Oh I know, just having fun with the optical illusion. :-)

Sorry that's too much effort!

I don't live in the USA, but I have a lot of friends there so I watch with concern and try to support from afar. Good luck emigrating!

I've known fascism was inevitable since I started studying it as a teenager in about 1994. It's also why I know it will be beaten, and why even then it will still need to be fought again after that. Fascism has probably been around forever in some form, long before it had this name.

You're not convincing me with your combination of "there's no hope" and "focus on the road ahead" though because it doesn't seem like you believe in a road ahead?

I'm focused on the road today, not on what I think isn't possible or is too late to bother about.

Fact is, you aren't dead yet! So are you going to live it or spend your days trying to convince others to give up too?

Your position makes no sense unless you have already given up and accepted defeat prematurely... which is basically enabling fascism by default.

So now you know why fascism always gets a foothold! Kindly do something differently, then?

So glad to read your comment @SparrowHawk. This is exactly it, and why I am no longer a hardcore atheist. We can't connect with anyone while we're in the middle of telling them that they're wrong - even if they are completely wrong about factual matters. It's essential to build connection first, then conduct any education through the connection. Without connecting it's wasted effort.

The educating can't come through coercion or condemnation either, because those shut people down. If we don't offer something better then we push those people away. We might write them off and say "fuck em, who cares!" and that's how we end up at political deadlock and perpetual war.

This is why the fascists are so terrified of empathy, because intelligent, educated people (lots of those around!) who are highly empathic (not so many, it's a harder skill) joining together and building connections with and between the masses, already have all the tools to dismantle the whole scam we're living in.

Empathy and education, from kindness not condemnation, is unstoppable. Though I will grant that there's not much in it for rugged individualism, but lots in it for diverse, individuality-celebrating collectivism.

Of course we're supposed to be arguing - we'll never get anywhere that way.

Empathy lets you say "I absolutely disagree with your view, yet I still value you as a human, so am committed to your long-term wellbeing" and other similar bits of "radical hate speech" which, put into action will dismantle capitalism, fascism, authoritarianism, religions, prisons... you name it.

But it can't be passive, it is something for each person to be putting into action all the time.

That's my spiritual practise and I don't feel personally affronted if someone disagrees with it or doesn't understand it any more, because it's just with myself and how I want to be in life with myself and others anyway.

There are billions of us humans and we're unstoppable when we put aside our petty differences and work together for common dreams.

....besides, if you don't agree with me, you're wrong! /s

We could make e-waste into a crafting activity!

1. Invent incredibly dumb device.
2. Brand it as "Smart" to lean into Dunning-Kruger effect sales.
3. Profit!!

Oh shit I'm on dbzer0 - just seemed like a good geeky instance. Is it a problematic one? Thx!