That, plus I think its to get you more invested. Like if you have the app on your phone you might want to use it again, or youll forget about it and then see it later and think about their product/service/whatever.

In the modern age so many things that should just be websites are apps and many things that should be apps/programs are websites

Democratic primaries do have issues, yeah, particularly in the presidential race. But I wouldn’t say theyre meaningless in local elections. Still, definitely a lot of issues, but voting in primaries still does far more than refusing to vote in the main election ever would.

First off, the donbas is not majority russian. While it has the largest group of Russians in the country it is still majority Ukrainian.

Second, the ICJ and international association of genocide scholars investigated Russia’s claim of massacre and genocide and found them to be entirely baseless and fabricated to justify invasion.

Third, if this was about liberating the donbas, then Russia wouldn’t have gone all the way to Kyiv at the beginning of the invasion. Even still Russia occupies far more than the donbas.

I swear the way some of yall rush to defend Russia. You guys realize it’s not socialist anymore, right? That the country is ruled and controlled by capitalists? That capital interests like the oil in ukraine are what drive them?

No, I’m pointing out your hypocrisy in recognizing that Iraqi nukes and the war on terror were largely overplayed to justify the invasion of the middle east for oil but not recognizing when Russia does the same shit in Ukraine. But it seems like you’re the type to decide who to support based on a vague tribalist conception of “east vs west” rather than actually having any moral principles to rely on, so I apologize if my criticism of certain eastern and western actions simultaneously is too much for you to handle.

Every year the DNC says “we got less votes this year! Must be the centrists voting for republicans, we gotta be more moderate!” and then somehow those folks turn around and say “the democrats are too moderate, if enough of us don’t vote, the DNC will see they are losing support and realize they need to come back left!”

I will always understand having grievances for the democratic party because all they do is defend the status quo - I do too - but not voting over that is just fucking stupid. You want to change that? Go to protests, vote in primaries, support local initiatives for ranked choice voting, donate to causes you find actually beneficial, support local politicians that dont just support the status quo, support movements you believe in. If its about Gaza, speak up about that, donate to humanitarian funds, etc. There are ao many things you can do that can impact these things. But refusing to vote does actually fucking nothing for that cause.

There is no world in which more people refusing to vote for Kamala would have gotten us a better president or stopped genocide in gaza. Or really had any impact in any way that wasn’t making trump more likely to win. IMO the folks that did that were doing it more for themselves so they could feel morally superior because they didnt vote for the candidate that supported genocide or the “status quo” even though it literally never would have had any impact on either of those things.

(And let’s be real - trump is way worse for Gaza than Kamala would have been. I’m sure she wouldn’t have done enough, just like Biden, but at least there are voices in that party calling out Israel. Those voices fall far more deaf on this administration’s ears)

Right, and the oil is just a coincidence, that just so happened to be there. And the US invaded Iraq because of terrorists and nukes that weren’t there, the oil was just a coincidence.

You’re really gonna say the attempts to distance themselves from the culture of their previous colonizers and current invaders is genocide?

Right, because drawing an allegory to the actions of the United States in the middle east as an example of doing something bad is the best way to praise the states

“No guys, it’s ok when Russia unapologetically invades a foreign country for oil, because you see that country is part of the west and west = bad”

Free speech has returned guys!!! Comedy is legal again!!! You can say whatever you want as long as it aligns with the vision of the glorious leader!

Yeah this is a weird selection of companies. What about Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, even 4chan?

At the very least the social media sites that use algorithmic recommendations heavily. The recent shooting in Colorado got me thinking about how social media algorithms that repeatedly pushes content thats found to engage can easily cause people to fall into a spiral of radicalization. Even just the slightest interest in something, or even shock, can trigger their algorithms to get to work recommending similar stuff. News sites mentioned the kid in Colorado that shot up the school had social media accounts full of shit that glorified school shootings. How’d that start? Maybe something popped up that made a joke about school shootings and he thought it was funny cause its “edgy” or something? And then it remembers that, and pushes another similar post, and another, and on and on until this kid’s feed is supposedly full of this kind of content. I don’t know if that happened but it seems likely.

But nah, its valve that they’re going after. Cause I guess its always the video games that are to blame, right?

And discord? That’s just a fancy chat board. What’s next, should we question IRC? Email?

Yeah I’ve felt similarly before. I agree with the other though, drinking more water helps.

I mean I could almost see that? Helldivers is kinda a satire on the american brand of fascism so it could be argued its an anti-fascist peace of media. But that’s a stretch to say the least.

But my real issue with this is that federal investigators saw something they had absolutely no clue what it is and called it a transgender symbol. Its an incredible amount of bias in a particularly very bigoted way.

Reminds me of a lyric from The Clash - “taking off his turban, they said, ‘is this man a jew?’” They see something unknown to them and just assign it to the marginalized group they have a preconceived notion of being bad.

At least is it 2 games bundled together?

Inb4 they say “its two games, so this will be $140!”

Ok but these are meant to be in bike lanes, sharing space with regular bikes. Part of the point of bike lanes was because it was dangerous for bikes to be sharing space with vehicles that can go so much faster than them.

Edit: imo if it has a throttle which can be used to keep up with motor vehicles then it is a motor vehicle. It should be classed with motorcycles.

If its gonna be considered a bicycle, it should have at the very least a speed limit on the throttle, or maybe no throttle allowed at all and pedal assist only.

The same day, a school in Colorado got shot up by someone who had fallen deep into the alt-right pipeline. It was known that this student was viewing white supremacist, extreme right content. Not a word from the president about that radical right wing rhetoric being to blame or anything of the sort.

Edit: kid also shot himself after. Alt-right pipeline hurts those that fall into it too.

This says that the “sequence of arrows” was interpreted as a transgender symbol.

Now we know that the sequence of arrows was “up, right, down, down, down”

…that’s the strategem code for the 500kg bomb in helldivers 2.

The ATF interpreted a video game reference as a transgender symbol…

Edit: another claim I’m seeing, quote from snopes:

Some users online claimed officials had misinterpreted “TRN,” an engraving found on ammunition produced by Turan Ammunition, a Turkish company, as “transgender ideology.”

This is a more logical mistake to make but is also an embarrassing and irresponsible mistake from the ATF if true.

I have mixed feelings on this one, tbh

On one hand, that was actually the original name. That changed after WW2 and to be honest I kinda think the name was part of a greater campaign to make it seem as though, somehow, the military actions that followed in the next few decades in the middle east, Asia, Latin America, etc. were actually all just “defending” the US. Which is bullshit.

On the other hand, having perhaps the most insane president this country has ever seen saying that calling it war instead of defense because its more accurate to the current times is quite concerning to say the least.