You’ve misunderstood what Rand is doing here. He wants language that restricts the sale of hemp-derived cannabinoids removed from the bill. I happen to agree with him here, hemp is practically the only thing Kentucky still has going for it.

Gen Z is more reactionary than millennials, and that’s because we’re more fucked. Fascism provides an outlet and gives direction and purpose to the general discontent and resentment harbored by young people today, same as it ever was. Gen Z appears more right wing because more Gen Z can see the status quo isn’t working for them, and in the absence / suppression of the populist left people turn to the populist right.

Oh, it’s the guy who looks like an egg and likes to call people cucks all the time?

I think it was Subway, so tasty isn’t how I would personally describe it.

My point is you can’t expect him to do everything all at once. He’s chosen electoralism for himself and that is what he’s dedicated his time to. If your issue with Mamdani is that you think electoralism is pointless for socialists then just say that, and we can have that discussion.

I don’t see him arming the poor and training a people’s army.

If you think that’s a realistic expectation to have for someone running for office in the imperial core you are in desperate need of a reality check. Even if your goal is an armed revolution there are so many prerequisites that have not been met to make such a thing possible. This is what happens when you spend too much time reading about revolutions and not enough time getting in touch with the people around you.

Only time will tell.

Mamdani’s campaign isn’t intended to establish socialism in New York through purely electoral means, that’s impossible and no one serious is actually pushing for that. His campaign is part of the DSA’s party surrogate strategy. It’s a shift away from the realignment strategy they had been attempting before, and IMO is a move in the right direction, but I still think they have further to go. As far as I can tell they haven’t decided on a plan for a “dirty break” from the DNC when the time comes, and seeing the party surrogate strategy find success might lead some in the DSA to warm back up to the realignment strategy, which I don’t think has a chance in hell of working (though I would love to be proven wrong).

Edit: I’ll add that the DNC seem particularly afraid of the party surrogate strategy, and that gives me hope that it can actually work.

His platform isn’t socialist, nobody but him knows what his actual convictions are. I think he’s a pragmatist, and knows that saying “I’m going to abolish private property day 1 and liberate the working class from their capitalist masters” is more likely to get him assassinated than spark a proletarian revolution. I personally believe him when he says he’s a Democratic Socialist, it’s just that he favors reform and is focusing on what’s doable in the short term. The DSA has committed to what they call the “party surrogate” strategy, of which Zohran’s campaign was a part. It means they intend to run insurgent campaigns on the Democratic ballot line while acting independently. With enough primary wins they can operate as a socialist faction within the Democratic party, which could theoretically split from the party and go truly independent after reaching a critical mass of support.

Here is a link that explains it more in-depth.

It can be done in cities that were designed for automobiles, it just takes more work.

The idea is that it’ll make people more cautious drivers around you. It doesn’t work because people generally transform into sociopaths the moment they enter a vehicle.

Reasonable doubt that the guy is a cryptofascist is disqualifying enough without the need for certainty. I do believe that people can change, and there are circumstances where I would accept someone like Platner into the progressive movement, but not in a leadership position, and not before he has proven himself with actions rather than just words. A lot of progressives - yourself included - are so desperate for leadership that they’re willing to look past several huge red flags for someone who says the right things. Consider for a moment the possibility that there are people out there who are aware of this particular vulnerability and willing to take advantage of it.

I think the biggest predictor of whether people will vibe with Outer Wilds is how much natural curiosity they have and how self-motivated they are. Outer Wilds doesn’t push players towards any particular objective, it instead tries to give players questions so they go looking for answers. Of course a game that relies so heavily on intrinsic motivation isn’t going to be for everyone, but the thing that makes the game so difficult for some people to get into is the same thing that makes those who do get into it love it so much.

Some non-spoilery advice if you decide to give it another shot:

Use the ship log every loop and read what’s new. Look at the biggest cards in rumor mode and try to find them. There are several “secret” locations in the game that many of the hints point towards which contain information that puts the game’s mystery into perspective and gives players a sense of direction and purpose. In the playthroughs I’ve seen where they didn’t finish it was almost always because they played for a long time without finding any of the “big” secret locations.

It’s also the origin of some anti-semitic tropes. After Christianity rose to prominence in the Roman Empire, Christians considered lending money with interest to be a sin, so they were forbidden from working related jobs. This resulted in Jews, who were forbidden from owning land and many other professions, taking up the role of merchants, money lenders, and tax collectors. In the Christian view of the time, they were doing the “dirty work” because they were immoral and sinful, and the nature of the work made them easy scapegoats for many of society’s ills. The reputation has followed Jews into modernity.

Meanwhile it is a regular occurrence for right-wing dipshits to run their trucks through crowds of protestors and get away with little to no consequences. They end up being classified as “road-rage” incidents rather than the politically motivated acts of terrorism that they are.

I would assume the Liver cancer they mentioned is the terminal disease they’re referring to. It sounds like the guy has multiple chronic health conditions, which isn’t all that uncommon.

To give some perspective on why this is the case from an American, it isn’t that a bunch of parents are asking / going out of their way to get this done, it’s that the doctors almost always offer it with the justification that it’s a preventative measure against infections, and the parents generally don’t question it due to how commonplace it is already. The cultural reasons that started this haven’t been popular for decades and it’s only the medical establishment that’s keeping this going.

*Includes it in the URL

forgiving student loan debt is by definition regressive. You cannot have poorer people’s money going to richer people and say it’s not regressive.

By this logic all public services are regressive, since everyone pays into them and there will always be someone poorer who pays in and someone wealthier who benefits. That’s why progressive tax rates exist, so that the amount of tax people pay is proportional to how much they are able to contribute. Our progressive tax system only breaks down at the upper levels with the obscenely wealthy. Despite this - on average - the poor benefit the most from student loan forgiveness and the (relatively) rich contribute the most. This is because even though the rich and poor alike would have their student debt forgiven, the rich would be paying more tax to make up for it. It’s really a very simple concept, and should not be so difficult for you to understand.

Now, as an extra note, if we corrected our progressive tax system to tax the obscenely wealthy at the highest possible rate (as a progressive tax system is supposed to - and used to - do), there would be absolutely no question as to where the wealth is being distributed, because the wealthiest people who currently pay little to no tax hold more wealth than the rest of us combined.

It’s only regressive if the tax that funds the student loan forgiveness is regressive. If we have a progressive tax system - which we do, for the most part (excepting the ultra rich who are able to dodge taxes without consequence) - then it is not a redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, but at worst a horizontal wealth redistribution and at best a wealth redistribution from the rich to the poor. Whoever gave you this idea lied to you and/or was lied to.