WackyHeartFluid

Give it another 24 hours, they’ll cook up a new one.

The same lobbyists that bought every other government have already bought this one. It looked good for a while though.

I was recently trying to explain to my Dad that he was about to vote for actual, uniform-wearing Neo Nazis. In spite of his parents and uncles having fought against Nazis in WWII, he couldn’t change his opinion due to the ‘common sense’ message he believed he was voting for. His brain is no longer plastic enough to work with new information, but his cognitive dissonance can stretch to infinity. At some point, he decided thinking was too hard and chose to stop trying.

Guiding them to the dead end of their ignorance doesn’t necessarily mean it teaches them anything or changes their behaviour. A lot of absolutist thinkers can’t cope with nuance or shades of grey, they can only function with simple platitudes. Challenging that way of thinking is one of the things they believe they’re voting against.

Kudos to your friend for trying, but I think it’s more for his benefit and world view that he tries.

Unreasonable people can’t be reasoned with. There is no rational conversation with people who’s decision making is based upon racism/jingoism/national exceptionalism. The UK is still a monarchy, so I’m not convinced they can be taken any more seriously than a religious state anyway.

Confirmation that Steam made a good call, right there.

Bullshit. The EU is far better off without us. They know it and we know it.

Iran probably bought them from Putin with some shiny new drones.

Murica will just break the deal next time Trump has a tantrum, it’s probably just quicker to nod and smile. These deals can’t be worth the ink at this stage.

The question can also be applied to why people believe in God / follow a religion. The notion of monarchy has (in the UK at least) been tied into pseudo religious notions of ‘chosen by god’ or similar, so it ties into that belief system for better or worse. (Historically the tie-in was to co-opt the obedience baked into faith, but that’s probably lost on modern monarchists and believers.)

People everywhere develop unhealthy relationships with those that are oblivious to them, or outright parasitic and damaging. This is another of those that’s been wrapped up in tradition and ceremony under the guise of ‘normality’ and the status quo. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ may apply.

No, this is very traditional tribalism where people of different skin colours and religions are vilified and blamed for anything and everything as convenient to the narrative. The same tribalism that’s been using ethnic cleansing as a solution since we were primates. The same tribalism that invents enemies to silence disagreement and disenfranchise dissenters. The dissenters would be the individualists in this case, and would likely be thrown over the walls.

Endgame capitalism is squeezing harder since the 2008 crash and then Covid. They predicted polarising of politics and ideologies. We’re seeing tribalism as a reaction to fewer resources and harsher conditions, all of which are down to greed and oligarchy. They’ve succeeded in getting us to fight amongst ourselves instead of them.

Qobuz have a download store. I’ve been using them for years and they’ve always been excellent.