Uh ok neat, we are doing that here, virtually, and people have been doing this on the internet for two or three decades.

Which, I think, should be enough proof that this method doesn’t work. Physical community ties are important. Look at red state medical gofundmes. That’s basically socialized medicine (though the worst possible version of it lol), but they support it because they know the people they’re supporting. Leftist policies consistently poll well across the board, but conservatives get elected anyway, because when these people go to church, their pastor tells them to vote for Trump. Or their family. Or their buddies from work. The people they interact with regularly, because those are the people that can use social normalcy to enforce their morals. You can’t do that online.

We talk about making life uncomfortable for fascists because that kind of constant discomfort is what eventually gets people to self-reflect. You can’t have a community hostile to Nazis, without first building up connections between people to enforce that hostility. That’s why I put so much focus on just talking to your friends about a TV show. It’s basically a Trojan horse. A way to start expanding the leftist community to people that haven’t learned to debate, and don’t know how to engage with media critically. Teach them.

Is that a personal record for Konsi, or does this often happen at this temple? Lol

The Muslim ban happened during his presidency, which was apparently too long ago for most of the electorate to remember. Honestly, it’s an interesting insight into the workings of our political system. Maybe more presidents that lost their re-election bid should have tried again

Have you got any of those?

For one thing, this is what fiction is for!

If you’re like me, you probably know some people that fit in that neo-liberal democrat space: nice people, but definitely the kind MLK talked about as being an obstacle to progress. A lot of the time, they’re also the people that “aren’t into politics,” because they have straight white privilege, and these issues usually don’t affect them directly.

One of the reasons the right has been so successful since Roe v Wade is because they get organized. They meet, they talk, they plan, they take small local action. And, of course, these are the kinds of things that leftists talk about. We need to organize, we need to work together, we need to stop in-fighting, etc. But we don’t have the natural advantage the right does.

Third places. They’re built for the privileged and wealthy, and they fight to keep them that way. See campaigns against libraries. It’s way harder for a Jew, an Arab, and a gay man to walk into a bar and sit down for a discussion than it is for a bunch of old white ladies to talk about their Saturday plans at a church potluck. Spaces for left-leaning political discussion don’t really exist. Except in the realm of fiction.

Star Trek is, of course, a very well known example of progressive fiction. I, personally, am a big Trekkie. Here on Lemmy, there have been memes about the Bell Riots (a two part episode from DS9, involving the crew time traveling to September 2024). We were making those jokes because those episodes, especially today, are very topical. AND THAT WORKS!

I’ve had great conversations about those episodes with my centrist parents, as well as several acquaintances: conversations that deal with real topics, like homelessness, civic duty, and citizen action.

The right builds their fortress on a foundation of anti-intellectualism because shutting down other conversations is their most powerful weapon, and they’ve employed it to devastating effect. The atmosphere in our country has been curated to be hostile to political speech and philosophy. Just think of how much ridicule one would receive for recommending something like a salon to a group of friends, rather than something like a boardgame night (this is also affected by lack of free time, so support your unions!). It’s for the same reason they sow division between minorities.

But fiction doesn’t have this weakness! Have your friends over to watch some Star Trek, or lend out your copy of Men at Arms, and get Sir Terry Pratchett’s Sam Vimes “Boots” Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness into the hands of an impressionable youth. AND THEN DISCUSS WHAT IT MEANS! Do some literary analysis. Talk about the realities that informed the art. Empathize with Jadzia as the cultural norms of her society demand she end her relationship with her former lover, simply because she’s also a woman now. Then, suddenly you have your own group for leftist political discourse.

That’s where it gets truly tough, but as was stated above, this is going to have to be a long term effort. This is a first step. It’s up to us all to take one, and then the next, and then the next, just like those monsters that set out to repeal Roe v Wade 40 years ago, and only succeeded now.

It’s the truth, honestly. Just look at how smartphones have changed since the iPhone. Remember how it used to be a pretty common thing to switch wifi off and on to fix a connection issue? Or Airplane Mode? That was a troubleshooting step people learned naturally on the original smartphones because they had to. Personally I don’t even know where the Airplane Mode button is on my phone anymore. I can’t remember the last time I had to bounce my wifi. People just troubleshoot less now because stuff just works. We’re going to have to make an effort to keep up the skills for when they stop, or we’ll end up like a sci-fi civilization that can’t repair it’s crumbling ancient infrastructure

A lot of reddit’s most popular content is stuff like TrueOffMyChest from throwaway accounts. Robust privacy protection would result in more of those posts, and more traffic overall, but reddit doesn’t care about making the site work, they’ve dedicated themselves to milking the individual users for all they’re worth. It’s a bit like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Because look, now we’re all here, generating content on a competing platform

I think that must have been what the person that suggested the name wanted lol

My coax was all purged the first time I moved into a house with fiber. Good riddance

I never would have guessed this was in gaming community from the headline lol

Someone below said they charge Kansas taxes

I was thinking the same thing, like, “Only because we aren’t traveling the stars yet.”

Don’t underestimate the power of executives to make really dumb choices. My company decided we’d create our own ticketing system this year, and now my Firefox tab consumes multiple gigabytes of ram…

I am exactly the same! Our dishwasher is my most precious possession. Got a great deal on a little half size portable one for our tiny apartment kitchen. And we love our robot vacuum too. His name is Chumley. He doesn’t run often though, because it’s so hard keeping the floors clear enough that he doesn’t get stuck lol

Socks by the door is a great idea, because I’m constantly losing mine

That is a wild choice to put in a collection of poems for Mother’s Day lmao

As long as you don’t kidnap your doctor, like they did

Shaka, when the walls fell 😔

Betterhelp is a scam

How do you force yourself to do something

Ooh, these are great! Laundry definitely is another one for me. I don’t know how to put a good break between doing the laundry, and putting it away, without just never putting it away.

The bin idea is so helpful, I will definitely be using that.

I’m glad I’m not the only one that can’t handle cast iron. I feel the exact way you do. I can barely handle normal dishes, there’s no way I’m adding extra work for questionable benefit lol

So Larian is calling attention to predatory employment practices, as they have done before, and this time they’re doing it by comparing the situation to predatory sales practices, and criticizing them in the comparison