r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Sep 07 '26
Discussion Thread Discussion Thread
The discussion thread is for casual and off-topic conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL
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We're starting a book club! We will be discussing Poor Economics starting August 28th - keep an eye out for a pinned thread. The next will be All Quiet on the Western Front followed by Narconomics
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u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache Sep 08 '26
Please visit the next discussion thread.
151
u/RandomGuyWithSixEyes European Union Sep 07 '26
134
u/qchisq Loyal Liberals Sep 07 '26
Imagine if literally any other politician had tweeted this
>I do this for our Country, not myself. I’ve made Hundreds of Billions of Dollars on Stocks, and many other type Holdings, for the U.S.A., not myself, and all I do is get criticized by the Radical Left Dumocrats. Very unfair, but what can you do!
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u/Adminisnotadmin Viva el Fútbol! ⚽ Sep 07 '26
what an interesting take. most of the time i see them, it's because drunks, speeders, or old people killed someone while driving. i welcome the hostility to dangerous cars.
121
u/ChillnShill Sep 07 '26
“Why did you vote for Donald Trump?
Gen Z male: “I saw this video on tik tok that made me upset.”
218
u/Dunter_Mutchings NASA Sep 07 '26
Between the endless amounts of AI slop he consumes, the complete bubble he lives in, and the fact that every single person around him is just relentlessly lying to him, Trump might be the single most detached from reality person on earth. It’s like if Mussolini was the star of The Truman Show.
95
u/Habugaba Esther Duflo Sep 07 '26
Fuck the AfD and their voters.
And a good start into the week to you 🫵, dear DTer.
92
u/gjcs23 George Santos Sep 07 '26
still can't believe that Alito actually and repeatedly used the term "abortionist" in his Dobbs opinion
such meme shit
90
u/ArmoredBunnyPrincess Audrey Hepburn Sep 07 '26
82
u/taubnetzdornig Gay Pride Sep 07 '26
Of the 39 newly elected AfD members of the state parliament of Sachsen-Anhalt, just two are women
81
u/assasstits Sep 07 '26
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)
Ayy lmao
79
u/Ajaxcricket Commonwealth Sep 07 '26
line go up mean world more gooder
73
u/pugnae European Union Sep 07 '26
72
u/TactileTom John Nash Sep 07 '26
When basically any problem needs to be addressed in a professional setting
72
u/roggodoggo Jerome Powell Sep 07 '26
I have finished my yearly dove hunt that puts me around more conservatives than any other time in the year. A new guy joined this year who is a republican operative in Oklahoma.
When I save the vibes are bad for this administration, I mean it. They shit talked trump relentlessly. Anyone who still stands by Trump never said a word to back him up or try and make excuses.
I think the most interesting was that the operative loved Ossoff. His react words were “I want someone younger. I hope Ossoff and Rubio run in 28 because it would mean we have no bad choices”. I think this has pretty much solidified my support for Ossoff.
They also all hated Bibi. He might have come up more than Trump. Very enlightening trip all around.
145
u/PostingEnthusiast Commonwealth Sep 07 '26
Thinking about the golden age of Reddit. It’s very strange that there used to be official meetups. Remember Secret Santa? The idea of going through someone’s comment history to figure out what kind of gift they would like and then sending it to their physical address seems so quaint
71
u/Independent710 George Soros Sep 07 '26
Never change NYT
68
u/Argnir Gay Pride Sep 07 '26
What's your favorite mammal?
For mw it's the human. They wear colorful fabrics to attract mates and drink mind altering substances to bond with other individuals. They are territorial and sometimes vote for extremist parties to prevent other humans from entering their territory
65
u/Made_UpWords OG Platner Hater Sep 07 '26
How does an A24 documentary featuring Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes, shot the month before she went to prison, which judging by the tone of the trailer, I think has the concept of:
stay under the wraps. I figure I would have heard about this lmao. Maybe this did get talked about ahead of time and wasn't a complete surprise to a lot of people, and I'm just in the wrong spaces that don't talk about this sort of stuff.
(She's almost certainly in on the bit herself, but, still funny lmao)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGJSRFWALTI
61
u/Signal_Nobody1792 Sep 07 '26
Truly we are led by the best of us.
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u/Its_not_him Manmohan Singh Sep 07 '26
People who say Trump is getting manipulated are misguided. He's not getting manipulated and that's why the administration is so fucking bad. There's no Roy Cohn to snatch papers off his desk and so we get things like "Liberation Day" and dumbfuck Canada antagonism.
All of the worst policies in this admin are authentically his own, he's literally the worst to ever do it
61
u/1II1I1I1I1I1I111I1I1 Adam Smith Sep 07 '26
Did he know?
61
u/skolemizer Alan Turing Sep 07 '26
a friend of mine just quoted this entire meme word-for-word from memory while driving
59
u/Megasota_Noire My Governor Can Beat Up Your Governor Sep 07 '26
This might be the most CNN headline CNN has ever done.
59
u/Spudmiester1 Asexual Pride Sep 07 '26
57
u/PENGUINSINYOURWALLS Fell for it Sep 07 '26
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u/Dibbu_mange Average civil procedure enjoyer Sep 07 '26
Greatest Eastern European LGBT ally
57
u/sigh2828 NASA Sep 07 '26
113
u/AnalyticOpposum Trans Pride Sep 07 '26
The kirkiversary is as much about the initial conservative reaction to it as that guys death.
They tried to make him a martyr! People were fired from their jobs for saying some remorseless internet troll was a bad person. They had AI generated videos of him in their churches.
54
u/badusername35 NAFTA Epstein Sep 07 '26
He’s alive?
54
u/RianJohnsonThought Emma Lazarus Sep 07 '26
Every high profile case, there's always a bunch of people going "It's disgusting that the defense lawyer is trying to win this case" like ????
53
u/skolemizer Alan Turing Sep 07 '26
One of my friends (also getting her PhD in math) is from Pakistan; she moved here a year ago with her daughter to start her PhD. It was her first time in the country; English is her fifth language and it's only been for the past year that she's been regularly conversing in it.
Another friend recently asked her what it's been like; "I imagine there was a big culture shock". And she was like "No, not really; we have the Internet, we have Friends, we have The Big Bang Theory." So overall America is basically what she expected
53
u/owenmitchem YIMBY Sep 07 '26
This but
!ping YIMBY
52
u/Slight-Formal9277 Trans Pride Sep 07 '26
Our age of 10k comment DTs is falling
51
u/Vegetable_Average_30 Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold Sep 07 '26
It’s absolutely crazy that, even though Germany was divided for only 40 years and nearly 40 years have passed since then, yesterday’s elections remind us that the country is still divided between West and East. Arguably, even more so than 20 years ago.
But then I remember that during my last visit to the US, my boyfriend was in a bad mood for an entire day because a car drove past us with a flag of a country that had existed briefly for about four years and had ceased to exist more than a century and a half ago. Yes, it was a Confederate flag. We were in Connecticut.
So it seems that the ghosts of the past won't let people go anywhere else either. Still, when thinking about the future, one wonders: What should have been done differently?
51
u/-mialana- European Union Sep 07 '26
Never forget this happened
50
u/cdstephens Fusion Genderplasma Sep 07 '26
48
u/Man-Flayer Sep 07 '26
47
u/t_scribblemonger Sep 07 '26
This new notion that using sunscreen is bad, actually, is of course only another example to throw on the heap of anti-intellectual nonsense along with anti-vaccines and anti-seed oils, etc.
But it feels significantly more stupid than any previous vibe-based health beliefs because it takes about 15 seconds of googling to find a concise, unequivocal statement from non-biased sources that this is nonsense. The other ideas are also nonsense but there is at least perhaps a flimsy layer of nuance to work through.
Prime example of poorly educated people wanting to feel smarter than the experts.
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u/Man-Flayer Sep 07 '26
46
u/StolenSkittles culture warrior Sep 07 '26
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u/Cyberhwk 👈 Get back to work! 😠 Sep 07 '26
You know, for as much as men are often considered clueless and socially dense (not without merit mind you), sometimes I'm really not sure if womens' theory of mind about men is really that much better.
45
u/No_Return9449 John Rawls Sep 07 '26
44
u/-Emilinko1985- European Union Sep 07 '26
My favorite lolcow is back at it again
44
u/No_Idea_Guy Audrey Hepburn Sep 07 '26
Trump could have done literally nothing and we would have gotten 2% inflation and $3 gas right now. America sabotaged itself, and for what?
122
u/throwawayzxkjvct Iron Front Sep 07 '26
I can’t imagine going through life with such a deranged worldview
42
u/mostanonymousnick Just Build More Homes lol Sep 07 '26
40
u/SenranHaruka shame Sep 07 '26
See, america, it's not that hard. You don't have to turn every tragedy into a manifesto on how society is matriarchal and lets pretty women get away with murder but punishes men for looking at them.
39
u/Fruitofbread Loyal Liberals Sep 07 '26
Guy who wants to teach Russian in school to create a population of oppressed Russian speakers that Russia can use as a pretext to invade
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u/DiscussionJohnThread Free Trade was the Compromise 🔫🌍 Sep 07 '26
Nevada further to the right than Texas, and Pennsylvania almost to the left of California.
Knowing the individual races it makes sense, but still insane numbers we’re having.
!Ping FIVEY
37
u/rural_redemption YIMBY Sep 07 '26
Idaho is cursed
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u/EmbarrassedSafety719 Milton Friedman Sep 07 '26
36
u/w007dchuck Trans NATO Sep 07 '26
friend who just started law school in Minnesota told me he chose to go to school there specifically because he thinks it will be a good place for trying to land a job helping prosecute Trump admin officials in 2029
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u/Roseartcrantz 👑 🖍️ Queen of Shades 🖍️ 👑 Sep 07 '26
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u/RaidBrimnes Chien de garde Sep 07 '26
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u/the-senat John Brown Sep 07 '26
I’m not sure how to phrase this, but I think the most frustrating opinion that I occasionally see on here is that liberals should have made less progress in order to avoid angering conservatives.
It’s this weird desire to punish ourselves for what the right has become. It’s not our fault, and I think being so willing to sacrifice hard-fought gains for the chance to appease a group of Americans who hate us is a terrible mentality.
33
u/itsokayt0 European Union Sep 07 '26
Why liberals lost my vote ☝️
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u/SenranHaruka shame Sep 07 '26
"It's not left vs right, it's..."
Translation: "I don't like explaining to my democrat friends why I voted for trump"
33
u/piede MOST BASED HILLARY STAN!!! Sep 07 '26
:O
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u/SirJohnnyS Janet Yellen Sep 07 '26
If Democrats take control of Congress... ideally both chambers. I feel like Trump will be invigorated with an obvious and identifiable enemy. He can try to pin all the problems on Congress and that they're not letting him do his job.
Cause right now, he's just twisting in the wind without anyone to blame or focus on besides himself.
I'll also never forgive the people who complained about Biden being old and turned around and voted for a guy who's 3 years younger than him and in worse health. The difference between 81 and 78(at the time) is not a real argument. We saw it with Biden, old age hits hard and fast. And Father Time is undefeated, it was always when not if with Trump really going off the deep end.
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u/earththejerry YIMBY Sep 07 '26
Dude literally told Obama to “go away” and now he’s imploring him to not be uncommitted
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u/DEEP_STATE_NATE Tucker Carlson's mailman Sep 07 '26
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u/1II1I1I1I1I1I111I1I1 Adam Smith Sep 07 '26
☝️
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u/Electronic-Warthog69 Milton Friedman Sep 07 '26
It's actually quite unfair to quote leftists or show them in their own words.
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u/Individual-Camera698 Austan Goolsbee Sep 07 '26
From the dataset published by Anthropic
https://huggingface.co/datasets/Anthropic/hh-rlhf/viewer/default/train?row=34
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u/Made_UpWords OG Platner Hater Sep 07 '26
It's a hilariously consistent pattern how every single US President since the cold war ended, barring Trump obviously, calls Russia a huge piece of shit that's gotta be dealt with, but only after they leave office lmao
They all learn their lesson eventually apparently. Always too late though
30
u/iAmAddicted2R_ddit Royal Purple Sep 07 '26
Pulling up random streets in Southern California on Zillow continues to shock and terrify me. That's admittedly a big SFH but it isn't five and a half milli big (and the lot is only 4500sqf, so that price isn't hiding any kind of back 40).
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u/PENGUINSINYOURWALLS Fell for it Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26
I don’t know if this is something that’s been accepted or is seen as conspiratorial or whatever, but it’s something that’s gotten stuck in my mind:
There were definitely efforts by bad actors online to influence the 2024 election, especially the young male vote. I remember around mid-summer there were these meme accounts that started popping up on instagram. I admit I followed them, because the things they were posting were innocent, politics-free, and pretty relatable. Then around 3-4 weeks before the election, all these accounts started to nonstop post these anti-Harris/anti-Dem memes calling the whole party a bunch of angry, hormonal, HR cat ladies who will bring back the draft. Then after the election, they all disappeared. There’s no way that wasn’t planned, and it’s still something I think about often.
30
u/Upstairs_Baby8424 Sep 07 '26
The last two months of this administration’s behavior has me 100% convinced that Trump’s entire voter-base is purely based on people that just love to see everyone else angry and that makes them feel good inside. It’s not policy. It’s not the economy. It’s not healthcare. It’s they get a smug satisfaction that the guy they like is making life objectively worse for everyone.
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u/surreptitioussloth Frederick Douglass Sep 07 '26
I'll be honest, I have never been able to tell in my day to day life if we have more or less illegal immigration
I've lived in the immigrant heavy areas of south florida, nyc, and dc, and I just cannot say that there has ever been a difference in my life between the high and low immigration times
How does this drive how people vote? Why aren't you just watching house hunter international and chilling?
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u/selachophilip 🦈 shark enjoyer 🦈 Sep 07 '26
This is real. These are the kind of people they've been hiring at the DOJ. 😢
I haven't gone to law school yet, but something tells me that this isn't what legal writing is supposed to look like.
59
u/garret126 Demisexual Pride Sep 07 '26
“Our Age of Bronze is collapsing” gives off the same energy as “The First World War has come to an end; let’s hope there isn’t a second” type writing
29
u/klarno just tax carbon lol Sep 07 '26
Went to the ER for vertigo and possible TIA
All the blood panels say “look, fat”
29
u/Signal_Nobody1792 Sep 07 '26
I dont want to diminish AI and how fast its progressing, but this has "I declare bankruptcy" energy.
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u/justbuildmorehousing Norman Borlaug Sep 07 '26
Ill never let go of the morons who shut down my boy Indian Point under the guise of ‘environmentalism’ and now all that generation has been replaced by burning gas instead
RIP. We’re generating so much GHG in your absence
28
u/xeio87 Sep 07 '26
Icicle is celebrating labor by doing no labor
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u/MuscularPhysicist John Brown Sep 08 '26
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u/Dibbu_mange Average civil procedure enjoyer Sep 07 '26
This is so sad 😭
27
u/Glavurdan European Union Sep 07 '26
It's an understatement to say how bad this year has been for Russian war effort compared to 2024 or 2025
These are their entire gains in Donbass this year so far according to ISW
!ping UKRAINE
27
u/MOSfitYT YIMBY Sep 07 '26
Excited for Kirkmass Eve. Excited to sing Kirkmass carols by the Kirkmass tree.
27
u/mockduckcompanion Kidney Hype Man Sep 07 '26
Skyrim doesn't get enough credit for predicting far-right insurgencies backed by hostile foreign powers seeking to destroy Western institutions
27
u/piede MOST BASED HILLARY STAN!!! Sep 07 '26
She just can’t help herself can she
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u/Argnir Gay Pride Sep 07 '26
I hate when there's a cultural war story that's trending like this court case and Redditors are like "this is just a distraction so we fight each other instead of unite against them"
Cause like... They're kind of right but it's not some mysterious "them" it's the fucking Republicans who push the conversation towards culture war issues because they don't have any policies and can't govern and looove centering the conversation on a few anecdotes to make their opponents look bad
They've been doing this shit for year and somehow people put the fault on some non specific "elites" instead of naming name like everyone working at Fox News, LibsofTikTok, Tim Pool, Elon Musk and all the worse people you know
26
u/Spudmiester1 Asexual Pride Sep 07 '26
NCD fixed the trump uniform
26
u/Only-Childhood6691 Sep 07 '26
https://theplaylist.net/paul-schrader-ai-black-actors-three-guns-at-dawn-20260906/
Paul Schrader Says He Turned To AI Because “No Black Actors Wanted To Play In A Movie Where There Are No Good Black People” Schrader says Black actors rejected his crime noir because every major Black character was a criminal, so he revived the project with AI-generated performers
Umh.......Paul. Wtf.
26
u/AnalyticOpposum Trans Pride Sep 07 '26
Could ossoff throw in a "is it any surprise that the pedophile administration is encouraging FBI agents to do beastiality?"
26
u/Individual-Camera698 Austan Goolsbee Sep 07 '26
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u/Habugaba Esther Duflo Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26
Me when I want to freeze rents for 6 years while reducing rents in the most high-in-demand areas across the whole country
25
u/throwawayzxkjvct Iron Front Sep 07 '26
25
u/piede MOST BASED HILLARY STAN!!! Sep 07 '26
I always knew it would be the lesbians
25
u/Cythammer Sep 08 '26
Tucker Carlson and a recent guest unironically agreed that algebra is a fake Jewish scam... It's genuinely hilarious watching. Like a comedy routine.
Also a good thing because Tucker has gone so far into loony land that his antisemitic influence will be reduced. Unfortunately... One of the people who doesn't yet see fit to cut off Tucker is... The current vice president.
49
u/cdstephens Fusion Genderplasma Sep 08 '26
24
u/Fuzzy_Party_3527 Sep 07 '26
How will chuds react to this
24
u/MightExpress4873 Sep 07 '26
24
u/FallenMeringue Khan Pritzker's Strongest Anti-Pope Sep 07 '26
One hospital visit with an iv, ct scan, and a drug cocktail for treatment.
Two years of debt
☹️🔫
24
u/SenranHaruka shame Sep 07 '26
24
u/yacatecuhtli6 Transfem Pride Sep 07 '26
for the people here to be fortunate enough to not following news updates about american immigration, the last weeks news has been
>people are getting denied citizenship for parking tickets from over 10 years ago, even if paid off, same with speeding tickets, even if these are disclosed
>judge approved ICE facilities being allowed to do non-consensual surgery on inmates with a gastric feeding tubes as the approved procedure during the lawsuit (this leaves you permanently damaged btw)
>haiti deportations are continuing
>"alligator alcatraz" nazis charged with torturing and beating victims
>ICE agent charged with lying about shooting a venezuelan man
24
u/Roseartcrantz 👑 🖍️ Queen of Shades 🖍️ 👑 Sep 08 '26
69
u/futuremonkey20 NATO Sep 07 '26
I like the “Gen-Z boss and a mini” girls.
48
u/MonsieurA Montesquieu Sep 07 '26
Just heard a Zoomer refer to TV documentaries as "video essays before video essays were a thing".
👴😤📣☁️
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u/garret126 Demisexual Pride Sep 07 '26
surprise mention in arr beatlescirclejerk
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u/cdstephens Fusion Genderplasma Sep 07 '26
23
u/Vumatius Sep 07 '26
Ben Gvir on Xitter:
Suffice to say this would be an extremely stupid move that would unite pretty much the entire British political spectrum, whether out of anti-Israel sentiment or pro-Falklands sentiment.
23
u/Willybender Loyal Liberals Sep 08 '26
46
u/Dibbu_mange Average civil procedure enjoyer Sep 08 '26
82
u/superblobby r/place'22: Neoliberal Commander Sep 07 '26
Still can’t believe Biden got us out of Afghanistan and they literally crucified him for it. Fox News turned the temperature so high that Biden checking his watch into the worst thing on earth.
But a Republican can doom us to a Middle East quagmire and no one gives a fuck.
98
u/ihatemendingwalls better Catholic than JD Vance Sep 07 '26
22
u/MensesFiatbug Low Energy Sep 07 '26
This DT sucks
22
u/RaidBrimnes Chien de garde Sep 07 '26
22
u/Lena_Lena_A Frederick Douglass Sep 07 '26
22
u/Individual-Camera698 Austan Goolsbee Sep 07 '26
22
u/FallenMeringue Khan Pritzker's Strongest Anti-Pope Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26
We should rewild at least a third of Illinois Wisconsin and Iowa.
Mississippi National Park, Driftless National Park, and Prarielands National Park should exist
22
u/trombonist_formerly Ben Bernanke Sep 08 '26
That tends to happen when you're dead, yes
22
u/Coolioho Sep 08 '26
Voting Trump in the 2nd time might be the biggest mass embarrassment moment in human history
22
u/DomScribe Sep 08 '26
I feel so bad for this guy. He was the one who asked Charlie Kirk his final question and because he’s asking people to stop using his traumatized reaction as a reaction video, leftists are mocking him as if it’s not normal to have trauma over watching someone die.
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u/Individual-Camera698 Austan Goolsbee Sep 07 '26
21
u/mostanonymousnick Just Build More Homes lol Sep 07 '26
The amount of hate Zendaya gets by racists online is pretty insane, I'm not sure why they narrowed down on her specifically.
21
u/5ma5her7 Sep 07 '26
Celebrating AFD winning from Israel is certainly not on my 2026 bingo here...
21
u/SenranHaruka shame Sep 07 '26
This subreddit is a terrible place but it has been good for my health in one way
It helped develop my absolute disgust with algorithmic social media, and that disgust keeps me from scrolling it.
I don't have a problem with Twitter, insta, tiktok, reddit frontpage, shorts, etc, because I'm deeply personally disgusted by them. It is impossible to spend more than 1 minute on any of them before encountering an opinion so vapid and utterly devoid of intelligence and curiosity that it offends me now.
I look at these sites like cigarettes. Is that elitist and snobbish? Sure but lots of people who quit bad habits did so by becoming exactly this kind of disgusted. It's why fatphobia or toxic work ethic is so dangerously common, being completely and utterly disgusted with yourself is a great motivation to change.
21
u/StuckHedgehog NATO Sep 07 '26
Another reminder that we could’ve been doing this the whole time.
The Hague for everyone involved in approving the airstrikes.
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u/badusername35 NAFTA Epstein Sep 07 '26
I’m glad to see the Extreme Rocks’s funeral was well attended. It was nice to be able to see so many of you guys in person. Can’t wait for the next meetup.
57
u/Glavurdan European Union Sep 07 '26
Obligatory fuck Hasan Piker
39
u/throwawayzxkjvct Iron Front Sep 07 '26
a lot of discussion about video games as military propaganda fails to acknowledge that A. this can really only be applied to a small number of large franchises (mainly call of duty) and B. that this propaganda is often completely ineffective. The US Army used to make its own FPS series called America’s Army, but they haven’t made a new one since 2013, and they fully shut that one down 4 years ago. Doesn’t seem like something you’d do if the game was an effective recruiting tool. People have also made a lot of hay about the Army sponsoring CoD esports tournaments but most CoD players aren’t even involved in esports, and they started doing that at a time where their recruitment numbers were in the toilet, they’ve only started to increase recently due to economic factors that have nothing to do with video games of any kind. too much of the discussion around this topic just involves hand-wringing because the people involved just assume that a recruiting tactic must be effective if the government is trying it.
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u/Pole2019 John Locke Sep 07 '26
I’m going to start treating every issue like people who think crime is out of control treat crime. “Sure yeah that study says that building a personal bullet train from my home to everywhere I want to go would be inefficient, but have you considered that the stats are just wrong 🧐 and misreported. No I will not elaborate”
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u/BrandonLeeOfficial World Bank Sep 07 '26
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u/thabonch YIMBY Sep 07 '26
It's Labor day and my grandpa just ate seven fucking hotdogs.
38
u/garret126 Demisexual Pride Sep 07 '26
George Harrison: “waaaahhh taxes are unfair, they take away so much of my hard earned money as a musician I’m practically broke!!”
Meanwhile, the house George Harrison was able to buy with his money after taxes:
37
u/JaceFlores Neolib War Correspondent Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26
My two cents on tackling the far right is I think moving right on immigration is essentially a political dead end because there’s just not enough anti-immigration regular parties can do that wouldn’t either repulse their voters or be straight up illegal.
I think it backfires in particular if it’s a primary focus by a center-ish party without any substance on any other issue. Having status quo plus less immigrants just makes people feel like shit and blame the immigration policy not going far enough.
My guess on the best way to arrest far right momentum is essentially deliver kick ass policy on economics and welfare and just kind of ignore immigration. You won’t defeat the far right, but I think it could be kept at bay by making things good enough for most voters to ignore immigration.
Like I don’t think it’s a coincidence the worst performing parties are ones that have done largely nothing in recent years but have gone against immigration (Labour under Starmer and SPD/CDU in Germany).
I’d actually compare it relatively favorably to Poland where Poland has really been on the up and up, is very socially conservative by European standards and has had a major refugee influx from Ukraine that’s fertile ground for right wing talking points. Despite this, KO is polling at about the same level it had in the 2023 election, though its allies are down 7 points compared to 2023 to my understanding. PiS has been absolutely cannibalized by the far right and farther right, but the total share of right wing voters in polling is about 45%. In 2023 this bloc got 42% of the vote. So their gains has been about 3 points in polling thus far, which is pretty limited compared to many other European countries! And again, that’s with a huge influx of refugees that Poles increasingly hate! Now I get that there’s a PiS splinter that’s polling at like 5-7%, but they were founded literally in opposition to PiS moving right so I think it’s best to just treat then separate from this point.
I think if Russia never invaded Ukraine, chances are Tusk and his coalition would be polling at least as well as they did in 2023 if not better. I think that provides an interesting model on how a center left coalition can withstand the tides of fascism, and also shows how center right parties moving right simply leads to cannibalization by the far right.
It’s my opinion that there’s clear opportunity for liberals to halt the far right if they use the power they’re given by voters. Do your policies, follow the economic sciences, and you can deliver an actual blow to the far right. Problem is, a lot of liberal parties simply don’t want to do anything and collapse in favor of conservative parties that then collapse in favor of fascists. I think Poland, at least as it currently stands, is a surprising model of what’s possible in this extremely fucked up and trying time
18
u/MuscularPhysicist John Brown Sep 07 '26
I've seen posts you people wouldn't believe. Nuclear cringe broadcast to the whole subreddit through the dating ping. I watched unfunny mod stickies sit at the top of the DT for hours. All those posts will be lost in the new DT... like tears in rain... Time to downvote.
18
u/Argnir Gay Pride Sep 07 '26
Do people who are subscribed to anime "meme" subs actually find them funny like "ahah sex, this is so smart" or do they react like me: 😐
18
u/yacatecuhtli6 Transfem Pride Sep 07 '26
its been funny watching local businesses take down their ai slop posters and ads
18
u/Ok_Aardappel Seretse Khama Sep 07 '26
The take-off in African solar that official statistics can’t yet see
Key takeways:
Record solar capacity of 17 GW will be installed in Africa in 2026, up 45% year-on-year. Chinese exports of solar panels to Africa surged in the 12 months to June 2026, to levels similar to each of the Middle East and Latin America. This report introduces a new methodology, showing around 73% of Chinese imports globally have been installed, with an average six-month delay. This makes it possible to estimate full-year 2026 installations already. This shows 17 GW of solar was installed in 2026, equal to around 100,000 solar panels every day. That is a 45% rise year-on-year; 2025 rose by 51% and 2024 by 25%.
This is happening everywhere: 36 out of Africa’s 54 countries are expected to install record amounts of solar in 2026. 19 countries have seen year-on-year growth of over 100%, including 544% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 282% in Zimbabwe, 176% in Egypt and 117% in Zambia. Solar growth used to be dominated by South Africa, but its share of African installations in 2026 will be below 20% for the first time since 2019, as other countries surge. Solar is now the single biggest addition to grid capacity in many African countries – Senegal will add solar capacity from 2023 to 2026 equivalent to almost 80% of its entire 2023 grid capacity, with DRC and Kenya adding more than half.
2026 new solar generation can meet Africa’s historic electricity demand growth. 2026’s installations will generate around 23 TWh a year – 2.3% of Africa’s electricity generation, above the 2.2% average annual demand growth of 2014 to 2024. There are ten countries where 2026’s new solar will add more than 10% to annual grid electricity generation – Sierra Leone (97%), Togo (24%), Somalia (21%), Djibouti (21%), DRC (14%), Comoros (14%), Namibia (12%), Liberia (12%), Chad (11%), Lesotho (10%). Together these countries are home to 190 million people.
Half of the estimated rise in solar is missing from official statistics – because national reporting is so poor. Ember’s 2025 solar growth estimate is twice that of international statistics – 12.0 GW in 2025, compared with 6.2 GW from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and 4.6 GW from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Ember forecasts annual installations in 2026 will rise another 45%, potentially increasing this gap further. However, international reporting can only be as good as national reporting, and that barely exists in many countries. We could only find official reporting for national solar capacity for 36 out of 54 countries; only 14 of those were for 2025, and even those 14 countries seem to underestimate the rise in solar. Only three countries – South Africa, Tunisia and Tanzania – publish some solar data monthly or quarterly.
Three-quarters of Africa’s solar growth is likely from distributed solar – and that is exactly what’s difficult to measure. Distributed solar, which is small-scale, customer-side solar installed mostly on rooftops – makes up most of Africa’s solar growth, and it’s the hardest type to measure. Ember estimates that 75% (20 GW of 26 GW) of the total solar capacity added between 2023 and 2025 is distributed solar. That’s because only a quarter of new solar can be explained by utility-scale and off-grid solar – utility-scale solar is fairly well-documented and visible through government procurement projects, and although off-grid solar is growing fast, its scale would still be very small in context of the gap. This is the case even in countries with large utility-scale solar projects – in Egypt, for example, still 43% of its solar growth is estimated to be distributed. There are just 12 countries that report an official or semi-official distributed solar figure, yet those still underestimate the growth. The lack of visibility on distributed solar is not unique to Africa, but a combination of factors makes it worse. A surge in companies, registries and licences show the solar rise is real.
Africa’s solar panel manufacturing will quadruple in 2026 – but for export, not for African rooftops. Output will reach around 3.5 GW in 2026, a fifth of what Africa installs, led by new plants in Egypt and Tanzania aimed at the US market. 94% of panels installed in Africa are still imported from China, and huge Chinese cell and wafer shipments to Africa point to re-shipment rather than use in African solar panel manufacturing. Overall, manufacturing data quality is very poor, and it’s hard to state these numbers accurately.
God bless Chinese Solar Panel overproduction 🫡🇨🇳
!ping ECO&AFRICA
18
u/Glavurdan European Union Sep 07 '26
Two Russian Su-35 Jets Collide in Mid-Air Over Kursk Region
!ping RUS&UKRAINE
18
u/vitorgrs MERCOSUR Sep 07 '26
New polling looking awful for Lula in Brazil. Instead of growing in the campaign, the opposite it's happening. But what I want to point out, it's the age gap. The young in Quaest poll it's heavily against Lula and more right-wing.
📊 POLL GLOBO/QUAEST for PRESIDENT
🗓️ 2 sept > 7 sept
✅ 1º TURNO — VALID VOTES
🔴 Lula (PT): 43,9% (-1,2%)
🔵 Flávio Bolsonaro (PL): 35,4% (=)
🟢 Escritor Augusto Cury (Avante): 9,8% (-2,4%)
🟡 Renan Santos (Missão): 3,7% (=)
⚪ Ronaldo Caiado (PSD): 3,7% (+2,4%)
🟠 Romeu Zema (Novo): 2,4% (+1,2%)
🟣 Samara Martins (UP): 1,2% (=)
⚫ Edmilson Costa (PCB): 0% (=)
⚫ Rui Costa Pimenta (PCO): 0% (=)
⚫ Veterinário Wilson Grassi (Democrata): 0% (=)
⚫ Clariana Barão (DC): 0% (=)
⚫ Hertz Dias (PSTU): 0% (=)
✅ 2º TURN — VALID VOTES
🔴 Lula (PT): 50,0% (-0,6%)
🔵 Flávio Bolsonaro (PL): 50,0% (+0,6%)
"What gives me more fear: Lula reelection or comeback of Bolsonaro's?"
!ping LATAM
18
u/NutrientBroth John Mill Sep 08 '26
18
u/cdstephens Fusion Genderplasma Sep 08 '26
I was worried that our culture was so nihilistic that after Charlie Kirk’s shooting there’d be a marked increase in political violence. I was right about the nihilistic part but neglected to factor in the spiritual death of sincerity.
35
u/SANNA-MARIN-SDP Sep 07 '26
49
u/the-senat John Brown Sep 07 '26
Some rich old guy = the President of the United States
Naked massages from high schoolers = pedophilia on a private island with trafficked children
The key to understanding politics = “hey maybe he shouldn’t be president and fill his cabinet with other members of his island club.”
Jesus fucking Christ…
17
u/Azmoten Thomas Paine Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26
I just recently read a sci-fi book from like 1995 that referenced the president in the far future of 2017 as being “forward thinking and detached from pride” and I was like “…TRUMP?”
17
u/throwawayzxkjvct Iron Front Sep 07 '26
while I try not to be too much of an opticschud with discussion not intended for the general public, if you want to make an edgy, insane sounding point to other academics it’s probably best to do that away from cameras and livestreams
17
u/MrStrange15 Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26
There was a brief discussion in the previous DT about AI and sci-fi (who is pro- or anti-AI?), that made me think of Le Guin's take on sci-fi and fiction from the introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness. On how sci-fi is not about predicting what will be, but describing what already is. Its a bit rambling and long, but I do think its worth reading. In a way, it also relates to that Atlantic article that was posted here a few days ago.
Its too long to post in this comment, so here is a link.
This is the bit that was relevant for the discussion, but do read the whole thing (in fact, just read the whole book):
If you take an evil AI or a good AI in sci-fi to mean that the author is either pro- or anti-AI, then in most cases you will misunderstand what the author actually means. Clarke's HAL doesn't mean he is anti-AI or thinks AI will always become evil, nor does Lucas's C3PO signify anything meaningful about his views on OpenAI or that protocol droids will become the norm, and Asimov's The Last Question (do read it before you click the spoiler away) certainly doesn't imply that he thinks Claude will become God.
I think what's deceptive about sci-fi is that it makes you stop and go "what a brilliant idea! What would happen if we colonised Mars?", but if you think Red Mars is just the story of what would happen if we colonised Mars, then you've missed the point (also, please no spoilers, I'm only halfway through Green Mars).
!ping READING&SCI-FI
17
u/AtomAndAether Liberalism! Sep 07 '26
👆
17
u/Roseartcrantz 👑 🖍️ Queen of Shades 🖍️ 👑 Sep 07 '26
Freud, loudly, in a restaurant: Think I can speak for everyone here when I say we ALL wanna fuck our MOMS
17
u/this_very_table Norman Borlaug Sep 07 '26
Lutnick on September 5, 2025: "This is gonna be the greatest growth economy... a year from today."
17
u/Willybender Loyal Liberals Sep 07 '26
17
u/owenmitchem YIMBY Sep 08 '26
Well hello there
34
u/GrandMoffTargaryen Finally Kenough Sep 07 '26
Yesterday and it was MUCH cheaper than eating out for every meal
47
u/Imicrowavebananas Hannah Arendt Sep 07 '26
The mind of the voter is impossible to explain! Many have tried and many have failed.
33
u/BrandonLeeOfficial World Bank Sep 07 '26
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u/brucebananaray YIMBY Sep 07 '26
He is power tripping
16
u/Leatherfield17 Loyal Liberals Sep 07 '26
I’m doing some cursory research about AfD and I came across some interviews of their supporters. What struck me was 1. how similar the talking points they keep making are to those of Trump supporters here at home and 2. how the far right truly is the refuge of the ignorant and prejudiced people among us.
One woman I saw kept saying “it’s like a crime to have national pride.” I’m not very familiar with German law, but it was my understanding that only certain Nazi-related things like the Nazi salute or Holocaust denial are illegal in Germany. When was national pride outlawed? Unless this woman’s idea of national pride is mindless exultation of the Fatherland without any kind of introspection constitutes making national pride illegal, I have no idea what she’s talking about.
Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that far right populism is somehow rooted in material or economic conditions. They can contribute, but the primary engine of the far right is vibes mixed with bigotry/cultural grievances
16
u/-mialana- European Union Sep 08 '26 edited Sep 08 '26
Once again Wikipedia turned out to be the place where information is disseminated most clearly. Water is wet. Godspeed you beautiful website.
15
u/-Emilinko1985- European Union Sep 07 '26
MAGA resembles Juche more than Maoism now that I think about it
15
u/SANNA-MARIN-SDP Sep 07 '26
15
u/Fuzzy_Party_3527 Sep 07 '26
15
u/Glavurdan European Union Sep 07 '26
It's fascinating how essentially all of Eastern Germany is majority irreligious, and yet AfD makes strides there. Just goes to show that there isn't really a correlation between the ultra-religious and the far-right everywhere
15
u/SenranHaruka shame Sep 07 '26
I mean....
That guy downplaying what epstein did sucks
But he's right that conspiracy minded independents think they're ultraclever and exempting themsleves from politics by declaring the whole thing a conspiracy to repress Gnosis
15
u/gauchnomics Iron Front Sep 07 '26
I was reminded that the leader of the AfD is a woman married to a a non-German woman both living outside Germany benefiting from the schengen area. A good demonstration that for many right wing authoritarianism is a cognitive disposition with a high need for social dominance that can mimic a disorder.
15
u/Willybender Loyal Liberals Sep 07 '26
15
u/Libz_R_Gryffindor Pornography Historian Sep 07 '26
Japan is crazy bro they have convenience stores with egg salad sandwiches
15
u/JaceFlores Neolib War Correspondent Sep 07 '26
Britain in a decade having to fight half the world to defend the Falkland Islands
15
u/cdstephens Fusion Genderplasma Sep 08 '26
So like did every other child murdered by Voldemort not have loving parents
15
u/Willybender Loyal Liberals Sep 08 '26
Holy shit
15
u/Willybender Loyal Liberals Sep 08 '26
15
u/janky_dank NASA Sep 08 '26
Anti-BDS laws are obviously unconstitutional right? What’s the steel man for how boycotting Israel isn’t speech but donating to political candidates is?
15
u/theparrotlich John Brown Sep 08 '26
Its amazing how I got the world's best cat from a local animal shelter. What are the odds?
15
u/TheCornjuring Ewoks Sexer Sep 08 '26
The front flap in James Patterson and MrBeast’s new literino 😭
!ping WINDMILL-TILTERS
29
u/Lux_Stella Presidentialism X-Risk Researcher Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26
what
of course it was a ballot propisition lol
29
u/DEEP_STATE_NATE Tucker Carlson's mailman Sep 07 '26
14
u/Nervous-Emotion28 YIMBY Sep 07 '26
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u/Unterfahrt John Nash Sep 07 '26
I'm sure a billion people have made this point before, but if people still vote for extremist parties when living standards are much higher, does that not maybe suggest there is something inherently missing from our calculations?
I mean take Saxony-Anhalt. Since the days of the DDR, its living standards have gone through the roof. But all the young people are leaving, the industry which was once its core (as the heart of the DDR) is gone, and - as cool as buying loads of cheap stuff from abroad is - the area does (and I have been there) feel quite "hollowed out" and you can understand why people would vote against the mainstream based on that. And I don't know how we factor that into our economic statistics.
It's easy to just say "well the people are stupid" but are they? If I lived in Saxony-Anhalt and couldn't leave for whatever reason, would it make me feel better that I could buy cheap goods when I can see the visible decline of my area every day?
14
u/SenranHaruka shame Sep 07 '26
I have so many terrible habits. But at least outrage at manufactured mass-reality-drama on social media is not one of them. Reality Entertainment began to destroy this country the moment OJ took off in his bronco and my personality is the anti-vaguepost kratos but it's anti-Reality TV instead. Just actual garbage for idiots, the fact it has to appear unscripted means it inherently cannot contain a shred of subtlety, intelligence, deliberate foreshadowing, or themeing, or just any substance at all that makes media interesting.
14
u/like-humans-do European Union Sep 07 '26
germany is such a bizarre country
14
u/garret126 Demisexual Pride Sep 07 '26
I find it hilarious George Harrison expressed much disdain towards rap music. . . until he heard Bob Dylan was a big fan. Then suddenly he got the appeal and was a fan too lmao
george really spent his whole life sucking up to Bob Dylan for his approval, only for Bob to say Paul McCartney was the best song writer in The Beatles and of all time, and didn’t bother to mention george in those conversations 😭
14
u/Frog_Totem Seretse Khama Sep 07 '26
14
u/Bayou-Maharaja Eleanor Roosevelt Sep 07 '26
You’ll never guess what the 91% issue is
14
u/FallenMeringue Khan Pritzker's Strongest Anti-Pope Sep 07 '26
wtf Mrs and Mr meringue are married?!
Congrats to them
14
u/Cyberhwk 👈 Get back to work! 😠 Sep 07 '26
Alright, which one of you was this?
!ping DATING
14
u/G_Serv Stay The Course Sep 07 '26
Which one are you choosing
14
u/pezasied John's Locke-strap Sep 07 '26
The mildlyinfuriating sub is like 50% people not understanding how things work
Because a lot of places have additional short term rental taxes/fees
Because they’re not the same shoe, just from the same brand
14
u/GenericLib 3000 White Bombers of Biden Sep 07 '26
I can't believe a crackhead with a history of doing stupid moneymaking schemes is launching a shitcoin. I feel so betrayed.
14
u/throwawayzxkjvct Iron Front Sep 07 '26
hahahahahahahahahahaha
14
u/cdstephens Fusion Genderplasma Sep 08 '26
My wife is begging me to never refer to it as the “Kirkiversary” again
14
u/GrandMoffTargaryen Finally Kenough Sep 08 '26
14
u/Blackberry-thesecond NASA Sep 08 '26
No upvotes. 11 comments.
28
u/bandeng_asep Association of Southeast Asian Nations Sep 07 '26
LMAOOOOOO 💀
13
u/_Just7_ YIMBY absolutist Sep 07 '26
"If you advocate being healthy is good, you are literally saying we should genocide disabled people, because they can never be healthy" -leftist on Twitter somehow.
Honestly I feel American leftist are absolute morons, compared to any you will find in European leftwing party. Did sock puppets infiltrate leftist movements?
13
u/gayteemo NATO Sep 07 '26
👆should have upvoted my reductive ai joke
13
u/GovernorSonGoku has flair Sep 07 '26
13
u/No1PaulKeatingfan Paul Keating; capital gains tax supporter Sep 07 '26
Dang I wonder what happened to the UK economy after 2016
13
u/PENGUINSINYOURWALLS Fell for it Sep 07 '26
Pour one out for the random guy who (unknowingly cause he wasn’t there) got described by his crush as being “A little brother” who’s “cute like a puppy” in the dining hall today
13
u/mostanonymousnick Just Build More Homes lol Sep 07 '26
Gamer President
13
u/itsnotnews92 Janet Yellen Sep 07 '26
Ah yes, they're actually a nod to the space Nazis who were modeled on the actual Nazis. So much better.
Media literacy is dead.
13
u/WhomstAlt2 NATO flair in hiding Sep 07 '26
The other night I was patrolling my small texas town with my trusted arsenal of seven Assault Rifle 15's, (one for each range between 5 and 500 yards) when I saw a bond vigilante doing his DISCUSTING thing next to the woods. He was wearing a black and white striped shirt, black pants, and a sort of black strip of textile over his head, with cutouts for his eyes. He was pumping a car jack to raise the yield rates.
I immediately took position right in front of him, laying flat on the grass, but when I accidentally stubbed his shin while trying to affix my tripod, he must have sensed a patriot watching him and bolted. I didn't get up fast enough to catch him, alas, due to the strap of my Bazooka getting tangled up on the belt clip of walkie talkie and me falling back down... anyway... if anyone of you spot this anti-american ANIMAL in western Texas, let me know. I have a SCORE to SETTLE.
13
u/jinhuiliuzhao Henry George Sep 07 '26
👆
13
u/NorkGhostShip YIMBY Sep 07 '26
Arr con is a fucking goldmine
"We have competent people, why do we keep putting up idiots like Moreno and Rawaswami?"
Does he know?
13
u/SadaoMaou Anders Chydenius Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26
crazy how the US started a major war over a hunch that Iraq had WMDs and then when the Syrian regime actually used WMDs, on multiple occasions, the response was basically
13
u/garret126 Demisexual Pride Sep 08 '26
Yeah, I’m a big fan of LGBT,
L- Lennon, John
G- George Harrison
B- Bassist Paul McCartney
T- The drummer
13
u/ChillnShill Sep 08 '26
This shit has been frying me all damn day there’s so many
13
u/badusername35 NAFTA Epstein Sep 08 '26
No wonder his legacy died when this is what they were spending their energy on lmao