Same. I gravitate towards female avatars for the most part, usually because I just like looking at them more.

Sometimes it's more game specific. Mass Effect, for example, the stock fem Shep is just the canonical version of the character in my head. Had a cooler and more relatable face design. And perhaps most importantly, default masc Shep just really looks like every dudebro I've ever disliked in person.

Yeah, everyone's got their preferences, fo sho.

It does make a little sense, when you consider that one of the goals is to demotivate fascists from voting at all.

Straight facts don't dissuade fascists. They have every argument and deflection in their back pocket ready to go. Trump is a rapist/racist/traitor? Fake news, fake news, fake news.

But... Trump is weird? That hits them right in the ego. They're not a principled policy-based voting base, it's a cult of personality. Even if they want to say he's NOT weird, it's not a fact, it's an opinion. So all it takes is showing a bunch of really strange gaffes, irrelevant rants, and incoherent ramblings, and you just might get would-be Trump voters to feel too embarrassed to vote for him.

It's a long shot, but based on what I've been seeing, it appears to be effective so far. We'll have to wait and see.

Mostly because Netanyahu has been souring on Biden real fast. Biden held up a delivery of bombs to Israel back in May, citing Israel's plans to bomb Rafah. Netanyahu announced he was pushing forward anyway, and there was a big public spat about it. That sort of thing has been happening since Oct 7.

I mean one could say it's all an act or something, but that strains credulity to me.

I'm not saying Biden is doing great here, I'd much prefer he take Bernie Sanders' advice on this and stop weapon deliveries altogether. But it's certainly fair to assess that Biden wants the genocide to stop, but is not doing enough to stop it.

He was kind of a wet paper sack sitting the primaries, if he'd come in with this energy he might've gotten somewhere.

I wish Democrats were willing to put in the same amount of endless, ceaseless planning and toiling and preparing so when an opportunity arises, you can snatch it up. Republicans did this with the Supreme Court, with religion in schools, etc etc etc. Last time Democrats had both Houses and the Presidency, we got barely anything (to my memory at least).

I wish Democrats had an ounce of Republicans' ability not just to shape narratives, but to conjure them from thin air and still dominate the news cycle.

I wish Democrats were as willing to bend to the extremists in their own party as the Republicans do. That's a real monkey's paw wish right there, but at the moment the extreme right is literal fascists and the extreme left just wants the cool quality of life stuff the Nordic countries already have.

Speaking personally... yeah we ARE divided here in the US. It kind of IS that bad. There are a lot of reasons for it, but in my mind the biggest thing is the legacy of slavery in this country. It's not a scar... it's still bleeding because bigots keep picking the scab. There's been so many knock on effects from it that have gone unexamined and unaddressed because there are enough bigots to be a stupid but effective voting block.

If I had to guess, he'd try to find a business selling enterprise supported distributions of Linux, buy them, then try to expand/convert them to develop "consumer Linux". He'd advertise it as getting out from under the thumb of evil corps (ie his competitors), then as soon as it gains even a modicum of traction start implementing privacy violating shit, ads, whatever, to enshittify it as quickly as possible for a quick buck.

Cash has an identifier on it, but unlike a check that identifier doesn't identify you.

For weed I think we'd be fine.

I tried to read Foucault in grad school. His writing is just the worst, like it's intentionally trying to be difficult to read and understand. When other people describe Foucault's ideas to me, they seem cool. Wish I could actually understand the original stuff though.

Maybe I'm just an idiot, I dunno.

I recently asked a "I'll never vote for Biden" person here on Lemmy why, what goal does that accomplish? And boy oh boy, their answers were flacid, goal-post-shifting non-sequiturs. I never replied but someone else took up the torch, and I've never seen a conversation more like 2015 gamergate anti-feminists. Just garbage after distraction after red herring.

What does a protest non-vote accomplish? There's moral satisfaction, of course, but that doesn't stop the genocide. If the goal of the protest non-vote is to ensure Biden loses to teach the Dems a lesson, and it works, Trump becomes president. That's almost certainly just a continuation of the genocide PLUS all the harm Project 2025 promises to deliver. MAYBE the Dems put up a more progressive candidate next time, but surely we could try to get that power between election cycles?

I guess I just don't think protest non-votes will accomplish any of the goals of that protest, but they will allow Trump to live his best fascist dictator life.

I dunno, is there something I'm missing from your strategic calculus here?

I thought the Dixie Chicks got in hot water for speaking out against GWB? Or is it some other artist/group that I'm thinking of?