Reddit used to be about communities and people. Now it’s about bots and defending pedophiles.

Reddit has always been full of people making excuses for or normalising pedophilia.

we’re all america, we all own this.

Not everyone on the internet is American. From a non-American perspective, it is good you point out that previous presidencies also have a death toll. Doesn’t get much better if you go further back, either.

Not that chauvanism is a specifically American disease, but I can’t help but think that American exceptionalism means that America is often in denial. Imagine having to explain naming a clothing store Banana Republic, to a survivor of the Guatamalan genocide.

Weirdly, it’s actually quite reassuring from a non-American perspective. Trump’s bad, but not exceptionally so.

Sure he’s stabbing Europe and Ukraine in the back, but Bush and Obama helped cause and perpetuate a refugee crisis that seriously destabilized the EU and helped fuel the rise of the far right. Not as if Biden was particularly quick in delivering weapons to Ukraine either. Obama’s reaction to the annexation of Crimea wasn’t stellar either.

Sure, he’ll probably invade Venezuela, but Maduro is no Allende, and the leader of Venezuela’s opposition is no Pinochet.

Sure, he’s tariffed South East Asia, but he’s not going to start another war in Vietnam or bomb Laos.

Sure, he bombed Tehran, but it’s not as if he overthrew the democratically elected government, and paved the way for the Islamic Revolution. That was Eisenhower.

Sure, Trump’s supporting Netenyahu. But under Reagan the US arguably helped Iraq build chemical weapons, knowing that Saddam would use them against the Iranians and Kurds.

Sure, Trump’s a racist who has a contentious relationship with African leaders, and is perpetuating the myth of a white genocide in South Africa. But it’s not like he had Lumumba, the democratically elected leader of newly indepenent Congo murdered, that happened under Eisenhower. An assassination that would arguably ultimately result in the first and second Congo war, and the death of roughly 5 million people.

It should be reassuring for Americans too.

Sure, ICE is bad, but it’s not like he’s put 120,000 people in concentration camps like Roosevelt did. He hasn’t deported up to 2 million Mexican and Mexican Americans either, like happened under Hoover. Not yet, at least.

Cheer up America. This is business as usual. This is America. Don’t catch you slippin’ now.

He is good at flooding the zone/firehosing/deadcatting. That’s for sure.

Not a great way to run a country, not sure if it’s always deliberate and/or pathological, but good for ratings and helped get him elected twice.

I do think he has declined mentally since the 80s. He’s an old man, doesn’t always look well, and appears increasingly erratic. Not a doctor though, so what do I know. I’ve grown cynical about his supposedly imminent demise, just like I’ve become cynical about his supposedly imminent jail sentence.

I don’t understand why we’re so willing to believe that the people who have completely taken over the United States of America with minimal effort have somehow done this while being literally stupid.

Overused, but might be Dunning Kruger. Less intelligent people, overestimating their own intelligence, and underestimating that of others. If so, it would explain why the same people who are certain Bush is a moron, are often unwilling to change their minds when presented with evidence to the contrary. That and it feels nice to think you’re smarter than other people. Vanity is the Devil’s favourite sin.

Not that I like Bush, just want to make that clear.

Also, Trump likely is stupid, from what I can tell. Although I have heard critics say he has or at one point had a measure of cunning, which certainly may be true given he won the presidency twice.

Not that this changes Trump being a dangerous man.

Nope. Saw him speaking off the cuff before he was a presidential nominee.

Relatively high SAT score. Score higher on his transcript than John Kerry. IRC scored relatively high on his air force qualifying test too.

He purposely dumbed down his language and it helped him get elected.

As opposed to Donald Trump, where at least one professor has said he’s a moron.

To be clear, I’m not saying Bush was a good president. Quite the opposite. If anything him being relatively intelligent makes him more culpable for what happened.

Were you alive and old enough to remember GWB’s term? Or are you going entirely on second hand information?

Yes. I was studying political science at the time.

No, I am not going by second hand information. I’m going by how he spoke before Karl Rove told him to dumb it down.

Donald Trump went to Wharton

At least one of Donald Trump’s professors has said he’s an idiot. Not true for Bush, who scored relatively well on his SATs. IRC John Kerry’s transcript scored lower than W Bush’s. IRC Bush’s air force qualifying test was also relatively high.

To be clear, I’m not saying he’s a good president. If anything I’m saying stupidity isn’t an excuse for what happened during his tenure.

Unable to connect.

Hug of death?

I always find it interesting how little the English speaking world knows about countries that aren’t English speaking. I don’t think people realise they’re in a media bubble.

In this case, there are plenty of countries that have introduced digital ID, but you likely wouldn’t know much about that if you consume only English language media. Predictably this article deals with hypotheticals or something that happened in another English speaking country, rather than mentioning what happened in countries with actual digital ID.

It reminds me of this British show I was watching about where they were building a house near the Thames. The builders and architect spent much of the time, fellating each other for inventing sub-optimal solutions for problems which have already been solved. So much time and money wasted because they refused to use google translate or email a Dutch architect. Unlike the Italians, the perfidious Dutch do actually speak English.

You could blame the language barrier, but in large part it’s chauvinism. Unfortunately, pride often becomes before the fall. Such a wasted opportunity to not learn from mistakes made.

W. was the dumbest president the world had ever seen.

Went to Harvard and Yale. First president with an MBA. SAT score was good. His folksy act was just that. An act. He was told to dumb down his language by Karl Rove and others. There are videos of him speaking before he became a presidential nominee, and the difference is obvious.

Relatively intelligent man pretending to be stupid.

And to his credit, it worked. Got elected twice and to this day people are more likely to blame the Iraq war on evil mastermind Cheney. And unlike plenty of supposedly intelligent leaders, he’s smart enough to keep a low profile now he’s retired.

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I dunno. I just bought this thing on amazon that projects stars on my ceiling.

“Davon haben wir nichts gewusst”.

There is a non-zero chance that the US government or its proxies, have already started mass-murdering immigrants, but the information hasn’t leaked out. Thousands are already missing.

Luckily, Americans have a unique talent for pretending things never happened, so ten years from now most will be back to lecturing the world on democracy and free speech. Right now only the fascists have the gall, but they delight in acting in bad faith, because their main goal is to intimidate and disconcert.

You’re welcome.

I can astral project.

I do sometimes wonder, if the tv isn’t recording what I do on my pc.

Also, RTFM. It took me 5 years to realize that the reason HDR wasn’t working on my tv, is because it only works if I plug my pc in to the third hdmi port.

I do need razors, I do need tools, I do need camping gear, I do need bath products, I do want jewelry.

But what you buy me, will never be what I actually want. We have a family tradition, where we go online as a family, and order stuff we actually want. No need for surprises and pretending to be happy with something you didn’t want.

On a similar note, the family christmas dinner is pizza with pre-made tapas/snacks, consumed in PJs while watching netflix. No one’s stressed, tired or spending too much time in the kitchen.

Cancer and too many funerals, really does shed a family of fucks to give.

I buy HDDs on vinted now. Huge bargains to be had. Fast enough for fully legal torrenting of open source software and public domain works.

If you’re giving them as a gift, you might as well get a high quality pair of socks. Wool, non-China crap.

Few people will ever buy them for themselves, because of the price, but the difference is often huge. And they last much longer too.

Every time I want to quote the Smiths’ That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore, I remember Morrissey is a fascist supporter now.

Fun fact:

In standard Dutch:

• poep = poop = shit.
• Poepen = to poop.

In Flemish/Belgian Dutch:

• poep = backside (as in the poop deck, the French la poupe = backside).
• poepen = to fuck. Etymological root comes from pop(children’s doll), root is probably the latin pupa=doll/girl. I assume the English puppet also comes from the latin pupa. Poppen used to mean playing with dolls. Poppen became poepen, perhaps through the influence of poep/la poupe.

This is entirely irrelevant knowledge, but I find it kinda adorable and interesting.