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Testing123


				

				

				

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joined 2022 November 09 14:26:32 UTC
				

				

				

				

				
				
				

				
User ID: 1831


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
Testing123


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 November 09 14:26:32 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 1831


					
					
					
				

			




		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, I've gone down there and did the stuff to get to Room 46, but I haven't explored much else down there, so that may be a good area for me to start in.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, you need to do that to reach Room 46 (I assume).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I asked last week if I should play Blue Prince and I did! I got to the 46th room in 18.5 hours. I have my qualms, but a very cool game over all.


I'm aware there is a lot more to do than find the 46th room. I'm taking a break but I'll jump back in soon. I have a few ideas of where to go next, but I'm a little aimless, so I'd appreciate some nudges from the motte crowd. Here's what I'm aware of:


I have one red letter


I have not connected a boiler room to the laboratory


I have not read the fine print on the book or paper (I can't remember) in the master bedroom


I have not opened the diary in the queen's room


I have two of the four outdoor areas


I briefly saw online that I should return to Room 46


I have not figured out the naming art pieces puzzle


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am 100% with you on Billy.


If you go through Reddit/Twitter threads, Billy is getting more criticized than Holmes, people think he is a monster. My read is that he a douchey maybe-coke addict who shares a lot of the same pathologies as Holmes, but hasn't actually done anything illegal or even unethical besides lying to make himself look good. The final reenactment scene with Seyfriend strongly implies that Holmes really does enjoy being in their controlling relationship, and she's fine with Billy running her Twitter and exploiting her digital likeness. They are weird people, and what looks like abusiveness from the outside is just their weirdness in action.


The other major culture war angle is that Holmes is using modern feminist tropes as part of her psychological defense. A narrative you can see all over the internet right now is that Holmes was raped in college, then groomed by Sunny, then manipulated into the Theranos fraud, and now she's being manipulated by another wealthy powerful man. I suppose all of that is possible, but it relies on giving Holmes a tremendous amount of credence about her relationship dynamics with Sunny, her being raped, and the psychological impact of the alleged rape. All of it is based on her testimony, and she's the most unreliable person on earth.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I almost feel like there should be a mega-thread for “You Can See Everything.” It will be The Thing everyone online is talking about and writing think pieces about for the next few weeks.
Spoiler-free review – it’s as good as everyone says, 9/10. Go in with knowledge of Elizabeth Holmes and what happened at Theranos, don’t go in with knowledge of what happens in the movie.


Some rambling spoilery thoughts from the morning after I watched it:


The movie confirmed my model for Elizabeth Holmes (and by extension, Billy) and many other con men/crazy people.


I think most people have far too binary of a view of these types. They model them as either cynical, lying, grifters who know that they are lying all the time, or insane people who have no contact with reality. I think the real answer is that they are both at the same time, but more by instinct than design.


My take is that the best modeling for Holmes+Billy is Nathan’s analogy to the David Blaine ice pick trick. What Blaine does is a “trick” in the sense that he is fooling the audience and he isn’t hurting himself, but it’s “real” in the sense that he is genuinely putting an ice pick through his hand.


Homles is an extremely weird person, and at least somewhat crazy. And I think her crazy/weirdness manifests in an extremely manipulative manner by instinct. I think she’s a chameleon who adapts to context to get what she wants. At Theranos, she adapted to the role of young, genius, female tech CEO; in “You Can See Everything,” she adapted to the role of poor, sad, beleaguered, earnest, wrongfully convicted, loving mother. Her behavior in the movie is primarily crafted to get sympathy.


But I don’t think it’s all an act, or even mostly an act. I think she’s a genuine shapeshifter. She simply does and says too much stuff that would run counter to a planned, orchestrated con act to get sympathy. Like, telling Nathan that she never lied while at Theranos is very stupid – strategic contrition is the far better play. And telling Nathan that she has literally never, ever lied in her entire life is so absurd that it completely destroys her credibility.


I think I have a little bit of personal insight on this by seeing a friend go through a horrible relationship with a borderline personality disorder girl. She ruined his life for years with emotional manipulation, and though she would have occasional moments of clarity and realize what she was doing, most of the time it was pure instinct. This woman would seemingly genuinely believe that her partner was a piece of shit who deserved to die in one moment, and then ten minutes later she would be head-over-heels in love with her partner and feel that she will die if they aren’t together. The contradictory mental states and beliefs were both real, the mind itself flipped according to subconscious dictations trained and modeled by repeated uses of extreme emotions to manipulate her partner.


There is a part in Scot Alexander’s “You’re Still Crying Wolf” that has always stuck with me where he says that so much of Trump’s seemingly evil behavior is explained by him just being really weird. He talks weird, he acts weird, he constantly does things that normal people can’t model onto a real person because it’s so weird. And that weirdness in part explains his evil. Trump probably didn’t accuse Obama of being born in Kenya out of racism, but out of weirdness.


I think this movie is a great display of this concept. People tend to underestimate the depths and complexities of weirdness. Holmes is an extremely, deeply weird person. Maybe its autism, maybe its some other psychological disorders, maybe it’s just have different personality nobs turned way up or down, but it all amounts to a weirdness that no one can quite wrap their minds around or model, even after a 3 hour documentary.


And Billy appears to be a kindred spirit. There’s a scene where he describes his relationship with Holmes in a completely insane and blatantly manipulative and controlling manner, saying crazy shit like Elizabeth spends every second of every day thinking about how to build monuments to her love for Billy. He sounds like an awful sociopathic narcissist abuser. Then later in the movie, Elizabeth says the same exact stuff about her love for Billy, which indicates that they are both deeply weird and maybe crazy people, but they are, in a sense, right. Their love is (probably) not some insane manipulation, it is real and authentic, but it is so weird that it looks like abuse from the outside.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Wouldn't this thematic angle work much better if Fossil Fools actually was good? If the (in our real world) audience was watching Fossil Fools and laughing at all the jokes and enjoying the satire, then the twist would be a thematic sucker punch. But with Digger, we spend two hours watching something annoying and dumb and then the twist is that it's annoying and dumb on purpose.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	




	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's an interesting movie with an interesting popular reaction. Digger is currently on pace to be one of the biggest financial bombs of all time, at least Top 5, maybe Top 3. But critics like it, and it seems like the Reddit/Twitter film crowd love it.


I didn't like it. 3/10. I have two big problems with Digger:


    

  1. 

    Even if you like the ultimate thematic payoff, the journey there isn't worth it. About 2 hours of this 2.5 hour movie is annoying cartoon people screaming at each other as ridiculous straw men of the elites. It is very much in the mode of Don't Look Up. It's occasionally amusing, but mostly annoying, and for a movie with so much dialogue, I found it all very surface level stuff about how people are (supposedly) lazy, irresponsible, and letting our planet get destroyed by (leftist) environmentalist concerns. Maybe I just don't like satire in general, it always reminds of the meme where a strawman just shouts opinions in a funny/stupid voice.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    I find the ultimate thematic thrust somewhere between muddled and banal. It seems like the ultimate point of the movie is to say that making satirical art about evil elites doesn't stop elites from being evil. Which... yes, that's true, but who doesn't know that? It seems like the movie was directed at the extremely small group of self-important pretentious people who think that Don't Look Up and Dr. Strangelove can change the course of history.
    

    3. 



I give the film credit for its weirdness, some really good visuals, and that they spent almost $200 million on an arthouse movie, but still. Didn't like it. It's very pretentious and not as smart as it thinks it is.