Someone’s paying for it.

They don’t even have to be communists, per say. Just being Asian and unaligned is enough. Or Haitian, for that matter.

That doesn’t make any sense.

identical apartments

Under Communism, we were forced by the government to live in Poor People Houses. It was illegal to tip your landlords. If you updated your wallpaper, the local Commissar would murder your first-born child and eat your dog.

Incredible.

I do kinda think there’s a through-line between people into horoscopes and people who never want to make a decision.

because like half of all women are into astrology

In the same way that half of all men are into video games, sure.

they get really really angry with you if you don’t take them seriously when they start lecturing you about it

I’ve definitely had girls explain it to me. And I’ve stepped in it when I teased one too hard, because she just read me as an obnoxious prick (which… in my early 20s… she wasn’t wrong).

But I see astrology get the same treatment as veganism. You mention, in passing, that you’re into a thing. People line up around the block to heckle you and argue with you and scream slurs at you. And for some reason this doesn’t really change you opinion on The Thing You’re Into. It just changes your opinion on dating or on talking to anyone outside your insulated The Thing community.

Dated a girl and, while we were walking through the park, she points up at the sky. “Oh look, Chemtrails”. I absolutely bust up laughing, because I assume I’ve accidentally stepped into a relationship with a conspiracy theorist. She looks incredibly confused. I explain what chemtrails are. She gets even more confused. We whip out our phones for a minute. She says, “Omg I meant contrails”

She’s a lawyer at a white shoe firm now and makes, like, twice as much as I do in IT. Also, absolutely incredible in the sack.

Boomers

Puts on reading glasses

Black Rock

Would it be smart to hold US Treasuries in 1929?

Easiest way to make a million dollars is to start with $20M in US Treasuries paying 5% interest.

I was promised soapy tits

one is even convinced that I’m gonna get divorced just because he did and views all marriages that way

Classic Divorced Guy

there is one friend in the group who agrees with me that our wives are our best friends and soulmates

Wife and I joke about how we can never get divorced because it would be too awkward when we kept hanging out as friends.

But we also have a friend couple that did get divorced, and still hang out regularly on very good terms.

We built the library

Shame you forgot to take ownership of it.

Here’s the Reddit rumor mill, but it’s consistently with what I’ve also heard.

It basically boils down to his home life falling apart, him doing pornography (VGLewds) to make ends meet, the toxic stew of internet culture wearing away at his ego, and him giving up on any project almost entirely for the last four years.

Hardly the only webcomics artist to have a tragic spiral. The Sinfest guy also really went hard off the deep end and has taken to churning out some of the most nakedly fascist comics I’ve read to date.

VGCats? Oh man, talk about a tragic tale.

It’s funny, because I remember playing Persona 5 and seeing that statue in Shibuya Square every time I’m running to the train.

And then I visit Tokyo and there it is. Like getting to meet a celebrity IRL. Except it’s a statue. And there’s a someone next to it with an Imperial Japanese flag screaming fascist shit in Japanese. And at the crosswalk there was a guy with his dick out flashing people.

Japan is a magical place.

But it reminds me of people refusing to vote for Kamala Harris because her Israel policy wasn’t quite perfect

She was actively facilitating a genocide. What’s more, nobody got to vote for Kamala Harris in the primary. Biden ran virtually uncontested, then fumbled a debate performance and got shuffled off stage left. Harris was so unpopular in the 2020 primary that she polled 5th place in her home state. People refused to vote for Kamala Harris because she wasn’t doing a good job of running for office. The Pro-Israel shit was merely the tip of the iceberg.

And, as a corollary to the Harris mess, consider the current Gavin Newsom campaign.

Governor Gavin Newsom used his veto pen over the weekend to ax legislation aimed at protecting providers of gender-affirming care from being extradited to face charges for doing so by another state.

If this guy runs for President, what sane liberal supports him? He’s working hand-in-glove with Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis to fuck over doctors in his own state. If the DNC is going to air-drop him into the Democratic Nomination in 2028, we’re going to get four more years of Trump pretty much guaranteed.

You aren’t going to beat Fascism by lining up for Fascism-Lite.

It’s certainly a perspective on things.

I like it as propaganda and spin, but it’s defeatist in scope. The idea that only Europeans in Europe can have class consciousness, and they lose it the moment they’re on a new continent hasn’t born out in theory or practice.

Voting can definitely bring change. Look at Zohran Mamdani in NYC.

Zohran is a nice change of pace, but we’re way to early in his administration to know whether he’ll bring concrete social change to the city. New York has had decent mayors before. And they’ve left their footprints. But they’ve also had plenty of corrupt shitheads and racist asshats who climb into Gracie Mansion right on the heels of their betters.

But if you’re not satisfied with voting alone then you can get more involved with politics.

The fundamental problem with electoralism - and this is a critique that easily goes back to the first Obama campaign - is that election day often disperses the force that the campaign had originally assembled. What’s notable about Zohran (and a lot of the DSA affiliates) is that they come into office and maintain or expand the organizations that put them there.

Compare that to say, the Beto Campaign in Texas or the Fetterman Campaign in Pennsylvania or Polis in Colorado. Win or Lose, they disintegrate within a few weeks of the votes being counted. Often, they produce legacy candidates that act in direct opposition to the people who put them there. And that sows distrust in the movements that produced them.

So I might argue that you get involved in an organization you like first. And then you make decisions within that organization collectively. And sometimes that means supporting a candidate. Sometimes that means recognizing there’s nobody worth voting for in a given race and agreeing - collectively - that you’re not going to support anyone. But the root of the organization is in the organization, not in the voting.

Just going out and slapping buttons and saying “Okay what’s next?” is a sucker’s gambit.