That’s a download button, an up arrow on the disk is an upload

The save icon is too established to be changed. It can be simplified and become a glyph no one understands the meaning of, but it’s cemented

You can’t destroy the rainforest. There’s a careful balance to these things, no one benefits from it burning down long term

And more individually - if you can work fast, and you consistently save the day when the chips are down, you’re a magician. They will value you, and excuse any weirdness, because that’s just how magicians are

If you work fast consistently, you’re a workhorse. They’ll depend on you, but they won’t value you. Your successes will be normal, providing less than maximum output will be failure, and for some reason they’ll think you can be easily replaced

It’s symbolic. Apparently saying the quiet part out loud isn’t enough anymore, now they’re performing metaphors to make it really sink in

The destruction of the east wing is the pointless and haphazard destruction done to the government. The great Gatsby party was a feast celebrating people starving. A ballroom bigger than the white house is promise the president will keep the rich having fun first and foremost

The building itself doesn’t matter… But the kind of president that would destroy a national monument just cause is the kind of president that doesn’t care about our country, let alone human rights

Have you considered using fire?

• Sun Tzu

Fair… When people ask me how I am I say I can’t complain, because I can’t… It’s not socially acceptable

You can have canned questions too, but I find that makes the whole thing feel even more empty. Personally, I like to talk about the weather not being normal, or about store prices rising and such. Just little observations that any sane person would agree is both true and a problem

It’s my own version of checking if they’ll make friendly noises… If you can’t acknowledge the world is falling apart or think Trump is going to magically fix it, we don’t have the common ground to keep talking. I’d rather sit there in awkward silence

I think a lot of social situations become easier once you flip it around and ask what outcome you want out of it.

Maybe it’s ok to have deeper small talk. Maybe when people don’t respond with friendly noises, they’ve failed your friendliness test

It is a mixed bag, but the people who can be saved don’t think these things are related - they think ICE are going after criminals

They don’t think ethnic cleansing is the answer, they just think this is about crime

No, see that has meaning… This doesn’t. No information is contained in 6 7, there is no concept or reference or anything to it

It helps to have canned fallback responses. Mine is “I know, right?” in a dry/sarcastic tone. It works for any comment and most questions, because it’s a meaningless affirmation

It even works when you fumble, it’s so vague you can use it to reply to a question and recover

Well in this case, you’re going to have a hard time trolling Trump supporters on the fediverse

I think memeing at the right is one of the few acceptable uses of Twitter at this point

It’s a meme where you say “6 7”, optionally with a hand motion like you’re weighing something

There’s no meaning. That is the full context. Any situation where you do any part of the meme is a valid use of the meme

And that’s why I personally find it uniquely annoying

Oh, they tried to talk him out of tarrifs. But he personally loves them, because they make other countries come to him and kiss his ass and make “concessions” that were already in place to get them removed

You can’t rehabilitate these people. What you can do is make them feel betrayed so they point in the right direction, then later shame them back into keeping their racist bullshit buried deep down

They’re never going to fully accept that ethnic cleansing is wrong, or even that it wouldn’t accomplish their goals, but they can be made to understand it’s not socially acceptable to share those opinions

And doing that makes them even think about it less. But deep down, people who cheer these camps and ICE raids will always be deeply racist and lacking in compassion. This isn’t ignorance, this is naked desire for an enthnostate.

That degree of racism will always be there, and must always be kept under the surface by social pressure

Do you know how illegal it is to steal federal funds? It’s super extra illegal, control of funding is where most actual federal power lies. The federal government has surprisingly little direct authority over the States, so I find it difficult to believe this, especially since the 8 States announced it was coming out of their own budget

I’m pretty sure this is all just bullshit to muddy the waters. I think any truth in this was coordinated with the States, I don’t think they’d reach into the bucket and pull out more than was provisioned to their state

And as far as Louisiana paying it? Not only are they one of the most corrupt states, they’re extremely reliant on aid programs. I find it very easy to believe they had money laying around that they repurposed to avoid a massive problem

Exactly. Why would you sell more of your life for more money than you need to?

You can’t buy back the time

When it’s unclear and muddy like that, someone is lying. It’s why billionaire controlled media is such a problem

But yeah, it looks like it’s cut and dry - the 8 States are just using their own funds, probably because they were the only ones with the flexibility in their budget

My understanding is that the states that fully funded it did it with their own money and the assumption they’d get it back down the line

Which is why only 8 states did it

Also, Trump 1 did exactly what the court ordered them to do. There was no confusion about the procedure

The Supreme Court decided that the lower court order was invalid because it didn’t have a time frame. That’s a bullshit justification

This was really a case about presidential power

Oh, they’ve tricked you with their hand waving bullshit unfortunately

They had enough money to fully fund the program for about 2 weeks. So two weeks of food now, then in another two weeks we can work something out and they can get the other half in time. Or nothing is worked out, and so they get half of November now

What the Trump admin wanted to do is split it in half, give them one quarter in November and one quarter in December

It all sounds very reasonable and procedural until you think about what that would mean for individuals dependent on it. It means they would become food insecure now instead of in a couple weeks

You’re projecting competence on people who never meet the moment

They’re not going to fix healthcare in January. They’re not even going start a fight over it. By January, open enrollment will be over, and the fight will already be lost

If they had just waited until Thanksgiving, they could have gotten anything they wanted. There would have been consequences, and the blame would be squarely on Trump

Now? This was all for nothing. Maybe Republicans gave up some ground on the off cycle elections… But all of this was to force a negotiation

Then, days after getting a seat at the table, they immediately fold. Hell, reopening everything until January might have been the opening offer

I think that’s a really good point. Strong property rights is a better way to put it, I’m going to add that from now on

But the reason why I’m splitting hairs is because we’re at the point where they’re trying to privatize the FAA. In fact, they partially have under Trump 1, which is why the planes are breaking - we let airline companies inspect themselves

And it’s not because Republicans believe in capitalism

The problem we have isn’t some belief system, it’s just naked corruption

I think I’m making an important point here.

It’s really important that we stop pretending that these people believe their bullshit. The difference between liberals and the neo-liberals we have now isn’t more belief in capitalism, it’s that they’ve been bribed directly and indirectly

If you say they believe in capitalism, you’re giving ground. There’s an implication that they believe their actions will lead to better outcomes… But they so obviously don’t