fuckin’ just tell me im living in Interesting Times why doncha

shredded cheese

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfHrXsGJ8mo

State terrorism is a contradiction in terms. Legally, terrorism is violence carried out by a group that is not recognized as a state internationally. States cannot do terrorism, the term exists to protect their monopoly on legal violence. George Washington was a terrorist until the British empire recognized and began doing business with the constitutional United States. We see a similar change occurring with Taliban members and the present government of Afghanistan.

More importantly, though. You claim liberal democracy is fundamentally incompatible with authoritarianism, yet if we dig into the present and recent past of the United States, we find policies that match the list you have provided.

The Lavender Scare and Hoover’s FBI, the Red Scare and COINTELPRO, the police response to Kent State anti-war protests in 1970, the police response Columbia’s anti-genocide protests last year, the ongoing existence of privately run labor camps and prison farms.

Valve is notably better (not good, but better) than the other companies you’ve listed.

That is, of course, an anomaly. A good monarchy lasts only as long as the monarch. A good company that exists for longer than the average human lifespan will quickly become no different from its peers.

Unless I misunderstand, in China it’s illegal to distribute VPNs, but simply using one and accessing the wider net is fine. That implementation isn’t great, but it could also be a lot worse. Effectively it means anyone who’s tech savvy enough can leave the walled garden whenever they like with practically no consequence. Though, it still requires some group of people assume the legal risk of setting up and hosting the VPN infrastructure.

I feel like there must be some means of achieving the same effect without criminalizing people just for providing a service. Like, defaulting to a garden of public and private webpages that meat the standard, but still with some means of leaving that garden provided you pass a minor techincal barrier to entry.

Also forcing every social media site and glorified-website-app to default to chronological sort every time you close the browser tab or leave the app. It’s a simple change, but it would do a lot.

d-pad d-pad d-pad please…!

oh come the fuck on

and if you read theory, it’s just a detailed explanation of capitalism! Nobody actually has a concrete, actionable prescription of how to make “the good society”, just a general sense that something better is possible if we start doing something with what we already have

everyone’s all for enthralling randos on the internet, but as soon as they ask A/S/L suddenly its gone to far

Facebook type posting

Do you count the Byzantine as separate or the same as Rome?

Your talking about structures comprising huge numbers of people across multiple generations. There is no clear “death”. Just the gradual shifting from one set of conditions to another. Pick any line in the sand, declare it to be the “end” of an empire, and you’ll still find people living under its rules, speaking the language, and using the currency well afterward.

Hell, look at Britain. No longer the globe-strangling power that they were, but it’s still the same country with the same rules and government and money.

throw in a smattering of aristocratic titles, and yeah that describes UK politics.

Ok, but that’s a select group of people who choose to spend their free time typing about politics online. If you look at the actual election results, it would appear to back up the claim you’re quoting.

random people who happen to vote for a Republican or a Democrat aren’t to blame, sure

but the actual Republicans and Democrats; the representatives, the party functionaries, the people who’s checks are signed by the RNC or the DNC? Those people certainly deserve some blame.

Pretty sure polar ice caps are still shrinking.

Sorry the consequences of industry aren’t snappy enough for your short attention span, I guess?

Yeah yeah, you see the individual and not the historical pattern.

Isn’t it funny that the US keeps doing this? The presidents are incidental, flitting in and out of office with the whim of the public. But the conflicts? Those last. Nuclear rockets parked in Yugoslavia one century, flooding Ukraine with weapons the next. You know children in Vietnam are, to this day, born with napalm induced complications?

Doesn’t this all ring a little too familiar to you? Do you think maybe our grandparents had cute little nicknames for Khrushchev, comparing him to Hitler, when they were our age?

Amazing, a century latter the blame is still squarely placed on Russia. Those people must not be capable of self-determination, am I right my good Cold Warrior? Good thing we had this stockpile of depleted uranium, by jingo! So what if it leaches into the groundwater? Canadian mining firms have been poisoning Ukrainian groundwater for decades now! What’s a little rare-earth-elements between allies, amiright?

They outlawed starting a conversation in Russian. It was criminal for a business not first say something in Ukrainian. Like, imagine if Arizona tried to pass a law that criminalized conducting business in Spanish.

Induced demand – the production of weapons necessitates the use of weapons in order to keep shares from crashing. Like a shoe factory regularly changing the design and fashion to keep from flooding the market, blood is spilled to keep the 401Ks safe.

Welcome to the Second Cold War, you’ve been here along.