Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

James #Inhofe is dead. I hope his spot in Hell is at a pleasant temperature when he arrives, but then steadily gets warmer ... and warmer ... and warmer ... Satan should be very amused by his constant denials.

#seemslegit

@jessesheidlower With the popularity of _The Martian_ and _The Expanse_, I wonder if we're due for a resurgence of SF set in the Solar System. If so, I'd expect words relating to the gas giant moons to make a resurgence, since the moons themselves are such obvious candidates for human habitation.

I bet you can guess the context.

"Of course. Everyone is ignorant of nearly everything. The totality of human knowledge is too vast for any one person to learn more than a tiny fraction of it in a lifetime, and all *possible* knowledge is far greater than that. All I can do is try to learn my little sliver, and maybe if I'm lucky contribute a little more.

"But I do know *how we know what we know*, and some dude sitting in his truck making a YouTube video about how evolution is fake and vaccines are a (((globalist))) plot and global warming is a hoax because it snowed yesterday ain't it."

Eloquent and succinct.

@pikachu_sensei 😀

@VoxDei Yeah. Letting the perpetrators of a coup attempt off the hook is like ignoring a small tumor. They *grow*. We should have started the surgery in 2021.

@TerryHancock Simple: if a Republican does it, it's official.

Leave aside the self-evident truth that the #Supreme #Court's #immunity ruling was purely for #Trump's benefit. Leave aside the near certainty that it will be applied generously to #Republicans, and stingily if at all to anyone else. Leave aside the breathtaking level of judicial activism required to create a class of immunity with no grounding in precedent or the plain language of the #Constitution.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

This is a terrible idea. In a sane world, breaking the law cannot be an official act, because the #President's chief responsibility in office is to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." By saying that a category of official acts which are immune to prosecution *exists*, even hypothetically, the Court has placed any President, current or former, beyond a substantial portion of the law's reach. Any President to whom the (in)Justices in their wisdom deem it to apply, anyhow—but again, that's a side issue.

For anyone who disagrees, here's a challenge: think of one official act, any *possible* action the President as President could take, which requires immunity but is still within the law. One. Take all the time you need.

It's the macro-scale version of cops never writing each other speeding tickets. We should demand a *higher* standard from people we give power to execute the law, or at the very least an equal one. Instead we wink and nod at blatant abuses of that power. This does not strike me as a recipe for long-term national survival.

"Shocked but not surprised" is getting a real workout these days.

This is an excellent analysis of the fallout from the #Presidential #debate. TL;DR: #Biden's not going to step down, there's no reason for him to step down, and the #campaign will go on pretty much as before.

But I urge you to read the whole thing. And if you find yourself tempted to comment in response to my one-sentence summary, without following the link ... do it somewhere else.

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Jun29-1.html

And this kind of thing is why I keep coming back to #Quora, for all its sins.

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**Did 3rd wave #feminism cause the #MGTOW movement?**

The MGTOW movement has been around for fucking centuries. It was just called bachelorhood and it was celebrated. The “nagging wife” image of her beating the man over the head with a rolling pin (gee, let’s check the stats on domestic abuse…oh. Wow.) The “old ball and chain.” Men giving away the bride to (usually) another guy. Feminism, regardless of wave number, or any type of societal breakage by women was met with the increasing levels of hatred and vitriol. You see, these guys who say “men built society” are correct. But the next time you hear that, you may want to ask “for whom did they build it, jackass?” Because it sure as shit isn’t built for fucking women.

This is why the very idea that society needs a “mens movement” be it MGTOW or red pill or MRAs is laughably fucking absurd. If you want to jerk yourself off for “building society” the least you could do is take responsibility for not building it on a nearly equitable level. Feminism looks to rectify that. Nothing caused the MGTOW “movement.” It just went online and went from being Henry Higgins singing 🎶LET A WOMAN IN YOUR LIFE🎶 to….just insufferable fucking whining. Spoiled little shits, the lot of ‘em.

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Original: https://www.quora.com/Did-3rd-wave-feminism-cause-the-MGTOW-movement/answer/Zach-the-Voice

@cdarwin The system is working as designed.

The system is working as designed.

This seems like sound advice.

@LaNaehForaday If he gets back into office, he'll just change the rules. Doesn't matter what the law says. No matter how much he lies, when he says he plans to be a dictator on day one, I believe him. 😐

#Covid #lockdowns and #vaccines saved almost a million lives in the US over the last four years. There's the really important part. If you stop reading now, remember that. Everything else is commentary.

The number will grow over time, because covid is still killing people. Last time I checked, it accounted for 0.4% of US deaths, 30-40 per day. Thirty or forty people who desperately wanted another year, another month, another day, another hour. Thirty or forty grieving families. Thirty or forty lifetimes of memory gone. Thirty or forty worlds entire.

Better than hundreds, or thousands, and if you don't remember those days then it's because you've made yourself forget. I can't say I blame you.

Cost, you say? *Cost*? I'm sure economists can break it down to the penny. Places I loved died, as surely as people. Ruined careers, shattered dreams, lives not ended but made less. Yes. I acknowledge this.

I say the real cost cannot be measured in money. The nineteenth crow broke us. We have collective post-covid syndrome, and it's not going away any time soon. Our sanity, not just as individuals but as a people, was maybe never that great to start with. Now it's staggering down the alley talking to itself, grabbing onto walls for support, and baby, there's no detox for that.

Some of those eight hundred thousand actively take the side of a virus against their fellow human beings. They survived not because of science or medicine or even plain luck, but because of some special virtue. They were chosen by divine favor. They came through okay, so it was never that bad. They know it was a commie plot. Whatever. You've heard it all before.

Not a majority, I still believe that. A hundred thousand? Two? Three?

*Enough*, along with tens of millions of others.

There it is, the worst cost of all. We tolerate their continued existence, these traitors to humanity, because the alternative is horror. Because we still hope, desperately, that we might be able to bring some of them around. Because they're our families and friends. Because we're better than them.

We pay for them, every day, and we will keep paying for the rest of our lives.

Next time, and there will be a next time, they'll be ready. Will you? Eight hundred thousand saved—and over a million gone. They'll do their best to add to the latter number. For *anyone* you love, whatever side they're on, stand up. Do what's right, and never stop pushing others to do the same.

Maybe it's time for me to stop banging this drum. I don't believe that, though. The next virus, or bacterium, or parasite ... it will be ready too.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2024/05/09/social-distancing-plus-vaccines-prevented-800000-covid-deaths-great-cost