Bird names are all either, “red-breasted blackbird,” or, “deep-throated cum-tit.” There’s no in-between.

Yeah, for sure. Also, I should be clear that I’m not certain how much I believe in the male loneliness epidemic. I think a lot of it can be explained as people who were conditioned to view themselves as the primary earners having to cope with the conditions of late stage capitalism. But I think that representing the male loneliness epidemic as, “men aren’t getting laid,” is a fundamental misunderstanding of the argument, and ironically, what the original commenter thought of when they first heard of male loneliness is a much more accurate description than what they think, “people really meant by it.”

OK, but…no? That’s not what people are talking about with the male loneliness epidemic. They’re talking about how an inability to connect with their peers on a more than superficial level, coupled with a lack of older male role models, are causing Gen Z and Millennial men to report extremely high levels of loneliness.

It’s tangentially related to, “getting laid,” as many of these men are driven towards misogynistic monosphere influencers who make sexual conquest a measure of self-worth, but that’s a symptom of the problem, not the totality of it. Also, some people debate the existence of the loneliness epidemic altogether, but no one defines it as, “men aren’t getting laid.”

What she actually said, for anyone who cares:

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s amendment does nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza. Of course I voted against it. What it does do is cut off defensive Iron Dome capacities while allowing the actual bombs killing Palestinians to continue.

I have long stated that I do not believe that adding to the death count of innocent victims to this war is constructive to its end. That is a simple and clear difference of opinion that has long been established.

I remain focused on cutting the flow of US munitions that are being used to perpetuate the genocide in Gaza.

For the record, I think this is a shitty explanation. The Iron Dome permits Israel to commit it’s genocide with impunity and act as a belligerent in the region. I get the attempt to differentiate between defensive support and offensive support, but cutting of arms for the Iron Dome would be the fastest way to curb Israeli aggression. But this statement in no way, “clarifies that she supports genocide.”

“Look how much variation there is when I compare 80 years if animation trends to 5 years of animation trends.”

Of course animation has trends. It’s not new. Just look at the Hanna-Barbara cartoons of this 60s, when cheaper animation designed for television replaced the Golden Age animation styles. Look how many of these characters are, “blockey-torsoed animals with a superfluous neck accessory that allows us to animate the head and body independently, which saves us time and money.”

It’s not limited to this one studio either. Look at the Rocky and Bullwinkle characters. Tell me, do these blocky, simplistic character designs have more in common with the Hanna-Barbara characters above or the rounded, more fluid designs of the Disney/Warner Brothers/MGM characters of the 40s?

I mean, I mostly agree. I would say that most Trump supporters don’t actually know what’s in the constitution beyond the 2nd amendment, and that’s why Trump is able to wipe his ass with it. If he were to directly say, “I don’t care about the constitution,” a lot of his supporters would denounce that. Similarly, I think a lot of his conspiracy supporters are willing to fold any contradictions he makes in the Epstien stuff into their conspiracy, but if he tries to denounce the conspiracy, he will be denounced. But only time will tell if they will, or if he even needs them now that he’s in power.

How do these Q idiots reconcile the fact that neither Fox News or Donald Trump has said a peep about the story?

Well, like I said, it was easier when Q was active and there were a bunch of influencers crafting a narrative. If I remember right, the public Trump was mostly an act, while behind the scenes he was a more solemn man working with, “white hats,” to free children. That’s where all those memes about Trump’s, “sacrifice,” come from.

I honestly think it has less to do with anything conspiracy theory related and everything to do with good old fashioned racism, bigotry, and hypocrisy.

These things aren’t as disconnected as you might think. Conspiracy theories often create a permission structure for bigotry. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion made the internment and extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany acceptable. QAnon conspiracies about child trafficking are creating the same permission structure for the persecution of immigrants (there’s a reason Kilmar Abrego Garcia is facing trumped-up human trafficking charges now).

Conspiracy theorists are also often on the front-line of fascist movements, and following Q has kept me ahead of the curve on some of this stuff. While everyone was wondering who the hell the buffalo guy was on Jan 6, I was thinking, “Of course the QAnon Shaman is here.”

I’ve always found conspiracy theories and cults interesting, and I had started hearing more about Q during lock down (I think it was the mole-children under Central Park story that caught my attention). I found a podcast called QAnon Anonymous that I started following because it was funny and informative. Over time, I started gaining a better understanding of MAGA and the right-wing ecosystem by following them. Then, in the lead up to the 2020 election, it started becoming less funny and more newsworthy, and now it just seems important towards understanding how we ended up with a fascist government.

Maybe. I think a problem they’ve been having since the collapse of the Q account is that there is no centralizing force to help craft narratives. In the past, when Trump would make an move incongruous with their conspiracy, Q could release a cryptic statement and a series of Q influencers would step in to turn it into a something that fit the plot. Now Q is gone, and Q influencers are in the White House, so there’s less cohesion behind a narrative and less excuses for why the, “deep state,” hasn’t been exposed. Conspiracy theories work best as an opposition movement, not a governing party.

I think if I don’t know anyone it’s happened to in decades of living in large cities means its probably not very common.

I think its a little more nebulous than you’re making it out to be. I think there are a of factions within the conspiracy MAGAs with different degrees of dedication. Some of them are just entertaining the idea because they like calling Democrats pedophiles, while others are QAnon true-believers that have been investing in this for the better part if a decade. I’m not sure what percentage of MAGA are true-believers, but they are his most loyal followers, and I do believe he might lose them if he can’t find a way to keep feeding them breadcrumbs. Plenty of MAGAs won’t give a shit, but I think they’re also more fickle and more likely to abandon him over something like his tariff policy fucking up their 401K.

This is just my gut feeling as someone who’s been following the Q movement fairly closely since the pandemic. I could be wrong, and we’ll see how it shakes out.

What exactly about the past decade of American politics makes you think that this is even remotely possible?

I significant amount has changed over the last 10 years, including how Trump has engaged with QAnon and the conspiracy-element of his base. Early on, he didn’t address or acknowledge Q, and only started dropping small dog whistles towards the community late into his first term. It was enough to keep them holding on without making direct promises.

The Q account evolved as well; they started off making bold predictions, like the imminent arrest of Clinton and other Democrats. When that became less tenable, they pivoted to vague, meaningless predictions like, “Watch the Water,” or just throwing out a date with no context. The account functionally died after Trump’s 2020 loss, and hasn’t really been relevant since.

During the Biden years, the community pivoted towards Epstien, with promises of unredacted files, flightlogs, client lists, and video evidence proving that prominent Democrats were all part of a Q-like conspiracy. The problem is, unlike the original Q conspiracy, which was based on imagined, malleable nonsense, this was based on real events with tangible evidence, which Trump directly promised to reveal. That means that, while the conspiracy has more credibility, its goal posts are harder to move.

This is already making it hard to keep the conspiracy-pilled MAGAs happy. Early on, Bondi gave a bunch of Q influencers copies of, “the Epstien files,” and when it turned out to be a bunch of information that had already been disclosed, they got pissed. They’ve also ripped Kash Patel and Dan Bongino apart for saying Epstien didn’t kill himself and Bondi for claiming she already had the client lists. So far, it hasn’t trickled up to Trump yet, but if he doesn’t figure something out, it will eventually. The only thing more important to these people than Trump is the conspiracy they created around Trump, and if he doesn’t find away to keep that alive, they will leave him.

Yeah, that’s certainly what they’re doing with Bondi, and I’m sure they’ll find other people to attack. But Trump is starting to wade in himself; in a press conference the other day, when a reporter asked him about Epstien, he answered directly, saying something to the effect of, “Why are you still talking about this, who cares?” And the answer is, “his most loyal followers,” so we’ll see how it shakes out. If he can keep using surrogates to take the blame, he’ll probably be fine, but if he keeps commenting directly, he might be in trouble.

This is funny, but it’s not really what I’m seeing from them. They all seem real upset that the Epstien files aren’t being released. So far they’re mostly blaming Pam Bondi, but if Trump keeps telling them to forget about Epstien, they might abandon him. They’ll bend their conspiracy theories around Trump, but if tries to break them, they’ll turn on him (…or say he’s been replaced with a deep-state body-double clone).

Yeah, I rode the Subway and T for years during rush hour, I used to work in Times Square, and I’ve of course been to tourist events in that time. In nearly 40 years of city living, I don’t know anyone who’s had their pocket picked, either in busy areas or, “Main st.”

I grew up in New York City and now live in Boston and I’ve never encountered a pickpocket. I’ve been mugged three times and had a mentally unbalanced homeless guy punch me in the face unprovoked, but I’ve never been pickpocketed.

My wife and I were Honeymooning in Paris, purchasing subway passes from an automated kiosk, when a guy who was pretending to be really interested in his phone started getting uncomfortably close to her. She felt him touch her, so she elbowed him real hard, knocking the phone out of his hand, and yelling, “Oh no, are you OK, I’m so sorry, I broke your phone!” real loud (which was true, she cracked his screen). I don’t think he was expecting a 5’2" woman to assault him, because he grabbed his broken phone and started booking it before I could react.

A very nice Parisian came over and told us we needed to be more careful and watch ouf for thieves. We thanked him, but my wife was laughing a few moments later because she just assumed he was a pervert. I thought maybe the phone screen had already been broken, and he was trying to run some sort of, “Hey, you broke my phone, give me money!” scam but chickened out when he saw how aggressively my wife reacted. We live in a major American city, so we’ve experienced crime before, but it never occurred to us that he was trying to pick her pocket. Felt almost quaint, like a Dickens novel.

Also worth pointing out that, while America may be 249 years old, no one would consider it an empire for the majority of that time. Its debatable, but I would argue we didn’t really reach an empirical level of power until the late 40s, when we started taking over what was left of the British Empire’s influence over the middle-eas5.

Sees desperate people getting coerced by the military-industrial complex into signing their lives away for the promise of an education and a slim chance to escape the cycle of poverty.

“Fucking idiots.”

Edit: Attacking the people being fed into the meat grinder of the military-industrial complex instead of the military-industrial complex itself is just boot-licking with extra steps.