I want this read at my funeral

So true. Hope you’ve been able to make some more deep connections with people who aren’t crazy. Thanks for giving me the space to vent about this.

You did the right thing too. I hope you’ve made some new friends since all that. I’ve cut off the one friend and had to distance myself from other friends that enabled him. You invited both of us to your birthday party? Guess I’m not going. The good news is that this has pushed me to value my friends that aren’t crazy and make more deep connections with new people. I hope you were able to make the same shift.

Tangent: I swear the best way to break down the narratives around trans people is to just make casual friends with a trans person. You naturally want to respect your friends and see them as normal people and then all the talk about bathrooms, grooming, etc just seem so silly. Years ago I felt like the bathroom arguments held water. Then I watched my trans friend just walk into the bathroom and it seemed like such a non-issue after that. Now she’s one of my best friends.

Yep. My guy is also “getting more christian” (aka christo-fascist) despite not going to church since he was a kid. Turns out, thinking a specific ideology is not only correct, but ordained by God, allows you to dehumanize anybody who isn’t completely falling in line.

I have a special syringe for this. I had impacted ear wax a few years ago and I went to urgent care to get it rinsed. Turns out my other ear was also impacted, just not as bad. After the rinse, I could hear in 3D. I felt like I shouldn’t have been allowed to drive home because it felt like I was on acid it was so overwhelming. On the drive home I heard a crappy Honda with a bad exhaust drive by and I was scream-laughing at how visceral it was.

Now I rinse regularly in the shower and don’t get to have free acid trips :(

That’s why we’re seeing this phenomenon of MAGAs waiting for their opinion on every breaking story. They don’t seek knowledge, or do a single ounce of fact checking.

It’s worse than that, I think. From my experience with my guy, critical thinking, reason, and evidence are enemies of truth. Any authoritative voice on a subject is evidence of falsehood. The entire establishment is meant to hypnotize us into submission of the elites. The frustrating thing is, that’s kind of correct. Capitalism has pushed mainstream media to be spun into propaganda. Elites (the rich) are holding increasing levels of control over society. Maga is taking this grain of truth and telling a compelling narrative about elite democrats using immigrants to get more votes. All of academia is left-wing propaganda, etc. It conveniently shifts the focus from class issues to demographic and anti-intellectual issues.

Come to Beehaw. In my experience, discussions there are more thoughtful and respectful than in some of the bigger instances. ML in particular is straight cancer.

Slaughter it’s was a short film several years ago that predicted exactly this outcome.

No. That would be doing things. He doesn’t do things. Except one time he drove two hours to visit our friends for the weekend. Except he was actually just crashing at their place so he could see Jordan Peterson live. He didn’t tell them that until he was there. He’s been super cagey about his politics. I got hints over the years but I figured he was starting to mellow out after the pandemic settled. Turns out he just learned not to talk politics around his friends. In January I finally confronted him about his beliefs on specific issues, hoping that I was over-extrapolating and actually he just had a few mixed views. Nope, full on fascist. We used to talk on the phone every couple of weeks. I’ve completely cut contact since. Sorry for venting.

Read my mind. The can being pink is nice too though.

Do we know the same guy? My guy bought a bass and a bunch of music production equipment and never learned to use any of it. He’s got dreams of being a writer and he hasn’t written anything.

Overall he’s lived in several big cities and never made friends, eventually moving back to where we used to live to be closer to his college friends (he’s 30). He has struggled in his career, love, and social life and turned to Jordan Peterson. He likes reading. I think if he just joined a book club 7 years ago all of this could have been avoided because he would have made some friends.

Same. I lost my 15 year best friend over this earlier this year. It still hurts and it sucks but I’m not friends with fascists

Plank length: usually 10ft for 2x4s. Though, you can get them cut to length.

Question coming from complete ignorance: are you picking through a big pile of stones to find the ones that fit a gap or are you cutting them to fit (or both)? Also, are you a Mason (like a member of the illuminati group)?

Those are some pretty walls.

Similarly, my mom insisting I hate bananas because I didn’t want them one time when I was 4

No wonder cows are so fat

They are also spending big on domestic arms production. France will be a big winner out of this since they’ve long valued independent military arms production and the rest of Europe will want to buy French stuff (yes along with American stuff) while they get their arms production up and running. South Korea is also a big arms supplier internationally.

The reduction in US support for NATO is largely part of a pivot to focusing on Taiwan and China. The US military industry would love it if the US focused on both and kept cozy relations with europe. I’m sure they’re happy with the whole world increasing defense spending amid rising tensions, but they aren’t happy about the US scaring away customers. I hate how involved the US military is globally but acting like Trump is some mastermind of American imperialism is reductive and giving him too much credit. The thought that Europe shouldn’t be worried about Russia (the ones currently invading a European country) is bonkers.

That’s easy enough for leisure travel but it’s harder for business or if you have family in the US.

Same except I supplement with Gmaps. Transit is fantastic if you know your destination but Gmaps is way better at looking around for restaurants for example