Urban Hermit

I'm an oldish autistic, which blessed me with the ability to think clearly and write well. I'm also a secular humanist and I think God is too. Never doubt the power of irony.

I boost pictures of animals, plants, structures, landscapes, water (always water, and boats!) but right now it is mostly politics - the threats to everything good can not be underestimated. I would like to go back to writing about obscure kites as soon as the deeply stupid people are out of power. Please help.

Public Key

npub18qf36e73lwscl473nxqdg8vrh47fdyx3m0c5cyq52qjms3a3vk5svwpaw7

NIP-05 Address

urban_hermit_at_mstdn.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsrsycavlglhgv06lgenqx5rkpm6lykjrgahu2vzq29qfdcg7ckt2gpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dst2rcdv

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub18qf36e73lwscl473nxqdg8vrh47fdyx3m0c5cyq52qjms3a3vk5svwpaw7

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-04-24 22:10:42 UTC

- reply

should be a third head that just squeezed out from between the buttons, maybe one button undone or broke free.
The number of people online who would be proud to say they are just 3 cats in a trench coat is staggering.

2026-04-20 04:39:00 UTC

- reply

I think Warhammer has a "God-Emperor" that died on his throne, hooked into life support, and the powers that be continue their holy war of domination under the belief he is guiding them psychically from beyond the grave.
That is what we're getting if we do not vote for people willing to impeach every Supreme Court Justice and prosecute every cabinet member who is hiding crimes or commiting crimes.
ZombieJesusTrump will bless your favored voter application for $100 million cash.

2026-03-03 19:38:49 UTC

Clearly articulated goals:
"The bombing of unpopular countries will continue until the President is popular again."

2026-01-28 08:45:18 UTC

- reply

The Russian people are allowing Putin to spend all their money and resources in fighting Ukraine. Because he has taught them to be afraid.
The American people are allowing Trump to spend all their money and resources terrorizing brown people. And are trying to make anyone who criticizes them afraid.
Will Putin tactics work in America? Fuck no! Why? The independence of the States and the American people.
Motivate your local governments to resist.

2026-01-28 08:34:41 UTC

"Anything you can do more than nothing, is more than nothing."
- David Cohen

2026-01-18 23:14:30 UTC

- reply

the POTUS also is calling protestors terrorists and has the justice department filing frivolous charges against people he thinks are opponents and not cooperating.
When are people going to recognize that we are living in a lawless, criminal state? A dictatorship.
The only governments large and powerful enough to stop the US rampaging dictatorship are the United STATES, but we seem to be cowering and hoping it will all just resolve itself.

2026-01-18 23:07:07 UTC

- reply

people are massively under reacting.
A lawless cartoon of a President has had the US military kidnap the president of another country and just declared it is ours now and he can divvy it's resources up to his political 'donors'?
He's deployed the largest military in the world to grab things he wants, and says he will do it again, and it all is clearly illegal but as long as there are no consequences he will just keep terrorising people and stealing things.

2026-01-16 18:39:45 UTC

- reply

3/3
Protesting is wonderful and important, but fascists won't stop committing crimes because of your clever signs, they only seek a way to identify, silence, and discredit you.
Focus power on your local governments that are not infiltrated with fascist collaborators.
Anarchy only hurts your neighbors and radicalizes them against the resistance. We have 50 state governments legally able to arrest these criminals for legitimate crimes.
THIS IS THE WAY FORWARD, OUT OF THIS NIGHTMARE

2026-01-16 18:34:00 UTC

- reply

2/3
Focus protests and political power on getting state police and prosecutors to stand up, redirect resources spent for decades on harassing the poor and minorities, and investigate, arrest, and prosecute feds committing crimes in their jurisdictions.
Violations of civil rights are federal charges subject to Trump pressure. Harassment, destruction of property, assault, and murder are state charges. Secure state charges and covictions first. Do not let bias federal judges rule first.

2026-01-16 18:29:56 UTC

- reply

1/3
The way forward, the resistance, the way out of the fever dreams of the Fourth Reich, is the absolutely justified and relentless prosecutions of state crimes in state court.
Make the Trump administration feel afraid to leave DC. Issue court summons that could be served anywhere, at anytime, to get sworn testimony in court, and possibly additional charges. Put the Trump Administration under siege for their many crimes.

2025-12-21 03:24:42 UTC

- reply

I can always tell one of us. It only takes a few sentences. And one of us is always worth listening too. What ever is said next is going to be logical and reasonable and probably a very nuanced but accurate take on a problem. And even if it seemed to a neurotypical that this is just a long list of observations, these are just the premises that need to be recognized to see the cleverness of the coming solution.

2025-12-19 18:30:57 UTC

#ActualyAutistic
You know, I am going through some stressful things right now, have opted into living with a friend and his family for reasons, and frequently have to retreat from people. But their kids don't trigger me. Neither do their animals.
What is your theory why? I would really like to hear what other people think, or if this is not a universal experience? Is there an age where it wears off?

2025-11-19 03:39:33 UTC

- reply

let's be clear...
Rape whistles.
Some of these goons have heard them before.
And it is entirely appropriate to blow a rape whistle when someone is about to be kidnapped and disappeared.
And since these goons are very specifically NOT taking people before a judge, for judicial review, and are disapearing them, frequently to third countries for indefinite detention if their home country insists that their citizens deserve to be treated with human dignity - they ARE being kidnapped!

2025-11-12 14:48:37 UTC

- reply

that article should not contain an AI slop art of a crocodile. It is completely based on stereo types of what a modern crocodile looks like with zero traits that show any adaptation to an arboreal lifestyle. It actively undermines the article.
I am now more ignorant than I was before reading it and have no reasons to actually believe this.

2025-11-08 05:14:09 UTC

Part of basic empathy is accepting that other people can make different choices, and that doesn't make their experiences or choices invalid.
Everybody knows themselves best and are probably doing just a well as you could given the same circumstance and wants/needs.

2025-10-29 13:56:27 UTC

- reply

The Pope can be clear. He knows that the whole prosperity gospel thing of justifying excessive wealth is mostly an American Protestant movement.
It is good that he is warning Catholics, but those Protestants were never going to applaud the Pope anyway, so he has nothing to lose by offending them.
Wish Democrats would be as bold.

2025-10-29 06:27:20 UTC

- reply

I mean, I don't know if Hitler tried to provoke Poland first, but killing the citizens of another country to try and get a reaction in order to justify an invasion is a pretty Hitler move...

2025-10-28 21:50:38 UTC

- reply

Godzilla, dozing peacefully.

2025-10-28 21:33:10 UTC

Wildly distributed solar power, small projects like roof tops, highway medians, grazing land, is not just cheaper, faster to get online, but it is also more robust and resistant to military attacks and sabotage in the event of military conflict.

2025-10-28 00:28:33 UTC

- reply

2/2
And where would they argue that? The Supreme Court. And conservatives on this SC seemed to have argued that winning an election is a final say, any person with a plurality of the people gets anything they want, including absolute immunity and overriding separation of powers.
No, it wouldn't be legal. It wouldn't stand the test of time. But the GOP is in a all or nothing corner and wants absolute power enough, for all time, to break every norm.

2025-10-28 00:25:29 UTC

- reply

Charlotte is right, but spends too much time on a theory that Trump has zero intention of using, and Bannon is not advocating.
1/2
Nobody is even saying that Trump would be someone else's VP. Trump has specifically ruled it out, and his Ego wouldn't allow it.
Bannon did not say it either. He seems to think that if they could get Trump elected, they can massage some wording to argue it is allowed.

2025-10-21 18:02:19 UTC

- reply

is funny how cats always look away while being picked up. So passive indifferent.

2025-10-20 01:44:33 UTC

- reply

You have nailed it. Every last one of these guys is going back to his home state and join a militia and foment civil unrest until there is a civil war or wide spread violence against democratic leaders.
It will be 100 times worse than the Clinton era.
I hope that as many as possible are investigated and found guilty of any crimes they have committed, on or off working hours, and as many as want to go are recruited into the real military and taught standards of conduct.

2025-10-20 00:46:40 UTC

- reply

I thought it was logical and I understood it, but I has changed somehow, and for instance, my response to the last person who addressed me may end up somewhere else under one of the other 3 people in the conversation.
I have had 3 people in the last week confused by responding to the wrong person, and somebody else wised up and was trimming off people as he goes.
I don't mind the branching, it's just that the branches aren't as traceable now when I revisit the parent thread.

2025-10-20 00:06:31 UTC

Has anybody else noticed that the "tree" of responses in a thread has gotten more out of order recently and it is harder to relate who different people are responding to lately?
#MastodonHelp

2025-10-16 23:04:47 UTC

- reply

3/3
...occupied", "Is it in disrepair?" Apparently this is in strong demand across the country right now.
But, what are they are not telling people considering it? These are properties that are in default. This is one step before banks call the sheriff to have people evicted.
The tips are about telling your family where you're going, when you'll be back. Looking official. Not talking about why you are there. (About trying to not get shot by stressed people about to be homeless.)

2025-10-16 22:59:37 UTC

- reply

2/3
...The fact that the first still had apprentices to worry about is bad. It means they weren't getting enough work hours to graduate. An apprenticeship is basically job experience plus a 2 year degree.
So new construction has fallen off a roof.
2.) I did a deep dive to figure out what a "Mortgage Inspector" was. A company made an app a few years ago that turned this into a gig economy job. Low wages, use your own phone/computer/car. Banks want to know, "Is this property still

2025-10-16 22:46:27 UTC

- reply

Things I would like to add as strong indicators that the US economy is already in a recession and headed down. These are heavily influenced by the fact that I am still looking for work.
1/3
1.) I was very interested in 2 apprenticeships. They only open up their lists every 2 years. One decided to not open theirs at all because they barely had enough work for their current apprentices. The second kept their 20 day application period open for 8 hours before they closed it.

2025-10-16 20:16:46 UTC

- reply

I collect and sort them to use as wallpaper, and I eventually decided they are basically cartoons (political or slice of life, relatable) and belong in the same category. And cartoons (Gary Larson, Piraro) are also memes in the way you are talking about.
Or at least the good ones are. Not the boring ones.
Maybe I should have said comic strips instead of cartoons.

2025-10-16 16:33:30 UTC

- reply

yeah. This is exactly the kind of thing the original framing of memes was meant to describe.
What most people are calling memes these day are basically amateur cartoons made from found pictures.
But it is okay for words to have more than one meaning in English.

2025-10-16 15:43:06 UTC

- reply

many GOOD points, but I hadn't thought in a while about how they will eat their own customers, reputation, and employees in order to boost the stock price for the Capitalists in charge.
They are not rational actors, and they are not part of your community.
"The corporations or the Capitalists?"
BOTH! They would burn down the building they were in if insurance fraud had a lower risk of being caught.
That is also how they treat this country.

2025-10-16 14:26:00 UTC

I was reading a good story from the BBC about the Titan submersible that imploded.
Best quote:
When questioned about Titan’s safety, he replied: “I understand this kind of risk, and I'm going into it with eyes open and I think this is one of the safest things I will ever do.”
According to some witnesses Mr Rush had an unwavering belief in his sub.
(my commentary) do your best to never have a name that could be ironic in the event of your death.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgn39epv85o

2025-10-16 13:26:33 UTC

- reply

The number of atrocities NOT committed by corporations is because they are not economical.
There is a lesson in that. The way to kill a bad idea is to make the good idea cheaper. Solar is a great example. Electric cars might be next.
Secondly, change the legal framework to make sure the full cost of mitigation and containment are born by the corporations. Nuclear plants are constrained by the economics, their waste is too toxic to just dump in the air.
3rd, some things should just be illegal.

2025-10-16 12:43:25 UTC

Reminder, corporations are artificial psychopaths, and give legal cover to to the real psychopaths who run them.
If there was a data center that ran on the electricity of burning puppies, they would do it. And if you objected, they would argue that if you don't want them to do it it should have been illegal. While simultaneously lobbying to continue burning puppies, and trying to conceal information about their alternative 'burning kittens' initiative.

2025-10-14 23:50:23 UTC

- reply

7/5
I still would have helped her if I could afford to, but I have barely been employed for 3 years. I may be dying of my own untreated health problems. I have used up all my savings, sold my small boat, and can't seem to find work.
Being poor sucks. It means we can't help each other.
(This is the end, I promise. Thanks for giving me the excuse to 'talk it out' some more.)

2025-10-14 23:48:16 UTC

- reply

6/5
Based on two calls that I was too stressed to call back and respond to, I think she died early this year. Or at least got kicked out of her apartment. Phone's disconnected, I may never know.
She was a conservative woman who never planned for her own future. Her only joy was occasional gambling. She chose to retire early with zero savings. She put all responsibility for herself on other people.

2025-10-14 23:36:10 UTC

- reply

5/5
She had been argumentative at a doctor's office and maybe confused. They called her apartment. They called me, I called her. She was angry about this, refused to talk about it.
I got a call from a social service worker eventually. They were concerned that she was having trouble. I explained I am also an older adult, low income, no family, living in an apartment 2 hours away, from an adoptive mother that can't stand seeing me for more than 2 hours. Not in a position to help.

2025-10-14 23:31:37 UTC

- reply

4/5
Eventually, it occurred to me there was no point in driving 2 hours to visit her, it only stressed her out and nothing improved.
I stopped visiting and only called once a year, on her birthday.
I got Covid really bad in 2022 and nearly died. I called her more often to share my stress. We are each other's only family. She never remarried, I never married. But the calls were short and frequently unpleasant.
The last time I talked to her, last year, was after her apartment called me.

2025-10-14 23:29:49 UTC

- reply

3/5
She was determined to oblige, but to have a sullen, awful time. I usually ended every trip early.
Intolerably, she would project mean traits she had onto me. I would point out something from our past that proved that was her, not me. And she would start denying things that happened. She only had my forgiveness as long as she never denied what happened.
We would argue, she would admit it while crying. Half angry, half full of self pity. Every trip to her apartment ended this way.

2025-10-14 23:27:52 UTC

- reply

2/5
I called her once after Thanksgiving to make arrangements for Christmas. Nope. "Well, you were just here."
I took her to a kite festival once, after an hour she decided to wander off. I tried to call her cellphone after 2 hours. Nope, she had it off in her purse. "It is only for out going calls."
I took her to the Redwoods once and made sure we had supplies for a picnic. When I pointed to the log we could sit on she clutched her purse and said, "I hope we don't get ticks!"

2025-10-14 23:26:22 UTC

- reply

1/5
I tried for decades to normalize that relationship.
We both ended up poor. I didn't get any help with college and moved to the largest city in my state after I dropped out. I couldn't afford my first car until I was 26. I got a 2 year degree and tried to goto University again at 28, but dropped out again, strictly for financial reasons.
I tried to visit her a few times a year starting in about 2005. That continued until about 2020.

2025-10-14 22:05:38 UTC

- reply

yeah (long sigh).
I had a girl friend once who had a young daughter from a previous marriage. She too was in Catholic school as a child, and was beaten with a paddling board by angry nuns who always assumed a child was wicked (we weren't you, crazy ladies). Yet she wanted to get her own daughter into Catholic school.
The brain washing, that values are only taught through religion, is real. I didn't stop voting Republican till 4 years out of highschool.

2025-10-14 21:55:37 UTC

- reply

Here's the kicker.
I was adopted.
My mother, during my adult life, wondered why I never tried to find my birth mother. She did, after all, more or less give up on raising me, only using my childhood as a way of getting food stamps and subsidized housing. (She was conservative = my husband divorced me, now the government is my husband, because women don't work.)
What am I going to do? Find a mother who gave me up and torture her by telling her how I was abused?

2025-10-14 20:24:36 UTC

- reply

I was thinking about this recently.
Say there was a new country, called Cascadia. And entering at the borders was completely unrestricted. You couldn't own land in Cascadia or have a job in Cascadia without citizenship, because they needed taxes from workers and land owners. But if you signed up for the National Guard, you could get provisional citizenship that converted to permanent at 2 years.
If you love your country enough to defend it, even as a dishwasher, it is yours.

2025-10-14 20:12:19 UTC

- reply

keep in mind, that is strictly because all the land was once a public resources for grazing and foraging, then was privatized.
You can't farm without private land, to make that worked resource pay off for the people who put the labor into improving its yield. But...

2025-10-14 19:45:16 UTC

- reply

I had plenty of that too.
I cried easily as a child, so it made me a target. I don't think it was wrong to do so. I was a child of divorce, and my mother, who took me with her, had no plan, no job skills, and took out her frustration on me. She literally used a suitcase as a prop and repeatedly threatened to leave me until I was sobbing while clinging to her legs at the door. Once she tried to smother me, and stopped after I gave up.
Yeah, 5 year old me cried a lot.

2025-10-14 19:02:59 UTC

- reply

I went to Catholic school, by the way. Nuns, who have forsaken family, should not be in charge of children just because they are female.
Imagine a sensitive small child, from a divorced family, that doesn't know how to walk up stairs. Who tentatively goes up one step at a time. Right foot, bring up left to same step. Then right foot again, bring up left.
Then have a nun drag him to the principal's office to be beaten with a board for being slow. How it ended, I don't remember.

2025-10-14 18:53:36 UTC

- reply

the blacking out thing, I think mine was too much traumatic input from the noise, the crowding, the helplessness. My mind decided to forget it. It wasn't like just losing track of time.
I have some traumatic memories from my childhood. I remember the full lead up, what happened, what people in control said, the crying on my part. But I don't remember how they ended. Not remembering what happened at the principal's office, sent there to be beaten (for crying) that is blacking out.

2025-10-14 18:17:45 UTC

- reply

it was so subtly traumatizing that I used my own money to upgrade my seat to a guaranteed window seat in front of the wing on the way back, so I would have something to look at and think about.

2025-10-14 18:15:39 UTC

- reply

I had a flight, last year, the first time in more than a decade. And I actually blacked out.
I didn't understand that word until then. I assumed it was a drunk thing, that involved passing out. But no, I had 2 hours on the flight out that I couldn't remember afterwards. I know I had my arms folded, my ear buds in, and the engine was roaring above the sound of my music. Last row in the back. I remember the first hour after take off, using the restroom, and the landing.

2025-10-14 16:36:21 UTC

- reply

sorry, I forgot.

2025-10-14 16:15:24 UTC

- reply

frankly, you look happy too.
And great hat!

2025-10-14 12:44:24 UTC

- reply

Most common 'stimming' in the world?
Playing video games repeatedly:
You know the story, you've played it before, but you are grinding the same levels or areas over and over, to get a tiny fraction more efficient, while avoiding the problems or people of ordinary life, or to 'come down' from the stress of your job.
It's obsessive, repetitive, low risk/low reward behavior that helps people cope.
EVERYONE is on the autism spectrum.
#ActuallyAutistic

2025-10-12 17:42:06 UTC

- reply

nice.
The only terrorists in Portland are ICE.

2025-10-08 06:50:31 UTC

- reply

I'm in Oregon.
I really kind of wonder if the governor shouldn't call up the Oregon National Guard to escort any nationalized troops sent from other states to monitor them and make sure they are arrested if they commit any human rights abuses.
2 to 1 at all times. 1 with arrest powers, the second as a witness with recording equipment broadcast to a remote location.
We know they are coming to Portland to try to provoke a reaction that would justify martial law. They need to be monitored.

2025-10-08 06:16:49 UTC

- reply

Hey.
Last time I heard them speak it was clear one of the women who spoke and specifically named Donald Trump as the person who rapped her was Katie Johnson, which is a pseudonym.
She had 3 detailed experiences with Trump, the last she was asked for, and paid to fly back to New York to perform.
Those court filings in California and New York, she is still alive and trying to get justice and accountability. After he, the most dangerous man in America, threatened her.
She's a hero.

2025-10-07 15:11:58 UTC

- reply

Well, I read a recent study that said experienced programmers believed that they were 20% faster with LLMs. Yet, they were actually 17% slower. So, probably the same or worse in other fields.

2025-10-04 16:03:43 UTC

Everytime there is bad news that the Trump administration is trying to hide, they will start a new atrocity to "distract" you.
This is an ever accelerating doom spiral.

2025-10-04 15:51:44 UTC

In the 90s the GOP propaganda was that America needed to be run like a business.
Now, the most "business" oriented man in America shows that large businesses are run by psychopaths with fragile Egos. I will remember that.

2025-10-04 13:24:09 UTC

- reply

in the US there would be a supervisor who couldn't do this impatiently waiting and irritatedly saying, "hurry up". A team of 5 Mexican told to clean up the site but given only a shovel and no further instructions. And the backhoe would be rented for the day, have 2 tool heads that needed a sledge hammer to change a pin when they were switched, and the operator is a guy who lied on his application and still doesn't know what all the switches do.
Experts are self employed for a reason.

2025-10-04 02:58:23 UTC

- reply

I see that, it is just difficult. I don't think you can count on people hurting themselves to hurt the government. But, if they refuse to seat our duly elected state
representatives next year, we have to find a way to defund the federal government, and on a massive scale. Across multiple states, and at least 30% of that population. Enough to take a government that is using deficit spend already, to mostly oppress people, and shake the markets so it topples itself.

2025-10-04 00:03:12 UTC

- reply

Putin and Trump act exactly like Putin already has copies of the Epstein tapes and both know it.

2025-10-03 21:40:03 UTC

- reply

And a tax revolt will be especially difficult because we, in the US, mostly pay our taxes through corporations, which are Especially risk averse. It will take large numbers of jobs changing to contract work or under the table.

2025-10-03 21:03:05 UTC

- reply

Assume, in all of this, that most people are severely risk averse.
Individual US soldiers will do whatever they are told right up until they are pulling other Americans out of their homes and are told to shoot the people who flee.
Homeowners will will not shoot until soldiers show up to arrest them.
Republicans will not care about your protests until masses are refusing to pay their taxes.
Tax revolt won't happen until the Trump administration is crashing the economy.

2025-10-01 06:26:16 UTC

- reply

a general strike is no better than any other protest, except that a lot of people who care deeply will lose the way they pay their bills. Can't call people collaborators for trying to save and survive, otherwise you alienate your movement instead of expand it. People wait and speak out where they can, instead of hurting themselves or their neighbors.
Anarchy seems cathartic, but it mostly hurts the innocent and is an excuse for the powerful to over react.

2025-10-01 00:08:59 UTC

- reply

for industrial farming I can appreciate long, consistent carrots. But we should appreciate carrots with character.
Question: does sandy soil let the fertilizer used in industrial farming drain away faster? Because I am concerned about industrial vegetables having less critical minerals than they had in previous generations.

2025-09-29 16:53:01 UTC

- reply

2/2
...prisons for indeterminate sentences, for the poor elderly who died while their Medicare and HUD housing was thrown into chaos, for the children who starved while food bought with foreign aid was thrown away, for the poor who will die of heat stress due to unmitigated global warming, for the terror we have all felt - HARDEN YOUR HEART, STEEL YOUR RESOLVE, AND PROSECUTE EVERY LAST COLLABORATOR. And may they see that as a mercy compared to what we should have done.

2025-09-29 16:33:43 UTC

- reply

1/2
It is likely that Trump is so senile that he will escape any prison penalties for all the illegal things he has done.
At this point, people who want justice will have to vote in fully determined legislators that will impeach ALL of Trump's collaborators. Every last one, starting with the removal and prosecution of Supreme Court justices for accepting bribes.
If you want justice, for the children that were raped, for the people terrorized, demonized, and thrown in foreign...

2025-09-27 02:51:34 UTC

- reply

a long time ago I wanted, very strongly, to be a PhD holding scientist. Family poverty prevented that.
But I spent some time philosophizing about it. Basically, there is no point in being a natural philosopher unless you publish or teach. You can know so much about many systems, but never have enough influence to act on all that knowledge.
And what if you were wrong?
Acting on knowledge is a civilization wide project. Change for the better is a distributed task.

2025-09-26 02:49:18 UTC

- reply

we had a fascist dictator for the stupidest of reasons. Not because we were suffering from 30,000% inflation, like post WW1 Germany (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-hyperinflation-heralded-the-fall-of-german-democracy-180982204/).
But because the olds don't like the way everything changes. They don't like Cracker Barrel changing a sign so they called it woke. They didn't like a black Little Mermaid. They didn't like talk in schools about unearned privilege.
These men are whiny bitches, they aren't warriors like Stephen Miller wants.

2025-09-26 02:37:04 UTC

- reply

I think even the right wing is tired of fascists. They like winning, they will never bad mouth Trump because he validated them, but they are as tired of the chaos as we are, and a significant percent even know that if we avoid a recession it is by an enormous bunch of rich people talking up AI, and not from manufacturing growth.
And I truly expect someone to try and grab the reins, but the relief of escaping will blunt those efforts.
Trump is nearly dead. Dare to feel joy.

2025-09-25 15:05:01 UTC

#AfterTrumpIsDead
After Trump Is Dead several of his direct relatives will be indicted and prosecuted for not registering as foreign agents.

2025-09-25 07:09:51 UTC

- reply

I think the first 5 people who find Trump dead will call their stock brokers before anything else. There will literally be people standing around a dead body trying to place bets on what it will do to the markets before anybody calls anybody else, then they will just agree to not talk about it.
Somebody will talk about it.

2025-09-25 06:17:50 UTC

I wonder what the high officials in the Trump administration will do after he dies.
Anyone who is smart enough to write a book almost certainly has secrets to spill. And the people not smart enough to write will run for public office and hope to ride the Trump tails to victory. They won't see the backlash coming.
Even MAGA is tired of the chaos, although they will never speak ill of the man who validates them.
But all those toadies, with no original ideas, who will tell them what to do?

2025-09-25 05:46:20 UTC

Programers are the closest thing modern reality has to Wizards.
Say a rigorously logical thing in an arcane language and the Universe will reorder itself and do a thing that you want.
Because those wizards have so generously shared their secrets with apprentice wizards on open message boards, industrialized capitalist suit minions who mistake chat bots who steal sentence fragments for real thinking will now replace all their wizards with a subscription.
Serious advice, Union apprenticeships.

2025-09-21 21:28:58 UTC

- reply

I am thinking like how everyone in Iraq under Saddam Hussein was required to be a member of the Ba'ath Party. I think I am slightly over stating it, but I remember how the US military couldn't find officials who were not Ba'ath members to work with because it was a basic requirement of any previous government position or sanctioned business.
If he continues, Democrat or other liberal parties will be outlawed, and unaffiliated may be looked at with suspicion.

2025-09-21 18:18:51 UTC

- reply

the choice many of us will soon face is "should I change my party affiliation to Republican now? Just in case?"

2025-09-21 14:32:10 UTC

- reply

I went into quality control in manufacturing for this reason. 15 years worth.
But, I am totally at loose ends now. When problems are beyond my own process, I need a supervisor to get it corrected, most would rather ignore a problem until the customer brings it up than fix it now.
After several crises, were I quit over problems I couldn't get fixed, I am now barely employable.
Flexible enough to ignore problems was a skill I didn't have.

2025-09-20 22:09:24 UTC

- reply

apparently advocating for the killing of people is more tolerable the more money you have and the larger the group you want dead.
A poor guy who wants to kill "Jeff" is a serious thing. A billionaire with the money and influence to advocated genocide is apparently not serious.
I did not know this growing up. You would think they would be at least equally concerning.

2025-09-20 19:34:57 UTC

Even after the fat one is dead, we are going to have to dig out the fascist sympathizers and their influence from our government like an infected tick, because any piece left in is going to poison us all.

2025-09-20 15:36:07 UTC

- reply

So fucking ignorant about the job of the Presidency that he has to wait to be told what to think about it.
Meanwhile, all the time in the world to promote how much he thinks of himself and to approve more appalling ways to strip the rights from innocents and torture people.

2025-09-19 16:50:28 UTC

Demonizing Hispanics was just the excuse to create a federal militarized domestic police force of fanatics in the United States.
They are training their force in illegal arrest, inhumane and unlawful detention, and deportation to foreign torture prisons outside of any state's jurisdiction and oversight.
Trump wants to punish his critics. He wants to declare dissent terrorism. You, personally, will be their next target. They always come after the intellectuals.
Will you bend the knee?

2025-09-19 16:02:20 UTC

- reply

The individual states really are the last line of defense against the fascists.
And this will keep getting worse until we make it better.
California took the first correct step. Senate Bill 627, known as the No Secret Police Act."
https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/california-legislature-bill-law-enforcement-face-coverings/
"If signed into law, it would require law enforcement officers in California to "clearly display identification featuring either their name or badge number."

2025-09-19 15:52:58 UTC

- reply

you have to take state police with you, that are trained on legal and illegal arrest procedures and willing to intervene, when local leaders confront the feds. Also lots of lawyers and cameras broadcasting live to a remote site.
We absolutely need laws that constrain the arrest powers and procedures that federal employees can employ within our states, and have units of the state police trained and willing to arrest them. This is as important as SWAT teams, more important than drugs.

2025-09-18 23:32:32 UTC

I have less money left than any of you, job skills that are not as in demand as I once thought, and no overseas relatives that I know of - so don't complain to me how unrealistic this is, I know...
But, I'm just saying, Albert Einstein was a great American because he left Nazi Germany early.
(Actually, not before he had good reason, and almost not in time.)
https://time.com/5684504/einstein-england/

2025-09-18 14:28:32 UTC

Remember when one of our greatest fears for Trump getting reelected was that continued global warming would make the Earth uninhabitable for humans outside domed cities? (Dubia is getting ready.)
And not that the US would not go full fascist because right wingers had pent up rage that required violence against people who don't mimick them.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/115/225/752/946/467/989/original/597941eafe57239c.png

2025-09-18 13:42:30 UTC

- reply

somebody please tell me that there is a 75+ year old law that lists fascists as a terrorist threat or enemy of this nation and defines them by their actions.
There must be something published by the US government that warns against and tells us how to identify fascist sympathizers.

2025-09-17 07:33:55 UTC

- reply

the only Antichrist is clearly Trump. he is the most unChrist like figure in America.
The defining characteristics of the AntiChrist is his deceitfulness and the way Christians in name only fall for him. THAT IS TRUMP.
I'm not even Christian, but the agnostic like God I might believe in just might let this stand because irony is the path for the insightful to gain wisdom.

2025-09-16 15:17:01 UTC

Hey right wing,
You want to "tone down the rhetoric"?
Proposed laws
Anybody who is platformed, publicly available, and they or someone makes money off talking to the public:
#1. No threats or incitement of mob violence against individuals or groups. Criminal penalties, jail, minimum 1 year.
#2. Anyone, including public figures in politics or otherwise, can sue for damages over untrue statements presented as facts.
Free speech comes with responsibilities.
I am not afraid of this. Are they?

2025-09-16 03:20:28 UTC

- reply

a guy on a podcast said that he admired Charlie Kirk for "encouraging debate on college campuses" and "we're just mad, because we don't have a guy on our side who does it as well".
I see zero point in debating with people who will not change their mind. And I doubt that watching such debates is useful, because that person is conceding nothing and has zero interest in converting any reasonable people.
I agree with the students, it is platforming a freak show for other bigots.

2025-09-15 04:58:30 UTC

- reply

The United States was never perfect, but within those documents was the democratic processes to continually make it better.
And the people against that progress have exploited cynicism and deceit to wage a war on foundational progress towards equality and justice for all.
And they cheer and give cover for a man of unique ignorance and arrogance as he destroys the very foundations of this nation.

2025-09-13 10:00:31 UTC

- reply

I heard a super good analysis of AI on here and I wish I could remember who to give them credit.
Still worth repeating though:
AI doesn't answer your question, because it has no real understanding of what words mean. It has no experience and no continuity.
It only answers the question "What would a response to this look like?" and assembles that answer mechanically from fragments based on probability.
If it is right or rightish that's a property of the data, not comprehension.

2025-09-12 12:59:54 UTC

- reply

hopefully Trump's life will mimick some of his.
Say what you want about Bolsonaro, but I do not know if he raped any little girls.

2025-09-11 19:09:14 UTC

Let's say you were a small minded fascist trying to figure out how to stop elections:
Step 1. Get mail in voting banned. Whatever the reason.
Step 2. Instigate a terrorist movement. One that targets large gatherings. Fake one if you have to. Stoke fear.
Step 3. Ban voting under 'emergency powers' because "crowds are sure to be targeted".
Step 4. Places that voted anyway, refuse to accept their results because your supporters stayed home.
It starts with getting mail in ballots banned.

2025-09-10 11:32:54 UTC

There is no Goddamn reason to deploy tanks and mounted machine guns to Chicago.. While you could kill a person by shelling them, military equipment is designed to kill people while simultaneously destroying huge amounts of property.
Even if you completely dehumanize the people, there is no property in America that the military is free to destroy.
No buildings to demolish, no bridges to take out - zero infrastructure that only gangs use.
Trying to intimidate people with weapons they can't use?

2025-09-02 22:17:33 UTC

- reply

if he dies soon we will all be saved temporarily. But if he does so, the institutions and failures that allowed him to be will not be fixed and someone else will come along later and make it worse. But, those institutions not being fixed because it requires widespread agreement, that is also a possibility.

2025-09-02 21:55:39 UTC

- reply

the richest guy dumb enough to believe conservative talking points.
And poor conservatives in the US believe rich people are secret geniuses, instead of just people with early life access to capital.
DT is basically just a lying used car salesman, but with buildings. A used building salesman. But if property sits long enough it becomes the whole town's problem. So all DT ever had to do was own it long enough to make the community interested in changing the laws to attract a new tenant.

2025-09-02 21:34:25 UTC

- reply

...Trump himself, because he is a consumer of propaganda and not a creator of it, to believe that he is taxing foreign countries for "unfair trade".

2025-09-02 21:32:24 UTC

- reply

it gets a little weird and more complicated because although the importer is the only one responsible for paying tariffs, sometimes they pay them to the exporter who arranges the transport to America, because they have more experience with international shipping. Nobody wants cargo showing up at a foreign port where it gets held until the tariff is paid, because they are not places designed for storage.
That little ambiguity is enough for really dumb US conservatives, and perhaps...

2025-09-02 21:23:40 UTC

- reply

it's a little stupider than that.
Tariffs are taxes on the importer in the United States that chose to import things anyway because they do not have other suppliers or the manufacturing capacity to replace them.
Other countries or people in other countries don't pay it. At all. The US has no jurisdiction there. The idea is that American companies change their sourcing to a company doing some assembly in America, paying a higher price, but less than the import ÷ tariff price.