Edward Carney
@ecarney
Executive dysfunction, a conspicuous lack of marketable skills, and a paradoxical ambition to build a better society from the ground up.
I think we've lost the plot where criticism of "influencers" is concerned. "They're only doing this highly risky, extremely difficult thing for attention!" Yeah... That's what people do. This isn't like someone yelling their Instagram handle in a crowded restaurant. I think attention is warranted
Again: nobody is fucking claiming otherwise. This is a new, dumber evolution of the "waffles tweet" phenomenon. A guy said, "I would like people to survive and also avoid an uncomfortable temperature shock," and everyone is reacting like, "Oh so you think your discomfort is WORSE THAN DEATH??"
The guy in the France24 clip didn't say "it's a problem." He offered a simple recommendation. It might have been based on nothing more than his own subjective sense of comfort, but you know what? That's okay! We can have innocent disagreements about stuff! Not everything is an existential threat.
This thread basically boils down to, "I want drugs without accountability over how I use them."
While it does indeed seem like therapy didn't work for you, it also sounds like you've dramatically misjudged the reasons why. And that isn't to suggest that more therapy is the answer. I'm skeptical of it myself. But "just talk to the computer" certainly ain't it, either.
Really? You're "blown away" by the idea that people who might be having difficulties in their relationships to other people would be skeptical about the utility of spending LESS time communicating with actual human beings about intimate topics? That's a concept that you can't wrap your head around?
You think that "more guns won't fix the problem" is akin to "it can't happen here"? You know how I can tell that's fucking stupid? The United States of American is awash with firearms and It Is Happening Here.
That is emphatically NOT the reason why the 2nd Amendment can be hard to defend, WTF are you talking about?
Every so often, I'll glance at a Star Wars discussion thread and be amazed all over again by the fact that people who refuse to shut up about their hatred for The Last Jedi also seem to have just... not watched it? The protagonists' failure is not an oversight. It is the *whole point of the film.*
Call me a luddite, but I don't think there's a set of policies available that will make it possible to increase energy consumption exponentially forever while also increasing energy capacity exponentially forever and never incurring any negative consequences to the environment or human life.
Why the shit has Google Maps started referring to the Town of Tonawanda as "Tonawanda Town"? No one anywhere in Western New York has uttered that phrase, ever. This is Gemini's doing, isn't it?
"There's been much debate about which of us is worse at our art form, but I think we can all agree that neither is as bad as Donald Trump is at running the country. Michelle will not dance and Critter will not come down, will not get his feet on the ground at the Trump Freedom 250 event, by and by."
I got this email yesterday and I must say, it seems like a real problem that a person can subscribe to "the official streaming platform of the FIFA World Cup 2026" and then also be subscribed, incidentally, to a 24/7 stream of right-wing propaganda. I don't think we should allow that sort of thing!
It's just post after post after post from this prick, calling everyone's perceived precarity an illusion, saying, "Jinkies, what a mystery!" and offering no explanation whatsoever as to why the widespread availability of consumer goods might not be enough to make people feel secure and fulfilled.
EVERYONE: Here are some of the myriad subjective experiences that I face every day which might partly explain why people are broadly hopeless and pessimistic. WILL STANCIL: All of your experiences are wrong! Look at the DATA!
What if - hear me out on this, Will - all of those obvious explanations are correct in their own right, but are part of a larger picture of the consequences of worsening global authoritarianism? What if it's not so much a *mystery* as it is complex, systemic and demanding of multifaceted solutions?
Ironic to see this coming from Stancil, because while he's right in the second half, his relentless "vibecession" posting reflects the very impulse toward easy answers that makes public opinion so ineffable. Neither voters nor analysts can accept that there isn't One Weird Trick to put things right