Next up: the Walmart drones that fly around the inside of the store to catch and dispose of shoplifters.

At this point why even have school? Just reinstate child labor and quit pretending that you actually give a shit about kids.

Yes and no. We used to actively court immigrant intellectuals, now we're accusing every Chinese intellectual of espionage and frothing at the mouth to deport anyone darker than freshly fallen snow. People with advanced degrees see what's happening in the US and are choosing to go elsewhere.

At least he loves himself

I legit think the only way to save these people is to very carefully word socialist theory in a way that they can understand through facebook level memes. But then you have to worry about the authority figures that actually can read seeing through it. I don't know that re-education is actually possible in this case, tbh.

I always begged my mom to get me Calvin & Hobbes books and I read and reread the fuck out of them. Those and Goosebumps and eventually The Hobbit were the start of me being a voracious reader.

Yeah, even if a person gets an undergrad degree they still have the capitalist brainworms unless they poison them with theory. Reading and writing education in the US is so formulaic as to be worthless. People are taught to follow a small set of rules and if they don't follow the rules, they fail. They are not expected to think. Even so, many people refuse to read or write anything, either paying others to do it for them or just turning in some AI slop without taking a single look at it.

When I first saw this, I laughed my ass off and then cried because this motherfucker is an idol to so many people.

They can sound out words and know what most common words mean in isolation but their ability comprehend the meaning of a text is very basic, if present at all. Reading a short story, being able to summarize it and comment on themes, conflicts, character motivations, metaphors, allegory, how they relate to the story or certain characters are generally beyond them. Reading a political article and reading between the lines to get past the writer's bias is completely beyond them (tbf they would never read an article, they would watch a video or look at memes on facebook). That said, they have little to no ability to think critically so whatever authority figures beat into them when they were young becomes their worldview and everything that contradicts it is seen as an attack on them and society.

It's one of the sacred norms

It's only fictitious if the masses break the spell we put them under!

I think it's very important to know your enemies

Someone got bored and wanted to have a laugh, someone probably lost an office bet.

Literally had a back and forth with some shitbag today that went like:

Them: I like living in a small, less dense city and driving a car everywhere

Me: Why, can you give me a reason? Have you ever been in a denser city with good transit?

Them: Density will not improve my quality of life, I will sell my house and leave once the city starts getting dense.

Me: Dude, wtf is wrong with you? Why are you such a misanthrope?

Them: First, I love people. Second, adding a bunch of apartments will make it like [largest city in the state and its exurbs (basically a racist dogwhistle)] and won't do anything to housing costs because reasons. Why don't YOU move if you like density so much?

Me: links study on vacancy vs. rent growth that is irrefutable evidence he's wrong Hey, this says you're wrong. Also, sprawl is destroying the environment and hastening climate change so I'm trying to change things in the place I'm currently living because I actually care about shit.

Them: WHAT ABOUT CITIES WHERE POPULATIONS ARE DECLINING? WHY DON'T YOU MOVE TO ONE OF THEM? THEY'RE GREAT, HOUSES ARE CHEAP. YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM— (The cities given as examples are hollowed out ghost towns after the one industry that kept the town going died out.)

Me: I don't give a fuck if seeing apartments gives you a big sad. We're taking the power back. Eat shit, old man.

Radio silence since then. From one moment saying I should move to a big city if I like density so much to the next "WHY DON'T YOU MOVE TO THIS MIDDLE OF NOWHERE SHITHOLE AND TRY TO BUILD YOUR DREAM TOWN FROM THE GROUND UP????" Just so deeply unserious, these people need to be thrown in a woodchipper.

They should all be broken

I'm burnt out from neolib NIMBY concern trolls, too. Would love a good copy-paste list of links to shut them the fuck up. Would love moreso to do the purge but it's everyone against landlords.

Look, all I'm saying is that I might do a propaganda of the deed to all the NIMBYs that show up to a city council meeting...in minecraft.

It's just really boring. They are incapable of learning so it's like talking to AI. They make wildly stupid claims and refuse to read anything that you give them. I'm just left even more doomer about the future because there's so many of these chuds and there's no way anything good is ever happening in the US.

I found myself arguing with debate bros about housing policy again. I wish all internet reactionaries a very painful death.