“Trump blew Clinton” led to it talking about how he “blew Clinton away at the polls in 2016.” Every additional layer of specifity leads to another slight diversion. Adding “Bill Clinton” caused it to recognize that this is in the news right now, but it’s definitely not true because Bubba isn’t Bill Clinton. Telling it that Bubba is Bill’s known nickname caused it to agree that this is true, but Epstein said that “Bubba doesn’t refer to Bill Clinton.” (Epstein is commenting on these emails post-mortem? Maybe I missed something here.) Telling it that Epstein is a known pedophile sex trafficker with ties to these men and reason to lie caused it to admit that Epstein isn’t a reliable source for this, and it tried to dismiss the validity of the emails altogether as “contextually untrustworthy.” I then told it that a known pedophile discussing his practices in a believed to be private email thread is a reasonable context to consider the validity of his statements, but it was tired of me, and went “here are some more links on the subject. Any additional messages with start a new conversation.” This could normal after being 5-6 messages deep with this AI; I had literally never used it before to know, but it felt weird to me.

It is weirdly defensive about the possibility that this had taken place, actively omitting details to bias weird takes.

For extra fun, try posing the statement to Google’s AI mode and watch it try to pretend this isn’t in the news right now, and then make up lies to protect Trump, until it realizes it can’t a suddenly kills the conversation.

I’m not convinced it is obviously a joke. It would explain a LOT.

Capitalism is built on the notion that wealth is virtue.

If you are rich, you made good decisions and the invisible hand has guided money to your pockets. You’ve created things that contribute to the comfort/progress of society as a whole, and your reward for it is to be held above others.

If you are poor, you have not been actively contributing to society. You have instead been a drain, and the invisible hand is punishing you got this. Your inability to find meaningful ways to contribute is a vice, which should be looked down on. Ultimately, if you cannot afford to live, that is survival of the fittest, and the world is better off without you.

If you believe any of the above to be true, you are delusional scum of the earth, and you are the reason everything sucks. You’d also feel right at home with the right-wing chuds currently undoing decades of progress.

You’ve really attached your ego to this delusional opinion, huh. The mental gymnastics here are almost as impressive as they are concerning.

Good luck, man. I have a suspicion that you need it more than I do. Hope whatever happened to leave you like this gets better.

Ha, fair enough my dude. Appreciate you saying so, and I apologize for the aggression. I was coming to your comment from another where someone had jumped down my throat, and I became overly defensive, not that that at all excuses me. I’ve certainly misinterpreted things and said shit I regret before too, so I get it. And arguably, maybe I should have been more clear to my point.

Either way, I appreciate the humility. Have a good one.

They’re just killing them. And they’re going to keep killing them up til the Dems cave.

Cave to demands? Conservatives win but they also stem the bleeding.

This you? The first one is a hostage situation. This is where one party has makes threats to a second party unless a third party or government organization takes action according to their demands. The second is a thing we called appeasement, a policy of making concessions to an aggressor, usually out of fear of worse aggressions.

Act as offended as you want. I’m not looking for a discussion. I am addressing the things you are saying and telling you, point blank, that they are stupid as hell. It’s not my fault if you’re saying things you don’t, or choose not to, understand. My “only stategy” is to not sit idly by while people say stupid shit like the garbage that you’ve been typing.

I… What? Is this response real? Do you genuinely think I’m equating Foucault and Hitler? Because I took issue with the dishonest arguments being made by the journalists that attempted to contact the author? And somehow you’re the one calling be obtuse.

Seeing as you seem to have completely missed it, my point is that the powers that be are yet again senselessy cherry picking bad faith arguments, and it frustrates the hell out of me that “journalists” can do this shit in broad daylight and not be held accountable, let alone still pass as professionals. That does not mean that I endorse the arguments that engaging with Foucault, taking African Studies, or even reading Mein Kampf makes you unapologetically socialist, communist, a terrorist-sympathizer, an anti-semite, a nazi, or any of the other things one could willfully and ignorantly misconstrue from ones reading habits. I’ve made no attempt make such an argument, and your take on my comment is, honestly, completely unhinged. If anything, I’ve emphasized that to willfuly ignore Trump’s penchant for the nightly reading of fascist dictators while taking issue with someone who did a given course in university is absurdly dishonest. Why you felt the need to agree with me so aggressively while also painting my opinion as something it is not is just beyond me.

Nuance is absolutely a thing, and it seems quite lost on you.

You could have been substantially more clear by, you know, actually saying something substantial. The only statement that you’ve made is that we should continue to give fascists everything they ask for because they keep threatening suffering if we don’t. And let’s be clear, the suffering is happening either way.

I’m not sure what you think the concept of holding someone hostage is, if not exactly this. You literally said they’re not holding anyone hostage and then described a hostage situation, as “we’re going to keep killing people until you meet our demands” is perhaps the most clear cut hostage situation that can exist. Additionally, if the dems had no bargaining chips, they wouldn’t have anything to cave on, but the fact that we’re even having this conversation proves otherwise. They have something the GOP wants, and the GOP is threatening to kill the population they’re supposed to represent until they get it.

The more I read back your statement, the more completely batshit delusional it sounds. It’s like you’re using words with no understanding of what they mean.

And “stemming the bleeding” is literally a strategy of appeasement.

I’m not sure what else you could have meant when you stated that “they” (maybe you didn’t mean the dems? But it sure reads that way) should have caved long ago. What reason is there to cave other then to continue to appease fascist tyrants?

“Maybe if we give them what they want, they’ll stop holding the most vulnerable American populations hostage” is not a good strategy.

I’m not convinced that appeasement strategies have been very successful with dictators in the past.

This is why many communities enforce the post title being the same as the article title. The title provided is incredibly misleading, whereas the actual article title is not.

It’s aside the author’s point, but this note is killing me.

Beneath its humdrum requests, every email said more or less the same thing: Can you explain how reading certain things can turn a person into a socialist—and, possibly, a terrorist-sympathizing antisemite? It’s a storied gambit of the right at its most grimly predictable. “People read Foucault,” the redoubtable David Brooks once wrote, in an actual column that I’ve all but committed to memory, “and develop an alienated view of the world.”

Okay, so where’s all the discourse about Trump keeping a copy of Mein Kampf on his nightstand, Times? If reading Foucault gives you an “alienated world view,” and you take issue with Mamdani engaging with “African studies,” the fuck does that make Hitler-loving Trump?

I know, I know, the double standard is the point, and the goal was never to make an honest argument but… Come on! grumble grumble

Your suggested changes completely change the tone of, and remove the personality from, the sentence you’re suggesting changes to.

He also does nothing wrong with his use of subordinate clauses, here or throughout the article.

I’m inclined to say that the English department head in UIC (University of Illinois Chicago, Google thinks?) understands subordinate clauses much better than you or I. I only have a bachelor in English and teach at the high school level, so I’d default to assuming he knows better than I. Though I agree with his use of language, so that’s kind of a moot point.

I really don’t think I could disagree more. My man actually writes with a sense of tone, uses a dismissive sarcasm to express his concern and disdain over the fact that suddenly a pile of “interested parties” need dirt on Mamdani, and you’re here with a take like this.

Mass media is normally written at a 5th grade level. This should insult you, not train you to read at that level.

“All brown people are terrorists” is probably not the take to pull voters from Mamdani. The racists already weren’t voting for him.

I just want them gone. I don’t care if death is how they get there. Society can just turn on them and have their assets siezed as they rapidly fade into obscurity, or they can be tossed in a jail and largely left to rot, save for some cases of extreme reconditioning.

I won’t wish death on anyone. But sometimes, it does feel like the most readily accessible means to a good end.

At this point, I’m shocked that they can admit they’ve been caught. I would normally expect blatant, in-your-face lies the way a toddler lies about eating a chocolate bar while their face is caked with it.

Uh, yeah. Using other people as a means to your end is pretty well defined as immoral. Don’t try and throw your moral bankruptcy back at the whole world like we all feel the same.

I’m with you. The school system is designed to keep voters stupid and uneducated when it comes to civil matters. But at some point, you can’t use it as an excuse. Yes, the system was against them, and miseducated them to this purpose, but they’re still making the decision. You can’t just handwaive away 100% of responsibility for the decisions people make as being a result of being victims of circumstance, because then there’s no such thing as a human being being responsible for their decisions.