2024 is going great, and I can’t wait for things to get even better in October!
Sure, today is worse than yesterday. But at least it’s better than tomorrow!
Today is the best day of the rest of your life.
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2024 is going great, and I can’t wait for things to get even better in October!
oh shit we’re all going to die, aren’t we
On the plus side, we will all be spooky ghosts just in time for halloween!
These costumes aren’t going to sell themselves.
That’s if we’re lucky.
Don’t worry, this is all a simulation
This comforts me
The comfort is also part of the simulation.
Just like the simulations.
Plz
Photo is from the movie: “In Bruges” - highly recommend.
I didn’t even know where fucking Bruges was
It’s in Belgium
SUCH an underrated city. I spent a day there back in 2022 and it’s so pretty, calm, peaceful, fucking fantastic chocolatiers…
Actually, as an American, I found all of Belgium highly underrated. Everyone always talks about Paris, Berlin, and Munich as the crazy big tourist destinations in that region.
I went to Brussels for my birthday in spring 2022, and its easily one of my favorite birthdays to date. Unf. Big Belgium Fangirl here. 10/10 I want everyone I know to visit.
Only been to Brussels but I do overall agree Belgium is slept on
The ending is completely preposterous and bad
spoiler
(sloppy foreshadowing of the villain vowing to commit suicide if they killed a child comes to fruition when the villain kills a dwarf and thinks it’s a child, like, come on…)
but the movie on the whole is fairly entertaining.
I disagree completely with your take on the ending. The whole movie was about morals in an amoral situation. That character spent the entire movie talking about his own personal morals and the whole plot from the beginning was because of those morals. He just did exactly what he was supposed to
GUNS GO OFF … several shots ring out
Dozens of dead immigrants, Europeans, Middle Easterners, Africans, Asians lie on the floor or are trying to crawl away with bloody gun shot wounds
Somehow the two Americans are still standing there holding their guns.
Jesus man, chill out maybe? We don’t murder Europeans.
Hey don’t forget the dead and bloodied Americans who are women, children, POC, any variety of queer, and most importantly poor or middle class.
Serious question, but like, does anyone think things are going to be OK? Like… Anyone?
Thing aren’t ok now. We’re actively funding people that kill civilians and children, all while the people back home living check to check are defaulting on payments, trying to afford ever increasing grocery prices and gas. But the stock market and billionaires are doing good so at least we have that.
We’re the country of giving up your life and health for the rich.
No.
I haven’t thought things will be ok since Bush Jr lol
It’s been a slow but steady decline into absolute insanity that just recently got turned up to 11.
The George W. Bush administration (and the burgeoning WWW 2.0) allowed me to look back and realize that since Reagan the US has been on the express train to fascism, autocracy and genocide. Scholars point out the Southern Strategy and the Moral Majority were active responses to the end of segregation and the legalization of interracial marriage. And then Behind The Bastards dated it back to industrialists living the good live during the Great Depression being sore about the New Deal, and their plot to repurpose Christianity and patriotism to create an American order of feudalism and fascism.
And here we are with the Heritage Society’s Project 2025 looking to seal the deal.
Yeah… As soon as you realize that slavery is a type of civil war because it’s a war on people living in the country, you start to realize that there’s never really been a time that the US wasn’t in a civil war. And when you look at the Red Summer, you see that genocide that’s being scheduled now is just part of the regular cycles of America… Like… Maybe a country built on genocide and slavery is a bad idea that can’t ever be fixed.
Maybe a country built on genocide and slavery is a bad idea that can’t ever be fixed.
Agreed, but replacing the United States with a new state, one created with a Constitution 2.0 so to speak, would likely be sufficient if executed properly.
Fundamentally though, we need to remove the current ownership class from power and instead place power within the working class. Oligarchs cannot exist if a society is to be free from fascism
When the Romans and later Christians colonized Europe, they systematically exterminated almost all of the indigenous cultures there over the course of hundreds of years. During this process they brought the ideas of states, genocide, and colonization itself. When the Roman state collapsed, these colonized people rebuilt states that ultimately replicated the horrors they experienced across the globe.
Mabye the answer this time isn’t “let’s rebuild the same atrocity machine.” Land Back is an option, and there’s even a model we can look to in Norther Syria. I’m just skeptical of any attempt to replace an old state with a new one because it always seems to fail in exactly the same oligarchy/authoritarianism decline in to suffering…and the last few centuries have seen states start to speed run this. Like, AfD is on the rise in Germany and there are literally still WWII vets alive today. Perhaps you’re right, but I just don’t see how states could be the right option here.
Currently, I don’t think so. The problem is the WILDLY different views on what the actual problems even are, let alone what we should do to try to solve them.
If we can actually charge trump criminally, I think we’ll be okay. He is a self-serving squealer, on top of being and idiotic blabber that can’t keep a secret. He will bury every one of his sycophants to get a single day off his prison sentence.
Also, nothing is scarier than a peaceful man resorting to violence. The non-MAGA majority are slow to violence, but if it happens, it would be swift and unstoppable.
What do you think will measurably change in the average person’s day to day life if Trump gets charged or not? Are taxes going down? Wages going up? Will housing or healthcare become more affordable? The whole fucking thing just seems like a clown show designed to keep people distracted from actual problems to me.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s a traitor and should be treated as such along with all his cronies but I just don’t believe anything will get better for me afterwards.
Well, let’s look at it this way. Tax cuts for the benefit of corporations and billionaires puts extra burden on middle and low income brackets. Knew jerk reactions to common sense legislation to limit the availability of firearms in public puts extra stress on people who need to go to school, or shop, or drive on highways, or work public-facing jobs. Slashing public spending reduces the quality of our infrastructure. Limiting access to reproductive care harms our perception of bodily autonomy, and the ability to plan financial and socially for the long term future. All of those aspects, and more, are core to the Republican party right now, and each of them directly affect the quality of your day to day life. So yes, it will get better if trump goes to jail and takes the bottom 25% of that social scum with him.
More will just move in to fill the gaps. The voter base they are trying to appeal to and the corporate interests they are bribed by will still be there.
Sure, but they’ll get snatched up too, once we realize it’s okay to arrest “white collar” criminals and put them in jail.
But there will always be more. The justice system moves too slowly to actually deal with the problem. By the time they’re punished the damage is done and they’ve set it up to be even worse with the next guy.
The fact that a perfect world is out of reach doesn’t mean we should give up and not try little incremental improvements to the world we actually have.
I’d say most of us benefit from the existence of a functional and fair justice system. I’m not saying we have that now, but moving in that direction is good for society.
The other issues you pointed out, those need to be improved as well.
But incremental change will not ever fix our problems, not even if Biden-style dems are elected consecutively for the next 100 years.
Our very system is a threat to the living standards of normal Americans because our system has been taken over by billionaires/oligarchs. Therefore, the only way to fix it is structural change. Incrementalism is inherently insufficient. And a belief in incrementalism is a refusal to fully acknowledge the scale and scope of the problem.
Trump is popular because our system is rotten and is designed to empower the ownership class at the expense of the working class. Until that precise issue is resolved, we will never be nationally secure from domestic fascism
I think there’s a good chance things are going to be ok
I see you have 0 up votes (and 0 down votes).
I like your style. Don’t give up. You will be disappointed, but don’t give up.
That’s good. But like… How?
I didn’t think we would survive 2020 and yet here we are
I hear that ominous music, too
How long of a timeline? 100 years from now? W/ global warming, no. 400 years from now? Yeah, they’ll be fine. Maybe only 200.
I mean, this is kind of like the meditation on death from the book of the five rings. Like, once you accept death as inevitable you can see that on a long enough time scale things will be fine.
Well said
We’ve beaten Trump before we can do it again. He’s a fucking 3x loser and his supporters are still full of hope.
Meanwhile Democrats after winning the presidency and the midterms are shitting themselves instead of standing up to the fuckery and organizing to vote.
Honestly things are going pretty well compared to most of history and we got through all that.
I do! Humanity is in the ‘serious growing pains’ portion of our species life cycle. we still have a lot of hardships and global catastrophes to endure but the divine love in us and our limitless potential will win out over our animalistic tendencies for dominance, control, and self destruction.
Its easy to focus on the world news’ never ending head turning tragedies. It sells headlines and gives angsty people something to feed their need for negativity. Whats not as easy to focus on is all the countless little kindnesses, acts of selfless mercy, and genuine efforts of self improvement that also happen every day. and dare I say much more frequently.
I think that people are a little bit too self pitying and doomerist especially on the internet. Quick to bitch and whine about everything wrong with society and their personal lives, slow to mention all the little blessings and convinences they take for granted in daily life. I consider just being alive and getting to experience stuff a big blessing even if a portion of it is unpleasantly traumatic.
Y’all Americans on this post need to cheer up. You don’t know what ‘the end’, the apocalypse, doom, or whatever sinister synonym for ‘conclusion’ even is, what a curropt government really is, and less still know what misery feels like (I don’t either). Acting like it’s the end of the fucking world and getting all nihilistic is the most shitty-American thought there is. Stop crying and help? Or just keep watching. It’s not the end of things and nothing that can’t be fixed.
The meme made laugh my ass off though
Edit: I’m American :P
History can tell us where things will go. But from here it looks like we’re dealing with an attack on our democratic features by the transnational white power movement (or the Christian nationalist movement. There’s lots of intersection.) in order to rework the US into a one-party autocracy, as per the Heritage Society’s Project 2025.
And in the meantime, the climate crisis looms in the background like an army of frost zombies, one that won’t be put down by simply killing the zombie king.
You mean GoT’s fantastic metaphor that was ruined by killing the Big Bad was bullshit? Aw, man 😉
History can inform our choices and give us possible outcomes but it isn’t a crystal ball.
That was after they got non-GRRM writers to finish up Season 8. One of the running themes Martin peppered throughout the SOIAF was to set up and then crush classic fantasy themes that didn’t play out in history. Load-bearing Bosses and magic with no ontological inertia were right up there.
So I suspect there might actually be a zombie king, and he may even be hard to kill. And killing him will be about as effective in stopping the zombie army as killing an officer in a human army.
Some people still hope that Martin will finish Winds of Winter and Dreams of Spring and he won’t feel obligated to mirror the TV series. It’s a far reach, but a hope.
Just because our corrupt government does it better than yours doesnt mean we dont know what it is. Btfo european
I’m an American but I understand your anger at Europeans talking shit.
Corporate ownership of the government, the slide to fascism, the divide between the common people due to the worsening cycle of right wing extremism, the accelerating climate change, the ever increasing cost of housing, the ever increasing cost of everything–things are going downhill fast and it’s wild to be at a point in my life where I’m finally losing my depression while everything in the world is decaying lol
the only colin farrell movie that was good was phone booth i said what i said
Wild take. But it’s your right.
I don’t agree with what you say but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it
You can say what you say, but congrats on being wrong?
Depending on your definition of good, I submit Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Lobster.
The Recruit was also good
He was great in Minority Report. I’ll concede that that isn’t a Colin Farrell movie, and that objectively it’s not a great movie. But HE was good, in it.
Not only America
“So Mr President what has your government done for young families and in particular childcare and parental leave on your 4 years that will rally up the democratic base come 2024?”
“Taxes? Isn’t this the line for Metallica?”
I mean, there’s this.
He’s also the president: he can make proposals, he can sign executive orders, but he can’t force funding for those things. He can’t wave his hands and pass laws – those are things congress does, and shockingly every single progressive or pro working class idea he or his party backs gets immediately shut down in congress by the GOP.
Oh boy I hope they make some sane and sensible rational decisions that we can all agree with on the whole help
Bro that’s not where your brain is
laughing in european
I’m sure everything will be fine for you, don’t worry.
“End Times” YouTube is amazing right now, just saying…
End Times Productions seems like some stupid conspiracy channel
I just mean the whole end times culture over there, but yeah…basically. That and religious grifters, with a sprinkling of true believers.
I find it all fascinating.
There has always been a decent sized portion of the population that thinks the end is nigh, society is collapsing, etc
It’s because imagining a future is scary, people don’t like thinking about things that are as hard to predict and uncomfortable as a good future where things are easier and society smarter because it carries with it the certainly that current beliefs will be over turned and current struggles forgotten - its very unsettling.
People love to think they’re at the high point of civilization and things will collapse because otherwise things feel kinda pointless and scary - especially the thought of everything we know and care about becoming irrelevant and opinions we carry getting over turned
You can replace the “America” being shot with any other country
