I want to second your comments about social media and algorithmic marketing. I completely stopped watching youtube unless a human recommended the video or i searched for the content myself. I don’t take recommendations from machine learning models - especially not ones designed and tuned to enrich billionaires at the expense of health, society, and democracy.

This probably sounds quaint, but i have returned to paper for my news/arts/culture stuff. I figure that if it is worth printing, it is more likely to be worth reading. Audio books can be nice, but I limit even them because they can intrude too much on my thinking time. I think part of the stress and fatigue i used to feel was related to a lack of reflection. It is good and healthy to just think. I am starting to wonder if daydreaming is a bit like daily exercise- not doing enough will really fuck you up.

One more thing i started doing that helped with my anomie was getting involved in helping people. I started volunteering at a church. Now, I am an atheist and very open about it (without, i hope, being a dick). But i found a church that is compatible with my beliefs and they do some nice community outreach. No one there has ever tried to convert me, so i extend them the same courtesy. The work is nothing heroic: i help stream the service so the elderly and disabled members (congregants?) can watch from home when they can’t make it, i help with the semi-annual food drive, and every now and then i make coffee for the old ladies while they have their meetings. It has made a huge difference in how i feel about my community. When i go out, i see friends and friendly people throughout the city. I feel like i am plugged into a mutual aid society and (try not to laugh) it makes me feel important in a way that work, school, and gym never did.

i’m not actually angry at journalists. i was making fun of the click baity headline. i don’t know how many variations of “even the most pessimistic x didn’t expect trump to be THIS bad.” Yes, i did.

I’m so fucking tired of journalists underestimating the fear that scientists felt when shithead got reelected. How could reality exceed my worst fears when i am expecting the literal fucking apocalypse?

drop the flop.

Best thing Trump has ever done, frankly.

I’m sorry, but the whole thing is ridiculous. Surely you are aware that there are countries (eg your neighbour to the north) that have more than one official language. As far as i know, only one city in Canada has bilingual signage, yet Canadians manage to drive safely all over the country without necessarily having proficiency in both languages. The european union has ??? languages and yet somehow manages to have safe roads. this is all part of trump’s pandering to the racist and xenophobic idiots who comprise his base.

whew. fortunately texas is full of gun totin’ 2nd amendment types. surely they will exercise their right to fight tyranny. aaaaaannnnnnnyyyyy minute now

So the party of small government is going to administer english tests to truck drivers? maybe create some kind of language registry with proficiency levels? sounds kinda woke

Tents - wow. even the nazis built permanent structures

It’s true - anyone born after Trumpism is over and musk and the gang are long dead will have the luxury of seeing Tesla as just another company. Given Tesla’s business fundamentals as evidenced by the last earnings report, though, i doubt it will still be a going concern.

It defies reason, doesn’t it! But there are always suckers left holding the bag when reality sets it. Trumpism, like other forms of fascism, is a kind of mass insanity. He somehow convinced 75M rubes to vote for him when his disastrous first term was already in the history books. Maybe it’s not surprising that when Trump puts commerce secretary Lutnick on TV to tell his followers to buy tesla, they listen. At some point, though, they will wake up. I hope it doesn’t take a world war this time.

Tesla is a ruined brand. Even if he sold his shares, many people will never forgive the other shareholders for standing by a Nazi as he demolished American democracy. I will never buy anything from Tesla as long as i live, and i was once part of his key market: i had intentions to buy a powerwall, a solar roof, and a car. People always say that Volkswagen got free from its Nazi roots; I say, not while Hitler wore his brain on the inside.

Totally agree. Especially since in my country, young people are swallowing far-right propaganda at a higher rate than boomers. Canada's Tater Tots are trying to elect a MAGA candidate right now. Age is not the problem - the well of information has been poisoned.

my god, it keeps getting harder and harder to caricature Trump supporters

Oh Mr. Trump, i wanted you to hurt OTHER people, not meeeeeeeee

Yep. They wanted SOME families torn apart. Just not their own.

Tesla is a big part of S&P 500, so any pensions, mutual funds, hedge funds etc. that hold index funds include tesla automatically. that is why it is important for institutional investors to consciously divest from tesla.

besides that, it’s a meme stock popular with musk fans and twitter heads.

When trump finally caves and has to kiss Xi’s ass, every newspaper headline better fucking be “the art of the deal”

there are different definitions of intersex. the figure you cited is correct for only the narrowest definition: visibly ambiguous genitalia at birth. by other criteria (ambiguous internal anatomy, androgen insensitivity, etc.), it can be as high as 1.7% (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex)

Edit: i read the article more closely and i don’t stand by my figure. i retarct it because it seems that there may be good reasons to use the narrower definition. nevertheless, that is still 35k people that the government won’t acknowledge.

That is my understanding as well. I think that our insistence that every person needs to fit in one category or the other is almost the whole problem. I wonder how many people think to themselves "I don't want to be trans, I just want to be me."