But hunter-gatherers are primitive and elephants are animals. From noble man I expect more.
That Hamas murdered civilians on the music festival and paraded a half naked dead women around really moves the needle on my moral compass.
BUT, this is also a false dichotomy. There are not only two sides: Beside Hamas there is the Fatah-ruled Palestinian National Authority. While there is surely a lot to criticize them for, the GDP in the West Bank is twice as high than in Gaza strip. And Israel itself has plural opinions (I think Netanyahu is done after the crisis, this was a colossal failure of government on every level.)
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:
Maybe you know (from back when the web was still young) the comic Sinfest by Japanese-American artist Tatsuya Ishida. His turn from fun webcomic to ultra-anti-woke/anti-porn/pro-maga wingnut is maybe the most surprising heel turn in history.
What confuses me though is his unashamed hamas-freedom fighter sentiment and Jews-are-the-villains narrative:
https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2023-11-13
https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2023-11-11
https://sinfest.xyz/view.php?date=2023-11-01
Similar to Stonetoss anti-Jew/Israel comics:
https://stonetoss.com/comic/the-great-pumpkin/
I find it surprising because they align their politics suddenly with the woke blue-haired decolonization genderfluid hipsters they are normally opposed to. Instead my guess would have been, now that israelic comedians make fun of such US-student (https://youtube.com/watch?v=rbfccVBo9tE), that right wingist would latch onto that and try to flip Jews to their side. Is it just being contrarian and being opposed to whatever the mainstream media is for? Do they secretly have a hard on for homophobic/antifeminist Islam? Or maybe, as a non-American, I simply underestimated the strong JewishWorldConspiracy-Nazism-undercurrent in some right wing circles?
Blueberry
6mo ago
Kirsten Roupenian says she learned about Alexi Nowicki "from social media". (Good old online stalking.) But I don't believe it, it seems like she said it to distance herself while the details are too intimate, my bet is that Roupenian must have read through Charles phone or knew him more. Doesn't have to be romantic, maybe she was just a friend to which he poured his heart out in a vulnerable moment. Frustrating that the "encounter" is not clarified.
Anyway, I found this poignant:
We are all unreliable narrators. Sometimes, to my own disappointment, I find myself inclined to trust Roupenian over myself. Had Charles actually been pathetic and exploitative, and I simply hadn’t understood it because I, like Margot, was young and naïve? Had he become vengeful and possessive after we broke up, but I’d just blocked it out in order to move on with my life? The story is so confident and sure, helping the reader to see things Margot herself does not. In December, David told me that Charles kept his old iPhone even after he got a new one so that he could look back at his old messages with Kristen from time to time to see whether he had actually been an asshole. Sometimes it feels easier to believe the story that everyone knows than the one they don’t.
Blueberry
6mo ago
why does the UN have the right to just impose that on them?
Because the alternative was what happened: The right of conquest.
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
6mo ago
Paul Morphy, the best player ever, has said:
"The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life."
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
5mo ago
Did you know Israel has anti-miscegenation laws? There are probably others on the planet but Israel is literally the only one I know of that exists in the modern day.
Is it legally possible for a muslim to marry a non-muslim without the partner/offspring converting to Islam? I don't think so:
The hardest flex of him is in the comments:
I've never understood why people think English is bad for dactyls. I really like them and wrote a piece entirely in dactyls once to see what would happen: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/17/the-goddess-of-everything-else-2/
WOW this has made me think of that post in a new light. Read it at least four times and had no clue.
Many people have said this! I'm torn between "I guess I wasted my time doing this" and "people seemed to find it beautiful, and I wonder if it's because subconsciously they noticed it was poetry even if they couldn't exactly put their finger on why."
A dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables.
Blueberry
1yr ago
Though Scott stresses repeatedly, that anorexia or anything else is not "less real" even if the underlying cause is 100% social and 0% biological. Do you think mass shootings don't exist? Of course not. An anorexic girl will still be anorexic and is in danger to hunger herself to death.
This is a bit weird to truly wrap ones head around. Lets take demonic possession. Deciding that there are no demons (or maybe very few) is a valid position. But there is a difference between A) this isn't real, possessed people are faking it, and B) the brains predictive engine is very good in simulating, and the individual experience/qualia is suffering under demonic influence.
Blueberry
10mo ago
Who are the female counterparts to Harry Potter
Harry is totally average, aside that he has -accidentally- a piece of Voldemorts soul. But he is not the best wizard in the world or is the coolest guy ever. It is Longbottom in the end who wielded the sword of Gryffindor, it is Hermione who is most clever, the Weasley family who harbors the resistance.
Blueberry
5mo ago
Looking at successful religions, dietary restrictions and the conspicuous observance of them seems ritualistically important in binding people together
I think this is also part of it. There is the "Veganuary" in January which is even tried by flexitarians/carnivores and sort of like Ramadan or catholic lent. And the dietary restrictions by the more fanatic minority have outsized influence on the more tolerant/flexible majority, which pushes culture in one direction.
It is a bit of virtue signaling (the vegan has bragging rights over the vegetarian), a bit atonment for our sins (at least eating vegan Pizza with fake cheese feels that way), good old market capitalism (aside from fake cheese many products got crazy goods. I don't care if I eat real chicken nuggets or plant based nuggets), but it is also development of a shared culture and being part of something bigger (which is universally regarded as good or at least not bad, which is nice). Also the small talk aspect, one can share recipes and cooking tricks.
Why hasn't it worked well enough to remove him from entertainment?
Because he is funny and can sell directly to people (who are defectors).
But there are no Netflix specials, movies, tv shows, guest appearances at SNL or cameos in sitcoms, no collaborations with other artists. And he has to date outside of the US (a French woman). The only reason he is not removed completely is because there are only a few extreme sanctions (not being able to rent a venue) against him left.
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.
In the India Subreddit they take that as proof that Sikhs infiltrated the Canadian intelligence agencies:
hundreds of wiretaps of the suspects and other informants were destroyed.[140][141] Of the 210 wiretaps that were recorded during the months before and after the bombing, 156 were erased. These tapes continued to be erased even after the terrorists had become the primary suspects in the bombing
A witness was also murdered and „ a consequence of his murder, the affidavit was inadmissible as evidence.[149] This was later cited as a reason why the suspects in the bombing were eventually acquitted in 2005“.
A Security Intelligence Review Committee cleared CSIS of any wrongdoing. However, that report remains secret to this day. As of June 2003, the Canadian government continued to insist that there was no mole involved
Juicy fodder for conspiracy theorists!
Blueberry
1yr ago
Hersh is 85 years old and did go a bit into conspiracy theories:
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bin-laden
The problem with his sources is not anonymity, but that it is singular: He only has one source. Rumors need at least to be double-sourced before they are print worthy.
Blueberry
1yr ago
For what it is worth there is a "fabulously gay" niche for celebrities in Europe. For example Conchita Wurst (which name is inherently campy, it means "clamshell sausage") won the Eurovision Song Contest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conchita_Wurst
Note that the article uses he/him pronouns. He is not trans, he is gay, and the "bearded lady" he plays as a persona is described with she/her, but in RL he is also a queen. There is an ironic wink going on here which sidesteps bitter quarrels about "what is a woman" because he is a man.
Or Riccardo Simonetti in Germany who always has nice hair:
They are regulars in inoffensive panel shows/show business as soft spoken excitable bubbly fun characters and if they advertise something few bat an eye. Dylan Mulvaney could maybe transition into that kind of celebrity role?
Blueberry
1yr ago
I’ve dealt with chronic pain for a decade and have long suspected that it was mostly psychosomatic.
I guess you know this post?
There are some (strange? common?) testimonials about miracle curing chronic pain.
Blueberry
8mo ago
Not sports, but kissing „mates on the same team“:
Mel Brooks before him:
“We’re Jews up in space.
We’re zooming along
protecting the Hebrew race
We're Jews out in space
If trouble appears
we put it right back in its place
When goyim attack us
We give 'em a smack
we'll slap them right back in the face
We’re Jews up in space.
We’re zooming along
protecting the Hebrew race"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=sz7JGCj4Q5k
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