Flat earthers are easily radicalised into right wing belief like “The world is controlled by Jewish lizards” and “the election was stolen from Trump” and “the vaccine contains a bill gates microchip that makes you gay”. And right wing conspiracy theorists will willingly spend their life savings on Alex Jones dick engorgement supplements while generating culture war controversy to draw political attention away from actual issues like climate change and worker’s rights that may harm big business interests.
Think of it this way: in the mediaeval age, you armed your peasants with shields and spears and had them protect your keep. In the information age, you arm your peasants with conspiracy theories and twitter accounts and have them protect your untaxed billions.
Some of them are really raking it in through Patreon and sales of shoddy merchandise. That’s how Alex Jones finances HIS deranged ramblings too.
Spouting bullshit while pretending that THEY are trying to stop you to get people to donate and buy your shit is unfortunately an extremely lucrative business for many.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t have morals or I’d be making shitloads off of these people.
Just pump out a bunch of AI voiced nonsense that has just enough ‘evidence’ to keep them going, tell them they’re special because they know this and other people who aren’t them are dumb because they don’t know this and that the mainstream (insert industry here) is trying to silence you so you need them to donate to the fight.
I view flat Earthers and people that believe in aliens as polar opposites. Flat Earthers think that the Earth is special and the center of the universe, with the heavens revolving around us. Alien believers see the universe as being incredibly vast and recognize that there’s nothing inherently special about our world and that life almost certainly exists elsewhere.
Oh I didn’t realize you were talking about people that believed they’ve been abducted. I thought you just meant people that believed that aliens existed in general.
I think they were referring to alien consipracists, who much like flat earthers believe in a global hoax committed by the elite (read: Jews and Liberals) to keep us misinformed on the true nature of our reality (for some reason). In that way they are very much cut from the same cloth.
I absolutely believe that other life exists in our vast universe. This is a pretty common opinion among scientific thinkers, space enthusiasts etc. that the universe is simply too huge for us to be all alone.
I also believe that due to that vastness, we’ll never meet any aliens, unless we punch into Europa someday and there happen to be some fish down there.
UFO enthusiasts, on the other hand, have a position that is much less supported by science.
Aliens might be real, though, I just doubt all the supposed sightings that can be chalked up to mistaking one thing for another, or just gov’t tech that we simply don’t know about.
I’m still convinced that none of these people actually believe in flat earth. It’s the kind of belief you can pretend to hold without any other that reputational damage to yourself but I doubt any of them would be willing to put their money where their mouth is.
My mother joined the Flat Earth Society when she went to college because she thought it was so absurd and would be a fun experience. Turns out none of the people in that group actually believed it either, so it was just a club to hang out and socialize.
Seems the whole flat earth thing is a lot more prevalent now so I’m guessing there are more and more people buying into the narrative.
It’s the exact same phenomenon that several other fandoms or belief groups have gone through. First, start a satirical society and laugh about the foolishness with boon companions. Enjoy the companionship. Second, expand so that the society doesn’t die when you leave college or the location. Begin recruiting folks and telling them about your society. Third, watch as people join and some don’t realize it’s satirical. Disbelief dawns on the originals. Fourth, the true believers take over as the people in on the joke slowly leave due to all sorts of reasons, including no longer finding the society funny because of the true believers.
I watched it happen with bronies (not the furry sexual folks, 4chan already had those, but just people who were really, really into the show) on 4chan, a ‘drinking’ club at my college that was a joke because they only drank water at the meetings (at first, anyway), and a local activity (can’t name it because it’s specific and would give it away) club that was truly supposed to be just a social gathering but is now populated by a gaggle of 70 year old women fervently taking part.
Just let him tire himself out and then ram into his side with a shoulder? Or kick him in the nuts or something? He’s 80… can’t imagine he’s got much speed or stamina left.
well according to ChatGPT: It’s not appropriate or constructive to speculate on violent scenarios involving real people. Both Taylor Swift and Donald Trump have their own strengths and talents in their respective fields. It’s best to focus on respectful discourse and constructive conversations.
Her weight is mostly well-trained muscles whereas he literally believes that humans are like non-rechargable batteries that run out of energy forever if they exercise too much.
As long as she makes sure he doesn’t land on her as she knocks him out cold, she’ll be fine.
I just had a discussion on Lemmy about Mike Tyson’s most famous quote and how true it is. That said, you’re talking about an unfit 77 year old fighting a fit 34 year old. If they got into a fist fight all Taylor Swift would need to do is casually move around until he dies of a heart attack. Sure he’s got height, weight, and reach going for him, but he’s also 77 years old and famously unfit.
Truly spoken like a person who thinks fat weight is the same as muscle weight and/or that Trump has the musculature to even move his fist fast enough that it counts as a punch.
Except Delirium Turdbrains, his plan is to run his mouth off until he physically can’t. I’d be impressed with Swift if she could shut him up in one, because he literally wouldn’t until he was unconscious.
Weird, are you not at least partially a terminally online nerd like the rest of us? I never actually read the comic but it seems like it’s impossible to have been on reddit and such for so long without ever running across it.
How come every thread I see about this topic, there is nobody who is concerned about letting the federal government dictate which apps you can and cannot use to communicate with other people? This is some 1984 shit.
Apps are a Service and services have been and are regulated for decades now and the system have been always arbitrary as fuck.
In the case of TikTok, the west, as a military alliance, should be concerned due to the nature of current valid Chinese laws and the implications of it.
And e.g. facebook has proven that they don’t like to stick to rules about how to handle data. In case of TikTok, this could easily have bigger implications for e.g. the American military.
The current situation over in China still allows internet users to easily access services like Facebook or YouTube through VPNs, it was more of a measure of digital protectionism to allow local development of IT companies, online business, etc. If China wants to do similar censorship in response to these measure, they very well could still crack down on VPNs.
If it’s really about the military as you suggest then the extremely easy solution is to order service members not to use Tik Tok.
Passing a specific law to compell the sale of one specific company is arguably some sort of Bill of Attainder, which I’m sure ByteDance’s lawyers will be argueing as soon as Biden’s pen touches paper.
Well look at that. And no, that isn’t enough from a military perspective. Look at the Russian propaganda war in e.g. Germany, that shit can have a negative effect on the defensive abilities of a nation.
Most of those bans are organizations saying that employees can’t install TikTok on organization issued phones and computers, which is not at all comparable to an overall ban? My work doesn’t allow me to play video games on work computers or drink on work property, but that’s not at all the same as a law banning all video games and alcohol.
Look at the Russian propaganda war in e.g. Germany, that shit can have a negative effect on the defensive abilities of a nation.
Yeah one problem with human and civil rights is that they tend to have negative effects on the defensive abilities of a nation. War would be so much easier if you could just arrest all the peace protestors, or hold suspected enemy agents without trial, or force people to work without pay in defence industries, or force women to give birth to more people so you can conscript more soldiers.
So let’s just do away with free speech and habeus corpus, reinstitute slave labor and force women to pop out lots of kids. Then Germany can defend itself again, just like the last two times.
Aren’t you misunderstanding my point a little bit? My point isn’t that the e.g. us should ban TikTok or that national security is the most important thing ever. My first Point was that there is a national security incentive to ban TikTok in ways that e.g. Facebook doesn’t have, but like you expressed obviously there are other consideration to be made. My first Point was just that TikTok is not like Facebook from an us national security pov. Then you spoke from a ban for service members, to which I simply pointed out that there is one to some degree, especially important as there is a ban on private devices in some environments. Deployment can be reason for the ban. In other words, your suggestion is already in place to some degree. My 2nd point about Russian propaganda is also strictly about the fact that “national security” doesn’t end at the government employee line and suggesting that is ridiculous.
As you might have realized, I haven’t expressed any desire to ban TikTok. That is because I am not in favor of a ban. I am just able to argue a perspective unlike mine own and think it is necessary when people treat Facebook and TikTok the same. Do you think china doesn’t care about where their software is coming from? Do you think no one is avoiding e.g. check point firewall due to e.g. gil shwed and his story with unit 8200?
“Now, there’s this one thing that keeps puzzlin’ me, Mr. Godzilla… if your shoe size was 500 like you said it was, and you said you weren’t stompin’ over in New York City in 1998… then who else could have a shoe size of 500 stompin’ all over New York City? Couldn’t have been Mecha-Godzilla, nobody’s seen since him since ‘93.”
Why wouldn’t a male have figured out a lunar cycle and tried to track the moon? Not that the female explanation is lesser in any regard, but why exclude all possibilities?
A few weeks ago I blew my wife’s mind after she commented that both her and her best friend had started their period and I responded with ‘well, it is a full moon.’
She thought I was being ’boomer humor’ sexist until I brought up the studies about it. (Which are not 100% conclusive, mind you, but there are trends.)
Jokes on Nintendo, my next handheld is most likely still going to be a steam deck (clone?). The only difference now is I won’t buy a physical game and emulate their games on it by (downloading) a backup.
I’m not proud of it but I’ve pirated games when I was a kid, but I bought every game I pirated if I could get it on modern hardware. Even the mediocre games like Minecraft.
It’s tempting as a kid when your parents gets you an Xbox but never got any games for it, eventually you wanna play more than demos. They got duke nukem forever with the xbox and as a kid I preferred the pack in game of Kinect adventures over it.
Definitely get a Deck, it’s shocking how powerful the hardware is. If price is an issue you can wait until the refurbished ones go on sale again and pick up the cheapest model for $280.
Hudson: Seventeen DAYS!? Hey man, I don’t wanna rain on your parade, but we’re not gonna last seventeen HOURS!!! Those things are gonna come in here just like they did before! And they’re gonna come in here AND THEY’RE GONNA GET US!!!
Ripley: Hudson! This little girl survived longer than that with no weapons and no training!
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