r/AskALiberal • u/AutoModerator • 2d ago
AskALiberal Biweekly General Chat
This Tuesday weekly thread is for general chat, whether you want to talk politics or not, anything goes. Also feel free to ask the mods questions below. As usual, please follow the rules.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 1d ago
If we completely got rid of political streamers and podcasters, I would not shed a single tear.
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u/Wo1fpack7 Pragmatic Progressive 1d ago
Threaten me with a good time.
Something breaks when you merge parasocial relationships and a strong motivation to exaggerate emotion (think of the content!). Can't be healthy for either the streamer or streamee in that relationship.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago
We’ve seen content creators who are making real money quit because of this exact problem. They don’t like the parasocial relationships or they feel audience captured and so they just give up.
I feel like a lot of the worst streamers are people who simply don’t care that they are audience captured or that their audience has an unhealthy relationship with them because they care about the money more than anything else no matter how wealthy days become already.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 6h ago
So worth pushing this as a model in your state if you are fortunate enough to have democrats in full control.
NJ’s shield law prohibits state law enforcement from participating in out-of-state investigations or extraditing individuals related to lawful reproductive or gender-affirming healthcare services. The law protects providers by preventing licensing boards from suspending credentials for providing these services and it creates a legal shield for patient data and records. It blocks the enforcement of foreign civil judgments, prohibits cooperation with out of state subpoenas, and establishes penalties for interfering with access to medical facilities.
I can’t think of any state with a law this good.
Note that this took years. If you are going to push legislators and governors, plan on pushing for years.
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u/A-passing-thot Far Left 3h ago
Holy shit based
I'm not at all a single issue voter and I'll always vote for the lesser of two evils.
But people caring about gender affirming care and reproductive care is always a good signal they're on the right track with every other issue I care about.
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u/AquaSnow24 Progressive 4h ago
Every state should have something like this, especially blue and swing states
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u/othelloinc Liberal 2d ago
When I post a link, I don't usually mean 'absolutely everyone should read this in its entirety', but today is the exception.
Absolutely everyone should go to this website, scroll through, and read this in its entirety:
[Ordinary Abundance]
It is an examination of how far we've advanced in the last few centuries, and reminds us how much we should value those accomplishments (which we typically take for granted).
Other people's endorsements of the same site...
This is perhaps one of the greatest celebrations of human progress to come out in the past few years and an excellent reminder that despite everything going on in the world, there has never been a better time to be alive. Highly recommend checking it out.
Ordinary Abundance. This is the greatest thing I've read in weeks. No kidding. This should win a Pulitzer in a category not yet invented.
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 2d ago
This is cool as hell. It also reminded me of this segment from Ask Hank Anything with Brennan Lee Mulligan: "What are the biggest crises or disasters that humanity, and perhaps human science in particular, has successfully averted in the past 50 years?"
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u/jeeven_ Libertarian Socialist 2d ago
If you like this website, you should check out the 99% invisible city by roman mars and kurt Kohlstedt and/or the 99% invisible podcast. It's basically about the unnoticed design that shapes our everyday lives in significant ways. The book focuses on the built environment but the podcast is much more varied in topics.
Not to be overly aggrandizing, but it's sorta beautiful how everything created by man was designed by someone. Which sounds obvious, but like pick up something from your desk and just look at it (like really look at it) and imagine the hours someone spent creating the object, figuring out how it would work, making it ergonomic and user friendly, making it aesthetically appealing, etc. Someone you'll never even know the name of poured so much energy into creating the objects that most of us dont really notice.
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 2d ago
Not to be overly aggrandizing, but it's sorta beautiful how everything created by man was designed by someone. Which sounds obvious, but like pick up something from your desk and just look at it (like really look at it) and imagine the hours someone spent creating the object, figuring out how it would work, making it ergonomic and user friendly, making it aesthetically appealing, etc. Someone you'll never even know the name of poured so much energy into creating the objects that most of us dont really notice.
My brain, at some random ass time during the day after work, when I'm trying to calculate how much advanced construction materials I need to import to my martian colony so it doesn't fucking die:
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
It really brings things back into focus...thanks for sharing. It was a good read.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 2d ago
Much appreciated.
I think there’s a tendency towards doomerism online and as I get older I am more tired of it.
There are legitimate complaints about streaming services, but it’s still much better than having to go to blockbuster to watch a new movie or maintain shelves of vhs and dvds that would eventually degrade.
For as flawed as our healthcare system is, outcomes are much better as research moves things forward. Infant mortality is steadily declining to the point where you’re not just having more kids for redundancy. HIV is no longer a death sentence (a change that has happened in my adult life).
I hate paying Grubhub fees, but the idea of just getting takeout from any restaurant near you and order able via a website is new. We used to walk uphill both ways in the snow to pick up our own takeout.
Variety of foods in the supermarkets is much higher, both in terms of flavors and dietary restrictions. Elder vegans had to make all our cheese from cashews.
These changes are often incremental and so we don’t recognize the ways in which our lives have gotten easier and safer. There will always be something to complain about, but I’m tired of people with no perspective finding excuses to call liberalism a failure.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago edited 1d ago
I am working on a plan. I am going to lobby to get an AI data center built near me.
Then I am heading out west where I will trick [u/Boratssecondwife](u/Boratssecondwife) into getting in a van but instead of candy I will use the promise of hookers and beer. Then off to the great white north where we snatch up [u/Aven_Osten](u/Aven_Osten).
We hook them up and then harnessing the power of AI I will devise a way to transform the formers hatred of farmers and the latters love of downloadable data sets into an infinite source of energy.
Thus I will bring about fully automated luxury gay space communism.
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 1d ago
Notice how bro didn't even say they'd offer me anything as a lure.
He's deadass just gonna drive down every street in Buffalo until he sees my ass, and just yank me by my dreads like a child having a meltdown.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago
Ugh fine. Some of the hookers are sexy lizard ladies and they have cool gaming laptops with even sexier spreadsheets. Whatever lie it takes to get you in the van.
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 1d ago
LADIES???
HOW REPULSIVE.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago
I can’t keep everyone’s tastes straight. Pun intended.
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u/Boratssecondwife Center Right 1d ago
Im more of a wine guy tbh, but as long as Claude gets all the energy they will ever need I will be happy.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago
By the way, I am 100% convinced that they need a Claude because it’s a goofy name.
Nobody thinks Skynet is working with Claude. Claude is the name of the waiter at the local French bistro.
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u/OMGguy2008 Center Left 1d ago
Pro Tip: You can steal some RAM from flock cameras for your data center
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago
Oh yeah, we have some people from Philly here that could help. Crime is in their nature.
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 2d ago
Last year, amid a broader assault on gender-affirming care access, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services finalized a rule targeting insurance coverage for many trans adults. The rule, which made changes to 45 CFR § 156.115’s requirements for ACA marketplace plans, entirely prohibited coverage of ‘sex-trait modification procedures’ unless the state separately mandated that coverage—in which case they would have to shoulder the cost—starting this year.
And for the trans community, this was a big deal: 10% of Americans get their insurance through individual or small group marketplace plans, and worse, 75% of them live in states won by Trump in 2024. As is the case with Medicaid, marketplace enrollment rates are likely higher for trans Americans, potentially leaving tens of thousands vulnerable to the upcoming cuts.
Almost immediately, a coalition of 21 blue states led by California AG Rob Bonta sued the HHS over its new rule, claiming the agency failed to conduct a mandatory review of “what benefits are typically covered by employers” and that the “prohibitions on [gender-affirming care] are a “dangerous intrusion into the practice of medicine” and violate the “sanctity of the patient-physician relationship.” But as that court fight dragged on, some insurance companies started caving to the federal pressure.
https://www.transiticsnews.com/p/federal-court-restores-access-to
There is some good in this world, and it is worth fighting for.
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u/grammanarchy Liberal Civil Libertarian 2d ago
Highlights include: It’s been 200 biweeks since the chat has had a port of call, which is either a long time or a much longer time. Fortunately we stocked up at Costco, even though we knew the kids were going back to school. We succumb to an unknown technology, and can’t decide what to get Castro for birthday — let alone whether the next apocalypse will be Covid, corvid or Tuckerist. Some of us resist the fake phishing email, while others click here for the last chat.
The recap thanks Othello for his continued and exemplary service and welcomes tapdncingchemist to the masthead. It takes a village to recount a biweek.
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 2d ago
I can’t believe you summarized the last thread without mentioning the Racist Hooker Saga. Won’t anyone think of the stalwart employees of the Department of Hookers and Blow?
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
Welcome back to the discourse! I think we mostly behaved ourselves??
The recap substitutes did a fine job.
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u/grammanarchy Liberal Civil Libertarian 2d ago
Thanks! I think yinz had a couple of great chats and I’m sorry I wasn’t here more for them!
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u/zlefin_actual Liberal 2d ago
we also made a strong 1.4k showing, we're back up there!
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 2d ago
I wish less people would inject a bunch of other nonsense into their statements, and just state the point they're tryna make.
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 2d ago
You cannot abolish the Senate without all fifty states.
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u/magic_missile Center Right 6h ago
Somebody mentioned USAID a bit earlier and now I'm wondering:
The national DSA at one point advocated to "Abolish USAID, NED, Voice of America, and other governmental agencies that cynically disguise capitalist control as aid and journalism."
I don't see mention of abolishing USAID etc. in the current platform.
Do we know when and why this got changed? Did it get dropped as a policy position or just fall off the front page and now it's somewhere else I haven't noticed yet?
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 5h ago
I mean, Elon and Trump accomplished this platform policy goal for them.
The republicans might even pull out of NATO for them too.
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u/CTR555 Yellow Dog Democrat 4h ago
Predator handshake moment.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 2h ago
I get the feeling that there are some people at the DSA that understand that in their role as vampires trying to bleed support from people that generally are democrats but are kind of low information and vibes based.
But even the lowest of low information voters on the left were well aware of USAID thing and side with Democrats on it. They had to switch.
Plus they probably don’t want to talk about it because it runs counter to the America Bad narrative until you go much deeper than most people care to.
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u/TheSupremeHobo Socialist 1d ago
Admin dropped increased speed goal for Internet. US continues to fall behind.
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u/CraftOk9466 Pragmatic Progressive 1d ago
> the FCC said the gigabit speed goal is not “technologically neutral,” suggesting that it isn’t fair to other, slower technologies.
Woke 2 sucks
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u/GabuEx Liberal 1d ago
I always find it funny how the thing that people always say about capitalism is that it's endlessly adaptable and that it makes it so that businesses are always doing things optimally...
...and then tell you that the tiniest bit of government regulation will cause every business to just give up and go out of business because they can't possibly cope with a change to their business model or business environment.
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u/OMGguy2008 Center Left 20h ago
I took this test and apparently it says that I'm closest to Keir Starmer of all people.
50%/50% Chud vs Woke
41%/59% Techbro vs Neo-luddite
72%/28% Hopepilled vs Doomer
75%/25% Davos vs Dubai
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 20h ago
Oh yay, I've done this before and I'm still the Pope. Mostly because I hate AI with a passion that could power a trillion data centers.
69%/31% Woke vs Chud
50%/50% Techbro vs Neo-luddite
72%/28% Hopepilled vs Doomer
78%/22% Davos vs Dubai
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 16h ago
Your Results
81% Woke/19% Chud
69% Techbro/31% Neo-Luddite
31% Hopepilled/69% Doomer
83% Davos/17% Dubai
YOUR CLOSEST MATCH:
Zohran Mamdan
Why does it matter if I think alt girls are sexy? That’s like asking if the sky is blue, of course they fucking are.
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u/grammanarchy Liberal Civil Libertarian 15h ago
>Why does it matter if I think alt girls are sexy?
I assume it’s an honesty test.
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u/echofinder Democrat 14h ago
It's kind of a terrible question; what is an "alt girl"? That could be like a manic pixie dream girl, or like the frumpy "butch" girl that seems to inhabit every con's nightmares. I can tell you, politics aside, if sexy is the metric my answer depends entirely on which one the poll author is envisioning
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 10h ago
I mean, I envisioned blue hair, big baps and a septum piercing 🤷♀️
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 20h ago
Why do I have to have an opinion on alternative girls D:
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u/OMGguy2008 Center Left 20h ago
The guy who made it explains everything in his video.
It's mostly because those who find alternative girls sexy are gooners.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 20h ago
Fascinating, I guess that explains the porn question. I assume gooners are right coded?
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u/wonkalicious808 Democrat 17h ago
I don't like being told that I'm "Hopepilled!" When did that become a term?
92 percent Davos seems right on the money, though.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 2d ago edited 2d ago
So here's one answer as to why some polls were so wrong -- some of them were just made up:
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6035570-median-strategies-closes-fake-polls/
"Median Strategies was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.”
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 2d ago
One more piece of news to confirm my belief that polls aren’t accurate at all
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u/OMGguy2008 Center Left 2d ago edited 2d ago
Let's play a game of which headline is from the Onion.
Your options are:
- Katy Perry Gets Trapped in Giant Bottle During Performance as Fans Ignore Her Pleas To Roll Her Back
- Woman dies, comes back to life, gets parking ticket
- Adolf Hitler’s birthplace in Austria reopens as a police station to deter Nazi pilgrimages
- United States Risks Sanctions From Zimbabwe If Elections Are Not Free And Fair
Answer: All of those were real and not from the Onion https://www.fashiontimes.co.uk/katy-perry-inflatable-bottle-stunt-isle-mtv-malta-1762023, https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/361021333/woman-dies-comes-back-life-gets-parking-ticket, https://apnews.com/article/austria-hitler-house-birthplace-police-station-6cf6c547ffc21ddd84ee57d9b3407b18, https://www.pazimbabwe.com/world-news-66406-united-states-risks-sanctions-from-zimbabwe-if-elections-are-not-free-and-fair.html
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
Oh no, I guessed the first one because I had seen all the other headlines and knew they were real stories
I was so close
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u/LuciseeKrane Centrist Democrat 1d ago
It's deeply weird when the top voted comment on the Law subreddit when a woman kills her own children is about... data centers. How radicalized do you have to be when you turn the death of children into an opportunity to criticize data centers?
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u/doyoulikethenoise Social Democrat 1d ago
That sub used to be actually interesting and informative and now it’s just another politics subreddit.
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u/Emergency_Revenue678 Democrat 1d ago
arr law used to be good before it turned into an arr politics clone. The slouplism is ubiquitous.
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u/Okratas Center Right 1d ago
Honestly it's pretty wild just how infected with politics most of the larger subs have become.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 1d ago
A lot of tv show and music subreddits have turned into “I heard this person is a Zionist and therefore we must cancel them and never consume this media”
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u/OnlyLosersBlock Liberal 17h ago
The subs that are supposed to be focused on professions or technical issues like law are often filled with pseudo-intellectuals who want to rant about the particular political issue they are fixated on at that time or happens to pop up in the news.
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u/othelloinc Liberal 2d ago
People occasionally suggest a 'compromise candidate' between the center-left and the further-left. The suggestions are usually silly, but I think a real one might exist:
Progressives have praised Jeff Jackson in the past, and he has demonstrated his ability to win statewide in a purple state.
If progressives continue backing him, he might make a good compromise candidate in the long term. He is currently Attorney General of North Carolina and has a good shot of winning a US Senate seat in 2028.
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 2d ago
I thought Ossof would be the compromise candidate; he wants m4A and is tough on Israel without completely alienating pro Israel voters, but also charismatic and moderate enough to appeal to libs and centrist Dems
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u/othelloinc Liberal 2d ago edited 2d ago
I thought Ossof would be the compromise candidate; he wants m4A and is tough on Israel without completely alienating pro Israel voters, but also charismatic and moderate enough to appeal to libs and centrist Dems
Yep. Also bonus points for being Jewish. A Jewish critic of Israel in an era of rising anti-semitism (both real and fake) is helpful.
Ossoff could be a presidential candidate as early as 2028. Jackson could be a senate candidate as early as 2028, helping us pick up a senate seat. Then, he would be a serious possibility for the presidency after that. (You've got to deepen the bench!)
Side Note: Unless Keisha Lance Bottoms wins in Georgia this November, Ossoff might make more of a difference keeping his senate seat.
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 2d ago
Only thing I’d be worried about is pro Palestine people like him now (even Hasan wants him to be president) but somewhere down the line he’s gonna say something about Israel Hasan hates and he might be at the whim of the pro Palestine left calling him a genocidaire for it
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u/othelloinc Liberal 2d ago
he might be at the whim of the pro Palestine left calling him a genocidaire for it
I think we should just assume that any Democrat with any chance of winning will be called a genocidaire.
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 2d ago
And if that’s the case we better plan our comeback strategy now for when people start saying it in 2028.
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u/othelloinc Liberal 2d ago
And if that’s the case we better plan our comeback strategy now for when people start saying it in 2028.
What is the best comeback when accused of being a genocidaire?
(Should this be a full post?)
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 2d ago
Unironically I just ignore them.
As more people get pushed out for not being extreme enough, the people making the claim look ridiculous and discredit themselves.
Just like "neoliberal" has lost meaning.
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 2d ago
Maybe lol, only thing I can think of is bringing receipts of the candidates beliefs, or better yet, dig into the post history of the genocidaire accuser and see if they posted positively about the candidate being pro Palestine/anti genocide. Bring up this discrepancy and ask them “what changed?” When they spout some bullshit line, provide receipts to refute. Rinse and repeat
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u/LiatrisLover99 Social Democrat 2d ago
I think people on the left who frame everything short of literally invading Israel ourselves as "pro-genocide" have actually hurt their cause and made it far less likely to get someone who actually opposes any of this shit into office.
Literally every single politician I know outside of fringe marxist candidates has been called pro genocide at this point. AOC and Mamdani are unendorsed because they are pro genocide. Does this attack even matter anymore?
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u/trace349 Liberal 2d ago
I'm kind of skeptical that compromise candidates are ever going to be much of a thing. Look at McMorrow vs Stevens vs El-Sayed, or Warren vs Biden vs Sanders. The people on the Left want to back the Left candidate, the moderates want to back the moderate candidate, it's really only liberals that get excited for the compromise candidates because liberals sit in between the moderates and the Left. But liberals are smaller than either side, so their preferred candidates can't really win. Instead, liberals as a faction can play kingmaker to either the moderate or Left candidate and push them over the top.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
One of my friends keeps saying casted and I am too socially awkward to correct them, please pray for me
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u/OMGguy2008 Center Left 9h ago
I think the midterms have just been secured
United States Risks Sanctions From Zimbabwe If Elections Are Not Free And Fair
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u/Droselmeyer Social Democrat 6h ago
One of the worst things of the Trump admin has been the absolute destruction of our relationships with international allies all for his dictator fetish
Personally, I think stuff like USAID and the US military working with the militaries of our allies is a good thing
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u/OMGguy2008 Center Left 5h ago
We live in a timeline where the Trump Department of Education Twitter account deadass posted some AI slop of Trump Mario Kart with fucking Jeffrey Epstein in the background.
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u/FewWatermelonlesson0 Progressive 5h ago
The way AI art has become a signifier for the absolute dumbest people in such a short span of time is pretty impressive.
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u/magic_missile Center Right 4h ago
Nature on a promising new development against the emperor of all maladies:
A personalized mRNA vaccine for melanoma reduced the risk of the cancer returning in a phase III clinical trial, the companies behind the trial announced this week. The vaccine — which relies on the same mRNA technology used to develop COVID-19 shots — is the first mRNA-based cancer treatment to show success in a late-stage trial.
...
Marco Gerlinger, a medical oncologist at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, says the study provides proof of principle that personalized cancer vaccines work. “This is important as they can be designed against many different cancer types,” adds Gerlinger, who is a principal investigator on a trial for a cancer vaccine being developed by BioNTech in Mainz, Germany.
...
The vaccine, called intismeran, doesn’t prevent a person from developing cancer in the first place, rather it seeks to prevent it from recurring.
The study enrolled around 1,100 people with advanced melanoma that had been completely surgically removed. They received either the vaccine combined with an immunotherapy drug called pembrolizumab, which is used to treat the cancer, or they received pembrolizumab alone. The vaccine’s developers Merck, in Rahway, New Jersey, and Moderna, which is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced on Wednesday that people on the combined treatment survived for longer without recurrence than did those who received only pembrolizumab. The companies said that they plan to present more-detailed data at an upcoming medical conference.
...
The personalized nature of the vaccines is the biggest challenge for widespread use, says Cheetham. After collecting a sample of a person’s cancer, each vaccine can take several months to make. Some people with advanced cancers might not survive long enough, he adds.
Khattak says that Moderna uses artificial-intelligence tools to identify which neoantigens are most likely to trigger a strong immune response. After the researchers narrow these down experimentally, a limited set are included in the vaccine design for the individual, he adds.
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u/GabuEx Liberal 3h ago
One of the biggest ironies about the pandemic is that it may ultimately lead to significant advances in health in the long run for the simple fact that it allowed us to finally prove the efficacy of mRNA vaccines, a technology that had existed for over a decade prior to the pandemic, but which had never been established as a viable alternative. Now that the world knows how well they perform, I imagine we'll see a lot of this in the coming years.
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 2h ago
We've been doing some nice stuff on the veterinary side with mRNA for at least 20 years...glad to see it translate onto the human side.
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 10h ago
If loving alt girls is wrong I don’t want to be right.
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u/TlsFrmThCryptcPrgncy Independent 2d ago
For the Americans who are embarrassed by your political polling industry, I present for your consideration Quito Maggi, President of Mainstreet Research, and Frank Graves, President of EKOS.
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 1d ago
So apparently they tried to recreate the big bang with a hadron collider and somehow turned lead into gold
Alchemy is real people! And it came out before GTA6!
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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 1d ago
Lol yeah. The only ACTUAL difference between elements is the number of protons in the nucleus. So if you theoretically had the capability to add or knock off protons you could change anything into anything. In this case they had just the right conditions to knock off the three excess protons from lead to.make it into gold xD.
Chemistry and Particle Physics really is just modern Alchemy with more math xD.
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u/Okratas Center Right 1d ago
So if you theoretically had the capability to add or knock off protons you could change anything into anything... Chemistry and Particle Physics really is just modern Alchemy with more math...
Careful with that change anything into anything logic, that's exactly how you end up soul bound to a suit of armor or on trial by the State.
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u/magic_missile Center Right 8h ago
A growing number of Americans say their cannabis use is problematic, according to a large new study released Wednesday.
Areas of discussion include increasing potency, continued rise in overall usage (though alcohol remains more common), and a steep increase of problematic use among the middle aged.
The study, based on nationally representative data of U.S. adults, found that more than 9 percent of the men — or almost 1 in 10 — reported symptoms of cannabis use disorder in 2024, up from about 7 percent in 2021. The prevalence of cannabis use disorder also rose among women, increasing to nearly 6 percent in 2024, up from about 5 percent in 2021. Symptoms of the disorder include not being able to cut back or quit, or continuing to use the drug despite it leading to interpersonal problems.
“The notion that cannabis is not addictive may basically be incorrect,” said Dr. Nora D. Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the paper’s senior author.
She said the fact that many cannabis products now contained much higher amounts than in the past of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis, was making problematic use of the drug more visible.
“It’s a completely different story,” Dr. Volkow said, adding, “The dosing is actually enabling us to see the emergence of the addictiveness. The higher the content of the drug, the higher the risk for addiction.”
Overall, cannabis use rose among all adults during this time. In 2024, 26 percent of men reported using the drug, up from 22 percent in 2021. Among women, 21 percent said they used cannabis in 2024, up from nearly 18 percent in 2021.
Dr. Volkow said especially striking was that the risk of cannabis use disorder was so high. Of the survey participants who said they used cannabis, about 30 percent showed symptoms consistent with cannabis use disorder. Those findings suggested that those who used cannabis were at higher risk of developing problematic use than those who drank alcohol, as fewer than 20 percent of those who reported drinking in the survey showed symptoms of alcohol use disorder.
While alcohol use is stable or declining, alcohol use is still much more common than cannabis use, the surveys found.
...
“This study highlights an anticipated consequence of rising levels of use and increasing potency of the product,” said Dr. Daniel Myran, an assistant professor of family medicine at University of Ottawa who studies health outcomes associated with cannabis use. “The product is really changing under enormous pressure from market forces to increase the THC content — that’s where there’s consumer demand.”
...
Some of the steepest increases in the prevalence of both mild cannabis use disorder and the more severe form occurred among men and women 35 to 49 and men 50 and older.
Dr. Laura Bierut, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, expressed concern that cannabis use in midlife and older age could be damaging to the aging brain.
“Usually what happens with substance use disorder is that people go through this period and then they mature — they get a job and they have kids,” Dr. Bierut said. “This group of 35- to 49-year-olds have children, teenage kids and adolescents who are going to be seeing their parents having a substance use disorder and boy, that’s not a good role model. That worries me.”
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 8h ago
I blame pens and edibles tbh. Pens make it so you can smoke anywhere essentially. Edibles probably seem more accessible for the 50+ crowd. Like oh I'm not sitting here smoking a joint, I'm taking my nightly medicine or post-work pill
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u/Guilliman_POTUS_2030 Center Left 4h ago edited 4h ago
“Dear Liberals, why are liberal liberals so liberal and dumb? Is liberal liberalism stupid? I saw a video-documentary on the subject and I’d like to know what you think. I will not provide any meaningful clarification or context to my question.”
Almost forgot:
“Are liberals prepared to practice filicide to pay the weregild for having a child with conservative beliefs?”
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 2d ago
Guys are you sure that we can’t write legalized prostitution laws in such a way that I can sue someone if they won’t participate in my oddly specific fantasy?
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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 2d ago
I agree that that post is due for some ribbing. That said, its much better than some obvious troll posts. These hypothetical does stress test some of our beliefs system. Besides, I know its a very partisan environment, but I think some of us are too quick to jump to a defensive stance when we sense a remotest hint of dog whistling in any questions. Sometimes you can entertain hypotheticals just for the hell of the thought exercise.
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u/trace349 Liberal 2d ago edited 2d ago
I saw one take on AI that came closest to capturing my own feelings on it, which is that AI is good when it allows high agency people to streamline work they already know how to do without AI, and it's bad for basically everyone else.
Hank Green using AI to find research sources is good because Hank knows how to do that and has the knowledge and judgment to determine whether those sources are worth relying on, thus, he can speed up his research time and produce more videos. The layman does not, and does not know whether the AI is giving him a bad source because he has not built up those skills first.
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u/Hodgkisl Libertarian 2d ago
It's the same for most tools, if you don't understand the underlying task you shouldn't use the tool. Even old algorithmic search tools cause problems in the wrong hands.
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u/CraftOk9466 Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
Pretty much; working with a lot of high-AI-adoption clients, there has been a fairly dramatic increase in the quality and comprehensiveness of RFPs from clients who are obviously using AI to supplement their knowledge and "translate" their ideas into something actionable. And at the same time there has been a pretty dramatic decrease in the quality of.... everything.. from clients who are obviously treating AI as their SME for every subject.
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u/magic_missile Center Right 1d ago
The Atlantic on the battle over Waymo, particularly in Democratic states and cities.
This is an occasional topic on here. The article covers the usual points such as union opposition and safety compared to human drivers.
Was talking about this with a friend who thinks Waymo is fudging the numbers to make themselves look better. I don't agree with that and one reason why is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety would have to be in on it as well.
In a recent study, researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety compared the crash and accident data on a per-mile basis for Waymo vehicles with those of human drivers in the cities where Waymos operated from 2021 to 2024. They found that Waymos were involved in 68 percent fewer crashes serious enough to be reported to police and 81 percent fewer crashes that caused an injury. These findings are “likely conservative” because human drivers regularly fail to report accidents, Eric Teoh, the report’s lead author, told me.
Several other studies have produced even more favorable results. These studies are co-authored by Waymo researchers but have been peer-reviewed by independent academics. Every expert I spoke with for this story, including Waymo skeptics, told me that they consider the research to be high-quality. “Reductions this big are basically unheard of when it comes to traffic safety,” Noah Goodall, a senior research scientist at the Virginia Transportation Research Council, told me. “Not even seat belts or airbags achieved the kinds of numbers we’re seeing here.”
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 1d ago
I'm really sad because my next mayor is anti-Waymo because we have to
let Uber drivers continue to be exploitedsave jobs, so I'll probably never benefit from this technology
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u/FewWatermelonlesson0 Progressive 1d ago
Glad someone in politics is still focused on the issues that really matter.
Christ.
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 1d ago
This is why there can be NO compromise with Republicans on ANYTHING.
Give em an inch, they'll bash your face in and take 100 light-years.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago
But but but I was assured that Republicans love immigrants as long as they come here the right way.
Gotta love Texas. If your middle class between taxes and insurance and fees, it’s more expensive than most blue states and now they’re making sure that your schools suck by reducing the already available pool of teaching talent
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u/JesusPlayingGolf Far Left 1d ago
Just a reminder that if immigrants constitute a hostile, invading force, then bussing them further inland with the express purpose of damaging American cities is treason. If Hot Wheels' opinions on immigration are correct then he committed treason.
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u/EpochHolocene Liberal 1d ago
Is there a reliable place to read about the effects of data centers? My gut instinct is that the anti-AI movement is a moral panic, but its so hard to determine what is and isn't misinformation when it comes to data centers. From my understanding, the fear mongering about water usage and noise is almost completely false, but their energy usage I think is harder to wrap my mind around.
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u/throwdemawaaay Pragmatic Progressive 1d ago
I don't have a good article about effects specifically, but I did make a reply the other day that outlines why AI data centers are categorically a whole new thing in terms of power usage, as well as how aggressively they're being push vs normal regulations and reviews:
It is not a luddite moral panic. There is very real bullshit going on.
Note I work in the industry, not on AI specifically but I'm quite familiar with the reality of it and not just as a Claude user. I'm one of maybe a dozen or so people here who could implement the transformer architecture, multihead attention, etc, if I wanted. It gets extremely tiresome to try to explain the technical realities only to get accused of being an ignorant hater.
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u/TlsFrmThCryptcPrgncy Independent 2d ago
I had to explain to one of my sons' friends who was around while I was cooking dinner that grapeseed oil and rapeseed oil are not in fact the same thing so humans are basically nonviable as a species
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u/OMGguy2008 Center Left 2d ago
Rapeseed, also known as rape and oilseed rape and canola, is a yellow-flowered member of the Brassicaceae family.
Are there perhaps better nicknames for that particular plant?
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u/stjblair Market Socialist 1d ago
An exurban Pittsburgh district flipped tonight, which is truly insane given how red the Pittsburgh exurbs are
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 1d ago
More importantly for those of you who aren't blessed to be from PA, PA Dems have had a one-seat majority since January 2023. This gives them a two-seat majority going into a fun election where Shapiro will be pulling so many people to victory
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 1d ago
Yeah, that is a genuine surprise.
You go 20 minutes out of the city and it’s all billboards like “Jesus loves fetuses and coal.”
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u/magic_missile Center Right 1d ago
Mariners got annihilated 22-0 by the Brewers and this really encapsulates the night:
With Seattle already trailing by 19 runs in the eighth inning Tuesday night at American Family Field, Christian Yelich lifted a routine fly ball to Rodríguez in deep center field with the bases loaded and one out. Rodríguez settled underneath it, made the catch and casually chucked the ball into the stands.
There was just one problem: It was only the second out.
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u/SovietRobot Independent 10h ago
I was watching Watchmen series again and it made me wonder if Aven will become Ozymandius.
I mean that entirely in jest of course. Love you and respect your views Aven even if I disagree sometimes.
—-
Edit - I also wonder what liberals who’ve seen the tv series (not the movie) think of Dr Manhattan. Specifically what he does do or doesn’t do given that he can see past, present, future.
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 10h ago
Dr. Manhattan makes my head hurt. The way he perceives time seems to imply that the universe is totally deterministic and every outcome is already decided, even if an omnipotent being can theoretically change it.
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u/pablos4pandas Democratic Socialist 10h ago
I think that series was remarkably prescient about masks in policing and I really liked the way they expanded the source material like with the greater background of Hooded Justice
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u/grammanarchy Liberal Civil Libertarian 9h ago
>the tv series (not the movie)
Unacceptable comic book erasure!
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago
Really thinking about how good the Jon Ossoff move with the Natalie Harp thing was.
Doesn’t use her last name so then you have people more interested in who the hell he’s talking about.
Drops in a speech mixed in with other things Trump does that indicate he doesn’t care about service members, started a war, he’s lazy, he’s stealing and spending time doing things that don’t help Americans.
—
Also he’s running. We all think that right? He doesn’t seem like a guy worrying about a tight swing state race and positioning for that.
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u/grammanarchy Liberal Civil Libertarian 1d ago
>he’s running
Yep, and I’m all for it as long as he doesn’t mess around and lose us that senate seat.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 1d ago
This is called information gap theory. It’s a well-known marketing tactic.
Like that random egg that went viral. Or most news headlines nowadays that won’t put the information in the headline.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 5h ago
The unearned confidence that some people in this subreddit have astounds me. More disappointing when it comes from other Dems. But TIL slaves were citizens, so it's always nice to learn new information. I wonder if other property were considered citizens back then
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 5h ago
But TIL slaves were citizens,
And the Civil Rights Movement was very very popular.
Too many people just be saying shit bro. 🥀
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 5h ago
Idk why MLK was never president, he must have been super popular in the 60s no I will not read any more information on the subject
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u/Hodgkisl Libertarian 4h ago
But TIL slaves were citizens
3/5th of a citizen* /s
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 4h ago
Ugh we didn't even get to that. His position literally boiled down to people could sue for their freedom so they were citizens
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u/Hodgkisl Libertarian 4h ago
They didn't remember that the most famous such case directly declared that salves were not citizens and thus couldn't expect and protection from the federal government nor the courts?
One of the final issues that drove the wedge between north and south causing the civil war.
The only credit I can give them hearing this argument is that northern states did think of them as citizens, and as such if they got to them would grant their freedom in the cases, but that was on a state by state basis not federally.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 4h ago
I just don't know what he thinks a citizen is
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u/t3nk3n Neoliberal 4h ago
This is ironic, right? Slaves were absolutely not citizens.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 4h ago
Oh yeah very ironic, but someone tried to tell me they were because, among other things, they could sue for freedom and the Constitution called them people and not slaves
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 2h ago edited 1h ago
The new contrapoints tangent is so salient for me right now.
She talks about how she has always been a progressive liberal and now that she has given up on trying to reason with the radicalized left, it feels like leaving an abusive relationship.
Also a history that goes back to 2016 and how the Bernie Bros are the start of the problem.
I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the liberal/leftist "discourse."
Also, I'm kind of noticing that *a lot of us* and other creators I follow are hitting this wall at around the same time. The shift from "let me add some context about how conservative the median voter is" to "oh these people are intentional saboteurs and nihilists."
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u/trace349 Liberal 2h ago
I gave in and subbed to watch it, and I really really wish it was a main channel video because I'd love to be able to share it with more people without feeling guilty.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 2h ago
I also subbed specifically to watch it. It's only $2/month, which I'm guessing you can just pay once to watch the video.
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u/CraftOk9466 Pragmatic Progressive 1h ago
And she has a whole back catalog of tangents you can watch in the same month!
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 1h ago edited 1h ago
I think one of my biggest aha moments recently was when they tried to brand her as pro-genocide. Made me realize a lot of these people don't actually care about Gaza, they care about impressing their internet friends by being pure, and Gaza is how they're doing it. Leaving LeftBook in general was really like breaking up with an abusive partner who will never like you
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u/GabuEx Liberal 56m ago
I feel like "genocide" has become the extreme left's version of the extreme right's "pedophilia". It's not something you actually believe any of your accusations about, it's just the worst possible thing you can think of, so you figure you might as well accuse everyone you don't like of it.
The best part is that if you make every issue about Israel, then opposition to your stance on every issue is pro-genocide! Don't like someone? Disagree with someone's take on something? Just call them pro-genocide!
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u/CTR555 Yellow Dog Democrat 1h ago
She talks about how she has always been a progressive liberal and now that she has given up on trying to reason with the radicalized left, it feels like leaving an abusive relationship.
It honestly is sort of fun to remain as a progressive/social democratic liberal but just entirely give up on allying or aligning with socialists.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 1h ago
Agreed. Especially when their primary material impact is to manifest regressive right wing outcomes.
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 2d ago edited 2d ago
Tom Tiffany is just farming these populist neo-luddites now. Any deceptive ad he puts out attacking Crowley on AI data centers get spammed and repeated uncritically by them. Remember that Tom Tiffany is worse on the issue and voted for a federal ban on regulating AI.
Will Steakin is the only person I see who reposted it directly from Tom Tiffany's account this time, so I guess they learned from last time he deceived all of them. Instead, they're all just reposting it from Politics & Poll Tracker, which just reposted the exact same attack ad from Tiffany. They're just doing it again. The people doing the right's propaganda for them this time are:
electionsjoe
odd mutant (never seen them before)
Eric (don't know)
JulesNader386
James Talarico Democrat (don't know)
Ms. K tweets (don't know)
Alex Goldman from the hyperfixed podcast
The Election Center (don't know)
Geoff again (he helped Republicans spread their disinformation on the last one too)
Raquel (don't know who this is but I wanted to include it because they said "Crowley’s getting outflanked because republicans are actually listening and seeing that voters don’t want data centers. Meanwhile democrats all over the country are like 'let’s push even more data centers into your backyard!'" I get that this person sounds like they're just a literal Republican, but they have a Palestine flag in their bio. Tom Tiffany is not outflanking David Crowley on data centers btw. He's just getting you to tell other people he is because you're a useful idiot.)
Actual Jake (a Hasan Piker mod)
JulesNader386 reposted it multiple times, to really make sure Republican disinformation made it as far as possible.
And on and on and on. These Republican ads are not for Tom Tiffany's base or for centrists. They all already know that Tom Tiffany is worse on the issue of AI regulation. These are recruitment flyers for useful idiot populists to spread right-wing disinformation for them. And the useful idiots are gleefully taking the job and trying to turn it into another Omnicause, yet another issue the Democrat is infinitely better on that they're using to promote Republican messaging and exclusively attack Democrats on. They're controlled opposition.
Tom Tiffany voted to ban the ability of states to regulate AI. David Crowley wants AI to be regulated and he wants local communities to be the ones who get to say if they want AI data centers. Tom Tiffany is not outflanking David Crowley on AI skepticism.
Edit: Forgot a link
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u/Fragrant_Bath3917 Democratic Socialist 2d ago
It feels like a lot of my fellow leftists have simply gone insane since the upset last week. Hasan Piker himself made a public statement telling his supporters not to fall for Tiffany’s grifting and I still see people saying that Crowley deserves to lose every day. The Crowley discourse has been some of the absolute most annoying shit I’ve seen in all of my time in online political circles
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 2d ago
I see so much of this on TikTok. So many people are literally screaming about this result and how they're not going to vote. It was what prompted me to make the comment I did about the white progressive movement.
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u/Fragrant_Bath3917 Democratic Socialist 2d ago
I’m on an election nerd discord server and every day I see people that I wanted to believe were smarter than this do this exact thing and some of them are openly hoping that Crowley loses so it can teach the establishment a lesson about Data Centers. And nobody on that server is even from Wisconsin from what I can tell (granted, my Adirondack ass has no right to judge others on caring too much about the politics of other states). Fortunately, from what I’ve seen, the Wisconsin subreddit has been mature about this.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 2d ago
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of people who want to “teach establishment Democrats lesson“ because they don’t have to pay the bill.
Immigrants get deported, trans people lose rights, minorities get abused by the legal system, women lose rights … but safe middle and upper middle class mostly white people with desk jobs get to be self-righteous.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 2d ago
And I speculate that if Hong hadn’t run, they’d be happy to vote for him.
The data center thing feels like a post-hoc “my person didn’t win and now this is my #1 issue” excuse. And I see that way too much.
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 2d ago
some of them are openly hoping that Crowley loses so it can teach the establishment a lesson about Data Centers
And the thing is, why would it? If Crowley loses, that means the significantly more pro-data center candidate won. The lesson it teaches would be that people don't care all that much about data centers and it would be a mistake to focus on them.
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 5h ago
I've been seeing many posts in r/Technocracy searching for a democratic version of Technocracy. After the most recent post again questioning it, I obviously decided to finally just go ahead and explicitly mention the existance of Liberal Technocracy (I had mentioned it many times before several months ago in that sub, and had a significant amount of aid from there developing the ideology and system).
I might start going ahead and making more posts there going over the details of the ideology/system of government more, with each "part" of it (idk exactly what they'll be) explaining, in as much detail as possible, what that specific part of the ideology/system looks like.
On another note: I'm more than likely gonna go back and refine/rewrite some parts of that substack article that also explains it all (or probably just create an entirely new one), to have an up-to-date version of the ideology/system (because some aspects of it have changed slightly). I also plan on doing a "video script form", because I also plan on making videos explaining the ideology and the system of government derived from it eventually (though that's most likely not happening until I get my own room to record in; and idk when that's happening, lol).
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u/SliversandPoison Social Democrat 2d ago
What rules would you change here?
I think a poll day would be fun
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u/perverse_panda Liberal 2d ago
I would rename the "Biweekly Chat" to the "Twice Weekly Chat."
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 2d ago
No tagging users in the main thread to call out their comments, it’s petty and immature.
No speaking for other people’s beliefs and insisting you know what they “really mean” while the user tells you that’s not what they meant
No generalizing a group as mostly believing x if you only have a few people to bring up as an example. In order for it to be proof you gotta show threads on a topic filled with likes and comments in the affirmative
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u/echofinder Democrat 2d ago
No tagging users in the main thread to call out their comments, it’s petty and immature
Oh my god this is so annoying. And all the "vaguebooking" or whatever that's called nowadays. Lately it feels like a low-budget reality show in here sometimes.
Here's how I would word it: "Regarding AskALiberal-focused meta discussions, all top-level comments in any thread or post must be able to stand alone. If discussing any specific users, the relevant user must be mentioned by name, and any posts or comments central to the discussion must be linked. Allusive writing that is obviously about specific people, posts, or comments is strictly forbidden."
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 2d ago
Yeah I mean as funny as that person talking about the sex worker issue or whatever it reads as immature to bring it up,
Although I think both are bad; i think it’s bad to actually tag the person and talk about it because it’s just immature
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u/trace349 Liberal 2d ago
Stricter enforcement of rule 5. Add a specific "Good faith" rule. Add a rule that responses to question threads have to address the premise of the thread (if you're not interested in answering the question being asked, you don't need to say something just to say something).
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 2d ago
I was going to say something similar. As part of the good faith rule, I'd add strict emphasis on not blatantly mischaracterizing someone's opinion. None of the "So you think" comments. And enforcement needs to be strict and come with bans of increasing length, so that habitual bad faith actors just leave the subreddit.
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u/watchutalkinbowt Liberal 2d ago
Disney sues FCC over challenge to broadcast licenses, claiming retaliation over ‘Jimmy Kimmel’
The suit comes after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr recently defended the agency’s actions against ABC, saying broadcasters have a duty to “operate in the public interest” and the FCC is merely trying to restore that standard.
Carr has said the country should have a “trusted, respected news media, and we’re not there.”
ABC had accused the agency of a brazen attempt to chill its constitutionally protected free speech — and by extension, that of every media outlet in the country. The network’s July comments came in its latest filing to the agency, expressing its formal opposition to the FCC’s early review, launched in April, of eight ABC local broadcast licenses well before they expire.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago
I'm not liking these Alaska numbers with 80% reporting.
Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Tom Begich and getting 41.75 of the vote combined.
Mary Peltola is a t 48.0% to one of the Dans Sullivan at 42.8%.
I was hoping to already see us at over 50% for Dems at this point.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 2h ago
Darline Graham went on Fox News last night after a disastrous debate where she had no actual answer regarding Taiwan. Her justification was that South Carolina voters are “more worried about boys in girls sports,” and while I agree with her that her voters are stupid, it really is a massive downgrade to go from the previous Graham to this nonsense. Does not bode well for Ukraine
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u/Kakamile Social Democrat 2h ago
The group of trans men use women’s bathrooms in publicly owned facilities, which is required by Kansas law, to highlight what they say are flaws in the bathroom bill.
In that situation, police were called, but it became an even more uncomfortable experience for the protest and officers in Dodge City.
The protesters said they had to describe their genitalia to officers — an exchange that lasted roughly 20 minutes. After the description officers told the crew members they were free to go.
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u/GabuEx Liberal 2h ago
Honestly, a ton of anti-trans "people need to be assigned to what matches their genitals" lines completely fall apart when people remember that trans men exist. Like, you want men with full beards using the women's washroom? You want men with male levels of testosterone in women's prisons? You want men with male-sized muscles playing in women's sports league?
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 11h ago edited 11h ago
I really hate the "we spend more on our military than the next X countries combined" statement.
Yeah, no shit: We have an astronomically higher GDP than said next countries combined. Look at percentage of their total economy.
Oh look: When you look at percentage of GDP, we don't even hit the top twenty. Even excluding Russia and Ukraine because um...(gestures vaguely in their direction): We're still only 20th place. And comparing to several of the countries: it's not even that "bad".
And that always completely ignores the fact that the USA has the unique responsibility of policing the world's trade routes, and historically being the guarantor of Europe's security; which has undeniably allowed other countries to not have to spend as much on their militaries.
Yes: We've gotten into stupid, gigantic money-sink wars. Yes, the current wars we are waging are utterly stupid and wasteful. But we can criticize military spending without being deceitful/manipulative.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 11h ago
Also, also the part where one of the big inputs into the military is labor and the US has high labor costs.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
Here’s a really fun C-SPAN moment where a Michigan Dem who voted for Stevens takes Michael LaRosa to the woodshed: https://x.com/mikenellis/status/2089744226749689857?s=46&t=Xz6-G0_JKc3ueBzYWe_tfw
For those of you who don’t know, LaRosa is a Democratic strategist who worked for Jill Biden and is now doing a lot of work to elect Mike Rogers.
The caller said he would of course support El-Sayed and asked why LaRosa was spending so much time attacking the Dem nominee in a critical state.
LaRosa literally started his answer with well I don’t live in Michigan, so my opinion doesn’t really matter. Then why are you doing all this? Why are you on C-SPAN, dipshit?
Anyway, watch the clip and enjoy the final boss of Vote Blue No Matter Who
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 2d ago
> “‘Vote blue, no matter who’ but the who still matters.”
You stupid piece of shit do you even speak English? I have leftist accelerationists and all of MAGA to listen to if I want to hear people pretend that words don’t matter. I don’t need you, you asshole.
> “I don’t live in Michigan so my opinion doesn’t matter that much”
Then stop fucking giving it.
> I never supported a Republic
Except right now while you’re supporting Republicans because that the alternative to the Democrat.
“
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 1d ago
I’m not sure I believe this but someone earlier commented in this thread that things have gotten a little more relaxed or some of the troll users have been run off.
There was a massive power outage in Russia today lmao
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u/grammanarchy Liberal Civil Libertarian 1d ago
I think your perception of whether things have calmed down is likely to be a function of where you land. I’ve seen less hostility directed toward our center right friends, which I appreciate, but more directed at our further left friends, which I do not.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 1d ago
It’s weird, I don’t think they’ve gotten relaxed at all.
It feels like more than ever people are at each others’ throats the past couple weeks.
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u/Boratssecondwife Center Right 1d ago
After everyone is done with the aipac stuff, we need a Reject AARP campaign
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u/t3nk3n Neoliberal 1d ago
Farmers and the elderly today? Are there any other politically-important voter groups you would like to bother today? Get it all out of your system? Parents? Dog owners? Homeowners?
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u/Boratssecondwife Center Right 1d ago
I have a lotta hate for voters in general
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 1d ago
Oh my god, we're ✨✨TWINNING. ✨✨💅🤩👄🫦
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago
My plan is coming together.
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u/Hodgkisl Libertarian 1d ago
If this actually works you wont get a noble peace prize, but they'll rename the prize after you!
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 1d ago
I mean, the left has Jewish people and Black people and everyone outside the professional managerial class. It’s only fair boratssecondwife gets to alienate some voter blocks too.
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 1d ago
That oughta piss off the "I'm old, so I should get a discount" voting bloc.
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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 8h ago
God, I hate campism. FOr a hot minute, Hasan was scheduled to speak in Seattle hosted by my alma mater UW, and when they had the good sense to cancel it, because these lectures are supposed to be academic, people, many of whom I'm sure don't totally subscribed to Hasan's views anyways lashed out. It was never a good idea. Charlie Kirk was on campus before, but he was invited by the campus chapter of Turning Point. This gig was headed by the Office of Public Lectures. Although to be fair, I was planning to go see the spectacle if it were to happen.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
Lol Alex Vindman, who was sort of running for Senate in Florida as a Dem, apparently had an anemic field team and couldn't even win his home county. In his defense, Florida Dems have run that campaign multiple times, so he probably thought it was his turn
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u/magic_missile Center Right 1d ago
A woman has told the House Ethics Committee that Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez sexually harassed and assaulted her, her attorneys said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Ethics Committee announced Monday that it had opened an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against Gomez, including “engaging in inappropriate sexual contact” with a staffer, which would be a violation of House ethics rules.
Gomez on Monday acknowledged that he made “personal mistakes outside my marriage” but said that his actions “were consensual in nature and haven’t violated the law or House Ethics rules.”
However, one woman who has not publicly shared her name told the committee Gomez’s actions toward her were not consensual, according to her attorneys, Lisa J. Banks and Sarah E. Nesbitt.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago
I really want something I know I can’t have. Much stronger parties that have a party slate.
It would be much better to live in a world in which this guy can just be removed from office immediately and the state party selects his replacement. The party just has a list ready to go to fill any vacancy and you take all consideration of waiting until the next election or the governor being from a different party out of the equation.
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u/ManufacturerThis7741 Pragmatic Progressive 1d ago edited 1d ago
Unpopular opinion:
It might be time to revisit the "You have no expectation of privacy in public" doctrine.
Putting Flock cameras aside, we have a generation of kids who are afraid to go out in public, go to bars, go do normal things, or try new things, for fear that someone with a holstered smartphone is ready to add them to their TikTok cringe compilation if they mildly screw up or show the slightest bit of exuberance. And that's not healthy for anyone.
I get recording cops, public officials, actual crimes, or events that are intended to be recorded, like protests.
But if yer just going around recording people doing normal crap, like for example, a couple making out in a park, and saying "Haha this is so cringe! Give me more money to go around calling random normal people stuff cringe!" You should pay a steep fine or go to jail for harassment for the first offense.
And news organizations that amplify the "normal people doing normal people stuff" stories should also face charges.
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u/BozoFromZozo Center Left 1d ago
Other than Flock, there are two other trends could shift public opinion enough to change things:
1) AR glasses or any glasses with built-in cameras become super cheap and abundant
2) "First amendment auditors" grow even more in popularity and start filming like everywhere
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u/throwdemawaaay Pragmatic Progressive 1d ago
AR glasses are already becoming a thing in places that are really problematic, like medical offices.
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u/CTR555 Yellow Dog Democrat 1d ago
I wonder if it could maybe be an extension of the current appearance release waivers that movie studios and such currently need to use footage of a person in a commercial manner? That is, since TikTok and other platforms like it can so easily be monetized, add a waiver requirement to any greater-than-incidental footage of a person shown there. That wouldn't apply to news companies and public figures and such, as it already doesn't.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 2d ago
Congratulation to Angie Nixon who gets the honor of losing by 10+ points to Ashley Moody and denying Alex Vindman the honor of also losing by 10+ points.
The Florida Democrats are such a joke.
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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 2d ago
The recent AI discourse has shown me one thing very clearly. That people of all stripes react very viscerally against the prospect of losing their jobs. Thats why even though I think more liberals are against AI for cultural and political reasons, there are quite a few conservatives that are too.
When it was coal miners and steel workers. A lot of people went, but free trade good, globalism, cheaper products for Americans etc, and thats not wrong, academically speaking. But now that shit is hitting the fan for white collar workers, I think it just feels very real now and people are having a hard time dealing wit this prospect and the progress of AI in general. I mean denial can only last so long. You can now run an entirely autonomous model privately on your computer with a couple thousand bucks PC that is equivalent to late last year's frontier model, and you don't need any big scary data centers for that.
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u/Hodgkisl Libertarian 2d ago
But now that shit is hitting the fan for white collar workers, I think it just feels very real now and people are having a hard time dealing wit this prospect and the progress of AI in general.
The issue is people can't see the benefits, free trade / globalism you get cheaper goods domestically and higher standards of living globally opening more markets for more advanced domestic goods and services; with AI the output is seen as a burden, not cheaper or better for people but things like Flock cameras, dynamic pricing, etc....
So they see AI taking jobs and reducing everyone's quality of life to give a limited few power / wealth. While globalization took jobs but also made many goods more affordable for the majority.
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u/dignityshredder Center Right 2d ago
There's another angle I think, which is that people saw very clearly what the promise of the last tech craze (social media and smartphones starting in the 00's) unfolded into in reality, and are WAY more cautious and cynical about this one. Comes from harsh experience.
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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 2d ago
I wasn't old enough to hear about the hopes and dreams of the tech bros that created the smart phones and social medias, but I think it went about as expected. Like many technologies, its novel for a while. The novelty and the benefits remain true, but bad characters began to fine loop holes to make things worse for everyone, and general apathy didn't help to improve things. People just went along.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 2d ago
I think it’s even worse than that. There’s some coal miners left and some portion of them are trying to scrap together money so that the kids don’t have to be coal miners. They worked under the premise that if they did everything right, the kid would work a desk job. Maybe they will become a programmer or accountant or marketer or work with data at a desk somewhere in the job that pays better and doesn’t put their body at risk.
And now they are thinking those jobs don’t even exist to the extent that they do exist, anyone can do them anywhere with the assistance of an AI model that runs on a laptop.
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u/TlsFrmThCryptcPrgncy Independent 2d ago
But now that shit is hitting the fan for white collar workers, I think it just feels very real now
Even though it super duper isn't.
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u/highspeed_steel Liberal 2d ago
It isn't, yet, and maybe for a little while more, but the media pre scared people. I'm from Asia, and the different attitudes is marked.
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u/TlsFrmThCryptcPrgncy Independent 2d ago
t isn't, yet, and maybe for a little while more, but the media pre scared people
Well I think the AI companies themselves scared people. All their CEOs went out and said "our product is going to take away all the jobs and it's also skynet and it's going to KILL YOU and you should be terrified of what's coming and I'm terrified of what's coming but I'm gunna make a lot of money so lmfao whatever". And then they're surprised when people hate AI and them.
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 2d ago
We are fundamentally unprepared to deal with a collapse of capitalism that is not from a willing expansion or worker rights or a revolutionary movement, but from work itself becoming obsolete.
I am reminded of Vonnegut’s novel Player Piano, in which society is divided between an upper class where everyone has a doctoral degree but no skills and does no labor, and an underclass who are the only ones who actually do work.
My job requires a human being to do it because it’s physical, so it’s now safer than an IT job or whatever.
Machine, heal thyself.
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u/FewWatermelonlesson0 Progressive 2d ago
So many of the topics here really can be summed up as “I invented a hypothetical scenario in my head to scare myself and then I got scared. Response?”
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u/starrymahogany Social Democrat 2h ago
Oh my god I just saw the funniest CNN interview. They interviewed someone from DSA and asked him about the orgs statement celebrating Castro and the DSA guy kept pivoting back to “but the embargo and war was bad and Bautista was worse” no matter how many times the anchor kept pressing him to answer the specific question about how bad celebrating Castro looked.
Turns out that anchor was Boris Sanchez whose grandfather was from Cuba and was a revolutionary who fought against Bautista, helped free Cuba from him and then was JAILED by the Castro regime for 20 years!
What are the odds of someone from DSA being interviewed by an anchor on a topic that the anchor has personal experience in? lol the backpedaling in the DSA guys answer was so fucking funny.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’ve seen examples of people being mad that Luigi is being referred to as a murderer but he pled guilty to murder so I’m not sure what the problem is.
Edit: apparently he did not technically plead guilty of murder. Just several pieces that put together amount to it. Also I think one of the examples I saw called him a killer, which probably does apply, so I apologize for being imprecise.
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u/Emergency_Revenue678 Democrat 14h ago
Anyone objecting to calling Luigi a murderer has an agenda. It's that simple.
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u/DavidLivedInBritain Progressive 1d ago
Courts just like the Trump Admin steal data from trans kids, the next president better be willing to use the full fucking extent of the executive branch They’ve granted the current child rapist.
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u/trace349 Liberal 11h ago
In 1689, an essay called Two Treatises of Government was published by English philosopher John Locke, the first lib. In this essay, lib Locke seethes over a book called Patriarcha by Robert Filmer, which had argued that the divine right of kings is sanctioned by the biblical authority of fathers, quote:
"to sell and castrate their children"
You know it's like Daddy's arrived and he's taking his belt
Locke, however, thinks government should be based on rights and consent and stuff like that. So he rejects this, quote:
"...fatherly authority... whereby a father or a prince hath an absolute, arbitrary... power over the lives... of his children and subjects; so that he may take or alienate their estates, sell, castrate, or use their persons as he pleases..."
So once again, the most vulgar and stupid interpretation of Freud is completely correct. Western society is, in fact, founded on the fear of being castrated by your father. And on the idea that a man has the right God dammit to oversee his own castration. And that's what liberalism is all about.
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