For years, prominent voices on the right argued that Democrats were enacting a police state. They labeled everything—a report on homegrown extremism, IRS investigations into nonprofits—a sign of impending authoritarianism.

Everything from the right is projection.

They are bad, dishonest , broken, people.

Yeah, but YouTube isn’t as credible. And if it was, I’d still rather read something than spend twice as long watching half the information. Tastes differ

To me YouTube is an untrustworthy platform owned by one of the worse mega corps. But also I just don’t enjoy video as a medium

I dare say books still exist

The people who make decisions at Youtube clearly do not even use their own website or app and there is no way to give feedback either.

Ed Zitron, famously verbose web blog guy, wrote a post about how he thinks most of these big businesses are run by idiots that are out of touch with both the product and the users.

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-era-of-the-business-idiot/

It’s simple: they neither know nor care what the customer wants, barely know how their businesses function, barely know what their products do, and barely understand what their workers are doing, meaning that generative AI feels magical, because it does an impression of somebody doing a job, which is an accurate way of describing how most executives and middle managers operate.

This is only me describing my personal taste, but:

Almost all video essays and podcasts I would rather just read. It takes half the time. Include pictures, diagrams, and animations if needed. But I can read much faster and retain much better reading than listening to someone talk. Listening at double speed is faster, but can be uncomfortable.

I can imagine some value in some other niches, like you’re saying, but the amount of slop and trash out there is too high for me, and the companies selling it are the worst.

Every time I see some parasocial YouTuber making That Face I just get irritated.

Sometimes I forget people watch YouTube on purpose. Other than music videos and the rare “how do I do this thing in this game?” I just don’t use it

I feel like an alien sometimes. Reading books like some sort of lost time traveler.

The ending of earthbound. I was playing it without a guide and hit “pray” in desperation, and what happened surprised me. It’s a little melodramatic but any sort of 11th hour save by people who care usually gets me.

If I have money, I give it to them if they aren’t raising any danger flags. Like there’s one woman who just screams “I’M HUNGRY” at people, and I’m sure that’s true, but I don’t engage with her because it feels unsafe. There’s one whose name I learned, and another couple we recognize each other now.

I used to make good money (low six figures). Giving away $20/week to people asking for it wasn’t even noticeable in my budget. I could probably have done $200/week without noticing. I think my peers are just bad at budgeting though.

I’ve been unemployed for a while now, so I don’t always have cash to give. I tell them the truth.

I don’t expect people who have nothing to give a lot. But I know many of my six figure salary peers could give without even noticing the money, and they don’t. They don’t give to charity, either. They just buy video games they don’t play, run the AC so they have to wear a hoodie inside, and so on.

This supreme Court is bad

Yeah I don’t like ai stuff. And I certainly don’t need AI to group my tabs. I can do that myself just fine.

Republicans are not fit to govern.

I was going to say something smug about living in a walkable city so I don’t need to drive, but I still have to deal with idiot drivers being a danger to pedestrians and bikers.

Even when it gets it right, you have to then check it carefully. It feels like a net loss of speed most of the time. Reading and checking someone else’s code is harder than writing your own

I keep telling people not to use the lie machine but I’m not making much progress. People aren’t smart and resilient enough for the world we built.

The police are not effective at dealing with school shootings.

I don’t think I understand it, then

Is this a bit? are you demonstrating the meme on purpose?

And yet a big chunk of the country are still republicans, and another big chunk think doing anything to stop this is simply too gauche (pun intended) to consider. We can’t fight back or be at all disruptive because then they’ll do the bad things they’re planning to do anyway!

Feel like ads in cars should be illegal, but the US doesn’t have a government that believes in good things.