I suppose you this touches on how I’m in the US, where everything is skewed towards insane nonsense. It would be extremely unusual to find a conservative of any sort here that would support anything remotely anti-car, for example. Even if it would save money.

Oh good. I thought about making stickers to slap on badly parked cars, because they’re really irritating and dangerous. But my lawyer friend at the time advised against it.

Not a fan. It admittedly can be an amusing toy - type something in and wow look what it did! But the costs are high, and our society isn’t a utopia where people don’t need to labor for survival.

Maybe if we were post scarcity it wouldn’t matter that much. But we’re not, and this AI stuff is going to hurt labor, benefit the ownership class, and probably be mildly bad for end users too.

They’re in favour of things like universal medicare/dental care, because those programs are shown to be a net benefit fiscally and socially.

I’ve never met someone who was “socially liberal fiscally conservative” who believed this.

They’re usually pro good things, but they don’t want to pay for them, so they’re not actually pro those things at all.

“Small government” and “private individuals will handle it” typically means it just won’t happen.

We outnumber the rich. If there weren’t so many idiots and boot lickers we could fix this problem

That makes sense to me.

But they don’t want to make businesses do anything, even if it means choking the oceans with trash and filling our bodies with plastic. Frankly, they’re bad people that we shouldn’t put up with.

“This violation, if proven, only warrants a symbolic fine,” Spiro argued

Reminded of the narcissist’s prayer

“”"
That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault.
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
“”"

I hope when the revolution comes, all the people like this lawyer that enabled Musk also go up against the wall.

Everyone who votes Republican deserves shit like this. But unfortunately we’re all stuck with them, and they seem incapable of learning.

Group membership matters to all of us. It’s like one of the primary drivers of belief. We might think we’re rational and cool logical people but that’s a lie. We trust people we see as being in-group, and we trust facts from them.

For some people, like many republicans, it’s also the only thing that really matters.

This may have been a viable strategy in like 3000BCE when you had to stick with your group of idiots, because otherwise you’d be left for dead or worse by the enemy tribe. It’s not really a solid strategy in 2025CE.

But that’s really the whole problem. People (often but not always republicans) put their group membership ahead of everything else. This is happening like deep in the emotional part of their psyche. There’s no easy fix. You’d probably have to get them to join some other group and see that as primary, like maybe appeal to their sense of being American, but it’s going to be hard when there’s a lot of them. It’s like gravity, they all pull each other into the group.

I don’t know how to fix this.

Feel like we should not make disposable plastic anymore.

Assuming they’re American: they’re an idiot. Sorry. They don’t understand how things are intertwined, and you can’t have social justice for free. If you let laissez-faire policies be, you don’t get socially liberal outcomes. You get capitalist dystopia.

I’m inclined to agree, that might be a problem. I don’t think it’s the only problem, but the capitalist hell scape of “trust no one everyone for themselves” isn’t helping

Any plan that depends on “and then the common person develops discerning taste” is doomed to fail. Especially considering that even people who are usually picky might enjoy something basic from time to time

Why is that valid but “the US should have no qualms about footing the bill and doing it” not?

Eradicating infectious diseases (that don’t respect borders) is a net positive for everyone.

I see this a lot in all sorts of things and it drives me crazy. Why can’t people just care a little more?

Like playing guild wars 2, big group boss fight. If everyone does a stun attack when the boss is vulnerable, it interrupts it and we’re more likely to win. But no, half the people can’t be assed to hit “5” on their keyboard instead of “1”.

Or littering. There’s a trash can just down the block. Just hold onto your trash for a whole minute. Nope. Can’t be bothered. Onto the street it goes.

I just want to shake people and ask them what the fuck is wrong with them. What is broken inside that you can’t just be a little better. I don’t need heroics or big risks. Just a tiny bit more. Just be a little bit more alive and awake.

We need more than resignations. We need actual punishments. Can’t have them just resign and go on to be a private consultant or talking head.

I was going to say something similar to that too. Specifically, the consolidation of power means there’s less smaller companies taking risks. You’d think a big company with Disney money could afford to be weird and experimental, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

I say this despite enjoying superhero movies

Others have touched on this but this also feels downstream from the capitalist hellscape. Most people don’t have a lot of spending money. Movies are pricey and a bad money:time ratio.

I bet if wages were up, more people would go to the theater. I don’t want to spend $40 to watch a movie and eat popcorn, but I’d consider it for $3.

I used to use RPG.net a lot. They have pretty strict moderation, which keeps the place from turning into some kinds of shit holes. But you also can’t tell someone they’re a fool, or all Republicans are traitors. Takes some getting used to, but is probably worth it.