It’s Alexander Stephen’s Cornerstone speech, but with all immigrants in place of the slaves
BeijingPalmer@beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 3w agoI think it's key to understanding their worldview that they imagine a world not *without* immigrants, but one in which immigrants' inferiority is permanently asserted and they become a subservient caste. All these people worship the Gulf States.
After 17yrs in China, this is largely the you’d-never-guess-it-but-it’s-the-truth assessment I also came away with
I saw someone refer to homeschooling as “trickle down stupidity.” Immediate addition to my lexicon.
Which, incidentally, really puts the lie to “our parents and grandparents lived in a wonderful world without the existential fears that people today have”
Adam Rawnsley@arawnsley.bsky.social · last mo.Today, August 4, 2026, is the setting of Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” about a fully automated house continuing on after the family who lived there and the world around it died in a nuclear blast.
This is an extremely common human failing and, for example, a good part of why lobbying works.
I think this is a great decision. Douthat has a face made for radio and a voice made for blogging. His ideas are increasingly bizarre in ways toxic to normal ppl. If anyone can help Bari put another nail in CBS’s coffin, he can. Best the network collapses fast rather than die a lingering death.
Oliver Darcy@oliverdarcy.bsky.social · last mo.Scoop: I’m told that Ross Douthat is exiting The NYT and is expected to take a role at “60 Minutes.” News expected to be announced soon.
so one thing i find extremely striking is that in REPUBLIC plato basically endorses the idea that qualified women should have the same rights as men--the same ability to be philosopher-kings. this is an *ancient* idea. the hard question of history is why it took so long to be even partially realized
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · last mo.one tendency that comes out about period films is the insistence that XYZ moral thought would not have occurred to anyone in the ancient world. to be sure there are moral innovations and changes but the existence of thorough dissatisfaction with the present moral order is not a modern phenomenon
imo it's almost certainly false that people did not have critiques and concerns with sexual violence, slavery etc that at the very least substantively overlap with modern ones. whether or not they got to write epics revered and remembered by the leaders of the slave societies of the day es otra cosa
Something that online discourse has taught me is that there are a lot of people who believe that adopting political and social views because everyone around you believes them is not just acceptable but morally preferable, and that failing to conform in this way is a sign of mental deviance
Bluesky would rather disagree with math than be forced to agree with Will on even one thing
Will Stancil@whstancil.bsky.social · last mo.There’s a very easy math problem and Bluesky believes solving it correctly makes you an enemy of the working class, so many people have suddenly and mysteriously found it unsolvable. I find this dynamic rather alarming
There are good financial decisions and bad financial decisions. There are entire predatory industries built around exploiting people’s tendency to consistently make certain bad financial decisions. Fixing this, and regulating those industries, requires admitting that these bad decisions exist.
It’s really funny to me how threatening the DSA is to people because as annoying as I find them they a) have produced some of the most popular politicians in the nation and b) have a platform that is largely made up of popular stances like “we should improve society somewhat”
Off the top of my head there are more Republican ex-legislators in prison right now for child sexual abuse then there are trans girls playing high school sports
choo choo choose anger@ralphtheewiggum.bsky.social · 2mo agoI have not ever seen a single story about a trans kid causing any issue in some sport they’re playing (other than other butthurt parents) yet this is somehow an exponentially bigger problem than an ocean of conservative men preying on children and women.
I would have liked at you like you’re a crazy person. How is this real? Was I hit by a truck and now I’m in a coma having morphine dreams?
Sky Marchini@sky.skymarchini.net · 2mo agowhenever i tell people that smoot-hawley never actually went away and is still the US tariff schedule, we just layered a bunch of exceptions on it over the last 96 years, they look at me like im a crazy person
I was born in California, so I’m an American I enjoy my life and want it to be good. I do not think that I deserve to be actively humiliated for where I was born and I am perfectly content blocking obnoxious people who are used to deference from self hating Americans
you call me or any American a vatnik and that’s a block
One time I ended up in a social situation where a group of tv sound crew guys were mingling with a group of comedians and the thing they found to bond over was swapping stories about how much it sucks to work with bill maher
Maher announces everyone right about him
The Fig Economy@figgityfigs.bsky.social · 2mo agoTook long enough, this dumb rat fuck.
Hegseth wants the US military to be more Spartan, which does unfortunately involve being beaten up by the Persians