Good example. Hard to say if any of this rational will ever apply, though. I just expect him to either ignore anything a court says, or push it to the supreme court where the president is above the law.

IANAL, but I assume lawyers are always looking for any precedent.

If someone claims someone else scammed them (in a civil or criminal case), they’re going to appeal to past similar cases. The civil case might even depend on the outcome of a criminal case against the same person. If they’re actually found not-guilty in a criminal case, then a civil case probably isn’t going to go anywhere. So if trump can convince a civil class action lawsuit to settle because it looks like they won’t win, then he can just pocket the difference.

All of this is my own conjecture as I see it, not to be considered factual.

Dude…imagine if we could convince Trump/Musk and Space Force/Space X to do this. It’s like philosophy’s version of the Torment Nexus!

I just don’t know why that seems to include someone like Hawk Tuah girl.

I think Trump is eventually going to make the same argument she does, “I didn’t know the the people I was working with were professional crypto grifters. I don’t know anything about crypto, I’m one of the victims here (who happened to also make out like a bandit). They just said it would be good for the ecosystem, and we would make some profit from the value we created.”

I have to assume all these crypto pardons are his team of lawyers trying to limit any precedent for inevitible lawsuits brought by people who lost money through TRUMP coin, once they’ve become disillusioned with the man. That, or he’s buying favors from people willing to do crimes.

This is apparently a fake tweet. An archive of the actual tweet corresponding to that datetime is here.

So to be clear, you believe Jill Stein voters to be representative of the ones “actually trying to put out the fire”? Am I understanding you correctly?

I want to see him pick a female soldier at random, go 1-on-1 with her in melee combat, get his ass kicked, and repeat until he gets the message.

Please, elaborate…

If more of you would have voted for Jill Stein, we wouldn’t be in this mess!

/s in case that wasn’t obvious

So, I guess this means smart, ethical, and charismatic. I feel like this is one of those cases where I get to pick two one of those traits, and it has to be charismatic.

That seems to accurately describe where we find ourselves. To quote Men in Black, “A person is smart, people are dumb.”

I think we don’t get out of this situation by thinking real hard and convincing people to vote based on a theoretical future; people will only change their behaviour in the face of an actual failure. I’m not a historian, but I have to assume the appeal of fascism was alive and well in the US during the great depression. We just had the opportunity to learn from Germany and Italy’s mistakes before we went down the same road. Now WE are the example that will hopefully sway other countries’ democratic behaviors.

Ex. the conservative party was heavily favored to win the Canadian election after Trudeau stepped down, but ever since Trump took office, the polls have completely reversed. Still unclear where it will land, but I think Canada’s voters are getting that much needed opportunity to learn from our failures.

I feel like this question is as useful as asking “when is it ok to downvote someone?” You can theorize about how a downvote should only be used when someone is not contributing to the discussion honestly, and how you should never downvote someone just because you disagree with them…but at the end of the day, people are gonna downvote others for whatever random reason they feel like.

Similarly, is it useful to ask what a vote “means” in a democracy? Or is it a waste of time to try and apply reason to, or derive reason from, the behavior of a hivemind? Unlike individuals who can learn from hypothetical failures, I personally believe hiveminds (groups/societies/whatever word you’d like to use) can only learn from actual failures.

The people could elect a perfect model citizen who will represent the people’s best interests, but if what’s best for the people in the long term comes with too much discomfort in the near term, the people will happily vote against their own interests.

Hah very different themes I’d say.

On the Beach is about all the people who thought it’d be a good idea to move to Australia in case all the nukes drop during the Cold War, and then the nukes drop and everyone in the northern hemisphere dies and they survive, but then they realize they’re just waiting for the natural wind patterns to bring all the radiation over to them to kill them too. The only way to win is not to play.

So similar in that they’re both very dismal.

Well at least the physical key works for the doors. What year is that?

Yeah, I wish there was a company that made a fully dumb electric car, but there’s just no incentive to do that. I have a 2014 gas car with a normal physical key that you use to turn start it, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an electric car where you have to use the physical key to start the car.

has a real physical key that has to be in the cabin to drive

🤨 the way you say “has to be in the cabin” makes me think it’s not a real physical key, and is actually a wireless smart key that you leave in your pocket when starting the car.

Ever read the book On the Beach?

Oh, honey…

“Open carry prohibited, concealed carry without a permit” is Chaotic Evil energy.

I’m going to say it’s not a “you” problem, but a “who you’re surrounded by” problem. Is this something you’re used to percieving accurately? Do you have friends or family who would actually mean it rudely? Because, as others have mentioned, I simply would not be able to function at work if I interpreted 👍 as rude/sarcastic.

I have to assume you’re young or your work doesn’t involve communicating with coworkers or clients over text. I’d also be curious if you look back at this post 5-10 years from now and think “wtf was I on about?” (I’d also be curious if civilization still exists 5-10 years from now, but I digress…)

It makes sense once you recognize that none of these guys actually believe or feel anything. They’re all running a calculated sociopathic algorithm to maximize their own power.

The only reason any of them were anti-Trump at any point in the past was because they didn’t believe it would help their political career. Now they’re they’re all anti-reality/pro-fascism for the same reason.

Just like late-stage capitalism, we’ve set up a system that encourages this behavior. If you compare an honest politician vs one willing to say or do whatever is needed to secure power, the latter will always come out on top. Which is where we find ourselves.

If we somehow develop a forcing function to disincentivize this behavior, all of them will flip instantly, saying, “I had to. I didn’t agree with anything Trump was doing. I was only doing it because if I didn’t, someone worse would take my spot. Votes pleeeeaase 🫴”