That’s not by accident. Every right wing conspiracy is a ridiculous pastiche of the shit they are really getting up to, or intend to in the near future. No doubt Pizzagate was invented to make people incredulous about claims of secret cabals of kid rapists in elite circles. Every accusation a confession.

To Andrew Tate: Try me. Sincerely, every single pilot precipice in the world

Haven’t you seen Alien:Prometheus? Humanoid aliens sending their pedos to earth and dispersing their DNA to create a whole new pedosystem was what got us into this mess in the first place. We must not repeat the cycle!

Computers are people too

You’re not nitpicking. It’s like saying USA is all Nazis. A country is more than its current government. Unfortunately neither Italy nor the USA have a particularly well functioning democracy.

Well obviously they will be checking for illegal immigrants that might be hiding in Italy

I think it’s more that AI is a soulless bullshit generator with no imagination and no deep understanding, and managers tend to notice that it can do most of the work they do. There’s a lot of skill overlap with management there, so naturally they would be impressed with it.

I agree with what you’re saying, but also I think that after a crisis like the current one, there is potential to seriously examine general questions of how we got here, what systemic problems have led to this, and what weaknesses in our systems have been exposed by this. It’s a unique opportunity to fix what is broken, because all serious people can find common ground in the understanding that things have gone to shit lately and that it does need fixing. It’s a rare chance for good faith discussion and significant change. Well-informed proponents of positive change might actually be heard and taken seriously.

The dangers of false propaganda using image manipulation is one important consideration but there are many, many others. You’d probably want to start with the failure of democracy in the USA and how the electoral system needs to be reformed.

I think he’ll be remembered the same way we remember Horst Wessel. Much less memorable than Hitler.

Previous presidencies have indeed done that, but that’s why this particular situation gives me a glimmer of hope. The rot is at the point where it all needs to be ripped out. All branches of government are loaded with MAGA appointees, the supreme court is politicized and disgraced, the whole Republican party is complicit in crimes against the nation. Business as usual just isn’t an option any more. I’m not saying that things are automatically going to get better, and unless there is a major cleanout of the Democratic party, it’s doubtful that they would. Just saying that there is a chance now that didn’t exist before.

I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, obviously it’s a bad thing in the short term. I’m sure the current administration will continue to lie in more egregious ways. For example, if there were no clear bystander videos, would the DHS be releasing doctored bodycam footage to show Alex Pretti pulling his gun and trying to shoot ICE officers? Does that sound far-fetched? It’s technically feasible. It might seem too big and blatant a lie, but that lie has already been told in words from the DHS and Trump administration. Why not embellish it further?

And of course it’s enormously dangerous because no matter how blatant the lies are, there are many people who will accept them at face value, because they are too uneducated, or too locked into the “us and them” mentality to ever doubt the story that their team is selling.

So how could it be a good thing? Well, if the USA manages to rid itself of this cancer, the Trump administration will serve as irrefutable proof that government institutions cannot be considered intrinsically trustworthy, or relied on to act in good faith. There needs to be checks and balances like never before. That was always true, but knowing it and being able to act on it are two different things. The Trump administration’s eagerness to lie, cheat and cause suffering, even in the most clumsy and blatant ways, shines a clear light on dangers that were already there. It is an exemplary model of the abuse of power, and I hope that one day we will be in a position to take lessons from it. Maybe I’m being overoptimistic. It seems like the lessons learned from Nazi Germany were mostly the “how to do this” kind. But there is a chance to make things better here, not just better than they are now but better than they were before.

That way you can do lengthy email exchanges to discuss what time both parties are available for a phone call

same hairstyle anyway

As the threat of violent confrontation looms, it’s important to have as many people on your side as possible. It’s also important to demoralize those who remain on the side of fascism. It’s especially useful to have people in the armed forces, in the police, even in ICE, who can see that what’s happening is wrong. Maybe being Nazis, destroying democracy and murdering innocent civilians wasn’t what they thought they signed up for. Even so, some of those people are going to be racists. If the sight of people getting murdered has a greater effect when they are white, that sucks. But if it works, it works.

When I was a little kid I went to my grandparents house where they were having some party with a buffet. I ate what I thought was a grape, but in fact it was something I’d never tasted before: an olive. It took me about 30 years to start liking olives, for a very long time they just tasted like rotten grapes.

Also, it’s very important to be numerous and visible. Most people feel the need to follow the herd and go along with whatever the majority is doing, to a greater or lesser extent. Very few people will act in isolation. Protests are a show of numbers, and that makes a huge difference in helping people to contribute in still greater numbers. Just as it erodes morale on one side, it boosts it on the other. And if in the end, the situation must devolve into violent confrontation, those numbers will make all the difference.

Maybe I didn’t frame it right but I’m talking about the same thing. They lied, egregiously, obviously, repeatedly. The issue now isn’t that the story was a lie, and that their supporters are outraged at having been lied to. No, the issue is that it was a poorly chosen lie and not what they wanted to hear.

I guess selling the big lie was always an effective strategy, only now it’s being taken to extremes. The fascists don’t care about objective reality. They get their reality from the leader and the in-group, and as long as it gives them the right feels it doesn’t matter how obviously untrue it is. Those of us who see the lies can point out that the lying liars have lied again, but that’s boring, it happens every day. So any backlash is minimal.

But as you say, it also works on the masses who just aren’t thinking critically, and given the sheer volume of that flood of lies, that’s a big problem.

I’m fairly sure the reason this latest incident is blowing up in their faces is not the blatant lies, it’s that they tried to spin it so that Pretti deserved to die because he was carrying a gun. Which pisses off the 2A crowd. If they had shot an unarmed protester that wouldn’t be a problem: he didn’t comply, was impeding law enforcement, FAFO, etc., apply thought terminating phrase of choice. But because the conversation has become whether you should be executed for carrying a gun, that’s touched a nerve.

“So that’s it huh? We’re some kind of fellowship of the ring?”

Thank you for diverting your attention from the Epstein files!