@cdarwin@c.im2026-03-13 14:37:55
On TikTok and Instagram, young people are diving into the joys of Chinese culture – from drinking hot water to playing mahjong – all under the banner of “Chinamaxxing”.
On the Chinese internet, however, the US is losing its decades-long grip on soft power, and is instead being replaced by a darker trend: "the kill line".
The kill line is a dangerous place to be.
In gaming, the term refers to the point at which a player’s strength is so depleted that one more blo…
@puhuri@mastodon.social2026-04-14 13:20:07
Irtisanon tarpeettoman Elisan kännykkäliittymän. Kyllä oli monivaiheinen ja pimeitä käytäntöjä, ettei lopetus onnistuisi.
Ensimmäisellä ruudulla (jäi pois) oli hyvin pienellä linkki irtisanomiseen verkossa ja palvelunumero suurella.
#Elisa #Teleoperaattorit
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2026-02-10 17:20:47
Turning Point USA added 900K followers on YouTube between February 2 and February 9, the day after it hosted an "alternate" Super Bowl halftime show (Kyle Tharp/@kylewilsontharp)
https://x.com/kylewilsontharp/status/2021235406335811724
@trochee@dair-community.social2026-02-09 22:23:57
discussing precarity with a contractor
at this point _none_ of us know how long we'll have our jobs
I've resorted to Princess Bride references
"good night Wesley, sleep well, I'll probably kill you in the morning"
@BBC6MusicBot@mastodonapp.uk2026-03-08 10:59:33
🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #CerysMatthews
Little Simz:
🎵 Point and Kill (feat. Obongjayar)
#LittleSimz
https://aguava1.bandcamp.com/track/little-simz-point-and-kill-feat-obongjayar-aguava-edit
https://open.spotify.com/track/52y4KhkcAbYcogFg2u7UVP
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2026-03-02 17:12:33
Seeing Iran appoint new leaders and continue to fight is seeing the more literal kind of necropolitics in action, as a hierarchical system continues to function while replacing the expendable human parts that it lost. The system is of course changed and influenced (and ultimately was built) by humans, but it has become something undying, or at least almost as hard to kill as an idea, and it maintains a terrible inertia in it's destructive tendencies (e.g., "Morality Police" continue to patrol the streets).
Lest anyone think this somehow expresses approval of US actions, the same logic applies here too: what once had a (thin) verneer of democracy, a system which loudly proclaimed to be controlled by "the people" (but which never was nor was ever intended to be) has lost its paint job, exposing the inhuman machinations beneath. Trump is a symptom, not cause, of an institution built on blood and spoils, whose alignment with the Epstein class (and moreover, their institutions) is ever more apparent with each disregarded law and principle.
Stepping back for a moment, this systems/necropolitics perspective is just a perspective, with its own distortions and blind spots. To paraphrase LeGuin, any institution built by humans can also be changed or destroyed by them. But I think it's very useful to put on the systems goggles in this moment, especially when some are fond of preaching about the dangers of "overwhelmingly powerful systems unaccountable to humans which pursue destructive ends" without actually examining the plethora of existing systems that do just that.
P.S. yes, United Healthcare is another good example of this.
P.P.S. yes I bending the meaning of necropolitics here, but the two are related: these systems would not be so free to profit from human death and suffering if they were more vulnerable to the deaths of their constituent parts. Necropolitics of the standard variety is of course present as companies like Raytheon and Lockeed Martin profit from the carnage. The F-15 caught by friendly fire? Just as profitable for Beoing to replace as one downed by the enemy.
@cdarwin@c.im2026-01-28 02:07:26
A day after issuing a slur-filled post that blamed former President Joe Biden,
#Kyle #Rittenhouse wrote,
“Carry everywhere. It is your right. #ShallNotBeInfringed,”
and pinned it to the top of his X page.…
@UP8@mastodon.social2026-01-30 01:35:38
🌳 AI helps find trees in a forest: Researchers achieve 3D forest reconstruction from remote sensing data
#trees
@cdarwin@c.im2026-01-28 01:58:31
Trump kept up his hard-edge attacks on immigrants -- lines that got the loudest cheers of the night.
At one point, he raised the specter of immigrants who may
“blow up our shopping centers, blow up our farms, kill people.”
❌He also falsely portrayed the vast majority of those detained by ICE in Minnesota and elsewhere as hardened criminals -- asserting that once those people were removed, crime would be nearly eliminated.
On Capitol Hill Tuesday, 🔥the top three House…
@cdarwin@c.im2026-02-23 20:41:23
Four years after the massacre of nine black church goers in Charleston, South Carolina;
two years after the murder of a white anti-fascist and anti-racist activist in Charlottesville, Virginia;
and days after the racially motivated massacre of 22 people who were targeted because their murderer wanted to kill Hispanics,
America has reached a crisis point where we finally have to talk about racism in our society.
But is the media approaching this conversation in an …
