DS9 has always had edge. It's among the great works of Anti-Fascist media. Given the course history has taken since it aired, the show has aged like fine wine.

This made me look up the actual Predator code of Honor and I quote

"Unarmed and/or "innocent" beings may be hunted if they:

Are the specific objective of a hunt."

Sorry Op, you're still screwed.

Jaws is objectively the best choice anyway. Just drive inland.

Yep. And the most prominent fascist power that wasn't overthrown externally (Francoist Spain) lasted 40 years until it's demogogue died. The reason it wasn't a bigger problem for the world at large was that it was a politically isolated minor power.

The world hasn't yet seen something like an (openly) fascist modern USA.

No doubt something will go wrong. At all levels this administration is monstrously incompetent. They probably had Chatgpt plan the parade route.

The Fascism-to-Incontinence pipeline is real.

In general the entire series is mean-spirited. You can see the roots of Rowling's hate in how she describes any of the series antagonists.

Sort of, but it's more a comforting theory rather then a true belief. I came up with it when I was younger, doing a lot of psychedelics, and meditating often on the nature of existence and reality.

My theory is that God is everything. The earth, the stars, our fellow beings. All of reality makes up a complex web that I loosely refer to as a "consciousness" for lack of a better word. The nature of this "consciousness" is incomprehensible to us. It does not activly intervene in our daily lives, and operates on a scale beyond our comprehension. Mostly, it simply is. It is the oblivion from which our consciousness was once plucked, and it is where we will one day return.

In essence, each of us is a tiny fragment of reality experiencing itself. The meaning of life is to experience it. All of it. Joy, pleasure, and suffering. It is all a part of the whole of existence. When we die and return to the infinite our individuality is lost, but maybe God learns something about itself.

Even where there is viable public transport, there's a stigma against using it. The city I live in has a decent and cheap Metro system. It's reasonably clean, mostly runs on time, and you only have to deal with the occasional crazy. I took it for a summer after a car got totaled and it was fine.

Yet I work with a bunch of impoverished young people who spend $30-$40 on Ubers every day getting to work. I've suggested taking the bus to many of them, there's even a stop right outside our workplace, and they are always dismissive and disgusted by the idea.

Man this takes me back.

Encarta and Paint were where I spent most of my computer time as a younger teenager. The trivia games on Encarta were dope, I also spent a lot of time walking around the 3d castles and ancient ruins. And a lot of time in the ummm.... Art section. Learned a lot about myself from Venus of Urbino.

Used to waste time by painting giant graphic and bloody battle scenes between stick figures in paint. Did it pixel by pixel! Good times!

Humanity stands on the brink of self-destruction because we have yet to overcome the primitive, selfish aspects of our nature. I have to believe that any civilization advanced enough for interstellar travel—without having destroyed itself along the way—must have achieved a certain level of cooperative enlightenment.

Pressing the mustard stain on Steve's shirt to hear him say "Chicken Jockey" would be peak.

Man, I fucking wish.

"We have middle aged overweight man action figure at home"

At home "Harrier Du Bois action figure"

It took me a minute to realize that little emoji wasn't just a stain on his shirt, because honestly it fits.

They never stopped

I think they're starting with foreign prisons until the process becomes more normalized. Right now it would be too risky, the victims would have too many pesky rights. Need lawyers and journalist afraid of being sent to the El Salvador Death Camps before we can open the American ones.

They couldn't even be bothered to pick a name of an actual Dire Wolf from GoT either. Fucking tourists.

I daresay he almost looks.... Stately in the portrait. It's like a look into an alternate reality where Trump was loved by his father and got into politics out a desire to serve his country, and were he's also done the bare minimum to care for himself for the past 79 years.

I mean, it could be a shitty disfunctional country with a very poor QoL, but still an independent country.

Small states will likely form coalitions with neighbouring states with whom they share culture and values. Texas, California, Florida, and New York might be independent, with nearby coilitions of states falling into their spheres of influence, or they may be the dominant power in a coalition of states.

It would be interesting to see what becomes of the states in the Midwest and the Great Basin. None of them have the economic power to stand on their own, and they will be reliant on having good relations with States that have ports.

Border disputes and tensions will be widespread, and the state-lines we know today will likely be completely redrawn. It's likely too that many States will be facing their own internal succession movements from regions on the other end of the culture wars. Not to mention foreign powers pursuing their interests in the remains of the United States. The only certainty in this hypothetical future is that is will be a big, bloody, mess.