19 Comments

Ta, Steve and Ellis. This is horrifying, but I can't look away.

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Stimpy's got some trauma, methinks.

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Please tell me there's at least an outline taking this story all the way through to a conclusion.

I've read too many serialized stories where the author(s) just keep adding chapter after chapter until they get bored, and the story ends without anything resembling a conclusion.

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My brother wrote a story for our high school literary magazine that ended with a cliffhanger. He had no idea at that point how it was going to end the next year. Luckily he figured it out in time.

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So you've read "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" as well? I was really hoping for a conclusion.

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founding

If this country were to agree to "break up," it seems far too complex and intertwined to actually do it. Just the mix of red and blue areas within various states would make our "divorce" impossible. I heard somewhere that eastern Washington state wants to become part of Idaho for ideological reasons, for example. I guess we'd have to negotiate some kind of agreement where these specific areas will belong to Trumpistan while these specific areas will be...what...New America?

Realistically, I understand that doing this in any kind of formal way is about as likely as Trump being reborn as a rational, thoughtful, progressive human. Still...I have to admit that I would really love to see the backs of my RWNJ neighbors as they set off to wherethefuck their RWNJ utopia is (or where they think it will be).

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Eastern Oregon, not Washington so much. Also, (some counties in) far northern California wants to make its own state. The idiocy is real.

I agree that the divide is along urban/rural boundaries and cannot be made cleanly. That's why this is fiction.

So far.

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founding

Thanks for clarifying. I spent some time in both eastern Oregon and Washington. Beautiful landscape but yeah, super right wing.

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Eastern Washington is full of fascists.

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Oh I know, I'm related to some of them. That said, I'm not aware of a movement similar to the Oregon counties that want to join Greater Idaho. Could be my ignorance at work.

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Again, I'll put in a plug for Paluhniuk's "Adjustment Day."

There's a revolution and split of the country into three along more, shall we say ... more interesting lines than left and right or even political. ... Something that involves baroque music and peacock tongues and machines that produce meat without the slaughter of animals and forced insimination of lesbians to produce babies to swap for gay inhabitants of the other two states.

There's also a very vivid scene that involves the handiwork of brown recluse spiders that is a true Paluhniuik touch for sure.

It's definitely worth the read.

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founding

Hey, thanks for the book suggestion. I need something new to read, so I'll check it out.

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I do not believe that I have EVER felt so damned proud of designating myself an "anti-theist" several years ago when I was an active member of the YouTube atheist community.

Now I miss Ren even more agonizingly than I did before.

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"this country is controlled by ruthless and greedy people manipulating stupid and ignorant people"

A smaller scale version of that sounds chillingly familiar...

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Welcome to Idasippiotamingas.

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It is more than a tad disconcerting just how...familiar this storyline has become.

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We're watching an attempt to BUILD that world in real time. And it's going about as well.

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Going in just a little deeper into what we're looking at should things turn even more sour. 🫣

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It's almost like the problem is religion.

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