Oh, if only that were true.

But what about that one guy who writes absolutely brilliant VB?

Again, it’s “Don’t quote the troll”. Some of us learned this in Usenet in the 1990s.

Saying “This is bullshit” or “You’re weird” without engaging with their ideas stops the contagion from spreading.

It is, though. Studies in disinformation have proven this. This is why right-wing bullshitters are so eager to engage in debate: just getting the chance to show up and be refuted in a legitmate setting, like a major newspaper, gives them an audience for the ideas and credibility, that their position is one worthy of refute.

This is how we got the alt-right in 2015: by taking neo-Nazis seriously.

This is what the media doesn’t understand, and why fact-checkers are getting–correctly–rolled on social media. Every time you bring up one of these lies, even to fact check it–especially to fact-check it–you give it credibility.

This is why the Harris/Walz campaign’s tactic of ridicule is working so well. Instead of saying “No, you’re wrong about XXX because YYYY and ZZZZ”, they’re saying “What is wrong with you? You’re weird.” The latter doesn’t give the lie any oxygen.

“Liberal” doesn’t mean what many people think it means.

It doesn’t mean “leftist” or “progressive” or “humane”. There might be some overlap, but these are not the same things, despite conservatives trying to define them as such.

Yes it is.

You might not wish it to be, but fact-checking absolutely does amplify fake news, especially if you give details.

A simple “this story is bullshit” is all that’s needed

And now you, the mainstream media, are amplifying it and giving it oxygen.

It’s like y’all never learned the old Usenet adage: “don’t feed (quote) the trolls”.

Doesn’t Mint use native packages where Ubuntu is snap-happy?

Pirate an old, pre-CC version.

That’s what I do. Admittedly it’s Photoshop 3.0 on a Mac Quadra.

Australians are basically US americans of the south (think food: originally british, cannot be healthy, no good car manufacturers, afraid of foreigners…)

They’re really more like Canadians than Americans, although I’ve heard it said that New Zealand more accurately fills that role

The market has solved it.

You just don’t realize what the market has solved for. It didn’t solve the problem of expensive healthcare, it solved the problem of how to maximize profits for the wealthy.

That’s what people don’t understand about “the market”. What you think it’s doing isn’t what it’s actually doing.