And one side is being flooded with water … and the other side is on fire.

I’m Indigenous Canadian … 100% Ojibway on all sides of my family

As soon as I saw the first movie, I knew immediately it was just cultural appropriation … the blue space smurfs are modeled around jungle tribes … then their fighting is reminiscent of western Native tribes like the Apache, Comanche and Navajo … the war tribes are also modeled around African tribes … then all their spiritual stuff is weird space version of native mysticism from many Native cultures around the world

It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had left it like that … but the worst part is that they portray the Natives as being naive, childlike, simplistic beings who are incapable of defending themselves … so the story needs a white saviour who takes on the suit of one of the Natives … essentially, the Natives are too dumb to save themselves so they need one of the white colonizers to save them.

And we also have to feel empathy and sympathy for the white saviour who tried to save the natives … even though he volunteered for the mission and it was his people who wanted to kill them all.

I’m in Canada … but we’re all on track for Idiocracy in the next few decades.

For the past 40 years education everywhere has been dumbed down to the point where many schools just push students out just to maintain numbers to keep up funding.

Between dumbed down education and AI making us even dumber … we’re all in trouble over the next few decades.

Of all the people in the world that need or should have it mandatory to have round the clock public surveillance … it should be our political leaders

They claim to be working for the people … yet the people never really know what the fuck these leaders are doing

As an indigenous person I’ve absolutely hated avatar because its cultural appropriation disguised as a space opera … love the cgi and effects but not the writing … probably better to watch it on mute.

Happy to discover that many people see it the same way and refer to it as …

DANCES WITH SMURFS

We did a little tour on our own into Germany one spring, about 20 years ago. It was only a few days, we didn’t have much money and we absolutely didn’t know what we were doing. We rented a car and just started wandering. It was just at the point of technology where GPS was still new. We didn’t have any so we just started driving with a shitty map and no clue.

We had done some traveling in other countries before and we had met several famously obnoxious German tourists. We had partly expected to meet equally arrogant Germans in their home country.

Instead we met the most open, kind hearted, brilliant people ever. Everywhere we stopped, we’d meet three or four locals who were more than happy to give directions, recommend restaurants, bars, tea shops and sites to see.

At one point we met a truck driver who gave us a ton of information and showed us a driving route on a big format ringed binder map book. When he was done talking, he left the book. We told him he was forgetting his book and he said we could have it as it had detailed updated map info of the entire country. It was an expensive book and I knew it, so I told him not to give it away. He insisted and said he didn’t mind.

I still have that map book on my shelf and whenever I see it, I think of that trip and all those people we met.

Totally loved Germany after that.

Guy in the bathroom stall: … I use Mac!

Guys and gals pissing in the hallway, lobby, parking lot, bushes, behind the building and inside the office: … we use windows 11!

As a brown Indigenous Canadian … I’d like to agree with you but you’re wrong.

The greatest threat to life and prosperity to the world is billionaires no matter their gender, skin colour, race, nationality or religion.

It’s not the sign language interpreter’s fault that he’s a complete idiot.

When Yoda takes his regular centennial shower on Degobah, it’s definitely a very deep thought

and it also depends on your family, personal wealth, inheritance and income bracket … because even with these credentials, it can lead you to higher political office

A wise new saying I heard on a Youtube mechanic’s short reels a while ago …

“If you don’t fuck around … you’ll never find out”

https://youtube.com/shorts/GKPU8lNEAZ4

… and that without knowing it has been the motto of my life when it comes to working on things. I learn on my own (mostly because I was never able to afford higher education) and I just tinker with things and often, I will break things but it serves to help me in the future to figure out what not to do. And other times, it saves a lot of work because it made me realize that some problems aren’t so terrible and that they only needed a simple solution.

If you want to keep narrowing it down. You should go to the next step … a brand new clean OS on a dedicated laptop. Install a new Linux OS, new browser, new profile, do absolutely nothing with any of it, set up a VPN, try the site again.

If that fails, then chances are the ID is being done some other way … do you have control of your router? Are you accessing the internet through someone’s connection? maybe your ISP and your general area, regardless of who is using VPN.

The other possibility is … Are you tethering on a phone? I notice that phone devices seem to play loose with VPN and due to geolocation built into the device tagged to wifi locating services, phones leak location all the time.

The other thing that’s been creeping into everyone’s system is … browser fingerprinting

This means that if you accessed something somewhere sometime and you got flagged or located, your browser stores key identifying data, history, cookies, etc to basically fingerprint your browser to any and all systems out there in the future. If your browser goes somewhere again, it won’t matter if you have a VPN, the online systems remember your browser and will identify you, your location and your history because they’ve already logged all that data.

If you keep using that same browser with the same profile over and over again, and with all your other accounts, history and user info, it’s like driving in the same car day in / day out. Eventually everyone remembers you because you keep driving the same car. It won’t matter what kind of VPN, cloaking or obfuscation you use … all everyone will do is look for the same car you drove last time.

Try setting up a new profile on Firefox/LibreWolf or other browser on a clean unused profile and try again to see what happens.

The other important question is … what OS are you using? … Windows is notorious for leaking location and bypassing VPNs (especially IP, DNS and location) … don’t know much about MAC but I also wouldn’t trust them … Linux is more secure depending on which distro you use and how you use it

Might help all of us understand this if you told us what your general location is? Which country? Which state? Which region?

Obviously don’t dox yourself … but giving a general location will tell us which regions are actively enforcing all this.

Also … are you using a VPN … because if you are then …

• your VPN is accessing the network at a region that does age verification
• your VPN is being bypassed or not working properly or your system is leaking your IP and location
• the network, website or system doesn’t allow users through VPN

Don’t know … I can’t afford internet credits in order to access a connection.

It sounds like you’ll fit right in … great to have you here … have fun!

I got my side arm, my cyanide pills, my classified dossier…

…

Oh wait, sorry, I got the wrong song … :(

I was making light of your question … partly to have a bit of fun … and partly to show that the community enjoys sharing these silly little bits of movie quotes that act like memes. The one I was using is from the movie “The Naked Gun” (the original film from 1988 with Leslie Nielson)

A lot of the meme communities enjoy old slapstick movie content as there is a lot of memeable content there … films like ‘The Naked Gun’ series, Hot Shots, any of the Mel Brooks films and Monty Python.

Don’t be afraid to test your boundaries, comment as you like but with an open mind and kind heart … people will let you know if you’ve said or implied anything negative or positive. Don’t be discouraged if you get no response either … it’s not a popularity contest. The longer you stay, the more you comment, the more you get to know people and the more they get to know you and eventually you become a regular part of the community.

Welcome to Lemmy and welcome to the fediverse.