I’ll go first: r/kitty. One of the hundred grillion cat subs back on Reddit, the culture in this one was you posted a cat picture, and the only word allowed in the title or in any comments or replies was “Kitty.”

Someone is using that subreddit for covert communications, I just know it. Either on the level of “if u/PM_me_your_nostrils posts an orange cat, we attack at dawn!” or there’s some steganography going on with the pictures, but that subreddit was too stupid to be as active as it was.

  • 01011@monero.town
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    Couriers have tiny cameras all throughout my home and wait for me to go to the bathroom before they show up with my parcels.

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    Paper straws were pushed by big corporate polluters to build a negative association with environmentalism.

    Plastic straws are single-use plastics, but seem unexceptional by those standards. It’s almost a meme that they’re being singled out like they’re the single greatest source of plastic waste, or uniquely damaging to ocean life.

    On top of that, there are way better ways of reducing straw usage. I’ve used bioplastics that seemed way better. You could redesign the lids. You can do the plastic bag thing and charge people a nickel for a straw or whatever. Hell, you could just not give straws with every drink, and plenty of people will just drink from their cups and glasses. Instead, we get paper straws, something that is so obviously a bad idea it sounds like a joke, or a metaphor for a useless invention. Often served with cups and lids made entirely out of plastic.

    So you get a bunch of people who have their drinks kind of ruined by a frustrating straw. It’s a small thing, but it’s just a little nudge away from environmentalism. You build an association with disappointment and inconvenience. Maybe it doesn’t cause a big sway, but it makes people maybe a little more anti-environmentalist than they already were, or just less passionate about environmentalism.

    • RobotToaster@mander.xyz
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      When most ocean plastic comes from nets, it’s hard to disagree.

      Honestly the obsession with single use plastic seems like a distraction. Every piece of plastic in landfill is oil that isn’t burnt.

      • Javi_in_4k@lemm.ee
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        Every price of plastic in the landfill is oil that was extracted, processed, and required oil burning to get processed. And we do that for something that will be used once. Plastic in the landfill is not a net positive.

    • Zanz@lemmy.world
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      The people who are responsible for the turtle with the straw in the nose video where from the paper straw company. That happened right before the corn plastic straws at the market and after the video all plastic straws were banned in most metropolitan areas, that banned the corn plastic “environmentally friendly” straws before they even hit the market. The paper straws have forever chemicals in them and are essentially Teflon coated so they’re not environmentally friendly at all.

  • 2ugly2live@lemmy.world
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    “Trad-wives” are the pick me girls’ final form. I think it’s also for women who want to do OnlyFans type work, but don’t want to be as risqué. It’s like soft core incel porn more than an actual depiction or celebration of maternity.

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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    Conspiracies like flat earth are put in the spotlight to make real conspiracies look stupid.

  • mostNONheinous@lemmy.world
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    In 2016, there were a bunch of creepy/killer clown sightings. At least in America it made the news pretty regularly. My conspiracy theory is that it started purely as Guerilla Marketing for the 2017 IT adaptation.

  • Thrillhouse@lemmy.world
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    My city has a local company that rents storage units and they have entirely too many locations relative to the population of our city such that I believe they’re a criminal enterprise. I believe they construct so many new buildings for money laundering purposes and to facilitate human trafficking and drug running out of them.

    Breaking news, I just googled them and one of the owners was convicted in his 20s of trying to sell poached falcons to Saudi Arabian royalty. The plot thickens.

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      We have a computer repair shop in my town that does not do computer repair. Ask them if they can fix something, the answer is always “we don’t do that.” Even simple shit like screen repair on cell phones, which they have signs on their windows saying they do. “We don’t do that.” My landlord owns the local radio station, he says they’ve tried to get them to do computer repair for them. “we don’t do that.” Factory I worked out tried them. “We don’t do that” Friend needed keyboard repaired on laptop. “We don’t do that” I’m so convinced at this point that whenever I meet a local business owner I ask them who they use for any computer repair, and it’s always the same answer as to why they don’t use this one place, that’s a big store, in the only strip mall in town. They only have one dude in the store, who’s constantly got some right wing radio or YouTuber on. There’s no other employees, no reasonable way they’re affording the outrageous rent for such prime real estate. There aren’t many businesses in this town, and almost all of them use someone from the bigger city 35 minutes away

      On top of all of that, there used to be a Mexican grocery store in town (in the same parking lot, in fact) that never actually sold any food, and would always say they were closed if you walked in. They got shut down because they were apparently part of a group that was bringing in undocumented workers. The dude who owns the computer repair place is the cousin of the guy who owned the Mexican grocery store.

      • Today@lemmy.world
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        I would like to see Tulsa King walk in there with a water bottle and confront that guy.

    • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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      Look around for donkeys.

      Forgers and tricksters often have mixed the falcon meat with donkey meat (cheaper, because easier to catch), at a ratio 1:1, that is, one falcon, one donkey.

  • Illuminostro@lemmy.world
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    The removal of The Fairness Doctrine was a deliberate psyop of The Monied Elite to dumb down the general populace of the US to accept Capitalist propaganda and rule. Well, it’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s fact. Then we were bombarded by blatant capitalist propaganda for 50 years. But, but, the worst aim was to condition the general populace to casual cruelty as entertainment.

    Witness how Congress has degenerated into The Jerry Springer Show and Judge Judy. And half of the populace think it’s funny, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Republican politicians daily lie their asses off, and there are no consequences. An entitled, malignant narcissistic psychopath is worshipped as a demigod. Congregations who watch Fox every night are literally telling their preachers/priests/pastors that Jesus is a woke pussy. That’s not opinion, it’s a fact.

    I recall reading that Goering and Goebbels both stated that a lie that is repeated enough times becomes truth in the zeitgeist. This country is in big trouble, and I think the Heritage and Federalist stacked SCOTUS is going to appoint Trump King due to an avalanche of upcoming election lawsuits.

    This country was established by rich men who didn’t want to pay taxes. But, some good things came from it. That you could speak to power without the fear of retribution. That a religious entity could not punish you arbitrarily on a whim. That the rich could not pass on their wealth and power to scions without penalty. That this country would not be ruled by a blatant aristocracy and monarchy.

    I will not live in a Trump Theocratic Oligarchy. I’m an old man, with no wife and no kids. Do what you have to do, and leave if you can. The writing is on the wall. I don’t know how much more you need to see and know to wise up, but it’s here, right in your face.

  • noughtnaut@lemmy.world
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    So many people believe that Covid was a way to scare us all indoors, so they could change batteries in all the birds.

    That’s preposterous.

    Birds use rechargeables, that’s why they’re always sitting on the power lines. Like, duh, wake up sheeple.

    • bi_tux@lemmy.world
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      no, you don’t understand, the feds invented the perpetum mobile, birds only sit on power lines to confuse people like you!

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    Tiktok is a Chinese psyop to turn the next generation of Americans into drooling idiots.

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      The previous generation probably said the same about MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, etc.

      Let people enjoy what they enjoy. There will always be idiots everywhere, and TikTok emerging won’t suddenly make Americans dumber.

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        There’s a HUGE difference between tiktok and all of the sites you’ve posted. Wikipedia? The fuck are you on about?!

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          Maybe you’re not old enough to realise this, but for a long time Wikipedia was seen as being a dangerous site to learn from, because “anyone can edit it”.

          Every generation goes through shit like this. Stop pretending that TikTok is special, and let people enjoy what they want to enjoy.

    • mostNONheinous@lemmy.world
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      If you haven’t heard, there is a theory that the Frozen movies exist solely to make sure if you google disney frozen or any combination of that you are shown movie stuff instead of stories of Walt Disney being cryogenically frozen so he can live in the future.

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    Elon Musk is not an idiot. He was hired by other rich people like the Saudis to destroy Twitter, to prevent further incidents of public protest organization like what happened in Egypt and the Occupy movement. The degradation of the platform is intentional, and the amplification of right-wing voices helps to chase left-leaning social activists off of the platform. There is no equivalent platform for in-the-moment organization of protests.

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        This conspiracy can still be true, even if you assume Elon is an idiot.

    • Susaga@sh.itjust.works
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      Okay, my conspiracy is that this is a conspiracy by Elon so people think he’s an evil genius instead of the bumbling, idea-stealing moron with an inflated budget that he really is.

      The only reason Bluesky isn’t more active is because it isn’t as active, which is becoming less of an issue by the day. And I STILL see activists gathering on twitter.

    • Drunemeton@lemmy.world
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      Or he was backed by some real dirt bags to keep Twitter afloat so the misinformation can continue unabated. Protesters can be easily found out. Humans trafficked. Etc.

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      People who thinks musk, trump, putin etc are stupid are … stupid I guess.

      They usually have mental problems like narcissism or psycopathy and lack all kind of feelings but stupid? No.

      • Susaga@sh.itjust.works
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        No, they can be all those things at the same time. Heck, it helps to be all three.

        It was narcissism that made Musk want to buy twitter, but stupidity that made him think it would stop people from mocking him. And he came up with naming it X, so that’s more evidence.

        The only reason the world didn’t realise he was an idiot sooner was because he had enough money to buy the ideas of smarter people.

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          You seriously think it bothers billionaires what you think about them?

          I don’t.

          • Susaga@sh.itjust.works
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            I don’t think money has any effect on it. Some billionaires are willing to keep to themselves and roll in their money pit. Some billionaires try to buy the white house and publish a book with their face on it. If they don’t care what people think, they’re wasting a lot of money on something they don’t care about.

    • ___qwertz___@feddit.org
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      If something looks, walks, barks and smells like a dog, chances are, it’s a dog.

      The world is complicated enough as is, no need to make it more complicated.

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    The highest quality fruits, veggies, and meats go to restaurants leaving only mid stuff at the grocery store. Which makes cooking at home seem inferior to restaurant food even for home chefs. Pushing people to spend more going out and drive capitalism

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      For high end restaurants, true.

      However top chefs will happily buy ugly fruit and veg if they taste good.

      Supermarket fresh fruit and veg is always sold on how it looks, not on how it tastes. Shoppers don’t buy ugly vegetables (except when shaped like genitalia).

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksOP
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        This is definitely true of supermarket tomatoes, which are bred for durability and not taste. I can neglect my tomato garden and still turn out tastier fruit than the grocery store.

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      I know by personal experience that sometimes my low population density area in the south gets a lower quality of vegetables than the state capitol. I was looking for something to cook. I won’t say what only that the all the items at our local walmart were very small and bruised. This went on for two weeks. I drive to the state capitol and while I’m there go to walmart and they have what I need and they are the right size and of a higher quality.
      Next day at our local walmart I look just to make sure and what they have there is just garbage. I have no doubt its the same for many situations.

    • 31337@sh.itjust.works
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      Restaurants often do get first-pick, but it’s probably just because the producers or distributors can make more money selling to them rather than the grocery store. I.e. just another feature of capitalism. This happens with a lot of things, such as home builders and furniture makers getting first-pick on lumber. Now that I think back to when I used to work in fabrication, steel as well.

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    Insurance companies randomly deny claims just to see if you’ll fight it. If you don’t, they’ll know they can deny more if your claims in the future. This is illegal, but if it’s a “bug” in the software or “AI” than they get away with it. Actually it’s harder with AI since people are more skeptical and have already caught them doing it. However this may be due to the AI being trained on the intentionally buggy software.

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      I believe this based off my limited interactions with insurance companies. I was in a car crash that was 100% caused by the idiot who was fucking with their phone instead of looking at what they were crashing into. Their insurance company tried to stick me with months of rental fees from when my car was being repaired. I eventually filed a complaint with my state insurance commissioner and told their insurance company what’s up, they got right on it after that. Literally, that same day they had multiple people contacting me to say we’re all good now and apologizing about the misunderstanding.

    • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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      They actually do use software to find deniable claims that would theoretically have to be reviewed by a doctor. The doctor pulls up a while page of to be denied claims and theoretically gives them the legally required review all at once in the 30 seconds before he hits the button. There is no reason NOT to feed propensity to accept fake denial into the equation. You could even white wash it by presuming that prior denials that stuck were indication of bad claims and assert you are measuring their proclivity for filing wasteful claims.

    • Illuminostro@lemmy.world
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      Credit card companies do the same thing. They know the poors can’t afford to fight them. They do probe tests occasionally to see what the peasants will do.

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    JD Vance was forced in as the Trump VP pick by the Heritage Foundation so that when Trump either dies or stops cooperating with them on Project 2025, they already have a man in place to take over. And that’s likely the reason for the assassination attempts.

    If Trump dies, they get Vance (a true believer…unlike Trump who just wants the power to stay out of prison) at the top of the ticket.

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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      If Trump dies, they get Vance (a true believer…unlike Trump who just wants the power to stay out of prison) at the top of the ticket.

      And we get some kind of Peter Theil libertarian theocracy.

      Vance’s flexibility to bend in any direction at any time is just… he makes lindsey graham look principled.

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        I hate how the theocratic right has successfully co-opted libertarian in the US to mean alt-republican.

        • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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          it makes me wonder about a LOT of libertarians, normally I thought they’d recoil from trump but some seem strangely comfortable with him.

          makes me wonder about their principles.

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            Even my local libertarian candidates have been hard right theocrats recently, like they failed to secure a promising outlook for a Republican run and just though libertarian was the same thing. A few are probably even too far right for the Republican ticket.

            What part of “don’t tread on me” includes treading on bodily autonomy and LGBTQ rights? I am starting to think some people don’t actually have principles, and don’t understand words too good neither.

            • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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              I am starting to think some people don’t actually have principles, and don’t understand words too good neither.

              well put.

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      I genuinely believe at this point that Trump wants out but they wont let him, I think the first assassination attempt rattled the shit out of him. He went along as a willing figurehead, he was never a true believer. He was told they would be behind him and protect him as long as he did what he was told, they would . Now he has realised too late that a figurehead is also a lightning rod but that his only way out is through and they will knock him off or throw him to the wolves if he rocks the boat.

    • sudo@programming.dev
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      I believe the official narrative is JD Vance was Donald Trump Jr’s shitbrained idea. Trump Jr and Vance personally both roll with the same “intellectual dark web” theories, neo-eugenics and such.

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    Some US states that keep enacting highly unpopular anti-trans, anti-woke, sexist, racist legislation are doing it in an effort to get left-aligned people to move away and not consider going there, with the goal of skewing elections in their favor.

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        It might be one of the oldest type of conspiracy, that humans created when societies started to be a thing.

    • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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      How is this a conspiracy, the whole red neck stereotype of “We don’t like your kind around here” shows how this has been part of common knowledge for a long time.

      I’m not saying it’s obviously true, I’m saying I thought this was a popular belief.

      • 31337@sh.itjust.works
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        Most politicians seem like grifters and change positions to whatever is popular with their base or donors though. So, it does seem like this is a part of some grand-plan. I don’t think many Republican politicians actually care about women’s sports or who uses which restroom, yet they manufacture outrage and campaign on it. This kind of stuff was on no “normal” person’s mind before media started focusing on it.

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      It would be more compelling if some US states weren’t also openly and unabashedly engaged in active voter suppression.