Brave Little Hitachi Wand

Somehow even as a kid in America I always had a preference for the OED at my library. It just exuded this sense of supreme rightness to me.

Never occurred to me that normal grade school kids don’t all have a favourite dictionary. Ah well.

DAGGER OF THE MIND

It’s maturity and some of the latter for me.

Hard to come up with non-joke suggestions without knowing the locale. Seattle? Un Bien. Las Vegas? The Double Down Saloon. San Francisco? Smitten. Portland? Powell’s books.

Generally? Grab a pebbled ice machine and turn the lights off on your way out.

Want to steal this man’s look and do the same shit

You’re a shitty reductio ad absurdum, my kid and I live in England where rain was invented and I do fine without a car.

Pfffhahaha

That’s reasonable. In trying to clarify my stance I’ve basically talked myself over to your way of thinking.

Thanks for taking the effort. I know that it’s a losing battle when you’re dealing with people spreading disinfo in bad faith and you’re trying to counter everything. The worst part is that it makes conversations far harder to have, so I really do value that olive branch of trust.

I can’t speak to what others are thinking when they talk about “the system” in this way, but I’ll try to explain where I’m at. I do have to allow that it’s a bad rationale to ascribe any overt intent to the incredibly vast and dynamic nature of “the system”. We’re talking about a single sentence that is broadly gesturing at not just centuries of continually changing case law, but also the ongoing interactions of massive regulatory, financial, and legal systems run by many thousands of people and is also constantly changing. That is too wide a swath to cut. To equivocate further in your favor, it is also wrong by what it fails to account for - failed systems.

The main takeaway I would hope people get from the idea (one that I heard from a forgotten source and then began using in the light of my own understanding I have to confess) is that we are living under a system that has been disproportionately and consistently shaped over much of its history by moneyed interests in various ways for the specific aim of winning the class war for the wealthy. That’s what the system is doing, that is its purpose.

In the future to avoid raising anyone’s hackles (at least those whose hackles don’t deserve raising) I should be more specific and speak of the 1971 Powell memorandum and how we are essentially living in the aftermath of its victory. Would that be more acceptable?

Calling out disinformation takes effort. If I’m wrong and you give a shit, talk to me. I’m a regular person who is generally pleasant, maybe you can be too.

Do you notice how what you just said is not a conversation starter or even a joke? What’s your goal here, just to talk shit? What’s your ideal outcome for leaving this remark, exactly? Do you even have one.

The purpose of a system is what it does. If this wisdom was truly internalised by most people, there would be global revolution.

You use the weapons of the enemy and you’re doing nothing to create the world you claim to want. Behold, a useful idiot.

Jesus you’re being insufferable. Watching you say shit I even might otherwise agree with makes me want to poke myself in the eye.

…Was someone confused?

The respectability politics game is regressive at best, and at worst this lame ass Democrat is willfully throwing away a winning message

Approximately 320kg per day, I am informed.

He can easily spot a genocide when the out-group is doing it.

Your point is not very clear, or I’m having a brain fart. Do you mind rephrasing?

I’ve been seeing this in my feed but haven’t watched it. If you have and it’s not fortune cookie-tier philosophy mixed with entry level neuroscience, please let me know.