Pretty sure Microsoft has already damaged the Xbox brand by boycotting it themselves. Which certainly makes this easier.

It’s a picture of the stock market melting down…

…from a time frame of 2021 and on.

Which implies the growth from that time until now is somewhat meaningful in comparison to the dip that specific time frame does its best to minimize.

Which to me, seems intentional. Kinda like you’re being a dick. Which is why I responded like one in turn.

If that was all an accident:

Then apologies for calling you an idiot and listing in detail all the ways I agree with you about the market melting.

Yep. There’s this strategy called “pump and dump.” It’s often used by the wealthy to inflate stock prices before cratering them to buy at discount.

Idiots like you see line go up for a while, and think:

• I’ll buy at a discount as it falls

Instead of noticing the “pump” part of the scheme, also visible in your image.

Unless you want to point to some economic windfall happening between 2022 and 24 that explains all that growth, it is very likely from downsizing, buybacks, and off market darkpool price manipulation. (Which now happens regularly these days with every blue chip stock around 5pm).

Historically, Tariffs lead to a recession in 1830 (15% Tariffs), a Depression in 1930 (20% Tariffs), and now with a 40% plus Tariffs on basically everything, we are likely to see the complete disembowlment of the US Dollar and all the market dominance we built with it.

You better get your completely misplaced premature celebration out now, because you are going to be eating crow the rest of this year, and far into the future. There’s no amount of bullshit Trump spin that will bring our markets back. We are unquestionably fucked.

I will gladly check back here in 8 months to provide an updated chart, seeing as you will certainly be too embarrassed to do so.

Just FYI, you’re arguing with someone that agrees with you.

I agree with you too, but only about your main point. Not “all men.”

That assumption is the same logic as bigots and the very “men” you are trying to chastize. Let me just rephrase what you wrote to make my point:

It truly is ‘all women’ when it comes to a discussion about being involuntarily celibate. Using whataboutism to studiously ignore the issue at hand.

You literally are using the same arguments that incels do to justify their hatred and punishment of women.

Just changing the who and what in that argument does not make it a logically sound one.

Anecdotally, I’m a man, and one that has literally saved a woman from being arrested for assault because I recognized she was having an extreme bipolar manic episode, and not just “going crazy” like her female friends believed when they called the cops on her.

The belief our penis prevents us from acting humane is laughable bigotry.

If you want to make a scientific point, don’t follow it with unscientific insults.

I don’t disagree. But I have a unique take on the fall of empires and the evil inherent in humans.

Imo, evil is a byproduct of human selfishness. Taking without empathy towards where it’s coming from. Money, power, property, and even life itself.

There are people that do this because of their isolated environment. (Raised to think anyone that doesn’t look like them isn’t human, and therefore it’s alright to exploited them for gain.)

And there are those that do it because they are sociopaths.

While Sociopathic diagnoses isn’t an easy thing we can pin down. In a world where our social behaviors can be dramatically affected by our genetics (autism) it’s not hard to assume sociopathy is just another manifestation of something like autism. Just a more extreme one - where a person literally is incapable of understanding others as human with emotions like them.

These people are born incapable of understanding that other people have feelings at all. So they don’t contribute to communities, they don’t help others, they just lie and pretend to be like others to exploit for their own gain. They lie to appear social and kind (towards some), as that attracts others in that group they can easily take from.

You know the uncanny valley? The unsettling feeling we get when we see CG that looks human, but doesn’t quite move or act like a real human?

imo that’s an evolutionary response to our habit of breeding sociopaths. They pretend VERY hard to be human, but lack the natural primate communal instinct everyone else is born with. They look human, but don’t act like it compared to the rest of the community.

In smaller groups, like towns or families, these people can be kicked out and otherwise ostracized to protect the smaller community from being exploited.

But in larger communities, it’s an all you can exploit buffet. In larger communities, sociopaths thrive because there is an endless amount of trusting people they can exploit. If they fail, they just move on to the next group of suckers.

If they manage to extract enough power, then all they have to do is keep lying to maintain it. But always, and eventually, at the cost of the larger community itself. There is a finite limit of exploitation that once reached, no longer serves to preserve the larger community, just the power of the sociopaths in it. The community collapses, as it’s support mechanisms have been diverted to the sociopaths, and the sociopaths are then unable to lie any longer and usually blamed / killed / ostracized for their bullshit now that it’s obvious.

So while sociopaths are thankfully not the norm when it comes to humans, just a few in a group can take down our largest efforts to civilize.

This is why smaller human cultural groups tend to have much longer histories than massive empires. (Bushido and martial arts still exist, but the Shogunate does not). We are always going to breed sociopaths, and in turn they will make sure we never get too big for our own good.

Problems arise when the world itself is now fairly united, and sociopaths have no where left to run and hide.

If we want our biggest countries and empires to persist longer than 250 years, then we needs laws that prevent sociopaths from doing their thing.

I’m a big fan of wealth caps. Because it’s non intrusive on a person’s genetics, and the only people that complain about having 800 mil to spend instead of 1 billion, are sociopaths.

Anyway. That’s my way of saying:

• We are not all evil, mostly it’s sociopaths (and the wealthy brought up inhumane bubbles.)

• Sociopaths are the reason every human empire has fallen.

• There’s a lot of powerful sociopaths running the world because we spent decades collecting all our best resources together in large shiny empires that called the worst of us like a moth to flame for their exploitation.

Oh I don’t disagree at all there either.

I should have been more clear in that SOME of what’s being pushed to you is rhetoric. (Especially with the Poilievre side of the media being almost identical to MAGA in that way.)

I never meant to imply that anti-American sentiment is ONLY from rhetoric. It’s been embarrassing to be an American for years now, so likewise I understand the feeling of disgust towards us and our behaviour.

But a large reason we are in this position is because we became divided on the wrong issues. Every conversation and headline became blaming Dems or the GOP for where we are instead of the oligarchs that have financed both parties for decades. The project 2025 BS is their wet dream, and Trump just needed their money to win and stay out of jail. Selling us all out to them to do so.

So now that I see that same money heading Canada’s way, to likewise divide you against yourselves and us - I feel it’s worth noting caution. Be sceptical of inflammatory headlines, and wary of others that downplay obviously bad things like a politicians criminal record. (wtf America).

But blaming the majority of American citizens is like blaming the majority of Russian ones at this point. It’s Putin / Trumps desires our governments are acting on, not our own.

The biggest difference is most of us have guns, and aren’t afraid to Luigi them towards our oligarchs. Fingers crossed we solve this one way or another before it affects other countries worse than ours.

Don’t disagree. But the majority of Americans didn’t vote for this. Our system is just out-dated and has been slowly rigged over decades to benefit the few over the many. MOST Americans have never wanted Trump to be President. Many have spent years trying to get others to understand the consequences of his first election, and what is now his second term.

But the voices of the many, are easily drowned out by the voices of the few who enough resources to purchase all our social spaces (Twitter / Facebook) and fill it with bad actors posing as other Americans who spout oligarch rhetoric.

But our oligarchy have only radicalized a minority of us, not the majority.

So while I understand your frustration with Americans, at least 1/3 of them have been fighting against this shit for a long time, and another 1/3 have done nothing. (Which is a different conversation

The point is - this bullshit is now bleeding into Canada and the rest of the world. So the Americans who have lost their country to it might have the best information to share about preventing it.

“Divide and Conquer” is the name of the game, and now that the US is Divided between right and left, billions of dollars of disinfo is now getting aimed your way instead.

With “Canada hates Americans” being the headline Trump wants to see in order to invade you. This is why anti-American rhetoric is being pushed to you, and why anti-Canadian rhetoric is being pushed to us.

We’ve only been allies until now, and the majority of Americans want Canada to be safe from what just happened to us.

• Billionaires enable and encourage the Patriot Act which allows for the mass spying on all American citizens, and the death of the implied privacy clause in our constitution.
• Billionaires use this death of our privacy to harvest our meta data on social media and sell it.
• They sell it to our enemies like Russia, China, Iran who use it to launch disinformation campaigns targeting American social groups using their own meta data to determine the easiest way to radicalized them (Hillarys emails, Benghazi, George Floyd, Trans kids etc)
• Billionaires see how effective selling American privacy is at controlling us, so they do the same, and take over the GOP, US, and every major government institution like the FAA and FCC via Trump and project 2025.
• With control of the government and its groups in their hands instead of the peoples, they demand personal privacy for their own meta data, despite being the reason it was removed from the public and weaponized against us in the first place.

Oh, but dOn’t sTaLk tHeM.

Just complacently watch them afford the freedom they took from everyone else.

Does anyone else find it fucking disgusting that liberals are now mad…

If “hate” is too strong word, then how would you describe your original use of “fucking disgusting?”

Is it somehow caring to be disgusted by someone’s existence?

I said they’re not saying it right now, which they aren’t.

And YOU think they aren’t saying anything right now because they’re disgusting fucking liberals? Right? NOT because Trump would further prosecute them?

I have pointed out several times, they face a literal existential threat by saying anything now. Which means they have an unquestionably legitimate excuse to say nothing, that you are insisting isn’t as valid as them just being fucking disgusting.

I’ve pointed out what over 50 liberals were saying BEFORE the Trump admin was persecuting them. And you’re belief is those words aren’t to be listened to because liberals are too fucking disgusting to be honest.

… for me not having negative feelings about liberals is? When they’re no longer liberals.

Okay, so when is that?

Because unless you’re willing to define what behavior MAKES them liberal, you are judging people instead of their behaviour. Which is racism /bigotry by its very definition.

Which is, comparatively, pretty easy to see you practicing in this conversation if we look at it through a different context:

If these were Jewish people, when would they be sufficiently not Jewish enough for you to not find them disgusting?

Because it’s not when they don’t talk like Jews. Its not like when they don’t act like Jews. And its not when the Jews have no power to hurt you, and are being persecuted by another group.

They’re all still Jews, I mean “Libs” to you. And that fucking disgusts you as you have made clear for days.

So would you agree that when a Lib talks, they will always sound too fucking “disgusting” to you too?

Or is there something they could say worth listening to? What would that be to you if it exists at all?

Funny how all of this is your own personal feelings about what the libs are saying. Instead of, you know, acknowledging in any way they are saying exactly what you told me I could never find them saying.

Does “never” have a different definition to you I should be familiar with?

It doesn’t matter if YOU feel their words don’t matter here. They were still said, and your hate for assuming they never were is no longer justified or warranted.

You hate them when they DON’T say something. I show you them saying it. Now you hate them when they DO say it.

No matter how you feel about their words, they were still said. Which means you can’t hate them for NOT saying it like you did in your original comment.

You can only hate them for not saying it again, but this time, when the person they would need to say it to would be Trump. Who not only hates them, but is actively trying to persecute anyone who gives him criticsm.

You say it’s apathy they’re not talking about stopping drone strikes now, when it’s pretty clearly the threat of political persecution.

So really it just boils down to this:

When, exactly, would be the right time to stop hating liberals?

What metric do you have in mind, that once libs reach, you would no longer hate them?

Nothing left to talk about except this. Because I doubt it’s something you’ve ever considered.

Any chance I could get enough of your empathy to explain what part of my comment is “liberal apologia?”

Because you just shifted to attacking me as an “apologist” instead of attacking the evidence I provided that you are wrong about your assumption of modern liberals.

Comparatively, if you were Israeli, and this conversation was about the Palestinians, you’d be telling me how much of a Palestinian apologist I am for pointing out that there’s some clear evidence that not all Palestinians are terrorists. I just provided some decent evidence to suggest that not all Libs are terrorists either.

Hate is addicting that way. Makes you assume the world is black and white when it’s always been shades of gray.

If you can’t admit it’s even possible your hateful assumptions about Libs are now outdated when presented some clear and unbiased evidence they very well might be, then you are choosing to believe your hate over reason.

Here’s another opportunity where you can choose to:

A) Have empathy and engage with the evidence I provided that your assumptions are wrong.

Or -

B) Have hate by dismissing me without evidence or good reason as you are now.

I guess we’ll find out in your next response if you like the way hating on Libs makes you feel so much that you’ve never stopped to considered when a good time to stop hating them would be.

Because someone with the political knowledge you have could certainly be doing a lot more with their life.

Imo, it’s what having a shit load of money does to people’s brains.

If you have a lot of it for long enough, you tend to think you deserve it/are important. But if your actions are shit because you are inherently neither of those things, then it creates some painful cognitive dissonance. And when you have that much money, not much is uncomfortable except what’s on your conscious. So specifically: You have money, but people don’t seem to like what you do with it, and that bothers you literally more than anything else (as all other problems of yours have been solved with money).

So instead of figuring out ways to use your money productively, you just go find others that won’t judge you for spending it all on what you like. But that goes both ways, as this group WILL judge you for not liking what THEY like to spend all their money on selfishly.

And what they like, is to be selfish - to build a bigger dick shaped rocket than anyone else who has the money to do the same. So, in order to keep the selfish assholes liking you, you complement them for being one while being ignorant that you are now the same.

The world gets a bunch of dick rockets that do nothing for it. And everyone who spends money selfishly feels they’re doing the right thing.

Basically, any societal pressure to spend money productively for the benefit of everyone can now just be suplanted by greedy peer pressure to exploit society for more dick rockets.

Emotionally, building dick rockets is now the only thing that makes these people feel they deserve their wealth. So at the end of their lives, they will do EVERYTHING in their power to finish their dick rocket masterpiece, as to them, it is directly tied to the legacy they’re leaving behind.

Without ever realizing their legacy is just another waste of billions that could have benefited humanity though being used in almost any other way. They’ve tied their own worth and self image to dick rocket building without realizing not a single other person benefits from or cares about dick rockets.

Europe is Putins Dick Rocket. Trump is McConnells Dick Rocket. Exploiting the stock market is Pelosi’s Dick Rocket etc.

In the pursuit of their own happiness, they reject any notion of charity in favor of more greed. Because they’ve never realized that their money doesn’t make them happy, it’s what they do with it that does. Instead of reaching that realization, they’ve instead tricked themselves into believing using money to make Dick Rockets could somehow make them happier than the social good-will basic charity always provides.

You must have read what I wrote in order to know you don’t care about it enough to say anything. Which no offense, if you also did the same during the last election, explains why you’re so defensive. Because you can run away from my opinion, but you can’t run away from the results of this election. No matter how much you complain about it.

If you’ll notice, liberals—both rank and file and leaders—are not calling for an end to the actual mass murder…

Here’s liberals, both rank and file, calling for an end to actual mass murder in 2022:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-democrats-urge-biden-overhaul-drone-strike-lethal-force-policy

More than 40 House and Senate Democrats have urged US President Joe Biden to review and overhaul Washington’s counterterrorism policy and its use of lethal force and drone strikes.

The letter, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren, comes a day after US Central Command (Centcom) released the first public footage of an 29 August drone strike in Afghanistan which killed 10 civilians.

When “there is little policy change or accountability for repeated mistakes this grave and this costly”, they wrote, it sends a message that civilian deaths are “the inevitable consequence of modern conflict, rather than avoidable and damaging failures of policy”.

The letter was also signed by ten other senators including Chris Murphy, Patrick Leahy and Richard Durbin, as well as 40 House members including Ro Khanna, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Barbara Lee, and Pramila Jayapal.

Unfortunately, seeing as libs lost the recent election, there’s no way of telling the outcome this kinda of pressure would bring. But based entirely on the momentum Bernie and AoC are gaining, the flavor of lib you hate the most is fading fast from the favor of the Democratic party.

Even now, there’s fighting to change their leadership as the “New Lib” defense they’re putting up is about as effective as a wet paper towel.

Here’s a great article about the rise and fall of the “New Libs” that you hate (rightfully so, they suck), but it outlines they are indeed falling from grace at this very time:

https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2025/02/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-new-liberals-how-the-democrats-lost-their-majority/

Then, [Democrats] can learn from the [New Libs] most fundamental mistake: any new policy agenda must not only address structural challenges, but also be firmly rooted in a popular political base.

A popular base like their 50+ constituents calling to reform mass murder policies.

Unfortunately, Democrats currently have no power in any part of the US government. Trump is the only one in charge, and stopping him involves focusing on the part of his job he fucked up, particularly the Opsec.

That is something liberals DO have control over at this time. So it is what they are focusing on.

But if you look at what they were calling for when they were recently in power, it’s very much what you have been asking them to call for.

I the US 2024 presidential election, there was two names on the ballot for candidates likely to win:

A) Person that wanted to tax billionaires B) Person with 34 felonies for trying to steal a previous presidential election.

Two choice for a vote. B was picked because TV told everyone that was the smart thing to do, while actual smart people were ignored as too woke.

So now it’s very all of our fucking business that TV got people to vote B.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. If you were stupid enough to vote B, or not vote at all when B was on the ballot, then don’t be surprised and sad that said action have now enabled the disappearance of people to prisons with no due process.

The only thing Trumpesque is whining like a bitch now that there’s consequences to B winning.

The choices were:

A) Brown Lady B) Constitutional seppuku

So no one here is telling you how to vote - but most here understood what the consequences of voting B would be.

Did you?

Or are you just now mad to find out crime grandpa is indeed gonna crime? Because no one is going to have sympathy for that level of ignorance. Best you can hope for is a 'Let’s go Brandon" style of whining you could adopt and use to bitch more about the outcome of the election with.

Just to be clear -

If your idea of empathy (which I still don’t het) prevents you from criticizing liberal…

It is not your criticism of liberals that lacks empathy, it’s your choice of timing in when to criticize them.

They deserve criticism, unquestionably.

But that criticism made more sense to discuss when it was the late 2000’s and libs were turning a blind eye to mass murder. They clearly aren’t now. So why shit on them as if they are, or ever will be able to again?

In short, modern Libs:

A) Are doing the right thing for once (by kinda being mad about mass murder) B) Not doing as much mass murder as Trump / Russia. C) Might not be around much longer due to Democratic party infighting and Trump working up towards arresting his political rivals.

Which means libs are now:

A) Choosing to be on the right side for once B) Not murdering anyone, and actively fighting Trump / Russia from doing the same. C) Are being openly oppressed.

And all that admittedly, in your very first response, “makes you mad.”

You have now spent days judging them for bullshit they are no longer doing, and haven’t done much of in decades because of Trump.

Which means, simply put:

Your are choosing to express hate towards them, instead of:

• Hate towards people actually doing mass murder
• Hate towards those oppressing free speech and ideology (because what’s being oppressed is lib flavored).

If this was 2009, the above wouldn’t be true, and your cticism of libs would be valid and warranting of empathy.

But the above now IS true, which means you are choosing to criticize the libs at the opportunity cost of criticizing those who are now actually doing mass murder.

So frankly, your entire opinion comes off as:

I only care about mass murder when the libs do it.

As that’s all the mass murder you’ve managed to talk about for days despite quite a lot of it being done by worse people now.

Your hate towards libs is clearly more important to you than those now being mass murdered as you only care to talk about one of these things.

If you want empathy, talk about the mudered, who the libs are now actually trying to help, instead of how much you hate them for existing.

Because no offense, the brain washed MAGA in the US blindly hate the libs the same way you do. So if you want to come off as having an opinion worth listening too, maybe have sympathy for the devil now that they’re clearly not as bad as the President that was just elected. Until then, you’re no different than a MAGA influencer blindly hating libs. The only difference is their reasons are made up, and yours are outdated at best.

Hate is addicting. I’ve watched decades of propaganda turn decent people into idiots who hate each other. So if you want to waste your time, I recommend doing it on something that doesn’t make you so angry for no reason. It’s clearly affecting your ability to act with empathy, as you seem to lack any towards libs despite their clear change in behaviour that caused you to hate them in the first place.

Lol. 😂

Wow that’s dramatic.

You literally admitteded to wanting to be wasteful. So it’s not dramatic to point out that over time, if all you do is wasteful things with your life, then it’s been a wasteful one. That’s how life works.

How is criticism a “lack of empathy”?

It’s not your criticism that lacks empathy, it’s your choice in who to criticise.

You’re taking the time to make your opinion public, and that time could be spent doing or saying anything else.

What you choose to say and do, is at the cost of what you could also be doing or saying with your time.

For example:

Libs choose not to say anything about drone strikes when it’s inconvenient.

Their choice to turn a blind eye, is why you feel they lack empathy.

The Right is attacking Democracy worldwide and has succeeded in taking over the US where they have recently enacted policies killing woman (abortion bans), incited LQBTQIA violence and murder, and readily exploit the elderly (antivax BS, removal of social security).

Recent estimates put preventable abortion deaths at 10,000 women a month in Texas alone, not to mention the GOP’s support of actual genocide in Isreal.

All of this, you have choosen to say nothing about. So just like the libs, it appears you’re turning a blind eye to it.

Because If you actually cared about those commiting mass murder, it stands to reason you would choose to express an opinion against the group doing it the most worldwide, instead of the group who has no power to do it any longer.

In choosing to be critical of libs for actions that others are doing worse on a far larger scale is what makes your opinion lack empathy. Because it quite literally could have more empathy if it was directed towards the larger group now doing all the mass murdering.

Libs don’t want to talk about drone strikes killing people (just the “terrorists” that do), and you don’t want to talk about the right killing people (just the “libs” that do).

From where I’m at, you both appear to be the same kind of hypocrite.

Egypt and Japan…

Both are already under Russia’s heel. Japan only recently.

Egypt gets 80% of their grain from Russia in exchange for guns. Russia has them by the balls and doesn’t need propaganda to influence their politics:

https://www.eureporter.co/world/egypt/2024/02/15/a-new-dawn-for-russia-and-egypt-and-a-wake-up-call-for-the-west/

And Japan is one of the 11 Democracies found to be under attack through targeted election interference in this report:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-intelligence-report-alleging-russia-election-interference-shared-with-100-2023-10-20/

Concerted Russian operations between 2020 and 2022 sought to “undermine public confidence in at least 11 elections across nine democracies, including the United States,” the report said, adding 17 others were targeted by “less pronounced” efforts.

So the mass murder people already have control of the Egyptian government, and are working on Japan.

And its working because:

Right now people will follow whoever promises to do things and then follows through on that promise.

This includes voting for people that don’t care about mass murder as long as they follow through on their other promises.

So all together, talking about how much you hate the Right and what they’re doing feels like an opinion you should have and be sharing if you truly cared about those who commit mass murder.

Libs are not in power in the US and very likely won’t have it in the same way ever again.

Do they suck? Yes.

But there’s bigger mass murders now that arguably warrant the same view you have of libs.

So why are you choosing to talk about the libs instead?

From my perspective, it looks like you just want to waste your time being angry at a lesser evil. Which if done over the course of your whole life, will unquestionably waste it.

… there’s nothing wrong with doing wasteful things.

Agreed.

But I prefer to live a productive life instead of a wasteful one.

Especially when wasting your life involves picking on a currently oppressed group instead of their oppressors. If your anger stems from liberals lack of empathy, you are certainly lacking it towards them now that they’re oppressed.

So if you want to waste your life being an angry hypocrite in this way, I will not stop you, but I will point it out.

And let me know where in the world you’re living if you feel you are currently safe from the Russia fueled right-wing populist hate machine. I’d gladly move there to escape the grip they are tightening on the world.

Especially considering how effectively they dismantled the US, have now weaponized their military (the largest in the world by several factors), and have publicly stated their interest to take over Canada, Greenland, and Panama.

If there’s a safe place on this planet that escapes their grasp, let me know, especially since you already feel:

…that united front will never happen.

Seeing as a united front is the only way this ends well for humanity instead of Oligarchs, I guess we’ll have to wait 4 years to find out if you’re just being wasteful, or dangerously naive.

This is the reaction of people who are only marginally opposed to mass murder.

Understood.

My point: the world is slowly becoming overrun by people that are not opposed to mass murder at all.

So why should we spend any effort towards measuring what level we’re each opposed to mass murder, instead of actually opposing it while it’s happening?

It’s wasteful at best, and creates fractures in a needed united front against mass murdering corporate narcissists at worst.

Albeit a valid criticism of libs, it’s not productive towards solving any growing problem in any way. It is punching down on a group that Trump already has his boot on. Yet you’re enjoying the boot, and feel it’s earned, instead of aligning with the people it’s on who you clearly agree more with.

At the rate the US is going, there won’t be many libs left to laugh at once that boot is finished with them.

So I’ll save my criticism of their behavior after I know for sure they’ll still be around to criticize. Until then, anyone under that boot is my ally despite any political differences.