In places with high rates of intra-male violence---most of the world throughout most of history---your reputation for masculinity protects you from opportunistic attacks. Being perceived as gay can undermine that reputation.

I call it "American health extortion".

The gangster who will smash up your store if you don't pay for "insurance" is actually offering "extortion" , because he's creating the problem he's supposedly insuring against. In America, the insanely high cost of medical care, compared to any other developed country, is being created (by lobbying legislators, backroom price negotiations, etc) and maintained by the companies selling the "insurance" against it.

It's extortion, not insurance. At least call it what it is.

It's actually an acronym for the Democratic Republic of Pepper.

What dystopia is this, where I read these articles?

She said on the internet, asking others to normalize it rather than just doing it herself without seeking validation.

Please elaborate...

Thank you!!

What? Of course Catholics are Christians. It's literally a denomination of Christianity, a proper subset.

Damn. Thanks. Can I keep you on retainer to explain all the weird internet memes I don't get?

Of the views expressed here, yours is the one I believe is most accurate and insightful.

I disagree, however, that it's hopeless. I think the pivot is this claim:

"There is no way to organize enough people in real life to force any political change (especially not with an aging population)"

There is a way. We just need an honest signal that can coordinate the behavior of the genuinely good people, who currently are fighting each other in opposing political parties (etc), rather than uniting to fight their oppressors. Public key cryptography will let us trust that the signal hasn't been tampered with, despite the oligarchs owning the communication channels. We just need to find a way to make the signal loud enough, trustworthy enough and able to break through the current haze of disinformation that's making us fight eachother.

Though this sounds hard, but it will get easier with time. As the system collapses, dissatisfaction with current ideologies will increase and motivate the collective search for a new, honest signal to unite around.

Perhaps the most valuable thing we can do now is research alternative, less corruptible, more egalitarian, more sustainable systems. We need to have an ideal to replace the current mess with when it crumbles. Otherwise the current power holders will simply ride out the anarchy, put on a different hat and continue to exploit.

You mean doing the math on how a market with limited demand but where almost every man and his dog can start supplying with no overhead is likely to be rapidly saturated?

Thanks!

We all know that switching to Linux is just at important as the massive global arms race that's escalating, fast.

Umm... Do we?

I've been proselytizing Linux for almost 30 years and even I'm not sure it's remotely important right now.

Oh dude, have you heard of this guy, Donald Trump? He's a master of this move you've just pulled: literally doing the thing you're accusing others of. The irony is delicious.

I've read through a few of these now, and I still can't figure out what the source/evidence is that has convinced people that visa and MasterCard are responsible for this. That seems to me like a pretty critical detail, but noone has mentioned it.