“Is that right? I had heard an alternate theory…”

You’re definitely wrong, and I know more about this than you do.

There were also the control monkeys, who only had the standard Motaba virus.

Plus, being flung from a cage at highway speeds has been clinically proven to have an agitating effect on monkey dispositions.

Right? Like it’s weird so many people are saying “This isn’t what I voted for.” Yes, it is exactly what you voted for.

The fucked up part is that this bill permits the bypass of existing regulations. Wilderness protections already included a process to receive exemptions for critical infrastructure, including security-related improvements. The new bill simply removes the review process and creates a rubber stamp they can use to do whatever they want under the guise of border security, with zero review, oversight, or accountability for abuses.

There have been several high-profile systemic failures in the past few years that give us a glimpse into the hypothetical you’re describing. Most interruptions have lasted mere hours, if not minutes, before causing mass panic and devastating economic catastrophes. Planes are grounded, banks stop operations, global trade shuts down, and hospitals can’t access patient records.

The question isn’t how long before it would be a huge problem. That starts immediately. The better question is, how long before people adapt to a world without the internet? How long would it take to build an alternative?

It’s not rocket surgery.

Stand up with the sheet.

Place your hands inside two adjacent corners so the elastic is at your wrists.

Bring your hands together, folding the sheet in half, and flip one corner over the other hand so that one is tucked in the other.

With your free hand, reach down and gather the other two ends which are not tucked.

Let go of the tucked corners, which will slip apart again.

Curse the gods, and then roll the crumpled mess between your arms until it’s small enough to stuff into a closet or drawer.

Profit.

Fake outrage was funnier when we didn’t have real problems to argue about.

Right? Like, maybe the precursors to cancer reduce libido?

Yeah, but like a four foot turkey with sharp teeth and talons. I’m not sure I win that fight.

Like, I’m pretty sure I could beat up a 10 year old kid. That’s about the size (if not the strength) of a velociraptor. But if that kid is all coked up, has kitchen knives in each hand and a football helmet with razors on the face mask, I’m not nearly as confident. Then if there’s a second one waiting to attack from the flank, then fuck that.

And those are just the ones we know about. Thousands of people have been abducted without due process. We don’t have an accurate record of everyone ICE has assaulted or kidnapped.

Like, imagine a baker hired to bake bread. That baker claims he makes the best bread, using a traditional Grimm’s recipe where he grinds up human bones to make bread. And you think that’s a terrible idea, because there’s no source of human bones that would be not horrifying. But everyone wants him to be the baker, so he starts murdering people to grind their bones to make his bread. And you’re horrified because of all the murder and mutilation, but also the bread is terrible. You can’t bake bread from ground up bonemeal. It’s bad bread. But all the people who wanted him to bake are eating it, insisting through gritted teeth “Mmm, sooo good… You’re just a hater. Are you triggered yet? Yum, delicious.” And you want to scream because none of this is normal or moral or even human, but also it’s just poorly done. The bread is all weird and clumpy, and it’s been burnt on the crust and underbaked in the middle. There’s either too much or not enough salt, and none of it is consistent at all. It’s just the absolute worst bread ever made because the baker is incompetent and evil. And he’s transparently stealing money from the register. But because they love the baker, and they know it bothers you, all the people who voted for him are pretending this isn’t a nightmare collapse of society. They keep eating the bread, dying from the lack of nutrition or basic hygiene, and sometimes their loved ones will be murdered to become the bones that make the bread, and suddenly it’s all terribly unfair but they’d still vote for the guy again.

Telescopes would be fun. Everyone doesn’t need their own, if you can sign it out on a clear night and return it in good shape.

I oppose it simply because it doesn’t work. It is not a deterrent, and it does not serve justice to put people to death, and it costs far more to execute someone than it does to rehabilitate them (the most expensive alternative - I’m not suggesting rehabilitation is an option for everyone).

And sometimes we execute innocent people. Like, how many of your family members would you be willing to put to death to keep the death penalty? Every innocent victim of the death penalty had a family, and that family never imagined it could happen to them.

I would argue that it would impact the effectiveness of the effort, but the intention is just as important.

Like if you want to make the world a better place, you can pick up litter in your local area. You could volunteer at the library or conserve energy in whatever way is easiest for you. The desire to move forward is critical, because nobody has all the information. Nobody can know all the angles, and be aware of every impact. Everyone is just doing the best they can with the information they have.

Wanting to be better informed is also a progressive ideal. Know better, do better. We might discover that something we thought was beneficial is actually harmful. The difference between a conservative choice and a progressive choice is that when new information demonstrates that behaviors conflicts with values, the progressive changes their behaviors while a conservative changes their values.

I don’t think it’s helpful to think in terms of left and right. That presumes that each side is roughly a mirror analogue of the other.

Think in terms of forward and backward. Will your ideas and political leanings push society forward? Will you be making the world better than you found it? Or are you trying to resist change, fighting against progress because the status quo, or the recent past, benefits you in some way?

Bull, and I cannot emphasize this enough, shit. Everyone is not a little bit bigoted. That’s something bigots tell themselves when rationalizing their own prejudices. You should probably take a hard look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’re the problem.

“Progressive” describes a position, not a person. A person can be many things. A person can hold contradictory viewpoints, and fully believe two incompatible thoughts at the same time. It’s tragically naive to assume that people are rational or consistent.

Can a person think they are progressive and also be a bigot? Of course a person can. Everybody is the hero in their own story.

There are thick, uncrossable lines, and there are a lot of people who don’t mind crossing them. You cannot compromise with a bigot. You cannot find common ground with a person who would subjugate you, or someone who sees you as less than human.

We can have disagreements about many political issues, but when you are standing next to pedophiles, rapists, fascists, and bigots, you shouldn’t be surprised to be called a Nazi.

So the question becomes, what is the test of “purity”?

This is the guy in charge of medical advice for the United States. Lacking even basic scientific knowledge.