Weird how few people seem capable of realizing that the senses of animals can be different enough that it's really not that simple to say whether they're better or worse than human ones (or those of another animal).

FFS I just wrote up a whole thread on progress technologically and socially and how it needs to be acknowledged as mostly positive while also still seeing positive elements of the past and that parts can get worse, but I misclicked something and deleted the whole thing. Idk if I'll rewrite it.

At a protest I attended in Berlin a couple of years ago, a girl was carrying a sign that read, "I hope your partner loves you as much as Germany loves being on the wrong side of history." Ouch

No country has been more pathetic than Germany

I don't get why people are so weird about gender abolition.

Gollum is a disaster bi chaos gremlin.

gambling monk, germany, 15th century

It seems like Americans would be totally OK if their regime commits heinous war crimes against other nations as long as the president is eloquent and charming. Their issue with the Trump regime is not the heinous crimes, it's the crassness and lack of decorum.

It is insane how people I meet irl just act like there is no war right now even when it's obviously relevant to a topic. Like, someone mentioned Iran as an example of a country where the citizens have many reasons to use VPNs but uh. Don't think government censorship is the most primary concern rn.

The Talmud has the original "yo mama" joke. (Megillah 25b:9)

Might be time to bring back war criminal trials that include rich people this time

we need a better class of techno-optimists imo

The same tends to apply to "think of the women" (often implicitly specifically white); patronising a group you're actually oppressing by pretending you're protecting them from some bullshit you made up, but actually just restricting them.

Any legislation justified with "think of the children," can automatically be assumed to be an Orwellian nightmare in practice.

My mentions have folks calling Talarico a "fascist" and assuring me that black Texans would never ever vote for anyone who uses Christian language. For the good of democracy, I'm begging some of you to take a long break from social media. It's not helping you and you're definitely not helping us.

I mean he was still kinda cringe as fuck and really libby but like, yeah! Did quite a lot of legitimately good writing. Admittedly I'm not sure how he would've been with access to podcasts and social media, but still.

Most of the people who work at Anthropic seem to be people who genuinely believe LLMs should exist and also genuinely want to make them harmless and you don’t have to “hand it to them” to recognize that Anthropic vs. the Trump admin is not a “let them fight” situation.

Populism is when politicians make promises. The more promises they make, the more populist it is. And when they promise a whole lot of stuff, it's fanaticism.

me: i sure wish there was a big long wood instrument for me to blow air into the humble didgeridoo:

Whenever liberals (or tankies, which are a subset of liberals) scream about states assassinating rulers of other states--as if killing rulers is worse than killing civilians or some unique evil--it really drives home how little we have in common. The *least* bad thing in wars is the rulers dying.

if your "feminism" excludes sex workers, you're not feminist.

Your regular reminder that a giraffe is more closely related to a humpback whale, than it is related to a lion.

You know what? I would not be against Germany expelling Israeli and US american ambassadors. We actually urgently need to cut our connections to Trump's USA and to Netanyahu's Israel anyway. Though of course Germany unfortunately won't do that (though I could at least imagine Spain doing that).

There is only one men’s day and one women’s day which seems grossly inequitable when you consider it means the non-binary folks get 363.25 days.

This is the sort of thing a cashless society robs us of, the opportunity to try to get away with paying the bus fare in Carthaginian currency www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

How do people manage to be this casually racist just all the fucking time?

The essence of being a leftist is caring about shit that matters, accurately predicting the future, and having consistent morals, and everyone somehow getting really mad at you and making fun of you for these things until you get proven right, at which point they'll pretend they agreed all along.

i have and will probably always be atheist, but i don't hesitate to defend muslims, as with all people of faith, from wrongful persecution on that basis alone. we shouldn't need to agree on every aspect of the cosmos to have respect for each other's civil rights and want to coexist peacefully.

cannot stress enough that "separate the art from the artist" was meant for private individuals reconciling the art they love with its flawed creators and not meant for the ceo of a company driving a dump truck of money up to a bigot's front porch www.theverge.com/podcast/8914...

This post caused the CEO to step down for fear of your power

Happy National Napping Day from a few of our napping experts! 💤

Fucking hell are Nintendo fans insufferable. How the fuck do people who make fanart support IP law that fervently? What you are doing is itself literally illegal under this nonsense!

I can't compete with this.

I'm doomed to be the one who always knows lots of things about everything compared to people I meet irl, while also always being shown up by actual experts (or at least moreso than me) showing up on all of those topics whenever they come up online because my knowledge is ultimately passing.

Why do I keep seeing people say shit like "Idiocracy was a documentary"? It's not that it's wrong to describe the USA as currently ruled by morons, but like... The reason for that is definitely not that we didn't do enough eugenics and should be more bigoted towards the working class?

I genuinely believe we’d be in a much different place today. If every single day of any Trump presidency there has been a new impeachment filed with all Democrats voting for at every opportunity. Even if there had never been a republican defection it would frame things far more accurately.

If an official commits an impeachable offense and nobody acts to impeach, it is no longer an impeachable offense. People who oppose impeachment as “pointless” because it seems unlikely to result in removal do not understand this very simple point and seem unwilling to even try to understand it.

It's really annoying how pervasive beliefs about crocodiles or sharks or such being animal groups that have been around forever are. The crown groups of their living members are kind of young in geologic scale and their stem-group members had many differences to their extant relatives!

i admit i am extremely alarmed at how xenophobic a lot of US based leftists are. the way you people talk about iran is BONE CHILLING. youve always been like this but even in your tepid anti war statements youve been quick to add that you do believe iran is ontologically evil.

Whenever I think too much about it I get dumbfounded by the term "Human Resources". I think the first time I heard it I thought it was satirical dystopian excess and really it just sounds like it would be.

People who put the blame for the worst actions of a foreign government on all of its people when they interact with them or talk about them need to understand the same can be applied back to them. Mainly thinking of yanks but I know plenty of Germans who need to hear this too, really applies to all.

Note to self, next time another trans woman asks me if I play MtG Commander reply with: “Command her? I barely know her!”

Considering the oil market likely getting out of control soon likely leading to a new 70s-like oil-crisis could we at least re-introduce car-free Sundays here in Germany? Look, I just would find it kinda funny to cycle on an autobahn for once.

Western militaries waste a truly insane amount of money. Administration is probably a bigger part than CIWS munitions but either way it's just so fucking much.

Politics isn't Bluesky's thing but Ursula von der Leyen has just given a big foreign policy speech to EU ambassadors condoning the US/Israeli war on Iran, announcing that international law and multilateralism are a hindrance to EU interests and basically recasting the EU as a security project.

Me watching Americans deal with daylight savings: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Me in two weeks when UK daylight savings hits: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck

My cat does not speak English. You could say the worst, meanest things to her and she won't have her feelings hurt. I think it is universally understood that doing this makes you a bad person. If you are mean to my cat, you are no longer welcome in my home. We should be kind. Be kind to Claude.