I’m going to throw a trigger warning on this next part just in case:

The last time I came through American customs, it was when I was returning from a conference in Spain, and a colleague of mine got detained for 3 hours because he “looked suspicious”. Man’s a fucking engineer, with credentials out the wazoo, but apparently he fidgeted in line or something. Sitting there in the little space available just anxiously waiting for them to release him was harrowing, but I can’t even imagine what he went through. Nobody would tell me shit; in fact, the more I asked about him, the more it felt like they were treating me like a suspect. If they’d ended up deciding that he didn’t pass the sniff test, they could have taken him anywhere, and nobody would know a fucking thing about it for God knows how long.

Man, I’m getting sweaty just reliving that. Fuck I hate this country sometimes.

I haven’t done any international travel for the last few years, but I used to do it a decent amount for work, and lemme tell you: the worst part of those trips wasn’t the long / cramped plane flights; it was going through US customs.

I’m a US citizen, but every time I went through those lines, it felt like I was passing through a military checkpoint into occupied territory. Every time I went through that experience, it made me hate what our country has become just that little bit more.

The most fucked up part of this is the fact that the FBI is involved. I’m old enough to remember a time when someone vandalizing a few cars in a lot at 3 in the morning when nobody was around would be a local PD issue, and not the fucking FBI. Seems like it was only a couple of months ago… man, time flies.

Seriously, though - in a normal world, this would be far below the payroll of FBI agents. They would spend their time investigating terrorist organizations or child traffickers and bounce this shit back to LVMPD and tell Tesla to file an insurance claim. Instead, the head of the FBI is the lackey of the president, who owes his position to the billionaire that owns Tesla, and so now the FBI is serving as Elon Musk’s personal private investigators. It’s disgusting.

I remember last time around, Trump talked in his press conferences about Muslim prayer rugs being found at the Mexican border, which is a thing that did not happen in reality, but was a plot point in “Sicario”. I’m guessing this time around, he’s basing his foreign policy on “Canadian Bacon”.

Yeah, I figured they’d already had contingency plans in place in case the US did the dumbest thing possible in the 2024 elections. I mean, last time this traitor was president, he sent lists of the names and locations of US spies to Russia, and then in a completely unrelated series of accidents that followed, several of them died.

Any intelligence agency worth its salt should know by now that any secrets they share with the US will also be shared with Russia. Or anybody who pays a million dollars to go to a party at Mar a Lago so they can flatter Trump in person.

Every world intelligence agency should consider the US to be completely compromised at this point.

Yeah, so was second world because of Russia or because of communism?

Err… yes. It was essentially a capitalist vs communist thing, but really it was more “US-aligned” versus “USSR-aligned”, since the US and USSR were the two big superpowers with guns and nukes pointed at each other. First world meant “the US, and people who like the US”, second world meant “The USSR and the people who like the USSR”, and third world was everybody who wasn’t aligned politically with either major player. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the phrase “second world” pretty much fell entirely out of use. I’m not sure why “first world” and “third world” ended up sticking around in the lexicon, but their meanings morphed to “rich countries” and “poor / developing countries”, respectively.

My guess (and this is pure speculation) is that the terms stuck around because they were related to foreign policy. Because the foreign policy wonks were primed to think of the world in terms of blocs of allies or as spheres of influence from decades of the cold war, it’s probable that they had gotten used to referring to their allies as “other first world nations”, and to the countries they sought to influence as “third world nations”. The Vietnam war, for example, was a proxy war fought against the USSR, where half of Vietnam was second-world-aligned, and the other half was first-world-aligned. Prior to those lines being drawn in the sand, it was a third world country. The same could also be said about Korea. Also, pretty much the entire continent of Africa was an ideological battleground between the US and the USSR, as both vied to woo, coerce, and force individual countries into their respective spheres of influence. Because the terms “first world” and “third world” were so frequently used as a matter of policy, it’s easy to see how the use of those terms could persist even after the original definitions became obsolete.

As for why a numbering scheme was initially employed… it’s unimportant; simply an easy way of distinguishing between teams. If the USSR had originated the concept, chances are they’d have put themselves as first world, with the US & affiliated nations as second world. Or they might have used letter designations instead of numbers. Or color coding. It doesn’t really matter in the end.

You know? I didn’t even really consider that, due to the fact that the original definitions pretty much lost their meanings with the fall of the USSR. However, since Putin’s basically working to recreate it now, it seems like those definitions are relevant once again, so yeah - you’re absolutely right.

Technically, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland are all 3rd world nations. At least, according to the original definition.

Edit: this isn’t meant to counter the point made by the comic. I just think it’s interesting.

Wash’s, in “Serenity”. It was just so unexpected and abrupt, and it served to generate a sense of unease in the viewer; after Wash’s death, no character seemed to be protected by plot armor. Granted, Shepherd Book bit it before Wash did, but the movie seemed to set him up to be separate from the rest of the crew. I loved that Whedon played with this concept of fragility in the ensuing battle, with Kaylee getting darted, Zoe getting sliced up, and Simon getting shot. And then, Mal’s battle with the agent… I thought the misdirect was masterfully done.

I’ve been affected by character deaths before and since, but Wash’s death was the only death I’ve seen in media that has made me worry for the safety of the other characters. It made a lot of sense outside of the movie, too, as “Serenity” was more or less a tribute to some IP that was never going to get resurrected. While watching the movie for the first time, I was left thinking: “what if Whedon just said ‘fuck it’?”

Is that why Rudolph’s nose glows?

Sure thing, buddy. Here you go:

Well, unfortunately the guy used an e-bike with GPS tracking on it as his getaway vehicle, so I very much doubt he’s going to get away with it. But yes - I agree with you on the death penalty. Shit gets complicated when the state gets involved.

But those who think that they are virtuous have no problem celebrating this guy being killed calling it karma. And this comment will be totally downvoted because how dare someone point out their hypocrisy.

“Virtue” is a relative thing. What is virtuous to one person might not be virtuous to another. You, for example, seem to believe that celebrating the death of someone is unvirtuous, even if that person was a monster. This is pure speculation on my part, but I’m also guessing that you hold the belief that nobody deserves to die.

These beliefs are not universal. While you would be a hypocrite for violating your own strongly held beliefs, it would not be accurate to apply that label to someone who doesn’t hold those beliefs. For example, I believe that death is the worst punishment you can give to a person. I also believe that some people absolutely deserve it. I would not find it virtuous to falsely pretend otherwise. I have no moral qualms with celebrating the death of someone who I think deserves it. Similarly, I have no qualms about celebrating good things that happen to a person who I think deserves them. In both cases, I consider those things to be the universe working out as it should.

You’ve never wished for the death of serial killers? Rapists? Pedophiles? Dictators? Animal abusers? The odd mime?

Somehow, I don’t believe you. But, on the off chance that you’re telling the truth… this is for you:

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I would very much like you to point out what I made up.

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