Prelude to the Apocalypse

[orange808]

I think we can all agree that pardon powers need to be repealed at all levels of government and replaced with a request for a review. I suggest a 75% majority in both houses to confirm an executive's request: to initiate a new trial or sentencing from a judge. No pardons.

That would end these shenanigans and leave sentencing decisions where they belong: in the judicial branch of our government.

Of course, the Constitution is almost impossible to amend. So, it would take a miracle to wash the American Constitution of this stain.

[Sima Tuna]

I think we can all agree that pardon powers need to be repealed at all levels of government and replaced with a request for a review. I suggest a 75% majority in both houses to confirm an executive's request: to initiate a new trial or sentencing from a judge. No pardons.

That would end these shenanigans and leave sentencing decisions where they belong: in the judicial branch of our government.

Of course, the Constitution is almost impossible to amend. So, it would take a miracle to wash the American Constitution of this stain.

I think we're going to have to repeal basically every legal decision that's happened since about six months before the election. Just, take all that shit back to the drawing board.

So many things we took for granted which have now been taken away.

We took for granted that no, the government cannot kidnap you for no reason, and especially not if you are a US citizen OR a legal resident (aka have a green card in good order.)

We took for granted that no, presidents should NOT be allowed to pardon their sons, criminal confederates, lackeys, minions, toadies and assorted nut-huggers. It was never codified in law but considered against the boundaries of good taste.

We took for granted that no, a president is NOT above criminal prosecution for crimes. It was always assumed a criminal president could be tried, and indeed one supposes that's part of the reason why Nixon voluntarily stepped down. That's not to say presidents haven't committed tons of crimes, but they usually didn't get caught in a way that left the justice system with no alternative except criminal prosecution.

We took for granted that medicaire, medicaid and social security, as extremely popular (with the VOTERS) programs, could not and would not be cancelled.

We took for granted that the head of the health department should be a person who believes in the efficacy of modern medicines to treat illnesses, and who sees the value in allocating funding to research for diseases like cancer in children.

We took for granted that certain popular, universally useful departments, such as the postal service and IRS, should not be subject to mass layoffs. The IRS especially, considering they bring in far more than their wages could ever cost. Firing an IRS guy is like shooting your wallet and watching money pour out onto the ground. Unless your goal is to perpetuate more IRS fraud, you just don't do it. The most basic law of every society is that more energies devoted to tax collection -> more tax money coming in. I bet they could figure that shit out even in the stone age.

We took for granted that prosecutors and judges should attempt to be impartial in enforcing the law, regardless of their personal or political connections to government officials. Corruption of this type is as old as humanity, but America has often blathered to itself about how we are above the kind of blatant corruption one might see in latter Song Dynasty China or the Cold War Soviet Union.

We took it as granted that (adults having) access to pornography and legalized Gay Marriage were settled issues.

[BryanM]

At least *I* didn't take such things for granted. Boy howdy, I'm not kidding when I say I was the most libbed-up I've ever been in my life, stanning the coronated democratic presidential candidate as hard as I possibly could, when it comes to keeping things getting worse at the same rate instead of accelerating.

All of this, everything, is arbitrary made-up bullshit. Our history shows how different things could be, for better sure but mostly for worse. We are fundamentally not too far away from becoming a mob state, just like Russia is. (If we aren't one already.) We are not special.

The only way a president could ever face consequences is if they tried to give everyone healthcare.

I really, really don't want fascists in control of AGI. 'Apocalypse' vastly undersells the misery that'll emerge from that scenario..

[xEbb1993x]

If you guys thought the Internet was a bad place, well, there exists a sleazepit called GameFAQs. If YouTube and Twitter don't swallow you up first, that place sure as hell will.

[Specineff]

What do you think will happen first with Ghislaine Maxwell? Her pardon, or her totally unexpected, no-one-saw-what-happened-when-the-cameras-went-offline suicide?

[BryanM]

Sure is great letters of complaint and mild rebuke are finally coming out of some governments, now that our starvation campaign has locked in at least 10's of thousands of dead. I guess it sure was important that we starve those babies and children into little skeletons, as they struggle to breathe in their last moments. 'murica, fuck yeah.

They could have tried to do anything for years now, but I guess you have to wait until the genocide's finished before you can aura farm and pose as a warrior of justice for the history books.

Fuck.

What do you think will happen first with Ghislaine Maxwell? Her pardon, or her totally unexpected, no-one-saw-what-happened-when-the-cameras-went-offline suicide?

If the lady was going to drop names she wouldn't be with us now, now would she. It's going to be a pardon, and if she says anything at all it'll be about those deplorable democrats and not any of those angelic republicans. And nothing about a single billionaire or millionaire who isn't a public figure.

What I find funny about all of this is how fuckin' disposable democrat politicians are to the machine. Like a guy kills a single CEO? That's a terrorism. The worst thing anyone has ever done on the planet.

But a guy kills and wounds a bunch of (D) politicians, with a list of dozens more that he plans to kill? Ah, that's not a terrorism.

I suppose it is true that all politicians are disposable sock puppets to them. Like they say, the job of politicians isn't to wield power, but to distract from, and protect those who actually do.

If you guys thought the Internet was a bad place, well, there exists a sleazepit called GameFAQs. If YouTube and Twitter don't swallow you up first, that place sure as hell will.

In a dark place again?

Interacting with strangers on the internet is like rolling your brain on broken glass, eventually you'll poke yourself. You can't put your mental health in the hands of internet people if you don't have a rock solid defense. Your brain cares about its inputs, they're the only thing it knows, so take care in feeding it eh.

Youtube comments are extremely far more useful as a % ratio than they were 16-20 years ago.

[xEbb1993x]

In a dark place again?

Interacting with strangers on the internet is like rolling your brain on broken glass, eventually you'll poke yourself. You can't put your mental health in the hands of internet people if you don't have a rock solid defense. Your brain cares about its inputs, they're the only thing it knows, so take care in feeding it eh.

Youtube comments are extremely far more useful as a % ratio than they were 16-20 years ago.

I've been seeing a lot of toxicity in YouTube comments too, you know. I mean, I listen to a favorite song of mine, they're always in support for Trump with that music while they disown Biden. But yeah, GameFAQs is just as toxic as YouTube and Twitter, the forums there consist of some very nasty people. They even had a Politics thread, and if I remember, even a Make America Great Again thread.

[Koa Zo]

Like a guy kills a single CEO? That's a terrorism. The worst thing anyone has ever done on the planet.

But a guy kills and wounds a bunch of (D) politicians, with a list of dozens more that he plans to kill? Ah, that's not a terrorism.

I suppose it is true that all politicians are disposable sock puppets to them. Like they say, the job of politicians isn't to wield power, but to distract from, and protect those who actually do.

Surely no one is keeping tally of all the terrorist attacks that have already happened under Donald's watch.
There was the abortion clinic bombing in LA and the declared "war on pro-lifers."
The fire bombing of the Governor's mansion in Pennsylvania.
The forgettable political assassinations in Minnesota.
A handful of completely forgettable mass shootings.
I think I'm already forgetting another event.
All to be swept under the rug.

[xEbb1993x]

The thing about American politics, and the news media… They’re like cancer. And like cancer, no cure.

[BulletMagnet]

What do you think will happen first with Ghislaine Maxwell?

This. Totally nothing out of sorts happening at all and how dare you so much as suggest it, next question.

Surely no one is keeping tally of all the terrorist attacks that have already happened under Donald's watch.

If you include state-sponsored terrorism then every single disgusting ICE raid belongs on that list.

By the by, in order to entice their army of fascist thugs to sign up, the DHS is offering, in addition to six-figure salaries and 50K signing bonuses, student loan forgiveness, which was a moral outrage until approximately two seconds ago. But we're just too broke to not kill Medicaid and the NWS and all those other services that keep people from needless suffering and death.

And if you tack on retaliatory measures, you can now be fired on the spot for no other reason than reporting numbers Daddy doesn't like. But our destinies are definitely not in the slimy clutches of soulless lackeys and cronies of a demented, spoiled, sociopathic brat. Definitely not.

Oh, and absolutely no straight up 1984 shit either.

[emphatic]

even a Make America Great Again thread.

How could they!!!?

[xEbb1993x]

even a Make America Great Again thread.

How could they!!!?

There was, really. I also know they used to have a Politics thread before it got out of control.

[BryanM]

even a Make America Great Again thread.

How could they!!!?

One of the ridiculous facts about the world we live in that came up in the discourse this year was that we pay for Israel's universal healthcare. Healthcare for 'muricans? Too expensive we're broke. Healthcare for Israel? Here's $20 billion in military and other aid. Not enough? Here's another $15 bill.

I always thought of many conservatives as like those chimps who ripped that one guy's face off because they weren't served a slice of cake first. But I guess not. Or they're too dumb to even know there's slices of cake being passed around over their heads.

Trump First, Other Billionaires Second, everyone else should be their slaves and then die for them. Nothing more to the ideology, field slaves who won't accept they're field slaves and house slaves who love master... It's identical to the mentality of women who want to include trans people into their leagues not motivated by kindness or equality, but from the pure emotional desire to want to believe men and women are equals physically. The desire to not be less than another in any way.

Reality's a grimdark place, and most would choose to live in a comforting fantasy.

I hope at least you're enjoying the hundred thousand dying skeleton children we've created, because if you're not what the fuck was this all for man....

[ExitPlanetDust]

Hehehehe…
Haha snort
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[BryanM]

Thanks, now I'm imagining how that would even work...

Nuclear power in space has traditionally been these passive battery things that have no moving parts. Some radioactive isotope of an element that generates heat while it tries to correct the Proton:Neutron imbalance that's barely holding it together for a while. Good ole radioactive decay.

It's technically feasible for a thorium style reactor that uses salt as a coolant on a moon base or something, but the idea of traditional submarine style reactors re-purposed for land that use pressurized water as a coolant is the most ridiculous idea that I've heard of, worse than those old ideas of a nuclear plane. (A proposed doomsday weapon that'd be redundant with the doomsday weapons that are ICBM-armed submarines.)

Our non-existent moon base is a long ways away from needing that kind of juice. A solar powered moon base is more than ambitious enough.

Using it for 'propulsion' reminds me of the massless emDrive meme that went viral on the internet decades ago, similar to that room-temperate superconductor meme that trended a couple years back. It's not enough that we could be ~12% of the way to making god-on-earth in a datacenter, while the rate that number grows is accelerating. People want to feel a sense of magic and wonder right now.

People... want solar freakin' roadways!

--------

I guess while we're on the topic of 'the nuclear', Trump bungling into nuclear war with Russia would be one of the lamest ways for mankind to go out. Like your cat shooting you in your sleep, while you were keeping your gun under glass in a nice display case in the basement.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

People... want solar freakin' roadways!

The fact that americans gave millions of dollars to a project that proposed to use glass tiles as a highway surface should be a national embarrassment. The number of commenters who've suggested it's wrong to criticize it since you never know what innovations might arise is also spectacularly depressing, since it was clear from the conceptual phase that this was a fucking idiotic idea.

From a safety standpoint, you don't make roads out of tiles. You just don't, certainly not expensive glass tiles with electronics in them, as they'd be impossible to maintain and clean, would provide an awful driving experience, etc. And, from an energy generation standpoint it'd be horrible. The tiles would be dirty and poorly angled thus minimizing power generation, the supposed lighting in them wouldn't be visible in the daytime, vibrations from driving over them is going to cause wear rapidly to the electronics, and they'll wear out much faster than asphalt which is a material that can be partially recycled and reused inexpensively (or you can use concrete which is expensive as a road material but lasts a long time).

I'm honestly not sure if they were misguided inventors with a near total lack of any scientific literally, or merely scam artists, but the money invested in them was literally pissed away. Anyone with a couple of brain cells could tell you it'd have been far better to simply put solar panels beside roads, but people don't tend to care about using proven, existing solutions that we simply haven't rolled out enough yet such as high speed mass transit. Instead, we chase after unrealistic projects that promise idealistic, hyper-futuristic/utopean solutions that are totally impractical and proven to be such with a basic level of scrutiny. And society shows no signs of caring about scientific literacy so we're still on a downward trend for this shit.

[BryanM]

The fact that americans gave millions of dollars to a project that proposed to use glass tiles as a highway surface should be a national embarrassment.

Hey, at least it's better than that lady who got a million dollars for calling some kid the n-word.

... or the hundreds of billions we've poured into carrying out a new holocaust in a new place with a new race..

...

We really do deserve to be replaced by robots.

And, from an energy generation standpoint it'd be horrible.

Wikipedia: "averaging around ¼ kWh per day during their most productive month, August 2018. For comparison, a typical home solar panel produces 1.45 kWh per typical day."

It does go beyond the spork or those stroads (horrible combination of streets and roads) we have everywhere. At least those combine things that are the same type of things together.

.... There really are better ways to have tron lights on everything. And if living inside of Tron is what they really want...

Well, you know it reminds me of those consoles people always fund. The Ouya, the Chameleon, the Amico, etc. Nostalgia for a time of their lives they can never get back, even with a new console with the same name. Never with a games division with new games to play, just put a SOC in a shell and call it a day.

It's like they don't know what they want..

Homebrew games on classic consoles are a katrillion times better to feed the nostalgia demon. Battle Kid, Circus Convoy, Pico-8... all something of actual substance than a vague, ephemeral dream.

[BulletMagnet]

At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paint-brush, and an overturned pot of white paint.

I want any one of our local fascist fucksticks to claim to believe the government's excuse for this. I'd also tell you maggots to eat shit if I thought you'd ever stop sucking the boot long enough to do so.

[Sima Tuna]

A coding error...

A certain mustache man was quite fond of clerical errors as well. It's thanks to such timely and judicious errors that we almost never obtained records of the Wannsee conference.

[neorichieb1971]

After watching Trump news last night, I came to the conclusion that the media doesn't hold him to account on anything. Whatever he answers, thats the right answer. Even if he said it was dark outside and sun rays came through the window, they would still be lapping up his answers.

When asked how will the American people benefit from his policies. He went off on a tangent about how many companies are restructuring in the USA homeland and USA will be making billions of dollars and tariffs making billions of dollars. He said cost of living has gone down.

People in the UK tell me USA social media is blowing up cost of living and its a lie. $65 steaks in the supermarkets for example, but google even says there are factors around cows with droughts and such which are making steak cost more. I don't know what to believe anymore. Golden Corral still sells steak on their $20 per head menu according to the internet, so that doesn't make sense. You might as well eat steak at Golden Corral you just need gas money and $20

So to you Americans out there, what it true? What is the vibe? Are you spending $150 on 1 bag of groceries or is it blown out of proportion?

[Hoagtech]

After watching Trump news last night, I came to the conclusion that the media doesn't hold him to account on anything. Whatever he answers, thats the right answer. Even if he said it was dark outside and sun rays came through the window, they would still be lapping up his answers.

When asked how will the American people benefit from his policies. He went off on a tangent about how many companies are restructuring in the USA homeland and USA will be making billions of dollars and tariffs making billions of dollars. He said cost of living has gone down.

People in the UK tell me USA social media is blowing up cost of living and its a lie. $65 steaks in the supermarkets for example, but google even says there are factors around cows with droughts and such which are making steak cost more. I don't know what to believe anymore. Golden Corral still sells steak on their $20 per head menu according to the internet, so that doesn't make sense. You might as well eat steak at Golden Corral you just need gas money and $20

So to you Americans out there, what it true? What is the vibe? Are you spending $150 on 1 bag of groceries or is it blown out of proportion?

You can monitor the price of goods on the Consumer Price index

Currently its at a 5 year low at 2.7% even with tariffs.

The tariff revenue just in July was 30 Billion dollars.

You hear a lot of gloom and doom about "pariah states" and "consumers will pay!" but alas the CPI has eggs in the face of Dems, just like every smoking gun they think they have that falls through like beans in a griddle.

But that's what you get for being the party of the Hollywood consensus. Each agenda they launch on the idiot box you guys gobble up and parrot like you think you stumbled apon your own path and idea. Its like that cringe person who brings up Hauk Tau at a party hoping for a laugh.

Tariffs will be going nowhere just like they did under Biden where he kept them in place because they make money.

And you dungeon dorks better get used to it. The approval rate for the Democrats is tanked and they are holding onto the same identity and lifestyle victimhood tactics as before they lost. They have an egomaniacal populist in the office and they choose to hold onto "dunking on Trump" for the next 3 and half years?

[BulletMagnet]

...you ARE aware that the lion's share of the tariffs just went into effect literally today?

And that according to economists (and not even the "Hollywood" economists ) the fraction previously in effect are wreaking considerable havoc already?

And that not even a drooling toady like Bessent can deny who's paying them, because tariffs are a defined thing that work a particular way and that doesn't change just because Daddy says so?

Each agenda they launch on the idiot box you guys gobble up and parrot like you think you stumbled apon your own path and idea.

...I just fucking can't. Of course, I am talking to (read: at) someone who, by definition, is fine with people being disappeared off the street because they wrote something that made Daddy cranky, so I'm not sure what I was expecting.

While I'm here, the administration is literally forcing FEMA employees to transfer to ICE, and Vance used taxpayer dollars to have the Army Corps of Engineers divert the flow of a lake so he could go kayaking.

And cum-guzzling creatures walk among us that have absolutely no problem with any of this. Jesus Fucking Christ.

[Sima Tuna]

Tariffs will be going nowhere just like they did under Biden where he kept them in place because they make money.

I hope and pray this is the case, but I think we've already passed several points of no return. You can't just throw a rock into the water and not expect ripples. It may not happen all at once, and in fact one would expect the major shipping and supply problems to arise a few quarters *after* the tariffs go into effect and businesses make adjustments (or go under.)

The reason the market isn't completely tanked right now is because of TACO believers. The market can remain unreasonable longer than you can remain solvent.

The approval rating for Dems is indeed in the shitter, largely because they've betrayed their base over and over and are seen as not opposing Trump effectively enough... Or at all. Trump's own approval ratings are not good for a President who recently got back into office. A lot of the things he's been doing directly fuck over his constituents. Such as mass removal of government jobs or cutting farm subsidies. Then there's the pants-on-head moves, like firing the IRS guys who collect money for the state, which makes you wonder who the hell wants that aside from corrupt corporate CEO dudes who plan to cheat on their taxes. Or Trump saying he's gonna own Gaza and take over Greenland.

Tariffs have already impacted small and medium size businesses, forcing many of them to shut down over the extreme uncertainty. That more businesses haven't shut down, I ascribe largely to the TACO effect: These businesses are just going to jack up their prices and try to ride this out until they see if the tariffs are truly Game Over territory. And for some businesses, I do think they will have to close down. I remember hearing a lot about tabletop gaming establishments taking a massive hit under the tariffs. To that point, I went to a mall recently (yeah, they still exist somehow) and it was wall-to-wall Cheap Chinese Temu Bullshit. When the tariffs take effect there, we can expect a lot of those businesses to become unprofitable.

Unrelated:

So to you Americans out there, what it true? What is the vibe? Are you spending $150 on 1 bag of groceries or is it blown out of proportion?

Depends what you buy and where you shop, but I'd say a general 25-30% price hike over the last year or two would be a fair assessment. Prices just keep going up. Egg prices have come down from where they were at the peak but other things remain expensive as hell. Premade food of all kinds in particular have exploded in price. Whether it's fast food or restaurants or a sandwich at the gas station, you can expect to pay a premium price. Fast food is barely cheaper than a restaurant.

Some of the prices have been inflated from Covid and never went down. Others have gone up dramatically in the last year or two. Depends what it is. A few things, like sardines, are the same price as ten years ago. Guess what I buy a lot of?

[Hoagtech]

...you ARE aware that the lion's share of the tariffs just went into effect literally today?

You share a source with "Warning Signs!" in the headline? My point exactly about being so close without a smoking gun that even when the metric that measures that claim is at a 5 year low, and all you got is "Well its probably gonna!" You have a big fear mongering nothing ball of wishful failure.

While I'm here, the administration is literally forcing FEMA employees to transfer to ICE, and Vance used taxpayer dollars to have the Army Corps of Engineers divert the flow of a lake so he could go kayaking.

This is just the kind of flim flam housewife not news stories. Its probably giving of a sign of your terrible taste in daytime television.

When someone goes to a lake attached to a dam and water level is a safety concern. Why not pull the lever?

My point is IF and WHEN your predictions become true. You can measure the proof in the pudding. And that is the CPI which is at 2.7 today hahaha

[BryanM]

GPT-5 presentation was a shitshow. Total cringefest, Punished Sama.

I really don't understand why they don't pre-record these things. The shameful charts are all anyone's talking about, aside from the tepid benchmarks.

One of the things about scaling is the diminishing returns from scaling an array; which is obviously how things mechanically work. Even animal brains don't have everything as one giant blob, there's structure there. A collection of inter-connected smaller arrays that communicate with each other. You can't use your motor cortex to perform math or convert your visual input into a level-of-detail collision map, that would be stupid.

Really should be running some experiments on making a virtual mouse with the older hardware they have. Language, sounds and images alone aren't enough, you need to include the sense of touch. And if you want them to perform work, you have to train them for that work.

Ah, it's frustrating. If I had been born in San Diego I coulda been a part of this scene instead of a bystander. It'd be great if OpenAI was the alpha and the omega of this round of capital hype into AI, because this is a huge embarrassment.

I went to a mall recently (yeah, they still exist somehow) and it was wall-to-wall Cheap Chinese Temu Bullshit

Heh, the only thing left in my mall is a chinese buffet.

The rest of it is a creepy Trump shrine with lifesize cardboard standees wearing the hat, straight out of that scene in Jesus Camp. His eyes wide shut fellow child rapist friends and murderers have standees, too, we don't want him to look like a lonely loser.

Every jubilee video eh.

You can monitor the price of goods on the Consumer Price index

Currently its at a 5 year low at 2.7% even with tariffs.

Ok Obama. Some nice chained CPI scamming going on there, gotta cut that social security 'cause computers aren't inflating 300% like basic necessities have.

Down here in the real world of rents and food, you have to take out a loan just to buy a hamburger at Wendy's. You can't eat pants, Ninten!



(Once again, remember this is a chart that includes luxuries like pants and Trump hats. Not exclusively base necessities people need to live, which would be a much more useful and much more dire looking kinda chart.)

'Oh, the inflation is the smallest it's ever been, for the post COVID era's standards! That's soOOooOoOO amazing!'

Good god. The thing that matters is the price of things, not that they got more expensive slightly less than they got more expensive last year...........

Incomprehensible politician gibberish with extremely narrow time windows and extremely narrowly defined metrics (often metrics completely alien to human context, like how the 'unemployment' number isn't a measure of unemployment, it's a measure of people saying they're looking for a job. The participation rate is the real employment metric.) are always a sign that they're bullshitting.

[BulletMagnet]

You share a source with "Warning Signs!" in the headline?

...because that's what a vast majority of economists - again, NOT Hollywood - are saying. Not that informed expert opinions matter to anyone on the right, since loyalty trumps competence, and that always works out swimmingly.

My point exactly about being so close without a smoking gun that even when the metric that measures that claim is at a 5 year low, and all you got is "Well its probably gonna!"

Dude, your post said, in brief, "The economy is still good even with tariffs!" and my response was, accurately, "most of the tariffs haven't even happened yet." For the millionth time, you're not that motherfucking stupid, stop acting like it.

When someone goes to a lake attached to a dam and water level is a safety concern. Why not pull the lever?

If you're not a plutocratic piece of shit you go somewhere else to kayak - or do something other than kayaking if it's truly that unsafe - rather than sticking taxpayers with the bill so you don't have to change plans. But much like "tariff", the definition of "populist" is also apparently now just whatever is convenient in the moment.

My point is IF and WHEN your predictions become true. You can measure the proof in the pudding.

Medicaid and numerous other safety net programs are being strangled to death so the 1 percent can get another tax cut and the deficit is going up by 4 trillion. Oh, and the whole "they're going to be kidnapping people off the street" thing. Just for starters.

For fucking years minions like yourself told us - and the subject matter experts - that we were being hysterical, none of that was going to happen, and now that it's all happening you insist they're just "flim-flam", if not outright good things. Because that's what fascist tools do.

And now that the administration is openly firing people who accurately report numbers that reflect badly on it - and, oh, Daddy saying, among many other things, that he's cut drug prices by over a thousand percent - I'd love to know what gives you such confidence to keep pointing and laughing outside of pure, egotistical spite covering literally any multitude of sins.

[BryanM]

I'm deeply skeptical there's even going to be more elections, srs.

The tariff thing seems like a test run to see if they can jack up prices even more after COVID showed that yeah, people actually do need food to live. If it doesn't work out they have their puppet to scapegoat, and if people tolerate it, they can keep the new level of price gouging in place for forever. Remember 'tolerate it' simply means that the wealthy people responsible don't have to suffer physical, bodily retaliation. Anything less than that, and they don't care. Doesn't effect them personally.

Until a breaking point is reached, things will only continue to get worse. As it's always been in history.

The genocide thing itself is similar to the welfare cuts and immigrant murder: If the elite are not intentionally culling the population, what would have to be different in a world where they actually were killing people in preparation to replace us with robots?

End stage capitalism is a nightmare, I hope to see ya'all on the other side. In the meantime I guess we can take cold comfort in South Park reminding the normos that Kristi Noem finds it very pleasurable to shoot puppy dogs, all of whom she hates, to death.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'm deeply skeptical there's even going to be more elections, srs.

He'll desperately cling to power via any means, and destroying the electoral process so that he never has to face any legal repercussions is certainly possible. That or he'll allow himself the privilege of running for a third time. Then a fourth. And so on. Either way, the Republicans will find a way to smile and normalize this complete and utter destruction of their country and its foundational values.

It's wild how they'll spend all their time crying about taxes for the rich and how social welfare is the most evil thing in the world, only for Trump to repeatedly pat himself on the back for taxing American citizens on foreign imports and get away with it. The people cheering him on don't have the sense to recognize that America has to import things it takes for granted as it simply can't produce certain things like chocolate, coffee, and so on.

When someone goes to a lake attached to a dam and water level is a safety concern. Why not pull the lever?

Your complete and utter inability to see any ethical concerns in that story is depressing, but not at all surprising.

[vol.2]

He'll desperately cling to power via any means

I'm pretty nervous about what the country is going to look like around christmas 2027. Things are going to be in "real" mode by then and if shit is going to hit the fan, it'll be in months following that as things start to wake up.

Makes me want to be just about anywhere else, but then I don't think anyone in the world will be safe from them if the destruction of the country continues past the next election. We are all screwed if that happens.

[BryanM]

That or he'll allow himself the privilege of running for a third time. Then a fourth. And so on.

He's spoken about his plans on this. There's no rule that says he can't have a proxy be 'president' in his place. He can chill in the Oval Office and all that. All the proxy has to be is a meat suit that scribbles down its signature on documents, and nothing else. Trump'll sit in the big boy chair, and hand Some Guy standing next to his desk documents to sign on a clipboard. Be excited for it.

Not a single thing in 'the rules' prevents this, besides the process of impeachment. And they ain't gonna do it since the chance of him giving everyone healthcare is 0%. The only reason that amendment was created was to prevent another FDR, and the Goldwater administration is absolutely not an FDR.

There's some real horror to be had when you kind of think about how this is how things basically work anyway. An administration is made up of people, and the people in positions of significance have rarely changed. How much daylight was there between Obama's administration and Biden's. Or Bush II's and Trump 1's. (Gotta love seeing John Bolton and Hillary's friend Henry Kissinger every single day for the rest of your life.)

The main problem is that the administration is now literally made up of people who openly murder puppies and think it's cool to brag about it. Death Cultists that literally want to murder the shit out of everyone, including themselves. Final solution fascists.

And the wealthy are fine with this. As long as they can continue to rape children and women in their sex dungeons, commit genocide to secure land and slaves, what do they care if the mask is off? Who's gonna stop them? Any of you guys think an election could stop them?