Tootfinder

As salty as I am about it, there's also another way to think about this. For anyone who still has connections to folks on the right (which is perhaps unlikely for anyone on this server, I digress), the cult that has consumed them thrives on isolation and grievance.
The words "you were right" have the potential to cut through the programming and open up an opportunity for reconnection. The modern conspiratorial cult of the Right has been built partially around people who were told they were wrong or were crazy. In the vast majority of cases, they were wrong and even when they were right they completely misunderstood why, but we'll skip that for now. Liberals making fun of them (even the times when they definitely earned it) has pushed them further and further into their ideological hole.
The thing about those words, "you were right," in this context is that the way they offer reconnection also requires them to take one little step of betraying their ideology to accept them. So they must choose between maintaining allegiance to a pedophile or finally getting to feel superior after years of living in an illusion of persecution.
Under the ideology of the Right, admitting one is wrong is a weakness. It is admitting defeat. They have to "own the libs" by saying things, things that they know aren't true, in order to feel dominant. But these things are often so absurd that they end up being made fun of, feeling even more weak and pathetic, reinforcing their fear and alienation.
Offering what they're looking for can offer a way out, but only if they're willing to start to recognize the thing they've supported for what it is.
And they were right about some things. They were right that Bill Gates was a terrible person. I've had plenty of liberals defend him based on his philanthropy washing, but he's awful and always has been. The Epstein links make that blatant. They intuitively recognized him and didn't trust him, even if they were wildly off base about *how and why* he shouldn't be trusted... Even if their correct mistrust was leveraged into one of the most destructive conspiracy theories ever (vaccine denial and COVID vaccine avoidance).
They were right about Bill Clinton. He was always shady as fuck. Sure, the people who attacked him at the time turned out to be even more shady but that's not the point right now. He was connected to Epstein and that was always creepy as fuck.
And the Epstein thing was an open secret that liberals ignored for a long time. It was seen as some weird thing that right wing nutjobs believed about the Clintons. But it was true. Not all of it, and there has always been an antisemitic element to the right wing interpretation or Epstein stuff, but his whole pedophile conspiracy was always kind of real.
The whole "Illuminati"/deep state thing is a vast oversimplification, an attempt to make comprehensible an incredibly complex set of interlocking and emergent behaviors. But Epstein did very much want to remake the world, to create a new world order, and he absolutely played a part in it.
The Right wing nutjobs talked about global authoritarianism, Blackhawks flying over American cities, masked men with guns disarming and executing legal gun owners in the streets. That's all happening right now.
The "FEMA concentration camps" are not actually that far off. ICE and FEMA are sister agencies, both under DHS. I'd be more than happy to call that one "close enough" in order to hear some MAGA admit that ICE is, in fact, building concentration camps.
There was always a huge millennialist element to these things. They tended to be connected to "the antichrist." It was absurd, especially for me as someone who no longer identifies as a Christian. But I'll even acquiess that to a degree. The "the number of the Beast" is 666. That's just the sum of the Hebrew spelling of "Nero." Revelations focuses a lot on Nero coming back to life after his death. His death that involved a head wound, thus the line from Revelation 13:3:
> And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast.
The parallels between Trump and Nero are easy to draw, and Trump's ear wound feels pretty on-the-nose for this. I don't believe in "prophecy" in this way. I think that there are patterns, and useful patterns can become encoded in beleif systems. But I will, again, happily call this one "close enough" for anyone on that side willing to also acknowledge it. I'm happy to meet on that common ground, because anyone who accepts it must recognize that their duty is to fight against it.
A lot of these correct nuggets are embedded in a framework of religious extremism and antisemitism. The vast majority of the beliefs holding these together are wildly wrong and incredibly toxic. But by giving some room to feel validated, listened to, understood, can give some room to admit things that were wrong.
Cult de-programming starts with an opening. People have to talk through their own thoughts, hear their own inconsistencies. Guiding questions can help them untangle these things for themselves. And it all starts by having enough room to feel safe, to not feel cornered, to not feel stupid. Admitting mistakes means being vulnerable, and the MAGA cult is built on fear. It's built on exploiting vulnerability and locking it away.
De-programming takes a long time. It's not easy. It takes patience. But every person who comes out does so with a powerful perspective, a deep understanding, that can be turned back against it. The best people at getting people out of cults are former members. Some of the most dedicated antifa are former fascists who understood their mistakes and dedicate their lives to fixing them.

I think being an egocentric asshole as a service is finally falling flat
and people want to hear more about what real living is about.
https://hachyderm.io/@suzannealdrich/115830103893974091

Junyang Lin, a tech lead on Alibaba's Qwen team, abruptly steps down; two other members of the Qwen team also leave (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/03/alibabas-qwen-tech-lead-steps-down-after-major-ai-push/

Alibaba's Qwen tech lead steps down after major AI push | TechCrunch
Reactions rippled through Alibaba's Qwen team after tech lead Junyang Lin stepped down following a major model launch.

Well. I’ve been accepted to my first conference!
This will sound strange to many academics out there, but working in the fine arts I don’t generally pay much attention to academic conferences—but having had a research semester last fall I was able to do a deep dive into the educational philosophy of practice-based filmmaking education and apparently the conference organisers agree that it’s interesting! I got an email this morning that my abstract was accepted.
Now I just need in…

Second International Conference on Embodied Education 2026
Copenhagen 8 - 11 June 2026: The 2nd International Conference on Embodied Education is aimed at conveying a community of people interested in embodied education and the related topics, like enaction, emotion, extended mind, embedded cognition, sports, wellbeing, and the performative arts (such as music, dance and drama).

Survivors of Super Typhoon Odette are making history—they're suing Shell in UK courts for its role in fueling the climate crisis.
Their argument: Shell's emissions made the devastating storm more likely and more severe. It's part of a growing movement to hold Big Oil accountable for climate damages, especially in vulnerable regions like the Philippines that face repeated destruction.
"We don't deserve this," they say—and they're fighting back.
…

“We Don’t Deserve This”: Survivors of Super Typhoon Odette File Claims Against Shell
Last week the survivors of Super Typhoon Odette that struck the Philippines in 2021 filed what may be the most ambitious climate lawsuit to date against global oil giant Shell.

Follow up reporting on that breaking and entering by CBP in #Utah that led to warrantless kidnapping of the owner as well as the employee they were following.
Thank you, @… for the detailed reporting. Our local paper has removed the paywall on all reporting for 2026, so don…

Rebuilding public trust in AI requires meaningful citizen engagement, transparent governance, and robust legislation. Technology itself is not the problem. The issue is that few people trust institutions to deploy it wisely and for their benefit. This makes the first step to answer the following question: What’s it in for me?

Breaking the doom loop: How to rebuild trust in AI
Rebuilding public trust in AI requires meaningful citizen engagement, transparent governance, and robust legislation. By involving communities and prioritising effective oversight, institutions can break the ...

According to my fact-based feelings, cats count in hexadecimal
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I woke up at around 330am, and decided to watch Return of the Jedi on my phone.
That quickly turned into listening to Return of the Jedi
I remember hearing a few Ewok horns, and Palpatine falling down that shaft.
Then my AirPods ran out of power with that annoying noise, which totally woke me up.
#StarWars #Sleep

WTF does kidnapping a foreign leader on his own soil have to do with US Law Enforcement?
"This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement"
Trump says US forces have captured Nicolas Maduro
Here's text from a Truth Social post:
"The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Cou…

Donald Trump says US forces have 'captured' Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro
US President Donald Trump says the US has "captured" Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who earlier declared a national emergency and hit out at US "military aggression" after attacks in the capital, Caracas.