I don’t think that internet technological development is even relevant.

Internet sociological, philosophical, cultural and psychological development is about at the level of the Dark Ages, and that’s the problem that needs to be addressed.

Um… no. I’m an anarchist.

And you sound like a helicopter parent who’s balanced on that fine line between hysterical tears and explosive rage because somebody at the playground said something mean about their darling USSR.

It didn’t. And I’m an anarchist.

If you’re going to rely on ad hominems, you should at least try to make them somewhat accurate and relevant.

Stalin was the leader of the world’s first socialist state

Socialist state is a contradiction in terms.

Stalin was CEO of USSR Incorporated.

Funny that this is the exact same “logic” the libs use to try to defend running a pro-zionist, pro-corporate, pro-billionaire slimeball in the last US presidential election - “But Trump was worse!”

The problem is that the ban is one-sided, and generally boils down to “the oppressed are disarmed but the oppressors are not.”

Then it’s not even a matter of choosing one - they already chose one.

The rest of my point still holds - everybody involved, from the judge(s) on down to the prison guards - knew full well that putting a child sex abuser in with the other prisoners was effectively a death sentence, so for all intents and purposes, they did sentence him to death. They just relied on someone else to carry out the sentence for them.

So it would appear that the death sentence wasn’t actually abolished - it was just disguised.

And that’s cheap and dishonorable.

I think judges and prosecutors are cowards who won’t go so far as to sentence child sex abusers to death, but instead sentence them to imprisonment, then put them in the general population knowing full well that that’s effectively a death sentence anyway.

If the state is going to have child sex abusers killed, then the prosecutors and judges should own it. And if they’re not willing to do that - if they can’t or won’t pass down a death sentence themselves - then they need to sentence them such that they’ll be protected from the other inmates.

I honestly don’t much care which they choose, but they need to choose one. This trick of avoiding responsibility by passing it on to inmates is cheap, dishonorable bullshit.

Imitation meats have never impressed me. They get close, but they inevitably fall just enough short of tasting and feeling like real meat that it feels to me like a wasted effort. I think I’d like them better, oddly enough, if they didn’t even pretend to be meat - if they were marketed as something else entirely.

I love the concept of lab-grown meat, and it seems as if it should be without issue, since it basically is meat in all senses, except that it’s grown in a vat instead of inside an animal’s skin. But since I haven’t had a chance to try it, I can’t say.

One of the very few satisfying things about gung ho murderous assholes is their self-righteous shock when the psychopaths they worship throw them under the bus.

“Sorry [applicant], our social media evaluations find that you do not meet the standards of rage, hatred and ignorance expected of Oklahoma teachers.”

Of course not.

Since his first attempt at a military dictatorship, in LA, didn’t really succeed, he’s had to pull back a bit.

Washington, because of its unique status, is his best shot at fully establishing the precedent that he can institute a military dictatorship in any city he wishes at any time he wishes.

Once the corrupt and compromised conservatives on the Supreme Court rubber-stamp this takeover then he can use that as a precedent to try again in somewhere like LA.

Different reasons for different people.

Some because they expect to benefit from it - they expect to be a part of the autocracy.

Some because they’re angry and stupid and all they know is that people they hate are unhappy about it, so it must be a good thing.

Some because they can’t wrap their heads around it - they can’t believe that it’s really happening.

Some because they think they’re powerless to stop it.

And some because they just want to watch the world burn.

If your party is likely going to lose because it supports destructive and unpopular policies, there are two ways to win instead - switch to supporting constructive and popular policies, or cheat.

Trump and the Republicans have chosen cheating.

That says everything that really needs to be said about them.

Right - that’s the new Christian Single Commandment - “Thou only need bother to be somewhat less evil than those other people over there.”

weapons company

That’s the most important bit.

An awful lot of the otherwise inexplicable international support for the utter evil Israel is visiting on Gaza exists solely because it’s profitable for a handful of corporate parasites.

Which is its own sort of evil.

Which won’t make the slightest bot of difference because the Trump kakistocracy will just keep appealing until it gets to one of the corrupt courts (the Supreme Court if all else fails) who will, as they do, tell whatever lies might serve to rubber-stamp whatever he wants. And then the treasonous insurrectionists will just keep right on indiscriminately disappearing immigrants, legal residents and full citizens whenever they want for whatever reason they want.

I watched it in person, sort of.

I was living on the Florida Gulf Coast at the time. From the Gulf Coast, a shuttle launch was just a bright bead drawing a thin line up from the horizon, so it wasn’t any sort of spectacle, but it was something interesting to watch if you happened to be outside, which I was.

And it was obvious even from there what had likely happened, since the bright bead suddenly flashed, then went out, and the line went off sideways.

Meaning is subjective and not intrinsic, so there can be no such thing as “the” meaning of anything.

The artist can have an intended meaning, but the audience not only can but will find their own meaning in it. It might be the case that the audience gets the same meaning from it that the creator intended, but it might just as easily be the case that they get some entirely different meaning from it.

None of them are right or wrong - that’s not even a coherent concept in that context. They just are whatever they are.

So the only question really is whether they’re arranging things so that as China becomes the clear world leader in the coming era, the US will be relegated to being a bankrupt has-been, clinging to outdated technology nobody else wants any more because their explicit goal is to destroy the US or just because they’re some stunning combination of corrupt and stupid.

I lean toward the latter, but can’t entirely discount the former.