It’s also established that’s he’s an accelerationist. He’s intentionally baiting the Empire to crackdown more brutally on dissent in an effort to forment rebellion among the common people of the galaxy. He fears that if he does not do this, there will be a day when the Empires grip is too tight to escape.

“It will burn… Very brightly”

In the end, he was right. The Death Star vindicates his methods. Without Luthen laying the groundwork for the Rebel Alliance, the Galaxy would have been a boiling frog and the Death Star would have led to its brutal oppression for generations.

What do I need to hide about myself?

Sort of, but it’s more a comforting theory rather then a true belief. I came up with it when I was younger, doing a lot of psychedelics, and meditating often on the nature of existence and reality.

My theory is that God is everything. The earth, the stars, our fellow beings. All of reality makes up a complex web that I loosely refer to as a “consciousness” for lack of a better word. The nature of this “consciousness” is incomprehensible to us. It does not activly intervene in our daily lives, and operates on a scale beyond our comprehension. Mostly, it simply is. It is the oblivion from which our consciousness was once plucked, and it is where we will one day return.

In essence, each of us is a tiny fragment of reality experiencing itself. The meaning of life is to experience it. All of it. Joy, pleasure, and suffering. It is all a part of the whole of existence. When we die and return to the infinite our individuality is lost, but maybe God learns something about itself.

Even where there is viable public transport, there’s a stigma against using it. The city I live in has a decent and cheap Metro system. It’s reasonably clean, mostly runs on time, and you only have to deal with the occasional crazy. I took it for a summer after a car got totaled and it was fine.

Yet I work with a bunch of impoverished young people who spend $30-$40 on Ubers every day getting to work. I’ve suggested taking the bus to many of them, there’s even a stop right outside our workplace, and they are always dismissive and disgusted by the idea.

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This definitely applies to a good number of gay couples in Texas too. Hetero Women do have it worse in this regard though. Progressive Southern woman’s options are pretty much:

A) Be celibate

B) Move somewhere else

C) Settle for the Most Racist Man Alive

Single Hetero Progressive men are unicorns in the American South, and them being Progressive is no guarantee they will treat a woman any better. They often come with their own batch of issues and a lot of them are fuckboys.

Unrelated to the opsec, why is a SpongeBob Movie premiering on Netflix? Isn’t Nickelodeon Paramount?

That would seem to be the message we are intended to take away from the film, however this is contradicted by the fact that our protagonist uses this power and it works. Alternatively, the films message could be interpreted as: Nobody should weild this power, but sometimes it’s necessary to stop someone who “wants to watch the world burn”.

But… I’m not seeing the cryoto-fascist part. You’re going to have to explain that one.

Comes from the Dark Knight trilogy. The Patriot Act is used to catch the Joker, and Bane is a vilified Occupy Wall Street.

Pretty much every Nolan film, with the disclosure that I stopped watching his movies after Inception. His films are always well-acted and well-produced, but the scripts are just… dumb? They take themselves way too seriously and carry this air of highbrow intellectualism while being riddled with plot holes and contrivances. Not to mention the crypto-fascist messaging.

He’s like Zack Snyder, but he pulls it off well enough that critics buy into it. It drives me crazy when I see his name mentioned alongside great auteur filmmakers like Kubrick and Scorsese.

Your lizard brain is wired to avoid death, but non-existence shouldn’t be scary. You’ve already done it for possibly an infinite amount of time.

I don’t want to overstate this, but some liberation can come from within.

Yeah, we all have to play their game, but internalizing the values our sick society places on us is optional. Make peace with the things you alone cannot immediately change. Resist in the small ways you are able, find joy where you can, and do what you can for the people you care about. Free your mind and your ass will follow.

Idk, I know a pianist and his house is just filled with boxes and boxes of sheets music!

Star Trek is popular among left-wing turbonerds, aka Lemmys primary demographic. There was also a big push to join Lemmy on r/StarTrek after Reddits API controversy.

Fucked regardless but how fucked remains to be seen. Just as before, Trump will spend his presidency golfing, what really matters are his cabinet picks. Best case scenario is that just like 2016-2020 in-fighting and general incompetence make the administration a revolving door and keep the Christian Nationalist from realizing their darkest ambitions. Worst Case is that the Fascist have learned from their mistakes. I also think Trump either dying or being forced to step down (with a pardon of course) is a possibility that is on the table. Vance is a much more competent Fascist and this is definitely a worst case scenario.

Regardless, I think there are a few things that are guaranteed to happen:

• The dismantling of much of the Federal Government. Starve the Beast will finally come to fuition. The Department of Eduction, the FDA, The EPA, ect will become toothless if not entirely abolished. De-regulation will bring us back to early 20th century levels of consumer protection and quality control. Read “The Jungle” to get an idea. Public Health is going to tank dramatically.
• The little safety net Americans have will be pulled out from under them. Workers will be entirely beholden to their employers. The price of most consumer goods will surge, bankruptcy from healthcare cost will skyrocket, and homelessness will become even more common. Homelessness will become completely criminalized and the % of the American population imprisoned will make today’s prison population look small.
• The police and surveillance state will be expanded dramatically with the intent of targeting undesirables. Immigrants will be deported, while Trans people and political dissidents will be labeled as sexual criminals and will be eliminated. As time marches on more groups will be targets for the state. People around you will simply disappear sometimes, victims of secret police.
• An increase in media censorship by morality police. Pornography will be banned, and using that vague label media critical of the regime or expressing ideas against the regimes interest will be censored.
• The US will pull out of NATO and pursue a policy of isolation. Authoritarian and expansionist regimes around the world will be allowed to pursue their interests unchecked.
• A general brain-drain as educated people with the means to do so flee to Canada or Europe. As time passes it is likely that emigration from America will be made more difficult by the state, effectively stranding people here who didn’t get out soon enough.
• We will completely miss the window to do anything to avoid the worst-case scenarios for climate change. So it’s not just America that’s fucked here.

Smoke em while you got em, it’s about to get rough for everyone. We are in the death throes of the Neo-Liberal world order. Buy a firearm and get a vpn. Keep your vehicle as fueled as you can, and if you are able keep a sizable amount of cash stored somewhere safe. There’s never been a better time to go vegan and get in shape. Do what you can for the people you care about.