JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
8hr ago
You got lucky. Enjoy it. Nothing to feel guilty about. You owe "tons of people" nothing, take care of your family and let everybody else take care of their own business. Give to some charity if you are so inclined (but you don't owe that too, it's just what some people feel good about doing).
JarJarJedi
8hr ago
It's not about stories, it's about who is allowed to share their stories and whose stories are allowed to become narratives, and whose narratives are allowed to become policies. A lot of people have stories, but not every story gets to become The Story. If you need a policy that allows unlimited immigration, you know which stories are going to be shared and which are going to be suppressed. If you need a policy that promotes misandry and enables destroying frats, you know which stories are going to be shared and which are going to be suppressed. And so on.
JarJarJedi
13hr ago
Essentially, I've developed a belief that everyone is going to be surveilled to the maximum extent possible, and that surveillance is going to be used in all the conventionally dystopian ways
Yes, but... we're talking about surveillance used for ads for three decades now, and the ads targeting is still utter crap. I mean, they are threatening me with personally targeted ads for all this time, and I am sure by now they must have all the most intimate data about me, but do I ever get even remotely relevant ads? Heck no. I get the same liberty-biberty utter crap as everybody else. I don't know what they are using all that info for, really. Maybe it's for thought police (I must have a real fat file there if so...)
JarJarJedi
13hr ago
They have a slogan in Spanish, so it's ok.
JarJarJedi
13hr ago
Butlerian Jihad anyone?
JarJarJedi
13hr ago
I've been there and to the sixth floor museum, and the shot itself doesn't seem impossible, however I have no idea how hard it is with the rifle and optics that he used. There's a lot of stuff in that museum there though that makes you go "hmmmm". I have no way to say one way or the other, but it certainly looks like something fishy. In either case, it's a pretty interesting museum there, if you ever in Dallas I recommend visiting.
JarJarJedi
4d ago
I have mixed feelings about this. On principle, I am opposed to any speech restrictions outside of very narrow "clear and present danger" boundaries. 99.99% of what is published is garbage anyway, so if somebody wants that garbage, let them have it. However, since we live in a clown world, and UK is one of the most retarded clownships in existence, beaten only by its Anglosphere satellites (Ireland, Australia, Canada - all in a race to out-clown each other), I can't but feel some pleasure when something bad happens to very bad and extremely retarded people. There's no chance UK anytime soon becomes anything resembling a proper country, so at least once in a while people who deserve it suffer from it.
You may be familiar with the Irish Millennial novelist Sally Rooney.
Now that hurt....
JarJarJedi
7d ago
Finished Monster Hunter International. It's a fun story, though the protagonist is a bit too much of Mary Sue to my taste, but I think that comes with the genre. Still, I can't avoid comparison with Butcher's Dresden series, and the comparison is not to the Monster's advantage. So far, the gist of what happens there is, without spoiling much, "MORE DAKKA!". I mean, I enjoy some good loud action, but at some point it starts to feel a bit one-dimensional. Maybe we'll get more in the next books, but in Dresden we had pretty complex magic system, leveling up Dresden himself and his sidekicks and his challenges, moral development, choices and consequences, all that stuff. Monster's world feels under-developed - for one, the hunters, despite hundreds of years of experience and lore, seem to know preciously little about the monsters they are dealing with, and seem to not be very interested in any study, because why bother if "MORE DAKKA!" always solves the problem?
The core problem of the action genre is that the protagonist should win, but he can't win easily, because it would be boring. On the other hand, he has to win convincingly, otherwise it would be unsatisfactory. So the challenge is how to compose the situation so that the villains are both scary and beatable, and the protagonist is both powerful and challenged, without forcing either to randomly make blunders and look like an idiot, because the plot demanded it. In Monster it didn't always work this way - for example,
But in general, it's not bad, hopefully next ones would be better in literary craft.
JarJarJedi
7d ago
They definitely are. They are openly talking about prosecuting everybody who worked for Trump, and from the Biden administration we know it's not an empty talk. We had AGs explicitly running on the platform of "I will get Trump convicted, no matter what" - and being elected for that, and fulfilling their promise. We have many other examples of partisan prosecutions of Republicans. And now we have Democratic politicians openly explaining - in case somebody is so dumb they didn't get the implicit message - that these prosecutions will continue, and that their goal is to deter people from associating with Republican politics.
Now, it is true that Democrats probably not are going to ban other parties, at least not in 2028, maybe not ever. After all, even in Putin's Russia there are toy parties that provide a fig leaf of "alternative" even though everybody knows in advance who's going to win and by how much. That's the deal Democrats are going to set up. Just like in deep-blue states, Republicans would exist and would be allowed on the ballot occasionally, but would never have any chance of winning or effecting any policy - because the system would be set up to make it impossible. It wouldn't be one ban - it will be ten thousands of rules, regulations, subsidies, restrictions, laws, licenses, whatever is necessary - to ensure Republicans never get any representation. If the judges lean Republican - they will be replaced or supplanted. If academics lean Republican - they will be boycotted and defunded, while their opponents will be lavished with funds and publicity. If a press organization leans Republican - it will be denied access, declared "disinformation" and deplatformed. If a business leans Republican - it will be debanked, denied access to contracts and harassed by regulators, while their competitors with the correct politics will be subsidized and provided priority access. And so on and so forth - there would not be any ban, there would be a combination of million facets that together establishes the state where you can only prosper if you are loyal to the Party.
I think once we get the robots driving for us, the accidents will plummet dramatically, to the point where an occasional collision will be reported by the news as a sensational event revealing the dangers of modern technology the wider public is blissfully unaware of. I don't have hard data on hand, but my conviction is the large majority of accidents is caused by someone being stupid on the road.
JarJarJedi
8d ago
my question is would you trade your intelligence for getting to have that athletic ability
Never. I mean, the idea of becoming a multimillionaire by 35 and then retiring and doing whatever the heck I want is certainly appealing (way too late for me but assuming it were possible) but I don't really want to do what they do, and I like doing what my intellect allows me to do. If anything, I'd like to be way smarter - if it's possible without giving up on social skills and part of one's humanity - appears to happen way more often than I'd like.
JarJarJedi
8d ago
During the Cold War there was the Red Block, where the rule was "whatever the Politburo says". There was the Western block, where the rule was "contain the commies and not let them take over the world, or at least slow them down". There was opportunist Europe, where the rule was to extract maximum profit from the fight between the two above while trying to commit the least possible resources to help either.
Yes, there were some agreements along the lines of "nobody really wants to start nuking each other, let's not do that for now". But that's pretty much it. Invading other countries happened all the time. Overthrowing other country's government to install a more suitable regime happened all the time. Of course, not to the primary countries of the blocks - nobody had that kind of resources to commit. But that's how it always happens when there are several warring parties which can't outright destroy each other.
JarJarJedi
8d ago
It is designed to benefit it's creators - the globalist bureaucrat reptilian mafia - and only them. They define the rules, they define the exceptions, they define who is allowed and not allowed to do what to whom, and they benefit from it, no matter what happens. While American and European taxpayers are paying for all of it.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
America no longer gives a shit about the rules-based world order
There's no "rules-based world order". Europe want there to be one, in the way that EU makes up the rules (when and where it pleases), or delegates it to some other bureaucratic orgs, and US pays for it and enforces it. As soon as US steps back from propping it up, turns out the whole thing has always been fakery.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
Yes, I have, but if the alternative is between 10 minute discomfort and an hour+ in traffic, I think I'd rather take discomfort. OTOH, maybe if I am a billionaire I can use my time way more freely than I am now, so maybe my opinion would change then. That said, if fully automated taxis take over - which I think will happen pretty soon - I might change my opinion.
like those who debased themselves by pretending they believed the 2020 elections was stolen is tainted
If by "stolen" you mean there were multiple documented violations of both law and procedure, including non-citizens voting, ballots counted without chain of custody, paid voting, illegal vote harvesting, electoral law and procedure manipulations, and so on, and so forth - then for many, including myself, it is not "obvious lies" but a fact, confirmed by piles of evidence, and I couldn't care less if you consider it "tainted". Now, I can not prove it changed the result of the election, obviously - even in the best case, with the cooperation of all authorities, proving such a thing post-factum would be very hard, but under the condition of universal obstruction it is absolutely impossible to make any informed statement about it. In my opinion, elections in a healthy democracy should be conducted in a way that it is demonstrably clear and obvious that they are fair. Not in a way that "you can not prove in court that something was wrong, because we don't even let you inside the court, because you got no standing anyway". So if you are upset by the word "stolen", you are welcome to use any word that you'd think describes this situation better, the conclusion is the same - the elections in 2020 were not conducted like the elections in a healthy democracy should be conducted.
Getting back to the topic of comparison, though, I have heard about multiple Republicans prosecuted by Democrats (and by that I mean not criticized in press, but criminally) for questioning the elections, and never heard about any Democrat prosecuted by Republicans for the same (yes, of course they did and do it regularly, what kind of question is that?) So if we have Republicans whining harmlessly, and Democrats putting their opponents in jail, or ruining their lives. Not much of a symmetry there.
they sold their credibility for a man who would toss them away the moment it becomes convenient.
I am not sure what you even mean here. Trump is well into executing his populist program. I wouldn't say I am happy about everything he is doing - some of his actions I would call mistakes, or blunders, or useless distractions, but I am not seeing what "tossing away" you're talking about. And how it's related to 2020 elections or the point that I discussed.
To reiterate, my point is that the Left - you can call it "DSA" or "radical Left" or some other term, though to be honest I do not see any serious opposition to them within the party's establishment outside of lone mavericks that are increasingly being isolated and pushed out - is all-in on the worst anti-US and anti-liberal ideas around. They are pro-censorship, pro-cancel culture, pro-DEI, for mass uncontrollable migration, for infinite expansion of welfare state, against assimilation, for destruction and suppression of traditional Western culture, for suppression of local economic development, against fighting crime, against limited government, against meritocracy, etc. - and these are not fringe positions. By now, not embracing any of that makes the person an odd one, an outcast, and a target for the attack. Even if - and I think I addressed this enough to show how big an "if" it is - the whole 2020 election complains on the right were fully baseless and purely partisan bickering, it can't even begin to compare to what the Left is doing. Of course the Left always declared every election where a Republican ever won illegitimate and stolen - some people still whine about Bush being elected - but nobody dwells on that because it's such a minor point. If that's what you put on the scales on one side, and you put DEI, BLM, cancel culture, trans cult, trillion-sized welfare plunder, 20 million illegal migrants, on the other, and put several attempted or accomplished murders (which were and continually are widely lauded by the masses) as a cherry on top - I don't see how any comparison even can be seriously made.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
If you don't believe in the political project of the united states then you should leave.
Does this apply to everybody or just to your political opponents? Because there are a lot of people on the Left that don't believe in United States as a political project, as it was created by Founders, and consider both Founders and the whole 250 years of history of the United States to be evil beyond repair. Is it OK to ask such people to leave? OK, let's ask even milder question: is it OK to not let such people come in and become residents and citizens of the United States?
but the far right is also bad and has a terrible grip on the Republican party
That's not true. While woke right and idiots like Qatarlson and Owens and Fuentes exist, they reside on the fringe of the party, have - at least for now - virtually no representation in governing circles and certainly do not control the narrative of the party and the culture to the extent that the woke do. There's no analogue to dominating concepts like DEI or "anti-racism" or even affirmative action on the right. The worst excesses Republican extremes produced is some censorship (mostly in porn and adjacent areas) - where the Left now has them also beaten with much more aggressive and insidious censorship. There's no mirror picture and nothing even close to comparison between how woke left caused the party literally to kneel before them, and the fringe right which is at most the source of embarrassment but nothing more.
JarJarJedi
9d ago
I don't know, if I were a billionaire I totally would take a helicopter everywhere. Or at least like when going from the airport to the hotel and such. The problem is that it costs about 100x of what I'd pay for such a ride, based on my current net worth. If money weren't an issue, I'd totally do it.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
I think you misunderstood my meaning. I don't say the tech already existed, I am saying once this tech is released, even if it becomes widely known how to do it, it still won't gain common use due to various other factors - just as there are a lot of ways to make a jetpack now, but not a lot of common use of them. I am not questioning Musk's priority, just the future of it as a consumer technology.
That said, he was able to make electric car and satellite internet a consumer technology, so what do I know. Hopefully somebody will read this in ten years, point at it and laugh, calling me an idiot.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
Super cool, but I am afraid it'd be the same as with jetpacks - the tech exists for a while now but it's not practically usable outside of flashy demos.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
No, no one is in favor of broad spectrum debanking.
For a thing that no one is in favor of, it's weird how it already happened with all nine largest US banks: https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2026/nr-occ-2026-90.html
In reality, debanking had been a popular tool for a while before the Left got so bold it decided to deploy it at present scale. It had been used against legal but "disfavored" industries for years. Look up Operation Choke Point for example. It had been going on for a long time, except that, as always, the boundaries eroded further and further until it arrived to a point where to get debanked, you just need to be publicly known to be a thought criminal.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
I wonder what the Catholic theology has to say about it - can you put term limits on this office and how does it sit with the doctrine of papal supremacy? I mean, if the Pope is God's earthly representative, wouldn't it be kind of presumptuous for mere mortals to say "today you are the God's vicar but after 2pm tomorrow you just an old dude"?
JarJarJedi
11d ago
John Paul II was 58 when elected. One of the longest ruling popes on record. Not everybody would like that - it's one thing if you don't like him and he's gone in 5 years, and another thing if it's over 25 years.
JarJarJedi
11d ago
That is very similar to what charter cities are trying to do I think. Except that not having the backing from someone with massive military and balls to use it, it is very vulnerable to plunder at the first sign of producing any value that can be plundered. Or even without it, just by virtue of being an example that things can be done differently it's an irritant to local powers that would have it destroyed just out of spite.
Unless you for some reason live in an insanely expensive area or have to maintain extremely luxurious lifestyle, $5M+ is "never have to work again unless you want to" kind of money even in the US now. Of course, it's not "never can't spend it all" money - if you live too large, it's pretty easy to get through it, but if you lead a modest middle class lifetime, it should be enough.
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