They said reduce first. Get yourself sterilized and you can reduce your use of contraceptives.

Truly a filthy rag since at least the leadup to WWII.

For sure. It can be useful for others, even if the person you're interacting with has a rock for a brain.

Lenin disagreed.

Participation in the system can be used as a tool to subvert the system in part by helping convince those who have yet to be convinced that a different system is needed.

That's not to say we should vote for Biden, just that there is usefulness in continuing to participate in these systems while also working to get rid of those we see as obsolete.

The fact you are working in fractions is more important than whether it's SAE or metric. You can do the same with a cm instead of an inch.

I get angry when hardware uses imperial units because I can't use my metric tools, which are way the fuck easier. Who wants to use 5/8" when you can use 16?

...I'll almost never object to a "fuck Nazis" policy.

What, as in you're always in bed with Nazis? Cause basing yourself out of sh.itjust.works at this point is a pretty good indication that you are ok with fascism.

It's a short source and I'd like to see it also explain some of the racial dynamics going on at the time, but otherwise ok.

It was rigged against us from the beginning. Reagan didn't help, but he was only one more straw in the pile of bullshitters.

The concessions granted by those in power to the people are only meant to keep them in check, not to fulfill all of their needs. If our needs were met, there would be little incentive to slave away most of our lives.

This generally works for most house plants, particularly the ivy-like ones.

NYT has always been particularly egregious. How can an editorial board whose members are not publicly accountable (or even reported), and who are obviously made up of a homogeneous, obviously wealthy group of people who regularly write on areas they have conflicts of interest in (particularly real estate in NY) be considered reliable and trustworthy? Their continuing good reputation is one of the biggest media farces that exists.

Read what a media watchdog has to say about them and the problems their articles have consistently had for decades.

Fair warning, I am in need of sleep and what comes after is a rant partially resulting from that. I won't know if I was coherent until after I've rested, so here's hoping!

You're right. The state of mainstream media IS abysmal, but these outlets also have a long history of towing the state line as well as that of their private owners (WaPo and Bezos have been particularly egregious in recent years). They've always been shit. The reason people find this scary is that they haven't ever taken the time to take a critical look at the state of the media and make a historically materialistic assessment of how media bias has affected our world and geopolitics.

Media bias and the degradation of public trust in the media is a common problem that's been around a long time and it just so turns out that the smaller, independently and crowd-funded media outlets are better off than they ever were before the internet. This isn't the first time this has happened.

People distrusting mainstream sources pushes them to get their information elsewhere. This will have good and bad results, but the media sources that do good reporting have the benefit of actually having done good work that can be confirmed. As people see how poor a job the mainstream media does in their reporting, they may also learn to apply that criticism elsewhere and naturally gravitate to those who are more trustworthy, which is a good thing. The important part to note here is that we do not perform this critical analysis on our own. Discussions like these help us inform each other so we don't all have to individually become expert fact-checkers. This is my unsubstantiated bias and not meant to downplay the damage done by shitty media sources, but overall I think this general distrust has a beneficial result. People who are passionate about the truth come out of the woodworks and help lead others away from deception.

Blind criticism of media sources from some people is unavoidable in all circumstances, so I'm just writing it off as those people being lost causes. If they weren't critical as teenagers, what did you expect from them as adults? For others, the shiny paint on the exterior has cracked and more and more they see the piece of shit peaking out from underneath. People recognizing that they cannot blindly trust the media is a good sign...

...a good sign that those who wish to make things better are organized and prepared for the eventualities born of a crumbling state. If there's anything to be scared of, it should be how the state of those who fight for us compares to the state of organization and strength of those who wish to further exploit and blind us.

The imperial core is crumbling. It will get much worse before it can get better and I'd say it's unlikely that the forces of positive change for these countries will come from within. Even so, I personally hope and try to help work to make it more likely that good changes do come from within. The future is troubling, but also filled with hope.

(Note: I don't disagree with your point that you can get some use out of a filthy rag like the NYT so long as you know how clean the results you are expected to get from it are beforehand. From criticism that takes this into account, true media literacy is born.)

Still, by itself, it didn't change the political landscape!

What? You can't just look at the operation by itself, you also must consider what led to that point and what happens after. You pointed out the impact Oct 7 had yourself.

These events do not happen in a vacuum and should not be considered so.