I watched Nosferatu (2024) and I thought it was interesting enough to write about on my blog. tl;dr I thought it took the source material in an interesting new direction. Anyone have thoughts on the movie?

Pretty funny tbh. He wants to kill all drug dealers, unless they're white and worshipped, I guess

Should we ban links from X?

(Selecting the site from the poll means you do want to ban content from that site.)

this is here for anyone who is maybe interested in the motivation behind setting up a forum like this.

i think the consolidation of online activity into a handful of sites was a mistake. collapsing every small community onto the same gigasites has grown those communities but also made them more fractious and vulnerable to disruption.

and the big players have all made moves to take away any kind of autonomy:

• reddit has replaced moderators of subreddits for things like shutting down their subs in protest
  
• Facebook regulates the contents of groups even when those groups are moderated already (you can also take over Facebook groups if they've been "abandoned")
  
• twitter is heavily censored
  
• TikTok has apparently become even more heavily censored since Trump "saved" it
  

Football but in the future

I like to share things that inspire me to write something, so I figured I'd make a thread for that. Maybe you will be inspired too or something you post will inspire me. Mood boards are also welcome. 

Attached is Broadway Castle in Worcestershire, UK. 
   

i was thinking it might be nice to have some private forums not visible to guests, maybe not even visible to newbies. what do you think?

possible forums:
* just a "hangout" forum where people can be a little looser
* a NSFW forum for more adult topics

entertaining ideas here.

If you're already familiar with this idea, this won't be news to you.

It is often argued that the US doesn't have two parties, but one. Then, people criticize the notion by showing how Republicans and Democrats reverse each other's policies whenever the Presidency or Congress changes hands.

So, fine: it's not one party in that way. Rather, it is a one-party state in the way other one-party states with token opposition are. The thing about being controlled opposition is that you don't necessarily know you're controlled or even agree to be. Instead, norms and power structures are arranged such that, as the opposition, you are limited in how much you can disrupt the status quo. You can even get your turn at the wheel sometimes, but your ability to impact anything is relatively small--and changes you do make are likely to be rolled back.

It wasn't always like this. I'd say the trend began with Nixon, though it's fair to say that every President has built on the excesses of his predecessors. Nixon certainly had designs on being nearly dictatorial, and having to resign in disgrace is a wound the GOP never got over. You can see the escalating levels of power asserted by Republican Presidents with Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump.

Democrats did have choices. But because they require the power of capital to fund and operate their campaigns, allying with leftists or even progressives is usually untenable. So, they end up supporting Republican efforts to shore up the interests of capital. This makes them dependent on the whims of Republicans, and limits their options in terms of representing any real opposition. After all, they can't bite the hand that feeds them, and corporate America feeds both parties.

Dems' status as controlled opposition is probably clearest when they run and lose elections. They immediately blame leftists, which are too few in number to swing anything. They also take up all the space for any resistance to the Republican agenda, then they do little or nothing to actually obstruct it. When they have to choose between supporting their left flank and enabling fascists, they always choose the latter.

Pretty much the second Trump won last year, Dems ran straight to blaming leftists, and even gloated about the harm that would be done to marginalized people as a just punishment for not supporting Kamala Harris. Why don't they sound like they're on our side? Because they simply aren't, and haven't been for decades, if ever.

I'm not going to say you shouldn't vote, as even a small impact is better than none, but nobody should put their hopes on electoral solutions to any of the dire problems that plague this country. We're way, way past that point.

a meeting of beakers?

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
   

so i bit the bullet and am actually playing dwarf fortress without bouncing off of it in the first 5 minutes.

i had a little crew of old dwarves. i asked one of them to chop down some trees. the very first tree he chopped fell on him and killed him. his companions were all horrified and started drinking heavily to cope.

10/10