hotspur

This is exactly correct. I thought I hadn’t heard him before a while back, went and listened to top tracks, and realized I’d heard all of it—it was the background soundtrack of basically every public venue I’d been to in the last decade.

Yeah this is just… fuck.

Looked it up. It was called The Kansas experiment

I need to refresh myself on the details, but I’m reminded of Sam Brownback getting to enact the entire republican playbook in Kansas at the state scale, and it had fairly awful consequences for the state and everyone in it if I recall correctly. This feels similar, except at a way more threatening and potentially permanent scope.

Edit: corrected Arizona to Kansas.

Maaaan you beat me to it, same image popped into my head when I read this. But prior to nihilist arrival, that whole vibe is pretty appealing.

Yeah this was my reaction a while back when I saw their promos about how they want to de-extinct wooly mammoths and dodos. Like ok neat, but where are the mammoths supposed to slot in, a rapidly warming arctic that will more likely have palm trees than ice by the end of the century?

I mean I’m being a little obtuse here on purpose—these species choices are obviously guided by marketing potential. No one will pay attention if they resurrect some niche mouse that went extinct a couple years ago, so they’re picking stuff that looms large in pop consciousness.

But in the end, it’s a private company, and I very much doubt their whole goal is to make money off of conservation societies and zoos to make extinct animals—far more likely it’s to refine and recreate new genetic editing procedures which will then get ported into making purpose-built animals for industry (think the sheep who’s milk has certain valuable enzymes or chemicals built in) or like human biotech (so, like, GATTACA).

The “founder” gives off strong Palmer Luckey vibes. (This is based on visual aesthetic and his general demeanor vibes only, he could be a saint, I have no idea)

The frequency of “HEXBEARS BAD, plz defederate” posts I’ve seen from some of the libbier instances has been higher the last week or two.

Amusingly most of them, once you review their post history to see what the unpleasant interaction they had was, seem to just be weird blue maga trolls. I still don’t get the concept of centrist trolls, like it just doesn’t compute.

Silver lining, all the defed posts reminded me that I don’t have to suffer having .world in my feed thanks to instance blocking.

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I’d imagine for the same reasons that people study the past and try and understand how events unfold. People still mention the name Chamberlain when discussing the rise of the third reich for instance.

When Snowden released his collection of files way back when, he made the argument that the panopticon that was being built wasn’t being used in the worst way at the time of his decision to whistleblow. But his point was that the construction of such tools could not be justified based on their eventual use by a worse form of American govt.

When the liberal mainstream—and this includes Biden, major media, and most other center/center-left politicians and pundits over the last year and a half—presided over the framing of anti-semitism as the act of being critical of Israeli govt actions and supported that govt in a year long punishment campaign to destroy an ethnic group, they normalized the positions that are now being used to deport green card holders and leverage higher ed into submission. Free speech on this issue was fought over last year, and generally, the anti-free speech side won.

It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re worse, or even equal in vileness to the current admin, but it is a point worth recognizing. Enshrining Trump, as horrid as he is, as an exception may be comforting, but it removes the broader narrative that brought our present about. If we don’t work to understand this sequence with clear eyed judgment, our resistance to it will likely fail.

“Scientist” as a general concept doesn’t have an inherent positive or negative value. Some scientists have invented things that saved lives or expanded our understanding of the universe. Others experimented on prisoners, or developed addicting drugs for big pharma. Personally I’d say scientists are more likely to resemble the first, not the second, but what defines the value is not the profession, but the actions they take as individuals.

His comment appeared to describe the issues with approval of scientists as a baseline, when the capitalist system they’re trapped within has other incentives and agendas. It’s a point one can certainly disagree with, but it is a coherent argument.

If one cannot learn from history, it will repeat. The actions that led to this moment are important to understand if one wants to be able to counter them and avoid them in the future.

What’s sort of eerie though is that DCA has been having lots of these TCAS alerts If you consider multiple TCAS alert incidents, as well as the in-air collision that happened, it’s an unsettling pattern developing at DCA.

Yeah ok, so similar MO to the other pay in and get your case squashed schemes that trump has been running. The corruption dial has really been turned to 11 I guess.

So, did this guy also buy millions of world liberty financial governance coins?

A.) this is a joke right? B.) amusing they think there’s gonna be a viable election in 2028

You were successful, I definitely smirked ;)

Sweet is that what colugo means? If so, it’s a well-applied name for that (lemur? Squirrel?). I’m guessing they’re another weirdo nocturnal primate-ish thing like the tarsiers?

Have never heard of these before, they are amazing looking. Thanks for expanding my world a little bit today!

I was thinking that also, but perhaps it has it coiled back in between its legs?