There is some truth to this in that one of the first distinctions infants learn to make is “good/bad” or “pleasure/pain,” in terms of its ability to analyze its own emotional states.

That being said, it’s still an increíble oversimplification of even an infant’s mind.

The real question is: why are we spending resources creating speed bumps when pot holes accomplish the same thing?

I don’t know if this is one of those situations where I should pick my battles and let it go. I feel they steal my free time.

Getting along in work environments is always a matter of which battles to pick and which compromises to make. You will always have to make some. To my mind, starting your shift five minutes early is a pretty minor concession to not irk your colleagues and get on everyone’s shit-list. But…you can always search for a new place to work. Just bear in mind you may be walking into an even less compatible environment for yourself.

Different category, same categorical error.

Question: am I on the toilet?

Deeper Deep State here, guys. Not my fault. Blame the Shallow State.

You have compassion for us Americans, and that’s nice, but bear in mind we voted for this. As much as the people who voted for Trump may have done so out of desperation, we still made a catastrophically stupid decision. Trump isn’t the problem, he’s a symptom. The problem lies in the American people. We have been squashed by both our government and our corporations. We need a wake-up call, and if that means we need to suffer from our own choices then so be it. Maybe we haven’t suffered enough yet. If we’re so dumb that we vote for a malignant narcissist like Donald Trump, maybe we need to be squashed a bit more. We have the power to take back our country, we just need the will to do it. Maybe that comes from more hardship and regret. Maybe that comes from more suffering.

But maybe not. Maybe I’m wrong. I’m so disappointed with my own countrymen right now, maybe I’m not seeing things clearly. I don’t know. But I know we deserve what we voted for. The world doesn’t, and that’s a tragedy, but maybe America needs to take a hit and the world needs to rely less on us for both America and the world to be better. Again, I don’t know.

Your problem is you don’t understand what intrusive thoughts actually are.

Everyone has thoughts that creep into their stream of consciousness in response to stressors and are experienced as stressful thoughts that reflect a person’s latent anxieties.

Truly intrusive thoughts are thoughts that are injected into your stream of consciousness much more abruptly and reflect a psychotic problem in your brain. They’re often experienced as thoughts that aren’t your own and feel entirely alien to you in a way that the aforementioned thoughts do not. This can result in them being interpreted by the brain as “the CIA is projecting thoughts into my mind via a chip” to “I have a telepathic connection to God” depending on the mental illness in question.

Do not confuse these two things. The former is a normal phenomenon that is not an indication of serious mental illness; the latter definitely is.

This was the best you could come up with? A regime that lasted one full year?

I rest my case.

How’s about this: name me one functioning country of significant size (i.e. not just a commune) that functions on an anarchistic model. Demonstrate via examples that this system actually works in practice.

shrug The Right does pretty much the same thing. It’s all fucked.

I agree, but I honestly don’t know what the solution is. Beyond blind revolution, which is inherently chaotic and difficult to predict, I don’t see a solution. The U.S. seems doomed to spiral in the same way we’ve seen other nations do so for the foreseeable future. It all depends on how this current administration plays out and how people react to it in the future. Americans are so uneducated and gullible these days that I can’t predict how they’ll behave (and I’m an American).

Pretty sure the common denominator is “owning the libs.”

It’s not just liberals that are voting against their opposition more than they are voting for the political candidates they vote for; the other side is largely doing the same. That’s why American democracy is failing: we’re so disillusioned with our own parties that we’ve been reduced to voting for them just to keep the opposition from power. Hence, no matter how we vote, we’re dissatisfied, but we tell ourselves pretty stories to make it all right. The only real winners are corporations, which have all of these clowns in their pockets.

No, it’s not about the writing. It’s when’s a game feels like it’s preaching at you. Not the same problem at all.

And yet, from the downvoting here and everywhere else this comes up, it’s clear: some people can’t take nuanced opinions on topics like this. If you object in any capacity, you’re the worst possible objector.

It’s more about the messaging. The mere presence of a POC or trans character isn’t bothersome to most people. But when that character comes with dialogue lines that make the political messaging obvious, then they’re no longer a character that happens to be non-White or trans; they’re a political prop inserted into a game to send a political message, and that can be quite irksome when all you’re trying to do is play a fantasy RPG and escape from the world for a bit, even if you actually agree with the message.

No one can diagnose someone on the internet but the things you list do seem to paint a rough sketch of a narcissist. Thing is, people can have narcissistic traits and still not meet the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder.

But it doesn’t really matter. The person you describe sounds like someone to be avoided, regardless of whether or not they qualify for NPD.

There is always a possibility that he did not intend it to be a Hitler salute, but that possibility is not very plausible, because…he pretty much did a Hitler salute and the odds of him being ignorant of that fact are extremely low.

Exactly! So demoting those videos suggests that China is not using the algorithm to promote anti-american views.

??? You’re trying to have it both ways with this. I’m out.

Amplifying the videos that show America’s response to antiracist movements would make America look like the racist country it is. Demoting them conceals that.

No, that doesn’t make sense. Amplifying shows of division in a country promotes the view that said country is flawed and weak, in this case along racial lines. China has plenty to gain by showing that.

And America is no less racist than China, btw. I would argue far less so.

They were hired to help identify and amplify US state department narratives, same reason CNN and Fox hires them.

That seems entirely speculative. There are plenty of other reasons to hire them. Can you provide evidence for your claim?