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By salad in "Fellow night owls, where are thou?" on Ask MeFi

salad — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 05:11:56 GMT

Tell me that you present as male without telling me that you present as male.

By Method Man in "Why stone-faced fascists keep getting antiquity wrong" on MeFi

Method Man — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:05:40 GMT

This reminds me of something a Catholic friend of mine told me a couple of years ago. They said they'd run into a young white guy who, upon finding out that they were Catholic, started asking very broad questions about "how to be" Catholic-- not necessarily about the theological components of Catholicism, like say the trinity or the sacraments, or about what Catholics believe, but "how to be" one. The friend answered their questions and after a while asked where their curiosity stemmed from. The young white guy replied that he wasn't really religious, didn't believe in a god, didn't really "get" the theological dimension of Christianity, but was interested in Catholicism because it was, and my friend very specifically quoted, "based and traditional."

My friend suspected (and I have no trouble believing) that the guy was probably part of the concerningly large coterie of young white men who have been drawn over the past few years to extreme forms of conservatism and traditionalism (and outright fascism). They've also been increasingly drawn to Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity for reasons that have nothing to do with belief and everything to do with, well, pretty much just "the vibe" of those religious traditions. This guy wasn't, like, trying to understand whether the Catholic understanding of God aligned with his own, or learn about how Catholics believe in the resurrection of Jesus. To him, Catholicism meant conservatism, traditionalism, masculinity, so he wanted to "be" Catholic without actually believing the things that I suppose (as a non-Christian) the vast majority of people would say is fundamental to being Catholic... like believing that a god exists.

I think seeing this reminded me of that because it was a prime example of how people on the far right-- fascists, white supremacists, etc-- don't actually really care about the truth, historical or otherwise, of the things they claim to care about. What they care about is how they feel about those things. It doesn't matter if you have faith or if your theological understanding of the world aligns with Catholicism; what matters is that Catholicism makes you feel "based and traditional." It doesn't matter if you've never read any of the ancient Greek or Roman thinkers you're talking about; what matters is that they're the classics, they're old, they're white men (from a time when the concept of being "white" literally did not exist) so you get to feel traditional when you cite them. The actual reality or truth of things doesn't matter, what matters is the vibe. So of course Elon Musk et al are going to get it wrong. Getting it right doesn't matter. Like someone said above, if they cared about truth they wouldn't be fascists, because a fundamental part of fascism is that truth exists only in service to the needs of the moment.

(I'm also reminded, now that I think of it, of that Jubilee episode (I've basically stopped watching them because they platform the worst elements of society for clickbait) that was supposedly 'One Christian vs 20 Atheists' and the Christian in question was... Jordan Peterson, who refused to actually identify himself as a Christian because he simply isn't. Again, not for me to gatekeep the definition of a Christian, but this is a case where the guy transparently doesn't believe in God, or the trinity, or the resurrected Christ, he just likes to talk about the "Judeo-Christian" values that supposedly undergird "the west.")

By fortitude25 in "Why stone-faced fascists keep getting antiquity wrong" on MeFi

fortitude25 — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:38:04 GMT

Re: converting to a "based and traditional" religion, I saw a tweet years ago that went something like:

Cradle Catholic: we should probably volunteer at the food bank because Christ commands us to feed the hungry

Adult Convert: here's why the Patriarchal Council of Antioch in 364 AD proves women are forbidden to drive cars

So there is definitely a type.

By Blue Jello Elf in "Why stone-faced fascists keep getting antiquity wrong" on MeFi

Blue Jello Elf — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:25:06 GMT

the supposed inaccuracy of casting Lupita Nyong'o as Helen

As someone pointed out, the ancient Greeks would probably have found "person from Africa, the home of great kingdoms such as Egypt and Kush" a vastly more plausible choice than "barbarian from the frigid northern hellscapes, whose people have barely graduated from huddling miserably in rock shelters". All those civilizations circling the Mediterranean had significant trade and cultural relationships with each other!

By The corpse in the library in "Profiling Tilly Norwood / Eline van der Velden" on MeFi

The corpse in the library — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 21:01:20 GMT

As people have pointed out elsewhere (and apologies but I can't find the original person who said it): the NY Times publishes "just asking questions" pieces about trans people all the freaking time, but the pretty computer program? That's a lady.

By Kitteh in "Why stone-faced fascists keep getting antiquity wrong" on MeFi

Kitteh — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 18:55:57 GMT

Frankly I refuse to believe any of these absolute fucksticks have ever read the Odysssey because they already think reading makes you gay or some such nonsense

By pyramid termite in "Shift attention to repairing the threads that weave a country together" on MeFi

pyramid termite — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 10:28:40 GMT

i found the full article on yahoo - the time of the great disillusionment was in the early 70s and things have continued to decline since - the historical polls show that trust in our institutions have steadily gone down

i don't see how anyone could read today's headlines - and they do describe an objective reality that even the thickest bubble can't avoid - and believe that things are good and getting better

"the car is going off the cliff"

"this car is cleaner and gets better mileage than it ever did"

"but the car is going off the cliff"

"not only that but the seats have gotten more comfortable and the view has become truly remarkable"

"BUT THE CAR IS GOING OFF THE CLIFF"

"why can't you just shut up and enjoy the ride?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

By flabdablet in "Shift attention to repairing the threads that weave a country together" on MeFi

flabdablet — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 10:03:23 GMT

berniesanders

Nicely buried lede!

Honestly, the cluelessness from the two executive types who wrote the lead article is something I should be inured to by now but still actually find a bit shocking:

Why it matters: By most objective measures, it's an extraordinary time to be alive. Americans are wealthier, safer and longer-lived than at any earlier point in history. U.S. total wealth has soared. Violent crime sank to a 20-year low and is still falling. Life expectancy just hit 79 years — the highest in American history. The country produces more energy than ever after four straight record years.

And yet: University of Michigan consumer sentiment just hit its lowest reading in a half-century. Gallup finds most people think things will only get worse. Trust in every major institution — government, media, organized religion, higher education, science — is at or near record lows, both Gallup and the Edelman Trust Barometer find.

The gap between reality and feeling is the story of our era. A three-part shock helps tell it:

Social media's rise.

The chaos of COVID.

The rise of AI, political extremism and information bubbles in the aftermath of both.

This produced a perpetually Rattled Generation, one too unsteady and uncertain to believe things are truly good or getting better. That's a new phenomenon for a typically optimistic, can-do society.

The consistent failure of the well-off to notice that the biggest gap between reality and feeling is the one between the majority's reality and their feelings says it all. It's all very well writing thinkpieces decrying the existence of information bubbles - how about escaping your own comfortable cocoon and actually listening to people outside your own privileged class instead of dismissing them as terminally algorithm-addled?

Yes the rise of social media has brought on a pandemic of stupidity. That said, the stupidest people of all are the ones who now own most of the world's assets. The forced wedging of their "AI" toys into every fucking thing is absolutely a symptom of their stupidity, and their generous funding for fascism amounts to nothing more than colossal stupidity defending itself.

By phunniemee in "How hard is it to join X (previously Twitter) safely? More inside." on Ask MeFi

phunniemee — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 17:43:19 GMT

Unfortunately I tend to be a "people pleaser" (I wish I weren't).

"I don't have a Twitter account, can we text instead?"

"I don't want to make a new account somewhere. I'm also on [alternate platform] if that works for you."

"I'm taking efforts in my life to reduce my ability to doom scroll, staying away from Twitter is a big part of that. How about email?"

"Okay bummer! It sounds like this isn't going to work out then, I'll see you next Sunday for service!"

This is a completely and totally okay thing to say no to. It's not like this is a professional relationship where you have meaningful work that must be completed on a designated application. It's a friend for social activities! It should be very easy for them to accommodate more than one platform in their life. You are not the weird one to saying no to this one thing.

By flabdablet in "So convenient that it's simply not plausible" on MeFi

flabdablet — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:45:39 GMT

It's worth noting that the people selling AI have no problem with the idea of a conscious, sentient entity that exists only to do uncompensated work for them

Chiang on that:

I believe creating software that is conscious and deserving of moral consideration will be so difficult that we're unlikely to do it accidentally, and I strongly feel we should not deliberately attempt it. But if you do believe that it could happen accidentally, if you think there is any chance that what you're building might become a moral patient, you should think about what protections it deserves before you deploy it as your company's economic engine, not after. Slave owners were not the ones to ask about the humanity of enslaved people, and factory-farm owners are not the ones to ask about the rights of animals. If we imagine Claude to be conscious, Anthropic could not possibly be entrusted with evaluating its moral status; the company has too much invested to be objective.

By autopilot in "Why stone-faced fascists keep getting antiquity wrong" on MeFi

autopilot — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 07:07:57 GMT

My complaint about Nolan's casting is that Zendaya is tiny and the only time she could be described as "towering Athena" is the scene where a grief stricken Odysseus is sitting slouched by the ship's prow and she's standing above him.

Also the fact that Matt Damon speaks with a Boston accent while Homer tells us that Odysseus is from Ithaca, which is upstate New York.

By AzraelBrown in "Profiling Tilly Norwood / Eline van der Velden" on MeFi

AzraelBrown — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 20:14:43 GMT

They could be drinking a margarita on the beach while deploying their digital twins to work for them

This is like the biggest problem with how tech people think about the arts: it's work! You don't want to work do you?!?? AI can work instead of you, why would you want to do the art yourself?

Teaching a computer to do the arts work so you don't have to experience arts work is, like, why people get angry at AI. Like that quote, repeating badly, that I want AI to do the laundry and wash the dishes so I can art more, not the other way around.

Every actor knows that the instant they don't like the job, they can, like, just stop and probably make more money doing almost anything else. That's not the point.

By an octopus IRL in "USA Today: 4-year slide in gay and trans equality" on MeFi

an octopus IRL — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 10:41:34 GMT

My reccomendation is just to move to Canada.

This is profoundly unhelpful. Will Canada have me? Will you pay for my immigration lawyer and for me to move? Do I have a job there? What about community and family? I absolutely support queer people moving if they choose to do so but blithely telling people to uproot their lives and go somewhere that may not even have them sucks, please don't do it.

(I am responding to this but I really really really hope this can be the end of this derail so we can actually talk about the post.)

By Smedly, Butlerian jihadi in "Shift attention to repairing the threads that weave a country together" on MeFi

Smedly, Butlerian jihadi — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 11:14:06 GMT

I am increasingly convinced that the signal event in our current timeline is the 2008 financial crash and the subsequent lack of any consequences for the very clear villains of that story.

There were a lot of people who voted for Obama assuming that he would quite simply put some of these fuckers in jail, and instead we got Geithner and Summers and TARP. It becomes bitterly clear at that point what the function of our institutions really is, which leads directly to the "burn it all down" nihilism that got people to vote for Trump.

And yes, social media certainly didn't help (and to mittens' point, the mainstream media obviously being propaganda only heightens the sense of unreality). The advanced case of brain rot that we are experiencing has quite a bit to do with corrosive algorithms and biased coverage intentionally boosting anger and bigotry. But the massive own goal of taking care of bankers while leaving average people to twist in the wind for a generation-defining recession simply cannot be overestimated.

By caution live frogs in ""El Cap is complicated ... A lot can happen up there."" on MeFi

caution live frogs — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:01:18 GMT

Yeah if he's trying to make half a million bucks selling his story of how Real Fathers raise Real Men, it's a self-serving grift where the kids are props.

I'm a real father. I am raising a son. My goal is that he not grow up to be an asshole. That's it. That's how you raise a kid. You try your damndest to ensure they end up being the kind of people that other humans want to be around. No insta moment or documentary film is required.

By Sing Or Swim in "So convenient that it's simply not plausible" on MeFi

Sing Or Swim — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:40:45 GMT

It's worth noting that the people selling AI have no problem with the idea of a conscious, sentient entity that exists only to do uncompensated work for them--an entity to which they have no ethical obligations, and one whose wishes or needs are of absolutely no interest; a consciousness which can be called into existence or snuffed out as thoughtlessly as you would turn a light switch on or off. That is exactly what they think of you too.

By grubi in "Why stone-faced fascists keep getting antiquity wrong" on MeFi

grubi — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:11:17 GMT

They don't just get antiquity wrong; they seem to have a tenuous grasp on the modern day as well.

By RonButNotStupid in "Shift attention to repairing the threads that weave a country together" on MeFi

RonButNotStupid — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:35:59 GMT

There were a lot of people who voted for Obama assuming that he would quite simply put some of these fuckers in jail, and instead we got Geithner and Summers and TARP. It becomes bitterly clear at that point what the function of our institutions really is, which leads directly to the "burn it all down" nihilism that got people to vote for Trump.

This.

And the post-Covid, post-Insurrection return to normalcy was yet another betrayal which cemented the apathy that lead to Trump's re-election. Lots of people voted for Biden believing that with the pandemic we had reached rock bottom and surely this armed insurrection at the Capitol would at least be reason enough to throw Trump in jail let alone close the door on forty years of Reaganomics. But no! Everyone was forced to return to the office, emergency pandemic expensions of the social safety net were clawed back, and Trump got to chill in Mar-a-lago for four years before returning to power with a vengeance.

By mittens in "Shift attention to repairing the threads that weave a country together" on MeFi

mittens — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 11:05:23 GMT

I find the idea of a Sovereign Bubble Fund kind of neat, in a klein-bottle sort of way.

What I thought about, reading the Axios piece, is how I felt like I was going crazy in the run-up to the Iraq war. Everywhere I went--restaurants, waiting rooms--there seemed to be a TV playing the news, cheering us on to go battle these people that had nothing to do with 9/11, and nobody was making a coherent case for why the war would do...well...anything...but if you wanted some kind of rationale, or some kind of pause for thought, you were treated like you were insane (not to mention unpatriotic).

And that was before Facebook and Twitter. Media--the non-social kind--was already constructing a kind of alternate reality that was clearly false, clearly motivated, but also clearly addictive to an angry, frightened populace.

We are experiencing a state of constant activation and threat-monitoring. It's not good for us, it's not healthy.

But kliuless is right to link to retirement, because there is also this huge number of Americans, more and more each year, embarking on an exciting journey to poverty, because we never bothered to strengthen the safety net. You can't have rent and you can't have medicine in your old age, but here's an increasingly bewildering firehose of politically-motivated slop pouring into your face all hours of the day. If you're young, you see no future; if you're old, you see no future.

And the stupid thing is, it's all so fixable. But nobody's fixing it. I think that makes you crazy, too. These aren't complicated problems. There are big dumb solutions--the dumber, really, the better. You think to yourself, well, I'm no economist, maybe I don't understand--no, of course you understand! Fixing things doesn't take delving into esoterica, it takes laws and taxes and jails, aimed at the rich rather than the poor.

By Sing Or Swim in "AI is the major driver of innovation in Canada and around the world." on MeFi

Sing Or Swim — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 02:08:07 GMT

>people who are dead set against AI are not acknowledging the fact that it's not going away

Why must people keep repeating this? If the idea of exchanging your labor for wages can go away, AI can most certainly go away. You're just parroting talking points for the trillionaires. Stop it.