Yeah I stopped doing it in High School after realizing that it’s some North Korea level bullshit. Got a few other kids in my homeroom to stop too, which really angered our teacher. She was a military spouse and would actually yell at us for refusing to participate. In the end, we compromised by standing but not reciting it. Was the begining of my political and social awakening.

I attended a top 100 public high school in America, where we were taught Greek and Roman mythology. The problem wasn’t that the subject wasn’t offered, it was that a sizable portion of students weren’t paying attention. Even among those who did, few retained the knowledge beyond the next exam. The real issue with American education isn’t just what’s being taught but how it’s being taught. Subjects aren’t presented in a way that truly engages students or encourages long-term retention.

I think the thing we’re getting hung up on here is the language. Are these teenage edgelords really rebellious? Regrettably, I was one of those kids in high school, and so were most of my friends. I guess you could argue that we rebelling against the school and societies authority, but the reality was we were the biggest bunch of loser bullies in the school.

Unfortunately, few of them grew out of this phase, and now they’re just the lamest group of adult men sharing edgy memes on discord.

Man, I would be such an easy mark for Tar-Mairon to corrupt.

Unrelated to the opsec, why is a SpongeBob Movie premiering on Netflix? Isn’t Nickelodeon Paramount?

That’s why I dislike these kinds of memes that say, “Oh, I shouldn’t be working all day; I should be living a life of leisure and free to create”.They feel like the conservative strawman of the “lazy leftist who just envies the rich”.

Living as the meme describes inherently requires the exploitation of labor. Unless a society becomes technologically advanced enough to achieve fully automated post-scarcity, meeting a person’s needs still requires a certain amount of human labor. The issue under capitalism is that some people do live as the meme describes, and they do so by exploiting the labor of others through capital. As a result, the rest of us struggle even more.

Found Red Skulls account

Oh I agree completely. There is a fascist aspect inherent to Superheroes. Cap is just one lf the less egregious ones.

Captain America is a weird one to include. Not denying it’s propaganda, everything is, but throwing Cap in with copaganda is such a surface level take. He’s propaganda for American exceptionalism sure, but also embodies it in an old school New Deal way. The character has been consistently anti-facist over the years.

Imo Iron Man is the much more harmful propaganda. You can pretty much draw a direct line between the characters rise in popularity thanks to the MCU and the rise of Elon Musk.

That would seem to be the message we are intended to take away from the film, however this is contradicted by the fact that our protagonist uses this power and it works. Alternatively, the films message could be interpreted as: Nobody should weild this power, but sometimes it’s necessary to stop someone who “wants to watch the world burn”.

But… I’m not seeing the cryoto-fascist part. You’re going to have to explain that one.

Comes from the Dark Knight trilogy. The Patriot Act is used to catch the Joker, and Bane is a vilified Occupy Wall Street.

Pretty much every Nolan film, with the disclosure that I stopped watching his movies after Inception. His films are always well-acted and well-produced, but the scripts are just… dumb? They take themselves way too seriously and carry this air of highbrow intellectualism while being riddled with plot holes and contrivances. Not to mention the crypto-fascist messaging.

He’s like Zack Snyder, but he pulls it off well enough that critics buy into it. It drives me crazy when I see his name mentioned alongside great auteur filmmakers like Kubrick and Scorsese.

Your lizard brain is wired to avoid death, but non-existence shouldn’t be scary. You’ve already done it for possibly an infinite amount of time.

I don’t want to overstate this, but some liberation can come from within.

Yeah, we all have to play their game, but internalizing the values our sick society places on us is optional. Make peace with the things you alone cannot immediately change. Resist in the small ways you are able, find joy where you can, and do what you can for the people you care about. Free your mind and your ass will follow.

Star Trek is popular among left-wing turbonerds, aka Lemmys primary demographic. There was also a big push to join Lemmy on r/StarTrek after Reddits API controversy.

I’m going to be the nerd who talks about how difficult it is for modern, post-Industrial Revolution humans to truly understand how medieval peasants lived. Really, this applies to how ancient and medieval people of all walks of life lived, but for now, let’s stick to the topic of this meme. Is it entirely relevant to this post? Eh, probably not, but I’m bored at work and in the mood to ramble.

That meme about how peasants had so many more days off than modern workers? Those “days off” were simply the days when their labor wasn’t solely for the benefit of their lord. The days they “worked” were the ones spent fulfilling their feudal obligations—working their lord’s fields to stock the larders and granaries of the nobility and clergy. The rest of the year was when peasants worked to sustain their own communities.

Make no mistake: a peasant’s life was one of constant toil. For a medieval peasant, there was no sharp distinction between work and home life like we have today. There were no modern conveniences either—everything required labor. When fields didn’t need to be tended, and livestock didn’t require care, that was the time for milling grain, baking bread, brewing ale, weaving cloth, etc. God, crafting and maintaining your clothes took so much work, not to mention repairing and upkeeping your cottage.

Granted, these duties were often divided among family and community members. Unless you were a hermit living alone in the woods, no one was expected to do it all themselves. One of the “nicer” aspects of medieval peasant life was the close bonds within families and communities. People provided for one another. Children and the elderly, while still expected to work, had lighter duties. Bartering and trading goods or services with neighbors was also common.

That said, I don’t want to romanticize their lives too much. Here are some of the harsher realities:

1. If you were a man, you could be levied into your lord’s army at any time. This meant marching far from home, and risking death in battle. You really, really do not want to find yourself on the losing side of a medieval battle, something completely out of your control as a levied peasant. You also had to provide your own equipment. If you were relatively well-off, this might mean a spear, a shield, and padded armor. If not, you’d bring whatever you had—likely a farm tool. Refusing or deserting would leave you an outlaw, and if you were caught you would be flogged and possibly hanged.

2. If you weren’t called to war (because you were a woman, a child too young to fight, or too old or infirm), you lived in constant fear of armies rampaging through your village. They could destroy your home, steal your valuables, and rape and murder you, regardless of age or gender. With your lord’s army far away (or defeated), you’d be left to defend yourself, and running was your best option.

3. Medical care was rudimentary. Alcohol was the primary painkiller, and while there were herbal remedies, their effectiveness was often questionable. Nearly every illness or injury carried the risk of an agonizing death. Infections were almost always fatal. Childbirth was a leading cause of death for women, and as people aged, they faced constant pain with little relief.

Medieval peasants lived lives that, by our standards, were horrific: often short, brutal, and full of hardship. They were at the mercy of powers far beyond their control—victims of the whims of history. Yet ignorance truly was bliss. They knew no other way of life. If they were blessed with good times, free of war, famine, or plague, many peasants could lead fulfilling lives, and some, may have even considered themselves happy.