Zink

It's not just that, but it is unlikely that any star in our galaxy will collide with any star in Andromeda.

I think it's easy to think of galaxies as individual things, like these nodes in the universe where all the stuff is stored. But galaxies are incredibly vast and incredibly empty.

I love the video this guy did on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsRmyY3Db1Y

The part that stuck with me is that if you made the Milky Way the size of the United States, our gigantic sun holding 99.86% of the matter in the solar system would be microscopic -- the size of a red blood cell. And iirc, the planet earth would be all the way down to the size of a virus.

Absolutely true. So when I see one of the male (obviously) executives of the "Let's murder boys wearing eye liner and other undesirables too" looking like one of their own victims, it's a pretty natural tendency to try to use their hypocrisy against them.

Think of it like a small fork of the larger issue of hypocritical gay republicans choosing the path of evil and actively hurting the decent LGBT people of the world.

If a straight-presenting male coworker introduced me to their secret boyfriend I'd give them a fist bump and say "yeah get it bro" or whatever it is that awkward old straight people say to their newly out friends.

If my straight-presenting Vice President introduced me to his secret boyfriend that helps him with his makeup, I'd give him the middle finger and say "fuck off demon" or something like that.

Hopefully the distinction is clear!

Yep. Space is expanding everywhere at once, but the effect is minuscule at the scales we're used to. And even at galactic scales the "speed" of expansion might seem like a lot to us, but it still isn't enough to overcome the motion of objects. I looked up some rough numbers to give you an idea:

The rate of expansion of space is 73 km/s/Mpc. So for every 3.26 million light-years between you and a distant galaxy, the space between you and that galaxy is expanding by 73 kilometers per second.

Andromeda's blue shift indicates it's headed towards us at 110 km/s. And in my non-expert head I'm thinking that blueshifted light must have already been redshifted by the millions of years traveling through space to reach us. So the galaxy's speed through space towards us when the light was emitted was considerably higher.

Andromeda is 2.5 Million light-years away, btw. So the cumulative distance of space between here and there is expanding at something like 73 km/s/Mpc * 2.5 Mly * 1Mpc/3.26Mly = 57 km/s.

But when talking about relativistic distances and speeds, basic terms regarding time and location don't always make sense.

running the oldest dinosaur they have because it’s “their turn”

Nothing says "in touch with the needs of the American People" like making sure to enforce the written rules and unwritten customs of the line of noble succession everybody is waiting in. But they're lined up to take turns on a ride that burned down long ago.

I agree with your statement but I mean that I want AOC instead of another unelectable female candidate.

"You hope that a year from now, the turmoil we're seeing in the aftermath of his murder won't be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country,” Carlson said Wednesday

Yeah it would really be a shame if free speech were to be trampled at some nebulous point in the future. Imagine if it were to happen now!

“And trust me, if it is, if that does happen, there is never a more justified moment for civil disobedience than that, ever. And there never will be,” the pundit added.

The most justified possible cause for civil disobedience in all of human history has been and will only ever be... hate speech laws. Jeez. I'm a white guy and even that level of privilege and arrogance is a little crazy.

“Because if they can tell you what to say, they're telling you what to think...There is nothing they can't do to you because they don't consider you human.”

He seems so close to getting it. So damn close. But considering the right's propensity for projection, it's probably just an illusion.

Yeah, and the instinct to accumulate resources isn't even remotely just a human thing. It's often an essential element of survival.

And for sure a lack of money can cause plenty of problems that legitimately affect your well being. So there are problems for which money is the solution.

But when you constantly focus on the lack of money, whether it's due to actual poverty or because grifters tell you for decades that all your problems are due to single black mom welfare queens getting your tax money, people start to reason that having the money or driving that Lexus SUV is going to be the cure for whatever their underlying non-financial personal issues are.

And since the real world is messy, the financial and personal issues can interact and amplify one another.

And here we are, in the US anyway, about to take this mess and make income inequality even worse while also making access to healthcare worse!

In my very limited knowledge of the household appliance market, Samsung has been a no-go for a long time. Like, the most expensive but also the most disposable.

And that's before we even get to the enshittification and ad invasion.

It's incredible to think about trying to explain the problem to my younger self 30 years ago...

"Yeah, computer hardware continued to scale pretty well so now even this refrigerator here has a computer inside it, a high resolution flat panel monitor, and even multiple ways to connect to the internet for remote control and feature updates."

"wow, that's amazing!"

"Yeah but nobody uses it. At least, nobody who understands tech and reads the news. You don't even connect it to the internet in the first place. "

"What!? That seems totally backwards. What's the problem for educated users? Are there hackers everywhere just waiting to connect to this iffy computer embedded in your home?"

"Oh no, it is much worse. The company that made the fridge could connect to it like they designed it to do!!! And to make it even more frightening, they usually have the infrastructure to be able to connect to EVERYBODY'S fridge at the same time!"

(begins playing spooky halloween music)

That's basically current day fascist America's answer for every inconvenient group of subhumans.

Homeless? Shoot 'em. Problem gone!

War in Gaza has bad optics? Level it and then you ended the war. Problem gone!

LGBTs? Mexicans??? You're not gonna believe this...

I fear one big problem with them flinching so quickly is that it gives the Trump cult plausible deniability to not blame the dictatorship for doing the things that they are doing.

I mean, the government did not censor Kimmel, it was a business decision made by a private entity. Right? RIGHT??

That would keep things consistent with the apparent rule that conservatives must act opposite of what the bible says.

First it discourages molesting kids. RNC buzzkill.

Then while they're using abortion as a successful wedge issue and mechanism of control, the Bible is over here giving instructions on how to give abortions to unfaithful women.

Then there are so many groups to hate...

And SO many desperate poor people to ignore or actively push out of view...

I probably don't need to go on.

Intent, mindfulness, and informed decision making?

I mean, knowing that something is technically propaganda does not make it wrong or make it taboo to repeat. The word has a negative connotation because it's typically used to describe the "other" guys, sure, but its meaning is very broad.

If I were to say the phrase "fuck Nestle" or even just the term "DeGoogle" one could correctly label those as anti-corporate propaganda with an agenda to harm the interests of an untold number of shareholders. Heck, thanks to broadly diversified 401k investment fund options, I am probably one of them and future me could lose entire dollars.

Is anybody on Lemmy going to shake their finger at me for repeating those two pieces of targeted, agenda-driven propaganda though? I certainly don't feel icky for saying it. I bet I could even say something negative about the president of the united states without feeling embarrassed. :]