FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
User ID: 1175
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
14hr ago
@George_E_Hale – forgive my ignorance, but what's the significance of the road being painted yellow?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
Maybe I'll follow @FiveHourMarathon's lead and start playing Long War when I become a father.
Perhaps the most recurrent complaint in these threads is magnum opus dissonance: the comment you tossed off in five minutes gets showered with accolades, while the one you slaved over for days doesn't get a look in.
It's impossible to predict which comments will resonate with posters here, and which won't. All the same, I will admit to being amused that my lengthy effortpost about the importance of marriage and my desire to start a family didn't get nominated, while my (roughly as lengthy, admittedly) effortpost about the most efficient way to kill aliens without save scumming did. My wife was also amused.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
I don't claim that this pattern is unique to anti-Zionists, but I find it a bit strange the way otherwise sensible and down-to-earth people (people who might have even scoffed at previous generations of conspiracy theories, turning "9/11 was an inside job" and "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" into punchlines) reflexively reach for the "it was a Mossad false flag" explanation the second they hear about anything bad targeting Jews.
@Tanista below me writes:
The Israelis and Ukrainians and Russians and everyone else who shrugs at reports of crimes from their own are at least behaving in a normal, if not morally upstanding, way.
Acknowledging that the bad thing happened but insisting that the victim had it coming is, indeed, a perfectly ordinary human response. But in my experience, Western anti-Zionists/pro-Palestinians seem to be afflicted with a far stranger kind of conspiratorial cognitive dissonance. When a bad thing happens to Jews, they demand far more evidence that it really happened than they would ever demand had it befallen a different ethnic group. (Indeed, lots of people who are credulous about hate crimes targeting black people or Muslims are maximally sceptical about crimes targeting Jews.) When you can finally get them to begrudgingly concede that it really happened, they'll insist that it was a false flag, or that the IDF knew about it and allowed it to happen as a casus belli. When you can finally get them to concede that this is absurd (why would a nation capable of and intent on committing genocide wait until they were attacked to start doing so? Does that pattern-match to any historical genocide?), only then will they say that the bad thing happened, the Jews didn't "allow it" to happen to them – but they had it coming because of Gaza.
I don't quite know why this is the case, but it's a pattern I've observed across dozens of people who call themselves pro-Palestinian or anti-Zionist. To reiterate: I'm not claiming this pattern is unique to them.
We're way past the realm of "that isn't happening, and it's good that it is". I'm proposing something instead called "The anti-Zionist's prayer (modelled on Dayna Craig's "narcissist's prayer"):
That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it was a false flag attack/the Hannibal doctrine.
And if it wasn't, the IDF knew about it in advance and let it happen.
And if they didn't, it wasn't a big deal.
And if it was, you Jews deserved it.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1d ago
I'm surprised no one's talking about yesterday's attempted plane hijacking in the Middle East. Via the BBC:
A flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv was diverted to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after one pilot stabbed the other and “apparently tried to crash the plane”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said.
The pilot was arrested and is being questioned by Saudi authorities, Netanyahu added.
The stabbed pilot, identified as Indian national Capt Smit Machchhar, was taken to hospital after the flight landed and later called a “hero” by the Israeli prime minister.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has called the incident an “attempted jihadist terror attack”. The BBC is yet to receive official statements from police, emergency services, or investigators regarding any motive.
Apparently the stabbed pilot managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers to storm inside and seize the would-be hijacker (the passengers obviously being alarmed by the plane plummeting 14,000 feet in 30 seconds). One passenger managed to take over the controls and land the plane safely in Saudi Arabia. I've heard unconfirmed reports that Saudi Arabia initially refused to let the plane land within its borders and instructed the pilot to land in Jordan, before finally relenting.
Western media outlets are variously referring to the incident as an "altercation", "fight" or "brawl" between pilots, rather than as a foiled act of jidahi terrorism.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
2d ago
You forgot about the people who are exactly 5′9″.
Fair point, amended.
Starting from next week, I want to try shopping my novel around to literary agents one more time, but if I haven't heard anything by the new year I'm just going to post it online, one chapter a week.
One reason I think I'm not getting any takers is that, even after changing it quite significantly, I still don't think the opening is compelling or attention-grabbing enough. The other day I had an idea for an alternate opening, which I quickly bashed out. I'm curious if I'm on the right track, so if you fine people can spare five minutes to read two passages of text I'd really appreciate it.
New Year's resolution check-in:
- Fell slightly behind my posting schedule. Planning to knock out a quick blog post today.
- I had a headcold last week and didn't manage to get to the gym until Thursday. The plan was to go on Saturday and Sunday, but after running a half-marathon on Saturday morning (with a respectable time of 1:57), I couldn't summon the resolve to go to the gym as well. Instead, I went to the gym twice on Sunday. I also went to the gym last night, and am planning to go this evening. I can deadlift 1.82x my bodyweight, squat 1.33x and bench press 0.82x.
- Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.
How goes it @self_made_human, @thejdizzler, @birb_cromble, @ThomasdelVasto and @falling-star?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
3d ago
I agreed with you, but then I realised I bought the phone I'm using to write this comment online.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
4d ago
There are certain tics of his that get on my nerves alright. What specifically annoys you?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
4d ago
where do people even get drugs, anyway?
From drug dealers.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
4d ago
This post of Scott's about New Atheism is required reading, if you haven't read it already.
New Atheism was a failed hamartiology.
"Hamartiology" is a subfield of theology dealing with the study of sin, in particular, how sin enters the universe. Orthodox Christian hamartiology says we all have original sin because Adam and Eve ate the apple. Gnostic hamartiologies say we sin because we are ignorant of our true nature as celestial beings. Some heretical hamartiologies say that all of this is irrelevant, and we sin because we choose to.
We watched the US population elect George W Bush and act like this was a remotely reasonable thing to do. We saw people destroying the environment, leaving the poor to starve, and denying gay people their right to live as normal members of society. We saw people endorsing weird ideas and conspiracy theories, from homeopathy and creationism to the Clintons murdering their enemies. We were always vaguely aware from reading the newspapers that some of these people existed. But now we were seeing and conversing with them every day.
And so we asked ourselves: what the hell is wrong with these people?
And New Atheism had an answer: religion.
That was it. It was beautiful, it was simple, it was perfect. We were the “reality-based community”. They were ignoring Reason and basing all of their opinions on three thousand year old fairy-tales because people told them they would burn in Hell forever if they didn’t. There was nothing confusing or unsettling at all about the situation, and we did not need to question any of our own beliefs. It was just that some people had been brainwashed by their church/mosque/synagogue to believe transparently wrong things, so they did. Sin began with the apple tree in Eden; conservatism began with the Bible in Jerusalem. Language separates us from the apes; not being blinded by religion separates us from the Republicans.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
4d ago
I can't remember who said it, but I once saw a quote to the effect of "if you tell me one of your political opinions, and I can accurately guess every other political opinion you hold, you are not a serious thinker".
I get heavily-downvoted comments on this website frequently enough to reassure me that I haven't fully surrendered my higher brain functions to the Motte Egregore.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
4d ago
Just started the last book in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan quartet, The Story of the Lost Child. Having had my suspicions during the first three books in the series, I can now confirm that protagonist Elena Greco has
I finished The Best Minds this week. Author Jonathan Rosen published several novels before writing this, and there are times when you feel like you're reading a novel rather than a work of non-fiction. That's not solely due to the manner of its telling, but also because the story itself is so surprising and so saturated with dark irony. Indeed, if it was a work of fiction, a satire of well-meaning but misguided deinstitutionalization efforts, its basic premise (a brilliant but troubled young man is diagnosed with schizophrenia, becomes the public face of contemporary efforts to break the stigma around mental illness and stop the mentally ill from being discriminated against, sells the rights to tell his inspirational biography to Hollywood for more than a million dollars – then has a psychotic break and stabs his pregnant fiancée to death) would seem almost painfully on-the-nose.
While reading the book, it struck me that it's a clever subversion of a genre of books and films I call "TOA stories": "triumph over adversity". These are formulaic and sentimental stories about a brilliant individual who faces some unexpected major obstacle in his life (physical disability, disease, mental illness), struggles mightily against it, and summons strength he didn't know he had to overcome it. Something something mind over matter, inner human resolve, a moving testament to the power of the human spirit etc. The Best Minds starts off following that structure to the letter, but where a conventional TOA story would have ended with Michael selling the rights to his story, marrying his girlfriend and delivering an inspirational speech, Minds keeps going, showing that the real thing is nowhere near that simple. In the end, adversity triumphed over Michael, not the other way around. Part of the reason adversity triumphed over him was because so many around him chose to pretend that he'd already triumphed over adversity, and hence missed (or, less charitably, ignored) obvious red flags that his condition was very much not a thing of the past. Rosen notes that, prior to his murdering his fiancée, so many articles about Michael described him as having "a history of schizophrenia", as opposed to "schizophrenic". Amusingly, the phrase "triumph over adversity" does appear in the book, in the form of a press release Rosen quotes about the film A Beautiful Mind. That film originated as a loose biopic about Michael, but after he murdered his fiancée, the producers decided they needed a more palatable lunatic for their subject.
Interestingly, after a certain point the real John Forbes Nash gave up taking antipsychotic medication, but near the end of A Beautiful Mind, Nash claims to be taking meds. Director Ron Howard felt this artistic license was the responsible choice, as he did not want to send the message that schizophrenics should attempt to overcome their condition via sheer willpower. His decision feels even more poignant when you understand the genesis of the project: Michael's story must have been weighing heavily on Howard's mind, as a cautionary tale of what can happen when schizophrenics don't take their medication.
The Best Minds is easily the best work of non-fiction I've read so far this year, and the saddest work of non-fiction I've read in years. Highly recommended.
The Telegraph published a "dictionary of woke", and some of the entries are good for a laugh:
Culture warrior. Anyone who attempts to resist, or even to question, Left-wing efforts to impose radical change on our culture. As in: “I’m sick of Right-wing culture warriors trying to claim that convicted rapists should not be placed in women’s prisons just because they’ve put on a pair of pink leggings and some lipstick.”
Divisive rhetoric. Any statement which is factually true but politically inconvenient. As in: “By informing the public that Afghan men are over 20 times more likely to commit sex crimes than British men, the Tories are engaging in the most appallingly divisive rhetoric.”
Dog whistle. Any mention of a subject that the Left a) doesn’t want to talk about, and b) thinks no one else should be allowed to talk about. As in: “Drawing attention to the rape of thousands of working-class girls in dozens of towns across Britain is a racist dog whistle.”
Our communities. All communities except the British. As in: “The sight of a British person flying the British flag in a British town can be extremely distressing to our communities.”
Satire. Topical comedy which fearlessly holds the Government’s critics to account. As in: “Led By Donkeys produce the most brilliantly coruscating satire. It’s about time someone was brave enough to make fun of Liz Truss.”
Weaponising. The use of any fact which undermines the Left’s position. As in: “Nigel Farage is weaponising the murder of Henry Nowak by shamefully letting the public know that, in March 2025, the National Police Chiefs’ Council published a Police Anti-Racism Commitment which said officers should not treat everyone ‘the same’ or be ‘colour-blind’.”
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
5d ago
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
8d ago
The author denies it, claiming the first draft of the book dates back to 2019, well before AI tools were widely available.
This doesn't strike me as much of a defense even if it's true. If he could put the first draft and published draft side by side and show how much of the former he'd retained in the latter, that would be one thing. But presumably the published draft is all but unrecognisable compared to the first draft.
Ah, I see. I thought maybe the colour yellow had some special significance in Japan (e.g. "yellow journalism").
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