for a split second, I read "focusing on transgender issues" to mean that they're focusing on combatting transphobia, rather than mandating it 😭
uuldika
joined 4 months ago
I really hope RFK Jr keeps drinking raw milk.
I'm switching to DeepSeek-R1, personally. locally hosted, so I won't be affected when the US bans it. plus I can remove the CCP's political sensitivity filters.
it feels weird for me to be rooting for PRC to pull ahead of the US on AI, but the idea of Trump and Musk getting their hands on a potential superintelligence down the line is terrifying.
wait, why would you need to bypass guardrails for this?
they're both. they're trolling us, and they're deadly serious. it's the "haha jk unless" approach to manifesting Overton window shifts with irony, aka meme magic.
my comment here analyzes it more: https://lemmy.ml/comment/17320556
in a way, Trump is actually succeeding in getting NATO member countries to reach the 2% GDP commitment for military spending... by scaring countries into arming themselves against the United States.
it's like convincing your friend to install an alarm system by threatening to rob them at gunpoint.
definitely not playing it down. the whole point of meme magic is that it shifts the Overton window so bills like these can actually pass. it's a kind of "irony laundering." they "troll" the Left, the Left raises alarm, the Right keks and calls us hysterical, the Center sees us as crying wolf and tunes us out. the Right pushes the "troll" legislation as far as they can because "it's just a prank bro," until we're weakened enough they can actually pass it.
it's like how the Right goads us into calling them "fascists" because they're literally being fascists, the Right gaslights saying we're always calling everyone "fascists," until fascism reenters the Overton window because the Center thinks "fascism" doesn't mean anything anymore.
honestly, the Left should have used this kind of meme magic back when Republicans were calling centrist Dems Socialists. if we'd used this strategy as well as the Right did we could be executing Billionaires by now.
it's legislative shitposting/meme magic. one of them gets an idea for the meme: adding "Trump Derangement Syndrome" as a mental illness to troll the libs. it provokes a reaction in us, because it's 2025 and for all we know the damn thing might pass at the rate the fascists are consuming the state, and the Republicans' base feeds off of our panic and grief, fueling their schadenfreude. Republican voters are the real trolls; these legislators are just their proxies.
basically, this is the meme magic formula that took 4chan from "ironic" Nazi trolls to an outright fascist resurgence across the West, that took Trump from a meme candidate to the Oval Office, that took the 51st State rhetoric from obvious hyperbole to deadly serious. it's "just a joke" when you're defending it, it's "just trolling" when you're pushing it through, and it's "owning the libs" when you're executing on it.
I've heard that some people have difficulty with hypotheticals in general. not just on political issues, like it's a surprisingly common cognitive issue.
Timba, his arms wide!
I needed this. I need to manifest this.
things I dislike Reagan for:
things Reagan was kinda based for:
actually wanting to eliminate nuclear weapons. everyone remembers SDI as a ridiculously expensive boondoggle (which it would have been tbf) or as a trap to get USSR to spend itself into bankruptcy (it wasn't imo, since the Russians realized they could build MIRVs), but I honestly think Reagan sincerely wanted a missile shield to have a missile shield. apparently he was hawkish on nuclear war until he watched The Day After, which terrified him and left him depressed for weeks and completely changed his thinking on nukes. he got so close to bilateral disarmament at the Reikjavik summit, but it fell apart because of his insistence on pursuing SDI.
not being a raging egotistical jerk like Trump. he was respectful towards Carter and Mondale. he even respected the Soviet Premiers he met with, despite his anti-Communism. he had actual principles and ideals, even if I disagree with some of them.
when the USSR collapsed, Bush ignored Russia's pleas to help it restructure and rebuild, to secure its nuclear weapons stockpiles, to integrate its economy. so we ended up with a country with starving nuclear weapons designers trying to grow potatoes in their back yards, and a Mafia takeover, and massive distrust and antipathy towards the West. I think Reagan would have actually lent them a helping hand, and Putin wouldn't have happened.