DBDr
6mo ago
Just got back from month long vacation # 3 this year, perspective fully changed: Working for money is fucking stupid. Wow, is it stupid.
I've met dozens of people who travel full time from property and investment income from their grandparents; and I am probably a couple years from fully supporting myself purely from passive income (though I'll probably keep working just to get the number higher; maybe pile up some burnable cash to buy more investment property during the next crash).
The switch was sudden and totally unrelated to anything specific I had done; it is just a result of two generations of skin flint behavior and interest rates. If your family line can get together mid six figures of money in investments and assets and sit on it for 1.5 generations without anyone buying penis compensation trucks or boats or developing a gambling addiction or fentanyl addition; you can just be fucking set. (Said in the tone of a joke, but actually a big ask according to the facts.)
The people talking about class war are 100% right; I can say that for a fact now that I've experienced it from both ends. It's really nice to be on the winning side for once. I just watch the money I float in my checking accounts go up 70k every couple months and most of it goes into investments that will only be dinged if the government of the USA collapses; recission proof and inflation proof and 98% risk free. It is so fucking easy to live solely off the sweat of other peoples brows; no wonder these dudes who were born into it start thinking they can't possibly fail.
All this to say: What the fuck do we do about the fact that owning shit and renting shit is just flat out better in every way than doing shit or making shit?
It's easier, it's safer, it's more sustainable over the course of your life, and you can pass it down to your kids locked away in trust so even the frailest son can't fuck it up.
I know that my solution (radical wealth redistribution, red-black shit at large, etc and so forth) isn't popular here; but even conservatives have got to recognize there is a problem.
How do you solve it without the revolution? Is that question even coherent?
DBDr
1yr ago
Looks to me like a swatch of skin tones under a hot color temp bulb.
That said, I really appreciate everyone and their brother trying to find a way to culture ware this 6.5/10 piece of tie in media. Shows how brain poisoned this whole thing makes us.
DBDr
9mo ago
Seems fucking stupid to me, a god damn socialist.
Nate was, of course, a LIBERAL (spits, makes sign of the cross) and had some takes I thought were pretty dumb, but he is the guy at 538. It's just him. The whole point was that his models beat random chance and beat the average at doing something purely empirical: using poles to predict outcomes. Why bother even having the outfit at that point?
Also, why bother sending a letter at all? Pointlessly demonstrative. If I wanted to punish Rasmussen from Morris's position, I'd just make consistent noise about "Rasmussen is so biased we actually give them negative weight in out model" or some shit.
DBDr
9mo ago
ANNECDOTE TIME!
As someone who has actually done it; it certainly effected my crops negatively in zones 9 and 13 (beans, avocados, stone fruit, nightshades, corn, rice, etc etc)
Corn has done fine every year; but everything else has had complete failures a couple times due to the seasons becoming unreliable. I've had killing frosts as late as april; when I look at the journals people had before they never went past late feb/early may.
I've also had complete failures of stone fruit due to temps swinging between 60-90 degrees in a couple days; which again was never reported in any of the journals going back 60-80 years.
Also, I've had failures of some squashes and such because the pollinators either swarmed early or late due to the seasons starting early or late; which is annoying as fuck.
Basically; my growing seasons are still perfect but the timing has became unreliable; which sometimes leads to completely unavoidable unpredictable total failures.
You can't put up frost cloth when you have no warning it's gonna sudenly drop below 40 after a 72 degree day.
DBDr
5mo ago
You can't. They don't exist. They are like unicorns. You can do 100 jobs with a contractor, and that won't stop them from fucking you on the 101st. Ask me how I know!
For real though: don't trust reviews, and try to either get a personal friend who is a contractor to do it or have the personal friend contractor find you one that he knows to not be a total shit.
For Real For Real: Become your own contractor. Hire tradespeople directly, let them know before they quote you will get the materials they recommend yourself and keep any spares, only pay the full amount on completion, and stand over their shoulders the whole fucking time they are working.
For the REALEST: do what I did and become and omnitradsman, capable of doing everything except sparky shit on your own to a semi-expert level and then suffer eternaly.
I speak spanish and I've spent some time in that part of the world, and yo:
There are some fuking WHITE SUPREMACIST latinos out their bro. They are fucking crazy about it.
Probably some left over casta shit, or a weird extrapolation of creole types being wildly racist against natives; as though they aren't all mixed a fuck 600 years into the project.
DBDr
1yr ago
Re. strategic resource: No, absolutely not.
Everything we have sent to Ukraine represents either outmoded equipment designed to fight an army from the 70's that is only still relevant because the Russian army IS from the 70's, or equipment the fulfils secondary capability requirements.
EG, HIMARS, manpads, and Javelin are all secondary, because what the US REALLY focuses on is air superiority; where we maintain a level of absolute crushing dominance unseen at any point in military history.
Want to destroy an ammo depot? Airstrike.
Want to blow up a tank? Airstrike.
Want to shoot down a plane? MOTHER FUKIN STRIKE FROM THE AIR BAAAAAABEEEEEEEEE
China and India are of course trying to match us here, but India is at least 10-20 years from fielding home grown engines that are competitive (not having btw, their engine program has been ongoing for a while and seems to be performaing well. I mean feiling home grown home made 4.5gen+ planes en mass), and china is likewise at the most pessimistic doomer almost definitely false estimates (from the US perspective) 10 years behind in BVR a to a shit, stealth, engines, and avionics.
Even without NGAD and the Raider, if we stood still china would take years to catch up, and we running boys!
And it turns out that Russia drank a fifth of ethanol based radar array coolant and passed out in a ditch instead of working on their gen 5 shit.
DBDr
8mo ago
No, you don't understand, my billionaire bunker will be different! All my hired muscle will surely stay loyal after fiat currency collapses
DBDr
9mo ago
As I read more and more philosophy, I see more and more that "There is nothing new under the sun" (ecleiseiathies, or however the fuck you spell it).
Nietzche was as right then as he is now. "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."
People leave out the most important part of the quote, though: "How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?"
The service religion provided to people and societies in the past is no longer available to fully industrialized, scientifically advanced western style societies. If you want the binding moral force of religion back, you gotta give up all that other bullshit and live on a pillar in the desert.
DBDr
11mo ago
"This is clearly a lie, as we can see from his previous behavior, supporters, and party platform" followed by a bunch of clipchimping and scary music.
Anybody who is on the prochoice side is incredibly ready to believe that republicans want a federal ban, because lots of them do and say so.
Doesn't even matter if it's not true; it's republican Death Panels style of thing.
DBDr
9mo ago
As a tank and boat autist; the Japanese double plus rearmament is interesting to watch. They want a bunch of capabilities nobody has; specially in terms of low manpower high tech shit and missile defense.
Aegis still king; but USA can't make a fuckin smoll boat anymore 'cause of capitalism. The state kept bailing out the aerospace dudes over and over and over, but let the soggy dudes go to hell/ china.
Jappan actually still has a pretty good domestic civilian shipbuilding sector; so we might see some cool shit form them their. They have a somwhat decent modern history of it lol
DBDr
1yr ago
Technology Connections has detailed dives into common technologies (Coffee pots, CRT tubes, lightbulbs, ev chargers, etc).
He has a good video with testimonials from a cold as fuck place re. heat pumps, and another couple hours of discussion in other videos about application questions. I found them interesting enough to watch just for fun, but I am also autistic so grain of salt.
Link: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7J52mDjZzto.
I recently installed one for cooling purposes, and it is WAY more efficient than any option available at a massively lower price, if you can do all the work yourself. I had the punches, hole saws, pipe flaring kit, and wiring paraphernalia to put in a 240 sub panel and run coolant lines, you might not. Took me 8 hours over a couple days to complete, but that includes lots of time monkeying around with conduits in a 70 year old house with no attic.
I got a former coworker to charge the lines for me with his vacuum pump in exchange for helping him drop a submersible pump; you might have to pay someone if you choose to install one yourself.
I know that they sell precharged systems, but I'm paranoid about shit that is marketed as DIY so I went with a Lennox because they are cheep as fuck and I only need it for a couple weeks a year. Been working like a charm, and has not raised my electric bill at all 'cause I replaced a couple fans with it.
Last thing: IMO, DIY heat pump systems work best for single space use. I have one unit indoors in one room, so when we need to cool shit off everyone just goes into that room and shuts the doors. If you want multiple zones, you will probably have to get it installed professionally, which is $$$$$ depending on your area.
DBDr
5mo ago
I beleive deeply to my heart in road karma. You are buildign up bad road karma where you shell forever be trapped in the wheel of road samsara (the interstate) or even be road naraka (a roundabout where you are stuck on the inside lane and nobody lets you out for all of eternity)
where as I am VIRTUOUS and GOOD and will reach road nirvana (a working public transit system that takes me to the woods somehow shut up fuck you FUCK)
This is the true and I refuse to think about it.
DBDr
8mo ago
Seconding this, and emphasizing that stoicism doesn't mean passivity; it means really truly internalizing that sometimes "You want it to be one way. But it's the other way".
You can try to change it, but you gotta accept reality first.
DBDr
10mo ago
The culture angle here is the totalizing force of global capital and you. If you end up at exclusively touristy places, simply stop being a tourist.
I also travel every year, I also only take one 40l back pack, and I don't have near your level of problems because I split my trips between touristy shrines and natural sites and such, and just wandering around places and browsing satellite imagery for interesting looking shit. Eg, if you are going to Vietnam for carsts and shit, look at the googlemaps photos and avoid the area where you can see 100000 signs in english.
The other side: you are looking for authenticity that doesn't exist and never existed. There are places and people, and those people live and work in those places as component parts of the same globalized system. Everything is one thing, and everything is the same. It's dollars all the way down and has been ever since the berlin wall got blowed-up.
Traditional application of the traditional saying: If you are bored, it could be that you are boring.
DBDr
1yr ago
This isn't a sneer or anything, but before I try to engage with this I want to know if this is a truly held thought or a parody of some of the other contrarian takedowns that get posted on here.
DBDr
1yr ago
I've been on the buissnes end of this and that shit is REAL.
Engenier fuckups can be fucking crazy; down to the acredited guy not getting a harsh enough struggle session with the environmental guy followed by me and 7 other guys looking at the road (.75" higher), then looking at three houses down the slope (previously got by with no consideration for drainage) and predicting the damages in the lawsuit (I never found out, but they were all million-ish dollar value, and they all got flooded pretty bad next time there was 3 days of rain in a row.)
Also, as-built are lies from SATAN, fuck an as-built. Copy of a copy of a copy of a pure fabrication. I only ever had to be concerned in so far as not digging up gas or electric lines, and it still sucked
I love having a fake job now. much better
DBDr
4mo ago
Your list of things to trigger and own the atheists betrays a complete lack of understanding of non-theist world views.
You are holding up a list of things that exist as though they are the same thing as a given religions idols (the cross, the prophet, the tablets, etc) when the whole point of atheism is that there is no such thing as an idol.
If you are a committed christian (or theist in general, I guess) your reality requires lots of maintenance. You have to believe in things for their own, not believe in other things because that would endanger the things you do believe in, hold things sacred for no reason other than because they are, abore things that are aborent for no reason other than that they are.
Atheists don't have to do that: they just have to not respect and privilege your personal reality over the shared reality that is the material world. Religion is the practice of having faith in things you can't deduce through empiricism, atheism is a rejection of faith, and anti-theism considers faith the be a type of negative utility delusion.
There is no special claim atheists have to uphold or special symbol they have to respect. All they need to do is shrug.
DBDr
4mo ago
It is a microcosm of the world of man; it is a little voodoo doll of society.
As above, so bellow; and then you add in GIFT(https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboards-and-other-anomalies) and you get reddit.
It's not that reddit is bad, it's that social interaction is bad when you take down all the screens and rules and protections imposed by the other person being in front of you and having the ability to eg hit you with a big rock.
DBDr
4mo ago
No, unless you are poor, in which case go for it lol.
If you have capital gains you are not in the bracket where Big Papa will live and let live. Imo, of course.
DBDr
5mo ago
This is a rational response to someone the highly evolved social calculus computer in your skull has snap judged to be either dangerous, your enemy, or stupid.
Ie, What if the moon was made of cheese? <- Fuck you/lol dumbass/ death threats
DBDr
9mo ago
Those experts weren't experts then.
AI is a while from generating novel texts and scripts and such (don't ask me how long though); but it is about 15 minutes from getting fed a couple hundred hours of footage and being able convincingly replicate a specific human saying whatever the fuck you want them to say.
DBDr
9mo ago
This is pure anecdote; but the main problem I've seen for working class types during my time in Europe was rent and durable goods.
Every other thing is cheaper and of much higher quality than what is available in the US. Eg, a loaf of bread in Parris is .79 cents; the same loaf of bread in the US is either 4.99 or can't be bought at all; eat this dogfood instead.
This seems to be across the board for food, cloths, services, the whole shebang.
On the other hand, Europeans seem to make less money.
On the other other hand, Ya'll work a LOT less, like a lot a lot less.
On the final hand, once you get above US 70k purchasing power equivalence, ya'll seem to pay quite a bit more in taxes.
I'd like to see a breakdown of what the actual differences on the ground are instead of the theoretical economics of it, but I don't trust any of the breakdowns I've seen. Either conservative "European mothers eat every second child to prevent starvation" or librul "Non gmo locally produced by women owned businesses Milk and honey rain from the sky twice a day and three times on weekends."
DBDr
9mo ago
I'm not, but the basics:
We still build airliners commercially, so we can build fighters.
We still build cars commercially, so we can build tanks.
We still build (tech bullshit) commercially so we can build systems, radars, etc.
We don't build ships commercially, so whenever we try to build ships that aren't super special one offs (nuclear subs, nuclear aircraft carriers, etc.) that are already inherently expensive disasters and you just have to accept it, It's an expensive disaster. Eg, Zumwalt et all.
US military industrial capacity hasn't actually meaningfully declined in most ways. We still can produce enough to arm ourselves and fill orders from foreign buyers and we are world leaders in quantity production of planes that don't suck, excepting ships where we can only build space age nuclear powered wunderwaffe or fucking disasterpiece boondoggles.
That said, you don't know how good the foundation is until the earth starts shaking. Lots of (wrong) people said that Russia had gotten some of it's soviet mojo back ala-making cool shit, which did not actually happen when they got put to the test.
Defense economics info is dry as hell to read; but there are some good youtube channels on it (Perun, for example).
I want to bitch about the blue collar middle class here for a second: Contractors are all liars and thieves, or thieves and liars.
Was doing some maintenance on one of our properties, in this case a leaking water line near a wall from god knows when; but was on the plans and part of the original construction. Fuckers ran that shit 100 feet through a slab and instead of spending an extra 50 bucks on fittings and labor to put a t to a hose bib for hose bib and draining purposes; they did four pipe bends to bring the whole fucking thing into the air, ran it into the wall, then back into the fucking slab. Turned a 30 min. solder job into a 8 hour hell march (admittedly because I didn't restock on slip to street couplings and wide radius 90s. Oh well) because I can't just tell the resident "lol i cut the water pipe no water till the grainger truck arives lol".
This a couple days after I went to replace a failing range hood to find it was venting through dryer vent (NOT TO CODE BIG FIRE HAZARD HOURS) and the dryer vent was venting into a cavity in the ceiling, and was actually not even connected to the range hood that had never had the plug removed so it wasn't venting at all.
I go to fix this, and find that the complete shitbags that did previous owners kitchen remodel installed a 3 layers of drywall and a 2*4 below the galvanized vent pipe that goes to the roof. These motherfuckers turned a 30 min. job into me having to cut a 2 foot access hole into the fucking kitchen ceiling because they also ran a ton of vents to a gas heater 100% blocking the crawl space; all in service of scamming their customer out of thousand(s) of dollar(s) and maybe burning their house down.
All this to say: Never trust a contractor. Never trust a tradesman older than 36 but younger than 68. I've never worked with one in that range that didn't try to cut corners or steal from their customers on the quote end.
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