Morning people are an oppressive class.

They felt like it? Their brain worded the thought using “his or her”?

On top of that, many people will see a Mennonite and think “Amish.”

DJ Husslin

Hank and John Green are pretty good role models, I’d say.

I think it could serve that purpose (and honestly has to some degree), but the big thing that I didn’t consider when I was young was that a lot of people just want to hate (or to convince others to be focused on hate), and will find spaces to spread and amplify that hate. I underestimated the capacity and drive of those that would spread fear and anger.

If it makes you feel any better, when I was young, I thought the Internet would bring the world together since you could sit and have a conversation with people all over the world with different perspectives, and befriending those from different walks of life would help break us out of small-town small-mindedness where everyone “not like us” is scary…

Yeah, I might have been a bit too optimistic with that one.

I’m kinda torn because of this. I like for good games to get recognition and be successful. Part of me wants to buy the game and give it a shot because it’s been well received and I’m happy to support an indie dev… But I really do not want to help establish a trend of indies sleeping on advertising/spreading word, then crying “woe is me” after a single week when barely anybody was aware of it, as a way of guerilla marketing their game. I also need to watch a bit more gameplay to see if it’s even in my wheelhouse before I decide to spend $20 on it.

And C) continue in the pursuit of wealth rather than fucking off and just enjoying life with your fortune.

If you like nice shirts with no design or logo, Kohl’s has some really comfortable shirts in several colors and no logo at all. They’re some of my favorite shirts right now.

Pretty sure people have been shitting on AI pretty heavily as well, partly for those reasons (but also for several others).

Can’t go wrong with a slice of pepper jack either. Then again, I’ll eat pepper jack cheese on just about anything.

Yup, I expect they’ll lay low for a while (Jack’s got plenty of other stuff to focus on, and I’m sure he doesn’t want any of his other work impacted by blowback).

That definitely feels like Jables had a “come on man, you can’t say that shit in public” moment with KG. I wouldn’t be surprised if they lay low for a while on the band and focus on other stuff until this blows over.

How do you feel about square drive? I’m no carpenter, just someone that’s done enough work around the house, but I’ve found that Torx are the best option but square is a close second (but I don’t think I’ve used them in any especially high torque situations, and they may fall short there).

Not only that, she expressed that she was not certain if she was allowed, asked for guidance, and submitted a provisional vote, which I think was exactly what she was supposed to do. And then she got punished for it anyway.

Lol, my weekend is fine, though my shoulder muscles were acting up and giving me a headache which may have made me slightly grumpy. I did not mean to come across as though I’m in a bad mood. I do hope you have/had a good weekend, and I think we likely agree on much more than we disagree. Have a good evening!

You’re now being hostile which is quickly souring any chance of productive conversation. You’re accusing me of saying things I’ve not said, you’re blatantly ignoring anything that’s inconvenient to your point of view, and You’re making attacks/accusing me of “helping the enemy” because I disagree on how to deal with them. Not only are you not making any manner of argument on how you’re NOT engaging in “No True Scotsman”, you’re becoming actively hostile at an ally because I only agree on 99% of the topic.
I’ve not once called them “far left” - I’ve called them the “farthest left (at least at a surface level) party with national exposure.” That’s not exactly a high bar. It also ignores the fact that there are genuine leftists that identify with the party. They operate WITHIN the leftist sphere, and they are grifters. You can’t dismiss it out of hand and say that “well they are really leftists” - yeah, no shit, that’s what grifters fucking do. Fucker Carlson doesn’t believe in 1/10th of the shit he spouts off, but it doesn’t make home not a far right grifter.
I’m not helping them, I’m trying to make sure that allies, both to my left and to my right (I wouldn’t call myself “far left” but would call myself “leftist”) keep some level of guard up against grifters that operate within our spaces.
My POV is: we are not immune to grifters in our spaces, you should maintain guard. Here’s one example of a grifter within our space. (FTR, I could have also pointed to ML tankies that defend the actions of Russia and China in spite of the fact that neither are remotely Communist, socialist or leftist of any form). Your POV as it comes across SEEMS TO BE: Well, they’re not REALLY far left (unclear if you only mean to exclude from “far” left or leftist in total), so no we don’t have grifters on the left. If this is not your point of view, then far more time has been spent arguing about minutiae and leftist in-Fighting than explaining why you don’t believe that grift is not a problem within this space.

And look, I really do not want to be hostile here, because I do Believe that we are largely allies (I don’t know that we would agree on policies exactly as this is a narrow discussion, but we’re so far from what either of us would likely want that it should prevent us from wanting to work together). I am however, not interested in engaging further if the discussion is just going to be hostile. I ain’t got time for that shit.

Edit: Sorry, there is a point that you mentioned that I want to touch on: you mentioned that I am “just calling people what they want to be called” while you Believe in looking at their actions over their words… The thing is, we can only see that their actions are inconsistent with a leftist ideology because they have visibility and have been around long enough that we can now know that they are grifters. A decade+ ago, we did not have that information, so as far as most people could know, they were “leftist”. I’m not including them to exist their actions, I’m using them as an example of our space but being immune to the grift. They may not be “true leftists”, but they ARE “left-wing grifters.” Because it’s not about who they are, it’s about who they target. There are farther-left grifters (likely including some who are state actors of foreign governments), but it’s not as easy to identify who is and is not a grifter because we don’t have as much info on them.

So I think we largely agree on the situation, but the contention here is that we seem to disagree on branding and terminology. I am referring to them as “leftist” (though I don’t mean to say that they’re actually “far” left) because they present themselves as such. Their grift is centered on being the group for people that care about climate change, universal healthcare, UBI (IIRC, they may not advocate for that…), Unions/labor and other policies that are broadly considered “leftist” (even if the views are largely mainstream at this point.
I could see not calling them “far” left, at least in the international sphere, but they at least present as leftist, and have many people convinced that they are as such.
I’m the same way, Joel Osteen and the other “prosperity gospel” are grifters and charlatans PRESENTING as Christians. But when enough “Christians” believe them and support their policies, a simple dismissal of them as “not Christian” falls into the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. Doing so allows you to hand wave away more and more things that others within (your group) that you disagree with. Westboro Baptist Church? No True Christian. Church has an opposite opinion as you on LGBT rights? No True Christian. (And the Christian you’re talking to will have arguments on WHY they’re not really a Christian).
That issue is not unique to Christians, or to right-wingers, or to other groups that you and I are likely not a part of. But we must acknowledge that OUTSIDERS will regard them as leftist whether or not you or I do. And dismissing them out of hand tends to shut down dialogue and ostracize those who may be caught up in said grift. I myself used to be interested in the Green Party until I saw enough of their bullshit to realize that they were not a group I would want to represent me (probably around 2015-ish). But there are good people with good ideals that do identify with the Green Party either because they haven’t looked into enough of the problems surrounding the party or because they’ve been convinced of the bullshit after agreeing with good points the party has made.
They may be wolves in sheep’s clothing, but they certainly TARGET leftists, which is the point. That’s what grifters do.

I agree that the Green Party is a grifting party, but they are the farthest left that has a national stage / ballot access. There are also decent leftists within the Green Party, because they want to affect change at a local level and that’s the closest thing to a party that would represent their views if the DSA doesn’t have a presence.
But I think it’s too dismissive to simply write them off as “not left” because at a surface level, they represent several leftist viewpoints, and they’re, unfortunately, a lot of people’s first exposure to leftist politics (especially back in the 2000’s and 2010’s before the DSA started growing). Like yes, they are at this point a grift, but they weren’t always that way and a lot of people aren’t aware that that is the case. They’re “not left” in the same Sense that the Tea Party was “not libertarian” - which is to say that they’re not good-faith proponents of the ideology, but are good at attracting people who don’t know better and have a corrupting effect on the movement.