Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
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User ID: 297
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
3d ago
I don't really disagree with that, but it's not relevant to the argument. I can think of a lot of jobs I think are net negative.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4d ago
An ancap argument is essentially the same argument.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4d ago
The US was founded by people who rebelled against an overseas government they considered illegitimate (albeit for quite selfish reasons of their own). They were not against the very concept of government and notwithstanding that Thomas Jefferson quote everyone likes so much, they were not advocating regular revolts and coups.
The founders would be aghast and agog about many things in today's world. However, one thing you can definitely say about them is that they anticipated and expected that the future would be very different from their own time and they knew they could not anticipate or dictate to future generations what government they would choose. They set down guidelines and checks and balances they hoped would stand the test of time, but even in their era there were cracks showing, and there was violent disagreement over the Constitution itself and the Bill of Rights.
There was also no shortage of nepotism and incompetence and self-centeredness among the elites, from the era of Virginia's dominance to Tammany Hall, and most certainly within the Confederacy.
The founders, if you took to the time to explain to them how institutions like the NSA came about, would eventually understand the concept of intelligence and national security, be concerned about privacy and individual rights, but would probably be a lot more upset about rise of federalism following the Civil War. (Though they would probably understand why and how the Civil War happened.)
Please put to rest this tired argument made by people like you and Kulak that "The Founding Fathers lived for violence and wanted regular bloodbaths, would be horrified that you have allowed (Thing I Don't Like), and cry from the grave for you to slaughter your political opponents." That is not who they were and it was not the world they sought.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4d ago
If you declare "My ideological opponents (including people who work in fields I disapprove of) are not productive citizens" you are not striving to create a just system, just one that rewards your ingroup and punishes your outgroup.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4d ago
Federal law requires employers to submit an I-9 employment eligibility verification form for all employees. Employees have to provide suitable documentation proving they are eligible to work legally in the US. Technically you can't require someone to be a US citizen, but proof of citizenship would be one way to prove you can legally work here.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4d ago
It is a strange situation. U.S. employers are usually required to confirm US citizenship or legal residency and work authorization before hiring someone, and while some employers are notoriously lax about this, school districts and other state institutions usually are not. If you don't produce a birth certificate and social security card at some point before your first paycheck, you won't be able to keep your job.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5d ago
Besides being antagonistic, you are obviously having a moment. One day timeout.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
6d ago
Oh man, do I have to actually go watch that chucklehead's monologue? I couldn't stand him even before the Kirkening.
Fine, warning rescinded.
Don't make personal attacks.
ETA: Warning rescinded, I am not sufficiently Kimmel-versed.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
8d ago
SF/F is as mainstream as capeshit now. Being a LotR or SW fan doesn't make you part of an isolated little nerd subculture anymore.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
8d ago
If you like epic fantasy, I really like his Shadows of the Apt series (it was his debut). It's big and bloated and goes on for a while and some of the middle volumes are kind of filler, but I was never bored. For science fiction, I love Children of Time (it has David Brin/Uplift vibes), but The Final Architecture is a close second. All of his stand-alones are also good. Service Model and Alien Clay were his recent Hugo nominations and I thought they both deserved it.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
8d ago
Having to say "yes sir, no sir" to a cop who rolled up with an attitude and is clearly looking for an excuse to fuck you over is one thing, but I have watched a lot of bodycam footage where the cop just asks "License and registration, please" from some guy who ran a red light and what should have been a routine stop turns into chaos and a felony charge because bro's monkey brain decides the cop is out to get him and he's not going to "show his belly." If you are barely restraining an urge to attack a cop because he pulled you over, you're not eating shit from an unjust authoritarian system, you have impulse control problems and you are poorly socialized.
This also seems to happen at airports a lot. Cops show up, tell an upset (often inebriated) passenger that they have to leave because the airline is refusing to board them, and give them every opportunity to leave peacefully until it's clear they aren't leaving any other way but being dragged kicking and screaming.
Can cops be power-tripping assholes? Sure, but I am skeptical that's what happened here. Especially in the age of bodycams and everyone around filming any public interaction with the police, I would bet money that O'Keefe wound up in cuffs only after refusing every opportunity not to escalate to that point.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
8d ago
I read the first Mistborn series, knowing nothing about Brandon Sanderson, and thought "This author has to be a Mormon." I looked him up afterwards and yup, bingo.
Sanderson is a mid author who has become enormously popular through a combination of prolificacy, pure nerd appeal, and writing books that are unsophisticated yet reliably entertaining, like fantasy potato chips. I have read about a dozen Sanderson novels, and eventually they all run together. He does worldbuilding made to be written as RPG splatbooks, and his characters basically win by figuring out the exploits in whatever game system their GM has given them. The plot and character beats are the same, the dialog always has the same tone, and you can be assured it will always be LDSComics Code Approved.
I really liked The Way of Kings and thought I'd invest myself in a long epic fantasy series, but I should have known better since I never got past the first Wheel of Time book (the series which Sanderson famously finished after Robert Jordan died). The second Stormlight book was so boring and tediously Sandersony that I bailed on the series and have pretty much given up on him, though I'll probably read something else eventually. He always writes pretty good series starters, and they just get worse as the series goes on. I started the second Mistborn series and never read more than one book. Cytonic turned to shit by book three. Elantris (his debut novel) is so badly-written I question the literacy of people who praise it. Steelheart tries to be grimdark superheroes but it's pure YA. In fact, almost everything Sanderson writes is YA, but it's YA for M:tG-playing nerds, with only chaste Mormon romance and no problematic, messy, and challenging females (no, not even Vin or Shallan- powerful/crazy is not the same as scary) so dudes can enjoy it without either thinking too hard or being challenged.
I'm being critical but, like I said, I've read about a dozen of his books, so clearly he is doing something right. The ideas are cool, and there is a certain comfort in knowing what you're getting. I keep picking up the next one thinking "Maybe this one won't suck by book two." But he's a harder sell for me nowadays. Increasingly everything he writes reads like someone writing fanfic of his own work.
I have nothing but respect for his dedication and his drive, and he really, really loves what he does. I can overlook his dorkiness and Mormon cosmology that always inserts itself into the books. I ignore the whole Cosmere thing-- I am not a fan of tying every single book into the same multiverse and I don't care about how Hoid is going to appear this time, like Stan Lee always making a cameo in MCU films. But for prolific reliably entertaining authors, Stephen King and Adrian Tchaikovsky both have just as much range and are far superior writers.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
9d ago
A new Jussie Smollet case? Another Nurse Karen versus black kids on rental bikes?
Former 'The Bear' writer handcuffed on train after alleged complaint from white woman
Alex O'Keefe is a writer for FX's The Bear and a former speechwriter for Elizabeth Warren. He's also black. On September 18 he was apparently arrested and taken off an MTA train when a white woman told him to correct his posture and he refused.
At least, that's how it's reported on Black Enterprise, which obviously has the most inflammatory version. Most other news sites, such ABC (above) and Newsweek ('The Bear' Writer Arrested on Train After Complaint From White Woman) also seem to be describing what at first glance is a pretty egregious case of "White Karen sics cops on a black man for being uppity." So egregious that I was immediately suspicious. I mean, really? A white woman just points her finger and has a black man arrested for his "posture"? In 2025, in the Bronx?
Well, reading the ABC and Newsweek articles, there are a few additional details.
Police responded to a complaint of a 31-year-old "disorderly passenger" on a train at Fordham Metro-North station in the Bronx when "a conductor reported a passenger occupying two seats had refused to remove his feet from one of the seats," according to authorities.
According to the MTA rules of conduct stated on its website, riders are subject to a $50 fine for occupying more than one seat by lying down or placing their feet up. If a rider ignores a violation notice from an officer, they are subject to being ejected, the rules state.
"When he continued to refuse to exit, delaying service for several hundred other riders for six minutes, the passenger involved was handcuffed and removed from the train, where he was issued a summons for disorderly conduct, a violation, without further incident at approximately 1048 hours, and allowed to board the next train to complete his trip." MTA police told ABC News in a statement.
So he was not actually arrested - he was cuffed and "detained," then allowed to board the next train.
Supposedly one of the woman's friends said "You’re not the minority anymore.”
There is plenty here to make this another scissors incident. I have watched enough bodycam footage on YouTube to imagine it going several ways. Maybe Karen really was being a bitch and didn't like seeing a black guy "manspreading." The cops arrive in authoritarian asshole mode, O'Keefe protests, winds up cuffed and taken off the train.
Alternatively, O'Keefe was spreading himself across two seats, the old lady wanted to sit in one of them, O'Keefe decides no white lady is going to make him move, and when the cops arrive and ask him to please move his feet, he goes into Aggrieved Asshole mode.
Or something in-between. I have seen variations of both these scenarios play out. I doubt this will blow up into a huge story since O'Keefe wasn't actually arrested, but I have definitely seen it in several places now, in some cases described as a near-lynching and something something Trump.
The woman's friend saying "You’re not the minority anymore” is one of those details that strikes me as so on the nose (remember "This is MAGA country"?) that I just don't know what to think. Is it fabricated? Did someone really decide to offer up the perfect soundbite like that? Or was it in the context of a longer exchange between her and O'Keefe (a context conveniently omitted in all reporting)?
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
10d ago
Well, we try not to be overly zealous in policing thread contents, but it seems like this is more of a CW topic (which is allowed in the Small Questions thread) but it's not really a question. So it looks like basically a really low-effort CW post. I would prefer you put a smidge more effort into making it a conversation starter rather than just "Look at this sneer-fodder."
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
10d ago
But this is kindof the difference between Catholics and Protestants. We don't worship a book, we're trying to live good, Christian lives. While Protestants will get obsessive about bible translations, Catholics get more obsessive about the meaning implied.
This is pretty much what Protestants say about Catholics in reverse, though the charge is not that Catholics "worship a book" but rather they "worship a Church/the Pope" while Protestants worship Christ.
Fwiw I don't think either criticism is particularly made in good faith, but seeing Catholics and Protestants going at each other about who's really Christian is always bemusing to us nonbelievers.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
11d ago
UU is about the most unreligious religion you could find, and since the turn of the century they have become unambiguously woke in the extreme. There used to be some vestiges of actual Christianity in some UU congregations, but nowadays most UU churches are averse to anything other than progressive secular humanism, even if they vaguely handwave at spirituality.
If you want "Christianity lite" try the United Methodists (sometimes called "UUs pretending to be Christian"). They're pretty woke nowadays too but they still have actual services where Jesus is mentioned.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
13d ago
FWIW usually we can undo an accidental delete.
The filtered posts are not nearly as interesting as you imagine. Mostly crypto scams and various AIslop web services. For example (just now found in the filter, with links deleted):
Does Instagram Send Screenshot Notifications? Here’s What to Know
The question everyone asks: Does Instagram send screenshot notifications? The short answer—only in specific cases, like disappearing photos in DMs. For stories, posts, or reels, you’re in the clear. At PostUnreel, we break down trending topics like Instagram screenshot notification myths and turn them into engaging carousels and short-form content. Stay informed, stay relevant—and let PostUnreel help you create content your audience actually wants to know.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
13d ago
Man, the subject line of this post looked so much like the spam we are regularly flooded with that I almost deleted it without looking at who the poster was.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
15d ago
If you want to report someone's posts for being uncivil you may do so, but generally we're a lot harder on personal comments than we are on snide critiques of arguments.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
15d ago
You are a martial arts instructor, right?
What do you do when a liberal comes to your dojo? It must happen, and while in my experience, most people try to avoid politics on the mat (for good reason!) you're often going to get clues about people's affiliations.
This isn't a gotcha question or anything. I just really want to know how you deal with people you literally don't think should coexist with you, when you are in a position of trust and authority and with responsibility for their safety. As a former instructor myself I'd be very concerned about someone who feels they can't teach people with the wrong politics. This sounds nearly as bad as all those psychologists and therapists reportedly distressed at the idea of having to provide help to Republicans.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
15d ago
I'm not going to mod you for the comment you deleted, but you are kind of being an asshole here. People are allowed to push back on your thesis ( isn't that what you want? To get responses, including criticism?) and responding to a critic with a patronizing "know your place, woman" isn't acceptable in this forum. Maybe that's how you'd like it to be and think it should be, but it's not how it is.
That was three years ago. The question was why he's temporarily gone quiet on Twitter, just when a lot of stuff that's right in his wheelhouse is happening.
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