Racist narratives? Seinfeld has some episodes based on racism. The generally fall into two forms: making fun of racists and having one or more of the cast get accused of racism and hilariously try to prove they’re not.

If anything they’re making fun of the way the label of racist is impossible to get rid of once you’ve been tagged with it. It’s like being committed to a mental hospital and then trying to prove that you’re fine so they should just let you out.

We have a real issue with the conflation of streets and roads in North America. Some people call these abominations stroads.

Proper urban planning makes a stark distinction between a street:

And a road:

Tankies might as well be called CINOs — communists in name only. Their defining feature is reverence towards authoritarian leaders. They revere Putin and Xi as “strong” leaders and completely ignore how little their regimes have in common with the socialist workers paradise Marx envisioned.

We disagree on what these words mean. There’s no further progress to be had here while that impasse remains.

The Overton Window is about the population, not the politicians. The left in the US has moved more left and the right has moved more right. The difference is that the republicans have turned over a lot of their members to stay in the window as it moves right. McConnell is one of the last of the old guard of traditional (as opposed to alt right) conservatives.

The democrats so far have managed to keep their old guard by appealing to fear and other tactics. They’re fighting so hard to keep the party from moving leftward and it’s costing them elections.

I didn’t say they were irrelevant, I said they’re tools of survival. They’re obviously useful. People without any emotions at all just sit there with what looks like a catatonic state.

But being a slave to your emotions is nothing to aspire to. Far better to pick the emotional states you want to have. For me it’s enjoying deep focus on a task, having a lively conversation, sharing a great meal, laughing at a great joke, or cheering on a great play in sports.

Being a slave to your emotions is like being a ship tossed about on stormy seas. Emotional regulation is a skill that must be learned like any other. We’re supposed to teach it to young children, though increasingly I find myself meeting adults who don’t even have the basics down. People screaming at each other like angry birds!

The tougher one of course is learning how to overcome depression. That may need different strategies for different people. Mindfulness works for me but maybe not for everyone.

Well I was making a math murder joke!

The Overton Window cuts both ways!

I didn’t grow up a centrist. But the window moved both to the left and to the right of me!

I was just making a math joke!

Well we can, but only if there are an even number of people in the world. Otherwise there will be one person left!

Survival. The emotions are ultimately just crude tools the brain and body have for promoting the survival of the person.

Their crudeness is probably best illustrated with phobias.

Oh good call! All parodies would actually fit.

What I wrote wasn’t exactly what I meant though! What I meant was that Starship Troopers the film is an adaptation of a book that satirizes the book rather than being faithful! It’s the only film adaptation that I know of that does this!

Love it. It’s the only film I know of that satirizes its own source material!

Wow that is awesome! I have big nostalgia for the early B&W Macs as well, having played on a Mac Classic my uncle had when I was a kid. He actually gave me that computer years ago and it’s still in my basement collecting dust. I powered it up a few years ago and it still worked but then promptly powered it down and put it away. I need to go through it and recap it. Hopefully there aren’t any disastrous leaks.

Yes and they’re yet another collectible product that exploits the psychology of a subset of people who compulsively collect things. I put them in the same category as gambling and note that there’s a lot of crossover with these things (loot boxes and CCG booster packs being prime examples of a gambling and collectible combo).

It’s legal for Ukraine to defend itself from Russia.

I am for progress towards a goal.

None of the assassination advocates have laid out a concrete plan as to how assassinations will achieve their goals. All I’ve seen is:

1. Assassinate the CEOs
2. ???
3. We win!

No discussion at all of how this could backfire and lead to a dystopian hellscape, or how to avoid such a backfire. Things are very different from 1917. Technology is far more advanced and it’s not in the favour of citizens’ militias.

They’re doing so lawfully.

Ukraine is working toward making that happen. They’re much closer to achieving it than they were 2 years ago.

And that’s great but honestly that’s still peanuts if your goal is to have a proper public health care system where no one has to go broke because they’re uninsured when they get sick.