Superpowers, from a literary standpoint, can get a bit derivative and boring. It’s hard to feel the stakes of a certain threat when the protagonist of a story can just superpower their way out of it.

The Punisher flips the superhero trope by portraying what a true to life superhero would probably look like. He isn’t noble. He isn’t invincible. He has no enhanced abilities beyond his ability to leverage violence and a pathological determination to pursue his own twisted vision of justice. He is a walking result of severe emotional trauma, and his coping mechanism is inflicting pain and death on others.

As a superhero archetype, he’s very bleak. That’s what makes him relatable to a lot of people.

Feel free to pitch the idea to congress. It will cost somewhere in the realm of trillions of dollars to invade, occupy, and rebuild North Korea. We’re talking an occupation lasting decades. A full time military presence for the foreseeable future as North Korea rebuilds something resembling a functional democratic society.

Don’t get me wrong, their military would get absolutely bodied in a full on shooting war with any sort of NATO-esque military coalition. But they have a sizable entrenched force with more than a few functional nuclear weapons. It would cost A LOT of lives.

So, that’s the bill. If you think you can convince congress to go for it, go nuts.

Well, a few things…

First and foremost, all authority is derived from a threat of force. Let’s just get that out of the way.

Second, the “agreement” not to use that force on our own citizens has been steadily blurred by an increasingly militarized police force. What we’ve been seeing in terms of civil unrest in this country is the inevitable result of that. The police in this country have turned themselves into an occupying force.

Third, conservative media has been gradually instilling a desire for violence in conservative culture. They’ve been doing this for decades. They’ve been playing the same familiar tropes that enable cultures to engage in the practice of othering, which makes them ambivalent to the idea of violence being inflicted on people outside of their cultural identity.

Lastly, Trump doesn’t give a shit about this, and neither do conservative representatives. Outright flagrant dishonesty is a pillar of cultural conservatism. Never believe what they are saying. They have a set of rules and protections that they apply to others, and an entirely different set that they apply to everyone else.

Right or wrong is rarely as binary as you seem to be imagining. It’s a spectrum. Alignment with reality is contingent upon a habit of seeking better information. If better information comes along, any intellectually healthy person should be willing to accept it and integrate it into their understanding of the world.

Also - cultivate a habit of knowing that it’s ok to be wrong. Your beliefs don’t define you as much as HOW you choose to shape your beliefs.

We have pattern-seeking brains that instinctually crave a sense of certainty that rarely exists in reality. We always have to be aware of that. We also live in a society that unfortunately reinforces this tendency.

Don’t strive to be “right.” Strive to be well-informed.

They’re about as fetishized as cuckolding is in right wing circles. The way those dorks toss that term around tells me enough to know that a lot of them are harboring a deep-seated desire to watch some dude rail their wives like they never could.

Congrats on her being pathetic, I guess.

Love that last frame. Bird is like GIMME.

I have encountered some people who use it as a substitute for thinking. To the extent that it’s rather unnerving.

Winning what for whom, you blubbering dipshit?

And then the conservative brain worms convinced him to support the people who did it again.

People usually aren’t impressed by photocopiers either these days. When you get right down to it, “art” generated by LLMs is just photocopying with more advanced steps. I think a lot of people inherently know this. An LLM isn’t an artist, it’s a mechanism for replicating what artists do.