Not arguing about Akira being peak, but “anime” isn’t a genre, it’s a medium.

People say that Blink is the episode to show people you want to watch Doctor Who. It’s a good episode, it’s a good Doctor Who episode, no doubt, but wtf it is NOT representative of the show. An episode that leaves me questioning “Who even is that Doctor person that was in it for an entire 5 minutes but seems to be the main character”? If that was the first thing I’d seen of Doctor Who, I would’ve been SO confused (and probably disappointed) by everything else.

Start at S01E01 Rose or S05E01 The Eleventh Hour or maybe S11E01 The Woman Who Fell to Earth or, if you’re very courageous, S01E01 An Unearthly Child. But BLINK?! Fuck.

But how does that help? If I send past me a message, can past me change anything? What happens to the me that sent the message if past me receives it and changes stuff? Seems like you’re creating a classic time travel paradox.

Hey! Whatever it is you just said about our reading comprehension, you take that back!

My opinion of you is definitely my problem, true. You did seem interested, based on the fact that you posted in a public place, but I suppose that was an error on my part. Good day, sir/ma’am (genderneutral).

Okay. Just fyi, you using AI forces me to assume you don’t care enough about whatever issue you have with the guy to put in the effort.

The AI is what hurts, mostly.

There are efforts to do just that, neocities comes to mind. Problem is that it takes a lot more active participation.

In many cases it may be intended to start a discourse

The question mark at the end of a sentence usually denotes a question. What you said seems to me to imply that we don’t have any non-totalitarian countries because I don’t see any that have these things as end goals (outside of empty promises from politicians).

For that matter, I don’t even know what an “end goal” for a country would be. That’s what I was trying to get at originally. Countries don’t have end goals, beyond “stay existent”.

By this point, I suspect a lot of people who use the term don’t actually know anymore. To them it just means “the shadowy bad guys who want to ruin my life specifically”.

So you’re saying we don’t have any non-totalitarian countries?

What is the end of goal of a non-totalitarian country?

Oh yeah? Well 🖕

They arent Ukrainians, what would make you think that.

Or Argentinians or New Zealandians or Norwegians or South Africans or whatever. What would make me think that (if I even thought of ANY nationality) is that I don’t know, I know nothing about any military, I wouldn’t recognise them unless they have very ostentatious symbols of their nationality somewhere on them or I’m being told “these are [country]ans”. That’s why I said “for all I know” and then added the most polar opposite option I could think of.

added to that where this picture was taken

Which I also don’t recognise. Might be anywhere in the world. (well, “anywhere” is an exaggeration, it does look rather hot and dry)

“russias new mega blaster 9000 russia strong hahaha”.

That would count as propaganda, of course, from that person in particular.

people would probably not laugh about a picture showing a American Drone strike with the caption “dropped a big one in the toilet”

I don’t know, active drone strikes seem different to me from some dude posing with a stupid big gun. The connection to “Americans being posers in Walmart” is a lot stronger.

Anyway, what I can accept is that people might use this picture for their actual propaganda if it is spread around, I get that, and I agree that we need to be cautious. I’d venture though to say that anything that is even remotely related to some kind of national identity can be used that way. That includes stuff like news coverage of Russian aggression (“Woah what is that weapon making the cool fireworks over Kyiv?”).

Thinking about this (too much, sorry), I had another thought: if this picture (on its own) counts as Russian propaganda, shouldn’t that be more reason to use it like this? Really what it does then is equate (apparent) Russian military with stereotypically pathetic Americans who feel like they need to demonstrate their power by taking guns to go buy a drink. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?

I don’t know, it at least doesn’t seem like very effective propaganda if only a tiny group of people even recognise what it’s showing. Propaganda usually tries to reach as many people as possible with very simple and effective imagery. So I’m not sure.

I get where you’re coming from, if you do have that specialised knowledge, it must be obvious to you. But without that, I don’t see how anyone would think “Russia strong” just from this picture. For all I know, they might be Ukrainians.

As someone who doesn’t know shit about military technology, nothing about this suggests Russia to me. In fact it doesn’t suggest any country, except “hur dur Americans like shooting” because of context.

So I don’t know, is it propaganda if you need to have specialised knowledge to recognise what’s being advertised?

All I can do is point you to Dr Barkley’s work (he’s a trusted authority on ADHD) and the references at the bottom. I know this isn’t ideal but I am utterly incapable of reading entire actual scientific papers, it’s a miracle when I manage to read articles like this from start to finish - which I know is an issue. Which is also why I tried to hedge my words in my original post (there seems to be evidence).

https://honestlyadhd.com/adhd-executive-age/

This seems like a good overview.