That wealth imbalance also pushes companies to force dumb shit like this on thier customers.

If Google were to just come out with a $10 a month plan that removed all the sleazy ways they try and profit from you, the overwhemling response would be "Oh great yet another subscription", because these subscriptions have become a significant chunk of people's income each month.

But what if greedy neoliberals hadn't been pocketing our pay rises for $20 years and that subscription was functionally $1? Most people would be happy to blow $20 supporting 20 different content providers.

Unfortunately, their greed is insatiable. There's always a room of executives doing their grubby little sums. "If people have $1, they probably have $2. We could double our profits! Then double our salaries!".

Inflation just means "If rich people find out you've got more money, they'll fuck you out of that too".

The $1 will never be enough. They'll keep charging more and more until people have nothing left to hand over. Then they'll figure out more ways to squeeze a profit out of you. Manipulating you with ads, selling your private data, turning your body into expensive dogfood -- whatever makes them a few more cents.

They know they have to stay mask on, no matter what.

They tried the whole "haha, we were nazis all along!" thing with the tiki torches and Unite the Right rally. They lost their jobs, families and the platform they'd built out of plausible deniability.

You could catch them dressed as Hitler, with a hand written copy of Elders of Zion, in the middle of lynching a jew, and they'd still claim "the left just calls everyone who disagrees with them a Nazi".

Are we sure he was actually stabbed and didn't just have a pre-existing condition that caused a hole to open in his stomach, because of all the drugs he was on?

Should it?

The overwhelming majority of mass shooters currently plaguing America are young, male and far-right. They didn't just wake up one morning as extremists.

The story always reads basically the same. Loneliness, frustration and/or disillusionment made them vulnerable, they stumbled upon the far-right claiming they had answers and were lead down the path of extremism by memes, algorithms and social media groups.

Given that, why should they be platformed at all? Why make the default "if you don't like it, just block it" rather than "if you want to read it, join their shithole servers"?

While we might not be "kindergarten" any more, there's definitely users who are in early highschool and users who are vulnerable to cults.

That said, I don't see hexbear being nearly as dangerous because unlike neo-nazis, state violence isn't the goal.

Take the murder and enslavement out of modern Nazism and there's nothing left, because murder and enslavement was the point. Take the murder out of communism and socialism and you've got a fairer, less exploitative society because a fairer, less exploitative society was the point.

Just because somebody stole food because they're an asshole doesn't mean that everybody who steals food is an asshole.

We don't actually know which is true here, but we do know that it's far more likely someone is stealing groceries because the wealth inequality horrorshow has grown even more perverse in the last year.

Nevertheless, rather than defending an unnamed person from potentially reprehensible police, you defended the police and an unnamed retail store from a potentially reprehensible person.

I hope you've got shares in a grocery chain because it would be deeply pitiful if you weren't even doing this out of self-interest.

I guess if you lash out at absolutely everybody, eventually one of them will do something to deserve it.

They say it's so teachers can protect themselves and their students (from the consequences of failed gun laws) but really, it's just because they have to say something -- and it can't be the truth.

At a civilian level, most of them simply don't care. They're confident it will never be their kids and they consider a stranger's children less important than their own easy access to firearms.

But they can't say that, so they make flowery comments about freedom, defending their family and how they're the ones keeping America out of the hands of tyrants, even though they staunchly support tyrants and wouldn't even wear a mask to protect other people, let alone fight and die for them.

On the corporate and political level, there's good money and easy votes in guns. It's no different to tobacco, asbestos and everything else they fought to profit from even as it killed people.

But they can't say that either. So instead, they coordinate what today's scapegoat is going to be. Computer games? Too many doors? Timid police? Whatever keeps the money flowing.

The important part for all of them is demanding other solutions are tried before gun control. They know they won't work, but it will buy them more time and the more time they waste, the better.

That's why their current solution is "free, universal healthcare for everybody in America, including 5 year olds and people who don't want treatment, done to a standard far beyond even the most cutting edge of medicine, completely and permanently curing people in less time than it takes to buy a gun".

Which they then block anyway, because it's important their conditions for supporting gun control are never met.

But if we start punishing rich people for crimes, what's next? Punishing other rich people for their crimes?

Because it turns turns billions in public funds into billions in private profits.

The fact that those profits come at the expense of children's lives doesn't worry the oil and gas industries, so why would it worry weapons manufacturers?

In a shocking plot twist, Gamers have no sympathy for an abused and/or manipulated woman.

That's only when they're on duty. Off duty, they gravitate more towards punching their wives.

They didn't "review" subs when there was one using images of children as child pornography, without the subjects knowledge or consent.

They didn't "review" subs when mask-off, far-right extremists moved in and started trading slurs and writing murder fantasies.

They didn't "review" subs when reactionaries were spreading dangerous and clearly false medical misinformation in the middle of a pandemic.

But they'll review subs when those subs might be a threat to their revenue.

Apparently it's how you kill people that matters.

Gunning down innocent people (including children)? Unacceptable and genocide justifying.

Exploding innocent people (including children) from a distance using bombs manufactured and sold for profit? No problem, carry on, we won't even report it.

I guess the real crime was "not spending enough money" and not all the murder.

If we're throwing out Wikipedia links, here are the actual laws in Switzerland, many of which the pro-gun community in America staunchly oppose adopting, including the mandatory military service that would actually qualify gun owners to be part of a "well regulated militia".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Switzerland

It doesn't seep in, it's cultivated by far-right groups that intentionally target children and openly groom them for extremism.

You're already projecting compassion he doesn't have by assuming he'd wait for them to turn 18. If he thought it would work, he'd march 5 year olds in bomb vests over the border then have Elon announce that Ukraine kills children.

They were 100% aware they were hosting a "not technically child pornography but we're going to use it as child pornography" sub, but there's no subreddit degenerate enough that they'll ban it while it's profitable.

The most direct and effective strategy to inspire reform in their practices is to stop using of their platforms.

The whole "the free market could fix it" is just neoliberal bullshit. The most hated companies in the world continue to bring in record profits and its not because people prefer their chocolate is harvested by child slaves.

They're fully aware that it never works, but they just keep suggesting it over and over again, growing richer with successive failure, all the while blaming consumers for not preventing them doing sleazy, greedy things.

The actual most direct and effective strategy is regulations. That's why they hate them and why there are so many of them in politics.

That was always the point. This all started because he was trying to use his influence to shame Twitter into platforming the far-right and then accidentally ended up comitting to buy it.

Everything he has done since has either been to benefit far-right racists and reactionaries or try and mitigate the massive loss he is going to take with the purchase.

The year of Sandy Hook, the gun lobby increased their "donations" to Republicans from $8 million to $16 million per year, where it remains to this day.

Also, be wary of saying "assault weapons" as it's vague and used by the pro-gun crowd to undermine discussion -- semi-automatic guns are the weapon of choice for criminals, terrorists and domestic abusers and are not necessary for hunting nor hobby shooting.

It's why they're strictly controlled in most countries.