Blueberry
1yr ago
I feel like the Internet is losing its collective mind about that. It is not even a scissor statement, but everyone is aghast: The Buddhism subreddit has threads about people having a religious crisis. The Twitter hashtag is atheists being giddy taking a religious icon down, wokes grandstanding about abusive childhood trauma, evangelicals gladly attacking a trendy competing religion, rightwingers posting old memes of Biden and trying to smear any Democrat as a pedo if they had a photo together with the Dalai Llama…
I am not saying it is ok or appropriate or that his goofing around wasn’t icky. But sexual predator? A pedophile? I am baffled. My model of the Llama is that of a jester and he is someone who doesn’t have much experience with children. Also he is superold, and old people can be sometimes strange and weird. Doesn’t that suffice in explanation?
Blueberry
1yr ago
possibly drunk guy
If he were drunk or threatening Watson would have mentioned it. The only real dig she has against him is that while the man was part of the group with her at the bar, she didn’t talk with him before, so there was no rapport.
Then came Elevatorgate, and suddenly "Do you want to come to my room for coffee?" simply meant an offer of coffee
Hu? No, the issue was if it was a big deal or not. And everyone had an opinion on it, and it was a scissor statement, because this is playing out countless times every weekend in social settings, men trying to make a more or less suave/cringy move, and women rejecting it or not.
Blueberry
9d ago
It is even more strange when they stay principled! There are people in the worldnews subreddit arguing that Ukraine should draft women.
To simplify it: A Napoleon movie which isn't done by the French for a French audience is cultural appropriation.
Also Napoleon was 29 in Egypt campaign and 35 when he crowned himself Emperor. A younger sexier actor should play him.
Blueberry
5mo ago
80% of the members of the cult were women
Why this skewed representation? Thinking about it: Most cult leaders I can think of are male, are conversely most followers women? Why is that? But how skews that the leader structure? I looked up Jonestown and two third who drank the cool-aid were female. Leader Jim Jones was of course male, but there is a documentary about his helping „all-female inner circle“.
Downvoted Reddit comment about the twin flames documentary:
I hate to be mean but a lot (but not all) of the followers are conventionally unattractive women. They probably had a lot of trouble dating, not many relationships and are desperate for love. They are willing to do or say anything to someone who can promise them this love they are looking for. So, Ofcourse they don’t question it when they see “twin flames couple coaches” thinking it worked! So they double down.
I still dig his art style, but he jumped a tiny little bit to far into the deep end. Anti-Vaxx-Conspiracies, Pedo-Biden ordering pizzas, trans-activists conspiring to destroy everything decent in the world. It is quite something:
Blueberry
5mo ago
Regarding "Those who Walk Away from Omelas": The older I get the more I suspect the people who walk away are in the wrong.
For example the map in this old article which became a meme:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.html
Great-Grandfather: Allowed at age 8 to walk six miles to go fishing.
Grandfather: Allowed to roam in the woods.
Mother: Allowed to walk by herself to the swimming bath.
Zoomer Kid: Only allowed to walk to the family house street.
In a sense past generations larger freedom was bought by Omelas-sacrificing of children lives.
At least in Europe (or maybe just Germany) there is increasing demand for vegan food and the main advertized advantage is that it is more eco friendly. Animal welfare is a bonus, but is more used as an argument by organic farmers pushing their animal products, eg one should drink bio milk and bio cheese from happy cows from the idyllic small family farm in your region, instead of buying from the gruesome big business factory farm industry.
German food culture is changing. The number of vegans is growing, and more than half of the population wants to reduce meat consumption, considering themselves flexitarian. This makes Germany one of the most important markets for plant-based food
A common explanation for the rise of flexitarians in Germany is that young people are driving the change and taking their parents with them. Germans are generally very eco-conscious and young people are very much aware of the environmental effects of meat consumption. For example, Germany’s Fridays for Future Movement demands halving meat consumption by 2035. By comparison, the Fridays for Future Movement website in the United States does not say anything about meat.
Of course it sorts itself into a little bit of culture war issue here, as vegan products are more coded left/young/urban/educated/female and eating meat is more rightwing/boomer/rural/workingclass/male, and politicians pander to certain voter segments with the food they post at instagram …
https://www-derwesten-de.translate.goog/panorama/promi-tv/markus-lanz-markus-soeder-zdf-mediathek-gaeste-id300507832.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
… but I see at family gatherings the resigned acceptance that a vegan alternative has to be served.
Blueberry
6mo ago
This cuts both ways: Imagine being so inferior to the IDF that your brave warriors are killed by women
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-769134
Squad of female IDF combat troops eliminated nearly 100 Hamas terrorists
Lt.-Col. Or Ben Yehuda, Caracal Battalion, praises her troops' bravery against Hamas, silencing doubts about female combat soldiers with their training, heroism, and life-saving actions.
Of course because of the fog of war the article is propaganda and scant with information about casualties.
Blueberry
6mo ago
Along those lines, if IPGs truly are an effective tactic that's hard to stop, I gotta wonder where we're gonna see it next. Ukraine maybe?
The paragliders were like out of Mad Max. Like the cheap NOD buggies from command & conquer.
But:
I can't find the source video on Youtube, so sorry for the Twitter links. This is the fast-paced propaganda video from Hamas "rehearsing their deadly Israel attack". This is how they want to be seen:
https://twitter.com/Aryan_warlord/status/1710846439776297120
And from the ground it looked like this:
https://youtube.com/shorts/_UPSU2dEJbM https://twitter.com/OSINTNic/status/1712058746266849658
It is terrifying, but only if you don't have a gun. The gliders are slow moving, they are loud, they have zero cover. It is like shooting ducks. If you have a gun, which the festival people didn't.
One hot take a few days ago by Eetan was that the Israelis need gun rights:
https://www.themotte.org/post/705/israelgaza-megathread-1/146562?context=8#context
I wouldn't be so quick for this American solution. But I don't expect to see glider soldiers in the heavily armed Ukraine war and in principle it should be easy for the IDF to detect and defend against them.
Blueberry
1yr ago
We got Greta Thunberg
Thunberg is just someone who really takes the IPCC seriously. It is not something she makes up or talked herself into it.
Blueberry
1yr ago
How does Sweden compare to Denmark/Norway/Finland in vaccination percentage? I thought all Scandinavia/western Europe were good in that.
Blueberry
1yr ago
Note that I'm not touching on the moral aspects of the war, just on the operational ones.
It is noteworthy that a private military company (Wagner) is doing a lot of the difficult front fighting, and the normal Russian army is just following later.
https://twitter.com/MihajlovicMike/status/1612936331587649537
What is interesting is that Soledar is basically PMC against the western-backed (equipment, weapons and above all intelligence) military: Wagner group distinguished themselves as a true crack fighting force, in many aspects better than the French Foreign legion.
Is the private sector also in war more efficient than state bureaucratic militaries?
Blueberry
1yr ago
To use another example, the government effectively owns the internet, which lead to a golden age of tech.
Interesting, because I have the opposite view: The governments didn't understand the World Wide Web and left it alone, so the wild west cyberspace was left to libertarian self organization and anarcho-capitalism, which led to a golden age in tech.
Compare it to the Minitel system by the French state, which was reasonably successful but technologically stagnant:
Blueberry
1d ago
even the new “black” national anthem
The what? I’m not American and don’t get the reference?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01990-8?fromPaywallRec=false
Global GDP is estimated to be 3.2% lower (lower/upper decile: 1.2–5.4%) at +1.5 °C of global warming, compared to a world with no further climate change beyond recent levels. At +3 °C, global GDP decreases by 10.0% (5.1–14.9%).
The damage of climate change, up to 10% of global GDP, is such an enormous sum that it is always cheaper to instead invest in carbon reduction and reduce climate change.
Of course all the same arguments and attitudes from before apply here: If one doesn’t believe in the scientific consensus in climate change why should one believe the financial modeling and projected costs of extreme weather events are correct?
Regarding the comparison and how to deal with uncertainty: I think one main difference is that vaccination was not needed for the survival of civilization. But renewable energy and electrification is needed in any case, sooner or later, because fossil fuels are a limited resource. Even under most optimistic calculations we have only 100-200 years of oil reserves left.
Blueberry
29d ago
India is really interesting. I just looked up a map of rich/poor Indian states, but for example Tamil Nadu, which is shown as quite wealthy, has relatively low Brahmin but high Dalit demographics. I would have expected the reverse.
Blueberry
3mo ago
sounds more like Wini, Widi, Wicky
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet …
Vici is related to victory. And the hard c=k is manly.
Blueberry
5mo ago
I can't link every comic in the last two month, but this point is hammered obsessively. While there is a deafening silence about the attack from 7th October, it is comically (ha!) one sided.
You miss the forest for the trees. Are the kids of these smart asians smarter than other US ethnicities? This question is not solved by noticing the strong filter, but the opposite.
More options
Context Copy link