https://www.thestar.com/business/2023/06/27/rising-mortgage-rates-fixed-payment-woes-some-homeowners-seeing-amortization-periods-skyrocketing.htm
Cue the clip of smug Trudeau saying "interest rates are at all time lows" a couple years ago
Cue the clip of smug Trudeau saying "interest rates are at all time lows" a couple years ago
Literally happened to me this week.
Wtf strawberry and raspberry bushes? Why u doin this to me?
Wtf strawberry and raspberry bushes? Why u doin this to me?
"Ah, the power of psychological manipulation!"
This is and amusing and dystopian way to start a message.
This is and amusing and dystopian way to start a message.
Tbf most of the wealth is fake and frothy bubble.
"I have all this stock in a barely profitable car company that's more valuable than the rest of the auto industry combined"
"I have all this stock in a barely profitable car company that's more valuable than the rest of the auto industry combined"
Holding parents accountable when their kids go off on murderous rampages seems like a good idea, tbh. Within reason, of course. But after 5 nights of murderous rampaging, I'm thinking the parents might want to step in and be like "hey champ, you're staying home tonight!"
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/07/02/france-deploys-45000-police-on-fifth-night-of-nationwide-riots/
I think these guys really need to learn from the Americans how to respond to violent riots.
Watch and learn, you cheese eating surrender monkeys:
“Everything is fine. They’re doing such a good thing. Where’s all so glad they’re doing it. Thank you, heroes.”
I think these guys really need to learn from the Americans how to respond to violent riots.
Watch and learn, you cheese eating surrender monkeys:
“Everything is fine. They’re doing such a good thing. Where’s all so glad they’re doing it. Thank you, heroes.”
They were deeply upset he didn't turn out to be a fascist. He was supposed to sieze power and use violence against his political enemies.
"You have to give up your tanks and trucks right now and replace them with Tesla cyber trucks!!!"
It still is tough to wrap my head around the idea that someone finds the fediverse hard to use. Like -- not running your own instance, but actually just creating an account.
"Fidelity has cut Reddit valuation to $4.5B from $10B"
Why would Elon Musk do this?
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/30/fidelity-deepens-valuation-cut-for-reddit-and-discord/
Why would Elon Musk do this?
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/30/fidelity-deepens-valuation-cut-for-reddit-and-discord/
History is not a straight line forward, and sometimes cultures that appear to be moving forward end up taking steps back. There are a number of periods of history where something more like what we would consider to be good today regressed into something that was quite different that we would consider to be less good.
The Islamic golden age between the 8th and 14th centuries was characterized by advances in various fields including mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philosophy, and architecture. We feel the impact of those times to this day in our words for things like algebra and alchemy (and thus chemistry). That golden age was followed by an era of deep religious conservatism that in many ways continues to this day. Instead of investigating the world to find out what God has done through his works, they decided that the book itself was the word of God. They believed that God, being an unknowable entity, would go out and change the world at its whim. Therefore, rather than trying to understand God through the world, they believed that one must try to understand God through the Quran.
The Korean Goryeo period had a number of rights and freedoms for women that were something we might consider quite good for the time when viewed through today's lens. However, the following Joseon dynasty followed Confucianism, which is an extremely conservative set of values. This changed the role of women from one where they could hold positions of authority in a number of different institutions to one where they were often kept from social interactions altogether. Women were confined to the inner quarters of their homes and were told that they should obey their fathers, sons, and parents.
The Weimar Republic of Germany was, by the standards of the era, quite progressive when viewed through a modern lens. However, the next chapter of Germany's story were the national socialists under Adolf Hitler, who implemented a highly oppressive and totalitarian regime.
Given this, knowing that perhaps someday progressives may have to give back some of their gains, seems to me quite important not to use corrupt tools to achieve those gains. Acting as if a corrupt tool is a good thing because it happens to align with their values today means people don’t realize that they’re playing with a dangerous tool, much like the murasama sword it must taste blood before it is put back in the scabbard.
The Islamic golden age between the 8th and 14th centuries was characterized by advances in various fields including mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philosophy, and architecture. We feel the impact of those times to this day in our words for things like algebra and alchemy (and thus chemistry). That golden age was followed by an era of deep religious conservatism that in many ways continues to this day. Instead of investigating the world to find out what God has done through his works, they decided that the book itself was the word of God. They believed that God, being an unknowable entity, would go out and change the world at its whim. Therefore, rather than trying to understand God through the world, they believed that one must try to understand God through the Quran.
The Korean Goryeo period had a number of rights and freedoms for women that were something we might consider quite good for the time when viewed through today's lens. However, the following Joseon dynasty followed Confucianism, which is an extremely conservative set of values. This changed the role of women from one where they could hold positions of authority in a number of different institutions to one where they were often kept from social interactions altogether. Women were confined to the inner quarters of their homes and were told that they should obey their fathers, sons, and parents.
The Weimar Republic of Germany was, by the standards of the era, quite progressive when viewed through a modern lens. However, the next chapter of Germany's story were the national socialists under Adolf Hitler, who implemented a highly oppressive and totalitarian regime.
Given this, knowing that perhaps someday progressives may have to give back some of their gains, seems to me quite important not to use corrupt tools to achieve those gains. Acting as if a corrupt tool is a good thing because it happens to align with their values today means people don’t realize that they’re playing with a dangerous tool, much like the murasama sword it must taste blood before it is put back in the scabbard.
It's interesting because I'm completely on board with everything you just wrote. Grew up watching Moore, Stewart, Rock, Chappelle, even Whoopi Goldberg (though I found her comedy sort of boring because she was more about getting the audience to cheer than laugh)
Trump's thing is that mean tweets and an angry media helped cover up the fact that his actions would have made him an extremely popular democratic president. If people were thinking for themselves they would have realized that.
Trump's thing is that mean tweets and an angry media helped cover up the fact that his actions would have made him an extremely popular democratic president. If people were thinking for themselves they would have realized that.
The big problem with the current brand of liberalism is that it isn't liberalism.
If people advocate for individual freedom and accountability, and if you advocate against giving anyone dictatorial powers over a nation, and if you advocate for freedom of speech, particularly for viewpoints you don't agree with, and if you advocate against state control of the economy and society, and if you're against propaganda, even if it's for viewpoints you agree with, and if you're against the persecution of minorities, and if you think there needs to be different political factions or parties and that they all bring important things to the table and that single party rule is not good all of those together suggest that you might be a liberal.
The implementation of a bureaucratic substate that has overwhelming power of our daily lives seems incompatible with liberalism.
A state acting to silence speech it doesn't like is incompatible with liberalism. In fact, it seems to me that the government using control over corporations to control society is explicitly a part of fascist ideology.
Persecution of political minorities I think could also count as opposed to liberalism. If a state uses differential prosecution to jail its political opponents and to protect its political allies, that is against liberalism. Indeed, this sort of differential treatment would be closer to fascism than liberalism.
We see a highly partisan system emerging that predicts the establishment of a single party state -- Voting for a different party according to the Democrats is a problem to be solved, as we saw in Biden's insane crimson backed "death to all my enemies" speech where he was surrounded by soldiers.
One historian I follow recently suggested that we are no longer in an age of liberalism, but instead a new "Managerialism". Under managerialism, freedoms are curtailed by an elite class of state managers who control our lives to a greater extent than ever before. There is some lip-service given to individual freedoms, but anything of substance you can't do without approval from the managerial class, and it is an underlying narrative that individuals can't achieve anything without the expert managerial class to protect and guide us.
I think the Democrats aren't a party supporting liberalism, but a party supporting managerialism. While managerialism can be supported by democratic governments, it itself is undemocratic, with decisions over people's lives being made by bureaucrats rather than elected officials.
If people advocate for individual freedom and accountability, and if you advocate against giving anyone dictatorial powers over a nation, and if you advocate for freedom of speech, particularly for viewpoints you don't agree with, and if you advocate against state control of the economy and society, and if you're against propaganda, even if it's for viewpoints you agree with, and if you're against the persecution of minorities, and if you think there needs to be different political factions or parties and that they all bring important things to the table and that single party rule is not good all of those together suggest that you might be a liberal.
The implementation of a bureaucratic substate that has overwhelming power of our daily lives seems incompatible with liberalism.
A state acting to silence speech it doesn't like is incompatible with liberalism. In fact, it seems to me that the government using control over corporations to control society is explicitly a part of fascist ideology.
Persecution of political minorities I think could also count as opposed to liberalism. If a state uses differential prosecution to jail its political opponents and to protect its political allies, that is against liberalism. Indeed, this sort of differential treatment would be closer to fascism than liberalism.
We see a highly partisan system emerging that predicts the establishment of a single party state -- Voting for a different party according to the Democrats is a problem to be solved, as we saw in Biden's insane crimson backed "death to all my enemies" speech where he was surrounded by soldiers.
One historian I follow recently suggested that we are no longer in an age of liberalism, but instead a new "Managerialism". Under managerialism, freedoms are curtailed by an elite class of state managers who control our lives to a greater extent than ever before. There is some lip-service given to individual freedoms, but anything of substance you can't do without approval from the managerial class, and it is an underlying narrative that individuals can't achieve anything without the expert managerial class to protect and guide us.
I think the Democrats aren't a party supporting liberalism, but a party supporting managerialism. While managerialism can be supported by democratic governments, it itself is undemocratic, with decisions over people's lives being made by bureaucrats rather than elected officials.