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Ian Sammis

@isammis.bsky.social

330 followers 140 following 3.1K posts

Low-level tech peon; I've also physicsed, written, mathed, and arted for food.

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Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 12h

“Even with????”

Those were demonstrably not steps that did anything positive.

This feels like the bullshit framing to set up “well, we tried everything, but it didn’t work so we need to raid social security.”

“What about taxing the rich?”

“SIC ’EM, ICE!!!!!!!l”

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 17h

"I'd named it Freddy. It was the best of teleprompters. I'm awarding it the Medal of Freedom posthumously next week. The teleprompter died a hero."

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 17h

I mean, a good story normally needs two sides in conflict. If we actually produced meaningful amounts of coffee, that'd be easy; it'd be "consumers want cheap coffee" vs "farmers want to make a decent living."

Instead we get "consumers want cheap coffee, but that shit's pointless."

Weak sauce.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 17h

Sure, but pointing that out is supposed to be a key media function.

Instead we get this weird article where we're shamed for wanting coffee, but with half the article missing. An article like this _should_ be accompanied by interviews of people benefitting from the tariffs, but... there aren't any.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 17h

There’s a lot of dancing around an obvious unasked question here too.

Q: Why are tariffs increasing coffee prices so much?
A: Because we don’t produce much coffee domestically.

UNASKED Q: So what’s the point of the tariffs, then? What domestic industry are we supporting?

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

At this point the news is precisely The Bullhorn of the Rich.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

Well, yeah. They're lazy as all hell. It's much easier to terrorize good people than to catch bad ones.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

Stay strong, man. There aren't enough good people out there — we need everyone we've got.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

Unless Trump does something so horrific that a LOT of Republican Congresspeople and Senators suddenly remember that they have jobs and constitutional responsibilities and so on, we're in for at least a few more bad years. /3

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

As long as Trump is president, we're _all_ bad Americans as seen from outside the US. If we want to change that, we've got to get Trump out of office.

Yes, that's a heavy lift. No, there's no better way (well, we could all try to simultaneously flee the country, but I don't think that works). /2

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

I'm seeing a lot of US citizens who seem to be horrified that Canadian boycotts are hitting them when they didn't even vote for Trump.

The thing is... from outside the country, no-one cares.

Foreign nationals aren't going to try to calibrate boycotts to only hit "bad" Americans. /1

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

The US has nearly five times France's incarceration rate. The folks who would be out in the streets every day all day building guillotines are already in prison.

We didn't suddenly "turn fascist" last November. We've been drifting that way for decades. Trump just made it impossible to ignore.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

That's really not relevant outside our borders. Foreign nationals aren't required to do purity tests on each and every US citizen to see which are "good ones."

When we're run by an idiot, everyone suffers. It's on us to get rid of Trump, and until we do our foreign trade is going to suffer.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

The new anime season just started, so I'm in the "watch everything to find 5-6 good shows" stage.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

Unfortunately, those of us who match your description are mostly the ones wearing the masks and the tactical cosplay.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

I can’t seem to get my fellow Americans to understand that citizens of other countries aren’t actually obliged to calibrate their responses according to our internal politics. We have to get rid of Trump. Until then, we all suffer, because that’s what happens when an idiot runs your country.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

The article is paywalled, but:

If he voted for Trump, sucks to be him. “Oh no, my actions had consequences” is the least mature complaint in existence.

If he couldn’t bring himself to vote—same difference.

If he voted for Harris—be mad at Trump, my dude, not Canada.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t think they forgot. I think they lost track of the difference between reality and fiction — they imagined themselves living in a low-budget political thriller, with a powerful conspiracy working to frame Trump.

Back here in reality, he was convicted because he’s a con artist.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

Also, can we wait like a month to see how this plays out? Trump announces a lot of shit that’s entirely delusional, and Bibi is exactly the kind of asshole who’d wait a few weeks on his war crimes to bolster Trump.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 1d

Canadian Thanksgiving is unambiguously at a better time than the US one. I could wish for the fourth day the US allows for the holiday.

(Corporations tried to ruin it and make it a shopping day. The fever seems to be breaking, and Friday is reclaiming its true purpose as National Comatose Day.)

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 2d

I think the Great War between the rich crazy people and the poor religious crazy people is just getting underway.

May it be a long war of attrition.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 2d

Oh, forgot to echo the prompt: Share a 4-word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 2d

Down here in the US? Not in my adult life, and I'm 51. In the early 1980s, maybe?

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 2d

For context: A heisenbug is a bug that only appears in production, but vanishes when you try to study it or catch it in tests.

Ian Sammis @isammis.bsky.social · 2d

Heisenbug causing data corruption.

southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 2d

We terminated that UCC.

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 5d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.