Walt J. Rimmer

I guess they’re trying to insinuate that there’s a conflict of interest because he worked for a government agency and Wikileaks leaked documents pertaining to that government agency.

But, like… That would be like saying no judge could oversee the case of someone who attacked a courthouse because they work for the same legal system. That would be a real loophole in the law if by breaking the right ones, you just couldn’t be tried anymore.

Would you be more comforted to know you weren’t alone?

I can almost understand the Personal Liberties Libertarian, which I think is what the philosophy was originally supposed to be about. But we often see Corpo-National Libertarians or Totally-Not-An-Anarchist-I-Swear Libertarians, and both of those are baffling to me.

Yeah. If this hadn’t been banned already in Canada, it makes me wonder what other laws I just assumed were common in Western republics and democracies actually aren’t.

THAT HITS HARD, RIGHT HERE, IN MY EMOTIONAL PROCESSING UNIT.

Most people don’t actually know what logic is. I would ask him to define logic to see where he’s coming from. Because most people either don’t have a definition or if they do it’s different than the one the person they’re talking to has. But to do that, you’ll also want a definition you could explain to someone else going into asking the question.

I agree with you. But it’s important to still point out and want to fix problems even in the “better party.” We can’t simply be accepting of “be less bad.” We need to always strive to improve. And weakening the connections between Wall Street and Washington is a big progressive goal that the old guard of Democrats have directly opposed.

Does the bill specify who they’re going to be paying the money to, though? Because an infrastructure bill saying we’re going to spend a certain amount of money on these projects can predict changes in certain industries, but being on a committee and saying, “We’re going to hire this specific company with this huge government contract to do this work,” can tell you exactly what company is about to have a huge boost to their value.

Well, time to fill my life with meaningless debauchery, because it’s not like there’s a future to plan for.

Wait, wait, wait… The average middle-class voter who is struggling to get by is starting to turn away from the Tories and their leader’s suggestion is to reduce taxes on the wealthiest people? Not to improve services or perhaps address the issues that drove former conservative party voters to Labour. No. Cutting the taxes of the elite, further reducing funding for services that the majority of voters use or rely on is the obvious answer.

I wonder how they’ll choose who gets crushed to death at every screening.

You know… I was the last man to sleep with her.

• A frog, probably.

I also noticed that both here on Lemmy and over on Reddit that there’s been a push of pro-Russian talking points and a huge push towards Islamaphobia for the past few days, starting just before the attacks this weekend.

I understand there’s going to be some natural anger over the attack, but the amount of accounts I’ve seen, especially noticeable here on Lemmy because we just don’t have as many users, who are saying things like, “This is just what Muslims are like,” and, “Western countries accept these kinds of people, so expect them to do the same there,” and other racist bullshit talking points. They’ve also been painting the ongoing conflict as unquestionably one-sided in Israel’s favor.

It’s depressing but kind of to be expected that there’s a psyops campaign going on trying to get people outraged at not just Hamas, not just Palestine, but all of Islam right now while simultaneously trying to paint Ukrainian surrender and pro-Russian propaganda. This horrible act of terror was either in part planned by Russia or at the very least is seen as an easy opportunity to try and weaken Western support of repelling their invasion of Ukraine. Just spending a little time in the wrong circles on social media should make that obvious.

$400m for the rights alone. It doesn’t talk about cost of production.

Meaning they’re looking to make that rights cost back across the trilogy rather than from one film, but they’re constantly adding costs along the way.

Is it actually reducing harm to fight to the last Ukrainian though?

When Russia is trying to commit genocide against Ukraine? Yes.

One of the things that made me really like Sanders when he was first campaigning for president was when I looked up his record on American war and he had a voting record that tended to follow a quote from him that amounted to something like (paraphrasing), “War should be the last resort, but if a war is started, we need to see it fully see it through.”

It’s not like siding with Ukraine and getting into that conflict is supporting warfare. It’s seeking to prevent warmongers from profiting off a senseless war. The idea that abandoning Ukraine to just be invaded and allowing Russia to get whatever they want by force is an, “Anti-war,” stance is fucking absurd.

Honestly, this edit of the comic comes off as the cat being annoyed about not being fed after the owner either died or had an emergency they never returned from.

I thought Lemmy was supposed to be the best free speech alternative

I don’t think there’s any useful definition of a “good” free speech website. Because everyone’s going to disagree on the criteria of what makes one good. Myself, I like more moderation, but I like that moderation to be held accountable in an attempt to keep the moderation higher quality and honest. Some people see free speech as no moderation, total anarchy, and I hate that, I’ve seen some websites that tried that, it turned into hate speech and revenge porn and other terrible things very quickly.

Twenty tracks? You whippershnappers don’t know how good you got it! When I was growing up, we only had eight!

It’s weird to me that he’s lumping all comic book movies together and acting like they’re the problem. We keep having trash movies churned out by studios because they make money. That’s been true since at least the nineteen-forties if not earlier. Hell, I’m really just talking about the ones where enough of them still survive that you can go find them. Earlier, in the silent era, yeah, you had trash get made quickly and churned out so that people would pay a dime to watch it. I don’t get how a single genre is supposed to be the culmination that’s ruining cinema.

But, here’s the thing. Have movies changed over the years? Absolutely. Scorcesie’s movies have changed over the years! His style has changed, his vision has changed. What sells tickets has changed. How studios are producing films based on what they think will make them money has changed. It’s been discussed before that the fall of video rentals and the rise of streaming has changed what kinds of movies studios are willing to put their money behind and how they’re less likely to take a risk on something than they used to be. That’s a problem. That’s a big problem because it’s reduced the number of small-budget and medium-budget studio films. None of that can be blamed on comic book adaptations.

And there’s nothing inherently wrong with a comic book adaptation. Marvel movies are overly formulaic and especially since Disney bought them overly safe. Even in the ones I like, I can just feel that Disney touch that makes me go, “Ew,” sometimes. DC’s movies have been mismanaged with an unfit vision helming its original run from the start. So the big series, yes, I’ll admit, they’re kind of shit cinema. I still enjoy some of them, but they’re kind of shit cinema. There are plenty of shit crime movies and thrillers and other things like that, but I’m not going to start yelling about how they’re killing cinema and we have to fight against them. Why do comic book adaptations get singled out as artless trash when there’s a constant stream of hollow feel-good romance films that get churned out every year? Do those formulaic vacuous sap-fests (some of which I love and will watch whenever I need a good cry, I’m really not knocking them) really merit a pass yet for some reason comic books require this war be waged by filmmakers against them? I really don’t see how they’re the problem.

And you can come in and say things like, “He’s just stirring the pot to promote his film,” but I don’t think so. Scorsese has had a lot to say about modern filmmaking even when he doesn’t have a project on the table. He’s talked about his feelings on modern film culture, comic book adaptations, using the word content to describe any form of media, and more. I really don’t think he’s doing it to bring attention to any project so much as he just really feels very strongly that movies have changed and change is bad? Is that really what it is? Because some of the stuff he sees as a problem, yeah, I agree, it’s an issue. But other stuff like this, even if there is a problem, your aim at what the problem really is is just completely off.