This is it. I don’t think they have particular respect for the offspring of other wealthy elites either, they just know there is power and money protecting/ defending the children of the elites if anything happens to them. These people don’t have respect for anything but themselves. They’ve just gotten where they are by having a keen instinct for self-interest and preservation.

Omg, thank you for pointing out which … lemmy space (what is the terminology here?) this was in. I honestly believed it until I couldn’t click through to an article. Satire is dead.

The whole reason China winning would be bad is because of their surveillance state ensuring no one gets around their curtailment of civil liberties…

Reminds me of this other terrible dystopian idea I saw the other day: https://nz.news.yahoo.com/elon-musk-announces-plan-control-182840080.html

Glad billionaires think they can steal the sun and sell it back to us now.

I hear New Mexico is beautiful and cheap!

But like … Why would you do that?

He got cancelled for sexual assault. It just happened to be sexual assault of a man.

If I like the show, I will read the plot of the entire series. I will keep watching it, but my husband still hates it.

I despise watching shows as they come out because I can’t stand being subject to their suspense building.

Maybe? An ex from NC introduced me to putting Sweet Hot Mustard on summer sausage + cheese + Ritz cracker, and damn. It added like, 3 points in tastiness (on a 10 point scale).

Maybe they thought it was like throwing a smoke bomb, and they could ghost while it clears.

Thank you!

Sounds like the centrists are starting to lose their nerve once their constituents start suffering. That is one of my theories of how the shut down ends.

I don’t see any news to corroborate that claim. Link?

As a Trump-hating American working in defense, I always tried to tell people that our economic dominance was enforced with the barrel of a gun. Friends working in international relations would also reference books like “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” that also pointed to usage of the CIA and international lending terms to enrich ourselves at the expanse of the 3rd world, especially Latin America. I completely agree that a capricious, bi-polar US is an untenable world leader.

But in general, it’s very hard to get most Americans to care about our relationships and interactions with the rest of the world, much less acknowledge the ways we are dependent on it. There is some US-centric vanity involved, as well as some stubborn ignorance due to never interacting with the rest of the world at all. But I think in part it’s also due to the hyper competitive nature of simply trying to live in the US, such that there is no brainspace for anything not directly affecting you. Stressors include corporate expectations that everyone should live to work, so many people a few paychecks away from losing their homes and lifestyle with no social safety net, the struggle to afford to live in areas with good schools for your kids, etc etc. In some ways, I’m hopeful that losing global pre-eminence could make life easier for us, especially if it brings about government reform (I don’t mean the MAGA version of this, obviously).

China, the obvious successor to American influence, assuming a more commanding role on the world stage is a mixed bag. On one hand, they certainly prize stability above almost everything, and an authoritarian state run by technocrats indeed seems more effective at addressing climate change than a Corporatocracy that profits from destroying the planet. On the other, there’s not even acknowledgement of unethical practices (e.g.: labor conditions in Chinese companies in DRC, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) when there is no free press. As the US spread it’s influence and democracy after WWII, I kind of worry that the entire world may be forced to get in line with the CCP.

I think it’s more that a huge chunk of the population have externally defined morality and thus are very malleable. Many many people do not enjoy the hard work of figuring out their own self-consistent views of right and wrong. So they let their culture define it for them, which the people in charge are more than happy to do. So when the prevailing culture told them it was wrong to be racist against black Americans, they believed it. And now that the culture they stew in tells them (e.g.) black Americans are lazy moochers, they believe that.

Look, as an American, all I’m asking for is a little extrajudicial redition of Musk and Thiel by South Africa. If we could just get rid of some of the malevolent billionaires that have made the pilgrimage to the land of greed, we might stand a chance of holding on to some of our civil liberties.

Don’t you worry. Civil War is still on the horizon. Gotta see how 2026 goes.

TSA and Customs both scan your face instead of your ID/ passport now for adults. It seems like the government has confidence in it?

As if he’d ever see a kid walking in front of that thing.

I guess you’ve never have neighbors with bamboo!

It has long since become a problem for every neighbor that borders their yard. I’ve been digging the runners our of my yard since we moved in 8 years ago, and I’m about ready to spend ~$10k on remediation (burying a wall that the roots can’t penetrate).

It is not native and grows out of control where I live. It takes over acres too densely for anything else to grow.

Can we harvest bamboo to extinction next?! Starting with my neighbor’s yard…