I hereby renounce the Democratic Party pic.twitter.com/bCI7Gq5r3Y

— Isaiah L. Carter (@IsaiahLCarter) February 6, 2025

Also it's go time lol.

Working now on putting all of the raccoon sequences into one big, fluid, video. It's at like 20 minutes now though and I don't think people are going to sit and watch the whole thing.

As part of my Banlog, I am somewhat inclined to give @BIGBILLYKONGDONG a serious ban for the outrageous boomerphilia on display.

As a work of ironic praise for a 78 year old man's fantasy, it's a solid piece. Truly let us celebrate that we are all collectively engaged in a public arts project to facilitate the transition of boomers out of public life.

It's truly funny that we are all pretending that this old man is a president. That he is mentally capable, and not just lashing out with random whims with other aged decrepit men. The elaborate practical joke we're pulling on our elderly is a riot of laffs.

But:

For me the choice is easy.

Subreddit full of women with weird breeding fantasies discovers how Canadians feel about immigrants and that they might not be welcomed with open arms and free gibs.

It's truly the plot of Handmaids Tale 😞

!palestine

A federal judge, in a ruling late Friday evening, has denied an effort to block the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive data from the Department of Labor.

During the hearing, the plaintiffs' attorneys argued that if DOGE accessed DOL data, it would cause irreparable harm to their clients.

However, in his ruling, Bates found that the plaintiffs did not show that "at least one particular member is substantially likely to suffer an injury at the hands of the defendant."

Fricking wrecked.

These people can't do ANYTHING

How is this possible!?!

pic.twitter.com/vahNzteaR7

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 31, 2025

INDEED, HOW IS IT POSSIBLE?!

!illuminati !chuds !nonchuds

ahahahahahahahahaha

oguz-ismail 3 hours ago | prev | next [–]

How does a 27-year-old fail to kill an 80-year-old with a samurai sword?

tibbetts 3 hours ago | parent | next [–]

Probably by trying to do it from first principles.

It might be time for me to take my assorted SFBA Rationalist Cult writing and put them on a blog. I'd have done it already but the goddarn fascism just keeps on marching onwards.

Aurornis 3 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [–]

Weird to see a community I followed show up so close to home and negatively like this.

I had some coworkers who were really into LessWrong and rationality. I thought it was fun to read some of the selected writings they would share, but I always felt that online rationalist communities collected a lot of people with reactionary, fascist, misogynistic, and far-right tendencies. There's a heavily sanitized version of rationality and EA that gets presented online with only the highlights, but there's a lot more out there in the fringes that is really weird.

For example, many know about Roko's Basilisk as a thought exercise and much has been written about it, but fewer know that Roko has been writing misogynistic rants on Twitter and claiming things like having women in the workforce is "very negative" for GDP.

The Slate Star Codex subreddit was a home for rationalists on Reddit, but they had so many problems with culture war topics that they banned discussion of them. The users forked off and created "The Motte" which is a bit of a cesspool dressed up with rationalist prose. Even the SlateStarCodex subreddit has become so toxic that I had to unsubscribe. Many of the posts and comments on women or dating were becoming indistinguishable from incel communities other than the rationalist prose style.

Even the real-world rationalist and EA communities aren't immune, with several high profile sexual misconduct scandals making the news in recent years.

It's a weird space. It felt like a fun internet philosophy community when my coworkers introduced it years ago, but the longer I've observed it the more I've realized it attracts and accepts a lot of people whose goals aren't aligned with objectively "make the world better" as long as they can write their prose in the rationalist style. It's been strange to observe.

Of course, at every turn people will argue that the bad actors are not true rationalists, but I've seen enough from these communities to know that they don't really discriminate much until issues boil over into the news.

They have broken the law. https://t.co/KupH9lTOv9

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2025

traverse390 asks:

Are we at risk of censorship of LGBTQ+/adult material re: U.S. 2025 federal policies?

The short answer to your question is yes. Of course, there is a risk of increased censorship of LGBQT+ and "adult material" in 2025 and beyond for those of you living in the United States.

The worrying trend of banning books in schools and public libraries across the United States will worsen before it gets better. The Comic Book Journal reported in September that:

"The American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, which tracks book challenges and bans around the U.S., recorded that 378 different graphic novels were threatened with bans or challenges in 2023, with a total of 1,020 total censorship attempts. In the last three years, the numbers have seen a huge jump – 2023's total censorship attempts are twenty times what they were just three years ago in 2020."

In March last year, The Guardian reported on the recent American Libraries Association report covering all of 2023's known book bans. Amongst other things, the report detailed "Seventeen states [that] saw attempts to ban more than 100 books: Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin."

Why is the banning of books so prevalent across American public schools and libraries?

Sadly! The banning of books and the occasional outright burning of them has been a regular occurrence throughout American history. Despite its relatively young age as a country, the USA has been banning books pretty much from the get-go. Think about it this way. The first white Europeans arrived in the country and settled in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 and these same "Founders" banned their first book in 1637.

The first book ever to be banned in the United States was New English Canaan by Thomas Morton, who established an early colony in Massachusetts where settlers and native people co-existed fairly harmoniously. Morton espoused a more pragmatic approach to colonization with the land's original inhabitants. This was seen as a threat by the Puritan settlers, and Morton was subsequently twice exiled back to England, where he wrote New English Canaan. He was not a white savior of any kind. He was a fur trader and businessman, and most of the book describes the "opportunities" the New World presented to entrepreneurial readers. Nonetheless, his pragmatic views on peaceful co-existence with native people were seen as a threat to the fabric of the new society the Puritans were attempting to build, and he was punished for it.

It is the fear that certain types of ideas, practices, and beliefs can "undermine" the cultural fabric of America that drives book bans. So! It comes as no surprise that graphic novels that depict "non-traditional" romantic and erotic relationships and/or characters who are non-conformist to the hetero-dominant culture will be targeted by censorious organizations and individuals.

While I wish to focus specifically on the type of material that matters to you in your question, I would like to remind everyone that it isn't just LGBTQ+ material that is being banned. Far from it…

The most recent high-profile case of statewide book banning, including comics and manga, happened last year in Tennessee when the state legislature brought in the HB843 mandate. Books in school libraries must be suitable for the age and maturity levels of the students. Some of the types of content deemed inappropriate for school-age children include any type of nudity, "descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement," excessive violence, and of course, LGBTQ-related subjects.

ANN reported on the mandate at the time that includes the first eight volumes of Assassination Classroom, Jujutsu Kaisen, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes (volumes 1 and 3), all of Attack on Titan, and Akira, which really pisses me off. Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha is also on the banned books list in Tennessee, which is a perennial favorite of many younger readers. It contains some sexually suggestive moments, and some of the key characters, including the protagonist, possess an element of what one could argue is gender fluidity, but it is incredibly subtle, and I am genuinely surprised it made it onto this list.

The depiction of LGBTQ characters in manga is not uncommon, and so you have every right to worry about whether more works could be banned in the future. Manga like Sailor Moon, Claudine, Hunter X Hunter, and Rose of Versailles vary in their depictions of same-s*x couples and/or openly trans characters. Some depictions are more overt, others are more subtle, coded even. Some are serious and core to the story. Other characters provide light relief. Nonetheless! They exist and they are featured in some of the most popular and important works of the past forty years, which I find surprising because Japan is also a socially conservative country. For these works and for these characters to exist, and be known and popular with readers is remarkable and a testament to the fact that the majority don't have major issues with depictions of "alternative lifestyles" in literature, contrary to what much of the media and some politicians tell us.

ScreenRant reported in November that Richmond County School District in North Carolina recently banned (pending a review) Unico: Awakening Volume 1, the new reimaging of Osama Tezuka's classic manga by Samuel Sattin and illustrator, Gurihiru following a complaint from a "concerned parent." The parent's six-year-old son purchased a copy of the manga at a local Scholastic Book Fair, and she was "shocked to discover depictions of animal cruelty (I hope they never read Tezuka's Buddha Volume 1. That poor bunny!) and gun violence".

The book ban movement in the USA over recent years has most definitely grown, and as The Guardian reports it is "particularly prevalent in Republican-led states, as religious-political activism gains strength," but the canceling, boycotting, and banning of pop culture in your country is something that unfortunately is a "both sides" issue, and it cuts to the bone of your First Amendment rights. The more organized book banners know this, and while many of us may wonder whether your federal law-makers might seek to increase the scope of these bans, it isn't necessary to achieve the ultimate goal of reducing access to what they may consider to be "dangerous" and/or "unsuitable" reading material for children and young adults. The market will ultimately decide what reading material you can have access to, and unfortunately, book banners know this.

The Unico manga is a case in point. School libraries never used to hold graphic novels or manga in them. Public libraries barely did either. Unico is a flagship manga title for Scholastic's Graphix imprint, which is dedicated to publishing creator-owned graphic novels for early, middle-grade, and young adult readers. Graphix launched in 2005 with Jeff Smith's epic series, BONE #1: Out From Boneville. This imprint came about in part because of the huge shift in boy's reading habits starting in the late 90s. This is when I, as a 15-year-old, first discovered "edgier" books like Alan Moore's V for Vendetta and The Killing Joke in my local library.

This recent ban, "pending review," of Unico is noteworthy because Scholastic is the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books and a major supplier of books to school libraries. They have a better understanding of what is and isn't acceptable when it comes to age-appropriate literature for school-age children than almost any other publisher. Censorship is a slippery slope, and what one parent may find unacceptable for their six-year-old to read is not necessarily the same as another parent who also monitors what content their kids are consuming. I wanted to use Unico as an example of censorship that isn't driven by an organization, and which doesn't seem politically or religiously motivated.

America's moral majority has been at war with comics as a corrupting influence since the early 1950s and what is now commonly referred to as the "Moral Panic," which was a reaction by the press, religious groups, and politicians against what many considered to be the gradual decline in standards of decency and morality in the media and the arts. Especially film-making and comic books. This moral panic also coincided with a rise in reporting around juvenile delinquency. Senate hearings were held, and miles of column inches were printed, resulting in the voluntary implementation of the Comics Code Authority, which was a self-policing and self-censoring program committed to by all of the major comics magazine publishers at the time. Unbelievably, "The Code" continued well into the 2000s with the final holdouts, DC and Bongo Comics, discontinuing their carrying of the unmistakable CCA badge on every comic cover they printed.

What concerns me is that with your country's rightwards political momentum when it comes to issues of identity and culture, alongside its anti-globalization economic policies, increasing downward pressure on manga and comics publishing will impact readers well beyond the USA's borders. If America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. Less than 21% of comics, manga, and graphic novels are currently printed within the USA. If aggressive tariffs are brought in against the majority of America's major international trading partners, including China, where 24% of domestic publishers print their books, the price of the average tankoban is likely to increase considerably. This will mean lower print sales. Combine this with potentially more states banning more manga, and it isn't out of the question that some books may be discontinued and others not printed at all. And sorry, Canadians, Aussies, and Brits, but if fewer books are published in the USA, that means fewer titles for you, too.

I abhor the idea that a book can be dangerous, and I find it ridiculous to believe that a comic or a book can fundamentally change the reader's sexual or gender identity. I've read a lot of books in my lifetime, and none of them caused me to become a straight, cis-hetero male. I am just one, and that identity has, in all likelihood, influenced what types of comics, books, novels, etc. I like to read, as well as what types of movies, series, animation, etc. I like to watch the types of video games I like to play. I feel seen all day long by the culture I inhabit. Erasing what little pop culture is available that recognizes those of us who are not part of "the norm" seems unnecessarily cruel to me.

Based on the strength of some of the aforementioned LGBTQ-friendly manga brands, it could be commercially damaging for some of the biggest names in manga publishing, too. I believe that a change is coming, and it may well impact the print publishing of manga and comics in a significant way. With English-language digital manga and comic sales barely representing 20% of all graphic novel sales currently, perhaps these changes will signal a significant increase in digital manga sales.

References:

Deb Aoki report re: impact of tariffs on manga imports… "In The Comics Journal, Gina Gagliano explains how new tariffs will likely affect comics/manga publishing in 2025 (spoiler: it's not good for readers or publishers)."

"What will potential tariffs mean for comic publishers in 2025? "We'll likely have less customers." - The Comics Journal

"The state of comics and censorship during Banned Books Week" - The Comics Journal, September 2024 [Source: The Comic Book Journal "The state of comics and censorship during Banned Books Week", Gina Gagliana, September 23, 2024

"Books bans in US schools and libraries surged to record highs in 2023 - Though the list is broad, many of the 4,240 books were targeted because they related to issues of LGBTQ+ communities or race " - The Guardian, March 14, 2024

Choice quotes from the forums:

Well, censorship of adult or controversial content is already happening.Whether it's Japan doing this to itself or due to social changes around the world.

This is absolutely drop dead terrifying.

The focus on library bans seems geared toward the all-ages LGBTQ+ side of the question, but don't forget that the same forces are pushing for blanket criminalization of pornography. There are already multiple states that companies releasing adult manga/anime won't ship to.

Mod note: don't conflate libertarianism with LGBT. This is your only warning.

Also, I mentioned that if the book ban goes beyond anime/manga, is that going to escalate to targeting Asian-American/AAPI communities. I asked because a few days ago, I read an article from KQED (a local PBS in San Francisco) about the local Japanese-American communities are going to protect undocumented immigrants and come to the defense of the larger immigrants communities due to their experience of the Japanese internment during WWII. So that is my biggest worries as a anime/manga fan, if Japanese-Americans are building a big resistance toward Trump's treatment to the immigrant communities and the wider AAPI communities, is this going to lead to Trump and MAGA attacking not only the Japanese-American communities, will the MAGA/Trumper dare go after anime/manga and the fandom as an act of retaliation, is that going to lead to more manga ban in the school and public libraries? Is that going to lead to the FCC going after companies like Crunchyroll, Netflix, and other streaming companies that stream and license anime, what about manga publishers like Viz Media, Kodansha USA, etc...

The only thing really saving us from censorship and the other crazy things that these Christo-fascists want to do are the judges and courts blocking the orders and lawsuits being made and present right now which will only increase as time goes on at this pace and will be an astronomical amount.

literally not a single judge will defend queer cartoon kiddie porn sweetie

As a straight person, I feel like the opposite has been in effect on Reddit for a few years now. Unless you're towing water for Left leaning causes, you'll get downmarseyd or your comment will be deleted by a mod. If platforms would stop censoring opposing viewpoints, that would be great. This applies to both Left (Reddit) and Right (X) dominated platforms.

chud whining about chuds being censored on reddit in unrelated topic award

Some selfies! I'm not out as transgender at my GED center. People don't know whether to call me he or they. A win is a win....

Also, nobody has said shit about me going to the men's bathroom!!

In other news, I've passed all my practice tests EXCEPT FRICKING SOCIAL STUDIES!!! I DON'T REMEMBER THE SHIT WE COVERED IN MIDDLE SCHOOL. IM ALMOST 19???? WHY THE FRICK WOULD I REMEMBER SHIT FROM PRE-COVID....

Question of the day: do you like my Spider-Man pants?

!cuteandvalid !neurodivergents !autism !r-slurs

Why're they pretending war in Yemen is something new lmao. Also splendid choice of protag for the script, they could've interviewed someone neutral but no they interviewed someone who got arrested by Ethio army in counter terror ops lmao

Based r*pe the islamists

In 10 years BTW. Sounds like a very oppressed person to me

I moved to Yemen and there's a war?

How could this be happening to me??!!

There's no way a boat that left hours before yours and sunk midway will have the corpses wash up at your specific landing point before you get there lmao.

Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔘🔘🔘

That's crazy, could there be a reason for that? Maybe because conservative opinions are all awful?People deliberately shift the blame away from the merits of their opinionsThey think its not that they spew shit from their mouths, it's just that you're a contrarian for being repulsed by shit (9)

Yeah, the party that supports illegal immigration, soft on crime policies, and ofc the mentality of "the other side is Hitler" is definitely the more sensible one (-44)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

That's how you create an echo chamber which in turn can be easily used to manipulate people. (143)

I disagree  (-34)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

That's how you create an echo chamber which in turn can be easily used to manipulate people. (143)

It's human nature. Just like in real life, you are friends with those who share your values, and stay away from those who don't. (-22)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Yeah. Someone said Arizona free tea with honey is nasty. I rebuked that none sense and downmarsey. (30)

I was perma banned from r/JusticeServed for posting in a r/politicalcompassmemes. That's right I was banned from one sub for posting in another. What's worse, they didn't tell me why I was banned so I appealed it and when they told me the reason and said they'd unban me if I promised to not participate in r/politicalcompassmemes in the future, I said I'd keep the ban since I haven't participated in r/JusticeServed in probably years. Couple minutes later I got a three day suspension from the reddit platform for harassment! The notification for the harassment suspension said "After reviewing" indicating that someone had actually agreed to the suspension which is ridiculous so I appealed it and the suspension was lifted the following day... This platform is stupid sometimes. (7)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

I choose to not support anyone. Nazis are fricked up but modern liberals are also not great with their constant "feeling of being offended". I prefer to not choose the side. (-2)

"Not choosing a side" is choosing a side. Imagine you're watching a kid get bullied. You don't like the kid, so you let it happen. You don't like the bully, but he's scary so you don't want to get involved. You're still choosing the side of the bully. He still gets what he wants. And then he just picks another victim.Modern liberals and Nazis are not the same AT ALL. There is literally no such historical grounds to compare the people who genocides millions of Jews and…. People who want free healthcare and freedom of expression? It's nonsense. The Nazis are just going to bully until enough people let them get away with it. Frick that. Grow a backbone. Stand up to that shit.You don't have to "pick a side" to recognize that ethno nationalism is wrong. (3)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

If someone has an opinion like "pineapple doesn't belong on pizza" that's fine.But when that "opinion" is gay people should be killed for merely existing, that's not an opinion, that's just hate and hate for merely existing is objectively bad. (1)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/ButterscotchDeep7533

Score: 🐮🐮🔘🔘🔘

Number of comments: 4

Average angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

Maximum angriness: 😡😡😡🔘🔘

Minimum angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

NEW: Subscribe to /h/miners to see untapped drama veins, ripe for mining!

autodrama: automating away the jobs of dramneurodivergents. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion

OG @BussyBoy Post

r/getNoted

Also how can gerg be a Minecraft youtuber and say he knows nothing about arguably the two most influential Minecraft youtubers of the last half decade

Gerg, I like you. So if you apologize I will forgive you. Assuming it's a genuine one

Darn gerg why you doing this to me man you make good videos [267]

I mean, it was just a small mistake. No need to treat the man like satan. [-49]

"mistake" as in purposely being an butthole to fellow creators? [54]

r/YoutubeDrama

fastest I've ever unsubbed, what a massive L

Dead horse comment was so rude and heartless. Thinking they did something with that comment but they really just showed themselves as heartless they are when talking about the life of another human being.

Yeah that comment is cartoonishly heartless. I can't imagine what it would feel like being someone who was close to Techno and reading that. Really disgusting

(The dead youtuber's dad) I appreciate your concern, but I can honestly say it didn't bother me in the slightest. For one thing, I'm clear about Tommy's righteousness for the cause; some dude's mean tweet bounces right off that.

Hey everyone. Mr. Technodad here. I wanted to take this opportunity to answer gerg's question about how many times I'm going to dance around my boy's corpse for money. The answer is: as many times as it takes. Here's a link to Sarcoma UK, which Tommy is the spokeperson for: https://sarcoma.org.uk/get-involved/make-a-donation/

r/YoutubeDrama 2

I think he forgot it wasn't 2016 anymore.

He took "we're so back in 2016" too literally

wow that 'joke' was said with a lot of contempt in their voice. [65]

I think that's part of the gag. I think you have recognised that too, well done. [-70]

you probably think shits hilarious, right? [54]

No, but I'm sure you would cast judgement if I did. [-52]

There's also the endermen video [25]

I will say that coming from him with his "edgy" "humor" it's probably meant to be rude, but as an neurodivergent- it's the kind of joke I'd make. Plus I'd fully use them as rep cause endermen are sick as heck [-30]

Autism isn't an excuse, just an fyi [32]

The techno tweet was shitty but this is the most mild "dark joke" of all time dude [-25]

It's him saying a slur and then committing (correct me if I'm wrong) blackface [16]

Am I missing something or did you just say a Minecraft skin is "commiting blackface"? [5]

his initial Minecraft skin is the default pig in a suit. For this joke, he changed it to be the darker pig. [6]

r/Technoblade

unfortunately i think he's a professional rage-baiter. it's best just to ignore him, as frustrating as that is

There's a difference in rage baiting and being an butthole, this just steps the line tbh.

Well Gerg was swiftly educated on the lore of the all powerful Blade. Then quickly regretted his poor take

Why are we defending the former child that agree only LGBTQ people can give money to other LGBTQ

@BussyBoy's apology https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Technoblade/comments/1i9t86j/_/m95kvr7/#comment-info

tl;dr: Blake Lively () claimed that that Justin Baldoni sexually harassed her while filming a dance scene by dragging his lips down her neck and telling her 'it smells so good'. In her complaint filed last month she insisted nobody overheard the comment because the romantic montage was silent and the microphones were switched off. In fact, the microphones were on and the tapes makes clear the comment about her smelling so good was in response to Lively talking about her spray tan.

It's "their job" to be intimate when it's what they signed up for, but at the same time, it's "the job" of the director (and others) to facilitate that by creating a comfortable and safe environment. The little bit of script that was included at the beginning of the video didn't mention kissing at all. Actors are human beings, acting is an emotional process, actors on a studio film set are also workers with rights that deserve basic respect (like not being intimately touched by their boss in a way that they didn't agree to and makes them feel unsafe).

It's a kiss in a romance movie. She didn't sign up for a Disney movie and get asked to spread her holes for the camera.

The thing that gets me is that he asked consent about putting mouths near each other, but didn't get consent to nuzzle her neck. Isn't she allowed to be uncomfortable about that?

He didn't get consent to look in her general direction! Hang that man!

Is it normal for "evidence" to be released like this? I mean, shouldn't this wait for court?

It's the Depp playbook and you can tell he has the same PR smear team.

Noooooo you can't just disprove the accusations we made in public by making the evidence public NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

/u/followingwaves unironically die pls

america “joking” about invading canada is kind of like if a man and a woman were alone on a yacht and he joked about raping her

— zinnia (village retard) (@zinniaa_3) February 5, 2025

20 times more powerful

GET IN HERE BOYS

!nonchuds !lgbt !cuteandinvalid FRICK ICE AND FRICK TRUMP

I'm going to a party in Florida where I'll be wearing brown shoes and a belt - which would mean brown watch. However, I think the black watch is cooler and would rather wear that. Would you be opposed to putting the brown strap on the black watch or would that be tacky?