This is the thing. People like to blame Berniebros and whatnot for Clinton’s loss in '16, but the reality is that the centrist Democrats that vote for the party’s corporate-backed candidate wouldn’t vote for a progressive one, so even if Bernie had won the nomination, he probably still would have lost because he would have lost the support of these DNC hardliners. I heard people literally say in '16 that if Bernie had somehow won the nomination over Hillary that they would have just stayed home. It’s wild to think how ideologically balkanized the Democratic party is, with so many people fervently belonging to the leftist minority that holds their nose every election to vote for another mediocre person whose best attributes are being “not an outright fascist” versus the people who will never vote for a truly left wing candidate because they’re fiscally conservative but socially liberal and just allergic to compromising in the same way that they’ve forced the leftists in their party to do since forever.

What are they, 1-2% of the potential Dem voter base?

Add a .000 in front of those numbers and you might be right. If those numbers were accurate you would expect somewhere between, what…1 and 2 million tankies in the US alone?

Probably more likely the name is a reference to Civil War Confederate General Basil Duke. Or perhaps the name merely is meant to invoke the idea of the Dukes as important, “noble” figures in Hazzard County, or at least more noble than the corrupt Boss Hogg. Or maybe a cigar is just a cigar in this case.

Starring the legendary James Mitchum! Probably because Mitchum also starred in Thunder Road, which is the grandaddy of all “bootleggers in a fast car” movies, and which was originally written with Elvis Presley in mind for the lead role.

This comment should be automatically linked to anyone on this platform saying the average Lemmy poster is smarter or less sheepish in their behavior than the average reddit poster. People are legit downvoting you for being right and having sources to back up your argument.

Wow, my opinion of this intentionally abrasive and combative, potentially mentally ill homeless man who was well known for public urination, defecation, and masturbation, and who lived in a society 2400 years divorced from my own, whose understanding of gender and sex that was, as is the case for literally all of us, a product of his environment and upbringing, has never been lower.

surprised to find indignation at sexual scenes in novels

To quote Ryan Letourneau, “Gen Z is Puritanpilled.” Seriously, I’ve found post-millennial generations to be extremely prudish. I think part of it has to do with the fact that as the internet evolved and became mainstream (and more profitable by catering to general audiences), the edgy or adult content became more ghetoized and quarantined over time. Used to be you’d go to reddit and there’d be porn on the front page. There’s like a 0% change of finding something NSFW on the front page there now. As such, younger people who grew up with the modern incarnation of the internet have a very different perspective on sexual content than those of us who grew up with a more “wild west” style internet where porn was just something that lived alongside the more mundane content. The side-effect of this is also that content like the John Irving novels you’re talking about are treated as if they’re grotesque for presenting sex as just another part of people’s lives - something that you’re not supposed to be shy about or ashamed of. Which is, uh…concerning, for a number of reasons. Other theories are that the world in which we live has eroded platonic relationships among young people and that they want to only see platonic friendships among characters, as that’s the vicarious experience they most desire.

It’s episode 2. “Fifteen Million Merits.”

How much easier is it for Google to implement the same?

The correct question is actually “when will Google implement the same?” Because this is a “when will it happen” question, not a “will it happen” question.

American style neoliberalism has become the only game in town and any minor deviation is seen as dangerous extremism. Its easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.

I’m just gonna leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism

Sounds like he has abandonment issues. Violent, murderous abandonment issues.

Very important: you have to either be in normal mode first or get there by pressing escape (or <C-[> (aka Ctrl+[)), which is mentioned in the edited image from Arrival, but left out of your explanation.

That’s because the clitoris, and by extension the female orgasm, is a myth created by second wave feminists to make straight men seem sexually incompetent.

Edging is not a new thing, really. You’ve probably just never encountered the concept. Edging is the practice of bringing yourself to the edge of orgasm before backing away. The idea is that when you do finally orgasm it’s been “built up to” by the earlier edging so you get a better climax.

I find the movies conceptually interesting because there aren’t many movies in which humans are just explicitly the bad guys, or in terms of the most recent one just a supporting entity that exists on the periphery of the story. Avatar kinda does that, too, but the Avatar movies are also puddle deep genre fiction and the “of the Apes” movies are at least structurally and narratively competent.

My favorite was the Chapo Traphouse subreddit because the image in this post describes the hosts and their relationship with their fans. Whenever the subreddit got banned and the hosts heard about it their response was “good, that was the right choice. We fully support the admins here and their banning of that subreddit.” The reddit fans were so salty.

Under the Dome has always been super interesting to me because Brian K. Vaughn is one of the best comic book writers of all time and a consistent criticism of UTD is how bad the writing is. I know he didn’t write many of the episodes, though, but I also wonder how his episodes rank in comparison with the others.

Anything related to a DND live play I’m going to assume will be immediately toxic by virtue of what I understand about DND’s fanbase. I love Dimension20 and I like Critical Role but I’m going to assume every other fan of the show is an insufferable idiot.

So your assertions here are the following:

• religion functions by 1) lying to people about the fundamental nature of reality in order to 2) manipulate them into doing bad things and that central to this is the idea that doing point 1 actively enables or facilitates point 2.
• religion constitutes a “static model of reality” to which people are emotionally attached, which is fundamentally dangerous.
• religion does not “determine” good or bad.
• Religious violence is a thing that exists.
• You’re queer and religion bothers you.

So, point by point:

• many religions make complex assertions about the metaphysical nature of the universe, often including the existence of supernatural phenomena, individuals, locations, etc. I’m not going to try to argue for the existence of any mystical element of any particular faith, but I will challenge the innately reductive analysis of religion you’ve provided. Most religions, particularly the very old ones, incorporate historical, philosophical, artistic, communal, and ethical traditions. You seem to center your understanding of religious faith around the metaphysical or supernatural components and have asserted that these components warp the underlying perception of reality of its participants for the express purpose of making people behave in such a way as to “do awful shit” and act against your “conscience and general interest.” In making a causal assertion of this kind, however, you really need to be able to support that assertion with something that proves a causal link between what you describe as a belief in “blatantly magical bullshit” and a specific pattern of behavior. Why is it the belief in the supernatural and not, for example, hierarchical organizations of power, something that has existed as a component of organized religion for millennia, but also in virtually all political and dominant social institutions for just as long? Perhaps people are more inclined towards mob mentality or to fall behind powerful and charismatic leaders, regardless of the institution from which they’re working. For example, the Soviet Union under Stalin was a brutally repressive society that actively criminalized both organized religion and LGBT persons. The absence of religion did not magically produce a society devoid of people unwilling to brutally oppress their fellow countrymen.
• you seem to be working with terms that don’t really carry a lot of significance or meaning for anyone other than yourself. What, exactly, do you think constitutes a “static model of reality?” And what, exactly, is problematic about that? Because in my mind, most people operate with a fairly static understanding of reality. Not to say it’s the same understanding of reality. Ideologies are as complex and different as the people that internalize them, and they inform our personal understanding of the world we inhabit. For most people, altering these beliefs about the world is non-trivial. As a staunch leftist, someone would have a hard time selling me on the merits of laissez-faire capitalism as an effective mechanism of distributing wealth in a society. My understanding of the fundamental nature of economics, human nature, and reality itself precludes this. Am I working from an overly static and inflexible model of reality?
• religion is deeply concerned with the nature of good and evil. Admittedly, these are things you might not actually believe in. Perhaps you’re a moral relativist. Perhaps not. If you are, I don’t have much to say to you about this. You believe good and evil are culturally determined moral concepts and nothing else, from a personal perspective, beyond socially conditioned behavior.
• religious violence, or “Holy Wars” as you’ve put it, are virtually all fought for the same purpose as any other war: the primitive acquisition of wealth and the expansion of a nation or nations hegemony. If you think what’s going on in Palestine is not driven by Israel’s desire for Palestinian land, then I have a bridge to sell you.
• your experiences are both tragic and common. I’ve personally been physically and emotionally abused by members of specific religious organizations, for reasons and in ways I don’t feel comfortable sharing with strangers on the internet, and by people who were sociopaths that used religion as a cudgel to bully and control others. But I’ve also been comforted and treated kindly by other people for whom their religious faith was an important part of their lives - people who were sick and in pain their entire lives, but who found serenity and comfort through their beliefs and shared that with people around them who were also suffering. History is full of people who used religion as an excuse to do terrible things, but history also has a tendency to amplify monsters and forget the decent people whose faith may have driven them to have a more positive impact on the world.

If you want to hate religion because you’re bitter, that’s fine. You can feel about religion any way that you want. But don’t be offended when you bring it up out of nowhere and someone tells you that your comments are irrelevant to the current discussion.

The world doesn’t revolve around your personal bitterness.

A lot of it probably comes from deeply negative personal experiences, combined with a general propensity for people to apply a categorical belief to particular experiences. People who were treated badly by a particular group of Christians, or people who see and hear about certain Christians advocating for some terrible politician or political goal, are applying a generalized belief to how all Christians act, and potentially to all religion in general. It’s much harder to accept that the world is a deeply complicated and messy place and that religion and religious belief is a much more complex element of human civilization, culture, and personal identity than what many people would care to acknowledge.