FiveHourMarathon
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Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
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FiveHourMarathon
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4mo ago
https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2019/may/why-white-working-class-decline
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/10/ban-povertyism-same-way-racism-and-sexism-un-expert
Moreover, it is all over the implied policies of wignats that the working class will and should benefit from instituting racist policies.
FiveHourMarathon
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4mo ago
I don't understand your argument here. Human Bio-Diversity, on its face, says nothing about race. Only about humans. If humans are of different ability levels, and it is correct to discriminate based on them, I don't see why I should only choose to discriminate based on race and not on other useful parameters, like education level and income.
FiveHourMarathon
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6mo ago
One of my personal betes noires is people confusing Inflation, a rate of change, with price levels, a numeric value. "The inflation that happened is still around." No, the price changes are still around, the Inflation is the rate of change in prices over time. Yes, after a period of inflation, prices will remain permanently elevated relative to their prior levels, unless we hit a period of sustained deflation (which will have all kinds of other, likely worse for most people, negative effects). It really grinds my gears.
The end goal of white nationalists, as opposed to white nationalism, is to jerk themselves off to a vanilla variation on we wuz kangz to make up for their otherwise sad lives, until they die alone in a dilapidated old farmhouse somewhere.
White nationalist influencers compete to be the most extreme, offering up ever hotter takes and ever fewer deliverables. Trapped in the iron law of institutions, their status within extremely online white nationalism is worth more than the status of white nationalism, or of the white race more generally.
White nationalist followers, they follow for the same reason devotees of any conspiracy theory (most extreme political beliefs are indistinguishable from conspiracy theories) follow, to make up for the sadness in their own lives. The vast majority are failures in one way or another, socially or financially or romantically or professionally, who find in grand racial narratives a reason why their lives are so hard when other people's lives seem so easy. Blame it on the Jews and the niggers and suddenly everything seems so much simpler, there's no blame left for the white nationalist himself.
Just like the Communist imagines that his own life will be so much better once the eschaton is immanent, or the Palestinians imagine that life will be so much better if they just owned that other patch of desert instead of the one they are on, the white nationalist imagines that life will be peaches and cream when they are around people whose complexion is all peaches and cream. They haven't just tried Vermont, "the leaves change colors but the people never do," because they'd still be losers there.
Bio-Leninism doesn't stop when you get to the right of Lenin politically.
There is no realistic universe in which white nationalism succeeds. First, after all, white people would need a cohesive definition of whiteness. White nationalism lacks even a unified understanding of who and what they are fighting for. The census data cited elsewhere in this roundup includes most Hispanics, Aryanism includes Persians but not Arabs, Turanism includes the Turks but not the Chinese, what sense does it make to include Sicilians but exclude spaniards if they lived in Caracas too long, my learned friend in argument Hoff seems to include the damn Japanese. The imagined community is simply too imaginary for anything beyond masturbatory scheming.
On white nationalism, see @HlynkaCG below.
FiveHourMarathon
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3mo ago
Trump could absolutely have chosen to sue her for defamation for her claim. There is no legal double standard in that, beyond claims of "the rules don't matter."
Trump can also call her a liar without committing defamation, he has repeatedly chosen not to. The framework for the non-apology apology is so well known at this point that it's practically available as a template on EForms next to promissory notes and ground leases.
That he's failed to do so is a matter of temperament.
FiveHourMarathon
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6mo ago
Because it is instrumentalizing the suffering of the population to pressure the government. Terrorism at its most basic definition.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Throw in slim middle class and reasonably attractive and I'd agree on your hypothetical Black girl; but I'd much sooner be a white dude who was poor or ugly than a Black girl who was similarly situated.
Either way, some other given subset having more opportunities (bases loaded and a 3-1 count) doesn't change my opinions on white male whiners.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
So I'm guessing you're not familiar with baseball?
A 2-0 count isn't a measure of score, it's a measure of situational opportunity. When you have 2 balls and no strikes on you, you're in a great position: there's a fair chance the pitcher walks you even if you keep the bat on your shoulder, but it's almost certainly you'll see at least one hittable pitch. The runner in scoring position means a hit is highly likely to turn into points, but you haven't scored any points yet.
Compared to anyone in the world, I don't think a young smart white American has anything to complain about in terms of opportunity. Euros have certain advantages it's true, but no other country delivers the opportunities the USA does to start something great. If he swings at pitches in the zone he's very likely to get some RBIs; he almost can't strike out unless he lets multiple hittable pitches go by without swinging or swings at pitches out of the strike zone.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Just curious, do you really think the attraction of the ElonJet account, and the embarrassment it caused, was primarily due to the invasion of privacy as to what city Elon is in? The nature of private aviation facilities means that Elon would have minimal or no public contact regardless, and anyway that problem would be obviated much more effectively by flying commercial (including renting a private jet a la NetJets) which would eliminate the information altogether not just the Twitter account.
And anyway, I've never tried because I don't care, but I'd imagine it's fairly easy to know (by city/airport) where Elon or a comparable celebrity is most days because there's at least one public facing event a lot of days. Would reporting on all pubic events a celebrity engages in run afoul of your theory? A TaySwiftTracker that told fans where her concerts/events were for the day?
The primary appeal of the account among people I know who initially told me how funny it is was "Ha, look how ridiculous this supposed green ecowarrior billionaire is, flying his private jet here, there, and everywhere, all the time! Sure seems like he burns more fossil fuels than my f150! He should shut the fuck up about climate change." Probably some would be Czolgosz out there is rooting for his assassination, or more likely some would be Lord Dawlish, but I'm not sure that's a realistically large portion of the fan base. How do we balance that?
Not that I begrudge you taking a side with your boy Elon on the internet, but I'm just curious how far you carry this principle.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Somewhat slantwise, Kanye's recent travails and the debate about his mental health make me think again about an argument I got into about Brittany Spears with my wife. Hot take: Coogan's Law should be universalized to all celebrities and not just minors. Record companies, sports teams, and film companies should be required to follow the same rules for adult entertainers as for kids:
This law requires a child actor's employer to set aside 15% of the earnings in a trust (often called a Coogan Account)...
Because so many of these people crack up, go broke, etc. I'm not pro Free Brittany, I'm pro enslave Olivia Rodrigo. Hell, SBF should have been putting aside 15% of his earnings rather than thinking the gravy train would never stop. Kanye should have been forced to put aside 15% of his earning when he was sane into a conservatively managed blind trust, so that he'd have something to fall back on. If we're going to put these people into a situation they are not emotionally or mentally equipped to handle, we should be providing them with the tools to survive it.
Seriously, in cases like the NFL/NBA where so many players wind up broke, the player's associations should be forcing this into every contract. 15% goes into a trust where the principal can't be touched until the player is 50 or 60.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
My problem is that it still hasn't been demonstrated to me that the action abolishing Disney's local control benefits the taxpayers of Florida, rather than harming both Disney and Florida. Lose-lose governance by deterrence does not appeal to me. Sanctity of contract is also highly important to me, but I'm not sure that carries broadly beyond business-Rs. I'm open to evidence that it's good, but I haven't seen it.
But Disney came out swinging against DeSantis. It wasn't his "goofy-ass...fight," it was Disney's goofy-ass fight. DeSantis' only real choice there was to remind them that they are a corporation and tell them to get back in their lane. Anything else would have resulted in DeSantis looking like a bootlicker who caves to Woke Corporatism the moment his moneyed masters yank on the chain.
I think you're ignoring the "ignore it" option. DeSantis could have just said "You stick to cartoons, I'll run the state" and decried Disney's intrusion into politics, without wading into the muck with them. If you're wealthy, you probably own shares in many "woke corporations" and you don't want to get punished for what management does.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Well if you envision it as a game of chicken, the exchange has gone something like this:
EU: Stop invading Ukraine, or at least do it more quietly, or we're going to stop buying gas
RF: You're bluffing. You won't stop buying gas, you'll freeze to death. You don't care about the Ukies that much. Give us your money and shut up.
EU: We totally will stop buying gas, even if the poor freeze, we're Americans now we don't care about the poor. We're going to stop buying gas altogether in three months time. Three months time and you're cut off, no more money.
RF: Well, fine, fuck you, no more NS1 pipeline right now. "Maintenance" you know? See if you can hold up your end of the bargain.
Seen in this light, with Russia having recently called the EU's bluff by cutting off gas supplies early, it could make sense that a Western aligned actor attacked the pipeline for the purpose of calling Russia's bluff, "We don't need your stinking pipeline, in fact watch us blow it up." On the theory that Russia, realizing that pipeline diplomacy won't work, will be forced to settle for a lesser deal. Or it could be an escalation of Russia's earlier calling the EUs bluff, hoping to inspire panic in energy markets that will lead to cracks in the pro-war coalition in the West.
Not sure either plan will work. Both sides are far too organized to respond to intimidation in that way.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
So, you're literally just going to ignore the idea of paying a fairly minor fee for Youtube premium?
FiveHourMarathon
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2mo ago
No. It's not. It's ineffective at delivering results. We can tell because identity politics projects fail, consistently， to deliver results.
FiveHourMarathon
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2mo ago
The whole thing feels like taking the piss to me. Genuinely, this is all so bizarre. I've traveled to major cities, for school and work and for pleasure, typically by myself, I nearly always end up having booked a hotel in a worse neighborhood than I thought I had because I'm cheap and pick a cheap one, and I've never experienced anything like this. I've never taken any particular effort to "protect" myself or to avoid bad neighborhoods, I've nearly always walked where physically possible. NYC, DC, SF, Baltimore, Philly, Pittsburgh, Chicago. I've never experienced anything remotely close to this. Closest I ever came was the first time I was in Boston, ten years ago, I saw two homeless guys get into a knife fight. No one has ever accosted me, people who ask me for money generally respond just fine to a firm No, or if I'm feeling the spirit I'll offer to buy them a sandwich which they will occasionally take. The only time I can recall ever having a really negative interaction with a street person was at 18 getting talked into spending $10 on somebody's struggle rap demo at Penn Station. I've walked miles through the Bronx or Brooklyn or Harlem drunk in the middle of the night, I've wandered around SF aimlessly. I've gone to midnight concerts in the wrong part of town and wandered back at 2am. I've gone to games, concerts, fight nights, bars, parties, walked around drunk and high and stupid. I've always looked like a preppy white guy, I'm not tough, I've more Hayseed than Street Smart about me, I should be a target in a what they say of "bad" neighborhoods, yet I have never had the slightest bit of trouble. The residents of "bad" neighborhoods have generally been friendly to me. The last "bad" experience I ever had was a black guy on the Broad Street Line trying to sell me liquor on the Septa train after an Eagles game; I told him I didn't drink because I was Muslim, we had a brief conversation about that and he asked me to subscribe to his Youtube channel. He later tried to steal somebody's duffel bag, another black guy's, but was chased off.
These diatribes feel like two movies one screen to me, at best. I'm reminded of a trade show I once attended in Baltimore, years ago. I was going to a bar to meet a friend of mine from high school, as I was leaving a guy from West Virginia who I had met at the show latched onto me. Wanted to go out for a drink. He walked with me. Nice enough guy. A little drunk already. Every time we saw two black guys standing next to each other, he would grab me and hustle along, say don't look at them, MOVE. And then say "phew, really dodged a bullet there, you're lucky I was here dude." We split up at the bar after he got bored of the conversation, I walked back drunk, by myself. Somehow, despite being alone and not following his advice, no one accosted me. This has been my experience over and over: actual violence is vanishingly rare, and has never touched me despite my best efforts to make myself vulnerable, but some people perceive violence all around them.*
Objection 1: But FHM, you might think of yourself as a giant pussy, but be fair, practically speaking you are a male of average height and you've lifted your bodyweight overhead every year since Obama's second term, you are not factually a soft target. Maybe you carry yourself like less of a pussy than you perceive yourself as?
Sure, this makes some degree of sense. Maybe I'm not perceiving my own privilege. But...this kinda flips the political valence of so much of the argument? Does it make sense to say that the Red Tribe is the tribe of tough, independent, masculinity if the online whinging about urban crime seems to consist of people scared by all this, while the girly effeminate or feminine Blue Tribers walk around feeling fine? If women and the weak are the ones threatened, why is the pro-police party so masculine?
Objection 2: Maybe you've just gotten lucky? Odds are...
Sure, but people who whinge about this kind of thing online, like my learned friend in argument @2rafa , seem to run into this all the time. While I have, over my entire adult life, never once. If merely traveling to these cities gives one person a dozen experiences in a day, living in them for years, attending school and going to parties and events, should have given me at least one.
Objection 3: You're the one taking the piss!
Fair enough. We're at an impasse.
*All the actual crime I've suffered from has been of the annoying, pissant, middle of the night variety. I reckon I've had more stolen from me than most around here, but it's been people kicking in the door of a house we were working on and walking off with wire and a table saw. Or catalytic converters! God the catalytic converters I've lost. Recently someone broke into our junkyard and graffiti'd an old trailer. Honestly, I was unlikely to catch them, and the cops would never give a shit, so I left a note: "Hey, I don't really care if you put your name on the broken down stuff, your art ain't bad, but no penises, no swastikas, no swear words. Don't make me do something about this." So far, they've listened. Go figure.
FiveHourMarathon
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3mo ago
Yes, and?
FiveHourMarathon
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4mo ago
Excellent reply, but once again "well actually, we've talked about this" is being conflated with "well actually, you're entirely wrong." What you seem to be outlining is, HBDers can be split between people who answer the "Why do you want to stop at race?" with "Well actually, the whole thing was just a thin excuse for racial nationalism to begin with" and people who reply "Why would I want to stop at race?" Correct me if I'm missing some nuance here.
I admire, as ever, your effort at synthesis.
FiveHourMarathon
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4mo ago
I've said this many times in defense of different mods: mods should be allowed to have fun and play full contact.
Nothing in the quoted statement, despite it being excepted by an unfriendly interlocutor, strikes me as out of bounds. It's not an ad hominem, it's an ethos argument.
FiveHourMarathon
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10mo ago
There were never neutral standards, they were enforced against those who were suspect. Meaning women.
FiveHourMarathon
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10mo ago
Not an accusation against you in particular, but this strikes me as an isolated demand for rigor. A male fan who loves lasers won't be asked to recite "There is no death, there is the Force" before he's allowed in the tree house. This accusation is only used to police female fandom. The main reason being that fandoms are so full of incels that a woman gets outsize attention, which is resented.
I've dated two functionally very straight women in my life who were huge (like tells me about why Kyber(?) Chrystals are symbolic levels of fandom) Star Wars fans. Maybe that's just an odd sample, but it's a real thing that happened. Gender does not strike me as a useful filter, outside of people who just kind of hate women and don't want them around.
Idk, I shouldn't chime in, I haven't watched or consumed any of the Disney content after seeing the first sequel in theaters. Maybe the whole thing has changed by now.
FiveHourMarathon
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10mo ago
Don't forget: I don't really Like the Democrats but I'm pretty sure Republicans hate me.
Applies pretty extensively to many ethnic minorities, hell to many gays, to people who live in cities generally.
Doesn't particularly matter whether they are right or wrong, just that they believe it to be true.
I think objectively you'd have to be pretty cucked to vote R in Florida as a naturalized or even 2nd gen Chinese immigrant right now.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
I think the disconnect between us, in this comment, is that you view the article above as "being spit all over" and I view it as more like "absolutely nothing, done by an absolute nobody, I don't care about any of this." You, and other commenters, appear to perceive your life as being spit all over. I perceive my life, based on those same demographic characteristics, as more like this than it is like being spit all over.
When I walk my dog down the back road, the chihuahua barks its head off whenever it sees another dog, because the existence of another dog is a threat to him. If a fight breaks out, he's dead, my dog will shake him until his little neck breaks, it'll be over before I get ten words out. When we run into the St. Bernard or the pit bull, they don't give a shit about us, we're either friends or we're beneath notice.
My dog is somewhere in between, she's kinda big but she's a real asshole, less tracking to size and strength than to deep emotional problems I failed to work out of her after adoption, but now we're really getting off track of the metaphor.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
Most obvious application for Blockchain combination of NFTs and Cryptocurrency to eliminate the title insurance industry, n'est pas? Assign an irrevocable NFT to the ownership of the property, create an automatically executing contract upon the receipt of the correct amount of bitcoin, eliminate trust issues in real estate transactions.
Unfortunately actually setting up and maintaining that probably costs as much as the current title insurance scheme anyway.
FiveHourMarathon
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1yr ago
I don't find the action particularly unethical because it's within the standard controls of the medium, but if a podcast host announced that from here on out he would only release content on a specially made app that would make skipping impossible, I don't see where one would have an argument against him that it was one's right to skip the ads and that he was doing something wrong by changing the rules. The content creator/owner has the right to set the terms as to how that content can be consumed.
My personal but totally evidence free belief is that Trump, circa 2020, wanted to be bought out. It makes perfect sense from a real estate development perspective: if you have a claim, even a weak claim, you hold onto it until someone pays you. A weak claim might not be worth a ton, but it'll be worth something to get you to shut up.
It's extremely common in complex real estate transactions. "I have a letter of intent from two years ago, that pre empts your deal!" "Actually the estate was never closed and THIS brother claims a share in ownership!" "According to organization by laws we did not have a quorom at the meeting where I was removed so I'm still in charge and my successor had no power to sign those documents!"
Trump didn't think he won, and he didn't think he'd win. But he thought he had enough that the Democrats would buy him out, would offer him a deal to step down. It would have been the rational thing to do, give Trump something to make him go away. But the Dems were never going to do that, they're not equipped to do that.
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