The only truly cool answer is to not give a shit at all. Let the kids have their own understanding of “cool”, they’ll be forced out of it soon enough.

Also, this sort of “cool” is really just reliant on having the time and access to keep up with whatever the rules of that society are. This is the same kind of thinking used to make rules like “don’t wear white after Labor Day” as a means to ostracize people who didn’t have the kind of time and gossip circles to hear about the new rules. It’s all gatekeeping bullshit. Fine for the people in the club, I guess, but the part where they try to make other people lesser for not being in the know is where they can just become dicks not worthy of worrying about.

Permit me to restate: Hanlon’s Razor is a good thing to keep in mind to keep from becoming cynical about the whole of humanity. That said, any situation of importance (security or health, for example) has too great a risk to rely on Hanlon’s Razor, and people facing these should remain vigilant.

As far as basic interpersonal relationships and other relatively low-stakes scenarios, sure, granting some benefit of the doubt can be useful when there aren’t glaring red flags.

All that said, I suppose I agree with you that Hanlon’s Razor is probably not broadly applicable enough in our world to be valuable as a rule of thumb. I prefer to “imagine others complexly”, keeping in mind that the motivations, feelings, and histories of other people are not really reducable to simple caricatures. As such, I try not to make judgments/assumptions about why someone might say or do a particular thing, and where possible/reasonable extend them grace. This is not meant to interfere with the social contract of tolerance: anyone willfully intolerant of someone else who is protected by the contract of tolerance is not protected by the contract of tolerance.

Nearly all of our elections are first-pqst-the-post. Also so much of the public discourse around political parties reinforces the two-party system, such that people tend to be very against or at least wary of third parties. It’s certainly possible for 3rd party candidates to make it to the federal/national legislature (“state” to us is one of the 50 primary divisions of the country, rather than the country itself as is used so many other places). But since so few do, there is not really enough political will at one time to overturn the homeostasis that the self-interest of the two major parties’ power almost inherently enforces.

Could it happen? Sure. The pathway exists. But the liklihood in having enough people in the legislature at once willing to do it is quite low. There would have to be a huge change in how the populace views our system, and while there have been opportunities in the past for that to build (we are in one now), they have always fizzled out in the past.

officers […] stating that they ‘didn’t want to risk getting hepatitis/AIDS’ as justification for declining to provide lifesaving medical intervention.

Motherfucker, if you’re first aid/CPR trained, you are supposed to have appropriate PPE with or near you while on your job that will see you encounter such situations. If you don’t, that’s negligence on your part, and if you’re just choosing not to use it so you don’t have to get involved, you need to be taken off that job.

Bush did Jimmy/Johns.

I am of the opinion that Hanlon’s Razor best applies to isolated or infrequent occurrences. When something has been going on for monrhs months or years that hurts or takes advantage of people, the more likely explanation becomes malice.

Edit: just the typo correction evident in the text.

Most Anericam voters, regardless of what position they’re voting for, tend to choose one of the two major parties, or no one at all. The exceptions happen when someone not in those parties makes duch a name for themselves that they can convince voters to deviate from that “comfortable” norm.

It’s also possible for people elected as a member of one of the parties to also support changing the very system that elected them for the better. It just takes a politician with more integrity than loyalty to a party.

When the party has tools to retaliate (censure, primarying the politician in their next election, removal of committees/assignments, etc.) it makes it even harder for those politicians to stick around long enough to sufficiently fill the political body they serve in to make change.

Natural languages, not many. Constructed languages, though - check out lojban.

If you use caps lock instead of holding shift, especially for words with apostrophes, you’ll avoid the full quotation mark you got in ‘WOULDN"T’

Excuse me. But the French damn well have a word for sixty: soixante. And the counting keeps going normally right up to 70, which reads as Sixty Ten. That goes up to Sixty Nineteen, and THEN Four Twenties.

Just a friendly tour.

Yeah, I read it as like:

“Huh, building our homes out of heavier, tougher bricks is a great way to prevent our houses from burning down.”

“Ah, I see! So we should build our houses out of twice as much wood!”

Kinda related to the trope “comically missing the point”, which, as you say, was the intent.

How wonderful the times we live in are, that “at least he wasn’t a fascist” is a meaningful qualifier.

Same reason the BBB funded them […]

It took me a second to get past reading that as the Better Business Bureau, and I was wondering what the hell they had to do with any of this.

We missed 'em, that was supposed to be last year. Where was the Emissary to kick things off?

The small things that sustain me are things like watching the poll numbers fall, seeing specific known Republican politicians who have generally gone along with all this speak out at all, and being reminded that there are a lot of capable people actively trying to keep MAGA from outright winning. We definitely need more of the federally seated politicians and powerful/rich/influential folks taking meaningful stands and/or actions.

Gonna be honest, I don’t have what it takes to be on the front lines of any conflict. My body is not made for sustained action. This is medically probably not remediable. The biggest thing I’d be able to do in a firefight where anyone needs me to move around extensively and still be useful is take a bullet meant for someone more capable.

They sort of tried to blend in, camouflage, they rolled along with it, and in fits and starts they threw tantrums about not being allowed to say the (bigoted) things on their mind without being made to feel wrong or looked down on for it.

Then along came Trump and so many of these muted bullies, racists, misogynists, and homophones saw that someone could sa6 those things publicly and not only not be shouted down, but also gain support.

They rallied behind the big bully, because even though he hits them too and takes their lunch money, he makes them feel accepted for their bigotry instead of chastened. Not to mention, they now have a big public banner for their different tribalistic hatreds, a large group that can differ in individual views but generally doesn’t cast aspersions over belittling and dehumanizing people. The club doesn’t all have to agree on anything except that voicing your hateful feelings is acceptable or even admirable.

All of this is stuff that’s been stirring for so long, and of course Trump is just the person who managed to light the fire without getting buried for it. Yet here he is, wielding the power to enrich himself and his cohort, protect himself from punishment for his many past and present crimes, and have people hang off his every word on the planet’s biggest stage. What more could a greedy, narcissistic rapist want?