Tell me you’re a foreign intelligence agent without saying you’re a foreign intelligence agent.

Never run for office. I implore you.

Think of foreign policy as a ladder, and you are the person in charge of your country (or at least their foreign relations). Each rung is a new action you can take to influence the behavior of other countries.

The first step is formal communications. That’s easy, you’re probably on that step with just about every other nation. The next few rings are all other friendly diplomatic steps, things like opening embassies, making trade agreements, non-aggression pacts, etc.

Now let’s say a neighboring country is doing something you don’t like. Your nation’s grievance with them will fall into one of a few broad categories: they are a threat to your security, they are a threat to your interests, or they are a threat to your honor (meaning your international reputation). Whatever the reason, your job is to change their behavior and none of the previous steps on the ladder have worked, so now you climb higher.

The next rungs are less friendly, but are still diplomatic. These are things like denouncements, cessation of trade, tariffs, and sanctions. At the very top of this set of rungs, you close your embassy and demand they close theirs. You break off most communication. Finally, you tell the whole world why they have wronged you.

Now you’ve done everything you can diplomatically, but their behavior is still a threat to your security, interest, or honor. How do you change their behavior? There are more rungs on the ladder.

Going all the way back to Sun Tzu, generals have known that their job was to take over when the diplomats failed. This doesn’t mean that total war is immediate or inevitable. The military could conduct raids, surgical strikes, or enforce an embargo. Warfare is simply the top rungs of the ladder of foreign policy. Some nations climb it more quickly or willingly than others, but war exists on the same spectrum as diplomacy.

That level of change took centuries and I still understand it.

The internet speeds up change to the point where we’ll lose intelligibility.

Yep, real childish of me to insist that our goddamned primary communication protocols remain consistent because it would cut down on fun improvisation.

Yeah, I missed “to mean”. Looks like at least one other guy did, too.

Sure, but Jesus Christ fucking up part of speech is a childish mistake to embrace. Maybe we shouldn’t just go along with every fuckup people on Tic Tok lean into.

It is the proper usage.

Then your example should have been “this house is aesthetic”. Aesthetic is being used as an adjective.

Saying “this house has a pleasing aesthetic” is correct. Aesthetic is being used as a noun. “Pleasing” is the adjective. While the aesthetic is not defined enough to your liking, it isn’t being used as an adjective.

Use your original wording and replace the word “aesthetic” with the word “quality”. “This house has a pleasing quality” is a proper sentence. Sure, there’s ambiguity as to what that quality is (is it the shape of it? Is it the color? Perhaps the landscaping?), but it isn’t grammatically incorrect.

Lemmy is full of lunatics. You found one.

Lemmy has the highest “user” to “dudes off their meds” ratio of any online platform.

I was about to say …

Vox can speak for itself. Big sections of the public knew they were being sold a bill of goods.

I heard about her video on fucking NPR. Seriously.

All Things Considered did a little piece talking about how long form video essays are becoming more popular, but they concluded by saying that she did a bang-up job and had some good insights.

It’s not a standing ovation, but having NPR run a story on your video and compliment your coverage is pretty damn skippy.

Boneappletea

Here’s a joke for you: A man is ROWING down a RIVER. He gets to the waterfall, and when the goes over the edge he yells “RADIO!!!”

So did I just disrespect you and waste your time, or do I get a pass because it’s so random and it subverts your expectations of how a joke could be structured?

Being weird, or quirky, or SuBveRtInG eXpEcTatiONs doesn’t give anybody a pass for their creations not working on a basic level.

Yeah, and there would have been a bunch of punchlines throughout.

Storytelling of any kind is about setups and payoffs. The comic has two actual, decent setups and zero payoffs. In fact all of the praise for the comic comes from people (including you) who explicitly said what made them laugh was what they "imagined*.

It’s the creator’s job to actually provide a good payoff at the end. Yes, threads can be left hanging. Yes, things can be left to the imagination. But in this case specifically both of those strategies are abused to the point that the only way this comic is even passable is if readers are extremely charitable and provide their own ending.

Yeah, I’ve seen all of Flying Circus and all of their movies.

Monty Python did absurdist stuff, but they didn’t violate core principles of timing and surprise. Jokes recurred or dragged at times without overstaying their welcome.

A piece of absurdist humor still needs to be humorous. Being weird doesn’t absolve something from being boring or pointless.

Yep, it’s definitely that and not the fact that this is a dogshit comic.

Nosiree.

The core of humor is doing something unexpected. “Willy Wonka makes turnips” is unexpected. The same is true with “Charlie doesn’t like what Willy Wonka makes”.

The problem is that both of those things are telegraphed really early, thus defusing any surprise they could have delivered. By the last frame we expect Charlie to have a bad time at Willy Wonka’s factory, and he does.

This comic is making animal noises into a microphone and Chuck Berry wants to slap the shit out of it.

“Subverting expectations” is like jazz.

A good jazz musician knows the rules of music. They choose which ones to bend and which ones to break. When a couple of rules are broken here and there it’s pleasurable and exciting.

When too many rules are broken, it’s Yoko Ono.