Long-winded product of a quick brainstorm session incoming…

So, Americans will have two options:

1. Wait it out passively. Corporate infrastructure/services will become more prevalent and take the place of governmental agencies as they default due to debt and mismanagement (a position they’ve been put in through the decades thanks to defunding, with Elon’s DOGE being the latest of villains in this story). Get ready for corporate cities, and conglomerates being the de facto rulers of America. As governmental power wanes and after the eventual American balkanization, you’ll be part of the Amazon Republic of Arizona or whatever. Idk what happens after that.

2. Somehow, Americans fight both corporate and governmental power, through the creation of alternative supply chains, alternative (labour based, for instance) currency and become more self sufficient. Americans are heavily armed as well and, while incapable of fighting an army of drones, it should be enough of a deterrent (especially if the power structure collapses and infighting amongst oligarchs happens but these post American cooperative societies stand by each other). Communities with immigrants that still have connections to the civilized world might help bring foreign aid and intervention. However, this requires trust, empathy, prosociality, generosity and critical thought. You and I both know Americans are famous for lacking in all of those attributes so I don’t really see how they’ll get it together quickly (and no, American Christian dogma, which is even more cursed and against the actual teachings of Jesus than the Catholic dogma, cannot offer a solution).

God willing something will happen to snap Americans out of their white ethnonationalist, imperialistic fantasies and into love for humanity, and God does do miracles, but I’m not very optimistic. It might just be the new Sodom and Gomorrah, NGL.

Finally, there’s a reason the Western mind can only picture Mad Max when the government collapses: even they know they’re completely amoral and uncivilised, the only force holding society together is fear of legal repercussions/getting killed by the cops. By themselves, for the sake of being good and prosocial and to have some self respect, they won’t do shit.

It is, but it kinda is low on the list of things that Americans should consider as massive moral failings and indictments on their society. I mean, most people give Trump shit cause he’s the seemingly incompetent head of the empire, not because he’s leading the nation that has caused the most death and sorrow in the world for the last 75 years and that openly oppressed, until not too long ago, the same people they enslaved and dehumanised many years prior. The list is gigantic, NGL.

I enjoy arguments and I’m comfortable with confrontation so I haven’t really felt it be annoyingly/hurtfully hostile. Perhaps I’ve just been lucky and I’ve avoided all the difficult folks, lol. Hopefully it gets better for you! 🙏

We could easily make some sort of Lemmy instance where lonely people could find friendship and love, right? Maybe it’s been created already? I met my now wife online (about a decade ago) so don’t lose hope, you never know what tomorrow holds!

I don’t believe that, I believe that the terms stop having meaning when tyranny overpowers ideology.

Ehhh, the American administration has singlehandedly wrecked the world for their own gain pretty much since WW2, either directly through the murder of hundreds of thousands or indirectly sponsoring coups and sowing instability overall. I mean, even the invasion of Ukraine happened because of an American coup in Ukraine in 2011 (that, eventually, ended up with the actor in office) and Russia understanding this as the precursor of an American mobilization in Russia. And whilst the Chinese human right abuses are also monstrous and unethical, at least they’re localised? It’s a mishandling of internal affairs, not an external invasion and utter destruction. I’m sorry, but they’re not even comparable. You could say “if China had carte blanche like the US did through military supremacy they would’ve acted the same way” but I doubt it, because I’ve seen and lived around Chinese people and around Americans/Westerners and the cultures couldn’t be more different… Regardless, if we take away the maybes, you have to objectively admit the American admin has been a blight on this world, through leaders on “both sides” of the American political spectrum, moreso than anyone in recent history.

You can hate all three, or you can hate the American admin and give more leeway to those who haven’t yet shown they’re entirely Godless and immoral, and you can certainly prefer the Chinese and Russian admin for the same reasons, I guess.

You know what? I’m about to say it: I don’t care that you broke your elbow.

Isn’t Hexbear a leftist community? Aren’t leftists by default anti-imperialist and the biggest genocides in history and ongoing perpetrated by bloodthirsty empires? I feel like most people affiliated can’t be genocide deniers, come on…

I’m sorry, OP, I’ve just read that a couple too many times and I truly wonder what the reasoning behind it is. Is it just American right-wingers complaining? Cause, whatever, America is going full isolationist so we only have to listen to them for a decade or so before they firewall everything and Lemmy goes full German, lol. Or is it something else?

People keep on saying this but I haven’t noticed it. Am I just immune to being greatly annoyed by the delivery if the intentions are right? Show me where the hexbear touched you, OP!

Greed is an “intention” though, and the dodo case is just an exception. People are competent enough to live and even “succeed” often despite their incompetence, as seen by history. Intentional wrongdoing, particularly while competent a la Henry Kissinger for instance, has always been the enemy, not incompetent benevolence. We’ve always been able to accommodate the latter, I think.

Regardless, I meant “all that matters” when it comes to living with oneself and facing God, but incompetence certainly makes things hard for us here.

If you’re a dude and you wanna be approached by regular women and not gold-diggers, you kinda have to be cute. If you’re not too handsome you will have to go outside and wait a lot, I guess, even more so if you don’t give off “approachable vibes”. Or you could do what most men have done since time immemorial: learn a bit about people and what makes them smile and go do that regardless of your fears.

And what is this nonsense about being progressive and “gender roles”. Women are scared kittens and the mere possibility of rejection, public or not, wrecks most of their psyches. And men are hornier (else the prostitution market would look very different, lol), so they know they’ll be approached eventually, at least in their younger years. You’re not battling ideology, you’re battling economy! You will have to make a move, unless you’re handsome enough that a woman makes a cost-benefit analysis and finds the risk of EMOTIONAL DAMAGE worth the prize. You might be! If so, well, go outside. If not, you’re gonna have to be brave and do the unthinkable: talk to women and risk ridicule. Most women are nice, sweet and non-confrontational, at least IME, and if you know the least about women you can tell the bad apples apart easily, so give it a go.

Kevin Spacey has been great or straight up magnificent consistently, lol, is it the moral aspect that disturbs you? I firmly believe (and evidence keeps piling up!) that most Hollywood actresses were couch casted, many boys were touched and the cycle repeats. The entire entertainment industry is compromised and has been for years (check out who taught Diddy his tricks). Nvm the “Hollywood accounting” too, money laundering and all of that.

Basically, if you’re enjoying American media, odds are it was made by someone who’s gonna go straight to Hell, no “Go” no 200 bucks, and bigger odds than whoever is making money out of your purchase/rental is going to an even lower circle, lol. Just pirate it and you take away your contribution to amorality, right?

I don’t know the man but somehow Tom Hanks gives me the “very freaky but very good at hiding it” vibes. 🤷

That saying is such an Anglo cultural tell, lol. Intentions are all that matter! Because, unless you die right after the realization but before the act, you are certainly gonna follow through with that intention. You might make mistakes out of incompetence, sure, but no one is perfect, and God knows that you tried to do good so it’s all good… duh.

Again though, not surprising, a cultural “tell” if you will.

Not being able to freely communicate with about half of humanity is definitely a handicap, lol. Nothing that can’t be learned though!

Diogenes chilling in his barrel!

“Where two eat, three can eat also.”