I think the world is more complex than any individual person can possibly comprehend, but that doesn’t make us incapable of moral judgement or unable to imagine radical alternatives to the status quo. Yes, things are the way they are now for a reason, but rarely a good reason. I see the appeal to complexity as a cognitive trap serving as a thought-terminating cliché, and it’s the trap that a lot of social democrats have fallen into. It is easier to stick to what you know than to speculate about a world you’ve never experienced, but I promise you the latter is more fulfilling and a great antidote to cynicism.

I won’t speak for you, but when I was a social democrat I was pretty miserable and cynical. I recommend the book Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, as it is what snapped me out of being a social democrat, personally. That sent me into the world of radical politics and I found footing by reading David Graeber (The History Of Everything, Bullshit Jobs, etc.) which helped me put my thoughts into perspective and realize my beliefs had already been fairly anarchist for a while. I’m not an anti-realist like a lot of anarchists are, my worldview is still grounded in materialism, but I have become a bit more agnostic in that regard over time.

Alright, I’ll have a go at guessing your ideology since you asked. Given your status quo preference (“the generations before us aren’t stupid and things are the way they are for a good reason”), you’re not a radical so that leaves conservative, liberal, or centrist. Given you’ve implied that you used to have some anarchist beliefs it’s unlikely you went from that to conservative, so most likely you’re some flavor of liberal, like a social democrat. You’re vaguely sympathetic to some socialist and anarchist ideas but think you’re too smart to commit to them because the world is “just more complicated than that.” Capitalist realism has pulled you back from becoming a radical as you’ve gotten older.

Looks like photoshop, not AI. There’s a watermark on the statue and woman’s clothes that says “adam the creator.”

Speak for yourself. All kinds of groups from conservatives to liberals to fascists to communists (although let’s be honest, it’s mostly the conservatives and liberals and ‘enlightened centrists’) love to arrogantly imply that their current worldview is the mature, rational conclusion that any intelligent person should reach in adulthood, and any other is just childish, naive, and poorly conceived. The people who do this aren’t speaking to anything concrete about the world, they’re just high on their own farts and confident in their ignorance.

And it’s the anarchists who catch the bulk of the sneering insults from these types, who will often demonstrate their own ignorance as they dismiss them as naive and uninformed. You did this yourself by extolling the virtues of markets as a defense of capitalism, apparently not knowing that markets are not exclusive to capitalism.

Just chiming in here to say that you are the most insufferable person imaginable and a perfect example of the attitude that has caused the Democratic party to lose repeatedly to the most moronic fascist movement in history. This - what you are doing now - is far more to blame for the rise of fascism in this country than the DNC’s critics on the left who you so obnoxiously love to whip into silence for the sake of electing another corporate stooge who will only keep the seat warm for the next fascist to humiliate them.

When people are so quick to point an accusatory finger so frequently and unprompted towards them as you did commenting on this post is it any wonder that 3rd party and non-voters start to grow bitter towards their accusers? It would be far more productive of you to join their calls for a better Democratic party and not constantly chastise those with whom you agree on all except their choice to vote on their principles. Harm reduction is not a persuasive argument, it is a strategic decision to acknowledge your moral culpability in both action and inaction, informed by reality not ideals. It would be ideal if everyone understood this concept and voted to cause the least harm, but that is not the reality, and you will not convince them with finger-wagging and moralising. I am asking you to continue practicing harm reduction by keeping your frustrations with non-voters to yourself - knowing that voicing them only causes further harm - and instead direct them to dem electeds and primary candidates to be better at inspiring their vote.

They share the same animators! Even though they went in different directions with the animation style you can see the similarities if you watch both, especially in the portal scenes of CSE.

The body horror combined with existential dread of the chanda scanning scene hits harder than anything else I’ve seen, it’s definitely burned into my mind as well. Having experience with seeing the effects of a traumatic brain injury on a loved one made it so much more emotionally impactful as well, and anyone who has experience with neurological disorders/diseases would be affected by it as well because of the visceral realism. Whoever directed that scene has definitely seen someone with progressive aphasia before.

Scavengers Reign and Common Side Effects share the same creators, and are both very good! It’s interesting that they both have themes related to harmony with nature and the various relationships that humans form with it, good and bad.

Pantheon is also fantastic, super heady sci-fi with a lot to say about the modern tech industry, and loads of references to sci-fi classics. It’s clear the writers are huge sci-fi geeks and their enthusiasm comes through in the show.

I haven’t seen The Mighty Nein but if it’s being grouped with the other shows here it must be worth a watch. It does seem like the odd one out of the bunch though since it’s fantasy rather than sci-fi like the other 3.

It would be easier to list the things that should not be done and over with by now.

This explains but does not justify the decision to kill on behalf of the state.

IMO the best vegan substitute for chicken nuggets is breaded and fried lion’s mane mushrooms. They are absolutely perfect in taste and texture for this purpose, and the best part is that they can be grown very easily and cheaply.

Sure there’s been a wave of imperialist wars, but it would have to cascade out of control and legitimately threaten world superpowers directly for a world war to break out. All this adventurism taking place is unfortunately just par for the course. IMO something truly unprecedented like the US launching a ground invasion against Mexico would have to happen to set off a cascade. I don’t think even airstrikes on Mexico would do it, only a ground invasion.

Edit: not even 3 days since I made this comment and I think I may be horribly wrong. Israel employing the same genocidal tactics in Iran that they did in Palestine, Shiite uprising in Bahrain and Saudis sending in forces to put it down, US and Israel setting the stage for Kurdish forces from Iraq to invade Iran, submarine strike on Iranian ship in the Indian Ocean, China and Russia providing satellite support for Iran, Israeli ground invasion in Lebanon. The cascade seems to have begun.

To explain that a bit better, lots of schools and workplaces have a VPN for employees / students to log into the local network of the campus / workplace to allow them to access internal resources (databases and such) without having to expose those resources to the public internet. It’s a sort of security measure.

In the above commenter’s case it was a university VPN, meaning the servers were run by the university on the university’s private network. That means the university can monitor everything you do on it. The professor’s mistake is that they heard ads from commercial providers saying VPNs make you anonymous and assumed the university VPN was the same thing. Commercial providers have servers set up in a variety of locations so you can make your traffic appear to be coming from somewhere else, and most at least claim not to log any traffic and will present independent audits as proof. If the professor had used a commercial VPN provider instead then the university would not have known what they were up to. It is still possible for the websites you visit to deanonymize you through the use of trackers, cookies, fingerprinting, etc. and there’s no real guarantee that the VPN providers are being truthful as some have been caught giving logs they claim not to keep to law enforcement agencies.

You should give it another viewing. There’s violence, but it’s not just random murder for its own sake like in The Purge. The protagonist carries out a series of targeted assassinations against people who were involved in detaining and experimenting on him in a concentration camp, and blows up a couple of empty buildings at the beginning and end of the movie in a symbolic act of defiance against a fascist regime. There’s a bit towards the end where he ships a bunch of guy fawkes masks to everyone and there’s some robbing and looting, but no killing until a secret police guy shoots an unarmed child in the street and some people jump him. The plot overall is about people rising up against and toppling a fascist regime, which is pretty relevant to current events.

Don’t wait for midterms, vote in the primaries for the most progressive candidates. We should want strong candidates in the general who aren’t compromised by corporations and who run on a progressive economic platform. This is what it will take to make a Democratic win a true victory rather than a brief respite from only the most visible aspects of fascism.

Jasmine Crockett being better / more aggressive in a debate doesn’t make her better on policy. She’s the establishment choice in this primary, an AIPAC-compromised ghoul with a snazzy coat of paint. Roasting Republicans with sick burns on fox news doesn’t wash the Palestinian blood from her hands, and she’ll keep up the appearance of fighting while caving at every opportunity to corporate interests.

Where did they mention wanton violence? That’s not what anarchism is, and that’s also not what’s portrayed in V for Vendetta.

TBH I wouldn’t put it past a bunch of right-wingers from Florida to think storming Cuba with half a dozen people in a speedboat is a good idea.