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Come back to us, stripey dog
  • Nah, son. Thylacines have, in a way, become cryptids since their extinction, complete with cheesy travel shows where some bogan tells you all about how they totally saw one time and they're 100% sure it was a thylacine they barely saw from a distance running away through the tall grass after sunset. I've seen similar shows about Bigfoot, Nessie, Mothman, and others. They don't exist anymore, making your chances of seeing one alive no more likely than seeing Bigfoot, which is the point I was making. Animals thought to be extinct being officially rediscovered is a pretty rare occurrence; I assure you it doesn't happen "regularly". It's a big deal when it happens because it's quite rare. Yes, I'm familiar with the stories of all the other extinct species you mentioned as well. The ivory-billed woodpecker is still considered by most ornithologists to be extinct, and the last widely accepted sighting of any individual was in 1987, despite some supposed (but not universally accepted or entirely conclusive) sightings every once in a while. In 2020, a guy working for Fish and Wildlife claimed to have ID'd one in video footage, but it must not have been very compelling because the very next year Fish and Wildlife proposed declaring it officially extinct. People claim to have sighted the ivory-billed woodpecker not infrequently, much like the thylacine. What is infrequent is any compelling evidence whatsoever, however.

  • Come back to us, stripey dog
  • There have been many sightings and footprints found of Bigfoot, too. I live in the Bigfoot sighting capital of the world and new sightings are routinely reported. If the "Portland" in your name is in reference to the one in Oregon, you do too.

    The last widely accepted sighting of a wild thylacine was in 1933, nearly a hundred years ago. Even if any tiny, isolated pockets had managed to escape extermination (which is unlikely on an island without much mountainous terrain or dense forest, especially when everyone and their grandma was out hunting them for the bounty the government put on their tails), they'd be in big trouble owing to genetic drift by now. You always hear people say "I know what I saw," but do they really? It makes me circle back to the Bigfoot thing. At least some of the people who claim to have seen Bigfoot genuinely believe they really saw him.

  • Inside of you, there are two political theorists you must kill to be a good person
  • Did you intend to link to an explicitly pro-Western, Zionist, neoconservative magazine? Not sure if I fully trust their framing, especially when it comes to someone so consistently critical of Western policy. The article is just the author (not even a member of the staff, it appears to be a letter to the editor) whining that Chomsky said the author couldn't find certain quotes and that his stance on Vietnam was hawkish, not a whole lot mentioned on anything else. I'm aware of some of Chomsky's more problematic positions, but how does this back that up what you're saying? Sounds more like a petty personal spat between a couple academics.

    About Us

    COMMENTARY is a highly acclaimed monthly magazine of opinion and a pivotal voice in American intellectual life. Since its inception in 1945, and increasingly after it emerged as the flagship of neoconservatism in the 1970s, the magazine has been consistently engaged with several large, interrelated questions: the fate of democracy and of democratic ideas in a world threatened by totalitarian ideologies; the state of American and Western security; the future of the Jews, Judaism, and Jewish culture in Israel, the United States, and around the world; and the preservation of high culture in an age of political correctness and the collapse of critical standards.Many of COMMENTARY’s articles have been controversial, and more than a few have been hugely influential—touchstones for debate and discussion in universities, among policy analysts in and out of government, within the ranks of professionals and community activists, and in circles of serious thought worldwide. A large number of articles can be counted as landmarks of American letters and intellectual life. Agree with it or disagree with it, COMMENTARY cannot be ignored. To read it is to take part in the great American discussion.

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    Since its founding in November 1945, COMMENTARY has been expression of belief in the United States, central role in the preservation and advance of Western civilization and, most immediately, the continuing existence of the Jewish people. COMMENTARY, in the words of Cohen, “is an act of faith in our possibilities in America.”More than seven decades later, the publication of COMMENTARY remains an act of faith—faith in the power of ideas, in the value of defending tradition, in the strength of the Jewish people, and in America. COMMENTARY is an act of faith in its singular approach to the consideration of the traditions of Judaism and Jewish life. The traditions of Western civilization, of which the Hebrew Bible is the wellspring, are also our constant concern. COMMENTARY is a reflection of the manifold glories of the West and the inestimable contribution it has made to the betterment of humankind. Most of all, through our publication of articles on political, historical, cultural, and theological issues, COMMENTARY is an act of faith in the transformative effect of ideas. From our beginning under Elliot E. Cohen, to Norman Podhoretz, the magazine’s second editor, to Neal Kozodoy, its third, and now to current editor John Podhoretz, COMMENTARY‘s mission remains anchored in these principles: to maintain, sustain, and cultivate the future of the Jewish people; to bear witness against anti-semitism and defend Zionism and the State of Israel; to take inventory in and increase the storehouse of the best that has been thought and said; and to stand with and for the West and its finest flowering, the United States.

  • Now you'll be able to purchase sunlight at night!
  • "By precisely reflecting sunlight that is endlessly available in space to specific targets on the ground, we can create a world where sunlight powers solar farms for longer than just daytime, and in doing this, commoditize sunlight."

  • WTF
  • Billionaires already own the police, which number over 700,000 in the US alone and the national police budget would be equivalent to the third most expensive army in the world. If this is already the state of things, how could we blame that on the anarchists? This argument effectively boils down to "we shouldn't have a revolution because the rich would have a monopoly on violence", which we already know to be the case in our current society. So in this way, nothing at all is holding us back. The worst case scenario would be a preservation of the status quo. Even if the Proud Boys, III%ers, Patriot Front, Oath Keepers, etc. all combined into a giant mercenary group, it wouldn't be even close to how the cops already are. They're one of the most militarized police forces in the world with access to heavy equipment such as assault rifles, chemical weapons, acoustic weaponry, MRAPs, and much more.

    If the revolution ever comes, we'll just have to take all the billionaires to the Ipatiev House. A revolution would already have no recourse but to defeat any police opposition anyway, so there really is no difference whether the billionaires are around or not. Those billionaires, if they have any sense of self-preservation, would be smarter to take their money and simply flee abroad.

  • Burning Man contends with unusually slow ticket sales
  • Not to mention too expensive. The base ticket prices have skyrocketed over 1600% since 1996. In just the seven years between 2015 and 2022, attendees with household incomes of less than $100k dropped from around 56% to 40% and attendees with household incomes of $100k-$300k+ have risen from 43% to 59%. Over the years, it's seemed like the crowd has been increasingly yuppie and increasingly white collar; these numbers appear to back that notion up. I remember seeing a video from a few years ago where Andrew Callaghan was talking about how he paid $10k for an RV spot and 2 tickets. He also complained that a lot of the people there seemed like "weekend-warrior-types". I can only hope that price is with an insane scalper markup or a super deluxe VIP package or something. $10k is an unthinkable price for a weeklong camping trip in the desert, even a really cool one.

    That, the heat as you mentioned (I found a chart that demonstrates rising averages and most in the comments are saying the reported highs are far too low), and the floods last year I think have combined to scare a lot of the core demographic away. I dreamed of going to Burning Man for years, but I haven't even thought of it in quite some time since I learned how prohibitively expensive it would be to go.

  • A millennial couple who make $250,000 say they can't find a home in their budget: 'We refuse to become house-poor'
  • Also, lots of people will jump to say that a $250k household income is middle class and I've seen a few in this thread, but I personally don't know how anyone could arrive at that conclusion. Median household income in the US is more like $105k. A household income of $155k is enough to put you in the top 20%. $200k will put you in the top 12%. $250k gets you to the top 8%. When 92% of people are able to make do with less, it really just seems like people such as the ones in the article don't understand what it is to live within their means and don't understand how much better off they are than most everyone else.

  • Britannia's rule again?
  • Don't the lyrics in "In the Flesh" indicate that the nazis are actually a different band that had to be called in as substitutes because the lead singer of the band that was supposed to play is currently going through a mental breakdown in his hotel room (i.e. stuck behind the wall)? The main figure of the album might've just imagined the whole thing, though.

  • What do we need to know about a possible mega-quake? | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News
  • The government predicts a 70 to 80 percent probability of a magnitude 8 to 9 quake occurring along the Nankai Trough within the next 30 years.

    Damn, and I thought we had it bad in the PNW with a 37% chance of a 7.1+ (possibly up to and beyond 9.0) in the next 50 years.

  • The US shouldn't have so many men 6 feet and over
  • "You see them everywhere." That's it? This opinion feels way too specific for that to be the only thing on your mind lol. Maybe at least some context? Are you from somewhere where people are less tall on average? Is there something you don't like about tall people? Like the other guy said, give us a rant! Let's hear where this is going.

  • Americans Are Sharing The "Normal, Everyday" Aspects About The US That Are Actually Dystopian, And I Can't Believe We Tolerate Some Of These
  • Lmaooo what a pathetic response. If you'd ever pick up anything more advanced than a coloring book, you'd know paragraphs can be longer than 4 sentences. In any case, a single sentence is never a paragraph, so you obviously don't know how to use paragraph breaks. You've shown once more that you're completely unable to string two sentences together. Quoting me for things I didn't say won't help you, either. Also, you're still a monster with dogshit opinions and you're very conspicuously trying to steer the conversation away from that fact.

    is the point you are a clown? i agree

    You argue like a 10 year old lmao. That's the best you could come up with?

  • Americans Are Sharing The "Normal, Everyday" Aspects About The US That Are Actually Dystopian, And I Can't Believe We Tolerate Some Of These
  • You went out of your way just to tell everyone that you think former drug addicts aren't deserving of medical care? Not even people who currently do drugs (who are also all 100% deserving of medical treatment btw), anyone who used to do drugs is disqualified, too? It's an absolutely insane take to say "they used to do drugs, so they don't deserve to have teeth." And what of all those people who didn't do drugs, but still need and can't afford dentures or implants? If you can't afford reliable access to dental care from the start, you'll likely be stuck with preventable problems down the line that then become even more expensive to fix. The situations of these people aren't different from former addicts in any meaningful way; they need dental work, but can't afford it. You're ignoring the core issue that important and completely necessary dental work (and medical treatment of all kinds) is too expensive for almost everyone, not just current or former addicts. As a result, many are forced to go without that treatment. That's a bad thing. You saw someone complaining that dental work is unaffordable, and all you could think to say was "Yeah, but they're druggies, so there's no problem here." You've justified a terrible system to yourself because you view the people who were quoted as being beneath you. What's truly dystopian is both that medical care would be out of reach of so many, but also that people would be ok with that as long as it means the "undesirables" don't get to have any. The societal disdain for marginalized human life and the moral superiority complex that fuels it are both absolutely appalling.

  • Multi-accounting to force in a Gadsden flag

    It appears that a user by the name of Kalcifer on lemmy.world is using several smurf accounts to force in a Gadsden flag (175, 175), the same carried by violent Proud Boy thug types, such as Alan Swinney, Enrique Tarrio, Tiny Toese, Joe Biggs, and many others, which I don't feel should be represented here, and it's clear that many agree because there were many who rejected the art and attempted to cover it, but it seems Kalcifer couldn't take that. I think it’s clear that he’ll just make more smurfs, so I’d suggest an IP ban from the canvas, but barring that, I think it would be funny if people tried to thwart his attempts to cheat his way in because it flies in the face of everyone who’s had to put in the time to do it right.

    Probable alts include at least the following:

    u/anonymous1691293996

    u/anonymous1691294527

    u/anonymous1691295108

    u/anonymous1691296202

    All were registered to lemmy.world within the last hour or two, which coincides with the return of Kalcifer after a short break, and all place in rapid succession of each other, displaying eyebrow-raising levels of coordination.

    14
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)DE
    Depress_Mode @lemmy.world
    Posts 2
    Comments 139