astroboy's posterior

 “Now that Trump won people have to like and agree with me and not tell me I suck anymore.”

‘These folks are going to be permanently resentful because they’re seeking political power as a substitute for cultural power, and it’s never going to give them what they actually want.’

Listen, if you can stomach it, to a random MAGA grievance rant & ask yourself “how much of what they’re most upset about is something public policy can realistically address?”

‘Elon Musk has all the money in the world and can’t buy one minute of cool.’

The destruction of patience is one of the most dramatic cultural shifts we’ll probably experience of our lifetimes.

Democracy is more than the absence of czars, more than freedom, more than equal opportunity. It is a way of life, a use of freedom, an embrace of opportunity.

https://mattdpearce.substack.com/p/journalisms-fight-for-survival-in

See this Instagram post by @speakers.on.blast:

Frank Wilhoit: ‘Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”’

What I have taken advantage of is what so many, many, many, many other people have taken advantage of, which is today the total disintermediation of the public discourse. There is no longer any gatekeeping whatsoever.

https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html

ISIS’s chief designer gave him the nickname  The Nightmare because of the extensive notes and revisions that were required before any piece of propaganda he worked on was pushed out.

https://www.404media.co/graphic-design-for-isis-is-his-passion-fbi-alleges-in-filing

This research explores HST as a potential game-changer for the chronically socially fatigued. 

Minimal-effort “Haha So True!” responses provide the same satisfaction boost as more strenuous replies like “OMG LMAO”.

Friendships thrive best when effort is kept to a bare minimum – so long as it exists at all.

The president tweeted false statements about Amazon and his threats to raise its postal shipping rates. Amazon’s market value briefly plunged $60 billion.

Through his actions, Defendant Trump has intentionally conveyed to all writers and journalists that if he objects to their coverage, they may be subject to retaliation by the federal government.

Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/anticipatory-obedience-bassin-potter-scheppele-orban-trump-hungary-media-punish.php

All children deserve a quality, free education.

If you aren’t willing to fork over an extra 17 cents for a Big Mac, you’re a fundamentally different person than I am.

I cannot have political debates with these people. Our disagreement is not merely political, but a fundamental divide on what it means to live in a society, how to be a good person, and why any of that matters.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/i-dont-know-how-to-explain-to-you-that-you-should_b_59519811e4b0f078efd98440

Gender identities have become rather more fluid since I was 10(15) years old in 1991.

Boys simply weren’t (and I suspect still often aren’t) exposed to emotionally intelligent character interactions in the books marketed to us.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/18/as-a-middle-aged-man-i-wouldve-saved-loads-on-therapy-if-id-read-baby-sitters-club-books-as-a-kid

The true test of an introvert — not whether one engages in social activity, but whether one is charged or drained by it.

‘Silence drops like falling blossoms over the recovered kingdom from which pretenders have taken their leave.’

‘Dear visitors, what largesse have you given, not only in departing, but in coming, that we might learn to prize your absence, wallow the more exquisitely in the leisure of your not-being.’