I don’t think social media is good for young people, I barely think it’s good for adults. I also am pretty aware of the limited mechanisms the government has to enforce online age verification, and that they’re generally bad.
That's really all they do. If it sounds preachy, it's because a straightforward description of the system is all it takes to make it sound morally indefensible.
Are you sure you’re replying to the right person? Because I didn’t mention Biden at all, let alone his age.
Well, I’m not a leader of young minds at all, if that’s any relief to you. But I think I’ve been pretty clear in this thread and elsewhere.
This wasn’t really intended as an indictment of Biden per se. It’s certainly not his personal fault that US government and politics have capitulated to fascism en masse.
It wasn’t really intended as an indictment of Biden per se. It’s not his individual fault that US government and politics have capitulated to fascism en masse. He bears his measure of responsibility, but in the scheme of things I don’t know that he could have stopped it.
Yeah, this wasn’t really meant as an indictment of Biden per se.
Recent events are sort of what I had in mind. If you’re an 18-year-old kid who’s paying attention to the news, then for literally a decade straight you’ve been watching a narrative that’s almost continuously dominated by Donald Trump and a war of attrition against American norms and institutions.
Ok, thanks!
I mean, a kid graduating high school this year was 8 years old when Obama left. They don’t remember that.
Biden was a capable administrator and an essentially decent human being, which counts for a lot.
I didn’t!
I see echoes of Biden in a historian’s assessment of James Buchanan: “His many talents, which in a quieter era might have gained for him a place among the great presidents, were quickly overshadowed by the cataclysmic events” that were unfolding around him.
I suppose that’s closer to what I had in mind when I wrote that. It is true both that 1) Biden embodied a “normal” American president, and on those terms he was more successful than he’s given credit for; and 2) he (and Democrats generally) were egregiously unequipped to meet the historical moment.
In my heart I know he had exactly the same expression on his face that my grandmother does when we discuss Star Wars at the dinner table.
If we’ve learned anything from these times it’s that “All human beings are equal, but…” is a moral disease to which no category of person is immune.
More than anything the theme of the current era of rising hate for me is "but... why?"
Evil for evil's sake seems reductive, and yet we see time and again large organisations doing stupid and cruel things that don't make them any money.
This is how I see code written by AI coding agents as well. It's seems fast and efficient to the people using them.
But it's going to take so much time to review the code and debug if something goes wrong.
It's Trans Day of Visibility today. If you're trans and are raising money for something (I don't care what it is), reply to this thread and I will boost you.
If you are a cis person, take a look and find someone to support if you can.
Everyone give this a share after.
I don’t know if this makes it better or worse, but I’ll never recover from learning how they actually wrote these scenes:
It’s a bit of egg on their faces, but it’s unlikely anything consequential was exposed by this, unless a) their code is particularly messy or embarrassing in its own right, or b) they hardcoded live keys/credentials.
A sign on the fence of a graveyard. It reads "No use of geiger counters on church property."
This sign raises many questions, which probably should be answered by the sign but aren't
Oh ok I gotcha, I just didn’t want to accidentally become the annoyingly pedantic Blueskier at you. 🙂
Beg pardon if I’m being thick, but:
- Trump was president for 100% of the year 2020
- Biden was president for 100% of the year 2024
Are we saying the same thing?
Of the following year, though!
Thinking you’re apolitical is like thinking you “don’t have an accent”—it just means you haven’t thought about it very much.
I’m so sorry, man.
It’s certainly no reflection on the kids, in any case. They didn’t ask for this.
The thought was more like: people born after ~2010 have no meaningful firsthand experience of living under “normal” US government & politics, and I think we’re all going to have a weird & challenging time with that. But maybe, as you say, that will also come with opportunity to make a better normal.
And as you pointed out, even if we assume the defiance of authority is both justified and successful, it comes at a cost, which is inevitably paid the next time a “legitimate” government tries to exercise that same authority. It’s always playing with fire to let the social contract unravel.
Oh exactly, I’m agreeing with you. I don’t know what the answers are, or what I’d actually do in a real-world scenario. (Probably not a “brave” thing, if I’m being honest.) And at the same time, I know that conquering lawlessness via strict adherence to the law is probably not how this all ends.
