Edit: sorry for the rant. Morning Adderall and lots of thoughts on the subject. :)

I think a lot simply don’t know what they can effectively do about it. As is usually the issue with lefty causes, it’s a lot more brain-work and more complicated than chanting a petty slogan and/or a vague willingness to raid a capitol with no actual goal or understanding in mind.

Right now, beyond just trying to hustle the next dollar to keep existing while under this stupidity, it’s very difficult for us average working-class folk to understand how we can actually punish these powers responsible. Corporations and their fascist backers have become hydras.

If there was some kind of “Here’s how you can effectively ruin these bastards’ day for a better tomorrow without risking prison” playbook we could agree on, I’m sure a lot of people would be willing.

We mock neoliberal masses for buying EVs thinking it’s saving the planet, but at the same time, buying something is one of the few levers the average person is allowed to pull, and they were told it would help. I’d like to think they mean well even though they’re being manipulated.

They try to recycle and try to vote and try to stop buying stuff on Amazon, then sigh and keep trudging along when that obviously doesn’t change anything. They probably get tired of being told they’re not doing anything, especially without some sort of unifying “do this instead.”

Some radicals block traffic and make a general nuisance of themselves occasionally and we watch as nothing happens.

Schoolkids appeal to liberal politicians to stop a doomed future and get chuckled out of the room. Nothing happens.

Whistleblowers expose corporate plans too evil for Saturday morning cartoons and end up conveniently killing themselves. Nothing happens.

I think we’re past the point of diminishing returns on silly stunts for “Raising awareness”.

Enough people know. Although complacent, they care. But give them a week off work to stop climate change and they still don’t know what options they have available to them. Or where their allies are.

Furthermore, generally we tend to want to be good people who don’t want to ruin our lives by openly warring with powers that be.

The Right gets away with their BS because they don’t negatively impact profits. They’re sock-puppet proxies for an astroturfed holy-war that’s ultimately about cutting labor and drilling more oil, so even treason charges aren’t enough.

But if we could finally stop arguing theory and get pissed off enough to march on Washington together or whatever, 2nd-amendment toting or not, we’d definitely be met with force for wanting to shut down the slave-driven garbage machines.

So besides “beg your reps” and “stop buying stupid things from evil companies” (almost everything at this point)…

What’s our rallying cry?

How do we engage? Who’s going to step up and lead?

I don’t think I used to do this. I feel like I used to be so eloquent!

But yet, now, I catch myself stopping mid-sentence, looking down and away at nothing in particular, maybe touching my temple like I’m Charles friggin’ Xavier, and twirling my hand in circles trying to search my head-database for the right words, or people’s names, or whatever.

I’m sure that’d just be aces in a job interview…psh. I feel like it has a negative charisma impact.

I want to think it’s just because I’m expected to know a ton more than before, but it also makes me worry about my mental acuity when I feel like I just feel like things I should know have leaked out my ears or something.

The same capitalist logic that explains the loss of splitscreen multiplayer videogames pretty much applies across the entire socioeconomic sphere.

The ideal consumer-worker is an isolated one that must be concerned with getting their own products, transportation, goods, and services in order to continue participating in society, and must struggle on their own to find a means to pay for those requirements that never seems to be quite enough.

Why sell one thing people can share and pass on when you could sell multiple licenses for disposable things tied to users’ individual identities? Then we just gotta convince everyone that a “Real Adult” ™ has their own personal everything.

It’s also amusing how, at the same time, capitalists love to pearl-clutch about the erosion of the family unit, and blame it on some kind of perceived moral ills, when they’re actively forcing everyone to constantly be at their jobs.

Jobs always seem to be at the cost of our humanity, and we keep getting coerced to give them more of ourselves than we ought.

Hey friend, I really appreciate it. :)

That sincerity and love can change the world, and you’re all the more courageous for it. Even if things suck, I’m glad we’re not alone and there’s people like you here by our side, figuratively or otherwise. :)

I always come back to a few sources of timeless wisdom in the face of all this nonsense. A lot of it found in the Bible, which I know won’t get great reactions thanks to current events.

As a Christian anarchist, I’m also trying to do what I can to combat against the most evil cult of greed, hate, bloodshed, and misery that has become the American state-sponsored religion. It’s a lot of grief and pain to watch the Gospel of selfless love be trampled and peddled by fascists, and the reactionary hatred of it from the oppressed in turn, who’ve only ever known its perversion against themselves.

But I digress. Here’s a some wisdom I keep returning to, etched in my soul. Perhaps it will empower you as well. :)

I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

-Ephesians 6:12

“Do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”

-Bruce Lee

And lastly , I’ve posted it many times before but damnit if this doesn’t remind us why we’re still here in the face of all this madness:

FRODO: I can’t do this, Sam.

SAM: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.

FRODO: What are we holding on to, Sam?

SAM: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

–Samwise Gamgee, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (film version)

Oh my gosh, former Oklahomie for a while here! Can. Confirm.

I once lived in the Northeast by Tahlequah, and the options were dial-up, satellite (with that awful data cap and terrible pings), or a couple guys running an ISP that involved pointing a receiver at a radio tower but download speeds were restricted to like 40kbps.

For games I already had, SOME multiplayer was possible, and web browsing was mostly fine.

Example of DL speeds though: Metro 2033 said it would take like 3 or 4 solid days so my long distance GF (now wife!) literally just sent game files to me on a USB drive through the mail. LOL

Sadly they closed up shop, though.

But somehow, when I lived with my grandma who lived in a place called “Hennepin”, they got blessed with DSL. Made zero sense but I didn’t complain! Even though I had to put a second router in bridge/repeater mode so it’d reach me at the trailer I lived in like 20 yards away from the house! (Trailer didn’t even have plumbing. Winter was “fun.” LOL)

Absolutely wild how cut-off a lot of the country is.

The big stinky desert city I’m in now has its problems, and Cox charges out the nose, but at least we get unlimited fiber out of it.

Starlink might have been great for those folks if it wasn’t headed by such stupid evil…

All honesty, I tend to be optimistic to a fault and try really hard to be cheerful.

Everything starts to crack once socioeconomics comes up. The news lately is all about how everything is about to get worse. “This is collapsing, that’s more expensive, getting a slice of diminishing wages is going to be even harder now! They’re cracking down here and forcing ads there.” Etc etc.

When I’m knee-deep in fixing up my servers or making art or being with my people, everything is just peachy!

But yeah, “How next money tho?” Usually starts the mental downward spiral.

I love living, can do a ton of things, love learning, but I don’t get along with churning out a repetitive task for increasingly worthless currency.

The world outside of what I’m choosing to do feels entirely impossibly out of our control. So I try to balance being informed with staying sane.

Like damn I don’t need much, can’t folk just be left alone? Lol

Wonder if a lot of people feel like I do?

Hugs for you, buddy. <3 the world’s better with you in it.

My old job did this.

“Oh Monkeybutthair01,02,03 has already been used…Monkeybutthair04 it is.”

password updated

SECURITY. 👍👍

I was diagnosed at the same age and identify with everything you said.

The most demoralizing thing is feeling worthless when society bases the justification for your existence on how well you impress in a “competitive job market”, judged by sociopaths against neurotypical standards. Expected to be the most charming person ever while maintaining machine-like consistency.

No amount of self "it’s okay buddy you’re just different"s change material reality. And it’s infuriating. :(

That’s true. It’s very often I’ll get actual replies to things I contribute, which is cool!

I think a lot of the ghost town effect is because other platforms focused on superficial things you don’t really see much here. Big sparkly notifs when you get an updoot and meta-currencies and that sort of thing.

I don’t get a lot of upvotes on stuff, which sometimes gives the impression nobody’s seen it. Furthermore, I find if I respond to something posted older than a few days or a week? That convo is dead. Haha.

That is REALLY nice.

Let’s have that, but a full-blown pocket Linux machine with a decent resolution and a cell-modem and let’s gooo!

The term “internet appliance” is pretty awful though lol.

I think you’re taking it too lightly.

Sorry, there was no way I could find to phrase that without it reading sarcastically but sincerely, I wasn’t trying to downplay your insights!

I was being mildly sarcastic, but also totally serious, in that the birthright of Millenials and onward has been on the “and find out” end of eroding social safety nets and a generally declining civilization.

The idea of living in peace without constantly playing the “weather the next socioeconomic crisis” roguelike dice game is basically a foreign concept at this point. (To anybody who must work for a living.)

• “Oh wow, what a major recession! The worldwide economy sucks! There’s no jobs! Groceries are expensive! Bosses are kings! Wages are frozen!” (Which year, amirite?)

• “Wow these natural disasters are crazy! Look, the water catches fire! Woah, everyone’s full of plastic!”

• Hey that thing there was a steady supply of? Everybody’s freaking out and ready to fight over it.(Jobs, toilet paper, gasoline, twinkies, silicon, whatever.)

• “Hey everything was alright for a while! Workers are winning raises and sick days! But corpos complain and fire everybody to make line go up. Unemployment at record highs again. Here’s 42 ways to suck up to your boss and beg to keep your income.”

• “Haha wow we were SURE that plague was extinct.”

• "Rents skyrocketing. Nobody’s having children. People who want them are increasingly infertile. People who don’t, make it an entire political identity.

• (Insert the entirety of 2020-onward here)

• Everything is hyper competitive and a requires luck. The lucky want to tell you it’s all about Just Working Harder and “everything is actually better than it’s ever been!”

• Hey remember when the whole world went to war against fascists? Ha they’re seen as legitimate again because they’ve got memes now.

**TL;DR: **

I agree with you, it’s like watching the fall of the Soviet Union, except instead of The Party chanting “everything is fine keep working”, it’s mainly private interests. And nobody’s learned anything.

I’m trying to keep my head up lol…

Hell, add Double Dragon to that list.

I gotta watch it…I just remember panicked guys shoving trash into a van to fuel it during a car chase or something. It looked radical lmao.

I love coming across this shortly after using this meme on Lemmy. Enjoy lol

Funny I was just discussing this movie nostalgically with my wife and we had an interesting realization:

The Night at the Museum movies were a fantastic improvement on the concept. :D

Thank you for this. It’s like 2005-youtube all over again and my sides hurt. 😂

I remember a friend sending me something called “MagicBox” that could essentially Denial-of-Service someone from Yahoo Messenger.

Haven’t been able to find it since.

Kinda like that?

I too laughed at “enthusiast mulls.”

That being said, I too, am an enthusiast who’d love to see these handheld-like PCs come back.

Everyone is absolutely right when they say “President Musk.”

Ugh. :(

SFW nature of this comic

✅ SFW: Dude getting snatched by a giant eagle and devoured, bits can be seen falling from its beak and a foot sticks out. Strong language.

❌ NSFW: tiddy.

Work is so weird. Lol