"non-lethal" Oh, boy! What an infuriating misnomer that is.

This is also a good time to remember nothing here in this context is "non-lethal". All of these things (sand bags, tear gas, tasers, pepper spray, mace, rubber bullets, batons, shields, tactical holds, etc.) are accurately called "less lethal" because all of them can and will kill under certain circumstances, even when used by trained officers with good intentions. (I know. How often does that happen, right?) It doesn't take much to cross that line between "not intending murder" and "actual fucking murder", often something as simple as a common medical condition or simply falling while moving over hard ground like curbs and sidewalks. If a reporter is using the term "non-lethal" in the context of police brutality, that's a pretty good sign that you are being lied to.

So was /r/TheDonald

More like working class traitor.

I guess the secondary directive of the Federation is to gatekeep having fun?

Animation isn't for children by default. Only boring, unimaginative people talk that way about animated stories.

Star Trek has always had violence.

Star Trek has often had profanity. In another alien language sure, but we all knew which Klingon words were curses.

Does sophomoric humor graduate to senior humor when it's subtle enough that you didn't catch it as a child? Humor is SUPER subjective and VERY sensitive to the current zeitgeist, so comparing humor across a franchise that has been around this long seems a little absurd. Data pushed Crusher into the ocean for a laugh, that seems pretty sophomoric to me. Bones regularly joked about Spock's racial differences, that also seems pretty crude by today's standards.

I hate how modern journalism uses phrases to distance us from the harsh reality, like "mortality rates increased" instead of "people killed by government policy", "officer involved shooting" instead on "murdered by police", "abortion rights" instead of "human rights".

I can see you haven't interacted with many police in these areas. I wouldn't be surprised in the least by any of that behavior. The cops only protect and serve property, not people.

I don't ask people about their politics. I just act like true things are true, e.g.: human instigated climate change, COVID, the efficiency of a single payer healthcare system, a oblate spheroid earth, and the moon landing. I'm politely understanding of the flaws in their world view, but I NEVER pretend that any of it is even up for debate. You can balance not being rude with not backing down from the objective reality you live in by showing an genuine fascination with their weird cult beliefs.

Conspiracy theories, religion, myths, and magic are all very comfortable fantasies that wither in the face of the existential dread from understanding that the universe is horrific and absolutely indifferent to your personal suffering. Being excellent to each other and maintaining faith in the potential of humanity (tempered by knowledge of our depravity) is our only hope of survival both physical, philosophical, political, and spiritual.

Ok, sorry that turned into a rant. This shit matters though, so not that sorry.

"Sensors" sounds like a magical solution that hasn't been thought through, but the marketing guys already sold it and won't listen to the engineers explaining how difficult it is to actually build such a thing.

Similarly, there are a lot of really lazy bad maps out there that are trying to make some point about a statistic, but are really just population density maps. Give your up votes to the person that links the appropriate xkcd.

I feel your pain.

I edit the URL to remove the first part of the URL and replace it with "http://old.reddit.com". That still seems to work, last I checked, but I fully expect it to be killed any day now.

It's the gritty psychedelic dystopian cyberpunk movie we didn't deserve. Nintendo had no idea how to produce a movie and just let them run fucking wild. Hollywood should be encouraged to take more chances. Fucking electric bumper cars demolition derby style car chase. Dino-people. Devo (the concept not the band). Psychic fungi. And all the other fucking weirdos. It's not even awesomely bad, it's badassly awesome.

What's most surprising to me is how closely the latest animated Movie Bros. movie followed the very broad strokes of the plot of the original, like a sanitized and fully kitsch commercial reboot, which is kind of appropriate for the world we live in.

I'm no nationalistic fanatic of the flag, but is it really so difficult to understand that the flag is a symbol?

Obviously each flag, be they for nations or other groups, represents more than just a piece of cloth to many people. Taking offence at someone else's identifying with what a flag symbolizes is not okay. But, I tend to look skeptically at worship of any kind of idol, be it flag, cross, or text. That still doesn't mean it's okay to hate or persecute people for their beliefs, even if they appear silly to you and as long as they don't hurt others.

One group can demonstrate their respect for the nation by physically following some rules around the flag and others can demonstrate their loyalty to their ideals of the nation being violated by flying the flag upside down or burning a flag.

A flag or banner is not just a piece of cloth, never has been.