Well, color me geniunely shocked. I was sure these numbnuts would keep it going until the bitter end. Maybe they ARE smart enough to realize they are in danger by keeping this going.
I had similar. My parents always gave me an allowance. $30 per month, and it was mine to spend how I pleased. But as I started getting older, this started be an extremely constrained budget, especially as I got interested in gaming.
I asked for a raise.
They said no.
I asked how to get it up.
They said get a job.
So once I was old enough, I got a job. And it was my job to get to work on time, take care of my own car (though my parents were nice enough to pay for the cars and repairs as long as I passed it along the chain to them). But any money I made I could spend however I wanted, though my parents gave me the advice to save a certain percentage of my paycheck.
On that note, its also left me as one of the most financially stable in my friends group. Most of my friends who didnt have those rules spend their money almost as soon as they get it, and are always saying how they want to eat out or get games but dont have the money.
Meanwhile, I am over here going "You dont understand! I have less than $4,000 in my checking account! I am LITERALLY Destitute!! I am going to be living on rice and hot dogs for the next few weeks until that situation is solved."
EDIT: Another thing that I dont know if it is related to the above point, but I have also noticed that I tend to overestimate how much money I am spending, and am surprised when I see I have more in my account than I thought, while they tend to underestimate how much they are spending.
This is part of the reason I have never been a fan of hardcore Libertarian types. They are obsessed with their principles to the point of irrationality. Principles are an important thing. But sometimes, you must make sacrifices, even if temporary, for the betterment of your own beliefs. It doesnt matter if its censorship by private corporations, drugs, taxes, public infrastructure (schools, roads, emergency services, etc).
But no, 9 times out of 10 then would rather gain no ground because they were committed to it by autistically holding an impossible line.
On a matter of principle, the ban Gab has on porn doesn't sit well me with, and under normal situations I would be against them for it.
But right now, we have more pressing concerns than whether or not you can spank the monkey to anime waifu titties. Especially since there are countless other websites where you can get your rocks off without issue.
Once we are out of the woods, if it still sits wrong with you, then you can leave for greener pastures.
The trophy culture certainly doesnt help, but I also think the bigger problem is parenting. Specifically, it seems that parents dont want to actually parent. They want to make sure nothing bad ever happens to their kids (which lead to the Trophy Culture in the first place), and they dont want to fight with them. This always leads to them being spoiled rotten brats who always get their way and freak the hell out if they dont. Because hey, its always worked with mommy and daddy.
I think its also why so many of them become socialist/communist, and want the state to become their parents. They have had so much plowed out of the way they cant do anything on their own.
They have to understand that not everyone wants to live in the utopia of Hollywood right?
No, they dont. Because they think they are enlightened saviors and anyone who is against it is either too dumb to properly function or brainwashed (ha).
If I had to guess, its because a lot of those types are extreme narcissists who think they have found the panacea to life and they know it works because THEY came up with it, and they are the most important person in the world after all. And not listening to them is the same as being a mouth-breathing moron who needs help to just change their clothing each day.
And I havent and will not watch it. I saw the trailer for it when watching other things on Netflix and I could tell just from the trailer it was going to be a leftist circlejerk. Glad to see my assumption was not wrong.
I think the funnier one is that most of the reactions I have heard from people is "Great, now I know who to back because they arent a paid corporate stooge."
It may well end up being a case of "Task failed successfully."
A lot of calls for mass arrests, charging the protestors/rioters with terroristic actions, decrying the peoples' right to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the government, seriously likening it to a coup. Calling the protestors morons and damning them with their words.
Counter-point: were the people saying these things active duty, or were they high level former generals who are all politics now?
Because I know people who are currently active duty, and they have pointed out that the current divide seems to be that the behind the lines types (or, to use their own language, "POGs and REMF") are the problem children when it comes to this sort of stuff, with it generally being the higher up the food chain you get the worse it gets. But the actual grunts are still largely against this shit and are liable to frag their officers before they carried out their orders if it came down to "The Igloo has been built and you have to go break it."
Because Mattis coming out as being one of the globalist types did something I never thought possible: broke his "Sainted of the Marines" status.
These are the same people who swear up and down that they would have opposed Hitler during his rise.
Fair. I was in the gun shop the other day, and he said that while he is still selling a healthy amount of guns, he sells out of 9mm, .45ACP, and .22LR almost as soon as he gets it.
This was punctuated by about 6 people in the 20 minutes I was in there looking for 9mm only to be told they were sold out.
And for all their efforts, this is basically how the situation is going as of right now:
Smoothbrain 1: "The right are actually getting pissed enough to put up a fight! What do we do!"
Smoothbrain 2: "Lets take away their ability to talk, work, have money, or do literally anything until they agree to kneel before us."
Smoothbrain 1: "GENIUS!!! Now if only we could figure out why everyone is buying guns and ammo."
Of course they do. Its the first time they have ever seen conservatives, or the right in general, get up on their hind legs and defy them.
Its terrified them so much that they are trying to crack the whip harder and tell them to kneel. They dont seem to realize (or care) that their actions are only making it worse.
I supported effective mesures for a few weeks at first when I naively thought cases would be tracked and isolated like in Taiwan, but it became obvious in April the government did not intend to take anything seriously enough to contain the virus.
This was me as well, but my approval for it broke before the two weeks were even up, because of the two medical dunces in DC. Specifically, it was when Dr. Birx was giving one of the daily status updates (before the press canceled that because it was helping Trump too much), and then she went down in infamy to me.
I cant even remember WHAT they asked her, just that she gave an answer, then said with a smile on her face and absolutely giddy that "We in the medical community have never had this kind of power before."
Right on the spot, I could feel my mood change as I said "We made a mistake."
I suppose the only GOOD thing about all of this is that while my state has a Dem governor, the rest of the government are Republicans, so while she rages over it, she is largely toothless in her response and can get away with only the bare minimum of restrictions.
To be fair, my state has been pretty laid back with its enforcement (it still has a mask mandate, but there is no real teeth to it and most people operate at their own risk tolerance). So life has been largely unchanged around here.
Not knowing the journo in question, am I also to assume they were your typical SJW who thinks everything is problematic and therefore cant have any hobby OTHER than gossip?
Well, considering I have seen the bowling alleys still full, and the mayor keeps losing her shit over the bars in downtown having too many people in them, I would imagine people are still doing their normal thing.
Also, at least at my work, a lot of guys my age or a little older are into Animu and Vidya, and even though they are completely uninvolved with the culture war, they still have the same sort of likes/dislikes you expect (IE: They all like Cyberpunk while admitting its buggy. They all like the Mandalorian infinitely more than the main SW movies. They like anime for the outrageous action and hot waifus. Etc.) So apparently the WuFlu is wrong.
Yep. Because apparently these people have nothing better to do all day than stalk people on social media. It really is their only hobby I suppose.
Actually, off topic but 100% serious: Do these lefties even HAVE hobbies? Video games are problematic, the majority of movies are problematic (and the ones they think arent died on the vine because no one else wants to see them), comics are problematic, anime is problematic, the list goes on. What do these deranged mofos even DO with their free time? I guess it would explain why they are in a perpetual state of misery (even though most of them are trust funders with money to throw at anything they want).
Gold and silver aren't going to cook your food or keep you warm at night.
Another thing I saw in passing from a prepper type: Buy alcohol, and dont discriminate on potency.
Their argument was that as something that is useful as both a recreational item AND a medical item, it will be EXTREMELY valuable.
Thats how it is outside most of the major cities here too. I live in a city that is large by local standards by fairly small overall (about 55k), and for all of the fuming from the mayor the mask mandate has very...strange compliance (you see people wearing them, but plenty dont and there is no real fear except from the mayor). Then in most of the surrounding counties, not only are the mandates much less enforced, in some the sheriff straight up wont enforce it.
And far from suffering economically, we are doing pretty damn well. I see almost every building flying "help wanted" signs, offering more than min wage and actually pretty good for local standards, its in just about every field with most being full time jobs, and almost all of the local business and industries have been surviving just as well, to the point that some are even closing to do renovations they have wanted for a while and now they have the funds.
Its only in the cities where people are overreacting and going all in on the hysteria, and I honestly cant tell if its just virtue signaling or if they are really that far out to lunch.
Signal at #3 is also interesting, considering that AFAIK its another alt-tech "free speech first" platform.
The smoothbrains running these companies still dont get it. They can snap their fingers all they want and say "jump", but an increasingly large amount of people are going to say "no" and find anything, literally anything, that lets them bypass them.
It got to the point the only reason I was watching was for Adam’s commentary and him starting his own was enough for me to unsub.
Agreed. I am still considering whether or not to go ahead and yeet Tim from my subscriptions, but I have absolutely been moving more toward Adam. There is just something about his boundless optimism that I find endearing, especially right now.
And along those lines, I also like that he doesnt just guzzle down the blackpills all day like Tim does and then makes his videos in such a way as to make sure everyone else is as miserable as he is. Adam actually talking about games or good news is absolutely a plus in my book.
On that note, figuring out how to cut back on Youtube as well. Probably cant entirely as some people I watch are still Youtube exclusive, but a lot of people I do like are on Odysee now so I will be looking into that.
Its a bigger problem then that. When you look at a political map, most states that are "blue" are only so because of a few extremely large urban centers. So if, say, the west coast (CA, WA, OR) decided they wanted to secede, you would see their more rural areas, who have been on the receiving end of urban abuse for decades, pull a West Virginia and secede from them back to the United States. Meaning we are back to no food, no water, no resources, no power, just a mega-city and a handful of friendly territory near it.
Even the Midwest still has its problem areas in the form of Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago, so dont count it out. Although it is mostly the Upper Midwest (MI, IL, WI, MN), not the Lower Midwest (KS, NE, MO, IA), with the oddballs being the Dakotas (Upper Midwest, culturally more in line with the Lower Midwest).
As for military, the South in general has an extremely strong military presence, as well as the Lower Midwest (lots of buildup as a reaction to the Great Depression). The military is going to be a wild card though, as most of the high ranking officers are more politically charged and lean left along with a lot of the POGs, but the actual grunts are still largely right leaning and remain so despite the best efforts of the high command to change that.
Re: Balkanization:
The other issue is the layout of the country politically. I have seen people throw around maps for what the countries that would come out of that look like, and it always comes back to the same problem at least from my view as a historian. That being, Leftyland has NO connected border, no resources, no/little arable land, hell even fresh water would be a problem outside of a handful on the Great Lakes.
Rightyland on the other hand would still have all of the above and even have some major metropolitan areas (Red metros are rarer, but still exist. See: Wichita, Oklahoma City, San Diego, etc)
History shows that Leftyland is doomed from go due to the border-gore alone, which will just raise tensions that much further.
OT: I agree with your overall point. The near future is going to suck, but I feel that all of the people going 100% doom are just scared and buy into the Lefts "End of History" argument, which assumes a totally static world that never changes. Such assumptions have been the ruin of more than can be counted in history, because much like a vacuum, Nature abhors static.
Oh, I have very much moved into the "Tim Pool is a Dim Fool" school over the last few weeks. I was always able to kind of ignore his "I am the smart" attitude, but there were 2 breaking point for me.
First was how he spent the whole summer saying Republicans and Trump supporter were cowards not doing enough, only to then clutch his pearls every time they did something and say that they should only stay in their own area so Antifa doesnt show up. That this was also accompanied by him trying to talk up Antifa and make them out to just be populist lefties did not help.
The second was when he was telling people to stand up for themselves in their jobs, even if they get fired. When people pointed out that they have families to support and cant do that, he insinuated that that is cowardly and they should just leave their job, like he did (ignoring he is alone with no family). Meanwhile, he has rolled over for Youtube at every chance so he can keep making money. It finally hit me when he was talking about money and said something was "only" $1 Million. I dont know about him, but "only" $1 Million leaves me set for life.
TLDR: Tim Pool is a Dim Fool, and I get it now.
Even some people "on our side" do it. Its always annoyed me when Tim Pool goes on one of his "5-Gen Warfare" spergs and and says the right would never win because they would all just be banned from the internet and unable to communicate and then the media would say they are all terrorist and so they lose before it even starts.
Nevermind that this assumes the comm situation is entirely static (I can think of plenty of ways it stops, but usually on a "If we cant talk, no one talks" basis). It also assumes that the Right has NO way to communicate with each other beyond the internet.
Now I dont know if Tim has just never met an honest to god militia type (the sort who would actually be doing the heavy lifting in the possible throwdown), but from what I remember, those types barely trust PHONES, never mind the web. Hell, our comms can even be mobile, considering there is a guy near where I live who has an entire radio array built in the bed of his truck.
Maybe they actually are smart enough to see that everyone wants to drag them around by their toes and are finally going "MAAAAYYYYBEEE we should back off a bit."