mozz

“Watership Down”, too. It was based on Adams’s experience in the military and particular people he knew, so there was plenty of material and real shit to draw from (like real shit; IYKYK), as then translated into stories he told to his daughter when she was small about a little tribe of plucky hero rabbits in the face of danger. If you can come up with a better formula for creating a fuckin epic story, I will be surprised.

Agreed. To me, who are the people speaking which strategies is a very notable part of the picture.

I will say, he’s old as fuck and it’s a problem. I am not trying to deny that part. But the absolute shrieking media hurricane that is currently demanding that he needs to resign first, and that we need to amp up attacks on his performance to encourage that outcome instead of spending any of that energy on Trump, and the strategy of what the Democrats are going to do instead of Biden can get figured out at some later date at a more leisurely pace, cannot possibly be based on anything that any Democrat should be listening to for a nanosecond, let alone repeating and amplifying.

Not all at once, have them start coming back one at a time as time goes on

(A) with items and powers they gained in the meantime wherever they got sent to
(B) and team up to fuck up the party, in squads of increasing power level since the party has been meeting increasingly powerful enemies of course
(C) the same, but changed a little bit in unsettling subtle ways that get less and less subtle and more and more wild and empowering as the story continues, like Pet Semetary

Pick one. Start the first little challenge they run into right after they disintegrate some massively powerful BBEG, so the realization of what they are in for now and the anticipation of what horror is in store at the end of the arc can build and build and build

Caution, they may say “fuck it” and still keep disintegrating stuff, or experiment with disintegrating each other once they know there are strengthening effects, things like that, so be prepared for that

Hm… maybe. I don’t think Cheney wants a fast successful Trump coup, though, because he (unusually among the CNN-addled dreck of consultants whose unrealistic mishmash of own-fart-smelling passes for strategic thinking in Washington) is acquainted enough with realpolitik to know what it actually might mean.

You’re the only one talking sense and you are sitting here with your 2 upvotes

The AI company business model is 100% unsustainable. It’s hard to say when they will get sick of hemorrhaging money by giving away this stuff more or less for free, but it might be soon. That’s totally separate from any legal issues that might come up. If you care about this stuff, learning about doing it locally and having a self hosted solution in place might not be a bad idea.

But upgrading anything aside from your GPU+VRAM is a pure and unfettered waste of money in that endeavor.

If the boomers are gonna go around telling people “you’ll get more conservative as you get older and have money”

Can we start telling fascists “you’ll get less fascist as you get older and the same horrifying shit you were initially in favor of starts to threaten YOUR safety, in turn”

Idk, it’s not as catchy but I think it’s still short enough to make an impact

It started with Bill Browder and the Magnitsky Act. The timelines are so close together that it’s hard to separate, but I think that the Magnitsky Act was when the real motivation came in on the Russian side, and Snowden (and any possible additional fuckin with they were able to do because of intel they gathered from him; I won’t say you are wrong) came afterwards, as their efforts were just first starting to gather momentum. But I definitely remember that as of Snowden getting asylum, they were already heavily actively engaged in ways to fuck with us, in a way I don’t think they were prior to 2012.

It’s sad and ironic and displeasing. The Magnitsky Act was a very rare instance of the US doing something on the world stage that really was motivated at least in part by simple concern for human rights. And we paid the biggest price for it - up to and including this present godawful clusterfuck of a well-funded and -equipped GOP explicitly trying to destroy America and making pretty good progress on it so far - far more than any consequences we ever face for doing our standard war criminal geopolitical evil.

Also authoritarians: I didn’t mean THAT kind of law and order. I’m exempt! Don’t you hear me? I’m exempt! Let go of me!

I find it unlikely that the average temperature year on year is going to go down now, and bring the average over a period of decades back down below 1.5.

Yes I know about El Niño. I don’t think the drop in temperature is going to bring us back down below 1.5 for any significant length of time. Certainly not for decades. Maybe for a single year. I am not a climate scientist, so maybe I’m missing something, but I can look at the graph and understand that (1) they are clearly using a baseline that includes some amount of increase already baked in, for whatever reason, (2) we are roughly 1.5 degrees above the real baseline, and (3) the idea that the trend will suddenly reverse or even hold steady now that we’re at 1.5 seems like pure fantasy since the direction of all human activity year by year is still to increase the slope of the line, not decrease it.

So there is still time to make an impact and every fraction of a degree and kg of CO2 matters.

This is a good point. The sheer apocalyptic magnitude of the problem means that every tiny amount of change matters. Billions will die. There probably isn’t a way to prevent that completely anymore. But if we can tick things down by a fraction and save a few hundred thousand people, preserve a species of food crops that would have gone extinct, IDK what the exact outcomes are but the point is tiny changes will have a massive impact and they’re important even if the situation is dire.

Not so much "recommending" as "shrieking and demanding," but yes.

Should tell you something, TBH. If Biden was a guaranteed fuckup that would deliver Trump, and replacing him was the only road to Democratic victory, we'd see all kinds of Russian bots stumping for Biden and saying what a great thing he was for the Democratic party, and as a proud Democrat I'm standing behind him and you should too.

Not only that, they can still challenge Biden at the convention.

Biden's delegates aren't legally forbidden from voting for anyone else. It's pretty fuckin unlikely that it would actually happen, but there was a big deal in 1980 about someone trying to poach another candidate's delegates, so the DNC made a specific rule starting in 1984 that if you can talk someone else's delegates into voting for you instead, fair play, they're your delegates now. As far as I know, it's still legit to do that. Again: It's unlikely bordering on impossible. But it's not illegal to try. Why is no one talking about that when they are openly talking about how vital it is to dethrone him?

Yes, I saw the debate. It was a fuckin disaster. Even so, the theory that Biden is so weak and tottering that he can't speak without drooling and falls over in a strong breeze, but that he holds such an iron grip on power in the DNC that no one can even breathe a word of challenge, and the right move is for him to abandon the ship and trust that no-one-in-particular will rise up to claim the wheel without needing to go through the "fighting Biden for the wheel" process, and definitely be a better candidate once that special exception is made for them, doesn't really hold up to me.

Disclaimer, I still don't know what the right answer is, Biden is old as fuck, I think Jon Stewart would objectively do better in the campaign than he would. But, Biden saying that made a lot more sense than any number of people saying "Let's replace him! But not with me, or anyone in particular."

I don't know if other people find this as chilling as I do, because it doesn't seem all that alarming on the surface. But I think this is an extremely accurate and frightening diagnosis of why so many people seem so weirdly uninterested in saying anything about Trump's incredibly major crimes.

They've mentally realized that he has no plans to change his behavior, and it's hard to take seriously the idea that anyone will hold him to account. So why bother saying anything against him? What difference would it make?

The more you think about it, the worse it gets.