I would like to point out that the likes of walmart and amazon have, like the mosquitos they are, sucked dry the money that used to circulate around smaller towns, and that might otherwise be used for a swim center or something.

I say this because step number one to fixing these places is bringing the money back.

Step two might be price locking rent and/or just taking land out of the hands of landlords and housing firms.

Racists only need to trust that saying the n-word in public will get their ass beat.

So it is for being republican.

Why are you people so opposed to using shame to your strategic advantage?

Being conservative is not genetic: If they don’t want to deal with the extreme difficulty of being republican in public, then they should stop doing that.

I don’t care if they understand why or not. They will submit or perish.

Get an electric car if you want, but you should still support society moving away from needing them in the first place, no?

Imagine a school cafeteria is serving kids the option of 5 hershey’s chocolate bars, or a slice of pizza. You can acknowledge the pizza is better, but you should still be asking where the god damn vegetables are.

I think it makes sense to compare image genAI to photography.

As a photographer, nope.

Legit, I’m not even reading the rest of what you said. This photography point is so mind numbingly boring at this point.

Ba-dum-tss*!*

Leaded actually makes you the most smart because it makes your brain heavier. 🙂‍↕️

To be clear, I’m talking about leadership. It’d be a bit like celebrating J.K. Rowling for her advocacy against spousal abuse, meanwhile, she’s still dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into nazi anti-trans groups. More of a broken clock situation than a slippery slope.

I think it would be different if the provocateurs in question weren’t, like, religious zealots or whatever. I have little confidence their aim is to move the needle in a direction I’d like it to go.

I’ve argued with plenty of do-nothing dip shits about Just Stop Oil who are concerned solely with getting to work on time and, apparently, the plexiglass in front of famous paintings. But the difference is, Just Stop Oil is a cause I can get behind. I’m not worried that supporting them would also lead to mandatory chastity cages, you know?

I mean, I will admit the first steam list I saw, I thought “This seems bad. Can’t imagine missing any of these titles, though.”

[edit] I actually forgot to mention this: The “right way” to do, like, CSAM counter-terrorism on the level of whatever is happening now will virtually always incense a bunch of libertarians—it’s not really avoidable.

Well, firstly, because I did think for a moment you were going to start defending tobacco companies—that would have been wild. Thanks for not doing that, I guess.

But secondly, because there is nothing actually wrong with this word choice. Like, this is kind of a literacy issue: smuggling is more than just moving physical goods, it is to sneak them across lines and borders maintained by authorities. The advertisement here is the good being smuggled; it’s a perfectly apt metaphor. The implication is either that regulators don’t know this is happening, or are by some technicality unable to do anything about it.

Broadly, this is related to arguments I’ve had with people about whether ‘genocide’ is an appropriate term for what the US is or wanted to start doing. And, what do you know, we now have our first internment camp. I’ll pause for applause; you gotta love an achievement.

Hell, I remember arguments about whether Isreal was technically committing a genocide. They are doing that. People were just calling it ahead of time.

I desperately want to see people stop particulating over the details of at best mildly incorrect word choice. This is a kind of anti-intellectual behavior. It’s refusing to see a metaphor, or even a perfect application, for what it is. You actually work against positive forces by constantly dragging the discussion down.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. I just thought thoroughly explaining would be better than going back and forth 17 more times.

The article specifically calls out advertising—how does ‘smuggling’ imply anything else? To smuggle here just means “to circumvent regulators.” And yeah, I think it’s appropriately terse.

You are reacting to what is, at worst, a bit of poetry. I don’t understand why you’re doing that.

They’re advertising tobacco to children, which is illegal. Why would you throw yourself on this hill?

If they are circumventing regulators, and they are doing that, then they are smuggling advertisements to illegal targets, yes.

I got a ghost video for you.

“Go oUtSiDe!” says the guy rocked by an angry mountain. The only mountain I’m climbing is my stairmaster.

The things being smuggled are ideas. “beyond the reach of regulators,” see? It’s the advertisement nature of what’s being done here.

When GTA6 becomes a period piece:

“Oh! Remember when cars used to look like that?”
“Remember when cars used to be above water?”
“It’s so dry here!”

I’m not done with it. Mamdani won the primary in New York. People like Hakeem Jeffries need to pull their damn britches up and vote blue no matter who, amirite?

Those aren’t the choices right now. Gavin shouldn’t even make it that far. We desperately need new blood, someone who captures the anger at the heart of the american left-of-center, not another establishment democrat who will pretend it isn’t there.

Your leaders are failing you, Dan. Gavin’s got a pack of rabid dogs he wouldn’t mind much feeding you to.