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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 2nd, 2023

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  • “Worse than expected,” depends largely on the individual and what they were expecting. It comes down to expecting one thing and being disappointed in the outcome.

    People who expected him to be an ally of immigrants are disappointed in his border policies.
    People who expected him to fix Trumps “easy” trade wars are disappointed in his trade policies.
    People who expected him to support labor are disappointed in his ban of the railroad workers strike.
    People who expected him to champion human rights are disappointed in his support of the IDF.

    He may have met your expectations and the expectations of the majority of Democrats. Biden’s 2020 victory depended on several groups who only showed up because they hoped that he would address their specific concerns.




  • There is no single reason. It’s the sum of many reasons. They’re too many to list exhaustively but when we see a concrete example the vast majority of people come to the same conclusion on creepy vs appropriate.

    When there isn’t a clear line, trying to define one is misleading. You can always find some couple somewhere on earth with an arbitrarily large age gap where people will agree that it’s the result of informed consent. People then try to make the argument that this justifies all relationships with that age gap even though most relationships don’t have whatever extenuating circumstances made the one example palatable.

    Large age gaps are creepy. Whenever someone has to ask if a particular age gap is also creepy the answer is almost always, “Yes.”



  • The girls themselves are mostly “all for it” when it’s people roughly their age. There are exceptions but most girls that age see 30+ year olds as lame old dudes. Most 30+ year olds aren’t going after high school girls either. That’s why we all cringed at David Woodson’s line in “Dazed and Confused”.

    The people who don’t want them to “exert this right” are the responsible parents, friends and community who know that a 30+ year old dating a teenager is creepy AF.

    The few people who actually support this are mostly rationalizing.



  • I think you have a fundamentally different view than I do on the characters. That’s clearly true :)

    Even when the characters behave reasonably I always felt that they were motivated more by the potential for public embarrassment than by moral concern.

    It’s hard for me to think of George as a fundamentally nice. This is the guy who shoved children and elderly out of the way when he saw smoke, goaded an alcoholic into relapsing because he felt left out, constantly lied to get advantage in situations and even tried to kill a guy out of jealousy.


  • That’s exactly my point. None of the characters in these shows are role models. We can sympathize with the Bundy’s or their neighbors but the show makes it obvious that nobody wants to emulate them. We can understand why Walther White did the things he does even if it’s clear that he shouldn’t have. The gang in Philly is all about showing us the worst possible decision in any given situation.

    Seinfeld, on the other hand, celebrates their behavior. It canonizes our intrusive thoughts as though they were a more authentic form of expression.


  • I honestly never understood the attraction to Seinfeld.

    There were a few good jokes in there but the whole show was about them being assholes and proud of it.

    They’re selfish, judgemental and entitled. They’re constantly mocking and bullying other people and each other. The final episode even lays it out explicitly.

    Shows like “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, “Married… With Children” or “Breaking Bad” have various unsavory characters but we’re invited to reject these flaws or at least identify with them as flaws.

    Seinfeld is shameless about being an asshole and pretends the rest of us are just too dumb to understand his genius.



  • I may just be to cynical at this point but I don’t trust that at all. It’s just a pause.

    Biden has structured that block as a “Type 2” decision. It creates the illusion of standing up to Israel but it allows him to instantly and unilaterally completely reverse it as soon as public attention has shifted.

    Given history, I expect that’s exactly what will happen. Once the IDF murders enough people in Rafah, they’ll be “done”. Then they can pretend that they’ve turned over a new leaf and definitely won’t do any more genocide. Biden will congratulate them and resume all the weapons shipments, including sending the stuff that’s currently being held back.

    Short of restructuring this as a “Type 1” decision, there’s little reason to think this is anything beyond theatrics.