d00phy @ d00phy @lemmy.world

Posts

30

Comments

918

Joined

2 yr. ago

All these years after winning it. That’s some special war-fightin right there!

He’s made noise about NATO, but… he makes a lot of noise. He also, to a small extent had a point at one time about nations committing the agreed upon percentages of their budgets to defense. Regardless, today’s actions paint a pretty clear picture for Europe and the rest of the world.

I’m sure he got an email from Daddy telling him what a big strong man he was today. That’s all that matters.

I don’t think you have to. Plenty of them see Putin as the “strong leader” they want.

You mean the only adult in the room?

I posted this on another article a day or two ago... still feeling the same way:

I feel like he’s in a better position than people give him credit for. Europe is behind him, and Trump wants to have his cake (besties with Putin) and eat it (NATO). If he rejects Trump’s bullying in the negotiations, it forces Trump to decide. If he sides with Putin, that’s pretty much it for NATO, US-Euro relations. Possibly the UN, as well. The US loses A LOT in the way of economic, intelligence, and strategic cooperation all to become a VERY weakened dictatorship’s new best friend. I’m mean, of course that’s what Trump will do because “4d chess,” and “art of the deal,” and whatever.

It all kind of depends on Europe. They kind of want the best of both worlds too (back Ukraine and not lose the US as an ally). Which is more important to them? Germany’s new chancellor offered a hopeful signal after winning the election, and I have a feeling Macron and Starmer won’t ditch Ukraine, but we’ll see if that sentiment holds when shit gets real.

¿Por que no los dos?

The important take, right here!

Imagine playing this game in VR. How quickly would you throw up?

Seems likely.

Elon Musk, ladies and gents. Genius of the World increasing government efficiency in the most inefficient way conceivable!

American here. You are absolutely correct. Europeans need to be calling their government representatives en masse demanding they do everything in their power to disengage from the US. Including evicting the US military.

Another American here. Yeah, we’re not Europe’s friend anymore. I hate it, but it’s true. Dear Leader has made it abundantly clear that unless you are somehow enriching him and/or his billionaire cabinet, he’s not interested in being your friend. You can hold up as many past agreements and treaties his predecessors signed and it won’t mean jack shit to him. Putin is his daddy because Putin loves oligarchs, and wants to be an oligarch sooooooo bad.

TL;DR: Bad Shit that overshadows My Shit happens in the world. But My Shit happens to Me, and my not liking it doesn't in any way negate the others' Bad Shit (which they're also fully allowed, encouraged even, to complain about).

People complain. It's human nature. The happiest people in the world have complaints. If you feel like you're seeing it too much, it could very well be a symptom of where you spend your time. Taking some of your points one-by-one:

"... at least from what I can tell on the internet"

This is your biggest problem. The Internet is hardly an accurate reflection of society. Half the people on social media work hard to project what they think is a "perfect life" to others. The other half pretty much do the opposite: complain.

"... other countries have wars... we complain that eggs are too expensive..."

You ever heard the saying "all politics are local?" This, right here, is that, 100%. We can all agree that what's going on in war zones and third-world countries trumps any thing likely to happen to us in a "these western 1st world countries," but does that mean I'm not allowed to be upset about the things negatively affecting me, or just that I'm not allowed to voice my frustrations? "Oh, I just got fired and will probably be evicted in a couple months, but people on the other side of the world don't have food, so I should be happy." Me being mad at something that angers me doesn't lessen the tragedies of the world.

"Why do people waste all this time with complaining..."

If you've ever dated someone, or had a really close friend, you learn that sometimes when they complain to you, they don't expect you to fix their problem. They just need an avenue to vent. The Internet is also used pretty widely for this. They're not "destroying their own life," they're venting, or actually looking for help, which is actually pretty healthy!

It’s actually a very simple ploy they’ve used since before I was born (I’m not young). Anything they can paint as sexual, or that actually is out of the sexual “norm,” they will use as a scapegoat. They used it against blacks (coming after their white women), gays, and now trans. Pedophilia and rape are the two Worst Things, and if they can tie the Bad Guy du jour, that equals fear-votes. The best kind of right wing votes in all the land.

This is the answer.

Forgot to add that I’m not saying Lemmy is perfect as is. For sure there are things that can be improved and tweaked. And by all means, people who want to contribute should be encouraged and applauded. I’m just saying that the community that’s grown here is pretty great, and growth coming from slow-ish trickle of new users probably wouldn’t threaten that. Right now, Lemmy has a good late-90s, early 00s community feeling, and I really enjoy it.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think the effort to make joining Lemmy easier has some downsides. One of the nicest things about these communities is how easy it is to have good conversations with internet strangers. I’ve grown to appreciate and hope for Lemmy not trying to be a Reddit replacement. In fact, I’m totally fine with “the masses” staying in Spez’s data harvesting machine. If, one day, Lemmy gets as popular as Reddit, I think it will inevitably have many of the same problems. It just theoretically won’t be selling your data for profit (one hopes, anyway). My wife isn’t super-techy, and I explained the concept of Lemmy to my wife in about 10 minutes. She set up an account in about 5.

To me, it’s not that using or joining Lemmy is hard. It’s that a lot of people have come to loathe change. They’re told that Lemmy is “like Reddit,” so why leave Reddit, all their accumulated Internet points, and their familiar communities/echo chambers? Pretty much all of them also use other data-harvesting social media sites, so they mostly don’t care about that aspect. When I tell my friends about Lemmy I talk about how the size of the communities is really conducive to good conversations from wide enough ranges of opinions and experiences, compared to Reddit’s too much of everything including trolls.

“Fundamental changes,” and “innovative” have me worried “shitbox” will prove to be more apt. I really hope I’m wrong!

On the one hand, good for her. On the other, I’m certain FedSoc has a list of able-bodied, ambulance chasing yes-men ready to take up positions like this.