I was habitually guilty of this as a kid, ngl. I liked reading the last chapter first and then trying to reconstruct what led up to it as I went back and started from the beginning.

Having family in the area it’s hard to understate how chilling they find all this. You know it’s not good when it gets Des Moines riled up.

I’m really thankful you verbalized this because it is genuinely the most dispiriting part of this moment to me. It’s like a shadow self is taking hold: my faith and higher principles tell me to love my neighbor and yet I despise them. I get absolutely zero joy from this.

I like this point, and I think it points to the problem lying not with relying on intermediaries but their quality

someone who depends on (say) local newspapers and their union to make sense of the wider world is just not as likely to be grossly mislead as someone who relies on Youtube Shorts

If you’re a decent and liberal-minded person it feels perverse to think your average fellow citizen is functionally illiterate and barely able to navigate the complexity of present society. But it’s getting harder and harder to deny, and I don’t know what we should do to fix it.

People writ large are simultaneously far too credulous and too inappropriately skeptical to engage constructively with the vast amounts of information we’re all exposed to now. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that faith in science (for one) peaked in the age of local newspapers and evening news

The best and most American-est part is how she somehow turns the rapture into an opportunity to consume

If Jesus comes back and handpicks you for ascension into Heaven, I’m pretty sure what underwear you had on is gonna be the last thing on the minds of all the heathens you leave behind

Try spending some time in academia or tech and you can’t miss it. Idk how they’re so consistent when it comes to tearing down America’s legitimate strengths/blessings

Maybe this is different in plain ol’ tech but in biotech the job market is screwing over the H1Bs worst of all. No one wants to pay for sponsorship when there’s a sea of unemployed Americans applying for every position.

The funny thing is it doesn’t even work, we still average around 300 in losses per DAY. It’s just that now no one wants to shop there either so earnings are down too

Private equity retail rocks

I work at a retail pharmacy atm and literally at least half the store is locked up. And then there’s a skeleton crew of employees to cut costs so there’s never anyone available to unlock everything you need. It’s hugely disincentivizing to honest people who actually want to spend money there

Off topic but this meme hits so incredibly close to home it has to be a neurodiversity indicator or something.

Voluntarily produced passion project excel sheets just hit so good, idk

not a Patch person but I would buy this so fast

desperately need more Great Plains queer pride aesthetics in my life tbh