Hmm, worth thinking about.

We all saw this coming from a mile off.

Now I’m a peaceful person, but I can’t deny there’s a slightly disappointing turn a few words into that headline.

It’s a good point about not taking the bait of debating with the far right about their nonsense, but I’m not convinced it quite counts as trolling when, being a proud Nazi, you get up in front of a bunch of Nazis and do Nazi salute to show them you are a Nazi. I guess the trolling is what he did afterwards.

I think that one is referring to Trump. Musk won’t be punished for his Nazi salute, just as Trump isn’t punished for raping women.

10% of Russian nukes working fine would still be a catastrophe not worth risking.

Last time I looked they were (seriously) blaming Native Americans for the LA fires.

If I saw serious attempts anywhere from right-wingers to advocate for their views as an actual political philosophy I’d be more concerned by this. But we need spaces where people actually discuss how to build a better society, and simply because of that concern these spaces lean left. It’s rare to find right-wingers who are even seriously interested in that question, except as a pretext to vent their unexamined prejudices and personality issues.

If, on internet forums, you push for everyone to have equal say even when their views are not well considered, everyone’s energy gets used up arguing with the most offensive right-wing posters. I think it’s a good thing to have spaces where that isn’t how it goes. As for centrists, I think there’s a place for engaging with them because there’s more of a chance that they just haven’t examined their views but can be brought to. But I’m not going to miss them if they’re so put off by a left-leaning space that they won’t participate, and I don’t think every left space needs to spend its time arguing with liberals.

Frankly, my view of the right wing these days is that there’s no particular need to treat a mishmash of selfishness, greed, lust for power, deceit, gullibility, ignorance, insecurity and hatred as if it’s a political philosophy at all. Left versus right isn’t a helpful picture. Serious vs unserious would be a better one. If someone has serious arguments for a right-wing position made in good faith, then they’re not just wasting people’s time. But that’s not usually what you see, and I suspect it’s because there’s a lack of serious arguments to be made for it.

I don’t miss the right-wing voices. For the most part they just dominate, disrupt and obstruct serious discussion. That said, it’s important we don’t forget how unrepresentative our online discussions are of society as a whole, and how little impact merely talking about them here has.

Which is why Trump will also be working hard to undermine NATO in any way he can.

He has rallied the Christofascists around him with four years to reorganize, has escaped all punishment for his first insurrection, has the support of Putin once again, has the world’s richest Nazi on side and funding him, and is emboldened.

Is this the whole “Nazis were socialists because it’s in the name” thing again? The far right love to pull this point out, ignoring the fact that as soon as he had power, Hitler had anyone remotely socialist in the Nazi party murdered so he could get on with the fascism. The name “National Socialist” was a trick to get people on board. Anyway, it figures that Musk thinks Hitler was too left wing, since Musk thinks the whole universe is too left wing. And it’s characteristic of Musk that being to the right of Hitler doesn’t even give him pause.

They’re quite good at hoodwinking and swindling gullible and ignorant people.

Yes, there’s no way I would want to work for the unprofessional and petty Dr. Alok Kashyap of Yatiken Software if I happened to search his name and find this post of his all over the internet.

Well, my boss pays us very badly but regularly reminds us that we are all just one big happy family. These people seem to be everywhere and they have no self-awareness and no imagination about how to live life. And their entire ego is invested in their work, so they’re very touchy.

All while criticizing others for being so venal they want to be able to buy food.

“I’ve talked to so many governors and congresspeople and senators and never once did they say Canada is the problem,” Ford told CNN. He emphasized that a bilateral deal between Canada and the U.S. would be a better solution than imposing tariffs on Canadian goods.

I’m no fan of Doug Ford, but he’s right here. I guess Trump’s plan is to drive Canada into the ground economically through tariffs then invade or otherwise annex Canada when it’s too poor and desperate to resist. But why? It would be more profitable to both the USA and Canada simply not to do any of this. There are only two explanations I can think of:

1. Belligerence is the only thing Trump understands, even when it works to his own disadvantage, because actual diplomacy is too complicated for him and soft power contains the word “soft”, and/or
2. Trump isn’t working for the interests of the USA, but rather for those who want to see NATO and other Western alliances destroyed.

I don’t think Canadians would have a problem with taking on Minnesota.

They just keep voting for him, or not voting against him. Get it together Ontario!

Society invests in the education of its people, and the return is a general benefit to society from its people being more educated. It is not necessary for every single individual to give something tangible and obvious back in order for society to benefit from an educated populace. If you apply the criterion that every individual must give something back, it always turns into a requirement that they give back something tangible, usually money or labour, and the next step is to abolish education in philosophy, the arts, and possibly the more theoretical or exploratory parts of science. The result of this is an impoverished society, not an enriched one.

For it to be a good deal for society to pay for education there only needs to be on balance a benefit to society. That leaves room for the arts and all kinds of human curiosity and creativity that doesn’t yield an immediate tangible benefit. We contribute together, not individually, and some contributions are very indirect. Still, societies benefit from the arts, philosophy, and people with curiosity. And this system can tolerate some people not contributing anything much at all. The investment is in quality of life for the society as a whole.

The clue is in the term “Human Resources”. I can’t believe people just accept the existence of this phrase.