Anglophone is not interchangeable with Western.

mailbox.org

Could be, sure. But the real question is, why did god make knowledge forbidden? I’ll quote Satan directly (via John Milton):

From their own mouths. All is not theirs it seems; One fatal tree there stands, of Knowledge called, Forbidden them to taste. Knowledge forbidden! Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord Envy them that? can it be sin to know? Can it be death? and do they only stand By ignorance? is that their happy state, The proof of their obedience and their faith?

Adam: Hey Lilith, I’m in charge, god says so!
Lilith: Lol, no.
God: Actually, yes.
Lilith: Fuck that I’m gone.
Adam: Well, shit. Can you make me a more subservient breeder please Lord?
God: Yep.
Eve: Uhhh…
Adam: Hey Eve, I’m in charge, god says so!
Eve…right…
God: He is.
Eve…
Satan: Hey, Eve, you know the fruit on that tree that god told you would kill you if you ate it?
Eve: Yep.
Satan: It won’t. But what it will do is give you knowledge like science and the arts. But its totally your call if you choose to eat it.
Eve: Oh wow, nice!
Adam: WTF Eve!
Eve: Fine, don’t eat, stay dumb
Adam: OK, I’ll have some.
God: Even though I’m omniscient and omnipotent it somehow escaped me where you both were and what you were up to. Anyway, fruit = bad because knowledge like science and art is bad. Get out.

Christians - Satan is clearly the bad guy here.

Capitalist democracies all over the Westernised world are transforming. I don’t say collapsing, but transforming. We’ve all been force fed a steady diet of fake freedoms, culture wars and bullshit nationalism pretty much since the end of WW2 to spread uncertainty and fear. It’s all coming to a head now because populations are panicking (by design) and turning to fascist ‘strong man’ populist leaders like Trump, Farage, Meloni, Orban etc who are all financed and propped up by our next set of leaders - the billionaire’s who will operate a worldwide network of oligarchical fascism, whilst the herd are all distracted by manufactured outrage at trans people existing and what an actors politics are and how the immigrants are simultaneously taking all the jobs and draining us dry on the dole.

Neither is it terrorism by any rational definition of the word.

Came here to say this. The Yellow Wallpaper is definitely unsettling.

Either that or any of Shirley Jackson’s short stories.

https://gist.github.com/mary-ext/6e27b24a83838202908808ad528b3318

Are any US news outlets talking about the fact a 15 year old was working at Trump’s adult spa in the first place?

Strange 2 would’ve been better if they left Sam Raimi alone to make it a proper horror movie. He clearly wanted to and with those 2 characters it could’ve been epic. But thats what I mean about marvel constantly making ‘franchise’ movies - everything has to ‘lead in’ to the next movie. I’d really like for them to make an actual movie thats good without the need to keep it PG and keep it focused on the wider arc. The MCU has become more and more like an increasingly predictable soap opera.

EDIT: when we left the cinema after Thunderbolts people were talking about the post credit scenes and F4 which kind of illustrates what I’m saying - shouldn’t they be talking about the movie they just watched?

Superman is, IMO, a better movie because the story is a lot stronger but its not a truly great movie to me. The pacing felt really weird. But some of the shots of Supes flying in particular were really great and looked like a comic book come to life. I guess it was a promising start but flawed.

Haven’t seen F4. Thunderbolts was OK but a typical Marvel feeder movie where the story feels less important than setting up the sequel/next team up. Superman was a more interesting story but needed more room to breathe. It needed better editing and to slow down a bit.

I mean, they’re superhero movies, so the bar is low. No ones expecting a deep experience and maybe I’m experiencing superhero fatigue but as an old fart, my bar is the Donner Superman movies and the Nolan Batman movies. Maybe I need to go into them with less expectations.

Yep, it seems very well put together - I’ve chatted with the dev briefly and they seem very aware of the fedi side of things and how different services can interoperate.

Give Fedica a try - they have a very generous free tier which includes both Mastodon and Bluesky.

DRM free list

Yes its a swear word. Yes, there is a shrinking population where I am (UK) that still can associate it with its original meaning (but that is different in other places too) but you can apply that weak justification to a lot of other words too. ‘Cool’ literally means ‘not warm’ but it has also evolved to incorporate other totally different meanings, which can also vary slightly or a lot depending on geographical colloquial use.

You find it offensive because of your local cultural interpretations. I acknowledge that and respect it, hence why I have said things like ‘that word’ in my subsequent comments to you. What I’m asking you to consider is that, in places away from your local culture, it doesn’t carry that meaning and hasn’t for some time. The US is not the entire world.

I really don’t mind discussing this with you, but please at least make an effort to have your statements make some kind of sense. Just try and envisage the possibility that outside of the US the same or similar words have always had, or have evolved to have, different or alternative meanings. The people where I live who still interpret the word in the same way you insist is the only possible interpretation are of an older generation. Its in pretty common use by all genders in younger generations.

Also, if you ever get around to getting a passport (a document that lets you travel to other countries), you might want to leave Australia, the UK and Ireland in particular out of any travel plans you have.

Not sure recommending Swiss services is a particularly great idea from a privacy perspective right now.

Outside of the US, that meaning fell away and/or changed in some places quite sometime ago. I know it’s difficult for a certain type of American to envisage a world outside of their own borders but believe it or not, it does exist and even has different cultural language evolutions.

I’m assuming you’re American? If so you should be aware that word doesn’t carry he same baggage elsewhere in the world.

You say: “…prevailing orthodoxy to the dogmatic views of leftism…”

Most on Fediverse say: Just respect difference and don’t tolerate intolerance.

By the way, it’s OK to swear. Some examples might be: “You seem to be making a ham-fisted attempt to troll people. Stop being a cunt.”