I’m just an old man with a skooma problem.

  • 13 Posts
  • 27 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 1st, 2023

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  • You run the risk of being ostracized by a conservative social group if you share any opinion that contradicts the teachings of the church school. I’m straight, but the hicks I went to high school with shouted every homophobic slur they knew at me anyway, because my opinions sounded “gay” to them.

    That being said, you could tell her that the church has held opinions in the past, which they decided to change when we learned more about the world. The church persecuted Galileo for suggesting that the Earth revolves around the Sun. They called Leonardo da Vinci a necromancer for studying human anatomy. And 98 years ago, Christians wanted to hang John Scopes for teaching evolution in Tennessee.

    Basically, if you can’t tell her directly, you can at least suggest that the church is not infallible when it comes to certain topics. Again though, people will consider you subversive even if all you’re doing is relaying pure, historical facts. There’s no safe way to contradict a zealot.



  • The United States has very similar problems. The oppressed are encouraged to work within the system if they want things to change. They go to the system, and find it broken. So they protest, and the moment the protests turn violent-- or appear to turn violent-- the oppressed are labeled as being impatient or perhaps even deserving of being marginalized. Cries for freedom are willfully misinterpreted as the howling of barbarians, and used as populist propaganda.

    Like you, I don’t know what it’s like to be treated like a second-class citizen in my own country, but I do know that racism doesn’t go away simply because the government declares that it won’t be tolerated. It’s hard to come up with any specific solution to this particular problem though, when it’s a conflict that humans have struggled with for their entire existence. Back in 2020, people were just trying to get the message out that black lives matter. Even when taken as a plea for solidarity with no specific policy demands, somehow that statement proved controversial.










  • I think it’s interesting how Trump cultists have been screaming for months that the DoJ should leave their guy alone, and look into Hunter Biden instead.

    Turns out, they have been looking into him, and Hunter’s going to enter a guilty plea. Because the DoJ can conduct multiple investigations simultaneously.

    Sooo… Trump supporters should be happy now, right? Everyone can shut up about the Trump investigations being witch hunts?





  • I’ve been seeing a lot of low-effort content lately, and I suspect it’s coming from users who want their Reddit alternative, and they want it now. So, they see that Beehaw has a large community, and decide it’s a perfect place to start content-barfing.

    I think the admins have been clear that they’re not trying to create a replacement for Reddit here, though. Everything under the sun does not have to be re-posted, just content that you actually want to discuss with this community specifically. When I see five posts created by one user in under a minute, I can’t help but think that the intent there is not to spark discussion. And, of course, the volume is problematic for the mods when they don’t have the tools they need to manage it.



  • Scenario #1: GOP contenders believe that Trump’s legal troubles will be his undoing before the 2024 Republican convention. DeSantis will be sunk by similar legal troubles, or lack of electability outside of Florida. Despite current polling, the field will look very different by early 2024 and they want to position themselves now as the alternatives who aren’t going to prison.

    Scenario #2: Trump and/or DeSantis avoid their many scandals, somehow, and they’re going to be looking for a vice president. It’s unlikely that Trump will run with Pence again, so Nikki Haley, Francis Suarez, and the rest are looking to distinguish themselves as vote-getters so they will be seen as a good addition to a Trump or DeSantis ticket.

    Either way, I don’t know what the hell Pence thinks he’s doing in this field.