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  • There's a Craig Ferguson interview, where he says one of the secrets of some(!!!) of the most attractive Hollywood actors, is that in real-life they look like bug people. You know, weird looking, big eyes, huge head, tiny body. Looks great on camera and in 2d, not so much in the flesh. Probably also why IRC some Hollywood insiders call actors lollipop people. Stick with a big head on it.

  • Sorry to reply to an older comment, but you are correct. Feeling alienated from (capitalist) society or the fake mediatised and commericalised reality we're often fed is indeed different to derealization.

    I've experienced the latter, and it's more like an out of body experience. Like you're floating a few centimeters above your body, or like you're watching yourself in a movie. Like you're experiencing something that feels like very vivid deja vu or like you're in a dream. Which can of course lead you to make very bad decisions.

    It’s a product of this warped system of capitalism. Unite over it. Don’t pin it to your lapel.

    I sometimes wonder if it isn't sometimes a deliberate attempt to individualise societal problems. Pretend the syptoms are the problem, rather than adress the cause: a sick and profoundly unfair society that is in seemingly terminal decline. You're sad about climate change? It's your fault for not taking anti-depressants. You're angry about industrial pollution? You didn't put the yogurt pot in the wrong bin, it's your fault.

  • Obviously this sucks, but it's also quite interesting. They call themselves American Banderites. Banderites were far right Ukrainian nationalists, but since WW2 the term has mainly been used by Soviet propaganda and by the Putin regime:

    In propaganda the term has been used by Soviets after 1942 as a pejorative term for Ukrainians, especially western Ukrainians, or Ukrainian speakers; under Vladimir Putin-ruled Russia the term was used by state media as a pejorative for Euromaidan activists and Ukrainians who support sovereignty from Russia ... Today, in Russian propaganda, the word is used to refer to all in Ukraine who back the idea of sovereignty from Russia; Ukrainian nationalist collaboration with Nazi Germany is also emphasized

    This is why Ukrainians sometimes call themselves Judeo-Banderites, as a joke about how many Jewish people support the supposedly Nazi regime in Kiev and its Jewish president. Obviously, Ukraine does have a far right, but they're incredibly marginalised:

    Ukraine does have a far-right movement, and its armed defenders include the Azov battalion, a far-right nationalist militia group. But no democratic country is free of far-right nationalist groups, including the United States. In the 2019 election, the Ukrainian far right was humiliated, receiving only 2% of the vote.

    This was a bit of a tangent, but it sounds like these kids may have been influenced by Russian propaganda. Certainly interesting how the far right is divided over Ukraine, with some supporting Russia and some supporting Ukraine, despite the whole Jewish president and relatively pro-LGBT thing.

  • I'm honestly surprised that Stephen King's obsession with including child abuse and rape in his books hasn't caused more waves in the age of twitter. Certainly a bit weird how Stephen King is often recommended to young adults.

  • Here's what I found:

    Over the past year, numerous dissidents across Russia have found their Telegram accounts seemingly monitored or compromised. Hundreds have had their Telegram activity wielded against them in criminal cases. Perhaps most disturbingly, some activists have found their “secret chats”—Telegram’s purportedly ironclad, end-to-end encrypted feature—behaving strangely, in ways that suggest an unwelcome third party might be eavesdropping. These cases have set off a swirl of conspiracy theories, paranoia, and speculation among dissidents, whose trust in Telegram has plummeted. In many cases, it’s impossible to tell what’s really happening to people’s accounts—whether spyware or Kremlin informants have been used to break in, through no particular fault of the company; whether Telegram really is cooperating with Moscow; or whether it’s such an inherently unsafe platform that the latter is merely what appears to be going on. ... Elies Campo, who says he directed Telegram’s growth, business, and partnerships for several years, confirmed this general characterization to WIRED, as did a former Telegram developer. In other words, Telegram has the capacity to share nearly any confidential information a government requests. Users just have to trust that it won’t.

    https://www.wired.com/story/the-kremlin-has-entered-the-chat/

  • I mean, Biden absolutely is wishy washy.

    But he also reversed Trump's policy of saying West Bank settlement is legal, and sanctioned violent Israeli settlers.

    Obviously Gaza's really bad, but what's happened and happening in the West Bank is also arguably ethnic cleansing. Chasing Palestinians off their land. Trump's a fan.

  • You're may be right. I assume most of them are 'useful idiots'.

    They realised western media were often biased, so they switched to 'critical' media, spent more and more time in internet bubbles, and ended up uncritically parroting Russian, Chinese or Iranian propaganda instead.

    Same thing happened after 9/11 and Iraq. A lot of people were angry about how biased CNN was, so they switched to channels like Russia Today because it was critical of the US and did genuinely have a lot of good journalism. Of course, that doesn't mean Russia Today isn't propaganda. A lot of these people are forever lost, I don't think you can deprogram them.

    Also if people use a lot of slogans like "cultural marxism", "Fuck Brandon" or "genocide Joe", without being able to articulate a nuanced position, it's likely they've succumb to newspeak. Newspeak uses an impoverished and simplified vocabulary, to prevent people from critical thinking.

  • It's at least in part Russian propaganda. They don't want people to vote for Trump, they do want democratic voters to not vote at all, which will help Trump get elected.

    Look at the people pushing the 'genocide Joe' thing. Invariably they're anti-NATO and make excuses for Iran, Syria and Russia. Not that they're doing it deliberately, but plenty seem to have bought the propaganda and are acting like useful idiots by spreading it.

  • Ok.

    But in the quote you used above he explicitly says he is not including the Holocaust. Perhaps use another quote next time.

    To be clear, and I've said it here before, but IMHO it's not helpful to make nazi/holocaust comparisons, when you can call them fascists or racial supremacists (because plenty of them verifiably are based on what they have provably said and done) and call what they're doing ethnic cleansing or genocide.

    It's far harder to deny.

    But I suppose the language you use depends on the goal you have in mind.

  • Anyone call this a Holocaust level genocide is an absolute moron.

    You're not entirely wrong, and I'm not accusing anyone here, but sometimes they're not stupid. Sometimes they are doing it deliberately to disconcert and because they know it will be hurtful to survivors (most of whom weren't Jewish, but I digress). Sometimes they're being useful idiots and uncritically parroting that propaganda.

    Unfortunately a lot of anti-Israel propaganda does have explicitly anti-semitic undertones. For example, the Russian/Soviet inspired stuff. Twitter is also full of actual Nazis using this conflict for their own ends. It's important for people who oppose what Israel is doing, to avoid adopting those anti-semitic undertones even if they're justifiably angry, because it allows the Israeli far-right to paint all criticism of Israel as anti-semitic. It also alienates the many Jewish people who are critical of the Israeli government and how the Palestinians are treated.

    For example, saying "Zionists control all Western Media" plays into the trope of Jews controlling the media, and is easy to disprove. Obviously not all Jews are Zionists, but if you go on a website like StormFront, they'll openly admit using Zionist as a dogwhistle for Jew. Hence, you'll occasionally see an especially blatant comment which says something about '''Zionists''' being cunning or the like. Plenty of western coverage is critical, which those who defend what Israel is doing will happily use to claim that there is no Zionist bias in Western coverage. Meanwhile if you don't engage in hyperbole, and simply state that a lot of (but not all) western media are very often (but not always) biased(not fully controlled) in favour of Israel, that's very hard to disprove because IMHO it's largely true.

    But you've been heavily downvoted, I've been heavily downvoted above, and this comment will inevitably also be heavily downvoted too. The fediverse is a bit of a circlejerk like that.

    It's not as if what we say will actually influence anything anyway, and we're certainly not going to stop the killings. I participate in the fediverse to practice my English.