Do not ask people how to do this. If you don’t know from a web search, you shouldn’t try this without backing up a full disk image and understanding how to roll it back. Or at least backing up everything you care about

It’s not a particularly hard thing, but it’s a very irreversible one

Well, “just asking questions” is different from asking questions - the one in quotes isn’t actually a question, it’s a dishonest way to slip in a point and (at a vibes level) “win” a debate with no desire to learn or seek truth

The term comes from Tucker Carlson I think, he’d make baseless accusations against people but phrase them as questions

And unfortunately, things are just that fucking crazy these days. Most political discourse (in general, it’s somewhat better here) is done in bad faith at this point, I think your question would have been interpreted differently not that long ago

People are scared and angry. It helps to proactively signal you genuinely want to engage… At least somewhat

Yes, the royal families in countries like them and the UAE are absurdly rich and like showing off. They flex on the richest billionaires, because not only do they have a net value that is thought to be higher then Musk, it’s not just on paper - they can spend insane amounts without worrying about hurting stock prices

They probably have food trucks like this for all kinds of restaurants, just sitting on standby. There’s no way they’re not legit - the whole point is to flaunt. This is probably normally used for like their kids pool parties or something

Or maybe they really did get this set up for Trump, in which case it’s still definitely legit. It even has the new decor they’ve been bringing to their restaurants

Remember, with the super rich the inefficiency is the point. They’d probably flog everyone for shaming them or something if it came out this wasn’t “real” McDonald’s

“Just asking questions” is a dishonest tactic the right has been using for a long time now. You asked “how did they subvert the will of the people if they won the vote?”

That question contains multiple assertions. For one, it’s repeating the mandate of the people narrative - the actions of an elected official are not the same as the will of the people. Democracy is a political system meant to serve the will of the people, it’s not itself the will of the people.

It also assumes that no subversion took place… And you can’t know what you don’t know, but it’s giving “change my mind”

That sets the starting line for arguing the will of the people wasn’t subverted by disputing facts, moving goalposts, or some whataboutisms. It frames the conversation in a way that sneaks things in as default assumptions

If you don’t want to be mistaken for doing this, you can word your questions more neutrally/open ended, or be more explicit in requesting information. Adding “am I missing something?” To something that isn’t adding up makes it come across far more neutral and good faith. It’s also just less confrontational, which is good if you don’t have the full picture yet

The Canadian boycotts are not “voting with your wallet”, they’re collective action.

Canadians, together, decided to boycott American goods. Their leaders cancelled deals. Their local stores and suppliers decided they’d rather source from anywhere else. The Canadian government started working on trade deals with everyone else

The nation of Canada as a whole is boycotting American goods. They’re not doing this individually, they have an organized response

Voting with your wallet is a lie, like recycling plastic

You can’t do collective action individually. You can make the house hurt a little bit, but you’ll never force them to change through what you buy. The house always wins, unless you get together to change the rules

People say that because going to college is becoming exponentially expensive. It gets meaningfully worse year over year

Education is great, learning is more then half of the joy of life. The education system in our country is absolutely broken. Both these things are true

You can still come out on top in a broken system. I did. I have no regrets, no debt. But as a whole, it’s just getting worse all the time

Does anyone else not feel the humiliation of a foreign country trying to gift us a new command center? Corruption aside, this is incredibly humiliating

That’s the annoying part. It’s not performative.

From my perspective, it’s like most people just mindlessly stumble through the world how they’ve been taught. They turn on lights not because they need it, but because it’s normal. They trust the label on the back of products over their own lived experience of using it.

I like the dark. I like the sun. I like being able to see. I see just fine in the dark. Excess artificial lights make it so I see less. This isn’t a me problem, this is you projecting

I’m not being weird or edgy. I’m not inviting you to comment, I’m being comfortable. I’m so tired of pretending, it’s fucking exhausting. I don’t need to come into the light, I want to be acceped as I am, not what you think I should be. If you ask genuinely wanting to understand, I’d explain that I like it. I’m so tired of explaining myself to people asking “why are you sitting in the dark?”

No, it’s because consulting companies like McKinsey tell Microsoft, ea, and Ubisoft that micro transactions will make stock go up, then they go to investment groups and say micro transactions are the sign of a gaming company about to make money

They have all the metrics, they aren’t doing what makes them the most sales or revenue. They’re doing what makes the stock price dance

Yes. Literally brain dead.

When you collaborate with fascists, it always goes one way. They use you, then they turn on you. Every single time.

They must always be the victims. There must always be new enemies. If you join hands with fascists, you’re just empowering them and volunteering yourself as the next enemy

What do you think this would even look like? They like the trappings of Christianity. They’re not going to give up religion. They’re just going to pick or create a more convenient hate-filled flavor and try to make it the national religion

There’s a word for that. It’s called collaboration.

I don’t care what you want to do, working with fascists is the stupidest way to do it.

I read it and I still have no idea what this is

You’re like… Half right.

History is packaged as a story about movements and ideals. The truth is it’s always people, and infinitely messy

My understanding is he told them to work through the local authorities

Which…I mean… Do you want the Catholic Church doing the investigation?

You’d join hands with fascists against a pope put in place to oppose it?

Well he’s already announced one with the easiest country, the UK. Well, more like concepts of a deal, but it’s basically a done thing

No, that’s my point exactly - I felt the inconsistency viscerally. My reality conflicted with what I never thought to question. It’s the same for everyone.

My example was not to say I’m superior, but to say propaganda works. Even if you’re educated. Even if you put in time to question your own beliefs. It slips in without notice, and you don’t know it’s there until you do

And the news, social media, the language of politicians - it’s intentionally designed to give people a skewed version of the world.

Let me give you an example happening right now… The tarrifs. Markets went down, Trump approval went down. The markets recovered, people think it was a nothing burger

The ports are empty. The supply chains cuts are about to ripple through… But most people think that whole thing is over, that Trump just did a little insider trading, but the economy managed to hold up to it. So his approval rate recovered a bit

This summer, we’re going to have empty store shelves. It’s so obviously not over… But many, many people have mixed up the “economy” with the actual trade of goods and services.

That’s the level of most people’s understanding

They’re not full of hate - they’re full of fear and anger. Warranted fear and anger. Just misdirected

In Trump’s last presidency, nothing fascist really happened. Bad things certainly, disastrous even, but honestly? Living through it, it was mostly business as usual. Things got worse, but the COVID response was really the worst, and there’s no living comparison… So it’s a mishandling of a unique crisis, so it was what it was

You don’t understand propoganda.

One of the times I felt most ignorant was when I was working in France, and talking politics I called them socialist and they laughed. Because all my life, France was labeled socialist, I learned it in elementary school through college. I was already a leftist. But I never thought to evaluate my understanding of socialism against my understanding of French politics. And when called out, I immediately realized it was a complete blind spot and felt ashamed. I learned to doubt what I’d been taught, to examine my geopolitical beliefs more deeply. I’d never have done that without a wakeup call

They don’t know what fascism is. They’ve never experienced it. The Nazis are unambigiously evil to them, but they don’t know the fascism checklist. The news they consume reframes everything as normal partisan politics… It downplays it all to a degree that can only be described as lies.

They don’t know that there’s any inconsistency. They are the highest form of ignorant - they don’t know to question yet

I’m not talking about Nazis. When all this is over, they can deal with the consequences of their actions

I’m talking about the people who genuinely have no idea what’s going on. The Trump supporters you see in real life. The ones who were shocked when the tarrifs went through. The ones who think Trump is religious. The ones who thought Elon was actually intelligent and is reducing fraud

Most people you meet in real life aren’t the raving lunatics you see online, they’re people who watch the news. In American news, everything Trump says is sane washed.

They aren’t Nazis. They don’t believe Nazi things. They don’t know or understand what’s going on, they think it’s business as usual because that’s what they’re being told

There’s genuinely not very many Nazis, there’s plenty of casual bigots, but the ignorant vastly outnumber the true believers