Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
Disabled Alaskan Monarchist doomer
User ID: 2666
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
18hr ago
My questiob is WHY do progressives still want to fight dead battlegrounds either lost permanently to the enemy or scorched to irrelevance.
First, I doubt they'd believe that anything can ever be permanently lost to their enemy — after all, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." It's a pattern in progressive historiography where prior failed attempts at pushing some cause are lauded as prefiguring the later successful ones. Second, I must once again quote Mrs. Britten's English Zone:
Early literature written by Puritans in America often appeared as first person narratives in the form of journals and diaries. Early American colonists wrote their accounts of immigration, settling in America, and day-to-day life in journals to pass their stories down. Many Puritans also wrote letters to send back to Europe to family and friends they left behind. Very little fiction appeared during this period; Puritans valued realistic writing with an emphasis on religious themes.
…
Even the letters they wrote to friends and family in Europe performed more of a purpose than simply communicating about their lives and keeping in touch. Puritans' religious beliefs affected their lives on all levels, and their writing illustrated their religion's values, such as the importance of the church and the influence of God in their lives. Writing often became instructive, teaching Christian values. The Puritans did not believe that literature was for entertainment; therefore, they frowned upon "entertainment" genres such as drama (plays) and fiction novels.
How do you demonstrate that you are one of the Elect, if you aren't promoting Virtue, fighting wickedness, and serving Christ DEI in everything you do?
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
How about believing that one "vaccine" doesn't work, independently of all the others that do?
I get it, you want to smear anyone who has concerns about the mRNA "vaccine" as a brain-dead "science-denier" who wants to bring back measles and mumps, but quite a few people — including most people I know IRL — accept that all the many real vaccines do work… but not the "clot shot" bioweapon.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
the numerators and denominators of the approximating fractions
I think we might be using different algorithms. I generally use the "long division method" — though I admit that for later digits it mostly reduces to increasing amounts of tedious multiplication and subtraction. Do you use Heron's method?
How the fuck do you notice that?
Well, first I factored the denominator into 234=2*9*13. The tests you mention quickly ruled out 2 and 3 as divisors of the numerator, so that leaves trying 13.
Now, in this case, a used a particular divisibility rule that works for numbers with 4-6 digits, which is based on the fact that 1001=7*11*13 is a multiple of 13. Thus, if you "split" the number into its last three digits — in this case, 423 — and the preceding 1-3 digits before that — in this case, 332 — and take their difference, then the original number is divisible by 13 if and only if this resulting difference is also a multiple of 13. In this case 423-332=91=7*13, so it's divisible by 13; a bit of mental long division gives 332423= 25571*13.
(To explain in slightly more mathematical detail, I'm essentially taking 332423 and subtracting 332*1001=332332 to get 91, and since 332332 is a multiple of 13, 332423 and 332423-332332 are thus equivalent modulo 13.)
I also know divisibility tests for 7 and 11; the latter is particularly simple: add the two sets of alternating digits, then take the difference of those two sums; if that is also a multiple of 11 (including 0), then so is the original number.
Ex. 120681: 1+0+8=9, 2+6+1=9, 9-9=0=11*0, so it's divisible by 11 (note we also see at the same time that the digits all sum to 9+9=18=9*2, so 120681 is also divisible by 9). Much as the "sum up the digits" test for divisibility by 3 and 9 derives from 10^n ≡ 1 mod 9 (and thus also mod 3), this test for divisibility by 11 derives from 10 ≡ -1 mod 11, and thus 10^n ≡ (-1)^n mod 11.
Edit: fixed asterisks used for multiplication signs.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
This goes right back to Marx and "false consciousness"
Actually, I'd argue the idea goes even further back, at least to Rousseau — his ideas of "negative education" and the amour de soi/amour-propre distinction.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
I dearly hope that anyone who encounters 332423/234 in their professional life
Actually, this isn't too hard if you note that both the numerator and denominator are multiples of 13, and so it reduces to 25571/18, which (if you need it as a mixed number) is much easier to compute as being 1420 and 11/18 — or 1420.6111…
Then again, I'm someone who has a habit of trying to mentally decompose various integers I encounter into their prime factorizations, basically for fun, so…
(I'll also compute square roots by hand from time to time, just to keep my skills sharp.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
Except to say that I'm not sure I have seen that, no. Perhaps someone will demonstrate it at some point, in which case I'll likely adopt the position and also be upset about the matter.
Jiro did it upthread right here:
Everyone here (minus the lizardman constant) thinks vaccines work
See, either you think "vaccines" work — *all vaccines, from the polio vaccine to mRNA Covid shots — or you think vaccines don't work, not a one of them.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
Everyone here (minus the lizardman constant) thinks vaccines work.
I'd note that this kind of demonstrates one of OP's points — the lumping together of "all vaccines into one monolithic product and doctrine." That you either believe "vaccines work" — all things that we choose to label a "vaccine," regardless of how novel the technology — as a whole, or you want to bring back polio. That anyone who so much as doubts the mRNA shot must be a scientifically-illiterate moron who thinks Edward Jenner was a fraud and the MMR shot causes autism.
Plus, it's also consensus-building.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
Thus, HBD-believing fertility-rates-concerned rationalists' thinking goes that lower IQs might be selected for and boost short-term reproductive fitness in the short term, while preventing us from solving AI alignment or colonizing Mars or any of that good stuff, and thus drastically reducing Homo sapiens's chances of long-term survival.
Look, I still remember how popular the opening bit of Idiocracy was with a lot of left-wingers all those decades back, well before "HBD-believing fertility-rates-concerned rationalists" were a thing. For that matter, I remember classmates from Caltech talking about how we needed "parenting licenses" out of mid-20th century sci-fi to keep the dumb, Bible-thumping rednecks from breeding too many future Republican voters, before we end up another moron like Bush the younger in the White House. (They also had either one of two explanations as to why this wasn't eugenics.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
First, it seems like some people are kind of not-friends with the United States. How many Chinese spies are here on Student Visa? How many future ISIS agents are we educating right now? Even without deliberate malice, different norms might lead to people smuggling dangerous fungi and genetically modified roundworms without safeguards, for instance.
You're assuming the people who want to keep the colleges and their enrollment numbers propped up care about this.
But with the demographic collapse we're talking about, eventually we'll run out of rich kids and start needing poor kids. Are they going to be receiving unbacked loans to go to American schools? When they can just fuck off back to some jungle and laugh in the face of debt collectors?
Yes, and yes, because the "unbacked loans" will mostly be from the government, so it'll be the citizenry eating the costs of the defaults — either through taxes, or more likely via inflation, since the money will just be printed. In short, it'll provide a scheme for the government to keep these institutions afloat at taxpayer expense without just doing so directly, while also furthering demographic replacement.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
Random Chadian peasants will not be going to American universities, or anywhere else more than five miles from their mud huts.
Why not? Just create a program to recruit them, ship them over, and waive admissions requirements.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1d ago
Is anything stopping you from moving to the contiguous US?
All my family and friends are here, my entire support network; and the last time I tried living elsewhere, I wound up in the psych ward 3 times in less than 6 months.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
In practice, a lot of right wingers square the circle by claiming that any ruling ideology (any ideology that has authoritarian tendencies and a vision for a 'better' society) is Marxist by fiat but I don't find that convincing, in part because I don't see a mutual throughline and in part because the differences seem large enough to be meaningful (as opposed to People's Front of Judea vs. Judean People's Front).
I agree, though I might not draw the line in the same place you do. In particular, I see the key difference as somewhere between pre-modern state projects like, say, King Zhao of Qin ordering the construction of the Dūjiāngyàn irrigation and flood control project (around 256 BC, and still in use today!), and the sort of "High Modernist" technocratic projects discussed in James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State. Something like "ivory-tower Scientific Expertise" versus "ground-level metis."
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
But even foreign demographics will collapse eventually.
Certain parts of Sub-Saharan Africa look like they're holding up for now, and if their demographics do eventually collapse, it probably won't be any time this century.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
For now, that outcome has been staved off with immigration.
And why can't that continue for many, many years to come? People use hyperbolic talk about recent immigration with terms like "flood," but we, particularly in America, have not seen anything like what an actual flood of immigrants would look like.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
10 years from now, are we seeing a new sub-class of horrifically incompetent 30 year olds? If so, how does that change policy outcomes.
Yes, and the likely effects on outcomes are:
- things get more dysfunctional
- left-wing "bioleninist" patronage expands, over and above the demographic trends, further cementing the left's total lock on power
- the remaining smart, functional people get squeezed harder to support this; and to prevent them from withdrawing or underperforming, the coercion applied will be greatly increased
- unrest will rise, legitimizing the increasing use (in a politically-biased manner) or improving technologies of surveillance and oppression
- the "Global American Empire" will increase its attempts to both expand the periphery, and further loot it, in hopes of directing as much of total global productivity as possible to keeping this system propped up, even as they "eat" more and more civilizational "seed corn" at home
- and humanity hurtles further toward the inevitable and irreversible collapse of industrial civilization.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
First, who or what is "JLF"? Second, everything I see on the ERE forums depends on being able to accumulate savings and/or investments. Third, you might be missing that I live in Alaska; everything is more expensive here (due to shipping costs), and so the cost of living is something like 17% higher than the national average.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
Thanks, that does sound better. (And it may come in handy with my new therapist in the future.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
because I didn't get that in the original post.
Sure; I suppose it's just that I've posted here often enough about my situation — disabled, unemployable, living entirely off government handouts — that I took a certain familiarity with it for granted.
maybe you need to look at MMM or ERE to get help in how to navigate with poor income.
Not doable with Social Security's restrictions on savings: I'm not allowed to have total financial assets exceeding $2000.
What is your actual income level?
Not counting the rent subsidy or what Medicaid pays for my prescriptions, and just the money I (or rather, my representative payee) receive from the Federal and Alaskan governments? Approximately $1300/mo.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
4d ago
Is there such a thing as "distributed emotional blackmail," and if so, is there an established term for it?
I mean, instead of Alice saying to Bob, "You need to do X for me; because think of how it'll hurt my feelings if you don't; you owe it to me," or something like that, Alice instead says "You need to do X for Carol; because think of how it'll hurt her feelings if you don't; you owe it to her."
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
4d ago
Since you are in for winters in a temperate/snowy place, why not suffer for 1 month (or 1 week minimum) in some sunny tropical place, just taking in the sun. No other goal, no need for tourism, no need to do something or achieve something. Complete free, unorganized, wandering. Pick a simple (cheap) B&B kind of place and go out all day - come back in night - sleep - repeat (go in to the markets, beach, anything).
I get that most people on the motte are upper-class enough not to really understand what "poor" means, but what part of "I'm dirt poor" is not getting through?
I can't afford any of this. After rent, utilities, and food, I have maybe $100 left for everything else. Soap and hygiene. Cleaning products. Foil/plastic wrap/etc. Toilet paper. Facial tissue. Laundry. Clothing. Transportation.
(And it looks like I'll be screwed by 2026, if not earlier, because when the rent subsidy goes? I'm homeless.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
6d ago
Regarding the future years, float with the current. You are not going to reach anywhere in the end
There is no fun. I enjoy nothing. My existence is suffering, whether I struggle or I "float with the current." My suffering will only end with my death. The only reason to keep living and not kill myself is if there's some purpose to be achieved in doing so.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
6d ago
Okay, here’s the part you might not like. The only free version of this that I personally know of is church.
Yeah, people keep recommending that to me, despite my being a lifelong atheist who's never attended before. Though mostly from different reasons than what you seem to be pushing. Because I don't see the point of just sitting and neither listening to the sermons nor interacting with anyone.
You don’t want a megachurch
I don't think we have any big enough in Anchorage to fit that description
I would say you want to ID every church in a distance you think is achievable in winter time, then go check them all out.
I've kind of looked at them, and none seem like good fits.
Find one that has about 75-100 people in the pews
That sounds bigger than most of the churches around here, from what I've seen.
Bring an audiobook or something, put in an earbud
Isn't this both rude, and get in the way of the point of going, which is to meet and interact with new people? Because I don't see any point to just being around a bunch of people.
and just get used to being around a number of other people
You say that like I have a problem with "being around a number of other people."
If anyone says anything to you, just make the usual mouth noises
Having never attended a church, and being an unbeliever, I have no idea what those are.
Please don’t join a cult.
That rules out the closest church, because it's part of a Mexican cult. The "no whites allowed" Samoan church moved elsewhere. So that just leaves the black Baptist church that advertises local Democrat politicians, or the Lutheran church with the woman pastor whose LinkedIn page has the usual rainbow flags.
You probably haven't listened to anyone over at therightstuff.biz, then. Several of them openly supported Biden over "Zion Don," and some of them even Kamala — because there's plenty of open "anti-Zionists" over on the Democrat side, while Trump is "practically one of the Tribe" since he "gave his daughter to one of (((them)))." That the "Russian Collusion" narrative about 2016 was right in every detail… except that it wasn't Moscow that meddled to install Trump and give him his weekly marching orders, it's Tel Aviv. That, contrary to what many on the right claim, Trump did accomplish in his first term everything the people who got him into the White House put him there to do: he moved the embassy to Jerusalem and gave tax cuts to Jewish billionaires.
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