[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

a large portion of society, at least US society, can’t comprehend simple concepts

That's routinely overstated and deliberately misconstrued, often for the purpose of gutting social and economic institutions.

AI is leverage to this end, routinely. A very clumsy, inaccurate, and chinzy tool is inserted between people on the grounds that's they're too thick headed to communicate with one another.

The end result is more confusion, more frustration, and less coherence as people struggle to parse language that's been mangled into a 4th grade reading level.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Wages need to be increased and the best way to do that is to stop businesses undercutting wages by hiring cheap foreign labour.

Urban density increases the efficiency of public services. Wage rates do not.

Trying to keep populations small and fragmented does nothing to improve domestic quality of life. And rising domestic populations don't hurt overall household incomes. Cartelized labor markets are what do that.

Inflation is largely a global issue.

Prices vary enormously by local regions. And price gouging is increasingly difficult over large distances.

Inflation is most commonly a consequence of local commodity monopolization, not global price trends.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Am I denying the existence of a branch of international foreign intelligence dedicated specifically to Lemmy.world?

Yes. 100%. Absolutely.

It's pure paranoia.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

If you want to learn about Romeo and Juliet, you should read it in the original Shakespeare, preferably in his original hand writing.

This but unironically?

West Side Story was a real transformation of the work that added in places and subtracted in others.

If you want to learn about R+J, you absolutely should read the original. Better yet, you should see a performance by a professional Shakespeare company.

Don't watch the Spielberg knock off. Don't even settle for the Baz Luhrmann film. Watch the original if you can.

Purely on it's face, it is an incredible piece of artwork. You can enjoy it entirely in it's original form.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago

Is stripping the beauty out of literature an accessibility improvement?

Feels like you're handing someone a picture of a square and telling them they can't appreciate a real Picasso.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Old enough to remember when you'd just get the Cliff's Notes or read the Great Illustrated Classics version.

But now you can have a computer give you an even shallower and less coherent version of the book.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

Posted on ShitJustWorks for extra irony

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

I think helping everyday working class people is a good thing

Just cut taxes bro. Just one more time dawg. I promise it'll work this time, dude. Just one more tax cut. One more time bro I promise. It's going to stimulate the economy homey. This time we swear.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 9 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

I hope they really don’t like the ruzzians

The European far right is increasingly aligned with Russia, on the theory that (((Americans))) have been subverting their countries with migrants and foreign debts.

Russian media pitches itself as a victim of American imperialism and asserts the European states are next to be economically gutted. And as the European economy stagnates, the message gains appeal.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 9 points 6 hours ago

So much of the current White Replacement hysteria revolves around white woman not having enough babies.

Can't be overstated how that plays into a conservative hatred for sex ed

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

Candidates that inspire voters are obsequious to corporate interests.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 8 points 7 hours ago

I was planning to blame Russian Internet robots

1203
Stay Mad, Tankies (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world to c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
298

A group of undecided Latino voters said they would vote for President Joe Biden after watching his Thursday night debate with former President Donald Trump.

...

A clip posted on X shows the group being interviewed by a journalist. One man said he would vote for Biden because "Trump sounded like a crazy liar," according to Matt A. Barreto, professor of Political Science and Chicana/o & Central American Studies at UCLA.

The man being interviewed said Trump "said the same thing time after time" and was not answering questions or "saying how he would fix things," according to a Newsweek translation.

He went on to admit that "Biden was indeed a bit slow in talking," saying the president "has a stutter" but believes Biden explained "what he has done and what he is still doing while president.

"After being undecided for a little while, I think today, I switched to Biden," he added.

6

Multiple times each day, President Biden dials up Mike Donilon, a close adviser since the 1980s, to chew on the latest polls and headlines.

“What’s your instinct? What do you think?” Mr. Biden will ask Mr. Donilon, who recently left the White House for the campaign’s Delaware headquarters.

Once a week, Mr. Biden summons Ron Klain, his former chief of staff, to workshop the best attacks to use against former President Donald J. Trump as the presidential debate draws closer.

When he leaves for Delaware on weekends, Mr. Biden seeks out Ted Kaufman, a confidant who represents the president’s ties to the state that introduced him to the national stage more than a half-century ago.

...

The three are at the center of the Biden world, part of an echo chamber where dissent is rare. In important moments, each has told the president news he did not want to hear, although not one of them said no when the president was considering whether to run for a second term. They are also decades older than the young voters who could decide the election, which worries many of the president’s allies.

1320
343

The new labels allow employees to change prices as often as every ten seconds.

“If it’s hot outside, we can raise the price of water and ice cream. If there's something that’s close to the expiration date, we can lower the price — that’s the good news,” said Phil Lempert, a grocery industry analyst.

Apps like Uber already use surge pricing, in which higher demand leads to higher prices in real time. Companies across industries have caused controversy with talk of implementing surge pricing, with fast-food restaurant Wendy’s making headlines most recently. Electronic shelf labels allow the same strategy to be applied at grocery stores, but are not the only reason why retailers may make the switch.

456

The doctor has publicly identified himself as the person who released information to a conservative activist about the transgender care program at Texas Children's. Citing "whistleblower documents," the activist published a story in May 2023 saying Texas Children's provided transgender care, which was legal at the time, "in secret."

Texas Children's on Monday declined to comment on the charges against Haim. In previous statements, hospital officials said its doctors have always provided care within the law.

Transgender care has become a popular talking point in Texas and other Republican-dominated states where lawmakers claim such treatment is harmful to children. It describes a range of different social, psychological, behavioral or medical interventions that support people whose assigned sex at birth does not align with their gender identity. This can include mental health counseling, hormone therapy or surgery, which is rare for people under 18.

Such treatment, which is supported by every major medical association in the U.S., was offered at Texas Children's and other pediatric hospitals in Texas. Lawmakers have since implemented a statewide ban, and Texas Children's said it would discontinue its program.

Meanwhile, Haim has publicly decried the investigation against him as "political."

In the arraignment hearing, Ho said the indictment identified three different patients whose health information was compromised. Addressing reporters, Patrick declined to speak about the facts of the case but described the charges against his client as a "huge contradiction."

93

The Greek coastguard has caused the deaths of dozens of migrants in the Mediterranean over a three-year period, witnesses say, including nine who were deliberately thrown into the water.

The nine are among more than 40 people alleged to have died as a result of being forced out of Greek territorial waters, or taken back out to sea after reaching Greek islands, BBC analysis has found.

The Greek coastguard told our investigation it strongly rejects all accusations of illegal activities.

We showed footage of 12 people being loaded into a Greek coastguard boat, and then abandoned on a dinghy, to a former senior Greek coastguard officer. When he got up from his chair, and with his mic still on, he said it was "obviously illegal" and "an international crime".

...

In five of the incidents, migrants said they were thrown directly into the sea by the Greek authorities. In four of those cases they explained how they had landed on Greek islands but were hunted down. In several other incidents, migrants said they had been put onto inflatable rafts without motors which then deflated, or appeared to have been punctured.

One of the most chilling accounts was given by a Cameroonian man, who says he was hunted by Greek authorities after landing on the island of Samos in September 2021.

...

“They started with the [other] Cameroonian. They threw him in the water. The Ivorian man said: ‘Save me, I don’t want to die'… and then eventually only his hand was above water, and his body was below.

"Slowly his hand slipped under, and the water engulfed him."

Our interviewee says his abductors beat him.

"Punches were raining down on my head. It was like they were punching an animal." And then he says they pushed him, too, into the water - without a life jacket. He was able to swim to shore, but the bodies of the other two - Sidy Keita and Didier Martial Kouamou Nana - were recovered on the Turkish coastline.

-44

“I have noticed that there have been a lot more events with creators, but the creators that are getting invited are the creators who are very pro Biden and just parroting talking points or sharing photo ops of them smiling with the President. Not the creators who have been critical,” said Kahlil Greene, a history content creator and education advocate in Washington who said he hasn’t been invited to the White House since he criticized the administration over the TikTok ban and the war in Gaza.

Annie Wu Henry, a political influencer and digital strategist who has worked on Democratic campaigns, agreed. While the White House once treated creators as independent media, she said, they now seem to be playing favorites.

Biden’s team “is trying to say that they’re handling influencers like the press. But the thing is, the press briefing room has to have Fox News no matter what. They have to allow all of the media in,” Henry said. “When it comes to influencers, they only let in people who agree, and anyone who gives even a little bit of pushback is not welcome.”

37

Guy Sims Fitch was created by the United States Information Agency (USIA), America’s official news distribution service for the rest of the world. Today, people find the term “propaganda” to be incredibly loaded and even negative. But employees of the USIA used the term freely and proudly in the 1950s and 60s, believing that they were fighting a noble and just cause against the Soviet Union and the spread of Communism. And Guy Sims Fitch was just one tool in the diverse toolbox of the USIA propaganda machine.

...

I recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA to get more information about Guy Sims Fitch, this fictional character that journalists and editors of the USIA would use to promote American economic interests abroad. The twist? The CIA wants to make sure that the privacy rights of this fictional character aren’t violated. Or, perhaps, that the privacy rights of the people who wrote under that name aren’t violated.

...

How do we, as Americans, know about Guy Sims Fitch at all? The USIA was prohibited from disseminating news inside the United States under laws that restricted the government from producing propaganda for domestic consumption. So, as best I can tell, Fitch never showed up in any American newspapers. That, however, didn’t stop a lot of other USIA and CIA disinformation campaigns from leaking into American news.

In fact, the CIA had to acknowledge during 1977 congressional hearings that the disinformation they were helping to get published through a variety of media around the world would often find its way into American news outlets. It was during those same hearings that it was revealed the CIA had helped covertly finance the publication of about 1,000 books. And Congress made the CIA pinkie-swear that “under no circumstances” would it publish any newspapers, magazines, or books in the United States. Clandestine financing of publishing efforts outside of the US in any language that wasn’t English was just fine, according to Congress.

16

Influencers have been given exclusive tours of the White House and campaign headquarters and been invited to briefings with policy advisers. They’ve been wined and dined at lavish parties in New York and at State of the Union watch parties in the White House. And they’ve been promised extraordinary access to party officials at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, where for the first time ever they’ll be given a special room of their own, outfitted with quiet spaces for making videos.

At least one has been offered an interview with the president at the convention, but said he was asked not to bring up Gaza.

Priorities USA, a super PAC supporting Mr. Biden’s campaign, has pledged to spend at least $1 million on influencers, some of whom will be paid to share talking points online. The Democratic National Committee is using a smartphone app to train thousands of volunteers on how to share content in their social networks.

76
125

“Who can afford to go to multiple shows?” says the anonymous tour manager. “Two tickets to a show, you’re talking probably about $200 with fees and everything. You go to a meal around the show, you’re talking at least $100 or $200 for a nice dinner. Then you got parking and babysitters, then you add the VIP stuff to that and you want to make it a special night, you’re talking $500 to $1,000 a night for a couple to go out. It’s capitalism at its best.”

view more: next ›

UnderpantsWeevil

joined 1 year ago