Mitch as the Repub leader could have prevented all of this, by voting and allowing other R senators to vote to convict in either the first impeachment or the second impeachment, which would have prevented Trump from being able to run again (and the trials against him would likely have been carried out by now). McConnell bears a huge amount of responsibility for where we are right now.
The most important thing is that Vance wouldn’t have the hold over the whole party to be able to make them bow to his every whim like Trump does. Yes, they would still try to get project 2025 implemented, but they’d be less likely to be able to keep enough of their party in line to do it.
I used to think one of the biggest reasons there’s so many antivaxx people is that, because they’re so effective, people no longer have the fear of seeing their children in an iron lung, struggling to breathe.
Yes, I think that’s absolutely right. The antivaxxers are people who didn’t experience what it was like before vaccines.
Then Covid respirators happened and antivaxx fucks somehow got worse
I think part of it is that the effects of Covid were hidden from the public. The hospitals didn’t let anyone in to see the rows of beds with people on respirators, so the public didn’t see that on the news. They showed the refrigerated trucks but not the bodies in the trucks. So in the “pics or it didn’t happen” timeline we’re in, people didn’t believe it was that bad. Even the aftereffects of long covid are barely recognized or mentioned. The whole thing has been bizarre.
In olden times, everyone saw the dead bodies openly carried off on carts, or saw piles of them buried in mass graves. Their relatives died right there in front of them, not hidden away in a hospital where they themselves weren’t allowed to enter. Before, everyone directly experienced the crisis and suffering it caused. This time, the ugly reality was hidden from most of us other than the direct caregivers.
Side note: during the Vietnam war, reporters and camera crews were there and it was all shown on TV, the bodies, the wounded, the chaos. But the powers that be learned lessons from the horrified reaction of the public: do not show your failures on TV; keep your population in the dark. And we never saw our war casualties on TV again. Cameras were there, but we were shown nothing but scripted “reality TV”, if anything at all.
They followed the same script with Covid. This is supposed to be the information age but we’re more in the dark than ever. Real information is either not provided or is buried in misinformation. Remember the Florida whistleblower who leaked how the State was skewing their covid statistics and was quickly arrested and smeared?
(edit: I think I misunderstood your comment so deleting my comment which wouldn’t have made sense)
Not sure what age I was, maybe 4. I thought the music on the radio was live, that the musicians went to the radio station to sing and it was broadcast from there.
Kind of a combination maybe? Since Mastodon lets you find new people with similar interests by browsing what’s on your local timeline or hashtags of interest, and you can still follow people of interest without any chatting. I don’t know much about chat apps but don’t you have to already know the people beforehand, or come across them via a mutual acquaintance or invite to a chat room?
Of course, Mastodon can be and is used for broadcast/consume interactions, but not as much, since most broadcasters want a huge audience with little interaction, which means a big platform, while the ones on Mastodon are probably looking for a bit more interactive experience with a smaller audience.
Reading comments, it’s really something that people think >=1800 sq. ft is small! Probably because they haven’t really built houses smaller than that for at least the last 30 years, with very few exceptions. I currently live in a post-WWII 2BR, 840 sq ft house, which to me feels plenty big enough for a single or couple, but back when it was built, <1000 sq ft. was the size most people raised their families in . When I was a kid more like 3BR 1200 sq. ft. houses were the typical size.
I wish they’d build more smaller houses like this instead of only large >2500 sq.ft. or McMansions. More houses would fit in the same area and they’d be more affordable, to buy, take care of, and pay property tax on. Even before housing soared to total unaffordabilty, all newer houses were huge and out of reach for normal people. It feels like every aspect of our society from housing, transportation, clothing, any kind of shopping, everything! just gets more and more impractical and ridiculous. Who is making these crazy decisions? Not regular people. I know it’s stereotypical that when you get older you think things are getting worse, but they are getting worse, dammit!
Mastodon is more for people who like to have interactions or conversations back and forth with other people, while the big platforms are for influencers/broadcasters and consumers/viewers-- any back and forth interactions there are more between commenters than with the influencer/broadcaster. Of course there is some overlap and exceptions to that characterization, but that’s how it generally seems to me.
So IMO it’s not a competition, there’s plenty of room for both types of SM. Depending on a person’s preference they may use just Masto, just big SM, or use both, each for different reasons. The problem is when people expect Mastodon to be just like xitter/bsky/threads and get upset that it isn’t. Relax and use whichever platform(s) you like.
But I mean, AI is the asshole, so maybe that’s why they went to the front page?