Yes, I know, I am aware of what the US does that is bad, and why. You are responding to a thread that originated from a post about Tiananmen Square, and then a whataboutism response focused on the US. Your continued commenting on things the US did bad are just additives to that. Instead of discussing the wrongs brought up by the post, you are choosing to simply go “but the US did bad too!” Hell you could even have discussed how the constant pushing of Tiananmen, to the point where it is now meme status, and the consequences of it, and you would have added value to the conversation. Instead you choose to simply bring up bad things the US did, that a lot more people are aware of, than your comments lead me to believe you realize.

So if the subject of Tiananmen Square, where the CCP shot, and drove tanks over, student protesters, in public, while various media watched, then instead of allowing the conversation about it to be had, cut off any public discussion of the event, outright denies it happened, and imprisons, and worse, people, to this day, over talking about it, and your response is to talk about a situation where someone leaked classified intelligence documentation, and was treated a criminal for it, instead of something similar to the subject at hand, Tiananmen, like the Kent State masscre, what is the point? Seriously, other than someone said something bad about China, thus I am going to say something bad about the US, what did you intend to do? We all know the US does awful shit, all the time. Make a post about Snowden, there are tons of them on Lemmy. It is a subject spoken of regularly. On those threads we shit on the US for it. Do you go on them and bring up bad things China has done? Do you only do it to defend non-western countries, or, at least, just to divert attention to the evils of the west instead of the subject at hand?

The west does horrific things, and, surprise, so does everyone fucking else. China has a horrific history of inhumanity, and, if not for the US founded, NATO super structure, that gives its military physical reach everywhere on the globe, China, and other BRICS countries would be doing the same, had they the money. Russia, the R in BRICS, is unquestionably in an active attempt to colonize other countries, namely Ukraine. China is pushing its borders as hard as it can, and I do not just mean with places the UN says it owns, but are autonomous, like Taiwan. Whataboutisms are simply diversionary tactics, and not actual rebuttals to anything.

The death grip the Evangelical, ethno-state, GOP has created for its self, proves that voting locally for change, and voting in the “lesser” evil, in the presidential election, works. This was their strategy, only the GOP for the presidency, then, on the local levels, they spent most of their time getting people to vote them into smaller positions of power, especially judicial ones. Over the past 40 years they have entrenched themselves into so many voting districts, so many courts, so many sheriff’s offices, etc., that, even being the minority, they exercise power much greater than their numbers. During this time, they kept moving those local offerings further, and further right. So now we are seeing a significant amount of governors, and senators, that are full blown fascist/theocratic.

If we lock in the Dems federally, and vote progressives locally, we can accomplish the same. Especially if we focus on local voting reforms that are different styles of voting, that allow for more breathing room of third parties. The proof is that the far right theocrats did just this with the GOP.

They didn’t like having hippie semen in their daughter, who could blame them?

Except you brought up the release of classified documents, not discussing something that happened out in the open, in front of the media. Tiananmen Square is not like Snowden leaking documents. What is more comparable is the Kent State massacre. However, that was immediately everywhere, and no one went to prison for reporting it. Where as you can still go to prison over publicly discussing Tiananmen today.

Is it bad that that whistle blowers, working government intelligence, are treated as criminals? Yes, yes it is. The fact that this is the whataboutism you jump to, for discussing Tiananmen Square, rather than Kent State, is telling though. You can’t match the reaction to the similar crime. You have to select a completely different government crime to have a similar reaction. Now tell me, how does China treat people who whistle blow government secrets?

Release an incomplete game, in an unplayable state? Best selling game your studio has ever made. Feel it helps to include perspectives, from a diverse group of people, in your product creation? Beg for forgiveness.

Hey now, captain kirk wasn’t a nazi

So it can in China?

I still see Snowden in the news, and see the information of his documents discussed in mainstream media. Even if it was forgotten, people arern’t being swept away by the feds for talking about online, and on tv.

Isn’t this situation how the term incel was coined? Like, it was a lesbian who could not get a girlfriend, and eventually started saying she was involuntarily celibate, which got shortened to incel?

Yes, there are a lot of people like that. They have psychiatric issues, usually depression. They could just be poor, and don’t have the means to make their house, their home, yet. They might be in the stages before drinking themselves to sleep, every night, alone, at home. Most people are not like that though. Novelty is a key element to stimulation, most people need it, this is why they go out, meet new people, go new places, etc., routines are nice until that element is no longer being fulfilled. Then it just becomes a rut.

That is not the same as as the subject at hand, I have already addressed this, multiple times, down further. A more apt comparison would have been Kent State. Which was something that was immediately put on the news.

I am not saying we need to make subcompacts cool, or the smallest possible vehicle, just ones that aren’t actively intrusive to the lives of everyone stuck around them, dangerous on busy roads, and hard to fit through neighborhood streets, that are wildly sucking gas down, while spewing pollution out.

Yes, I get that loud attracts some people, especially people who want to force it on other people. They were why I was installing those stereo systems, in their car, and not in their house. As for things like the ground clearance, if you are going to spend like 6 digits on a car, of 10s of thousands on mods, there are things like clearance adjust suspensions, for road, terrain, track, shifting. The people who actually go as far as to make low riders, and other things where they have to do a lot of their own work, are so rare, its not really a concern compared to modded coups, lifted trucks, and fart boxes.

Yes, I am glad to hear that the feds are at least looking at new regulations on truck/suv design due to the increase in pedestrian death.

Yeah, and, while they use less gas, they release more particle pollutants into the air.

I said I worry we will get to that point, not hat we are already there.

I am VERY aware of what can happen in concerns to violent revolt. I grew up with a father who consulted NATO countries on how to maintain infrastructure to supply aircraft engine rooms in foreign, and forward operating bases. I probably know more than 99.9% of the people on this network exactly how dire a fight with the US military could be like.

It doesn’t have to be that way though. A lot of that desire was created by car companies using massive advertisement campaigns over decades, to convince people the cars with the most profit margin, and dependency on the system, are cool. All the reasons beneath the obnoxious parts, that ultimately are what people like, can be done differently now. You don’t need a loud car, with shitty normal road compatibility, to have a fast, agile, car, that could be targeted at the consumer. You don’t need loud, smog belching, monster trucks, that fit nowhere, to be able to do all the off road shit. The rest are aesthetic desires, which are easy to manipulate, through advertising, over time.

The whole car industry could just start an unrelenting ad campaign on the side of those who do not like coal rollers, and paint those using them as bad people, and, since a huge amount of the population hate them already, it wouldn’t be all that long before they are a thing of the past.

I didn’t say it was. Protesting has been getting no where. We were burning shit down, and holding police stations hostage, for police reform. Here we are, a few years later, and we have more cops, less accountability, more money per cop spent, few to no structural changes for dealing with mental health issues, and homelessness, less security for the fourth amendment, less transparency, a backlash to the first amendment, etc. Our protests against genocide do nothing, but get people beaten, and put in jail.

It is not easier to fight than it is to protest, but if protest is pointless, as all other avenues for change are becoming, the options left are fighting, or supplication. Hopefully people will start actually taking voting seriously. Big election, vote for the lesser evil. Local election, vote for change. It is how the minority GOP is able to hold this death grip on the government, if you need proof it works. If we can’t organize to get more of the majority of people who don’t vote, to do so, we will have no diplomatic venues left. If those who do vote don’t start taking the movements of the right far more seriously, the right will kill our power to affect change through the vote If we do affect critical change, and it brings out a government stifling of voting power, we will be similarly fucked. Once we have shown all diplomatic efforts to be ineffective, it is fight, or submit.

I enjoy my house, and my things, and use them often. I enjoy my home life. I still feel the need to go out and experience the world beyond my tiny bubble. I get great joy simply out of breaking up my routine, meeting new people, seeing new places, going to local gathering spots. When I am done with all that I also have the benefit of socializing without having a pile of dishes to do either.

Your assessment is right for some people, and you probably have contact with a group that leads to a bias in believing this is what people, generally, who need to do things beyond their house, are like. It is not true for most though. Most people like their homes, and home lives, a lot. They also feel the need to go out and do something other than home life, regularly, in order to be happy, in the long term. Doesn’t matter how awesome my house is, doesn’t matter how many skills I am working on, or how many hobbies I have, if I don’t do something out of the ordinary, on a fairly regular basis, life begins to feel dull, and no amount of improving my home will alleviate that.

I mean, you can make cars cool without making them obnoxious, inefficient, intrusive, poorly fit for local infrastructure, etc.

Unless you think things that cause greater issues for other people are the only ways in which cars can be cool. Then I don’t know what to tell you, at that point it is a personal problem.