Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

Apparently the original meaning of “third-world” was “not siding with either the USA or the USSR”.

@MethidMan
Exactly.

I should also point out that some of my relatives from Macedonia (or North Macedonia as they now call it) occasionally call us to check if we’re alright whenever they hear of something terrible happening in the US, like a mass shooting.

Macedonia is one of those developing countries.

When I was in school, sexual humiliation and violence was almost daily. I’m not a usual case, but also not alone.

We think that LGBT is sexualizing kids, but in my experience, the hypersexualization came mostly from people who identify as straight. In my schools kids where having underaged sex as a status symbol, nothing gay was going on. ‘Gay’ was the ultimate insult for sexually humiliating kids who are not interested in underaged sex, an insult for anyone wierd or unpopular.

There was constant pressure to participate in sexual and violent discourse, it was always about a fight, or who’s fucking who.

A lot of these school shootings are copycat. They mimic the hyper aggressive, hyper sexual behavior I’m talking about.

Hatred for Lgbt fuels into this violent behavior. It’s being used as a slur between straight people, to shame virgins. the same people who hate gays are the same people having underaged sex and being violent at school. the hatred of gays also fuels into the idea that sex something we should hate each other over. I’m sure plenty of kids have had underaged sex just to lose their v-card and prove they are not gay, I know one atleast.

Even though these mass shootings are such a small number of actual shootings, they are the most shocking, and antisocial, and they harbor disregard for human life, while destabilizing the gun control debates. We have to get rid of them. If we get rid of any shootings, we need to stop the children and young adults from doing this. We have to end the culture that allows this hypersexual, hyperagressive behavior to be seen as cool.

School shooters are not cool, they’re broken cowards. Victims in a way, not that we can ever justify their actions.

We need to take the feelings of children seriously, or they will grow into psychopath adults. Our entire national security can be compromised because of a couple of copy cat killers, because some football players called some quite kids a “fag” one too many times.

Regarding the above gun discussions… some people may know I’m a hardcore gun control nut who would get a deep joy from seeing the Second Amendment ripped up and burnt. However, in the current climate where the state cannot guarantee stability and safety and radical elements seem to be all over, I can’t say vulnerable groups are wrong for arming themselves. I can only hope that doing so does not prevent them from supporting anti-gun policies in saner times… if America ever arrives in some.

@Latecomer
Unfortunately, things will only get better once the ones causing the trouble are gone.

@Wiimeiser
…you do realise those words can be read in a way I don’t think you intended?

Speaking of gun, this videos represents why we need more strict gin control https://youtu.be/rmHE2kyglUw

@Latecomer
The first sentence or the second? Or both? I mean, I do get what you mean…

@Wiimeiser
The combination. (Though the part left behind is still open to interpretation, I guess.)

No, it’s more like a parent upset that their kid with a scraped knee isn’t put first in line at the ER while a dozen other kids around them have bones jutting out their body. Demanding the UN send peacekeepers into Alabama or the EU impose sanctions on Florida legislators while so much far worse shit is going on is just absurd and speaks to a radical american/western-centric view of the world bordering on “there’s us civilized people, and the rest”.

My point still stands: there’s nothing wrong per se of worrying about one’s country getting worse.

True there are countries that are much worse off than we are, but we would prefer our country to not ever get to that point so of course some of us are going to be concerned when we feel our country is getting closer to being a shithole country.

Maybe the UN interfering is asking too much but I don’t think it’s asking too much to want changes to happen for the better, whatever kind of changes they may be.

@The Smiling Pony
That’s just one of the many benefits of the “America First” trickle down approach to economics, medicine, information, legal representation … all of it. Freedom … sexual access to the underaged youths of other countries … access to education … access to abortion or medical care during pregnancy …

After all, if you don’t help the richest and most affluent first, then when will it be OUR turn? Can’t expect the poor to pony up, so better to help those with the most first. That way everyone else can benefit from their left-overs.

Even social justice warriors in the US are America First now, it seems.

Kind of like when you see someone who’s been bullied their whole life finally get a backbone and a stick in their hands. Do they punch up? Of course not - they find someone worse off than themselves and start punching down.

But, that’s just how it looks from over here.

Regarding gun violence in the US, this article came out last year.

Two Professors went through a whole bunch of trouble to profile hundreds of mass shooters in the US, and they’re finding commonalities between all of them. Namely, that these people grow up in violent, toxic environments, are instilled with large amounts of self-hatred they end up externalizing to people around them, and their mass shootings are almost always intended to be elaborate suicide attempts that take a bunch of people with them.

They criticize the either/or attitude toward gun control and mental health/social worker outreach, and note that both parties seem to have zero interest in actually funding community mental health services.

How is ‘saving’ energy woke now?
https://www.newsweek.com/microsoft-changes-xbox-console-climate-change-republicans-ted-cruz-1776054

@Anoncrsh
Anything aiming at improving human society and its impact on the environment is woke for those people.
At this point, I’m convinced they’re just standing for selfishness and cruelty as a matter of principle.

Xbox is getting a setting that PCs have had for years and the right-wing outrage machine paints it like the next culture war.

Fucking thin skinned morons.

@Zincy
These are literally old, out of touch boomers yelling at clouds.

@Anoncrsh
They’re SERIOUSLY bitching about a f##king power-save feature on a game console?

Its like I always say. They’re nothing but a bunch of goddamn dipshits.

In related news, Tucker Carlson went on a screed against a ban on cigarettes, questioning whether it really gives you cancer and saying that nicotine “frees your mind”.

MAGA is just a death cult. They just want people to die.

–

Ukraine has announced they are retreating from the Russian occupied town of Soledar to “preserve personnel”. This months long campaign marks one of the few times Russia hasn’t lost territory since the start of the war.

My dead dad would disagree.

@Penguin Dragneel
Because they need to make enemies out of nothing to prevent being eaten alive by their own community. That’s how hatred works.

@Dustcan
And somehow weed is too strong for humanity according to them.

@Terton
I mean, death does a lot to clear your mind, like a hard reset where there is no button to boot it back up afterwards.

@Dustcan
nicotine itself seems to be a psychostimulant with little evidence supporting its link to cancer. this class of drug is still dumb, you just become dependant and return to baseline. Now you need that cigarette to feel normal the same way you would if you never smoked at all. Cocaine, Meth, Heroine and Alcohol are much more powerful psycho-stimulants*

However when you’re smoking tobacco you’re combusting plant matter. Endless bizarre chemicals and carbonaceous compounds are made this way. Burning plants into your lungs doesn’t seem very smart.

Burning weed into your lungs is not as strongly linked to cancer. I assume just because of less combusted plant matter, weed smokers don’t smoke a twenty pack of joints a day. A lot of smokers compulsively finish a whole 20 pack of cigarettes a day. Healthy active people should avoid marijuana and tobacco.

Burning any plant matter to inhale its gasses can contribute to cancer. If you’re going to smoke because you don’t care, don’t make it a compulsion.

*depressants like painkillers and alcohol even marijuana have profound stimulant effects on some parts of the body, like the amygdala. their addictive tendencies are all pretty similar, Heroine and Meth being some of the worst, while Nicotine, Caffeine, and Alcohol is the most shoved down our faces.

Cigarette smoking has a loose correlation with intelligence. Not because the drug isn’t cancerous or stupid, but because it only last 15 minutes or so, while many other drugs of addiction can last hours and take over your day. It’s a huge risk, when proper diet and exercise has a much stronger link to cognitive enhancement.

Tobacco and high blood pressure are two of the biggest causes of preventable death. In most common folk preventable death would look something like tobacco, obesity, then alcohol. Outside of but sometimes related to substance is vehicle accidents in people in ages 20-30. Nothing glorious about smoking, but compared to other substances the deaths are inflated because of the social acceptability, and co administration/complications, more than the danger of the tobacco itself.

Weed is conveniently linked to no deaths as they say, but this is horse shit, it causes bronchiospasms, heart attacks, vehicle accidents, anxiety attacks, and psychosis. You should be skeptical about how science frames any drug, science can be tilted for dishonest motivations.