seannessy

[seannessy]

this is my mech pilot his name is Shinji please wish him luck

[seannessy]

Hey Indeed.

What?

[seannessy]

⚠️POLITICS⚠️ - so, what the hell just happened

yep your favorite catboy political scientist is back. regarding that last political science post about all the reasons why i thought Kamala would win im not going to beat around the bush here, i was not just wrong, but i was mega wrong. a lot of us were. so? what happened?

the long and short of it is that we are currently in the Death of Liberalism as an ideology. i have data to back this up, but i think we can all sort of feel it in the vibes too, right? the Trump campaign won because they were Populists, and the Kamala campaign lost because they couldn't get rid of the weight around their neck that was their association with the Liberalism status quo in the eyes of the voters.

look across the board, states that went strong red also had massive turnout for very progressive policies. Florida had a 57% support for a state constitutional amendment to make Abortion a civil right (of course, it still lost, because in Florida in order to win with civil rights issues like this you actually need 60% of the vote, because the same people who made the Florida election system also went to Florida schools). and keep in mind, this was when left leaning voters were largely staying home, its the republican voters who are supporting these kinds of things, because they're populist.

if you want even more proof, look at the demographics that trump gained massive support bases in this election cycle. largely, they are exactly the same ones that were energized by the Bernie campaign.

the biggest takeaway from this, and the only one i can really remember after for 2 hours trying to get this post finished through 2 factory resets of firefox to get it to actually do something, is that Populism Sells, and Institutionalism just doesn't anymore.

we're in a new world, politically, there really arent any historical parallels that i can point to to compare. if you want some advice for what to do now, then just make sure you're prepared in the case of an emergency, make sure you're keeping in touch with all of your friends, and build relationships in your community and neighbors. at this point, building up our local and interpersonal infrastructure is all we can do right now.

[seannessy]

⚠️POLITICS⚠️

haha bet you forgot through the shitposts that i have a bachelor's degree in political science

here's a bunch of reasons why Kamala Harris is going to win the presidency because i can never find the effort to edit this into a video:👇

1. The current polls are VERY biased towards republicans. Most large polls just take the averages of other smaller polls, and right now the GOP has been dumping LOTS OF MONEY into publishing a lot of fluff polls in swing states to make themselves look better and to get more donations. Democrats don't usually publish their polls publicly. Odds are it's another red mirage.

2. The majority of people who Trump is catering to just don't vote. A lot of the latest pushes in the Aiden Ross Gamerbro communities are not reliable voters, even as loud as they are online. You cannot convince me that the twitter edgelord crowd has ever even seen a ballot in their lives.

3. In elections canvassing matters by about 300% more than advertising (my own ballpark estimate, not a specific datapoint, but still very true having worked in both canvassing and campaign marketing). The only people signing up to canvass for Trump are just stealing Elon's money, meanwhile people are flying out from all 50 states to swing states to canvass for Kamala.

4. "This is Hillary Clinton all over again." No it isn't. Hundreds of papers have been published that all agree that the reason Hillary lost (besides the Michigan debacle) was that largely a lot of people already assumed she was going to win, and so they didn't go out to vote. Sean Westwood did a really good paper on this in 2018, the more likely you are expected to win, the less of your supporters turn out. The entire narrative is that Kamala is either tied or behind, so anyone who supports her will NOT be sitting this one out.

5. Kamala just did a MASSIVE rally event in Texas. Texas. In this part of the campaign, any sane strategist would tell you to do ALL campaigning in the swing states, so this makes no sense... unless internal democrat polls are saying that Texas is now winnable for democrats. I will remind you that Texas is not NEARLY as red as the stereotype says, and Greg Abbot has himself previously said that Texas would have gone blue if not for all of the voter suppression he did. I'm not joking. This is real. The only reason Texas is still Lean Red instead of Moderate Blue is because of insane levels of voter suppression by Texas GOP.

6. When turnout is low, republicans win. When turnout is high, democrats win. Turnout is already STUPIDLY high in the early voting metrics. Even higher than 2020 (which i will remind you, we won) in some cases.

7. Voter demographics just aren't on Trump's side here. Lots of republicans have bled out of Trumpism, and in a close enough race as this one looks to be even a few thousand republicans deciding to stay home could make or break it in a lot of states. Additionally, while Trump has made a lot of progress in minority voters (daily reminder that the median voter is stupid enough for "median voter" to be used as a slur in political science communities), Kamala has the white woman vote locked down. And oh no! Look at that! Which voter demographic is orders of magnitudes both larger and more active voters than all of the minority demographics that Trump has been gaining in? Yep! Kamala's lead in the white woman demographic has entirely erased Trump's gains in other communities. Abortion was the final nail in the coffin of republican chances, they took the mask off too early. The dog caught the car and didn't know what to do with it.

8. Voter demographics are STILL not on Trump's side even ignoring all that other stuff, because keep in mind, Trump voters have largely been older people, and the waves of people who elected him previously have... well they've kind of died. Covid really didn't help with that. I mean obviously not everyone, but like, this is a close race, and a very large chunk of those voters have been reincarnated as plants or whatever now.

9. "The X Factor" is 100% on Kamala's side. By that I mean just the force of raw charisma, the Kamala campaign is just more appealing and less unnerving to the general population. I really hate to keep hammering this but oh my god dude have you SEEN JD Vance????? Even after the debate where he performed as best as he possibly could and Walz performed as bad as he possibly could, samples STILL said they supported Walz over Vance by a factor of 85 PERCENT.

10. "The Shy Trump Effect." There's a myth a lot of people believe that Trump underperforms in polls and overperforms in elections because voters are shy to admit they're fans of him. A few things. #1: This was disproved so many times, including in Sean Westwood's previously mentioned paper. #2: Even after it's disproved, many polls already factor it into their calculations, which is actually INFLATING his odds in the polls. #3: Anyone who would have been a Shy Trump Supporter either just isn't going to vote this election cycle or is going to follow the Cheney's lead and vote for Kamala instead. This is probably the one election in our entire lives where Democrats have appealed to the right and it actually fucking worked.

11. Polymarket. A lot of people point to the new Polymarket as evidence that Trump has a lot of support among the average joe crowd. These people have no idea how the Polymarket works. American citizens legally can't bet in it, and the only way to get around that is by using Crypto. How many tech illiterate boomers do you think are going to know how to use both Crypto and a VPN? All of Trump's support there is coming from techbro whales or people in other countries. Infact, I think the number was that about a whopping 30% of all bets made on the side of Trump were sourced back to this one French Billionaire.

That being said, it's not a predetermined victory. Currently I'd put the odds at anywhere between 60-40 and 70-30 in favor of Kamala, but that still leaves Trump plenty of room.

The moral of the story is that things aren't hopeless! We have a very good shot at winning--as long as we all keep pushing like hell!

Oh also, if they try another Jan 6th, reminder that Biden is now the one in control of the military and national guard at the capital. Lol, Lmao, even.

[seannessy]

do you ever encounter the kind of person who is just

wow holy fuck this was compressed to shit

[seannessy]

warrior.

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you know its been 8 years of people telling me that the complex world of adulting will make more sense as i grow up and i still dont understand why we as a society have accepted the ludicrous concept of a Credit Score

[seannessy]

muhhhhhhh bone editing

weight painting is easy mako is just a coward

BONE EDITING is the tedious part

[seannessy]

"Hey Laos can I marry your sister?"

"Only a spoonful."

[seannessy]

HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE :P SHAPE KEY IS FINISHED!!!

[seannessy]

*sigh* oh to live in a world where american car manufacturers remembered that you could put more than 1 color on things...

oh to live in a world where american car manufacturers remembered that eggshell white looks good actually...

oh to live in a world where american car manufacturers are not going senile and forgetting all of the reasons why cars looked cool to begin with...

the post was originally going to end here but i just took my ADHD meds and i need you all to know that i live in a city where we have a yearly event to celebrate old cars that actually looked really good and everyone in this city fucking LOVES cool old cars and every now and again you can just see someone driving around the beachside roads on a vehicle straight out of a Guardians of the Galaxy flashback. cars used to look GOOD. this isn't a generational style thing, look at these.

even if this kind of car isn't your style i get that, but you can surely see that there is at least a vision here, there was a passion in the people who made them back then, cars weren't just churned out willy nilly to make the line go up.

well okay yeah they definitely were but there was still some art there. now i need to ask you. look at modern cars for a second and just let the mundane-ness of it all sit in for a while

ohhhh yeah can you feel it? have you soaked it in yet? all of those sanded down soulless smooth edges? all of those monocolor coats of paint? the fact that the only thing you can really tell is substantially different is the kind of wheel each car has if even that?

now i need to ask you, in 80 years do you think there are going to be any events to commemorate these kinds of cars? do you think anyone is going to take time out of their retirement to appreciate these wonders of modern technology enough to create a whole ass city-wide convention to show appreciation for any component of these cars except maybe some of the internal mechanics and engines???

now admittedly selection bias is a thing here, its not like these cars being celebrated in my city are the average car, those are Woodies, which are a very specific artistic style of car. so maybe we need to look at the average car from back then. lets see, the Woody style was started around the 30s, so what does the average car look like around the 30s?

well a quick little research says that the biggest automotive manufacturer around then was General Motors (or at least a very big one), and a quick little Wikipedia stroll shows their platforms from back then. Behold! i show you cars from back when people cared about design!

Oldsmobile Series 60

1930 GM Marquette

1940 Pontiac 'Deluxe' 6

I know that last one says Deluxe, but keep in mind that beauty only went for ~17k in 2023 dollars! So much cheaper than the Ford F-150! And you get more seats too! Sure the paint is probably leaded and so is the gas and so are the lights and so is the steering wheel probably and to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if somehow the rubber was too, but god dammit it just looks good doesn't it? Don't they all? 2 of these 3 random samples I just learned about still have the monocolor stuff that I was complaining about but don't they just look better? It's not like this is a lost art, we can still build this today if we wanted, we could just put the modern engines and batteries and non-lead metals in it! That's what the people who drive restored versions of these cars do! Imagine how much easier it would be if you just built them that way and didn't need to take all of the lead and old broken down engines out in the first place!

"Ohhhhh but the aerodynamics!! What about the aerodynamics!! Modern cars are so much faster now because of their ugly shapes!!"

yeah dumbass and that's why you keep mulching kids whenever you tap the accelerator. my city has plenty of people who drive modern cars, you all could do with a lower speed capacity. it would be good for you in the same way that confiscating an addict's tobacco would be good for them. fucking chill.

besides if you're really worried about speed trust me, modern engines are wonders of science and engineering, i promise you that cars can still go zoom if we made the aerodynamics slightly worse in order to make them look better because the magic piston box that you pretend to know how it works while being carried by your 4-wheel drive will cover the cost. trust me.

"But cars in general are bad! We should be getting rid of all of them! Even cool looking cars can mulch kids too!"

yeah yeah sure, still ban them from city centers and stuff. i just got back from a 2 week long trip around all the best parts of europe and also paris so i agree with you there, but as much as it would warm my autistic heart we realistically cant have trains to take us everywhere and the genie is already out of the bottle. besides i dont care what you think cars are just cool. i can turn a wheel and push on a pedal with my foot and make a 2 ton hunk of steel and gadgets move at a speed to carry force surpassing that of a bullet, and if i turn really fast i can make tire doodles on public infrastructure to keep the rent low. plus road trips with friends are fun. look all im saying is that cars definitely aren't going anywhere, so we could at least have them look cool while they're here. to be honest i definitely agree that we should be phasing out cars as much as we can for long distance travel (TRAIN SWEEP WOOOOO CHOO CHOO) and everything but come on dude i dont want to look at my ugly ass streets and see them swarming with ugly ass cars. i want pretty ass cars. please? pretty please? my birthday is coming up soon wont you do it for me?

"Lower aerodynamics means that the fuel economy will be worse! People will need to use more fuel for the same distances! That's bad for my wallet and also the environment!"

putting aside the fact that aerodynamics really only become a major factor when you are going really really fast like on the freeway--a place where ideally you would rarely ever need to go on in favor of public transport taking you everywhere you'd want to go to at a price cheaper than your gas in the first place, i want to ask you something a little emotional here:

do you think that you would be better off if you saved maybe 1 or 2 dollars every trip to the gas station, or if when you were stuck driving all those long drives you were in a car that you could actually smile when thinking about, that you could watch other people look over and see children excitedly getting their parent's attention to show off the cool car driving past them, that you could have a car that looks good enough to actually wow people when you pull in for your 9-5 that is a 2 hour drive away from you for some reason, that after a long shift and a long drive you could come home, get out of your car, and have the first thing you see when you close the door be something that actually looks pretty instead of the same personalityless blob that everyone else drives? look, i get it, maybe your finances are super unstable and every penny counts, maybe this specific example isn't for you, but im willing to bet that once you get to a better off position you'd be pretty fine with the idea of sacrificing a few bucks for a whole load of warm and fuzzy feelings of pride and satisfaction. i sure as hell would. why the hell do we do this whole capitalism thing in the first place if we can't spend the money eventually to feel nice??

oh yeah also for the environment bit most of the impact against the environment isn't cars at all, it's energy production and other stuff, also most cars are switching to environmentally friendly alternatives now anyway sorryyyyyyyyy

look all i want is for when my time comes to get mulched against a bumper like nearly 1.2 thousand american children each year i dont want it to look like the edmunds.com best rated cars by price section

oh, yeah, also, if you willingly take off the sound muffler from your car or motorcycle your car should be confiscated by the government and you should be put in the jail for disturbing the peace. not because you did anything wrong, but purely for your own protection because i prefer small government solutions and neither me personally nor my local community do not have the infrastructure to solve the problems that you create in a way that would be favorable to you.

[seannessy]

OH SHIT SUMMER SALE IS HERE???? NEVERMIND COVID WWE'RE GONNA GHAME SO HARD AND NO DISEASE WILL GONAN STOP ME!!!!!!!!!!!

uh oh!!!!

bad news chat!!!

this cat needs to go to the vet!!!!!!!

[seannessy]

uh oh!!!!

bad news chat!!!

this cat needs to go to the vet!!!!!!!

[seannessy]

guess what month it is babyyyy!!!!!!!!

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its sand cat saturday ffffffffff

[seannessy]

my mods fucking ate one of our server members' profile pictures

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what is happening at zillow