Yes, it’s possible. Any system built by people can be destroyed by people.

Now, of course, there would be a reaction. What specifically that would be I can’t say. I’d like to think it would cause serious blowback, but I’m also pretty jaded and don’t really have that much faith in people all the time.

Great example! These little turns of phrases and wordplay that reveal the incredible right-wing bias of our media are all over the place if you learn how to look for them.

Another great example you see all the time is “office involved shooting” whenever someone is shot by police. It’s always something like “John Smith died after an officer involved shooting” or “a gun was discharged in an officer involved shooting that resulted in the death of Jane Smith.” Where it should be “Officer Joe Blow murdered John and Jane Smith.”

Those of us who pay attention know.

However, the media ecosystem is INCREDIBLY conservative and pumps out the rah-rah jingoism whenever it can. Those of who just stick to the mainstream echochambers think the US is a bastion of freedom and peace.

At the Tesla protests, yes. it’s mostly standing there with signs and chanting. At the one I attend, the dealership is on a major road with a TON of traffic. People line the street on either side stretching for about 1/2 a mile. The first protest had a bunch of people at the front door of the dealership, but police came and arrested one person. Since then, there has always been a police presence right at the front door. The cops tend to leave us alone if don’t go up to the door of the dealership. A couple of times every hour a group will organize to try to block the road. They’ll usually hold the space for about 5 minutes before the police come and force everyone back to the sidewalks. The point here is to challenge authority.

On a broader scale (I attend a LOT of protests), it depends on the protest. At those that are planned and coordinated by a larger organization (think the Women’s March, March for Science, etc) there’s usually a stage with a series of speakers “preaching to the choir” to energize the crowd. There’s lost of people chanting in unison various slogans/chants. Usually there’s a single rallying point where the speeches happen, then there will often be a march from that point to somewhere else. Along the route the crowd shuts down the streets, chants, carry signs, etc. The point here to make connections with like-minded people and demonstrate that there is popular support for whatever issue/concern there is.

At less coordinated protests without a central organizing committee (think the 2017 airport protests, the 2020 uprising) there’s not as much of set “schedule of events”. It’s more of a way for a community to express their collective anger/fear/outrage/etc. The specific goal will depend more on the specific event. For example, the 2017 airport protests were against the first version of Trump’s Muslim Ban. People entering the US from the countries he had tried to ban people from were being held in holding rooms at airports. A large number of activists showed up at airports where those people were being held and the sheer numbers and anger we were expressing got the people working at the airports to let the people go. There were also immigration lawyers who showed up to those protests. When the people in holding were released, they had legal representation right there waiting to support them. The 2020 uprising events were about showing that people weren’t afraid of the police and wouldn’t be silenced by police violence.

At every protest I’ve ever been at, there are always people from various organizations walking through the crowd trying to get people to sign up. Sometimes it’s just collecting names/emails/phone numbers for a fundraising list. Sometimes it’s staffers for politicians raising signatures to get on a ballot, or to get a referendum on a ballot. Sometimes it’s activist organizations trying to get people who might be willing to take further actions.

As virtually every protest winds down, there’s usually a group of people, almost always not affiliated with the “official event” who organize to continue taking action, typically less sanctioned, and dubiously legal actions.

Most protests don’t achieve their immediate goal. That’s how it’s always been. The way we tend to talk about it, any given movement or event has 3 sets of goals: short-term/immediate goals, mid-terms goals, and long-term goals. We usually fail at the short-term goals (although not always). But we’re almost always successful at the medium- and long-term goals. These Tesla protests, for example. The short-term/immediate goal is to shut down the specific dealership we’re protesting at. That has only happened where police presence has been light and where protesters are willing to take illegal action and get arrested (which is always a minority of protesters). This goal has largely been unsuccessful. The medium-term goal is to destroy the Tesla brand so much that the stock price plummets. This is already happening. After the election, Tesla stock prices skyrocketed. Since the protests started, the stock price has already dropped back to where it was before the election, wiping out all that value added since the election. Keep this up, and we’ll hopefully force it even farther down. If we’re lucky, they’ll have to start closing dealerships. The long-term goal is to remove Musk and Trump from power. Obviously, that hasn’t happened yet, but that’s why it’s a long-term goal.

If you say yes, your 17 year old son will be fucking his girlfriend in your house with your implied consent.

If you’re fine with that, go ahead and say yes.

If it helps mollify you any, I think it’s pretty likely they’ve already fucked.

Expecting consistency between beliefs and actions from bigots and fascists is a mistake.

There were well over 1000 people at the protest I was at on Saturday…

Next Saturday (April 5) is supposed to be a huge day of protest across the country, notably with a very large demonstration planned for the National Mall in DC. I plan to be at that one.

Or just say you want the comfy pillow.

It’s marketed as being a product for new parents. There’s no law that says is must be used that way.

a) No, nobody will judge you

b) If they do, fuck 'em

You can guess what happens next?

He fixed the cable?

My thought is no. I have kids, but mine are much younger (3 & 5). Right now, I’d prefer to wait as long as possible before I get them smartphones. My niece and nephew didn’t get one until they were 15, and I feel like that’s too young, too.

My big concern is social media. If I could ensure they weren’t on social media at all, I wouldn’t have as much of a problem. But I don’t think it’s safe or healthy for kids to be on social media that young. Hell, I’m almost 40 and I don’t think it’s safe or healthy for me to be on social media (yet here I am…).

Also, dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.

I’m not talking about the guys who built the fucking railroad here.

Communism is just a red herring!

Governments were formed and exist to protect property rights. As much as they can be said to have an underlying purpose, it’s to protect property rights, and those who own more property will always have a greater level of protection.

The thing the liberal revolutions of the 19th century, socialist revolutions of the 20th century, and the development of social democracies in the 20th century taught governments is that there comes a point where wealth inequality gets so extreme that it threatens the stability of government, which poses the largest possible threat to property rights. Governments learned that they need to have some form of wealth redistribution in order to prevent a violent revolution. To the degree that governments do address wealth inequality, it’s focused on doing it just enough to prevent the system from collapsing.

That’s why there’s really nobody focused on complete wealth equality. They don’t want that. They want to maintain status quo property rights.

I’d call it “teasing” or “play” rather than “trolling”. Trolling has a bit of a mean connotation to it where as teasing/play is more, well, playful.

But, yes, after a certain point babies/infants do understand teasing play. That’s essentially what games like peek-a-boo are. Babies don’t have real object permanence until they’re 8-12 months. That is, they don’t fully have the ability to recognize that a thing still exists when it is not within their site/sensory perception until they’re 8-12 months. (It gradually develops, so they’ll gain more and more object permanence as they get older rather than just turning on all of a sudden.) When you play peek-a-boo, you’re using this lack of fully developed object permanence to tease them. They won’t recognize it as teasing at first, but they get it pretty quickly. That’s why they laugh and have fun with it.

“I don’t hate you because you’re a POC, a woman, or queer. I hate you because you’re poor.”

Microsoft has the ability to do this if they really wanted to. It would completely destroy their business if they did, though, so they won’t. I mean, who would keep using Microsoft products if the company was willing to just take it away from you at a moment’s notice?

The US government cannot do it so easily. They’d have to order Microsoft to do so. Microsoft would resist and take it to court. The US Court system makes a LOT of really fucked up rulings, but the one thing they do reliably is side with big business. I’m inclined to think that in this hypothetical showdown, the courts would side with Microsoft.

I’m generally not particularly picky when I’m listening to music. I don’t often want just one specific song or artist. Usually I’m looking for a genre/vibe and that’s it.

With that in mind, I prefer Pandora. I’ve been using it for ~20 years now and have a lot of VERY well curated stations. I also don’t mind the ads so much, and, therefore, have never had to pay for it. On the rare occasions I want a very specific song, I can just pull it up on YouTube.

My wife and I recently sprung for a Spotify account. We have a 3 yo and 5 yo and, like most children, they want to listen to a few specific albums on repeat. We had Amazon Music for a bit, but really disliked it. So we switched to Spotify. I mostly only use it to play music for my kids.

I truly believe John Darnielle is the most talented working poet right now.

Tomas Kalnoky (bands include Catch 22, Streetligh Manifest, Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution, and Toh Kay) is one of the best songwriters of all time, IMO. His lyrics resonate very well with me.

Pat the bunny (Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains, Ramshackle Glory, Wignut Dishwashers Union, etc) is another great lyricist. While they don’t always speak directly to my personal life experiences, I’ve known a lot of people like those he describes, and his politics match mine closely.

John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats) is just a beautiful poet and puts a TON of emotion into his guitar playing. I truly believe he’s the greatest living poet working right now.