Oh, another one: anti-vaccination was pushed by health insurance companies to dampen public perception of government-run healthcare.

Vaccine development and implementation fucking worked. If people were happy with the results, they might end up swayed towards publicly-funded healthcare. So… put a lid on that by whipping up a bunch of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Some folks will no longer see the vaccination programs as successful efforts to protect public health, but as a conspiracy to… do something. And instead of pointing to it as an example of a public healthcare program, you’ve first got to spend time defending evidence-based medicine, which takes up so much fucking time and energy, and ultimately won’t convince people who bored too deeply into that alternate-reality tunnel.

It turned a public health initiative into a fucking tar pit, and now the once-free vaccinations cost over a hundred bucks if you don’t have insurance.

Paper straws were pushed by big corporate polluters to build a negative association with environmentalism.

Plastic straws are single-use plastics, but seem unexceptional by those standards. It’s almost a meme that they’re being singled out like they’re the single greatest source of plastic waste, or uniquely damaging to ocean life.

On top of that, there are way better ways of reducing straw usage. I’ve used bioplastics that seemed way better. You could redesign the lids. You can do the plastic bag thing and charge people a nickel for a straw or whatever. Hell, you could just not give straws with every drink, and plenty of people will just drink from their cups and glasses. Instead, we get paper straws, something that is so obviously a bad idea it sounds like a joke, or a metaphor for a useless invention. Often served with cups and lids made entirely out of plastic.

So you get a bunch of people who have their drinks kind of ruined by a frustrating straw. It’s a small thing, but it’s just a little nudge away from environmentalism. You build an association with disappointment and inconvenience. Maybe it doesn’t cause a big sway, but it makes people maybe a little more anti-environmentalist than they already were, or just less passionate about environmentalism.

I hate how relevant this question is in so many situations.

This is especially true with generic medicines.

The cheapest I can get Claritin in my nearest supermarket is 50¢—$1.12/pill.

The store brand can be as low as 7¢—37¢/pill.)

The CostCo version is 2 or 3¢/pill.

All of them are the same. 10mg of loratadine, highly regulated by the FDA.

They can differ with inactive ingredients, so maybe you’d like a syrup or something from a name brand. But it legally has to be the same active ingredients, in the same amounts, in the same forms.

Totally understood, and I apologize for implying you might have. It was not my attention. I just meant that, even though it’s something I avoid jumping to conclude, it does happen, and there’s reason to believe it’s the case with Rowling. She’s got issues. It doesn’t absolve her of anything, but there’s a little pity in my condemnation.

Yeah. I know that calling bigots secretly closeted is problematic, but IIRC she has outright said that, if she were a young person today, she would question her gender identity.

JK Rowling did that not too long ago. (She didn’t call it Jewish, but absolutely called it lies and propaganda that trans people and trans researchers were early targets for the Nazis and victims of the Holocaust.)

I don’t say this to obsess over the Harry Potter author, but to point out that you don’t have to go cherry picking to find this shit. She’s a prominent person using her platform to spread bigotry and misinformation.

And remember how they made a big deal about Bernie’s age in 2020? They asked for medical records, and even after getting letters from two or three doctors, that wasn’t enough. It was like the birthers all over again: when they got what they asked for, they moved the goal posts and wanted the long-form documents.

Meanwhile, not a peep about Biden, who is Bernie’s junior by fourteen fucking months, as if that made all the difference.

And then, four years later, it wasn’t an issue anymore. Just run the guy again.

On top of that, the DNC would condescend to anyone left of center about electability.

It might even be simpler than that. Capitalism just doesn’t care past the next quarter. And when ownership is disconnected from labor or even from customer, than it’s just a really rudimentary collective intelligence. The shareholders just want the line to go up, and everyone in the corporate structure is accountable to the shareholders, so they all do their part, big or little, to make that happen. It completely dispenses with personal responsibility, whether for negative externalities, direct harm, or even the future as close as months from now.

The last time Google pulled out all the stops to fight ad blockers, I had to update uBlock Origin every now and then until the whole thing passed. That’s all.

So I’m not worried. But I am amused that they keep making ads more obnoxious, which pushes more people to use ad blockers. I didn’t even use sponsorblock until a particularly egregious bit of native advertising. They could probably gain ground by just making ads less irritating, but they absolutely will not.

A buddy of mine in NYC was offered a $14k bonus to move to Texas, closer to his employer. He declined for a bunch of obvious reasons, but one was that he and his girlfriend would each need a car to get around. That would quickly eat into that bonus, if not use it up entirely.

Tankies: The word ‘tankie’ is meaningless because it gets overused by disingenuous people on the right.

Also tankies: Everyone who criticizes my position is right-wing.

It honestly reminds me of fascists saying that harsh criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. It’s a dishonest rhetorical game.

And capitalist regimes. The Russian Federation was literally founded by a betrayal of a reformist movement in the USSR, and China consulted with Milton Goddamn Friedman on their economy, ending up with billionaires. I even saw .ml users crying about Russian *oligarchs" having their assets seized (“stolen,” as they said), and unironically citing Matt Taibbi. Not even “back in the day” Taibbi, but literally The Twitter Files. Using bought & paid for corporate propaganda to make their point.

They’re just campists. I don’t want to run afoul of a “No True Scotsman” situation, but fuck, for people who seem to think they’re the Only True Socialists, they’re willing to drop socialism in an instant if it means they can be edgy dickheads on the internet.

Yeah, pretty much. It ties into the “white genocide” and “great replacement” conspiracy theories, where the mere existence of nonwhites is taken as violence. It also often blames Jews for orchestrating it. It doesn’t make any sense, but it appeals to paranoia and supremacy, and provides a scapegoat for literally any actual systemic problem.

At least in the contexts I’m talking about, and I’ve never seen it used in another, it’s really not that. It’s coming from talking heads fearmongering about nonwhites, portraying nonwhite immigrants as criminals, ginning up a “border crisis” narrative, and even calling it an “invasion.”

First, I’d take a look to see if there are any games you really want to play to make sure they’re Linux compatible. ProtonDB is a great resource for this. The amount of games that work on Linux is actually pretty great, and the coverage is only increasing. That said, the biggest gap comes from games that require anti-cheat software, since that tends to require Windows. It sucks, since it’s a one-sided decision from publishers, and there’s not much to do besides keep Windows around, at least in a dual-boot. If you’re mostly a single-player gamer, you’re probably good to go. If you play AAA competitive multiplayer games, you’re probably out of luck. Best to check before getting started.

Secondly, I’d take a look at Nobara. It’s designed from the ground up to deliver what you want: a plug-and-play, out-of-the-box experience geared towards gaming. I can’t speak from personal experience, but I’ve heard good things. I’ve also heard good things about Pop_OS, which I think makes gaming a priority, too. Linux Mint is also great for offering a smooth transition, but I’m just not sure if there are any hurdles for gaming specifically.

I’ll also add that, while you might need to do some tinkering on Linux, even the regular distros don’t actually have it that bad. For the most part, it’s enabling an option on Steam, maybe downloading a package, maybe some settings here and there. Yeah, Windows still has it smoother, but it might be worth it to not have to fight Windows elsewhere, like with all the ads and privacy invasions. YMMV. For me, the juice is worth the squeeze, because the squeeze isn’t actually that hard once you get a little know-how. :P

Also… you can dual boot. Say you need Windows for some games, or don’t want to futz at all to get them running. You could do that to game or use whatever software only works with Windows, then reboot into Linux for more basic computing. Maybe it’s not worth the hassle of rebooting for you, but it’s yet another option if you don’t want to compromise on gaming, but also don’t want to deal with Windows the rest of the time.

When conservatives fearmonger about immigrants and brown people, one of the current favorite talking points is to say they’re “military-aged.” It’s vague and meaningless, but it implies something sinister, and plays into just about any conspiracy theory an audience member might be inclined to believe.

On top of that, they’re afraid from merely seeing these people. They’re just scared to death of brown and black kids and young adults.

Really reminds me of the “military-aged” thing. It’s just so pathetic.

Yeah. It can be simultaneously true that voting is a fundamentally broken system that will only allow for so much change, and that elections have life-or-death consequences. It can also be simultaneously true that both the parties are terrible, and that the Democrats are less bad.

I would give them more credit if they ever did any organizing, or even talked about organizing, but it’s just crabs in a bucket.

Oh, and in another thread, they were complaining about “theft.” It was the seizure of Russian assets to fund the defense of Ukraine. They were defending the foreign bank accounts of billionaires. Real clown shit.