It's a really good video. He did a very good job putting words to my thoughts too, I've struggled to say why I don't like AI beyond "it's not very good at things", but as he touches on in the video, that is only one small part.

I was also very surprised by the 3% statistic, I think I watch nearly everything from my subscriptions, the recommended is either completely useless from whatever the algorithm has decided I want or showing me videos I intentionally didn't watch.

I went and followed him on Mastodon, and in that thread learned you can just add a channel to an RSS feed by using the link to their channel. I'm sure that's old news to some, but as I already use an RSS app, I'm going to start switching over I think.

Okay all done TL;DW:

Q: Are Americans stupid?
A: No, just not engaged or educated in matters of politics.

Q: What about the decision makers at the DNC and Harris campaign?
A: Yeah, they sure do appear to be, or more charitably, in the pocket of big business interests while attempting to be R-lite.

Q: Okay, Liberals, specifically pundits and media?
A: More defensive than stupid, they got the campaign they wanted but lost and don't want to take any responsibility.

Q: Republican leadership and media ecosystem?
A: Some are, others motivated by racism, others money, and onward, you know the stuff, it's the normal list.

Q: Is the show stupid along with their viewers?
A: Not stupid, misjudged the threat of Musk and Ben Shapiro types, clearly left leaning media and viewers should be shifting gears and approach to better reach disaffected Americans.

Q: What do next?
A: Prepare for the worst, push for the best. Connect with people in real life. When the bad things happen that we know could happen, don't brag, but draw attention to the fact that there are people out there who knew this bad thing would happen.

TL;DR: Nah people aren't dumb and that's both good and really depressing. Be good to each other and reach out when you need help.

That's an awful lot easier but likely less accurate and what happens whenever establishment Dems lose. "Hillary lost because of Bernie Bros" is the first and loudest instance that springs to mind. But even if that statement were true, In hindsight we know that she and her campaign sorta rigged the primary, which looked more obvious than they probably intended. That disenfranchised some voters and they didn't vote.

That's not the voters fault, the candidate did something that made those voters not vote for them. Just like Kamala/the DNC did with running an ancient dude, not having a primary, running the ancient dudes VP, supporting the genocide of Palestinians, loving fracking, and onwards. I was really optimistic early on with her VP pick but that seemed to be the moderate leftmost edge of her campaign.

I'm of the opinion that until the DNC stops appealing to disenfranchised Republicans this steady slide right will keep happening. Running as R-lite hasn't really been paying off as well for them as it did in the 90s.

So much of our modern political system is poised around vibes, because that's all the older voters (seem to) really care about. If I had a dollar for every time I heard some variation of having a beer with George W, I'd have more dollars than I do now.

I think in contrast younger voters care about a vast array of issues very deeply, making engaging in politics a much more complex task that they probably don't have time for. Given that so much of the coverage consists of no-meaning political lines with no coherent policy right now, engaging in traditional ways is pointless until they stop having vapid "debates" and "interviews" with no content, and start forcing real policy discussion.

I think Bernie was popular with younger voters because he brought so few vibes and so much policy. I went to a Hillary rally and a Bernie rally during the primary in 2015 and the difference was night and day. Hillary talked about the positive feeling of continuing the Democratic legacy, while Bernie talked about sustainable agriculture and straw polled the attendees about wind power.

To be clear I bet this held true 50 years ago when our old voters were young too, no hate on the olds here, priorities change, though I hope mine don't. Also I wonder if this is all still true for the new young voters, most of my interactions are with millennials and gen z. My few interactions with the folks graduating now have been tainted by my old and out of touch self and by their (in my opinion) under-practiced interpersonal skills from covid years at home. Again, no hate intended.

I never played BioShock 2 or Infinite, but I watched full playthroughs of each, and I thought infinite was great! Different to be sure in most ways, but it was a neat expansion of the world and themes hinted at in the first two games.

I seem to remember a lot of sideline criticism when it came out that boiled down to "NPC sidekick not love interest but hot so I don't like game". I thought, and think that is ridiculous, and fortunately I think that criticism has faded with time because Elizabeth is such a positive part of the game, from my view.

I should play through the BioShock games...

Along with potential reasons mentioned in this post, right wing folks also have fewer obvious places to go troll now that twitter is just filled with them and Hershey's or whatever. Perhaps they are coming here looking for trouble specifically.

It's also possible they've always been here and have just found more reasons to engage recently. Either way, the amount of bad faith discussion and derisive language is frustrating and upsetting.

I have just been blocking individuals if I find myself getting frustrated, but I also took a long break from social media because I felt like the discussions about Gaza were bordering toxic, so I'm not sure my approach is sustainable.

I'd argue that, while reductive, "it's bad" is probably a pretty safe takeaway from this, given that the article says if you are of a healthy weight and activity level that you can get away with eating a less balanced diet. Most people in the areas interacting with this post aren't probably doing that exercise and weight thing, so the carefully balanced diet it is for us. Based on North American red meat consumption this is likely much less than the reader currently eats, so they should probably cut back.

Internet translation of that resoning: "it's bad don't eat it".

Their coffee tastes the way it does because of how they roast it, it's a purposeful style thing (that tastes terrible and is horribly overpriced imo).

Their roasts are also darker than they say. Everything they have is dark roast, with their 'blond' coming in closer to a medium.

People go nuts over the sugar, caffeine and perceived status, it has nothing to do with the taste of the coffee. As a fellow black coffee drinker, my recommendation is to avoid Starbucks unless you happen to be near a union store where the coffee is guaranteed to taste more like freedom, but still like ashes soaked in oil.

In case you want more details: The way coffee roasting works is you move beans around in a real hot container, and you try to keep them to a specific point on a temperature graph at each moment as they roast. A different roaster would roast them a bit slower, but Starbucks just blasts those beans with everything they have, then they don't stop until the beans are burnt. This gives them their "signature taste". This is largely because of Howard Shultz, the guy who drove the company to be a cafe, and until recently the CEO. That's his preferred coffee taste and that's what he demands the company makes.

Is that true? That sounds like something someone would just say with no factual backing. I read a fair bit recreationally about pre European societies and I haven't seen some universal truth about screwing each other over for some action.

There were and presumably are many societies that treat procreation and child rearing completely differently than we do today. Once you stop looking at your neighbors kids as "theirs" and seeing them as "ours" there isn't much drive to compete with them.

If only it was just teenagers, physically grown ass men and women do this too. Have had some I thought were good friends cut me off from talking to them "because I didn't have an iPhone".

I'm with you in parts, but some products are definitely made to a lower standard than they should be. There's reasons why they are made to that low standard (money for shareholders being the primary motive in most cases), but that doesn't excuse the waste they are creating and the bad situation they are placing on consumers.

We are faced with a false choice, choose either cheap and disposable or expensive and repairable. Most don't have the money right now to afford the repairable option and then take the more expensive in the long term disposable route. This keeps more money flowing to the company, and it keeps the consumer unable to buy the better option.

In the past there was not a disposable option, perhaps not an option at all, and the base cost was higher, but consumers had more money to buy things with. People also made more money than they do now relative to cost of living. There was also a member of the family at home sewing clothes and cooking meals, that's a lot of free labor. I deep dove into budgets from 1914 and sears catalogs but it's perhaps too much for this (though it was interesting).

I'll close with an example about clothes dryers (USA). They are incredibly simple appliances, they are made up of a rotating drum, a blower, a heater, and a control system for timing and temperature selection (basically another timer). In older models this did not break often, and when it did it was standard parts and quick labor and it's working for another 5-10 years. Newer designs have proprietary parts and chips that change from year to year. This means if your chip breaks you're done and you need a new appliance. The chip doesn't bring much new function to the appliance, and it certainly isn't anything that couldn't be done with an off the shelf part.

The difference is things were designed to be repaired before and now they aren't. We can still design things that way but we choose not to. There's no huge extra cost associated with a replaceable battery or an off the shelf control chip, companies just choose to push disposable because it makes more money. That push is bad for people and bad for the environment, and to combat it we can buy repairable, but we should also push back on companies trying to make a quick buck and support right to repair where we can.

Milk is another great example of industry influencing diet, it is not a necessary component of people's diet once they are done being a tiny baby.

Can't or don't want to? Cutting meat out is quite easy and more obviously a choice when you instead eat eggs, nuts, varied veggies, and legumes. Heck of a lot cheaper too