The very first thing he says is the most damning.

He wanted to use the death penalty against the people who stood up to Trump’s fascist insurrection.

Dude got what he earned.

Lots of stuff from I Might Be Wrong by Radiohead. Like Spinning Plates, especially.

AI you say? Here’s 69 million dollars. Make it happen!

It insisted that the IDF “does not intentionally target civilians.”

Damn, they must all have really bad aim and trigger discipline then. Guess it doesn’t count if you look around conspicuously and say “oops” afterwards.

If I’m camping, absolutely. Preferably in a hammock. It’s hot as hell where I live.

I’ll never learn to spell the word “medieval” without spell check.

Think of it like your email provider: you can still get email from Hotmail even if you have an AOL.com account.

Where this analogy breaks down is that some instances have defederated from others. This means “we don’t want your data, and we won’t import it.”

But if you pick an instance that is widely federated then you can see and interact with most of Lemmy.

It blows my mind that people from outside the US are infatuated with MAGA. It’s like seeing someone drowning in quicksand and diving in head-first because it looks fun.

Reactionary ideology is absolutely associated with the far right.

Conservatism is a reactionary ideology.

Conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes. It provides the most consistent and profound argument as to why the lower orders should not be allowed to exercise their independent will, why they should not be allowed to govern themselves or the polity. Submission is their first duty, and agency the prerogative of the elite. Though it is often claimed that the left stands for equality while the right stands for freedom, this notion misstates the actual disagreement between right and left. Historically, the conservative has favored liberty for the higher orders and constraint for the lower orders. What the conservative sees and dislikes in equality, in other words, is not a threat to freedom but its extension. For in that extension, he sees a loss of his own freedom.

-Corey Robin, The Reactionary Mind

“Encounters” is such a funny way to phrase it. Like he was traveling through the woods on a quest and had to roll on the random table upon which a pack of wolves was also an option.

Hermes Conrad. He’s got a level head and knows his way around a bureaucracy.

Please enlighten me on how he could have acquired $200 billion dollars if he had paid his fair share in taxes, fairly compensated his labor, and refrained from monopolistic business practices.

As a reminder, the tax rate for the wealthy during the highest period of economic growth was as high as 91%, whereas Gates has never paid more than 40%.

How do you think his stocks were juiced if not for the aforementioned monopolistic business practices? What kind of capital gains taxes did he pay on those compared to what labor pays on their income? Why should he pay at a lower rate than people who work for a living instead of holding onto wealth?

But perhaps you misunderstand my point: a healthy society would not allow this kind of wealth disparity, as it is inherently destabilizing.

Oh yeah, I forgot to add monopolistic practices that prevented people from effectively operating competing businesses.

That should about cover it.

It shouldn’t be his money to spend; it’s been skimmed from all the people he has underpaid and the taxes that he’s avoided for decades.

Billionaires shouldn’t exist, even ones with good PR like Gates.

I made that exact mistake a couple weeks ago, and it was just like you say. Biggs doesn’t have nearly as many of those bitter ones, either.

No. It’s another form of government that has its own issues, but not all authoritarian regimes are fascist.

On the other hand, neo-feudalists are reactionaries because they want to return society to a mythical past where a heirarchy of elites rules over their subjects. Fascism, neo-feudalism, and conservatism are all subsets of reactionary ideology, but they are not the same thing.

So… Bring my HEV suit and crowbar?

I feel like I could get flintknapping down pretty well.

But what about the freedom to lose one’s life savings to an insurance company?