BashfulBob [none/use name]

The important thing is to give as good as you receive.

Biden himself helped spread a myth about genocide being committed in China.

In a vacuum, idfk. You probably could make some kind of argument regarding the very rapid industrial expansion of the Chinese bureaucracy into Xinjiang and the callousness with which state officials imposed national policy over the heads of locals.

But when Uighur=Genocide but Hamas=Had-it-Coming, what the fuck is any sane leftist supposed to say about China? We went from pointing to rapid urbanization of the western frontier and saying “This is a ruthless land grab by an imperial power!” to covering our eyes in Rafa and Beirut and Isfahan while shouting “Israel has a right to exist, okay!”

The other problem is actual genocide doesn’t bother a lot of people.

Genocide is just another political team sport. When the Bad Guys are doing genocide, its not bad because its the obliteration of whole population centers. Its bad because those populations were on Your Team and They’re Scoring Points Against You every time a swath of humanity gets culled like so much wheat caught in a combine. Israelis rant about Oct 7th because they’re upset Palestine put points on the board. That’s all.

It’s the same shit with Cuba and Venezuela and Haiti back on our side of the planet. The inhumanity is just Good Ethnicity scoring points on Bad Ethnicity. Its a big fucking game and we’re all just cheering for our side.

My neighborhood in Houston is full of legitimately good chill people who would fit into a bodega in Brooklyn as easily as a tackle shop in Kentucky. Its frustrating because I grew up in a neighborhood where people were legit just a bunch of selfish reckless assholes and this ain’t it. They’re not invested in the culture war crap, they don’t want a War with China or to crucify trans kids or whatever. But the power-mad fascists running the state government are just kinda railroading through insane bullshit because they can. Its enervating to just watch it all wash over us like a tidal wave of shit.

Imagining the plot of Hero but it’s Joey Chestnuts winning a hotdog eating title so he can get close enough to swallow Trump like in a Kirby game.

It’s Texas. California loves to Pantomime at decency then cower whenever someone calls to Woke.

Texas reveals in fascism and torments people for trying to be nice

If you’re dead serious, the first step is to get rid of the consoles themselves. Uninstall the apps. Toss out the peripherals.

But I honestly have so little free time now that I can’t imagine “giving up” video games in a realistic sense. Just get a job with a long commute that eats away all your time. Voila! No more gaming!

Showdown in Pewter City was a banger.

Learning to read Japanese so you can order the manga from a bookshop overseas.

Just wake up at 6am on a Saturday and watch each episode on the TV before your parents get out of bed.

Idk, it kinda reminds me of the neoliberals pissing and shitting themselves because socialist policies were OP in Victoria 3. “Game Balance” doesn’t mean some strategies won’t be fundamentally better than others.

What I think this guy misses is that there are already tools for countering broad social dissatisfaction with your policies in Stellaris. Just crank up that consumer economy, invest a bunch of resources in entertainment and other distraction economics, and you can do all the genocide you want without real consequence. You just don’t get to ignore the outrage “for free”. You have to pacify your population just like IRL.

People keep telling me right-wing comedy is dead and then I see this.

That doesn’t hold up when you get to states like Wyoming, the Dakotas, Utah, or West Virginia. It also doesn’t hold up when you interrogate some of the biggest benefactors of slavery - Manhattan and Chicago brokers who leveraged the Dredd Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Acts to functionally extend the franchise above the Mason-Dixon Line. Why are Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin swing states? Why is Virginia considered safe in 2024 and North Carolina on the tipping point? Hell, you can visualize the red wave that passed through the Midwest in the wake of the frakking boom under Obama. Even setting aside his shit politics, the geyser of O&G money was what ultimately flipped a bunch of those seats.

Accumulated wealth from the Plantation Era definitely trickled down to subsequent generations and formed the foundation of southern bourgeois wealth. But the agg sector wasn’t what formed the foundation of industrial-era wealth in the US. It was the mineral and fossil fuel industries that became the primary accumulators of profitable capital. A big part of the Southern Strategy was Nixon, Goldwater, Reagan, and Bush tapping that wellspring of financial clout.

If you look at the Red State / Blue State divide and you tie it out with a map of States With Large Fossil Fuel Businesses, they line up disturbingly tightly. O&G is a patronage system in much the same way the MIC and the financial sector are patronages for large political constituencies.

Often hard for people to get the macro perspective and realize we’re choosing to perpetuate these trends, we’re not just riding some natural economic wave beyond any institution’s control.

my son will be starting school, and the decision about where to send him is stressing me out. We’ve already ruled out the nearest school—it looks more like a modern prison than a place for children. The building is completely gray, with bare concrete walls inside, huge windows everywhere, and the classroom setup seems geared towards old-fashioned, frontal teaching. Even though the neighbors seem happy with it, I just can’t imagine my son spending his days there for years.

Feel you. I’m in Texas and with the way the local system has been deliberately degraded, I’m genuinely torn about what to do with my kid when he’s school age.

Other than throwing my checkbook at the problem, there doesn’t seem like a lot of good options.

On the other hand, there’s a newer school about a 15-minute walk away that opened three years ago. It looks much greener and more inviting. They also offer mixed-age classes, which I attended when I was younger and loved—no endless hours of boring, traditional teaching.

Sounds fantastic. Hope it holds up.