It might be possible that dice took over in usage because most people are never introduced to the concept of dice being singular. Very few mainstream dice based games from my childhood used less than two dice: Monopoly, Yahtzee, Farkle, Risk, Parcheesi, Backgammon. Trouble is the only one I remember that used a single die and that game didn’t even let you roll it.

Musk’s obsession with an author like Heinlein, who wrote several books about a multidimensional polygamous space time sex cult with a dash of incest, makes a lot of sense.

Age, in this case, shouldn’t be what’s stopping him. Something, something constitution.

Every Chick-fil-a I have ever been to was exceptionally clean and staffed entirely by white teenagers, typically girls. They also have a simple menu and good advertising. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about “clean” stores staffed by young white girls appeals to Chick-fil-a’s demographics. White southern religious people love Chick-fil-a.

I mean, yeah. My point was that the people who believe in fantastical boogeymen are the most likely to support the people who are the closest to being the actual Antichrist if any of that were real.

The graphic design of MAGA will be studied at some point. I think it has the effect of looking like some “Everyman” did it themselves. Who’s to say whether this effect is intentional psyops or just the result of distancing themselves from people who actually practiced and studied an art, trade, or discipline, but this shit worked on a certain slice of the population pre-MAGA, too.

I mean, they already have a rootkit, a few worms, and a half-dozen viruses running in their wetware. Why not go ahead and install a few crypto miners and some assorted malware on their PC?

And then, if you do take into account the Book of Revelations, Nostradamus, various 20th-century evangelical ramblings, and the 1976 historical documentary, The Omen, the people who are most likely candidates for antichrist are Trump, Thiel, Musk, Ellison, etc.

Maybe Thiel is worried about who his father really is.

sanguis bibimus corpus edimus

I’ll respond to this because I’m a father and have observed a lot of things about other parents that I never noticed or paid attention to before becoming one. There are some seriously selfish-ass people who treat their kids like accessories or tea-cup dogs. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who treat their kids as franchises or property and view the kid in terms of ROI.

Some people only find value in themselves as mothers or fathers (“I’m the goddamn pater familias!”) where the role is often more important than the kids. While the act of parenting can be selfless, there is a performative element to it that takes over some people’s identities and personalities (clothing that advertises your “parent-ness,” name-brand clothing, chic and fashionable accessories, strollers that cost as much as a used car, humongous houses and baby suites, paying for full- or part-time help, excessively documenting “baby’s” life and sharing it widely beyond friends and family, et cetera and ad nauseam).

Now, there’s another take on selfishness I’ve picked up on from anti-natalist threads which is specifically tied to the concept of agency: a child has no agency regarding the circumstances of its birth. The fact that two people can intentionally (or even worse, unintentionally) choose to procreate is viewed as immensely selfish since it denies the created being of all choice. Parents often “want” to have a kid; but there is often no “need” (biological imperative notwithstanding). Hence, a selfish act.

Another expression of selfishness is that some parents cannot help themselves from creating clones. From birth, the kid is a reflection of the parents’ identity, interests, politics, hobbies, and media fandoms. The political or religious parts are especially disturbing—no kid has a valid opinion of the election and has no solid foundation for belief in a deity. Raising kids with values is one thing, but creating little mouthpieces that just repeat parents’ opinions is another. There is also the chance that a parent will try to live vicariously through their child and push them into sports or academics so that they can fix their mistakes or relive the past.

All said, some people make really shitty parents. And I don’t mean shitty people—there are lots of pleasant and thoughtful people who are fucking terrible caregivers. I think that some people felt too much social, cultural, or religious pressure to be honest with themselves and stay away from parenting. I think that nothing says selfish like knowing that you shouldn’t do something but do it anyway because you know that you will benefit from it in some way (financially, socially, etc.).

It’s an appeal to vanity (a troll). Trump is wildly vain and if he thinks this qualifies him for a Nobel (it doesn’t) then he might just put the worm back in its jar for awhile.

But the same nonexistent god of Abraham.

This was my experience as well.

I did, however, have the unfortunate experience of studying a degree that required four sequential semesters of courses that started at 8AM. Granted, I could have solved that problem by changing majors, but here I am. Once those classes were over, all of my classes were between 11AM and 3PM.

I deal with shy hyphens a lot. They don’t display unless there’s a line break, so they get copied from various word docs or websites and end up in a database somewhere waiting to piss me off.

My univeristy library would often have one or two copies of the current textbook on course reserve in the library. This meant that 1) you had to know where the course reserves were, 2) hope you could get it before one of the other 100-150 students also taking that course got it first, and 3) hope some dickhead didn’t just take it off the shelf and hide it in their study carrel or in a quiet corner of the library. Number 3 gets worse the higher the level of degree you are studying.

To be fair, the schisms have been occurring for like 200 years.

Senators in the US senate serve 6 year terms and there are only 2 per state. This means that there is always an even number of senators and they have a lot of time in office before needing to focus on campaigning for re-election. Compare this to the House of Representatives where the terms are 2 years and states get allocated different amounts of representatives based on population.

Other things to note about senators is that there are certain procedural elements in government that only originate or happen in the senate: approving presidential appointees, judges, generals and admirals, authorizing treaties. The senate also has various committees that advise or manage various aspects of governance. Bills, including the budget, must pass both houses of Congress; in the case of the budget, it originates in the House of Representatives but must be approved by the Senate. The Senate has a lot of power to kill/block legislation because legislation requires both houses of Congress to pass it.

Historically, the Senate was the states’ representative in the federal government and, in fact, state legislatures used to select senators. Although senators are now voted for by the populations of each state, they still have a legacy of being “more prestigious” than the House of Representatives and often vote more conservatively (read as deliberate or less reactively).

Candidly speaking, senators are known to become legacies often staying in office for more than 20 years and it is not uncommon frontje children of senators to also become senators. I mention this, because socially senators are often perceived as being part of a supposedly “non-existent” US aristocracy.

Oh, I’m with you. I was just diving really deep into how absurd the 51st rhetoric is on our side.

It is clear that there is no intention of treating Canada fairly and, as you rightly pointed out, annexation would be violent and justifiably so.

I hate that you’re right. Normalization is the goal, but this is far from fucking normal. Even language like “51st state” betrays a wild ignorance of Canada and the U.S. procedures for admitting new states.

As a US citizen, Canada should not become part of the US.

It’s been 77 years since the US admitted a new state and almost 100 since we’ve raised the number of representatives. D.C. residents make up a large portion of the federal workforce and even they don’t have representation in Congress. Quite frankly, there’s no political entity in the US with experience bringing in a new state and all the logistics and legal work that it requires.

There is no path for Canadian annexation where the Canadians will be treated fairly.

If Canada entered collectively as a single state (pure nonsense, but hear me out), they’d get two senators and 1 representative to the house. The apportionments for US representatives would need to be raised to account for 40 million new people, which my guess wouldn’t happen, so instead California and Canada (who have almost equal populations) would just trade off allocations of representatives alternating with New York and Texas. Canada would end up with a lot of representatives in the House this way but wouldn’t be nearly as powerful as adding 20 senators if the provinces entered as individual states.

All said, not all of these seats would go democrat, but the GOP definitely wouldn’t be able to guarantee majorities or stalemates in both houses like they have been for the past 20-30 years. Even if the Trump admin pulled this con off and annexed Canada as a US territory, the GOP would just block entry as a state since I can’t imagine this Congress passing a joint resolution to allow it. Furthermore, Congress doesn’t even have to consider adding a new state even if the population of that territory keep petitioning for it (see ongoing D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood petitions).

Shit would get really complicated when the US has to handle the dissolution of parliament, withdrawal from the Commonwealth, and Quebec.

Oh, right. Golden plates make more sense for cults.