It's very interesting that pro-Luigi posts are immediately and universally censored while pro-Jan. 6th posts are given a lot more leeway. Both were attacks on powerful members of the ruling class, but only one group of sympathizers is being completely shut down. It's tempting to think that it's because tech billionaires have a right-wing bias, but I actually think it's worse than that. I think it's because the January 6th riots represented a partisan divide, while Luigi's (alleged) actions have received bipartisan sympathy. Apparently, violence and terrorism are acceptable unless they lead to class solidarity.
I like watching old sci-fi to see how the tech of the day was reflected in the tech or the, "future." The original Enterprise looks like it was run on colorful 8-tracks. The TGN Enterprise looked like it was full of microwave touch-screen interfaces. The Abrams Enterprise...looks like an Apple store with a big chrome throttle. The original Alien movies probably hold up the best; aside from the CRTVs, that technology still seems like a plausible future.
Good Jobs First, among other things, serves as a watchdog for government subsidies, and maintains a database of subsidies and tax bonuses awarded to companies. Of note is the page for Royal Dutch Shell...The value presented on the page for RDS is $1.725 Billion...
For me, what becomes even more dated than the old tech are the cultural attitudes. The original series is supposed to be an egalitarian, utopian society, but they men treat the women like it's an episode of Mad Men. TGN, on the other hand, is trying so hard not to be sexist that the romance scenes sound like they were written by a virgin who only learned about sex from HR meetings.
I didn't mind the first Abrams movie. I thought the story was pretty mediocre, but it looked good visually, and they captured the characters nicely. The second movie went off the rails, though. They invented interplanetary transporters and cured death. It feels like that would have had massive, status quo changing consequences for the entire franchise, but I guess not.
The original movies certainly have more action in them than the series (though they're definitely not as action-packed as the Abrams movies), and they're also not as interested in exploring sci-fi concepts as the show, but to me, they're defined by fan-service more than anything else. They found an excuse to put the characters in modern times, let Kirk create peace with the Klingons, and literally met God.
A lot of Star Trek fans didn't like them. Star Trek trends more towards, "traditional," sci-fi, which is more focused on exploring scientific and philosophical concepts in fiction (think Jules Verne or Isaac Asimov). What Abrams produced was basically just an action movie in a futuristic setting. It's sorta like how, even though Star Wars is set in an advanced galactic civilization, it has more in common with the fantasy genre than traditional sci-fi.
That doesn't necessarily mean classic Star Trek is better or smarter than the Abrams movies or Star Wars. In fact, a lot of Star Trek is cheesy, dated, and kinda dumb (and not just the original series; even TNG has a lot of cringe in it). However, it does mean that the Abrams films were a pretty big genre shift that put a lot of fans off.
That's a great example of something they shouldn't have done, not some they should have done. Believe me, there's plenty of intervention that I wish the military and intelligence communities hadn't done, but the way the comment is framed, it seems like this person is implying we should have done more, not less.
Why would the U.S. have started trying to expand democracy after the Cold War? They were willing to support anti-Democratic coups in Iran, Syria, Brazil, Iraq, Bolivia, and probably dozens of others I'm forgetting. America was promoting capitalism during the Cold War, not democracy.
Yeah, that's my thinking as well, although to be clear, I'm not saying that intelligent life would be humanoid, just that it's the most reasonable real-world explanation I can come up with for why fictional aliens look human. I'm not an exobiologist, and I have no idea what the leading theories are on what intelligent life might look like. I'm just saying that, whenever I'm watching some sci-fi with a bunch of human-looking aliens, my go-to head cannon to explain it away is Convergent Evolution, and it at least feels like a reasonable explanation.
If you're asking why it appears in our sci-fi, you were correct in assuming it was mostly about cheap costuming and special effects. If you're asking for a general canonical reason for it, there isn't one, but many sci-fi shows have come up with unique ones (for example, Star Trek had the Progenitors, a species of humanoids that seeded world with their DNA). If you're looking for a possible real-world explanation that could account for it,
Convergent Evolution might explain why intelligent species wind up being bipedal tetrapods.
The problem is people like, "their," geriatric. Ed Markey is my Senator, and he says he'll be seeking reelection in two years when he'll be 80. Even though I think he's been a pretty good Senator, I want him to retire at the end of term, but I'm probably in the minority, and it will be an uphill battle to primary him if he doesn't choose to step down.
Exactly. They've called literally every Democratic candidate in the last 20 years a radical socialist. They might as well run on some socialist positions, since some of them (for example, HEALTHCARE) seem real popular right now.
Kamala had a lot of enthusiasm behind her when she took over the campaign. Then she squandered all of it by hiring the same hacks who lost to Trump in 2016. If she hadn't sidelined Walz, or ignored the Uncommitted movement, or ran on the kind of left-wing economic message that won in 2020, she might have had a chance.
Biden, however, had no chance. Even if he had reversed course on Gaza and adopted left-wing economic populism, he was doomed from the moment he walked on that debate stage. Everyone was worried that he was old and senile, and it turns out they were right. Nothing was going to make the American people vote for him after that became public.
Dude, you need to reread the article, then reread my comment. The Uncommitted movement and Abandon Harris are two different groups.
I criticized Abandon Harris in my comment for having unrealistic goals for how far they could push Democrats. Uncommitted had much more reasonable requests. Harris completely blew them off, so they couldn't endorse her, but they still came out with an anti-Trump, anti-third-party statement. Harris could have one their endorsement with some small, most symbolic gestures, and she fucked it up. Losing that endorsement was entirely the Harris campaign's fault.
pjwestin @ pjwestin @lemmy.world Posts 3Comments 1,078Joined 2 yr. ago
Definitely something punk...either the Interrupters Take Back the Power or Flogging Molly's What's Left of the Flag.