Apparition of Jack

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/02/908773287/biden-democrats-shatter-fundraising-record-with-364-5-million-in-august?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr This is crazy. The previous record was set by Obama, at around $190 million. And yes, a lot of this money came from corporate donors, but around half of it came from small-scale donations, which is still huge. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean Biden will defeat Trump easily, Hillary raised more money than Trump and ended up losing to him. But it does mean there's more momentum on the Biden campaign than it might first appear. Biden can win. It's not a certainty, and in fact we have to treat a Trump victory like an absolute certainty and then work against that, but there's still cause for hope.

@Leo Gura Honestly, I’m not sure how successful Cyberpunk is going to be. It’s been in development for a looong time now which from what I can tell isn’t usually a sign of high quality final product, plus the gameplay we have seen seems kinda shallow and dated. I get the feeling this could be another Watchdogs in the making, which would mean they’re already engaged in Stage Orange devilry through deceptive advertising

Don't underestimate the French drive to maintain some semblance of global relevancy. They've basically subjugated much of French-speaking Africa under debt slavery just so they can say they have some degree of cultural and political influence around the world, the same way the Americans or Brits do, lol. I imagine that when Macron heard the news that a former colony was in dire straights, the opportunity to try and make it seem like France has international clout by assisting them was all too appealing to the President.

I’m not sure I follow, this is obvious isn’t it? If you’re wondering where the terms left-wing and right-wing come from, they come from the French Revolution, when people in favour of the Republic, liberalism and the workers sat on the left side of parliament, whereas people in favour of the Monarchy (or a more conservative Republic), tradition and the wealthy sat on the right side of parliament. But to answer your question, there have always been liberal-minded people and conservative-minded people throughout history. Of course it’s more complex than that simple spectrum but differences in political worldview are as old as civilisation itself.

@Forestluv Yes, if he gets in we'll have to work to make sure things like privately-funded campaigns aren't a thing in the future. My point was mostly that Biden's campaign - at least on the current terms of US presidential campaigns, which involve a lot of money - isn't as weak as it may seem. There's a lot of "silent" support for him I feel from middle class people, businesses, etc. that just don't make the news or social media because it's not so clickbaity. And this is good in the short-term because it means that Trump's fascism will have a harder time winning re-election. But you're right. Campaign finance reform is hugely needed. Incidentally Biden's campaign is actually making that a part of their policy (https://joebiden.com/governmentreform/) but I imagine we'd need a lot of progressive energy in order to actually make that a reality.

@hoodrow trillson That's right. There's too many different forces at play. Any situation at this stage is possible, but we can use that to make a Biden victory (and a Trump defeat) more likely.

I’ve been watching this channel a bit lately. I’m blown away by how thoughtful and intelligent Germans are. I don’t think there’s been a single person I’ve seen interviewed who was a dummy or didn’t have something insightful to say. By which I mean I’ve watched other countries being interviewed and not all of them are as smart as the Germans I would like to visit one day if I could. I feel like I’d learn a lot.

This is a four-part series and it's really quite long, but I've linked the first part here since the information in it is really quite invaluable. It explains how culture has become commodified, individualised and plasticized as a result of the efforts of 20th century psychologists and marketers looking to increase company profits. If you want to understand the current social malaise many people are feeling, you could do a lot worse than listening to the ideas put fourth by this doco.

Police incompetence + systemic racism

The counting could be messed with and the longer it takes to count all the votes the more time it'll give Trump to build up a conspiracy about vote rigging.

Don't underestimate the power of unhealthy Blue Also, I thought a thread like this might pop up, so I have this article saved: https://www.axios.com/bloomberg-group-trump-election-night-scenarios-a554e8f5-9702-437e-ae75-d2be478d42bb.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_mediu It's about how the counting process might pan out and what that will cause Trump / the DNC to do as a result. Basically Trump will win the first night, but then lose after all the mail-in ballots are counted. This could cause him to double down on claiming victory. Important reading IMO. EDIT: Here's the video from the article

@Leo Gura I meant Jesse Lee Peterson (at least his view on loving everyone) was healthy blue, not that Richard Spencer was healthy blue...

Healthy blue vs toxic blue:

Its kinda easy to just think of the world in terms of "Blue religionists", "Orange materialists", "Green egalitarians" etc but the reality is these worldviews and stages of development, whilst in part dependent on each individual's level of development, are also extremely tied to the Life Conditions (LCs) of the society people are in. These are things like average income, housing quality, social norms, collective trauma (or collective wellbeing), access to water/food/information/etc., healthcare quality, and so on. The worse off your life conditions, the lower level of development you and the people around you are going to be, because you're going to need to put more of your energy into meeting Maslow's bottom needs than focusing on the higher needs that allow for higher stages to develop. For those of us living in relatively comfortable lifestyles in the West, we have to understand that we basically live in a different reality to people in the developing world or poorer parts of our own countries. If you have access to food, electricity, reasonable education, government support, working medical services, police that won't demand bribes, and governments you can call out, then you're already living in a safer environment than 95% of humanity. It's so easy to get caught up in stage Orange/Green/Yellow politicking when you have all these needs met and aren't aware that most other people don't. The vast majority of humanity is at stage Blue. The vast majority of humanity are poor workers with small incomes, bad employment, bad healthcare, unreliable electricity, corrupt crime systems, and so on. I cannot stress this enough. This is the reality of living on planet Earth in the year 2020. Even in Western countries there's still a lot of people in poverty. If you're a progressive and interested in moving the world up to Green, then keep this in mind often. If you have good LCs, then be grateful for what you have, and understand that most people don't have what you have. And if you're upset at some unhealthy Red/Blue/Orange ideology being promoted, then remember this is usually coming from someone in a worse material situation than you. Just something I thought of sharing.

@diamondpenguin Keep in mind that the US government functions as well as it does because of the hard work of millions of individuals each day that keep the system running, regardless of whatever chud is in charge are doing or what the people think of it at the time. There is an army of public workers, attorneys, staffers, receptionists, experts, ministers, judges, accountants, marketers, etc. who work tireless to ensure all the benefits you just described for the average person. It's actually kind of crazy how much effort is put into running a successful government. If there's one thing I'd like to promote in my time here on earth it's how just incredible and inspiring the work of public administration can be. So many goddamn movies and shows are about CEOs and corporations and all that, and while it's cool to tell stories of sexy advertising men or bankers, have you ever considered how much fucking badassery goes into making sure 8 million kids have food at school 5 days a week all year? There's some great stories to tell in government, lol.

My uncle, who never drank, smoke and had a good diet and active lifestyle, got lung cancer out of nowhere and died in his early 50s. Cancer is insidious, it can pop up in anyone.

Damn, Killmonger was trying to still Black Panther's thunder even decades ago....

A big loss for the entertainment industry and humanity as a whole. Boseman was truly living out his LP by giving POCs a positive role model in media and being a great goddamn actor at that. May his family find peace and comfort in all this.

nice lol

Captain America isn’t Green, he’s healthy Blue. It’s in his name.

@Consept He’s a progressive YouTuber in the same vein as TYT or Secular Talk. However, he tends to be very anti-establishment and can take progressive dislike of centrist Democrats too far, which is counter-productive to pushing for progressive ideals. He’s also a comedian and a lot of his videos revolve around comedy talks.

@Thought Art You can acknowledge that native cultures had a lot of wisdom and knowledge that has since been lost to colonialism whilst also not fetishising them as some sort of pure untouched culture that never had any conflicts or downsides. In fact I’d argue this hinders the cause for native rights since it portrays a reality that never existed and thus makes other people feel put off by it.

This is disgusting, racist terminology

Too much stage Red. Yikes.

1. It wasn't his property. 2. In a choice between lives and property, yes, lives are more important.