Signtist

Basically, it comes down to whether or not a meaningful amount of people can be radicalized without being personally impacted by the radicalizing force. When the government comes after its people with an armed secret police, the people who are worried they'll be next are easily radicalized because they feel personally in danger.

The well-meaning members of the various branches of the media and education system that drives the propaganda machine are not directly in danger, at least not from that specific aspect of their lives. They may still be a marginalized race or sexuality who could be radicalized through that aspect, but those people are already being systematically removed from their impactful positions within society by DEI restrictions, likely specifically for that reason.

In the end, it will be a bunch of straight white people running the propaganda machine, who may be sympathetic toward the plight of their marginalized neighbors, but likely not enough to endanger themselves to try to fight back on their behalf. And by the time white people themselves are on the chopping block, there won't be enough power left to wield against the tyrants if we aren't fighting for it.

We can get people scared for their lives to band together and try to fight, but we can't get people who are still holding out for this whole thing to "blow over" to risk it all to try to force it out. But everyone is inching toward that point of personal endangerment; if we can be strategic, maybe we can hold out on the fighting until enough people are personally affected enough to be radicalized that we form a real fighting force. That's really the only way through I can see, and as I've said, it's a long shot even then.

And what if a nonviolent movement randomly made all the wealthy explode? It'd be great, but not feasible. The reason the propaganda machine works is because it's backed by an amount of money only the wealthy would be able to provide. For us to build one powerful enough to stand against theirs right under their noses within this surveillance state is the least likely scenario I've seen seriously brought up.

Propaganda can and will villainize even the most peaceful of people if it serves the goals of the wealthy. It's simply too powerful of a tool; a huge swath of the population will follow a narrative that's being pushed hard enough, no matter how much it goes against their preconceived understanding of the world. Just look at how many people wholeheartedly support Israel's ongoing genocide. Sure, there are absolutely examples of Palestine committing violence against Israel, but I have no doubt that even if they'd never raised a finger, the propaganda machine would still be convincing a huge portion of the country that Israel is right to massacre them.

I'm afraid of the government using its insane weapons technology and budget against us, but the real danger is that they won't have to - that they'll just tell the propaganda machine to make our own neighbors fight us, and we'll kill ourselves to achieve nothing more than their amusement. It's true that we might be able to appease them to prevent that outcome by promising we won't put the wealthy on the chopping block, but at that point, we're not people, we're cattle. They'll have no reason to treat us any better than North Korea treats its people. Our government would fully turn from an organization meant to serve its people, to one fully committed to using them as a resource to be exploited - capitalism's final form.

I wholeheartedly believe that the only reason we're not at that stage already is because they're afraid that if they take that final step now some people might get violent and hurt some of the wealthy or their property. If they actually believed we'd sit down and allow them to enslave us, they'd be shipping in a bulk order of manacles from China right now. You're absolutely right, I don't believe we'd win, but I'd rather try to escape the fate of domestication than welcome it.

That's true, they likely have the ability to kill us all at this point. But if so, then they've patched the last hole of resistance that the common people had to fight back. It's either try and maybe succeed, or don't try and definitely fail. There's a reason we have a right to bear arms, and it's because bearing arms is the only way to fight back against a government that no longer cares about upholding its own laws and ideals to protect the people.

People are so conditioned by the idea that nonviolent change can be achieved that they will actively work against those who use the actual effective methods. Like crabs in a bucket we'll doom ourselves to the boiling pot of water. The constitutional right to a peaceful protest doesn't mean shit when the president has already dismissed the idea that he has to uphold the constitution. At this point it's nothing more than words on parchment that they're supposed to care about but don't. Don't bet your life on their adherence to it.

Nonviolent change only works if those in charge either care about us and want to improve our lives (they don't) or they fear that not giving us what we want will hurt them somehow (it won't if you fucking help them get rid of the ones willing to hurt them). Even if we achieve the fabled halting of the economy from so many people refusing to work that it can't sustain itself, the rich will be the ones who starve last. There will always be people willing to do dirty work for evil men in exchange for gold and expensive baubles.

Because he knew nobody would actually enforce it.

I managed to find love through online dating, but it's true that you need to put a lot of time and effort into making an interesting and informative profile, sorting through all the low-effort users to find the people who are actually invested, and crafting engaging and personalized opening messages for the people among them who you happen to find attractive. There's a big incentive to just spam everyone with "hey," but all that does is put more money in the company's pockets from months of no hits.

Yeah, I was disappointed in the tonal shift. I could've watched Deku and friends learn superheroing for 10 more seasons, slowly getting closer to real pros, and been happy. It feels like it's a sudden mad dash to the finale now.

This is some Made in Abyss type shit, and I'm all for it .

It's not like the chef is in charge of advertising. There's a reason they don't use actual food to make the advertisements, and it's because actual food can't reliably look like that.