Exactly, which the video quote I think proves. He really felt comfortable saying that. He’s high up in all of that, but he is far from the only one in that muck. And it certainly didn’t end when Epstein died.

To be fair, this was all information that was published before. Just like now, it changes absolutely nothing for his supporters.

Not to say that the dems aren’t terrible at messaging. But this seems to be more of a case of Trump having so many scandals that people forgot the details of this one. Saw someone post the other day that they went to Epsteins wikipedia page and had completely forgotten large swathes of it. Its just too much, too fucked up, for people to hold on to it.

And the worst part is, none of it is hidden. The video from the 90s (maybe early aughts) that had him speaking about his good friend ‘who, you know, likes them a little on the young side,’ was from Inside Edition (iirc). Dude casually admitted his friend was a pedo and it gets published as a puff piece.

None of this is new, none of this is unknown, its just unbearably fucked up.

How many pages?

-Seven

Oh that’s not so bad.

-…Seven pages worth of mentions.

Agreed, that’s kinda what I’m getting at. This whole term has been with the understanding that the narrative has become fully divorced from the reality. Scary times.

The fact that these problems are present at the beginning stages show that this was always the intended result. Obviously none of this is shocking, but it does amaze me that they don’t even have the patience to pretend that it was ‘a good plan that went sour along the way’. Shows that if you have half of the nation fully captured then optics don’t even matter anymore.

Always interesting when the true believers get burned.

Andrew Yang joins the party in 3…2…1…

If only we had more warning. Although I guess that’s the plan for after the hurricane comes.

Agreed, just wanted to see if the OP would admit to it as well. Fully expect either no response or a passing of the buck along the lines of ‘I want to help who need it, but people hypothetically could take advantage of the system so let’s just scrap the whole thing.’

And what about the less fortunate? The infirm and disabled? They can rot?

I took it as a disaster due to nuclear waste breaching containment due to high temperatures, they bring up temperatures of up to 200 degrees fahrenheit. The use of spark is likely because half the article is about the debate on ‘what is fire’ and nomenclature for these sites and its on the brain or whatever. But I could be wrong on that.

At another, in St. Louis, responders once drafted evacuation plans for fear that the hot temperatures would spark a nuclear disaster at an adjoining landfill with buried radioactive waste near a community that now has dozens of cancer cases.

Turdles all the way down in this country.

He couldn’t even wait until the planes had landed to send a tweet about bombing Iran. They included a reporter on war plans using non-allowed comms. This isn’t a secret they could keep. If anything, I’ve always interpreted the fix the election mumbles as being about fixing the electoral system for the future, which they are hard at work dismantling things.

Amazed it didn’t happen the night they first reported it wasn’t the bigliest success in history.

I feel you on the misanthropy, and it’s always been a fine line I’ve had an eye on haha. Or as I like to say, my entire life I’ve tried not be a nihilist and after many years of hard work I can finally say that I’m an absurdist.

I’ve got a degree in ecology and evolution, I think about this stuff way too much. I think many of the adaptations that allowed us to get to where we are now are also what will bring about our end. The super organism that is humanity cannot change itself fast enough to recognize our collective power. Or as some have put it, we cannot properly conceptualize exponential growth.

The fact that using reusable bags, again not life altering but insanely simple, is too big of an ask says everything you need to know about our hope of making real change for the future. Actual sacrifice is coming, and we aren’t going to have a choice. If this is too far, then we are well and truly fucked.

As soon as that real change comes, people are going to look to a strongman who can turn it all around. He’s gonna tell them what they are doing isn’t that bad and it’s the mean old scientists that are making life difficult. That and the freeloaders. And those people are going to eat it up. And all of the little environmental improvements that now seem like no big deal but were fought over for years are going to be removed. Asbestos of all things may be deregulated. Sound familiar?

Now for the democrats. Zohran Mamdani is, I would assume, going to have a bag ban as part of his platform if NYC doesn’t do it already. I’m sure Eric Adams will hammer him over it at some point as well. And I am equally sure that there is at least one liberal in that city that is going to say ‘you know what, fuck that, I like my bags, especially those one’s with the handles.’ Will it make a difference? Maybe not, but it still sucks knowing that’s how it is and that’s how it’s gonna be.

Sorry if that went off the rails haha, and I don’t think anything bad about you. But I’m not exaggerating when I say this is why I think we are doomed. I’ll still be using my bag though, which by the way is a fucking rad petrified forest national park one that I’ve used for almost four years now.

You keep bringing up the eating out of the trash can thing. My counter to that is, we throw too much away. That’s another issue we should be working on. I used to live near the Portland Fred Meyer with the famous photo of cops guarding a dumpster because it was filled with unspoiled food during covid.

It isn’t about whether or not I am willing to eat food out of a dumpster (do donuts count?) it’s that we as a society need to all work towards addressing how much food is wasted. There are a multitude of ways in which this can be addressed both on an individual level and on a societal level.

But if you keep wantonly wasting food of your own, because ‘fuck it, have you heard about the time armed police barricaded a dumpster?’ then I’m going to (hopefully politely) spend apparently a full 24 hours pushing the issue of maybe don’t do that.

Again, it’s the same energy as with the bags. It is a trivial step to take. It is easier than continually coming up with reasons to tell a stranger on the internet that you just don’t want to.

And that’s fine. Like you said, we have different ideas of what the line is. We all justify our actions. I do it as well. And we as a species are going to justify ourselves into completing the sixth mass extinction of this planet.

Haha, I’ve had years of practice failing to persuade my father in similar ways for forty years now. I know it changes nothing, but the other option is to not try. I appreciate the support.

It isn’t a different problem set though, just a different flavor of the same issue: over-consumption and overexploitation. It is also something that can be addressed through legislation, as the article this discussion originated from is an article about how legislating bag bans is effective.

People do need to take responsibility. That’s the whole issue. People at the bottom do not take responsibility, they do not push for people above them to take responsibility, and they will actively curtail measures to improve things because ‘it’s the big guys we need to worry about.’ No, we all need to make efforts. And in the example of bags, I am asking you to make a trivial change to your lifestyle, that you would all but forget about once you had made the change.

Let me try to use a different example. Cigarette butts on the ground are fucking gross right? Major ecological concern as well. Nobody should be throwing cigarette butts on the ground, I think we can all agree. You throw a cigarette butt on the ground? No big deal, coal plants are worse. Same energy.

I appreciate the multiple attempts to diffuse with the bag handles, and I fully agree that we have to draw the line somewhere. My issue is that if people are unwilling to do something a simple as bringing a bag into a grocery store, then there is absolutely zero chance that we will change the more difficult but more necessary problems. How are you going to convince Bezos to reduce his footprint when you can’t even get people to stop using a straw? Who the fuck even uses straws? How am I going to convince people to buy less, when everytime they want to buy something, they buy a thing to carry they thing they want to buy? (Insert xzibit meme)

Yes, it is something as dumb as bags, and even if we did switch it may not have much of an impact. But so what? Far more important to me is the mere fact that bringing in a bag to carry items in is too much of a hurdle for people to help the planet? Doomed I say.

Bringing in a bag to store that I know I am going to be bringing items out of is not self-flagellation. Refusing to bring a bag into a store because I’ll just use a single use item instead is shitty behavior. It’s that simple. Minor shitty behavior? Sure. If you’re cool with that behavior, well obviously this isn’t going to change that opinion. It is a trivial behavior for you to change.