Honestly, I do agree with you on that but I also feel like any “system” is just never going to be the answer. The big lesson of all those Nepalis electing their new government over Discord isn’t that Discord is the way, it is that if huge numbers of people are engaged and willing to fight for what they need and then engage to set up something sensible, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll get it.

The American people – almost all of them, not 100% but the great majority – have just been checked out of the concept of being involved in making sure their country runs right for too many decades now for things to stay on the rails.

I think the crisis of Trump is likely to be worse than any crisis in the Western world for the last 50 years. I think the closest analogue is probably the collapse of the USSR. So yes, some of the rich people upped their wealth by orders of magnitude, and honestly you might be right that Zuck might manage to be one of that category, but also some of them lost everything or got thrown out windows, or had to survive in reduced capacity within their new walled fortresses in the horrifying new meta. I feel like more likely is that the MAGA world will remember Facebook censoring their posts about ivermectin, and not feel like Zuck needs to have a seat at the table, no matter how many ass-kissing sessions he shows up at the White House to do.

For example I feel like breaking up Meta and mandating Truth Social and TikTok as the only new sanctioned social media going forward might be one possible outcome. It’s kind of hard to say and I won’t swear that you’re definitely wrong that he might come out way ahead in the end. I’m just saying that this type of crisis is a very different type of crisis.

Part of my point is that the damage Trump is going to do will cost them tons more money than if they had helped to prop up the fairly safe and civil society they previously were allowed to exist within, under which secure umbrella they’ve been able to rake in money like leaves in autumn on a wide country estate.

Hopefully the idiots who run these tech companies will learn their lesson soon.

“If the thing is free, you’re the product” applies just as much to dinners at the White House as it does to social media apps.

This wasn’t your question exactly, but here, a good horror movie for you:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8hpcx5

“Pikunikku” from 1996 is supposed to be pretty good too.

Ones I have not seen in other comments, although you probably have enough at this point:

• The Fifth Element - Yes I know the director is a sexual predator, it’s still really really good. One of the most creative movies ever made
• Run Lola Run - Surreal modern-style impossible narrative movie from way before movies really did that, also very well done
• O Brother Where Art Thou - Damn, we’re in a tight spot
• Schindler’s List - Warning, very very very heavy obviously, but there is a reason it won all the awards
• Conan the Barbarian - You may or may not like B movies, but if you like “Sword and Sandal” B movies, this one is the king
• The Sting - Absolutely top-notch gangster movie from before your parents were born
• Office Space - If you have ever worked a crappy tech job this movie will become your spirit animal in time of need

I’ve also heard great things about “Highlander.” Don’t watch the sequels.

There are also miniseries. “Stranger Things” season 1, “Chernobyl,” and “Game of Thrones” up until about season 5. Yeah, it’s a shame they never made any more after that, but you can just let it be. You’ll know roughly when. If the three female assassins from Dorne come on the screen, you went too far, just turn it off immediately and be sure to take a shower right away.

Edit: Additions

This is a remarkably good list. I know you’re getting a ton of recommendations OP, but this is really a very comprehensive one with an absolutely excellent balance of “real good quality” combined with “easy and rewarding to watch.”

That oughta fix it

Yeah. Sometimes for high-profile cases, lawyers have a habit of giving press conferences and things, but that’s kind of an exception to the norm and not necessarily a good idea I think.

Part of the point of the Snowden leaks was that they don’t completely give a shit about those limitations. I’m sure the details vary in various parts of the apparatus, but as I understand it they don’t even really bother with the fig leaf anymore (even as of that pretty long ago time at this point).

Not really… “not guilty” can mean, he didn’t do it, or else he was temporarily insane because he was in pain from his medical condition, or even Ed Snowden’s “yeah I did it and it was illegal but at the end of the day I was right to do it and I think I can convince a jury of that.” Or just the OJ Simpson “let’s talk about something else for a while and change the subject” defense. It could be a lot of things.

But I do get it that that might be their defense and they’re just not saying anything about it because they’re waiting for the trial to lay out anything at all about it.

I haven’t heard that his defense team is trying to claim that… I feel like if that was reality they would have. Maybe not, but I feel it.

I 100% assume that the McDonald’s employee who called on him is fake in some way, and they tracked him down through some kind of spy apparatus shit and just don’t want to give away their methods.

I have no evidence and I don’t really know how these things work, it just seems way way more plausible to me.

Haha yeah I am super exotic traveler, clearly

One of the best meals I have ever had in my life was some ceviche from a little hole in the wall place in Honolulu. Never had tiradito but I assume it is top tier.

How in the world is Mexican / South American food not on this list yet?

1. Mexican / Colombian
2. Probably Thai

Because right-wind ideologues have gotten super skilled at hoodwinking the common people into thinking they’re on their side.

I saw an ad on YouTube for what a good job ICE is doing not that long ago. Kristi Noem was in it.

More disturbingly, I’ve noticed a little scattering of those “police bodycam raw video” channels starting to play up when the criminal involved is an immigrant, what their status was, how ICE was involved, and so on. There’s clearly something at work that’s a little more subtle and sinister than just paid advertising.

It’s 2025. Any minor success of his administration is being dismantled by Trump. Get with the times.

What percent reduction in US overall carbon emissions would you define as “minor”? If you had to give an objective number to it.

The larger point outside of that one word “minor,” I think, is largely true. People really fucked up on a world-altering scale letting Trump come to power again. Were you one of them? I feel like there are a lot of them in this thread, who contributed in their little infinitesimal ways to letting it happen. Thanks! You guys should do something about that going forward, or else this stuff is going to keep happening and get infinitely worse.

Also jesus christ, your condescending tone is obnoxious.

Do a quick search for “LOL” in these comments. I was pretty direct about disagreeing, but I wasn’t condescending until someone came up super hostile and talking down to me. I actually still kept it factual about what we were trying to talk about, which domain in standard lemmy.ml tradition they rejected with extreme hostility, but I wasn’t the one that started the condescension. Condescension and hostility are strong traditions here, valued and celebrated as long as they’re in line with the hivemind opinion-set. I was just better at it than the other person, and that’s why they got upset, and why you’re mentioning it now.

I had a feeling you wouldn’t want me to tell you, and would want to pivot to some aggressive complaint in some other kind of way, and bring up the talking point about “pretending” again as if I wasn’t specifically addressing it. 😃 Glad we had this talk.

(Here is a source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-climate-act-cut-us-emissions-by-2030-by-35-43-epa-2023-09-13/)