Just to piggyback off this comment a bit (since I’m not sure I’ve ever rented anywhere with MERV 13+ filters). Try making a Corsi–Rosenthal Box with a box fan and 4 air filters. This might be beyond your price range since MERV13 filters aren’t the cheapest in the world when you have to buy 4 of them, but I’ve been using mine for years and they work REALLY well. My PM2.5 sensor is consistently on “0” unless I’m cooking.

Why would people who want socialism vote for people maintaining capitalism? Why would you equate participating in bourgeois elections as an indicator of motivation of all political action?

There’s ~40-50% of US potential voters who don’t vote for various reasons- Living in a state where the results are almost guaranteed, being alienated from politics in general because of the distrust in our government as a whole, leftists who don’t vote but are politically active in other ways, etc. There’s also people who do vote because they feel like they have to vote against the worse choice. If only all this alienation and lesser-evilism and feeling ineffective politically could be siphoned into a mass movement that helps all of us. Capitalism cannot be “fixed” if a group of people who don’t vote suddenly start voting. That’s pure fantasy. But it seems people who believe this would rather hope for a fantasy situation than actually looking at reality and adjusting their strategy to make things better. Otherwise, you’ll just delay necessary change and feel resentment toward people who couldn’t convince you fast enough.

Or when “corporatism” doesn’t work, they’ll just make up words like “leveragism”

“I swear, we’re just really really really really obsessed with Roman aesthetics. Pay no attention to the fasces literally everywhere”

I’m just imagining the keylogs for meta video editors looking like pages upon pages of

Lklk⇧cllllkjk⇧cvalk⇧clllllllkjjk⇧cv…

(iPhone) Depending on the framing of dumbing down, an alternative camera app could be suggested. I use Halide to get rid of all the photo processing Apple does by default (which ruins night photos imo).

Yeah sorry, I wasn’t trying to equate the two words, just the arguments to defend using them. I can agree that the words hold very different weights.

There’s an argument to be made, even though “fellate” might be something that is done by a wide variety of sexualities, it has history and that history is as a homophobic insult. Sure, words can be reclaimed by the gay community, but the metaphor of sucking dick as a subservient action is so fucking pervasive (especially in discussions about politics for some reason) and it points towards unexamined patterns of language that are very harmful. Add on the borderline ableism at the end and it comes across as bad faith at the start, so it’s no wonder a mod responds like this.

This sounds like the exact same argument my ex high school friends used to use when overusing the word “r*ped” when playing video games because it’s apparently “just a metaphor for a power dynamic”.

Your life is nice because of the death and destruction of those who your system deems to be lesser. If you can’t be motivated to change things because you can’t see the issue with the cost of your comfort, you’re going to learn some very hard lessons once people you thought were on your side start fighting you.

Are you the caricature of someone who was given an extra money in a game of monopoly but believe to have earned your winning position through sheer strategy and “working harder”?

The unit of “drink” is not very specific. That martini or Rusty Nail is just as harmful as a 2% cider I guess. How about those 5 liter beer boots?

I got shadow banned (seemingly site-wide) after pointing out that the Biden and the Democrats’ messaging shifted from “Trump is a fascist” to “we have to think about unity!” after Trump got shot in the ear, which proved to me Biden et al. were either allied with fascists by protecting them from harm or never believed Trump was a fascist to begin with, which pointed to Biden (and his team and the whole democratic news media) being more closely aligned with Trump than they wanted people to know.

The tipping point for me was probably the line “if Biden actually thought Trump was a fascist and had an actual problem with that, he would’ve shot him on stage”

You’ve already hinted that you desire to or plan on leaving, so why do you care if someone carrying out white supremacy through military action beats out someone carrying out white supremacy through legislative action by voting to ensure the person who carried out white supremacy through military action newfound access to legislative power? Both deserve [redacted], not a vote.

Liberals when they shield their delicate eyes from clear and actionable items to make the world a better place and resort to vaguely rephrasing and omitting things until it is meaningless to them.

• Join a group like PSL
• Read theory. If you don’t know where to get started, u/Cowbee has a great beginner’s course you can follow
• Meet people in real life and talk about changing this shit. You’re likely alienated by this system, so change that.

“I keep going to this same restaurant, so realistically all I’m ever going to eat is what they have on the menu”

Go organize. This isn’t the same as joining an angry parade. Talk to your local PSL. Standing outside the restaurant telling them to make better food won’t work since theirs is the only restaurant in town.

I’m not saying not to vote, but I’m also trying to get you to understand that getting stuck in the situation where you feel like voting is your only option doesn’t change the system at all- it changes yourself. Over time, it erodes your values until you are what you would’ve detested 20 years ago. One day, you’ll develop a liking for DDT pesticides because the alternative is nuclear waste.

You’re only forced to vote for the nazi because you would rather do that than organize for an alternative system. Voting for a Nazi is easy. Organizing and changing this system entirely isn’t.

I’m trying to change restaurants, but renouncing citizenship and leaving is easier said than done.

I’m not telling you to change restaurants. Other restaurants likely have the same issues you want to leave this one for. I’m telling you to be the restaurant. And just to be doubly clear, I’m not telling you to run for office. I don’t want you to be an option for other people to pick from. I want you to work with an international community of chefs to build the best fuckin sandwich we’ve ever had.

So long as you’re depending on other people preparing food for you, you’re going to eat the most palatable thing available even if it’s bad. Even if it’s labeled much more appetizing than it ends up tasting. This isn’t even mentioning the fact that, while annoying for you personally to have to pick something you don’t want, it is a decision that has terrible and near irrevocable harm to the global south.

Theres a whole group of people learning how to cook for themselves and teaching others to cook as well. If you don’t like what’s being served, don’t keep going to the restaurant serving DDT pesticides and McDonald’s burgers.

AI transcription might not be 100%, but it’s better than captioning long form shows myself or sending it to Rev.

I use a local instance of deepseek in the rare instance I need to have something written with a specific tone or style. I also tend to create a terrible work relationship for myself because I was a huge people pleaser and this has helped make my emails a bit more confident when necessary, especially when I have to advocate for myself. I am getting better at doing this on my own though.

I feel like we would know before any story broke.

Other causes of death would likely look less like spiderwebs since it’s just a population density map by counties, but this one is specifically along roadways. The interesting difference between a population density map and this map specifically is you can see the long stretches of roads in the middle of nowhere and how dangerous they can be.

I agree. The “bent left elbow upwards” move makes sense as an option if you are in a car and don’t have a 10’ right arm to reach out of the passenger window to point right, but that limitation isn’t the same on a bike. I’m never braking the same time I’m signaling on my bike anyway- I signal way before.

Though at least my state handbook’s section on cycling says that pointing right is also an option one could use (after explaining the bent left elbow signal).