend the president is going to have to do the dishonouring experience of prison (makes you want to cry for poor little Sarkozy, right…) and the more modern rejection of facts in a post-truth world. They say the sentence is too harsh for a president, some allege the judge was leftist. Farage in the UK just seems like the beginning of a far-right movement there, so I woudn't compare that. France has already reached a point where Le Figaro (centre-right, occasionally far-right since 2024) and Le Point (let's say they are not good at trying to not be far-right…) are literally, in accordance with Cnews (part of Canal+, owned for some time already by Bolloré the far-right billionaire exploiting west Africa), Europe 1 (bought by Bolloré), le journal du dimanche (Bolloré), and frontières (just plain far-right) and Valeurs actuelles, rejecting the results of the legal investigation on the grounds that justice is supposedly biased towards the right. And as always in France now, BFMTV (the Macronist channel) and all the other "normal" media (even public) are taking over this "debate" on the "illegitimately" harsh sentence. In Anglo-Saxon countries this has been going on for some time, but in France there was some sort of consensus for the state of right (excluding the 40 % of people that voted far-right that last year) and this consensus seems to be loosening. They are literally putting into question the état de droit. New world (talk) 17:43, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Sarkozy is hardly exceptional in France's recent history. There is Jacques Chirac (2011 conviction for embezzling) and François Fillon (2020 for fraud and misuse of public funds). See List of former heads of democratic countries charged with crimes for a world roundup. Convicting criminal heads of state is good for democracy. Bongolian (talk) 03:26, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
You're missing the point: he'll have to go to prison. Jaques Chirac managed to avoid a trial for a long time and when it finally happened he was too ill to go to prison, Fillon didn’t go either. New world (talk) 06:15, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
My gut [which is admittedly an Anglo gut] is telling me this is more a generic 'pity thee for tomorrow it could be me' defence/JAQing off. That 'people like Us' don't actually go to prison etc 'like the ordinaries', even if the facts say you should. Off the top of my head, if you wanted me to point a j'accuse finger, it would be to neoliberalism. In that it's created an elite which feels entitled to be 'above' such piddling things as legal systems, and if caught to a point they cannot wiggle out of, shall get a token slap [esp when it's corps and not individuals]. The darkly humorous bit I get from this is the fact you have all these journalists, talking heads etc who delude themselves of being 'Us' with the elite but said elite see them as somewhere between 'competent hireling' and 'useful idiot'. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:15, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Federal shutdown

So what happens if the shutdown persists beyond the 'OK, point made, now let us sort things out' stage? Anna Livia (talk) 15:53, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Just so I get it, a federal shutdown in the US is like when the National Assembly in France doesn't vote a budget for the next year? New world (talk) 15:57, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
A little bit. However, there is no Article 49.3 like there is in France (where a PM can push through a bill without a vote unless a motion of no confidence passes), and there isn't a way to do a no-confidence vote / trigger fresh elections, either.
Perhaps as a result, I could not find an instance where the French government has shut down like the US. In contrast, there have been three "significant" (>5 day) US government shutdowns so far... one during Bill Clinton's time (due to Newt Gingrich being an asshole); one during Barack Obama's term (due to Republicans whining about the ACA health care insurance system); and one under Donald Trump 1.0 (over the border).
When the US government shuts down, most things, excepting "essential services", stops (and the folks on essential services often aren't getting paid during that period.) You can look at what happened during those previous long shutdowns to see what will happen if things persist. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 17:16, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Trump and MAGA are actually very happy about this shutdown. It creates a good excuse to permanently lay off even more federal workers (except ICE and the military, of course) while all these no-longer-independent agencies can pin the blame on the Dems. 2001:67C:2628:647:32:804:0:386 (talk) 17:32, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Alas, traditionally I would say 'they wouldn't be so stupid' but I now know 100% yes, they actually are. And I believe they've entered [surprisingly quickly, in fact] the authoritarian mindset of believing their own propaganda [which is good news for America, because deluded regimes usually don't last that long].
Anyway, part of the 'how will this pan out' depends if the individual Depts etc are allowed to tap their independent reserves. If MAGA truly believes they can 'win this battle', they very well might withhold said permissions out of sheer spite. The easiest way to imagine this 'on the ground' is the sorts of service we get during Christmas-New Year's - a 'vital needs only' skeleton service. The longer it goes on, more and more 'routine stuff' won't get done [for example, the customs people won't be processing new application paperwork etc] which over time will degrade service. The time 'this starts to hurt' Federal employees will be about the 17th Oct; folks are often paid fortnightly and about 35% of Americans have less than a month's worth of savings. Contractors/suppliers will be in a worse situation, because they are not even guaranteed to get paid back after reopening. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:42, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Being a Brit, somewhat ignorant of the mechanisms (and with a proportion of UK 'strikes etc proposed' an arrangement is reached at the last moment).
President 48 will have a tough job disentangling all the issues arising from this Presidency, including the various international issues.
How serious will the effects of the shutdowns, ICE activities, 'Medicare etc' cutbacks have to be before the 'migrant caravan' reverses direction? Anna Livia (talk) 18:33, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Alas, the shutdown doesn't cut 'essential' services, of which ICE is counted amongst them. Social security payments etc will be okay, I don't see even the most malign MAGA cutting of the moolah of their core voters. Medicare/Medicaid is a different story; because health practitioners [as it's all private there] will be told exactly the same thing as any firm contracted to do essential work for Uncle Sam - continue to do said work, collect all the billing up and then submit them all when the Dept reopens. Issue is, the longer this goes on the larger Uncle Sam's tab will be and this will increasingly lock up swathes of operating capital for the company. In a Brit analogy; it's like NHS dentistry. If there was 'a shutdown' some dentists might continue doing NHS work on tick because a) they don't do a lot and b) they have the cash reserves while others might ration work because a) the NHS is a big part of their business and b) they don't have the cash reserves to extend credit for long. And eventually, they all would stop doing work period because well, they need the cash to pay for stuff too.
Which in fact tells you something important; that not only are poorer Americans more dependent on the state providing stuff for them, but the companies who do the providing are also more dependent on the govt cash as part of their business plan. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:29, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
So when 'Uncle Tom Cobley and all' (note - UK term, no negative implications) submit their bills, and 'routine payments' have to be made there situation is likely to be 'a tad problematic' (and persisting for longer than originally expected (as is the nature of such events). Anna Livia (talk) 20:30, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
If you mean 'will there be a backlog of payment processing', then yes. It won't be as bad as it used to be [I am assuming here it's all computerised now and more simply needs someone to authorise the spends than physically 'do the paperwork' but still, it will take more time than usual. KarmaPolice (talk) 06:19, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

According to the propaganda being heavily pushed by the Trumpist regime, the Democrats are responsible for the shutdown. This narrative is bullshit because it's the Republicans who control all three branches of government, not the Democrats. That aside, I'm actually surprised the Dems had the gumption to stand their ground and not cave to Republican demands. I guess they finally got the memo after the sudden plunge in the polls they took after the last shutdown row back in March. Antares (talk) 07:19, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

The polls show that to some extent the American Big Public get this; that something like 10% more polled blamed MAGA for it, not the Dems. I also read that to a certain extent the Democrats have been pushed into this hard-ish stance from their own base; that the pile of memos demanding they quit attempting to reason with the unreasonable and start slugging instead has actually started to bother them [well, most.]I also heard that MAGA might have deliberately picked this fight in a hope to distract from the whole Epstein thing [including the signing of the petition]. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:48, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
Maybe they are finally seeing the polls: while all politicians are unpopular these days, Democrats that are actually seen as doing something against Trump's bullshit are far more popular than wimpy Third Way-ers like Chuck Schumer. Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for all the Fox News propaganda making her out as the Whore of Babylon or something, is by (a large amount) more popular than Schumer.
The other thing here is, the Democrats have a simple message that has worked before (and not an untrue message by any means): We are fighting for your health care. It's something even the Third Way types can rally around. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 14:11, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
I think the folks at the DNC have concluded 'looking smugly on while MAGA falls apart due to "historical necessity" so they can waltz in and rule for 20 years' is not going to work. Second factor; fear of 'the Mamdani effect'; aka a sufficiently fucked-off base might end up unhorsing too many incumbents in Primaries. Fuck, some of them might be even starting to twig that if current rates continue, there isn't going to be a '28 election. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:35, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Going back to Trump's earlier plans - how will the shutdown affect the intended takeovers of Canada and Greenland? Anna Livia (talk) 20:30, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Directly? It won't. But indirectly, the shutdown shows that there are still internal 'enemies' which probably need to be 'dealt with' before any foreign adventures start. I also think MAGA is starting to fathom that the 'enemies list' actually includes swathes of the American military. I mean, let's look at this [partial] crowd pic of the shitty lecture all the generals were given last week. Even after taking into account a certain percentage of 'resting bitch faces' [kinda high in guys in their 50s] and more don't realise their mask-face looks like previous they don't really look like folks who are aching to unleash troops on the American people in the name of King-Emperor Trump I. More bored, irked, confused, baffled and occasionally sardonically amused [I doubt Hegseth won any friends with his lecturing on grooming standards, PT etc like they're a bunch of Sgts rather than, y'know the actual fucking strategic vision for the military]. I bet at least a third was a) wondering if Trump did have 'cognitive decline' and/or b) mulling over retirement plans. KarmaPolice (talk) 06:12, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

What exactly is the goal of Lacanian psychoanalysis?

I sorta made the mistake of trying to dig into his stuff and kinda ended up worse off for it. Not only is the source material hard to understand but trying to get other people to explain it doesn't work, they mostly just talk like him. It doesn't help that apparently what HE means by certain words and ideas isn't what everyone else means. But suffice to say his concepts: the mirror stage, fantasy, love being imaginary, there being no sexual relation (which is something Zizek seems to agree with), desires not being our own, sexuality being unnatural, etc have sorta done a number on me mentally because it just makes it seem like everything I do and know is wrong but there doesn't seem to be any solution here? I mean it doesn't help either that other people who read him tell me I have to read the ENTIRE work of his to get it.

But I guess I'm wondering what is the point and goal of his theory and writing, because from where I stand it's not helping people. Not only have I been permanently damaged by it but apparently all his patients were worse off for it. So like what is the point here? I can't make heads or tails of his stuff on my own and the little I do get just makes me depressed. It's hard enough to get help with this because the dude deliberately writes his work to be hard to understand so I'm not sure where to go or who to ask. Also I know the wiki here said some of his claims were proven false but which are those?47.5.66.54 (talk) 19:14, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

I have never heard of it. But a quick look on the net tells me that is builds on Freudian psychoanalysis which makes it suspect from the start.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:37, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Don't take me as an expert on any of this psychoanalysis stuff, but the debates in my country (France) have been rather important, going beyond the left/right spectrum. Usually, from what I've heard, French/european psycho-analysis is more philosophy than psychiatry (I do know a little because most philosophy courses in France in university and high school alike are supportive of Freud and Lacan, meaning most French citizens come into contact with these things one way or another). If you really insist on using Lacanian psycho-analysis for help, I would honestly recommend seeing a serious (not a total charlatan) lacanian psycho-analyst instead of reading Lacan. Serious lacanian therapists are probably hard to find in most of the Anglo-Saxon world, I would recommend you to just go to any psycho-analyst in a French speaking country (maybe not Quebec, due to American influence) and most of them will be lacanian. In practice, there is not much difference between a German psycho-therapist following the newest theories of the day and a French psycho-analyst with Lacan and Freud proudly displayed. The only difference might be that the latter will occasionally suggest you have an Oedipus complex, but with the sufficient pensée critique you'll survive that too. Most psycho-therapists in Europe are more or less neutral or even supportive in regards to psycho-analysis. In Latin America, I think, psycho-analysis seems to be way more linked to psychiatric studies than in Europe/France. In France, most psychoanalysts don't study psychiatry to my knowledge (but please, if you really want to, go only to those who studied psychoanalysis and psychology, otherwise they might not be serious). That doesn't change the fact that most older French psychiatrists have a psycho-analytic background, but the psychiatry + psychoanalysis studies seem to be more of a thing in Latin America (especially Brazil and Argentina). Generally, psycho-analysis doesn't seem as bad as some journalists represent it, but maybe I'm just ignorant of how much better psychic health research is outside of France (though I doubt it).
Long story short: French psychoanalysis is more philosophy than psychiatry. If you really want to use it as the latter, go see a French psychoanalyst, preferably one who studied psychology and psychiatry too, on your next vacation to Paris or something. New world (talk) 19:46, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Not really looking to it for psychaitry, it's already done enough damage to me that can't really be fixed. Also from what I learned Lacan's patients were always worse after psychotherapy. More than that the data doesn't show it helps.47.5.66.54 (talk) 20:42, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
You seem to want to use it more in a psychiatric way. Otherwise, reading philosophy is supposed to be a little fun and interesting, it's not an obligation to read Lacan if you feel the need to complain about your headache. Just do something else and stop caring then. I personally always finish a book I started, maybe you'll change your view by the end. But if you really hate the author already, just stop. New world (talk) 21:15, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
It doesn't work like that, you can't just forget what you read and you cannot really see things the same way again, that's what I said by broken. If reading philosophy is supposed to be "Fun and interesting" then you're not really absorbing what is being said. With Lacan it's pretty much breaking what I cared about and is saying it's wrong. The guy calls love imaginary and says it's not really about care for the other person but to fill some lack in you, or saying you aren't your body (mirror stage), that your desires aren't really about the object or person but the idea that you hold about them, that sex is violence (per Zizek's view of it). Like...what does one do when everything they love is shown to be wrong? His writings on love took the feeling away from me, calling it "giving what you don't have to someone who doesn't want it" https://www.lacanonline.com/2016/06/what-does-lacan-say-about-love/ 47.5.66.54 (talk) 22:32, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Also I asked around psychoanalysis groups and they all say the point isn't to help people or to make them happier and more adaptable, that's for therapy and psychiatry. Lacan said "traversing the fantasy: no longer being blindly governed by the unconscious scenario that sustains your desire." And per their words "Psychoanalysis' aim is not to break the subject, but neither does it promise harmony for the subject. It is precisely this fantasy of harmony and wholeness that psychoanalysis aims to illuminate: to insist upon the constitutive lack of the subject." So it sounds like it's good for nothing, more like they invented a problem and are selling a solution.47.5.66.54 (talk) 02:45, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

We have an article on Jacques Lacan. Bongolian (talk) 03:33, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
Lacan was a psychoanalyst; he had a clinical practice and patients. He developed his theories for application in that setting. You will have a difficult time finding information on the philosophical significance of Lacan partly because Lacan is of interest to only a relatively small number of professional philosophers (Zizek being probably the best-known). There is an SEP article on Lacan, though, which you may find useful. 𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝑒 talk 03:56, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

From what I have been told by other psychoanalysts the SEP article is wrong in that he's expanding on Freud or drawing from him. The truth is that he was actually a departure from Freud and most of the school of his thought is based on what Lacan said not what he proved. From the article on here it says the few testable claims he made were wrong, but I couldn't find what those were. Though if you're arguing he developed his theories for application in that setting I might have to disagree, given how his patients were often harmed by his practice.47.5.66.54 (talk) 18:04, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

From your comments, I still don't know if you want psycho-therapeutic help or a better understanding of Lacan. For the latter, I can't help you much, all I know is that Lacan was (at least that's what I learned) supportive of a return to Freud. His critics claim this "return" was completely different from the original, however Lacan was pretty clear about wanting a return to the roots (so you might have come to the same conclusion as some critical commentators there). French psychoanalysis is in its entirety more of a philosophical practice trying to analyse people's psyche, more than a behavioural analysis trying to "change" or better the parts about you you don't like (at least that's how it's framed today, after a long evolution). It has done damage, but, again speaking on the grounds of personal experience, in practice there is not much difference to the average European psycho-therapist. Lacan's experience with patients is mixed: some hated him (but that could happen with pretty much any psycho-therapist), others were so fascinated that they became the next generation of psychoanalysts (really, there are many such testimonies). Is reading Lacan that traumatising? Maybe I should try. Reading Freud certainly isn't traumatising even if you disagree (at least to me it isn't), maybe you should just stop seeing Lacan as the absolute figure of authority and take everything he says with a grain of salt. I mean, did you read Freud before getting into Lacan? That would seem rather logical, honestly. Criticising psychoanalysis is very popular, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world (but there are occasionally very strong debates here in France), but it doesn't seem logical to criticise psychoanalysis (a philosophical practice according to many French therapists) and not psychological research in general for its unfalsifiable and arbitrary nature. I prefer to be rather tolerant towards this domaine of research and see what advances will be made, including in psycho-analysis, rather than obsessively pointing out the occasional inefficacy or contradiction. New world (talk) 19:13, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Well I dunno about comparing psychoanalysis to psychology but that's neither here nor there. Him being a return to Freud isn't really true from what other psychoanalysts have told me, he's actually a departure from him (despite what he thinks).

If you wanna know yes it was that traumatizing. I can't feel love anymore after reading his points about love (him calling it imaginary), I don't feel desire these days because of what he said about it being imaginary and that you don't want the thing itself but the image you have of it in you head (the representations and symbols you built up of it), right now I have some deep depression from reading him because it's like being told all my feelings are wrong and wanting anything isn't real (also that your desires aren't yours) and I generally feel nothing for other people. Never mind what he says on sex, calling falling for someone a lie. Double that reading what Zizek says about sex being violence and that it requires a fantasy to make it work. That you aren't falling for the person but your fantasy that you project onto someone. It's got me scared to interact with other people because I'm doing something wrong or just projecting onto them. So yeah I'm a hot mess right now, an apparently the goal of his practice is to cause psychosis by breaking everything you thought you knew. It's in his concept called "the destitution of the self".

I just....don't know how to be or feel right now, apparently my life was wrong and everything I thought. And I can't really talk to anyone about it because the Lacanians don't care how I feel and the people who do don't know the man's ideas enough to help. I'm drowning here...47.5.66.54 (talk) 00:05, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Get a grip, 47. If you disagree with what you read, you can decide it's wrong. If you're unable to do that, then apparently you agree with it. Neither Lacan nor Zizek have forced you to reassess your beliefs, you chose to do that. Your issue now is that you resent no longer finding your old psyche security blankets as comforting as you used to. I recall a study a few years ago that determined that people in long, happy marriages had one thing in common; whenever they thought about their partner, they put on a pair of rose-colored glasses. They deluded themselves into thinking their partner was really awesome. They downplayed their partner's faults and exaggerated their partner's appealing traits. Love requires delusion if it is to be maintained, otherwise the shine will come off your partner fairly quickly. The 'honeymoon stage', as they say, won't last forever. Delusions that work for you are useful delusions. And knowing that you're deluding yourself doesn't quash the delusion. You can still delude yourself into loving a partner - at least now you'll know that's what's required of you. Would you rather continue to accumulate partners who become ex's, always wondering why "it didn't work out"? Always lacking that key piece of insight required to make a relationship last? 2A0D:BBC7:0:0:F816:3EFF:FE12:1851 (talk) 07:25, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

That’s actually pretty lousy advice to give to someone questioning their entire belief system and doubting if love is real. Also we can’t just decide something is wrong or right, we don’t choose what we believe, something either impacts us or it doesn’t. It’s not as simple as saying “if you disagre you can decide it’s wrong” doesn’t work like that. Reading philosophy can force someone to question their beliefs because, again, we don’t choose how things affect us. The problem with the study you cited is that that’s not how happy marriages work, it’s more dealing with the aftermath of when the rose colored glasses come of. That’s when infatuation can transform into deep and abiding love but it takes work, because it requires accepting the person for who they are and not what you want them to be (that’s being the image when the butterflies were flowing). Love does not require delusion to maintain and there are several studies to back that, it does require a shift to acknowledging the whole person though. If you have to delude yourself into loving them then you don’t really love them and what you’re describing isn’t a relationship (not to mention unrelated to what the thinkers mentioned say about love). Knowing you’re deluding yourself does quash the delusion, it’s kinda like knowing how the magician does his tricks, you can’t unsee it. Seriously, what kinda take is this?Yokaiwatch (talk) 23:14, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Machina

Ok, so by now this User:Machina person has been continuously posting obsessive (and very often nonsensical) commentary on the saloon bar (see the above, among others). He might even have been more active since the time I joined the site than before. Either, he really needs help and advice, or he is a troll. I have mixed feelings about this, as he might legitimately need help he might not get on other social media, yet he is so obviously obnoxious that he clearly resembles trolling behaviours in bigger social media. He is banned from the saloon bar for exactly this reason. And yet, he exclusively participates in saloon bar discussions (I have also been discussing things on the saloon bar more than contributing, but at least I did improve a few pages and I'm not posting the same thing over and over again. I wouldn't even consider myself as a member of this community nor knowing its rules and manners, I just find it interesting to see a more Anglo-Saxon/American perspective on things confronting the French/european one, though an increasing amount of users isn't Anglo-saxon. Similarly, other regular users here do not post every two weeks about Lacan, reality, consciousness, etc. And this while displaying 0 change in opinions). There clearly is a problem, and he might just be trolling us. New world (talk) 15:04, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Doesn't sound like a troll, more like someone who doesn’t know how to handle ideas they can’t work out on their own. I don’t see how not editing pages is relevant. If someone posts the same thing it can mean they struggle and don’t know how to resolve it. Lacan isn’t exactly popular and his writing is so murky not many people have read let alone understand it, plus it’s not like going to France is a solution…I mean honestly. If I had to guess the defiance is more a defense mechanism to avoid uncritically swallowing everything they read, because the alternative is to just accept everything you hear and that sounds like hell. I can’t imagine being unable to say no to everything you read and hear. But that’s my two cents, I’ve seen trolling and this doesn’t have that malice to it.Yokaiwatch (talk) 23:14, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
@Yokaiwatch Reading philosophy can do that if you let it. But by your description everyone should have an existential crisis because of that, when it's just supposed to be interesting postulates, often contradictory, into various subjects of life and the world around us. Obviously it changes your way of seeing things, but it shouldn't change your mental health. Apparently, Machina doesn't like it, he (or she) doesn't feel any pleasure in it, and Lacan isn't THE reference to have. If Machina wants to stop, he can stop reading Lacan. He can do or read other things which will make him forget Lacan. "Love is a delusion" seems like a pretty obvious statement. I like alcohol. Even if I'm not medically an alcoholic, me liking it very likely would reveal me to be addicted in case I tried to stop completely. Yet I don't have to change my entire belief system (nor will or have I) if I read an interesting study about addiction to alcohol. It's an addiction and I guess I'm addicted (like the majority of humans), but I don't have the incentive to stop nor do I feel morally pressured (better live happy than longer). Love is a delusion and we're deluded and like it. Where's the moral issue? Love isn't bad for our health, like our consumption of alcohol from a young age is. Taking Lacan as an absolute figure of authority and asking every two to three weeks if his sayings are true, then complaining they are, suggests a different cause than poor Lacan. Machina just wants to tell us about how he's feeling (that's fine, honestly), but the excessive use of obscure philosophical references (and giving them any fault whatsoever for his feelings) is annoying. Feeling empty because some thinker wrote love is delusion doesn't mean you should give said thinker the fault. I mean, even asking these questions should be fine, but asking to be contradicted and then refusing any contradiction is the annoying part. He is asking us for opinions, and even if those don't disagree with his own, he continues to ask for opinions. And, I could bet on that, if you would unconditionally agree with Machina, he would ask the same question again in disbelief. And this same thing every two weeks. Some trolling certainly is involved. New world (talk) 13:48, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
The phrase “let it” is doing some heavy lifting here because we don’t choose how things affect us. I hear people say that often but it’s not a switch one flips, something either moves you or not. As for what it’s “supposed” to be, that’s a matter of perspective but I’d like to think the ones who formulated these thoughts didn’t view them merely as an interesting set of postulates but more like they figured out something about the human condition. I think you’re downplaying it too much. I cannot really say why some are affected or not, but that doesn’t change what is. Again with “should”, the fact is most people likely don’t know Lacan or anything he wrote let alone his ideas about the psyche and life, they just carry on with their own assumptions about the world and how things work (from what little I know about Lacan much of what he wrote does conflict with how most humans view life, which also explains his current champions of his thinking). So if you found out that things aren’t the way you thought they were for most of your life and your experience was “wrong”, I wouldn’t be shocked if that affected their mental health. You don’t even have to go to Lacan, I don’t think most would handle realizing that they had been “living a lie”. If thoughts affect our beliefs then it would logically follow that a philosophy that questions your foundations would have an impact on your mental health. I mean just search Quora for the thousands of posts struggling with coming into contact with solipsism, they kinda read the same but the point stands. Again saying someone “could” do something else instead is projecting what YOU would do just because it doesn’t affect YOU like them. Same with stop thinking about it, I’m sure you’re familiar with Pink Elephants right? In my experience when something clashes with a core aspect of life you can’t just forget it, and saying love doesn’t exist is a big one. I can’t imagine what OP does if those feelings come up. “Love is a delusion” is “common sense” but anyone with half a brain cell knows common sense isn’t sensical. It’s a common cynical phrase, on that doesn’t ring true. See what you’re describing is infatuation, that phase with the butterflies and everything. THAT is “delusion” and sadly what American culture portrays as love itself. But it’s not, love is after that, when you see the person in their entirety.Your example with alcohol doesn’t track either as there is a marked difference between liking something and an addiction to it. People like things but they can put them down, people who are addicted to something CANNOT. They will do anything and everything to get their fix.
I’m not op but again I would still blame the thinker itself for what they’re going through (especially Lacan given how controversial and radical this thinking can be). I mean they didn’t do this prior to reading him, and from what I’ve been told by others the guys material isn’t only hard to process but can be destabilizing. DOUBLY so if your the impressionable type who just believes what someone famous or “smart” said (which is my impression of Machina, dude just sounds very impressionable, which is its own sort of hell). My guess is they can’t figure it out, they can’t let it go, and they can’t just say no (which sounds like ASD to me). In my experience if folks like that ask the same questions over and over it’s because they don’t understand, having worked with them in group homes they will keep asking until they understand. Doesn’t happen often with me because I give direct answers and the questions are usually easy.
TBH it sounds more like you’re making a lot of assumptions about how people work or things should be when none of that matches with reality. The most you could say is that’s how YOU are (and I already explained how love being a delusion is wrong) but you cannot say that about others. Lacan doesn’t affect you like that but for others it does, even Lacanians I talk to aren’t surprised. So yeah, that just sounds like projecting your ideas onto other people. But like I said above we don’t choose how things affect us or our reaction to them, and saying to just “stop thinking about it” is about as useful as saying “stop thinking about pink elephants”. To repeat, I don’t see a troll I see someone who doesn’t know what to do with philosophies that contradict what they know to be true so they ask here because no one else would understand (highly doubt family or friends would). Maybe I’m just soft hearted because I’ve met people like Machina in real life. Most people don’t really question their lives too much, and not many people can handle it either. Not to keep beating a dead horse but Lacan ain’t easy if you don’t have someone to help you, especially given his common proclamations like “Woman does not exist” and especially “there is no sexual relation”. If you’re the impressionable type (and I’m guess they are) these would wreck you, check it (the part about not being attracted to a person but an object sounds like it would upset most people): https://nosubject.com/Sexual_relationshipYokaiwatch (talk) 21:11, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

ADL

The ADL has caved to the far-right and deleted the entirety of their "Glossary of Extremism." We might wanna comb through our articles to find any citations referencing the GOE and update or remove them accordingly. Antares (talk) 08:50, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

They already sold out their credibility, but these glossaries and other things they had up on their site at least were vestiges of sometimes useful references one could cite. They're just totally useless now, I suppose. Not that their research tended to be stellar, but they did have some information others never bothered covering, previously. (There was recently a school shooting, or attempted school shooting, where the ADL had detected the shooter on a gore website and tried to report him to the police, but nothing was actually done.) I suppose GNET is one newer org that serves a similar function without the ADL's baggage. For what it's worth, there seem to be people inside the ADL not happy with the recent direction of the ADL, including even big donors to the group, if some of the reporting is anything to go by. Chillpilled (talk) 15:31, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Can we just add the United States to the list of authoritarian regimes?

I feel like we are well past this point by now, especially when the comparison to other authoritarian regimes in the past and the present exemplifies this. TheAceOfOne (talk) 13:00, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

I mean, Brazil is in the list of "authoritarian regimes" at RW, so anything goes in the RW lists, eh?
I personally think that Hungary (Fidesz / Viktor Orban) is the most comparable party to the GOP and Donald Trump at the moment. This is not full-on authoritarianism, but what has been variously called "illiberal democracy" (by Orban himself), "competitive authoritarianism" or a "hybrid regime". There are signs here and there that Trump wants to emulate worse hybrid regimes (eg Turkey and El Salvador), but so far there is nothing approaching Russia / China levels of oppression and totalitarianism. So it depends on "how far you want to go".
Complicating this ranking (not dissimilar to Brazil, which also has significant federalism if I recall) is that there is a lot of federalism in the United States; the Democrats are much more pro-democracy than the GOP; and there are plenty of Democrat-ran cities and states. In addition, unlike Hungary, while the Supreme Court has been captured by Trump, other judges in the court system have not been. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 14:36, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
I would add the caveat 'for now'. Russia c05 looked fairly like a 'guided democracy' but what happened that over the intervening years the 'democratic/liberal' innards got eaten out so much that by c22 it was a paper-thin facade, which was promptly torn off when the war began. Late Weimar Germany was somewhat similar; while the democratic facade remained intact, a lot of it had been hollowed out by the 'rule by decree' by President Hindenburg. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:06, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
Yep. And while the United States as a whole is "more complicated", personally I would have no issues slapping the "authoritarianism" tag on the Republican Party article now. Hybrid-authoritarian political parties do usually get the tag on RW, and at this point I don't think there's any question that the GOP is now hybrid-authoritarian. 47.197.76.134 (talk) 16:09, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
From the other side of the pond it certainly looks like it's going that way. But of course it's a series of steps, each one just a little bit more extreme or a continuation of the last. It's the apocryphal boiling frog in a saucepan. I would imagine that if US had moved from where it was before the first Trump presidency to where it is now in one step then I think that people would be a lot more appalled. But when the liberal democracy dies the death of a thousand cuts then it's harder to notice.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:43, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
'Creeping normality'. It was perhaps one of the key takeaways from Diamond's Collapse; that societies did not realise the peril they were in because the slide was gradual and when 'shocks' happened, they were invariably blamed on 'unique circumstances' and/or 'particular individuals' which couldn't possibly ever arise again. In this particular case; 'American democracy' was already pretty sick by 2016 because a healthy democracy wouldn't have allowed Trump to become President, or at worst would have rapidly 'boxed him in' to the point he wouldn't have dared to try to pull the Jan Putsch. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:00, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
I think the Republican MAGA party is well past "Hybrid Authoritarian" label at this point. Republicans are very open about their Totalitarianism at this point. Not only did they label Antifa as a terrorist group despite it not even being a formal group, they now have the DHS labeling common centrist beliefs as "terror indicators." It is obvious that they are using this vague definition of 'terrorism' to go after anyone who even slightly disagrees with Trump. There are already reports of people being arrested on BS terror charges just for post they've made online. The death of Charlie Kirk gave them the perfect excuse to do this sooner than they've planned, and the GOP themselves admittedly compared it to Horst Wessel and the Reichstag. We should stop dodging the fact that MAGA's ideal society is to have all Democrats and anyone to the left of hunting homeless for sport rounded up and slaughtered in concentration camps. 2001:67C:2628:647:32:504:0:128 (talk) 20:12, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
It was already in the subcategory of empires before, I put it in the main category though because let's be completely honest, who's honestly going to dispute this? TheAceOfOne (talk) 23:20, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
I won't dispute that we have an authoritarian regime in power, but people here are overestimating how successful they have been in their attempts at power consolidation. For one thing, they wasted a lot of political capital very early on with how DOGE gutted the government (including the security services), which obviously degrades their ability to successfully carry out their fascist project. Logistics matters. They also don't fully control the courts and the states. Civil society remains more or less independent for now, even with elite capitulation in mind. They don't really have anything to offer to the American public either. Competent authoritarians know to use the carrot in addition to the stick. All the Trump regime has been offering is the stick. Sure, you may be able to carry over some portions of your base with humiliating your enemies, at least for a time, but your base is not the same thing as the wider public. All they have been offering the wider public is a worsening economy and political instability. Antares (talk) 14:06, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
"Hybrid authoritarian" is still authoritarian, but in a muted form. Hybrid regimes still hold elections, but they are often heavily gamed. Hybrid regimes doesn't execute its enemies or engage in censorship at gunpoint, but it uses mechanisms in the government to put enormous pressure on media outlets and other sources of information and news. It's basically a regime with less rule-by-force and more rule-by-gaming (though force is still a thing sometimes, depending on the regime). Some things are very similar, of course; authoritarian regimes often use the Other in propaganda, the same as hybrid ones. Obviously "hybrid forms" will vary in their degree. Compare full authoritarian regimes like Saudia Arabia, Russia, China to hybrid regimes like Hungary, Turkey, El Salvador.
Obviously, as KP points out, Republican hybrid authoritarianism can easily backslide into *full* authoritarianism. Like Antares, though... I'm sort of optimistic that this won't happen. In addition to the points mentioned, I will add three more:
A) Trump is very old, and honestly doesn't look too great. His time to consolidate power is short. The odds of a regime with a decade+ length, ala Erdoğan or Orbán, is frankly really low. Once the cult of personality is gone, authoritarian regimes typically dissolve unless a replacement personality can be found (and so far, none has emerged).
B) It is very clear that the US military leadership *detests* Trump and his gang of clowns. It is very difficult for me to envision full authoritarianism without full military support.
C) The Trump administration is openly catering only to its billionaires interests and/or "culture war" (white nationalist / Christian nationalist) interests. This is a minority. Authoritarians have a *much* tougher time consolidating power if only a minority is enthralled with the cult. Furthermore... Trump is incompetent at managing his cult, and often hurts his voters with his attempts to hurt his "enemies".
But... just because I don't think it *won't* happen doesn't mean that one shouldn't be on guard. Because it absolutely *could* happen, things could get much worse.
And the other thing to keep in mind... it's not just Trump. It's not like the "ingredients" for Trump's shit wasn't brewing well before Trump, and I do not see the "ingredients" for GOP authoritarianism completely going away even when Trump does.
Still, it's not all hopeless. Something to keep in mind before one dooms and glooms. :) 47.197.76.134 (talk) 14:58, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────adding brazil to the "authoritarian regimes" list is wild. The G (talk) 02:16, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

I removed it. Revert if you want, but putting the Brazil of 2025 in the same category as China is just ridiculous.-Flandres (talk) 02:33, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
thank you, and i agree. it would've made sense 40 years ago, but it makes zero sense today. i've been wanting to work on that article for a while (mostly adding sections relevant to this site's mission). i'll probably make time to do it now that i'm done with school. The G (talk) 02:50, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
going back to the topic at hand, i say we wait until the democracy index for this year is released. The G (talk) 02:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
Yes. That should make for interesting reading. Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 06:38, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
"I'm gonna wait for a piece of media to actually call out a country's authoritarianism that will most likely be heavily censored and obscured instead of looking at the facts and comparing the history" that's what this reads off to me as. I know how cynical this sounds but I am FUCKING done pretending we can act like shonen protagonists. TheAceOfOne (talk) 04:11, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
The “democracy index” is notoriously unreliable and right-leaning (or maybe I'm confusing it with some other index, but there was was one very "serious" index whose publication was once led by some far-right sympathiser if I remember right). New world (talk) 15:49, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
the index famously downgraded the united states from a full democracy to a flawed democracy in 2016, and the score has been gradually declining ever since. i would love to see what it'll look like this year. The G (talk) 17:18, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
also, i think you might be thinking of the heritage foundation's economic freedom index. the economist's democracy index is more reputable, if only slightly (as it has face criticism for lack of transparency of the methodology and for its alleged bias). The G (talk) 19:14, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, that was it. Somehow by brain had made Wall Street people supporters of National Rally, I don't know how that happened (maybe I read some Wall Streeter's support for RN, I don't know). Far-right too I guess, maybe not as much as I had thought. New world (talk) 20:13, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

LiquidThreads

Emergency! Phabricator is going to undeploy LiquidThreads![3] Technicians suggest that to remove LQT, Flow have to be installed to first convert LQT to Flow pages, and then convert them again to wikitext. If this is not done, the pages will become unreadable soon. 119.236.164.102 (talk) 15:25, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Was ist das wan es zur Haus bleiben? Anna Livia (talk) 23:06, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
'What is that when it is at home?' for those with even less German than I have. Anna Livia (talk) 20:18, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

I withdraw my previous statement

I was angry that Pinkerite had written about our recent legal difficulties on her blog at what is still a sensitive time for us. I do not like the out of court settlements we agreed to being referred to as "secret deals" and I was not pleased that she wrote the article without actually reaching out to me as a Board member for comment, although I could not have said much due to the nature of the out of court settlements. I had not read the entire article when I wrote the Saloon Bar post yesterday, just the first few sentences and the section headings. I do not like Pinkerite's, article but I cannot say it contains any lies. I need to say I do not know who masterminded the legal threats against us and I cannot speak for the characters of any of the people involved. I apologize to Pinkerite for any distress I may have caused. Spud (talk) 02:20, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Why apologize? She seems perfectly content to antagonize anyone who has a disagreement with her positions on academic subjects. Ridicule can be quite annoying. One should expect to be harried when expressing supercilious opinion on a generic webpage. I know I do.Zatoichi (talk) 18:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Venezuela and Trump

Looks like Trump might be using cartels as a good excuse to go to war. Not that Venezuela's regime is legitimate anymore, but this is starting to resemble the interventions in Irak. Just to trace a short history: after years of economic inequality and authoritarian right-wing rule, Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela. While certainly establishing what I would call a "presidential monarchy" (in this case basically the French fifth republic but more extreme), and creating a cult of personality around his person, Chavez was a popular, successful leader of Venezuela who did not steal any democratic elections whatsoever. It's his successor, Maduro, who, continuing the process started under Chavez, slowly transformed Venezuela and (likely) stole the 2024 elections and potentially the 2018 elections. The illegitimate nature attributed to his regime in no way justifies invasion. Trump is going after the ressources of Latin America, and Venezuela is an easy (and ressource rich) first target. New world (talk) 15:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

I think you may be being a little generous to Chavez as our Hugo Chavez article makes clear. Also, while I agree he was elected - that was after his attempted military coup failed.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:31, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
That page doesn't contradict anything I said (it only uses stronger words to describe it). New world (talk) 17:41, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
The evidence that Maduro stole the last election is convincing (copies of ballot tallies that were provided by the opposition), and therefore more than likely. The Maduro government seemed to be silent on the issue.[4] Bongolian (talk) 18:48, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
the maduro regime is illegitimate, but there's no reason for the usa to do an iraq war 2.0. The G (talk) 17:19, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
They have now hit a Colombian ship. New world (talk) 16:44, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

A Chance to Relax a Little, What is Your Favorite Scary Movie?

The joke being a good scary movie keeps you tense, but I'm sure you got it. It's a matter of taste, but for me, Hereditary upped the bar and hasn't been cleared, even by Ari Aster's other works. But I love a good horror film, and 'tis the season. What are some of your favorites? No wrong answers, go off. Torrent (talk) 05:50, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Scream. An absolute master-peice. Absolutely genre-defining in so many ways. Its very well made in terms of its execution on various tropes, music is great, the lighting and camera-work is massively under-rated imo. At the same time its incredibly funny and so textually rich that it just gets better the more you know about the genre. Ari Aster's stuff has been good, I liked hereditary though I wouldn't rank it a personal favourite. Tikitime2 (talk) 12:31, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
I watched Scream back when I was, like 11, and I didn't really get it. In will have to research and maybe start the franchise. I vaguely remember Matthew Lillard in it, and that guy can chew the scenery in the most authentic way, he's like Jim Carrey in that respect. I guess Final Destination isn't for dopes either? I never started that series either. I like a trope of confinement to start, like Alien is on a spaceship, and the Thing is Antarctica. Even Jurassic Park has a great confining limit, you can't leave until the storm is over. So in Scream, and in movies like Nightmare on Elm Street, I just kinda get frustrated by the trope of 'people are dying, but you're crazy' in the face of wacky evidence that people are dying, either by target or final destination style divine nonsense. I really don't care for the Saw franchise, the twists from the first one have always been hacky, like, instead of 'the Sixth Sense' wild payoff where you're like 'whoH, all the clues were there' 'Saw' is like 'oh, so that's the explanation'. I really liked Evil Dead Rise as a reiteration, no punches pulled, confinement in a modern sense, not afraid to make it really awful and just a story about it being really awful. Torrent (talk) 06:51, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
@Torrent I believe I told you to watch Ghostwatch a few Halloweens ago and I stand by that recommendation. Spud (talk) 07:23, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
I remember Ghostwatch, I obviously can't remember if I did anything inspired, but don't worry, I remember Ghostwatch. Torrent (talk) 07:55, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
@Torrent Scream is a well executed slasher, a homage to the horror genre AND a rejection of the moral panic around "violent movies" (along with some mocking of the hypocritcal news media that titilated its readers with true-crime while condemning "video nasties"). I'd be really surprised if at 11 years old you "got it". There's nothing wrong with that. I certainly didn't "get it" until I came back to it as someone more familiar with the genre and the cultural context in which Scream was made. Scream proved to a broad mainstream audience that horror could be fun, it could be smart and it could say important things about society at large.
It was made a time when horror films were viewed by many critics as a cultural dead-end full of stupid characters doing stupid things for the sake of an audience that want to simply gawk at violence. Scream plays out as a "dumb slasher" but throughout it, it commentates on the conventions of the genre and manages to nod its head at what went before while retaining a sense of tension and avoiding the territory of "Scary Movie" parody. It is an incredible feat of post-modern cinema. The sequals vary massively in quality. But the original is a classic for a very good reason.
James Wan and Leigh Whannel are responsible for a lot of hacky supernatural jumpscare schlock imo but you have to hand it to them for their vision with Saw. Yes the sequals became soap opera "Would You Rather" garbage with each installment being largely just more derivative dreck riffing off of what came before. But their initial vision of things like the reverse bear-trap, the razorwire maze etc made for highly original nightmare fuel. They invented a form of mechanised body horror that no one else has been able to top in terms of sheer originality so for that reason I have to respect Saw even if I think it rapidly descended into nonsense.
I've got a friend coming over this weekend and I'm going to show her Return of the Living Dead. A lot of fun, but apparently filming it was hell. Nonetheless it's another example of how flexible and good-natured the genere can be when it wants to be. Tikitime2 (talk) 16:45, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Is phone addiction legitimate and should there be an article about it.

I saw this video on TikTok and thought it brought up some good points about phone addiction, but some people tend to argue it's not a legitimate addiction here's the video for context: https://www.tiktok.com/@olivia.unplugged/video/7550364579705015574

Now I think that if you overuse something you should probably try to ween off it but what do you think.

1.43.233.54 (talk) 11:40, 7 October 2025 (UTC)@t_The_Center_Of_The_Earth.

It's not chemically addictive, but it's possible given that I've heard of book addiction. But I'd add an article on coffee addiction first. Koafox (talk) 13:43, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
If our IP would clearly define what they mean by "addiction" then the answer will be clear.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 14:31, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
"Addiction" is often a shorthand people use for a compulsive disorder. (Technical wonks separate chemical "addictions" from non-chemical "compulsive" issues.) 'Tis fine.
I would say that there is a case for an article only if there is a prominent crank movement spouting bad ideas about this, as is the case for porn "addiction". 47.197.76.134 (talk) 14:50, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
I am not sure that all compulsive behavior is an an indication of addiction. I would accept that addictions involve compulsive behavior though.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 15:26, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
I see compulsive phone behavior constantly, and it's strange to me. I kept a dumphone until, I dunno, 2012 or some shit, then I got an iPhone because it was supposed to be intuitive. no joke, I today fixed a supervisor problem by pressing alt+tab on a computer that had no mouse and had lost the cursor, I'm not bad at computers, I just don't get sucked in like thate, I don't need to be constantly someplace else. The horrors of this world are right in front of us, but the more I see people trying to multitask existing in the world and existing in the world their phones, Iunno, I give em some credit, there was always the joke about 'can't walk and chew gum at the same time' and some of these people do fine keeping their phone a priority. Maybe I got left behind, maybe I missed something. But mobile games are trash and group chats are a deevolution of human conversation, and I am not alone in a generation that finds phone calls tedious. I grew up with answering machines. Call me a luddite, but I don't think I should always have to be there when you text me. Which my mother honestly doesn't get, so it's weird between multiple generations. She is from the generation that sends actual letters in the mail. I've done that too, I'm old enough to have put pen to paper and used stamps and physically, carefully write addresses to send thank your letters, as like, a little kid after a birthday party. Is it more convenient to be constantly connected? sure,.except.she thinks I've died when I don't text her back. But man, I, personally, have to leave that shit on read while I go about my business, I'd rather meet up and joke or complain about real life stuff in the world where it's happening. I like to do things with my family and friends that let me see them and hear them and interact with them. This shit we're doing right now, you reading my opinion on this, that shit feels phony. Torrent (talk) 10:16, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Follow the money

From one of my sources of news - the furloughed US Federal workers might not get paid for the time they are not working. As they are not on strike is this not 'slightly illegal'/an encouragement to find alternative employment (I understand that many Americans are living paycheque to paycheque)?

(and can there be an archiving of articles here as the page is getting slightly long.) Anna Livia (talk) 23:21, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

We need a new archiving bot; either the old one was removed or stopped functioning. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:22, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

A joke that perfectly summarizes how authoritarianism works and why it seems stupid until you are living in it.

There was a Jew and a Socialist locked in a ghetto in Nazi Germany, and one day all the guards were out because they had to use the bathroom, so the Jew says to the Socialist "Hey! The door is unlocked, we can just walk out and escape!" But the Socialist says "Are you insane?! They'll just come back and shoot us both!" TheAceOfOne (talk) 00:31, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Am I the only one who doesn't understand this joke? It seems to be obliquely referencing the holocaust, but I can't believe that would be the thrust of any joke anyone would post here. I ask because the punchline is incomprehensible. If they have, in fact, walked out - then the guards simply won't find them if the come back. So is this the joke - that one of them is silly? Or is it that the Socialist expects the punishment would be equal in the event that they were recaptured? (Which it would obviously be if they actually were both recaptured.) If it's none of these things, could the joke be set anywhere with any random participants, locations and guards - or does it only work with Jews, Nazis and Socialists?
Or is it me, and am I missing something obvious?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 05:45, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
The joke must be that the socialist is stupid. It is, of course, impossible to execute two people who aren't there, but the stupid guy doesn't know that. I think this must have originally been one of those "Polish jokes" Americans tell, that are pretty much the same as the "Irish jokes" the English tell. It must originally have been, "a Jew and a Pole were locked in a ghetto." It's a shit joke and it says fuck all about authoritarianism. Yes, the Nazis shot people. We know that already. Spud (talk) 12:51, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
Maybe "TheAceOfOne" will swing by and explain it at some point.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 13:36, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
The "joke" is that Nazis always come back no matter what you do. Badum Tss. Äxl (talk) 14:34, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
Then it would have been better with a Mexican a Venezuelan and an ICE agent. It still wouldn't have been funny but it would at least have been topical and not borderline antisemitic.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 15:37, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
So just so we are clear, I won't explain the joke, but I will explain what the joke is not, and it is not that "Socialists are dumb" and it is not antisemitism, I do understand that this is the site that has people troll on here and spout bigotry and hatred because this site gets cited as a trustworthy source but doesn't align with biases they personally agree with, but this isn't a Disney film where the punchline is "Haha ethnic stereotype" TheAceOfOne (talk) 20:11, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
I think the reason people aren't getting the joke is that it was stupid. Ioe bidome (talk) 22:51, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
So, my guess is that the socialist has been trapped in learned helplessness, always expecting the authority to crack down. And my guess is that the point of the joke is that under authoritarian rule, lots of people go 'stupid' over time like that (but it shows in more everyday, less extraordinary ways usually). --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 00:36, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
If it's not saying one of the people is stupid, if, "They'll come back and shoot us both," means, "They'll track us down and shoot us both," where's the fucking joke? I don't buy that explanation. I still think this is just a stupid "Polish joke" that TheAceOfOne is reading much more into than was ever intended. Spud (talk) 01:44, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
The thing is that I have never even heard of "Polish jokes" or "Irish jokes" until they were brought up here. TheAceOfOne (talk) 02:02, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
OK, it's your joke, I guess you either invented it or repeated it - so presumably you understand it and also feel that it "perfectly summarizes how authoritarianism works and why it seems stupid until you are living in it". But there is evidently some confusion about it - so why won't you share your understanding?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 06:37, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
What Bob said. Friend, it goes against almost all rules of comedy, but sometimes you gotta explain the joke. Kencolt (talk) 09:14, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Bread and Enhanced Games ... or How the Trumpian Empire Entertains Its People

I'm sure you've heard about it if not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Games Saw this on German ScienceBlogs about a competition of doped athletes. Trump and Thiel invest in it - the biggest sportspeople of our time. The fighters for ethics and health. And if you don't care about sports: The blog is mostly about correspondence chess! Now that I have your attention: They say correspondence chessplayers use AI to play and thus games mostly end in draws. Well. What actually interested me was a commentator saying that enhancements are good. People who were not so lucky can now take part in sports and have a chance. They almost got me there but then again it reaked of liberalism all the way. Sure, people can do what they want but what says this of our society? They don't care about the individual's health? Can I use a slippery slope in this case? Äxl (talk) 13:02, 8 October 2025 (UTC) And with "liberal" I meant neoliberal/libertarian. ':) Äxl (talk) 14:32, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Bari Weiss named editor-in-chief at CBS

CBS has been showing its belly to the Trump administration lately as they seek to secure their merger with Paramount. This seems to be part of that, as Bari Weiss is one of those "I'm a liberal who has just a few critiques of my own side" types who then proceeds to consistently produce right-wing pieces. Here's an article about the decision: https://defector.com/bari-weiss-signs-huge-deal-to-usher-cbs-news-into-its-vichy-era Vomitorium (talk) 15:54, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

I have been in a dark place recently

I have been using food as a means of suicide. I swear that I am losing the will to live. Any way to dig myself out of the darkness? --Trans Fem Agenda 14:31, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

María Corina Machado receives Nobel peace prize

While the reasons are obvious, I still am a little hesitant to celebrate this, considering her post-election political positioning: like in many such cases, she is not a slightly right of centre politician, but is part of the global far-right movement and supportive of Trump. She is part of the populist right, and I'm not sure that she would be better than Maduro (in the same way as Bolsonaro wasn't better than the corrupt left, in fact he was worse). Maduro is worse than corrupt, but in the current political context (that of a planned and hardly hidden US-invasion by Trump, it's not much of a conspiracy anymore), Venezuela will not become more than an "illiberal democracy" after the US-American invasion. New world (talk) 16:59, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Macron does mistake after mistake

Macron is now, to put it slightly, in a gigantic shit. Today, the king decided to call another audience of all opposition except for La France Insoumise and the National Rally: the left didn't receive the guaranty of a government, the election results are still not being respected, the centre-right party (in government since 2024 and Barnier) left the central bloc, and Édouard Philippe, former prime minister, future presidential candidate and leader of the most right-leaning Macronist party (Horizon) remained quiet, according to reports. The "central bloc" is fragmenting: Attal and Philippe want Macron to resign, Borne wants her own pension reform to be re-discussed, the centre-right is leaving Macron's alliance. La France Insoumise continues to call for the resignation/destitution of the president. National Rally (the party which had convinced Macron to call new legislative elections) wants a new dissolution of the National Assembly (as they hope to win this time and they want to vote an amnesty for Marine Le Pen in order to present herself in 2027). Macron might resign, or he might call a dissolution again, as some informants indicate. Indeed, he believes (according to his own closed circle, his father, various investigative journalists) National Rally should take power in the government to show its incompetence to the French people: that sounds familiar and scary at the same time. A prime minister should be named before 20 am. If Macron resigns this year or next year, the system will necessarily change, and a parliamentary republic is not out of question. However, a victory of National Rally would mean a system similar to Italy, Hungary, or the United States, that is even more authoritarian than the 5th republic. New world (talk) 17:08, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Macron's very late: usually announcements by French governments this late are supposed to not be seen (according to former members of government themselves). Now, some journalists argue the 48 hour delay was really starting from a later point, so it's not 20 AM anymore. New world (talk) 19:24, 10 October 2025 (UTC)