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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 5m

yeah we have to be honest with ourselves that none of these models are gonna fix the birth rate issue - i expect that's just a lost cause and we should focus on designing policies that improve families' quality of life as much as possible.

Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 7h

why would a black guy assassinating klan members in 1876 be a controversial concept in the present day unless the klan members were still in charge

Stephen Totilo @stephentotilo.bsky.social · 8h

SCOOP: Last year, Ubisoft cancelled an Assassin's Creed game set during Reconstruction. Was to feature a Black Assassin who, among other things, fought the rise of the Klan

Sources: Leadership nixed it over concerns re: U.S. political climate, backlash to Yasuke

www.gamefile.news/p/scoop-ubis...

Scoop: Ubisoft cancelled a post-Civil War Assassin’s Creed last year

Company leadership deemed the project too controversial for the moment, sources tell Game File

www.gamefile.news

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 7h

right. this is just another case where america should look at other models globally, especially in europe, and try to adapt them. lots of countries pay parental benefits and those are funded by a variety of taxes. "these taxes help ensure that parents can give their children the best lives possible"

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 7h

i see where you're coming from, i just don't think it makes economic sense to target childless adults - who are mainly younger and poorer (not childree DINKs, who are rare) - over other tax levers. but i agree parental benefit payments, like in norway, paid for by a variety of taxes, are fine.

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 8h

so how badly do we think the virginia elections are going to go for the GOP next month. like catastrophic or

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 8h

i mean jd vance already killed the pope, it's shocking that open war hasn't broken out already

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 10h

given how bad this admin are at optics they're going to get into a fight with the catholics at some point i fear

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 8h

joel webbon is one of a handful of commentors i would confidently describe as evil. like if podcasting didn't keep him busy, he might chain women to the wall of his basement.

No true bill @bill-of-lefts.bsky.social · 12h

I think there are still shared norms we can appeal to when we talk to the marginal MAGA voter. But there really are no shared norms left with the core of the movement.

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 8h

dudes have eventually gotta stop chasing that baby boomer high. it was a historical anomaly born from a combination of massive productivity and incomprehensible death driving people to have lots of kids, coupled with medical innovations tanking child mortality rates. we just gotta adapt.

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 8h

proposing to split the follow button into two buttons called "befriend" and "monitor"

Rose 🌹 @rose.bsky.team · 11h

The "follow" button confounds "I'm looking at your content" and "I endorse this content." We need two different ways to signal the difference between the two.

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 9h

yeah, exactly. there's not nearly enough childfree people - much less rich ones - to justify some kind of tax policy aimed squarely at that group. it's discriminatory and not even efficient.

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 9h

i think some people are being ungenerous about this sentiment, thinking it's meant to burden women who chose not to have children or what not. my issue is that the targeting is unnecessary: a standard lib policy of "raise marginal tax rates on high earners" would cast a wider net more fairly.

William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 12h

My most controversial take on this is probably that while I think reproductive freedom should be sacrosanct, I don’t really have any problem with additional taxes on (high income) childless people. Someone gotta pay into the pensions!

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 9h

there are a lot of problems in america ofc but we would be a substantially more functional country if we weren't routinely held hostage by manchildren.

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 9h

everything wrong with america is contained in this image. rich white men, reduced to the thoughts and impulses of teenagers by the internet, reveling in a political movement united by an obsession with stardom and destruction for their own sake.

Denny Carter @dennycarter.bsky.social · 12h

I think of this image a lot

Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw, celebrating the starvation of human beings due to DOGE's coup of the U.S. government

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 10h

honestly feel like that communal child rearing is so baked in for childless adults that few people articulate it, but most expect it. childfree reddit is full of stories of family members driven somewhat mad by childless adults prioritizing career/travel/whatevs over helping raise relatives' kids.

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 18h

legitimately insane that public schools even have to provide bus service to private schools (get your own buses??), much less *prioritize* those schools

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 18h

art from earthbound depicting gigyas. text read: you cannot grasp theh true form of god's wang"

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 18h

oh jesus i am 38 fuck

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 18h

yeaaaaah there is, regrettably, a selection effect here where the dudes who need the bidet the most are the least likely to use one lol

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Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 1d

most people with any creative impulses are already online expressing themselves in their preferred way. it's the hateful, small-minded people who have traditionally been deterred from expression by their lack of technical skill and disdain for artist culture. AI sidesteps both of those issues.

Shimmersoft @shimmersoft.bsky.social · 1d

the people who benefit most from AI visualization tools like sora are people with the least amount of natural or developed creative expression, who are, more often than not, gonna be society's most immature and spiteful members

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 1d

Genuine question - what are OpenAI’s Sora and other video generation tools good for?

I am honestly trying to understand what is so important that it’s worth the cost. If you have examples, I would be interested to hear them.

futurism.com/artificial-i...