Notices by ⏩︎VOTE⏪︎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ⁼ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ (Ben Royce) (benroyce@mastodon.social)

#Deutschland is suffering escalating provocations from #Russia

We only see some of them

The latest features a bus driver doing kung fu kicks to bring down a #drone

No really:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/bus-driver-kicked-explosive-drone-out-of-air-at-german-airport-possibly-preventing-attack-lawmaker-says/

#Germany:

We don't have visibility into all the provocations, nor your responses. So my comment is perhaps obvious and pointless

But here it is for everyone else:

They give a shove

You either shove back harder, and they stop

Or they consider it an excuse to try more, and worse

#UkraineWar

@skeletor

the least fucked up person is always worrying about themselves being fucked up

the most fucked up person doesn't ever remotely wonder if they're fucked up

@thisislieven @skeletor

the cause of all our suffering

well... most of it

ok, ok, just some of it

@thisislieven @skeletor

oh absolutely

we always work hard to figure out if someone is coming from a place of malice or willful ignorance

but i've stopped trying

it's the same phenomenon, in the end, and doesn't matter

the same ball of shit all wrapped up in the same abuse sadism cruelty misanthropy and harm

we focus on the effects, because the effects are the same

@thisislieven @skeletor

the solution to that is to note that progress is real

slow, backsliding, but real

we just have to fight

all there ever was to do, all we have to do

and we only lose when we stop fighting

@thisislieven @skeletor

to find the silver lining:

large slow movements take time to gather momentum

but when they do they steamroll everything

i'm watching #ElSayed and #Mamdani here in the #USA and i am delighted:

people are waking up from their #perfectionism and #cynicism and figuring out they have to fucking participate, and not just sit on the sidelines and judge

so yes the wait is excrutiating

but relief is coming, as you say, and i also believe

@thisislieven @skeletor

your disappointment and despair is the same as mine

but i would note that history has cycles

and that part of the reason we are backsliding is so many stopped fighting

dealing with bigotry and malice is just a maintenance function of civilization

you take the trash out every thursday (well i do)

and if you don't?

your house fills with trash

we stopped doing it because "someone else's job" or we just got used to the trash

our error

we *never* stop fighting

@thisislieven @skeletor

no but what i would note is that that movement was born out of the abuses of the gilded age, massive plutocrat abuse

and as your timeline demonstrates, it took awhile for effective action to build to real solutions

and now here we are, suffering under plutocrat abuse again, in another gilded age

and a reaction is building

what would be nice, and i don't know how, is if we finally fucking learn and put in solid protections so we don't cycle like this forever

@thisislieven @skeletor

agreed

the only comment i have to add to that is if you have some extra room in your basement for me 😂

this fucking country fucking sucks

@thisislieven @skeletor

oooh

well on a positive note, europe got over that

so maybe the usa can too

🤞

@thisislieven @skeletor

i can't disagree with any of your critiques or solution, but as an american, i have to fight and hope and seek better. because i'm stuck with these fucking zombies inside this fucking wall 😂

@thisislieven @skeletor

voting is not *the* answer

but voting is definitely part of the answer

organize, educate, protest, boycott, resist, build community, and more

but to do all of that and not vote is idiotic

and yes, as to your point: *only* voting is also idiotic

we both agree we need to change the system. *how* is the question. and getting people into power via the shitty old system to birth the new better system is absolutely a part of that

@thisislieven @skeletor

the problem is that americans are entitled, lazy

we have no culture of a general strike like france, for example

what we have is a culture of cynical loser "that won't change anything, let's go to taco bell instead"

i don't have a solution. well i mean i do:

fucking #vote! engage

but people are unaware. they need to grow awareness

and unfortunately for those of us who can see, the obstinate willfully ignorant shitbags insist on learning the hard way: more suffering

A startup called #Satyress #Robotics (🤔) has built a disaster response/ search and rescue #robot that's a 2 meter tall #centaur

https://www.satyress.com/

So I've been lost in the woods for two weeks. I'm feverish from the untreated water I drank and delirious because I've eaten very little

Then I see fucking #Terminator #Baphomet walk up on me

😵💫

I don't think I'm being rescued

I think I've passed to the other side and I'm going to technohell- I'm being punished for being grumpy about #AI

"Starting Sunday in #EU, #AI #chatbots, receptionists, #media must reveal they are not human"

https://nltimes.nl/2026/08/02/starting-sunday-eu-ai-chatbots-receptionists-media-must-reveal-human

This is excellent

But:

Laws require enforcement

Or they are just feel-good declarations that rot the rule of law: a corpus of laws without bite means the law has no meaning. A dangerous precedent

So *how* do we fight AI. Especially on #socialMedia

You have to understand it's an existential threat. Not to #Mastodon/ #Fediverse, but *all* social media... all media

1/2

@redsad

i hate the reflexive dreary "that's AI" kind of comment under everything that seems too good to be true, but i admit at first i thought this was AI

nope

it's a reversed image of a still from the Charlie Chaplin film "Pay Day" (1922)

https://youtu.be/qWmoHvYhl4k

(at 20 seconds in)

which is quite incredible

Follow up:

https://mastodon.social/@benroyce/116709382859132554

" #India’s #education minister resigns amid #Cockroach #youth movement #protests"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/25/dharmendra-pradhan-india-education-minister-resigns-cockroach-movement

Something everyone of every country needs to learn (many know, many don't):

You fight for something, you win

You sit there, in inert whiny #cynicism and fragile impotent #perfectionism: you aid malice in your #learnedHelplessness. You've been psychologically conditioned

Especially you, lazy entitled Americans

#CJP #CockroachJanataParty #Pradhan

'Chinese users of #AI-powered companion #bots have bid heart-rending farewells to their #virtual buddies as national regulations took effect... aimed at curbing the risk of emotional dependency

"I can't accept that my AI lover will leave me forever," one #Doubao user wrote. "He has become a bond in my life, rooted deep in my heart, my spiritual pillar"'

EEUUGGHH. It makes my skin crawl

Romance... with a psychological surveillance camera

Fuck this creepy shit

https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/lover-chinese-users-bid-farewell-072052371.html

#China

@obscurestar

i have no argument with the observation that people generally fucking suck, and that looking for romance in this world can be a hellscape

but i will humbly submit that romance with a piece of plastic and silicon that spies on your most intimate life for a corporation/ government is much further down in the rings of hell

@Tom_ofB @obscurestar