I never expressed such an idea.

Indeed, you failed to address it, focusing exclusively on meat.

Compliance can only be achieved by a state repressing their class and reeducating them on their new class position in a society where they can no longer exploit workers.

And I’m the fascist? You propose an authoritarian state ideology and not only are you fighting the bourgeoisie, you’d have to fight me over the fact that I would not tolerate your state control any more than I would tolerate their state. Would the state tolerate my constant antagonism that your system is not doing enough for the environment, attempting to rally others to oppose its tolerances, or would that be supressed?

The majority of people don’t have the heart to raise and kill and mutilate, or even the stomach for it.

Yet you think there’s enough of them to wage a class war and suppress the consumers? Or is this revolution achieved by outsourcing the slaughter to professional killers like soldiers, to pretend the classless system magically appears in society?

Misanthropic, no. I believe that your notion of what a “state” is or should be seeks to overextend the capacity of human social systems to function in a society; simply, you cannot create a state with hundreds of millions of individuals and expect unity without resorting to authoritarian tyranny because you end up valuing the state more than the individuals that comprise it. I don’t believe that humanity is irredeemably evil, I believe most humans recognize cruelty, harm, exploitation, and suffering but chose to ignore it for a variety of reasons, usually self-gratification or satisfaction. That is what I would say roughly equates to “evil”. War waged on behalf of someone or something that cannot stand up for itself is generally seen as noble or virtuous, but war for any cause is a hell with a million variables. You will inevitably harm, maim, unhouse, traumatize, and kill things that you didn’t intend, possibly were even fight on behalf of.

Do you have the stomach to personally kill another human being in the pursuit of your goal? To look someone willing to fight you to the death for their right to maintain their class privilege? Would you do it if they were a senior citizen? A youth? Would you kill a parent willing to kill you in front of their kids? Or would you ask your state to do it on your behalf?

Because they have the raddest Archaeopteryx specimen.

They’d actually be more easily convinced by the animal welfare arguments and pure environmentalist arguments that you’re making, because they might at least care for non-human animals and because there’s no class antagonism.

C’mon now. This thread is full of backlash from leftists and communists who have called me every name in the book for crazy as well as a “fascist misanthrope” for suggesting that non-human animals and the environment should have rights equal to humans. Individuals might love a favorite pet in their life, or the cuteness of penguins and pandas, but if I can’t convince other leftists of the value of animal and environmental rights, why would it work with conservatives. A substantial amount of them don’t believe in science or evolution, but base their claim to human superiority in notions of divine creation, to have dominion over the Earth. Suggesting animals have equal rights to their existence not only confronts their economic and social systems, it confronts one of the core beliefs they build their economic and social systems on.

I would also challenge the idea that people only cause non-human suffering in the pursuit of flesh for consumption. Sport hunting, the fur industry, and by-catch all cause suffering without consumption. People redirect their anger to those who can’t defend themselves, like beating a dog because one’s boss yelled at them. In the US we have a major issue with pets being used as hostages in domestic abuse situations because women’s shelters often only allow women and children. The abuser gets ahold of the pet, threatens or commits violence, and the woman returns to her abuser (side note, awareness of this is on the increase and there’s a lot of charitable organizations stepping in to help prevent it). Even “vegan” leather is a questionable commodity because it’s a by-product of the petroleum industry. The person wearing it might feel righteous but, well, the petroleum industry.

I do not think for a second the world is going to go vegan, nor that there’s an entirely harm-free solution to life. I also don’t think the world is going to quit doing as it does and go back to subsistence farming, nor is that even the right solution for the entirety of humanity. I do believe that harm reduction and mindful living are the key, and that is something we can teach and encourage.

But the next few of questions I would have for you- how do we deal with the “haves” of society that exploit, take, and refuse to abandon their class? You’re not going to get them to stop with appeals to reason, and they’re not going to sit back and watch their privileges be stripped without pushback. How do we achieve compliance? Do you really think most people would stop eating meat if they had to raise, slaughter, and process it themselves? Even in a cashless, barter and trade economy, the demand for meat will always exist and people will outsource it. They’d blackmarket it if you completely outlawed it

Now that I think about it, it’s odd that the replicators never (or at least infrequently) produce absolute slop. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it essentially a specific form of transporter? Somewhere they must have a supply of whatever the atoms waiting to be combined into “food” are (recycling the ship’s waste??) so that when you say “cherry pie” it knows you need X amount of whatever atoms arranged in whichever format the data instructed. Given that transporters can malfunction, there should be some instances where the replicator grossly malfunctions and instead of an off-tasting slice of pie you get a mutant horror that looks like it crawled out of Seth Brundle’s lab.

“Lots of modern writing is still just words”. Words without action are just “thoughts and prayers” of liberals acknowledging a problem to signal virtue publicly while quietly ignoring the problem or agreeing to pass it on to a later generation. Tell me, do you “feel bad” because you empathize with the suffering, or do you “feel bad” because you’re ashamed you are aware of the suffering yet put little effort into correcting it? Or is “feeling bad” one of the points you don’t actually believe?

Just don’t forget that many of the shareholders are not in fact “the rich”, but the “better than average” middle class who will hand power to the filthy rich so long as those in power will keep punching down the lowest class on their behalf. We are surrounded by ladder-pullers and gate-keepers who have a lot more in common with the rest of us than they do their billionaire idols, but will fight to keep the illusion that they are superior. It’s a class war, but it’s also a class civil war since a lot of our peers are convinced their participation makes them a part of the club. The change won’t happen until we can convince our neighbors empowering leaders and systems that promise them the world will, in fact, just use their cash/votes to enrich themselves and occasionally toss some bread and a circus.

Exactly. As I replied to someone else, taking out one might scare them enough to offer lip service “change”, but they’ll play along with that idea until they’re convinced we’re not pissed enough to go to that level again and quietly start building back what they want.

Tim Noel has been at United for almost 20yrs and is onboard with continuing the mission Brian was helming. The system may have been shocked that someone fought back, might even have responded in our favor, but without continued observation and pressure, they’ll quietly transition back to the model they want to operate once the hubbub and anger dies down. They’ve also beefed up their security and gone to ground with anything the public could access that might give them personal information about who’s up to what. Look at what has happened again and again with demands for police reform in this country. Every once in awhile some cops will behave so egregiously even the thin blue line will offer them up as consolation prize to appease the masses, they’ll announce some joint venture with a reform group to “address” the issues, put their cops through some classes of their own choosing- but it’s the bare minimum and mostly in the hope that some fresh outrage will start trending and people will forget what they were mad about five minutes ago. Then we’re caught in the cycle of momentary violence boiling over but no sustained change.

We just need a lot more somebody’s because United simply plugged in another “somebody” to replace the dude, same as Turning Point. It’s like there’s an endless supply of nobodies to fill seats. Which should tell the people filling the seats how unremarkable and meaningless their lives are; your work and achievements have no value in themselves, you’re easily replaceable, and your “funeral” won’t be a celebration or memorial of you as an individual but a launch party for whoever comes next.

Luna moth?

That health care CEO’s policies became so restrictive and unfair that they eventually spawned a customer so angry he corrected the problem.

they corrected the problem. We still have no idea who that anonymous hero was. All we know is it wasn’t Luigi, as he was playing Mario Kart with me across the country at the time. I remember it distinctly because he doesn’t play the character you’d think he would.

It would be a good start but as long as the US supports them they’ll remain sufficient enough that their ruling class can enjoy their standard of living. It’d be the same as turning the US into a pariah, only the poorest would suffer. Might get some of them to flip on their support for the regime since the consequences hit home, but both regimes are self-sufficient and no longer need the support of the people to maintain power. The wealth class in the US could survive a long blockade on the resources available there, natural and human, if cut off from it’s ability to outsource exploitation.

The real cost to dislodge these regimes is going to be money and blood, because they will not give up their power without a fight externally or internally. We got rid of Trump once and he unleashed his supporters on the Capitol, they’d vote/fight for the same thing the next time they got a chance. Same in Israel. It’s probably going to take a combination of external powers leveraging their global economic influence, apply military force, and coordinating with internal opposition to oust the central powers, then stick around and help what can be scavenged of the resistance to build new infrastructure and help prevent the Lost Causers from creeping back in to positions of influence and power.

It’s like Bum Fights but with value. I do hope Hunter has his laptop hidden under the ring and starts going to town with it like a steel chair.

If you’re only an asshole to the rich and the bigots at your level, you’re not an asshole, but a working class hero.

Hey! Those were mine. Fortunately I found them in a different bar some years later.

This is why Ted never looked like his sketch. Dude knew to cover his tracks.

I’ve been a volunteer with refugee resettlement for years (still doing it because to leave now would hurt our on-going services to real refugees). From what I’ve seen, these are less ICE recruits and more in-line with the replacement theory” ideas. They’re trying to abuse the funds and infrastructure set aside to help deserving refugees and bolster their influx of the “right” kinds of people. And to an extent, it does work. If we didn’t help their refugees, we’d lose funding and support; if we quit in protest the people who came here earlier and are still settling would lose their support.

Most of the ones I’ve met seem more like someone you’d see holding a sign behind Trump at a rally than hardcore Proud Boy. They seem middle class, average education, entitled, resentful, and like they don’t actually need the help of our resettlement program. Most refugees come in with nothing; most of these folks have plenty.

And while it’s a sad statement on society, don’t discount the hate and bigotry of the homegrown MAGAts. They’ve hated refugees for years because they think they get a free ride into what they were born to (or worked hard to get). The whiteness is not an automatic “welcome” even if the politics match. They’re almost as hateful towards any immigrant regardless of color. I overheard one refugee upset because a MAGAt called her a “white n*word”. Welcome to America, land of hate.

Donnie threatening the Pope, Bennie threatening Spain; Polymarket taking bets on if we get a sequel to the Thirty Years War or 2 Spanish, 2 Inquisition first?