“status quo”

Compare how and why people cheer for sports teams. If you’re affiliated you will support any statement in favor of the team, while ignoring, suppressing, or attacking any statements to the contrary.

You won’t debate a Trump troll out of supporting Trump, because it’s about belonging to a group and showing loyalty regardless of facts. Honestly I’m not surprised he’s doing so well, consider how techy most of us are and still get overwhelmed by what the Internet is shaping up to be. If you’re in your 50’s from a poor rural area, what chance have you got to stand against weaponized online propaganda?

We are all like this, by the way. The inclination to blind affiliation with groups is the result of very deep, very old, very well studied cognitive structures and behaviors.

Here’s some introductory reading that might fundamentally change how you perceive people’s participation in groups:

https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/sociology/conformity
Sherif’s autokinetic experiment - if enough people around you believe something, you’ll soon believe it too

https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html
A similar experiment performed by Solomon Asch

https://www.simplypsychology.org/robbers-cave.html
The Robber’s Cave experiment - arbitrarily divide a group into two, and watch the inevitable descent into inter-group conflict (hopeful note: if you make the groups try to overcome a common obstacle, fighting goes away)

Leon Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Tests - This is an interesting one as well, here’s the idea:

Experiment: Infiltrating a doomsday cult before, during, and after the date of their supposed apocalypse, Festinger and his fellow scientists noted that instead of losing faith, members doubled-down on their beliefs after the ‘end times’ came and went — eventually believing that their work saved the world.

Conclusion: When we have two (or more) incompatible thoughts, we adjust them to minimize internal conflict, what Festinger called ‘cognitive dissonance’ — a term that explains the mind state of those unwilling to accept information that conflicts against their belief.

“The Greeks were a bunch of woke gays anyway, good riddance” is what a Republican might say if they knew the Greeks invented democracy.

The concept of AI weaponized mass propaganda on social media makes it less mysterious.

Removed by mod

Yeah, us communists are all the same, just repetitive propagandistic slogans and dumb soundbites led by an uncharismatic moron telling us what to do.

Go build a wall, or bridge or whatever.

Edit: Wait, wait, you weren’t being sarcastic? If so my bad.

You hit the nail on the head.

Druggies may steal from you, but gamblers ruin the lives of everyone around them.

Funny you should say that by the way, and horrifyingly sad, but two Russians drove my friend to his mother’s home in the middle of the night, shoved her in the car with her son, then was told to pay $10K (which was pure interest at that time) for her son’s life. She did. A couple of weeks later he was dead, drowned about a hundred yards away his childhood home.

There was never ever ever ever any reasoning with him. The sheer number of girls he hustled, and by god the money they “gave” him, they were all permanently psychologically damaged after their encounters. Actually a very insane story. He was an amazing guy, literally everybody loved him. He walked into a room, a bar, a subway car… He dominated it instantly, like the lone hero out of some Western movie.

Sorry, I wax sentimental.

RIP Joni.

E: he actually came to me in those weeks leading up to his death and asked me, “if it was a matter of life and death, would you borrow me $10K?”, and I answered, “No, because you’d be back next week asking for the same thing, and one day I’d say no and then you’d die anyway”. We were always sarcastic and fuck you towards one another but like brothers you know. I didn’t understand it at the time, but he was literally asking me to save his life. In hindsight, I don’t know how to feel about it, because I was 100% right, yet, what kind of human wouldn’t do anything to save their friend’s life?

Fuck this woke some feels, sorry for ranting.

This is not aimed at you or anyone particular just my thoughts, but it’s amazing how uneducated people are when it comes to finance. I know I am, and every day I learn a little more of how gullible I’ve been. I did live on the streets selling drugs though, and once you see how that game is played, you see how every fucking game is played. You do this and he does that and they do this and that for you and we all come out on top, right? Throw a couple of million dollar lawyers, accountants, legal experts, think tanks, connections to the monetary and industrial elite of the world, and stack the SEC with 92% former and future employees of yours, and suddenly the game makes sense without any need to get the academics.

It’s not about the math, it’s about who you know.

If anyone is skeptical then remember exactly what Clump was convicted of and what his punishment was.

Now he’s crowdfunding that punishment away, and people think that somehow it’s impossible that it’s a scam because of financial regulations? Bruhs…

Worked for bitcoin. Maybe it’s not a question of utility, but of branding.

Ooh, I’m gonna go see how long it takes to be banned.

Ugh it’s so calculated too… Just as Reddit went full retard, the Dumpf stands there welcoming the exodus to his Glorious One Regime As A Service.

What happened to Reddit after the Digg! migration was that Reddit turned into shit. And now reddit passes the concentrated shit onto the next gaping mouth who also happens to be President (because let’s not kid ourselves, that’s how we all know it will play out- we are not fighting the Republicans, we are fighting the Russians and the Republicans). When will the centipede stop feasting on our feces?

NGL I’ve been there myself more than once. That is how I know. Winners never quit, quitters never win, but if you never quit and never win, you’re a moron.

They will always have GME.

With the intellect of late stage Alfonse Capone.

Depends on what you stand to win, innit.

“I’ll settle the bill when I get back to the White House.”

Ah yes, thank GOD for the failsafe financial regulations in this country! There are LAWS!

Like, wow.

“I’ll settle my debts when I get to the White House.”

Solid gamble for investors, honestly. Like, extremely good. If I was a subhuman parasitic dickworm or something, I’d put at least half my chips on red.

And seriously, look what we’re doing. While we are talking about how he is going to repay his debts for [insert crooked fucking shit and prostitutes pissing on Trumps face here], we are not talking about how the FUCK a guy with his record is even allowed to run for president.

Just moving the goalposts, one investor at a time. Everyone knows this hog will get slaughtered sooner or later, and they are sucking its tiny teats for as much daddy milk they can before it dries up.

Then it’s MTG’s turn to be led to the top of the Aztec pyramid and control the world for a few years before she goes soccer mom tits up.

As I understood it, not all stock is shortable. This one IS?

inb4 meme stock

Hey, I miss WSB style action on Lemmy. There are no subs or instances for this, because we are deathcore communists who would never touch filthy wallets with our soil stained hands.

I wish we would.

Public education.