Rex
3d ago
Do you have any intuition as to why there are so my psychotic cyclists? It seems to select for aggressive narcissists, despite the fact that their phenotype is more of a skinny soy boy or scenester. It’s obviously not all of them, but it could easily be 50% of the cyclists on the road. Does a bicycle imbue some sort of power fantasy where otherwise meek people can easily flee if they run into the wrong type of person?
Rex
8d ago
On one had, I did not expect this fight to actually happen and I was profoundly disinterested in the media that seemed to be egging it on and trying to make it happen for the last few months. On the other hand, does anyone else get the sense that this is a staged fight? It seems so ridiculous and performative that it maps closer to WWF wrestling or Biggie/Tupac feuds that were purely stage managed events. Jon Stewart suggested as much this morning before all the big fireworks went off this afternoon. I cant help but think that he's got it right here, even though I'm sure people will say this afternoons attacks make that less likely.
Rex
9d ago
What was the nature of the conspiracies? Asking so I can have a rubric for my own views.
Rex
13d ago
I watched him on Tucker and it was very hard to take him seriously after seeing/hearing about the video.
The hypocrisy was at the end when he talking to Tucker about human connection being the most importsnt thing in life. Impossible to reconcile that with interracial gay findom meth sex.
Rex
22d ago
I have not had covid as far as I know. I did get antibody tests early on which were all negative. My wife had it twice and i slept in the same room with her. No issues.
I also know no one that died from COVID, other than a coworker who's very old mother allegedly died from it. This person is known for his tall tales so I cant know for certain.
I find this to be a reasonable heuristic for how much I should worry about something. I know many people who passed from cancer. Many from heart attacks. More than one from getting hit by a car when cycling. I reckon most people have a similar experience.
Its impossible for me to believe that 1.2 million people died from covid in 3-4 years and reconcile that with my experience.
Rex
1mo ago
If he meant AI controlled technocratic shadow-totalitarianism, he should have said so. I agree it seems silly to think that democracy could exist in such a scenario. I wonder why he didn’t address this? But beyond not addressing it, he’s specifically saying democracy wins.
Rex
1mo ago
My opinion of Scott Alexander continues to crater. I don’t know how much of this story is his or the collaborators, but there is a shocking level of naïveté about everything other than AI technical progress. Even there, I don’t know enough about AI to comment.
My favorite part is the end where Chinese AI sells out China, assists a grassroots Chinese pro-democracy group affect a coup, democratic elections are carried out and everyone lives happily after.
Rex
1mo ago
They don’t need a full choir doing Gregorian chant every week. Ditching OCP, a single organist, and a single cantor would do wonder. Hell, just ditching OCP would get you 75% of the way there.
This is a great post and very informative. I'll add a bit of my own experience.
You do a great job pointing out some of the absurdities of some masses, but that's certainly not the norm. I say this because i find the normie suburban XP mass to be even more oppressive. I reckon that most Catholics go to a normal diocesan church, they sing awful liturgical music from the OCP Gather book, they have a lay deacon give a homily that was emailed to them from the archdiocese. There is absolutely no energy.
To your point on lay people changing the mass. I find the music to be just the worst aspect of this. And i dont think any of this was done with ill intent. Its just a bunch of ex-hippie boomers singing modern catholic music in a folk rock style. I'll never forget the women who lead our music ministry when i was a kid. She sung kyrie elaison with hippie guitar riff every week. There's another problem - this style has been the normie suburban mass standard for a LONG time. At least 40 years as far as I can tell. These awful songs are now "classics" to the current crop of old people who are involved in the church. As i said, I dont want to be too hard on these folks because they are giving their time and energy to the church, but they are so misguided its a sin.
A few years ago I found a new parish that was run by a religious order in a major metropolitan city. I actually got coffee with the pastor before joining just to see who he was. He was a brand new pastor, so young. He had one other priest under him, also young, and a number of brothers to help out.
My church is the opposite of whatever the normie catholic mass is, but still fits within the vatican II / novus ordo framework. The priests have wide latitude to have a much more traditional mass if they choose. We dont use the OCP mafia hymm books. We have young cantors rather than some old lady choir.
Easter mass this year was the possibly the best easter sunday mass I've ever seen, surpassed only by Easter Vigial mass at this same church. Full on 1hr 45 min Solemn Mass (I remember as a kid at my normie suburban church that easter mass was pretty much just a normal sunday mass. the extra long mass was for palm sunday only). The church was more packed than usual as well, even for easter. Its a big church that probably fits close to 800 people comfortably, we rarely get 150 on a normal sunday and id reckon 400-500. I think the word is getting out. Attendance is surely rising at my parish.
All of this is to say that I believe @OracleOutlook when he says that the new generation of priests will demolish the spirit of Vatican II. I see it every week. I just hope that its crushed in time for me to enjoy it when im older. Its pretty much impossible to have something like this local to you right now except if your lucky or moving somewhere specifically because of a church.
Its also good to remind people that while Vatican II may have been a mistake, it does allow for a really beautiful and traditional mass. If only the normie parishes would learn this. I suspect it will be a while before that happens.
The comedy is indeed one of the the best part of the game. I’d reccomend the Jp voice settings though.
Rex
2mo ago
Just a suggestion for a post 2015 game: xenoblade 2. I’d consider it the peak of aaa jrpgs. The art, music, story, themes are all 10/10 for me. Don’t believe the haters. And you could easily play it on an emulator. I play it every 2 years.
Rex
3mo ago
I suppose it’s just my bias that the media and elements of our government would bury anything that makes Israel look bad.
Rex
3mo ago
I’d recommend listening yourself. Many people are getting a read out second and third hand. He really didn’t criticize Israel at all. He was fairly pro Israel and Zionist actually. He just notices that Epstein likely was working for elements within Israel - and that’s why we’ll never get the full story.
I was familiar with Ian from X and I actually bought into smears on him and muted him. Then he pops up on Rogan, I listen to the whole thing, and it turns out he’s completely reasonable. He makes the appropriate caveats that he’s not taking about all Jews, just the documented facts about some Mega group of influential Jews working together to advance Jewish interests. He makes the point that it’s completely reasonable for them to do this, assuming they’re not doing anything illegal. He also makes the distinction that when he talks about Israel or CIA or other groups doing something, he’s not saying that literally all people in the org are doing it. Rather it’s groups within those orgs. Again. Sounds reasonable.
I’d also add, that I think everyone should listen to that episode to get a broad tour of what a reasonable “conspiracy theorist” take is in 2025.
Rex
3mo ago
It’s plausible that there was a cabinet meeting where there were opposing views and heated discussion about important matters. Pretty standard stuff in high stakes meetings from what I’ve seen in corporate.
NYT and the rest of the media have been salivating for a wedge between musk and Trump. The media in general tried to make it a “thing” for months. This at least hints at something. And failing Trump-musk fight, a cabinet-musk fight is close enough. I have no doubt the framing and subtext of the NYT story is bullshit.
Rex
3mo ago
I thought his attire was no big deal at first. Then I read that trumps aids informed him that Trump would prefer he wear a suit. This is basically a slap in the face. And Trump seemed to even take it in stride joking “all dressed up today?” I’m guessing it didn’t help him though when he continued to be an asshole by continually bringing up security grantees in front of the press - when he clearly had been told that’s not on the table.
Rex
3mo ago
Doubting Bucha when we have so much confirmed evidence is pointless. It is what before we used to call FUD at the start of internet. I am that old.
As a sidebar, I started in the internet around 1999, in the forum era. So I missed usenet and bbs. FUD is from that era? What corner of the internet was this? Asking sincerely, was it the anti-war crowd?
As I’m sure you know, FUD has now been taken up by pro-establishment types online. I’m curious about the lineage of the groups that use this term.
Rex
3mo ago
It seems unlikely that Trump will do that. In fact it’s about as likely as Ukraine retaking Crimea. It seems like the reason it’s off the table is that many think Ukraine want that so they can continue to instigate Russia, draw the US into the war, and retake territory. If the entire Atlantic alliance blows up over Ukraine, I will blame Zalensky and Ukrainian intransigence.
Rex
3mo ago
That’s going to end well. Does “leverage” not translate to Ukrainian or something
Rex
3mo ago
I dunno man. I just saw GSA got a RIF notice. More to come. If they keep this up for 2 years, I expect it to be material.
Rex
3mo ago
- If the rumours are true that Musk is sending these e-mails from a jury-rigged server rather than an official secure US government system, then the e-mail would show up as external in Outlook, and my actual immediate response would be to report it to IT security as a possible phishing attack.
This is such a non-issue in my opinion. The correct analogy would be that you receive a phone call directly from the CEO's deputy, where he verifies his identity, and tells you "you're about to receive an email saying...". In such a situation, I imagine the calculus would be different. Reporting it as a phishing attack would be malicious compliance or outright disruptive and you should expect to be on the CEO/deputy's shit list.
I'm sure there are a lots of things DOGE intends to do with this special project. Identifying the most disruptive federal employees is hopefully at the top of this list. The best strategy for any fed employee is to keep their head down and get lost in the hundreds of thousands of other low level fed workers. The email is brilliant because this stuff is like catnip to the most ideological of trump's enemies. They literally cant resist fighting back and "Resisting". It's truly a brilliant move.
Rex
3mo ago
I was going to reply with OP on similar lines but you nailed it.
Europe, plus Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, are a bigger threat to me than China or Russia, and have been for a long time. The EU Digital Security Act was meant to be an end around of the US bill of rights by handcuffing multinational tech companies. It’s still a threat and I hope/suspect that Trump will apply maximum leverage on this issue. If not for Trump winning, we would be screwed. By our “allies”.
The list of offenses is too long even for an effort post. Good riddance.
Rex
5mo ago
What’s amazing about musk is his perhaps pathological need to double down at every opportunity.
He supported trump at great risk to himself in the event of a loss. Having won he’s now ratcheting things up further. He clearly thinks trump and the state department will give him cover (as they should) with European regulatory issues. He’s playing an all or nothing game. To what end. I don’t know.
Rex
5mo ago
I won’t pretend to have any technical background. But I’d speculate that decades of black physics carried out by the USG would have dangerous implications along the lines of thermonuclear weapons or worse. If only for the fact that small drones with no heat/em/noise emissions would make conventional weapons even more dangerous. That’s the profile of many of the drone sightings.
Thanks for engaging. I’m always fascinated with the intensely negative reaction certain groups of people have with this topic.
It seems clear at this point that there is some phenomenon that the UAP people are observing and documenting, be it the nj drones, tic tac, gofast/gimble, pilots, whistleblowers, or any of the other stories we’ve heard for quite a while now. Government developed weapons or surveillance platforms seem like a fairly reasonable assumption here.
Is your neighborhood in urban or suburban area. I should have clarified that I'm talking urban locations, even small cities.
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