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Sympthsical

Sympthsical's Journal
Sympthsical's Journal
May 23, 2025

Seeing people use AI to post to DU is weird

Feels like if one is going to engage in discussion, it should be in our own words with our own thoughts and ideas. Now there's AI popping in that

1. May or may not be accurate
2. May or may not give an answer that's even relevant to the topic being discussed
3. May or may not be actively misinforming

It's just really weird to see it cropping up. The times I have so far have always been inaccurate in some way.

May 22, 2025

DC shooting is the result of stochastic terrorism

It’s dishonest to pretend otherwise at this point. “Globalize the Intifada” looks like this.

That term needs to be part of the conversation now. Protest is one thing. Implicit incitement is another. We’re seeing the results of that incitement. And as we’ve seen in some responses, some people aren’t very sorry about the inevitable ends of this rhetoric.

The sanction and tacit condoning of harassing Jews was only ever going to go in this direction.

That is all.

May 17, 2025

More Democrats watch Fox News than they do MSNBC

Just thought I'd throw that out there as an fyi since there's a conversation about this. This is from Nielsen MRI Fusion data from January of this year. (The text is from a Daily Mail article, which is why I'm not linking it, but the data is Nielsen's).

People complain about Fox, but they keep watching it - far more than any other outlet. It's not even close. Some of those calls are originating inside the house. And this is hardly the first survey to reflect this. It's been a data point for years.

Ain't just the rubes padding Fox's bottom line.

The statistics, taken from January of this year, show the outlet performs better than CNN and MSNBC in the 18 and over demographic.

Total primetime viewers for the network totaled 427,000 for Democratic voters, CNN reached only 174,000 Dems, while MSNBC hit 255,000.

In the same data bracket for independents, or those with no party affiliation, the network again was way out in front, raking in 709,000 viewers.

CNN managed to rake in only 117,000 independent viewers, while MSNBC took in 155,000, according to the data.

In the highly sought after 25 to 54 demographic, Fox again is out in front before the two, bringing in 54,000 Democratic voters during primetime hours.


I'm reminded of that great scene in Private Parts with Paul Giamatti where they discuss Howard Stern's ratings.

March 21, 2025

If you don't read articles - why?

I’ve taken a step back from politics, but I’ve been peeking in the last week and it’s the same thing.

Articles are posted, often with clickbait titles, and sometimes 80+% of the commentary is reacting solely to the headline or snippet in such a way that it is exceedingly clear the actual article was not read.

This is particularly detrimental when the headline or snippet are at odds with what the article actually says. Sometimes the actual information in the article is 180 from the headline. Often, context is omitted, whether unwittingly, lazily, or intentionally.

This is a general Internet behavior. Reddit, FB, Twitter, wherever. People see a headline, go no further, and somehow still have a very . . . boisterous opinion about a thing they haven’t read.

People Who Decline Reading Articles - why?

December 9, 2024

CEO shooter Luigi Mangione laid out his motive on Good Reads

I don't think there's going to be a lot of "Why did he do it?" about this one. He left a review of the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski's book.

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/55354261-luigi-mangione

Clearly written by a mathematics prodigy. Reads like a series of lemmas on the question of 21st century quality of life.

It's easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it's simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.

He was a violent individual - rightfully imprisoned - who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary.

A take I found online that I think is interesting:

"Had the balls to recognize that peaceful protest has gotten us absolutely nowhere and at the end of the day, he's probably right. Oil barons haven't listened to any environmentalists, but they feared him.

When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it's not terrorism, it's war and revolution. Fossil fuel companies actively suppress anything that stands in their way and within a generation or two, it will begin costing human lives by greater and greater magnitudes until the earth is just a flaming ball orbiting third from the sun. Peaceful protest is outright ignored, economic protest isn't possible in the current system, so how long until we recognize that violence against those who lead us to such destruction is justified as self-defense.

These companies don't care about you, or your kids, or your grandkids. They have zero qualms about burning down the planet for a buck, so why should we have any qualms about burning them down to survive?

We're animals just like everything else on this planet, except we've forgotten the law of the jungle and bend over for our overlords when any other animal would recognize the threat and fight to the death for their survival. "Violence never solved anything" is a statement uttered by cowards and predators."
November 27, 2024

Curious about DU's economic strata

Because there's a lot of dialogue about whether or not Americans are actually struggling. I'm curious to know what direction perspectives are angling from.

No numbers or anything like that. Just a sense of how people are generally doing. There are always polls about DU demographics, but I can't recall one about its economic composition.

November 22, 2024

Snopes Debunks Spoonamore

The people spreading baseless claims owe it to themselves and those being subjected to this misinformation campaign to read Snopes' breakdown in full.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/11/21/stephen-spoonamore-letter-harris/

Snopes is thorough and encompassing. Spoonamore has no credibility, and his assertions are based on claims he refuses to verify.

We have work to do. Enough distractions. This stuff only helps the Right.

November 11, 2024

There was apparently a scholarship program

Where all the Internet Submersible Experts from last year were offered a one-year certification program in Instant Election Software Programming and Decryption Technology Expertise.

Honestly, I'm a little pissed no one e-mailed me about it.

November 11, 2024

Can we at least not cheer for concentration camps to "teach minorities a lesson"

In regards to those who didn't vote the way we liked?

Like, do people really not hear and see themselves right now? Not only have I seen that statement, there are people reccing the stuff.

I cannot believe the shit I am reading.

It feels like there's a divide here between "liberal out of principle" and "liberal out of tribalism" that's making itself known in rather ugly fashion.

November 9, 2024

In case people missed it - California shifted to the right as well

Of course, we're unlikely to elect Republicans statewide any time soon and whew for that. But if anyone thinks voters turning off from the Democratic Party was some singular swing state phenomenon, and the diminished margins in other blue states like Illinois aren't convincing enough, take a look at what our political totem managed this week.

San Francisco dumped London Breed as mayor in favor of a moderate Democrat who made crime, drugs, and homelessness central to his platform. He also targeted and listened to the AAPI community which has been furious with our party for being ignored, particularly when they were under attack during the pandemic.

Alameda County - this is Berkeley and Oakland, people - tossed their DA by 30 points for being soft on crime (Pamela Price was a shitshow from the word go). When Berkeley calls you out for being out of touch . . .

George Gascon, another DA with a progressive approach to crime, lost his re-election bid by 22 points. (Anyone seeing a theme with these California DA's getting canned?)

Prop 36, which was vigorously opposed by Gov. Newsom and would increase penalties for shoplifting and certain drug offenses, is passing with the flyingest of colors at 70%.

As of this writing (California takes forever to count votes), Trump is up 5% in the popular vote over his 2020 totals.

I understand self-reflection can be a difficult thing when it requires admitting error. People's egos get involved, and it's not like we aren't all familiar with the "It's not me, it's you!" toxicity in relationships we cannot bug out of fast enough.

But if California - which is Harris' home state - going, "You know, this isn't great . . ." isn't even resulting in an eyebrow raise and prompting some soul searching and course changing, just what will? We just got shouted at by voters across the country, including in enclaves overwhelmingly populated by liberals, and the response simply cannot be "We're clearly not plugging our ears hard enough."

Which I have seen way too much of this week. Do people actually want to win elections, or is being bitter on social media just too much fun? Because I'd like a Blue Wave to materialize at some point. The sooner the better. But we don't get there with denial about what happened during this election.

Doubling down on failure isn't my recipe for success. Maybe I'm missing something, tho.

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