I mean, at least for me, the question is “Who?”

In more ways than one. It’s quite evident to me now that a candidate needs to be charismatic, not just have some good ideas, to motivate voters to take their side. But “leftism” and “leftist” are still pretty vague labels. Just personally, some of the left-wing figures in the US today would earn my vote and some would not. More broadly, and I think there’d be a big difference between voters-at-large’s willingness to accept Bernie-esque proposals and some of the more out-there stuff I’ve seen.

While the kits may use standardized plumbing connector, they are not all guaranteed to use the same standard sizes.

Tossup between “You didn’t join the military?” and “Why the hell do you want to sleep so much! You’re an adult! You could be up at midnight!”

It’s not a great classical literature, for sure. The characters are almost entirely flat and forgettable, and even the handful that do grow (the young Soviet commander, the US destroyer captain) barely do so. Their experiences never almost never inform their later actions.

But among the techno-thriller/war-simulator genre, I found it more compelling than several more recent attempts (Ghost Fleet, Nuclear War: A Scenario, etc). Many of those seem to go out of their way to bend the plot to produce the author’s intended point, and while RSR wasn’t exactly innocent in that regard, I found it far less guilty than others - largely because Clancy was holding to the known or theorized-near-future capabilities.

Where I actually find it fascinating is how, in retrospect, we can see the biases of the era influencing how Clancy makes certain predictions:

• The Soviets place immense importance on taking Iceland to permit a “second Battle of the Atlantic” against US carrier groups. In retrospect, we know the Soviet Navy had no interest in this and intended to act as a cordon around northern Europe; specifically the Soviet SSBN bastions.

• While Clancy did loosely predict the nature, role, and value of Stealth aircraft, the design and air-to-air role he describes them in is actually too advanced for the 1980s setting. Essentially, Clancy bought the rumors, which were wrong.

• Land attack helicopters with ATGMs play relatively little role in the ground fighting. This was because the current generation (namely the AH-64) had just been introduced; their full capabilities and impact were not yet publicly available.

These mistakes, although understandable, provide an interesting insight into what the American defense establishment was thinking about in the early 80s.

Absolutely solid choice both.

Talon isn’t that deep of a character, but he’s a great look at a smuggler who “made it”. Mara, meanwhile, is just distilled awesome.

Grand Admiral Thrawn - but only the EU version.

Really a fascinating character in so many respects. One of the more complex and difficult to decipher ones. Was he really a genius out for the good of the galaxy? Or a social status-climber willing to latch on to any cause he could while serving his own ends? Were his more questionable deeds really done regretfully “for the greater good”, or was that just an excuse?

I have, thank you! Unfortunately, I don’t see the niches I’m looking for, and even when they do, they’re basically dead. I can only scream into the void so long…

If I’m understanding this correctly, you’re looking for fiction that focuses on framing more of cultural and societal shifts than technological changes?

What you’re looking for is difficult to find in the framing of Science Fiction because its very framing invokes technological advancement - technology is the application of science, and machinery is the result of technological innovation. Science fiction is, at its core, about how discoveries in science may change the world.

Nonetheless, you may want to look into the sub-genre referred to as “social science fiction”. Although it’s not going to be devoid of advanced technology, the focus will be more on the social and societal impacts thereof, than the machinery itself.

The problem is honest conservative media is basically gone.

Yep. And it’s frustrating, because it also makes it harder to engage with people who are on the edge or might be drawn back to a more sane position, when you can’t say “So I read this article, and I think I understand where you’re coming from…” when there are so, so few sources which aren’t totally divorced from reality.

(moderate left, for reference)

• BBC. Mildly right-wing, very national POV.

• WSJ… sometimes. There’s definitely points where they become utterly insufferable, but sometimes it can be helpful for an insight into the approach of a business-centric, right wing POV.

Really, as a moderate lefty, the collapse of the right-wing movement in the US into its current state has made it very difficult to find reasonable sources from the opposing side. Even “mainstream” right-wing sources take a lot of the batshit stuff at face value, or try and excuse off the more overtly insane elements.

Like:

• It has that small-community feel still. I don’t see (perhaps because I stay out of a lot of the more tech-ey communities?) the kind of farming, low-effort, generally mediocre content I saw on Reddit.
• Lack of the sense of a hyper-corporatized, “You’re only allowed to do things that make us money” sense that’s enshittified much of the internet lately. I’m not even sure if Lemmy can be monetized.

Dislike:

• Not yet large enough either. I don’t want hundreds of millions of users, but I still miss a lot of the more niche hobby/discussion communities I used to be able to participate in. Even communities for fairly large hobbies or interests can be dead on Lemmy.
• The awful political takes. Everything from typical dumbness up to advocating violence (but it’s okay because it’s my point). And it’s everywhere.

See, this one I like, because it’s one of those “man, I know the writers didn’t mean it that way, but it makes sense… and it’s horrifying!” theories.

The Falcon is so good, because for decades it has essentially had the crippled, half-dead “ghost” of a droid locked inside its computer systems, unable to fully die yet clearly devoid of her true consciousness.

Char Aznable’s wild shift in character between the end of Zeta and the beginning of Char’s Counterattack can be directly pinned on Kamille Bidan’s mental crippling at the end of Zeta and Haman Karm’s actions in ZZ.

Char, who always had a rather strong protective streak, more or less pinned his hopes on Kamille as a key to the future. Instead he directly experienced the Newtype backlash of Kamille being mentally crippled, and subequently could no longer sense him. This convinced him that humanity was doomed to eternal conflict, unless it was forced to advance.

Still unable to get over his protective streak, Char then manages to extricate Mineva Lao Zabi, the last remaining Zabi and perhaps the only one who he doesn’t actually seem to harbor any hatred towards, to Earth. But Haman just creates a double, which she uses to drag Neo Zeon into yet another war for personal power. This convinces Char he cannot trust the future to anyone else, even after protecting the ones he cares about.

Thus, we reach CCA with a Char who is fixedly convinced of both the need for forced human advancement, and that he alone must be that leader.

Vox Machina, Scavengers’ Reign, Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal.

But yeah, one of the last gasps of the streaming bubble was a surge of adult-oriented cartoons which were far and above anything of the type before them. I’m a little worried that that bubble has started to deflate, we’ll see this go away.

Tossup between:

• Seeing a sporty little car neatly stacked on top of a full-size sedan at the local shopping mall. Owner had floored it, jumped the curb, and somehow managed to climb atop the sedan. It was remarkable just how little damage there was on the Sedan, relatively speaking.
• Seeing a truck on the highway shoulder, which had somehow managed to roll itself on its side facing the wrong direction. Like, 180 degrees around into traffic and on its side. Somehow it didn’t look like other vehicles had been involved.

One of us, one of us!

I came here to say pretty much the same thing. It’s even more interesting when you’re working with a future-of-the-real-world setting, and so you actually have to think about how present-day cultures might evolve into the future.

This is the way.

Soooooo, about that indictment…

These fears are both true and (kinda) not.

First, I would preface this by saying that many of those hobbies are functionally things which from the early-20th century / post-WW2 US wealth and population boom:

• Having a CNC machine at home unrelated to your business? Unlikely. Farmers might have had machines needed for their labors, but dense urban populations were very unlikely to have had any machine at home which did not have either practical utility (i.e., spinning wheel)

• Some were simply financially out of reach. “Hobbyist drones” and various chemical experiments for fun were far less available to the pre-WW2-era urban population.

• Some are even directly related to the conceit of living on open, privately-owned land. (No land? No need for each apartment to have motorized snow removal thingies.)

…now, understand when I’m saying this, I’m 100% with you. I love tinkering. One of my dreams is to set up a small machine shop for running various hobbyist engines.

So, what can you do?

Well, there aren’t any easy answers. Trust me, I’ve looked. Local makerspaces are hard to find, and pricey to boot. You can try to limit your housing search to locations which do have a suitable garage, recognizing that this will limit you. You could try and rent a garage or utility space from a local business or something.

But one thing I would say is that if you’re using your garage for actual hobbyist purposes, then I don’t think you need to feel “car guilt”. Or, at least, I wouldn’t - at that point, you are paying not for a space to house a car (and all the associated issues), but space to house your hobbies.

Agreed. And it wasn’t just blind trust in his promises despite a lack of deeds, unlike Trump’s wild promises. Like I said, Long actually managed to achieve many positive things for the working-class Louisianian. I also didn’t mention it, but he was remarkably hostile to racism for a 1930s Louisiana politician; one of his issues with the Social Security system implemented by Roosevelt was that individual states might deny its benefits to African Americans.

I do wonder if he would have remained so benevolent indefinitely - there is the aforementioned secret control of an oil company profiting from State-owned lands, whose profits Long used for political purposes - but at the same time I can’t deny he did a lot of objectively good things which helped the people who needed it the most, was rightly beloved for it, and didn’t seem to be stepping away from it in his future plans.

If nothing else, he’s a fascinating study on how the political positions associated with populism have shifted over time in the US.