• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    we just have a larger audience and thus better ad deals

    What is it about being a conservative and lying about the size of your… audience? “I’m just very good at making deals” also has a certain right wing vibe to it.

    • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
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      12 days ago

      It is literally part of the core definition of political conservatism that they support the status quo of a social hierarchy: some people are on the bottom some people are in the middle, and some people are on top… and that’s how it should be.

      Though exactly which attributes and qualities of a person determine the social pecking order vary from society to society, this basic definition holds up, universally.

      Then, the next step is to come up with reasons this social pecking order should exist.

      In modern day America, one of these reasons is the myth of meritocracy: Achievers, the gifted, the talented, the hard workers… well they have more merit, thus they are rewarded for it.

      This is objectively false. There have been many, many studies showing this. The most successful people essentially always work just as hard, or even less hard, than the poor, they are no more intelligent or educated… what they have is a combination of dumb luck, social connections, and a considerably more stable and wealthy starting position than the unsuccessful.

      But, the myth of meritocracy is very useful.

      Successfuls like to believe they are special and better, after all, I wouldn’t be so wealthy if I wasn’t just better than you, and as a social phenomenon, it creates amongst the unsuccessful the idea that well i am just not working hard enough, if I keep my nose to the grindstone, I’ll get wealthy too, and be able to escape poverty, and then finally be better than everyone else!

      What that latter part does is gaslight/brainwash people into being subservient, exploited workers… which keeps the wealthy wealthy, and the poor poor.

      Its been said that poorer Americans often view themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, as opposed to… poor and exploited by the systems that they will one day be on top of!

      Its a whole fun psycho pathology of reinforcing beliefs and socioeconomic systems.

      • MajorasMaskForever@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        Sidebar: What you’re saying is genuinely interesting and I’m glad to have read it today, but can you back off on the italics usage? It made reading your comment kinda difficult :(

        • a fellow italics connoisseur
        • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
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          12 days ago

          I’m doing my best on a shitty mobile phone with a … still recovering from having multiple ligament torn, and wrist and finger bones broken in my right hand.

          But sure, I’ll try to switch it up with bold and ‘quotes’ for emphasis more in the future.

          Random question: Your comments mention that you work in aerospace… have you ever heard of the TR-3B?

          I realize I may sound like a lunatic, but, I’ve seen it 3 times over the years when I used to live in and near Seattle, and one time I saw it hovering, only hundreds of feet in the air, over the building that’s marked as the Fly Away Cafe at Boeing Field on Google Maps.

          You think there’s anything potentially to that, or would I have to be commuting to work in Janet Airlines for a non redacted answer? =P

          • MajorasMaskForever@lemmy.world
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            12 days ago

            Unfortunately not, I’m in the space side of aerospace. If it flies in the atmosphere and isn’t accelerating to orbital velocity I’m afraid I don’t know

            • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
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              12 days ago

              Ah well, figured I’d ask.

              I have a cousin who I am 99% sure worked on the SR 72… but he of course could neither confirm nor deny this.

              TR 3B is speculated to be basically a large, equilaterally triangular craft that has 3 … more conventionally powered propulsive engines, near each point of the triangle… but makes very little to no sound… and the speculation part is that this all works because somehow the craft has some kind of exotic system which functionally reduces its mass by about 90%, reduces felt inertia by about 90%, thus allowing for significantly higher G Force tolerance, as well as less powerful conventional engines / thrust generation, less needed fuel, than what would otherwise be needed.

              Its potentially a spacecraft and an atmospheric craft simultaneously, but if it does actually exist, its probably one of the most classified things ever.

              https://www.military.com/video/aircraft/military-aircraft/tr-3b-aurora-anti-gravity-spacecrafts/2860314511001

              https://howandwhys.com/black-triangle-ufo/

              I realize this is all in the ufo/conspiracy theory zone, so reliable info is essentially impossible to verify, but that second link there has pictures and schematics that nearly perfectly match what I’ve seen.