I am sooooo fucking sick and tired of people touting out that tired cliché to defend capitalists…

I think instead we should start saying “don’t let the manipulation by their benefactors stand in the way of the reality of the systems they maintain”.

I doubt anyone is expecting perfection at this point, I know I’m not (it being a literal impossibility and all), but them pretending to be “good” and you buying it, doesn’t actually make it any good at all (as I said - it’s just giving them the space to continue as they are for a fee that they will never pay, their trapped customers will).

Defending this bullshit as the good we should be happy to compromise for serves no one but the people running the oil companies (and the politicians they pay to ensure such legislation has no legs).

You are playing their game, and supporting their team, bathing in the placation of their greenwashing and letting them get away with it. That is what’s in the way of good.

So they can pay a relative pittance to keep chugging along uninterrupted, and pass the cost on to the consumer.
Yeah, that’ll fix things…

made a pretty weird video about autism, using the fact that his son has it as like qualification for him to talk about it. folks with autism tried to talk to him about the problematic nature of the video in the comments, and he just blocked them.

So typical Autism Parent™ then lol it’s like they can’t help but make it about themselves… 🙄

Letting the rich know people can get right up to them and mess with their shit is a good thig. Next time perhaps make it a cocktail party (just make sure no crew are around)…

Not sure I agree that conservatives can both “choose” to be like they are, and also be the victims of their upbringing in a toxic system. These 2 points you made seem to be contradictory.

Not really.

We are all subjected to the same propaganda, yet we’re not all conservatives, that’s enough to prove that there is choice involved (even if the choices are limited, and opinions externally influenced by and for the ruling class), but more to the point - no one is born conservative, and no one is forced in any way to support one political party or another, political affiliation isn’t something someone can’t help or control or change, making it a choice, unlike race, gender, sexual orientation, abledness, place and circumstances of birth, and so on, which are not.

Liberals play along plenty in to the division sown by the ruling class, but lets be fucking clear - conservatives choose to be that way, and are actively and vocally contributing to the problem, unlike Jews, immigrants, disabled people and so on…

Is working class conservative Joe Shmoe responsible for the system and the one who needs to be removed from society? No, they’re as much a victim of it (and its brain washing propaganda) as any other working class person, and sure, many liberals fail to see this, but to compare calling out people who choose to actively support open and proud oppressors for their contribution, to scapegoating the people they oppress for existing as who they are, for the problems of society, is fucking gross.

E: seriously, conservatives uphold conservatism - there is no conspiracy. 🤦‍♀️

I actually think it’s those that get so close to the truth, before veering to the right and blaming minorities instead of those who are really to blame (by design of those who are really to blame, of course) - blaming Jews for controlling the banks and the media (it’s the obscenely rich), blaming immigrants for poor work conditions/no jobs (it’s the obscenely rich), blaming disabled people for being a burden and leeching off the tax payer (it’s the obscenely rich), blaming whichever generation is currently in young adulthood for “destroying industries” (it’s the obscenely rich), and so on and so on…

I guess they make me angriest because the truth clearly isn’t outside of the people who believe the conspiracy’s grasp, they’d just rather punch down, solve nothing, but continue to have minor feelings of superiority (which really ties in with the key to all belief in conspiracy theories - “I have special knowledge you don’t”), than punch up and actually try to resolve the issues they whine about…

Oh, won’t somebody think of the property! (the damage which was caused being miniscule in comparison to what’s to come with climate change)

Also, you’re talking a lot in this thread about what is “legal”, so just to remind you that the holocaust was legal, as was slavery, as were many other atrocities.

Basing your moral compass on what the ruling class has told you you are and aren’t allowed to do is such an uncritical, counterproductive, and honestly pathetic way to see the world, but to apply your own, now faulty, “morals” on to others makes you complicit, and in direct service of said ruling class. Well done.

How about instead just abolish the monarchy…

Such a fabulous lil floof! 😁

ᴴᴼᴺᴷ

Advertising is 95% lies. Companies not lying is the tool to better choices.

FTFY

FYI she’s gone back to using her full name Thandiwe

I never said or even implied we have no agency, but I’m also not deluded enough to think we have free choice under capitalism. We are not only literally indoctrinated from birth and essentially brainwashed our entire lives from that point in to consumerism and “keeping up with the Joneses”, but we are also entirely dependant on participation in the system for survival because it is designed that way. You wanting to think you’re somehow above it (even if you have learned to identify some of the propaganda and try to avoid it, which is simply impossible to do), or wanting to blame those who aren’t “above it” for the system instead of those actively implementing and profiting directly from it, doesn’t change that.

Freedom, and specifically freedom of choice, is capitalism’s biggest con.

That’s pretty cool, and sounds like you’ve got a good challenge on your hands both because it will take you a lot to up the diversity, but also because statistically it feels like somewhere there will be people that look like whatever results from your work unless you add in non-human features (but I realise that’s not really the point, but rather to create “everypeople” rather than celeb/filter clones, it’s just the “don’t look like any one real person” got me lol).

Adam Pearson was the first that came to mind.
Having a bit more of a think about women in particular, I’d say Michaela Coel, Milly Shapiro, Liz Carr just off the top of my head, I’m sure there are more, I might add them if they come to me (keeping in mind that I’m terrible with both faces and names lol)…

On an aside - this is a great demonstration of representation (or lack thereof) and intersectionality.
While more white cis men are allowed to exist in the industry without meeting the “ideal” standard, darker skinned people (even within majority black/brown countries, colourism is still a very real problem), disabled people, trans people, and women in general but also specifically within each of the other categories, are all still held to a much higher standard and scrutiny (and of course the more of those categories you fit in to, the worse it is). And it isn’t a bug of course, but a feature.

The point is that the “desire” is entirely artificial and enforced on us as society by those who profit from doing so (and their trillion dollar industries dedicated to this task), not that some people are struggling, because all of us but a tiny miniscule percent of humanity, are struggling (including the non-existent “middle class”, another lie there to maintain division in the working class, and the illusion of “aspiration”), we’re just made to believe it’s normal and part of human nature, when it is anything but.

Whatever “truth” Buddhism has is honestly irrelevant, especially because it predates Adam Smith and the levels of unprecedented social engineering and indoctrination we’re subjected to in the name of capitalism by so long, its idea of “desire” is completely detached from yours, but even if it wasn’t, all that “truth” is is victim blaming, and shifting responsibility for systemic issues on to individuals, which is a classic tactic employed by those in charge (be it kings, feudal lords, “gods” prophets and whatever other religious figurehead, or capitalists) because it serves them and only them, for us to be pointing fingers at one another (while ignoring literally all of the environmental factors they impose on us) instead of at them.

But most people don’t directly benefit from, and are directly involved in, the systems that encourage such behaviour, like the ones at the top are.
Most people are just grinding away selling their labour to survive while convinced by the wealthy-owned media and trillion dollar marketing industrial complex that they’re just temporarily embarrassed millionaires who just need to consume more to make their lives better.
*Insert “we are not the same” meme here*

I actually have IBS so I feel your pain, to some extent anyway… For most of my life I was not regular and would go anything from once every few days to several times a day, but then at some point, it just… Regulated? I don’t know how or why, I wish I could give some advice, but it just happened…

I generally go once in the morning (going from being horizontal in bed to being vertical out of it usually does the trick) then I’m done for the day. But even if I have to go again I can generally hold it at least for a bit unless it’s a food poisoning type situation… ¯\(ツ)/¯

But then, digestive systems vary widely, so all that matters is what’s normal for you.