• Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    What about the spray tan eccenric NY city real estate agent that shits on a golden toliet with an army of yall-qaeda terrorists

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    True story. After the 2016 election, there was a panel discussion. They had all the creators of the top US political TV dramas; The West Wing: Scandal: Veep: House of Cards and others. Every writer and producer said the same thing. If they’d had a character who said that they ‘liked soldiers who didn’t get captured’ the advertisers and network bosses would have demanded that the character be hated by all Americans.

    • BossDj@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      South Park And SNL both commented that our 2016 situation was too ridiculous to parody

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Back in the 1960s, it was a common joke that ronald reagan would never be President because no one would vote for a guy who co-starred with a monkey.

        Today’s GOP would ignore reagan and run the monkey

    • Sagifurius@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      So…that story basically confirms all programming (I mean not cooking shows) is propaganda, doesn’t it?

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        By that logic, every single drama since the dawn of time is ‘propaganda.’

      • BossDj@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Propaganda implies that the message being pushed is for the sake of convincing the population of some doctrine. The network is trying to cater to an already held public belief for the sake of dollars.

  • Pazuzu@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    Dyslexic ass universe we live in . The 2020’s were supposed to be ‘the future’, an advanced post-scarcity world. We got a post-satire world instead

    • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is what we get for over indulging on irony starting in the 90s.

      Nothing has meaning anymore.

      But maybe correlation isn’t causation…

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        11 months ago

        I’ve become more and more aware of “Irony poisoning” in every facet of our culture, from movies to memes to every other human interaction.

        Maybe because of social media influence, we’re so scared that holding any kind of sincerity will reveal a vulnerability that will be ruthlessly attacked…

        We must be ready to say “No I don’t mean that seriously” and change our projection within a moment’s notice when the culture winds change again.

        It’s so bad anymore that people now need to add “un-ironically” to explain that they genuinely feel anything at all…

        … and sometimes that’s said ironically.

        • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          we’re so scared that holding any kind of sincerity will reveal a vulnerability that will be ruthlessly attacked…

          Ian Bogost defines this sort of thing as ironoia in his book Play Anything. Holding the world at a distance through ironic engagement.

          What you are pointing out is slightly different, but very much along the same lines.

          I found the book helpful to illuminate how ironic culture was a bad force when growing up and going through vulnerable stages.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Yeah I’m trying to learn to be sincere and it’s hard. When all your culture has emphasized for your entire life is irony and exaggeration it’s hard to judge scale and to be sincere. But it’s important, how can we dealienate without being able to sincerely express ourselves

          • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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            11 months ago

            Thanks so much for the book share! I’m really interested in reading this! (I love studying games. Hope to make them someday!)

            Especially if it highlights this particular issue, I’m really interested in reading what he’s got to say on the matter.

    • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      If you look at 70s SF you get closer to the real 2020s.

      AI taking over the world: Colossus: The Forbin Project

      An Infectious agent causing problems: The Andromeda Strain

      Human pollution causing massive issues: Soylent Green

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        in science fiction the AI that takes over the world is sapient. usually as intelligent as a person if not more. reality is dumber. we’re just trying to surrender the world to a series of algorithms that can’t tell how many fingers there are in a hand or which way they bend, or what a fucking fire hydrant looks like.

        • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          That is in movies and books.

          In the real world the turning test is not proof that an artificial system is sentient but only if/when a human thinks it is. It is not about the intelligence/sentience of the system but the intelligence of the human observing that means the test is passed.

          Sadly, for large parts of humanity, text based LLMs have already passed the turning test…

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Idiocracy is not an accurate depiction of what we have going on, and I’m tired of people saying that it is. Idiocracy was about a dumbing down of everyone because smart people did not breed.

        However, people still had the best of intentions despite their limited brain capacity. They just didn’t know how to actually fix the world.

        And real life we have people actively denying climate change despite the obvious effects not out of idiocy, but because they are literally being paid to, and because it makes a decent wedge issue for political gain. There is an obvious motive there that can be explained by malice instead of stupidity, especially since the people trying to get this money in power are likely to die before the effects of climate change come into full circle.

        An idiocracy, they actively want to fix the climate problems, they are just literally too stupid to use water instead of Gatorade for plants. Because everyone is taking a slogan more literally than actual evidence.

        Another great comparison is Donald Trump and Camacho. Donald Trump ignored the existence of covid-19, downplayed the effects of it, and blamed the parts of it that could not be ignored on his predecessor. He also villainized Anthony fauci, the man who was trying to make covid-19 only last a couple of weeks, but because he was villanized so hard it became a global pandemic that lasted over a year.

        Camacho was fully aware there was a problem, acknowledge the people who were suffering and the Direct effects of the problem, and put the smartest man in the world in charge of fixing the problem.

        It is not an app comparison, because Society is not the way it is because it is stupid, but because it is actively being manipulated by malefactors and bad faith agents.

        The planet is not being mismanaged nor is it dying because it’s just time. It is being murdered for personal gain by people with names and addresses.

        • Muehe@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          However, people still had the best of intentions despite their limited brain capacity. They just didn’t know how to actually fix the world.

          And real life we have people actively denying climate change despite the obvious effects not out of idiocy, but because they are literally being paid to, and because it makes a decent wedge issue for political gain.

          I mean I guess the paid shills are part of it, but there is also a large group of useful but ultimately well-meaning idiots repeating their propaganda. And even disregarding that nobody really knows how to fix climate change once you start adding stipulations like not crashing the bejesus out of the holy economy, so not that far off I would say.

          An idiocracy, they actively want to fix the climate problems, they are just literally too stupid to use water instead of Gatorade for plants. Because everyone is taking a slogan more literally than actual evidence.

          We want to fix climate change too, but we are Not Sure about how to handle the Brawndo stock crashing and how long it takes the nitrate levels in the soil to normalise once we switch back to water. See CO² emissions still not decreasing but rather increasing for decades now despite everybody knowing it’s the major cause of global warming, never mind that we would have to pull CO² back out of the atmosphere to stop the damage it will cause in the future from happening.

          Camacho was fully aware there was a problem, acknowledge the people who were suffering and the Direct effects of the problem, and put the smartest man in the world in charge of fixing the problem.

          My man Camacho also nearly killed Not Sure in a monster truck arena because of the unforeseen stock crash resulting in like half the population being unemployed and the soil nitrate level delay hiding that the solution worked, the latter being revealed Just In Time™ for dramatic effect.

          It is not an app comparison, because Society is not the way it is because it is stupid, but because it is actively being manipulated by malefactors and bad faith agents.

          Meh, it’s both stupidity and malice IMHO. When in doubt refer to Hanlon’s Razor:

          Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

          Sometimes nobody having THE solution to a problem is a bitter part of reality that we have to face, and I fear the issue of climate change in particular is one of those problems. Existing malice notwithstanding.

    • Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      Can we start talking about those who told the truth more than those who lie? Here’s a short starting list:

      Gary Webb

      Milton William Cooper

      Bill Hicks

      Julian Assange

      Edward Snowden

      Anyone else?

      • NoSpiritAnimal@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Gary Webb killed himself, Milton Cooper was a quack, and Julian Assange is a far-right wing tool.

        If he had released everything he had rather than just what he had on his enemies I would respect him a bit more.

        • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Julian Assange was cool up until he was a fascist pedophile. He knew all about russia, but instead chose to double down on some damn emails.

                • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  Random aside, considering the fact that it is very obvious that we do not live in reality, but in fact a dystopian novel that was written in the prime timeline, and by a total hack at that. Do you think in the real world they have colonized the moon? Do you think someone won the million dollars from proving psychic powers? Do you think Al Capone’s vault actually had something in it? Because if this is the time one where everything went wrong, what is the timeline where everything went right like?

        • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          Snowden was also a right wing tool. Which is why he suddenly developed a conscience when the wrong guy got elected.

  • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    My gen x friends complained about the villains in Captain Planet, but the we got Trump.

    Also, Tomorrow Never Dies was loosely based on Rupert Murdoch.

  • doleo@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Britain is not holding up its end here, producing the mega-shagger we need to save us all.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Hey, there’s also a New York businessman obsessed with gold and status who has political influence and ties to the ex KGB agent with goals of overturning democracy

    • Shard@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Is he though? More like an incompetent businessman aligns himself with evil baddie to stave off company bankruptcy. In exchange he pawns off state secrets and tries to destabilize the world’s largest economy. Eventually incompetent business man either meets his end shanked in a jail shower or evil baddie will conveniently dispose of him out a 10 storey window once he is no longer worth the trouble.

  • Darkard@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    We still have Murdoch media empire. The secretive media mogul pulling the strings from the shadows at the behest of the rich and powerful

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Especially the part where, he has a bunch of followers who claimed the emerald mine never existed and that it’s all a hoax by his detractors. Even though the main man himself has admitted that his fortune came from a God damn Emerald mine.

  • phx@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    The real fiction is that government agencies would be trying to rein them in. If Musk came up with a ray that turned people into eldrich-style horrors, those agencies would be lined up as buyers.

    Austin Powers at least got phallic shaped rockets right though

    • Todesschnitzel@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I don’t know if you are joking and I am whooshing it but: Putin. He was former… i believe even chief of the KGB. Was stationed in East Germany for a while and made quite the career. And now he instigated himself as a Russian Erdogan who can rule for as long as he wishes.

      • Sagifurius@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Remember Angela Merkel? She was a Stasi member is East Germany at the same time but everyone seems to pretend they weren’t former colleagues.

        • Todesschnitzel@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Bruv… she was in politics. Not the Stasi. And even if she was everyone was a spy on everyone in the east. The woman got a damn doctor in physics. What could she do for the Stasi? And besides. No proof.