US is like a bad b-movie. The villains do everything they can to destroy the people. The companies are all evil.
this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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You’ve found the plot! The twist is that this is what asymmetric warfare looks like, decades in the making. The US is currently losing the Cold War against the USSR, which began 5 years before Putin was born so it was his entire upbringing. He doesn’t need to maintain tight control of Donny, but merely let him wreak whatever havoc he will. The leopard face-eating will mostly just be sad because everything will be so badly damaged by the time the red team really understands how badly they’ve been had. Corporate greed is a reliable villain to rise to the occasion, that merely needed some unshackling. Billionaires gonna oligarch if you give them half a chance. Helping capitalism to self-destruct is possibly the ultimate communist victory.
I feel like, having read your comment, I should stop feeling so grumpy about Russia fucking with us. We can’t get thru this late-stage capitalist nonsense fast enough.
Nope, the next stages will be worse. Climate change is baked in and being in the 99% is gonna suck.
Is fascism a sub-stage of late-stage capitalism, or a subsequent stage?
One of the subsequent stages is AI-powered robot weapons, which I predict will be used on the domestic populace before too long, but also fits in the bad b-movie theme:
This Tuesday, while America was obsessively watching the latest bizarre twists in Trump’s Iran debacle, Whiskey Pete’s Pentagon rolled out a $1.5 trillion budget request that contained a line item almost nobody’s talking about: a 24,000 percent increase, from $225 million last year to $54.6 billion this year, for an outfit called the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group.
That’s the largest year-over-year jump for any program in the entire defense budget, and it’s earmarked to build out AI-driven autonomous human-killing systems inside the Special Operations Command headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.
Yo dawg, I heard you like DAWGs.
So I put AI inside a human-killing system so it can simulate killing people while it kills people!
They didn’t tell Ender that the “training missions” were all real battles until after he won the war, so that he wouldn’t have to grapple with ethics in real time. That was the essence of the Game.
Fucking spoilers!
throws book in the trash
That was on my To Read list.
Sorry, it was published over 40 years ago so the Spoilers Statute of Limitations has lapsed. It’s a good book though, put it back on your list.
Nah some 15 year old will crack the security on them.
Or fitgirl.
This is just late-stage capitalism in motion.
Wine coolers have entered the chat.
Or how about the birthday cake flavored Smirnoff vodka as if any adult would drink such a thing.
I think it's hilarious that we keep reinventing wine coolers every so often. Wine coolers, Zima, Smirnoff Ice, hard lemonade, twisted tea, hard seltzer... it's all just neutral alcohol mixed with fruit juices and sugar, but we've got to keep coming up with fun new labels for it every ten to fifteen years so as to market it to the current hip young demographic.
Zima was popular when I was a teenager. I remember a lot of my friends drinking them as an introduction to alcohol because they tasted better than beer.
A few years ago, they did a special manufacturing of Zima (since they no longer make it) and my friend bought a case. I can affirm that Zima tastes like absolute ass. Smirnoff Ice and everything after have been a huge improvement compared to that shit we had in the 90s.
I also remember Zima since they came out just before the time I began to drink underage. I make references to it every now and then and nobody ever seems to know what I'm talking about, so I feel like I've finally found my people here.
The most recent one followed the anti-soda and anti-sugar trend. Hard Seltzer, as far as the eye can see. I feel like it's on the way out though. What will they think of next!?
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The whole no fruty flavors has always seemed an out of touch rule. Kids using any addictive substances is not good, but a few decades ago it was commonplace for kids to be cought smoking analog cigs. Ecigs are safer and have gotten more people to quit than just about anything, but they are also easier for a non smoker to get into. I think the problem is with how kids are getting access to them (from shady illegal online dealers mostly).
That said before big tobacco got involved the older style nicotine isolate vapes were much better at actually getting people to quit smoking. They don't give the same level of instant nicotine high you can get from the modern salt nicotine and if you are trying to ween off of nicotine they lessen or remove the cravings. It also helped they weren't cool, my favorite world I've heard people call them was 'mouth fedora'
Idk i always thought those clunky vapes were cool. Cyberpunk af to have people modding and fixing up their electronic cigarettes
Let's not forget about smirnof flavors like birthday cake or other similar nonsense. That's not advertising to children yet somehow a mango flavored vape is?
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“Analog cigs” has me dying. Metaphorically and literally.
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What's up with fruity e-cigs?!
Makary’s insiders said the former Johns Hopkins University cancer surgeon resigned after Trump forced his hand on authorizing fruit-flavored e-cigarettes. Makary had reportedly been resisting the sign-offs out of concern that the kid-friendly flavors could again entice youth use and addiction—something public health officials and experts have for years worked to combat. But Makary’s stance was in conflict with Trump’s “save vaping” campaign promise—and with the tobacco industry’s interests.
Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had called Makary over a weekend to scold him for not moving fast enough to authorize flavored vapes, particularly menthol, mango, and blueberry flavors from the Los Angeles manufacturer Glas. The FDA authorized those flavored products days later and issued a new policy that would make it easier to market flavored vapes.
Wow, only complained about one company? How big is that kick back?
It's surprising how cheap most politicians are, and I wouldn't think he's any different.
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But Makary’s stance was in conflict with Trump’s “save vaping” campaign promise
That's funny because it was Trump and his FDA that introduced the PMTA during his first term and the reason why 95% of the industry had to close up shop.
Right, they can exist and succeed but only by his grace and on his (current) terms.
I don't care whether your gay or straight. e-cigs are still not good for you!
I'm not in favor of firing this guy.
But what the hell business does the FDA have in regulating which flavors of vapes are sold? That's like saying you can sell peanut candy bars but not caramel.
Yes I get the logic that some flavors appeal more to kids, but honestly I think it's crap. Whether they do appeal more to kids or not, it's restricting the use of a legal product by adults. That's not how a Free Country is supposed to work. This to me is no different than trying to demand IDs to watch porn online. Protecting kids is honorable, reducing freedom to (supposedly, but not really) protect kids is not what America is supposed to be.
As I see it, if kids are vaping, that's a parental problem that should be solved by parents. If you don't teach your kids not to smoke or vape you're a bad parent.
Thank you! Exactly, this isn't a problem that should be solved by the government. If parents don't want their kids vaping, drinking, smoking weed, eating edibles, watching porn, or anything else then parents need to police their own kids. Adults should lose access to things just because kids might like them too.
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People tend to want the government to parent for them. It's like night and day when you see which parents actually spend time talking to their kids. I try to make a point to have an actual conversation with my son daily. Not just shallow smalltalk, but actual conversation.
If you don’t teach your kids not to smoke or vape you’re a bad parent.
This is a comment from someone who does not have children.
I have kids and I agree with OP.
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I hate Trump and republicans, but good. Let adults do what they want. We shouldn't lose our rights to police other people's kids. If adults want fruity e-cigs they should be able to have them.
you're not even able to get healthy food on a daily basis anymore.
so yeah, let's also reduce the regulation in favor for these big corporations that... for sure... will be totally reasonable and won't screw up kids with addictive products directly served in schools without parents supervision.
I mean e-cigs are already legal. Adding flavor to them doesn't make it worse for you.
It's like if beer was legal, but fruit-flavored beer wasn't
We're not discussing food. Letting adults have flavored vapes doesn't mean that kids will eat unhealthy foods. That's another issue entirely.
Both could exist. Letting flavored e cigs exist doesn't take away the ability to get healthy food.
Also directly served in schools is a lie. No school in USA is selling this or "serving it directly" to children.
When I was young we drank flavored alcohol doesn't mean they should take it away from adults who choose to consume it.
These laws didn't even ban them, they just lead to the current disposables market which are allowed by loophole:
- Cheaper and easier to obtain, usually sold in gas stations
- Typically cheaper coils, meaning heavy metals
- Cheaper batteries meaning more fires
- So. Much. More. Ewaste.
Going back makes it easier for people with custom mods to obtain ejuice which is like the millennial equivalent to smoking half and half out of a wooden pipe.
Also every weed dispensary I've ever been too has had flavored vape carts/pods and disposables, usually flavored w/ natural terpenes taken from weed or other plants.
Trump is the one who killed the industry in the first place. Him and his previous FDA are the ones who implemented all these new rules.
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The Nanny State strikes again. Now sponsored by even more Evil Corporations!
Ecigs and vapes are different things. That is a life or death distinction.
They are? Could you explain? Because I was under the impression they were synonymous.
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He looks like this dude if he had just been caught doing something really bad. Good he was able to get out in some way, hope he can find a place where he's not forced to obey Pedon Trum and his goons.
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