maplebar

Wasn’t Socrates also considered an asshole? Not that I’m equating these influencers to philosophers, but at the time the people considered him to be mocking their culture (religion).

Everything we know about historical Socrates we know from his students, and I don't think there's a lot of evidence to suggest he was an asshole. Socrates was allegedly put to death for thought crimes against the city-state and the state's patron gods, as voted upon by a jury of his "peers". His philosophy was not counter to the idea of gods, nor do I think it was particularly anti-authoritarian, but clearly people didn't like what he had to say or the questions he was asking, so they up and killed 'em.

Personally I think that makes the Socrates the good guy and the people of Athens circa 400BC the assholes, but to each their own.

Either way, there's a big difference in my view between a person who is influential for their ideas, creations or achievements versus someone who is an "influencer" because of the "content" that they create for the corporate tech platform of choice..

Dude looks like a mid HD remake of an N64 game.

The concept of "influencers" and "content" is just some dystopian shit that came out of some corpo's mouth at a tech company boardroom meeting and stuck. The fact that our modern culture is built on this kind of bullshit is a condemnation of modern people.

Man I'm sick of "famous" people being given carte blanche to act however they want. Lock this dipshit up and throw away the key.

God is a lie.

Oh both can be true, but in this case they are not.

There has always been valid reason to give arms to Israel, and there continues to be today. If you think that alone amounts to "supporting genocide" you're about to be pretty upset when you watch the actual genocide that unfolds in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank over the next 4-8 years. Trump and Netanyahu are about to go scorched earth on Palestine like never in the history of the ~80 year war.

Bernie fuckin' Sanders could be POTUS today and he'd still send weapons to Israel, because they are our main ally in the region who also happens to under near-constant threats and attacks from multiple angles. The absolute best we can reasonably ask for is that weapons are sent on a conditional basis, but nobody wants to talk about that reality.

I mean, they aren't wrong, are they?

Hamas is all but defeated, Hezbollah is also on their back foot, and even the model caliphate, Iran, has proven to be almost completely ineffective against Israel's defense system. Europe will make empty gestures about war crimes via the toothless ICC, and America is now totally controlled by the Republicans who never wanted a two-state peace process in the first place.

Israel has never in their short history had a better opportunity to go for the power play and deal with the Palestinians however they please, and under Trump we can expect that they won't get even a little bit of push back from the US, regardless of how harsh and violently they want to play it.

I expect a fucking bloodbath and a full annexation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and possibly parts of southern Lebanon.

But hey, the American people have spoken, and I guess that's what they wanted.

Holding Western stability hostage in the name of the oligarchs, good job voting everyone...

I'm pretty sure most of the blue states, California especially, would be happy to leave the union at this point. What's in it for us?

Are you talking about buildings or people? Because the death toll in Gaza is estimated to be ~40,000 while the population is ~3,000,000. That's 1.3% for those playing along at home.

Which, if you're a bit slow on the uptake, means get ready for Trump and Netanyahu to have their way with the remaining 98.7% of Gaza.

But hey, that's democracy I guess. Personally I enthusiastically voted for Harris, but the people of the US and Israel have spoken and so now we let the chips fall where they may.

Fucking DUH, god damn.