Simon Vallée

"Divisive speech" is slowly joining "hate speech" as justification for exemptions from free speech. Make no mistake, this is the end of free speech and democracy altogether if this becomes formalized. "Hate speech" is a concept that is easily abused, but "divisive speech" is a concept designed to be abused. What does it mean to be divisive? It means to reject the dominant narrative. It means to question what Authorities tell you. It means to present an alternative opinion, to present facts that make the Establishment look bad. To disagree with the Official agenda of what society's evolution should look like. Divisive speech is speech that the Authorities do not approve of. All must be united in the same vision, the same political agenda, anyone who disagrees must be silenced one way or the other. That is what is being proposed. The same justification used by the North Korean tyranny: North Korea has to be united in spirit and mind, any dissident that weakens this cohesion is weakening and harming all of North Korean society, therefore repression is fully justified. The final steps towards full-blown managed democracy will be taken once the State and its institutions will start considering that "divisive" speech is undeserving of legal and constitutional protections.

Good bye Chekov/Bester. Now only two people of the original TOS Bridge crew remain: William Shatner and George Takei. Shatner is very long-lived, but George Takei seems to just be running on spite and resentment at Shatner and everyone else right of AOC.

Modern society makes it too easy for people to opt out of social connection and relationship (delivery, online shopping, spread out businesses, etc...), and people choose the easier path when it's there. Yet people's life satisfaction is highly dependent on close personal relationship and community. The same things we make too easy to avoid and that people tend to avoid in casual decisions. As a result, a loneliness epidemic emerges. When such a situation is so widespread, we can't just blame individuals. It's a social and cultural issue. We either accept and adapt to it, or we revise our societies to counter it.

#TheLastDriveIn I've seen Ken Titus more confident. STOP BEING A WUSSY!

The Tesla demonstration is cute and all, but utterly impractical for anything but this demo. No one needs nor can safely use this kind of acceleration, the suction system would be dangerous to use on real roads with dust, rocks and the like being aspired by the fans. Moving a car by rocket cold gas thrusters has no real world application.

Many media claim that Ukrainian strikes on Russian bot farms silenced most of the pro-Trump, pro-AfD activity on social media. They make that claim based on no data at all. A cursory look at major accounts of these movements shows no reduction of activity or engagement. The belief the only ones who oppose the establishment are Russian bots is basically a pro-establishment conspiracy theory.

Independence of the universities was meant to make sure truth seeking institutions would continue their work without political interference... But what do we do when the universities get taken over by corrupt cliques of hyper-partisan assholes? What's the remedy?

...what if the increase in housing prices across the West is linked to large landlords and speculators using AI and new tools to gouge customers as much as the market will bear? With small actors following suite?

OK, so, why the hell is art of a female version of Draco Malfoy (aka Malfoid) filling my timeline? What got the ball rolling?

En 2003, la première élection provinciale où j'ai voté, le PQ a subi une énorme dégelée en gagnant seulement 33% des votes. Si les sondages sont bons, il s'enligne pour une grande victoire la semaine prochaine avec 30% des votes. Maudit système électoral de cul. Et je vote PQ.

Maybe the right should learn from the left about culture war stuff. Don't talk about it (unless an issue where it's an easy win) just do it once in power. Appoint some people in the bureaucracy and ask them to uproot all the woke stuff, while having politicians never talk about it. That's how the woke left prospered: leftwing politicians and parties avoided the issue entirely, but once in power, they put the most doctrinal woke ideologues in place in the structures, and they're the ones who shoved the agenda down people's throats. The political figureheads played the innocent while they appointed hatchetmen to do their dirty work for them. Do the same, on the reverse side. Have the politicians sound respectable for the mainstream media so they don't panic about them, but once you're in, let loose the dogs of war with operatives put in place for that purpose, while the politicians keep their hands clean.

Canada is now a two-tier society, divided between people with property-owning boomer parents with good pension funds who can help them get a foot into the homeowner class, and those whose parents cannot or will not do so. That's what decades of favoring boomers, homeowners and retirees at the expense of the young, and an economy built upon an housing bubble, gets you. FTR, my mother did help with my down payment for my condo, so I'm on the good side of the divide. That doesn't mean I won't criticize it.

Honestly, this testimony made me check if this was satire. It seems not to be. So she literally believes that being a socialist gives her the moral high ground, which seems to be of paramount importance to her. She does say she wants to see the humanity in everyone... While calling everyone on the right racist, ignorant brutes. She's amazed that right-wingers don't actually want to hurt people and rejoice at their suffering, and actually care about fairness. Since ardent leftists keep blocking everyone who criticize them and refuse to yield to them, and isolate in their own little bubbles, it makes sense to doubt sometimes if the image you have of them might be a strawman, an exaggeration caused by a lack of exposure to them. Well, apparently not. They are EXACTLY as you think they are. Utterly arrogant, obsessed about virtue signaling and appearing moral, hypocrites who say "love wins" while being the absolute most abject hateful people as soon as they find someone opposed to their views. And the fact that she hasn't expelled her sole right-wing friend from her social circle means that she's one of the MODERATE ones. Modern leftism is a cult. A secular religion for people who haven't been given a traditional religion to perform yet need religion to give a structure to their lives, just as prone to convert fanaticism. At least in traditional religions, the Enemy is a shadowy supernatural figure, and not your neighbor who happens to vote for another party.

Everyone has to find their own meaning to their lives. But for everyone's sake, it is best not to choose a meaning for your life that require you to undermine other people's attempts at finding and fulfilling their own life's meaning, because then either you or them must fail. For example, the progressives who set up as the meaning to their lives the destruction of the "gender binary", of the traditional family, they are setting up as the goal to strive towards something that requires the disruption and destruction of the meaning of the life of billions of people on Earth. If you set up the meaning to your life the creation of total equality, you undermine the meaning of everyone who strive for excellence and self-improvement by telling them the more they try, the more you will impede their success until they are the same as anyone else.

This is the exact same BS as "systemic racism". "Systemic racism/white supremacy is real, you don't have the right to disagree, no one has to prove they're real, doubting their existence is harm against the marginalized." That's the far left right there.

They're very small concessions, but the dam is starting to break. As I said during COVID, it will take 5-10 years for people to reevaluate lockdowns and start to accept that they were a major public health failure. We are seeing the first cracks in the wall.

Resident Evil: the first thing that jumps out is how good the cinematography is. It really gives a horror atmosphere... But the tone of the movie is different. The characters of the movie seem to be out of a parody, they're mistake-prone, have no gravitas and the main character looks like someone playing a video game for the first time and continually messing up while commenting about it all the while. No character death truly feels horrible, it's like the movie makes light of all deaths. All characters are either superficial or stupid that when they die, you often just laugh at it. As a result, despite the visuals, the movie is more fun than horrible. Like a video game. I don't know how I feel about it. Currently, I thought it was a fun rump in a horror setting, but the tonal dissonance may ultimately lead me to reevaluate it lower over time.

Now we know what woke progressives think "toxic masculinity" is.. Being stoic, self-reliant, physically and mentally tough, being in control of your emotions. That is the core of what they see as toxic in masculinity... Some of the most admirable and socially necessary traits.