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Joined 8か月前
Cake day: 2024年7月18日
  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOPtomovies@lemm.ee•“The Electric State” is Everything Wrong with NetflixEnglish
    1·
    3分前

    It’s true. Part of the point the video was making is that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with cheap thrills. But (he says), it’s a little weird for the cheap thrills to be the subject of the network’s greatest investment of money into anything to date, and dressed up in all the trappings of a super-blockbuster tentpole offering, and based (supposedly) on powerful source material which is anything but cheap thrills and in fact makes a poignant and compelling point in the exact opposite direction, saying that cheap thrills against the backdrop of a dying world can be a poisonous distraction.

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catOPtoMeanwhileOnGrad@sh.itjust.works•Tankie talking point speedrun! F35s -> Gaza -> Biden and Hillary Clinton -> "successful counterterrorism operation in Xinxiang through education, job creation, peace and prosperity results"English
    3·
    59分前

    Yeah.

    It would also, if true, be a sadly anticlimactic answer for what was a lingering unresolved mystery for me:

    https://ponder.cat/post/1411455/1610864

    So this particular troll account mostly just posts pro-Russian (or anti-Western) gibberish, barely comprehensible, of the type you can see on display here. They don’t even seem to care very much whether people even believe them, and certainly not enough to slow down and post anything all that coherent.

    But for some reason, when the slrpnk moderators took some time out of their busy schedule deleting criticisms of Jill Stein, and deleted instead some comments criticizing a misleading green energy article, this person suddenly stepped out of their troll mode and started posting reasoned and detailed defenses of the slrpnk moderation team. Why did they do that? Why was that weird minor Lemmy-drama issue the thing that motivated this troll to slow down and try to make sense, and read the messages they were responding to and construct sensible arguments about them?

    If they’re just sort of mentally ill in a vaguely anti-Western sort of way, then I guess there doesn’t have to be much of an answer. It can just be that stuff triggers in their brain and they get passionate about it and start typing. I still find it a little bit curious though.

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cattoGlobal News@lemmy.zip•Netherlands launches fund to lure top scientists, like those fleeing the U.S.
    6·
    21時間前

    In some theoretical future history book, there is a whole section of one chapter devoted to how the collapse of the US was that calamitous event that in the end ushered in a new age, much more civilized and laid on more solid foundations than the capitalist wasteland that had defined the previous 100-150 years or so.

    Everyone stopped waiting for someone else to solve climate change. Everyone stopped assuming someone else would see to their country’s geopolitical security. Around the world, citizens of the comfortable countries realized they had to seize the reins of their own governments, or a tsunami of social-media slop and campaign contributions would seize it away from them. And they looked at the wreckage between the Atlantic and Pacific and said, Jesus Christ, fuck no, that’s not happening here. And then they got to work. Enabled by a glut of highly qualified people fleeing from the horror and into any role that could be created for them in science and public policy. And, it fucking worked, and things finally started going in the right direction in a sustained fashion.

    There are other outcomes, of course. That is one of a few different possibilities.

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cattoNot The Onion@lemmy.world•Scrabble players quit game after 400 offensive words banned from listEnglish
    3·
    3日前

    I am clearly just talking nonsense. I actually didn’t know that meatballs were called that in the UK, so I guess it’s perfectly legit. There actually was a big rift in the Scrabble community, decades ago, about using the British official word list versus the American official word list, and apparently they’ve more or less standardized on a combined list that includes all the words on both. So anything in British English is completely fair game, which may to be fair explain why some of the words that aren’t real friendly in the US are still on there.

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cattoIsrael and Palestine Politics Discussion@lemmy.world•‘A stern message’: how return of Trump loomed over Gaza ceasefire negotiationsEnglish
    1·
    3日前

    Last update:

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/03/israel-palestine-ceasefire-did-it-ever-stop-palestine/

    Three days ago, Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of Palestinians, including a group of journalists. In total, between the ceasefire’s start on January 19th and yesterday, Israeli forces killed at least 170 Palestinians.

    Then, the official break: Over the past day, Israeli airstrikes killed over 404 Palestinians and wounded 560, targeting residential areas and reportedly wiping out entire families.

    Now, it is inarguable. The ceasefire is dead.

    “[T]he ceasefire itself was not, in reality, a ceasefire. It has been a time of strategic mass starvation for the Palestinian people. I don’t know what kind of ceasefire agreement includes provisions for mass starvation, but it’s not one that any reasonable person would accept.”

    💔

    Good thing Trump speaks at dictation pace, and the Israelis won’t be able to outflank him. I’m sure he’ll sort that shit right out.

    The president-elect was emphatic that he wanted a ceasefire-for-hostages deal. Trump wanted the war in Gaza finished. He had other fish to fry.

    Witkoff delivered a stern message from the incoming president of the United States, who unequivocally demanded the deal’s conclusion.

    “Netanyahu … suddenly came to recognise precisely where it is that they stand with the new American president. They came to realise that Trump speaks at dictation pace, and they will never be able to outflank him from the right. Trump, once again, wants a deal.”

    “The pressure Trump is exerting right now is not the kind that Israel expected from him,” lamented the rightwing commentator Jacob Bardugo on Channel 14 on Monday. “The pressure is the essence of the matter.”

    While Netanyahu has historically been able to use the threat of White House pressure as a public get out of jail free card, it is not clear – with all the risks inherent in the deal for him – that it is the case this time.

    There was actually a lot more transparent horseshit in the article than I remembered. I read that statement about the “get out of jail free card” several times, and I still can’t figure out what the hell it is trying to say.

    Word of advice: Next time I am criticizing an article, read what I have to say, if you ever get tired of being profoundly wrong. I am not always right, but this was such a transparent bunch of nonsense that I find it very weird that you leapt to its defense.

    I’m done with this discussion. I think the point is made and I’m not trying to hector you indefinitely. Just wanted to follow up. I care about it enough to this point because of anger at the killing in Gaza, and likewise at anyone who’s complicit in promoting self-serving lies – like this article – which will encourage and continue it.