Read about Operation Condor. Its actions, repercussions and number of deaths due to it, and continue to pretend the USA follows Democratic Values™. And this is just but one example.

They are just better at PR than most. You are walking proof of it.

Ha. Autocorrect strikes again! Fixed it and Thanks, for pointing it out.

At best, it was for a while a Representative Democracy. Where people gave their vote to other people to vote for them.

The fact that most Americans think the US is not an oligarchy, today, is a testament to the power of the State and their corporate media to propagandized their own citizens. It is very rich for them to point to other country’s Oligarchies and somehow absolutely fail to see their own. Or worse, call it some weird type of conspiracy to call out or point out reality.

I mean, it is not like it is not obvious if one takes a step back or two and looks at it objectively.

All part of the current US/NATO approved Overton Window, friend.

Albeit Lemmy can too be a bit of an echo chamber at times, I find, in general, that the platform as a whole is way more open minded, and by extention, its users too, than or over Reddit.

Which their bias on most subs and janny overreach became, specially in the last few years suffocatingly annoying. Coming here was refreshing in comparison.

Ivdea Delenda Est

“It is what it is.”

It is lazy, circular, a cop out and means next to nothing. Vague enough to pass as a wise quip, to some. It is not.

Also not so much a saying per sé, but people who use quotes of famous people at the bottom or ends of emails. As if that implies a personality. If you are going to use something you think sounds smart, at least try to come up with that something yourself.

Whether people read as a hobby or not. As it implies a type of interest into the world around them.

And as a lesser second, what they read.

The fact Dick Cheney, a war criminal along with Bush Jr. and her ‘graciously’ accepting of it, is not sending massive warning horns and bells to the average Dem, OE to her own campaign should be enough to see they have lost their own plot. They are out of touch and just screaming, orange man bad, does not fix their own problems. Many people are not enough of a blind ideologues to not see that.

They are pushing for Trump’s border wall. Like come on.

Discovery was trash. Lasted until season 2 but the plot holes and inconsistencies and bad writing was too much for me. Not to mention the 'member berries. And the key jangling, and tech ahead of its time breaking all manner of canon. Agreed the over emotional stuff came off as trite and out of place for what was essentially a space navy.

So, they can detect anomalies all over the milky way? In real time? Writers said that Klingons represented Trump supporters? Why? Or, with the baddies destroyed they didn’t have to travel in time. So why did they? Capital ships manoeuvring like borderline fighters? Plot contrivance from the writers? Okay. TNG or DS9 had their flaws but it was superior writing and seemed to be written for adults or did not insult its audience’s maturity, regardless of age. Discovery seems to have been written for kids or emotional teens. Lots of pew-pew action, too.

Seen shows where the writers --as they recalled-- originally removeded about this. Made writing harder, since it was more difficult to write plots, but fuck that, it made them think outside the box, which made for some excellent episodes Re: grander ideas and nuanced takes on many subjects. Most, if not all, have come around to seeing Gene was definately ahea of his time and came to agree, too.

However DS9 was excellent, even though it diverged from Gene’s formula.

In the original cartoon, it is explicitly shown that Triton does not like, or enjoyed or wanted to harm or hurt Ariel by destroying her collection. He wanted to protect her from her own follies and didn’t know what else to do. At worst, flawed but well intentioned.

This is obvious on the shot of his face, showing his sad expression, hurt and regret as he looks back at her and as she starts crying, as he leaves. This important nuance was completely cut out from the live action film. Doing so recontextualised the entire scene.

Which in the film does make him look like a crazy asshole father, do not know why this was done as it just unnecessarily vilifies him without reason and removes previously shown emotional depth and context from the cartoon. My guess was because he = man, and man = bad, which went along with some people working in the film and some others saying that she had dropped everything for “a man.”

Watched it for the lolz. Lots of rhetoric aimed at their bases, with very little in the name of actual policy, outside short slogans that got repeated 3 or 4 times over with next to no detail. Each trying to ‘gotcha’ the other and each tried to miscategorize the other a few times. Each echo chamber will claim their person won, yet as an outsider and non-American with no skin in the game, I would say they both did pretty poorly with both stating a couple of valid comments, but few and far between. A couple of ABC commentators later said the same.

Looking forward to the headlines cheerleading their pre-selected person on Wednesday. Each camp trying to out meme the other. Lastly, weren’t the microphones at the debate supposed to be muted when the other was talking? 'Cause they weren’t at times. This made the thing funnier. Would have been better with an actual audience. Otherwise, it looked so fake and performative.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/09/politics/kfile-harris-pledged-support-in-2019-to-cut-ice-funding-and-provide-transgender-surgery-to-detained-migrants/index.html

""Harris also wrote that she supported taxpayer funding of gender transition surgeries for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.

Harris was asked if, as president, she would use “executive authority to ensure that transgender and non-binary people who rely on the state for medical care – including those in prison and immigration detention – will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care.”

Harris replied, “Yes.”"

Alien and prison, taxpayer paid surgeries are on the menu, boys. Break in illegally or commit a crime, and your next surgery is free!

What does not get easier to handle in life? A life worth living.

Sure, why not? I put sriracha on some the pizzas we get, or make at home.

Some Italians may find this offensive, alas not as offensive as lathering pizza in ketchup.

Gravitational pull in local clusters of galaxies can exist and even contradict larger clusters or the universe as a whole, just in a smaller scale. The passage of time is also localised due to gravitational intensity, too. We know the universe is not expanding at the same rate in different places, as well.

This can happen in sets of complex systems of systems. In your query it somewhat analogous to if you were throwing a ball northbound at 100km/h in a train moving southbound at 50km/h. On a planet circling its star at 107,800 km/h in a total different direction. While the star drags the earth along with other planets in its own orbit in a different direction.

The ever growing pile of dead bodies burried in my backyard.

But they never seem to mind… For too long.

Who keeps coming up with this bullshit labels? It is like kindergarten.

My advise?

Words only get traction if they are used.

Whether you are short or not, ignore them. Do not use them.

Best way to win at that never ending game is to simply not play.

Like others said, focus on living your life and be social. It is likely to happen organically. Focus on social things where you are bound to meet people either way. Do not pressure yourself or it will take away from the fun aspects of the hobby/sport/events.

And for god’s sake, do not use online dating sites/apps. They are bad in so many different ways. The endless dating is tiring and can twist your perception of dating and people in general, especially if you run into bad luck. Albeit this did not happen to me, I had friends from both sexes that hated how people got turned into commodities, and treated others like things to be discarded. A couple to girls I knew were on dates on a weekly or biweekly basis and it really warped their perception of men in general because they tended to picked incorrectly or got tired of the repetitive cycle akin to job interviews for all parties they ended up pausing all dating for ages. As it took the fun out of it. Online dating these days is more for hooking up and bad experiences. Despite that I am sure that many people have met significant others online, dating online is not like 10 years ago.