I don’t think you’re accounting for the massive difference in scale when considering a super-volcanic eruption. It would cause global famine and a massive die-off of most species including humans. If Yellowstone went off, for instance, we would be living under volcanic winter for at least a decade. It would release something like 1,000 gigatons of CO2, which would be roughly equivalent to all human caused CO2 since the industrial revolution, and it would do it all at once.

By way of example, the Toba supervolcano was so devastating and caused so much death it literally created a pronounced genetic bottleneck in the history of human genome.

Yeah fair enough. I think I was responding in tone more to the OP and other desperate conspiracy theorists who are clinging to the hope, against all evidence, that the election was somehow stolen from the democrats. Given Republicans now will have majorities in the house, senate, state legislatures, supreme court, governorships, and will control the executive branch – not to mention the anticipated purge of federal agencies and loyalist-stuffing – I find it very important that democrats level with themselves instead of looking for excuses.

While it’s true Trump lost an absolute majority, the republican candidate still beat the democratic candidate by about 2.5 million votes, with about 98.9% votes counted. And, as you noted, recounts in some counties and states are occurring, and the FBI has been, and as far as I know still is, investigating questions and concerns about the election being hacked since at least August.

That said, I take your point, and I’m sorry for being so derisive in the tone of my response. I appreciate your level-headed reply.

Hmm. An article quoting Pew: “a majority of white women (53 percent) did vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, up from 44 percent in 2020 and 39 percent in 2016 per Pew.”

but I think you’re right, those numbers sound like all women. I’ll edit the post.

Latines now make up 20% of the U.S. population, making them the largest minority group. Among the under-18 demographic, that number climbs to nearly 30%. If current population trends hold, Latines are poised to become the largest ethnic group in the country within about 25 years—that’s just three presidential terms away.

While Latines are a minority ethnicity, they are the largest one and the second-fastest growing, trailing only Asians. Asians, despite having one of the lowest birth rates, experience the highest proportional rate of immigration. Notably, Trump gained 12% of the Asian vote in the most recent election, a trend across these growing demographics that, if sustained, could spell significant gains for Republicans in the future.

However, let’s not overlook the broader electoral picture. Black, Asian, and Latine men and women combined make up about 29% of the voting public in presidential elections, while white women alone account for a staggering 37-38%. For context, Latino men represent just 5-6% of voters. White women are, by far, the largest voting demographic.

Interestingly, Trump increased his share of all women by 7% compared to when he ran against Biden and has increased his support from women each time he’s ran. The devastating thing, I think, is that Trump won 13% more of the 18-29-year-olds, 5% more of 30-44-year-olds, and continues to capture “Boomer Lite,” aka Gen X, a majority of whom he has won each time he’s ran, but he increased his share by 9% this time.

Edit: corrected an earlier data error.

That’s actually a minimum requirement in this coming administration.

That’s what they said about Harris’s weak numbers and every time someone brought up how Trump was gaining for an entire month before the election. I think the first step is acknowledging how much support he has. And then to face the fact that Republicans now control the presidency and have majorities in the supreme court, the house, the senate, total counties, state legislatures, and state governorships. I don’t think we can blame that on landlines.

👍

I’ve come to understand that you are open about grappling with a way of thinking that makes it hard to let go, take accountability, and engage with reality as it is. It seems that you’ve created a kind of mental framework—almost a dreamworld—where everyone and everything is aligned against you. This tendency to assign blame outwardly, to view others through the lens of imagined hostility or hidden agendas, mirrors the patterns we often see in conspiratorial thinking. I can only imagine how exhausting it must be to live with such constant anger and frustration, feeling perpetually under siege by the world around you. This way of thinking doesn’t just keep you trapped—it compounds your sense of helplessness, fostering isolation and perpetuating the very struggles you’re trying to escape.

What makes this even harder is how these feelings trap you in a vicious cycle. Anger and helplessness often lead to assigning blame or constructing theories that rationalize the world in negative ways. This mindset, in turn, fosters behaviors and patterns that reinforce those same feelings, perpetuating a feedback loop that’s hard to escape. The effects on your relationships must be profound. I can imagine how isolating and disheartening that must feel.

I hadn’t realized until now just how long this has been a part of your life, consuming so much of your energy. It’s clear that these challenges have been significant for you. With that said, I’m going to step back and block you. I imagine this won’t be the first time this has happened to you, and I’m not talking about Lemmy. However, I do genuinely wish you well, and I hope that one day you can confront and overcome the struggles that have held you back. Breaking free from this cycle will require immense effort and readiness, but I believe it’s possible for you to wrestle with those demons.

When you’re ready, I suspect you’ll find you have more support around you than you might realize.

This.

Right, you’re not a conspiracy theorist—you’re just “asking questions” and urging people to “do their own research.” Where have we heard that before? While you throw around baseless accusations about the Harris-Trump election, the reality is this: there’s no credible evidence to support claims of widespread fraud. Swing states have robust systems for verifying results, and the election process is overseen by bipartisan officials, including both Democrats and Republicans who vouched for its integrity. Demanding “just one investigation” isn’t about seeking the truth; it’s about refusing to accept the outcome.

I know you you’re unlikely to read let alone comprehend this post—just like you didn’t read the article you’re twisting—but for anyone else stumbling across your nonsense, this is the reality: your claims are bullshit. They’re not just wrong, they’re embarrassingly, demonstrably wrong based on the very data provided for you in the article to which you are responding. Let’s go through the numbers you’ve clearly ignored.

You say there were “5-12% bullet ballots” in swing states, but the data in no way supports that claim. Take North Carolina: out of 5,722,556 ballots cast, 5,592,243 included votes in the governor’s race. That means just 130,313 ballots didn’t—a mere 2.3%, not your laughable “5-12%.” Arizona? Of 3.4 million ballots cast, only 81,673 didn’t include votes for the Senate race—about 2.4%, again miles below your inflated, made-up conspiracy numbers. Nevada? The difference was 23,159 ballots out of nearly 1.5 million—a negligible 1.6%. Interesting. On average that’s… basically right where you said it should “normally” be.

Bullet ballots in battleground states are rare, but they’ve always existed, especially in contentious elections. And they’ve always been higher in battleground states. Swing-state voters tend to focus on the presidency when the stakes are high, which is common knowledge to anyone who understands voting behavior. Your numbers? They don’t exist.

As for your implication that it’s “improbable” for Trump to win the presidency while Democrats do better down-ballot, I hate to break it to you, but racism and sexism is a much simpler, proven explanation with data to support it. Polling had consistently shown that Harris faced deep resistance, even among Democrats, with much of it rooted in gender and racial bias. Voters who rejected Harris while supporting other Democrats weren’t casting “impossible” ballots—they were reflecting prejudices that have been documented for decades. You don’t need a vast conspiracy to explain why Kamala Harris lost; you need to look at exit polls and confront the ugly reality of American history and culture

The bomb threats on Election Day, which you seem desperate to weave into your narrative, were investigated by the FBI and found to largely be hoaxes originating from Russian email domains. These threats, while reprehensible, had no impact on the election’s integrity and were not linked to any domestic conspiracy. The idea that they were part of a grand scheme to disrupt the “chain of custody” or facilitate hacking is pure fantasy, unsupported by a shred of evidence. If anything, they reflect an attempt to intimidate voters and officials, not to alter outcomes. Clinging to this as proof of fraud is the hallmark of conspiracy theorists: taking unrelated incidents and spinning them into a baseless, implausible story when reality doesn’t fit their worldview.

And this is exactly where your conspiratorial thinking falls apart. Rather than accept straightforward, evidence-backed explanations—strategic voting in swing states, voter sexism, or even the simple fact that Trump remains popular among many, indeed a majority of, voters in this country—you leap to shadowy plots and grand conspiracies. This is textbook conspiracy logic: inflate normal patterns into anomalies, ignore the data that contradicts you, and demand investigations into “questions” you’ve invented yourself. It’s bad-faith reasoning at its worst.

Your entire argument isn’t skepticism; it’s denial. You’re not interested in the facts—if you were, you’d see how consistently they dismantle your claims. This isn’t about election fraud. It’s about your refusal to reckon with reality.

She lost. Get over it.

Wow, impressive! You managed to showcase at least five of the psychological traits we discussed in record time. I also love how you accuse me of not reading the article, while cozying up to someone who actually didn’t read it and is throwing out numbers that flat-out contradict the data in the very article you shared. But hey, they’re feeding your paranoid conspiracy, so I guess that’s all that matters, right? If only there were a term for this kind of behavior—oh wait, there is: “confirmation bias.”

Honestly, you really speedran those psychological traits. Bravo. 🤣

🙄

What seems more likely, 1) A vast conspiracy involving the Trump campaign, a group of hackers, Elon Musk and various employees at his super PAC, along with countless other shadowy actors in a cabal that supposedly hacked the vote—an elaborate plot divined by one guy who has gotten nearly every data point verifiably wrong and has provided zero evidence for his related claims, yet somehow “got it right.” Or, 2) A small number of Trump voters simply didn’t care or know much about other offices or candidates and just voted for Trump and left the rest blank?

Right.

It’s genuinely sad to watch people grasp at conspiracy theories like this. Conspiratorial thinking is strongly correlated with feelings of insecurity, low agreeability, narcissism, intolerance of uncertainty, a lack of control, fear, and tendencies toward confirmation bias and proportionality bias. So while it’s not entirely surprising to see some on the left indulging in this kind of thinking—just as Trump supporters did and do—it’s still disappointing to witness.

No. Though this nominee seems to be one of the rare ones that hasn’t been associated with sexual abuse or harassment. At least not yet.

Right, because pointing out the hypocrisy in asking other people to change their lives and enter government service so you can benefit from it is “giving up.”

You can’t possibly believe that our choices are to resist a rising fascist theocracy by being a government functionary or else giving up. Don’t be absurd. Talk about being a low-energy, snarky wet blanket. Yeesh.

Your blocking suggestion is a good one though, so I’ll block you and make things easier for both of us. Good luck out there!

Have fun telling people to do the hard work you won’t do but want to benefit from.

Keep dissembling. 🙄

I look forward to you taking a government job under a hostile administration with your coworkers constantly looking to make your life hell and get you fired, endangering your career and making financial security impossible. Hopefully you don’t have a family. I appreciate that you’re willing to make this sacrifice for us, @givesomefucks@lemmy.world.

You might be correct there, though I don’t know if he needs to do much about SLS. It’s a 1970s rocket that’s already blown through multiple budgetary lines. It’s like investing in a car design from the 1970s but paying inflated 2070s prices for it. He might not do much to help it, but SLS has long been turning into an embarrassment for NASA – it’s been mismanaged, huge budgetary overruns, and constant delays.

Ironically, the goal is to eventually turn over SLS production and launch operations to a private venture anyway. After SX got more involved with NASA operations, the bloated and inferior SLS program looks even worse. Maybe he tries to have that private venture deal be SpaceX contract instead of Northrup Grumman and Boeing, but that returns us to the “why?” question.

By the time NASA is ready to hand it off to private hands, it’s going up be so far behind where SX is at that I doubt they’d want to touch that program with a ten-foot pole. If he’s going to do anything, he’ll probably just try to have SX be the primary contractor for that mission rather than SLS under the guise of efficiency, superior technology, and cost savings. And he’ll be right.

I seriously think he decided not to take an office he’d already won because it would take away the one justification the ethics committee had to not release the report, i.e., he is no longer a congressman. The more he’s willing to do anything to not have the report come out, the more I want to know wtf it says. Presumably it must be more than was already known, otherwise why so scared? It was already leaked that they have testimony that he had sex twice with an additional separate 17yo, so maybe that’s it, but it feels like there must be more than that. I’m wondering if the new testimony didn’t implicate other Republicans or something.