I appreciate the existence of this tweet because it makes basically the same point as that one famous Carl Schmitt quote about fascists and liberals, except without the baggage of being a quote from a literal fucking Nazi
let me put this another way: despair, or its new name, doomerism, asserts omniscience--that things cannot be better, that all possibilities of good are already foreclosed, that you can know this as fact. it looks like humility, but it's all ego. it is, in fact, the assumption of godhood.
I joke a lot about my capacity for despair, but there's enough Catholic discipline in my youth to remember that it is in fact a sin, one that absorbs all the best in you more comprehensively than a tar pit. I left the church ages ago, but I held onto that cable: despair is not a long-term good.
I must not doomer. Doomer is the mind-killer. Doomer is the little-death that brings total inaction. I will face my doom. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn to see its path. Where the doomering has gone there will be nothing. Only hope will remain.
One thing I appreciate about BlueSky is that while it's not immune to braindead discourse, the politics scene seems to be dominated by fairly level-headed and well-intentioned people.
Compared to the Other Site, where Left, Right, and Center are all dominated by the worst people imaginable
I've had people do this sort of thing to memes I've made before too, and it's super annoying
Like, both memes and posts are supposed to be short and sweet to be effective, we don't have the space to elaborate on and clarify every little thing
I don’t like this expectation that when a post goes viral, it has to be held to the same standards as a manifesto, and not just an off the cuff observation. we’re just people making little posts.
For those who can't read the article, the only two progressives they quoted were Nerdeen Kiswani and Margaret Palmquist, and the latter's criticisms were actually pretty tepid.
As for the former... well, look up her name on Wikipedia and prepare for quite the wild ride.
I can't take seriously people who accuse everyone they don't like of being a nefarious foreign agent - whether for the US, China, or Russia - for the simple reason that actual paid agitators tend to either wear their state affiliation on their sleeve, or they tend to be... not very good at their job
I don't even need to check the Other Site to know that there are at least five threads on there now about how this proves that the LGBTQ+ Pride movement is a CIA/NED front to foment color revolutions abroad
I have a hard time articulating how fucking mad it makes me that conservatives get to self-brand as the party of national security and law and order while they throw shit fits and leak documents over voluntary morale building events.
Guy who wants the United States to heavily restrict immigration because they want to weaken American economic and cultural hegemony and thus help the rise of the multipolar world order
every once in a while it really tweaks me out that Cold War Two has got an "i win" button labeled "accept radically increased chinese immigration" and no one wants to push it
Lists are to Bluesky what Community Notes are to the Other Site:
They're an objectively good feature, and when people have irrational hate for it, it tends to say more about them than the feature itself
Go ahead, post another "take". Tell me that Japanese people are basically white. Say that fundraising for Palestinian families is Zionist. Accuse a trans woman of being a cop because they run a moderation list. Come up with a woke way to say you hate ace people. Go ahead. Make my fucking day.
Sidenote, but I really hate this tendency with certain atheists to act as though certain religions are inherently better or worse than others.
Like, basically every religion - regardless of what its holy texts say - has at some point been used to justify oppression and extreme violence.
Whether or not he's dead, I'd just like to say that you have to admire Noam Chomsky's commitment to pissing off every Leftist tendency possible
Anti-authoritarians with his apologia for Pol Pot, Milosevic, and Putin, and MLs with his shitting on the USSR, and his support for electoralism
