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sj_zero | @sj_zero@social.fbxl.net

Author of The Graysonian Ethic (Available on Amazon, pick up a dead tree copy today)

Admin of the FBXL Network including FBXL Search, FBXL Video, FBXL Social, FBXL Lotide, FBXL Translate, and FBXL Maps.

Advocate for freedom and tolerance even if you say things I do not like

Adversary of Fediblock

Accept that I'll probably say something you don't like and I'll give you the same benefit, and maybe we can find some truth about the world.

Ah... Is the Alliteration clever or stupid? Don't answer that, I sort of know the answer already...

@amerika I love your article about scientific consensus being a load of crap, I just read it.

One thing I'd like clarification on for the remedial kids in the class like me, what exactly do you mean by "individualism"? It seems to me that your conclusion is saying something that makes intuitive sense, but logically it doesn't quite jive, but I'm thinking it might be because of a subtly different definition of individualism than I'm going by, maybe something more expansive, that helps us get from individualism to collectivism.

Most people outside of Germany don't know this, but the national anthem today is the same one from 1943, just minus the most nationalist verses.

Thing is, it was a song whose music was written in the late 1700s, with lyrics from the mid 1800s, made the national anthem by the Weimar republic in the early 1900s, and stripped of a couple verses in the mid-1900s until today.

It's always important to remember that the postmodern conception of history as beginning in 1938 and ending in 1946, is not accurate and so some things don't make sense unless you broaden your horizon.

The history of the song is kind of incredible -- it was born during the final years of the Holy Roman Empire just a few years after the end of the Jacobin reign of terror in France, given words during the German confederation, and after the end of the German Empire during the brief Weimar Republic period was made the national anthem. Then it was picked up by uncle Adolf, and bifurcated but kept in place under West Germany (another political structure that no longer exists)

The fall of the Jacobins represented the end of the French Revolution, and many historians consider the French Revolution to be the beginning of the modern period. It's a period of grand narratives such as liberalism, Marxism, National Socialism, Fascism, and nationalism. The lyric "Deucheland, Deuscheland uber alles" was a call for all the isolated little bits of what was once the Holy Roman Empire and at the time was a loose confederation under a new national identity of Germany, because the little fiefdoms that existed under feudalism, a system which was rapidly disappearing in the new philosophical, ideological, economic, and geographical order, wasn't a sustainable way to arrange a society. A few years later, the French would try to invade the confederation, leading to unification under the Prussians in what was a very strong military order. This unification was a direct cause of World War 1, unfortunately.

There's a reason for it, but the real point of the sentence is making fun of writers whose teenagers don't sound like teenagers.

It's from an editing session for my next book, and in the book, recycling is recycling.

"Ya hear that bois, we're gettin ar own Internet!"

That's not what that means!

"Indeed, as a teenager I can infer quite readily that the process of utilizing and recycling plastics are in fact one in the same, a circuitous path whereby anything we use or send to the refuse can be reused again! I am quite glad that I, a nineth grader, have been able to fully and competently infer these truths from the incomplete information provided to me by my beloved foster mother!"

I just realized, in 2020 the bank of canada explicitly told the government and therefore the people, "don't worry, rates aren't going up".

People who "trusted the experts" went in on 0.99% variable rate mortgages thinking they'd never go up (which are now 6%). People who trusted their own discipline would have seen stagflation coming and prepared for higher interest rates.

The US government self-cleaning oven. Turns out all he had to do was put a democrat in charge of HHS and they'd start dropping like flies. Who knew?

[Admin Mode] Down for a bit, letsencrypt dropped some extra stuff in my apache configs I had to remove. Not their fault, my empire of dirt is made out of parts scavenged from roadside signs.

"DANGER! DANGER! DID YOU KNOW THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS ALL THE INFORMATION THE GOVERNMENT HAS ON YOU?"

Huh. I assume this person isn't a mother?

Because two things only connect together in one way that makes a baby.

Just based on reporting, looking like 4.5T in spending cuts, and 4.5T in tax cuts, so roughly revenue neutral, I misread the article. I'd prefer balancing a budget because I'm against child slavery but most politicians aren't so they might not go for it.

Ngl, if the Republicans pass the budget just tabled and go to a modest annual federal budget surplus within 100 days of Trump taking office, he's one of the greatest presidents in US history.

People don't understand that there are actually at least three candidates on every ballot -- if there's only one R and one D, then the third candidate is staying home and playing Halo. And a lot of people don't realize that, they assume that either the R or the D is entitled to the vote.

Another thing that people can do is third party. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that that third party is going to win! But I've seen it before that if your party of choice isn't giving you what you want, and enough people vote for the third party, then the party of choice might start looking at all those votes and realize "hey, I could have gotten all these votes. Why did they get those votes and not me?"

People don't think long term, and you can see it in these terms -- a congressman in the US is only in power for 2 years, president for four, a senator for 6. Despite that, people act as if every election is a lifetime appointment.

Of course there's some people who are acting as if the current president will refuse to step down, and honestly even if that were true and I don't think it is, you would also need to have everyone agree to that, and considering that for example Vance has a pretty good shot at being the next president, I don't think he's particularly interested in supporting violating the Constitution to keep Trump in. I think that if push came to shove, the courts have already shown that they're not going to stand by and allow that, the house of representatives isn't likely to allow that (since it damages their power), the military isn't likely to allow that, so we're looking at 4 years for this guy.

Personally, I don't want to see Republican hegemony, so I'm hoping that the Democrats take the next 4 years to go back to the drawing board and figure out why people are playing Halo instead of voting for them. I don't think it would take a whole lot to become palatable to the majority again.

Seems like it's time for the vikings to invade again. Let's try 1066 again, maybe it'll stick this time.

Trump hired an employee to review the work of his employees so he could figure out which employees to fire.

If that's not a function of the executive, then why even have an executive?

You'd think communists would understand that the state can do far worse than kill you.

You should trust your doctor (and find a new one if you don't), but why would you trust doctors as a bloc? Why should you trust anyone as a bloc?

That the "hip-hop Republican party" guy? The one the daily show made a slightly racist puppet out of becauase what he said about how to save the Republican party was so absurd?

Let me file his opinions under G for all they're worth!

SSS tier reference to 2005 era anime

Because we all want to be Asians, with their superior math skills and ability to be married to tech billionaires.

They'd know that if only they'd just spent a little more on the deluxe government sponsored racism package.

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