I agree with this comment in general, but don’t think Ferrell is a good example. Or really, maybe he is a good example, but the way his movies are shot isn’t a good example.

In Ferrell movies, the gag is that the actor says or does something outrageously dumb, and then the other actors largely go along with it, either pumping up the idea, or being coerced by it, or stomping it down in a hilariously insulting fashion. If there is ever a moment of awkward silence, it lingers for a second before the scene ends. Arrested Development is another example of this being done well. It’s a farce - the actions are so bizarre and outlandish that we can’t possibly imagine ourselves doing it, so we are absolved of sympathy for the cartoonish actor and enjoy seeing them fumble their way through the scene.

But there is a new wave of “cringe comedy” that seems to not understand what a farce is. A character will do something just beyond the limit of what we could imagine ourselves doing, so we can still identify with the character. Then the other characters react in the way people would react in real life - with stern condemnation or cold shouldering. And the scene goes on and on and on. It is terrible.

Right! We’re a bunch of 16 year old white boys who worship Xi!

You can just turn on the NSFW filter for your main feed. Removes pretty much everything except the “moe” communities.

Sidenote: you Moe people are weird af. Please tag your communities as NSFW. I would honestly rather have someone look over my shoulder and see a hardcore gangbang post than see me looking at fully clothed anime girls.

New tattoo ideas unlocked

I don’t believe in God, but I believe in Leonard!

The potential pleasure is in speaking about it.

Congratulations. You successfully managed to both not engage with my point in any meaningful way, and also provided a solution I already deflated in the comment you are responding to.

The problem you’ll run into is (1) most leftists/liberals don’t own guns, and (2) most leftists/liberals are relatively affluent and will not be directly effected by Trumps policies. There is not a culture of being armed and organized among them.

The golden rule here is whoever has the gold makes the rules (quite literally).

That’s not an American thing. It’s a human thing.

This is just literally how the world works

I have to say, this is just such an in-the-weeds moral stance that it crosses the boundary of reasonableness. Honestly, it’s this sort of thing that drove me away from left wing styles of thinking a while ago.

The impact you make on the world in any of your possible actions with regard to Harry Potter is miniscule. Like, truly, utterly insignificant. Are you going to organize an anti-potter boycott? Participate in a protest? Harass the actors in an online trolling movement? Throw eggs at JK Rawling’s house? Great! Go do all those things! Actively participate in changing the world for the better! These actions might actually lead to real change.

But denying yourself pleasures in the name of moral purity accomplishes nothing. If all you do is sit at home and think to yourself “I wanna watch the new Harry Potter thing, but I can’t, because then I’m a bad person.” (or in this case, "I wanna talk to my friends about the new Harry Potter thing I pirated, but I can’t, because then I’m a bad person) then you are accomplishing literally nothing except making yourself miserable. Again, if you are going to actually do something, then go do it! But if you don’t have the time or energy or interest or social battery to actually do something, then shaming yourself or others into not doing things is actively counterproductive. Go take a road trip without calculating if the pleasure you will derive is worth the carbon footprint! Eat an ice cream cone without feeling bad about the the suffering of the factory farmed cow it came from! Get one of those good-paying jobs in oil and gas or defence and make some goddamned money! You are simply not important enough for any of these actions to have any actual real-world impact. The only thing that happens is that you convince yourself that if you ever enjoy anything, then you are a bad person. You train yourself to constantly be looking for the ways in which life’s simple pleasures are destroying the world, so you can feel bad about them.

Just stop it. Be happy. Do whatever you need to do to chill out and enjoy your life and gain some sense of contentedness and security. And then go out and make the world a better place by actually doing something. Hyper-anxious, shame-ridden, depressed know-it-alls rarely create effective social change because no one wants to hang out with them. No one see them and thinks “yeah, that’s what I want my life to look like.”

In order to lead by example you have to show a path to a better world. Not a cell.

3028. Maybe more. His wealth is going to pass on to someone.

Idk, I’ve never been stung by a bee. I might be deathly allergic, but I have no idea.

That’s the problem. You’re hanging out with too many “MuH vIoLEnT RevOlUtiOn!!!” types. If you want the system to fail, of course you’re going to see every reason why it would fail.

I think that’s how wars usually go

Concentrating power is not exclusive to capitalism, and is more natural than not. In order to improve outcomes relative to capitalism, you must make a system which is geopolitically competitive with capitalist states while simultaneously actively avoiding concentrations of power. Saying capitalism is the problem is problematic because it does not account for this. If we limit our scope to saying capitalism is the problem, then we allow ourselves to advocate for systems which not only perpetuate the problem of power concentration, but worsen it.

This isnt a function of capitalism. It is a function of concentrated power.

I’m split. On one hand, thunderstorms in DC in the summer are so obvious and predictable that anyone doing any kind of organizing for an outdoor event would have considered them months in advance and would have contingencies. So “cancelled due to thunderstorms” is obviously a cover for “we’re getting too much pushbacka and don’t want to embarrass ourselves.”

Otoh, not realizing that there is a thunderstorm pretty much every single day in DC in the summer is exactly the level of competence I expect from the Trump admin.

Right. My point is that the Arab states lost to Israel because Israel was backed by the West. Without western support, a tiny Jewish state with almost no natural resources and a small population would be hard-pressed to stand its ground against a coalition of Arab states with a much larger population, oil money, and possible Russian backing. All the Arab states would need to do is keep taking pot shots at Israel while their superior military technology degrades and their stockpiles dwindle. A modern fighter jet relies on thousands of hyper-specific, high precision parts which can only be sources from western manufacturers. One part breaks and your whole plane is grounded. Even if the Arab states are not in great shape themselves, they win a war of attrition handily - especially once the average Israeli sees the inevitable and flees, depriving Israel of its soldiers and intellectual economy.

Otoh, your timeline argument is reasonable, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t a coincidence in one way or another.

I have to say, this is a very weird take and you should really consider that you might be mistaken.

Pre-1850, most governments were autocratic in some way or another. Many of these governments lasted for hundreds or thousands of years, only toppled when another, larger autocratic government conquered them. This was true in China, Africa, the Middle East, Mexico, and Europe. Post 1850, democracy began to spread much more rapidly. These days, autocrats at least try to pretend to be elected. And meanwhile, the personal freedom and standard of living for the average person have increased dramatically since that time.

In general, the sort of revolution you are talking about where the people storm the palace gates seem to have become less common because: first of all, you are imagining them as more common than they actually were in the past. In the past, most people were slaves or semi-slaves (surfs, peasants) who lived pretty miserable lives and mostly coped via Jesus and drinking. Second of all, because for the most part people don’t want to storm the palace gates anymore because their lives are pretty good. Sure, Elon has billions while you are living paycheck to paycheck - but you still have a roof over your head, food to eat, and circuses to watch on TV. The risk of losing that and going to jail or dying is not worth the slim potential reward of having a better government in some way. Storming the palace gates and overthrowing the government is a bad thing, because it implies that the government was doing such a bad job that the people became so agitated that they tried such a desperate tactic in the first place.

I think they now really do require some sort of defection from the ruling classes

This has literally always been the case. The idea that a disorganized mob of peasants can storm the palace gates, depose the monarch, and create a utopian, egalitarian government from scratch is a fantasy - just like dragons, fairies, and anyone on Lemmy ever getting laid. A king derives his power from the accumulated power of his court, and each member of the court derives power from the power of their subordinates. As long as the court stays loyal to the king, mobs of people will be largely impotent. If the mob ever did manage to storm the gates and destroy the king, the very next day the court would appoint the king’s heir and send the military out to murder every person in the mob. Mobs succeed when the court is tired of the king’s bullshit and conveniently “forgets” to lock the palace gates.