Yeah totally. Everything feels hopeless

I genuinely don't know what the Dems want to do.

Kamala's climate change policy was some of the most baffling word salad I've ever had to read. It seemed like every week they shifted positions or compromised on something I figured was a core Dem value.

Doesn't matter either way cuz they lost in a landslide lol

I think before investing on getting a message out, they should have one to begin with. I actively sought out what their platform is and as far as I can tell they don't have one

I think LotR was the first to have elves and hobbits and dwarves and orcs in the way that's instantly recognizable.

I agree that its a cozy story, and 1000% caste system, though imo LotR is a lot more thoughtful and I'd argue that the whole 'magic is fading and evil will eventually win but we'll fight while we can' tone makes it not all twee feel-good fluff.

I also just finally read LotR after bouncing off it a few times. I had the opposite takeaway though, at least having played a lot of D&D but not having read a lot of fantasy novels, that - wow it was so much better and more thoughtful than the modern take.

Yeah totally - see what you mean about the Tom Bombadil & that. I like the prose now, but especially the first chapter is very long and academic and not exactly a page turner.

Re: GEB also haven't finished it despite starting but I totally agree with you there, nothing felt like 'mind blowing'. For LotR though, I went in expecting to not be that impressed since I had all the cultural osmosis already and had seen the movies etc and, for me at least, it had a different tone and character and earnestness that I think the modern versions lost at some point. (I do still love the movies though).

Recently read some Sherlock Holmes and did get that feeling though- everything was such a predictable trope, but I suppose at the time it was a lot more new

Just Dungeon & Dragons and associates, plus of course the movies.

As well as vague awareness of like, video game plots & tropes.

What struck me the most was how LotR was very anti-war in a lot of ways which absolutely does not carry over.

I can completely agree it was like Star Wars, especially in that: Star Wars (4 at least) was good! It had an incredible aesthetic that I fell in love with instantly, the story is simple and nice, every line is iconic. But more Star Wars just isn't that interesting and it did seem like everyone was trying to make their own worse version for a while at least.

Yeah my enthusiasm for Bernie is more the symbolism of someone with at least passably good values in office. No pretense that he could get anything done. Which is another baffling thing about the Dems- if you're going to do literally nothing, why compromise all your values? Why have a stupid hedged weaksauce plan that you don't do instead of an exciting cool plan that you don't do.

Honestly the IRA passing at all was a shock to me, weaksauce as it was.

My only hope from the Trump admin is that the Dems exploit all the broken norms to 'fucking do something' but god knows they haven't ever in my lifetime, idk about yours but sounds like not then either.

At this point I kinda want to see America fall before I do, just for the schadenfreude

I still think a democrat without strong ties to the Biden admin and running on a somewhat econimically leftish platform like Obama did would have worked out.

Kamala was republican-lite. There's no reason to vote for her instead of the real one. Anyone who was upset at the state of thing and wanted change was offended by her ties to the Biden admin and her "plan" being essentially nothing, her base was offended by her hard shift right, no republican would touch her with a 50 foot pole. I genuinely don't know who they were possibly trying to appeal to.

I think that's definitely a problem- another example: they won't even consider packing the courts. Its so frustrating rooting for a party who's platform is built on not being willing to get things done.

For this election though, I think the bigger problem was that they ran two pathetic candidates with a pathetic message and a pathetic campaign

Totally agreed, I have friends who are directly affected afected and I'm very worried about them. Biggest hit to me personally as a cis white dude in america in a blue state will probably just be the rolling back of consumer protection and labor laws and a ton of bad juju. And of course in a few decades, all the species that go extinct from a complete lack of climate policy (not that Kamala was a whole lot better there tbh).

Imo a likely prediction of what's actually going to happen is that they achieve project 2025 completely and look the other way when red states put the thumb on the scales of future elections. Which for me is WAY BAD ENOUGH TO FREAK OUT RIGHT NOW!!! but not bad in the same way some people are making it out to be (ie. tanks in the streets military occupation - we are not WWII paris)

You've probably looked it over more than me @ Europe, but my Ukraine friend says the easiest way is to take a stint in Serbia or Kazakhstan and then transfer from there to Western Europe a few years later

I'm intellectually more upset abt stuff like this: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/13/tech/elon-musk-donald-trump-x/index.html where elon is using X (the everything app) to get Trump elected.

But emotionally I'm mostly mad that blue checks show up first in replies. Don't even bother going to the comments anymore. The site is still usable if you're following specific people and IMO that's all social media ought to be

I love the C1 Moonphase too! So many wonderful ones here

Honestly feel the same way. Really shows how much kleinbl00 was doing all the hard work of finding interesting things to talk about.

I hope things pick back up after the election but I'm ducking out again

Nobody thinks you're arguing for Trump, they think you hate both but are arguing that Biden is more likely to use nukes than Trump.

In my opinion this is a baffling take, and I too question what information you have that lead here.

Windows 10 is losing support soon, and I won't be able to (easily) upgrade to 11 as appparently my CPU is too old, even though they were selling them until 2019 but whatever. Still haven't decided what I'm going to do, probably leaving it as Windows 10 and just being insecure tbh, since I want to run Photoshop and linux isnt good at that and like hell am I buying another computer for no reason. (two, since my laptop is too old as well)

Anyways, while reading about different OSes to install, I came across Genode (https://genode.org/) and I love it so so much. So many alternative OSes are just so boring. Like cool, you're rewriting everything from scratch, so that it can run normal posix programs worse?? see: gnu/hurd, redox, serinityos. This one's actually doing its own thing and it's incredibly nifty. I can't explain it well concisely yet, but If anyone's interested I'm happy to give the long pitch.

& as part of that, I've been daydreaming about what the perfect OS would be like, no constraints whatsoever. Feel free to suggest any ideas, planning on making a blog post out of it eventually. Right now my favorite is adding undo/redo to everything, including being able to scrub backwards in time and restart from there.

Here's NYT's opinion section right now:

The first one is about how Biden is too old

The second is about low legitimate! the supreme court really is

The third is more about Biden's age

The fourth is an honest to god pitch that Trump would be a better president because he is 1. not as old as biden and 2. more "doveish" towards Russia

The screenshot is cut off here but everything else is about UK politics (fair) and seemed generally anti labor, calling the victory "hollow". Idk how to feel about that, I know nothing about england. Also, went again to double check and theres now a 4th! Biden is too old article.

I think your first idea was correct. They are not both-sides-ing (which would suck too). They are actively trying to get Trump elected, for reasons I truly do not understand.

I've wondered similar things about popes-

everything they say (in official capacity) is infallible divine truth, so what happens when they disagree?

This is not to defend what Hamas did on Oct 7.

But Ukraine could also stop all the killings with unconditional surrender. Israel wants complete military domination and will not accept any Palestinian state.

They've proposed an permanent ceasefire in exchange for all hostages. Israel will only accept a temporary ceasefire.

I would compare it more to what happened in Bosnia than to the atomic bomb. But you're right, dropping the abomb has also fallen out of favor with the left

I think you're right that Trump is doing badly.

I think Klein's right that Roe v Wade is very motivating.

I think Biden is not beloved, and if you believe what's happening in Gaza is a genocide, being able to take a moral stance on "never voting for a genocider" is a hard line in the ground to argue against and means you get to feel brave voting aginst someone you didn't really like to begin with. If the war isn't over and the Palestinians made whole it will be a very tight race. I'd give Biden the odds, but I did in 2016 too

I don't get your conclusion, Mitch has been pushed out of his party for not being MAGA enough, but I don't see how that relates.

Packing the courts seems so out of character for them. I think if they win they'll legislate around the court as much as they can, and otherwise just accept losing. They know how to lose pretty well, I think they're used to it at this point.

Id give 100:1 odds that by the end of the next term, they have not packed the court, and 10:1 odds that Biden never even pitches the option

I have aboslutely no faith that they will be willing to do it. They couldn't break the filibuster for Obamacare with almost a supermajority, and the filibuster is a boring procedural thing you have to be tricked into caring about. Adding more justices is the right thing to do, but its dramatic.

I'd love to be proven wrong

[edit: what's your opinion on impeachment? I always thought that was the more politically correct option and the results are the same]

What's the democrats plan to restore legitimacy to the court?

Then why stick it in the last possible slot and not give a reply until July, virtually guaranteeing that the trial isn't over before he's elected president?

I think the idea is to get the best of both worlds, "credibility" by making the obviously correct ruling, while still allowing trump into office

Why didn't they take the case up the first time it was presented to them, or make any sort of expedited judgement? A swift ruling would have been slightly more decisive true, but I do not believe that's their goal.

I'm with you that trump will not serve more than his four years.