If Germany hadn’t turned on the Russians it would have won the war. If they’d managed to get access to the French Navy after invading France, they probably would have won the war.

I’d say they’re tight, not loose.

We have the Nazi bar owned by the Nazi who proudly put the Nazi flag outside and kicks anybody out who insults Nazis, but where a lot of non-Nazis still hang out because it was the busiest, best place before the Nazis took over: Twitter.

We have the soulless corporate bar run by a guy who installed cameras everywhere in the bar, in every booth, every bathroom stall, where every 5 minutes the music is interrupted by an ad, and where the exit door shut has been welded shut: Threads.

We have bar started by the guy who initially owned the Nazi bar, but who has since been kicked out, that has recently accepted a major funding round from TESCREAL fascists, but where the vibe, so far, is pretty chill, where they promise that eventually you’ll be able to wander to nearby bars that all share the same menu, but where that promise is always some vague time in the future: Bluesky.

We have the series of no-name pubs that don’t show up on any maps, some run out of people’s houses, some even run from studio apartments, some run out of mental institutions, where you can leave any time you want and take your friends with you, where it’s a bit of a free-for-all, and if you want a round of drinks you have to chase down the busy publican and ask what’s available, and where you might be asked for help pouring drinks: Mastodon.

It’s great to see that years after the Nazis took over, some people are finally choosing to stop going to the Nazi bar. It makes you wonder why they stayed so long though. But, I’m not as impressed with where they’re choosing to go instead.

A feature that makes it easier for their users to migrate to a competitor? Blockchain Capital invests $15M in BlueSky. Insert that Anakin / Padme meme:

Anakin: Now that we’ve invested, let’s make that federation feature priority 0
Padme: As in highest priority, right?
Anakin:
Padme: As in highest priority, right?

The purpose of an apostrophe is to warn people that there’s an S coming.

Fuck the poor, fuck the old, fuck the environment, fuck soldiers and veterans, fuck the sick, fuck food safety…

It definitely looks like you are.

Someone in their late 40s is not a girl.

Voting booths are secret places where people can admit how they really feel without feeling judged. Trump won the popular vote because he appealed to a lot of people who didn’t wear MAGA hats, or walk around in garbage bags.

The sad thing is that this isn’t really a shock to the rest of the world. There’s a reason why, for decades, Americans going on backpacking trips have put Canadian flags on their gear.

The only saving grace here is that it might not be that most Americans are cruel, racist, sexist, classist, etc. It might just be that they’re incredibly dumb. I’ve listened to a lot of interviews of Trump supporters and the vast majority are idiots. They believe in crazy conspiracies. They say they love Trump’s policies then can’t name any of them. They can’t accept that he actually legitimately lost all his legal cases. They regurgitate things they’ve heard, but clearly haven’t even spent a second thinking about, because they go blank as soon as they’re asked to elaborate on anything.

And, if the problem is really that they’re morons, it may not be their fault. For some reason, the US obsession with free speech and free markets means that Internet companies can keep feeding people bullshit that makes them angry, which keeps them engaged, which keeps the ad dollars flowing. US TV networks can tell absurd lies under the guise of news, and they’re apparently immune from being sued for doing it. “Concerned parents” funded by lobbying groups can fuck up the education system so that kids never learn anything that might make them feel bad. The US is allowed to have a government funded state media network that delivers factual video, audio and written news and information around the world. But, most Americans have never heard of it because it’s not allowed to compete with the for-profit media in the country itself.

I dunno, maybe the world can save the US. The fact is, Europe does occasionally have strong influence in the US. Americans have to deal with cookie banners because of a GDPR law that doesn’t apply in the US. Maybe if the EU took on the US tech monopolies it would actually affect the way Americans are brainwashed. But, unfortunately, I have serious doubts about whether the US can dig itself out of the hole it’s in. Right now it looks like the hole is just getting deeper and deeper.

The guy won the popular vote. The people who sat the election out would probably have broken for Trump too.

The problem here isn’t voter turnout, it’s voter preference for a fascist.

I heard yesterday about how a lot of Imams in Michigan posed for selfies with him.

Everyone knows where he stands.

I strongly suspect that isn’t true. I think anti-Trump people know where he stands, but I bet a lot of pro-Trump people are about to be in for a big surprise.

Related: we’ve all heard the stories of a time traveler going back to kill Hitler before his rise to power. One common theme in almost all those stories is that the attempt fails, that’s why history is as we remember. This morning has me thinking that maybe time travel was involved in a couple of Trump assassination attempts.

Universal healthcare is much, much better than what the US has. Not only is it cheaper, but it’s just a better system, even if you’re relatively well off.

Having said that, I do wonder where they got the 5% and 20% figures from. The US system is very wasteful, but not 4x as bad as a Universal system.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022

Hardly. Historically there has been a lot of cheating in elections. Look at Chicago up to the 1970s. Election fraud was common there.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/1973/05/08/how-the-chicago-tribune-exposed-city-vote-fraud-in-1972-and-won-a-pulitzer-prize/

Nobody can prove that there’s less cheating in Chicago elections today than in the 1970s, but people trust that it’s more honest.

Can you prove that your vote was counted and that the number of votes for your candidate went up by one as a result? If you can’t prove it, then it’s based on trust.

people often become defensive saying that the government shouldn’t be able to dictate how much wealth one person can accumulate

Of course it should. If we’re expecting to live in a democracy, then people need to have equal voices. If you’re a billionaire you have a megaphone, as Elon Musk has shown. Democracy can’t work if some people have far more power than others.

That wouldn’t catch the people who are the real problem, billionaires, who report something like $1 per year in income.

When you have billions in shares, you can use that as collateral to borrow money from the bank, and then you just spend that money. That’s not “income” so it isn’t taxed.

What’s needed is a 90% tax on people reporting high incomes as a start. But, then you need to close loopholes. The carried interest loophole for a start, which would nail most of the hedge fund crowd. Then, tax unrealized gains when they’re in the tens of millions range. Then prevent billionaires from handing billions to their children tax free by preventing the “stepping up” of capital gains for their heirs.

First, I’m writing about a person who’s watching and doesn’t know if they can trust the system. My point is that there’s no alternative to trust in the system, the system is built on trust.

Second, if you’re inside the system, if you’re an election worker or a government authority, you can tell who voted. But, you can’t tell who that voter cast their votes for – at least in a functional democracy.

The authorities can, and should, have all kinds of checks and balances to make sure that all the votes are being handled safely and counted correctly. But, if the public doesn’t trust the authorities, there’s nothing that the authorities can realistically do to convince the public that everything is above board. You can’t “prove” that the system isn’t rigged.

Yes, and again, it’s all based on trust.