Not really... This isn't people being empowered, this is people being chewed up and spit out

I think that's the sign of a good person

If you build a world for good persons, it'll collapse in your lifetime.

Good persons want to understand each other. People don't - they want to think as little as possible above all else

I think there's a few core reasons

Some people would act like him if given the opportunity, so they identify with him or think he'd give them opportunities

Some people just feel isolated and know the world is getting worse but not why, so they latch onto the guy giving easy answers and simple solutions

And some people are just drawn to the idea of fascism or authoritarianism, even if they don't realize what that entails

I'd put the self loathing in the first camp - many of them get through life through projection. They think everyone is like them

their fortunes

I think the term for that is "the economy"

Ok, let's be real here. A charger can last a decade even if the charging speed slows...a cord will not outlast a phone. If it does, there's a serious issue

They can definitely misfire, but humans are more likely to misfire

When the adrenaline is pumping, it's real easy to squeeze slightly harder... That's why your finger shouldn't be on the trigger until you're ready to shoot

You want to tell me your gun shot two rounds instead of one? I can believe that. You want to tell me a cold gun, with a round in the chamber for more than 5 seconds, suddenly decided to override the required mechanical safety because you waved it around?

By getting in early, and having a lot of child branches on the tree of life

It does help that "actually they haven't destroyed a single work of art" is a pretty good entry point to explain how protests are just a way of displaying group outrage

Civil rights were won by relentlessly challenging the courts, exhausting the public so much it blew back on the government administration, and with the armed black Panthers present as an implicit threat - "if you decide to throw out the law, so will we"

There are levels to programming.

It's fun to solve simple problems effortlessly. It's fun to solve hard problems after banging your head against the wall for a week

Simple problems that require a lot of code are not fun. Neither are medium problems that require a lot of code. Herd problems that require a lot of code fill me with joy.

Programming is like an abusive relationship. Mostly days it just hurts you. But when it's good it's great... It doesn't just give you the satisfaction of a job well done, it expands you mind

I once got on the topic of the moon lending with a creationist co-worker. He said he wasn't sure, but that if it happened we should be able to see it from satellite pictures. So I said "yeah you can", pulled it up, and zoomed in on a landing site. You couldn't see footprints or anything, but you could see the shadow of the flag next to clearly man-made debris

I showed him exactly what he agreed would be proof in a difficult to fake form, and it just temporarily nudged the needle for him

Now, I fight conspiracies with the opposite conspiracies.

Earth is a 4D hypersphere, the earth isn't hollow, Agatha is just another part of the surface reached by holes

The elites are hiding all the best vaccines, like the ones that cure cancer

Fun fact, we did have a 20 year start on COVID. This was bird flu, SARS, MERS, swine flu... Scientists have been saying this was coming forever

This was basically as prepared as we could get. There were protocols in place for everything

Fortunately, enflamed beings often are already in motion, so ceasing immediately should provide some rotation