@cdarwin@c.im2026-02-03 15:42:56
Trevor Noah Sues Donald Trump Over Alleged Threatening Messages
Following Explosive Truth Social Rant
A high-profile legal and political controversy has erupted
after comedian and television host Trevor Noah filed a lawsuit
against Donald Trump,
alleging that the president sent “damaging, intimidating, and dangerous” private direct messages
following a public dispute tied to comments made during the Grammy Awards
@hex@kolektiva.social2026-02-28 10:20:01
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.
@tante@tldr.nettime.org2026-02-03 21:12:16
With the currently released things about Bill Gates in the Epstein files (he had sex with the women and girls Epstein provided and asked Epstein for antibiotics to secretly give to his then-wife to treat the STI he gave her) how are we feeling about the Gates Foundation funding ... anything? Why should that creep (through his foundation) get to use that kind of power to shape what scientists and NGOs can do?
(Nobody should have that power, most foundations are politically a net negativ…
@metacurity@infosec.exchange2026-02-03 11:44:34
That UPenn breach affected only ten people.
A class action lawsuit against Penn over an October 2025 data breach at the Graduate School of Education will not proceed after a new court filing revealed on Monday that fewer than 10 people were affected by the incident.
https://www.
@al3x@hachyderm.io2026-03-03 14:52:04
I read that we lost the ability to stay focused reading long articles. And I believe it is partially true.
I also believe that books that could’ve been at best an article are these days 300 pages. And articles that might communicate an idea vaguely are now thousands of words long for the sake of art (and for the author to get paid as I assume filling in a site or magazine with short articles would be more expensive).
@grumpybozo@toad.social2026-01-05 02:10:07
They have a great “big” point here about incrementalism but also: fiber, water, and even minimal activity specifically are great first steps towards feeling better.
I suspect that a lot of us 1st-worlders feel lousy in part because we’re each paving our own way to T2D, colon cancer, and heart disease. @…
@andycarolan@social.lol2026-03-03 08:26:10
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
@nohillside@smnn.ch2026-02-03 19:51:05
Let me translate that: Musks boosts the value of xAI by integrating it into SpaceX and claiming that the future of AI is in space, in two years. That’s the same Musk who is flying to Mars „real soon now“.
https://pxlnv.com/linklog/musk-spacex-xai/
@memeorandum@universeodon.com2026-03-04 21:20:59
Trump 'Had a Feeling, Based on Fact,' That There Was an Imminent Iran Threat, White House Says (Violet Jira/NOTUS)
https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/donald-trump-feeling-imminent-threat-iran-karoline-leavitt
http://www.memeorandum.com/260304/p118#a260304p118
@cdarwin@c.im2026-03-03 16:48:04
More than 10,000 Americans who suffer from chronic liver disease are on a waitlist for a liver transplant,
-- but there are not enough donated organs for all of those patients.
Additionally, many people with liver failure aren’t eligible for a transplant if they are not healthy enough to tolerate the surgery.
To help those patients, MIT engineers have developed ⭐️ “mini livers” that could be injected into the body and take over the functions of the failing liver.
In a n…
