My family including my parents moved from rural conservative to progressive left (probably somewhere around Social Democrat).

I’ve spent A LOT of time trying to truly reach out to conservatives, Trump supporters, from this angle. It requires a lot of time, but know two key things:

1. All you can do is plant seeds for neurons to grow. Belief structures get locked in like worn paths through a jungle, and so carving new ways requires an immense amount of time. You’ll never see the fruits of your labor yourself — both because the vast majority of people have an ego they protect at all cost, and because by the time something “clicks” and new neural paths build, you’ll be long gone.

2. Always recognize that your target audience is not the individual, themselves, necessarily, but the onlookers to the discussion. Always hold the high road. Always be courteous and let them throw the first punches. You’ll have a much easier task convincing the fence-sitters whose egos aren’t directly on the line as a direct participant in the conversation.

You can increase the probability you’ll reach these people by ending the conversation on a cordial note once you realize arguments are starting to become circular. You also know you made some decent ground if they just ghost the conversation or delete their entire comment chain without warning. You pierced their ego; they feel embarrassed. You’ve given them food for thought. Try to also frame how you got out of the echo-chamber so it’s not necessarily an attack on them, but an example of growth on yourself.

It’s a thankless task, the victories you’ll never see until we see it on a statistical level. The problem is that it’s a competition for who commands their attention the most, and you’ll never compete with Twitter, Fox News. You just have to hope they have that eureka moment, combined with perhaps a direct run-in with the fascism you warn about.

Putin’s bidding to fracture the deepest alliances of the West under utterly bullshit pretenses.

I’d double RAM and dump the rest into a new GPU. Beyond that you might as well save for a new rig.

Good. The rest of our traditional allies must remain united and in lockstep with Ukraine.

Trump under the direction of Putin is clearly attempting to fracture the Western alliances in order to gain relative strength. It seems most of these countries recognize the game being played and aren’t taking the bait thankfully.

I’ll feel much better if Canadian elections go well.

This is an excuse and nothing more to consolidate power, remove oversight, and sabotage the American intelligence apparatus on behalf of Russia.

Any kids or spouse present?

With how reckless this was I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a Boogaloo stunt to frame leftists either. They were caught doing that with George Floyd protesters after all.

I know the results of Germany are something of a mixed bag but at least they managed to hold the line. It will give me a good bit of hope if we see Canada at least manage the same. We’ll need all the stability we can get for these next years…

I appreciate the rise of folk heroes of all varieties but I think Chris Kluwe’s act is more my speed and within the capacity of many others. Hopefully it sets him up to be able to run for office next year.

Hahaha ladies and gentlemen, bystander audience… There it is. My case in point.

Checkmate.

I think it’s a pretty high bar to say that 2 genocides > 1 genocide and Option 2 was more persuadable than Option 1.

But I’ll be sure to relay to Ukrainians that you believe, by extension, that they’re not noteworthy at all.

Well all I know is that now we’re going full-throttle on not one but 2 genocides, including the one in Ukraine with even less of a chance to dissuade this administration than the previous on either so… Overall I’d call them, better.

Do you know why Biden had a complete falling out with Bibi and why Bibi was quite clearly going behind Biden and supporting Trump’s reelection? Do you know why Biden and Harris had no good choices when it came to Israel/Palestine ahead of the election?

If you want to know why people elected Trump not once but twice, I’d start with the Citizen’s United decision and the complete stranglehold right wing media has in controlling the national narrative in this country. That’s a hint to the last question as well.

Well sure but there are many niche groups who when aggregated together could’ve put us over the top. I just have to highlight this particularly group that so clearly shot themselves in the foot and should, ostensibly, know better. Trump supporters I can even understand more.

It’s okay because uncommitted are patting themselves on the back.

In fact they’d probably go, “Harris would’ve done the same thing!” lmao.

and online “reaction” are never representing on the ground situation.

Unironically saying this as online reaction such as this, absent of any evidence or being on the ground themselves.

Fleeing from conscription is common across all wars, no matter how just. Russia has massive problems with people fleeing. Anyways, that’s not really what the article was discussing.

It actually is pretty black-and-white in terms of who is fighting a just war, and who is fighting a war more akin to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.

I’ve already planned with my wider family that for the next 4 years we aren’t doing jack shit for holidays. No black friday (tbh we never did anyway), no cyber Monday. No gifts for Christmas.

Ah much small government, telling others what to do and intruding on one’s conversation with their doctor.

Such individual freedom!

A surprise half day at work. Outside, it’s beautiful. Bonus if it goes into your weekend.

More evidence that Corporations are psychopaths in pathological pursuit of profit, just as Joel Bakan wrote.

The mosquito likely evolved to try, but the body evolves to defend just the same. Your irritation is your own body’s immune response after all.