5 ms·

I apologize to my Canadian friends. This is embarrassing.

by cebert 15d ago

abirch 15d ago
This is Idiocracy the movie IRL. I can't wait for plants to need electrolytes.
- throw0101a 15d ago
  > This is Idiocracy the movie IRL. The difference being that in the movie Idiocracy the President didn't assume he knew everything and was willing to listen to people who knew more than him.
  - ryandvm 15d ago
    Jesus, please do not remind me that the President in Idiocracy had better leadership skills than our actual President.
- drooopy 15d ago
  In the meantime, might I interest you in some protein water?
  - polotics 15d ago
    I disagree. This trolling and misdirection are not in the movie. Also, both are clearly effective, and a discourse that warps economic impact on US midterms voters within identities, reduces the chance of exposing the bad consequences and risks of power-politics. So this is quite well timed, and the outrageous quotient is I think also well calibrated. Charles Chaplin understood it, so please y'all catch up ASAP.
- jameskilton 15d ago
  No, I'd much rather have Idiocracy than the orange buffoon we actually have in office.
- gizajob 15d ago
  Putting a UFC fighting cage on the lawn of the White House was another acceleration in that direction I didn’t imagine I’d live to see.
- BoxOfRain 15d ago
  I always felt that film was lazy in how it presents its premise. Maybe there's naunces I'm missing because I'm not American, but it made me feel a bit gross in the same way a lot of pop culture around 'chavs' in the UK made me feel a bit gross. I don't think always refraining from punching down is a good rule in comedy, but I struggle to find much comedy in things which are nothing but punching down.
  - gizajob 15d ago
    Idiocracy is more like a work of Baudrillardian philosophy though, it isn’t punching down, it’s extrapolating upwards.
    - BoxOfRain 15d ago
      Admittedly it's been a long time since I watched it but isn't the introduction sequence straight-up apologia for the theories behind eugenics? The idea 'what if society got massively more stupid' isn't a bad one for a film but 'the rabbit-like hordes of the stupid outgroup ourbred our elite ingroup to extinction' rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I'm being unfair to the film because of the fanbase as well. I've always seen it as a mild red flag when someone says it's their favourite comedy, but it's hardly the film's fault it got popular on places like reddit.
      - gizajob 15d ago
        I think it’s a joke, not an apologia. If one can’t read it as a joke, then that’s on them. It’s a piece of satire forming a work of political and social philosophy, and a middling straight-to-video movie.
      - creaturemachine 15d ago
        You're reading into it too much. It's more likely they needed a comical backstory, and Flagpole Sitta was playing on the radio.
      - dinfinity 15d ago
        > Maybe I'm being unfair to the film because of the fanbase as well. I've always seen it as a mild red flag when someone says it's their favourite comedy, but it's hardly the film's fault it got popular on places like reddit. This is circular reasoning: You don't like the film because of the fanbase which you don't like because they like the film. There is no "apologia for eugenics" in the intro. You have to actively infer that as a logical consequence ("we need to prevent stupid people from procreating as much") of what is shown ("society becomes stupid when stupid people procreate more than intelligent people"). The reason it is only in the intro and is never revisited is that it is just the setup for the actual movie, not a message in itself (the whole sequence is in fact very dissimilar from the rest of the movie). A more accurate setup would be that we have a culture that selects for primitive behavior and is anti-intellectual, but that isn't as funny as showing Cletus fucking everything that moves.
pfdietz 15d ago
Yes, but it's also Trump and the GOP self-immolating. November is going to be a historic electoral wipeout. I expect the next administration will push through some laws limiting this sort of idiocy.
- throw0101a 15d ago
  > November is going to be a historic electoral wipeout. So you have faith in the average American voter? (Or at least a plurality of them?)
  - pfdietz 15d ago
    The polls are increasingly dire for the GOP. They're even losing the military vote.
    - nullocator 15d ago
      Polls for the last few decades haven't really been all that accurate or good ("it's 50/50" - worthless). You also seem to be ignoring all the systematic changes that have been made during Trump 2 in your prediction for such huge wins for the democrats. Things like the final destruction of the Voting Rights Act and the extreme Gerrymandering have gone mostly towards republicans. Also 32% of voters (or more) still don't really see a distinction against Donald Trump and The Almighty. Forgive me but I'm not convinced it'll be the bloodbath you think it's going to be. Democrats might have a minor edge in the house when all is said and done and literally nothing else to show for it.
      - tialaramex 15d ago
        Gerrymandering can help Republicans in the lower chamber† but it can't help in the Senate where they're most scared. Every voter in Texas gets to decide whether to pick Ken Paxton or James Talarico and perhaps more importantly if they can't stomach voting for somebody with a D next to their name, they can decide they were too busy that day to go vote at all so it's not really their fault. † But it might not, if you turn five 7/3 R seats and two 9/1 D seats into six 6/4 and one 9/1 you risk a dummymander where too many of "your" voters vote the "wrong" way and you have seven Democrats elected even though you still took almost 50% of the vote in some districts and you drew the maps. Now the trouble is that voters seem to be imagining that if the Democrats take the Legislature that's the whole ball of wax and it just isn't. If there's a narrow D majority in both parts of Congress you can expect that to stall the stupidest stuff from Trump which was subject to congressional oversight, but the useless "We need bipartisanship" mewling will start almost immediately from people who apparently were 100% fine with party-line Republican decisions or executive override.
VladVladikoff 15d ago
As a Canadian, we are mostly just laughing about how childish he is. As a Canadian business owner who has American customers, I’m far more concerned about his temper tantrums relating to trade, however so far they have not impacted my sector.
- JKCalhoun 15d ago
  As an USAmerican I am laughing as well. (Laughing and crying.)
  - scoofy 15d ago
    Mostly crying.
atonse 15d ago
Not sure what’s there to apologize about. Canada can still call it Lake Ontario right? Or I wonder if it matters whether it’s on American soil or not whether international bodies recognize it?
- Hugsbox 15d ago
  It's a transparently disrespectful move. Apologizing for disrespectful behaviour is pretty normal.
charcircuit 15d ago
Why not choose to feel patriotic about the decision. It gives us recognition for what we've done with the body of water. Arguably the fact that you feel embarrassed or need to apologize shows the lack of patriotism you feel over the body of water, so I think this new name can help future people feel patriotic over it. There is a lot of power in a name.
- kijashdkujdfhas 15d ago
  The name is older than the US or Canada.
  - charcircuit 15d ago
    That doesn't mean it should not be changed. How the lake existed back then and how it exists now is different so it is more deserving of a name change than other name changes that have happened.
    - kijashdkujdfhas 15d ago
      It's much better reasoning than the petulant tantrums of a mental infant.
- deleted 15d ago
  [deleted]
- netsharc 15d ago
  As Oscar Wilde didn't say: "Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious": https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/06/28/patriot/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/06/28/patriot/ How do you have pride when the leader of your tribe is a liar, swindler, rapist, thug? What a simplistic mind that says unthinkingly "Well the leader of my country wants it, I'm not going to question him, rah rah!"
  - charcircuit 15d ago
    I have pride because America is the best country on Earth composed of the best people on Earth.
NuclearPM 15d ago
We’ll never trust the US again, unfortunately.
diego_moita 15d ago
> I apologize to my Canadian friends. As a Canadian I say: please don't apologize; we're actually enjoying this. The US could retaliate in a lot of other ways that could be much more hurtful to us: higher tariffs, break collaboration treaties, etc. The fact that Trump is "fighting back" with something this lame is just funny. It is like watching a 5 year old throwing a tantrum. Compare this reaction with dogs. When a rottweiler or Doberman is angry with you, it attacks and hurts you. When a chihuahua or terrier is angry at you, it just makes a lot of noise. Trump's reaction is like a chihuahua, it is not like a rottweiler.

I apologize to my Canadian friends. This is embarrassing.

by cebert 15d ago

I apologize to my Canadian friends. This is embarrassing.

abirch 15d ago

This is Idiocracy the movie IRL. I can't wait for plants to need electrolytes.

throw0101a 15d ago
> This is Idiocracy the movie IRL. The difference being that in the movie Idiocracy the President didn't assume he knew everything and was willing to listen to people who knew more than him.
- ryandvm 15d ago
  Jesus, please do not remind me that the President in Idiocracy had better leadership skills than our actual President.
drooopy 15d ago
In the meantime, might I interest you in some protein water?
- polotics 15d ago
  I disagree. This trolling and misdirection are not in the movie. Also, both are clearly effective, and a discourse that warps economic impact on US midterms voters within identities, reduces the chance of exposing the bad consequences and risks of power-politics. So this is quite well timed, and the outrageous quotient is I think also well calibrated. Charles Chaplin understood it, so please y'all catch up ASAP.
jameskilton 15d ago
No, I'd much rather have Idiocracy than the orange buffoon we actually have in office.
gizajob 15d ago
Putting a UFC fighting cage on the lawn of the White House was another acceleration in that direction I didn’t imagine I’d live to see.
BoxOfRain 15d ago
I always felt that film was lazy in how it presents its premise. Maybe there's naunces I'm missing because I'm not American, but it made me feel a bit gross in the same way a lot of pop culture around 'chavs' in the UK made me feel a bit gross. I don't think always refraining from punching down is a good rule in comedy, but I struggle to find much comedy in things which are nothing but punching down.
- gizajob 15d ago
  Idiocracy is more like a work of Baudrillardian philosophy though, it isn’t punching down, it’s extrapolating upwards.
  - BoxOfRain 15d ago
    Admittedly it's been a long time since I watched it but isn't the introduction sequence straight-up apologia for the theories behind eugenics? The idea 'what if society got massively more stupid' isn't a bad one for a film but 'the rabbit-like hordes of the stupid outgroup ourbred our elite ingroup to extinction' rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I'm being unfair to the film because of the fanbase as well. I've always seen it as a mild red flag when someone says it's their favourite comedy, but it's hardly the film's fault it got popular on places like reddit.
    - gizajob 15d ago
      I think it’s a joke, not an apologia. If one can’t read it as a joke, then that’s on them. It’s a piece of satire forming a work of political and social philosophy, and a middling straight-to-video movie.
    - creaturemachine 15d ago
      You're reading into it too much. It's more likely they needed a comical backstory, and Flagpole Sitta was playing on the radio.
    - dinfinity 15d ago
      > Maybe I'm being unfair to the film because of the fanbase as well. I've always seen it as a mild red flag when someone says it's their favourite comedy, but it's hardly the film's fault it got popular on places like reddit. This is circular reasoning: You don't like the film because of the fanbase which you don't like because they like the film. There is no "apologia for eugenics" in the intro. You have to actively infer that as a logical consequence ("we need to prevent stupid people from procreating as much") of what is shown ("society becomes stupid when stupid people procreate more than intelligent people"). The reason it is only in the intro and is never revisited is that it is just the setup for the actual movie, not a message in itself (the whole sequence is in fact very dissimilar from the rest of the movie). A more accurate setup would be that we have a culture that selects for primitive behavior and is anti-intellectual, but that isn't as funny as showing Cletus fucking everything that moves.

pfdietz 15d ago

Yes, but it's also Trump and the GOP self-immolating. November is going to be a historic electoral wipeout. I expect the next administration will push through some laws limiting this sort of idiocy.

throw0101a 15d ago
> November is going to be a historic electoral wipeout. So you have faith in the average American voter? (Or at least a plurality of them?)
- pfdietz 15d ago
  The polls are increasingly dire for the GOP. They're even losing the military vote.
  - nullocator 15d ago
    Polls for the last few decades haven't really been all that accurate or good ("it's 50/50" - worthless). You also seem to be ignoring all the systematic changes that have been made during Trump 2 in your prediction for such huge wins for the democrats. Things like the final destruction of the Voting Rights Act and the extreme Gerrymandering have gone mostly towards republicans. Also 32% of voters (or more) still don't really see a distinction against Donald Trump and The Almighty. Forgive me but I'm not convinced it'll be the bloodbath you think it's going to be. Democrats might have a minor edge in the house when all is said and done and literally nothing else to show for it.
    - tialaramex 15d ago
      Gerrymandering can help Republicans in the lower chamber† but it can't help in the Senate where they're most scared. Every voter in Texas gets to decide whether to pick Ken Paxton or James Talarico and perhaps more importantly if they can't stomach voting for somebody with a D next to their name, they can decide they were too busy that day to go vote at all so it's not really their fault. † But it might not, if you turn five 7/3 R seats and two 9/1 D seats into six 6/4 and one 9/1 you risk a dummymander where too many of "your" voters vote the "wrong" way and you have seven Democrats elected even though you still took almost 50% of the vote in some districts and you drew the maps. Now the trouble is that voters seem to be imagining that if the Democrats take the Legislature that's the whole ball of wax and it just isn't. If there's a narrow D majority in both parts of Congress you can expect that to stall the stupidest stuff from Trump which was subject to congressional oversight, but the useless "We need bipartisanship" mewling will start almost immediately from people who apparently were 100% fine with party-line Republican decisions or executive override.

VladVladikoff 15d ago

As a Canadian, we are mostly just laughing about how childish he is. As a Canadian business owner who has American customers, I’m far more concerned about his temper tantrums relating to trade, however so far they have not impacted my sector.

JKCalhoun 15d ago
As an USAmerican I am laughing as well. (Laughing and crying.)
- scoofy 15d ago
  Mostly crying.

atonse 15d ago

Not sure what’s there to apologize about. Canada can still call it Lake Ontario right? Or I wonder if it matters whether it’s on American soil or not whether international bodies recognize it?

Hugsbox 15d ago
It's a transparently disrespectful move. Apologizing for disrespectful behaviour is pretty normal.

charcircuit 15d ago

Why not choose to feel patriotic about the decision. It gives us recognition for what we've done with the body of water. Arguably the fact that you feel embarrassed or need to apologize shows the lack of patriotism you feel over the body of water, so I think this new name can help future people feel patriotic over it. There is a lot of power in a name.

kijashdkujdfhas 15d ago
The name is older than the US or Canada.
- charcircuit 15d ago
  That doesn't mean it should not be changed. How the lake existed back then and how it exists now is different so it is more deserving of a name change than other name changes that have happened.
  - kijashdkujdfhas 15d ago
    It's much better reasoning than the petulant tantrums of a mental infant.
deleted 15d ago
[deleted]
netsharc 15d ago
As Oscar Wilde didn't say: "Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious": https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/06/28/patriot/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/06/28/patriot/ How do you have pride when the leader of your tribe is a liar, swindler, rapist, thug? What a simplistic mind that says unthinkingly "Well the leader of my country wants it, I'm not going to question him, rah rah!"
- charcircuit 15d ago
  I have pride because America is the best country on Earth composed of the best people on Earth.

NuclearPM 15d ago

We’ll never trust the US again, unfortunately.

diego_moita 15d ago

> I apologize to my Canadian friends. As a Canadian I say: please don't apologize; we're actually enjoying this. The US could retaliate in a lot of other ways that could be much more hurtful to us: higher tariffs, break collaboration treaties, etc. The fact that Trump is "fighting back" with something this lame is just funny. It is like watching a 5 year old throwing a tantrum. Compare this reaction with dogs. When a rottweiler or Doberman is angry with you, it attacks and hurts you. When a chihuahua or terrier is angry at you, it just makes a lot of noise. Trump's reaction is like a chihuahua, it is not like a rottweiler.