I agree, though I am super disdainful of any argument that is sort of reskinning “other people are really stupid”.

I don't consider ignorance and susceptible to sophisticated influence campaigns to mean "really stupid".

Perhaps I'm just using nicer language to say the same thing (or otherwise, ultimately, hold myself to be superior). That's fair I suppose - but I'm aware of the circumstances and privilege that helped me achieve my perspective. I'm of the belief that, if given similar benefits, most would be just as "superior".

Now that I've demonstrated I'm superior, and humble, I still feel like this could have been avoided if people in the district voted instead of just ignoring the campaign or assuming, like I did, that people in the district would do better.

To anyone reading this, if you are a resident in the district and didn't vote for Bowman... do better next time for everyone's sake.

This also assumes voters are informed and engaged, and that political campaigns are honest.

As I understand it, mailers trashing Bowman were like 80% of the mail you received in that district and their ads showed up constantly on Tv. It is possible to manufacture a perceived reality when you have enough money.

Admittedly, I was foolishly hopeful that residents of his district would recognize a racist, conservative piece of shit and vote for Bowman even if they didn't agree with his stance on Gaza so shame on me.

You can abuse your position as a holdout and potentially fuck everything up in either chamber. Bills require passage in both chambers... but I'm sure you knew that.

I just hope there are enough gains in the house to make his ass irrelevant.

I am just destroyed by this. I genuinely had a little faith in humanity that people wouldn't fall for this bullshit but I guess I sorely was mistaken.

Laitmer is a conservative, racist piece of shit who is going to take over Manchin's job of fucking things up for progressives. Fucking hell this sucks.

To top it off, Israel just successfully dropped a political nuke on a critic and will likely have everyone running scared in the future.

I agree they've been trying to mitigate this but as I understand it things are quite precarious regardless. It's not always possible to mitigate a disaster you see coming even if you try your best to prepare for it.

There has been more talk of it since then - that article just was the only concrete & most reputable source I could think of at the time and I didn't want to turn a post into a research project.

Anyway, while there is more awareness of the issue it is, more or less, the same shady greed-driven risky behavior and nonsense that happened with home mortgages except its commercial mortgages and they've seen it coming.

It actually kind of is The Bigger Short

Some folks have been calling this for a while. The Bigger Short

Honestly, this is what I consider to be the clear danger of generative "AI". We've basically gone several steps backward toward a world where we can't prove something happened because recording technology doesn't exist because it can be faked well enough and easily enough to cast doubt on any recording.

Sure, experts can analyze it and deem it legit or not legit but for the average person its becoming harder and harder to tell. Word spreads fast, and it's been demonstrated that lies spread faster than their corrections by orders of magnitude. All it takes is for something to "go viral" or someone with authority to lazily confirm or deny that something is real/fake and the public at large loses touch with reality.

This plus the insane misinformation campaigns and those that cry "fake news" whenever the news contains information they don't like... I feel like truth and reality are becoming unfashionable.

USA here. They'd likely consider this to be extremely patronizing, but I consider most conservative voters to be unaware of what it is they are actually preaching. It's crazy but the more extreme their views get, the more I'm convinced they're misinformed and misled. Some folks at the top of their pyramid I legitimately hate - I have no doubt they know exactly what they are doing.

So many of conservative beliefs just fly in the face of reality. I hate that they're perpetuating the harm that the beliefs and resulting policies cause, but seeing as how they are mostly based on clear and obvious lies, I have to assume that most of the supporters just don't realize they are being lied to and have invested emotionally in an identity that actively harms their own interests.

City officials said 29% of the 112 people arrested at a protest at Columbia on Tuesday were not affiliated with the school. At the City College protest, 60% of the 170 arrested were not affiliated with the school, according to the city's press release.

"Not students" isn't as informative as "not affiliated with the school".

In that light, the numbers reported are much different between the two colleges and the headline should reflect that.

"Many of us built, whether it's bought homes or whatever, based on this promise of stability," Jesuthasan said. "There was this expectation that the tail was bigger. And we took on liabilities and obligations early on because of that tail. I think this generation has seen that tail dissipate."

In other words, when millennials did what their parents did and assumed if they worked hard they'd get to live a decent life. Then they got fucked by companies whose priorities became getting as much out of their employees as possible while investing in those employees as little as possible.

As a millennial, I hated the idea of debt. As a result, I've had no debt beyond college loans despite being able to afford a lower middle class lifestyle. It took me never living alone (roommates, SOs) but I did it. The education was bullshit and the loans were obscene but I got a piece of paper that helped me keep my job. After working in the public sector for 20+ years I actually had my loans forgiven... and now rent is going through the roof to compensate. Still, I might actually own a home before I'm 50, assuming current and future landlords don't decide to take me for all I'm worth.

When I finally own a home, I'm sure it'll get washed away by the thirteenth "century flood" that year or some other bullshit thanks to climate change. So fucking glad I decided not to have kids. Fuck this world.

Or people could just be upset that cops of any color feel justified in using tasers when civilians don't comply with unusual, unnecessary requests. I don't care what color the band director is or what color the cops are. I'm continually disgusted at how many videos there are of cops losing their shit when a civilian doesn't immediately respond "how high?".