Elon is just another member of the trans national crime syndicate that masquerades as many national governments.

Im not sure anyone is in charge of it, and its most likely a gentlemans agreement between its leaders to divide the world up into territories amongst its members,

but if anyone’s in charge of it, its not Elon or Trump, its Vladimir Putin.

the market will be taken over by cheaper, less “luxury” alternatives.

Well, the production of the cybertruck certianly smashed the delorean.

its almost as if he forgot what gamers are. bitch behind a keyboard forgot that other people can be bitches behind keyboards too.

Its looking more and more like the end result is just going to be millions of Americans will have to do without, Live with less.

and no doubt at the same time their oligarch fantasy-wealthy overlords will preach to them about Spartan values or something. Ultranationalist Jingo Ghouls will talk about how its tough times create strong men, or about how we all have to prepare for war with China or something.

When I imagine a future with AI ruining the world, I always thought it was going to be some Skynet/CABAL/HAL9000 type of thing

Not this sad, boring, depressing type shit

Vigilantism is on the rise regardless, Either because the police are incompetent / carefree about the complaints. or because individuals are overzealous, dont undrestand or agree with the law, and decide to cosplay as the punisher.

The executive needs a network of underlings to manage 300 million people.

I dont see any on here I would swear by.

I have taken a liking to the Pilot B2Ps, they are made of recycled water bottles, I liked them simply for the fact that they’re the one type of pen we have in abundance at the office that no one else bothers to steal for some reason.

I like the Staples TRU RED series too.

what the hell is wrong with me, a year ago I’d be obsessing over some video game or hobby and now im discussing my pen model preferences, I think I’ve crossed the proto-boomer threshold

My answer is going to include a short story as a pretext.

In Canada in the 90s, we used to have these commercials from an organization called “Concerned Childrens Advetisers” the commercials were about a variety of things, some being positive reinforcement about self esteem, others were more on the nose like not eating glue…

there was one important one that would come on a lot called “The North American House Hippo”. And for about 60 seconds it would tell kids about tiny hippopotamus that come out in your kitchen at night, eat crumbs of dropped food, and make beds under your fridge or in the pantry or something… At the end of the commercial, the narrator says something to the effect of “That was an interesting story, but Its not real, not everything you read in a book or see on the TV is real.” the internet wasn’t mentioned because it wasn’t widespread enough yet… but it had a simple lesson. Not everything you see in media is real.

that lesson hasn’t been transfered over to the majority of people, or more likely, most people are not responsible enough to be trusted with the internet because they dont know how to filter, they dont know how to think critically when presented with information online, and its even worse now in the age of deepfakes and AI, that even the smart ones get fooled now.

Collectively we’re dumber because people have allowed their public facebook comment section keyboard warrior persona, to take over their real lives. Who people are in person and who people are online, are two different individuals, but the online persona is the one who is in charge. When we are in public, we usually revert to our social norms, respect each other. But when you’re a keyboard warrior, your impotent rage and urge to yell the N word and other slurs is unchecked because there isnt anyone present to break your nose for saying or doing something antisocial or arrogant.

I dunno your demographic, but the pervailing sentiment is that SL was cool when people were ignorant and impressionable teens and young adults, but as we aged and grew up, it stopped being cool, and most people moved on to other things.

the technology has improved tenfold, the game looks and runs so different now that its virtually unrecognizable, but the communities are shit, the user count is at best half as many as it was in the late 00s to early 10s. and most of the people online are either just parked in a shitty club, usually AFK, hiding in their private land, innnocuously buying stuff for their house or character, lagging the place up with scripted farms and such… a very small number of worthwhile game / activity and roleplay communities (RP is still basically a game…) … and most everyone else is probably e-banging…

the militarized police thing isnt news to anyone who hasnt been living under a rock.

whats new though is the rolling out of those microwave / sonic weapons, In the event of mass protests, I would expect at the very least, US Police forces / military uses those against protestors and rioters. (thats assuming they aren’t just shooting to kill)

Second Life. If you could call it a game.

I started “playing” it in 2006. Went through long periods of not playing it… but I always come back… and it’s always worse

The public is mostly powerless as long as the regime is willing to point and use firearms. thats their go-to card.

you can bet that the regime is also planning on giving out military equipment for fighting against crowds too, tear gas, firehoses, and microwave / sonic weapons like what was seen in Serbia recentley.

Its not just China and Russia doing it anymore. Russia has the considerable might of the legitimate assets of the USA. Not to mention its unofficial ones, firehose of falsehood from the Russian internet troll farms, American troll farms, and every Bubba, Jed, and White nationalist WASP with affluent sounding names with access to wi-fi

aukshully, you cant just throw the name Nazi around because Nazism is a very specific form of german national socialism. and this is not germany.

Russian and American Fascists : Rolling on the floor laughing

None,

he’s a kindred spirit in the genocidal warmongering asshole category.

kindly, Fuck off.

A couple of suspicious sounding phone calls intercepted from an embassy, when every embassy in the country was having their own discussions about their preferred outcome to the collapse of a government, do not influence millions of Ukrainians who know their own country and government, to take to the streets in a riot over being betrayed over something they voted for.