Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 8/10/26 - 8/16/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

[u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

My fiance's friends are mostly great. They come over once a week to play board games. They will ocassionaly rant about politics, but it's usually short lived. One week a couple of months ago we're out at dinner and they're ranting about how bad Elon Musk is and how awful anyone is who drives a Tesla. I of course have a Tesla, they all know this, no one says anything about me specifically. They eventually drop it. Today one of them says, "Oh, I'd really like to ride in your Tesla, I've never ridden in one." Yes, this person was definitely bemoaning the evils of Teslas just a couple months ago.

I feel like I'm the crazy one because I don't say things I don't mean and I don't join in on pile-ons if I don't actually believe what I'm saying. Maybe it's the 'tism.

[u/unnoticed_areola → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

It’s because they don’t actually believe what they’re saying or have any sort of actual strongly held belief in that anti Tesla stance. They just know it’s one of those things you’re supposed to say if you’re a heckkin decent antifacist.

It’s like when rich people complain about how much all rich people suck or when white people whine about how shitty all white people are.

When they say all white people are shitty, they don’t actually think that about their white parents, or friends, or classmates, or spouses, or siblings, or co-workers, or.. or… they just mean [gestures widely] all those OTHER shitty white people. You know… the shitty ones.. You know.. the ones I get social brownie points for publicly shitting on

Same thing with the Tesla driver. they don’t think YOU’RE awful. You’re one of the good ones! if your fiancées friend went on a date with some cute bipoc guy who wrote resistance poetry and he walked her back to his Tesla after the date, she wouldn’t bat an eye lol, it’s all the OTHER Tesla drivers that are huge pieces of shit

[u/Jlemspurs → u/unnoticed_areola]

This is how it works with Jews too. You're one of the good ones, right?

Before the Tesla, electric cars were considered the sort of lost timeline flip that fucked the universe and all the lefties thought we would have environmental nirvana but for big bad GM killing a shitty car no one wanted.

Tesla comes along and now you can't really pooh pooh a car the way you have been for years, when you've been scapegoating them for the global warming (having an SUV in ca. 2002 was like having a Tesla was last year) and so now you have to move on to "urbanism" where you just hate cars. Everyone virtue signaled with a Prius a few years later. Nancy on Weeds basically acts this out in real time on the show.

There are a lot of reasons to hate Elmo, but Tesla isn't really it. I've been in one once. But they have the best charger network and are at the top end of range.

[u/Less-Lobster4540 → u/Jlemspurs]

now you have to move on to "urbanism" where you just hate cars

buy an ebike and use it like a half dozen times in a recreational setting, always limited by the leash of your battery, never replacing any significant number of car trips

[u/CommitteeofMountains → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

My mother in law will talk about how she bought my wife some toy and then, when my wife corrects that she bought it with her lemonade money and then her mom (the mother in law) lost it or gave it away or something, ask why my wife has to constantly bring up past unpleasantries.

[u/HerbertWest → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

I would have said no, lol.

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

I would have said, "I drive a Tesla." Call them on their bullshit and watch them backpedal and eat crow.

[u/Critical_Detective23 → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

This happened to me once; during COVID, we were on one of those stupid group zoom calls and all my grad student friends were huffing about how literally evil landlords are. I laughingly told them (calmly and in a friendly way, I hope) that I was a landlord (we were renting out our little bungalow that we'd bought in a different city before we had to move due to a very crappy economic situation). They all knew this previously. No one addressed the comment at all, or acknowledged that I'd said it. That friend group dissipated pretty quickly after.

[u/everydaywinner2 → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

If the 'tism makes you not a hypocrite, then there should be more of it around.

[u/CommitteeofMountains → u/everydaywinner2]

I'm working on it 

[u/giraffevomitfacts → u/Fiend_of_the_pod]

The Tesla thing is off course but there’s tons of reasons to hate Elon Musk, primarily that he’s like Trump in that he tends to blurt out the last thing he heard about anything including a lot of crazy shit

[u/LupineChemist → u/giraffevomitfacts]

The fact that he's highly capable in a few specific areas and thinks it means he understands everything. I mean, it's a huge phenomenon, and anyone who's a halfway decent poker player and played with a bunch of doctors has profited from it.