I’ll make it. I won’t be well off, but I’ll make it.

My kids probably won’t unless something changes soon. That fucks with my head a lot. How did we fuck this up so bad?

What’s the quote about virgins from that vampire show? Something like: If you’re going to eat a sandwich, wouldn’t your prefer if no one had fucked it first?

This seems similar.

Two things would happen.

1. They’d justify the ICE goon’s behavior by claiming the embassy was enabling terrorism or drug trafficking.

2. They would pitch a huge fit, take some sort of extreme action, and claim they’re in the right because US diplomats are good guys.

They don’t care about rules, ethics, or even having a consistent system of values. They only care about punishing people, power, and getting what they want when they want it. If they pull back at all, it’s only because they fear their support (and with it their immunity from consequences) is slipping. They’re just bullies and cowards.

He’s enabled by some very wealthy people. And in the US wealth is more than just money, it’s often the most important factor in status, popularity, and social and political power.

Even some the people screaming for empathy, understanding, and improved social programs often look down upon the poor and homeless, they just hide it behind a veneer of doing good. They want to rid the nation of poverty not because it’s the right thing to do, but so that they aren’t confronted with the reality of what causes poverty and the guilt they feel when they pass by someone who’s panhandling.

Our nation’s version of original sin is productivity. If you’re alive, you must feed into the economic system, you must support yourself and not be a burden to others. If you’re successful and wealthy enough, it means all lesser sins (getting bailed out with tax money, wage theft and fraud, destroying the environment, prejudice, sexual predation, etc.) will be forgiven by at least half the nation. This effect is more profound for celebrity performers.

So, if you’re stable financially and not under a direct threat from the administration, you’re probably upset, but your focus is going to be on finding a way to get rid of Trump and get out of this mess without winding up POOR.

You want to know why so many federal workers are still doing their jobs despite being complicit in many of the awful things that are happening? Because they don’t have a way to pay the rent if they walk off the job. The job market is awful. The economy is in the shitter. Everything is super expensive, and they don’t want to let their families down. Want the military and federal agents to quit? Give them a guaranteed way to pay their mortgages. Find them another job.

It’s not just about luxuries and standards of living. It’s about social acceptance and beloning. People will go to insane lengths to feel like an accepted member of a group. So these workers may be unhappy, even deeply upset about the direction the country is headed in, but it’ll have to get worse before the sacrifice is worth it, because being in jail or being dead is only a little bit worse than being a poor person.

Same holds true for much of the rest of the nation. It’s hard to risk belonging, to risk being part of our society, when there’s no guarantee you won’t wind up homeless and a pariah because of it.

Jokelahoma?

I’d even take crappy photo edits over this.

Well, if you take good old-fashioned violence out of the picture, money. Or specifically a lack of it.

Sanctions, selling off US debt, more retaliatory tariffs, blacklisting US investors and companies, anything that pulls cash out of the US economy and puts it somewhere else. Turn off the money tap, make the mega-donors hurt bad enough and the dystopia machine will eventually grind to a halt. Don’t think for a moment that the current squad of high-functioning sociopaths that are enabling this are principled enough to stay the course after a few of their mega-yachts are repossessed. They’ll flip sides again and again just to try and keep that horde they’ve built up. Someone just has to prove to them that the threat is serious, because right now, they think everyone else is helpless against them.

Additionally, the majority of Trump voters cited the economy as a primary reason for voting for him. A good portion of them were probably lying to cover for being racist and just wanted to see POC and the LGBTQ+ community suffer, but if you crash the US economy hard enough, you can still hijack a big chunk of Trump’s public support. It’s the same as with mega-yachts, but here we’re talking pickup trucks, ATVs, and rent-to-own furniture.

Few problems with this. 1. It’s slow. 2. It’ll hurt everyone else economically because US businesses have hooks set real deep in a lot of places. 3. Other nations have a wealthy elite with similar sway who want Trump in power for various reasons and might not play along. & 4. Whoever replaces the US might turn out to be just as big as bully in a few years if we’re not careful.

Still, it needs to be done.

EDIT: It’s like the old saying goes, everything is about money, except money, which is about power.

As others have said, I use a client that doesn’t display them, so it never dawned on me. And in general, profile pics have never been a big deal for me. So if the app or site doesn’t make me do it as part of the account set up, my profile pic just stays as the default.

You can set profile pictures on Lemmy?

I’d rather have two cubes and a vehicle that doesn’t reek of midlife crisis.

Holy shit. It is, isn’t it? Perfect!

What an utterly useless thing. You add axles to bear more weight. Unless you’re hauling a big tungsten cube, the truck isn’t big enough to carry a load that would need three axles.

It’s even dumber than those Jeep Gladiators, the #1 pavement princess in my area, which sacrifice departure angle for a ridiculously small amount of cargo space and less load capacity than an entry level pickup truck.

Just stupid.

deleted by creator

OBLIGATORY I’M NOT A DOCTOR DON’T TAKE THIS AS MEDICAL ADVICE FIRST.

Monster runs about 160-180 mg per can depending on variety. Coffee is about 80-120 per 8 oz cup, depending on the bean and roast.

A 400-500 mg dose of caffeine daily is considered safe for most people according to Wikipedia. So 2-3 Monsters a day for a heavy caffeine user isn’t a crazy amount.

Now, when you look at Bing and Reign, which IIRC have around 350 mg per can, those numbers go up real fast, but you’re still not going to get close to the approximately ten grams of caffeine needed for it to be a lethal dose, you’d puke long before you got that much liquid in your stomach.

Also, the physical effects of caffeine abate over time. Users build up a tolerance fairly quickly, and it gets to the point that the twitchiness, elevated BP, and higher heart rate aren’t really present like they’d be for someone who doesn’t consume a lot of it. Again, paraphrasing Wikipedia here. So a moderate user (say 1 - 2 Monsters or Red Bulls a day) probably isn’t on the verge of an infarction at all times, as the media seems to enjoy impling.

It’s mostly just soda pop with extra caffeine, and caffeine is bitter, so they jack up the sugar content to compensate. That’s a bigger issue IMO.

But overall, there are likely millions, if not billions of people who down two or three energy drinks daily and don’t drop dead. So while the caffeine numbers seem extreme, it’s really the sugar, artificial sweetners, and probably unhealthy lifestyle that goes with being a chronic user that will cause the most damage over time.

I suppose it comes down to one’s definition of a dead bedroom, as intimacy and connection don’t necessarily equal sex. A lack of frequent orgasms is different from a lack of intimacy, and fairly normal as people and their relationships grow older.

But a lack of intimacy, of physical contact and closeness, or kisses and cuddles, etc. That could be a real issue.

I ignore them.

Could just be the places I frequent, but a lot of times tags are just useless. There are so many posts out there with dozens of tags that barely fit with the content or that have become so diluted that it’s nearly impossible to find what you want.

MILF is a perfect example of a diluted tag. You’re looking for Stiffler’s mom (the OG example), but what you get is any woman over the age of 28 with big breasts regardless of the actual fetish content of the video.

It’s always much better to search by community, site, or performer.

The kind of person who does this to their car won’t believe it’s true, while simultaneously defending it as him doing nothing wrong because all the liberals say it’s okay to do it, which also doesn’t mean admitting Trump actually did it, because he didn’t, and this is also proof that Dems did much worse things, even though it’s not real and just a plot to destroy Trump and let Satan rule over the world.

TDS is a Swiss army tool for controlling what their base thinks and dealing with negative press. I don’t know if it evolved organically or was created, but promoting the idea that anyone who says anything negative about Trump is hysterical, jealous, and irrationally hell-bent on destroying him has been insanely effective for them.

It’s less about you and more about enabling nutcases like this guy to be complete and utter tools for what they think is a greater cause. You can already see it in use with the Epstein files along with their other grand slam propaganda tools.

That’s an absolutely crushing schedule.

When I think of “middle aged family man”, I think of a salaried employee or tradesman working a 40 hour work week, and supporting kids with the help of a spouse who’s either a homemaker or earns additional income. Which mostly describes me.

You’re comparing apples to oranges when it comes to lifestyles. I work occasional overtime and it always knocks my dick in the dirt for a week or so. All things considered, just surviving what you’re describing is an achievement.

You’re doing an amazing job and I hope you can find a situation that gives you more time off soon. You deserve it.

Why can’t we win the AI race and still not have a surveillance state? Those don’t seem like they have to be linked…