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The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

With everyone saying "I didn't have xyz on my bingo card"... I decided to make one. I present - my 2026 bingo card.

- Several leading Russian and Chinese figures die of asphyxiation after excessive laughter
- “Americans will never act...” - Americans...not acting.
- Generative AI consumes so much energy it generates Alcubierre warp bubbles. AI data centres vanish in a “pop”, and take all the tech bros with them.
- Some kind of ‘Pacific Rim’ type shit.
- EU Leaders cave (again). Peace in our time. War in yours.
- Donald tries to buy...demands...INVADES (wtf?) Greenland (history blames Gerardus Mercator)
- Those Independence Day ships show up. The world collectively sighs “that makes sense”
- Everyone remembers Gaza again.
- Everyone forgets about Gaza again.
- My achillies still hurts
- “Just one more turn mom!” - Sam Altman re: AGI
- “Dead Economy Theory”
- ‘IT’ happens.
- NATO collapses (replaced by SUPER NATO)
- Europeans realise why US flag burning is so popular in other parts of the world.
- The New York Times rebrands as a local arts, culture and entertainment guide.
- The Metaverse actually takes off (I know right?)
- The vast majority of human suffering is ignored.
- New forms of human suffering are commodified.
- World War 3: Golden Thunderdome
- Extraterrestrial life is confirmed, but no one cares.
- Part of Greenland slides into the ocean and is gifted to Trump as the ‘Mobile Piece Prize’
- Taiwan is invaded by China.
- New Zealand is declared unable to defend itself and critical to Antarctic security. Offer to purchase includes a dowry of 9 rings.

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

I'm not over the moon that I turned out right about all this 8 months before the orange dickhead won his first election. But I stand by the analogy.

A facebook post with the following text:

"Looking at the world and understanding people and processes, what poses a threat and what doesn't, the success or failure of movements, the expansion and collapse of ideas and organisations, how massive things can be disrupted by small things and how small things can become massive things as well as how people can be at once subject to enormous forces and a force unto themselves...all of that...requires - more than a passing knowledge of politics, economics and philosophy - a knowledge of physics and of cosmological processes. Society is a universe with as many dimensions as there are conceptual paradigms, all folded into one another. A mass of multidimensional interconnected universes.
So when someone says a leader will never amass power, or a person can never make a difference.
Just imagine how a cloud of gas turns into stars and planets, orbiting each other, feeding off of each other, ripping each other apart and reforming ad infinitum.
Instead of thinking about how many people are on side with Donald Trump right now. Think about Gravity."

110

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

“I think this is gonna be more like the renaissance than the Industrial Revolution” - Sam Altman

A robot couple with old fashioned styling including a top hat wave to a seated audience of robots - scene from the Animatrix: Second Renaissance

020

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

So imagine being stuck in space for almost a full year and then you finally splash down, open the hatch and are greeted by a pod of dolphins. I don’t care who you are, that’s just fucking beautiful.

071

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

“He’s not the messiah. He’s a very naughty boy!”

Kier Starmer: “there’s a famous slogan in the United Kingdom”

021

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

The Legion of Mad Fellows was right all along.

Number 9 man (an older man wearing a white shirt with '9' on it and a tin foil hat) from Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder

000

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Look I know this is insensitive, and perhaps poor timing, but all I’m saying is … “called it”

Facebook post from 2015 claiming Donald Trump is a Soviet plant that stuck around.

0111

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

The truth is...buried under a veritable ocean of nonsense.

Screenshot from the X Files with the words "Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate" on screen.

000

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

So we’re going to parenthesise all place names with their local versions now right? Right?

Google maps from Germany has “Gulf of America” in brackets

030

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

- Every comfortably employed straight white American right now. I think you know

A scene from South Park where the BP CEO asks “what should I do” in a PR response ad

020

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

You just don't get it, do you, Jean-Luc? The revolution never ends.

John DeLancie in Star Trek TNG “All Good Things” as Q

081

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 04/10/2024

Thank you internet. Hard to decide on a new favourite. What with ‘godsgodgulusgong’, ‘blasphemorgulus’, ‘big foot’ and ‘tree’ on the table.

000

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 25/09/2024

Do they have to ruin everything for future generations?

The top image shows Donald Trump talking Macauley Culkin’s character Kevin in Home Alone 2

The bottom image shows Elon Musk talking to Robert Downey Junior’s character Tony Stark in Iron Man 2

010

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 23/09/2024

We don’t just have a resurgent Nazi problem. We have a young Nazi problem. A Nazi problem with a long runway. A Nazi problem that’s only just getting started.

Exit polls for Brandenburg state elections showing results for those 70+ with 11% voting for the far right AFD (4th place)

Exit polls for Brandenburg state elections showing results for those 18-24 with 32% voting for the far right AFD (1st place)

000

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 12/09/2024

“Once upon a time I was falling in love, now I’m only falling apart…”

Donald Trump’s facial expression upon having his ass handed to him (ie, being told people get bored and leave his rallies) by Kamala Harris

000

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 11/09/2024

There’s a DS9 quote that keeps coming back to me with respect to (some) Republicans and Trump as well as the space industry and Elon…

A scene from Star Trek DS9 with Ezri Dax saying to Worf - "Worf, you are the most honorable and decent man I have ever met and if you're willing to accept men like Gowron, then what hope is there for the Empire?"

0211

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 25/08/2024

This…or like an airport departure gate or some shit.

A sign welcoming people to the united states

010

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 25/08/2024

New Zealand also has a weird orange guy that is constantly talking about elections. But ours helps you register to vote. Get yourself a better orange guy America.

New Zealand’s election mascot. - a strange orange rubber stick figure person.

071

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 13/08/2024

China and Japan win 60 gold medals placing 2nd and 3rd respectively but let’s put Snoop Dog and Tom Cruise on our poster. That’s some grade A bullshit man.

Eurosport olympic poster with truly egregious representation.

000

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 27/07/2024

Dude even looks like a bald eagle. Just sayin.

Senator Mark Kelly alongside a bald eagle.

020

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 01/04/2024

Fellow Kiwis. You know it. I know it. It’s the only WhoWouldWin of consequence. Scarface Claw or Horse?

Scarface Claw (a neighbourhood cat from children’s book series Hairy Maclary) and Horse (a farm car from comic series and animated film Footrot Flats)

000

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 26/03/2024

This hospital has a painting that I’m 80% sure depicts Batman fighting several clones of the Penguin, in the ocean, aided by a crew of fish. Though I could be wrong.

A painting of what looks like Batman fighting several clones of the Penguin, in the ocean, aided by a crew of fish.

020

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 08/01/2024

Wow. I had no idea. So many years and lives wasted pondering the mysteries of life the universe and everything, when all we really needed was a LinkedIn learning course in Excel.

Screengrab from linkedin advertising an excel course with the besuited promoter saying "did you know that almost every important question in life can be answered with finance, or at least with corporate finance techniques?"

010

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 19/12/2023

"In the event of a water landing, I have been designed to serve as a floatation device"

Data from Star Trek: Insurrection acting as a floatation device with Captain Picard and Anij in the water.

3151

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 28/09/2023

Today in things I should have guessed but hadn’t actually considered.

News headline - “Microplastics Are Present In Clouds, Confirm Japanese Scientists.
Each liter of cloud water contained between 6.7 to 13.9 pieces of the plastics.”

010

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 06/09/2023

post a picture from your phone that could be from a horror movie

6 large (what looks to be) plastic moulded robed and hooded figures sitting cross-legged surrounded by a wall and assorted waste. Each figure is about 2m across and 2m tall. 3 are white. One is blue. One is yellow. One is red.

020

The Belligerent Optimist @sharestuff.bsky.social · 31/08/2023

Repost with a game nostalgic to you… Dangerous Dave was my jam back in the old 386. I particularly liked how you could disappear off the map in certain places to a weird netherworld and whole other levels.

A screenshot from the old DOS game Dangerous Dave, with the titular character walking down a blue corridor to the next level and text saying “good work! Only 9 more to go!”

000