Correct me if I’m wrong, but Trump never dropped tariffs on China, did he?

Yeah in a global environment essentially China is the workforce/factory workers of the previous gilded age.

Maybe 15-20 years ago, but not so much anymore. Cost of labor has been rising in China dramatically to the point that a lot of manufacturing is leaving China.

when my own joy brought others joy. That was the only thing that was worth it.

If that’s something you truly value, then you should absolutely have kids. There is no joy greater than that which a child feels, especially one with a loving family.

I also don’t think experiencing life is inconsequential. Sure, it doesn’t have some grand cosmic consequence. Our existence has virtually 0 impact on nearly all of reality. But that’s not the only way to define something as consequential. What’s important to me is my life and the lives of those I care about (which extends far beyond just the people I know personally). My kids’ existence has been enormously consequential for many people who I care about, and my life has been enormously consequential on that of my kids.

I don’t need some grand cosmic meaning behind that. The meaning of life is whatever you choose to make of it. For me, that’s providing as much enjoyment and fulfillment to my family as I can.

Maybe it’s because I’m not in IT and don’t write code, since an overwhelming number of posts seem to be directed at coders/IT professionals, but most posts on all just aren’t interesting to me.

Of course not. Everyone suffers in their life at some point. That’s called being alive.

I think that’s also an absurd hurdle to insist someone has to clear.

With hall that filtered, how does anything even show up? I feels like there’s 10 new posts a day, and 7 of them are about American politics. (Obvious exaggeration)

The fascists have no qualms with having kids and raising them to be little fascists, too. I had kids because I wanted to love and care for people as I help them develop into capable and caring people, but I’m also glad that at least 2 of the members of the generation who will be running this planet when I’m old won’t have been raised by fascists.

I think this whole line of reasoning that it’s immoral or cruel to have children at all is just plain dumb and utterly nonsensical. Yes, there’s a lot of fucked up shit in the world. But, other than climate change, this is far from the worst the world has ever been. Brining people into the world now is not particularly worse for them than, say, having kids in Medieval Europe where there was a decent chance they’d die as an infant or get the plague, but the best case you could hope for was to give them the life of a subsistence dirt farmer. Or ancient Mesopotamia, where, again, odds are they’d die in childhood, but they couldn’t expect better than barely surviving on the edge of starvation. Etc, etc, etc.

Yet through all that people managed to find ways to improve their conditions and that of those around them. People fought and built better lives and a better world. Fuck anyone who tells me I should just give up and just resign that the world now and forever belongs to the fascists and capitalists.

Having kids is not cruel. Despite the darkness, there’s still a hell of a lot of happiness to be had in this world. I look at the expressions of pure joy on my kids’ faces as they explore the forest near our house, or when I get home from work, or when they make cookies for their mom, etc. And you’re telling me giving them that joy is cruel? How detached from reality do you have to be to believe that?

This is a big part of how it’s become so pervasive lately, although the racists have been complaining about the same thing for a very long time. The internet and influencer culture has allowed them to monetize the outrage in ways that weren’t possible before.

You’re not crazy, and it’s not new. The current buzz word is “DEI”, but they’ve been doing the same thing since before any of us were alive. Before DEI it was Woke. Before that it was Critical Race Theory (CRT). Before that it was Social Justice Warriors (SJW). Before that it was Politically Correct (PC). Before that they used terms which are less polite.

That’s sort of the whole premise of The Wire, especially the 1st, 4th, and 5th seasons. The mass surveillance side is mostly shown through the cops’ perspective, and the show is now 20+ years old, but it shows an extremely realistic portrayal of how cops use surveillance to build cases against criminal organizations and career criminals.

It’s set in the early days of mass adoption of cell phones, so there are some pretty dated moments. The entire 1st season centers around monitoring a drug enterprise that uses pay phones to communicate. There’s a moment in a later season where the cops have to have text messaging and sending pictures over cell phones explained. They go into a lot of detail about what a burner phone is. It’s kind of funny in retrospect, but it was all very timely when the show originally aired.

The title “The Wire” is a reference to wire taps, ie the police getting warrants to allow them to listen to phone calls.

There’s really only failing, then learning, then death

My kids have me listening to way too much Disney music lately…

In a magical hypothetical world where we could make this happen without it being absurdly cruel to the animals, I’d love to see it.

That’s not a species of animal. That’s the living embodiment of a fundamental force of nature. No mortal, man nor beast, can defeat one.

I think a grizzly bear or a polar bear would take it. Any other bear it’s going to the gorilla.

Optimistic of you to assume any of this will end in 2028. Trump and his fascist goons are already priming the electorate to accept a 3rd term. He’s not going away until he’s dead.

Is this the showdown we’ve been waiting for that will finally definitively prove we’re no longer a Constitutional Republic?

I guarantee you there’s going to be a fuck ton of obnoxious fascists on Reddit and Twitter quoting the fuck out of Jackson today.

I’ve been voting for 12 years longer than you and that’s the same for me in general elections. The way I see American electoral politics, you vote for who you want in the primary. They end up losing to some shitty as corporate stooge. Then you vote against the fascist in the general election.

2004 Primary Elections (it was a presidential year, but there were more elections than just for president). I was actually 17 at the time and still a high school senior, but the law in my state was that if you were going to be 18 for the general election you could vote in the primary. I’ve voted in every primary and general election since.

Yes, of course it is.

Like any privilege, having ‘pretty privilege’ doesn’t mean your life isn’t difficult or that you don’t have problems. It just means that your looks aren’t one of the things contributing to those problems/difficulties.