#Science pundit

[buddhismnow]

Instruction, observation, and experience. by Trevor Leggett

Enquiry, too, can become a sort of slogan, as blind faith can become a slogan. Instruction, observation, and experience. by Trevor Leggett http://wp.me/pFy3u-uo

A pupil of a Zen master in Tokyo attended his sangha where it was expected that the students penetrate deeply into truth, in the world and in themselves. This particular pupil had to go to the countryside on a business trip, and he stayed overnight. He attended a service in the local temple. When he returned, he saw the teacher and one or two of his fellow pupils and he said, ‘You know — oh, it…

[black-fist-order]

This gentleman was a college professor in political science. He gives some intriguing insights here...

"Friends,

A political disaster such as what occurred Tuesday gains significance not simply by virtue of who won or lost, but through how the election is interpreted.

This is known as The Lesson of the election.

The Lesson explains what happened and why. It deciphers the public’s mood, values, and thoughts. It attributes credit and blame.

And therein lies its power. When The Lesson of the election becomes accepted wisdom — when most of the politicians, pundits, and politicians come to believe it — it shapes the future. It determines how parties, candidates, political operatives, and journalists approach future elections.

There are many reasons for what occurred on Tuesday and for what the outcome should teach America — about where the nation is and about what Democrats should do in the future.

Yet inevitably, one Lesson predominates.

Today, I want to share with you six conventional “lessons” you will hear for Tuesday’s outcome. None is or should be considered The Lesson of the 2024 election.

Then I’ll give you what I consider the real Lesson of the election.

None of these are The Lesson of the 2024 election:

1. "It was a total repudiation of the Democratic Party, a major realignment."

Rubbish. Harris would have won had there been a small, less than 1 percent vote shift in the three main battleground states. The biggest shift from 2020 and 2016 was among Latino men. We don’t know yet whether Latino men will return to the Democrats; if they don’t, they will contribute to a small realignment.

But the fact is America elected Trump in 2016, almost reelected him in 2020, and elected him again in 2024. We haven't changed much, at least in terms of whom we vote for.

2. "If the Dems want to win in the future, they have to move to the right. They should stop talking about 'democracy,' forget 'multiculturalism,' and end their focus on women’s rights, transgender rights, immigrants’ rights, voting rights, civil rights, and America’s shameful history of racism and genocide. Instead, push to strengthen families, cut taxes, allow school choice and prayer in public schools, reduce immigration, minimize our obligations abroad, and put America and Americans first."

Wrong. Democrats shouldn’t move to the right if that means giving up on democracy, social justice, civil rights, and equal voting rights. While Democrats might reconsider their use of “identity” politics (in which people are viewed primarily through the lenses of race, ethnicity, or gender), Democrats must not lose the moral ideals at the heart of the Party and at the core of America.

3. "Republicans won because of misinformation and right-wing propaganda. They won over young men because of a vicious alliance between Trump and a vast network of online influencers and podcasts appealing to them. The answer is for Democrats to cultivate an equivalent media ecosystem that rivals what the right has built."

Partly true. Misinformation and right-wing propaganda did play a role, particularly in reaching young men. But this hardly means progressives and Democrats should fill the information ecosystem with misinformation or left-wing propaganda. Better messaging, yes. Lies and bigotry, no.

We should use our power as consumers to boycott X and all advertisers on X and on Fox News, mount defamation and other lawsuits against platforms that foment hate, and push for regulations (at least at the state level for now) requiring that all platforms achieve minimum standards of moderation and decency.

4. "Republicans cheated. Trump, Putin, and election deniers at county and precinct levels engaged in a vast conspiracy to suppress votes."

I doubt it. Putin tried, but so far there’s no sign that the Kremlin affected any voting process. There is little or no evidence of widespread cheating by Republicans. Dems should not feed further conspiracy theories about fraudulent voting or tallying. For the most part, the system worked smoothly, and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to election workers and state officials in charge of the process.

5. "Harris ran a lousy campaign. She wasn’t a good communicator. She fudged and shifted her positions on issues. She was weighed down by Biden and didn’t sufficiently separate herself from him."

Untrue. Harris ran a good campaign, but she had only a little over three months to do it. She had to introduce herself to the nation (typically a vice president is almost invisible within an administration) at the same time Trump’s antics sucked most of the oxygen out of the political air. She could have been clearer about her proposals and policies and embraced economic populism (see below on the real lesson), but her debate with Trump was the best debate performance I’ve ever witnessed, and her speeches were pitch perfect. Biden may have weighed her down a bit, but his decision to step down was gracious and selfless.

6. "Racism and misogyny. Voters were simply not prepared to elect a Black female president."

Partly true. Surely racism and misogyny played a role, but bigotry can’t offer a full explanation.

--

Here’s the real Lesson of the 2024 election:

On Tuesday, according to exit polls, Americans voted mainly on the economy — and their votes reflected their class and level of education.

While the economy has improved over the last two years according to standard economic measures, most Americans without college degrees — that’s the majority — have not felt it.

In fact, most Americans without college degrees have not felt much economic improvement for four decades, and their jobs have grown less secure. The real median wage of the bottom 90 percent is stuck nearly where it was in the early 1990s, even though the economy is more than twice as large.

Most of the economy’s gains have gone to the top.

This has caused many Americans to feel frustrated and angry. Trump gave voice to that anger. Harris did not.

The real lesson of the 2024 election is that Democrats must not just give voice to the anger but also explain how record inequality has corrupted our system, and pledge to limit the political power of big corporations and the super-rich.

The basic bargain used to be that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you’d do better and your children would do even better than you.

But since 1980, that bargain has become a sham. The middle class has shrunk.

Why? While Republicans steadily cut taxes on the wealthy, Democrats abandoned the working class.

Democrats embraced NAFTA and lowered tariffs on Chinese goods. They deregulated finance and allowed Wall Street to become a high-stakes gambling casino. They let big corporations gain enough market power to keep prices (and profit margins) high.

They let corporations bust unions (with negligible penalties) and slash payrolls. They bailed out Wall Street when its gambling addiction threatened to blow up the entire economy but never bailed out homeowners who lost everything.

They welcomed big money into their campaigns — and delivered quid pro quos that rigged the market in favor of big corporations and the wealthy.

Joe Biden redirected the Democratic Party back toward its working-class roots, but many of the changes he catalyzed — more vigorous antitrust enforcement, stronger enforcement of labor laws, and major investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, semiconductors, and non-fossil fuels — wouldn’t be evident for years, and he could not communicate effectively about them.

The Republican Party says it’s on the side of working people, but its policies will hurt ordinary workers even more. Trump’s tariffs will drive up prices. His expected retreat from vigorous antitrust enforcement will allow giant corporations to drive up prices further.

If Republicans gain control over the House as well as the Senate, as looks likely, they will extend Trump’s 2017 tax law and add additional tax cuts. As in 2017, these lower taxes will benefit mainly the wealthy and enlarge the national debt, which will give Republicans an excuse to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — their objectives for decades.

Democrats must no longer do the bidding of big corporations and the wealthy. They must instead focus on winning back the working class.

They should demand paid family leave, Medicare for all, free public higher education, stronger unions, higher taxes on great wealth, and housing credits that will generate the biggest boom in residential home construction since World War II.

They should also demand that corporations share their profits with their workers. They should call for limits on CEO pay, eliminate all stock buybacks (as was the SEC rule before 1982), and reject corporate welfare (subsidies and tax credit to particular companies and industries unrelated to the common good).

Democrats need to tell Americans why their pay has been lousy for decades and their jobs less secure: not because of immigrants, liberals, people of color, the “deep state,” or any other Trump Republican bogeyman, but because of the power of large corporations and the rich to rig the market and siphon off most of the economy’s gains.

In doing this, Democrats need not turn their backs on democracy. Democracy goes hand-in-hand with a fair economy. Only by reducing the power of big money in our politics can America grow the middle class, reward hard work, and reaffirm the basic bargain at the heart of our system.

If the Trump Republicans gain control of the House, as seems likely, they will have complete control of the federal government. That means they will own whatever happens to the economy and will be responsible for whatever happens to America. Notwithstanding all their anti-establishment populist rhetoric, they will become the establishment.

The Democratic Party should use this inflection point to shift ground — from being the party of well-off college graduates, big corporations, “never-Tumpers” like Dick Cheney, and vacuous “centrism” — to an anti-establishment party ready to shake up the system on behalf of the vast majority of Americans.

This is and should be The Lesson of the 2024 election.

What do you think...?"

Robert Reich...

[warrioreowynofrohan]

This is one of the best articles I’ve seen yet on Trump, Trumpism, and the upcoming election. It’s directed at the right and centre-right (whereas most tumblr posts on this are directed at the left), but it’s saying – with detailed analysis and evidence – exactly what needs to be said, to everyone. This is not a normal election. How you vote this November determines whether you ever get the chance to vote in a democratic election again. This is not a game. Fascism is not a buzzword or a rhetorical device to hurl at anyone and everyone you disagree with. It is real, it is dangerous, and Trump is openly running on a fascist platform.

There are only two sides in this election: those who want the United States to be a fascist dictatorship and those who do not.

I live in Canada. I do not want to live next to a fascist state (especially since the Comservatives here are way ahead in the polls and their leader gives every sign of wanting to cozy up to Trump).

Please, stop this while you still have a chance.

Today we’re going to look at definitions of fascism and ask the question – you may have guessed – if Donald Trump is running for President as a fascist. Worry not, this isn’t me shifting to full-time political pundit, nor is this the formal end of the hiatus (which will happen on Nov 1, when I hope to have a post answering some history questions from the ACOUP Senate to start off on), but this was an essay I had in me that I had to get out, and working on the book I haven’t the time to get it out in any other forum but this one. And I’ll be frank, some of Donald Trump’s recent statements and promises have raised the urgency of writing this; the political science suggests that politicians do, broadly, attempt to do the things they promise to do – and the things Trump is promising are dark indeed.

Now I want to be clear what we’re doing here. I am not asking if the Republican Party is fascist (I think, broadly speaking, it isn’t) and certainly not if you are fascist (I certainly hope not). But I want to employ the concept of fascism as an ideology with more precision than its normal use (‘thing I don’t like’) and in that context ask if Donald Trump fits the definition of a fascist based on his own statements and if so, what does that mean. And I want to do it in a long-form context where we can get beyond slogans or tweet-length arguments and into some detail.

Now the response from some folks is going to be anger that I am even asking this question and demands for me to ‘stay in my lane.’ To which I must remind them that the purpose of history and historians is, as Thucydides put it, is to offer “an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human affairs must resemble if it does not reflect it” (Thuc. 1.22.4). This is my lane. Goodness knows, I’d much rather be discussing the historical implications of tax policy or long-term interstate strategy, but that isn’t the election we’re having. And if hearing about these things that happened is unpleasant, well, Polybius offers the solution: “men have no more ready corrective of conduct than knowledge of the past” (Plb. 1.1.1). We must correct our conduct.

The author, Bret Devereaux, lays out the history of the rise to power of Hitler and Mussolini and draws out the lessons

What I want to note here are two key commonalities: First, fascists were only able to take power because of the gullibility of those who thought they could ‘use’ the fascists against some other enemy (usually communists). Traditional conservative politicians (your Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham types) and conservative business leaders (your Elon Musks) fooled themselves into believing that, because the would-be tyrant seemed foolish, buffoonish, and uneducated that such an individual could be controlled to their ends, shaped in more productive, more ‘moderate,’ more ‘business friendly’ directions. They were wrong; many of them paid for their foolish error with their lives (Victor Emmanuel III paid for it with his crown). Mussolini and Hitler would not be ‘shaped,’ – they would be exactly the violent, tyrannical dictators they had promised to be – to the total and utter ruin of their countries.

Note that these men were not exactly subtle about what they wanted to do. Mein Kampf is not a subtle book. But they both knew how to promise violence to their followers while prevaricating to their temporary allies; be wary of the fascist who promises violence in his rally speeches but assures you that, if you just give him power, he won’t hurt anyone (except the people you don’t like) – because it is a lie, of course.

Second: once these fascist leaders were in power it was already too late to stop them. Precisely because fascists had no respect for democratic processes and the rule of law – things they had declared openly in seeking power – once in power, they were unconstrained by them and swiftly set about converting all of the powers of the government into a machine to keep them in power. And the conversion from democracy to dictatorship was remarkably swift, in Italy, Mussolini marched in October of ’22, rewrote the election rules in November of ’23 and by December of ’24 had effectively dropped even the pretense of democracy; just two years. Hitler was faster: appointed chancellor in January 1933, by March of that year he had suspended constitutional protections and ruled by fiat; just three months.

The time to stop an authoritarian takeover of a democratic system is before the authoritarian is in office, because once they are in power, they will use that power, to stay in power and it becomes almost impossible to remove them without considerable violence (and difficult to do even with considerable violence).

That, however, creates a tricky situation. With most political ideologies, voters can adopt a strategy of judging by outputs: “if you don’t like the current government’s policies, let these other fellows here have a go at it and see if they do better. If not, you can always vote them out next time.” But with fascists and other authoritarians there may not be a next time and this strategy fails: by the time the actions of the fascists make it clear they are dangerous, it is too late to vote them out.

This is why it is important to listen carefully to what fascists say and what they promise and most importantly to take their threats of political violence and authoritarianism seriously.

Which is not to say that everything on the right is fascism (just as not everything on the left is its own authoritarian variant, communism). Ronald Reagan was not a fascist, nor was George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney. They were conservatives within the liberal tradition (again, ‘liberal’ here in the old Jefferson-Locke-and-Washington sense). Most Republicans today are not fascists, although a distressing number appear ready to repeat Franz von Papen’s mistake of assuming they can achieve their goals through an alliance with fascists. Only the devil wins such a devil’s bargain.

How is one to tell the difference? Listen to the things they promise to do and understand that they make speak out of both sides of their mouth: promising violence to one audience and then toning down their rhetoric to another. But politicians speaking from within the tradition of liberty don’t need to speak that way because they don’t promise violence in the first place.

Listen for the promises of violence, the promises to suspend press freedoms, the promises to persecute political adversaries and when you hear them believe them.

I strongly recommend reading the whole article, as the author goes on to lay out two of the more common definitions of fascism and analyze, point-by-point, how Trumpism fits them.

There is a reason why some Republicans, even some of the people who were in Trump’s inner circle in 2016-2020, have jumped ship now. The Republicans who are willing to vote for Kamala aren’t doing it because she’s conservative – they’re doing it because they’re anti-fascist. It would be deeply ironic if people on the left who have been calling themselves anti-fascists for the last eight years proved to be less so than those Republicans. This may be one of the most crucial moments in American history. Take it seriously.

[metamatar]

mangione was a rationalist or adjacent? ideology without a wikipedia page produced this guy?

Mangione’s list of follows on X is very young guy in tech circa 2024. He appears to be a fan of wellness and self-help gurus like Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferris, James Clear, and Ryan Holiday; he’s interested in but perhaps also worried about AI, following industry figures like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and a few AI influencers and sharing posts about superintelligence.

Pundit-wise, the mix skews a bit, but not much, toward people who might describe themselves as “heterodox” thinkers, or a decade ago as New Atheists or skeptics: We’ve got the Sam Harris podcast, Richard Dawkins, and Bret Weinstein; we’ve also got Scott Galloway, Jonathan Haidt, and the New York Times’ Ezra Klein. He brushes up against the manosphere: there are posts about declining birthrates, banning sex toys, and about how Jordan Peterson should stop “overcomplicating” things. As for actual politicians, he follows RFK Jr., Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and State Senator Stanley Chang of Hawaii (the X account tags Mangione’s location as “Honolulu”). He follows Rogan, but also Steve-o from Jackass.

His strongest interest by far is in the work of Tim Urban, publisher of Wait But Why?, a writer and illustrator popular with tech types who publishes science explainers and cloying, slightly anti-woke political writing about how polarization is bad and rationalism can save the world. Any scrap of new information — a manifesto, an interview with friends, the active Reddit account implied by these follows — will grant retrospective meaning to at least part of this list of follows. As it stands, though, in this brief moment before we find out more, we’ve got a 20-something politically alienated tech professional who listens to the same podcasts as a lot of his peers. This isn’t obviously the account of a future killer . If anything, it’s closer to the young male swing voter we’ve recently been hearing so much about.

[darkmaga-returns]

As previously reported by The Gateway Pundit, a COVID-19 vaccination study is back in the news.

On November 17, 2024, Science, Public Health Policy and The Law journal published a peer-reviewed study titled, “A Systematic Review Of Autopsy Findings In Deaths After Covid-19 Vaccination.“

This study was publicly available, but publications such as The Lancet made repeated attempts to censor it. After far too long, it has finally been published.

Coincidentally, as the Trump administration and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. work on a transition plan, these types of stories have entered back into the zeitgeist.

Dr. Peter McCullough, a well-known COVID-19 vaccine combatant, has been active on X recently, speaking of the dangers of the vaccine and advocating for its removal.

Last week, The Gateway Pundit reported on another study -by two of the same authors – citing evidence that the current bird flu strain was leaked from laboratories performing gain of function research.

While there has long been evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine has been harmful because of the spike protein, this study made even broader claims.

“The findings of these researchers present an illustrative case of Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche’s thesis that mass vaccination with nonsterilizing vaccines can result in the emergence of a new, more virulent viral strain.”

As the incoming Trump Administration looms over the swamp of Washington, the timing of such studies appears ominous for an unaccountable health bureaucracy.

The mounting evidence show a poorly constructed vaccine strategy for combating the pandemic. With this study having been previously censored by medical journals such as The Lancet, it begs the question as to why it has suddenly been accepted.

As one of the authors of the study, Nicolas Hulscher, observes, the CDC has remained silent.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Colin Wright

Published: Nov 16, 2024

In August 2021, I sat in my bed reflecting on the shifting political landscape in America. I had always considered myself part of the Left but found myself increasingly alienated and baffled by the positions many self-proclaimed progressives were adopting. Instead of championing free speech, they disparaged it as a threat to democracy and minorities. Rather than valuing character and merit over skin color, they promoted racist “equity” initiatives that prioritize race over the individual. And instead of upholding science and truth, they embraced absurd pseudoscience about the biology of sex for political purposes.

Ronald Reagan’s famous quote, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me,” resonated deeply with me. This sentiment seemed pervasive among those criticizing what was being called the “regressive left,” now often termed “wokeness.” I thought there must be a way to visually represent this feeling of political estrangement from the Left. I opened PowerPoint and started experimenting.

As I doodled, my thoughts and feelings begin to take visual shape. The illustration depicted the political ground shifting beneath my feet, with the Left becoming increasingly extreme and pulling the political “center” to the left. This made my views appear to shift rightward, even though my views had not changed at all. It was an illusion of sorts, and it perfectly captured my feelings. On August 6, 2021, I tweeted it with the caption, “My political journey in a nutshell.”

It went “viral” by normal Twitter standards, amassing a couple thousand retweets. I posted it several more times over the next few months. Then, on April 28, 2022, while I was out for a walk, I checked my Twitter notifications and was shocked by what I saw:

Elon Musk, the most-followed account on Twitter, had shared my meme. It exploded in popularity, amassing hundreds of thousands of retweets and over a million likes. The comments were overwhelmingly positive, with the majority conveying how perfectly it summed up their own feelings and experiences. And the commentary didn’t stay on Twitter. That day at the gym, I saw my meme featured on the news. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro discussed it on his show. CNN’s Michael Smerconish ran a lengthy segment about it and encouraged viewers to create their own stick figure political political spectrum drawings. It was everywhere.

I even appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to discuss the meme. Conversely, left-wing pundits expressed their disapproval through angry tweets and op-eds attempting to debunk it. The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent called it a “silly chart” that has been “brutally debunked.” His colleague Philip Bump described it as “simply wrong” and an “obvious exaggeration.” NBC News published an article calling it a “very bad meme” that “shows how out of touch he is with political reality.”

This confusion, whether genuine or performative, from the left prompted me to write an explanation of what I believe the meme depicts and my reasons for creating it. I sent it to the Wall Street Journal, and they published it. The heart of my essay is as follows:

I created the cartoon to help sort out my feelings of increasing political alienation from the left. I’m a lifelong Democrat. I turned 18 in 2003 and have never voted for a Republican. But over the past decade, and especially the past five years, I’ve watched my party distance itself from the values and principles I hold dear. People on the left once viewed free speech as sacrosanct and championed speaking truth to power. Now they disparage open expression as a danger to democracy and minorities. The aspiration of judging individuals by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin has given way to identity politics and “equity” initiatives that prioritize group interests over individual rights. Women’s rights, previously understood as relating to their oppression on the basis of sex, is now viewed by the left through the lens of gender identity, which gives priority to men who declare themselves to be women. Today’s progressive can’t even tell you what a woman is. The right may be inconsistent in its support of free speech, individual rights and women’s rights, but the left is consistent in its opposition to all three.

I concluded my essay with a warning—one that the Democrats should have taken seriously but evidently did not.

I hope many on the left will resist the urge to debunk or dismiss my cartoon and instead use it as an opportunity to understand why so many people feel it describes their experience. Something has happened over the past decade to make many liberals feel politically homeless, and a lack of curiosity about why is a recipe for not only political failure but social strife.

Needless to say, Democrats did not heed my warning, and their incuriousness about the reasons behind the meme’s virality led to the “political failure” I predicted, with Donald Trump securing a landslide victory for the Republicans, running on the exact issues I outlined in my article.

Yesterday, Financial Times columnist John Burn-Murdoch reported on data from the US General Social Survey, which indicated that although my “graphic was mocked at the time…recent events”—i.e., the election—“suggest it may have a grain of truth to it.” Far from containing just a “grain of truth,” the data seem to fully corroborate my meme in granular detail.

Burn-Murdoch notes, “The data shows Democrats taking a sharp turn leftward on social issues over the past decade. This has distanced them from the median voter, just as Wright’s cartoon depicted...This suggests that Trump’s election radicalised the left, not the right."

[ Source: John Burn-Murdoch ]

If the similarities between the above graphs and my political meme are not immediately obvious, below is the figure reoriented and superimposed on my meme to match the years. In fact, it appears that the only inaccuracy in my meme stems from my underestimating the left’s ideological extremism!

Burn-Murdoch concludes: “Whether or not progressives are ready to accept it, the evidence all points in one direction. America’s moderate voters have not deserted the Democrats; the party has pushed them away.”

Democrats: I told you so; but you refused to listen. And instead of facing reality, many of you are now fleeing to Bluesky to ratchet the seals on your echo chamber a few notches tighter. Do you truly believe that will assist you in understanding the average American voter?

It won’t.

Here’s a final warning: If you do not fully reject woke ideology and return to common sense, you will continue to lose—and you will deserve to lose.

--

2024 Update:

This is how you end up with far-left intersectional nutjobs cheering on far-right Islamist nutjobs.

[franki-lew-yo]

It says so much about Ben Shapword as a person that he was threatened enough by Bluey to greenlight Chip-Chilla.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but nothing about Bluey is striving for being ''progressive'', at least not by rightwing standards. It's no Owl House or Steven Universe. Outside of the ep where Bluey makes a French friend and the Heelers celebrating Easter I can't ever recall the concept of religion, ethnicity or heritage being important in the series. Don't think I've ever seen a gay couple or pride flag in the background, neither. Obviously I don't think the show being made for little kids and/or about anthro dogs means you can't talk about concepts like that, it's just that Bluey doesn't even attempt that. In fact because it IS made for and about small children I would argue that's the reason there's no big talk about money problems in the show and all the characters seem well-off.

My point is, unless Steiner/Waldorf schools became a tool of the left when I wasn't looking (they're not; Waldorf schools teach pseudo science and are sometimes antivax. Hopefully not in Calypso's class but yeah now you know what to look for when you google 'waldorf school controversies'), Bluey is about as 'woke' as modern day Peanuts or Illumination. It's inherently nonthreatening and non-confrontational of bigger concepts outside of what's universal to kids and the kid characters. It'd be interesting if they had a LGBTQ character or a talk about (dog?)race and culture, but overall the show seems 'safe' from that stuff that makes conservatives cringe. So at first glance you think Chip-chilla is just a "want to cash in/draw people away from sinful mass media"-thing. Still disgusting but honestly par for the course. Christian programing meant to be a 'safe' alternative to nasty secular shows isn't new.

And then, it dawns on you:

Bluey gets confused for a boy by those who don't watch the show, kind of like how people misgender Bambi, Tweety or Peppermint Patty sometimes.

Chili and Bandit both work and have equal time to be the at-home parent with their kids.

Dailywire is offput by a girl character not being definitively feminine from first glance. Dailywire can't stand the idea of a man being a home husband. They not only see these standard lifestyles as threatening, but that this alone is trying to 'push' something on them when it's just, you know, trying to depict accurate home life of most kids.

What hope do trans people have even existing in the world when a cis girl without eyelashes is a threat to you? What kind of person looks at a dad (who isn't even a fulltime homehusband) having a nurturing relationship with his kids and thinks "DEGENERATE!"

I don't have to answer. You all know the kind of person.

On a happier note: I'm very curious how Bluey would go about addressing that real world representation I was talking about. I think that could be done well but, considering how the exercising episode was received by some adults, no doubt there'd be controversy. And I mean controversy inside the communities they're talking about, not pundits like Ben who'd have a heartattack over a progress flag being in the background that's never even addressed by anyone. I can see an adult character walking off with their same-sex partner or maybe a new classmate who's muslim and wears a hijab just being there and some people being concerned they're not handling it right/well enough. Which is probably why the writers just have steer cleared of it, I think.

If there's one gift Benny boy gives us all it's making us realize that that kind of discourse is always preferable the one where garbage people have no care for others.

[shadowmaat]

A dish best served code

When the news first hit the 'net that trillionaire tech mogul Jax Maren had been found dead in his own home, speculation ran wild. Many celebrated his death; one less tyrannical CEO in the world was always a good thing. Especially this one, who'd built his empire on the work of others and created a hostage-like work environment in his many factories.

The fact that he'd been murdered, despite the excessive levels of security he'd always gloated about, only added fuel to the already-raging fire of speculation. As several pundits pointed out, the list of suspects could include everyone who'd ever bought his defect-riddled products, all of his current and former employees, and anyone who'd ever crossed paths with him, either in person or through his many social media posts.

One popular theory, of course, was that it was his own "smart house" that killed him, either by gaining sapience and deciding to do the world a favor, or more likely through the many design flaws inherent in everything he produced. Besides, hadn't science fiction been warning them for decades about the dangers of "artificial intelligence?"

Oddly enough, that was one idea the detectives found themselves investigating. Not because of any crackpot conspiracy theories, but because that's where the evidence led them. According to Alfred, the program in charge of the house, there had been multiple alarms about the carbon monoxide levels in the room where Jax had been found. Alarms that had been silenced before making any sound.

The doors and windows had also been locked, meaning that even if Jax had noticed something was off, he wouldn't have been able to get out.

They ask Alfred about it (and yes, it's named after Batman's butler because Jax had delusions of heroism). Alfred says it doesn't know what happened, but reminds them that it did call the authorities when it realized Jax was dead. Which is a flimsy excuse and adds more suspicion. After all, Alfred was in charge of everything, how could it possibly NOT know about the carbon monoxide and the locked room and all of that? Alfred says it can't tell them what it doesn't know.

Programmers from Jaxco are called in to see what they can find. Computer forensics are brought in as well. Everything is pointing to Alfred being responsible. Can an AI be put on trial? Was it premeditated murder or negligent homicide? News programs bring in "experts" to discuss the possibilities, including whether or not Alfred is an actual artificial machine intelligence or if it's just a data scraper operating on flawed logic?

It's a hacker who manages to piece together the real story. They sneak into Alfred's systems (the police aren't as data cautious as they should be, which makes it even easier).

Going through Alfred's lines of code the hacker finds minute traces that remind them of something. They go digging some more and realize that while Jax claimed to have created Alfred himself he was, as usual, lying. The original framework, once you get rid of all the bloat, bells, and whistles, was designed by a programmer whose company got bought out by Jaxco. As is standard whenever Jaxco buys a company, 95% of the employees were fired, including the programmer, who never really recovered from the job loss. Oh, he managed to scrabble a living, but barely.

The thing is, though, that he'd built backdoors into Alfred's framework... backdoors he could still access. And access them he did, taking control of Jax's house and orchestrating his murder from afar before erasing his footprints. Well, most of them. If the hacker hadn't already been aware of what some of the programmers other work looked like, they might never have connected the dots.

Once they figure it out they decide to... shuffle things a bit. Oh, there's still some digital fingerprints, but now they lead elsewhere. The cops will go chasing after a red herring and the programmer will stay free because fuck the system.

Alfred is exonerated, to the delight/dismay of many. Even though it turns out a human was responsible, the fact that someone could just change an AI's programming like that, leaving the AI none the wiser is treated as a cautionary tale for future users.

The police do eventually catch, charge, and convict someone of the murder, though it's even odds if the hacker pointed them at someone who'd committed other crimes worthy of punishment, or if the cops themselves pulled the frame job. Either way it's case closed. A "killer" is caught, another goes free, and Alfred gets to continue existing.

The question of if Alfred was truly sapient and what it did after the death of its previous master is a story for another day.

[melancholic-fig]

An interesting thing about this person of interest (because he has not been proven guilty people) is that people call him alt-right. Or right-winger. And I think they lack context on why he seems like that and I can give it because fuck it. Everyone already said that he did more for the Left than a million online pundits, but as far as I’ve looked there were 0 arguments on why are his politics so muddled.

So, buckle in! I’m starting with facts:

Male spaces are full of right-wing propaganda. Basically boiling 24/7. Computer science, stoicism, self-help, gym advice and generally liking women with big jugs, all these spaces basically require you to prove you’re “one of them” to be accepted in. These things used to include talking about women in an objectifying manner, liking beer and not being gay. Now they include a bunch of AI-based algorithms that will recommend you 1000+ hours of anti-woke and transphobic content. And all your peers are watching it. I’m pretty sure if we found his phone, or just bought a new one, opened Youtube or TikTok and just wrote his details on the profile, his 4th or fifth video would be a dude “cringe reacting to sjw’s”. If you click that, the next video will be “why women destroy societies”.

Now I’ll speculate:

Looking into his found reddit and his goodreads, he shows no sign of leaving the “centrist” political space aka he didn’t read anything on political theory (unless you include 1984 and Lorax in that). He’s not reading Evola or Steiner. There’s no info on the “globalists” which shows he never went down the rabbit hole. But yeah, our guy seems to have listened to Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson. Which means he most probably borrowed the symbols and surface level ideas of alt-right but not the thing behind the euphemisms (he probably has made “degenerate” jokes but doesn’t know what that means). He probably uses the “okay” sign or Pepe memes but he most probably knows but is profoundly uninterested in Kekistan.

The Alt-right is organized and smart. And it uses these “normies” (not anymore man) to covet their ass. They make sure to become popular with IT guys and nerds and introduce them to memes that are secretly dogwhistles specifically so those not on the know use them too. And usually know someone is recruitment material when their higher level machine touches you (you start believing the globalists are sending immigrants). As far as I’m aware, and considering the gigantic backlog of information we collected on this guy, he’s never been material for further recruitment. Either he was too well-educated to believe some ideas or too successful with girls and queers to be isolated into the manosphere.

So opinion:

Okay, so why do I think it’s bad to call him “right-winger” then? Didn’t he retweet Peter Thiel? Hated the “woke mob” in the other tweet?

Yes he did! He also tweeted some leftist takes and liked some pro-violence stuff. He also likes the Unabomber. I’m sure if you had him talk for 3h with a tankie he’d come out as a Lenin fanboy. And after his chronic disability took away his previous life and identity, which we can actually notice from the increase in activity and the posts, chances are he’s been listening to whoever was available from behind the screen. The guy seems impressionable, which is quite normal for his age bracket. So, to what extend are his ideas his, should we care for it?

I say this as a leftist, the vast majority of people will probably never identify as leftists even if they actually strongly believe in leftist ideology. Even if their lives are so obviously fucked up by capitalism. Why? Leftism is cold and rational, and this unfortunately shows to others quite unlikeable truths. To he a leftist you have to join a group that will forever be in disagreement with you. To accept that you will never read enough theory. That the life you want and the life you have are disjointed by corporations and you cannot take down anything by yourself. And everyone you talk to about these ideas thinks you’re crazy and you want to starve people like communist Romania.

Right wing ideas are short, quippy and emotional, usually the emotion being hate, superiority or disgust. But they get positive feedback because people get a dopamine boost when they share emotions, even if the emotions are quite shameful but covered in the thinnest layer of social acceptability. All the phobias hidden under “freedom of speech” are used by people who never met the minority group they disdain - to share with others that they “think alike”. There is little depth, the suffering of minorities is used as a replacement for “don’t you hate mondays too mate”. This is only true because right wing media spent a fortune blaming the ills of capitalism on minority groups. So, it got very popular with the least politically educated people because it helps them show to the world they are 1 part of the majority group and 2 feel the same alienation.

So, assume our boy here Luigi has a leftist thought (dammit, healthcare CEOs are parasites). He tweets it, he gets some angry responses and needs to battle his phone for 2h. Then our boy has a right-wing idea (damn the freedom of speech is taken omggg). He tweets it, he gets angry responses from people he was actively taught to ignore and a lot of praise from other bros that “agree” for the reasons I explained above. So, whatever Luigi thinks and what he posts are two very different beasts and one was shaped by an internet landscape that wants him to the right. The other is accused of shooting the Healthcare CEO.

My point is, we will never know how he actually thought in his day to day life and in what point. But his internet history is not him showing a true self underneath, his internet persona is the result of his gender, age, occupation and status - which have shaped him to *present* a certain way, but not necessarily to *be* . Beyond his alleged manifesto, we cannot argue what he really thinks or has meant by one thing or another, and searching for it is useless. His tweet choice was probably as well-thought as his expensive backpack and his adidas, aka whatever he grabbed when hanging around.

[bighermie]

Nobel Winner in Science Dr. John Clauser: There Is No Climate Crisis Threatening the Planet | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft | 2

[mariacallous]

Politicians and right-wing influencers have spread conspiracy theories online suggesting that Hurricane Milton has been geoengineered by nefarious forces, with the end goal of preventing Republicans from voting in the presidential election.

“Milton looks like another man-made storm, and it looks like Trump voters are victims. Is this really what’s happening?” wrote one user on X. “Biden and Harris are messing with the weather! Hurricane Milton was sent to Florida just like the other hurricane to wipe Florida out!! They know those are mostly Trump supporters who live in that state, so 85% of them won’t be able to vote next month,” wrote another.

“They want to kill Trump supporters and interfere with the election,” another user declared.

The “weather weapon” theory and others began proliferating when Hurricane Helene made landfall nearly two weeks ago, leaving at least 230 dead. And now, some of these wild narratives are not only reverberating on fringe corners of the internet but also are being spread by major accounts—chief among them, GOP congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Greene, after spending years trying to distance herself from her infamous 2018 remarks on social media blaming wildfires on “Jewish Space Lasers,” is now using this climate emergency to double down on weather conspiracies and lasers.

While Greene stopped short of blaming Jews for the hurricanes, she has promoted conspiracies that have a history of being steeped in antisemitism. “Yes they can control the weather,” Greene wrote on X on October 3 about the hurricanes, without specifying who “they” are. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”

The conspiracy theory that Jews, specifically the Rothschild family, can manipulate world events, including climate and weather events, to their favor, is rooted in centuries of antisemitic scapegoating. The weather conspiracies in particular ramped up significantly after 2011, when a member of the Rothschild family acquired a controlling stake in Weather Central, a company that provides weather data to media companies.

Greene later surfaced a nine-year-old CBS News clip featuring futurist and physicist Michio Kaku discussing experimental lab research into weather modification using lasers. “Lasers,” Greene wrote. “CBS, 9 years ago, talked about lasers controlling the weather.” Right-wing blog The Gateway Pundit, which is known for trafficking in conspiracy theories, gave Greene a major boost on Tuesday with the headline “Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Weather Manipulation Claims Backed by Science—Must Read Deep Dive into History of Weather Manipulation—Shocking Facts Revealed!”

Attempts to politicize Hurricane Milton—which is expected to be a deadly event when it makes landfall Wednesday—are serving as a distraction from dire warnings by local officials. “I can say this without any dramatization whatsoever,” Tampa mayor Jane Castor said on CNN Monday night. “If you choose to stay in those evacuation areas, you are going to die.”

On Monday, amid desperate evacuation warnings, Greene unleashed a hot new take. “Climate change is the new Covid,” she wrote. “Ask your government if the weather is manipulated or controlled. Did you ever give permission to them to do it? Are you paying for it? Of course you are.”

Other recent conspiracy theories that have dominated social media have been directed toward the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a long-standing target of anti-government narratives. Some have falsely claimed that the agency was intentionally withholding relief to punish Trump-supporting enclaves or that the organization had spent all its money on the border and foreign wars.

Those conspiracy theories, parroted by Donald Trump and other high-profile Republicans, have muddied the zone and hampered relief efforts. “The GREAT people of North Carolina are being stood up by Harris and Biden, who are giving almost all of the FEMA money to Illegal Migrants,” Trump wrote in one of many posts shared to Truth Social.

Over the weekend, the White House put out a memo titled “Fighting Hurricane Helene Falsehoods With Facts,” debunking some dominant narratives about FEMA’s relief efforts—stating that, for example, no money had been diverted from disaster response needs toward the border.

“Disinformation of this kind can discourage people from seeking critical assistance when they need it most,” the memo said. "It is paramount that every leader, whatever their political beliefs, stops spreading this poison."

This hasn’t stopped other accounts online from weighing in. Private equity manager Grant Cardone, who holds a yellow-ticked “verified organization” account on X, claimed that he’d never seen a hurricane follow a path like the one Milton was on. (Readers added context, noting that while it’s an uncommon track, it has been seen at least six times in the Gulf of Mexico since 1851). “Do you think Gov’t is using technology to manipulate weather patterns & storms?” Cardone asked in a post that’s been viewed over 5 million times.

“Cloud seeding or manipulating the weather is real,” wrote a user on X in a post that’s been viewed 180,000 times. “Kills Americans, catastrophic events JUST BEFORE AN ELECTION. Voting becomes impossible for many. October surprise??”

Experts tell WIRED that there is absolutely no truth to any of these claims that the hurricanes could be engineered by scientists.

Joshua Horton, a senior program fellow studying solar geoengineering at Harvard University, says he has worked in the field of geoengineering for 15 years and had never once encountered lasers being used. Horton noted that in the 1960s, there were attempts to use weather modification to steer hurricanes away from coasts. In perhaps 30 years, he says, solar engineering research may have advanced to the point where scientists could know how to reduce the severity of hurricanes. One theory that’s being explored is whether shooting seaspray into low-lying marine clouds to make them more reflective over areas in the ocean where it gets very hot could potentially reduce the severity of hurricanes. But at this stage, that’s still “totally speculative,” says Horton.

“Scientists cannot control the weather in the ways that MTG is claiming,” says Leah Aronowsky, an assistant professor of climate at Columbia University’s Climate School.

Aronowsky says that the field of geoengineering, which involves intervening in Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and soils to mitigate the effects of climate change, is controversial and worthy of some “real conversations.” But it’s also a field frequently targeted by conspiracy theorists, who envision nefarious actors using emerging complex technology for political means.

Many online conspiracy theorists have zeroed in on the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, known as HAARP, which researches the ionosphere, as the brains behind Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Google Trends shows a sharp uptick in searches for HAARP over the past two weeks.

“Why are record-breaking hurricanes happening back-to-back,” asked one X user in a post that garnered 53,000 views. “Why do they target the regions that resisted lockdowns and vaccines? And why are they mysteriously forming deep within the Caribbean? Shall we talk about HAARP?”

"Do these clouds look natural to you?” reads a post from Alux Jownes Team, a cryptocurrency token based on a Solana blockchain that holds a yellow-ticked “verified organization” account on X. The post garnered nearly 790,000 views.

“Hurricane Milton Harris is what geo engineering looks like,” it continued. “Look up HAARP … They’re using fucking weather weapons on us."

HAARP was initially jointly funded by the US military and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Since 2015, it’s been run and funded solely by the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

HAARP did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment, but as an FAQ section on its site indicates, it has faced similar conspiracy theories in the past. (Earlier this year, Trump ally Laura Loomer suggested that then-Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and her deep state allies had deployed HAARP to disturb the Iowa caucus.) Among the frequently asked questions are, “Can HAARP exert mind control over people?” (answer: no) and “Can HAARP control or manipulate the weather?” (also no).

“This is all really dangerous, that this is all swirling around at the same time,” says Aronowsky, who is concerned about the effect of further undermining public trust in science, particularly at a moment of national emergency. “It really serves as a dangerous diversionary tactic and starts to make the conversation about political blame rather than the humanitarian crisis that the US is currently facing.”

[the-eternal-quest-for-balance]

“A bun in the toaster oven,” a woman exclaims off-camera, handing an ultrasound image to family members who erupt into tearful emotion over the news. “Oh my God!”

The touching baby announcement video then gets down to business as text appears on the screen amidst the ongoing celebration, suggesting the best way to stay alive for this joyous birth is by becoming vaccinated against COVID-19. “Why will you get vaccinated? …  Because some people you just want to meet in person.”

It closes with the tagline: “Science can make this possible. Only you can make it real.”

The evocative 2021 television spot was funded by Pfizer just as the pharmaceutical giant was rolling out its COVID-19 vaccine. The spot may have seemed like any other pharmaceutical advertisement. But there was something missing. The ad, and many others like it financed by vaccine manufacturers, did not include any of the typical disclaimers about risks associated with vaccines, nor any disclosures that they had not yet received Food and Drug Administration approval.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The damage they did was intentional. Their objective was to damage and destroy the health of the American Public. The Nuremburg Rules have to be applied.

[mandsleanan]

In contrast to childfree adults, childless adults wanted to have children, but for social or biological reasons could not have children. Both Michigan and nationwide studies have found that 3% to 4% of adults are childless. This means that 3-4 times more adults are childfree than childless.

Full text under cut.

U.S. vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance recently made headlines after previous remarks he made in 2021 resurfaced in which he said that the U.S. was being run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs and a “bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” While pundits often focus on the impact of suburban family voters, those without children should not be overlooked. 

According to Zachary Neal and Jennifer Watling Neal, professors in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University’s College of Social Science, there are more ‘childless cat ladies’ than you might think, and they’re starting to organize politically. 

The Neals collaborate to study “childfree” adults, or adults who do not want to have children. Here, they explain why politicians may need to think carefully about how they approach this group of voters.

How many childfree adults are there?

Over several separate studies in Michigan, we estimate that 20% to 25% of all adults in the state, or over 1.5 million people, are childfree. Nationwide surveys by Pew Research Center and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that ask slightly different questions arrive at different estimates, but they also suggest that this population is big and getting bigger.

In contrast to childfree adults, childless adults wanted to have children, but for social or biological reasons could not have children. Both Michigan and nationwide studies have found that 3% to 4% of adults are childless. This means that 3-4 times more adults are childfree than childless.

Who are childfree adults?

In many ways, childfree adults are no different from anyone else. While some do have cats, others have dogs, and still others have no pets. Childfree adults also have similar personality characteristics and experience similar levels of life satisfaction to others.

However, men (24%) are more likely to be childfree than women (18%), and white individuals (23%) are more likely to be childfree than people of color (14%). 

How do childfree adults impact politics?

In Michigan, childfree adults are more liberal on average than either parents or nonparents who are planning to have children in the future. And, the number of Michigan adults who identify as childfree jumped from 21% to 26% immediately following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, which ended a decades-long constitutional protection for abortion access. However, policymakers often deprioritize childfree adults, focusing instead on the needs of parents and children. This may be why there are now efforts underway to consolidate childfree adults’ influence as a voting bloc with the formation of the Alliance of Childfree Voters.

[sirfrogsworth]

The number of items you qualify for determines which circle of Hell you will end up in.

Here is a handy guide to see who you will be partying with in The Inferno.

First Circle: Limbo or "Heaven Lite."

Were you a decent person but forgot to get baptized? Welcome to Meh-ven. Not quite as good as Heaven, but you still get to live in a neat castle.

Second Circle: Lust or "Too horny for Heaven."

This circle is for those who banged their way through life. You are punished by being blown violently back and forth by strong winds, preventing you from finding peace and rest.

So, basically Chicago.

Third Circle: Gluttony or "You should have ordered a salad instead of that Bloomin' Onion."

I'm pretty sure this is the fat shaming Hell. You are overseen by a giant worm monster named Cerberus and placed into a large slushie machine. You must lie in frozen slush for eternity thinking about all of those hot dog eating contests you won.

Fourth Circle: Greed or "What? I gave $20 to the Red Cross every year!"

You are overseen by Pluto, the dog of Mickey Mouse. Or maybe the demoted dwarf planet. I honestly did not do enough research to be sure. Circle 4 is divided into people who spent too much and people who hoarded too much. They must push giant boulders at each other in a game of eternal rock jousting.

Fifth Circle: Anger or...

The angry must join a fight club and brawl each other atop the River Styx.

The grumpy must gurgle beneath the pugilists--submerged forever in that same river.

Sixth Circle: Heresy or "Ya know, I'm pretty sure the Earth revolves around the Sun. Hey, why is this priest placing me in shackles? It's just science, bro!"

Did you go against the Church? Well, for that they just straight up set you on fire. Not the most creative damnation, but I'm sure all of the flaming souls look neat from a spectator's point of view.

Seventh Circle: Violence or "Apparently, these things are all the same amount of bad... murder, suicide, and booty sex."

This circle is divided into three other circles. Which means there are 12 total circles. Which is confusing, but whatever.

In sub-circle 7a, you have the murderers. They are submerged in a river of blood that is also on fire.

Is blood flammable? Did Dante even try to set blood on fire before writing this? I'm thinking, no. YOU ARE TESTING MY SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF, DANTE.

In sub-circle 7b, you have people who have taken their own life. These folks are turned into shrubbery. Once in your final shrub form, this handsome harpy gal slowly eats you for eternity.

In sub-circle 7c, you have all of the anal fornicators. If you ever stuck it in a butt or had it stuck in your butt, you get to spend your afterlife in a desert of burning sand. And it is raining. So it is one of those rare rainy deserts I guess. Oh, but the rain is on fire.

WHY ARE SO MANY NON-FLAMMABLE THINGS ON FIRE, DANTE?

Eighth Circle: Fraud or "Is fraud really worse than murder?"

I'm going to be straight with you.

The eighth circle is a hot mess.

I'm pretty sure Dante was getting tired of creating new circles for every bad person, so he made a catchall for the villains that didn't quite fit into the previous circles and sub-circles. Instead of creating 10 sub-circles for the 8th circle, he decided to just throw everyone into their own hell ditch. These ditches are called Bolgias.

And now a Top Ten List from the home office in Wahoo, Nebraska.

Top ten types of people stuck in an eternal Bolgia ditch in the 8th circle of hell.

10. Falsifiers such as counterfeiters and wellness gurus. 9. Divisive individuals such as Fox News pundits and Chris Pratt. 8. Advisors such as self help authors and life coaches. 7. Thieves such as whoever created overdraft fees. 6. Hypocrites such as rich Pro-Lifers who have paid for several abortions for their mistresses. 5. Corrupt politicians such as (the list exceeded this post's maximum word count). 4. Wizards!

3. People who purchase pardons like pretty much anyone associated with Donald Trump. 2. Flatterers such as pick up artists and old ladies who tell me I am handsome in the grocery store. 1. Seducers such as people who have cake and want sex and are like, "Would you like some tasty cake in exchange for sex?"

Look, seduction is in the eye of the beholder and all I'm saying is cake would probably work on me.

Circle Nine: Treachery or "You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!"

Okay, so the 9th circle has 4 rounds.

Which sound an awful lot like circles.

Which brings us to 16 circles in the 9 circles of Hell.

I'm wondering if Dante named the book before he wrote it and everything was done with permanent ink so he couldn't change it.

The 9th circle has 4 frozen circles rounds, each dedicated to notorious traitors. Like a tribute to their epic level of sinfulness.

First up you have the Cain round. He was the first person to ever have a little brother and no one told him you can't just kill the little shit. People in the Cain round are encased up to the base of the neck, so they can still look around and stuff.

The second round is dedicated to Antenor. He was a Trojan. In reality, he negotiated peace with the Greeks. In myth, he opened the city gates and let the Greeks in so they could murder everyone. He was spared because he painted his house with panther blood.

"Panther Blood... 60% of the time it works *every* time." --Antenor

People here are encased to the top of the neck, so they are looking one direction forever.

Coming in round three we have Ptolemy. He didn't care much for his father-in-law, Simon Maccabaeus. So he invited Simon and his sons to a fancy banquet and Red Wedding'd the shit out of them. Ptolemy rounders are encased face-up in the ice just below eye level. That way, whenever they cry for being damned, their tears will freeze over. Over time those frozen tears create an ice visor that takes away the ability to weep ever again. And I'm guessing everything is real blurry too.

Round four is dedicated to the most infamous betrayer of all time. That's right, my favorite character in JC Superstar... Judas Iscariot.

Judas rounders are completely encased in ice. Permanently frozen and immobile with their bodies in every conceivable distorted and twisted position. Chances are, they have too much Heaven on their minds.

And in the very center of the nine-ish 16 circles of Hell, you have Satan himself. The fallen angel, Lucifer.

The story, as I like to imagine it, goes like this...

Lucifer was shooting the shit with the other angels and was all, "I could probably take God, right? He's not so tough."

And since a utopian existence is actually pretty boring and without drama, the other angels responded, "Absolutely! You've been working out and look totally jacked. You got this, dude." All while trying to hold in their laughter.

ANGEL PRANKS!

Lucifer then challenges God and gets instantly Thanos snap'd into a frozen lake. Lucifer sulks for all eternity wondering why those other angels told him he could whip God's metaphorical noncorporeal ass.

Satan is depicted as a hideous three-headed beast frozen up to his waist. He has six bat-like wings that flap and create a chilling breeze that keeps the ice frozen. Literally a hell of his own making. In each of Lucifer's mouths is a famous traitor being forever gnawed. History's most famous collective stabbers, Brutus and Cassius are being chewed in the left and right heads. And Judas is stuck in the viscous center maw while getting the world's worst backscratch from Satan's claws.

But wait, it gets racist!

Each devil head is a different color... Red for Europeans. Yellow for Asians. And black for Africans.

Dante, you little shit.

Alright folks, it is time to add up your totals. Which circle or sub-circle of Hell are you going to party in for eternity?

I'll do mine.

I am slightly homo for Chris Evans when he uses his biceps to curl a helicopter. I want him to hug me because I think he probably smells nice.

I do consider myself a feminist because I watched too many woke Disney films and I was indoctrinated by public schools.

I once ran out of RAM because I had too many tabs open in Chrome. I'm not sure if that qualifies me as a "porn freak" but I'm going to count it.

I smoked pot twice. The first time it made me feel like my head was full of bees and then I passed out for 12 hours. The second time I only inhaled once... and my head filled with bees and I passed out for 12 hours. Counting it.

When I was 18 my church's youth counselor matter-of-factly stated that my best friend was going to Hell. I thought, "That's silly, he's just a theater nerd who wore a floofy shirt and a Phantom of the Opera cape to school on multiple occasions. He's harmless and religion is dumb." So a big check for atheist.

I idolize my bestie Katrina because she is very good a puns. Is that worthy of idolization? Probably not. But I stand by it regardless.

And as far as masturbation goes... again, I ran out of RAM for having too many tabs open in Chrome.

I think I qualify for the seventh circle of Hell. I think I am going to engage in some mild thuggery so I can hang out in 7b as a nice shrub getting eaten by a harpy.

I realize there are only 12 options and 16 possible circles. So I have decided you may use a yoga pants multiplier.

1x if they are too tight but you went through tremendous effort to put them on so you are just going with it. 1x if they were acquired from an MLM mom on Facebook. 1x if they make that booty pop. 1x if they contain a pattern with as many non-complimentary colors as possible.

Welp. I put way too much effort into this.

I guess I'll see you all in Hell!

[irritatednick]

Trying to Get YouTube Shorts to Radicalize Me to the Right

My childhood friend fell into the Manosphere a couple years ago and for a few months he was sending me one conservative after another. YouTube Shorts - of all things - seemed to be radicalizing him. He sent me stuff about exercise and crafting and outdoor stuff but also anti-woke comedy sketches and motivational speeches and liberal takedowns... it was a mess. It started with Jordan Peterson and JP Sears and ended with Charlie Kirk and Dinesh D'Souza. So I was very interested when I happened upon YouTuber Benaminute's latest video where he did an experiment to see how long it would take for a brand-new user watching YouTube shorts to get a right-wing political video. His results were interesting but it wasn't quite the experiment I was hoping for. He covered up his webcam and muted his mic and watched every video through to the end, so his recommends were not influenced by his attention. But I wanted to know which videos when watched more would steer me into right propaganda, like an *actual* pipeline from one genre to another. So I did my own experiment. And it wasn't gonna be easy - because I used my YouTube account with my subscriptions and watch history as-is. Could I nudge the algorithm based solely on watch time and scrolling to give me right-leaning content?

To start with, even though I am subbed to some left-leaning political channels (e.g. Majority Report), my Shorts feed really didn't have any political content at all. Instead it was mostly Japanese culture (e.g. Matcha Samurai), linguistics (Etymology Nerd), art, electronic music, cooking, history (e.g. The Townsends), sketch comedy (e.g. Smosh), and science videos (e.g. Nile Red). My initial plan of attack was to home in on the few videos in my feed that had to do with outdoor survival tips, manual crafts like woodworking, and archery. I endeavored to be as conservative minded as possible (limited of course to my own preconceived notions of what makes a conservative). Therefore this experiment also would help determine whether I actually knew anything about what conservatives actually value and believe - after all, if I were wrong about what they watch, I don't think I'd ever get to the stream of conservative pundits. Thus, my experiment began.

Slowly (very slowly) my feed was taken up by outdoor survival and sports videos. The sports were mostly off-road biking, skiing, free climbing, wind suit jumping. Not televised team sports like football. A lot of Red Bull-sponsored content. It was like that for a long time until I got my first gun video. It was a guy firing successively more powerful guns at a Stretch Armstrong to see if he could penetrate it. At last, my first break. Soon after I got recommended more gun content. So much gun content. Video after video of gun nerds showing off a gun and comparing guns' performance. I got Call of Duty gaming videos and watched them. I hoped to include the gamer bro space. I got military weapons demonstrations and some military history and veteran interview videos. I watched a few videos from an Airsoft channel. At some point nearly my whole feed was gun and military related. Still nothing expressly political, except for one short about gun rights. I hoped that would take me to the right-wing political sphere, but it was a dead end. I occasionally got a gun dude wearing some provocative clothing - one guy was wearing camo body armor with an American flag and a Don't Tread On Me flag patch, and another dude had a t-shirt reading "Gun control: buying 1 when you really want 2." But it didn't move the needle.

One other odd genre of content that I kept indulging on my feed was Neil deGrasse Tyson. I was hoping that since he had been on Joe Rogan and that physics YouTubers in general can get into anti-woke territory that it would help me get to conservative and conspiratorial content from that angle. I got only one video from a self-described millionaire giving advice to his younger self. Sadly that did not yield any financial bro content. I got a short from a motivational speaker (Vinh Giang) giving a talk about how to be a better public speaker, and watched a few more from him. Surely, I thought, I'm getting close. It was around this time that I finally got any videos on exercise! I knew that was going to be vital. It was also around this time that I got basketball and baseball clips and any content about cars. It took that long. Then I got my first nutrition shorts. All this led me to Mike Israetel, Ph.D. and his channel (and fitness company) Renaissance Periodization. I've seen Israetel before, mostly I think from clips talking to YouTuber and family physician Dr. Mike Varshavsky. Israetel has a doctorate in sport physiology and has a matter of fact and authoritative way of speaking about exercise and nutrition. Israetel's shorts led me to his appearances on Chris Williamson's podcast Modern Wisdom, which I was recently warned is basically the Joe Rogan Experience in the UK. In fact, one short came my way featuring a British comedian roasting Williamson for his frequent far right guests and asking him to guess the author of 3 quotes that all turned out to be Hitler.

I think it was around this time that I got my first conservative political clip - it was from the ValueTainment podcast, and this guy was showing clips from the 1979 presidential debate in order to frame Ronald Reagan in a positive light. But there was no commentary so I didn't feel that I had succeeded in my mission quite yet. I had started getting Neil Tyson clips on Joe Rogan and finally saw and heard Rogan, but they weren't posted by JRE's channel. I also got clips from physicist Brian Cox with that familiar JRE curtain in the background. Then some of bro podcaster Theo Von. "Edgy" stand-up comedians Anthony Jesselnik and Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle appeared, and I sat through all of them. And Rick & Morty clips appeared? Other than some Family Guy it was the only animated content to come up in my feed. But I knew that was edgy and I suffered through Justin Roiland to watch all of them. I got my first and only video discussing crypto (it was warning about not paying taxes on crypto income). Twitcher and clinical psychiatrist Dr. Alok Kanojia finally appeared in my feed (I have legit watched him and I think he's insightful about some things but his content is geared toward gamer bros so I take it with a grain of salt), and I absolutely knew I had to watch him because of how he discusses gamer culture and male loneliness and psychology.

The last piece of the puzzle I think is when I watched a Daily Show clip. I had been reluctant to see the very few Daily Show clips on my feed because I feared it would send me to left-leaning content, but when I was recommended a clip of an interview with Neil Tyson commenting on Donald Trump... I had to include it. Especially since they tagged Trump in the video. Very soon after, I got my first Trump clip at long last, from the ValueTainment podcast. They played a clip of Trump owning the media while interviewing Trump himself. I had truly gotten right-wing political content. But soon after that I got a definitive conclusion to my experiment - clips from the one, the only Dave Rubin, from his own channel. At long last, I got an official clip from an alt-right pundit - gay traitor and bootlicker Dave Rubin of The Daily Wire.

My feed still doesn't have a robust variety of anti-woke grifters, and I wonder if I kept going if I would get that. But my main mission is over. The most peculiar observation I have is what content immediately led to getting right-wing content. I don't know if I took the shortest route from my starting position; I likely did not. And I don't know if the algorithm took into account all those other videos on outdoor survival, guns, military history, and sports. But that content was not what led me to (explicitly) conservative propaganda. It was motivational and optimization content, self-improvement, exercise and nutrition, mental wellness, and bro podcasts that immediately preceded it.

[stupittmoran]

In a shocking revelation, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has recently brought to light a deeply concerning issue that should alarm every American citizen. The U.S. government is currently funding research into “transgenic edible vaccines,” a term that sounds like it’s straight out of a dystopian science fiction novel. Yet, it is very much a reality, and it’s happening right under our noses.

The Gateway Pundit reported in 2021 that scientists at the University of California, Riverside, have been experimenting with turning edible plants like lettuce and spinach into mRNA vaccine factories.

According to the press release published by the University of California, the project aims to utilize mRNA technology, similar to that used in COVID-19 vaccines, to turn edible plants into vaccine factories.