I’m disappointed that you didn’t include peeing your pants into this excellent shitpost.

The author, who is also part of an interdisciplinary research group called PseudoLab

Presenting the findings of my new scientific research group, Bad Science LLC.

…but seriously I guess it’s mildly interesting but entirely predictable that right- and left-wing brains have physical differences from each other and from more centrist types. That’s just materialism being proven correct once again. But I wouldn’t put any stock at all into the association between parts of the brain and specific personality traits because personality traits are far too squishy and hard to measure to be meaningfully correlated with the size of your post-anterior phalanges or whatever.

I don’t think it’s contentious on the facts of the story, but rather the statement is a problem because it carries with it hundreds of years of people saying that all Jews are responsible for the actions of the religious authorities of Judea in the 1st century CE and therefore antisemitism is justified. This belief is commonly held and expressed by Christian antisemites, but is obviously wrong and bigoted, so people argue against it - the idea the Pontius Pilate is responsible for Jesus’ death is just a bad argument, you might as well blame Herod who had the opportunity to punish/pardon Jesus but opted to send him back to Pilate.

I think the disconnect here is that what you’re describing is a person who signed up for checks notes a running club going on a difficult run. There’s a clear disconnect between something like that and the kind of hazing people usually talk about, where the new members are harmed or humiliated by the rest of the group, and then go on to perpetuate that harm/humiliation to the next generation.

The really dangerous part of hazing is the ratchet effect. Hazing rituals like the ones I’m describing never get easier, they only get more harmful/humiliating with each successive generation, until you end up with shit like this. The only way to stop it is for a bigger outside organization to step in, set limits and enforce them. For example, modern military people will talk shit about how boot camp isn’t as hard as it used to be, but that’s because guys in the 80s were getting PTSD and permanent physical injuries from the shit the Vietnam vets were doing to them and the government had to put a stop to it.

But have you considered: “I drink fluoride water that means I don’t need to brush my teeth.”

is not, like, a ploy to privatize the fluoridation of water.

But I nevertheless predict that fluoridated bottled water will be on store shelves by the end of the year if it’s not already.

thesis: anticommuunists suck at propaganda

antithesis: anticommunist propaganda is ubiquitous and has beenn very effective

synthesis: Anticommunist propaganda has never had to try very hard in the English-speaking world for many reasons. 1) They are able to say whatever they want without pushback in most cases, because most communist countries don’t produce a counter-narrative in English. 2) A large portion of the English-speaking world reside in the imperial core and benefit greatly from capitalism, and therefore will not closely interrogate pro-capitalist motivated reasoning. 3) When all else fails, the states of imperial countries have moved in and prevented successful English-speaking communist movements from being successful by other means ie assassination and sabotage.

holy shit I was not ready for that lmao

After WW2 at least, yeah.

Also underappreciated is that the worst non-war-related shortages experienced in the USSR happened under Gorbachev and were a direct result of his first privatization reforms.

It’s a pretty common cultural shock story, but it has to do with the fundamentals of how the American and Soviet economies were organized. The Soviet economy projected demand and sent exactly the amount of food they expected to need to a grocery store, which meant that the people shopping there all naturally adapted to the rhythm of showing up on the day things were delivered and getting in line to get the first pick, while in America it became commonplace for grocers to overstock and throw out excess because there’s a psychological effect that makes people buy more when they see more. You can guess which one is far more wasteful and doesn’t really result in a better outcome for anyone beyond being able to say “look at this decadent cornucopia!”

…I wonder if anyone has ever used a watermelon as a trackball?

Historically, the reason Gran Columbia existed for the brief period it did was because the member nations saw it as a way to ensure their continued independence against Spain. In the modern context, the recreation of Gran Columbia could be seen as a way to guarantee the region’s independence from American influence now and Chinese influence in the future.

tbh i would watch this show

has anyone ever done a reality tv game based on the diplomacy board game where the players each run different countries?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

fuck french toast, marry waffles, kill pancakes.

If we took jury representation seriously, every jury would be a randomly-selected representative example of the population, jury duty would be remunerated very well and there would be stuff like childcare for jurors in place, hell you shouldn’t even need to spend gas to get to the courthouse the court should send a van to pick you up and feed you three hots while you’re there.

Instead we’ve got a system where one of the best ways not to get picked is to show up to the court wearing glasses and reading a book while you’re waiting because lawyers will see that, assume you’re smart, and motion to get you removed from the jury pool.

hey its the thing that was extremely obviously going to happen happening

out of context it sounds bad, but you’ve gotta listen to the entire speech. it’s clear he’s talking about rainbow imperialism here.

In some places the bureaucracy is still sufficiently law-abiding that these kinds of rulings can still reduce harm, that’s a big part of the purpose DOGE serves with its purges.

It’s high time that the Catholic Church had a western tanager pope.

idk if anyone has tracked this specific statistic, but I am referring to the prosecution of pro-Palestine speakers and organizers, many of whom are Jewish.

Here’s one two three articles on the topic.