PierreMenard
No bio...
User ID: 2675
PierreMenard
5hr ago
Plenty of gamers loved playing CJ, an African-American character, in his GTA San Andreas adventures, fighting for his street gang and taking part in various criminal activities per the GTA formula. It's a great game because it mixes good gameplay (guns, cars, open-world which was somewhat new then), and an interesting story with characters that are both colorful, memorable, and also somewhat realistic, with the usual humorous exaggeration of the series.
The player, who is most likely not a would-be criminal from an impoverished inner-city black neighborhood, gets to experience a fascinating (exaggerated, fictionalized) facet of contemporary American life, with hundreds of references to TV shows and movies, music, sports, etc.
And of course, plenty of opportunities to drop the gamer-word while playing.
In this case, what does a black samurai bring to the experience of the game? Do we get some special scenes of the main character experiencing racial discrimination and having to take revenge? Does not sound like a lot of fun to me.
In the best case scenario, they'd bring some flashbacks of the main character's past life in Africa, with some neat well-researched African culture on display. Somehow I'm skeptical, unless they can somehow place the character in a part of Africa that wasn't having a ton of enslaving, public executions and human sacrifices going on all the time.
PierreMenard
21hr ago
The problem with a lot of material targeted at kids is how sanitized it all is. Whether it's superheroes or robot-animals or what not, the solution is always some magic or techno-magic, never an actual practical skill that kid-behaving-like-adults would develop.
You'll never learn how to gut a fish or dress a deer by reading an 'adventure in the woods' type of book. You'll never learn how to make bombs or makeshift weapons or how to bribe an official. You can watch 1000s of hours of pirate cartoons and barely learn any strategy or tactics.
PierreMenard
21hr ago
Well this is an English-language website on a European-created internet, populated with educated people familiar with the Western mindset. Antisemitism was historically very common among that group.
If we were sitting in a circle in Papua New Guinea then the pros and cons of cannibalism may be more common.
You'll have to forgive me if there's something a little counter-intuitive in the idea that the best way to decrease the number of rants about the Jews is to have more rants about the Jews.
No, there are other ways to decrease the absolute number of rants about the Jews, obviously, but we're talking specifically about the Motte. If you're sick of reading this content, there's still plenty of space on the wider English-language internet that is more or less curated of Jews-rants (for now). It's too bad for you that people that have interesting things to write about also seem to have a strange obsession for Jews-rants.
Perhaps we could have a separate Culture War Roundup Thread where talking about Jews would be allowed. We could have all the Ukraine, Gaza, NYC, Biden admin, Trump lawfare discussion in that thread, and for everything else, keep it in the Jew-rant-free thread, with the occasional link to a comment on the other thread if an user somehow thought that a discussion would be improved by adding an appropriate Jew-rant.
PierreMenard
1d ago
What is that meant to show? The fact that there exists an ideology more hated than Zionism does not mean that Zionism isn't hated.
My point was included already:
Well, then that's why you see more white nationalism-adjacent discourse on the Motte than zionist content.
If you want to see less talk of Jews-bad on theMotte, then make Jews-bad talk more mainstream. If SecureSignals could publish his opinions in the NYT, why would it be interesting to post it here?
The infamous 'Nazi punch' was one guy
There was also the whole Charlottesville event when a blue city decided to completely pull police forces from a legally registered protest and let counter-protesters take over and harass the lawfully-protesting right-wingers. The infamous car accident even happened because a driver got confused trying to leave the city, got threatened by a gun-carrying antifa, and then took a wrong turn in a street crowded by illegally-assembled counter-protesters.
Note how nobody at that time dared to publish a headline such as 'Is it OK to run over antifa protesters?' and nobody yet is writing headlines such as 'Is it OK to punch a zionist?', but that may change.
PierreMenard
1d ago
There are absolutely places where being a Zionist will get you punched.
When was the last time these billionaire Zionists got punched? Anybody doxxing them like Supreme Court justices?
No, it's not as radioactive as white nationalism, but so what?
Well, then that's why you see more white nationalism-adjacent discourse on the Motte than zionist content.
People who want to defend Israel's right to ethnic cleansing can just do so on TV panels, government offices, billionaire whatsapp groups, Fox News ads, SuperBowl ads, etc...
Meanwhile Tom Cotton has the audacity to suggest that perhaps the violence in American cities should be contained and everybody freaks out.
A few days later, The New York Times published an opinion piece by Cotton titled "Send in the Troops", arguing for the deployment of federal troops to counter looting and rioting in major American cities. Dozens of Times staff members sharply criticized the decision to publish Cotton's article, calling its rhetoric dangerous.[89][90] Following the negative response from staffers, the Times responded by saying the piece went through a "rushed editorial process" that would be reexamined.[91] Editorial page editor James Bennet resigned days later.
PierreMenard
1d ago
The mods were just following orders. Is it really anybody's fault that no one but Nazis can seem to follow pretty simple rules?
PierreMenard
1d ago
A strange backwards situation in which the feeble try to tell the mighty what is allowed.
Interestingly, when one considers the relationship between the US and Israel, a straightforward interpretation is that the mighty would be the US.
Yet who is telling who what is allowed? Whose billionaires are broadcasting Superbowl ads and emptying their government's coffers to fight whose wars?
Was mid-century Germany justified in telling the feebler Eastern-European countries how to treat their civilians?
PierreMenard
1d ago
And plenty of contexts where it's no problem at all or even a given. Not quite the same thing as being a White nationalist. Is it OK to punch a Zionist yet?
PierreMenard
1d ago
Mainly at the level where I think, boy, it'd be really nice to read the Motte without the same two or three people every time yelling about the Jews.
I agree with you! I can't wait for anti-sionism to be so mainstream that Jews are afraid to publish their pro-Israel opinions and have to get together on obscure pseudonymous message boards to dare express that 'perhaps Jews have a right to self-determination'.
From my experience, you can apply in person to entry-level, wagie jobs, and they may want you to work there, but if it's not a small business, you will still have to painstakingly submit an application online anyway. Some kind of humiliation ritual, perhaps.
The best part is that the people in charge of hiring you will also struggle with the process, as the devices they have in their grocery store have awkward hardware, the 3rd-party app (successfactor) is complicated or constantly changing, and they don't actually perform that process very often.
The technology was supposed to make hiring easier, more convenient, practical, but it is questionable whether that was actually achieved. I'm sure some metrics were improved, corporations have better awareness of who was hired and when, and they can do more background checks, penny-pinch wages and target workers for layoffs more accurately, they can optimize diversity scores to manage unionization risks...
On the other hand perhaps 'old-school hiring' wasn't so bad. Perhaps somebody can still be a good employee despite having used the n-word in 2008 or being an ex-con in some other state.
PierreMenard
1mo ago
PierreMenard
1mo ago
Also Russia is exhausting itself at a very small cost to the American taxpayer.
Idk inflation is pretty high, young Americans can't afford buying houses, nobody wants to join the US military to die for Israel or for Hunter Biden's business deals, 'Democrats' apparently feel the need to prosecute their political opponents, bridges are collapsing and planes barely going up in the sky, cops and judges don't feel like prosecuting (non-political) crimes...
According to the theory that every single bad thing that happens in the US is due to Russian agents, this war is not exactly cheap.
PierreMenard
1mo ago
our system would have outperformed your system is a particularly good way to do so.
I don't see how your system would have outperformed. I don't really get the end-goal of the muslim emigrants. They're just leaving a poor shithole (muslim-majority country) to a wealthier country (formerly white-majority country), and their descendants are gradually becoming Westernized. Then they acquire a quite Jewish ideological flexibility: oppressed minority in the streets, islamic conqueror in the sheets... That can't be good psychologically.
So what's the point? Coloring the map?
PierreMenard
1mo ago
It not only can, but is. Splinternets have been a thing for quite awhile now and all countries (including the US) engage in this sort of cyber balkanization.
Yes, so Ukraine does not qualify as a country (therefore Ukrainian nationalism is an oxymoron) by that definition, as its citizens are either living in the Western memeplex of the EU/US or of Russia's.
PierreMenard
1mo ago
Are they at war or just LARPing online?
PierreMenard
1mo ago
PierreMenard
1mo ago
The right of self-determination of Ukrainians is first and foremost not to be sent into a meatgrinder by conscription officers. The women of Ukraine have this right, and like a lot of modern people in that situation, they simply choose to live somewhere else.
To the most liberal, Western-minded young Ukrainians the 'special military operation' has been a great bounty. They finally were able to obtain a visa to Miami, NYC, Los Angeles or any European capital. They'll probably pay lip-service to the 'cause' to assure their status in their local circle of liberals, but they might not be thinking of ever going back.
Perhaps the middle-aged Ukrainians who have not grown up with Western propaganda online and feel unable to learn a foreign language go either way, they are attached to their country and see Russians either as enemies or former brothers in the Soviet Union.
Then there are the retirees who are (probably?) exempt from conscription, and may still feel nostalgic for the glory days of Bandera and think perhaps the wrong guys won the 'Great Patriotic War'. I'm not sure how they reconcile that with a desire to join NATO/EU or even voting for Zelensky.
Either way I think the most important development in all of this is that post-internet, nationalism cannot really be a thing. It's hard to convince the youth to die for your government after years of telling them that the people who just arrived have as much of a claim to the country as they do.
What's the difference if Russia takes Ukraine? That's like a change in government. Before it was Trump, now it's Biden.
Would an American zoomer care if China bombed the local strip mall, apartment complex full of Somalis and Venezuelians, the Indian-owned gas station, the gender-correction clinic etc? Perhaps they want to die for 'transkids'? Maybe if China bombed Instagram's or Netflix' servers and made it go dark they'd care? If the situation is too dire they can always move somewhere else (if somewhere else is at peace, that is), after all they were told they would own nothing and they'd be happy, so why here specifically?
Who on this website would go die in a trench for their government and under what circumstances? This is the first step to clear before allowing yourself to symbolically vote for somebody who wants to 'ear-mark' money for these foreign wars.
PierreMenard
1mo ago
You people are so great and superior. Aren't you worried that by reading and posting on this website you are contaminating yourself with the filthy Westerner mindset and that your customs and traditions will be lost?
If not you, your sons and daughters.
PierreMenard
1mo ago
Do you support sending billions of dollars to help prop up a regime that conscripts people then?
PierreMenard
1mo ago
Oh I didn't consider a flip. Yes in that case a helmet would definitely help, even if they are harnessed.
What I think would happen is that we'd first get into a minor flip and perhaps I'd reconsider the whole idea of pulling them for a whole hour. It probably depends on the terrain because with 4 wheels and quite a bit of weight on the back, I don't really see that thing flipping, but I have a very casual experience with it.
PierreMenard
1mo ago
I've towed children in a trailer like that with no helmet but for a total of 30min and perhaps half a dozen times.
If this is a routine transit then it's not a bad idea to optimize safety, and have the kids get used to it/get over it. If it's once every couple weeks, probably not worth the hassle of the helmet.
I expect a helmet to be required only in the case of a collision, as you're probably not going fast enough to do any damage if you had a sudden stop.
If you expect a small chance of a collision on that route it'd probably be wiser to forego the whole endeavor altogether as I don't think these trailers are really designed to take any kind of collision with a much larger vehicle. Or if this is already optimal transportation for you, make peace with the idea that perhaps the kids will get hurt if something bad happens. If having a helmet makes them upset and distracts you from potential road danger, then foregoing the helmet might be the safer option.
PierreMenard
1mo ago
a lot of the current left are basically and I say this in descriptive way, The Other - single women, minorities, immigrants, non-straight people, etc.
Could it be that the (current) left is generally self-selected as a group of people that could be said to have 'thin-skin'?
If a single woman has some strength of character and she hears some kind of offensive speech, she's not going to immediately demand censorship by the government. Then that woman can go on and listen and research more right-wing arguments once past the shock of 'somebody disagrees with my teacher, the talking heads on TV, journalists, etc'. And she can become right-wing.
If she doesn't have character, then she can stay within the safe confines of the media-approved opinions, and she'll cowardly switch opinions every few months when the newest update of progressive beliefs comes in.
It's a fragile coalition as well, for example your Other includes TERFs and transpeople, or LGBT and muslims, or open borders supporters and Ukrainian nationalists...
PierreMenard
1mo ago
Thank you for the source, unfortunately I didn't see an explanation for what is causing these gaps to shrink slightly.
Well to be clear, if it were either of these that would validate the Brown decision, because it would prove that segregation was lowering the relative quality of the education received by black students.
So should the Department of Education start subsidizing 'white' birthrates to ensure an adequate supply of 'white' students to improve education for everybody or?
What forces do you suppose these to have been?
Modernity, hubris, the Evil One... it's hard to say. Whatever reason there was to blow up a somewhat functional society at the time, even for a lack of foresight, blind optimism, carelessness... Hard lessons the future will have to learn. One should not concern themselves with slippery slopes but with slippery slopes leading to slipperier slopes. Each of our stumbles makes the next more acceptable and the very idea of a stumble confused.
PierreMenard
1mo ago
how much we have to limit women's freedom to get them to make more babies, and start having them earlier.
Do you not see women having fewer if any children as an issue or do you simply disagree on the solutions offered? Do you think the people who agree with you politically see it as an issue? If yes, what kind of solutions do they offer?
That's the 'women are wonderful' effect. Everybody loves women. Everybody of any race has some women they care about.
On the other hand, aside from some with exotic racial preferences, people usually want to see people that look like them in the media they consoom. Moreover, adding characters that look blatantly out of place from a historical, common sense point-of-view, takes away from the immersion.
For a lot of (male) gamers, adding attractive women in skimpy clothing is just a bonus. It does take away from the realism, still. The problem these days is that Western content creators have a tendency to pair a 'realistic, gritty' aesthetic with feminist fantasies. So the male fantasy of a scantily-clad (it's magic armor ok) Amazonian goddess turns into a rough-looking, middle-aged, square-shouldered she-man.
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