WatDabney @ WatDabney @sopuli.xyz

Posts

8

Comments

917

Joined

2 yr. ago

The American Gestapo clearly announcing their intention of being the American Gestapo.

As with virtually everything in this ongoing fascist coup, the anti-democracy forces are brazenly stating their intent, and it's just a matter of believing them.

Unleashing the Gestapo, right on schedule.

One of the defining characteristics of this era is the legacy media from time to time timidly noting the possibility of something that's been recognized as at least nearly certain down here in the trenches for months or even years.

Of course Russia is co-opting far right groups to attack western democracies. Any honest person who's been paying attention should've figured that out by now - it's not like they've been subtle about it or anything. And it's been commonly recognized for months now (and less commonly asserted for years).

But at this late date, along comes the Guardian, hesitantly saying, "Um... well... you know... it might just barely be sort of possible that maybe...

Now that you mention it.

I did note that it credited Lloyd Kaufman with no mention of Troma, but I didn't put together what that meant, even with the year right there in the title, staring me in the face.

That's a seriously creepy face.

There's a bubbling cauldron of naked rage not quite managing to hide behind those clamped-down features.

In a world gone Onion, that's easily the most Onion'ish true story I've seen. So far...

They're literally suing the company for not being evil enough.

That's so insane that merely taking part in that suit should be seen as grounds for a psych hold.

Lloyd Kaufman and Mary Woronov...

It doesn't get much more 80s B movie than that.

That's always been the basic GOP agenda - they're just more brazen about it now, since they have an unapologetic wannabe dictator taking the lead.

But particularly from Reagan on, their exact strategy has been to win angry, stupid people over with bigotry, fear and hatred, then spend their time in office fucking over the common people (including the angry, stupid ones who voted for them) in order to expand the privilege of the wealthiest few.

They - and the angry, stupid people who vote for them - are the reason we're where we are today.

Because fuck the surveillance state.

What's behind the US birth rate decline?

The Trump administration wants people to have more children.

Curiously enough, the latter points to the answer to the former.

It's not just that Trump wants Americans to have more children - all the psychopaths in power do. Because to them, people are just resources to be used up and discarded, which means they need a steady supply of replacements.

And not surprisingly, people - being actual people with hopes and dreams and fears and doubts and loves and joys and heartbreaks and losses - just aren't interested in having children who are just going to end up being resources to be exploited by a handful of fabulously wealthy shitbags.

So basically, the reason that the billionaire fuckwads want people to have more children is also the reason that people don't want to have them.

Nazi works, but if he'd prefer something else, "technofascist" and "neo-feudalist" are both arguably even more accurate.

Or we could go a different way - "psychopathic douchebag" has a nice ring to it, or maybe "delusional fuckhead."

Since he swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, what he's saying is that he doesn't "know" if he's not supposed to commit perjury.

And since it was already established with Clinton that perjury is an impeachable offense, what he's saying is that he doesn't grasp a very basic and straightforward legal reality of his office.

Which means he's not of sound mind, and doesn't even need to be impeached - he's unfit for office and should be removed immediately.

Right - it has nothing to do with the fact that Israel has been trying to goad Syria into a war for years now - the nation of minority oppressors is suddenly all worried about someone else's oppressed minority. Uh huh.

If only it was that simple...

Democrats are even more scared of people learning the truth about Israel and Palestine than Republicans are.

It's really a very simple matter - Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is indefensible. That's okay for Republicans, since they aren't going to bother defending them - they and their base revel in bigotry and hatred and violence, so Israeli bigotry and hatred and violence is fine by them. But Democrats have to at least pretend to be opposed to bigotry and hatred and violence, so they can't defend Israel from legitimate criticism. So their only hope is to protect them from it by hiding the truth.

At the least, some considerable part of the problem is that angry, stupid bigots who used to be mostly limited to cringey drunken solo rants are now able to network with each other and cheer on each other's anger and stupidity and bigotry.

I was with you right up until the end.

Hillary's gender is a weak excuse that the DNC and the establishment Dems trot out to try to duck the blame for sabotaging a sincere progressive in order to run a neolib weasel who gives paid speeches to international bankers and idolizes Kissinger.

As I've said repeatedly - there are going to be mass graves in the US before this is all over.

This is just another, albeit particularly notable, step along the way.

That thread is creepy.

Trump not only promised to bring down prices, but promised to do so "on day one." In fact, in the final days of the campaign, that was likely the promise he repeated the most.

So not only is he somewhere between delusional and dishonest (which I already knew), but every single person who responded to insist rising prices is indeed what they signed up for is also somewhere between delusional and dishonest.

Why? What compels them? What do they expect to gain?

I'm beginning to suspect that there's some environmental factor or something in the US that makes people delusional, angry and stupid, because this has gone way beyond anything that can be explained by political partisanship alone.

This is a dumbass article.

First, it self-evidently doesn't understand what the laws of robotics actually are and how they interrelate. You can't just tack on an unrelated fourth one - the current three are a mutually dependent set.

And second, it self-evidently doesn't understand that current "AI" isn't actually intelligence in any way, shape or form and possesses no self-awareness of any form, and therefore cannot be made subject to laws at all.

Laws can only meaningfully be applied to the people who use the current "AIs," since they're the ones who actually possess agency and self-awareness.

If you want to argue for something to stem the tide of deepfakes, that's the thing to argue for - straightforward criminal penalties for the people who employ "AIs" to make them.