Fascism’s major hallmark is fervent hypocrisy. That’s how people could live within half a mile of death camps and just casually brush the ash of burnt people from their hair, then smile like they’re going on a picnic as they’re led into the death camps at the end of their street, then ten minutes later, after seeing actual corpses stacked like cordwood, they’re vomiting and swearing they had no idea.

We can’t let the uneducated masses lead us into that kind of horror again, We need to educate them of what they’re advocating for and why that’s so horrifically dangerous. We need to stop hedging and beating round the bush, and lay out in detail what they’re actually enabling. People die when this kind of nationalistic ignorance is allowed to proliferate. We need to stop this ignorance before it kills people.

I’m a user experience designer. My favourite story is from aviation engineering. I don’t remember the year or all the details, but the US Navy had put stupid amounts of money and time into engineering a new fighter jet. It was worked out on paper and built to exact specifications. Then, during the first human test of it, the pilot ejected on the tarmac before it took off. The plane crashed, obviously, but the pilot couldn’t explain what happened (apparently he had a concussion from his unscheduled landing).

The plane was built again, and shortly after takeoff, the pilot again ejected without explanation.

What the fuck was going on?

In the retelling I heard, someone finally noticed the design of the cockpit was to blame. In trying to cram all the standard controls plus new ones into the smallest amount of space, the designers had moved the eject lever right next to the lever to adjust the seat position – they’d coloured the eject lever red, but the pilot couldn’t see that since it was below and slightly to the right of his ass, and both levers were the same size and shape. Nobody noticed this was a problem until at least two pilots accidentally ejected on takeoff.

This might be apocryphal, I don’t know, but I learnt it as an example of how things might look good on paper, but you can’t really know until a user fucks everything up.

I’m 54. When people ask my opinion of this war, I change the subject. I’m not proud of that, but I’ve seen this war more than once.

I have strong opinions about many things, but I’ve seen what this particular war does and I’ve learnt there’s no winning it. I donate to Gaza, but nothing I can say will change the horror the latest flare up of this war will bring. Im sorry.

Less than two steps between that and eugenics, and one step between eugenics and genocide. We’ve seen and documented that. It’s a logical but sociopathic mentality.

Conversely, when we realise that we’re stronger together and act empathetically as a society, every one of us and all of society benefits. When we care for the least of us, crime goes down and we find geniuses who improve life for us all, who would otherwise die in anonymous poverty.

Living like barbarous animals – not rising above the ‘brutality of nature’, as you said – helps sociopaths who take advantage of our better nature to enrich themselves. Indeed, if we structure our society around that, as we have done lately, our society will devolve around the lowest common denominator (people like Musk or Trump).

We can and must do better than that.

They’re not required here. You just plop your child in your regular car with no changes whilst they’re learning. It’s insane. I bought a magnetic sign to warn people though, because that seems nuts to me.

I was making a joke tho.

Little Bobby tables learns to drive.

This is smart. When my son was learning, I put a magnetic ‘student driver’ sign on my car, too. More people should do this. It’s just polite.

These lunatics have a disturbing amount of control in the US government.

Laughing at them might be fun, and I was doing it until recently, but they’re not joking. The worse our climate disasters become – and they will very soon – the more scared people will become, and the more these groups will take advantage of that fear. We’ll see more climate refugees, more desperation, and more fear. These groups prey on fear, and they’ll amplify it on purpose.

True fascism thrives on fear, which is why these people amplify it like they do. When climate disasters accelerate, these groups will harness the social upheaval to take control. I don’t know what we can do to stop it, but we should all be thinking about and sharing ways to head it off, because they’ve got plans in place already.

I know I sound paranoid, but I’ve been watching them and these aren’t my ideas, but theirs. They talk about this a lot, and if we aren’t prepared, their plans could actually work. I don’t want to live in the fascist future they’re planning. If we don’t combat it, we’ll be living in the Handmaid’s Tale before most of us realise.

I hadn’t heard of that, thank you! That trailer looks amazing. I’m excited for it now, too.

This physically hurt me.

Who can I sue? Any lawyers in the chat?

Your man card wasn’t forfeited, it’s gilded. Only real men can appreciate art.

Have you seen Sondheim’s Into the Woods? It’s a masterpiece. It’s on Prime if you haven’t seen it. It stars Chip Zien, Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason, Tom Aldredge, and other big names. I’d like to see anyone say Zein, Aldredge, and Sondheim aren’t ‘real men’.

Yes, and the man who proposed the theory retracted it later, saying it would be like basing human behavioural theory on observations made in a supermax prison.

That actually makes sense that these losers would venerate it, since the behaviours they idolise are very like what you’d see in prisons: machismo instead of real manhood, narcissism and subjugation instead of empathy, and hatred instead of compassion.

It’s definitely black. It has a bit of sheen and looks dark blue in the photo because of that.

Thank you. I’m sorry for your loss, too.

It does not. It’s paper, with a bit of a sheen.

I think the suggestions it’s an inventory sticker that was accidentally included make the most sense.

I’m so sorry. That’s really hard. I hope you’re okay.

Thanks.

I didn’t work directly with the crematorium, so I’ll have to track them down, but thanks!

I was wondering if this was a known thing that I just wasn’t clued into, but apparently not.

I’ll probably do that, thanks!

You could be right. That would make sense.

Thank you!

Nope. Also I stuck it on paper and it came off cleanly. It seems to be a regular sticker.

It doesn’t.