Saw No Men at a tiny show once. Great energy. Friendly people. Chatted with them for a while.

Saw screaming females a few times. The singer crowd surfs while doing guitar solos.

This year saw Caroline rose at a tiny packed venue. That was great. Love good crowd banter.

It doesn’t help that the right infiltrates and murders left wing movements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars

I’m not a historian so I’m struggling to remember specific details. “People’s History of the United States” by Zinn includes many examples that went like “People wanted to organize for something better” -> “Capitalists said no, and had the police beat up and arrest people”

I already felt pretty good about not eating meat*. I think this would have have been a big motivator if I wasn’t already on board

*Ok, I’m kind of a half assed vegetarian. I generally don’t buy meat but if I’m at like a dinner someone else planned I might have some they cooked. It’s easier than going all the way to 100%, and has reduced my meat consumption by like 95%.

Natural consequence of capitalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth%2C_and_I_Must_Scream

It’s short and you can find a copy at your library, or on the seas.

and on her way to work every single leftist that she knew irl punched her in the face every single day.

But no there’s no corresponding “leftists are doing something like punching her in the face” in real life. Certainly not “every single” one. I agree that people are emotionally driven ( https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe is a good comic about it ).

There are extremists in any sect - the christian fanatics, animal rights ecoterrorists, whatever. But it’s not “the left” as a whole, or even a majority.

Unless, I guess, you consider a scenario like

“I just think gay people shouldn’t be so visible. It’s confusing to my children”

“That’s a messed up thing to say. Gay people are a part of life. Shunting them into the closet so you can avoid a mildly uncomfortable conversation is unjust”

to be punching someone in the face.

Sure, but “you were mean to me so now I’m joining maga” is pretty silly.

Some people are like that, I guess, but if someone rudely explains how racism is deeply entrenched in the US that doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Rejecting their message because they were mean is childish.

Evokes this comic https://thenib.com/fault-right/

I mean, not everyone wants to discuss politics all the time, and that should be an acceptable position to have.

This is probably true. I mean, if I started going off about how the workers are entitled to what they produce and fucking Joanne doesn’t do shit, so why does she get a fat salary while we don’t even get paid for thanksgiving, I’d be fired. Wouldn’t even move the needle.

I live in a red state, and I’d definitely say something similar if a magat tried to strike up a conversation about politics. Most of the time I just don’t have the mental energy to get into a discussion about it.

But sometimes the smaller conversations can change people. It takes a lot, and it can be infuriating when they just don’t get it, or relapse after another bender on fox news, but interactions with people they see as in-group change minds.

I had a coworker way back that was a big homophobe, and over the months we worked together I got him from “we should just kill the gays” to “i guess they’re not hurting anyone i just think it’s gross”. I understand that there’s not always energy in the budget for that, though.

I think there’s a difference between “I affirmatively do not care” and “there’s no purely way to be ethical, and that horror has fallen under my personal bar for attention right now”

I can maybe cut a little slack for someone who’s like “I don’t really understand politics or know history, so I don’t feel confident having a strong opinion” if they were curious and honest. We all start ignorant and not everyone had the good fortune to get a quality education.

But the aggressively ignorant and apathetic can fuck right off.

Ah I see. I’m not sure where the line is between “merely wrong” and “mad”.

Like, if you tell me the population of London is 5 million, that’s wrong but plausible. If you tell me it’s twelve people that’s absurd.

So when I look at privatization I can’t see any path where it works out for the majority of people that isn’t entirely wishful thinking. There’s no mechanism where private ownership of public resources and infrastructure works out in the long term. Believing in it seems so egregiously wrong it’s another category. Like someone believing that letting the foxes watch the hens will yield more eggs. There’s no good reasons to believe that, but plenty of Fox written propaganda.

Though I am sort of backed into a corner in that I was sort of firing from the hip. I don’t have the most robust argument for my “maybe written on the toilet” posts. “Mad” might not be the best word. “Foolish and poorly informed” maybe?

To me it seems perfectly plausible that changing the incentive structure around how a company is operated would have a way bigger impact than that.

I feel confident one can change incentives and operational practices without privatizing.

So you’ve got to put yourself in the shoes of someone who fervently believes that there is a lot of waste in the public sector.

Some people are delusional but I’m not sure the value of spending a lot of time in their shoes. In the US many people fervently believe the Republicans are “better at the economy” despite evidence pointing otherwise.

And just to emphasise, the idea of privatisation was not “let some rich people become richer.” It was to sell shares in privatised companies to as many people as possible, and make investors out of all of us.

This seems like an inefficient way to share public wealth that gives advantage to the wealthy. Let’s say you’re correct and the value of the shares goes from 10 to 100. People who bought more shares profit more. People with more money on hand can buy more shares. It’s a large advantage to the wealthy.

As you said

making some decent money but yielding the longer-term benefits to bigger investors.

So it sounds like we agree? Privatizing advantages the bigger, wealthier, investors.

No, their ideology was that state-run enterprises are less efficient than equivalent private ones

I dunno this seems like madness to me. Any private profit is, essentially, waste. Efficiency gains by, like, not supporting the entire public are also not real efficiency gains.

If a public service is running badly, the appropriate solution is to look into why, not let some rich people become richer off of it.

Reducing meat consumption is generally a win all around, and easier than going directly to zero.

That’s what I’ve been doing.

Most of the meat I end up eating is at a party or event someone else hosted.

Not that it matters. Democrats won’t do anything about affordability either.

Yeah, the Democrats are a mix of assholes, ghouls, spineless jellyfish, and maybe some decent folks. It’s sad that that’s the best mainstream option, but I’d rather work with them than the frothing nightmares of the Republican party.

There’s no good way out of this hell. But at least some socialists have won some elections

A lot of idiots will still believe the Republicans are “good at the economy”.

It was a very popular song with people who just totally disregarded the sentiment entirely.

I was just thinking about how that seems to be a theme. Art has a message. People don’t pick it up.

Like, if you’ll pardon a genre change, the protagonists of final fantasy 7 are literal eco terrorists who blow up an allegory for an oil plant. How many of those fans love the game and didn’t give a single thought to environmentalism? Barret would disapprove

Those people are embarrassing. They’re probably the same people that say like “Dracula is just a story about a guy who bites people shut up about all this politics and feminism”.

Education is difficult and, in the US are least, under funded.

Capitalism. The people making decisions aren’t the people doing the work. The people keeping the profits (and thus the power) aren’t the people doing the work.

I’m confident that a lot of the stuff that’s unpopular in games was put there because some ghoul thought it would be profitable, and the actual workers didn’t want to do it.