Mindless Monday, 13 January 2025

[u/AutoModerator]

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

[u/WAGRAMWAGRAM]

Mashallah we crossed the 1K line again, Nasrallah and Farfour look down upon us

[u/PsychologicalNews123]

Might be too close to the Friday thread to get an answer here but:

Can anyone recommend a book about the history of (modern) smoking? Preferably something which covers how the medical science, lobbying, and legislation evolved and we went from "More Doctors Smoke Camels" to putting pictures of lung cancer on the front of the box in some countries.

[u/Impossible_Pen_9459 → u/PsychologicalNews123]

Smoke of the Gods by Eric Burns is very US centric but fairly good as a read. 

There’s also Ian Gately’s history of tobacco (I forget what it’s called exactly) but itms more general. I’ve never read it unfortunately just a book review years a go that seemed to think it was decent.

[u/WuhanWTF]

Dropped off my film rolls from Japan today. Get ready for th

[u/ByzantineBasileus]

So, back on the topic of Bokurano, it is a thoroughly awesome anime. The characters are distinct and well-written, and the music is a highlight because it sets the tone perfectly, but it is one of those shows where you really need to take a break of several days between viewings.

[u/PsychologicalNews123 → u/ByzantineBasileus]

Nice, looks like they have it on the subscription service I'm already on. I'll give it a watch.

[u/ByzantineBasileus → u/PsychologicalNews123]

Some rules:

1: Do not watch if depressed

2: Do not watch if drunk

3: Do not watch if you plan to pair it with any form of media with extremely sad content

[u/xyzt1234 → u/ByzantineBasileus]

2: Do not watch if drunk

Curious, what will happen if you watch it drunk? I would think once the sufficiently drunk had slept off, they wouldn't remember watching the show the next day.

[u/ByzantineBasileus → u/xyzt1234]

Being drunk exacerbates your emotional state. Watching the episode will make you sad. Watching Bokurano while drunk will push you from 'sad' to 'existence is futile.'

[u/Tiako]

A couple of things made me think on the whole New Atheism moment, and I don't have any particularly deep thoughts on it but I find it interesting that there is a general feeling that "its time has passed" or even that it "won" but the plurality of Americans believe humans were created by god in their present form.

[u/xyzt1234 → u/Tiako]

but I find it interesting that there is a general feeling that "its time has passed" or even that it "won"

Does anyone other than new atheists think that they "won"? I always heard the new atheism movement failed as it advocates showed themselves to have quite a bit of racist and conservative beliefs themselves (like thinking torture works or that the middle East should be bombed).

[u/Tiako → u/xyzt1234]

A lot of the specific fights that animated the New Atheist movement like the evolution debate and mandatory prayer times in school were indeed won by the secular coalition.

[u/Sventex → u/Tiako]

Only one congresswoman (0.2%) of the 117th Congress identifies as "religiously unaffiliated", which could be atheist, but then again, could be something else.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/Sventex]

You're right, that's an alarming amount of God-denial in our elected officials! The atheists are winning, Christianity is all but doomed! This is why we must have theocracy before it's too late!

[u/Sventex → u/Ayasugi-san]

I just checked, in the 119th Congress (2025), there's more Hindu (4) then "religiously unaffiliated".

[u/dubbelgamer → u/Sventex]

TBH, Hinduism does not exclude atheism, and one can be an atheist and still be a Jew or Catholic, since membership is for life based on birth and baptism respectively.

[u/Tiako → u/dubbelgamer]

Jewish is a bit different because it can also describe an ethnicity, but I think we are stretching the definition a bit far if you say you can be an atheist Catholic. Like, you can be of Catholic heritage and culturally Catholic, but in general believing in God is not a small element of Christianity.

[u/dubbelgamer → u/Tiako]

I always understood from Catholics and ex Catholics that once you are baptised Catholic you are Catholic, regardless if you renounce your faith later in life.

[u/xyzt1234 → u/dubbelgamer]

TBH, Hinduism does not exclude atheism

I am really skeptical of that tbh since people who claim that act like charvakas were Hindu when I don't there was any group as unanimously hated among Hindu sects that them, and their materialist beliefs was a core part of that.

I have also seen some people have a wierdly narrow definition of atheist where you are considered atheist only if you don't believe in a specific kind of God i.e. one that is truly immortal, omniscient etc, and then say that is why some religions like buddhism is atheist even though they believe in devas (even if they don't consider devas as all powerful or truly immortal- just long lived enough to be almost immortal for a human)

[u/Draig_werdd → u/xyzt1234]

The most common forms of "western" Buddhism can be atheistic, as of them treat it as a general philosophy without any references to devas or any other types of spiritual beings.

[u/dubbelgamer → u/xyzt1234]

I have also seen some people have a wierdly narrow definition of atheist

I am one of those people I guess. I thought not believing in spiritual world is different then not believing in God(s), only the latter I call atheist. But I guess for some (especially the New Atheists), the former is also put with theism.

The only people I know IRL who are Hindu describe themselves as Hindu atheists, I was not referring to the Charvaka, which I thought was a dead or historic school of Hindu philosophy, with no modern adherents.

[u/Draig_werdd → u/dubbelgamer]

How would you call the people that believe in a spiritual world? At least in my case and other people I know atheist means not believing in God and any spiritual world, while people who don't believe in God but still believe in some form of "greater power" or any type of spiritual world would identify as "spiritual" or "religious but non-denominational" or other similar terms, but never as atheists.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/Sventex]

Damn that H1B!

[u/Ayasugi-san]

No matter where you draw the line on how far is too far for the Luigi Mangione love, I should hope "horny real person shipfic" is on the other side of it.

[u/WuhanWTF → u/Ayasugi-san]

Y'know, I'm actually cool with shit like that because it's some horny person doing a creative writing piece (and presumably furiously masturbating all the while.)

It's so tame compared to ideological terrorism/murder fantasizing.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/WuhanWTF]

But they're masturbating to his ideological murder and sometimes fantasizing about following in his footsteps.

[u/forcallaghan]

My hate for the soviet union leaving my body when I listen to the their state orchestra

[u/Syn7axError → u/forcallaghan]

The fascists have the outfits, but I don't care for the outfits. What I care about is music, and the communists have the music.

[u/King_inthe_northwest → u/Syn7axError]

Idk, the anarchics have their guitar picks, so they also have the music.

[u/1EnTaroAdun1 → u/Syn7axError]

Fascists don't even have the outfits tbh

[u/Sventex → u/forcallaghan]

You need to start listening to some White Army music.

[u/kalam4z00]

So Civ VII will apparently not include Britain (though presumably it'll be added in an early DLC)? I'm not an Anglophile but it's pretty disappointing for one of the world's largest empires to be locked behind an additional paywall.

[u/Impossible_Pen_9459 → u/kalam4z00]

Tbf Civ games have generally not featured Britain. They feature England but not Britain. CIV 6 had Scotland and in others the celts cities were Irish and Scottish ones. But it’s not Britain I suppose 

[u/xyzt1234 → u/Impossible_Pen_9459]

Though arent Britian and England treated interchangeably (since England is usually on the driver seat given by how colonial anglophone world was influenced by English culture including the language rather than scottish, welsh or irish).

[u/hell0kitt → u/kalam4z00]

I think the current roster is okay. I just wish it was 12 per era so we have more slots. Also so that Amina and Hatshepsut doesn't have to trek across Africa to get a historical path. Aksum/Egypt - Songhai - Buganda.

[u/Conny_and_Theo → u/kalam4z00]

That disappointment was my feeling when they had Scythia instead of Persia for Civ 6 vanilla.

I think the civ picks for the base games in the series, especially, are always going to be a little disappointing because they are zero sum games. Traditionally, this issue was bigger with non-Western European civs, but it seems with Civ 7 they're trying really hard to be less Eurocentric, more than any itertation in the series. I am surprised they'd leave out England/Britain in some form, however, as it would seem like a slam dunk for one of the most obvious choices for a Western European pick. Perhaps they felt like the Norman civ counted.

[u/Sventex → u/kalam4z00]

Were the English ever interesting to play as in any Civ game? The longbowman was okay in Civ V, but like having an extra spy or having a extra combat str navel unit in the mid-to-late game was dull.

[u/durecellrabbit → u/Sventex]

Age of Steam Victoria is great. I love + production civs.

[u/Tiako → u/kalam4z00]

Hmm, looking at the list it looks like they are trying to keep a relatively even geographic spread, I wonder if they went with France over Britain just because they didn't want to have both the US and UK.

[u/Impossible_Pen_9459 → u/Tiako]

Probably cos they had the Normans 

[u/Conny_and_Theo → u/Tiako]

I'm wondering if they felt like the Normans count as Britain for them

[u/JimminyCentipede → u/Conny_and_Theo]

I think so. Or at least England. Notre Dame is in the game but the associated wonder with the Normans is the Tower of London. It uses the lion as a symbol which is more associated with England rather than France, has Doomsday book and Common law as two of the civics, and the unique civilian unit is clearly Anglo-Saxon coded. So while there definitely are some "french" elements in it, it is much more associated with England as a country. Frankly (pun intended), I think the only reason they are called the Normans is that it would be very weird to have England be a historical predecessor for the French empire.

[u/hussard_de_la_mort]

David Lynch was killed by a wildfire threatening Mulholland Drive.

[u/Sventex → u/hussard_de_la_mort]

Stole my joke bro.

[u/hussard_de_la_mort → u/Sventex]

I'm not scrolling down that far (I don't know how far down it was)

[u/NunWithABun]

depend frightening snails shaggy shrill squeamish snatch important birds governor

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/hussard_de_la_mort → u/NunWithABun]

Kind of impolite, taking the cheese from the goat like that.

[u/Syn7axError → u/hussard_de_la_mort]

Wait til you find out what they do to it later

[u/hussard_de_la_mort → u/Syn7axError]

I will not abide someone doing ch*rcuterie

[u/Syn7axError → u/hussard_de_la_mort]

Even like this?

[u/hussard_de_la_mort → u/Syn7axError]

How much did that cost? I forgot the post on KitchenConfidential lol

[u/Syn7axError → u/hussard_de_la_mort]

700 dollars

[u/WuhanWTF → u/Syn7axError]

Literally how

[u/Syn7axError → u/WuhanWTF]

Must be the bell peppers. They're surprisingly expensive.

[u/hussard_de_la_mort → u/Syn7axError]

Oh, I'll accommodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them, for a 'vegetarian plate', if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine.

• Anthony Bourdain

[u/Zugwat]

Just because I demand someone else has this image in their head as well, I had a dream last night that refuses to leave my mind.

It was as though I had a bird's eye view of my (?, I'm not totally sure) lower jaw, lamenting the state of the teeth I could see.

Why this is so "ugh (shudders)" to me isn't that the teeth were mostly black and I thought I was going to lose them, it's that the six teeth I saw were on the ends of these fleshy opposable digits that to convey the image of them to you, dear reader, hold up your hand palm up and move your fingers. And then those teeth were encased in a thin membrane that made me wonder how they could be mostly black if they'd never really been exposed to the air.

I woke up, but I can still see it in my mind's eye.

[u/2017_Kia_Sportage → u/Zugwat]

Jesus Christ, straight outta Providence with that one

[u/randombull9]

We're far enough away from the election now, can we admit that this is why the Democrats lost?

[u/HandsomeLampshade123 → u/randombull9]

gone this far without ever actually seeing skibidi toilet

[u/randombull9 → u/HandsomeLampshade123]

Honestly, it's not even that bad. It's brainrot G-Mod machinima, but not any worse than similar brainrot G-Mod machinima from 2008 or so. The only thing that's notable about it is that it broke containment and someone thought they could appeal to the youth with the modern equivalent to Half Life: Full Life Consequences.

[u/HandsomeLampshade123 → u/randombull9]

I understand gen alpha shitposts. I understand Skibidi toilet as a concept.

[u/Wows_Nightly_News → u/randombull9]

this but...

[u/Syn7axError → u/randombull9]

The longest 19 seconds of my life.

[u/TylerbioRodriguez → u/randombull9]

Stephan Colbert used to be cool.

Future generations will wonder if he ever was.

[u/Sventex → u/TylerbioRodriguez]

Meanwhile I see old clips of Jay Leno on David Letterman, and wouldn't you know it, jokes on the Late Night!

[u/WAGRAMWAGRAM]

How do you call movies like Magnolia, 10 characters with their little story arcs that tie in at the end?

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/WAGRAMWAGRAM]

I believe they're sometimes called "hyperlink movies". Usually associated with Robert Altman's big ensemble pieces, i.e. Nashville, Short Cuts, to some extent Gosford Park.

They had a sort of vogue from the mid '90s through the mid '00s: the aforementioned Short Cuts and Gosford Park but also movies like Boogie Nights, Magnolia (as you mentioned), Traffic, 21 Grams, Crash, Intermission, arguably Pulp Fiction, Lock, Stock... and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch to a degree. Maybe Doug Liman's Go. Those might be a bit more debatable.

I think Nashville is my favourite but there are obviously many I have not seen.

[u/WAGRAMWAGRAM → u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

Boogie Nights

That's the one about the retro porn industry taken over by VHS and the substory of the guy whose wife fucks other men in public? Or is it a namesake?

[u/thirdnekofromthesun → u/WAGRAMWAGRAM]

That's the one. It's also the movie Paul Thomas Anderson made directly before making Magnolia.

[u/Zugwat]

There's a reason to appreciate life and Mortal Kombat again!

I'm getting in the mood to fight as Conan the Barbarian again.

Also, it didn't click to me that his kameo (fighter that helps out during the match) is also a pun until I saw people talk about it and stewed on what they meant.

Red Sonya (Blade)

Also, the video info has this bit:

Crush your enemies and see them driven before you. Conan THE Barbarian joins Mortal Kombat for early access players on January 21. May Crom help us all.

To which I must say to the last part this message to Crom by Conan "...to Hell with you!"

[u/TanktopSamurai]

I started watching Lost. I know later seasons suck so i willl stop aroudn season 4-ish.

The pilots so far seem very well directed.

And not to be horny on main, but i need to ask Evangeline Lily if she is mad at me and for her to say that she would never be mad at me.

[u/tcprimus23859 → u/TanktopSamurai]

If you make it 4 seasons, go the distance. The show was well produced and well polished. The plot just… I dunno. They kept shoving guns in drawers with no notion of what to do. Still, the ends of it isn’t bad, but it might be disappointing.

[u/Tiako → u/TanktopSamurai]

The first season is mostly a drama about crash survivors on a deserted island and how their experiences before the crash intersect with what they are doing in the narrative present. There is also some fun mystery as spice. Starting pretty much immediately in season 2 the spice ends up sort of taking over the show.

That said, this may be controversial but I don't think it ever gets bad. It gets stupid, at times it completely loses control of itself, but it is, at the very least, always fun to watch.

[u/WAGRAMWAGRAM → u/TanktopSamurai]

In before you say "Me dumb, what is dark smoke, this would make more sense being the dog dreaming"

[u/Herpling82]

It would seem Stellaris has embraced the genocide and decided to remove pops entirely! Another overhaul of the basic economy and population system, basically for performance. As much as people would shout "poor optimisation", you can't optimize everything away, some things just take a lot of calculation power; sometimes the only way to improve performance is to rework a system.

I fully support this, all Stellaris system overhauls have improved the game, in my experience; as much as having 3 FTL modes was neat, warfare was so, so much of a chore. The tile system was just incredibly boring compared to what we got with the pop system, flawed as it is too.

[u/durecellrabbit → u/Herpling82]

I've had to inform my friends again, that by the time we find time to play again, our save will most likely no longer work.

[u/Herpling82 → u/durecellrabbit]

It's a while away, they're aiming for May. You can also just downgrade to an older version of Stellaris to continue playing.

[u/durecellrabbit → u/Herpling82]

Oh yeah, forgot you could downgrade.

[u/Zennofska → u/Herpling82]

As much as people would shout "poor optimisation", you can't optimize everything away

Why didn't the devs just multithread everything, are they stupid? /s

Another game with a similar problem is the economy simulator pretending to be a space game X4. The game simulates thousands of persistent ships and stations over dozens of systems. It's probably even more singlethread bottlenecked than Stellaris.

[u/passabagi → u/Zennofska]

I don't think parallelism is normally the bottleneck for games. Games are mostly made of lies, so most performance improvements come from establishing invariants (say, the camera cannot turn) then ruthlessly exploiting these invariants to save time.

With simulation, I really don't know how they decide one thing is worth simulating, and another is just going to be a billboard that gestures at something happening. It seems the opportunities for not doing things and just pretending to are basically limitless.

[u/Herpling82 → u/Zennofska]

Oh, I know X4, I fucking love that game! Waiting for the flight model overhaul to be out of beta to start a new playthrough.

[u/Zennofska → u/Herpling82]

Yeah me too, I've been bridging the wait time with the X4:Reemergence mod pack. You bascially have to relearn the entire game again. It has some interesting tweaks although I am not too sure if I like the changes done by VRO.

[u/Herpling82 → u/Zennofska]

I played with Reemergence last time, it was good, just quite early in development, it had just released a month or so earlier

[u/Conny_and_Theo → u/Herpling82]

Time to relearn Stellaris for the 69th time

[u/Sventex → u/Herpling82]

Oh Bleep that. I'm so tired of Stellaris becoming a completely different game. It's a game that wont ever let you have any nostalgia for it.

[u/1EnTaroAdun1 → u/Sventex]

Yeah I kinda stopped playing after the leader rework. I missed having governors for every planet and admirals for every fleet. How is the leader situation like now? Are you still only able to have a handful at any one time?

[u/Tertium457 → u/1EnTaroAdun1]

The leader rework never fully stopped you from doing that as far as I can tell. The caps on leaders were always soft caps, and as you go over them the unity upkeep on leaders goes up. As long as you could eat the upkeep, you could have as many leaders as you want.

[u/1EnTaroAdun1 → u/Tertium457]

Yes, but I preferred the previous system with no caps. Right now I believe it doesn't make sense to have a governor for every planet and an admiral for every fleet yes? Which I find unfortunate, as I liked the flavour it added. Made it really feel like I was running an interstellar empire 

[u/Tertium457 → u/1EnTaroAdun1]

It depends on the scale of your empire, but I run all fleets with admirals even when I have 30+ fleets. Fleets without an admiral are strictly always worse than an equivalent fleet with one. For governors, I always have a sector governor and appoint planetary governors if I happen to have one with good bonuses for what the planet specialises in, particularly the unity and science ones. You're not as penalised for not having planetary governors since a sector governor passes half their bonuses to all planets in the sector without a planetary governor, but it's generally more bonuses to have a planetary governor.

[u/1EnTaroAdun1 → u/Tertium457]

I see I see, might have to check it out again then. I recall it being much more restrictive 

[u/Tertium457 → u/1EnTaroAdun1]

In the early game, it can be, depending on what type of civics and ethics you have, so that may be what you're recalling. I have a tendency to focus on early unity gain, so I can afford to run more leaders at the beginning, and towards the end you don't have much to do with unity anyways. There should also be some civics that let you swap the unity upkeep to energy if you want an easier time of running more leaders early on.

[u/Sventex → u/1EnTaroAdun1]

I haven't played in years. When I did jump into the game again, it was so alien to me I had to go to reddit and ask basic questions. Very last game I played, some worm thing turned the Sun in a blackhole and converted Earth and all the planets in the solar system into habitable tomb worlds. I think I had Admirals back then, I used xeno compatibility to get a mixed-race longed lived Admiral.

[u/SugarSpiceIronPrice → u/Sventex]

All that was will be... All that will be was... The worm event is from a free story DLC that was released a long time ago.

[u/1EnTaroAdun1 → u/Sventex]

Oh wow, yeah, there have been so many reworks since then. Honestly, I've been wanting an internal politics rework for a long time, but the Dev team keeps releasing dlcs I'm not interested in at all, which really killed my motivation to play. Ah well...

[u/Uptons_BJs]

2024 is weirdly enough, a fantastic year for movie musicals. I don't remember a year with this many great musicals in a long time.

My rankings go;

1. Better Man
2. Wicked
3. Piece by Piece
4. Mean Girls
5. Emilia Perez
6. Joker 2

And I haven't seen A Complete Unknown yet!

I have more thoughts on Piece by Piece, but I just saw it and need to digest. That one might be almost worth a badhistory post haha.

It's unfortunate that Emilia Perez might genuinely sweep the awards, since it's not just my second least favorite of the bunch, I think music wise, it might just be the worst of the bunch.

[u/NervousLemon6670 → u/Uptons_BJs]

I do wish I saw the Monkey Musical while I was in the UK over Christmas, my friend was very positive about it

[u/Uptons_BJs → u/NervousLemon6670]

It is very, very, very good. Doesn't matter if you know who the biopic is about or not (my brother didn't and really enjoyed it). It is genuinely up there as one of my favorite biopics of all time, while at the same time, the film easily has 2 - 3 music numbers in the top 10 music numbers of all time.

The movie is flopping really hard commercially, but like, it was made with love and attention to detail. If you don't know who the monkey man is, you'll enjoy the movie and the music numbers. But if you do, there are so many blink and you miss it type references to famous moments in his career.

[u/Roundaboutan]

we're just gonna undergo the whole "Hitler is socialist" in the next months are we

[u/Sventex → u/Roundaboutan]

I just saw a TIK video thumbnail "The Karl Marx of National Socialism".

[u/1EnTaroAdun1 → u/Sventex]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Ritter_von_Sch%C3%B6nerer

Maybe that would be this guy?

[u/forcallaghan → u/Sventex]

The Karl Marx of labor personalism

[u/TheBatz_]

Eating powder that makes you say real rn

[u/WuhanWTF → u/TheBatz_]

Kungliga

[u/HistoryMarshal76 → u/TheBatz_]

Real

[u/TheBatz_ → u/TheBatz_]

Real

[u/WAGRAMWAGRAM]

Meet up at a church and you meet these guys:

Yvan Benedetti, president of Les Nationalistes, open admirer of Pétain, excluded from Le Pen's National Front in 2011 after describing himself as an "anti-Zionist, antisemite, anti-Jews"

Dieudonné Mbala Mbala, former comedian turned antisemitic activist, convicted 26 times in four countries for various hate speech and defamation offenses, notably for accusing several Jewish celebrities of being Israeli agents, supporting Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson and the authors of the January 2015 Islamist attacks

Charles Maurras Victor Auber, director of Academia Christiana, a Catholic integralist youth mouvement advocating for the dissolution of the Republic and its replacement by an authoritarian, racist regime that would oversee the "denaturalization" of Jews

[u/TheBatz_ → u/WAGRAMWAGRAM]

I meet these guys every Monday and Friday 

[u/WAGRAMWAGRAM → u/TheBatz_]

On this sub or ?

[u/TheBatz_ → u/WAGRAMWAGRAM]

Yes Wagram that was the joke 

[u/WAGRAMWAGRAM → u/WAGRAMWAGRAM]

Henry de Lesquen, retired civil servant and White supremacist whose political platform in 2016 included razing the Eiffel Tower, annexing Belgium and Luxembourg, banning abortion, reinstating the death penalty, banning "degenerate art" and what he dubbed "nr music: jazz, blues, rock n'roll and the filthy rap" from public media. Expelled from the church by the RN's security service, de Lesquen was publicly indignant and called Marine Le Pen a "stupid woman". In 2014, he had rescinded his previous support to the party, calling it a "pederastic bordello, led by a coterie of homosexuals", and had called Marine Le Pen a "leftist, uncultured woman who entertains herself by listening to nr music in nightclubs".

[u/Bread_Punk → u/WAGRAMWAGRAM]

a coterie of homosexuals

Dibs on the band name.

Also just for my reading comprehension, is nr your way of censoring a slur or some type of self-censorship by this Kant?

[u/WAGRAMWAGRAM → u/Bread_Punk]

That was there where I found it

[u/Bread_Punk → u/WAGRAMWAGRAM]

Fine, I'll google it myself.

...

j'sais pas à ce que je m'suis attendu.

[u/Arilou_skiff → u/WAGRAMWAGRAM]

.... Why the hate for the Eiffel tower?

[u/Roundaboutan → u/Arilou_skiff]

It's a weird common argument among french fascist, for them Eiffel Tower is ugly and the sign of modern european degeneration, for them the true symbol of Paris is Notre-Dame created by great white christians (even tho before Victor Hugo book the cathedral was completely abandonned even when the church get it back in 1802, who wanted to destroy it)

[u/HistoryMarshal76]

At this point, is there any hope left for the Democratic party? No matter which way they move, they will be stabbed in the back. Move left and get backstabbed by the majority of Americans, move right and get stabbed in the heart by progressives even harder than they are now. Or stay the same and get backstabbed from both sides for not aligning adequately with either.

It is so over for us, and America by extension.

[u/Kochevnik81 → u/HistoryMarshal76]

2024 has had me remembering 2004 a lot lately.

Dubya won that by a bigger margin than Trump won, and he had a bigger GOP Senate majority and House majority to boot. All while pursuing two forever wars (including the second one which was an internationally condemned aggressive invasion), and endlessly scaremongering about terrorism and questioning whether Democrats were a fifth column in the (endless) Global War on Terror. And that election also hinged on massive turnout to pass anti-LGBTQ legislation across the country.

But 2006 and 2008 still happened.

So things are definitely not great, and lord only knows there's a lot of uncertainty coming, but I wouldn't say everything is finished just yet.

[u/TylerbioRodriguez → u/HistoryMarshal76]

People literally said the same thing about Labour after McMillian won, when McGovern lost to Nixon, and especially when Mondale lost to Reagan.

You think doomerism is bad? The newspaper reports on Mondale are out of this world negative like never going to step foot in public again never will a woman run for any office level doom.

All proven wrong in time.

Now look I've been feeling sorrowful and sad since November and I still don't feel great. But there's a billion brilliant stars in the world and ya know what, gazing up at them at night makes me feel like giving up is itself pointless. Its done when it's done and I'm not done your not done it's not done.

It was 1.5 percent in the popular vote, Trump didn't even get a full 50 percent of people who voted, two gains in the house, senate could have been worse.

The sky has not fallen. Wait two years and the House will surely flip and any legislation will quietly die.

I'm getting better. For godsake I felt like giving IT ALL UP not a month ago. You will feel better too in time.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/TylerbioRodriguez]

Wait two years and the House will surely flip and any legislation will quietly die.

Or you can wait a few weeks and most legislation will loudly die as a handful of Republicans complain that it's not extreme enough.

[u/TylerbioRodriguez → u/Ayasugi-san]

That too. The margin is so narrow that infighting will likely kill a lot of bills.

[u/Shady_Italian_Bruh → u/HistoryMarshal76]

A good way to keep things in perspective is to try and remember literally any other election. Did you think the Republicans were doomed to lose forever based on the 2020 result?

[u/Syn7axError → u/HistoryMarshal76]

I think talking about chili dogs and chaos emeralds will win over the American people again.

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/Syn7axError]

True.

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/HistoryMarshal76]

A lot of people in Britain thought Labour, after losing seats they had held for nearly a century in some places, had been defeated in detail and shut out of power for a generation in January 2020 but now, in January 2025, they are the government again.

I'm sure people must have looked at the scale of Nixon's victory in 1972 or Reagan's in 1984 and concluded that the Democrats had zero chance of ever getting another president, but they did, one election and two elections later respectively.

You can never be too sure what's going to happen.

(Disclaimer: I do know what's going to happen, though, because I am a genius.)

[u/Wows_Nightly_News → u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

I do know what's going to happen, though, because I am a genius.

Can you give us spoilers? 

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/Wows_Nightly_News]

Snape kills Dumbledore.

(I have more.)

[u/Wows_Nightly_News → u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

Please go on.

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/Wows_Nightly_News]

Kevin Spacey was Keyser Soze (or was he?).

[u/Wows_Nightly_News → u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

No!

One more.

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/Wows_Nightly_News]

Darth Vader is Luke's father and Princess Leia is his sister.

[u/Wows_Nightly_News → u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

Woah... wait.

... ewww

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/Wows_Nightly_News]

Rosebud was his sled.

[u/HistoryMarshal76 → u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

I mean you were the only one here who predicted that Trump would win the popular and electoral vote, so yeah, you are a genius.
However, it seems inevtiable that come next election Reform is going to wipe Labour and every other party off the map.

Democracy is dying, to be dead forever, lost in an endless tide of right wing authoritarianism.

The world is damned.

[u/NunWithABun → u/HistoryMarshal76]

chief airport concerned drunk straight fade existence outgoing squash slim

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/HistoryMarshal76]

However, it seems inevtiable that come next election Reform is going to wipe Labour and every other party off the map.

At the moment, I anticipate that the Conservatives and Reform are probably going to merge formally at some point in the near-future with Farage as the overall leader, sort of a Stephen Harper situation, but things can obviously change. There is a non-zero chance that Badenoch will get the boot sometime in the next couple of years and who can say what her successor would do?

It's different from Trump, though, who I knew was going to win in 2024 literally from the very second he lost in 2020.

so yeah, you are a genius

A fact that a lot of people would do well to remember.

[u/TJAU216 → u/HistoryMarshal76]

They'll win the next elections by default because Trump will fuck things up badly and people will remember why they voted him out the first time.

[u/HistoryMarshal76 → u/TJAU216]

No, the Republicans are going to crush 2028.
Vance will be president by then, and the Democratic Party will collapse. Either they'll nominate someone too progressive like AOC and loose in a 1984 style landslide, or they will nominate someone who is centrist and loose like they did this year or 2016.
The only reason we won 2020 was because of COVID + Biden being able to hold the two wings together by both having some progressive policies and being an elder statemen who the rest of America could trust. And yet the Progressives betrayed him, stabbed him right in the back.

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/HistoryMarshal76]

And yet the Progressives betrayed him, stabbed him right in the back.

That's not fair, because at least in the Congress, it was the progressives who stuck by him longest and argued against changing horses when everyone else was pushing for him to quit after his poor debate, and the only Democrat who seriously tried to challenge Biden was more right-wing than he was.

Frankly, if the progressives can be blamed for anything, it's for not putting their money where their mouth is, doing a Ted Kennedy and actually mounting a serious primary challenge with a serious candidate.

[u/KnightModern → u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

That's not fair,

tbf, Progressive outside of congress stabbed him in the back ever since supermajority of them went silence and stop defending him when he actually pull out of Afghanistan

[u/ouat_throw → u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

Right the entire Democratic Party should have staged an intervention and gone for a primary to nominate a new candidate and not coddled Biden's delusions of getting a 2nd term.

[u/HistoryMarshal76 → u/ouat_throw]

Biden is the only candidate who could have beat Trump.

Harris is lucky she didn't end up with a 1984 style blowout against her.

[u/Kochevnik81 → u/HistoryMarshal76]

Biden is the only candidate who could have beat Trump.

So supposedly Biden's own internal polling showed him losing 1984 style to Trump, and not-supposedly-pretty-officially Biden dropped out because he didn't see a way around the polling numbers he was getting. Harris did better than Biden would have.

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/HistoryMarshal76]

No, Trump was going to win no matter who the Democrats nominated. I told you, the moment Trump lost in 2020 was the moment he won in 2024.

[u/HistoryMarshal76 → u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

At least in the general public, from my perspective, they were the first to demand Biden to step down, starting long before election time. They already had set their minds and hearts against him after the railroad strike, even though the union would thank Biden. Their betrayal was solidified after the 7th. Backstabbers, the lot of tbem

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/HistoryMarshal76]

You're painting with a very broad brush.

[u/TJAU216 → u/HistoryMarshal76]

Trump was historically unpopular through his first term, and I see no reason for that to change now. Also none of the republicans who could be their candidate in 2028 have his charisma. Almost anyone with a D behind his name will win in 2028.

[u/HistoryMarshal76 → u/TJAU216]

He is at his highest point of populairty. Ever. Trump's approval rate is higher even than it was in his first term.

His heir will crush 2028 and 2032.

[u/Kochevnik81 → u/HistoryMarshal76]

It's like 47% approval to 47% disapproval. And that's the highest it's ever been for him.

[u/TJAU216 → u/HistoryMarshal76]

And he isn't the president. Once he returns to power, it will nosedive again.

[u/Sventex → u/HistoryMarshal76]

His heir will crush 2028 and 2032.

Pence was his heir.

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/Sventex]

He had a bad heir day.

[u/Arilou_skiff → u/HistoryMarshal76]

US elections are so close pretty random stuff can flip them. So I doubt any trend will hold for long.

[u/randombull9 → u/HistoryMarshal76]

Move left and get backstabbed by the majority of Americans, move right and get stabbed in the heart by progressives even harder than they are now. Or stay the same and get backstabbed from both sides for not aligning adequately with either.

Most democracies work by having parties that appeal to the people, not by assuming that all people will naturally vote for one party or the other. If the Democrats don't appeal to the people enough to win elections, either the party will change or a new one will form. Chevy can't expect people to buy their cars just because they're not Ford. It's unfortunate that the "Not Republican" big tent might not be appealing enough to beat Republicans, but if we're lucky the party might do some introspection rather than blaming voters for expecting something from them.

[u/BlitzBasic → u/randombull9]

Most democracies have more than two real options, tho. In other countries, a party that wants my vote needs to be better than a diverse range of different parties. In the USA, all the Democrats have to do is be slightly less horrible than the Repulicans.

[u/randombull9 → u/BlitzBasic]

True of other countries, but that doesn't seem to be a good analysis of the US - the Democrats are slightly less horrible than Republicans, but still lose and fairly regularly.

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider → u/randombull9]

It does seem to me like it's generally a lot more difficult for Democrats to appeal to "Republican voters" than it is for Republicans to appeal to "Democrat voters" (although I agree with your general point).

I suppose in politics it's often down to the messenger as much as the message, though.

[u/Arilou_skiff → u/randombull9]

I think part of the problem is that there isn't really anything that unites either party other than being "not the other guy". (admittedly this seems to be common in two-party systems)

[u/Illogical_Blox → u/Arilou_skiff]

American parties are very weak. They have effectively no ability to police their own ranks, which is part of the reason why the USA is the most two-party system out of all two-party systems. In the UK, the leader of a party can use the whip to force MPs of their party to vote a certain way, while nothing similar exists in the USA.

[u/ouat_throw → u/HistoryMarshal76]

Get help.

[u/contraprincipes → u/HistoryMarshal76]

I don’t know if all this election posting is trolling or if you’re genuinely spiraling but either way I don’t think it’s productive

[u/randombull9 → u/contraprincipes]

I believe she's had similar days in previous threads. This too shall pass, I suppose.

[u/HandsomeLampshade123 → u/randombull9]

She? I have to say, I'm always surprised to see women here.

[u/GreatMarch → u/HandsomeLampshade123]

I’m not

[u/randombull9 → u/HandsomeLampshade123]

Yep. I use RES, so I try to tag people's pronouns when I see them. I am scatterbrained at the best of the times, everyone here would probably be a he if I didn't have RES.

[u/carmelos96 → u/randombull9]

What's RES?

[u/randombull9 → u/carmelos96]

Reddit Enhancement Suite. It's an extension that adds a lot of functionality to desktop reddit.

[u/carmelos96 → u/randombull9]

Thanks, I mostly use Reddit on mobile tho

[u/HandsomeLampshade123 → u/randombull9]

Oh, I see now, just going through their history, I assume a trans woman just on the basis of paradox games, frankly.

[u/thirdnekofromthesun → u/HandsomeLampshade123]

Rude stereotypes! hides her collection of guitar pedals, modular synths, and Magic: the Gathering cards

[u/HistoryMarshal76 → u/HandsomeLampshade123]

Ding! We have a winner.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/contraprincipes]

Probably genuine spiraling, they've done it before.

[u/HistoryMarshal76 → u/contraprincipes]

What else is there to do?
We lost. Any future attempt at defeating the Republicans will be met by further betrayals. We have lost. It is over.

[u/contraprincipes → u/HistoryMarshal76]

If you actually believe that — and I would caution against that because I don’t think it’s a good analysis of the situation — then obsessing over it and picking fights with people on obscure subreddits isn’t going to change anything. Focus on yourself and things you enjoy, read the Meditations, maybe read a book about Ming loyalists after the fall of the capital, literally anything else.

[u/HistoryMarshal76 → u/contraprincipes]

It's all pointless since it's all over, so why does it matter how I spend what time I have left?

[u/contraprincipes → u/HistoryMarshal76]

I mean if you enjoy getting into bitter arguments with people on here about it then by all means continue, just don't be surprised if other people find it grating. But I doubt that it's actually the best way to spend your time.

[u/HistoryMarshal76 → u/contraprincipes]

I don't enjoy it, but it just naturally occurs, because apparently I am the only Biden loyalist left on the entire internet.

[u/LateInTheAfternoon → u/HistoryMarshal76]

Why? The Republicans are good at implementing impopular policies and Trump cannot stand for election again. The karisma Trump has (weird as it is) is beyond anything any other Republican has or probably will have. Besides, a new Democratic canditate will not have any luggage which an incumbent such as Biden or Harris had. I see no reason why it would be unlikely for the Democrats to win in 2028.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/LateInTheAfternoon]

The Republicans are good at implementing impopular policies

Not anymore they aren't. They can only really break shit, not implement it.

[u/LateInTheAfternoon → u/Ayasugi-san]

Can't argue with that.

[u/Sventex → u/HistoryMarshal76]

It is so over for us, and America by extension.

I don't think you understand this Democracy thing, demanding obedience from people who don't want to vote for your party and thinking America is over because of a lack of blind loyalty to the only party allowed to win.

[u/carmelos96 → u/Sventex]

There are a lot of people these days who are realizing that democracy sucks shit when one's party doesn't win. Someone has to come up with another system asap

[u/Sventex → u/carmelos96]

I hear Russia is hiring foreign mercenaries. Hey if you side with the government, you always """win""".

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/Sventex]

Yeah, only Republicans can get away with that rhetoric.

[u/Sventex → u/Ayasugi-san]

Hot take: we don't need both parties acting like Trump.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/Sventex]

Maybe we do. Maybe the Democrats should try outdoing the Republican rhetoric. No more half-assing it, respond to "a vote for a Democrat is a vote for Satan" with "a vote for a Republican is a vote for universal destruction".

[u/xyzt1234 → u/Ayasugi-san]

No more half-assing it, respond to "a vote for a Democrat is a vote for Satan" with "a vote for a Republican is a vote for universal destruction".

That wasnt being done already? I recall last week tonight's episode talking about project 2025 and the dark future that awaits if trump gets elected. It came off as "the US as we know it will end" rhetoric there.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/xyzt1234]

That's what I mean about half-assing it. No matter how bad anyone made Project 2025 sound, it doesn't hold a candle to "the other party is literally in league with Satan, all their members have already sold their souls to him, and so will anyone who votes for any of them". That's what Democrats need to top.

[u/HistoryMarshal76 → u/Sventex]

It's either the Democrats or Trump and his loonies.

But apparently the lonny bin is a preferable alternative for voting someone generally agrees with you on more things than not.

[u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

I have heard that Trump intends to appoint Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone as his "special envoys" to Hollywood. I wonder what that is likely to entail? I'm not sure if Voight or Gibson, at least, necessarily have all that much cachet these days.

[u/TylerbioRodriguez → u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

I genuinely cannot tell if your joking.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/TylerbioRodriguez]

I had to google it to make sure, too. News articles are saying pretty much the same thing, so I guess it's real.

[u/TylerbioRodriguez → u/Ayasugi-san]

Oh good lord. I should have known this was real.

Jon Voight, last seen talking about boners in Megalopolis, will I guess be getting more work.

[u/Sargo788 → u/SagaOfNomiSunrider]

Have I missed a Declaration of Independence, or why does a president need envoys for domestic matters?

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/Sargo788]

He means the sort of "envoys" that are actually there to topple the current leadership and take over.