How about this: the general public treats ICE as well as they treat their worst-abused prisoner. Deal?

Someone ordered a Nothing Phone, hold the phone.

Yeah, lol. All the robots need is any actual robotics, and then they’re good to go!

they can do “policing” even more effectively than ICE.

A bulldozer with a brick on the pedal can do “policing” more effectively than ICE. That’s not much of a flex.

True. Though, as a side note, if the tables are turning, that’s a pretty substantial win in and of itself. But I’d rather be tricked than think the worst about people who are honestly trying their best.

I don’t disagree with most of this. But I would also rather be “tricked” by a grifter than be cynical of people really changing. Trust will have to be earned back, and I don’t think I’ll ever want them to (for instance) teach my kids, but if they’re just seeing where the wind is blowing, isn’t it a win that the winds have shifted?

Have you guys even tried to have a conversation with these people? Not a debate but a genuine attempt in making a connection? Sometimes the connection does get made and good conversations happen… but other times it just goes straight into some form of hatred with a smile on their face.

Yeah, I have. It’s tough, I agree.

Deep down I still want to help people out but I can’t pretend that the people who wanted to hurt my friends and community will magically stop just because they said a specific sequence of words.

Agreed. That’s why actual trust is going to take a while. But I’d be glad to see any amount of change that would let me start that process.

Honestly, I kind of hope so. It didn’t go well for the emperors or politicos or the nobility, but the average lower-class person’s life substantively improved when Rome fell.

Trust? No. That’s earned over time.

Support during the change, though? Look, these people were part of a cult. It doesn’t matter what you and I know, the fact is that they were told for over a decade now that the man is practically a deity; for them to even entertain reality is a huge sign of growth, and if we’re going to get our country back, the options are to either deprogram or imprison an appreciable percentage of seventy million people. I’d really rather work with than against them, if it can be done.

Everyone who’s ever been actively in the administration needs to be tried in court, of course. But the people who were duped are victims, too.

Are there going to be grifters in the crowd of those who say they’re repentant? Certainly, but it’s a huge win in and of itself that the winds are changing, and as long as they keep playing by the rules I don’t think I honestly care what their deepest motivations are. I’d rather be tricked than think the worst about people who are honestly trying their best; cynicism has never worked for me.

If they’re actually fighting back, yeah. People growing is always a cause for celebration.

Biologically, yeah, kinda. We’re wired that way, and it’s unusual for it to come naturally to anyone.

He desperately wants people to think he’s cool.

You’re not crazy, but it won’t be Elon who does it. The Tesla robots are nowhere near ready for production. This is vaporware, just like the Roadster.

Yeah, but it takes real racism to put them all back together!

You gotta upgrade to a virgin alarm.

• Meaningful character development (not necessarily advancement, but at least exploration)
• Motivated decisions made by at least two people in the story: the protagonist and the antagonist (or just the protagonist if it’s a PvE-type movie)
• A challenge that challenges the protagonist(s)
• Dialogue that sounds at least plausibly like human speech
• Reactions that seem at least plausibly like human reactions

A plot that doesn’t have many holes is a nice bonus, but as long as everything else is present, not a deal-breaker.

Speedrunning the Third Reich, the Confederacy, and the Nixon Administration all at once.

Don’t worry, the code to open it is just 1-2-3-4-5.

Because Microsoft owned Skype at the beginning of the pandemic, had 100% mindshare, a practically genericized trademark, and an install base of a gazillion users, and yet still managed to somehow fumble the ball to Zoom.

Both things can be the reasonable response.

“And what do you want for your shower?”

“You know the backscatter machines from the TSA checkpoint?”

“Say no more”

I wouldn’t. I want him to survive long enough to get thoroughly humiliated in court, and I definitely don’t want him to become a martyr. I want him to die in disgrace doing something banal, embarrassing, and publicly stupid. Something so embarrassing that people erupt into spontaneous and uncontrollable laughter just hearing his name. I don’t just want him dead, I want his whole movement to be completely discredited. If he’s assassinated, then forevermore his followers will remember him with fondness and his enemies will remember him with fear. But if he wipes his nose on the Epstein Files, trips on a hamburger, falls face-first into a diet coke, and drowns, he’ll never again be any more than a punchline.