Prelude to the Apocalypse

[orange808]

The problem with cryptocurrency is strength of your trap door function and maintaining honesty/trust in the blockchain nodes. Eventually, Bitcoin will need a significant upgrade to remain viable. If we wait too long, there's a mountain of locked coin that could unexpectedly get dumped into the market.

Might also be able to eventually simulate navigating around the function itself using Bresemham's line algorithm? If that happens, adding more bits (to fight brute force cracking) could be useless.

[Sengoku Strider]

If we wait too long, there's a mountain of locked coin that could unexpectedly get dumped into the market.

I think the world knows it has more pressing issues to worry about right now.



You can clearly see him wearing clothes from three different days, so you know he's not faking. He really has it.

[Mischief Maker]

You hold the actual power of God in your hand, yet you're afraid of saying, "Fuck Joe Biden" lest your mommy spank you?

Replace Joe Biden's wife with him? Does... does he literally want to fuck Joe Biden?

[orange808]

You can clearly see him wearing clothes from three different days, so you know he's not faking. He really has it.

If there was a caption, it would read, "kneel before Zod"

[BulletMagnet]

Kind of sums everything up.

As for the God Stone guy, presumably he figured that Biden would be casually strolling past that telephone pole in his neighborhood at some point.

[Sengoku Strider]

He's calling for a patriotic Super Bowl terrorizing though.

[BryanM]

What kind of lawn sport takes place in the dead of winter, anyway. "Hey look, it's snowing and cold as shit. You know what that means: let's go outside and wrestle on the grass!"

smh. Do it in the dead of summer, and have guys dropping ded from their brains being baked.

You know how we made cricket worse by removing all the horrible horrible death from it? Let's embrace our heritage and go full Running Man, peoples.

[Sengoku Strider]

What kind of lawn sport takes place in the dead of winter, anyway. "Hey look, it's snowing and cold as shit. You know what that means: let's go outside and wrestle on the grass!"

smh. Do it in the dead of summer, and have guys dropping ded from their brains being baked.

You know how we made cricket worse by removing all the horrible horrible death from it? Let's embrace our heritage and go full Running Man, peoples.

Getting tackled onto frozen turf feels like hitting concrete. It's not better, trust me.

[kid aphex]

https://twitter.com/moderna_tx/status/1 ... 06339?s=21

Wowzers!
WHAT IF indeed.

[Sengoku Strider]

You know, as much as I post a lot of stuff poking fun at the crazy in the US, at least I think it'll still be there next month. My own country, I'm starting to have doubts.

1. Russian & Eastern European troll farms whipped a bunch of our nutjobs up into a Fascism for Dummies™ version of occupy wall street in Ottawa. They've blockaded downtown, set up encampments, taken over a baseball stadium, and have been royally fucking up resident's lives honking truck horns, setting off fireworks and harassing people around the clock. Their demands are that the government (democratically re-elected all of 5 months ago) step down and turn all the covid-19 off. This has now lasted 2 weeks.



2. This movement featured the most pathetic yet hilarious attempt at masking white supremacist undercurrents I've ever seen in this country. Like we're talking straight out of Monty Python.

3. A descriptor which apparently applies to the whole movement, as "Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson aptly compared the utterings of the blockaders to something out of “a Monty Python sketch.”"

4. Even though 90% of Canadian truckers are vaxxed and most of the 'Freedom Convoy' aren't truckers, the troll farms are doing an excellent job astroturfing it into looking like something much more widely supported than it is. Which they do because they know it has a way of making said support come true.

5. It's being funded by right-wing accelerationist groups from out of the country, laundering money through crowd-funding platforms, most of it from the US. To the tune of 9 million actual dollars and counting. Those Fox News grandmas and their $215 000 anonymous grass roots donations I tell ya, yeesh.

6. Where there's money there's slimeballs, which is why sentient-iguana-in-a-rubber-person-suit Ted Cruz & pubic-hair-plugs-with-something-that-looks-sorta-like-a-guy-attached Rand Paul are all over it, trying to ride it as some kind of (white) working class uprising against evil wine sipping liberal elites. Even pushing to expand the franchise southward (see above post for proposed Super Bowl terrorizing).



7. Just in case you think they might be right about the working class thing, in addition to the Ottawa occupation, multiple border crossings have been blocked. This has caused massive disruptions to the auto industry, leading to - wait for it - working class layoffs. This got the attention of the Canadian Conservative party, who had also been trying to surf it for points, but now had to take angry phone calls from people whose bank accounts they care deeply about. The auto execs, not the laid off people. If you were wondering. They immediately changed course and officially said they were upset or something nobody cares.

8. Our Prime Minister's response was to leave town and continuously tell the occupiers they're just a bunch of gullible fringe idiot wingnuts and they need to fuck off, which is a 100% bang-on take to be honest. The problem is that if they don't take your friendly and correct advice, you have to do something to make the off-fucking happen, which unfortunately has yet to occur. Because...

9. While the Ottawa police force keep saying they're "doing everything they can," everything they can apparently revolves around being chummy with the occupiers and pretending to disrupt their refuelling shipments while not disrupting their refuelling shipments. In fact they've been so doing-everything-they-can that "Ottawa police have been ‘amazing,’ convoy protestors say." This tweet of empty threats has already had its own knowyourmeme.com entry for an entire week:



10. When pressed by emergency response council members, said amazing police have been throwing up their hands and saying "we can't do anything until we get adequate reinforcements." Which is weird because they have guns & handcuffs & riot response gear & high pressure water hoses in -20° weather and stuff but I dunno I'm not some kind of regular-unarmed-person-defeating expert or something.

11. You can't have a legit fascist wingnut convention without the Meryl Streep of fascist wingnuts in attendance, which meant of course Secret Queen of Canada™ Romana Didulo crossed the country in an RV with a group of her cultist devotees to be there. With a large picture of herself in a queenly baseball cap.


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12. Which brings us to the end. Lock the thread, the prelude's over.
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It's been real y'all, see you on the great Battle Garegga hi-score board in the sky.

[kid aphex]

1. Russian & Eastern European troll farms whipped a bunch of our nutjobs up into a Fascism for Dummies™[/url] version of occupy wall street in Ottawa. They've blockaded downtown, set up encampments, taken over a baseball stadium, and have been royally fucking up resident's lives honking truck horns, setting off fireworks and harassing people around the clock. Their demands are that the government (democratically re-elected all of 5 months ago) step down and turn all the covid-19 off. This has now lasted 2 weeks.

A non-violent, working-class act of civil disobedience against an overreaching, increasingly dictatorial government.
It takes the impressive mental gymnastics training of a corporate media news slut to misunderstand things so impressively.

4. Even though 90% of Canadian truckers are vaxxed and most of the 'Freedom Convoy' aren't truckers, the troll farms are doing an excellent job astroturfing it into looking like something much more widely supported than it is. Which they do because they know it has a way of making said support come true.

It’s incredibly convenient to have a nameless, faceless boogeyman to blame the discontent of the citizenry on.
Works great for the government to deflect responsibility for their terrible policies,
And the fearful, obedient constituents (liberals) eat it up and beg for an increased centralization of power and more government assfucking.
Pathetic.

5. It's being funded by right-wing accelerationist groups from out of the country, laundering money through crowd-funding platforms, most of it from the US. To the tune of 9 million actual dollars and counting. Those Fox News grandmas and their $215 000 anonymous grass roots donations I tell ya, yeesh.

There are over 20 MILLION millionaires in the US.
An anonymous donation of $250k is proof of nothing.
The desperate stench of conspiracy theories waft over from both sides of the political aisle, I see.

Hell, if I had $250k I could spare, I’d donate it anonymously.

6. Where there's money there's slimeballs, which is why sentient-iguana-in-a-rubber-person-suit Ted Cruz & pubic-hair-plugs-with-something-that-looks-sorta-like-a-guy-attached Rand Paul are all over it, trying to ride it as some kind of (white) working class uprising against evil wine sipping liberal elites. Even pushing to expand the franchise southward (see above post for proposed Super Bowl terrorizing).

It seems you value physiognomy over principles when it comes to politicians.
You must love your handsome little-boy-dictator Trudeau.
Any human with a modicum of perception would recognize just how transparently deceptive Trudeau is, even when compared with our politicians here in America.

7. Just in case you think they might be right about the working class thing, in addition to the Ottawa occupation, multiple border crossings have been blocked. This has caused massive disruptions to the auto industry, leading to - wait for it - working class layoffs. This got the attention of the Canadian Conservative party, who had also been trying to surf it for points, but now had to take angry phone calls from people whose bank accounts they care deeply about. The auto execs, not the laid off people. If you were wondering. They immediately changed course and officially said they were upset or something nobody cares.

By this (flawed) logic, the aspects of the government’s COVID response that negatively affected the working class similarly prove it wasn’t about a response to. COVID, but an attempt to harm the working class.

If you want to make an omelette, you gotta break some eggs.

8. Our Prime Minister's response was to leave town and continuously tell the occupiers they're just a bunch of gullible fringe idiot wingnuts and they need to fuck off, which is a 100% bang-on take to be honest. The problem is that if they don't take your friendly and correct advice, you have to do something to make the off-fucking happen, which unfortunately has yet to occur. Because...

The problem is your PM is a pussy globalist shill and he knows he’s fucked. Pretty obvious.

9. While the Ottawa police force keep saying they're "doing everything they can," everything they can apparently revolves around being chummy with the occupiers and pretending to disrupt their refuelling shipments while not disrupting their refuelling shipments.

The police/government aren’t doing “more” because it’s been a peaceful protest and there’s nothing they can do without looking like they’re in the wrong.
In fact, the only real violence has occurred at the hands of a whacko left-wing sex-offender who drove through four people.
(This, of course, barely acknowledged by the media)

10. When pressed by emergency response council members, said amazing police have been throwing up their hands and saying "we can't do anything until we get adequate reinforcements." Which is weird because they have guns & handcuffs & riot response gear & high pressure water hoses in -20° weather and stuff but I dunno I'm not some kind of regular-unarmed-person-defeating expert or something.

You’re suggesting the police move in and use guns and riot gear to quell a peaceful protest.
Now who’s the fascist?
The state has done a wonderful job of rearranging your brain.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

4. Even though 90% of Canadian truckers are vaxxed and most of the 'Freedom Convoy' aren't truckers, the troll farms are doing an excellent job astroturfing it into looking like something much more widely supported than it is. Which they do because they know it has a way of making said support come true.

It’s incredibly convenient to have a nameless, faceless boogeyman to blame the discontent of the citizenry on.
Works great for the government to deflect responsibility for their terrible policies,

Ah yes, the "terrible policy" of doing the same thing we've always been doing that's helped virtually eradicate polio, measles, rubella (well, until Andrew Wakefield came along and helped kick the antivaxxer movement into high gear with his fraudulent bullshit). How truly awful for society not to shrug its shoulders and ignore the basic interventions that stop preventable diseases.

It's worth remembering that the people vehemently fighting against basic medical measures are also more than willing to crawl their dying asses to the hospitals when they get seriously sick, thus risking spreading it to medical workers in order to beg for ivermectin, while their families accuse the medical staff of murder when the unvaccinated inevitably succumb. It's incredibly galling when they spurn medical care in the form of vaccinations but then insist on clogging the hospitals with their highly contagious airborne illness they've caught as a direct result of their poor life choices. While these people are technically in a minority from a statistical standpoint, they're in high enough numbers in society that they're having major impacts on the well-being of others.

To nobody sensible's surprise, a huge amount of the donations are from foreign nationals. It's partially american shit stirrers who presumably want to use the chaos to legitimize their own whining over basic pandemic measures such as wearing a mask when going to a grocery store, but I'd also suspect China and Russia are likely laundering money and fuelling the unrest for the sake of causing political unrest. We already know they actively do this sort of thing through social media, so it wouldn't be surprising if they're also putting money into this in order to make their enemy nations look bad.

You must love your handsome little-boy-dictator Trudeau.

To label someone who's been generally ineffective and benign as Justin Trudeau as a "dictator" truly displays how low a bar you have for what constitutes dictatorship. A large number of the people who voted for him hate him on the basis that he reneged on his promise of finally doing away with plurality voting in federal elections. I don't know a single person who genuinely loves him, and that includes people who voted for him, a common problem with plurality election systems (see: the Trump vs. Clinton election).

[BryanM]

globalist

The word you're looking for is "capitalist". Globalist is a word fascists made up to replace "Jew", as that's not as universally popular as it used to be with your crowd these days; while also avoiding having to say "capitalism". You need to stop being intentionally vague and use the word you actually mean, which is either "capitalists" or "the Jews". You can't have it both ways my friend, only the dim will let you cheat like that.

Which word did you mean to use here? People are curious. Jibberish obscures truth, please try to figure it out and get back to us with an actual word that means something, please.

"dictator"

lol he srsly called a sock puppet a "dictator"? smh what kinda koolaid kids are drinking these days, I was freaking five years old and I was able to figure out how hierarchy works on my own.

A dictatorship is a group of people with all the money and all the power. That would be the donor class. Whom the vast majority politicians are an employee of.

[Sengoku Strider]

A non-violent, working-class act of civil disobedience against an overreaching, increasingly dictatorial government.
It takes the impressive mental gymnastics training of a corporate media news slut to misunderstand things so impressively.

Tell me you get your information from American ultraconservative crank sites without telling me you get your information from American ultraconservative crank sites.

It’s incredibly convenient to have a nameless, faceless boogeyman to blame the discontent of the citizenry on.
Works great for the government to deflect responsibility for their terrible policies,
And the fearful, obedient constituents (liberals) eat it up and beg for an increased centralization of power and more government assfucking.
Pathetic.

Three quarters of the country thinks they need to go home. Half the country thinks the cops need to move in. A quarter think the military need to move in (they shouldn't and they won't).

Try not to get caught up in the bad-actor funded misinformation machine trying to reframe this as a mass uprising, representative of popular sentiment.

Canada is not the US, and (most) Canadian conservatives are not on the wavelength of what's going on with American conservatives right now. We don't have a Fox News equivalent (they tried broadcasting it up here and it immediately tanked). Not only is "the citizenry" not discontent, the overwhelming majority of the country thinks there needs to be more measures placed on vaccine deniers:

An Ipsos poll published Monday and conducted exclusively for Global News showed that 67 per cent want the government to impose further measures on the unvaccinated population, with nearly half (49 per cent) of the respondents blaming the unvaccinated for prolonging the pandemic – now entering its third year.

It seems you value physiognomy over principles when it comes to politicians.

Principles. This is what you are saying to me.

About Ted 'Cancun' Cruz.

The guy whose 2016 presidential campaign spokesman Tick Tyler later said on record, “That’s Ted Cruz, that’s who Ted Cruz is. He will abandon principle, he will abandon conservative values for expediency”

The dude whose presidential running mate Carly Fiorina said: “Ted Cruz is just like any other politician. … He says whatever he needs to say to get elected, and then he’s going to do as he pleases.”

The guy former Republican speaker of the House John Boehner called "Lucifer in the Flesh."

The guy who literally submitted a legal brief arguing that masturbation was against the constitution, then got caught watching porn on 9/11.

The guy Republican congressman Peter King gave his nuanced opinion of: “I hate Ted Cruz, and I think I’ll take cyanide if he ever got the nomination.”

The guy who, after declaiming Trump as an "amoral pathological liar," even after Trump took public shots at his wife and called her ugly, the moment his presidential bid went up in smoke Captain Principles phone banked for the man and praised him for years.

Or this quote from one of Trump's White House aides, who described him as “a craven, calculating politician...He’s supposed to be a smart asshole, that’s where there’s a bit of consternation for me. He’s totally misguided by his own bullshit.”

The man summed up by former Republican staffer John Feehery as such: “Cruz is an army of one, alienating anybody who is in his path. He advocates losing strategies purely to further his own career at the expense of the party.”

Principles, you say.

As an aside, no, I didn't vote for Trudeau and never have. We have a parliamentary multi-party system. It's not an either-or thing.

By this (flawed) logic, the aspects of the government’s COVID response that negatively affected the working class similarly prove it wasn’t about a response to. COVID, but an attempt to harm the working class.

If you want to make an omelette, you gotta break some eggs.

O_o

I mean, I guess if you live in some alternate dimension where the working class is immune to COVID instead of 2 to 3 times more likely to die from it.

But the thing is, the working class aren't there. They were working. 90% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated. The Canadian Trucking Alliance formally disavowed the protest, and directly told them it was wrong & to quit it. I've already posted what the people think about this thing. This really is just a bunch of dumb astroturfed goofballs being misrepresented by foreign media telling their followers what they want to hear.

The police/government aren’t doing “more” because it’s been a peaceful protest and there’s nothing they can do without looking like they’re in the wrong.
In fact, the only real violence has occurred at the hands of a whacko left-wing sex-offender who drove through four people.
(This, of course, barely acknowledged by the media)

Really man, Breitbart & co. are not your friends. That stuff is not news.

The protestors are in violation of orders from multiple levels of government, and are positioned illegally, blocking roads, parked in the middle of intersections, and impeding access to homes, hospitals and businesses.

But beyond that, from the actual Ottawa police website:

*Police have responded to over 650 calls for service in relation to the demonstrations since they began.

*97 criminal offence investigations have been opened in relation to the demonstration.

*Intelligence and evidence gathering teams continue to collect financial, digital, vehicle registration, driver identification, insurance status, and other related evidence that will be used in criminal prosecutions.

*The Ottawa Police Service is actively working with Canadian, U.S. and international security agencies authorities to investigate email-based threats to public officials.

* The Hate-motivated crime hotline has received over 200 calls, and Detectives are ensuring every report is investigated.

You’re suggesting the police move in and use guns and riot gear to quell a peaceful protest.

This certainly seems like a good faith argument that I should respond to seriously.

Now who’s the fascist?

Still these right wing guys occupying the capital, saying they won't leave until the democratically elected government step down over policies overwhelmingly supported by the populace.

[BryanM]

presidential running mate Carly Fiorina

Man, things are such a mess I had forgotten all about the pre-emptive running mate announcement.

-- On April 27, 2016, Ted Cruz announced that Fiorina would be his running mate should he win the nomination. She joined his campaign days before the Indiana Primary, which he lost. Cruz suspended his campaign that evening, effectively ending Fiorina's vice-presidential bid. --

In my defense, there were brain sponges, knife-proof belt buckles, collapse of finite fuel reserves, the unraveling of reality etc going on. The antics of Ted Cruz are hardly a footnote's footnote.

[Mischief Maker]

https://twitter.com/KyleKulinski/status ... 2377825281

Spoiler

Better Kyle than Saagar!

[Hoagtech]

I cant believe you guys are dumb enough to defend the narrative on this one.

I live on the border of Canada and can tell you guys that a majority of these truckers are Sikh. Not nazi flaggers on the one pic you chose to sensationalize.

But that's what you get for thinking that an opposing free thinkers are Q-anon racist gay frog breeding fascists..

The strikes message is simple. It's to stop mandates period, which I am fully on board with as mandates are laws with out the vote of the people to give our elected officials "emergency powers outside of our vote"

You would think after two years they would have proposed an initiative on the laws but they are running power hungry and bending us over in the name of whatever "emergency" is the hot topic at the moment.

Not to divert too much but in the US, Their are over 45 " national emergencies " currently in effect from previous presidencies. I didn't like it in the Bush Era and I don't like it now.

You can't call defending the right to vote on your own laws "cancelling covid"

The side effect to this is Trudeau freezing digital currency assets to the rebels?

Once again your defending allowance of a political weapon to control the people which can certainly backfire if your opposing party steps into power.

Do you like the thought of Conservatives freezing your bank account due to protest??

Knock it off with your echo chamber of sensationalism and learn to not let these fuckers dictate laws.

It's process of English common law freedom that you guys are too socially anxious to defend.

[BulletMagnet]

And I do believe anyone can compete against Goliaths and I’ll send you a PM for personal proof in about a month after my NDA expires..

Could you please share the contents of that PM with us, Bryan? It seems kinda important.

[Hoagtech]

And I do believe anyone can compete against Goliaths and I’ll send you a PM for personal proof in about a month after my NDA expires..

Could you please share the contents of that PM with us, Bryan? It seems kinda important.

Fine... I'll Dox myself why not..

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/compani ... eShimLayer

competing against this..

https://mjbizdaily.com/scotts-miracle-g ... bis-reach/

[BulletMagnet]

So the new, revolutionary way smaller companies should compete with seemingly invincible larger ones is to...sell themselves to said larger companies?

[Hoagtech]

So the new, revolutionary way smaller companies should compete with seemingly invincible larger ones is to...sell themselves to said larger companies?

The way to compete is to fill in the missing holes of big business flaws and then cooperate with conglomerates that buy out smaller stores with the same level of quality.

I turned my profit after costs into bonuses for performance at my branch location along with getting my staff substantial raises.

In my case I had a lawyer review it and I can even go back to ownership after 3 years of General Management at my branch.

I think my argument was about reckless government spending and raising minimum wage which is the highest overhead cost of a business trying "compete with goliaths".

My new point is people shouldn't allow government power because those powers will bite them in the butt when their opposition comes into power.

And you guys come off red hot from Twitter talking about "God rocks" and "Gay frogs" which is misrepresentation of the opposing views of your neighbors and sensationalism better known as "exaggeration"

[BulletMagnet]

cooperate with conglomerates that buy out smaller stores

I'm no MBA, but this still sounds an awful lot like "sell yourself to someone bigger", i.e. "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Good luck to you either way, I suppose.

As for Canada's mandate, it's been said already that most of the country, and most of the trucking industry, supports it, or at the very least is willing to abide by it, so as such said mandate would appear to be a reflection of what the voters put their elected officials in office to do, rather than a subversion of it. What the protests appear to be is a minority of people who don't like the fact that most of their countrymen don't agree with them on this; moreover, if they want to make their voices heard, that's fine, but as has been brought out elsewhere, protestors say their piece and then disperse, otherwise it's no longer a protest, but an occupation.

[Hoagtech]

cooperate with conglomerates that buy out smaller stores

I'm no MBA, but this still sounds an awful lot like "sell yourself to someone bigger", i.e. "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Good luck to you either way, I suppose.

As for Canada's mandate, it's been said already that most of the country, and most of the trucking industry, supports it, or at the very least is willing to abide by it, so as such said mandate would appear to be a reflection of what the voters put their elected officials in office to do, rather than a subversion of it. What the protests appear to be is a minority of people who don't like the fact that most of their countrymen don't agree with them on this; moreover, if they want to make their voices heard, that's fine, but as has been brought out elsewhere, protestors say their piece and then disperse, otherwise it's no longer a protest, but an occupation.

I think you meant *mandate(s), and there is nothing inherently wrong with the majority of people wanting safety measures instilled for each other.

But you'll never know because no one voted for these safety measures to take place so it's only assumed. If someone would create an initiative in the last 2 years, then we could find out and blame the popular vote.

And what is this protesting timeline all about?

Do we have to burn a few cars and call it a night or it doesn't count as a legitimate protest?

[BulletMagnet]

But you'll never know because no one voted for these safety measures to take place so it's only assumed.

That's how representative democracy works; voters don't directly cast a ballot for every single action the government takes, but elect people to office to make those myriad determinations in their stead. If the people don't like what those leaders are doing they can and will say so, and if they don't clean up their act they get voted out (assuming that "measures to instill voter confidence", also enacted without direct input from the electorate, don't prevent them from doing so, but that's another matter). Most of the country and the trucking industry, whatever their issues with the government at large, support its actions as far as the pandemic is concerned, and the minority is simply unwilling to accept that to the point that they're willing to inflict suffering upon their countrymen in response, which frankly strikes me as manifestly undemocratic.

Do we have to burn a few cars and call it a night or it doesn't count as a legitimate protest?

Apparently you need to deny residents the ability to sleep and get your fellow working people furloughed. Or, since you happened upon the suddenly-spicy word "legitimate", riot at the Capitol.

One interesting estimate I read the other day is that over the past two weeks or so the "truckers'" activities have cost Canada several billion dollars in lost revenue, and that the precise figure, by happenstance, comes quite close to the estimated damage that several month's worth of BLM protests caused.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The strikes message is simple. It's to stop mandates period, which I am fully on board with as mandates are laws with out the vote of the people

Lotta text here for someone who apparently doesn't understand the basic fundamentals of democracy (or has simply latched onto some ridiculous hyperbole to make his argument). You can't literally operate with everyone casting individual votes on every issue, so rather we (ideally) elect people who represent our general interests on issues and expect them to act accordingly, punishing them by voting them out when we're displeased. At least, in a functioning democracy, that's how it works. And, as has already been stated, there is in fact a large majority of fortunately sensible people who do in fact want vaccine requirements for travel, just as we've had vaccine requirements for schooling for ages.

It's alarming to me how short-sighted our societies are that we have a large group of people actively campaigning against basic health measures when they're the same things historically that stopped numerous other diseases from ravaging our populace. How quickly we forget the past.

The mandates are no different than market regulation, the kind that says "you can't do this because you could kill someone", but in this case it applies to private citizens rather than commercial enterprises. And the mandates these people are protesting are incredibly low in terms of burden. The expectation of having to get vaccinated against a disease that's killed millions is only controversial in antivaxxer circles, and yet they're the same ones who drag themselves to the hospital once they're ill while their families accuse the doctors inevitably forced to look after them of murder.

The unwillingness of this insane subset of people to do basic things like wear a mask in public indoors and get vaccinated is a tremendous part of why the pandemic is still as strong as it is in North America.

[BryanM]

We actually could have a direct democracy, especially with today's communications technology. But those in power don't want to give that power up - poor people voting to give themselves a raise isn't compatible with their interests.

A true representative democracy would allow one to cede their voting power into a specific other person, instead of choosing from an excruciatingly small curated selection of pre-selected capitalist sycophants. In such a world the lotus of power would sit in the hands of guys like Tucker Carlson and breadtube guys.

I really can't say if that would be any worse than how things currently are. It's all in the realm of fantasy anyway, only good for speculative alternate reality fan fiction.

[orange808]

We actually could have a direct democracy, especially with today's communications technology. But those in power don't want to give that power up - poor people voting to give themselves a raise isn't compatible with their interests.

A true representative democracy would allow one to cede their voting power into a specific other person, instead of choosing from an excruciatingly small curated selection of pre-selected capitalist sycophants. In such a world the lotus of power would sit in the hands of guys like Tucker Carlson and breadtube guys.

I really can't say if that would be any worse than how things currently are. It's all in the realm of fantasy anyway, only good for speculative alternate reality fan fiction.

Assuming that people really understand their situation and they will vote for their best interests and the best interests of everyone, right? It's essentially the same basic assumption that tanks free markets: people and businesses will do what's best for them in the long run, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, people can't do that; they can't.

Fairness and "best" is defined at a macro level and few are interested in making any sacrifices. (Are you? Are you really??) Everyone with a first world lifestyle (yes, you too) has things they won't give up--and you probably *should* if you really want to save the world. But, you don't--and you won't.

Why is democracy going to fix it? No matter what, you can't put a people in charge, because people are flawed. All hail our robot overlords? Not so fast! You can't force people to do things, because they hate sacrifices, they may not know what needs to be done (sometimes all of us don't know), don't care, they're just greedy, or they need something to complain about (people need drama and seek it out).

Democracy isn't the answer, either. You can't get everyone together and agree on what's best. There isn't an answer. People that get outvoted don't feel any differently about losing than people in a dictatorship. Someone told you what to do and it pisses you off. Same thing as a crying baby. Human beings don't care about democracy if they aren't in the winner's circle majority. It's always "my way". People only think it's "representative" if it caters to them. Yep, you too.

Everyone. You upset and defensive? Probably. Mad at me? Probably. Tuning it out, because you can't admit you are part of the problem by nature? Probably.

We still don't have a model that works. To quote Martin Gore: "Where's the Revolution?" Indeed. (Get it???) Where is the revolution?

Stay with me...

Not huge fan of Menken as a person and I am not expressing love for him or agreement, but he had some great observations on democracy. It may have been unintentional, because I'm almost sure he would be a Fox News guy today. I don't know how well he understood his own quotes or why they resonated. Ultimately, his musings remain popular because everyone on the spectrum hates compromise and nobody wants to play along with others (and it may be impossible). That's perfect, because Menken was a libertarian right wing GOP'er. He captures Americana perfectly, but it's not just Americans. It's people. Smug Europeans that say they're different are displaying the exact same behaviors. His words resonate because people don't want to work together and never will. His observations skewer democracy because it's broken. Why? Maybe it's because we're selfish assholes. Menken sure was. In the process of arguing the "merits" of being a selfish elitist asshole, he proves everyone wrong.(including himself).

After that long explanation: I do love this one quote, "The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy."

Perfect. Democracy feeds itself in a circle. Unhappy? Vote! Happy? Vote! Not voting? Vote! Doesn't work? Need more votes. Votes fix votes.

So, where's the revolution? What's the answer? I dunno. Maybe there isn't one. Human beings are assholes. We also love the way votes are the answer to voting we don't agree with, so we won't ever recognize a need for a balance. We can't compromise (remember the part about people being selfish assholes?), so we won't ever negotiate a balance. Not really. At least democracy promises everyone a chance to get their way. Even if we did follow votes in a representative democracy, we still wouldn't do it right and the losers would still be angry.

Not that compromise works, anyhow. Half-answers don't work either. That just makes everyone unhappy. It also doesn't work in a crisis. If we agree to turn a speeding car 45 degress to the right when we're speeding directly at the Great Wall of China (very long in both directions), what happens? We hit the fucking wall a little later than we would have if we hadn't turned. We still die. Needed to turn 90 degrees. Oops. Three cheers for compromise. Hip hip!

[EmperorIng]

Found this and wanted to share only for Bryan

Spoiler

[BryanM]

Spoiler

Is that real? Am I being punk'd? Lemme wiki that stuff

Wiki: "(voiced by Himself)"

.. is Wikipedia punk'ing me? Or is the emperor so Wily to my ways he preemptively created a wikipedia page?

The grooming has nowhere to degenerate now, except into creepy sex stuff. A web series that teaches life lessons about how billionaire wieners are tastier than regular wieners, for example.

The part that bothers me the most is their school mascot is exactly the same as my schools' mascots. Is that the computer simulation sharing an ester egg, or is that spartanish guy everyone's mascot?

Assuming that people really understand their situation and they will vote for their best interests and the best interests of everyone, right?

Of course not. We're going to have cars until they're pried out of our hands from exhausted oil reserves.

I'm just saying people respond differently to policies different than personalities: states voting for Trump and raising the minimum wage (by an even larger margin). Two diametrically opposite things. On a few things, no amount of propaganda can break.

My hopes were never to save the world, or to completely end imperialism. Don't have that much hubris; as they say, it was a lesser-evil stance. My holy grail was Universal Single Payer Medicare.

Here's another happy little feel-good story:

During 2016, my mother apparently had been unable to keep food down for weeks. Eventually went to the emergency room. Days of tests and fuck all found. A surgeon had to get my permission to open her up and check her digestive track manually, as she wasn't going to get better and was barely conscious. He cut her open, saw about a foot of large intestine had died and was rotting, cut out the dead segment, sewed it back together, closed her up, and crossed his fingers she could recover. No one expressed any negativity to me, but I'm sure most of them thought she was hosed.

The part that pisses me off is the same as it always is: she would have gone to the hospital probably ~10 days earlier. Except: $$$$$$$$$$$. Worried about the money.

More than a few people here probably thought I was being a much bigger asshole than usual that year. It wasn't just standard 2016 election depression.

And these goobers' number one grievance in the entire world is being bullied to wear a mask or maybe take a vaccine. If they're being 100% honest and not just grumpy about falling from the top 3% into the dregs of the top 15%. I can't bring myself to take them serial.

[Sengoku Strider]

I cant believe you guys are dumb enough to defend the narrative on this one.

I live on the border of Canada and can tell you guys that a majority of these truckers are Sikh. Not nazi flaggers on the one pic you chose to sensationalize.

Along with the other 99.99% of Canadian truckers, they're at work. Trucking. The crowd in Ottawa is white AF.

Like I posted above, 90% of truckers are vaccinated in this country. Given that's significantly higher than the national average of 84%, that should tell you how little resistance there actually is. Like I also posted above, their advocacy group, the Canadian Trucking Alliance, denounced this whole thing and their membership aren't supportive of it.

There are ~123 000 truckers employed in Canada. There are about 400 trucks parked in downtown Ottawa. That's 0.003% of them, for those of you keeping score at home.

But that's what you get for thinking that an opposing free thinkers are Q-anon racist gay frog breeding fascists..

I mean, there is a very consistent thread of wildly alternative takes on consensus reality which lack any particular citeable facts. People who can actually support an argument do get taken seriously.

The strikes message is simple. It's to stop mandates period, which I am fully on board with as mandates are laws with out the vote of the people to give our elected officials "emergency powers outside of our vote"

You would think after two years they would have proposed an initiative on the laws but they are running power hungry and bending us over in the name of whatever "emergency" is the hot topic at the moment.

You can't call defending the right to vote on your own laws "cancelling covid"

We literally had a federal election in September. The Liberal government was re-elected.

84% of Canadians support vaccine mandates in some form or another. Even 79% of Canadian conservatives.

The side effect to this is Trudeau freezing digital currency assets to the rebels?

Once again your defending allowance of a political weapon to control the people which can certainly backfire if your opposing party steps into power.

Do you like the thought of Conservatives freezing your bank account due to protest??

Lol wut

Yes. If some left wing group illegally occupies the capital and declares they're not leaving until the democratically elected government is overthrown, especially if they're mostly funded by foreign actors, then yes, the Conservative Party of Canada or any other should freeze their revolution funds.

Any functional government run by adults would do this.

Knock it off with your echo chamber of sensationalism and learn to not let these fuckers dictate laws.

It's process of English common law freedom that you guys are too socially anxious to defend.

Dude, Glenn Beck or whoever you're listening to is not a legit source of information. British men didn't universally get the right to vote until 1918.

And when they did, it was under the exact same parliamentary model Canada has. Where members of parliament are elected by the populace to determine laws.